Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in personal development but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Victoria Clark, Owner and CEO of Inherent Strength, LLC., located in St. Petersburg, FL, USA.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
Inherent Strength’s mission is to provide counseling, coaching, and digital products that assist young professionals in identifying, utilizing, and growing their Inherent Strengths to overcome all obstacles and reach their goals. Inherent Strength is a team of licensed mental health counselors who are also coaches. This enables us to provide evidence-based therapeutic treatments, tools, skills, and theories in all of our services.
Inherent Strength provides virtual counseling and coaching, specifically solution-focused and goal-oriented therapy and coaching services. Services include:
- Traditional Therapy services
- Life, Relationship, Business/Executive, and Business Partner Coaching
- Digital products that can be used on their own or with a therapist/coach for support and guidance (Always FREE to our active clients)
We specialize in working with young professionals who:
- Have hit the ceiling and are looking to move forward toward goals they have been unable to reach for one reason or another.
- Have maybe worked with a therapist before and are ready to successfully use their tools and skills to move forward towards goals they are struggling to reach.
- Might not be fully ready to move forward yet due to needing help breaking through mental health barriers and past traumas that are holding them back.
- Might be struggling to identify goals for themselves or what makes them happy.
We work alongside our clients to not only reach goals they have set for themselves, but help them to identify, set, plan, & hit their goals based on their personalized life areas (relationships, career, family, friends, money, spirituality, recreation, etc.) We teach skills and provide tools that can be used today and tomorrow to keep hitting goals in the future. Wherever a client is at in their goals journey, we can help them get there and set them up for future success, even if they don’t know where “there” is just yet.
Tell us about yourself
Hi! I’m Victoria, but my friends call me V. I’m a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Coach, Founding Owner and CEO of Inherent Strength, Wife, and most recently, Mom. Being a mother has changed my perspective on quite a few things or at least broadened it, and I’ve definitely gained a new respect for moms. What hasn’t changed is my desire to help others live a life they love, including myself and now my daughter. With everything in our faces constantly these days, it’s easy to forget (guilty!) that we have control of who we are, who we surround ourselves with, and what we do in our lives every single damn day.
I decided to start Inherent Strength after I found myself feeling weighed down by the things in my life and mind that didn’t make me happy, from working long hours, being inactive, and not finding the time or the ability to do the things that I enjoyed. Spending time with loved ones, family, friends, our pets (#prouddogmom), and taking care of ourselves are just a few of the things that, in today’s busy world, we can’t seem to find time for, yet these are also things that we work so hard for.
This is exactly the reason I started Inherent Strength, creating digital goals products and providing counseling and coaching services. I wanted to help young professionals identify goals that will truly make them happy, create a roadmap to achieve and reach those goals, break through barriers and obstacles, and ultimately create and live the life of their dreams.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
Sticking with it through ups and downs with my eye on the prize feels like my biggest accomplishment through the years. Despite what’s happening around me, I work hard to keep my focus on the reason I started in the first place and actively work every day to continue to grow that vision, even if it changes with the times a bit. I can proudly say that for these reasons, Inherent Strength is a leader in the industry, discussing mental health in the media, including appearances in Forbes and the news.
What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?
Being honest with yourself and others about who and what you and your company are and who and what you and your company are not. When I started my company, I did all of the things I thought I needed to do to look the part. Spending money I didn’t have to create the look of a business that was fully developed. The problem was, it wasn’t. I had just started out with a plan to fake it until I made it. Unfortunately or fortunately, that didn’t work.
Until I came to terms that I had to really ask myself who I was and why I was doing this, growth started to come. But not only did I need to answer these questions for myself, but I also needed to answer them for my clients. It took some growing pains and straight up being uncomfortable, getting outside of my comfort zone, and being open and real about who and what I was.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
- Be you. Over time, I realized that clients don’t want to see or follow in the footsteps of a perfect person as that’s an impossible standard to reach. Instead, they want to know the real you. They want to know that you are human and you go through similar situations that they do. Although I may have some skills to help people live happier, fuller lives, life is hard sometimes, even for me, and that’s how you really connect. Once I got to the point of comfort with being more open and sharing my life with others, that’s when true client growth started.
- Be flexible. Although you want to have a concrete unwavering company mission, it will only benefit you to learn to bend without breaking when needed. Sometimes circumstances will require flexibility from the original plan, but as long as you are moving forward in a positive direction, you’re doing it right.
- Ask for help. You started your business because you are the best at what you do, but a well-run business requires expertise in multiple areas. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses and being willing to ask for help in areas in which you are not strong will only help you and your company flourish.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://inherentstrength.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/inherentstrength/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inherentstrengthlifecoaching/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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