Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Noelle Pollet, Founder of Heart Circle Consulting, located in Fort Bidwell, CA, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

My business involves sharing a specific means for people to engage in groups - in person or online. It’s called Peace Work. It’s a highly interactive, wonderfully engaging, transformative, and bonding model with a “one-size-fits-all” quality that has proven appealing to all sorts of participants and for all sorts of reasons. My customers are everyone willing. That includes those desirous of building a community around a particular passion, those interested in healing relationship dynamics within a family or work environment, those joining with others who share a common desire for personal healing - generally or something specific… Those with a passion for waking up a dysfunctional world. The applications are endless. The outcomes are always meaningful.

Tell us about yourself

I was a young person with bleak a life sentence: “Hospitalized or dead” if I ever tried going off debilitating psychotic medication.

My first psychiatric diagnosis came at 6 years old. By the time I was in my 20s, I had a slew more, including schizophrenia, manic depression, and PTSD. At age 33, I experienced an Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) workshop in an N.Y. State prison. It provided more healing than years of therapy, intermittent hospitalization, and all related “treatment.” I knew immediately something along similar lines was my calling. My theory is that human beings are “pack animals,” and spending time in a healthy pack offers extraordinary healing. AVP promotes a healthy pack!

The Alternatives to Violence Project format - what Peace Work is based on - invites healthy pack behavior. It’s been decades since I have had any type of involvement with the “mental health system,” including use of medications.

At first, my passion was to get this to my diagnosed peers. Still doing so, and I have since become passionate about disseminating the skills to other healers… desiring Peace Work’s spread.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

One big deal was being included in a federal grant that combined Peace Work with researched data on what best serves in “peer support” relationships. We covered the U.S. doing workshops and training folks… 9 states and 11 cities. Everywhere we went, we had zealots for the model. Diagnosed veterans particularly.

Most important are the individual transformations I witness in every circle. Sometimes these are truly astounding. Like my own!

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

My challenge has been around overcoming a lack of self-esteem (that sometimes feels like an attitude of superiority!) that makes it hard for me to ask for payment. A nuance is that I never want to say no to someone wanting the experience of Peace Work, regardless of the ability to pay. Consequently, I have set my life up so I live extremely frugally. I have lately been working on and am having some success with asking for reasonable remuneration.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. The focus of your work needs to be something you love so much you’d do it for free, or even pay to do it! (I feel that way and just learned Oprah Winfrey does, too!).
  2. Work on your inner life. If you don’t feel worthy of success, success will be hugely more difficult… There are practices (…be in touch! I know a bunch!) to help us overcome those lies!
  3. If you have a willingness to offer your heart and efforts in service of Love (a whole and healthy world, God/Source… etc.) or anything way-bigger than your individual concerns, I believe you are offered a whole lot of support beyond your own resources. It means more inside, too.

Is there anything else you'd like to share?

Peace Work is not something that words can adequately describe. The Alternatives to Violence Project was a miracle of a response to the Attica uprising (riot), and there is simply something uncharted about how it operates. A philosophical underpinning: Transforming Power - suggests that power is always available: to transform a moment, a dynamic, or an undervalued life. When a group gets together, and this premise is in the mix - to one degree or another - limits seem to fall away.

Note: Peace Work is a fully sanctioned adaptation of AVP.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website:
https://www.heartcircleconsulting.com/
https://peaceworkoutreach.org/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Unityfacilitator
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/mwlite/in/noelle-pollet-76042b56

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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