Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in health and wellness but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Kristen Braid, Founder of Soul Inspired Health & Healing, located in West St. Paul, MB, Canada.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
Soul Inspired Health & Healing is an online wellness studio that provides programs and services that take women who are transitioning through midlife on a self-discovery journey to find their spark again. Midlife can be a difficult and confusing time. Sometimes we've accomplished everything we set out to accomplish and end up in midlife looking around, wondering why we are so unhappy. Or big life changes happen that throw us for a loop, leaving us wondering who we really are. I use a mindfulness-based, compassionate, and holistic approach to guide women to connect to their inner wisdom so they can identify and clear the blocks that are keeping them stuck and unhappy, allowing them to move away from what isn't working and into a life that is truly fulfilling.
Tell us about yourself
My university training is in Kinesiology, and I worked for many years in our traditional healthcare system providing physical activity and lifestyle counseling to adults with chronic health conditions. I have been forever curious about the root causes of human suffering and furthered my studies to include somatic psychology, health coaching, trauma-informed yoga, myofascial release therapy, spirituality, the nature of consciousness, and astrology, all of which inform my practice today.
It is through expanding my awareness of what it truly means to be healthy that led me to leave traditional healthcare and start my own business. I became aware of how many opportunities for healing were being missed in the environment I was working in, and I wanted to provide a more holistic approach that would help my clients align with their true selves so they could create a path that would lead them towards living a life they felt fulfilled by.
I am motivated to do the work I do because I know deep down that there has never been a greater time to trust our inner wisdom. All of the answers are there for us; we just need to learn how to access and trust them. I also believe that every single person has a unique spark that is needed in this world, and I am honoured to help women get in touch with the unique spark within themselves so they can shine it out into our world.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
My business is still fairly new, so I would say having the courage to leave a very secure job to work on this full-time was huge. Working for myself has allowed me to step into my full potential after working for so long in a system where I wasn't able to share all of my gifts.
What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?
There is a tremendous amount of personal growth that comes along with stepping into entrepreneurship, especially when you are developing a heart-centered business where who you are is at the core of what you are putting out into the world. You have a vision for what you want to do, and any negative beliefs you have deep down about yourself that don't align with your vision are going to come up to challenge you. Running a business is just a skill to learn, but the personal growth that comes along with it is both challenging and rewarding. I've been inspired to grow in ways I never would have if I hadn't stepped onto this path.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
My top three tips are:
- Have the right supports in place. Entrepreneurship is challenging, overwhelming, and lonely at times, and it is invaluable to have people around you to lean on. Trust your intuition to find people you trust and have similar values as you so you get the right kind of advice. Having support that is business-related as well as personal growth/healing-related will really help you build the inner resources you need to be successful.
- Adopt a mindset of curiosity, learning, and experimentation as you try new things to see what works and what doesn't. Know that if the experiment doesn't work, that's ok; you can try something different until you find what does. It is a learning process, make changes and try again.
- Get aligned with who you truly are and know that your unique gifts are needed in this world. When you approach your business from this place, you will be serving exactly the people who need to hear your unique voice and what you have to offer. Always stay true to yourself.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://www.soulinspired.ca/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/soulinspiredhealthandhealing
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/soul_inspired_life/
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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