Invest in Your Awesome Self! - Work Stress Guru

Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in mental wellness but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Janna Donovan, Founder of Janna Donovan Counseling dba Work Stress Guru, located in Louisville, KY, USA.

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

I am a professional counselor with an MBA. I help professionals, families, teens, and couples lower their difficult anxiety and work stress.

Tell us about yourself

I spent 20 years delivering in business roles: IT, Operations, and Management. Then my all too familiar anxiety and work stress gave way to a serious period of burnout while I was working 15,000 miles from home. (I wrote every detail in the book Burnout Diaries). I returned to the US and asked the question, "What just happened to me?" and enrolled in grad school at 50 and obtained a Master's in Psychology. I now help people heal from anxiety, prevent burnout and cope with their fears and stress brought on by work. I am motivated every day by the changes I see in marriages, jobs, parenting, and health when they learn to diminish their anxiety at work and home.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

Starting a private counseling practice in 2018. Though I'd previously turned around a losing business unit and helped grow another company from $0 to $40 million in annual revenue, I had never taken the opportunity to build, market, and run a business focused solely on my passions and skills, with me as the featured service-provider.

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

Staying focused on things that, one, we are born to do, and two, move our business toward better results. We are advised to hire others to do the rest, but it can feel painfully risky to hand money to someone else when we are just getting started. Knowing where and how to spend marketing and advertising dollars without the feeling that we're just setting dollar bills on fire has been especially hard.

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

1. The intensity of your passion for your niche will drive your credibility. Know yourself.
2. Find a way to get some experience in the field before you commit. Don't go into debt just yet!
3. Make your mind up to work in your field long enough to survive making mistakes and learning from them. Stick and stay.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://www.workstress.guru/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/workstressguru/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/workstressguru_jannadonovan/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/workstressguru/

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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