Wellness Led To My Career in Marketing
I manifested my ideal business (a marketing agency for small wellness businesses). I used to work in corporate marketing and PR, to the point of burn out. I started practising yoga and meditation and doing a lot of personal development work. It helped me deal with the corporate world but also unexpectedly led to me creating my own business!
I increasingly felt out of place in my regular 9-5, whilst I would spend all my time at wellness workshops, listening to entrepreneur and lifestyle podcasts, TED talks, reading any self development / spiritual book I could get my hands on. I wasn't entirely sure what I wanted to do, so I applied to an entrepreneur incubator course. During my application, I heard myself say to the woman, 'I want to run my own marketing agency for wellness clients'. I'd never said it before and it immediately crystallised my vision. I realised I didn't need to do that course, I had all the tools I already needed and it made perfect sense. I had marketing skills, and my passions were wellness and entrepreneurship - so why not combine all of them?
I wrote down my ideal working day, hour by hour, and realised that I wanted the freedom to work from wherever I wanted, but also to be around people on the same wavelength. I wanted time to write and the flexibility to be creative, to travel and to take a yoga or exercise class whenever I wanted. At the same time I was suffering with panic attacks (which I can now see was my soul nudging me to leave the corporate world). One day I could feel one coming on. I had a very compassionate boss who told me to leave the office and take a yoga class to calm down. I went to my favourite studio and took a class and felt really compelled to speak to the teacher afterwards. I asked her if she'd always been a yoga teacher, she replied 'No, I used to work in marketing but I left because I was having panic attacks.' That was the sign I needed, so I handed in my notice the following day and started looking into freelance work.
A few tests came through - a freelance gig in a corporate environment, that after speaking with the employee I decided to turn down as it didn't feel good. Then, a neighbour put me in touch with a yoga retreat in France who needed promotion. After putting together a proposal and several calls, it transpired that they wanted me to work on commission-only. I declined and that was that. Then, another friend put me in touch with a Tantra teacher who needed PR. Everything had been agreed, but unfortunately she had a personal incident that meant she had to stop working. I could see that these were expanding me and proved that opportunities were out there!
A few weeks later I got a ping to attend a group meditation that my teacher was running (I hadn't seen him for a year since I learnt). He asked me how I was doing and I said I was leaving my job because I wanted to do freelance marketing for wellness clients. He said he needed some marketing help - bam, that was my first client (and still is today, 3 years later). At the same time I started working for a corporate PR agency for 2 days a week - it didn't feel right but it was temporary and sustained me whilst I built up my other clients.
Next, it turned out that the yoga school I was training with needed marketing help, so they were my second client. Then a friend put me in touch with a new vegan cafe that was opening - third client! A friend I had done my yoga teacher training with decided to open a yoga studio and needed social media management - fourth client!I stumbled across an Instagram ad one night for a conscious co-working space. I applied to be a founding member, got accepted and manifested 3 four new clients from there! I could go on but hopefully you get a flavour for it!
