Uncommon Business Advice: Let Your Niche Find You!

“I can’t succeed in my business until I find my niche!”

How often I’ve heard that statement from talented but frustrated entrepreneurs.

Often, these hardworking hopefuls have paid huge money to “business coaches” to help them find this elusive niche.

So, let’s talk about the niche. First of all, it’s pronounced neesh, not nitch. There is no such thing as finding your “nitch”.

Merriam-Webster defines “niche” as a place, employment, status or activity for which a person or thing is best fitted.

In business, the “market niche” is the small, profitable segment of the public that you specifically target.

Niche marketing goes way beyond the study and understanding of demographics. Niche marketing advises us to narrow our services, and our demographics, so we are not trying to be all things to all people.

That makes sense, and in many cases, is really good advice for a lot of reasons.

However, with some careers, like mine, it doesn’t necessarily hold true.

My greatest success has come from casting my net wide, and seeing what happens. For instance, I didn’t set out to be a reader and mentor for other professional readers, but a publisher asked me to write a book of lessons from my lengthy fulltime tarot career. Suddenly, I had found a niche as a mentor, that I didn’t expect or chose, but enjoy very much.

Early in my career, I was the go-to tarot entertainer for the local LGBT community. That was because I happened to land a great gig in a gay bar. I love reading for drag queens in the club environment, and I love being a trusted, supportive consultant to those who have not always received the support they need.

Those were two niches that found me, and there have been many others.

Before you pay a business coach to help you find your niche, think about what you might need to do to let your niche find you.

It can simply be that we find our niche by avoiding certain types of work that we don’t enjoy, and pursuing the gigs we like.

I think, too, over time, our niche can change, as our needs change.

Sometimes, it feels that a niche is more like branding, like a tarot reader only doing relationship readings, or a counselor only working with children.

Finding your niche can mean finding a place where you a truly comfortable and happy. Looking for your niche can be frustrating and disheartening.

If your niche isn’t obvious, maybe it doesn’t need to be. Cast you net wide, and see what happens. Don’t let an inability to narrow your services or demographics keep you from hanging your shingle.

A Quick Guide to Psychic Protection

Who needs psychic protection? Quite possibly, you do!

Regardless of your daily activities, or whether or not you consider yourself to be “psychic”, it is very possible that you are affected by the energy of people around you.

If you are an empath, that is, one who feel the feelings of others without trying, you are especially in need of protection.

If you are a tarot reader, hairdresser, or massage therapist who feels drained after a few clients, you are definitely in need of psychic protection.

Many people refer to their method of psychic protection as a psychic “shield” or a “bubble”. I don’t like either of those images. I call my method of psychic protection a “psychic condom”.  To me, that is the perfect description of what I am creating; the ability to safely interact with people in a loving way.

Try this energy exercise before you leave the house in the morning. Quickly recharge it on your lunch break. If you are a professional diviner, try this short meditation before each client. You’ll find you end your day of readings with more energy that you had when you began.

Start simply by breathing. Focus on your breath, and nothing else. Breathe as deeply and slowly as you can. As you exhale, consciously release worries and tension that aren’t helpful or pertinent.

As you continue to breathe, send energy from your root chakra (base of the spine) down through your legs and into your feet. From your feet, send energy down, through the floor, and into the earth.

Feel your energy dig into the earth and connect to the earth. You are now rooted to the source of your sustenance and support.

Now, breathe energy up from those energetic roots, bringing that energy from the earth into your feet and legs, and then bringing it up your spine and up to the top of your head, your crown chakra.

If you have the time and inclination, you can spend a bit of time with each chakra on your way up, but that is not necessary for the process of protection.

Now, as you breathe, consciously open the crown chakra and send your energy up to heaven. Open yourself to the wisdom, protection and love from your ancestors, loved ones in spirit, guides, guardians and Higher Power.

You are now rooted to the earth and connected to heaven.

Now, bring that energy down and around you. Wrap yourself in that heavenly energy like a cloak.

Focus again on the energy coming up from the earth. Think of the energy leaving the crown chakra. Now, rather than sending it straight up to heaven, picture the top of your head as a fountain from which water flows in all directions. Picture your energy flowing, like water, from your crown chakra, around you in all directions, down to the ground, and then cycling through again, up through your feet, to your head, out, and down into the ground.

The constant flow of energycan continue, even after you begin your regular activities. It’s easy to recharge simply by remember to visualize it.

Once you can feel the energy flowing around you, give it a color that feel protective, and appropriate for the day.

If your daily activities cause you to interact closely with people, it’s also important to remember the following.

You have a limitless supply of energy and protection from the earth and from heaven. You do not need to give of your own energy, or take on anything from another person’s energy.

Think of yourself as a straw, or a conduit. You are able to channel whatever energy you need, and whatever energy you need to give, from an abundant source.

After you have practiced this meditative visualization for a while, you will be able to don your “psychic condom” in just a few moments. The differences you will notice in your daily life, in your energy, patience and sense of well-being, will be dramatic.

The Truth about Being a Solopreneur

Photo Creative Commons, via Pixabay.

The internet is full of blogs and podcasts to help us reach our potential as sole proprietors of metaphysical businesses. Most people will agree that having your own business and doing what you love each day is a great recipe for happiness.

It’s also a recipe for stress! There is so much uncertainty, so much you need to do, and very few resources at hand. Most solopreneurs need to handle virtually every aspect of their business themselves.

This can be a tough thing. If the healer were great at marketing, the healer wouldn’t be launching a healing center. Instead, the healer would be happily working as a marketer. What must the healer do, then?

The answer is clear. The healer must learn to market.

We become solopreneurs because we have a calling, and talent. But to be successful as solopreneurs we have to be willing to leave the comfort zone of our wheelhouse and expand our skill set, sometimes on the fly.

As a solopreneur, you must always be willing to learn something new, and to develop skills outside your comfort zone. What you will learn about yourself and your abilities will amaze you. The difficulty of learning to do things that exercise your weakest muscles will strengthen you.

As a solopreneur, there is no other path to success.

An Open Letter to Self-Published Creatives

Dear Artists, Authors and Inventors,

I am writing from my perspective as a member of the tarot community. However, I believe most communities function in pretty much the same way. If you are a self-published creative in any community, or want to be, please pay attention.

Twenty years ago, we called self-publishing “vanity press.” To pay to publish your own work was usually a waste of time and money. Technology changes everything. Today, self-publishing is a viable option for a wide range of creative people.

The success of your self-published project depends a great deal on your ability to market your project. To do that, you will need to reach out to members of a community. You will need to connect with other entrepreneurs who produce podcasts, webcasts, vlogs and blogs. You need interviews, and you need reviews.

We vloggers, bloggers and reviewers need you, too.

At a certain point, I realized I had gained some notoriety for my webcasts and reviews, because my inbox began filling up with introductions from creative people, essentially asking me to promote their work.

That’s not as bad as it sounds. I need interesting people to interview, and new products to review. Every professional community is symbiotic in that way. We have to work together. We can support each other, and lift each other up, or we can tear each other down.

When you approach members of a professional or hobbyist community to ask for support for your project, everyone’s experience will be better if you keep a few things in mind.

First, we are a community. Many of us have known each other for years, even though many of us have never met in person. If you send an impersonal cut-and-paste form letter to each of us, we will know. If you want to send an email blast to people you don’t know to announce your new project, just don’t.

If you want my time, take some time to build a relationship with me. You don’t have to buy me dinner or send me flowers. You do have to send me a personal email, not a copy-and-paste request. Understand the value of community, and of relationships. If I like your work, I will introduce you to my friends. That is how it has always worked IRL (in real life). That is how it works in cyberspace, too. We all want and deserve this basic human courtesy.

Here’s a true story. Recently, many of us received the same email request regarding a new project. My friends and peers smelled a spammy rat right away. My reaction was different. I was excited about the project and forgave the heavy-handed approach. Well, without any further contact, and without my request or permission, they added me to their official spam mailing list! I had no choice. I withdrew my support from a project that had really excited me. My friends had been right all along. Yum, yum, crow.

Ultimately, whether your bad internet manners are a result of naiveté or intentional spamming doesn’t matter. Your poor results will be the same. You see, we all have mailing lists, too. We are very careful to make sure we don’t spam people with our mailing lists. That you don’t show this same courtesy and restraint shows us we don’t want to work with you. Behavior matters.

Here’s another true story. I was doing weekly webcasts on a Livestream channel. Over the course of a week, I received two emails, each from people hoping to promote their self-published creation. One was very demanding about his requirements for the interview; even though he was the one requesting it! I expressed my enthusiasm for his project, and explained the constraints of my production schedule. The reply I received was abusive, beginning with the phrase, “You are an idiot.” To this day, I have heard nothing more about this project.

The other person who approached me was very polite in his initial email. When I responded by inviting him to be a guest on my show, he was appreciative. We had a wonderful interview. His project has become a successful reality, and he is now working on a follow-up project. This time I’ll reach out to him with a request for an interview.

Please don’t misread me. I am not saying that my webcast is a star-maker. I am saying that the attitude of the artist matters. To promote your work, you have to make the rounds. There are more shows looking for guests than you can imagine. Bring a good attitude, and you will be on every show and in every blog. Bring a bad attitude and very few of us will want to talk with you.

In any community, there can be a few talented people with difficult personalities. Most people are forgiving enough to appreciate talent and excuse a few social faux pas, thank goodness. However, for most of us, there is a saturation point. If you irritate enough people, you will have a hard time finding any peers who are interested in your work, no matter how good you work might be. This isn’t usually an organized community-wide blacklist, it’s just something that happens. What you learned on the elementary school playground remains true to this day. If you don’t play nicely, no one will want to play with you.

The ability to interact with creative people is one of the great perquisites of my job. Like many of my friends and peers, I will gladly review your project and promote your Kickstarter. We are all in this together.  I can support a friend. I can support a community member. I can support great art. I can’t support an egomaniac, or a spammer. I can’t support an entrepreneur who doesn’t take the time to learn basic internet courtesy. I think you will find many of us feel the same way.

Six Rules for Success

Having achieved some success in my metaphysical career, I love the opportunity to encourage new students to move forward in achieving their dreams. Here’s the synopsis of a recent exchange that happened over a period of a week or so.

Student: I want to take the next step.

Me: Ask around and find the person who will give you what you need so you can do that.

Student: I asked three people and they said no. This won’t work.

Me: Ask more people.

Student: I ask more people, and someone said yes!

Obviously, that’s a simplification, but the truth is evident. If you want something, be tenacious and don’t give up.

Here’s the problem. What happens if you really are just banging you head against the wall? At what point is it appropriate to give up?

Tenacity tells us to keep knocking on doors until one opens. But if no doors ever seem to open, at what point should we just go with the flow and figure the Universe has other plans for us? Sometimes it’s confusing to know the right thing to do.

The answer is usually this. If you are grounded, patient and hard-working, your tenacity will usually pay off, as long as you have the talent to go along with it.

Spiritual people, by their very nature, bring their spirituality to their business practice. This is helpful, as long as we understand some simple rules. Tenacity is one important rule. Here are five more.

Trust that the Universe is always operating in your best interest.
When bad things happen, this can be a hard one to swallow.  Trust anyway.

Have a fearless and accurate understanding of your own talent.
Neither false modesty nor overestimation of your ability will get you anywhere.

Learn from every experience.
Everything that happens is a helpful lesson if you look at it the right way.

If you are not talented enough, make it a hobby instead of a profession.
Lots of things can bring you joy. There’s no shame in being a happy hobbyist.

Don’t overthink things.
The Universe is simple in its complexity. Thinking too much will make you more anxious, not more prepared.