MT Dreaming

Dreamt last night about being surrounded by MTs that I know and respect -- Missy Cross, Cynthia Shobutte, Lauren Piro, and a host of others. We were all relaxing in a big house together, talking shop and enjoying each others company.

It was a very nice dream. :)

Core Values?

So, I'm writing a book showing how massage therapists can maintain their healing values while doing business. In fact, my theory is that you can't be successful if your business decisions aren't grounded in your core values as a massage therapist.

So.....what are the core values of our industry? Here's the ones I came up with:

• homeostasis (keeping everything in functional balance)
• healthy boundaries (being clear about where you stand)
• health (maintaining a state of well-being)
• service (offering up what we have as a gift)
• wholeness & integration (our business goals are one with our massage goals)

It was more of a struggle to come up with this list than I expected. What would you list as the 3-5 core values of your massage practice? Would it look anything like my list?

How To Use It (Social Media) Well

(Note: I originally posted this on my "personal" blog by accident. I meant to post it here but clicked the wrong blog before I realized it. So, yes, this has been copied from there wholesale, if you've already read it on The Upside Down Yank.)

The buzz in the last year for "new" ways to market has all been about "social media". Specifically, Facebook and Twitter and, to a lesser extent, blogs.

I've seen plenty of practices and businesses go this route, with limited success. Here are a few things I've noticed:

1. It takes more time than you think it does. Figure out how much time you think you'll need to spend on this every week (you need to post at least 2-3 times a week on FB or Twitter and at least 8-10 times a month on a blog to be worth it). Now, triple that time.


Do you have that much free time in your current schedule? If not, what are you willing to drop from your schedule to make room for it? I don't recommend dropping "sleep".

2. You need to come up with something new and interesting each time. And it can't be just new and interesting to you. It has to be new and interesting to your reader. Which means you have to have some idea of who your reader is likely to be and what they find interesting.

3. You have to give something of value through your postings. Just posting "hey, look, I'm here!" is fine....for the first few days. And then you have to have new content. New valuable content. Sit down and make a list of 50 topics you'd like to blog/FB post/tweet about. That will get you through the first 3 months (a number of those topics will not pan out once you actually sit down to write about them). Then you have to come up with more!

4. It helps enormously to have visuals to go with your posts. You can use clipart, sometimes and with limitatations. Do you have visuals -- photos, original art, etc. -- to go with, say, 40% - 60% of your posts? Are you willing to start carrying a camera with you? And to think creatively about how to capture good images?

5. Ideally, you've got a multi-tiered social network thang going on -- website, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. and they all point back and forth to each other.

Kinda exhausting, isn't it?


OK, enough with my bitching and moaning. I want to point you to an example of an organization that's using Facebook right now incredibly well: The Queensland Police Service.

During the current flooding crisis in Queensland and, specifically, in Brisbane, everyone has been scrambling to get current information. How far as the water spread? Who's cut off? What roads are open? What roads are closed? When is high tide? What is the peak supposed to be? Who should be evacuating? Where are the evacuation centers? What resources are available? What about this/that/and the other thing rumor that I heard? Where or how can I help? Etc. Etc. Etc.

Several local TV stations have been broadcasting nothing but flood information around the clock for the last several days. But even that isn't fast enough or complete enough. That's where the Queensland Police Service comes in.

So, let's start with the state police's website. If you click over to it, the very first thing you see is a link to their Facebook page. And not kinda over on the side. It's square (and large) in your face.

When you go to their FB page (which I've had up and open full-time for the last few days) notice:

* they post new information 10-20 times an hour. There is somebody typing their fingers off somewhere.

* the information is from multiple sources -- TV stations, their own media department, the premier's (think "governor") office, highway patrol, search and rescue, evacuation centers, the mayor's office, the electric company, everyone. They are clearly wired in to everyone and everything.

That didn't happen overnight. Those connections were well-established before this crisis hit.

* their posts are short, sweet, and to the point. Frequently no more than 1 - 3 sentences. Even their longer notes are very focused, specific, and direct.

* while they can't quite break themselves from the passive voice (they are still a government agency, after all) there is little confusion about what you're to do with the information.

* each post also references their Twitter accounts. They are encouraging you to connect in multiple ways and making it easy to figure out how to do that, without beating you over the head with it.

* they are not using their page to glorify their own efforts. They are honestly using it to keep the public up to date. AND to try to manage their own needs (please quite rubber-necking and get off Coronation Drive!, for example).

* they have a clear idea of what their audience (desperately) wants and needs and they're doing a good job of supplying it.

* they don't only deal with "official" announcements. The address rumors quickly and directly. That's freakin' brilliant!


I can't tell you how grateful I am for this page and whatever nubby-fingered person(s) have been making it happen. It has helped me stay calm during this crisis by helping me stay informed. It's also provded me quite a primer in how to do a public-service Facebook page well.

Covering Your Butt (and your income)

I just spoke with my favorite small business owner -- Kelli of Kelli's Cleaning Angels. We moved last week and she's hoping to stop by later to give us an estimate on cleaning services for the new place.

As many of you have no doubt heard by now, Brisbane has been devastated by flood this week. The news reports are not exaggerating. This city has been slammed. It will take the better part of the next week to get the river down to normal levels and then there's thousands of acres of devastation (not to mention really smelly mud) to deal with.

Kelli said a good 35 - 45 of her clients are along the river and have had their places ruined. Which means they won't be needing her services for months, as a minimum!

Oh. Shit.

She's still got her high-rise apartment jobs. She's also going to talk to insurance companies today about using her company for some of the flood-related clean-up (gotta be flexible and creative -- and quick! -- when you're a small business).

So while the flood didn't harm her home, person, or equipment (or her employees it sounds like), she's still had her business severely damaged by the flooding.

We think about insuring our persons and our equipment. We think about liability insurance. But what happens if factors waaaaaaaaaaaaaay beyond our control make it difficult, if not impossible, for us to work?

When I was teaching business practices, I ran across a reference to "business interrruption insurance". I knew of no one who had it (or had heard of it) so I didn't really go anywhere with it. I've been thinking about it, though, a lot this week so I did some research.

As defined by Wikipedia (I know, I know, but I do find them helpful!):

Business Interruption Insurance (also known as Business Income Insurance) covers the loss of income that a business suffers after a disaster while its facility is being rebuilt. A property insurance policy only covers the physical damage to the business, while the additional coverage allotted by the business interruption policy covers the profits that would have been earned. This extra policy provision is applicable to all types of businesses, as it is designed to put a business in the same financial position it would have been in if no loss had occurred.

This type of coverage is not sold as a stand-alone policy, but can be added on to the business' property insurance policy or comprehensive package policy. Since business interruption is included as part of the business' primary policy, it only pays out if the cause of the loss is covered by the overarching policy.

The following are typically covered under a business interruption insurance policy:

• Profits- Profits that would have been earned (based on prior months' financial statements);
  
• Fixed Costs- Operating expenses and other costs still being incurred by the property (based on historical costs);
  
• Temporary Location- Some policies cover the extra expenses for moving to, and operating from, a temporary location;
  
• Extra Expenses- Reimbursement for reasonable expenses (beyond the fixed costs) that allow the business to continue operation while the property is being repaired.

This coverage extends until the end of the business interruption period, which is determined by the insurance company. Most insurance policies define this period as starting on the date of the covered peril and the damaged property is physically repaired and returned to operations under the same condition that existed prior to the disaster.

It's clearly geared to covering the lost income and additional costs involved if the location where you practice massage is not usable. I wonder if it also covers you if you can't get to your practice space, even if the space is intact.

• A flood doesn't damage your place but makes it impossible to get to it.
  
• Something like a 9-11 attack occurs and the city is shut down.
  
• You are a mobile business (like Kelli or outcall services) and a natural disaster wrecks your client base

There's so much to think about when insuring your business. There's so many things you can lose. And when you don't make a huge amount of gross or net income (like so many of us), it's so easy for that income to be screwed up.

I'm not trying to depress you. Just enlighten you about the possibilities.

Why I Do What I Do

for a friend, on the arrival of illness
John O'Donohue

Now is the time of dark invitation
Beyond a frontier that you did not expect;
Abruptly, your old life seems distant.

You barely noticed how each day opened
A path through fields never questioned,
Yet expected deep down to hold treasure.
Now your time on earth becomes full of threat;
Before your eyes your future shrinks.

You lived absorbed in the day to day,
So continuous with everything around you,
That you could forget you were separate;

Now this dark companion has come between you,
Distances have opened in your eyes,
You feel that against your will
A stranger has married your heart.

Nothing before has made you
Feel so isolated and lost.

When the reverberations of shock subside in you,
May grace come to restore you to balance.
May it shape a new space in your heart
To embrace this illness as a teacher
Who has come to open your life to new worlds.

May you find in yourself
A courageous hospitality
Towards what is difficult,
Painful and unknown.

May you use this illness
As a lantern to illuminate
The new qualities that will emerge in you.

May the fragile harvesting of this slow light
Help you to release whatever has become false in you.
May you trust this light to clear a path
Through all the fog of old unease and anxiety
Until you feel arising within you a tranquility
Profound enough to call the storm to stillness.

May you find the wisdom to listen to your illness:
Ask it why it came? Why it chose your friendship?
Where it wants to take you? What it wants you to know?
What quality of space it wants to create in you?
What you need to learn to become more fully yourself
That your presence may shine in the world.

May you keep faith with your body,
Learning to see it as a holy sanctuary
Which can bring this night-wound gradually
Towards the healing and freedom of dawn.

May you be granted the courage and vision
To work through passivity and self-pity,
To see the beauty you can harvest
From the riches of this dark invitation.

May you learn to receive it graciously,
And promise to learn swiftly
That it may leave you newborn,
Willing to dedicate your time to birth

I heard this poem read, by the author, on a podcast of "Being" from Public Radio International (one of my very favorite podcasts). It struck me that this is the best part of what I do as a massage therapist. I bear witness to what my clients are living with and I wish exactly these kind of things for them and try to be part of making this kind of response possible.

While it is very satisfying and gratifying to help relieve pain or discomfort in the physical body through the thoughtful and professional application of massage (i.e., rubbing where it hurts till it don't hurt no more), being present with the client's spirit -- through a thoughtful intake, a careful session design, a pre-session grounding of myself, a full presence massage, and a loving ending -- is by far the most humbling and joyful part of my work.