Business Education? Where????

If you're like me, you were launched into massage therapy without sufficient business education. I love and respect my alma mater (and they've definitely expanded the biz education since I graduated) but I came out with very little practical knowledge about business.

When I begin one of my business classes I admit I am entirely self-taught, which means all I can give anyone is practical information. Not much on the academic side (find an MBA for that). But where does one get practical, useful business education?

Thankfully, the picture has improved a lot in the last 15 years. Here are some you've probably thought about and a few you might not have.

The Healing Core

OK, this is blatant self-promotion since this is the small training company I co-own and through which I teach Business, Bite-Sized. Right now our courses are only available in Washington DC, though if you'd like to sponsor us, we love a good road trip!

American Massage Therapy Association or Associated Bodywork and Massage Professionals

Both offer online courses. ABMP has more practical information in their magazine. AMTA has an annual convention that offers business courses (taught by MTs to MTs). I especially love the class taught by Margo Bowman (bookkeeping and taxes). She'll be at the convention in Denver in September.

At Peace Media

They are developing quite the library of online videos and webinars, including a growing list about business subjects. I did my first webinar with them in March on how to assess the health of your practice (how are you really doing?). When you have an option to search their listings by modality, enter "business".

Community colleges

If you'd like to get a basic academic understanding of business, look for a 100-level class in their business or business administration listings. Check to see what their policies are for people who want to take a single class rather than pursue and AA degree. Check whether courses are in-classroom or online. You may not have to live near the college to take advantage of what they've got to offer.

Your local college / university

I just discovered that UDC (University of the District of Columbia) has their own continuing ed offerings (though they don't fulfill MT licensing requirements) on very practical business skills. I'm taking a 6-week online course this summer on building a WordPress website. They have several other offerings that look good to me too and they're all online and very affordable.

Colleges and universities may also have special deals for locals who aren't pursuing a degree but want to take a class here and there.


There are more and more places you can get practical business education and a lot of it is online. Dig a little and see what's out there that can help you.

Private Practice Fatigue

In my last post, I shared the challenges I'm facing right now following my mom's death. As part of my "respect your grief" process, I'm only doing those things that absolutely must be done (being ready when a client arrives, for example). I'm also checking in with myself about what I feel able to do at any given time.

Consequently, a lot of things I normally do are not happening. It makes me realize in part that I am often one busy hummingbird of a business owner! My (still) limited energies point out to me how much energy it takes to run a private practice. I'm in the middle of it so often I don't see it.

Many of us come to a point where we say "I'm tired of making money for other people! I'm going to open my own practice!!" It's what launches many of us into private practice.

Then we discover how much work it is and how many things have to be done by guesswork (especially things like marketing; who knows what really works for any given practice??). I find that the ratio of "hours spent running the practice" to "hours spent with clients" is 3:1 or 2:1 in any given week.

I know that in a few years when my re-built practice is fully up to speed, it might get down to 1:1. Experience, however, suggests that the "practice management" tasks will always take up at least half of my time in a week.

I'm seriously contemplating whether it isn't time to close the doors on my private practice, find a group practice I respect, and let someone else do the bulk of the practice management tasks (for which I will happily share a percentage of the income!). I've realized that the energy that would be freed up could go to my writing and my teaching, which are getting the scraps of time and energy these days.

Private practice isn't inherently better or worse than working for someone else. There are a lot of satisfactions that come with it and a lot of freedom. What is important is to get a brutally honest picture of what it takes and what it gives, be painfully honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses, and make a decision fully informed.

My pondering continues.

To Strive. Or Not. An Existential Dilemma

I haven't posted much since the end of February. This has been an emotionally grueling year and I find myself questioning some fundamental attitudes towards work, business, and self.

In January, my mother's accelerating dementia led her assisted living facility to suggest we bring in hospice for a consultation. We did and they agreed Mom was a candidate.

Dementia has a perverse "gift": you get lots of time to anticipate decline and departure. I'd been anticipating her death for many months before that but the decision to join with hospice still swept my legs out from under me emotionally. I was a mess for a while.

I had a long-planned month-long trip to Australia set for mid-March. My sisters and I agreed that I should go. We had no idea how Mom's decline was going to actually progress (hint: it's never as linear as you discover you've secretly expected).

When I arrived in Australia in mid-March I found myself unwilling to stay connected to my professional life. I checked in with my sisters regularly and otherwise simply enjoyed myself. I visited friends and places I had loved while I lived there. Periodically I would stop and say to myself "I feel...happy. Just....happy." I realized I hadn't felt that for a long time.

On April 17, 2 days before I returned to DC, my mother died. Thanks be to God that she was finally liberated from a body that had ceased to be able to truly support her. I wish she'd been liberated sooner.

Again, long-anticipated but it still knocked me for a loop. I briefly considered seeing clients the next week but everyone told me that was a crazy idea so I closed my practice for a week. My primary experience of that week and her funeral was of fatigue and a marked mental slowness/fogginess.

I'm not so much missing my mom right now as finally raising my head from 20 years of increasing responsibility, with my sisters, for my parents' life and health. I find myself only just now realizing how much of myself that took and wondering what I do now.

But, of course, I re-opened my practice this week. Gotta work! Blessedly, the schedule was light because I'm still plagued by fatigue and mental swiss-cheese-y-ness.

Today I had what I consider an optimal schedule -- 4 hours of appointments, reasonably spaced. And yet, by the end of the day, I was drained and had a thumb that throbbed with pain (as in "can't hold a glass or grip a toothbrush" pain). That's extremely rare for me.

On top of all of this, I learned (one week before my mom died) that my husband's job may present me with an opportunity at the end of the year to make dramatic changes in my professional life.

Here's what I find myself pondering in the middle of the night (husband snores, might as well blog!).

Conventional wisdom is that running your own business is hard work and takes a lot of energy, focus, and commitment. There's always something more you could be doing. You are, in effect, always striving. That is the path to success / financial stability. That's certainly the way I've been running my practice for 14 years!

However, the path to emotional / spiritual / psychological health for me is the opposite. Ease, gentle application of energy, non-attachment. Not striving. Deciding what to do today, tomorrow, this month, this year by listening to my body, heart, and soul. Trusting that my life will be abundant and right by trusting the voices of my body, heart, and soul.

Which usually means doing less than conventional wisdom suggests is necessary to run a stable, full, healthy business.

I really really want to be financially stable. I want a robust practice and a beefy client base. My family and heritage believe that hard work (grunt!) is the only way to get what you want out of life. Push, struggle, head down, strive!

I also really really want to be emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically healthy. Sane. With a nervous system that isn't taut enough to be plucked like a banjo string.

On the one hand....on the other hand....

My experience is that decisions rarely come down to either / or. There is virtually always a third choice, though it may take some time to figure out what that is. I'm sure there's a third choice here. I can't see it from where I stand (OK, sit) tonight.

What does it mean to be a massage therapist? A business owner? A 53-year-old woman with no more parents? A human being?

What -- in 5, 10, 20 years -- will I be pleased that I invested my energy in?

Tonight (I think it's actually become "this morning") I don't have the answers. Given that I'm grieving, I'm not going to make any drastic changes to my life or my work. But I will ponder.