What to expect from Thriving Holistic Practitioner Podcast & Meet Your Host

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[00:00:00] My name's Lindsay Sutherland. I'm a business consultant who also happens to have a passion for holistic wellbeing.

In today's episode, episode one, I'm going to share with you why I felt called to launch this podcast, what you can expect moving forward. And a little bit about myself. So just for starters, I'm a business consultant, and while I was launching my consulting business, I started working with all kinds of businesses, e commerce businesses, real estate businesses, holistic wellness businesses, medical industry, network marketing, you name it, I worked with a vast array of people.

And that's after 20 years of working in sales and marketing. So all to say that I started to see a trend specifically around the holistic wellness, um, space, I guess you could say, and maybe this will sound familiar because basically what I noticed, first of all, 80 percent of my clients were in the health and fitness or wellness space.

So. Yeah. That stood out to me. I thought interesting [00:01:00] that I already aligned with these type of people. So that was kind of just something I simple observation. Then I started to notice a deeper trend and this might sound familiar. Let me guess. You started out on your journey because you yourself had a health crisis and you found a holistic way to heal yourself, mainly because allopathic medicine wasn't getting the job done for you, or it was helping, but not healing.

healing. There's a difference. Yeah. So you found a modality that like gave you the ability to truly heal and recover from the situation you were going through. And that's when it hit you, you are passionate about this and you want to help other people. That's the story of so many holistic practitioners.

And because of that, they have a huge heart and a huge desire to make a difference because they know the pain and the suffering that comes along with the journey that they, they themselves walked. So listen. While I [00:02:00] was noticing that I had this trend where the majority of my clients were in this space.

And then I saw that, okay, these people, they're on a heart centered mission. They want to make an impact and they get so focused into the, the certification and the training and nerding out on the science behind it. Because look, I'm right there with you. I love it. That's like truly another big reason why I have created this podcast.

And I'll get into that in just a minute. But what I found is that as they were going on their journey of building their business, it was almost like the business side of the business was an afterthought, I guess you could say. It was kind of like they didn't realize that there would be sales involved and marketing and developing products.

Oh, my goodness, technology and lead magnets. And what's that, you know, website and CRMs. And all of a sudden they're down this bunny trail and overwhelmed and, um, in [00:03:00] over their head feeling. I've spoken to so many practitioners who really were wondering if it was, they should just throw in the towel. Now, on the flip side, They get over all those hurdles.

And then the next step is, Oh my gosh, now I have so many clients. I'm so good at what I do that I have people referring people to me right and left, and I'm overwhelmed. And now then the question becomes, is this business sustainable? Is it robbing me of my health and my wellness just to make a difference in other people?

And the real question, the deep, dark question they're asking themselves is at the end of the day, is this really worth it? And seeing that, that's when I thought, okay. What can I do to help? Cool thing is I love all the stuff holistic. You know, I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's hypothyroidism back in 2000.

Oh golly. It was like around the time my second son was born. So it'd be like 2010. And my allopathic doctor said, here, just take this pill. What [00:04:00] about thyroxine? And you'll be good. And I looked at him. I remember sitting there and looking at him like, that's it? I just take a pill. How does that affect me?

What are the side effects? Like there was no conversation. And of course he may like looked at me with that look that made me feel stupid for asking. And I thought, no, no, thank you. I am not going to just take a pill for the rest of my life. So I ended up finding a naturopath. She was amazing. I loved her.

My favorite doctor of all time. I'll shout out to Dr. Mitchell in, in surprise, Arizona. Um, anyway, she really helped me. Believe, first of all, that was my first shift that I could heal myself. And then that just led on to a entourage of learning about hypothyroidism, listening to my body, um, following the guidance that she was giving me, learning how to eat differently, how to live differently, and mostly guided by my, my body.

You know, there came a time where I [00:05:00] actually. went off of levothyroxine and um, I was on T3 and T4 and I was a little nervous, but my body, I could tell that was what was right for me. And I, truth be told, I did it without talking to her. That was where I really found my own inner wisdom. I suppose you can say, not saying that's what's right for everybody by all means, of course, but that is what was right for me.

And I never looked back and I've been healthy ever since. Here's the thing. That experience, just like many of you, launched me into loving to learn about so many different things. I love about herbology. One of my very favorite pastimes, I live here in North Idaho, is to, um, just walk around and learn about the plants in my backyard.

And I research the medicinal properties and the nutritional benefits. I cooked stinging nettle, you know, I make mullein tea, like all those kinds of things. are right up my alley. [00:06:00] Um, truth be told, if I could have a do over in life, I would do something in the holistic wellness space myself. But truth is God gave me a gift and that gift is business and marketing.

And so I thought, okay, what better way than to really use my skills to make an impact By making an impact in people's lives, right? Like your life, for example. So if I can share wisdom and information to help you grow, then that's furthering that mission. Now there's another really important piece to this that I like to share.

And that's this, you know, when I quit my W 2 job to start my business all about, you know, on my own, um, I was homeschooling my kids and I was. Doing, it was a crazy time. It was around COVID, but I will say that, um, I got onto this bunny trail about online business. And I was really interested in intrigued by passive income.

So I launched another podcast. [00:07:00] It's a podcast that I've already got going call. It was called the passive income examiner, and I interviewed some of the most. brilliant minds in the online space and learned so many strategies and systems. We're talking technology, um, marketing hacks, like social media strategies, uh, you name it.

I have talked to some pretty cool people and I do my own research. So this was another little passion, I guess you could say that I nerded out on. Meanwhile, um, who knew all this was going to come full circle for me to be able to sit here in this chair today and launch this podcast and really bring all my gifts to the table.

Because what happened through that journey was that I noticed so many things. So many businesses and specifically online entrepreneurs were very transactional focused and not to say that there's anything wrong because I'm a proponent of to each their own. But for me, going down that bunny trail, I realized there was [00:08:00] something missing.

For me, I felt like I had a bigger purpose and it took me a few years to figure it out. But my purpose comes in building relationships. And one of my very, very favorite things. Actually, I just got this message. I need to share my biggest purpose in life is to make a difference in people's lives deeply.

You know, there's two kinds of influencers. You could say in the world, we're all an influencer, I believe, but you have influencers who have like this wide net, right? They have, Mega super fans and or maybe they're like a big name and people go and they motivate like Tony Robbins and Mel Robbins and you know, Brendan Burchard.

These kinds of people have a huge network and they are what you might call like, I call them wide influencers. Like they go wide, they touch a lot of souls. I see myself as a deep influencer. I want to go [00:09:00] deep into the heart of someone's life. If, when I die, it is my mission. To have made a difference in people's lives, maybe yours, to where you would want to show up at my funeral.

Like, that's the kind of impact I look to make in people's lives. So with that being said, I just had this epiphany that all of these gifts that I've been blessed to receive are here for a reason. And one of my very favorite things about working with holistic practitioners is you are also a very mission driven heart centered person who is interested in impacting lives the way that I am.

So for me, this is perfect because your business can be more than transactional. And I think a lot of times what can happen with, um, Holistic practitioners who look into business growth opportunities or business consulting or business strategies is they're probably very much in the vein that I was in, which was [00:10:00] strategy systems.

It was very transactional, you know, get this method, sell this, build this funnel, sell that. And not to say that, like I said, not to say that there's anything wrong with that in general. I don't think that's the case, but I just also don't think that the majority of holistic practitioners. I don't have the heart for that.

I know I didn't. To me, it felt very empty. It felt very, I don't know, um, like not enough. Like I was here to do more than just make money. You know what I mean? And so that's really essentially why I put my program together, and that is why this is the place for you if you are looking for Take tangible strategies you can implement in your business that are ethical and sustainable, because that is the heart of this mission.