From Vision to Offering
Published in the KRIPALU Magazine
Andrea Adler is the founder of Holistic PR™ and the author of Creating an Abundant Practice: A Spiritual and Practical Guide for Holistic Practitioners and Healing Centers. She has 30 years of experience in coaching, consulting and presenting workshops. Yoga Bulletin editor Tresca Weinstein spoke with her recently about her approach to helping practitioners and studio owners reap success in their chosen fields.
KRIPALU: In your book, as the title reflects, you give equal time to the spritual—breathing exercises, offerings, visioning—and the practical — writing press releases, designing brochures, etc. Is that balance between the two a big part of what you teach?
ANDREA: My experience is that no matter how much training a person has, no matter how much expertise they walk out of a training with, unless
they've integrated the spiritual as well as the practical aspect of what they've learned, it's very challenging for them to reap the success that is possible for them. My whole thrust is integration, to synthesize these two aspects of the brain, of how we live our lives. There are times when we have a very strong spiritual pull and we meditate every day and do our hatha yoga practice and calm the body, mind and spirit. Then when it comes to business, the other hat comes on, and we're forcible and erratic and we've lost balance. What I've tried to communicate through my book, CDs and workshops is how to integrate these two aspects. When we understand that promoting and marketing is an art form that calls on the same creative energy that stimulates us to teach yoga or paint a portrait or do a healing, all our resistance falls away and we begin to be masters of our own fate. This has been proven to me over and over and over in all kinds of ways. I've worked for Internet companies, movie studios, large corporations, small corporations, holistic practitioners, artists, musicians—it's the same process and when they understand that, they find success.
KRIPALU: What is the first step in creating an abundant practice?
ANDREA: It starts with creating an intention, a vision. What's the vision for your life, for one year from today, three years from today, five years from today? Because until you know where you're going, you're never going to get there. The first exercise in the workshop and the book is envisioning the future. Many of us are yogis and yoginis who have focused 20 or 30 years of our life on being in the moment, staying centered, being here now. We've all read The Power of Now, Be Here Now, The Now Generation. But at the same time that we're being in the moment, we need to have a relationship with our future. That's the first thing we address in my consultations and workshops. As soon as they know that five years from now, they want to be, let's say, leading workshops around the world, I can help them create the strategy for getting there. When the vision is clear, one begins to walk effortlessly, spontaneously and gracefully into that future. Your vision becomes this incredible magnet that pulls you along.
KRIPALU: What do you find keeps people from clarifying that vision?
ANDREA: If there's a fear, a deeply rooted block, then unless we get in touch with it and embrace it and talk to it and love it because it's part of us, we cannot move ahead. I've worked with people who were unable to even speak about what they do. They become choked and break down in tears. One woman's parents were Holocaust survivors and her voice was never supposed to be heard at home. For her to speak was a very big deal. We got in touch with that block, that small child who remembers the mantra "Do not speak; your voice is not important." Once she got in touch with that voice and embraced it and made it conscious, only then could she begin to move through it and watch it dissolve. Sometimes it dissolves and sometimes it just stays there and watches. In either case it's fine. I've created a CD to help people move through these fears and blocks so they can begin to move forward with the practical aspects.
KRIPALU: Once you have a clear vision of what you want in your practice, what comes next?
ANDREA: The next step is distinguishing your practice and what differentiates you from everyone else. It's conceiving your identity, creating the resume, the bio, the sound bite, the business card, the brochure. It's getting all those pieces together, the psychological and the practical. And then it's gathering the golden nuggets, exploring the resources available to you. It's understanding competition and the fact that there is none. Then it's watering the seeds of abundance, creating strategic alliances, moving out of isolation, creating partnerships, exploring the Internet and its possibilities. Then it's spreading your wings, sending out the press packet, the press release, creating those introductory programs. Once you've built up a data base of interested clients, it's composing your thoughts through a newsletter or a book. And it's knowing that none of these things happen without courage, without the vision of your future and without moving through the blocks.
KRIPALU: You mentioned "competition and the fact that there is none." Competition is definitely an issue for yoga teachers and studios right now. Could you elaborate on that issue?
ANDREA: When you become clear about who you are, what your expertise is, what makes you unique, when you stand in integrity by educating others and continuously educating yourself, by making offerings and doing your work, how can there be competition? The only reason people feel the tendency to compete is when they listen to others and feel "less than," when they're jealous of someone else's good fortune, or when they can't uplift themselves from a negative state of mind.
KRIPALU: In your book, you discuss the "priceless offering." What is the offering?
ANDREA: Have you ever noticed how some practitioners or yoga teachers or doctors have lulls in their practice? Ninety-nine per cent of the time, it's
because they're not making offerings in conjunction with the financial gifts they receive. An offering is like a tithing. We tithe to spiritual or religious organizations. In the same way, we can make offerings to our communities. For example, whenever I do a workshop, I offer a free introductory program. This serves in many ways. One, it's my way of saying thank you to the community in which my workshop is being presented. It also allows people to meet me and see if they want to sign up for the workshop. You can make offerings to not-for-profit organizations in your community, or offer a free yoga workshop at a local hospital or YMCA. One of the most successful practitioners I know, a Trager therapist, makes offerings all the time—and he has to turn people away in his two practices. When people get educated through your offerings, it comes back tenfold. It's one of the spiritual laws of abundance. The people who are very rich in their lives—and I'm not just talking monetarily—give all the time in conjuction with the financial gifts they receive. There's a balance to giving and receiving—I'm not saying give, give, give all the time. When you feel like you're giving and not getting, you're not following the law. I'm not saying make an offering to everyone who can't pay you. If a client or student can't pay you, create an exchange. Maybe they can help you with your Web site,
maybe they can give you a massage.
The universe pays us back in kind. When we plant a flower, the earth gives us back a flower. When we offer our services, it comes back. I have a great story about a network chiropracter who after a year of practice, had no business. I asked him if he'd made an offering lately and he had no idea what I was talking about. I explained it to him and he said he'd think about it. Well, he called me back several months later and said, "Guess what? My business is booming. The day after I talked with you, a friend who's an aspiring actor asked me to come to a health fair with my table. I thought, Why should I shlepp my table down there and work on all these poor actors and actresses? But I remembered what you said and I went down there and worked all day on them and I even brought coupons for two free treatments." "So," I said, "Are you seeing all these actors and actresses?" And he said, "No, not a one." The moral is, it doesn't matter who you make the offering to. It comes back to you, in spades.
To find out more about Andrea's workshops, trainings, online courses, book and CDs, visit www.HolisticPR.com or call 310-597-1462.
