“Are you taking this professional tarot thing seriously?”

One of the coolest parts of The Readers Studio for me was… the people! (But of course!)

I had about 30 of the 120 attendees sit in on my workshop. Many others told me they wanted to come, but darn it if that pesky, spritely Shawn Nacol didn’t have his own killer gig on writing going on at the same time (a tough call to be sure - lucky for me, Shawn gave me a copy of his handout, which should keep me busy for a while).

Many, many folks came up to me to talk marketing. Which was especially cool, as I got a bunch of great tips I can share with everyone on the blog. One of whom (let’s just call her our heroine) told me this story.

Our heroine is a client of Ruth Hayden, a financial consultant who works with women on the psychological aspects of money. Being tax time not too long ago, the two of them were going over the books.

“The books” don’t always add up, as we all know. Only in this case, the discrepancy might not be what you’d expect. After scanning the documents, Ruth turned to our heroine.

“So tell me,” she said, pointing to the Tarot reading section, “are you taking this thing seriously?”

Our heroine was a bit stunned. “Um, what?”

“Are you taking this ‘tarot thing’ seriously?”

“I thought so,” said our heroine.

“Because these numbers here aren’t showing me that!”

Are you taking your business seriously? As seriously as the readings themselves? It’s a fair question, no?

So often, we’re taught to thing negative, stay small, discount our accomplishments, whatever. You guys know all the baggage already, I’m sure. But then as readers, consultants, or whatever we choose to call ourselves, we have even more resistence to contend with. “Tarot|Astrology|Numerology|What-Have-You - you’re not… serious about that, are you?”

Dead serious, man. These are our clients’ lives we’re talking about. And our own.

Are you a professional tarot reader? A professional astrologer, hand analyst, or numerologist? Are you getting paid for your consultations? Maybe you don’t have goals worked out yet per se, but are you at least a step beyond “casual readings”?

Congratulations! You’re an entrepreneur! And that comes with a whole host of rewards… and responsibilities too.

In my workshop this weekend, we talked a lot about how much of your marketing is completely under your control. We talked about taking control. Step one of taking control is taking yourself seriously, even when others don’t.

You get to define what “taking yourself seriously” means to you and your business. But no matter what you decide, here are the three responsibilities that come with it (these too are from Ruth Hayden):

1. Knowing when you’re at work
2. Knowing when you’re not at work
3. Doing the stuff you don’t want to do (eek! more on that in a later post!)

Taking your passion seriously and yourself seriously is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself. I invite you to ponder the question a bit today. I know I will.

Then go do just one thing…

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