FIRST YEAR IN ENTREPRENEUR’S LIFE – HOW DID IT GO?
Time frame is March 2020 to December 2021 – 20months of life. Incidentally we, my husband and myself, arrived to Finland right before the corona pandemia, with a view of spending six months’ sabbatical in our summer home in the Northern Savo. Our cottage is in wilderness, beyond zoning and municipal services, so we had carefully planned the arrival into the Spring time, to enjoy light and warmth. Enthusiastically – and also with famous Finnish temper, sisu – we took on everything coming our way after decades of tropical life: Gentle sun. Walks on frozen lakes. Roaring fire in fireplace. Endless shovelling of snow. Chopping of firewood. And then, all of a sudden, in late May – 10 days of Spring! Snow and ice melting away, new shoots and flower buds boldly reaching to sun, the arrival of swallows – and then it was Summer. And time for general maintenance and renovation works.
International travel restrictions were becoming a new norm and plans for our future were in disarray. Living in quicksand was the general feeling, as if we were on prolonged holiday from October 2020 onwards. We had to start preparing for winter. (And winter 2020-21 was a hard one, extreme freezes and never-ending snowing, another story altogether!) However, this also gave me a chance to realize my dream of running my own company. InFi – Hyvinvoinnin Perusta (InFi – Base for Wellbeing) was established on November 12, 2020. Thanks to municipal business advisor, I was also awarded financial start-up support, the first wellness sector company to do so in the area.
Human being is more than the sum of the parts. I brought Craniosacral Therapy to Northern Savo. This modality forms a base to my vision about holistic and integrative healing. I apply combinations of craniosacral therapy, QiGong practise, meditation and dietary solutions as principle methods for supporting health and wellbeing.
Calmly and persistently I then progressed to offer these mutually supporting wellness modalities in ’pristine ground’. Together with local partners, understanding and use of craniosacral therapy spread from Tervo to surrounding municipalities. In our small village of Talluskylä I started QiGong / TaiChi classes already in September 2020, which then year later were picked up by Inner Savo Adult Education Services (civic college). I developed a short course complete with related materials and exercises for understanding and using life force energy. Together with clients we assessed dietary habits and requirements as essential part of managing certain dis-eases. Online presence in the form of web-pages and shop were created and to be on the right side of everything, accounting and bookkeeping were outsourced right at the start of 2021.
Numerical facts for 12 months of operation:
- Craniosacral Therapy, patient visits 286
- QiGong / TaiChi lessons, 116 hours
- Integrative wellbeing councelling, intensive method, 6 weeks
- Energy short course, 2x
- Reiki1 -level energy treatment method course, 1x
- WellnessDays in Tervo, organizing the event, 1x (13 companies)
- Organizing 1-day event ’Introduction to Craniosacral Therapy’ in Tervo, 1x
All small-scale entrepreneurs in wellness sector acknowledge how difficult it is to set prices to services offered. Besides the meaningfulness and satisfaction of the work itself, at the end of the day one should still have enough funds for a healthy dinner. This, for sure, is not achievable even with start-up support during the first year of operation! External capital (i.e. savings) were required from the very start.
To summarize, without a caring spouse I could have either worked in my beloved profession or I could have kept home and yard in functioning order – to achieve both even satisfactorily was impossible.
Year 2022 meets us in the warm heart of Africa, in Malawi, with my husband back in his expert role and myself taking a short break from teaching and hands- on treatments. I aim to review theoretical side of things and develop focused treatment options.
We would not want to change anything from the past 20 months (with possible exception of -25 C temperatures!) – what a huge learning curve it was. So all in all, it went very well indeed! But another winter…? NO.
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