We recently connected with Elaine Lou Cartas and have shared our conversation below.
Elaine Lou, appreciate you joining us today. Do you take vacations? How do you keep things going – any advice for entrepreneurs who feel like they can’t step away from their business for a short vacation?
Remember we made our businesses for more freedom in time. But so often we create our businesses like our full time jobs where we don’t have time. This is why it is important to go on vacation — to remind ourselves why we became business owners in the first place.
In the past year, I’ve surprisingly taken a vacation per month NOT planned. And my most memorable vacation was going to Tanzania for 2 weeks with NO laptop and my phone on airplane mode. During this trip I was 100% present while hiking Mt. Kilimanjaro and going on a safari. This made me closer with my boyfriend/partner. And get renewed with mother nature.
As soon as I got back home and started working again, I made even more systems and delegated more so it wasn’t me working all the time.
Vacations help remind you what life is worth living for — core memories.
Elaine Lou, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
As a business and career coach for women of color and allies, I help my clients who are use to doing the most in their career and lives to create a sustainable life. I provide one-to-one and group coaching. What makes my coaching unique is that my clients can have direct access to me, and also have my team who they can work with which includes a Marketing Strategist, Certified Project Manager and Intuitive Coach..
My team and I is focused on creating a supportive space to hold conscious conversations, implement holistic leadership, and prioritize a life led by fulfillment and self-trust.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
I had to unlearn what people and society wanted for me, and to ask myself the most difficult question, “What do I want?” I remember the day I graduated from my Masters and I realized I was doing what everyone told me to be happy, but not asking myself what would make ME happy. That same year, I opened up my coaching business and I’ve never been happier. I share the behind the scenes of my business in my Color Your Dreams Podcast that you can listen to any streaming platform.
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
Referrals. If you are really great at what you do, you should continue to get referrals. And while working with clients ask for feedback on what you can improve on and actually implement it. For example, I received feedback my clients didn’t want to stay on a 2 hour group coaching call over zoom cause they were zoomed out. So I called it office hours, and let my clients know they can drop in and out of the call whether it is 5 mins, 10 mins or the whole 2 hours.
Also, I share my client wins in my newsletter every week. You can sign up for my newsletter at elainelou.com/join
Contact Info:
- Website: https://elainelou.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elainelou_/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elainelou.cartas/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elaineloucartas/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@elainelou
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/elaine-lou-los-angeles-2