We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Linda Bloom a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Linda, appreciate you joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

My husband and I had taken vows to mutually support each other’s career development and to bring up our three children together. Then he was offered a position in the corporate world that was his dream job, which he accepted. The demands of his career were highly disruptive to our marriage and family life to the point that our family almost shattered apart. We managed to keep the family together in the face of Corporate Marriage syndrome, where the needs of the family must be subordinated to the requirements of the job. After five years, my husband left and we took new vows that we would open up our own business, be in charge of our own schedule, and build our own dream. So the crisis of those demanding years when he was a corporate guy ended up having a silver lining. We have been highly successful teaching workshops all over the country and internationally about how to co-create great relationships. We tell our before-and-after stories which always inspire our clients and students to do their work to grow terrific romantic partnerships. We have published four books already, one of which has sold over 100,000 copies. Our new book on Conflict management will be out in November 2022 and Love in the Time of Crisis will be published in March 2023. We don’t ever want to retire because we can’t think of what we would enjoy more than being in service to couples that want to have more loving relationships.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

Linda Bloom, L.C.S.W., is a psychotherapist and couples’ counselor who teaches relationship workshops. She is the co-author of four books including the best-selling 101 Things I Wish I Knew When I Got Married (over 100,000 copies sold). Other books by Linda and her husband are Secrets of Great Marriages: Real Truths from Real Couples about Lasting Love, Happily Ever After and Thirty-nine Other Myths about Love, and That Which Doesn’t Kill Us: How One Couple Became Stronger at the Broken Places. She is a regular teacher at Esalen institute and Kripalu, with over 600 blogs on Psychology Today with over 10 million hits, and over 150 videos on her You-Tube channel. She is happily married for fifty years, has a son and a daughter and three grandsons. She lives in Santa Cruz, California. website www.bloomwork.com
831-421-9822
lindabloom@bloomwork.com.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

My husband and I are both psychotherapists and are now both workshop facilitators offering personal growth workshops. When my husband resigned from his corporate position and we committed to opening our own business, I had to get over my terrible fear of public speaking to be able to stand up in front of a group to teach the course. There were embarrassing moments, and my husband and I had many arguments about how the courses should be taught. But our commitment to our mission was bigger than the fears of teaching the courses, or our own crash course in how to run a business. Neither one of us had taken any business courses in college so we were making it up as we went along. One important lesson that I learned was that although it is more difficult for women to step into the leadership role, to be successful in business and in life in general, it is a requirement. It was a big stretch for me, but I persevered and it became easier over time.

My husband is my business partner. We often say that the medium is the message. We teach less from material we learned in graduate school or from books, and more from our own personal experience and that of our clients and students over four decades. We teach the secrets of great relationships. It’s something that everyone wants to have. We built our mailing list and social media following from our client and class lists.

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

There was a time early in our business when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I felt quite certain that a major component to my coming down with cancer at 44 years old was the stress of building our business. I was clearly overworking, and the major pivot required was to hire good help to keep the business in flow. Having capable office help made all the difference and we didn’t have to close the business down to go work for others after all. Hooray!

In the first year of the business, I had no idea that I would be required to pay the IRS estimated tax. When the time came to send the government money, we didn’t have anything in the account. We were running so close to the edge of paying the anticipated bills with revenue that came in. We had no savings and I had to ask my twelve year old son if I could borrow from his bank account where he had birthday gift money from his grandparents. He happily agreed to give me a loan. I was grateful for his support and all the others who were helping us get the business on its feet. I learned that I had to put money in an account so that I would not ever be in that position again to have to borrow. And we never were in that position again. We have managed to keep the business afloat from earnings for thirty-six years.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://bloomwork.com/
• Instagram: linda_charlie_bloom
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lindaandcharliebloom https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindacbloom/
• Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/lindacbloom
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Bloomwork
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV31PZsOgRNYCTQ6vgz4Q6Q
• Other: Link to three free e-books https://app.robly.com/subscribe?a=2ec85ee30b32f83a0cf2b18b108f3a0d