We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Dawn Heiderscheidt. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Dawn below.

Dawn, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear the backstory of how you established your own practice.

When starting my own practice it was important to have the right people around me. People who not only would hype me up, up also act as confidants, and coaches.

I work in an important and growing niche within Occupational Therapy. It helps to bridge the gap between the construction/design world, and healthcare. This meant that starting my business required months of research, and time to grow my knowledge and understanding to follow a plethora of laws/ethics related not only to business, but also healthcare.

I started with coaches who could walk me through the step-by-step process of setting up my Medicare credentialing, and my business LLC, and teach me the ropes of how to bill for covered services. Later, I realized that I needed to grow from Health centered business coaches/friends into business-minded, or lifestyle coaches to match the direction I wanted to take my company.

Giving myself permission to collaborate with a variety of coaches has given me a breadth of knowledge, and a reliable group of experts, to help me prepare for almost anything within my business.

Dawn, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am the owner of Aurora Independence, and as a Universal Design and Home Accessibility/Home Safety Consultant, I help clients make sensible and beautiful choices or changes that support their goals to live independently.

I do this through highly individualized, socially conscious, client-centered interventions focused on and around Home Modifications with my background as an Occupational Therapist.

I started this company in 2020 after being laid off in 2019 with a hospital closure, prior to the pandemic. The Pandemic made it impossible for me to find a job, so I created my own. I continue to expand that work to make other opportunities for other occupational therapists looking to work in these spaces.

I bring my passion, experience, and knowledge of being a caregiver and a patient myself to help individuals in the Philadelphia region, and virtually. I want to help anyone who wants to Age in Place through my work with Rebuilding Together, Habitat for Humanity, community-partners. I also assist with evidence-based programs such as Community Aging in Place—Advancing Better Living for Elders (CAPABLE.). For private clients, I provide Home Safety Assessments and consulting that results in  personalized recommendations with me present to help as needed.

I was a Philadelphia School Teacher, and use this background to guest speak on entrepreneurism at the University level. I am a national continuing education provider for fellow healthcare and remodeling professionals.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I am a chronic career switcher. This could be seen as a weakness, but I find as the years go on, this has been one of my greatest strengths.

The ability to pivot, without hesitation, and without fear is one of the best skills ones can have when an entrepreneur. We need to find our passion and support that, without burning that passion out. So when my career as an Art Teacher left me feeling dejected and discouraged, I took a leap into Occupational Therapy.

It was never a question if I was going to do it, I HAD to. At the time my Mother made sure I did. She passed while I was in OT school, and I struggled with staying afloat for almost ten years after that. She was a rock to me, and I had already buried my Dad two years prior to her passing.

While I had a great husband, and family, I felt lost and lonely. I picked up a side gig of a Dog Trainer, I volunteered at an animal shelter for a VERY short time, and I focused on trying to learn who I was outside of a caregiver and friend, but I was still lost.

So it came time to pivot again.

Sure, I had a good career, I was making good money, and I left that for better mental health with a per diem life, and that worked for two years. Once the hospital I worked for shut down, insurance changes caused massive layoffs, and a pandemic hit, I used those same career-switching skills to buckle down and learn a new skill set; entrepreneur.

It felt natural to throw myself into the unknown because its something I had already done several times. Each time you do it, it gets easier. And once you’ve closed an estate before most of your friends even had kids, you learn that there is a whole life to live and pivoting if often the main way to find that.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

There are three books that changed my entire mindset or offered me management techniques that have helped my baby business grow.

Book number one, “Profit First” by Mike Michalowicz. This gave me the basis of money management that has helped me pay myself, make a profit (even in my first year,) and help me make almost all my decisions within the business now, and I imagine into the future.

The second book was, “We Should all be Millionaires” by Rachel Rodgers. A successful Black woman in business, standing in her power and guiding other minority or women-owned businesses to do the same? Yes, please!

The Third book was actually ” Born to Lead” by Brene Brown. A thoughtful woman, who has a pulse on emotions, and can successfully lead people to make decisions through emotional intelligence was something that resonated deeply with my values of integrity, truth, and generosity.

These three books have taught me to be unapologetic, to stand in my power thoughtfully and compassionately, and to have the resources to make a profitable business within a niche between healthcare and design.

Contact Info:

• Website: AuroraIndependence.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/auroraindependence/?next=%2F
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dawn.heiderscheidt.1
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dawn-heiderscheidt-otr-l-echm-973b0899/

Image Credits
Dawn Heiderscheidt