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

Hi Elizabeth, thanks for joining us today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

Businesses are not your entire life!

I know that sounds strange coming from a business coach but if there is any mistake I see time and time again is that people start businesses like they start a new job. They know it will be work and they are prepared to work hard and make sacrifices but that is where the similarities end.

When you build a business, your own business, it is more than a job, it is a complete shift in lifestyle and mindset. All of a sudden every decision you make, every purchase of a pack of post-it notes carries a different weight. This role is a personal role and because of that things are just different and changing the approach to building a business should be too.

This is where I come in. I’m actually a bit more of a business counselor – meaning, I take a lot of time to take the whole person that is building a business into consideration. This approach adds many elements into the mix; the business you want to create, the life you currently lead and the lifestyle you wish to live.

By taking this approach you can avoid just creating another job for yourself which is a trap so many entrepreneurs make. This allows you to focus on the benefits of what you are creating the business for while living in your today.

Here is one of my favorite examples. When I was living in Colombia (yes the country; I practice what I preach) I had a client who was a vegan chef. She asked to meet with me because she had been given the opportunity to take over a kitchen for a local hostel and wanted to work through her thoughts and put together a plan.

We began in the same way I always do, with an exercise I call, The Perfect Day. There are various forms of this but ultimately it is a chance for you to think about your dream life and from that I learn a whole bunch about your values and wishes.

Getting back to my Colombian friend, she was in a relationship with a man who owned a touring company and one of the things they loved to do together often was to lead those tours. You might see already how restaurant ownership might be affected by this, and so did she but when asked she decided she would be able to have someone else run the restaurant when she was on a tour.

We really dug into what she enjoyed about cooking and why a restaurant was a great fit for her, we looked at the clients, the financial profitability and the commitment. We then took her perfect day and reflected where the two met and diverged. They did not seem to match in a few really important ways.

So, knowing this, we shuffled things around and brainstormed ways she could get all the things she loved and have her freedom to be portable. In the end we came up with a solution to be a “pop-up chef”. She could continue to go on the tours and call ahead to local hostels offering her services in their kitchens as a special offering to their guests. She would shop locally upon arrival, use existing facilities and provide a one and done offering for a fee.

We often get stuck in thinking that options for businesses are one thing, however times have changed and businesses have too. There are so many opportunities to blend the life you wish to live with building a business thanks to all the ways the world has changed.

I am not a traditional business coach, I am a wholistic business counselor which serves a specific need for those not wanting to put off living their lives in the moment for the possibility of some future payoff which may or may not ever happen.

This path still requires some sacrifice, all business building does, but it does not put life on hold for an indefinite period while you do it and I find my clients have greater success and definitely more satisfaction along the road.

Elizabeth, 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?

My background is a corporate paralegal. I began working with entrepreneurs and startups at a small law firm where I learned so much about the challenges and triumphs of entrepreneurship. I moved to the corporation side in 2008 when the economy hit a rough patch and began working with international companies for a multinational company.

After many years in this role for a couple of well-known Fortune 500 companies, I decided that helping people step into their dreams was more satisfying than moving companies around to make stockholders money so I took my side hustle of life coaching and made it my full-time career.

Most of my clients had ideas to start businesses, so with my background and their requests for help I pivoted to business coaching. It didn’t take me long to figure out that business coaching in a vacuum without taking into consideration their full lives was not a good thing.

I began combining the life and business coaching to come up with my current approach. There are so many things from our personal lives that truly affect our businesses and taking those into consideration simply makes both work better.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

The way I came into this career is a bit strange. It actually chose me.

I had a family friend whom I did not know very well ask me to meet him for coffee. I was hesitant at first but I thought a coffee couldn’t hurt.

After a few minutes of small talk he said to me, “I know a bit about your story from your family and there is no reason why you should be as happy as you seem or as successful as you are. I’m going through a tough time, will you help me? I’ll pay you.”

That was the moment that I understood that the fact that I don’t think like everyone else I knew was a benefit not a flaw. My entire life I had been told, “not everyone thinks like you do E” but I had never heard that as a good thing, it was the statement that I was the square peg and all the wholes around me were round!

I have learned and teach others as often as I can, sometimes the thing that makes you different, or not fit in, is what you have that makes you stand out. Use your “different” for the benefit of yourself and others. God doesn’t make mistakes.

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

I wish I could tell everyone that road is easy if you are passionate about what you do and are doing everything for the “right reasons.” I won’t try to sell you that lie.

Building a business is hard, maintaining a business is hard, sustaining a business and growing it is hard. And for those of us that feel called to do this, there is no other way for us, so we do.

One lesson I taught but did not take to heart well enough was to not count on one source of income too heavily. I had one particular client when I lived in California that hired me for several clients. They had some specific needs and I had to focus heavily on making sure to hit their requirements with my programing.

Unfortunately, I focused so well on only their program that I neglected building other programs and marketing for other clients at the same time. I’m sure you can hear the writing on the wall – at one point the client I had focused on dried up and they did not renew my contract leaving me unprepared to carry on without their income.

I wish I could tell you I learned that lesson so well the first time, but it took me a second time to really embody the lesson. Today I am a firm believer that there need to be multiple opportunities for clients to engage at all times so I am never heavily reliant on any one and I can survive the inevitable attrition that happens in the course of business life.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.elizabethmine.net
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/elizabethminerofficial
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/minerelizabeth
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/elizabethlminer
• Other: My book: The Entrepreneur Advantage; Emotional Intelligence for Building and Growing Your Business is available on Amazon <a target=”_blank” href=”https://www.amazon.com/Entrepreneur-Advantage-Emotional-Intelligence-Building/dp/1737380048?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=thri07-20&linkCode=ur2&linkId=175235cc11f958b082db6a1630caae83&camp=1789&creative=9325″>TheEntrepreneurAdvantage</a>

Image Credits
Photos of presentation in black & white checked dress: JFP Memories