We were lucky to catch up with Meaghan Dunham recently and have shared our conversation below.
Meaghan, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today The first dollar your business earns is always special and we’d love to hear how your brand made its first dollar of revenue.
I actually still have the very first check I received when I started working under my LLC in 2019. At that time, I had just graduated from yoga teacher training and was freelancing as a marketing consultant. A yoga teacher I knew from a studio I attended after work put out a call for some marketing support for a new gym she was helping to open. I messaged her, we grabbed coffee, and that’s how it all began!
Because they were brand new, they didn’t even have a payment system yet, so I remember receiving a temporary check from them (one of the ones they give you when you first open a checking account). It was the most I had ever made at once and I was ELATED. I did an electronic deposit and kept the check tucked away so I could always remember where I started.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
As an Intuitive Coach, my speciality is helping visionary women take the next big steps in life and business. Through the power of their unique Astrological and Ayurvedic blueprints — and with the support of ancient holistic modalities — we identify what makes each of my clients unique and how their innate strengths can be leveraged to help them follow their heart and choose themselves FIRST.
My spiritual teaching journey began in 2017, when I received my very first astrology birth chart reading. My mind began to put pieces together than had previously never made sense; I finally felt like I was learning why I was wired the way I was. This reading opened my mind to the possibilities of the Universe for the first time and I began asking deep questions.
In 2018, I began studying Western Astrology — which lead to a deep desire to formalize my spiritual training.
In 2019, I completed my 200 hour yoga teacher training with Chakra Flow University. After an intense 8 weeks of study, I began asking deeper questions and digging into the connections between modern emotional intelligence work and the ancient practices of yoga, Ayurveda, and Astrology.
With a background in education — and experience working at a tech start-up focused on social and emotional skills for kids grades K-12 — I knew I had the unique ability to bridge the practicality of emotional intelligence with the spiritual modalities I was learning about.
My goal, as an intuitive business coach, is to hold a mirror up to each of my clients and allow them to see themselves for who they really are: a capable, strong, intelligent, and badass human.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
In 2022, I landed in the hospital for complications from COVID. Twice. On Christmas Eve. It was an intense ordeal that left my mind swirling. I knew I couldn’t continue working the way I had — for two years I had been busting my butt trying to scale my business to a financially sustainable place.
But, in the process of doing that, I lost sight of why I enjoyed being an entrepreneur in the first place and completely burnt out.
In February of 2023, I made the tough decision to let go of 60% of my income and take a sabbatical from work to start trying to heal myself; physically, mentally and emotionally. The next 9 months were excruciating and I tried to build my business back up from scratch.
What I learned through this process, however, is that with a lot of dedication and commitment, you can turn things around and start moving in the direction you want to go.
Now, in 2024, I’m back to where I was in 2022 — but this time my streams of income have significantly diversified, I’m working with some pretty fantastic women, and I’m infusing spirituality into my work in way that feels exciting, liberating and fun!
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
One thing I had to learn the hard way was that I didn’t have to operate like an employee in my business. What do I mean about that?
Especially when I was heavily focused in 1:1 work, I found myself having a difficult time setting boundaries with clients, was working all hours of the day and night, and wasn’t enjoying the direction my business was going.
It wasn’t until I took a step back after being hospitalized that I realized I wasn’t allowing myself to build a business I actually wanted. I was doing something because I was good at it — not because I enjoyed it.
For most of my 20s and early 30s, this was the story of my life. First with teaching, then with marketing … I was good at my job, but it wasn’t fulfilling for me.
When I started to infuse energetic modalities into my work, and to share that knowledge with my clients, I realized that I was much happier AND that people still wanted to work with me!
I created better work-life boundaries, released some bad habits I had kept from my 9-5 days, and allowed myself to experiment for the first time. It was — and still is — THRILLING!
Image Credits
All photos by Laura Tompkins, Laurelbelle Photography