Do Well by Doing Good

Part of my responsibilities as Director and Owner of the Louisville School of Massage include teaching some of our Professional Development classes. I primarily teach Ethics (Parts I, II, and III--we take ethics seriously), Intro to Business / Business Plan Development and now and then I throw in a class on Pediatric/Adolescent or Trauma Informed Massage. I love teaching each of these classes, and have a heightened level of enthusiasm for the business classes...after all, many of our students are entering their second career and are more interested in going into private practice than working for someone.

I am quite open to say that I love making money. I don't run four businesses because I get bored easily (ok, actually, I do get bored easily and that's why my body product line has grown but...). I grew up on the lower socio-economic side of things. My parents were teens (young teens) when they  had my brother and me. My dad joined the military (and later opened an auto-body shop) so he could provide for his family and my mom went back to college during my elementary school years to earn a teaching degree while working full time at a hotel. There were times our lights were cut off, hamburger helper was a staple dinner item in our home and we would savor one scoop of kroger brand heavenly hash ice cream on rare occasion. New clothes shopping happened roughly twice a year and we wore our shoes to the ground. I share this not to make my parents look bad (I mean, do you know anyone else who had children in teen years, took care of those children, both ended up being contributing members of society...in other words, this isn't the typical teen parent episode here. My parents kicked a$$ if you ask me. I am forever indebted and grateful for and to them). I share this to share that I don't come from economic power houses, stability or wealth; I didn't come from "means" so to say.

But I do love making money. I love crunching numbers. I love the challenge of growing my business and reaching new markets. I believe in my products and services and I believe they enhance my client's and customer's quality of life. To that end, I do very well in my business pursuits. Over the years of being an entrepreneur, I have acquired some means...not financial wealth, but means.

on our Gotcha ! Day, 4/1/2015

But more than that, I LOVE to do good. Incorrect grammar? Maybe. But let me explain. It is a foundational tenet of my business (each and every one of them) to do good first, and do well second. I wish to manifest good things for our community. My massage business, Infinite Balance Massage, has the goal of helping clients to find balance in their mind, body and soul; individual, family and community. My open house was to benefit St. Joseph's Children's Home (where I adopted my son several years ago) and over the first four years of my private practice, we've continued to raise thousands for them. I operate on a no-questions-asked sliding scale for military (active, retired and discharged), folks who are in recovery from substance use/abuse, and those who are survivors of trauma (in essence, people like the people closest to me). I almost always donate massages to any and every fund raiser for a cause which I remotely believe in. And I open our business doors for charitable activity at no cost. I believe each business in our community must intentionally seek to improve the community in which it operates...to do good. I also believe that in doing good, your business is likely to do well.

So yes, I was sharing with my students how to define their target market, how to think creatively to reach them, how to budget their expenses and revenue, how to add passive streams of revenue to their active...but the lesson I pray they take away is their business must do good for the community, and in doing so it'll do well for them.

...or, at least that's my 26.2 cents worth anyway.
Peace
Donald