#142: Mastering Intuitive-Based Entrepreneurship with Heather Shea, Founder & CEO of Atmana Academy
As a woman entrepreneur, you know that gut instinct is everything. You've built your business from the ground up based on your intuition and it's paid off - big time. But what happens when things start to unravel and that trusted inner voice starts to waver? How do you stay the course and keep your business thriving in uncertain times?
My guest today, Heather Shea, Founder & CEO of Atmana Academy had a year long illness that almost took her life. And when she went into spontaneous remission, her world changed and she discovered intuitive-based entrepreneurship.
Intuitive-based entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. It takes courage to trust your gut when everyone else is second-guessing you. But as any successful entrepreneur knows, it's often those risky, counterintuitive moves that pay off the biggest in the end. Here are a few tips for mastering intuitive-based entrepreneurship from someone who's been there before.
What is intuitive-based entrepreneurship, and why should you care about it?
Intuitive-based entrepreneurship is a revolutionary way of doing business. The idea is to replace stereotypical notions of corporate success with intuition, intuition that allows us to challenge the status quo and take bold steps towards emerging opportunities. It's not about relying solely on intuition, but rather using it seamlessly in tandem with logical decision-making to make great things happen. This means embracing change and thinking out of the box to stay ahead. And why should you care? Well, because intuition-based entrepreneurship could be the key to unlocking untold potential within your business; embracing intuition opens a door for more creative problem solving, innovative strategy planning and ultimately, taking your business one leap further.
How to get in touch with your intuition for better decision making
If you’re an entrepreneur or a leader looking for the best way to make decisions, intuition can be your greatest friend. In fact, intuition has been a major part of making successful decisions for centuries. The trick is developing the ability to tune into your intuition and fully trust it when making decisions. The best way to get in touch with your intuition is through regular practice primarily through meditation and staying present in the moment. As this practice becomes more natural, you’ll find yourself tuning into your intuition more and more often. You can also look into respected books that cover the topic in detail; some expert authors have gone so far as to say that intuition is one of the most essential skills any leader must possess in order to truly make great decisions!
The benefits of following your intuition as an entrepreneur
Every budding entrepreneur has the same burning question: “How do I know what’s right for my business?” The answer is much simpler than you might expect: trust your intuition. As an entrepreneur, your intuition holds vast power in influencing and guiding the course of your business. Believing in intuition means understanding that you have access to a deeper truth, instantly available within you. Intuition can be invaluable when it comes to:
Time management
Leading difficult conversations
Making decisions
Trusting yourself
Staying motivated
Trusting your gut: how to know when you're on the right track
We hear a lot about intuition and the power of trusting your gut, but how do you know when it's actually giving you the right advice? Even if intuition is something that can't be explained logically, there are still a few tried-and-true ways of charting your course. First and foremost, listen to how you feel. If a particular thought or action evokes joy, contentment, and calmness, then chances are it's worth pursuing. Take some time alone in nature or in reflection to ask yourself what feels like the best course of action. You'd be surprised how much your intuition will show up to help guide you if only you take a moment to stop and listen!
Overcoming fears and doubts that block you from trusting your intuition
At Atmana Academy, Heather Shea encourages her students to connect to the intuition within them. She emphasizes the importance of overcoming fears and doubts that can stand in the way of that connection. To do this, she recommends starting small, like trusting your gut in everyday decisions like what to eat for lunch or taking a different route home. Once we have practiced exercising faith in our own inner wisdom, our fears and doubts will no longer block us from connecting with our intuition more deeply. At Atmana Academy there are practices and skills to help you on your journey of trust - you just have to be brave enough to take the first step!
Learn more about Heather:
Website: https://heatheraliceshea.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heatheraliceshea
Listen to the Show:
Laura 00:01
Welcome to the Next Level Leap podcast. I'm your host, Laura Meyer top growth strategist to some of the country's fastest growing brands, and mentor to consultants. My signature leap methodology has changed the way 1000s of companies look at growth strategy, and this podcast shares, best practices, and inspirational interviews to help you make that next level leap in your business. Stick around and join me as I share the journey of how we as founders can multiply our income impact and influence by landing on the other side of our next big leap. Let's go!
Laura 00:46
Hey, everybody, I want to welcome you back to the Next Level Leap podcast with somebody really special this is Heather Shea. Hey, Heather.
Heather 00:54
It's so good to see you, Laura. It's good to be there.
Laura 00:56
I know. So I'll share with everybody who's listening. We were like chatting for so long before we even started this podcast. And I looked at the time I was like, oh my God, I need to start recording. Like hit record. So Heather is the founder and CEO of Atmata Academy. Hopefully I said that right? All right, cool. You have such an interesting business. I can't wait to talk about it, dig into it. Let our listeners know more about it. But tell me a little bit about what took you to today, which I know you had this sort of inciting incident with a year long illness that helped you get to where you are today in business.
Heather 01:31
Yeah, so I like to make fun of myself here. You know how people go I didn't choose the gangs to live the game like chose me. Like I like to make fun of myself here. So it's like I want to say like I never shows this you know, the healers life chose me. I didn't choose it. But I really do feel like what I do and Atmana, and what brought me into this work was truly born of my own life experience from really before I was even in kindergarten. So just real quick on what Atm ana Academy is I basically run a life coach training school specifically for faith based spirituality based and intuition focused practitioners. So I grew up in a family riddled with mental illness. I have a sister who is bipolar. I have six siblings, or seven of us and two of us, like two of the siblings don't have a mental health diagnosis. I myself, am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse that started when I was four years old. 23 I had a nervous breakdown and was diagnosed with complex PTSD, social anxiety and depression. My family is riddled with all of the all of the things right?
Heather 02:49
So but I grew up in the 80s. And the 90s. Right? Back when like having a therapist or talking about mental health, one you didn't do it to if you did, you were weird. And three, my family didn't even know that that was an issue we didn't even know. Like, my parents didn't even know that depression or mental health concerns was even a thing it was like you just push through it. So really, I discovered therapy, in my own attempt to heal myself and I fell in love with why people do the things they do. And what it really takes to touch a person's heart and help them get out of the pain, the anxiety, the loneliness, that that we feel so often in life. And I would say every person at this point post pandemic, either know someone who was struggling with mental health or is just stuck in their own way. You know, when it comes to living a fulfilling and joyful life, so I fell in love with that in my 20s. And, you know, my dream was to become a psychotherapist. I wanted to be a mental health counselor. So I embarked on that process and quickly discovered that my passion really lied in coaching. As much as I love dealing with the mental health side of things, I found that just my personality and my jam, I work, my gift is helping good people become great. So helping that the coaches out there who want to help others that's where I really shine and then infusing intuition into it.
Heather 04:20
So in 2012 I had a medical crisis that honestly damn near killed me. I was so sick for five years I had a surgery a year for five years. All the western medicine physicians were saying like it's this it's that it nothing worked. I got conflicting opinions and by 2012 I was so sick and nobody could really help me that it was quite honestly do or die. And I don't know if you're a woman of faith. Okay. So I infuse and I use the word God I know that triggers some people but just whatever you conceive of a higher power I am a woman of faith, I believe in a God a person that loves us and that we can have a conversation and a relationship with. And so just in my desperation, I was in prayer meditation, wherever you want to call it one night, just like, I'm going to lose my life, I'm going to die. And I had this what I can only really describe as a, as a spiritual experience of connecting with the truth of who I am really feeling my spirit in myself and getting real and honest with myself about what I want from my life and what my purpose is in the world. And longs lots of things happen on this night. But the next day, I woke up out of this prayer and meditation experience, really, I had what scientists call a spontaneous remission.
Heather 05:45
So quite literally overnight, I found myself well from this illness has never come back I to this day, are healed from it, it was like that overnight, it would take me forever to tell a story. So long story short, I experienced what the medical professional would call spontaneous remission. I mean, I went from I couldn't walk my legs, you know, I was swelling with water, it just all of the things right to overnight, completely fine. And what I found after that was that I could I was far more sensitive towards people I was already sensitive before. But I noticed that I could pick up on people's emotions and energy. And so when my coaching practice, and my
coaching practice, I started noticing I had this kind of as this extrasensory ability, and I was fascinated by it. Because it was so accurate. I could just sit and feel people's feelings, I would just know things impressions would come to my mind, or I'd see an image flashed in my head. And I'm a big nerd, I believe in looking at the research. So I started investigating intuition. And its ability and help helping and helping settings, to really expedite the healing process and other people. And so fast forward to today, I found it Atmana Academy, which is training life coaches on how to use their intuition as a research supported skill, for better results and their clients and in their own life. So I really feel like it's kind of stepping into the 21st century, the new world of really bridging, you know, the mainstream with spirituality and helping us return to the wisdom of our hearts. And so it's a lot of fun. I love doing it.
Laura 07:25
That's so amazing. What an incredible life experience. You've had an incredible experience that one moment was I think, you know, from a faith standpoint, I would always call that discernment. Right? Yeah, intuition, I think on a spiritual standpoint is discernment. And I think for so many of us, why do we ignore our discernment? Like, why do we brush it off? Or why do we push through it? Or why do we think that like, oh, it's probably me.
Heather 07:53
Right? Yeah, that's it. I think it's a brilliant question. I think we moved from back at like, if you study human history, human beings always understood that there was a spiritual reality. For humans, we accepted that there was a non physical, spiritual reality. And then we moved into this materialistic paradigm, which I'm glad we did, like, hey, Modern Science is awesome, like, Yay, penicillin. Like, I'm glad we, you know, we stepped into the investigation of the material world. But I think what we've done is we went we were first here, right? Just this totally spiritual outlook on it, right, denying the material to now we're way over here on this sort of hedonistic secular, and if I can't see it, touch it, taste it, or smell it with my physical senses. It's not real. What I think we're doing right now is we're riding the ship and we're coming to the middle. We're saying, wait a minute, you know what, I think we're one part physical, but also, we're one part animal, right. But one part divine? I think we're coming back to our own intrinsic knowing. I think the reason why we differ is because we're taught to in this materialistic paradigm, we're taught, oh, you know, it's not right. If consistence doesn't say so or common sense, what are practical wisdom tells you that it isn't. So I think intuition, like you said, it's discernment. And it's, it's being tapped into a source of wisdom and inspiration that might not make logical sense, but is nonetheless when you learn how to listen and pay attention and really attenuate to the gift, which does come with practice. You are able to make accurate and reliable two decisions that streamline your path to success. It's the number one business skill, period, end of story. The research shows that hands down, that can improve your life and the life of everybody around you.
Laura 09:52
I love this. And I love that you're saying this because I think it applies to life coaches, but I think it applies to everybody in business as yours yes, because As even within my programs and certification programs, I'm already thinking like, gosh, they could really use what you're teaching. Because when people ask me how I'm a successful consultant, sometimes I can't put my finger on it. It's like, I can just sense what it is that's needed in that moment. And I can teach the, like the toolbox, right? But sometimes I find that really hard to teach. So I'm just like, so fascinated by how you've gone about this.
Heather 10:25
So I love what you're saying there. So if you're a business owner, and you're listening to this, like, think about the scenario where you're working with a client, or it could be a company, right, if it's b2b or b2c, it doesn't matter. And your job is to help them accomplish overcome some type of problem and get to a specific goal. And they have all kinds of questions on how to get there. Right. The it's so multivariate in terms of the things that could go wrong, the obstacles that you've got in the way, and what do our clients always do? There? They look at us and they say, Well, what would you do? The problem with that, it's not that you don't know as the business owner, you are an expert at what you do, you have built a successful business, if you're a marketing executive, or you know, you know how to market if you've, if you're, whatever your zone of genius is, you know how to do it. But what you will never know, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever know, is how that individual needs to do it in their way, according to what is going to work for them.
Heather 11:19
Only that person has that answer. And so what I think a big thing that's missing in business, is business owners learning how to teach their clients how to get answers for themselves, it's not and because you'll never be able to tell a person Oh, here, go do this, this is what's going to work. true success is something that's found within and so I think intuition is the missing piece that every business owner consultant or coach should know how to help a person tap into that so that they get better results. It's because at the end of the day, we really can't give that to the person, we can give them systems and strategy. But we can't, we can't apply it for that person, that person needs to apply it in the way that works for them. And that's a skill you can teach your client how to do right now we just look at him and go, well, the results are on you. It's like, well, the results are on you. But also, here's this skill. Let me teach you how to do this skill so that you can apply what I'm teaching you to yourself. Here's how you listen.
Laura 12:14
Yeah, so good and so important, and so needed, because I think sometimes it's our lack of confidence in ourselves or sense of self love or self worth. That's like, just give me the answer. Right. And I as a consultant, I think sometimes people are surprised because they just want
me to tell them what to do. But I'm like, here are your options, you know, like, here are your here's, here's what I see, based on my skill set experience, business background, knowledge, like the here's, here's the opportunities that you can't see from the inside of your company, right? But ultimately, you have to like the path. And some people don't want that answer. Some people want me to tell them what to do. But I know that that's such a double edged sword. And it's funny, I'm onboarding a client later on today, she's an 11 million dollar business, and I look at her intake, and I'm like, there's like five paths I could take you down. That's right. Now you have a business that big like, I could I could guide you down a bunch of different paths. But I'm, I need you to tell me what is landing with you, you know, what feels what feels intuitively right?
Heather 13:17
And then they look at you and go, that's what I hired you for telling me the answer. And I can't give you the answer. Right. So we get stuck in this back and forth. But I think that this is an exciting opportunity, to say, you know what, not only am I going to present to you five viable paths based off my expertise and experience, but you know, we're going to do, we're going to learn for you how you can tap in because you know what I believe and I know, whether you have a $100,000 business a year, or 1 million or 11 or 11 billion. It's still essentially at the end of the day, an opportunity to empower that person to never again have to look at another living soul and ask, What should I do? Yes, you can ask for help. You can ask for advice, you know, but at the end of the day, we return to within and we say okay, what is my discernment telling me to do so I think it's like, the ultimate empowering thing that we can do to people is look at them and go, no, actually, I know, you know, you're Luke Skywalker, out I'm Obi Wan. I'm the hero of your own story, but you're Luke Skywalker, man. You're the one you're the you're the Harry Potter. I'm the Dumbledore. It's your hero's journey. I think that's really empowering. I think a totally I think it's disempowering to look at a person and go you know what, here do this like how disempowering is that?
Laura 14:43
So I think that was granted in coaching and consulting industry and then and then that's where the broken relationships happen. And that's why I'm so cautious. And it's funny because usually most people embrace that. Especially women. They're like, cool, this is a collaboration. Awesome, right? And then every now and then when somebody's like, no, I really actually just wanted you to tell me what to do those never end well. And so I've learned it's really interesting that you're saying that that I think I had an awareness around it until this conversation. But what I know, as we were chatting prior to recording you were talking a little bit about your why. And I was curious about it. But I wanted to ask, while we were recording, oh, what is it that has shifted for you for your own why and doing this work?
Heather 15:27
Yeah, I think my, I think my first why, like when I began my first why was I just want to help people return to the truth of who they are, I had grown up in such a dysfunctional environment. And through my own process of healing, what you're never done, you're never done healing, because you can always become better, you can always become more but in my own process, I should say maybe a becoming well, I discovered that helping a person return to the truth of who they are helping them to discover their I guess we could maybe it's so cliche now. But your authentic self, I like the term your higher self. helping a person returned to that really is the game changer for everything. And so my, my initial why was like, I just want to help people do that. But when intuition got thrown into the mix, and I started to realize that I had an actual skill, it's truly like a, like a secret superpower, when you learn how to use it, when I discovered that that's when I realized, Oh, my goodness, my why is to train an army of well qualified coaches. It's no matter what do you want to do relationship coaching, Business, Career Life, it doesn't matter the type of coaching they do, to teach them the timeless coaching skills, with the intuition infused and that really became my why my mantra was like, I want an army of coaches out there, who know how to help other people transform. And really, I was inspired by seeing how broken mental health is.
Heather 17:02
Most of my friends are therapists, most of my friends, like come up out of that in the mental health realm. And let me tell you what, ladies and gentlemen, these people are stressed out, burned out, they are hamstrung by insurance companies. And I the burden of, of coaching really alleviates that burden. So some fun numbers 20%, which it's probably more now because of the pandemic. But on average, 20 to 25% of Americans have a diagnosable mental illness, probably up to 30 now, pandemic, but 80% of Americans report needing help 20% say no, I'm good. Okay, so that means that the difference between that, you know, 30-80, all of those people are not people who need to see a therapist, they should be in with a well trained life coach. Now my background is in psychotherapy, I have a master's degree in clinical mental health counseling. So I'm a hybrid, right, I truly have one foot in both worlds. So my mission then became to alleviate that mental health, get them in with a coach, who you're at baseline functioning mental health counselors work with your under functioning, they bring you to baseline coaches, work with baseline and above. So that became my why it was first mental health, then it became known Oh, no, no, no, no, my why is to help people, you know, in the coaching space. So I think that shift, you know, it continually morphs and, and moves. I think my why now is really doubling down on the intuition. And I honestly can't say that I have it entirely figured out. Other than I think it's moving into, I want to train an army of intuition teachers, I actually want to equip people on how to train not just the coaching side, but the actual intuitive development piece. And I, I'm rolling out a program to start doing that this year. So I don't know, we'll see where it takes me. But I think that that's where it's moving. It's just hard, like hard, hard, hard into the intuition piece.
Laura 19:00
It's so interesting. So let's say somebody is that baseline. And they're just like, they're functioning, they're fine, but they feel kind of blah, right? Like, maybe, you know, maybe they've healed from being below baseline in terms of mental health, or they've just always kind of functioned at like, just steady state, right. Yeah. Yeah. What are what are some of the things that take it from good to great, like, what are some of the activities and actions that really help people move into that higher state?
Heather 19:34
So the first thing that I noticed in people when we're doing any type, and I really think, again, this is the timeless underlying things, it really applies to any situation. There are two things that affect a person's ability to achieve the things that they want to achieve. And here's the important part and feel amazing about it. I know plenty of successful people who are not happy, yeah, it's not enough, it's not enough to achieve your goal, you need to achieve an aligned goal. And so this comes down to two things, feelings, and desire. We have to get real with ourselves about two things, what we want, and how we want to feel. And we don't spend enough time from my from in my, just my assessment of this and how I see other coaching programs set up to do or other training modalities technique, there's a million of them, I think these are two things we, we skip over, there's a lot of focus on feeling but not feeling as it relates to desire. So what do you want? What and then know, what do you really want? And what do you really, really, really want? And, and why do you think that you want it. And so what we find, I call it, the two peas have really, really, really bad goals. What I have noticed is really like horrible goals.
Heather 21:02
So we teach this in my certification, but I'm like, the first what you're going to do is help your clients get clear on like, what are an honest goal actually is, so what I have found, and you can kind of run an audit on yourself with this is most of us set goals that are the first P is prove and the second P is pleased. So what are you trying to prove to yourself to others or to the world, to the internalized voice you have in your head of your mother who was super critical when you were six years old, and you think you want to be a doctor? Because that's going to make her Shut up? And she's in your head? You know? Okay, so you're trying to prove something to that voice in your head, or maybe even is your own mom, your external mom, right? So you're trying to prove something, or you're trying to make someone else happy that someone else can be the false sense of self that you think you are that you are not. So when you start to really dissect it, you realize holy cow, like, that's why, you know, 60% of the country is sitting in a place of being they know they're not congruent, but we're not focusing on like, we're not asking the first question. So if you were to say to me, Heather, I want to get give me a map to San Francisco. The first question out of my mouth would be okay, what city are you starting from, I can't give you a map to San Francisco, if I don't know where you're starting.
Heather 22:28
And that is what the whole world is doing. They're just getting in their car. And they're driving, thinking that they know where they're starting from, when they actually don't know, in the car trip analogy. Of course you do because you're sitting in the physical city. But on a psychological level, the journey of our lives, we need to stop and examine that Dustin, the city of origin, the place of origin, that is the piece we're not doing. And that is why people stay stuck. Despite their best efforts or end up in places they thought they wanted to go, but didn't, or the wrong place. And we are miserable because of it. And it breaks my heart that people, we are doing the best that we can, but we're not we don't have the skills, the most complicated thing in the known universe is the human psyche. And we're supposed to just get up and act like we know how to be ourselves. Like, I don't know how to human really well, I've had to dedicate my life to figuring out how to be like to human right to figure out how to live a meaningful, purposeful life. So I would say those are the first two things. It's we've got to get clear there. And then after that, you can there's a million strategies you can use. But if we don't have that piece figured out, then we're really dead in the water. And of course, if you're not in touch with your intuition, how are you going to figure out the answer to those two things? To the feeling and the desire? Yeah.
Laura 23:49
That's awesome. That's fascinating. I hope that everybody who's listening is just taking notes, because I was mesmerized, and I can't wait to listen back to this. Yeah. So kind of as we're wrapping up here, is there anything else that you wanted to share with our listeners on what this entails? Like what this intuitive focused coaching entails and what you really see it as, like how you see it as being a modality for change?
Heather 24:16
Yeah, I think if you're a person who you're sitting here and you're listening to this, and you're like, to the intuition stuff is absolutely fascinating. A big question we have as people go, Yeah, but is that something you can actually teach? So the first thing I want to say is it absolutely is we actually teach a six step framework on how you do it. And most people go get the hell out of here. And I say, No, really, I'm being serious. It really does work. You know, there I have a if you're watching on video, I love to pull this out. Because people are just like really? And I'm like, Yeah, this is just some of the research our program is based off. Wow. I mean, this is all peer reviewed. Right? So you it is it is not the 1700s anymore. No one's going to come burn you at the stake. We know exactly how intuition works from an evidence based perspective. So if you want to get started tapping into your intuition, start today and know that it's not a matter of belief, this is a real valid, reliable skill. And I'll give you the first step, I'll give you a homework assignment. If you want to get started with it, start paying attention to your call, the first step is inner awareness, I want you to check in a couple of times a day and ask yourself, How am I
feeling right now? What is the voice inside of my head saying, How am I doing in this become aware of what is happening within you. And then the second step is to trust what you're experiencing. You've heard that old adage, seeing isn't believing is seeing. So that's the second one that I want you to start taking seriously, how you think, and what you feel, and start prioritizing that truth above what you are getting from the external world. So that's how you get started. And if you're interested in learning how to coach or develop your intuition, you can just find me on social and we can take it from there.
Laura 26:09
That is so great. Where can they find you on social?
Heather 26:11
You just find me out on Instagram @HeatherAliceShea or my website, www.HeatherAliceShea.com. And I have a really killer free Facebook group that I have all kinds of fun trainings, I really do give away a lot of content, because it's time for people to understand how to begin and kind of wrap their head around intuition. I feel like that's, it is such an esoteric concept, and one that we've been kind of taught to be a little bit shy or scared of. So I'm all about just giving people, you know, easy to implement things to help them get started with unlocking this incredible power that lives within each of us every single day. And I actually do think that intuition I say this all the time, I think intuition is the new mindfulness. I think in 10 years, you're going to walk into grocery stores, and you're going to see magazines that say intuitive. Back in the 50s, if you saw somebody running down the street, you thought they were being chased by a robber because physical fitness wasn't a thing, right? Then in the 70s. Everybody knew you need to exercise now we feel bad if we don't in the 70s everybody thought meditation was voodoo. Okay. The research came out in the 90s. Now we all feel bad if we don't meditate. We now we know. It's something we what I'm saying is, I think you mark my words. Intuition is the new mindfulness. We are sitting on the cusp of the future. We are the grandmothers and the grandfathers of this movement. And it will be the exact same thing. We've already got the research right, it will be the exact same thing. So it's an invitation to walk into a new paradigm of integrated living between our spiritual self and you know, being down here in the physical navigating a meaningful and purposeful life.
Laura 27:52
I love that. Oh my gosh, thank you so much for sharing this incredible conversation. I know so many of you who are listening, absolutely loved it. Please, please, please reach out to Heather. If you loved it. She'd love to hear from you. And I will see you soon. Thank you so much for being here.
Heather 28:07
Thank you, Laura.
Laura 28:09
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