Starting a Business: Get Inspired by These Stories

I get so excited seeing HSPs step into their empowerment and grow their own online businesses. HSPs often thrive in business. Some of my favorite things about having my own online business are:

• No alarm clock! I set my own schedule

• I work based on how I feel. When I’m tired I stop so I’m able to stay balanced, which makes me more productive and creative!

• I do the work that feels meaningful to me and aligns with my values

• No commute! I can work from anywhere as long as I have a computer and internet. I love working from home surrounded by my pets.

• I don’t have a boss. I also love being my own boss

• My business evolves as I evolve and that allows me to stay in the flow and continue to trust my instincts

I have always been fascinated and inspired by HSPs who step into their empowerment and take those first steps toward starting a business of their dreams. I love supporting them in their dreams and helping them reach financial freedom. I know that when they have what they need and feel good in their business it translates toward them thriving and sharing their gifts with the world.

I asked a group of HSPs in my course, How to Grow a Heart-Centered Online Business, the question, What made you take this first step toward setting up or growing your business? By writing their intention they can set up a path of commitment toward growth. Here were some of their responses.

• Realizing that as a highly sensitive person I need a career that will allow me to have financial stability while honoring my needs as an HSP, and self-employment was the best fit

• Being so moved and empowered by all of Julie's work. Trusting and being grateful that she has designed business support customized to us HSPs. Wanting to belong to this community and grow confidence in my ability to succeed as well.

• I've felt stuck for a little while now, with typical business advice not resonating with me. I want to learn a way to become a successful entrepreneur by aligning with my own values and living authentically to achieve this. I am committed to doing what it takes while listening to my intuition and knowing when to follow it.

• I have wanted a heart-centered business for many years. A lack of clarity and self-belief impeded me throughout my life. I've listened to your podcasts, Julie and so benefited from your work for some time. It feels like synchronicity that you have developed this course just as I feel I'm becoming myself for the first time in my life really. Your course feels like a good match for my needs.

• Finding a business course tailored to HSPs. Heart-centred rather than focusing on profit.

• I have suffered ongoing burnout as an empathetic solo practitioner and then the pandemic hit. I want to offer support for stressed HSP children and adolescents but not in the previous practice style. I need time to nurture myself on an ongoing basis.

• Creating a business that aligns with my values and is an outlet for my creativity while allowing me space for taking care of myself and making an impact on others.

• I’m ready to put myself out in the world and share what I’ve learned the hard way so that someone else’s journey might be shorter, easier. I want to help other HSP+empaths harness their sensitivity into their most spectacular strength. They know best—they just don’t know it yet! Understanding how to use your sensitivity as a guide to help you through the sticky spots in life totally changes everything.

• I have wanted to create a business for years but haven't known how and far too scared to take any steps. I just learned about the term "HSP" 3 weeks ago and felt a sense of relief, that maybe I'm not crazy after all. When I found this course it seemed to be the next "right step" for hopefully learning more about me as a highly sensitive/empath and guide me to take actionable steps to help make my dream a reality.

• My intention: I like the idea of working from anywhere, having flexibility in time, and have been doing a hybrid of private practice and training/consulting and would like to expand my training/consulting as it's what gives me the most joy.

• I have been stuck with my business idea for some time and I intend to use this course as a way to move forward.

• I have known for a long time that it would be best to start something specific to my strengths and offerings, which I've grown to realize are valuable and rich. I don't want to work within the confines of another person's business, and I have two toddlers so I need the flexibility to work from home or weird times of the day if necessary. I've become completely emptied out after not working for 4 years in order to prioritize parenting and I've lost my spark. Finding Julie's course gives me the tools and motivation to walk through the things I don't know about starting a business. I know myself, but I need to know business!

• To share my flow and experience of mindfulness meditation with people to help them remember the love they are and to know they have access to calm and peace within them.

• I can no longer able to ignore my sensitivity. I have a dream that I can feel more energized and less overwhelmed. And I want to help more people than I can help in the one on one setting.

• I know I have more to give to the world. I love business, I've been taking business classes for 10 years...but NONE of them are geared towards Highly Sensitive People. I've felt ashamed for so long because I need more self-care and time to be able to rock my business, I am no longer ashamed of who I am. I need to know how to grow my business while working a full-time job at first-and how to keep my sanity in the process.

• I am taking this first step toward setting up my business because I feel that as a Highly Sensitive Introvert this is the best way for me to help others.

• the desire to do things my way and to create a job that suits me, combining the different "services" I would like to offer.

• To create community. TO BE ABLE TO SHOW UP AS MYSELF. To be excited every day to sit down and work. To feel passionate about something bigger than myself. To fall in love with what I do. I want to create a career that feels meaningful, creative, fun and free. I want the freedom and flexibility to make my own schedule so that I have more time to travel, do things I love, spend time with people I love, and slow down. To teach, learn and create.

• I have had so many business ideas over the years, but until I found out about the trait of HSP I couldn't understand why I was never able to find the momentum to commit to any of them. This time feels different. I want to be my own boss, have freedom from other people's poor leadership style and lack of integrity, and to make more money so I can buy a house.

• I don’t want to just dream of what I’d like to do, but get help to do it.

• I have been on a journey to establish a heart-centered, purposeful business. In my search and self-discovery, I learned I am an HSP.

• I notice that I am not able to get done as much as others so I wanted to learn ways that would be able to guide me on how to grow my business as an HSP.

• I have NEVER thought about approaching my business in a way that works for an HSP. Didn't even think that would be different than doing it the "typical" way.

• I need a healthy work/life balance, autonomy, freedom, and to live in alignment with cyclic and HSP nature so that I can be my best self and the best mother and wife to my children and husband.

• I have never had a business or thought of myself as a business person. I would like to make a living in the arts and have recently begun exploring this possibility.

Do you relate to any of these? If so, I would love to invite you to my new HSPs in Business Group! I’m there every day supporting and guiding. For a limited time, it’s free to join for members of my Sensitive Empowerment Community! Are you a member yet? Come join this amazing space that will transform your life.

Learn more about my Sensitive Empowerment Community

Learn more about my course for HSPs, How to Grow a Heart-Centered Online Business

Course participants get 8-weeks free in my Sensitive Empowerment Community, which is a great place to get extra support. I’m there every day! Special discounts to BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and those on the frontlines.

My mission is to empower you to believe in yourself, be the change the world needs, reach financial freedom so you always have balance, and share your many superpower gifts with the world! ❤️

Julie Bjelland is the Founder of Sensitive Empowerment and a Psychotherapist specializing in high sensitivity. Passionate about helping HSPs grow businesses that they love, that help people, and provide financial freedom, she created the course, How to Grow a Heart-Centered Online Business, that shares the resources that she used to build her business from the ground up.  Her HSPs in Business Group within her Sensitive Empowerment Community is dedicated to empowering and supporting HSPs in business. Learn more about Julie at JulieBjelland.com ❤️🌈❤️ (she/her)