What Hiring a Business Mentor Taught Me About Growth, Alignment, and Trusting My Path
When I started Akamai Healing, I knew I had a calling. I knew I wanted to support people through Reiki, breathwork, sound, and other healing modalities. I knew I wanted to create spaces where people could soften, reconnect, and remember themselves. What I didn’t know was how to turn that calling into a sustainable, organized, and aligned business. Like many holistic practitioners, I had passion, training, and heart, but not a clear roadmap.
That’s what led me to start looking for a business coach and mentor, someone who had walked this path before and could help a newbie navigate the waters. Lindsay Hess of WanderLotus Yoga and Wellness was someone I’d been following on social media; what she was doing with her business looked a lot like what I wanted to do with mine. So when I saw that she actually offered a mentorship program, called Rise, I sent her a message and asked her to lunch.
After a couple of conversations, I hired her as my business coach and mentor. I didn’t know exactly what I needed at the time, but I knew I needed someone who understood the wellness world, someone who could hold me accountable, and someone who could help me build a business that felt like me. What I didn’t expect was how deeply transformative the experience would be – not just for Akamai Healing, but for my confidence, my clarity, and my sense of purpose.
For nearly a year, Lindsay and I met every two weeks. These weren’t surface‑level check‑ins. They were deep dives into my offerings, my fears, my strengths, my blind spots, and the vision I held for my work. She helped me get organized, get honest, and get intentional. And the results speak for themselves: Akamai Healing experienced a tenfold expansion that still feels surreal to write.
But the numbers are only part of the story.
Clarifying My Pillars and Finding My People
One of the first things Lindsay helped me do was narrow down my offerings. Like many new practitioners, I thought success meant offering everything to everyone. And even though the list of things I was interested in learning and offering was long (and still is!), Lindsay gently but firmly guided me toward identifying the true pillars of my work – the modalities that light me up, the ones that feel most aligned, the ones that create the deepest transformation for my clients; she taught me that less is more in building a sustainable business model.
She also helped me get clear on who I actually want to work with. Not the vague “anyone who needs healing,” but the real humans who resonate with my energy, my approach, and my story. This clarity changed everything. It shaped my messaging, my pricing, my offerings, and even the way I show up online.
Building Confidence as a Teacher and Practitioner
Throughout the year, Lindsay walked alongside me as I completed my 200‑hour yoga teacher training and stepped into teaching at two local studios. She supported me as I built my first full iteration of teaching Reiki attunements at all levels.
One of the biggest breakthroughs of the year was developing my signature offering, Re+Center: Restorative Practices for Deep Healing. This was the first time I created something that wove together my modalities – Reiki, breathwork, sound, restorative practices, and intuitive guidance – into one cohesive experience. I launched Re+Center and ran it twice in 2025. Both events filled beautifully, and the feedback was powerful. Re+Center is now a cornerstone of Akamai Healing, something I’m deeply proud of and excited to continue growing.
Through Rise, I achieved so many milestones, including:
· Streamlining my website
· Increasing the consistency of private Reiki sessions
· Expanding breathwork offerings
· Participating in three community markets
· Adding instruments and offering more sound healing
· Stepping into corporate wellness events
· Creating a monthly newsletter
· Expanding my social media presence
Each accomplishment felt like a step toward becoming the practitioner and business owner I always hoped I could be.
The Magic of Mentorship
What made working with Lindsay’s Rise program so impactful wasn’t just her business knowledge. It was how she held space for me.
She has this rare ability to be both incredibly soft and deeply grounded. She encourages without pushing. She dreams big without losing sight of what’s real. She sees potential without letting you bypass the work. And she never once let me sell myself short.
Over and over, she reminded me to stay focused on what lights me up. She helped me refine what I already do well instead of falling into the trap of thinking I needed to constantly add more. She taught me that the right people will find me when I’m aligned, authentic, and consistent—not when I’m hustling or overextending myself.
One of the biggest lessons she gave me was this: Being my authentic self is the most powerful marketing I will ever have.
Not just posting when I want to promote something. Not just showing up when I have something to sell. But letting people see me – my process, my heart, my values, my journey.
Through her belief in me and in Akamai Healing, I learned to believe in myself. The growth of my business is a direct reflection of that shift.
Moving Into a New Phase
After nearly a year of bi‑weekly calls, Lindsay and I are transitioning into a new phase of our work together: quarterly meetings with monthly check‑ins, Rise 2.0 if you will. It feels like the perfect evolution – still supported, still guided, but with more spaciousness as I step into my own leadership.
I’m not the same practitioner I was a year ago. I’m more confident, more grounded, more aligned, and more trusting of my path. And Akamai Healing is not the same business it was a year ago either. It’s thriving, expanding, and becoming more fully itself.
Hiring a business mentor was one of the best decisions I’ve made, and not because it made my business grow (though it did), but because it helped me grow. And that, ultimately, is what makes everything else possible.
Working with Lindsay: If you are interested in business coaching, Lindsay is accepting a very limited number of client this year for her Rise Business Mentorship program. Find her at https://www.wanderlotusyogaandwellness.com/rise-business-mentorship.