One of my key values is community: I love connecting with other small business owners and get inspired by how they run their businesses and live their lives. In this interview series I’m asking lovely small business owners to share how they run a slow, gentle and profitable business.
In this post, Lise Lønsmann shares her journey to a slow, gentle and profitable small business. I love her focus on checking in with her body frequently and running her business from a place of inner knowing and feeling. Enjoy!
Lise Lønsmann is an embodied entrepreneurship mentor and a trauma-informed somatic practitioner. She believes in the power of co-creation and community.
Lise teaches embodiment practices and strategies to heart-led women entrepreneurs and creatives who want to lean into navigating business from embodied wisdom and knowing, so they can better honour their needs and capacity and root into who they truly are.
The foundation of her embodiment work is gentleness and reconnecting with the body and the inner world. Through gentle embodiment practices she guides her clients to start a gentle conversation with their body and tap into the wisdom and the answers it is holding.
Lise lives in Aarhus, Denmark, and works with people from all over the world in her online programs and 1:1 sessions.
Find out more about Lise through her website and Instagram. If you’re eager to learn more, sign up for her newsletter or join one of her free monthly Community Calls around Embodied Entrepreneurship for women. Starting November 1st 2023, Lise will also be running a 6-month mentorship program for heart-led women entrepreneurs and creatives who want to run their business from embodied wisdom and knowing.
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What does living a slow and gentle life, and having a slow, gentle and profitable business look like to you? What does a day look like for you?
Having a slow and gentle business for me means creating space for connection and self-connection. For me that looks like going for walks to resource and ground myself during the day and also to process decisions and next steps in an embodied way; to move with and feel into those steps from my body, not just from my mind.
I also make sure to schedule meetings and networking throughout my week because I really enjoy connecting with others and it feels supportive to the way I run and grow my business.
I prioritize the things that feel most aligned and create most flow for me, for example talking rather than writing.
And I prioritize the things that feel most aligned and create most flow for me. For example, I prefer to talk rather than to write. So I integrate voice notes, audios, videos and Zoom calls where I can and try to limit written communication. That feels most supportive for me, gentler to my nervous system.
As a somatic practitioner it is also important to me that I practice what I teach others, so I create space for somatic practices in my workweek, including around embodied business strategy and decision-making. Sometimes it looks like somatic inquiry (exploring a topic or a question by tapping into what my body is holding around it, such as resistance, fear, joy, clarity, alignment and felt knowing). Other times it looks like doing a guided meditation (to ground and resource) or a ritual (to honour or process something in my business journey, like a celebration or a disappointment).
I believe in doing things imperfectly.
In general I do my best to check in with myself often around my needs and my capacity and then I adjust my plans where I need to. And I believe in doing things imperfectly, so that is a practice I take quite seriously (and I say that as a recovering perfectionist). Again, it feels gentler to my nervous system.
Working in an embodied way where I always listen to the sensations, energies and emotions that my body is holding works really well for me and feels fulfilling and aligned with my values.
What inspired you to live this way? Which choices and changes did you make, or have to make?
I felt a call to slow down. To lean into gentleness and honour the parts of me that want to do business in a way that *feels* good for me.
I used to push through a lot of tasks and plans, and it was just not sustainable for me, energetically and health-wise. So making that shift has been really important to me. Working more intuitively and listening to my needs and capacity and doing my best to work in ways that are self-supportive.
I felt a call to slow down. To lean into gentleness and honour the parts of me that want to do business in a way that feels good for me.
I used to teach movement and embodiment in person, but as an introvert and highly sensitive person that always had a big cost, energy-wise. It took me years to make the changes that I needed, but I am so glad that I did.
Now I have moved my business online, 100%, and changed my focus to international clients. That change in business model was big for me and also suits me really well. Working online with clients gives me more space to integrate embodiment practices into my working days: going for a walk between client sessions, doing gentle movement to ground before meetings and teaching calls, having more space to rest because I don’t have any commute.
I like having a slow start to my day, so I make sure that client sessions, teaching calls and writing content happen later in the day, so I have space to ground and resource myself earlier in the day.
Slowing down has become one of my favourite practices. The way it cultivates presence feels deeply meaningful to me.
What three tips would you suggest for readers who also want to create a slow, gentle and profitable business?
1. Get clear on your values and your priorities and build your business around them. Lean into doing business in a different way. Choose a business model that supports you and gives you space to breathe, whatever that means for you.
Choose a business model that supports you and gives you space to breathe, whatever that means for you.
2. Check in with your body during your day, your week, your month, your year. Practice listening to your emotions, your capacity, your energy, your intuition. Make sure there is space in your business for you to adjust your plans, so that you can act on what your body is telling you. Including when it means making a big and/or unexpected change.
3. Be intentional in your networking. Ask for what you need. Prioritize real, human connection in your interactions with clients and collaborators. Tend to those relationships. Business is relational.
Thank you Lise, for sharing this peek into how you are running a slow, gentle and profitable business. I find the intentionality that you bring to slow, gentle and profitable business so inspiring, especially your emphasis on building a business around what feels good to you in your body and yourself.
Find out more about Lise and her embodiment work on Instagram and on her website where you can also sign up for her Slow Mailing List and join her free monthly Community Calls around Embodied Entrepreneurship for women.
If you’d like to answer these questions on slow, gentle and profitable business, do get in touch with me. More interviews on how to run a slow, gentle and profitable small business are coming soon! Sign up for my newsletter below so you never miss one.
And, if you want to create that slow, gentle and profitable business that truly nourishes you, discover how we can work together here.
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