An Inside Look At My Trauma-Informed Business
In this episode, Katie invites you to look at how she has spent the last 7 years building a trauma-informed business. She shares the back story behind how her business did not start off trauma-informed and what she did to transform it into a fully functioning social impact venture. Katie discusses the 5 key trauma-informed practices she uses and infuses them into everything she does to run her trauma-informed business.
If you like behind-the-scenes looks that humanize both the business and the person behind the business, then this is a must-listen!
Resources Mentioned In This Episode:
Annie Gichuru -Racial Equity Coach (I’m a proud affiliate for Annie’s program, Represented, learn more here)
Show Transcript:
Hi everyone. And welcome back to a trauma-informed future podcast. I'm your host, Katie Kurtz. And today I thought I would give you an inside. Look at my trauma-informed business, a little behind the scenes. If you will. I've been in business for seven years. I'm actually coming up on closing my seventh year and entering my eighth year of business. And there are so many. Lessons I've learned things. I failed at things I can celebrate. People who I have. Been supported by, throughout my journey to be where I'm at today. And I don't know about you, but I really love, I'm such a sucker for those behind the scenes podcast episodes. I love hearing about the behind-the-scenes reality of people's businesses and programs and just who they are as humans.
We don't often see the. Realistic. Logistical unglamorous kind of behind the scenes stuff of people creating a program or service or owning their craft. And that's why I really love when people unveil and lift the curtain to share a little more about behind the scenes. And so I thought I would do the same today to give you a glimpse into my trauma informed business, how my business hasn't always been trauma-informed and what I did to shift it into a fully-fledged trauma informed business. I'm going to share five key trauma-informed practice I use. All the time and lay over everything I do in my business to make it trauma-informed.
There are so many moving parts to owning a business. So often we're just saying we have an idea or a product or a service, and then we're going to sell it and share it and serve people. However, there's a lot of stuff that goes into actually operationalizing and sustaining a business, especially if you're an online business owner like me, although I'm a bit hybrid because I work a lot online, but also I do a lot in person as well. So in this podcast, I wanted to really give you a little bit of a glimpse into what goes into making your business. Trauma-informed. Now I am not a business coach. At least I don't consider myself identify as a business coach. Some people do. And that's fine.
I specifically don't help businesses or consult on business practices or systems. What I do is I work with many entrepreneurs. Contractors freelancers. As well as small businesses and larger companies. Learn how to adopt a trauma-informed approach. Strengthened that approach and then apply it to their business, whatever that may be, whether it's their service delivery, their business systems, their marketing. All the things, because I believe that you can make anything trauma-informed and it's applicable and not just applicable, but enhances your experiences and outcomes as well as mutually benefits. Both the people you serve and the people providing that service. I consider myself a social impact, entrepreneur, a social impact business.
Now I didn't necessarily have that language when I started my business, but I eventually learned what that was what that means is that I. Create services. The purpose of my business is all centered on. Looking at and being conscious of. The social implications of trauma and stress and the power we each hold both individually and collectively. To reduce harm and promote safety, wherever we're at. And so there is an impact on our social being our local communities, our global collective when we adopt this approach.
So that is how and why I consider myself a social impact business. Everything I teach. In trainings and toolkits and on the podcast and in consulting and speaking is everything I also do. So everything. I really do is experiential. I'm leading this work out loud so I can be a mirror for others to not just see what trauma informed care looks like in everyday life. But also to feel and experience what it's like to be. Held and received in that kind of space. So I want to share with you five key trauma informed practices. I use to help me run and sustain a profitable trauma informed business.
Now, before I get into these five things, I want to tell you that this is not some, if you do these five things, you're going to have this wonderful, profitable, sustainable business. That's obviously not how I roll. If you're new here there's so much nuance and context to everything I share. I started my business seven years ago while working full-time I actually just started a really big position. And if you look at. The outside, looking in, it was a really big shift in my career and I was also. Extremely burnt out, even though my career was really successful, I was on a really positive trajectory to be.
Becoming a director and like a big time leadership roles within the nonprofit and human services field. I was not happy. I wasn't happy with the systems I was working and I was exhausted. I was burned out. I felt really stuck. Both literally. And. Philosophically, I have shared this in previous episodes. If you listen to the early episodes of this podcast, I share how I pay my own way through college and graduate school. So I had an insurmountable amount of student loans when I graduated and entered my career.
And I don't know if you know this, but social workers aren't in it for the big bucks. This isn't like a six-figure kind of career. And I was really grateful that I was a part of a student loan forgiveness program, which meant I had to work in a specific job. 40 hours. Full-time a week in order to qualify over 10 years for student loan forgiveness. So I was literally stuck because I didn't have a choice if I didn't have this option, I wouldn't be able to. Financially support myself and I also felt philosophically stuck because it just didn't feel right. I wasn't doing what I wanted to do. And during this time, I was also in my Saturn return. So if you are. Familiar with astrology. I'm not an expert just a person learning from it and observing it. But your Saturn return is essentially when Saturn returns to the same place, it was in your birth chart when you were born. So during that period of 29, 30, 31, we tend to go through some sort of shift.
And for me, it was a huge shift around what am I doing with my life, this existential crisis of, oh my gosh. I'm turning 30. What am I doing? Where am I going? What do I want to be? When I grow up, I am somebody. So when I started my business, I was still working full time and I worked a full-time job up until just last year of June of 2022. I think that this is important to say because I, in those initial years, never heard anyone talking about how. Other people working other jobs while running a business, it just felt was I the only one, maybe I'm unique. I don't know. People just weren't talking about it. And it felt really isolating. And it was one of the big reasons why I kept my two worlds. Very separate.
My social work life and my business were completely separate. For many reasons, but also because I was afraid of being judged or not being taken seriously as a business owner, but I also couldn't go full-time in my business for a lot of reasons. I wanted to share that little backstory because I always want to give context and a little humanity behind the scenes , because these are conversations. I really wanted to hear people talking about on podcasts in an Instagram. And I wasn't seeing it. And I'll be honest. I'm starting to see more people talk about this, but I wish we did talk about it more because I think the road to sustainability and, making enough money and in a reciprocity way of making sure you're sustaining yourself to show up, especially in a social impact role. Is real and it doesn't happen overnight. And it takes a lot of time to be where you know, where I am and where I want to be.
Okay. So what is a trauma informed business? First and foremost, it is a business that already exists. And you're applying a trauma informed care approach to that business. So it's not starting over or starting something new. It's augmenting it. It's enhancing it. It's applying this approach to overlay everything you do within your business. All the little things to make sure it's aligned within that approach. And here are so many different aspects of running a business. It's not just the service or the product or the thing you do there is that. So you have to create it. You have to package it. You have to do all the things you have to be skilled at delivering it. But then there's all the behind the scenes stuff. It's the payroll, the accounting, the constant content creation and the marketing, the sales, the pricing, the business operations and systems and legal and all the stuff that goes into behind the scenes. And if you are an entrepreneur or a solo preneur like me, We do it all. I wear all the hats. I'm doing all of those things.
And thankfully, over the years I have. Learned many lessons of who to trust with my business and who not to, and find some amazing people to help support me along the way, especially on things that are not my expertise. Especially as somebody who came from the social service, social work, nonprofit. World business was new to me and I have struggled. With my confidence in being a business owner because they didn't have that background. And to be honest, I. Fell for the traditional kind of bro or girl boss marketing that I, especially when I started my business thought was the norm. And. I remember very distinctively, especially like a visceral feeling in my body. Because I always say the issues are in our tissues. When I was taught and told and was looking around my industry.
Everything just felt very counter-intuitive to who I was. I was somebody who specialized in trauma informed care, and it was entering this new industry and business world. It didn't occur to me to apply trauma-informed care. To my business. I was applying it to my coaching services, to the programs I was leading the retreats, the events, everything, even some of my marketing, but I. Didn't think. It was possible. And I didn't have any guides to show me that it was possible to apply trauma-informed care practices to my business because I was still unsure. I was not confident.
And so I listened to all these, quote unquote experts, which were serving me up these old bro marketing, manipulative marketing. Turn Girlboss marketing tactics. And they worked until they didn't, but they always felt counterintuitive. They just didn't land. For me, and I was always looking for a more humane. Approach to doing business, not just the sales and marketing but all of it. So I could sustain it could honor my capacity, which still included a full-time job and caregiving and life. And also provided, building the capacity of my business and it wasn't till, a few years ago that I really started to. Shift. And flip the script and start to, started to try applying the trauma informed care practices to my business.
And since doing that, it grew. And that's why I'm here full time. Not saying that trauma-informed care is gonna make you a lot of money and you can go full-time in your business. But because I aligned my values, I applied this approach to everything I do. It's been more sustainable for me and therefore attracting aligned clients. And making them feel supported and held in the spaces I hold using this approach. Therefore growing my clientele, growing my business. And sustaining it. That is just a little bit of background that I'm not here to say this is the way, because I've never speaking in prescriptions or are binary like that. But. An invitation into looking at these five key practices. I use to run a trauma informed business.
So here is number one. I center the recognition of our human experiences, which include trauma, stress, and adversity in everything I do. What this means is I honor that the reality of our human experience, every single human, including me. Has. Experienced trauma, stress and adversity in our lives. And that impacts how we show up. In our humanity. And our humanity includes our needs, our desires, our businesses, our gifts, all of the things. So I maintain an active mindfulness practice around this recognition. As I develop my business systems, my strategies, my operations, my marketing My client engagement. Literally, everything I do is centered around this recognition. And by doing this, it's allowed me to become more attuned to myself and to others.
And it reminds me to be mindful of my pace because we live in these cultures and systems where unnecessary urgency always creeps in. And it gives me a greater sense of connection to my values and my purpose. This recognition and leading with this mindfulness practice, which this recognition of trauma and understanding it informs everything I do. That's what trauma informed care is. This is what connects me to that social impact or makes me a social impact entrepreneur. Because I am looking and honoring the humanity of everyone I work with, including myself and my services and products. Are directly there to support. And address this very human need and provide a, not a solution, but an opportunity and an invitation to healing and resilience. So that recognition is something that guides everything I do all the time and staying actively mindful of. Just the reality of our humanity.
The second thing I do is I prioritize my nervous system care. My nervous system directly impacts the nervous system of my business. If I am stressed out or I'm having a tough season of life. And I am dysregulated in my nervous system. My business is impacted by that because maybe my capacity is lower or I have a hard time concentrating, or I am. Being torn into other things I have to deal with. So I don't have as much time to dedicate to my business. They are both. Intersecting. And especially as an entrepreneur solopreneur, I am my business. I run it all. So my health, my nervous system directly impacts the health and nervous system of my business. What I do is I take extra care of my nervous system. I have a nervous system care plan in place. If you are curious about what that is or want to create your own, I have a toolkit that you can utilize. One of the trauma mindful toolkits is focused just on nervous system care plans. And I practice personal attunement.
This is a core practice of the trauma informed space, holding and facilitation training. Cultivate that I teach. And the framework of the trauma informed space, holding blueprint that I have. It means that I am a tuning to myself. Self-awareness my capacity and my humanity. So that I am coming from a place of responsiveness rather than reaction. I am looking at the ebbs and flows of my capacity with every season of life. I'm. Honoring the realities and the other hats I wear. And because I hold so much space for other people. I'm also holding space for myself. And so this is so important because I am also a full-time caregiver for my parents, they're both elderly. They have a lot of health problems and my mom has Alzheimer's. And so I need to prioritize my nervous system care so that I am.
Creating flexibility and adaptability in my nervous system and the nervous system of my business. My business has to be flexible and adaptable. To honor my humanity so I can continue to show up sustainably in all areas of my life. So nervous system care. Top priority and what that looks like. Differs from every season. Not just like seasonal seasons, but seasons of life, the things I use to care for my nervous system looked dramatically different pre pandemic than they do now. Even. Between last year and this year, my nervous system care looks dramatically different. I have some core things I always use because I really attuned to myself and my needs. But for example, this year I started regular and consistent strength training with a trauma informed personal trainer. So twice a week, I go to a gym. And I work with this trainer and I wanted to do it for a lot of reasons and I was really skeptical, but it has, totally changed my nervous system care plan. I feel more regulated in my body and in my wellbeing. Through strength training. And I always used to think, oh, I put it last. I always like yoga, meditation, all these things, but really This strength training has been consistent and predictable and incredibly meditative and soothing for my nervous systems. So just an example of how, one of many things I do to care for myself.
The third thing I do is I integrate trauma-informed practices across all of my business systems and strategies. So the essence of trauma informed care is to use our understanding of trauma and its impact to inform how we show up and relate to others to resist harm and promote safety. And we do that by centering key principles, such as trust autonomy, agency inclusion and accountability. When we connect all of these practices, we're able to resist and reduce harm, and we're ensuring we are promoting safety. Now a reminder here is that when I talk about safety, I'm not just talking about external conditions, but rather how our external conditions can impact our felt sense of safety, which includes our physical safety, psychological safety, social safety, moral safety, and cultural safety. And this is adapted from Sandra bloom sanctuary model. Which I'll link in the show notes. I do several things to integrate these core trauma informed practices into my business. But here are the main ones I do. And so let's look at it through these five types of safety and I'll share just a few examples of the ways I promote these kinds of safety through my business practices.
So physical safety, I set up my spaces. To ensure people can feel a physical sense of safety, both virtually or in person. This means I'm looking at the environment and the atmosphere in my spaces. I'm reducing potential triggers as much as possible and ensuring they're welcoming, neutral, and inclusive for people. To access a sense of regulation or co-regulation of possible.
An example of me promoting psychological safety is I apply a consent filter across every thing I do now. I teach consent filters in cultivate, the trauma-informed facilitation and space holding training. I lead, and I also have a trauma mindful toolkit all on consensual communications, which provides you a step-by-step guide on creating a consent filter. I use my consent filter. Because I know autonomy, which is control and agency, which is choice, are core elements of people being able to access a sense of safety. Therefore, I apply this filter to everything I do from content creation to the images I use the fonts, the colors, the language, the delivery. The communications, the pace. Everything. So emails, social media, all of it.
For social safety, I integrate space agreements, which is one of my most favorite trauma informed care practices. Space agreements create clear expectations for me, for others, for the F the space we're sharing. This is a practice I teach and cultivate. It's one of my most favorite practices. And if you'd like to see an example of space agreements, Head over to my website under my about tab. There are space agreements. You can look at an example of what this looks like. I love space agreements. I integrate it into my website, my social media, my trainings. I integrated into everything. I create my emails as well as contracts. All of it.
An example of me promoting moral safety is I am transparent with my values and ensure that I'm holding myself accountable to stay aligned with my values and integrity. So this looks like I'm making sure I'm creating open pathways for feedback, taking accountability for my mistakes, because I definitely make them. Also really reducing possible pathways of harm. I have a harm repair plan in place. So I feel equipped that I'm staying up to date and making sure if harm does occur, I have a plan for what to do. I'm staying up to date with training and continuing education, which includes ethics. And I'm also receiving peer support and feedback and mentorship. I'm promoting cultural safety by sharing pronouns and land acknowledgements, creating a lot of financial accessibility options, payment plans, scholarships. Early bird discounts, things like that allow people to really honor financial accessibility. I create a lot of accommodations for learning accessibility. Especially honoring neurodiversity and different learning styles. So in my trainings, there's a lot of options. And I have an evolving anti-oppression pledge, which I update regularly. And that's also on my website that you can check out if you just want an example of that.
Okay. So the fourth thing I do. Is I regularly ensure I'm creating alignment and congruence between my intentions and my impact. Meaning as a social impact business. This is a business, of course, I'm here to create pathways of revenue to financially support myself in sustaining and continuing to show up and to do this work. But I'm also leading a business that prioritizes services offerings. And products that are consciously and sustainably attempting to promote a trauma informed future, which is a greater social need. So I make sure that I have a really clear scope of practice statement. Again, you can see this on my website. I also have a trauma mindful toolkit. All about knowing your scope of practice, which is your professional boundaries. I create strategic planning to really advance my purpose. I am not centering myself in this work, but rather. In the process of this work, I know I alone cannot create this impact. So I'm here in the long game and I work really closely with, within other communities and social impact entrepreneurs and peers who are also in this work. So I can regenerate my capacity and be collaborative. And co-create this future with others.
I'm so grateful to be a part of some incredible networks, including the integrate network, the breathe network. I've worked with the campaign for trauma informed policy and practice, ongoing communication ongoing education, et cetera. The fifth thing I do is I have supportive systems in place so that I can do all of this with more flexibility. Like I mentioned, I am a full-time caregiver to my parents, my mom having Alzheimer's. So there's extra things I have to do. I am also a partner. I'm getting married this November. I have two puppies. I have a life, there's a lot going on.
I have learned through many failed attempts and life lessons, how to build out my business. Throughout the years I have found. Some really reliable and supportive resources that helped me run a trauma informed business. And some of the most important ones have been actual systems such as online software and tools like different things I use to help me sustain a supportive online business. Like my email system, my. Training portals, all those different things, but also being a part of different programs and working with different other contractors and service providers and communities so that I can grow and be held and build out my trauma informed business.
So for example, I did my coach training with Julie Parker and the beautiful you coaching academy, which I adore. Although I, as a social worker could have easily just started a coaching business, but I wanted to honor my values and integrity and really gain a. Really amazing coach training and that community has been life-giving. Some of my best friends are from the beautiful you coaching academy. It's such a beautiful international community built on trauma informed principles and racial equity. And I just am so grateful. I. I made that choice and I'm still a part of that community because I continue to receive supervision from Julie and peer support from people I trained with. I am so grateful for my online business manager. An assistant Jennie Kern, who is also helps me produce and edit this podcast. Jenny actually completed cultivate my very first cohort a few years ago and has been with me since supporting the behind the scenes of this business. So big shout out to Jenny. She's incredible. I really learned so much. More recently for Madison Morrigan and her servant up program. Madison provides so much generous information and feedback. I'm building a really heart aligned business and I'm grateful now that I get to be a guest. Teacher in her Serve It Up program. I received racial equity coaching from Annie Gichuru who will be on episode 10 of this podcast soon I received pricing support from Jody McLaren, a somatic abolitionism, and just ongoing. Dismantling of my own. Roll with an oppressive systems with Resmaa Menakem I really believe in mentorship and worked with Sas Petherick. I receive a lot of peer feedback and mentorship within the integrate network legal support which has been a journey with Katherine de vos Divine of implement legal and then copy and brand messaging with Natalie Topalian who was on episode eight. Just an example of some of the people and programs I've worked with just to help support and amplify my trauma informed business.
Now. There are also a lot of unnamed, an unoften unacknowledged behind the scene support that goes on in my business. And so I really want to give some gratitude and highlight my partner. My partner, Chris has been an incredible source of support for me. Throughout my business. He will edit stuff for me and review things for me and help me brainstorm and just is a constant. Celebrator and reminds me to celebrate myself along my journey. My aunt Jerry, who is like my second mom has been my accounting guide throughout this entire journey. And my friends have been sounding boards, my hype people. They remind me to celebrate myself and have been through all the ups and downs, ebbs and flows. There is so much to share, but I really wanted to give you a sense of what it's like behind the scenes. And I am sure I'll do more like this in the future. If it's something that you find supportive. I would love to hear from you if you like these kinds of episodes, if you find it helpful to get really tangible examples. Of what it means to run a trauma-informed business, to be a trauma informed leader, facilitator, trauma, inform anything. Please let me know, send me an email DME on Instagram or LinkedIn, I would be more than happy to focus more episodes in the future. On things like this, because I really want to help humanize. All of this work, I want to show and help you understand so we can help others understand that trauma-informed care is not complicated. It's not meant to change or shift anything we're doing. It's meant to amplify and enhance and really become more supportive of what we're already doing. And I really like to share. More of my humanity in this work and especially around humanizing business. Because we're human first helper second, and it can be so easy. I know for me, as a recovering perfectionist, my Virgo gets way up there. As somebody with a neurospicy brain, I get distracted as somebody who also tends to fawn so over-give over-deliver, . It can be really easy to forget my humanity as I run this business. And so that's why I'm so grateful for. Finding spaces to be held in, to regenerate my capacity, to learn, to get feedback, to do better. Let's recap, the five things I focused on today. On how I create and lead a trauma-informed business.
Number one. I center the recognition of our shared human experiences, which include trauma, stress, and adversity in everything I do.
Number two, I prioritize my nervous system care.
Number three, I integrate key trauma-informed practices across all of my business systems and strategies.
Number four. I regularly ensure I'm creating alignment and congruence between my intentions and impact.
And number five, I have supportive systems in place so that I can do all of this with more flexibility and adaptability.
So much of what I share today is also what I teach and cultivate. My trauma informed space, holding and facilitation training. And so just a gentle reminder, if you also want to adopt a trauma informed approach and apply it, not just to your facilitation spaces or services, but also to your business. Early bird enrollment is now open for our September cohort. I've also crafted four easy to use trauma mindful tool kits. That really hone in on four core practices. That I've shared here today. So creating a nervous system care plan, creating a scope of practice statement, consensual communications, which includes that consent filter and harm repair plan. So if you need or desire to really increase your ability to lead a trauma and for businesses, those toolkits are available as well as trainings.
So that is it for today. A little sneak peek behind the scenes, behind the curtain of my trauma informed business. And I just want to also lastly, acknowledge that None of this is perfect. I am always evolving. Trauma-informed care is not an arrival. It's an evolution. And there has been so much choice and a lot of privilege behind my ability to. Own and lead and sustain this trauma informed business. I just want to acknowledge that. And it's going to grow and evolve as I grow and evolve. And I'm excited to share that journey with you. If that feels supportive along the way. If you have any questions or there's anything you'd like me to talk about, please be sure to email me@helloatkatie-kurtz.com or over on LinkedIn or Instagram. I would love to connect with you. But that is it for today's episode. And until we talk again, take good care.
