Running Your Business as Introvert or Extrovert
It always amazes me how many health coaches say they are introverts, but I know there are also plenty of extroverted wellness business owners. Whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert, you can build a successful health coaching business. The good news is that there are many ways to run and grow your business and you can use your strengths, preferences and personality traits to do just that.
It’s important to determine where your tendencies lie, what you’re good at, and work from there. Focus your time and attention on the things that you’re good at and that bring you joy. If you’re an introvert you’ll need blocks of time for solitude and recharging so be sure to build those into your schedule. Knowing the types of situations and environments that fuel your energy or drain it, can be incredibly helpful to be aware of, so you can spend more of your time and focus on the things that make you feel your best.
If you’re an introvert, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t push yourself to have extroverted moments to further your business growth. Things like doing live video, hosting a wellness workshop, or leading a wellness challenge are necessary components to owning your own coaching business. Just because something takes you outside of homeostasis it’s okay, it’s important that you forgo your comfort zone temporarily to promote your business. The key is having built in recovery time immediately following one of those events to recharge.
On the other hand, if you’re an extrovert you may spend the majority of your time looking for group interactions to soak in all the energy that you can. Your tendency may be to avoid moments of solitude and quiet because you need the high-vibe environment of lots of people to feel satisfied. The challenge with this scenario is that you are often putting off the projects and tasks that need to be completed to make your business a success.
In this scenario it is extremely important to block off time in your calendar to do the work. You can train yourself over time to systematically get things done but more than likely for you it’ll take many small blocks of time with group or family interaction in between to get your energy rebooted.
Based on our experience after working with thousands of health coaches we’ve observed that…
- Introverts are often more comfortable teaching group coaching programs rather than taking on one-on-one clients.
- Extroverts tend to thrive either in a one-on-one coaching or group coaching. They enjoy both.
- Introverts prefer to hide behind their computer and be continuously checking tasks off their list as a way to avoid showing up in a leadership way in a video, challenge, or workshop.
- Extroverts love the spotlight and lean into live video, running a challenge, or hosting a workshop but find it difficult to complete all the tasks necessary to bring these to life because they are distracted by social engagement.
- Introverts and extroverts alike are excellent coaches in their own way and tend to attract the clients that either need the calming nature of an introverted coach or high-energy support from an extroverted coach.
The key takeaway here is that you can be successful no matter what your personality type. Acknowledging and understanding your tendencies is the most important step to building the time blocks into your calendar that suit you best for productivity and rejuvenation. Be intentional with your time and challenge yourself to do the things that take you outside of your comfort zone.
Upon deeper reflection you may find that you are somewhere in the middle. You aren’t 100% introverted or extroverted and that’s a great place to be. You can focus on the strengths of each personality type and design your business perfectly for you.
If you’re an introvert and want to learn more, back on episode 61, we covered: Building a Thriving Wellness Business When You’re an Introvert. In that episode, we did a deep dive into being an introverted business owner (because Karen Pattock and I are both introverts). We also include a link in that episode to an online quiz that will help you figure out which type of personality type you are as well as a list of 8 ideas for how to run your biz as an introvert when you’re starting out.
Tune in to find out how to use your strengths to your advantage and where you may want to stretch out of your comfort zone a bit as a business owner.
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