Wendy Dumaresq has spent the past thirty years working as a natural health practitioner. Studying medicine was the last thing on her mind after graduating university with a business degree, but at age 29 she was faced with a near death experience that shifted her career path. After being told conventional medicine could no longer help her cause, she took matters into her own hands on healing herself through natural medicine which later led to the birth of Natural Woman Network.
Wendy’s current focus is providing health-focused programs for businesswomen. Her inspiration comes from her years of consulting with women who crumble under the attempt to juggle the many demands of life. Her experience as a three-time business owner combined with her background in the health and wellness field naturally led to her creation of a strategic plan, Health Mastery, to help businesswomen develop a method to support their health.
On running her own business, Wendy shared:
“I enjoy having the freedom to do what I love to do and when I want to do it. I also love that I can now bring these Health Mastery programs to more women globally through advances in technology. Starting the Natural Woman Network online learning platform has been possible due to these technological advances, a long held dream. Running my own business is also family friendly. I love that running my own businesses for 30 years meant that I could make my hours flexible enough so that I could do my best as a parent and in primary and other family relationships. Online business now means I can also work from anywhere I want as long as there is good Internet connection. This makes me feel freer and more creative.”
Wendy’s Advice to Those Thinking About Starting a Business
- Make your health top priority. Without that it is so difficult to function at your best at work, with your family and in your life. Without your health you most likely won’t have a business or profession.
- Get a mentor early. The best money I ever spent over thirty years was having mentors regularly. This is especially important as I mentor so many people myself and like to get that to keep my juices flowing.
- Enjoy what you are bringing to the world. Without joy, life is rather grey. Joy is also infectious and tends to infect those around you.
- Influence is important; be careful who you spend your time with. If we roost with turkeys we start to talk like them.
3 Pieces of Advice Wendy Wishes She’d Been Given When She Started
1. Develop documented systems so that anyone can step in and take over the role you wish them to. Take nothing for granted and imagine the person reading it knows nothing. I didn’t know how important that was at the start. It’s much easier to do if you do it from the first day.
2. Use time wisely. As a business owner, mother, lover, and all of those other roles, it’s easy to feel like there is never enough time to get everything done. It’s easy to stress about this, but I found it very useful to take the approach that as an entrepreneur there are always way too many things that need to be done and to just aim for the most productive thing each day. This approach helped me to cut myself some slack and make sure I had some “me” time each day, such as exercise, singing, meditation, and other things.
3. Stay focused. Too many good ideas can seduce us away from our primary business. This still happens to me even though I have to be very strict with myself. The thing is, most people who are entrepreneurs are also very creative. I now channel a lot of that into my writing and singing which satisfies the artist in me but still relish that I am creative in my business as well.
We asked Wendy what problem being a HerBusiness member solved for her.
I love the networking, positive yet constructive feedback, and the support. It has given me the discipline to stay on track and be held accountable with my vision and mission. Being part of a community filled with inspired and action-oriented business owners has given me the support I need. The networking opportunities have allowed me to expand my business and add value wherever possible.
This post was authored by Allison Mullin. Allison is completing a journalism internship at HerBusiness. She studies editing, writing, and media at Florida State University in the United States.
