Building Wellness Business - from Mega-Business to Ayahuasca to Wellness

“Building Wellness Business:

from Mega-Business to Ayahuasca to Wellness”

Robert Grossman Riley Holland “The Wellness Business Systematologist” “Head Coach (Neuromuscular Release)” Wellness Prosperity Systems, Inc. Hermiades Body Works

Table of Contents“The Only Person on the Planet Who’s Been on this Journey...” 2

Mega-Business: the Power, the Money and the Corruption 4

Breaking Free from the Golden Handcuffs 8

The Ayahuasca Ceremony: a 100,000 Year-Old Healing Tradition 10

The Little Choices We Make Every Day (a.k.a. How to Fill Life With Meaning) 12

How to Build a Truly Holistic Business 14

Building Wellness Business Growth Engines 16

Time for David to Outshine Goliath 18

To listen to the original audio interview, CLICK HERE

To request a FREE Wellness Business Tune-Up with Robert, CLICK HERE

Copyright © 2013. Wellness Prosperity Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

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http://wellnessprosperitysystems.com/building-wellness-business/

http://WellnessBusinessTuneUp.com

“The Only Person on the Planet Who’s Been on this Journey...”Riley: Hey folks, Riley Holland here, with Hermiades Body Works, and I’m here today

with Robert Grossman, the Wellness Business Systematologist andfounder of Wellness Prosperity Systems. How’re you doing today, Robert?

Robert: I’m fine, Riley. It’s a pleasure to speak with you today.

Riley: Great, good to have you.

So, Robert helps healers and people in the wellness field with buildingsystems around business and marketing. And, as one of his elite coachingclients, I can say without a doubt that I’ve learned pretty much everything Iknow of value about business and marketing from Robert.

Like I think is often the case with people whose passion is based on something likewellness, I had a huge blind spot when it came to the business side of things. Eventhe word “marketing” made me think of a kind of super-bowl commercialspectacle. I just kind of shied away from it.

But of course when it came time to build my own business around my passion, Ihad to realize that people weren’t just going to come knocking downmy door. And I was going to have to figure this stuff out.

So I searched around a lot. And I ended up in a lot of dead ends. You know, thereare a lot of people out there who want to give you business and marketing advice,especially online. But so many of them are so general. You finally realize they’regiving you the same advice they’d be giving someone who’s selling pet rocks.

Once I started working with Robert, I realized right away that hedoesn’t just understand business - he understands wellness. And this isa result of his unique background. He’s got as wide-reaching experience asanyone out there, and I bet he’s the only person on the planet who’sbeen on this specific journey.

Robert spent years as a top management consultant for the number onemanagement consulting company in the world. And later becameDirector of Group Strategic Planning and Market Research for DeutscheTelekom, and then Director of Country Transformation for Emerging Marketsfor Cisco Systems, where he advised governments of 130 countries onhow to improve education, healthcare, economic development andnational security.




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Eventually Robert found himself suffering from a debilitating illness, and hewasn’t able to continue with this kind of high-stress work. So he went full-timeinto exploring wellness, basically out of necessity. But eventually out of apassion for stuff like yoga, vipassana meditation, nutritional therapies,medicinal herbs … and not as a tourist, I might add. Robert and I have talked alot about these things and he’s definitely gone deep into them.

Now, eventually this search culminated when Robert met an Ayahuascashaman from the Shuar tribe of Equador, and became his CeremonyCoordinator and apprentice. For two years, Robert worked with the shaman andreceived initiation into the ancient Medicine Ceremonies of the Shuartradition. And organized ceremonies in Europe, sharing that work with almost200 people.

Now he’s returning from the wilderness, so to speak, with Wellness ProsperitySystems. R eady to share this amazingly unique perspective and skillset with healers and wellness business people all over the world. AndI, for one, am very grateful for it.




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Mega-Business: the Power, the Money and the CorruptionRiley: So Robert, I want to talk about all of these pieces, as well as how they intertwine

and interweave and come together and what you’re doing now with WellnessProsperity Systems. But let’s start out at the beginning.

So you spent more than 20 years at a very high level in the world of big businessand big government. What are the biggest lessons that you learned during thattime?

Robert: Two decades is enough time for a lot of lessons. So I want to focus on threedifferent areas of learning I went through. First of all, specific tools and methodsof business; I want to talk about the structure, the “big picture” of business; andfinally I want to talk about something I discovered: a dysfunction that’s rooted inthe structure of how we do business in our culture.

So let’s begin with tools and methods because that’s easiest. And to tell youabout that, I want to go back to the years I spent at McKinsey.

When I joined McKinsey, the firm was basically a legend in my mind. It was ateam of master problem-solvers. They get brought in to solve the toughestbusiness problems - the ones no one else can solve.

McKinsey teams get paid to deliver breakthroughs. It’s a team environment withan apprenticeship model for learning, so I got to learn from masterproblem-solvers. These are guys who constantly go into new businesses, andthey show the old-timers there how to do things differently, to get real results.

And I’m not really talking about specific technical tricks or very advancedstrategies. Honestly, the most powerful thing they taught me was how to use thesimplest first principles of logic and common sense. It’s all about going backto basics. Making complex things simple. Cutting through the politics,cutting through the compromises and all the other B.S. and getting back to theheart of the matter. Figuring out what is the actual purpose, and lining up all theactivity, all the processes and systems behind that purpose.

These are simple, simple methods, but I use them every day. I find these simplemethods deliver extraordinary results, and very few people ever go back to thesesimple basics.

Now, let me talk briefly about the structure and the “big picture” of business,because it leads right in to the dysfunction that I want to discuss.




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Most people spend their careers, or at least years at a time, working in specificfunctional areas. For example, a sales guy works in sales; a finance guy works infinance; and so on.

But that’s not how it works for a generalist business consultant. I worked inEVERY functional area. Sales, finance, accounting, marketing, legal,advertising, HR, purchasing, the CEO’s office … you name it, I spentat least a few months there.

And when you have the chance to touch every single part of a business like that,you begin to see it differently. You start to see how all the pieces fit together, likea puzzle. I guess I began to develop a holistic picture of business.

And that holistic perspective is what led me to begin to see the pattern ofdysfunction that’s built right in to the way we do business in the modern world.

You know, a lot of people feel the corporate world is somehow corrupt oruntrustworthy. I mean, it’s hard not to ask questions about what’s going on whenyou see golden parachutes for bankers, the pollution and destruction of theecosystem of the planet, the food industry creating addictively delicious snacksthat harm our bodies … there are so many examples of corporate greed,unbounded by any kind of ethics. No compassion. No common sense.

And you know, what I saw from the inside was, the organizations I wasworking for were incredibly powerful, but they constantly madedestructive choices. Destructive for the world, destructive for their clients,even destructive for themselves.

It can be a subtle thing. Sometimes it was obvious and sometimes you had to lookreally hard to see the destructive nature hidden behind seemingly rationalcorporate decisions. But the truth of the matter is, the power of the world isconcentrated in these organizations, and they are not using thatpower wisely.

So I began to ask: “why?” In fact I became completely fascinated with thisquestion. Whenever I worked with a new client, I’d ask. So I talked with seniorexecutives and CEOs of huge corporations, heads of government agencies. I’d askthem: “Why did you choose this course of action, when all your experts, and evenyour own common sense told you in advance the consequences would beterrible?”

Well, they all said the same thing. They felt they had no choice.




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The system they were part of - these mega-corporations andmega-governments - the systems themselves were constraining theirown leaders, forcing them to make choices they knew were wrong.These giant systems become more and more inward-looking overtime, and their leaders are not really permitted to exercise freedomof choice. The system itself - the corporation, the government - thesystem itself has its own will. And the way we’ve designed them, most ofthese systems are completely empty of compassion, morality, gratitude,appreciation of beauty, or any of the other qualities we associate withwisdom.

Riley: Wow, so it almost sounds like from having been brought in as a problem-solver,basically as someone where they’d just say, “Hey we’ve got a problem - anyproblem - let’s bring someone in to take a look at it, diagnose it, figure it out,” thatyou actually ended up detecting a problem that was so deep in the structure ofthese corporations that it couldn’t be rooted out.

Do you think that that’s true? Do you think that that kind of problem is justinherent in the corporate structure? Or do you think it’s something that couldeventually be rooted out and transformed?

Robert: That’s a great question. One thing I’ve noticed is that even mentioning theseissues in the big business world usually creates massive conflict andresistance. The people who are high up in these organizations normally do notwant to talk about these deep-rooted problems. They’re actually more interestedin managing day-to-day operations. They want to hit the targets that have beenset for them, and they want to collect their rewards.

So it seems unlikely that change is going to come from within. So the question is,can change come from without?

Well, in the world of business, change from without usually means competition.And I do think there’s a ray of hope in that area. The question is, can we create anew way of doing business? A way that’s wise, a way that comes from the heart?

It’s no good if we try to build heart-centric businesses that are unsuccessful, orunable to grow. We need to figure out how to create businesses that arecapable of making wise choices, and also being successful. And that isthe heart of my work today. I want to build businesses that are good.

Riley: Interesting. Well, I think that’s good news for anybody who’s willing to see thatkind of problem, but also who doesn’t want to throw out the baby with thebathwater, so to speak. I think that it’s common for people to get so cynical about




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business in general, just because of the way certain businesses and big businessesare run, that they leave these principles behind altogether.

Robert: I totally agree! For several years, I was one of those people. I was so disgustedwith what I saw in the business world, I wanted nothing to do with it. I threw thebaby out with the bathwater. Guilty as charged.

But after a few years, I realized my mistake. And it’s a huge mistake, becauseliterally the power of the world is in these businesses. So if you want to makechange on this planet, it’s almost essential that you have the abilityto somehow put what you do into the form of a business.




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Breaking Free from the Golden HandcuffsRiley: Yeah, so let’s take a look at that stage then. So after those 20 or so years, that

successful career, you chose to leave the business world - the power, the money -and go in a completely different direction. Now, you hear the phrase “goldenhandcuffs,” right … they keep people locked in once they’ve achieved a certainlevel of success in the mainstream.

So why really? What made you bail on the whole thing? What was the turningpoint?

Robert: Well, the turning point was, my body couldn’t handle it any more. For years, I hadbeen noticing that my attitude was getting worse, my mood was getting worse,my memory was getting worse. I was losing the pleasure in doing my work. But Inever realized the cause of this was a disease in my body. I was in pain but Icouldn’t feel the pain because I was so out of touch with my body.

Eventually my body just collapsed. I was hospitalized on-and-off for months. Iwent on medical disability leave. But doctors couldn’t really help me.

But eventually one doctor said to me, “look, you have to change your lifestyle ifyou want to heal.” So I started to try.

I think it really all started for me when I went to my first yoga class. It was thefirst time I ever encountered the concept of feeling the body. For the lastdecade, I’d been doing everything I could do not to feel the body, because it hurt!

But when I just slowed down a bit in a yoga class and tried to feel my body, I wasamazed at what happened. And that led to three or four years where eventuallynothing else interested me except for health and wellness. I constantly read aboutyoga, nutrition, herbalism, every kind of alternative medicine. Soon I started tounderstand that there’s a body/mind/spirit connection, and I started toread everything I could find about spirituality, theology, and all the practices thatcan help us open up our hearts and minds also.

And I wasn’t just reading. I was practicing, too. I tried all kinds of things. Differenthealing diets, bodywork, meditation, a lot more. Actually, everything I learnedabout, I put into practice to see if it could help me in my personalhealing process. And I kept the practices that helped. And I droppedthe ones that didn’t.

At that point, I was too deep in it. I knew I could never go back to the corporateworld. At that point, it felt completely empty to me. I knew that whatever I do




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is going to have to build on this passion that I was developing forhealing and health practices.

Riley: Now, that’s really fascinating to me, that it seems like your own personal processkind of mirrored what you were seeing in the corporate world, which is that fatesort of forced your hand, so that you had to tear the whole thing down - the kindof life you were leading, the kind of things you were involved with - and start fromscratch again, in the same way that you said that’s kind of the only way that bigbusiness could ever turn into something that’s not bound by its own structures.

You know, if you can’t do that in the larger institutional context, you were actuallyable to do that in your own life.

Robert: Exactly right. We can always tear our own life down and start fromscratch again. Not easy, but sometimes it’s just the right thing to do.




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The Ayahuasca Ceremony: a 100,000 Year-Old Healing TraditionRiley: Well, I think that’s really encouraging too, for a lot of people who feel

disempowered and kind of trapped in those kinds of situations, and faced with theah, well you can’t change, you can’t make a dent in these huge goliaths ofmomentum in the culture and the government, but you can take totalresponsibility for yourself, and apply all of that to yourself.

So let’s take a look at how, so this process for you kept going and it sort ofreached, it seems like it reached its peak when you met this shaman - the ShuarAyahuasca shaman. Tell me a little bit about that whole process. How did youmeet this person? How did you get involved? What was that like?

Robert: Well at that point I’d spent a few years reading - and practicing - everything Icould related to health and wellness. The more alternative it was, the moreinterested I was.

One of the most mysterious things I read about was Ayahuasca, the sacredMedicine of the shamans of the Amazon jungle. Ayahuasca is a kind of athick tea. It’s made from a mixture of several different Amazon plants. Theshamans of that region have been making this medicine and working with it formore than 100,000 years. They consider it sacred, and drinking it is a centralpart of their healing ceremonies. They call it “the vine of the soul.” They say itopens the door to the spirit world. They also believe it’s a very powerfulmedicine for physical healing of the body as well, like mending brokenbones more quickly or even recovering from flu.

I’d read about this, but I thought you had to travel down to the Amazon toexperience it. But early in 2008, a friend of mine invited me to come toAmsterdam. He told me there was a shaman from the Shuar tradition who hadbeen coming to Europe at that time for 12 years to hold Ayahuasca ceremonies.

So I went. It was a 3-day ceremony. For 3 nights we drank the medicine, and weparticipated in this ceremony. We’d drink Medicine, and we’d sit around thishuge, gorgeous fire. The shaman was there with his wife and his son and theyplayed wonderful music on these instruments that they made by hand fromplants, just a few hours before the ceremony. They sang songs from the Shuarshamanic tradition.

And while this was happening, I had this indescribable, amazing experience. Bythe end of the weekend, I felt like I had discovered something so precious and somuch of value, I just wanted to connect with that as much as possible. And that’s




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why I began to work with this shaman, organizing Ceremonies with him inEurope.

Over time I became kind of an apprentice, learning how to work with theMedicine and the Ceremony for healing myself and other people as well. Over thenext 2 years, I was involved in in dozens of ceremonies. And we shared theseceremonies with almost 200 people in Europe.




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The Little Choices We Make Every Day

(a.k.a. How to Fill Life With Meaning)Riley: So in pursuing this Ayahuasca work more and more, what kind of things did you

come across in yourself, in your idea of the world, in your ideas about businessand health? Was it a total shift, a total transformation?

Robert: It was quite gradual. Every ceremony was a chance to gain a little bitmore understanding, to release a little bit more pain. Not a hugelightning bolt - although there were some moments like that too. It was more likea series of baby steps, leading me along a path, somehow leadingtoward my self.

My first priority at that time was still healing the body. So I did a lot of work onthat.

But I feel this shamanic work went deeper than that. I don’t really know how toput what I learned into words, but if I wanted to try, I’d have to use a word like“integration” or “holistic.”

It’s about the little choices we make every day, and how we choose tofill our life with meaning … or fail to fill it with meaning. Everythingwe do affects everyone else around us, so we have responsibility. Forexample - to tie it back to what we were talking about earlier - I can choose towork in a job I hate, doing work that just feels wrong, trying to please my boss,chasing after the next paycheck. Or I can take a risk, and I can do something Ireally believe in. Whichever I choose, it affects a lot of people. Not just me and myfamily.

And you know, I had all this experience from 2 decades in the business world thatI had rejected because I thought it was dirty and I was disgusted by what I saw inthat world. But I came to understand that it’s my own responsibility to makesomething worthwhile out of my life experiences. I can say it’s dirty and throw itall away, but I can also choose fill that so-called “dirty” experience with meaningby doing something of value with it.

And you know, by the time I was ready to “come back” from the shamanic work,I felt like a man on a mission. I understood it was my job to clean up myown body and my own life. And I was completely focused on the ideaof taking every experience of my life, and using it to build somethingthat would allow me to share my value with the world.




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So even my experience with the dysfunction of mega-business … Iwanted to transform that into something that could help small, goodbusinesses to achieve super-function. I wanted to take basically allthe pain that I had experienced, and transform that into joy thatcould somehow be shared with other people.

And that’s the idea that has driven me ever since that time.

Riley: Well, that makes total sense, and you know, sometimes you see people will go sofar into the world of this sort of alternative healing and transformative practice,but then they’ll just stay there. They’ll kind of avoid life. It’s a refuge.

Did you find when you were on your way back, when you felt like you had gottenthat mission, that you were encountering understanding with the people you wereworking with, with the shamanism, or were they kind of resistant to that? Didthey want to kind of keep you in this other world?

Robert: Very little understanding, Riley. There aren’t many people in the shamanic worldwho understand or respect business. And there’s almost no one in the businessworld who has any idea what shamanic work is about.

Riley: So it was up to you, more or less, to kind of bridge those two worlds and see thevirtue and dangers in both.

Robert: Yes, and that’s what I meant before when I said I’d have to use a word like“holistic” or “integration” to describe what I learned.

Our culture is split down the middle. We have the world of businessand power, but that world is motivated by profit, it’s inward-looking,and usually it’s heartless and often destructive.

But then we have the world of the healers, bodyworkers, shamans,artists, those people who dedicate their lives to the expression ofsomething that can make the world a better place. But sometimesthey don’t have the power to create real change.




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How to Build a Truly Holistic BusinessRiley: So ultimately, it seems like choosing to not turn your back on either of these was

the seed of what has become your business: Wellness Prosperity Systems. Sowhat would you say is the mission, the purpose of that organization?

Robert: Wellness Prosperity Systems is all about reaching out to owners or managers ofheart-centric wellness businesses. And helping them make the processof running the business more easeful and enjoyable, more profitable,and more effective at helping their clients.

We have to re-think the way we do business. We have to find ways tomake all the money we need while we’re serving others and makingthe world a better place. We have to create efficient, powerful andabove all CLEAN methods and tools to get everything done that’sneeded to be done to make a business run smoothly, and to launch iton a growth path. And it has to be easy and fun - the business shouldbe an energy source for the owner, not a drain.

So what I do is build systems specifically for wellness businesses.Systems the owner or manager can implement easily. The systems I build workinside the business, and they deliver results and really bring that business up tothe next level. It frees up a lot of energy that can then be put into theauthentic mission of that particular wellness business, whether that’sbodywork, or some kind of holistic healing therapy or whatever it is they do.

It’s a positive cycle. My clients get to touch more people, they get toact as a catalyst for greater healing, and they get to enjoy moresuccess at the same time.

Riley: Well, I for one am very glad that you took this mission on, because I, as Imentioned before, I am a coaching client.

And I’m one of these people who, I’ve worked on, I have a method of wellness,and it’s not a particularly well-known one. And early on in my life I kind of did thewhole “baby with the bathwater” thing … turned my back on what I saw to be acorrupt culture. And then, now I find myself with this method that’s transformedmy life, wanting to share it with people and then going “well hey … how do I dothat?” And bumping up against dead ends...

Finally working, Robert, with you … like you said, the business side seems like aburden. It seems like not only a burden to me, but just an unfathomable depth of




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mystery, where I was totally out of context with what I understood.

And now it’s become ... Not only do I feel like, “hey, I can do this” and “hey, I canactually make this connection with people” … it’s actually become pretty fun. Thestrategy, the system building, the seeing how it all fits together, howit’s not two different things. It’s not two different things, it’s onething.

So I love that, that idea of it being your holistic project with, with bringing thesetwo worlds together.




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Building Wellness Business Growth EnginesRiley: So what kind of services do you offer for people?

Robert Well, I offer a lot of services because running a business involves all kinds ofdifferent activities, from marketing to operations to finance and accounting, evenlegal compliance. And then there’s the more intangible side of business, things likeinnovating new services and finding better ways to build authentic relationshipswith clients.

That said, usually I begin with marketing because that’s where I can make thebiggest difference, fastest. So when I begin to work with a new client, the firstthing I do is put in systems to bring in more new clients, to increase thevalue of client relationships, and to become a better steward ofresources. Once that’s in place it’s like a growth engine.

But actually, I think the most important service of all is something that I docompletely free. It’s called the “30-Minute Wellness Business Tune-Up.”Any wellness business owner can request this and I don’t charge anything for it.

We simply get on the phone together and I give a half-hour of freeconsultation. We talk about the problems and the goals of thebusiness. We talk about what’s been done and what hasn’t. Whatworks. What doesn’t. And new ideas.

You know, I could go on and on about different services, but the truth is, eventhough we don’t charge money for this 30-minute tune-up, I feel like it’s the mostimportant thing I offer because sometimes new ideas are more powerfulthan anything. This is a half-hour of fresh ideas to just pump somefresh energy into a business, and that can lead to a lot of great things.

Riley: Well, that’s where I started myself, and I can say that even that on its owndefinitely set me going in what would have been the right direction, even if wedidn’t start working together.

Robert: I’m so glad to hear you say that, Riley, because I would love to work with a lotmore clients like you. For example, you have this amazing method of self-healingthat really needs to be shared with as many people as possible. And youimplement the ideas we talk about.

So week after week, I can see the energy building in your business.And I also see that you’re building this powerful foundation. It’s like,block by block you’re putting in place principles and systems that




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you’re going to be able to build on for many years.

So it’s a joy to work with you. It’s so satisfying to build something that’sstrong and good.

Riley: Well, its been my pleasure too. It does take time, and it does take effort, buthaving that strong foundation and knowing that its your foundation … that’s thereal groundedness.




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Time for David to Outshine GoliathRiley: You know, thinking of these mega-corporations, the governments, the sort of, the

giants, the goliaths … and then we’ve got us little Davids running around. Itseems like the internet and the ability to find each other andcommunicate with each other and to share skills and to find out whatwe don’t know without having to go through the institutionallabyrinth, that’s David’s slingshot right there. The ability to use thesetools to empower the little guy. I mean, this is the time … I feel like this isthe time for what you do to really, to really blow up. And for what wellness peopledo in general. They can find who they’re looking for. They just know how. That’swhat I’m learning with my own business, and learning from you.

Robert: Yes! This is the time, right now. Amazing new possibilities have openedup. They’re opening up, right now. It’s just what you said: the ability tofind each other, to communicate, share skills.

I love how you said we’re like little Davids running around. And now we have thisamazing slingshot. We just need to learn how to use it really well.

Riley: Yep … it’s just slingshot practice. Let’s work on those targets...

Robert: There you go.

Riley: All right, Robert, well it’s a definite pleasure to talk to you, every time. Thanks fortaking the time today. It’s been a blast.

Robert: Riley, it was a pleasure for me as well, as always. Thank you very much.

If you’re a wellness business owner or manager, a free 30minutetuneup call with Robert could be a great experience for you!

Your business can be more fun, more effective and more profitable.

Just click to WellnessBusinessTuneUp.com to get started now.

Or call us at 8004301567.




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Documents

Building Wellness Business - from Mega-Business to Ayahuasca to Wellness