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Jessica Catorc – How Meditation Helps You, The Entrepreneur

How Meditation Helps EntrepreneursIn this episode, website designer and developer Jessica Catorc talks about her entrepreneurial journey and how beginning a meditation practice helped her have a breakthrough in her own business.
She’s the owner of JessCatorc.com and she works with female entrepreneurs who’s trying to do their own DIY website.

Tell us a little bit about your business.

I’m a web designer and a DIY website coach. jess catorcThat kind of industry is something that you have to be constantly creative, constantly focused in coming up with new ideas and so that’s basically kind of where it started whereas kind of looking for a way to be more clear with the things that I was doing. I’ve done meditation and yoga class once. That’s where it started and then it kind of ended there. But it wasn’t until I started reading about other entrepreneurs that were actually using meditation in their daily life and how much they are benefitting from it and I’m going to be completely honest, when I first read it I was just like, oh yeah, that works for some people but it’s not really going to do anything focusing on your breath for a couple minutes a day. And I started applying it and the changes that I saw in the work I was doing was just incredible. For me, the same thing with spirituality, love attraction, meditation, I used to kind of mock when people would talk about that kind of stuff and be like, “Yeah, okay whatever, granola.” And then I started using it myself and I realized how incredibly important it is.

How did you apply meditation to have a breakthrough in your business?

When I first started doing meditation, like I said it was in a yoga class and it was the simplest thing by just focusing on your breath, relaxing for I think it was like 10 minute at the end of the class and those were the longest 10 minutes that I’ve ever spent and basically from that point on I realized there’s actually a lot of traffic that’s going on in my mind. And so I started doing it about 15 minutes before I started on a client project where I work with a female entrepreneur. It was just focusing on my breath, relaxing, if thoughts come in, letting them come in, letting them go and just doing that on a regular basis and I think that’s probably the key with meditation is you’re not probably going to get a breakthrough on the very first time because you have so much going on and I think we have so much chatter in our heads and it happens on such a regular basis that we take it as normal. It’s not until we actually try to quiet our minds, focus on something as simple as our breath that we actually see, wow, there’s actually a lot going on and there’s a lot to actually clear out.

So that’s basically how I applied it, it’s just 15 minutes relaxing, focusing on my breath and just having a clear mind when I go into the new projects.

What was the thing that made you decide to use it for yourself and not just when you’re creating something with another entrepreneur?

Actually it was really funny, because I was on such a role when I was working on client projects or when I was working with other people. I was doing my meditation, I’d finish, I was clear, I was coming up with all these different ideas and it was just so easy. And I think it was probably maybe a month or two months into working with my own website that I realized that if I was a client right now working with me, I would not be happy with the work that I was doing. And I realized that I was putting all this attention, it was so easy to do it for someone else or something external, but I wasn’t actually applying it to myself. I think it’s a case where I thought that, “Oh yeah, meditation works, that’s great and it works for everyone else.” I just kind of forgot that hey, you kind of have to apply it for yourself for it to work.

I got to the point where I was frustrated. The work I was doing on my website, it wasn’t moving as fast as I wanted it to and it was like I was swimming upstream versus things just flowing easily and it was basically that point that I started doing it and seeing that it actually is something that you have to apply to yourself as well as helping other people with it.

Tell us a little bit about your journey, how did you get to be a designer and how did you start your online business?

I grew up in a family that was about the arts and I was around 12 years old, I was involved in this like — it was like this online, like a virtual pet that you could feed and play with. And one of the aspects of this website was you could build your pet on their own page. And so I was 12 years old, I had no kind of belief systems about technology and coding. And so I just started learning bits of coding by myself just to be able to make this page. And so I’ve always associated web design and graphics or something fun. From that point on, I just constantly had an interest in it, studied in OCAD in digital media and I traveled and worked for different companies. The biggest thing I think that came from it is just each block that I took, I learned something new about myself while I was doing it and I think that’s really important.

vision

I started up web design, I carried on into a bit of video editing, graphics design, worked along those projects and it wasn’t until last year that I really started focusing on what is it that I wanted to, how can I serve other people, what do I love to do and that’s basically how I got to this point now.

What would you say has been the biggest surprise about having an online business for you?

If you would ask me maybe three years ago I would have laughed at this. The biggest surprise is the fears or the fear in mind that I have of success and the further that I’ve gone into it, the more that I think it’s actually quite a common thing. And we tend to do — like for instance with my website, I was procrastinating with the deadlines. I wasn’t putting my whole heart and soul into the project. The more that I look into it, the more that I started meditating and just relaxing, clearing those thoughts that were saying, “Oh you have to do A, B, C and D,” I realized that I actually had this kind of fear, like this little barrier that I was almost scared to pass those limits, pass and see kind of what I could achieve. And that was definitely the biggest surprise because I would have thought it was fear of failure. But the more that I kind of relaxed into it, I realized that — and actually there’s a bit of the unknown of what happens when you make it or what happens when you do succeed and you do achieve your dreams, so that was definitely the biggest thing that I found.

What do you think has been a breakthrough that helped you let go of that fear of failure or even if you’re in the process of it, what do you think has been a breakthrough that has helped you kind of get over that?

Saying I am where I am and where I am is okay. That has been such a simple thing to say but it’s so powerful. I think we can get so caught up into where we want to go, the fear of where we’re going to go, the unknown, but just being able to exact that you are where you are for a reason, you’re here, accept it, relax and just ease into the next step. That’s the biggest thing. There’s no way that you’re going to get to where you want to go with all these cluttering thoughts and all these different mindsets that are happening, but just taking the time, just really focusing where you are now just like when you’re meditating, focusing on your breath, the moment is now and just taking it from there.

I really love what you were touching on, all the cluttering thoughts, kind of clearing that and going back to that moment of meditation and clarity, that’s so great. So it all kind of comes down to the same principles.

It is basically the same principles because I think once you can clear out all the things that are coming into your mind, it’s always going to be the same kind of base that you have to work from definitely.

What are your top 2 or 3 tips for keeping your mindset on track to achieving the goals and having fun along the journey but achieving those goals that you want to in your business?

1. It has to feel good and if it doesn’t feel good, then don’t do it.

I know that’s such an obvious thing, like obviously don’t do it if it doesn’t feel good. But I think it’s easy to kind of forget little things like if you’re trying to work for instance let’s say for my case management, working on my website, it was the most miserable process because I was just — like I said, it was like I was swimming upstream, I was trying so hard, I was putting so much effort into it but not getting anywhere and so I think you need to enjoy the process and if you’re not, you just need to be able to take a step back, it doesn’t mean you’re quitting, but just reassess how you’re doing it, think of the thoughts that are going into your head while you’re doing it and if they’re not positive, they’re not encouraging, and I’m going to say just take 10 minutes and meditate. Just relax and do it again after that and see what comes from it.

2. Visualizing and feeling where you want to go.

It’s great to know that I’ll be happy when I have this. I’ll be really confident when I’m able to achieve this or I get this speaking gig. But I think being able to feel good, feel that kind of — not necessarily the success but that sense of achievement that you have before it happens, I think it’s huge and I think it actually will speed up your process to get there.

3. Believe in yourself.

It’s an easy thing to say and I’m sure people are like really in their eyes saying, “Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, believe in yourself, everyone knows that,” but I think just really honing in on do you actually believe in yourself, do you actually say things to yourself to encourage yourself every day? Are the actions that you do for yourself benefitting you? In my case, I was doing meditation for other people’s projects, I was putting all this love and thought and passion into their project but I wasn’t actually doing it for myself and that was definitely the big red thing they’ll say, “Hey, maybe you should do some of that for you too.”

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2 Comments

  1. Mary on September 17, 2015 at 7:38 pm

    Maritza, I like this episode very much. I agree, meditation is very important to have clarity and be able to focus in a productive way, on the subject on hand.
    Thank you.

  2. Laura on September 18, 2015 at 11:47 am

    I think all 3 tips are excellent. The most important one for me probably is: if it doesn’t feel good, don’t do it. Sometimes we forget to listen to our intuition. Actually the other 2 are just as important. Thank you Maritza.

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