Brainz Magazine Exclusive Interview
Heather Alice Shea is the CEO and Founder of Atmana Academy, the world’s first life coaching school specifically for intuitive life coaches who want to soulfully serve others while thriving on their own terms. Her passion is teaching healers and coaches how to master superior coaching skills and cultivate their intuition for a bolder business and a bigger bottom line. Using her research-supported methodologies that yield faster results, she's helped hundreds of clients across five continents launch practices that generate the financial freedom and prosperity they desire and deserve. A former psychotherapist turned master coach, her work has been featured in top publications like Spirituality & Health Magazine, Mind Body Green, Brainz Magazine, and Best Self Magazine. When not working, she loves running on the beach and advocating for mental health and human rights via her charitable organization, Free Humanity Foundation.
You are the Founder and CEO of Atmana Academy, a highly successful coach training and certification school with a very powerful mission and purpose. What is the purpose and mission behind Atmana Academy and what is the secret behind your entrepreneurial successes?
Atmana Academy is an online coach training school that provides life coach certification and business development specifically for intuitive life coaches. Our training programs teach our students how to master traditional and intuitive coaching skills to help their clients achieve better outcomes. We are the world's first and only life coach training school with research-supported training frameworks that ethically and responsibly teach how to integrate intuition as a formal coaching skill.
I learned the importance and the power of intuition years ago while in graduate school getting my masters degree in clinical mental health counseling. I had a particularly challenging case with a young woman who was the victim of a vicious sexual assault. I was using every fancy therapy technique in the book to help her, but her trauma was too deeply rooted. I found myself stuck in session, not knowing how to guide her into the healing she so badly desired and deserved. Terrified that I wasn't qualified to help her, I scheduled a meeting with my supervisor and asked her to be removed from my caseload. My supervisor refused. I literally begged her to give the case to a more experienced therapist. She looked me in the eye and said, “Heather, do you really want to help this young woman?” Through tears, I replied, “With all my heart.” Her response changed my entire life. She said:
“Then let your heart guide you. Trust your intuition to lead you to say and do the right thing at the right moment.”
I was shocked. All my life I had been using my intuition, but never fully trusting it, never really understanding its true power - until that moment. I went on to do some of the greatest work I have ever done with that young woman. Her life changed forever, and so did mine. It was then that I decided that I would dedicate my life to teaching people how to unlock and leverage this incredible ability for a happier, healthier, and wealthier life.
Our training philosophies blend spirituality, science, and the best traditional coaching techniques that the industry has to offer. Our purpose is to elevate human consciousness through equipping and empowering our coaches to express their potential and create a vibrant, authentic life for themselves and their clients.
You have a Facebook Group where you host live sessions once a week. Who is this Facebook Group for and why are the members of this group benefiting from being a part of it?
Community is everything for intuitive and “highly sensitive” people. When you can sense and feel things that other people can't, you tend to feel a little lonely. Since much of our skillset and life experience isn't understood by mainstream society yet, it is important to have people around you who “embrace the woo” like you do, but are also grounded, ambitious, and practical.
People from every race, culture, country and religious tradition are in our group. That's one of the things I love most about intuition - it is the ultimate unifier! We offer free training and classes in the group too. It is an investment to formally train with us, so I view the Facebook group as a way to walk in our purpose of giving people access to quality training without spending a fortune to get it.
After surviving a five-year illness that almost ended your life, you decided to create the support and the training you needed that didn’t exist. What kind of support and training didn’t exist at that time?
If a coach school like Atmana would have existed when I first started out, my life would have been a whole lot easier! When I was in my 20’s, I was diagnosed with a chronic illness that led to a lot of suffering. Much of that struggle was a byproduct of me not living in alignment with who I truly was. I was stifled, overworked, and lived beholden to other people’s demands of me. I didn't know how to stand up for myself. Healing came as I learned to prioritize and act from my own intuitive knowledge. At first, it was hard to trust myself. Learning to master my own “intuitive thinking style” was the game-changer.
Research shows that intuition is quickly emerging as an essential professional skill across all industries. We live in the age of “information overwhelm.” In a few clicks, we have access to an unlimited supply of information on literally any topic. Logic and linear thinking styles simply aren't capable of processing all the data available to us today. We need faster, more accurate tools to meet the cognitive demand modernity presents to us. Developing the ability to think creatively and access “right brain” solutions is the answer to this problem. The support and training that we offer in Atmana today help aspiring coaches and entrepreneurs unlock the power of their own intuitive abilities, granting them a competitive advantage over those who are still relying on outdated, 20th-century rules that are quickly losing their relevance and effectiveness.
What are your three best tips on how to run a successful business like Atmana Academy?
The first key to success is allowing your intuition to guide you, especially if you are an entrepreneur. The research out today on entrepreneurial intuition is absolutely fascinating! To sum it up, the research states that leveraging two intuitive skills (“sustained passionate intention” and “sustained passionate attention”) catapults your impact and income in shockingly short periods of time. Following your intuition works a lot like a compass. If you will allow it to guide you, even when it doesn’t seem to make logical sense, you’ll end up at your goal in ways that far exceed anything your logical mind could ever devise. For example, in the first eleven months of launching our group program in the middle of a pandemic, we cleared 750k in revenue and grew from two to seven team members - all while loving the work we do and delighting our clients at the same time. That’s an example of the hyper-growth that intuition grants you.
The second key to success is to be true to who you really are. In my former career as a therapist, I worked with incredibly successful business owners and entrepreneurs who were all extremely unhappy. From them, I learned that there's no point in succeeding if you are doing so in a way that robs your spirit of joy.
The third key to success is relentlessly remaining true to your purpose and vision. At Atmana, we live by the mantra, “purpose first, profit next.” Am I here to make money? Sure. But I'm also here to be of good use and service to the world. Ultimately, I believe my business is a vehicle through which I can leave a legacy beyond myself. I notice that decisions based on what fulfils my purpose always yield a bigger bottom line. It creates the beautiful win-win-win effect that’s both refreshing and addicting. I win, my clients win, and the world wins. It doesn't get much better than that.
What would you say are the most common things people reach out to you and ask for help with?
There are so many ways I could answer this question, but the common denominator all our clients have in common is that they want to fully and freely express their potential as a professional Intuitive Coach. Our clients don’t view coaching as a “job.” They view it as their life's purpose and calling. I understand that on a deep level because I feel the same way about my work at Atmana too. At the end of the day, our clients want to live a life that they are proud of. They want to become the person they know they have the potential to be. And they want to be the light for other people while they're doing it. I am proud to say we give each of our client’s support, resources, and the community they need to accomplish this in our program.
We know your clients have said some great things about you. What are the results they have been getting from working with you?
Confidence! Confidence is a massive by-product of living an intuitive lifestyle. I view confidence (and intuition, of course) as a meta-skill. It amplifies and catalyzes all your other talents and abilities. Our clients come into the program hoping and dreaming of being able to change the lives of their clients. They finish our program believing it because they are actually doing it!
Building a sustainable and scalable coaching practice is also a common result achieved when working with us. I believe that the financial health and viability of your business is a direct indicator of the impact you are making in the world. Before I began training coaches, I built my own multiple six-figure coaching practice session by session. I know what it takes to get a coaching business off the ground. It is a privilege to teach my clients everything I have learned during my 8 years as a professional intuitive coach. Our program gives them the timeless and effective business strategies they need to create a six-figure business within 12 to 18 months.
So, what’s the next big goal or project for Heather Alice Shea? What do you have in front of you?
We’ve got two main projects in 2022 that I’m wildly enthusiastic about. Currently, our training programs are limited to just coaches. We will be launching an intuitive development program for creatives and CEOs who want to unlock their creativity, and intuition to make faster, more aligned decisions that are more profitable and sustainable over the long term. I love the hustle that comes with being an entrepreneur, but in order to stay in the game long-term, it has to be balanced with heart. That's where intuition comes in. The second big project which I'm excited about is finally settling down to write my first book. I've been told a million times by countless people to write one but it never felt right, until now. And of course, it will be all about intuition!
