Kisha Reynolds

I attribute my success to God. I really attribute it to him, and I'm still a work in progress - no human being is perfect. In the past, I've done things my own way without checking to see if it's something he is in alignment with. While I had my ups and downs with success, I find that if you're looking for a long-term trajectory, for me it is following with what he says and aligning my goals with his, and then things have a tendency to work out. There are no easy paths, but going it alone or doing it the lone wolf way is almost, for me, asking for a derailment or asking for things not to go well. So I just align myself with him.

The best career advice I've received is having a passion and believing in what you're doing. When you have a passion and you believe in what you're doing, you do it from the heart, so then it's not based on money. It's not based on how many packages am I going to sell today, or is anybody even going to buy - it's based on your goal to really help somebody else. That's your goal. As long as you are helping, the money will follow, but you're here to help. So you focus on that, and do what you love. I am in a position where I'm doing what I love to do, so regardless if I don't make a penny from it, I'm still happy to be able to do it, because I'm still helping somebody with their life and helping them with something that they probably have been struggling with for years.

I would say knowing yourself and learning yourself is crucial. Be open to making mistakes, because many times when you make those mistakes, that's where the growth comes. Don't shy away from that. Continue putting one foot in front of the other. Love what you do, and everything else will fall into place. Take advice from people who know more than you about the subject matter you're going into. Don't be afraid to get a mentor or someone that you can trust and talk to about it. The best thing I've heard is that when you are trying to move ahead or you're trying to learn, surround yourself with people who know more than you. If you surround yourself with people who know more than you, you will learn, because you will then begin to want to - not in the sense of competing, but in a sense of wanting to be able to learn so that you are able to know how to further yourself or the next move that you want to make. Learning is crucial, and having the ability to be vulnerable and to not get clouded by the ego. Many people at a certain point, that ego kicks in - they can't really handle or take constructive criticism or feedback. But in the feedback and the mistakes, that's where your growth happens. So grow from it. Surround yourself with people who know more than you in the field that you are going in, and if you can, ask one of those people to mentor you.

I would say probably the biggest challenge is people who may not be ready to do the work. When you're doing this, especially if you're moving to a faith-based model, many times you do have to surrender and accept Christ as your Savior, and you have to be ready to do the work. He will help you to do this, but you're going to have to show faith that this is something that you want to do as well. People sometimes may not necessarily be at a point where they're ready. It's like anything else - I can't want it more than what they want it for themselves. Even with hypnotherapy or traditional therapy, nothing is going to work unless you really want it to work. You have to put some form of action behind that. If you're not willing to do that, it won't matter what I say or what I do, it's not going to work. So that, I would say, is really the challenge - is that person ready? I think that ultimately when someone comes to you, they do want it, or they wouldn't come to you if they didn't. They do want better, they do want to go to a different level, they do want to heal - they want all of this. But you have to also bring that commitment, especially with something like faith-based, because I'm kind of more of like the vessel. The real thing is being able to align that with God.

For me, I would say respect is one of the most important values - and more so, respect for others, but really having respect for yourself. Keeping those boundaries is crucial. Guarding your heart, because everything flows through that. Now when I mean guarding your heart, I don't mean don't trust anyone ever and put like a wall up. What it does mean is pay attention. Don't be so quick to just jump into things. Guard your heart. Learn about things first. It's okay to take things slowly. Respect yourself, because if you don't respect yourself, then 9 times out of 10, others aren't going to respect you either. There's an old saying that if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything, and I find it to be very, very true. Setting those boundaries is a definite value. Boundaries don't mean that you are closing yourself up - what that means is that you are really setting yourself up for success, because with healthy boundaries, you are saying okay, yes, I am okay with this, but no, I'm not okay with that, and being okay and understanding and being alright to sit in that space. Just because you say no doesn't mean that you are saying no to the person personally, but you have to respect yourself. If you don't want to do anything that you don't want to do, that's okay. When you do that, it also protects you from a lot of different things. It protects you from any toxicity or toxic relationships, because when people can't step over your boundaries, they get frustrated, and then eventually they leave, which is really what you want.