Mentoring update December 2024: maverick herbalists, social media and more
Mentoring newsletter
Did you know I have a free mentoring newsletter for practitioners? If not take a look at this end of year round up and sign up with the link below.
© Gill Stannard
Maverick herbalists, BlueSky and mentoring resources
With the end of the year in sight, how are you feeling?
This month remember to grab a moment to jot down what’s inspired you in 2024, along with your wins, challenges and dreams.
Vale Linda Bates
Recently I attended Linda Bates’ memorial in Sydney. Linda was a delightfully outrageous and gifted herbalist. Learning about herbs from her grandmother in England, she later studied with Dorothy Hall and went on to manufacture most of her own herbal medicines. Her memorial attested to how greatly loved she was by friends, family, colleagues and patients. I’m grateful for the Elder Tree podcast interview with her. It’s an absolute gem!
It got me thinking about our up and coming generations of maverick practitioners and where they find community in Australia’s professional herbal landscape. Where do herb loving naturopaths with freshly minted naturopathic degrees seek inspiration and support to explore the grass roots, posology and energetic herbalism? With traditional knowledge ebbing from university curriculums, we need to nurture and preserve our roots.
Social media
As if social media didn’t occupy enough time already, I’ve fallen down a few more digital rabbit holes lately.
BlueSky has seen a massive uptake of refugees from X trying to find a community like the early days of Twitter. I’m undecided so far about BlueSky but there is an active herbal community (and more so since the recent US election). To date it’s ad and troll free. If you want to jump in, here’s my herbalists and naturopaths ‘starter pack’, to help you explore this community.
I’ve been part of a mailing list called Herbal Hall since the mid 1990s. It continues in this form despite the rise of more contemporary platforms, with members including almost every US herbal luminary that you can imagine. Recently a discussion about Weiss’s Herbal Medicine had me grabbing the first edition English translation off my bookshelf, probably for the first time in over 20 years. The introduction alone should be on every herbal medicine curriculum. Admittedly Herbal Hall has ‘jumped the shark’ a few times since 2020 but there are still some gems that remind me why I joined. If you’re interested in joining, feel free to contact me. Please include the email address you want to use, where and when you studied and a short intro about your herbal interests in order for me to propose your membership.
2024 in review
It’s been an(other) ‘interesting’ year and I’m looking forward to some time to step back over the summer break to digest all that’s been happening. Rest and reflection is a powerful tool that’s necessary to create a clear vision for life and work in the new year.
While in Southern Thailand earlier this year, I further explored remote working. Sometimes it’s not as glamourous as it seems. If you’re thinking of trying location independence, this blog post has some great info about the digital nomad life.
A deep dive into using AI in practice. It’s evolving rapidly and next year I’ll share some new platforms I’ve been exploring.
A mentoring challenge I really enjoy is supporting practitioners through transitions in life and business. Few if any successful businesses are static but it can be daunting to make these changes alone. Here are some tips and considerations to navigate transitions.
Are you tired or is it burnout? Some timely tips to prevent and identify practitioner burnout.
Catch up on all the 2024 mentoring resources.
Thanks for your support this year
It has been a pleasure to support practitioners and small business owners, and share resources this year. I hope you’ve enjoyed them.
I’ll be turning on my out of the office messages from 12 December to 7 January and taking a break from work-related social media and emails during this time. It can be challenging to disconnect but this gets easier with practice!
I hope you create the time to totally switch off over the holidays.
Gill
Mentoring with Gill Stannard
I work with established health practitioners and business owners, big and small, to create a balanced and sustainable career.
I’ve been helping practitioners build successful businesses, in alignment with their values, vision and lifestyle, for more then two decades.
In addition to 1:1 business mentoring and professional supervision of cancer and complex cases I run workshops and share free resources on my mentoring
In 2022 I celebrated 30 years in practice. It’s an honour to continue to serve my clients and my profession.
Similar Posts:
