Meet Joanne Burke Sherman, a mother, a wife and an entrepreneur who is helping people achieve their best-self through nutrition, supplements and mind-body awareness.
Sometimes, life puts you in situations where you are compelled to make decisions that you don’t think of otherwise. Being in a similar scenario, Joanne never thought that interest in holistic health and certain circumstances back home would lead to starting her own business.
Talking about what attracted her towards this cause, she says, “I was attracted to holistic health as a result of many doctors pushing pharmaceutical medications on my son who has a learning disability. As a research-oriented person, I was not comfortable giving so many medicines to my son, especially at such a young age due to the known side-effects. So this led me to search for alternatives and as I learned more, I felt responsible to share what I was learning with the world. Hence, I decided to take formal training in this field so that I could help more and more people who have not yet found what works for them.” Her elder son was diagnosed with a severe learning disability which includes dyslexia, memory issues, expressive and receptive language disorder and just about everything that makes learning extremely challenging.
Taking one step at a time, Joanne began with a part-time business in the initial days because of her commitment towards two young kids at home. However, with most small businesses, the question is how to get clients to come to you? Thanks to her pretty good referral network from an email letter that she had established many years prior to even opening her business; but she did not indulge in formal networking until many years later because of the paucity of time. Having kids and managing a business definitely has its challenges, but her will to work around them as best as she could by having flexible hours for both her clients and herself made her reach where she is today.
“In my business as a holistic health counsellor, I help people achieve their best self through nutrition, supplements and mind-body awareness. I am also working on another venture for an educational work program for special needs students. Ideas constantly flow to me; and when I feel it will be a blessing to many people, I am urged to create,” she says as she talks about her experience in the business. The programs that she offers are tailored specifically for an individual and their needs. She does this because people understand the mind-body connection, the brain-gut connection and much more. According to her, there is more than one thing that goes into getting people ill so, usually, there is more than one thing that is required for healing. She goes beyond just food and helps people navigate all these supplements/alternatives.
There are many clients she has helped on their healing journey- anyone who heals themselves through education is a miracle and she feels that miracles happen all the time- in all forms. To validate this, she gives an example of a young woman aged 18, who has hypermobility but was unable to lift her arms over her head and had been dealing with this issue since age five. But after working with Joanne and following her protocol, she was able to do a cartwheel, which was one of her goals. This made her heart jump with joy. It may sound simple to many people; but for Joanne and her client, it was a huge success.
Today, her holistic health business helps people who do not get enough attention from their doctors; who are interested in other ways of healing besides pharmaceutical medication; who are motivated to improve their health and who want to be inspired to more uplifting ways of healing. Like many businesses in this time of a pandemic, she treats her clients remotely through video or telephonic calls as per their preference. Even though she has always had clients out of state, this really opens up the door to worldwide accessibility to her and proves that there’s always a chance of finding something positive in the negative!
As she looks back, she realises that people should know that there is always someone out there to support them on their journey no matter what they are going through- “I have had a lot of different clients with a lot of different issues, yet, in the end, we are all the same. I continue to see this and I am constantly learning and adapting as I grow with my business.” She believes that we all have things that we need to overcome, new learnings that we have to do and find inspiration from as many people as we can- which requires us to find what resonates with us and for this, we need to trust ourselves and follow that path.
In case you wish to connect with her for a session, write to her at joanne@jbsholisticnutrition.com or visit https://www.jbsholisticnutrition.com/