Trusting the Medium
The importance of building trust and connections with clients in an industry where skepticism is common.
It's 8pm in London and Chantelle posts on her Instagram story that she'll be 5 minutes late for her live session. I refresh the app eagerly so I can join and watch her shuffle tarot cards and randomly pick usernames of people commenting to give free readings.
When she goes live, sitting at her desk with a beer, she jokes it's been a hectic week. Chantelle of Holistic Guidance is an engineer turned reiki healer, medium, and psychic. Unlike fictional psychic Professor Trelawney, there are no crystal balls - just authenticity developed since childhood.
Immediately many ask for a reading. Chantelle senses children will succeed despite their young age and talks separately to an individual with health struggles. I've had incredible readings from her and knew she must be part of this interview series.
TLDR:
Learnings:
The importance of building trust and connections with clients in an industry where skepticism is common. Her free live readings help demonstrate her authentic skills.
Leveraging unique abilities she's had since childhood that can provide meaning and comfort to people.
Following an inner calling to leave engineering and pursue work she finds more fulfilling, despite less financial stability.
Challenges:
Overcoming people's distrust or bad experiences with psychics. She has to work hard to prove her skills.
Managing her energy and spiritual self-care to avoid burnout from empathic work.
Building a customer base and marketing without relying too heavily on paid advertising on platforms like Instagram. Word-of-mouth and referrals are key.
Educating people about the value of her services, which go beyond "props" like crystals. Readings provide human connection and emotional healing.
The Interview
Right off the bat – I asked her what has been her proudest moment in her endeavor of Holistic Guidance:
Doing a platform in North London where there were 40 people there. They all had a story to share and wanted to connect with people that they missed. They saw me as the correct facilitator and for that it was a very proud moment. Excuse the ego, but I felt validated that people can understand that I can help for what they need and these people were strong. Some of them were clients and many of them I hadn’t met before and was a proud moment for me and the beginning of my platform journey.
I grew up watching my grandad do these platforms while on stage from the ages of 9 and I saw him having to prove himself on stage and was well aware of what was happening before starting my business.
So much of what you do has to do with trust – do you feel like people trust you right off the bat?
Absolutely not, it’s not normal for people to trust me with my trade in particular. So any capital you’re risking is to get something back you’re not 100% sure on. Also, I feel like there are quite a lot of people that I speak to that have had a bad experience with a physic or medium where they've not really had much validation of spirit or a connection or psychic ability. So my job is very hard in a sense of reading from your subconscious, as well as talking to people in your conscious but also having to win people around very quickly with your skill.
It's normal for me, but actually it's quite a lot of pressure. I think what helps me. Is that I'm an east London kid and I have nothing to prove to anybody, you know, leave it take it or leave it. You’ll get more out of my services if you relax because you won’t spend every minute trying to validate every single thing.
Your Instagram lives are a good way of being able to experience your work – tell me about that:
My lives are free, so if some people cannot afford a reading they can access me from that. There are mediums who will charge but for me it’s about doing the right thing and providing this to people.
I feel like it’s a good way for people to get a taster of your work as a marketing tactic and to get a sense of trust from you as you read people in the live.
It builds trust and connection with people and people buy from people who are going to trust them with their deepest darkest secrets. I have a love hate relationship with Instagram, where you’re always fighting the algorithm and they really want you to pay for their marketing.
What would you like people to understand about you and your business?
My business is unique and it comes from a place of love and there is so much enlightenment and healing you can get from a reading. Gaining those things does not need to come from crystals and bracelets but more so knowing you’re not alone. I wish I could convey that in love in a post.
I think it’s like any service industry in some ways where you spend an hour with your hair dresser or your brow tech and people walk in feeling stressed, will trauma dump and walk out feeling fantastic.
Because of this – I imagine this requires you to have a lot of discipline with your energy – how does that work and what are some of the practices that you integrate into your day to day?
My spiritual hygiene was not anywhere near as was now when I started and I found myself being drained for days at a time. I have picked up sageing the air and I make sure to go through the motions of balancing both spiritual and actual hygiene by taking a shower at the end of the day, eating nourishing food and reading books before bed. I eat only organic meat, veg from the farm and ensure to stay hydrated to ensure my mental and physical health.
What was is like to switch from Engineering to your line of work full time?
It was kind of an easy transition because during lockdown it gave me the time to think and wonder if I was happy in what I was doing and in my gut I felt like I could do this full time. In addition, because of the pandemic a lot of people were coming to me to have reading because they were scared. If the pandemic had not happened I don’t know if I would have had the clearance of space to think about what I really wanted out of my life.
It must be a different level of fulfillment to do readings now?
In my old role, I was an estimator where you design and price the mechanical installs of commercial properties and so I would do calculations on pumps, boilers, and air conditioning systems that go into a building. I would use my psychic ability to see what tenders were worth my time or not. So I could use it for a professionally advantage if I wanted to.
At the time I thought I was happy working corporate. But when you do something you love, it’s a labour of love. It can be stressful not having a projection of whats coming in like when you work a salary job but choosing myself has been unreal and I am very happy. I am also very good at managing my money – but being self employed will intensify that.
