Meet Noemi Martinez: Entrepreneur, Acupuncturist, Herbalist, Healer, Mother

We had the good fortune of connecting with Noemi Martinez and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Noemi, how has your work-life balance changed over time?
This has been a tough lesson for me over the years and I also think it’s something that most entrepreneurs struggle with. Partly because we see success as working hard not smart. It’s what we have learned from our parents generation, movies, and others’ definitions of success. We think we need to work long hours and be available to everyone because if not we could lose business or a potential client. This old way of thinking has led me to burnout, time lost with loved ones, and affected my own health, to where my self care took a back seat. The problem is I tried to please everyone and I lost sight of why I enjoy what I do, my purpose and why people love coming to see me. So I’ve adopted new standards for my business to have a better work life balance. I work out 4-5 days a week and I schedule people around my workout schedule. This helps me with both my mental and physical health. I have a limit of how many people I see a day, and I only work 3, 10 hour days in the clinic. The other two days I leave open for creating content for my business on social media, creating workshops, evaluating key metrics for my business, and working on other projects that align with my soul and can help my community. This offers me the opportunity to make revenue in other ways and to give back. I leave room on the weekends for family and loved ones and some fun! Sure, sometimes I catch myself creating content or flyers for workshops on the weekends, but creative inspiration can come up when I am less busy. Instead of fighting the urge to create, I let things flow when they come up. And taking all these various steps feels so much more balanced.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
My career has been full of over a decade of learning what to do and what not to do. Acupuncture & Chinese medicine was fairly new in the South when I moved here. Not many people knew about it. My Acupuncture school also, set me up for failure by not addressing topics like contracts, rent, and various business models that would help me succeed in my line of work. So, I had to figure out much of this through trial and error. I’ve had business owners take advantage of my lack of experience in the business, I’ve had employees with less drive than me who couldn’t be independent and I’ve had slum owners whom have pushed me out of their facilities in a passive aggressive way. All of this has gotten me to really reflect on what I have to offer that is different from other practitioners in the area. It comes down to the fact that my business is led by my heart. My heart, my love for what I do, created this dream to be able to help others in the first place. I can’t lose sight of that. It’s what patients feel in the room with me, love and attention. I truly want to help them and that’s the heart of my business. I’m also one of the only practitioners in the area that offers other modalities with my acupuncture sessions, such as reiki and other energy modalities, crystal healing and possibly essential oil application. I try to bring a blend of my other modalities and life experience into the treatment room to tailor it to each client. Our medicine is all about individuation. We help patients with their individual needs. And we want patients to come to us that are open to receiving help, and that also want to assist the process doing their part! I am here to assist and support others in their health journey. I ultimately want them to get back to health and be able to be independent.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
If my best friend was visiting the area, I would take them to downtown Columbia to go to a couple of my favorite restaurants with great atmosphere and drinks. The first would be COA, it’s a gourmet style mexican restaurant with the best fresh made margarita infusions and or mezcal cocktails I’ve ever had! The other restaurant I would take them to is Lula Drake Wine Bar. They have the best selection of wines, appetizers and farm to table menu. The atmosphere is intimate and great too! On Saturday morning I would take them to Soda City Market. This is a market that has a ton of vendors with so many choices of food trucks, local artisans and music. It’s always a fun time. There is also a lot of outdoor activities to do depending on the time of year.: paddle boarding, kayaking, hiking, etc. And Charleston beaches are only and hour and half away, or the mountains in Asheville are two and half hours away!
The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My parents have always been amazing role models. They always had so much drive and never were afraid to try new things. We moved every couple years because of my Dad’s job, so it was like starting over for my Mom in her line of work and for my brother and I, we had to learn to make new connections with people everywhere we went and adapt to the culture and country (when out of the country). I’ve always been big on Self-Help books. I can’t say there were many business books I referred to, but more self-help books about motivation and being a leader. A lot of my knowledge has come from my experience working in service industries such as the restaurant and retail. My first career was working in Public Relations and I had the opportunity to work in Sports, Corporate and Non-profit. I also managed several departments, the visual side and a $3 million dollar revenue store for Urban Outfitters. All these experiences gave me a wealth of knowledge of learning how to manage the day to day operations of a business, the aesthetics of a storefront and the environment you create for a customer. I’ve also dealt with all kinds of customers, I feel like I’ve had the opportunity to learn how to deal with all sorts of situations. A professor in College required we read the Economist while in business school. He said it was important to know what’s happening around the world. A person’s problem could always be another’s solution. I always remembered this. I have also had the pleasure of working with SCORE mentors through the SBA to help me in flushing out a Lean Canvas Business Plan. It’s a great resource than many business owners should take advantage of. I have also had a client, Janice McHugh, who used to be a big Whig at Johnson and Johnson, that mentored me with flushing out my business ideas the first time I decided to get my own building.

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Image Credits
@camera_language and Josh Smith for Logo work