A business growth strategy is about having a plan and incorporating it into your life.

Editor’s note: This is part three of a three part series. In part one entitled Latina Breaths Life into Respiremos a Company About Breathwork, Eugenia shared her family, growing up in Mexico and coming to the U.S. In part two entitlted Latina Entrepreneur Creates an International Professional Training Start Up Eugenia covered an idea, a strategy and hard work spawns an international small business.

The company is called Respiremos, born from Eugenia Altamira’s vision to bring Transformational Breath® to Mexico and Latin America. The first seeds were planted years ago and now Respiremos offers Transformational Breath® Sessions, Workshops and Professional Trainings in Latin America, USA, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. 

As of 2017 there are three main areas where Respiremos is currently focused: furthering education related to Breathwork, research and continuing to do pro bono work with different groups, including a women’s prison.

My essential elements of a business plan:

• Clear and realistic goals.
• Very clear distinction between short term and long term goals.
• Concrete time lines.
• Detailed budget of all the steps in the time line.
• Clarity on the flow of income that will follow each step.
• Extreme objectivity on real income sources.
• Willingness to let go of an idea when it doesn’t make sense financially, it can always be revisited in the future.
• Always get a second opinion.

What is the future plan for your business?

This year is a turning point for us, we strongly believe the way to make an impact in 
people’s lives and society in general must come from education. Educating is what my 
business does, but so far, we have worked with small groups in workshops and 
trainings. 


We also realized that to help the demographics we were most interested in we 
needed to change our approach. This shifted our focus into two main areas:

Research, although there is plenty of medical literature available on the benefits of 
having an open breath pattern there isn’t as much information available on the 
benefits that breathing properly brings to people’s mental and emotional health. We 
believe our society is ripe for change in its approach to mental and emotional health 
and we have a very powerful tool to offer them.

The second area we are focusing on is in educating the people who will be able to 
offer this form of therapy. Respiremos is in the process of opening a University in 
Mexico where people will be able to obtain the education needed to not only help 
people but also to make a decent living from it. All our energy right now is focused in 
creating a sustainable business plan for the university and finding the best option for 
financing it.

To me this is the most exciting project I have ever undertaken, it is daunting and 
exciting all at the same time!

Living, business and work-life balance 

I must admit that in the first years, I had zero balance and all my time and attention was focused on the business and nothing on me.

Eventually I came to realize that this approach was affecting both my personal life and my business. When we only focus on one aspect we can’t live fulfilled lives, our energy starts to drain and the expectations on the area we are focused on, become less objective.

Because all our satisfaction depends on this one thing. And the kicker is that it doesn’t matter how hard we work on it, we will never get satisfaction, because unconsciously we still want more, we want the forgotten side of ourselves to feel whole again.

My business requires that I travel a lot, sometimes for a full month, maybe even two. And then sometimes I’m only home for a handful of days before I have to go out. As much as I love the traveling, I think this is one of the biggest hurdles my family faces.

Fortunately, my family respects and understands my work, for us the key has been to have a relationship based on open communication and trust. When something comes up, we talk it out until it gets resolved.

When I’m home, we spend as much time together as possible doing the things we love.

And thank God for FaceTime, WhatsApp, Skype and all the other cyber tools available for long distance communication. Taking the time every day to talk to each other, regardless of time zone and level of exhaustion, keeps the connection fresh.

Another key element is to create spaces for yourself asides from work and family. Never underestimate the power of just having fun.

Next- The best rewards from my business and Advice for others who’d like to start a business