SOLD: Beautiful Happyzine

Twenty eight year old Shanti Burgess runs her organic herbal tea company along one clear principle – if it aint good for the planet, she aint interested.

This grounded, clear minded personality can also be found pressing points on people’s feet, recommending herbal remedies and gazing deeply into people’s eyes in her clinic in Takaka, Golden Bay .  Here she runs Divine Herbals and is a practicing Herbalist, Reflexologist and Iridologist.

I asked Shanti why she created Divine Herbals.

“I was inspired to set it up because I was trying to think of a way that people could become more healthy because I was thinking that the more healthy we are internally within ourselves, the more that will be reflected out into society.  Hence my motto…’heal ourselves, heal the planet’.  It usually starts small – start local, start with yourself and that helps the whole world out – one cup of tea at a time!”

There’s a lot to setting up a successful business, what motivates her to keep going?

“I love mixing and blending and picking and drying.  I love working with the plants really and I love getting the great feedback from people.

“Like the immune booster for example, someone said ‘Oh I thought I was getting a cold and I just drunk heaps of Be Well tea and it [the cold] didn’t come on. I love hearing that!  I was at a market recently and this woman approached me; she’d done an Iron Woman race, and she’d bought some Wise Woman [tea] off me the year before.  Wise woman is this iron rich nutrient tea, which I designed for pregnancy, but you can use it in this way too.  She was totally wiped out afterwards and couldn’t really eat anything after and she just drank Wise Woman tea and it totally revived her.  She bought heaps more!  I love getting that kind of feedback.”

So moving onto our theme of the month, I asked Shanti where ‘joy’ and running a business meet.

“It’s always tricky setting up a business, there are challenges.  Pick the most joyful aspects of business and do them and what ever you don’t enjoy so much try to delegate it out a bit so that your partners can pick what they love and do it.  Joy comes from mental attitude really and from seeing the bigger picture.  Not every moment is always joyful but if you see the bigger picture and when you get that great feedback, that helps and you stay happy.  I guess focussing on those moments keeps you going through those more mundane and challenging moments.  I think to myself: ‘I’ve helped those people!’ And I like doing fun things with the teas like getting out there and talking to people giving out free stuff samples.”

Divine Herbal teas are currently available through the Top of the South Island in Organic Shops and cafes.

“I want to keep it fairy small within New Zealand .  I like them to be smaller, handcrafted batches, it keeps the freshness and the efficacy of the herbs.”

And she certainly is one example of a healthy person, doing her bit to create a healthy planet.

Charlotte Squire