Ozarks Profile: Sharon Cates

What is your job?

She and her husband Francis began Seminole Decor, a paint and decoration business, now in three locations. She is making a transition into feng shui, faux finishes and color therapeutics.

Please tell us about feng shui.

"Everything I do has its basis in color. Feng shui is the Chinese art of placement to create balance and harmony with your surroundings ... to create a sacred space." For an office space, she first considers the history of the building. "You look for a common thread for all those businesses (which have gone before) because your business takes on the energy of the previous tenants." If a place has considerable negative energy, that has to be cleared out for another business to be successful. Feng shui uses the "bagua," an eight-sided map with nine areas that must be in balance. Cates balances colors and elements throughout a business. For instance, green is the color of new growth; red the color of fame and integrity. The elements are wood, water, earth, fire and metal. Cates interviews the owner or chief executive officer to learn the goal of the business, then develops the office space around the goal. In her own business, she determined that it had to operate as a family. Before she knew it, five employees left not for bad reasons, but because they wanted to spend more time with their own families. Within six months, new people were on board with the family concept and the business was thriving. When a business is troubled, she said, "you look for the metaphor of what's going on." That may be employees with chronic sinus problems, which makes her examine the heating and cooling system. In developing the traffic flow in an office, "you put the CEO in a position of power. Employees do well by good leadership, so first you protect the leader." She puts the boss the farthest from the door "so he is not so accessible." She interviews the employees to help them develop their sacred space "so they have a feeling of belonging." She has learned that a person's space can reflect emotional areas that need help. A depressed person, for instance "has stagnant energy." Neglect of one's space at home or at work can indicate "that their energy is being siphoned off" and that they need to take time to nurture themselves. Feng shui is "an Eastern philosophy in a Western world where we like everything to be proved. Concepts like clearing space and starting with new energy' doesn't make sense to people who think putting a flower there changes things." But it does, she believes.

What do you look for as signs of business health?

Some things are obvious, she said. If there's "a resident cat or dog that's a fire element a greeter for your business, if those animals are really friendly, happy, content, that reflects what's going on in that business." Plants that suddenly start to do poorly or a fish tank where the fish start eating each other, are red flags, she said. "Plants and animals have no reason to lie." Cates said although feng shui is grounded in Buddhist beliefs, "universal laws are universal laws. Honesty is honesty. Integrity is integrity."

What training have you had in feng shui?

Cates has a bachelor of fine arts from Southwest Missouri State University. Her interest in feng shui started when she was given the book, "Living Color" from the head of interior design at SMSU. "It was all Greek to me, " she said. "Actually, it was all Chinese!" She went to classes for feng shui certification at the Omega Institute of Holistic Studies in Rineback, N.Y.

by Cheryl Capages