This is part of a series called "One Entrepreneur's Journey," where I'm talking with solo entrepreneurs about their successes (and failures) along the path of entrepreneurship.

In this interview, I spoke with Regina Perata.  Regina helps creatives, entrepreneurs, leaders, and partners restore their power and get what they want. Her new site goes live December 16th, so be sure to check it out then, www.restoringpower.com.  Restoring Power is Regina's second business, she has been a solopreneur since January 2002. To learn more about Regina immediately, you can find her on Twitter.

Tell me a bit about your business.

I help creatives, entrepreneurs, leaders, partners restore their power and get what they want.  I work in one-on-one sessions and group sessions and seminars, both publicly and virtually.  When I say power, I mean to locate my source, so it's more about empowerment - freedom, self-expression, living fully.

My belief is two sort of bold assertions in the world.  One is, all our suffering and all our breakdown can be traced back to a loss of power within ourselves.  In other words, we have shifted our power from us to somewhere outside of us - the circumstance, the economy, that person, this boss, my ex-husband, whatever it is.  We put the power out there and not in us, and we have a breakdown, or we have suffering.  My assertion is, when we restore our power, we no longer have suffering, and we live fully, regardless of any circumstance.

My second bold assertion is that, as human beings, we're made up of beauty and light and love and goodness, and we also have a dark side.  Sides of us that are nasty and mean, things that we're embarrassed of or ashamed of or that are taboo to talk about, thoughts that we have that we're not proud of.  In this culture, typically what we do with those things is we just shove them off to the side and back in the corner.  We don't bring them up to the surface.  We don't say them out loud, and that old adage, what resists persists shows up, so these things leak out in our life, but more importantly than that, I believe, if we have them shoved off in the corner and we're only being with our light side, if you will, and certainly only presenting that, then we're not presenting ourselves as a whole human being.  One of my methodologies is to work with that dark side and make a safe, powerful space for people to really explore that and look their dark side in the eye.  When they do that and when you have on one hand the light and on the other hand the dark, now I have wholeness.  I've seen this over and over, where people have massive transformations and massive breakthroughs, simply by making peace with their dark side.

How did you get your start?

I launched my business from scratch.  I didn't know one person here, and I noticed that there weren't a lot of women's networking organizations, and I had just come from the Bay Area, where there was massive networking.  There wasn't a whole lot of that in Portland, so I got myself on the advisory board of Portland Female Executives and helped to grow that organization, but what really made the difference was, I saw all these really interesting women and how they were hungry to have conversations with each other about being entrepreneurs and being women in business, and so I formed salons basically, where I had a 15-woman limit.  They had to be invited by somebody who had been before, and I had them in my home once a month, and I served wine and cheese.  They showed up at six o'clock, and we talked until around seven.  Then I would have a new topic each month.  I would talk about ten or fifteen minutes on a topic and then I would open up and have questions.  I just chose a topic and sent out invitations, and the thing just filled up like wildfire.  I had no idea I was striking gold when I first had the idea.  I had women on waiting lists for two years.  It did a couple of things.  One, it provided a service, but it also built my business.  People had an opportunity to learn what it was like to work with me, and many of those women hired me themselves, but many of them brought me back into their companies.  That was the secret sauce.  I had no idea.  The first year, my business made only $13,000.  There was a recession in Portland, and I knew no one.  The second year, I was over $50,000.  By the third year, I was at $90,000, and by the fourth year, I was in six figures.

Let's talk about strengths and weaknesses.  What are some things that you have right as an entrepreneur, and what are things that you struggle with?

I really struggle with prudence, crossing my T's, dotting my I's, making sure my invoicing is done in time, filing.  That's an area where I need support, definitely.  My solution to that has been to hire help.

I also work pretty intensely.  It's tricky, because I don't really believe in this thing about balance.  You can't have it all, but you can have things at different times.  There was a time that I was working so much that my relationships were suffering, and I didn't know how to manage that.  I'm much better now, but I think it's still easy for me to spend sixteen hours a day working, just because I'm totally obsessed and into it.

Strengths, discipline.  I was a nationally competitive swimmer and a nationally competitive fiddle player.  The level of discipline I had in my life - practicing two hours for swimming, practicing two hours on the fiddle, and then going back and practicing two hours of swimming that night - I had no idea that level of discipline would help me today.  I wake up, and I come down to my office and go to work, just like someone would who worked for a firm, and I think that serves me greatly working for myself.

I also don't just network.  I build relationships authentically.  I love people.  I love meeting people.  I love being a contribution.

Another thing I'm grateful I'm good at is asking for help and learning.  I'm a consummate learner, and I am not afraid to ask for help.  There's always someone better than me, smarter than me, thank goodness.

What's something you wish you would have known earlier on?

I wish I would have just had the courage to just be me.  I have no regrets, but it's taken me until now to really feel like I can be myself and still be successful in business.

I also was afraid to say how much I really wanted to be a contribution.  I knew as a young child that I was born to make a difference with people.  I knew that very early on, but I was afraid to say that because I felt like it was cheesy, and I felt like, "Well, doesn't everybody?  Isn't that what everybody says?," and I certainly didn't want to be like everybody.  I wanted to be different.  I wish now, in hindsight, or to answer your question, what do I wish I would have done earlier on is just to tell the truth about all of that.

What's your best advice for new entrepreneurs?

Be authentic, and be courageous.  Go for it.

Important Note About Regina: Restoring Power is due to go live December 16th, with a formal launch January 1st. You can power up at www.restoringpower.com. To learn more about her immediately, visit her on Twitter.