Meet my wonderful and amazing business coach, Karen Buckley!

Karen has been working with me for just over a year. She is based in San Francisco, and I am based in Seattle. Our sessions are all via phone and email. When we did our Sonoma workshop, Brian and I made sure to schedule a late flight home so we could meet Karen in person. I had to personally give this woman a hug for ALL the many things she has taught me and done for our business in the last year. Isn’t she beautiful–her wonderful spirit is right there.

The first thing Brian asked me when we got in the car after dinner was “What was it like to finally put a face to Karen?” Without hesitation I said, “It was like icing on the cake!” We had a wonderful dinner with Karen, so wonderful we almost missed our flight home.

One of the things we talked about was all of you! (This is where it gets fun for some of you! :))

I told Karen about four emails I’d received regarding the Mom’s Survival 101 Kit.

Over the last few months of releasing the kit, we’ve had incredible emails/feedback on how much women love the kit, like the wonderful comment recently posted in the customer reviews on our Refuse site. BUT…but…these four random emails had been stirring inside me. All from different women, but all expressing a similar point.

Now before I share any more with you, let me just be candid for a minute. What I’m about to share makes me feel incredibly vulnerable, and I’ve thought a lot about whether or not to share any of this. I don’t know if my vulnerability in sharing comes from being a people pleaser, recovering perfectionist, who knows…but I value all of you so deeply, and I think I need to risk sharing. So that being said…

The four emails I received from different women who bought the Mom’s Survival 101 Kit expressed feelings over the price being to high for this particular kit because there are so many books on the market for moms these days. There was also expressed desire of wanting forms or spreadsheets on how to manage/balance their time in a “spreadsheet” fashion.

Before releasing the Mom’s Kit for sale I had gone back and forth with Brian and Karen on how to price the kit. Karen asked me a question that really hit home. It went something like this…Even though you aren’t giving legal forms in this kit, isn’t your experience, all the counseling, business coaching, etc hold just as much dollar value as the legal forms? I believe our life experiences have equal if not more value than the concrete linear things in life. This is why we all decided to price the kit as the same price as the others.

But I really sat on these four emails. I understood the point that if there is a saturated market of “survival type books for moms”, this decreases the value of the topic for everyone. I also heard these women feeling like their was definite Soul and Spirit in the Mom’s 101 Kit, but they wanted more Forms. I believe that Soul, Spirit and Form is a magical combination that must not be ignored. This felt like a valid request.

So Karen and I put our heads together on how we can remedy these requests. We decided to add more value to the Mom’s 101 Kit for those of you who have bought it as well as future moms who are going to buy it.

(Is this post getting to long, or are you still hanging in there with me? :))

We are going to have a special, private forum on the new Refuse to Say Cheese Forum that will be only accessible to moms who have purchased the Mom’s Survival 101 Kit. On this private forum, Karen Buckley will be our guest columnist! Once a month she will join our community and assign exercises, forms, and practices to those of you surviving moms.

The objective will be to help us grow in our feminine wisdom, and go even deeper in the challenges we face. Some practices/exercises will be quite challenging and others will be simple in nature. But Karen Buckley (my business coach who specializes in coaching women CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies) is going to collaborate with me so we can continue to give to you once a month on the new forum! How is that for adding value and form to the Mom’s Survival 101 Kit!! (Are we moving in the right direction for those of you who purchased the kit?)

This private forum with Karen will have it’s own special name: Wise Woman 102: Beyond Survival into Thriving! Do you like the title? Karen’s idea, and I love it!

To be a part of Wise Woman 102, you have to first start by purchasing and reading the Mom’s Survival 101 Kit (which is 30% off for the next few days…fyi). Karen and I will be using the Mom’s Survival 101 Kit as the foundation for Wise Woman 102. If you’ve already bought the Mom’s Survival 101 Kit, you will soon be notified on how to gain access to this beautiful forum. We are still ironing out details, but keep an eye out in the next week or two for an email from us in regards to Karen!

Phew…do you know how much I treasure all of you?

xoxo, Me Ra