Karen Wilding, CEO & Founder of EYMaths shares her transformative journey from an in-person teacher and teacher trainer to a successful independent maths consultant.

The conversation unfolds against the backdrop of the COVID-19 lockdown, a pivotal moment that forced her to reevaluate her business model and adapt quickly to a new reality.

Losing her business overnight was a shock, but Karen's proactive mindset led her to seek new opportunities online.

Sara Burton, the host, draws out Karen's insights into the importance of embracing change and the necessity of overcoming fears to achieve personal and professional growth.

The episode emphasizes that the journey of transformation often requires significant initial steps, and Karen's story exemplifies the power of resilience in the face of adversity.

Throughout the discussion, Karen highlights the role of community and support in her success. She reflects on her experience with Sara's coaching and the importance of finding a niche in a crowded market.

By focusing her efforts on helping teachers improve their maths subject knowledge, Karen not only carved out a unique space for herself but also addressed a critical need in education.

The episode resonates with anyone feeling stuck or overwhelmed, offering a roadmap for how to navigate significant life changes with confidence and clarity.

Karen's journey is a testament to the idea that even in challenging times, there lies the potential for remarkable growth and fulfillment.

Takeaways:

• Karen Wilding emphasizes the importance of taking big, scary first steps in life.
• She discusses how her mental health challenges have shaped her entrepreneurial journey.
• The significance of finding your true self and living authentically is highlighted.
• Building a supportive community is crucial for success and personal well-being.
• Karen's story illustrates how adversity can lead to unexpected opportunities for growth.
• Making clear decisions about one's business direction is essential for long-term success.

Sara would love to hear what you took away from this episode that you can apply to a start over you wish to start!

Contact her on social media

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startoverwithsara/  

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/startoverwithsara/   

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saraburton/   

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@startoverwithsara  

Website: https://www.saraburton.co.uk/  

Link to Karen's website https://www.eymaths.co.uk/

But I am where I want to be and I'm living with who I want to live with and I'm living where I want to live.

And seriously, it's like what happened and we've just been to the States for a road trip and I've got freedom and I can go on holiday that's not in the school holidays as well.

That was another big eagle as a teacher.

So yeah, obviously I.

The best way I can describe that is I just, I've got a life I never ever thought I'd have.

Welcome to the Start over and Rise podcast.

I'm your host, Sara Burton, Start over.

Coach and mentor and this podcast is for you.

If you are an ambitious, joy seeking individual who knows you want more out.

Of your life and you are not prepared to settle for anything less.

So if you're looking to be you.

Really you, and live your life with unshakable confidence, then you, you my friend.

Are in the right place.

Let's get started.

Hey gorgeous.

Welcome back.

Sara here.

And welcome to another episode of Start over and Rise.

The lady at the start of this episode is Karen Wilding and she is my guest today on the show and she's got an incredible Start over and Rise story that I very much wanted to bring to you today.

This is a story where she has completely changed her life in terms of how she works.

It's a wonderful story about how she looked at her strengths, really came from a place of service and how she wanted to rebuild her business very, very quickly.

Now she was a client of mine and I have to say she is one of those clients that she just threw herself into this and she very much talks about how, you know her, she basically made her why much bigger than her fear.

She came from a place of necessity and what comes with that are many new challenges.

She had to eliminate some of her fears.

She had to navigate massive challenges and get really uncomfortable with a lot of things.

But that's why I wanted to invite her on because she shares how she got through all of this.

She talks about how she did it or she has depression and anxiety and how she trusted in her own instincts and was able to manage everything that was going on around her, her.

And she also talks about what it feels like to create a life, to create a life that she never thought she would have.

It's a wonderful story.

There are so many great insights and so let's dive in.

Here's Karen.

My name is Karen Wilding.

I am an independent maths consultant and what I do is help teachers and practitioners improve their own maths subject knowledge and pen pedagogical skill, which means understanding how the brain learns maths, how children best learn maths.

So I spend a lot of time undoing the reaction that many of you might have had to that word and people thinking they're not very good at it and can't learn it and build people's confidence by building their skills so that our children can learn maths differently than perhaps most of us did.

Fabulous.

Now I'm going to say this because this is very true and this is the reason why you are on this show, but that hasn't always been the case, has it?

Okay, so I.

And that was all in person.

It took me all over the UK and then led to me working all over the world.

So it was very much a time for money, job, lots and lots of traveling and a little bit like, you know, the.

What's it called?

A white cat in a snowstorm in your diary where you look and there's nothing in there and it's terrifying.

And I would have to go after every single job.

And that was like that for 11 years up until Covid hit.

I did see it coming, but I knew I wasn't going to be able to work in person anymore and that was the only way I worked.

So I went from doing that as a full time job to nothing overnight.

And how did that feel at that time?

I think because I could see Covid coming, obviously everybody had a lot of strange things happening in their heads and I was watching things.

And we live very rurally, so that is significant in that we were a little bit of a bubble compared to everybody living in more populated places.

So I think I was lucky that things felt like they were happening a bit more slowly, which probably was very.

Was significant in how I dealt with it.

So I began to see it coming.

But when the day came that we were put into lockdown, officially, all of us, honestly, it's just like my life stood still.

Like I can feel it now.

Like I didn't feel like I was in my life anymore if everything just stopped because my job and what I do is such a part of who I am.

Like with all of us So I didn't know who I was and I didn't know how to put one foot in front of the other.

So, yeah, and I didn't feel even upset or scared.

I just felt nothing because I didn't know what to feel.

I think that's quite common when we have a big change, isn't it, that you do, you just sort of stand there because you're like, I've never been in this position before.

I'm not really sure how.

Who am I now and how do I move forward with that?

So there you were then.

You had a diary that had been full that day hit and officially your diary was now empty.

The mortgage needs paying.

Life is still going on.

So what did you do next?

Well, my husband also is self employed, so we didn't have any furloughing coming in.

We had no financial support at all.

So like you say, the realities hit very quickly that we were one of the sort of people that fell between, I don't know how you describe it, the lines a little bit in that the world was talking about essential workers and furloughed people and there was like this group of people who weren't either.

So I knew I had to do something.

And I have reinvented myself before mainly through essential thing, you know, as an essential response to bad things happening.

So, you know, that skill is always good to have built up over the years, 100%.

So yeah, I, I had known for a while that again, I've seen this coming for a while that taking my business online would be a sustainable way to move forwards because the world of education I work in is changing all the time and depending on what the government is funding, it's really hard as an independent, so.

But I didn't know how to do that and I was terrified of doing it.

And I also don't think schools were ready to do it.

Schools are very traditional and I've seen a return to them wanting to take things back to how they were before COVID since COVID So that, that, that sort of feeling probably was quite justified.

So I, that was in my mind and somehow I was just saying this before we started recording.

I was walking my dog in the woods.

I think the day after lockdown, or even the same day lockdown came.

I didn't normally listen to business podcasts at that time.

I'm an avid listener now.

I don't think I was reading any business books.

And I somehow hit on a.

Some sort of article or a podcast or something and your name was mentioned as Doing a, like a five day free challenge.

And again, I'm in the world of free challenges and things now, but at the time, again, completely unknown, didn't even know what would be involved.

And I had to remember, I think like track you down a little bit, so did a bit of homework, found you, got in touch with you.

It already started, so it must have been the Tuesday you started.

On the Monday I found you joined the challenge.

Caught up on my missed day and honestly, the rest is history.

You were the perfect student.

I remember you very, very well.

You were so into the whole thing.

It was just amazing.

I mean we were talking earlier about the universe and how it works and so on and that challenge obviously had been planned for a little while, but then the reality came of COVID hitting and I was getting messages, people saying, oh my God, I wish I'd listened to you before.

I need to get my business online.

And, and it was so much fun that that challenge, what was incredible was you just seemed to go, okay, so what has happened, has happened and I'm only interested in what I can do next.

And it was, there was a real divisive kind of feeling during that challenge because there were people that was, that were.

And I'm not saying this is wrong because it was a shock to a lot of businesses, but that place of sort of, oh my gosh, what are we going to do?

And that downward spiral.

And then there were you and a few others that would teach me, teach me, teach me, show, you know, show me what else I could be doing.

Really opens the opportunities for listeners who maybe don't know me of old.

That is what I did.

I helped businesses to, you know, take a product, create a digital product that could be scalable or they could take the whole business on online.

And so for you, Karen, that was exactly it, wasn't it?

You know, I was just thinking, because when I was listening to you there and obviously, you know, it's four and a half years and it's four and a half years of a different life for all of us post Covid.

And I was thinking, I literally know those, especially that first week, I just did everything you said to do.

And I think there's such a message in that because I, you know, I'm very, I'm a big self starter, I'm very creative, I'm very hard working, all of those things.

But I was so lost and I was scared of what I didn't know, which obviously makes me better at, at helping anybody understanding what, how limiting that is.

And I remember just literally not only completing the exercises, but the biggest one for me was I worked with practitioners that taught children from 3 to 11 years and even into secondary.

And like the second day or whatever, you said niche, and I removed three quarters of my customers and actually, I had no customers, but removed 3/4 of who I was aiming at.

And that was so terrifying.

But I was just like, this is what I'm being told to do, so I will do it.

And I remember that was the approach I had to take to everything.

So I did everything in a very beta way.

I mean, the course that is still my signature course today was written to be put out on Facebook because I didn't have a website that could have an online course on it.

I was writing the sessions as they were going out.

I had the slowest Internet ever, so it took 16 hours, no exaggeration, to upload a video.

I just used to run up and down the stairs all day trying to see if it was working people.

The lovely Welsh government helped me get better Internet.

So all the things that people think like, oh, it's okay for you, and I didn't know how to edit a video, I didn't know.

I remember you famously quoting me saying, I've never been on a zoom call in my life.

People say this about zoom and you go, but everybody was in a similar situation.

And I was there putting myself, myself on camera and running a business.

It wasn't just turning up for a meeting.

It was absolutely terrifying.

So I think when I look back at that first month, I went from zero customers, zero idea of what I was going to do.

I niched, I did a free challenge because I knew that worked because I'd been through it with you.

I then put out 20 places for 99 pounds each to come and work with me to do what is now my signature course.

And I got 20 people.

I had nearly, nearly two grand in the bank.

And I was just so happy.

And that gave me that springboard to know those practitioners were having such a hard time.

I was serving essential workers who were working in school and out of school because they had to, you know, teach children who were at home as well as in school.

So they needed me, and therefore that helped me as well get over any.

All of my insecurities.

I knew I needed to make money because we didn't have any fallback there.

And I think some of the people I met along the way, they were in a more comfortable position than me, so it didn't have the same urgency which my situation did and who I was serving, they were falling apart, literally falling apart.

And it was a good opportunity for me to be heard by being different and, you know, giving them what they needed.

So all of that removed the amount I could think about myself and my fear to a certain extent and allowed me to focus on the difference that I was making.

And again, I think there's so many good messages in that that, you know, when you do make big changes, do go and do stuff that make a difference in the world, because that the boot on your bum is a lot stronger than if you're doing something that, that is sort of nice to have as opposed to more essential.

Yeah, definitely.

I mean, there's some key things that you, that you mentioned there, you know, about a sense of urgency and putting aside any, any fears that you may have been feeling.

It takes a lot to do that.

But in many ways it's sort of.

It's pretty simple.

It isn't always easy.

And by really focusing on where you're going, where you were going with this and who you wanted to be helping, whether that's in your personal life or your business, it really does help take the fear.

You made your why bigger than your fear.

I think it's absolutely true because there's so many aspects to this.

But one of the things that I do with all of my practitioners that I work with, because when I was working in person, I still work with school leaders and academy leaders and so forth.

And the thing that is missing in most cases is they are not clear on their destination at all.

They're taking action and they're walking like we all do, without a really clear, you know, goal in mind.

Or I say maybe not goal, but this, you know, where am I going?

And I, you know, we use the analogy of, like, you would not go on a walk and not decide where that walk ends.

Otherwise, how are we going to know which direction to walk in?

How are you going to know how to get back on track?

And it really works so that.

But also I'm.

I'm very interested in, and I'm doing a neuroscience qualification at the moment.

And this whole idea of how the brain works, that what we can do feels comfortable, what we're ready to do next feels scary.

That proximal zone.

And then what we're not ready for literally, you know, scares us to death.

And understanding that in order to learn anything, you have to, you have to have that, that, what do they call it, cognitive dissonance, where your brain goes.

Because actually, if you didn't do that you would already know how to do it.

So I was so aware that every time I felt scared that was to be expected.

And I then had to work out who could help me.

And I then had to put my big girl pants on, which I still do.

Say, I know we used to say that a lot.

Really did put my big girl pants on.

Like this is going to feel hard, I am going to procrastinate.

I am going to suddenly think that washing up and doing laundry and everything is really attractive.

So I do think I'm incredibly realistic about things.

And I don't know if you remember, I used what I call my big post its.

I stuck these big bits of paper on the wall.

Yeah.

Every time I was scared I put what I was scared about and then I put what would help me to do it.

So it was like right in front of my face.

And every time I did that it worked and it just shows that it is.

It's okay to be scared.

It's really natural.

We know the psychology is because your brain is trying to protect you.

But I think many people, they, they feel scared and then really we've got to say they use it as an excuse.

No one likes to say that because that sounds like we're being mean.

But it is an excuse.

It's much easier to go, I'm scared, I can't do this.

It's much harder to say I'm scared, so how could I do this?

And I think, yeah, that the things that scared me became laughable.

But I saw everyone around me in our group as well, the group that you led.

The amount of times they would come on a call and talk about something over and over again that was scaring them and you'd give them all the tools and they wouldn't use them.

And it's like, I can't do the last bit for you.

I give you the tools but you have to pick them up and use them.

Yeah.

And it's so crucial, isn't it?

Because these skills of giving yourself time to think, really feeling the things within your body and becoming self aware of, hang on, I'm feeling fear now.

What am I actually scared of?

And that's what my whole ethos behind Start over and rises.

That's why I've moved into sort of this area.

Because having taught people how to put together an online course, the actual nuts and bolts of what is actually involved is easy.

It is so, so easy to do.

And in today's world, you know, you can set up a business as long as you've got good content.

Do you know what I mean?

Off you go.

But it wasn't those things that was holding people back.

That self doubt, the lack of self belief, maybe not trusting that their content was good enough.

It's all of those things, isn't it, that actually was stopping people doing the things that they want to do.

Any start over, starting over from where you are now?

It's not starting over from scratch, it's starting over from where you are because it's that point where you go, I need to think about this.

I need to do something differently.

I need to be okay with being uncomfortable because at first it's weird and then it's normal and then the next stage and the next stage and the next stage.

So where is your business now?

I now have almost sort of three memberships as a big part of my business model.

One of them isn't strictly a membership, but the ways that people come and work with me.

Now I have have a monthly membership that practitioners come into where we create where we are an amazing community.

That is what we are first and foremost.

We are a safe professional space that does not exist anywhere else in this form.

And we're so much more than maths.

People come in and they say, I came in for the math support.

And I can't believe what I'm getting because it is primarily about my belief is I cannot teach anybody who's not well.

So therefore, if I don't create a space where they can be mentally and physically their best self and acknowledge that people have families and elderly parents and illness and menopause and all of the things that my practitioners generally have to keep to themselves, we have a space where we actively do things to make sure all of that is looked at as well.

So therefore my practitioners can turn up for my training.

And I run my training generally on a, on a Saturday morning once a month for them.

And because we've got a very international group and we've just about done it so that if the Americans get up early, they're the smallest group of my membership.

But the Australians and New Zealanders can join us and everybody else.

Of course, the way it works, it works so well.

But to turn up at 10am on a Saturday morning when you've worked all week, the thing you're coming to has to be serving you really well, doesn't it?

And the show up rate is amazing.

So I work with them.

They have a library of resources that they use.

I have a cuppa with them once a week on a Sunday night, night.

So that again, not everybody's in the same time zone, but those people who were nearby, they can start their week, ask anything, just us be together.

And that community is amazing.

I need to do more to make it even more visible.

But what it is is fantastic.

I then created a sort of a quieter version of that group because Matt, you told, we talked about mindset.

A lot of people feel my main group's called Impact.

A lot of people were, oh, I don't think I could cope with Impact even before they tried it.

So I've created a quieter space for people.

The idea is it would be the lead up to Impact if people want that, which is called Pathway and is very deliberately a much more structured, simple way to get working with us.

And if people love it and they start doing it and they see the results, then they're going to end up in Impact.

So I've done that.

And then the third part of that is I work with whole teams in schools, whole groups of schools, organizations, multi academy trusts and so forth in what's called Team Impact.

Very original names here.

And that is a, rather than a membership.

They come and work with me for 12 months and they get access to my bespoke course.

Depending on what level they come in, they get access to me.

So there is a very, very affordable way for schools to create consistent, give consistent training and create consistent impact.

So I do that.

I still do my three challenges a year, which I started right at the beginning.

And they are my exposing people to my work in a very safe and very affordable way and do that.

And then I'm.

I have a big free Facebook group where I am present in there and always available to people as well.

And I have a YouTube channel, so they are my kind of shop front.

And then there are these ways that people can work with me.

So I spent a lot of time, particularly this last year, becoming clearer and clearer on what I do, who I serve, who I don't serve, and making sure that when people get to know me, what I do is clear to them.

Because the biggest misconception is that I am a math scheme from the outside.

Anybody.

They don't of course, read what you read.

If you write on your website, we know this and there is a misconception about what I do and what I do is very different.

I give practitioners the subject knowledge and as I said earlier, the pedagogical understanding so that they can use whatever they've got in school, whether it's a math scheme or an approach.

They need to know their stuff to use that properly.

And most schools make the mistake of thinking they'll bring a scheme in and the teachers will use it and the maths will be good.

So it's a really interesting thing to be the person who is providing, as it were, the nutrition, I think of it as the nutrition of the root of the tree.

They can decide kind of what happens in the branches.

But it's that keeping that business model and what I do is as clear and simple as possible, so people know how to take the steps to work with me.

That is what I'm constantly putting through a wash cycle at the moment and trying to get better and better at.

Yeah, I love that.

So as the business has evolved, clearly you've reached new levels.

What sort of turnover are we talking about here?

Oh, my God.

Even the first.

Yeah, I mean, crikey, yeah.

I mean, they do say that, don't they?

I know, you know, obviously I use Kajabi that I went got, you know, got to.

Through yourself.

And that first thousand that you get, you get your badge.

I think for most people that's probably the most important badge you get, isn't it?

And you're like, things are happening.

So to answer that question, I mean, one, everything that I do is on a very low amount of money, so the, the lowest amount is like free five pounds and I have a nine pound membership.

So we're talking about, especially if you compare to say, business groups and things very low.

And then we hit a million on Kajabi in about, around about Easter time this year.

And the best news is I have now moved to three days a week working.

I still do, of course, a little bit the weekend, but that doesn't tend to more than a couple of hours and it's not every weekend, so I've cut down to three days a week.

I don't work Thursdays and Fridays now.

And we are on track to be the best year we've ever had, with me cutting down to, you know, just over half the time, which is just wonderful because that's obviously about my wellbeing and different, you know, wanting to do different things with my life as well.

Absolutely.

This is like your next phase now, isn't it?

It really is.

Many people will find this inspiring because it was a sudden, such a sudden big thing, but your mentality was so bulletproof in terms of this is not going to define me.

This is certainly going to be.

To be fueling you.

Wonderful.

What would you say were there have been the trickiest times for you since, you know, starting out?

I think general mental health myself, I, I have depression and anxiety, as many creative entrepreneurial people do, of course, because you kind of can't have one without the other, it seems.

And I recognize that.

So the ups and downs of my own mental health.

At times my mental health can be so bad that I.

I can barely move.

And then the symptoms of having depression and anxiety is the sort of having those voices in your head that tell you how great your life is and how grateful you should be and how lucky you are and of course then make you feel even worse.

I also expect a huge amount of myself, so my norm is higher than it needs to be.

So there is a real danger of overdoing it over delivering and that kind of thing.

Which means people can sometimes get, of course, excellent value for money, but also can mean that people can become overwhelmed because I need to keep it more simple.

And I've been very, very lucky.

I haven't got any proper wood to touch.

I think it's all fake ground here.

But I haven't had really any trolling online.

I haven't had any really horrible things or anything, which is amazing.

I worked really hard to create very high level of respect in my online space with my members and I think that has that.

I'm reaping what I've sowed.

But I realize there's a certain amount that is a completely out of my control and I deliberately don't have a presence now on X because I found Twitter as was not a good place for education.

It's, you know, you literally have sleepless nights and I know colleagues that do so that side of things, if someone does say something there or you get an unhappy customer, which we all do occasionally, I allow that to occupy too much of my headspace.

But I haven't met anybody who cares who doesn't.

So it goes back to the thing of me accepting it, talking myself into a better place, being sensible about where I hang out, what I listen to, who I talk to.

And over the years I have just learned to say no to things that in the past I would have said yes to because I'd be worried about, oh, what if that opportunity could have led here or what if I won't get any other work?

I'm much better at that.

If something doesn't feel right, I don't do it.

And keeping everything as simple as possible, always stripping it back, always sitting there and thinking about things, you know, and doing everything I can to stay as well as I can be accepting that if you have got mental health issues, there are certain parts of that that will always need looking after.

And will, you've got to do the right thing.

But then of course, we know sleep and food and fresh air and what goes on in your head, you can do an awful lot to help that.

So, yeah, I think, you know, and then all the normal ups and downs of lots of family challenges and so forth, that.

But I.

I do feel I.

My business is almost like my safe place.

As long as I can get into my office and obviously I need to.

I'm the main breadwinner in our family now and that is my safe place.

It's rather than saying, oh my goodness, I've got to do work as well.

And even when I was teaching, that was like that.

Even if it felt very chaotic, it was my.

I suppose it's that control thing as well, isn't it?

It's yours and it's your baby.

So.

Yeah.

But many, many, many challenges and many ups and downs.

I was going to say it's that.

It's that fulfillment as well, isn't it?

There's nothing more satisfying than, you know, doing something that you love and helping people that you want to help and really feeling that you are making a difference.

There's.

There really is nothing like it.

What are the biggest changes in, in you personally?

I'm living the life that when I had an unbelievably hard job as a teacher, and of course, if you don't know or live with a teacher, people don't recognize that it's 60, 70 hours a week.

It's just the stress is off the scale and that is love.

Still loving the kids and loving the creativity.

It's just the most horrific job and it nearly broke me.

And I used to dream about simple freedoms like being able to have a drink, being able to go to the toilet when I wanted, being able to have a little sleep when I wanted because I was just so tired all the time and very trapped in a.

In a job that is just.

It's unlike most other jobs.

And then gradually, even my old business gave me flexibility, but not in the same way.

I was still very much.

If someone booked me, I had to go There it was still an awful lot.

It was.

It was a.

When I look back, it was a good kind of bridge between the two lives.

I.

Now, I'm literally.

I can't think of a polite way to describe it might be a pig in style version of that, but I am.

I am so happy that I can take my dog for a walk every day.

I can get up when I wake up, I can cook a meal, I can do other things in the evening, I can make decisions about what I do.

And obviously that for a lot of people is really hard because that brings a certain discipline, which actually suits me really well.

I can't even begin to tell you.

And of course, I don't always feel like this every day, like, you pee, you know, my commuters to the spare room, but I am.

When people talk about imagining your life in the future and meeting the happiest version of you and where would you be and what would you be doing?

You know, I'm not saying there aren't things going on in my life that I would take.

Wouldn't take away, because there are some very serious things.

But I am where I want to be and I'm living with who I want to live with and I'm living where I want to live.

And seriously, it's like what happened and we've just been to the States for a road trip and I've got freedom and I can go on holiday that's not in the school holidays as well.

That was another big, er.

As a teacher.

So, yeah, obviously I.

The best way I can describe that is I just.

I've got a life I never, ever thought I'd have.

Yeah, but I want people to hear that.

It doesn't mean.

That doesn't mean that there's not a few warts and some very big horrible things happening, because that's just life.

I love what you just said, that I am actually living something that I.

I wanted at some point.

How did that evolve?

When did that clarity start to really come through for you?

And that is such a good question, because I, you know, can only summarize, really.

But I was saying to you just before we started recording that the last four years for me have been the first year, the middle two years, and then the last year, including now.

And this year has been a real journey.

But in the middle two years, I still went down the road of which I think in a way was quite the right thing to do.

Although I don't think I made the right decisions.

I sought a lot of support and Help.

So I wanted to go and find like what else should I be doing for my business?

So I, I still do read a lot of books, listen to a lot of podcasts, but I paid out a lot of money for coaches and listened to what people said and I invested in software, I invested in team members and my life.

Although the business grew, my life just became not what I wanted because managing staff is really, really hard.

And actually at a point last year, I was not in my business at all.

All I was doing was managing myself.

It was all operations, it was, I didn't even know what my business was anymore.

All the bit.

I love the creation.

I was still doing the bits I needed, but almost like snatching parts.

It was just horrible.

I wouldn't even like to tell you.

And unlike, you know, we met people who along the way might go shopping and think they've done something.

I'm not talking about, you know, of course you need a microphone, of course you need a camera and things.

But I spent money on, oh, customer, what do you call them, CRM systems, things like that.

I properly invested in getting to know how to do things.

And maybe with different support staff it would have been different, but they weren't right for me.

Yeah, I have come in the last year, I've stripped my staff right down to one assistant who's not even full time and a very, very part time finance assistant who's been with me the whole time.

And me and I wanted everything about my business.

We were still growing, we're still getting bigger.

But I thought earlier this year things just sort of hit the fan around about March time, first few months of this year, absolutely horrible.

Which I think has to happen before a change happens, doesn't it?

Yeah, but yeah, lots and lots was not the way I wanted it to be.

And I thought, no, I want.

How do I keep my business small?

Amy Porterfield did an episode on podcast and she said, I want you to think of your word for the year.

So I was walking the dog in the woods as I do and, and other people I know in business were saying things like growth and all of those things and that's wonderful and integrity and all this.

And I just came up with the word small and it was the opposite to this business group I made.

I was like, oh, how am I paying all this money?

And what I'm thinking is I need this to feel small.

I need this to feel not like the family bakery that sell out to, you know, a huge corporation and then nobody wants the stuff anymore.

I want People to know it's me.

I want to be in there talking to people, making the stuff.

So how can I continue to grow and reach people?

So then that's led me to a plan which is about me growing older as well.

How can I create a business that is a legacy?

How can I create a business that needs less of me in it?

So there's a huge amount of mine now is reoccurring income, as I said, with the memberships.

No more empty diaries.

I do very little in person work.

I've got the smallest version of my business I've ever had and the biggest income with the least amount of time that I've ever had.

And so I keep saying I love this, but I do, I love this because one of the things that I find with working with, with clients now is they can think big.

You know, they, they, they feel like they're thinking big, but they're actually playing small.

You know, how they're showing up, allowing their limitations to, you know, really be there so that it's keeping everything small.

And yet what you're saying is actually the same that I'm saying is you, you're playing big by being small.

Do you know what I mean?

Because you're, you're thinking bigger.

How can I get all the things that I want?

How can I make it run and still serve my audience and so on?

How can it all be a win, win?

And I love that it was actually the word small.

And your actions haven't been small.

The way you're putting your business out there hasn't been small.

It's been just getting that exactly right for you.

Do you have a particular place in your body?

This is why I'm so into energetics and we mentioned neuroscience earlier and the connection between the brain and the body.

I'm fascinated with, absolutely fascinated with.

Do you actually.

When something feels wrong to you, you know, when something's not right, when something's misaligned.

I think that's the main phrase, isn't it?

Something's out of alignment.

Do you feel it in any one place in particular or how does it manifest itself with you?

Yeah, you know, I think I've become so interested in the vagus nerve and obviously the minute you start and starting the vagus nerve, you're like, whoa, my goodness.

Everything makes more sense.

And I, I very much feel I'm, it's very much with breathing with me.

So it's, it's up here, up in my height, high part of my chest.

Because when I was at my worst, stress wise, I will teeth grind during the night so wake up with like really stiff jaw and obviously the dentist, you know, telling me off.

And when I've been doing some yoga and I found it really hard not to hold my breath.

But a lot of yoga teachers said again that's very common and I think it's because you're concentrating on trying to do the mood.

Yes.

That breathing thing of becoming very shallow breathing, that sort of bordering on this slight hyperventilation.

I think there's so much truth in that, that, that kind of like.

I know some people feel it more in their stomach, but I can start to feel myself in my chest that I.

Thinking of a call exactly when you said that.

I'm thinking of a call recently where somebody asked me to meet them for one reason.

I got onto the call and they presented me with something completely different.

So they threw me off guard and I didn't want to be impolite so I sort of had this very strange conversation about what I didn't think we were there to talk about.

And then I came off it and thought this feels was all wrong.

And we put dates in the diary and it's hard to get back to them and go no.

Yeah.

And, and I think again it's partly a generational thing.

I don't know if you feel the same, but I think there's a couple of things about our generation and maybe generations before that one, we're very like, you can't say no.

You, you can't let anyone down.

You, you're a bad person if you say no.

Whereas actually if you say no in the right way at the right time, of course you get a lot more respect.

But again, I'd don't think we've been brought up to feel like that.

And there's also the, you know, the working small bit.

I was very much brought up that if you weren't working hard all the time, you weren't a good person.

I'm almost.

I thought this morning, I wonder how well I could run what the least amount of stuff I could do to get my business to run brilliantly.

That to me sounds awful, that sounds lazy, it sounds like a cop out.

And, and I love working but I thought, gosh, that's a mindset that's really hard to, you know.

Yeah.

Manifest, isn't it?

Well, this is all good stuff.

This is all exactly what Start, open, rise and the work I do now is, is all about because I think people really do underestimate.

We do.

You know, when you say those phrases like you know everything, all the answers are inside of us, you know, we know everything and it's so true.

And we just need to become self aware, don't we?

We really need to become the master of ourselves because that's where we get direction from.

That's where we know when something feels good.

That gives us that confidence to step forward even in uncertainty, to be able to trust yourself and know that you're making the right decision with everything you've got going on around you right now and the information you've got and what you know, you're at that space where you can step forward bravely and trust and then if it goes wrong, you just pivot.

You, you know, you change you course correct, you course correct as you go.

Now let's focus on change here because there's been a lot of change.

Anybody who's embarking on something that is going to take some time, you know, a big change in their lives, what would your piece of advice be?

I think you've got to be prepared that the first step you take is, is pretty significant.

It needs to be big and it needs to.

I think too many people skip around and skirt around something and then they kid themselves that the things they're doing and the reading and the research and we've all been there circumstances caused me to and it's not wasn't the first time, wasn't just Covid to have to shift into, you know, go from first gear to fourth gear, whatever in that first step and then I had made that step.

So I know people say about, you know, you must go on your own journey of course, but don't make it too safe to begin with.

And I think that you've got to be very careful with that depending on who you are caring for and all sorts.

But if you don't have that sort of sense of fear that if I don't move forwards and then when you've got that, it's about investing in yourself.

The thing that has enabled me to be so successful is I know my stuff.

So every time I don't know how to build an online course, every time I don't know how to be as consistent as I do on social media and all those things, the core of who I am and what I know is really good and can only get better and that has what is what has kept my confidence when everything else was unknown.

So I'd really say that those two things it's like, do what you're really good at.

And you know that it's the thing you could talk about without any preparation.

And if that isn't anything yet, find out what it is and invest in it.

But make that first step a big step because then you kind of at that point of no return because you need that.

We're human.

We're not.

Very few of us don't get scared.

It's very normal.

And you need to push past that.

Yeah.

Fabulous.

And what I like about that is that does translate not just from purely business.

You know, when you're making.

If you want to suddenly, you know, if you're going to move areas or if you want to leave a relationship or start a relationship, sometimes it's those big first steps that commitment, isn't it to.

That's exactly what I was thinking of.

I was thinking, you know, I've.

I've known many, many friends and relatives with divorce, and that decision to leave is so, so hard.

But actually, as you say, whether it's packing a bag and moving or whether it is going on a trip and it's like, just do it.

Because actually the part of the world we're growing up in, the advantages that we've got, they are.

We're very, very lucky.

We've got an awful lot that we can use, and it's just like, you know, bad things are not going to happen.

When you step into a life that you only dreamed of, it's.

It's, you know, all good.

All good.

It's like, go for it.

But, yeah, make that first step a big one.

A big scary one.

Yeah.

Even when you don't know where you're going, like you said, you know, you, like the vision didn't really come immediately, but the first steps are so important.

Karen, absolutely fabulous to have you on.

Thank you so much.

And thank you for sharing your story and your, you know, words of wisdom as well.

Really appreciate you coming on.

Oh, thank you.

It's been a pleasure.

So there we go.

That was Karen and her incredible story.

What were your biggest takeaways?

What did you hear today that you can take and apply to what's going on in your life right now?

What fears do you have that if you overcame, if you got uncomfortable and moved forward with, you too could have a life that is perfectly designed by you?

Everything you want from it.

I'd love to hear from you.

You take care.

Have a good week.

Thank you for listening and I'll see you soon.

Bye.

If you love this episode, don't forget to subscribe and follow the podcast.

If you really loved it and you want to show your gratitude, then please do leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

It really helps grow the show and put this content out to more people.

Who would love this free resource.

And if you are ready to go deeper and accelerate your personal development, your start over and rise in whatever it may be, then go check out saraburton.co.uk there you'll find resources and courses and ways that you can work with me should you be ready to do so.

And finally, remember, in order to start over and rise to win, you must first start over.

A noise, rhythm.