KAREN COLLACUTT - The Change Navigator

Hi, I'm Tammy Gross, the Scriptprenuer. Welcome to Reel Life Stories where difference makers come to share their Hollywood worthy transformation stories. I love interviewing people who faced a mountain, overcome it the hard way, and figured out a solution to help the rest of us conquer that same mountain. Because when we share our stories, we change lives.

Alright, so today, we have a very special guest, her name is Karen Collacutt. And she is the change navigator, speaker, trainer and master coach Karen brings to the table two decades of finance and business experience and a lifetime of personal development. She is a connector of people ideas and systems. And audiences love her practical strategies and tell it like it is approach. An expert on navigating the change process, Karen guides people to shift how they think about themselves in a deep and generous way. Expect clear communication and a liberal dose of wisdom. And Karen speaks with unrivaled passion and authority. She has a masterful understanding of the challenges and opportunities for businesses. So this is a very special guest. As you can tell welcome, Karen, I'm so glad you could be here.

Thank you i'm so glad to be here.

Well what I want to do is I know that there's a lot of stuff that has happened in your life. And I want to give you the opportunity to tell us as much about yourself as you can in our in our short time that is relevant to just who you are, and how you show up in the world. And take us back to a time when when, you know maybe it was kind of your daily life. And then something shifted or changed and how that all like came together and presented a problem that you felt you needed to solve. That's usually what I like to talk to people about. But everybody's story is unique. So I'm very curious to know, where did it all kind of start for you?

Well, I was in my mid 20s. And I had a great job. I was newly married, but I had nice house like didn't we like ticking all the boxes, right? Everything was taken along going really well. And I was driving about 1000 kilometers a week at this great sales job and went to bed one night and I woke up in the hospital. I had had a seizure in the night. And my husband had called the ambulance and I had gotten scooped out of my house with the ambulance into the hospital. And what I found out before I even left the hospital was that I had a problem with the arteries in my brain. It's called an arterial venous malformation. So you go from having this like tickety boo kind of life, I was working hard and do my thing to being off work and having brain surgery scheduled. Wow. So yeah, all of a sudden things change. Yeah,

I mean, literally overnight. Yeah, it's awful life change. And what's what's actually I have to say, I know, this is a weird comment to make, but words attract me. You had the coolest, the name of what you have

know, right, when that'd be cool. So arteriovenous. So basically, it's a malformed artery. And so it was just built wrong as a congenital thing, it was built wrong. And so the blood was going from the artery and dumping right into a vein, which is on the bad list, because veins are not built for that kind of blood pressure. And so yeah, I started this four year journey. Fortunately, I just to, fortunately, all as well. And it was a journey, I went through lots of tests. Of course, you can't drive because as soon as you have a seizure, they take your license away. So no more job, no license, living in a little town in the middle of nowhere. And I'm really counting on my family and my friends to give me this amazing support. And I had this year of being off work. So I had a couple of months before my surgery, and then in the follow up. You gotta love this. So the surgeon says, Oh, can you tell me kind of what this is going to be? So this one we're going to cut a little hole. And like, again, like how big of a hole he's like, I'm like, okay, that's big. That's like half my head. So yeah, it was some it was Major, obviously major surgery and when they did the follow up, they found that I actually had a second AVM in behind And so the journey wasn't done. And but it was in too deep, they didn't want to go digging, which I appreciate. Yeah, and so they did focused radiation. So then I had a whole other thing. And the benefit of that is it, they don't have to cut you open. But the drawback is they do it and then you wait to see if it works for three years. So kind of life's on hold, I was 27. So you can't get pregnant when you've got a problem with your blood pressure and your blood your arteries, because you can get your when you get pregnant, your blood volume doubles or half again, right. And so you can't get pregnant, you can't do like crazy exercise, like all the things that a 27 year old is thinking about doing. So all that on hold for three years. Now, fortunately, the three year was awesome. Way to go. All of that was good. And in some way, health wise, honestly, I went through the whole thing, I had very little side effects, very little impact from a surgery from any of that once I kind of got my feet back on the ground. So like super, super grateful for that. The fallout, of course, from these major life changes is that it impacts the rest of your world. And so I came out of that year off work fairly heavily in debt. Fortunately, we had not bought the Big House that the bank told us that we could afford we bought a little house that we felt we could afford. So we had some equity in the house. And we were able to do a refi refinance on the mortgage. But we still ended up in this financial challenge. And it got me on this journey of learning about money learning about finance, and then and also learning a ton about myself, understanding through who I am in the world. And then I met this amazing counselor that helped me start to really understand the mind body connection. So I'm like running on these two pads of sort of the logical sequential math kind of finance world. And this mind body, sort of energetic connection world. And for a long time they ran very separate that never shall they meet. And I never totally know what oh, yeah, I never talked about one with the with other the other because it felt like one felt too woowoo. And one felt too structured. And I felt like I was a different person in each space. Right. And as I learned in both, I actually ended up taking a job as a financial advisor. Because I got all into this, how do I like how do I help other people who are in a similar situation, ideally, avoid that situation. So I got really interested in money and how to help people and I did a ton of work with with my clients. And alongside of that, I'm doing my own personal journey work. And it was very cool. So I got about seven years into my financial planning world. I've done my CFP done all of sort of that staff had a quite a good business. And I had all these clients who were making great money and living paycheck to paycheck. And it was making me crazy, because I really wanted them to be successful. And I couldn't do what I wanted to do as a financial advisor. And so I sold my practice and started working as a money coach. And because, you know, why wouldn't I and I started working with families and small business owners to help them really make friends with their money in a new way that they had never had an opportunity to do before. Right. And that felt really great. And what happened for me was, my two pads started to blend, because most money problems have nothing to do with money there what's going on in here and in here. And so as I started learning, I started with, of course, the tactical, practical and then started weaving in all the personal development work. I got a couple of years in and realize it didn't have all the skills I needed. And this is where I started. I'm like, I don't want to do it this way anymore. I really want to be able to help meet people where they are and I I need to connect these parts of my world. And so I made this decision that I was going to go and find the tools and learn the skills and create the network where I could really help these people and myself of course we always are serving ourselves in this journey and as well. I really help people understand who they are and how they can create a life they wanted. And through that realize that what I'm really teaching as personal leadership And the topic was money. But the what the work we were doing was really around a personal capacity, personal leadership. And so as I added my skills, I went and became a practitioner of neuro linguistic programming. And then it became a Master Practitioner, and then it became a trainer. And weaving all of those amazing skills into this very tactical work around money, gave me an amazing platform to help people really find their way. And then in the last few years, because I was doing your public trainings, and all kinds of things like this, all of that in Canada, all of that stopped with the beginning of the pandemic, because we weren't doing any of these public events. So my colleague, Karen, who she and I were in the process of writing a book together. I know both Karen's Yeah. Karen's we got a lot of Karen's in our world. And they're all good kinds of Karen's just to be clear

good kind of Karen. Right. Yeah. I hate that that name has been I know, right.

So what we found was at the beginning of the pandemic, is, both of our businesses had come to a screeching halt, because there was no public work. And so we decided, after having worked together at the dining room table on both of our businesses that we were tired of working alone. And so this is where we came together, we were already writing a book together. And we decided to bring our business together, and take what both of us were doing around personal leadership, and really do it together with that focus. And so we've woven that in with the Navigating change journey. Because this is what we're talking about, right is how do you navigate change effectively? Yeah, we've all done a zillion changes in our world. And most of us have no idea that change has a specific process, that you actually can identify where you are in the journey, and then figure out how to move forward more gracefully more quickly. And so that's the work we do now we've got a great book, we have a great program, and we're having a ton

of fun with it. Wow, that is so cool. I mean, you really did take a really negative thing and turn it into something super positive, not just for yourself, but for other people. And I love hearing about that. And the way that you're showing up in the world is obviously from the heart. It's you know, it like you said, it seems like it's about money. But it really isn't, it's about the heart. And I think that's actually really cool. Because I also know that you have something that you want to offer people who are listening, I love the title of it, because I saw the word graceful in there. And I think that is a huge part of everything that you've been through. And so tell us a little bit about what this is. We have we have a mini course, I think is what your

Yeah, so we do a lot of curriculum development and programs. So we thought why not do a mini course, it's called graceful change starts with a map. And because can't change can feel hard and confusing. So this mini course will help you understand how the change journey works, where you are on it and how to navigate it more gracefully. And we'd love to offer it to you for free.

Excellent. Well, what we're doing is we're making sure that that is in the show notes so that everybody has the has the They not only have the link to that, but that of course, once you get that, then you can talk to Karen more you can you can get to know her better. So I really, I just want to encourage everybody to get this. I personally think that we're just hardwired I think that we need directions. Sometimes we need some, you know, a map a blueprint, you know, this is something that we hear a lot in the entrepreneurial world. But that is something that actually is is what we need. It's what our minds are set up that way. And so I think I think that is really great. And it just seems like it really goes with who you are because you had to draw your own crazy map that went all over the place. And now you can make it a little bit more of a least a more straight line for people, which is great. Now, I'm so sad. We're already kind of at the end of this. But But yeah, I know but you have told us an amazing story about how you've transformed and how you can help other people. But I want to know a little bit more about well, I have that big question that I always ask everybody and that is if money were not an issue, how would you live out your legacy?

I love the question, because this is what Karen and I have been working really working on over the last 18 months or the current focus in our business is how do we create a business that we love to be in every single day and that is what What we're wanting to do, and we're wanting to help other people create beautiful, successful businesses inside of a successful life. And I want to speak, and train and teach and have a ton of fun with people. That's how I show up in the world.

I love that. That is that just that is so you, obviously, and who knows, maybe next time, I'll have a your, your, your partner Karen

The other Karen,

I'd love to hear, I'd love to hear her side of all this too, because I think I think that's really cool that you are showing up in the world this way. And that you found somebody that you can do this with. And that's really important. And that's also very magical. So I think that's pretty cool. But you know what we are out of time. And I always want to leave you with the last word if if there's like a saying or a quote or, or just, you know, a final thought that you want to naturally, you know, leave us all with. It's all yours.

I love to remind people that like you said, navigating change is so much easier with a map. You know how to do it. You've done it a zillion times. And being able to understand where you are and where you want to go makes it so much easier and more fun.

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Karen, this has been great.

So Welcome Thanks having me.