Women & Money: The Shit We Don't Talk About!
Women & Money: The Shit We Don't Talk About!
Real Estate Success without Burnout with Karen Cooper
Do your brilliant ideas come to you while you’re in the shower?
In this episode of 'Women and Money: The Shit We Don't Talk About’, we’re talking about turning great ideas into action with our guest Karen Cooper. Karen is a wife, mom to three sons, and the co-owner of the Platinum Group Real Estate Team at Real Brokerage, alongside her business partner Vicky Noufal. Based in Northern Virginia, their powerhouse team of 50+ exceptional women and moms now serves clients nationwide with agents located across the United States.
Karen shares how her initial 'shower thought' led to the foundation of Empowering Women in Real Estate, a community that now boasts 30,000 members! We talk about financial independence, burnout, mindset importance, and the impact of community and support systems for women. Karen emphasizes the value of setting boundaries, investing into yourself, and the belief that slow, consistent action leads to significant growth!
00:50 The Power of Shower Thoughts
04:39 Introducing Karen Cooper
05:01 Karen's Real Estate Journey
06:31 Empowering Women in Real Estate
15:19 Overcoming Burnout
26:28 The Importance of Boundaries
29:16 Defining Financial Freedom
Got a unique financial story to share? Whether it’s about crushing debt, building wealth, an unexpected windfall, or just a wild money moment, we want to hear it! Or are you a professional who helps women with money? If you’re a financial coach, attorney, CPA, or work in any area that empowers women financially, we’d love to hear from you too! Your story could inspire our community of women. Fill out our intake form here!
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Maggie: Do you remember a while ago now? I was in community college and we are at, we're in the yellow house, and you're like, get over here. I need you to take notes. And I was like, you're blind drying your hair. Like, what? What's going on? But you're telling me all this idea, which is basically Purse Strings at the time.
I actually still have my note thank you to the cloud. But it was just how you wanted to get this community of women and you wanted to talk to these women and hear what they were saying 'cause you've done some of this research by now. But we always made the joke, of course, the great idea started in the bathroom where most of these men start in the garage, right?
But there's something about always those shower thoughts. I mean, I even know sometimes I read some of our notes and I was like, all right, lemme just go think on it. And so these shower thoughts are always the best. It's like the first time of calm where it's like things can actually flow, right.
Barb: Yeah, I think it's a place where like the water just rushing over you is washing off all the confusion or whatever it might be that's going through your brain. For some reason, and we've heard people say this before, some of their great ideas and thoughts come to us in the shower. And it's amazing that you still have those notes.
We should go back and read it. But, I do remember the day where I was drying my hair and I had all of these thought, it was like I had this download coming to me and I said to you, boy can you take some notes? And you kindly did and sat on the corner of the tub as I dried my hair, and I just leashed all of my thoughts and ideas that came to me in no particular order.
But really it was a mission statement around we've seen so many women when we were out shopping or whatever of retirement age working and it was bothersome because they were working jobs that, you know, I always would say to you, do they love this job? 'cause it can give you a great outlet.
You could be meeting other people earning some money or do they have to do this work? Which we found out once we dug into the data that for the most part, many of them had to do that work to cobble together some income to complete their bills for the month. So, shower thoughts and it's like our guest who came on and talked about the same thing.
Her whole idea of the community she launched and started, came to her in the shower, which is we just chuckle about that.
Maggie: And it's from that feeling of like, I can't be the only one feeling this way, which I think is, I mean, I'm not a man. I don't know how they feel, but I feel like this is really common in women. We find ourselves at this point of like, I can't be the only one. And then go online and you search it, and then you see everybody else who's feeling that way.
You just haven't found your people yet, right. That's definitely what she wanted to do with real estate is 'cause she's like, I feel like I'm doing so well, but there's something that's not right.
Barb: I love when you say she didn't find her people yet. It is like a journey because if you have an idea in your mind like we did with Purse Strings. First I had to say is what I'm seeing true and valid? Is it accurate for me from a educational and data analysis. Is it valid?
Is it true?
Maggie: Well, that's how you have to start any business. I mean, there's a couple people out there starting businesses and you're like, does anyone need that? Does anyone want it? Has anyone asked you for that?
Barb: So we did the due diligence and we tested it. I know I pitched it to a couple of different people who said, I think you have something here. And I think she did the same thing. She got a small community of women together, and you're vulnerable. It's all about courage, vulnerability, it's all about testing the waters, trying again, falling down nine times, getting up 10. Really, building it day by day and she did that too.
Maggie: Yeah, I think Karen gives a great story of just tenacity and building as it goes and just that slow and steady small actions every day. So I'm excited for everyone else to dive into this episode 'cause she was giving so many good nuggets. Gotta go back and take some notes. So yeah, this is a good one.
Barb: It really is, especially if you're in real estate. But really her nuggets really apply across the board, right? It's about if you have an idea and a passion, you just need to keep going.
Maggie: Let's get started.
Gloria Steinem once said, we will never solve the feminization of power until we solve the masculinity of wealth. Barbara Provost and Maggie Nielsen are the team at purse strings that will help you navigate the ins and outs of financial independence so that you can be financially fearless. This is women in money, the shit we don't talk about.
Maggie: Hi, Karen, welcome to the show. We are so excited to have you here today. Before we dive in and get started, will you take a minute to share a bit about yourself, who you are and what you do?
Karen: Absolutely. I'm so happy to be here with you ladies today. My name is Karen Cooper. I am a wife., I'm a mom to three sons, and I am a real estate entrepreneur. I started out as a realtor in the real estate industry in a very kind of traditional role, 23 years ago. I like to say that I have held every role that there is to have in the industry.
I've been on that kind of traditional rainmaker team. I've been a solo agent, I've been a managing broker, now I'm a team leader. I have a business partner. We have a team of 50 women and moms that are all across the country that I am very grateful to lead, which we have had now for 10 years.
This year is our 10 year anniversary, and I'm also the founder of a group called 'Empowering Women in Real Estate', which is a community of a little shy of 30,000 women. All across the country and a group that really started, it's been 11 years now, and started out of a pain point that I was feeling in my life and in my business and I just had that feeling, and I'm sure you and your listeners can relate to this.
I had this feeling of like, I can't be the only one, right. Other people had to be feeling this too which sparked this group. This group, which really just started out as a Facebook group, has now grown and evolved. And now I have a podcast, it's been around for almost five years. I wrote my first book last year. We have annual conference, which brings hundreds of women together every year. We have monthly meetups in cities all across the country. We have a group coaching program. So there a lot of things have really sparked and spawned from this amazing opportunity.
On a personal level, obviously, as I mentioned, I'm a mom. I am really passionate about women, their financial independence, which is obviously something that you are both really passionate about as well. I'm a real estate investor and I am just somebody who is really open to exploring opportunities in different ways of doing things because, we don't have to do it the old way anymore.
So that's me.
Barb: Oh men.. We don't have to do it the old way anymore. I love that fresh thinking because so often, people are afraid to change or you hear, well, we've tried that and it didn't work, or that's never gonna work. But we love people who venture out on that skinny limb and just try things. So glad you're here
joining us today, Karen.
Karen: Thank you so much.
Barb: Yeah, so I read your bio over and I love that you came from a place where there was something lacking in yourself, and then you started this group and it's really grown, right? So you're across the United States.
Karen: We are. We are. As I said, almost 39,000 women all across the US. In fact, we have a lot of members who are in Canada and in different countries as well.
Barb: Okay, what do you consider like your biggest challenge when you're working in real estate? Everyone talks about the interest rates and the fluctuation and. Covid had a major impact. So as you are leading this group and all these women, what do you find is like your biggest challenge around real estate and how do you overcome it?
Karen: Yeah, it's none of the things that we say it is. It has nothing to do with the interest rates. It has nothing to do with the market. It is about our mindset and that is the thing that I have seen and learned again and again over the years, not just in our group members or in my team members, but in myself also. We talk ourselves out of opportunities.
We talk ourselves out of deals, we talk ourselves out of commissions, we just talk ourselves out of so much. I often have women in our group say, what's a good book? Recommend your favorite real estate books. And none of them are anything to do with the tactical. Like, this is how you write a contract, it's mindset. Mindset is really where it's at.
we see that in so many different areas. It's so funny. That's just such a common theme. I'm sure, being part of this community and just even realizing that and having that support is one way to overcome it.
Yeah, it is. That is definitely one way and because I think what happens is when you can see what other people do, right? We don't see what we're capable of or we don't maybe see what we've done or accomplished as being a big deal, but when we can see it in other people or hear from it in other people, it just opens that up for us in a different way.
Barb: Yeah. And how do you see that showing up with realtors in terms of money mindset?
Karen: Yeah, a lot of different things. There is a huge scarcity mindset that I see amongst real estate agents and I'm not sure if it's unique to real estate agents or maybe it's just people in general. But there's a huge scarcity mindset and it's in several different ways.
One, it's in asking for what we're worth, right? Being super clear and confident that this is my fee, this is what I charge. This is what I bring to the table. There's a thing that I say a lot in the group, which is, ' your value is not in your availability.'
Our value that we bring is not who's the fastest one to run out the door and open the door for someone. It's in all of the other things that we bring. It's in the fear to invest financially in ourselves. I see that so much. Agents will say, well, I don't have money for marketing this month, or I don't have money to invest in a coaching program, and then, 10 minutes later they're talking about their next target trip or the next vacation scheduling, right? It's just such a scarcity mindset I think that exists out there.
Maggie: Wow, that example is spot on. Is that something we hear and we see all the time in so many different business owners. There is the fine line of like spending money to make money, right? You have to invest in yourself, but you have to do it to a boundary, right? But how are you gonna get to that next level without hiring that coach or paying for some ads or, doing the thing?
You're not gonna get that one step forward.
Karen: That's right. And sometimes an investment too. Obviously it's a financial investment, but a lot of times too, it's a time and energy investment. When I started in the industry 23 years ago, we didn't have YouTube and we didn't have Facebook groups. And if I went to learn something, I had to physically go somewhere or pay for something to attend. Now it is a mind blowing amount of information that's available, which can be really overwhelming. But I see people with that scarcity mindset too, of not just the scarcity of not wanting to spend the money, but the scarcity of not wanting to spend the time.
They don't wanna invest an hour to watch something on YouTube that's gonna better themselves.
Barb: Yeah that's so perfect. We see it all the time. I had a financial professional who said to me, I meet with someone, a new client 10 times a year, the first year. Everyone goes, that's a lot. And she goes, if you're planning a vacation, you're gonna spend that kind of time, planning your vacation or your wedding or any other thing, wouldn't you?
You'd spend 10 hours at the mall right over the weekend. Wouldn't you spend that time on your future to really learn what you need to know and where you're at, where you wanna go, and really make a solid plan that you can work with. And I thought that was brilliant because everyone, they don't even wanna meet with their financial advisor twice a year, and really, I think it's fear, right? They're afraid of what they don't know or where they're at or whatever it might be, but yes. Investing the time in yourself, some money in yourself and community. I really wanna talk about the empowering women in real estate and community, because we have a community here at Purse Strings as well to help women learn what they need to know to make smart financial decisions for themselves, their families, their businesses. So we too are bringing a community of women together. So tell us more about how this community works and why women join it and what they get from it and all. I'd love to learn all about it.
Karen: Yeah, thank you for that. Where we really started was just a place of that community. I can't even tell you how many times I have shared something in the group, posted something in the group, and I've heard from women who've either commented or messaged me and said, 'gosh, I thought I was the only one. I thought I was the only one. ' And so our group really started out of a place of loneliness for myself. I had moved through some different levels in my career and I'd gone through a period of burnout, which I think is something that's very common for a lot of career women.
And I thought the answer was for me to step away from sales and go into this managing broker position, which, long story short was not the right answer. But what it brought me is it brought me this group because here I was just feeling so lonely and isolated. I was in this new role and the agents in my office, they would only come to me if they had a problem, right. That's the only time that they really talked to me and the agents outside of my office didn't really talk to me because they were just afraid that I was gonna try to recruit them to our company. And so I just found myself in just in this really like, lonely space and I was watching a friend who was part of a direct sales organization on social media, and she was sharing their big event that they were having. And I'm just watching these women like being in community with each other and supporting each other in our industry there's a feeling of I have to hold my cards right. I can't share because somebody, it's that scarcity again, right? That fear somebody else is gonna take my idea and then I'm gonna lose business and.
I am watching these women and I'm like, gosh, this is such a beautiful thing, I want this. And I've realized that it didn't exist. That's how the group started. And so what do women get when they join our group is they get that community. We are a no drama.
Like we don't tolerate the drama, we don't tolerate the spam. It's such a great self-regulated space. I'm sure you guys probably feel a little bit of that with your community. They're telling on each other if somebody is messaging, doing the cold dms and all that kind of but it's a place where women can feel who they are and what they bring to the table and just see what other people are doing. And it just brings you that peace and comfort of, gosh, I'm not weird for wanting more. I'm not unusual because I'm having this worry or this challenge.
Barb: And there's a lot of benefit in knowing that.Yeah. And that you're not alone, and we can learn from each other and everyone has expertise they bring to the table and can share with one another, and then they can learn from somebody else as well. And we lift all boats, if you will.
Karen: Yep. Rising tide lifts all ships, right?
Barb: Yeah.
Maggie: There's so many people we find who are in a position and they meet somebody else who's gone through that, scenario and they're like, God, I wish I knew you sooner. I wish I had you then, I wish I knew that information. And this is just that giving it back, like, I'll give you what you need, and the person in front of me will pass it back.
So it's not always like, I wish I knew you. It's like, no, I know you now and we're getting it done and we're getting that information.
Karen: Yes, exactly.
Maggie: So I would like to touch back on kind of that burnout period. So how did you navigate that and figure out which direction you did wanna go and what finally resonated with you?
'cause I know those are some hard decisions to make and they can take some time.
Karen: Yeah, they do. And it's very interesting. Burnout is probably one of the topics that comes up the most in the Facebook group.
When I first experienced it the first time, I did not navigate it well because my solution was to run away. I needed to look at why I was feeling burned out and where that burnout was coming from.
I think a lot of the reasons that we feel that burnout is because we try to do everything ourselves. And I was trying to do everything myself. I was a very successful realtor with three kids in elementary school, and I'm selling 50 to 60 homes a year, and I only had a part-time assistant that worked, maybe 10 hours a week.
I was trying to do all the things. It was just completely burning me out. I wasn't able to be the mother that I wanted to be. I was not in a great space. I think it's something that I see happen to women definitely in our industry and probably in others and especially maybe in a sales type, commission-based kind of industry.
I think that there is this feeling of, okay, well if I'm successful right now, it's probably a fluke, right. So I can't invest in an assistant or some additional systems because, six months from now, it may not be there anymore. It's like we talk ourselves out of
seeing ourselves as actual business owners and entrepreneurs and business people. I did exactly that. All the things I'm saying don't do is exactly what I did. I thought that taking this more secure role in our industry with the steady paycheck and what I thought was gonna be study hours, was gonna be a solution.
And it was a very eye-opening experience for me. Because there's that saying that the grass is always greener where you water it, right? And I thought, well, if I just run over to a new patch of grass, then my problem is going to be solved and my problem actually was not solved.
So what I've learned to how to handle burnout when you're going through this is it's really taking a step back and figuring out where is that burnout coming from? Sometimes, it's a mindset situation. That mindset I have to do, I have to control everything.
I have to do everything myself. Sometimes it's that fear and scarcity mindset. In our industry, I hear realtors say it all the time. Like, when they're really busy, they hate for the phone to ring and they hate for the phone to ring because they're afraid of more opportunities to come in, right? I mean, what a crazy thing to say. What a crazy thing to think, but it's because in our mind we think we have to do everything, and there's so many different ways to run our businesses that doesn't require you being in every face, and it doesn't even necessarily require you having to serve the client yourself.
So I think being open-minded and really digging into why you're feeling that overwhelm is one of the ways I figured out how to get around it.
Maggie: It's so interesting. It sounds to me just like sometimes giving up control, which is hard to do. I'll tell you that personally, and so to hand it off and it's like, are they gonna do it as good as me? Are they gonna have the right verbiage? Do I have to train them?
Are they gonna stick around? And it does seem like too much of an investment sometimes, but it's like that's the only way you're gonna step forward. If you're already at your maximum capacity, right? Especially with that commission, it's like, if I work harder, then I'll earn more. And you always wanna keep beating yourself.
But yeah, eventually one day it's like, all right, that's my max. I can only run so fast. Like
I hit my world record. What are we gonna do now? I can't get faster.
Karen: and the max, I think we have this false idea that in order to beat that world record is, I have to beat the world record. But maybe you're gonna set a new record in a different way. I think we put ourselves in a box of 'I am the top producing realtor, so every year I'm just gonna have to do that same thing over and over again.'
But in fact, there are other opportunities in our industry and in every industry, especially in the digital world that we live in now that you can evolve your business and the way you operate into a completely different way where you are setting the new standard and that's a beautiful thing.
Barb: Yeah. I think that we feel we have to take on everything and be in control and be spinning all the plates ourselves, right? Until we're at the point where we're falling down and we feel like, oh, I'm worthless. I can't do it all. That is just not the case, right? We need to really invest in our own health and sanity and that comes with investing in our business. Like we say, why would you do $30 an hour work when you could be making a couple hundred dollars an hour doing what you're really supposed to be doing, right? So time is money when you think about that.
Karen: I listened to a podcast yesterday an interview of Dan Martel who wrote the new book how To Buy Back Your Time. And one of the things that he said is, you can't build a $10 million business on $10 an hour tasks, because that's what we try to do, right, is we try to do every task at every level.
And you are gonna hit a capacity issue. Like Maggie said, you're gonna get to this point where you literally can grow no further, go no further without help or reorganizing, or realigning in a certain way.
Barb: Yeah, totally. So it's about assessing and seeing where you can invest in either resources, coaching groups like yours and really not limiting yourselves to what you did last year, but what else, what's new, what's different. Like you're saying, what else is there? I mean, there's so much that can be done.
We haven't even thought about it. I think community creates creativity as well. Lets you think outside the box and get other fresh, new ideas as well.
Karen: Yeah, I love that community creates creativity. That's awesome.
Barb: Yeah.
Maggie: And so I know you describe creating this community as a shower thought, which we all know, or shower idea, which is where all the best ideas come from. We all know that. It's the only time I think we actually stop and then something good could come through. So what was going through your mind when this first idea came to you and did you really think like, oh, this is gonna be something big?
Or is it like, was there that hesitation at first?
Karen: Yeah. It's interesting and I think that's where, isn't that when you know where the best ideas come from is when you don't have that fear? Because as I mentioned, I was in that state of loneliness and it just came to me one day like, if what I'm looking for, what I'm craving doesn't exist, why can't I create it?
Why can't I create it? When I created it, I had no vision. I wasn't thinking about a podcast. I wasn't thinking about a book. I wasn't thinking about a conference. I wasn't thinking about a coaching program. I wasn't thinking about anything. I was just thinking about, I'm gonna create this community.
But I also bought the website domain that day for the name of the community. And so it's that little God wink, right? That little message that you get. And so from day one I did feel that this had so much potential beyond just a group that started with agents that were in my local area.
And it has proved to be true.
Barb: And how did you expand it?
Karen: Just over time, little by little. It was five years before we monetized anything in the group. Group members, community members wanting more, wanting to get together, wanting opportunities to learn, so it just slowly evolved and expanded.
We started with, I would do a monthly called it a coffee chat in the group, a Facebook Live where I would, that's the start of the podcast, but we were doing it via Facebook Live bringing somebody in who was local to me that we could sit together in the same little conference room.
Partly because our world expanded. When I was doing those coffee chats, podcasting wasn't as accessible as it was then. And so the thought of, how can me, this mom that lives in Lovettsville, Virginia, how can she create a podcast that seemed an impossibility.
But now, everything just evolved. And part of it is just being willing and open to trying things and those new opportunities.
Maggie: I think this whole story is such a great example of just like that next, one small stop forward. I mean, you just bought that website. It was nothing huge, nothing groundbreaking. You just purchased the website, and it just started with the small thing. I think, we always say on here, everyone gets so caught up in social media.
So it's like, I made this program and sold it and $10,000 in one week. Like no, it took me five years to build this. It was slow and steady, one small step at a time, hearing what the community wants, which is not as glamorous always, but it's what sticks, and is what's really good. I love taking that and just taking it down and breaking it down for a sec. 'cause it is just those one small actions every single day.
Karen: Yeah. Well, there are no overnight success, right? What do they say? Like, overnight successes are built in 10 years. You can look at the story of virtually any successful person, and
you will see that where it was doing just what you said, Maggie, like the small, consistent, action that you just do over and over again. And the truth is, a lot of us are bored.
So then we jump to the next thing or maybe we don't see the big splashy results. I'm a big tracking person, so because I track a lot of the things that I do, maybe I don't see a big splashy result over the course of a month or two months or six months. But when I look back over the course of a year or 18 months or 24 months, it's an unbelievable amount of exponential growth that if I had stopped after month one, I never would've seen.
We can incorporate that in every area of our life.
Barb: Yeah, but I don't think we can talk about that enough because like you say, unless you're really driven up with a thought or idea, because even with building purse strings, which is a model that unlike any other, right? It's fresh, it's new. People don't really get it out of the gate because it's never been built before, but you have to push through.
It takes tenacity. It takes courage. It takes community. It takes good partnership. It takes good communications. Maggie and I just say, only one of us can fall apart at a time. You know, the other one's gotta be there to pick you up because our mission is so important.
It's a really hard job, but it's gonna happen and we're doing great things for women. So that message is super important 'cause like you say, people they just give up. And if it's really important, you just gotta find a way to keep going. Someone said to me, my dad said to me, if you're not dead, you can keep going.
Karen: Well, you know what? It goes back to that mindset, which is where we started, right? Because I think you, in order to have that fortitude, to have that consistent action and to do the things like I've done and like you ladies have done. You have to be a little crazy in the minds of some people, right?
Because not everybody understands it. I actually, I have this little thing your your YouTube people can see this little thing is a little golden sheep that a friend sent me. Because we were having a conversation one day in a coffee shop and we're talking about things.
And I said, yeah, in my family I'm the black sheep, right? And in business sometimes, you can be. A part of a community of people or a group of people or have partners or whatever. And then at some point you can become the black sheep because you're growing in a way that they're not anymore and that can be really uncomfortable.
And she said no. She said, you're actually a golden sheep, which I thought was just such a beautiful thing.
Barb: And she found you a golden sheep.
Karen: I'm sure she just bought it and a little kid's toy and spray painted it. But hey, it's gold and it lives on my desk.
Barb: That's awesome.
Maggie: So Karen, looking back on your own career, is there a piece of advice that you received that fundamentally changed the way you approached your real estate career?
Karen: Yes. I was very fortunate early on like, literally in my first week or two I sat down with someone in my office who was, he was only a few months ahead of me. And I think what's interesting is that he was a he because I'm not sure if she would've given me the same advice.
His advice was around boundaries which sounds very simplistic. And, people talk about boundaries all the time. And one of the lessons that he taught me was about, managing my time. And it's not just about managing your time, it's the mindset.
About being a business owner because what he said to me, you know when we get a phone call, and I think a lot of us do this right? You you're a realtor or whatever industry you're in, and somebody calls, I wanna talk to you about listing my house, or I wanna go see those. We are so freaking excited that somebody wants to work with us, that we will drop everything.
Yes, I'll be there in five minutes. Right? Or yes, when would you like to meet? And of course they're gonna pick the one time that like coincides with your kids' baseball game or your doctor's appointment or date night or whatever. And he said to me, two things. One was when you make those appointments, you always give options.
Great, I can't wait. I'm looking forward to meeting with you. I can do today at four or tomorrow at 10, what works for you? And 99% of the time, they pick one of those times and you are now controlling your schedule and you're also setting that expectation, but you are the expert and you are the professional, and that you're not just sitting on your couch waiting for their call, right?
The other thing that he told me is that everything is an appointment. And so whether I was, taking myself to get my teeth cleaned or I was volunteering in my kids' classroom, or I was out to dinner with my family, if somebody wanted to meet or somebody was going I'm sorry, I have an appointment.
At that time, I didn't need to explain myself. And I think a lot of times we do that. Well, my daughter has a play tonight. None of that is necessary. Like, we are professional business owners, and it's okay. No women have ever given me I've gotten a lot of advice and I've had a lot of mentors who are female in the industry, and none of them have ever given me that kind of specific advice about guarding my time and treating myself as a business owner. I can't help but wonder if that is. Just the way we think and the way it is. And I wanna do it differently. And so that's why I talk about that so much.
Barb: Yeah, boundaries. And you come first, you get to make those decisions and you are the business owner. So I think it was brilliant advice and men do it all the time.
Karen: Exactly. Yes. So why can't we.
Maggie: Yeah, that's a great piece of advice and one that we always need reminders of to make sure we're keeping that in check and keeping it aligned. So I think this has been a great conversation. There's been so much great tidbits and it's really great just hearing your story and the journey that you've calmed down.
But there is a question we like to ask everybody while they're on the show, and that is, what is your definition of financial freedom?
Karen: It is freedom. And what I mean by freedom is not just necessarily an amount of dollars in the bank account, but it is the freedom to know and understand that I am in control of my finances, my life that I can always make more money, I can always make more time. I know people that have a lot of money in the bank and they live in a place of constant fear and scarcity that they're going to lose it, and that they have to constantly bring more.
So to me, it's a feeling of freedom. I have what I need. If I don't have what I need, I can get what I need. It's just a place of peace and calm that I don't think is always equated to finances. I think when we hear, and you guys obviously know a lot better than me, but I think whenever anybody talks about money or finances, there's a lot of tension around that. To me it is a feeling of not tension. It's just peace.
Maggie: That's a great answer. So Karen, we appreciate you coming on today and really sharing your story and sharing your expertise. We're going to ensure we have links to your community, to your book, all that good stuff in the show notes so everyone can reach out to you, join that community if they feel it's a fit and really be connected in with you.
So thank you again for coming on, and we'll talk to everyone soon.
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