Bizzy Women Interviews Shann Vander Leek – Professional Coach, Yogi and Best Selling Author
1. You are a Coach and a co-author in a new best selling book – Wake Up Women. What is Wake Up Women?
Yes, I am a professional coach and the founder of True Balance Life Coaching. I coach women in transition to set big goals, achieve extraordinary results and create balance in their lives through coaching, yoga and creative expression.
Wake Up Women Be Happy, Healthy & Wealthy is the first best selling inspirational guidebook written by women for women. Fifty expert authors contributing to one book – filled with great stories and golden nuggets of wisdom. I am happy to report that we soared to the top of the Barnes and Noble best seller list, topping the charts for Women, Women’s Career and Women’s Health and shared the top ten spotlight with President Obama and John Grisham!
Women are busy.
Like your network for women, they are balancing work, family, activities, volunteering. Wake Up Women is divided into sections that deal with everything from our emotional well being to career, money and relationships.
It’s full of great stories you can read in bite sized pieces and it is also a guide book. And you are getting the insights from 50 different and diverse women experts.
2. You say the time for women is now? What do you mean?
I think too often we as women put everyone and everything first. We will start a new business when the mortgage is paid off. We will take yoga or art classes once the kids finish school. Get healthy or fit when we have more time.
My goal is to inspire as many women as possible to be willing to put themselves first, take care of their bodies, nurture their dreams, make the best use of their talents.
We forget that we can give the most when we are living lives we love. We can be the best mothers, wives, business owners or colleagues when we are feeling nurtured, fulfilled, inspired and self expressed.
We can have the biggest impact on social and community changes when we are feeling confident and powerful.
What I want to remind the Bizzy Women network of women to do is – to take care of themselves, find ways to express themselves and to live their dreams.
3. How is this book different from other inspirational books like Chicken Soup For the Soul?
What is unique about Wake Up is, like books like Chicken Soup For the Soul, there are these amazing and moving inspirational stories from women across the globe. The difference is each author is an expert – a coach, a professional or an outstanding business executive, and each inspirational story includes 2 – 3 tools, techniques or strategies they can implement in their life immediately. So it is both great stories and a guidebook to life.
4. How else are you helping women – wake up?
I earned my yoga teaching certification to create and conduct luscious living playshops involving yoga, guided meditation and creative expression. The first two playshops sold out quickly with the attendees wanting more … Women are ready for extreme self care.
5. What’s special about the growing community of Wake Up Women?
I am blown away by my co-author community. This group of women have become part of my professional network. We support each other, share ideas, collaborate and dialog about how we can make a difference for women across the globe.
Each author is partnering with not for profit organizations by offering book signings and fund raising events. I chose to partner with my local Women’s Resource Center and will be donating 10% of my 2009 book proceeds to them.
6. What is the vision that drives Wake Up Women
Each of us in our own way believes in the power of women. We believe the world is hungry and in need of the vision, leadership and compassion of women. I became a coach because I am committed to inspiring women in transition and employees who want to become entrepreneurs. So, Wake Up Women is one more way that I can make and impact and a difference in peoples lives. And it is a way I can reach out to thousands of women I would not normally be able to reach.
7. How would you explain to our network how it’s different working with women?
As women – I think we are naturally about community, about something greater than ourselves. But we have not always had the mechanisms to come together. The business environments were based on old models of competition and scarcity. Wake Up Women is a mechanism for bringing us together and creating visibility and excitement. A business model based on abundance and community.
8. Don’t you feel competitive with the other authors?
No, we don’t feel competition at all – we are working in collaboration. We all believe that there is an abundance of clients and customers. And we know if we come together, work together, and merge our individual audiences we are all reaching thousands and thousands of people who would not hear our stories or know about our work.
9. You are a professional coach – Lots of people are talking about having a career coach, a life coach. What is the value of having a coach?
You learn to value yourself more.
You stop tolerating the things that are dragging you down.
You and your coach create a momentum so you get results easier and quicker.
You set better goals and achieve them easier.
You take action immediately.
You have a partner whose only purpose is your success.
Your self confidence increases.
You have a deeper sense of well-being.
10. What is your unique approach to coaching?
True Balance was created because it is my observation that healthy personal development, as well as the success of a small business, absolutely depends on aligning your business goals with your lifestyle choices and grounding them in your core values.
We will always focus where you need me most.
You will begin by strengthening your personal foundation, setting realistic goals based on your values, and eliminating some of the stressors in your life. You then will have fewer problems and can focus on what is going to make you more successful.
11. What can people do right now to start changing their lives?
The one tool I would like to give your network is to take inventory of what you deem to be truly important in your life and begin eliminating the things that bring you down. Bizzy Women members are welcome to sign up for a free life balance e-Course at my website. www.truebalancelifecoaching.com
12. How can people buy the book and find out about your services or contact you?
The Bizzy Women community of women can buy the books at my website www.truebalancelifecoaching.com
Shann’s bio
Unconventional, spirited and delightfully curious, Shann Vander Leek is a fresh new voice in the arena of mindfulness and extreme self care. As the Founder of True Balance Life Coaching, Shann inspires women in career transition to set big goals, achieve extraordinary results and create balance in their lives. Telephone and email consultations make Shann accessible to clients all over the world: 231.668.1111 or www.truebalancelifecoaching.com
