How long have you been doing what you do and how did you get to be a Daily Mastery Mentor?

I’ve been helping people live more peaceful and balanced lives while being more productive since 2003. It feels like yesterday, but it’s been quite a privilege to meet and support all the wonderful individuals I’ve worked with. As to how I got to do what I do: I was working in the corporate world, on a management track, when I got pregnant. I just knew that I wanted to be able to raise my son myself, get him to and from school, and be present at all his games and events. I also knew that the track I was on wasn’t going to allow me to do so, so I stepped down from the corporate ladder, and created my own business doing paper and time management.

However, as I was growing my business while taking care of my baby, very very quickly I found myself overwhelmed, fatigued, frustrated, and angry. There was simply too much, and there was no time whatsoever for myself in this equation. It was simply unsustainable, and I could see myself burning out in the near future. So I started to read everything I could find that could help me find a way to have everything while maintaining my sanity. Productivity, work-life balance, brain function, psychology, no topic was out of bounds if it was going to help me regain balance in my life. I also used myself as a guinea pig and experimented – a lot – to find what worked and what didn’t work in real life. In a little over two months, I had regained my balance, was my happy self again, and discovered in the process that making balance a priority actually made me more effective at work – my business increased by 30% that year!

As I went back to my clients with what I had learned through this research and self-experimentation, I discovered that they too hungered for a more peaceful and balanced life, as well as a more productive work life, whether they were stay-at-home moms, business owners, executives, and whether they were male or female. I’ve been helping people create peaceful and balanced lives while increasing their income ever since.

What exactly is Daily Mastery?

Daily Mastery is the science of managing your life on a day to day basis for a highly productive, yet peaceful and balanced life now and in the future.

In order to achieve this, I follow a simple 3-step system with all my clients:

Create a productive day – today. It’s pretty simple: we all have 24 hours a day, no matter who we are, or what we have. What makes the difference is how you use those 24 hours that are alloted to you every day, and it is tremendously difficult to achieve anything as long as you allow your time to be eaten up by trivialities and time vampires. So we start by fine-tuning your time management systems so that you systematically focus on the right things and are efficient. Once this is done, we can start to…

Manage your resources effectively. Time is only the first of the resources needed to have a peaceful and balanced life. In this second step we tweak and fine-tune all your other resources, such as physical (sleep being one of them), emotional (think stress), human (the help that is all around you) and organizational (the systems you use). Once you master this step, a whole new level of effectiveness becomes possible – again whether you are a stay-at-home mom or an executive – and you find yourself with extra time to…

Make the days count. The third and final piece to the Daily Mastery puzzle is maybe the most important: to make every day count toward creating or reinforcing the life you want to have. Whether your idea of life balance is to have breakfast twice a week with your kids and one day off a week, to work less, or to engage in a passion, your feeling of peace, accomplishment and balance will come from making it happen. So in this third step we review your dreams, goals, values, and create together ways to integrate them in your life here and now, until your goals are accomplished and your dreams a reality.

I hate complicated: if I can’t understand it immediately, if it’s not easy to implement, I won’t do it, and I assume you are the same, so all of the above is accomplished using simple, straightforward, fill-in-the-blanks, step-by-step tools and processes, most of them a tweak or modifications on what you are already doing.

Who are your clients?

I have worked with hundreds of people from all walks of life, but some types of clients reap the most benefits from my services. They are:

working and stay-at-home mothers

solo-preneurs, i.e. people who are freelancers, consultants, business owners of a business of one

business owners of businesses with less than 10 full-time employees

people in long-cycle sales, such as real estate agents, mortgage brokers, financial advisors, life insurance agents, planners, etc.

What happens if you haven’t yet worked with people in my situation or field?

Since I have worked with people in all walks of life, chances are I have worked with someone in a similar situation or field to yours. However, if it so happens that I haven’t, you are still in luck, because I will bring to your situation my experience and a completely fresh eye, which will allow us to come up with creative solutions.

How are you different from a life coach or a business coach?

A life coach is there to help you find out where you’re stuck in your life, then help you find out ways to get unstuck. He or she also helps you find the answers to what you want to do with your life when you are unhappy or simply dissatisfied with it. Daily Mastery comes afterward, once you know what you want and are ready to act on it, but need to find out how to make it happen in your life. You may even have a pretty good idea of what you need to do, but you have trouble figuring out how to integrate it in your life now.

A business coach is there to help you grow your business and provide you with a sounding board to bounce ideas out of. A business coach rarely has the expertise to  help you design the right systems for you, make sure that your operations are streamlined – and that you are personally operating a peak productivity whenever you are at work. This is expertise that all my clients benefit from.

How are you different from the books and seminars out there?

Most books and seminars on time management and work-life balance belong in one or the other of two categories: they either teach you a system or give you a series of tips and tools to pick and choose from. In neither case do they truly teach you how and why certain things work for you or don’t work for you, how to pull things together into a coherent system, or how to customize any tool or idea to your own needs. Also, once you have read the book or gone to the seminar, there very rarely is any follow-up to ensure that you are making the most of the information that you have learned.

When you work with me, you get to co-design your own system for a peaceful and balanced life, one that is truly yours; you always understand exactly why and how to use a certain tool, and why it works for you; and you get accountability so you complete the process in every case.

Who do you work best with, and what is expected of me?

Daily Mastery is for people who are committed to making the changes that will give them the peaceful and balanced life they crave.  All the tools in the Daily Mastery system are simple and straightforward, but you have to use them on a regular basis for the system to work, I can’t do it for you. As long as you are willing to do that, I’ll give you 150% and will be with you every step of the way, providing you all the support you need.

For what type of person is this NOT going to work?

If you are looking for a magic bullet, or for someone to do the work for you, I’m not the right person for you. I’ve been known to have infinite patience with clients who were stuck on a specific point, but I have no patience for clients who always have excuses for why they haven’t done the work. More importantly, if you are not ready and committed to the process, you will just waste your money and my time, which is not fair to either of us.

What can I expect?

You can expect to:

be super-effective with your time, and get more done in less time than you ever have;

regain several hours a week from your busy schedule (minimum of 5 hours, current maximum is 20 hours);

have a customized system that supports your having the life you want and accomplishing your goals;

feel peace of mind because you know everything is taken care of;

have a balanced life, balanced as per your definition of the word;

and if you make your own income, save or earn an extra $3,000 to $45,000 a year.

How quickly can I expect results?

Obviously, this depends on how overwhelmed you are when we start, how much work we need to do together and how much you put into the homework I give you. This being said, my sessions are designed so that you see results from taking action on every single one of them, and virtually all of my clients see very significant changes within two months, in the form of being able to go home earlier from work, seeing their family more, being more relaxed and peaceful, and having extra time they didn’t know they had.

Can I contact some of your clients to learn what it’s like to work with you?

Of course! If you haven’t already, go to the Success Stories page and browse through the stories. If you feel drawn to some in particular and would like to speak with the people behind the stories, simply send me an email to let me know who you would like to speak to, and I’ll put you in touch. My clients, for the most part, have only initials displayed to protect their privacy, but pretty much all of them are happy to share their experience with me.

What if I want to work with you, but I don’t have the time?

The only time you need to find is the time for the first session. Putting into action what we’ll talk about during this first session – and nothing requires homework from you, just tweaks on what you’re already doing – will give you at the very minimum the hour a week you need to continue working with me, and very quickly you’ll find yourself with more than enough time both for our work together and for whatever else you don’t have time for now.

Will I recover the investment that I put into your services?

Absolutely! The clients who are responsible for their own income, such as business owners and salespeople, have reported recovering their initial investment in me in a matter of weeks, and then went on having an extra $3,000 to $45,000 the following year, without any other effort on their part. My other clients all report that they would have paid much more for the difference their newfound peace of mind and balance are making for them.

Karin, based on everything I’ve read and heard about you, I know you’re the one I want to learn from. What are my options for getting started with you?

The Services page, if you have already gone to it, has given you the answer already. However, just in case, we work in individual sessions together, usually by phone. You can choose between hour-long sessions and half-hour sessions depending on your needs and your schedule. Choose one of the programs outlined – this will give us a focus – and we can get started.

At this point, I do not offer group coaching or classes, but come back soon, since this is in the works.

Ok, I know which program I want, how do we get started?

Great! Simply send me an email to karin (at) dailymastery.com or call me at 201-497-0403 and we’ll set a time to get all your questions answered. I can’t wait to meet you in person or by phone and get you started on your way to the peacefully productive and balanced life you deserve to have.

If I’m not quite ready to get started, how can I sample your work at low cost to see if it’s the right solution for me?

A way to sample Daily Mastery is to sign up for Daily Mastery and You, my weekly newsletter. It gives “invaluable information and tips” (readers’ words, not mine) to start becoming more productive and creating the balance you want, as well as exclusive announcements for free and low-cost events. Subscribe to the left and, until you get your next issue, go to the blog and resources section for immediate resources.

Ok, I’m ready to get a peaceful and balanced life, but I have some additional questions. Can I call you?

Excellent. It sounds like you are almost ready to create the life you want. Yes, by all means, if you have a couple of questions, just email me or call me at 201-497-0403 and we’ll set up a time for us to walk you through the different options and answer your questions. I can’t wait to see you change your life and I’m honored to be of service to you.