Ep #121: Making 200K Selling Weight-Loss Coaching to Quilters with Dara Tomasson

Welcome to the Make Money as a Life Coach® podcast where sales expert and life coach Stacey Boehman teaches you how to make your first 2K, 20K, and 200K using her proven formula.

Hey coaches. All through the month of April we will be featuring 200K level concepts and interviews leading up to the 200K Mastermind open enrollment, May 3rd, 4th, and 5th.

Now, you might be tempted to think this doesn’t apply to me yet, but I want to encourage you not to skip past these episodes. Often learning more advanced concepts will make the foundational concepts seem even easier. It’s like running on a hill when you train so that the flat terrain becomes easier. So don’t skip this.

And if you’re ready for the advanced selling level and you want to take your business to $200,000 over the next six to 12 months, you can join our mailing list to get all of the information on our upcoming enrollment as it rolls out, and you can apply for the 200K Mastermind on May 3rd, 4th, and 5th, all by visiting www.staceyboehman.com/200K-mastermind.

Enjoy this month’s episodes. Let’s dive into today’s lesson.

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Stacey: So I’m actually curious. Let’s just start here and then we’ll reverse do an intro. How do you plan to be on the podcast?

Dara: Okay, so I actually planned it – I like to do the thing where you plan ahead of time without knowing the why. And so I just plan what I’m going to offer of value ahead of time, I wrote down how I’m going to help people, and then I’m just going to trust that however it’s going to connect, we’re going to connect, it’s going to connect.

Then what happens is – so this is kind of what happened with the consult guide. I made goals to make so many consults but when I didn’t have those consults, I just practiced having consults during those times where I was going to have those consults.

So then I was ready to have those consults. And then I had the planner in place, I had the – my confidence was set because I’m like, no, I’m having these consults and I’m going to rock the consults.

Stacey: Right. So what you’re saying is when you wanted consults, even if you didn’t have them, during that hour where you wanted a consult, I’m guessing with the 2K process, you went through and practiced a consult. That’s so amazing.

Dara: I studied it, I mean, I remember my coach saying to me I’m a really good student, and then I remember you saying something like that in the first 200K Mastermind. And as soon as you said that, I was like, oh my gosh, I’m going to be really good at this because I’m really good at studying and implementing and going forward. So that gave me such a boost of confidence.

Stacey: I’m really good at this. People think that’s just you either are or you aren’t. But that is just a thought that created the results that you’ve created in your business so far. Give me a specific example of what it would look like because so many people are like, “I want to be on Stacey’s podcast.” And sometimes it doesn’t have to do with how much money they’ve made. I haven’t had any of my millionaires that have made a million dollars with me on yet.

It has to do with the flow of the podcast and what story I want to tell, or what’s important for my students to learn. So for example, with the podcast that I’m doing for this upcoming 200K enrollment, I wanted to feature people who have made a lot of money who aren’t business coaches or they’re not selling anything with a financial return. Because my students need to hear that that is equally possible and that it’s not just you can make some money but the people that make a lot of money, those are the business coaches.

So it’s not always like you just make a lot of money and then you get on the podcast. It’s very situational and there’s no rhyme or reason. So how did you plan for that specifically because I know people want to know?

Dara: I know. So when you coached me back February 3rd, 2019, and you told me, you’re like, quilter’s not a niche. And I was just like okay. Obviously, I’m a good student, I’m like, I just rewatched this yesterday, I’ve watched that coaching so many times. And so I said to myself when I’m going to be on Stacey’s podcast, I’m going to tell her that anybody can do any niche, doesn’t matter.

Stacey: Okay, first of all, I have to just defend myself on that. What I meant is quilter’s not a problem you solve. So what problem…

Dara: I actually did niche down to it because you made the example of nurses, like and then you said about weight loss. So I actually am the weight loss coach for quilters.

Stacey: Yeah, you have to solve a specific problem for them.

Dara: But the interesting part is it’s never really about the weight. So I had to kind of overcome that obstacle in my own head. But I did take your advice and I said okay, niche down, I’m weight loss coach for quilters, and so I did do what you said.

But when I determined I was going to be on your podcast because I was going to be the example of what’s possible. Take the most random niche ever, it is, it’s totally the most random crazy niche. I don’t even look like a quilter. I’m six feet tall, I’m 150 pounds. I am not your typical quilter.

Stacey: I don’t even know what that means. What quilters look like. Are they older or something?

Dara: Typically yeah, they’re a little bit older. I mean, there’s a whole modern quilt – they’ve really changed. In the last 15 years quilters have…

Stacey: It’s like a whole thing. Actually, I have to say this is one of the big reasons I wanted to have you on the podcast. I mean, you have so much to share too. When you did the interview from the 200K – we did the before and afters and we got to feature some of yours on the last enrollment.

But just everything you say is truth bomb after truth bomb. So there’s two reasons to have you on the podcast. You are so good at explaining things and you’re such an example of what’s possible, but also you do have a more obscure – people are like, wait, quilters? That’s when I think it is going to be such an example of what’s possible for people to see you and be like, wait a minute, so maybe there’s this underlying passion that I had that I just haven’t acknowledged because I didn’t think it was a thing I can make money with.

Dara: Totally. And one of the things that really, really amazes me is when I think about all my clients and the successes they’re having. So many of them said I would have never hired a coach if you weren’t a quilter.

Stacey: What? Oh my god.

Dara: It’s so amazing to me. One of my clients, she just climbed a mountain with her kids. She was like, I would never have climbed a mountain and I would never have done those things. And she said specifically because she was supposed to have bariatric surgery, all the things. And she’s like, but when I found out you were a quilter, I hired you. And she’s changed her life and she’s changing her family’s life because she’s teaching them the model and she’s doing all these things.

And so anyway, that’s such a passion for me that I can just be so empowered by myself in my own belief. I think that’s the biggest part. And I think that’s the biggest thread that ties you and me and all my success is that you believed in me so much. I mean, I was just this random girl that came on a call on February 3rd…

Stacey: I love that you remember the date.

Dara: I know. Because I watched it so many times. And people always ask me, what’s that call that you were on with Stacey?

Stacey: Okay, so hold on. Let’s stop. If you’re in 2K and you want to watch – so this was a 2K call. This was not a 200K call. You came on live and I coached you on February 3rd.

Dara: 2020.

Stacey: 2020. So if you’re in 2K, you can either go to the member portal and you can go to live trainings or live coaching, and you can watch the past replays. Or you can listen to them on the internal podcast. So we have our own 2K podcast and we put all of our replays forever on there so you can listen to it that way as well.

So the February 3rd, 2020 call is the call that changed everything for Dara. Wait, I don’t even know if we’ve introduced you yet so let’s just pause for a second. I love the podcasts that just start like that, like, wait a minute, let’s just start here. Okay, tell everyone your name, who you are, where you’re from, and how much money you’ve made. We’ve discussed this ahead of time. In both Canadian and US dollars.

Dara: So my name is Dara Tomasson. I’m a weight loss coach for quilters and I live on Vancouver Island in Canada. I have five kids and I used to be a schoolteacher. I was a professional quilter and then when I discovered life coaching my life changed completely and I knew that I needed to help so many other women make the transformation that I made myself.

And since January 2020, and I would say most of this money came starting July of 2020, I have made $263,000 American dollars, or $376,000 Canadian dollars. And I just want to say in the last three months I’ve made $108,000 dollars.

Stacey: Oh my god, that’s amazing.

Dara: Just with my simple offer.

Stacey: Just with your simple offer. Okay, so let’s go back to the February 3rd call. You came on and what happened? Tell them all the things.

Dara: Well, I said I had all sorts of drama because I was trying to do all the things. I was a business coach for quilters, and then they saw how much weight I’d lost so they wanted me to do that. So I started my own little program with that, and then I did group coaching for that. I had three or four offers.

It was so funny, you were like, what are you even doing Dara? So then you said you got to get one offer, you have inconsistent money because you have inconsistent offers. And so you told me I had to stop everything and just do one thing. Actually you did say I could keep quilting if that was an automatic thing.

Stacey: Okay, let’s just tell everyone, you’re really successful with quilting, right? You’re really known in the community. You built a lot of success with that, right?

Dara: Yeah. I went across Canada quilting, being a representative. I taught in retreats, I taught internationally, I have books published. I’m kind of a deal in the…

Stacey: You’re kind of a big deal in the quilting world. You’re kind of a big deal in the coaching world too.

Dara: Yeah, it’s really, really fun. But I didn’t make a ton of money doing that. And the other part of it was I kind of sacrificed my health with that because I would start working at nine at night. I’d put my kids to bed, be a good mom, so I have five of them, and then I would start quilting at nine at night, and I usually would quilt until three in the morning and five, six days a week.

And so I was gaining all this weight and starting to struggle. We had a relocation and that was really hard because I had to leave my beautiful – I was working at a quilt shop. I was their long-armer, I was their instructor, and then we moved. And I started putting all this weight on and I was really, really, really unhappy because I had basically had this dream life and so that’s actually when I found a life coach who coincidentally was a fabric designer.

And had I not had that connection, I probably wouldn’t have taken up on her offer because I felt like coaching was one of the weirdest things ever. And so when she put on Instagram, she had to guinea pig for life coaching, I was like, well, I couldn’t get much lower right now so actually six weeks – I was her free client when she was going through The Life Coach School and those six weeks – the best part was she said I could solve any problem and I was in such a bad state that I was like, I don’t think so.

So I’d spend all week trying to come up with a problem she couldn’t solve and every darn week she could solve my problem with the model. So then I started changing my life, I started teaching more. I re-established myself, I started losing all this weight, I started a YouTube channel doing all these really fun things all because of the model.

Stacey: That’s so crazy. I love that there are seriously two thoughts. Life coaching, the weirdest thing ever, and my thought, just my first one, my unintentional one which happened to serve me when I heard of life coaching is I was like, that sounds like the coolest thing ever. I love it. So the moral though is that your clients might think it’s the weirdest thing or the coolest thing and they will still buy. They will still do the coaching.

Dara: They will transform their lives.

Stacey: I love it. Okay, so back to the call on February 3rd. I tell you you have too many offers, I love that. Everyone please hear that. If you are having inconsistent selling, it is because you have inconsistent offering. So the way that I had explained this I think to you on the call and maybe it’s not and I’ll explain it differently now, they can go back and watch it if they’re in 2K.

But it’s like, the average person has to see an offer 16 times to say yes. And then if you think about if they’re seeing your offer on let’s say Facebook for example, it’s not the only way you can market but let’s just use it as an example. Let’s just say you throw an offer out there, depending on the time of day, if they were even on Facebook that day, depending on what the newsfeed displays to them, there’s a good chance that the day that you make the offer, they don’t even see it.

So it’s not just 16 offers. You have to make – for them to see your offer 16 times, you might have to make that offer 100 times to break through the noise of even Instagram, Clubhouse, whatever it is. So then on top of that, let’s say you have four or five different offers.

I had this happen. So now they have to – you have to make 400 or 500 offers. You keep making these offers but they’re like, but I don’t know. And when I used to have this, this is the best example, I used to have a program called Six Figure Society, which was – I laugh when I tell this. Which was a mastermind for life coaches to make 100K.

And then I also had Diva Business School, which was a group coaching for entrepreneurs who wanted to make 100K. I’m not sure what the difference was. Literally I think the only difference was one was life coaches only, but it was the same stuff.

Anyway, so people would message me, and they would be like, I really want to work with you, but I don’t know, do I take Diva Business School? Do I do Six Figure Society? Both of those names by the way, I can’t even handle it. But that’s really what happens is you’re constantly making offers and then when you have so many of them, your person wants to work with you, they’re intrigued, but they haven’t seen consistent offers from you and they’re confused and their confused mind just says no, procrastinate, thinks about it, plans for the future to do it, puts it on the list of one day.

They don’t take action now. So that’s what I was meaning by that. So I told you you had too many offers, and now listen, there are two ways that this can go. This happens in 2K or in 200K. I say something like that, I give you coaching, and then the person that gets the coaching does a couple of things. They hate me forever and never talk to me again, or they ignore me, or they try to do what I’m saying but they try to do it and they don’t really want to do it, so they half do it.

So they’re like, okay, well I’ll have one offer, but really once they get on the phone with me and they talk to me, I’ll have a back – this side offer that if they don’t say yes to this one, I’ll just go ahead and throw this one out there, but Stacey won’t know. Or they just do it. They just say okay, I’m on board, let’s do it. Which one did you do?

Dara: Well, I went really full in on what you told me to do. And it was actually really hard. Because I had to say no to some people and turn them away and it was devastating at the time because I had…

Stacey: What were your thoughts that made it devastating? Because I know lots of coaches experience this.

Dara: I felt like I worked so hard to build this little – beautiful little business here and then a little business there and it just felt like I was so proud of what I had accomplished. Because I really wanted to help people. And so for me to have to say I’m sorry, I can’t help you anymore, especially – they loved me, and I loved them. So it was…

Stacey: That’s how I felt about leaving one-on-one. When I had to give up one-on-one. I’m like, but I love my one-on-one clients, they love me. That literally was my exact thought.

Dara: So I just kept – I played your coaching and I actually really loved when you said – not only did you say inconsistent money, but you also have inconsistent offering. So my ability to be that level of a coach is split when I have this split attention in all these different areas.

And so I loved that part of the coaching where I thought I really want to be that absolutely clean mind that’s very organized and very direct and I think about my clients, I’m always solving for them, and so that really resonated with me as well. And so I got very, very clear on my process and helping them to get the success that they wanted, the results that they wanted.

Stacey: That’s so good. It’s not just about the selling piece. So in 200K we teach – and I’m going to have a podcast I think before this one comes out that talks about the three steps of 200K, which is really to make 200K, you just have to focus on the value before people pay you, the value while you’re selling, their experience of buying from you, and then the value after they pay you.

And so what you’re saying is the consistency, that is what helps them be able to say yes to you. That’s why the simple offer is so important, for them to see the same offer over and over. But then also when you go to deliver, when you’re only offering one solution, you get to become the expert at giving that solution.

You think about it all day, you coach on it all day, all of your content, all of your ideas. And I’m the queen of sell general life coaching until you know what that specialty is. You knew yours relatively – at least who you wanted to coach with right away, and then you had this idea of like, business coaching and weight coaching. You had a bunch of different things you wanted to offer.

And that’s what a lot of people find themselves in is they might have an idea of who they want to help, but it’s like whatever got you where you are isn’t going to get you where you’re going. They love to talk about all the things, especially the general life coaches.

But I’ve gotten so good at talking about every breakthrough I have in every area of my life, and I love talking about all the things. And to go from that to now I have to filter everything I say, for me, I only talk about money. There are a lot of things I care about in this world, there are a lot of interests I have, there are a lot of breakthroughs I have in my own life in a bunch of different areas. I only talk about making money.

And I filter all of my – if it’s not relevant, I’m like, this would have been a great idea. Sometimes I give it to another client, but it’s not – I think it’s the most difficult thing to constrain down your content, your work, the problem you’re solving, and become an expert in one area. It requires you to say no more than you ever expect. And I think that has been your secret sauce for your growth. That has been what has skyrocketed you so quickly.

Dara: Absolutely.

Stacey: Because how long – that was what? February of 2020.

Dara: So then I think that month I made $3000 and then April I made – it wasn’t until I really started focusing. I was working on it and I was really working on the consult. And that was one of my hacks is if I didn’t have five consults that week, I would spend five hours working on the consult guide so that I could be really good when they came.

Because I knew it was going to explode, I knew I was going to become that person. And then in June I offered a free training and in July I did two weeks of free trainings to two different groups of quilters and in I think the month of June I made like, how much money? A lot of money. And then August. So I think I was at $101,000 and then you offered the mastermind.

Stacey: Wait, you made $101,000 in June? So I gave you the coaching in February. And it wasn’t instant success.

Dara: Okay, here it is. So July I made $61,000. $61,000 in July. And then you offered the mastermind in August. I made $102,000 in August. I knew I needed to hire you because I had this huge growth problem, which was amazing.

Stacey: So what was the growth problem? Tell them about that.

Dara: Well, all of a sudden now I had 20 clients, one-on-one clients. And then I had people keep asking me, so at one point I had 23 one-on-one clients and then I also – so that’s when I was ready. So October you said, you coached me and you’re like, yeah, you can do a group. I made 72K in October. So I had 23 one-on-one clients and then I had a group of 20 people.

Stacey: That’s so great. I love it. And you’re just killing it this year. So the numbers you gave me, is that how much you’ve made so far this year?

Dara: No. So last year I made $268,000 Canadian dollars and so far, so in January when we started 200K, I got the coaching that I needed to not to one-on-one anymore and I get to just go into group, and so I had my group in January and then February, so I was selling that. And then in March I was actually not meant to do another group, but you did the 25K challenge in 30 days, so I thought let’s go for it. So I didn’t change anything new, I didn’t offer anything new. And I actually didn’t quite make the 25K, but I made 16.5K just…

Stacey: But unexpected.

Dara: I know, it was amazing. It was the greatest bonus ever. So I’m not upset about it at all because what I learned is that I don’t have to be stressed, I don’t have to have drama. It was the most generous money – I shouldn’t say that. All the money I make I feel like it’s the most generous thing ever. It was a whole different level of confidence and delivery than I had before. Maturity. This maturity level of I’ve got this, this is just the new me, this is just what I do.

Stacey: That’s so good. I sometimes think that you have to be willing to take less money to sell less in order to find the way that you want to sell and how you want to feel. To create that standard, you have to be willing to let go of money to create the standard. What most people think, and I think this is what we teach in 200K so deeply is that most people think I have to make the money and once I get there, then I’ll create a standard.

But what happens is if you have a standard of say hustling to make money, you get there and you want more money because that’s the human condition. We just always want more. And then you’ve taught yourself the hustle so then you will hustle to create more money.

And then you’ll say okay, but when I get to that next round, when it’s 200K or 500K or a million, then I’ll stop hustling, then I’ll create my standard. And you get to a million and you’re still hustling. And it keeps going, so you have to be willing to create the standard first and then at the sacrifice – and sometimes the standard is raising your prices. We’ve talked about that, you’ve done that in the mastermind as well. You have to be willing to do that first and take less money in order to be that person and then you create the money with that standard.

Dara: I’ve totally said that to myself the past month. I said this is who I’m becoming. I’m still committed to this level of non-hustle, of just getting that flow that this is my work.

Stacey: Yeah, that’s so good. I love that so much. So how much are you going to make this year you think?

Dara: Well, 500 at least.

Stacey: I love that. I love your confidence in that. That’s one thing that is really inspiring is since this podcast started, I hope everybody can just notice and just watch how you can get so into the belief that that result is done before it’s happened. That is – tell me what you think that is. Because so many people struggle with that.

Dara: Yeah. Well, the number one – when I was thinking so much about this podcast and what I would say to everyone that’s listening because I’ve been thinking about this podcast for a very long time. And whenever I do my peer coaching, which I absolutely love doing in the 200K, it’s just such a great room to be in. And the very first thing I always say to everyone is you’ve got to work on the belief of your tools.

So what I spent hours and hours doing is I would take one of the tools I teach, and I’d write all about it. I write about how much money it saved me, how much money it’s provided for me, think about my marriage, think about my relationship with my kids, my in-laws, and I say how much money would I pay for someone if I knew how valuable this would be?

And I write experiences of my own life, in my clients’ life of how much value that tool has added. And so when I’m sitting in a consult, I think I have zero drama about money anymore because I have so much evidence that just this one tool, if I even did this one tool of the 12 tools I’m teaching you, that’s a game-changer.

Stacey: Yeah. And it doesn’t matter what tools you’re teaching. For everyone listening, it doesn’t have to be the model. It can be any tool at all. I’ve done this – it’s so funny because for years I did it with the model and now in 2K, I really teach – when I created 2K, when I created 200K, my business had gotten so diverse at that point that I couldn’t just teach the model within my tools.

So I teach the model separately and then the way that I teach my tools and advanced selling, foundational selling, all of that, I teach that separate from the model so that people can consume that, no matter what tools they have. And you’re right, it’s that work of going in and constantly choosing one thing and saying okay, if they just do – for me, if you think about 2K.

I’m like, if you just master clean selling, even if they don’t do my consult process, even if they have another one they like better but they clean up their mind when they’re on a consult, they will make so much money. Just do that one thing. Or I love how Maggie – we recently did a call and she was a guest panel.

And she said if you could just do one thing before a call, watch the module on who before how. If you just do that one thing. It’s that one thing. So I think that is what happens is when you become so clear on your tools, you’re like, of course they’re going to get results so none of the money drama that they have, it seems so small in comparison. It literally does seem like a little kid who’s scared to swim or scared of the dark. You’re like, I get why you’re scared but I promise there’s nothing to be worried about. That’s genuinely how you feel.

Dara: Especially because you talk about the – in the consultation process, it’s not about you at all. It’s about me being the best advocate for them. And so I can take all of my drama out of there and be like, I’m 100% here for you, let’s talk. And because I’m so firm in knowing it’s going to happen for you, no problem, I got you.

Stacey: Yeah. And that spills over into what you believe about your ability to hit your goals. Because then it also doesn’t matter who’s on the consult if they say no, you know more people are coming. And you know that you have something – I always give this example and it’s overused but I do think it’s relevant is the idea if you had the cure for cancer, or for now we could say if you have the cure for coronavirus.

Do you think anyone is going to shy away from saying hey, I have a vaccine, 99% or 98% effective, where you’re not going to get it and you’re not going to give it to other people, why would you – even if it were like, I don’t know, $1000, I think they’re free, I don’t really know, haven’t gotten mine yet.

But I’m like, it didn’t matter how much they worried. You would be like, listen, doesn’t matter. You got to get it. Here are all the reasons why. And even if someone said no, you would be like, I know that there are millions of people out there who do want it. It’s that level of belief about your own tools.

Dara: Yeah. And that’s actually been a huge change for me because I actually wrote the 12-step perfection recovery program because when I used to teach quilting, I always joked with the ladies I’m the president of the perfection recovery program.

And so I did write the program and it’s amazing. But so many of us, we are wanting external things to change the way we feel internally. I mean, that’s buffering, that’s all the things. But so many of us, our value comes from other people. That’s why we have so many problems because we never learn how to have our own back.

So with that, my offering to people like, hey, I’m a life coach, I’m a weight loss coach for quilters, you got to listen to me. And my program is called Love Yourself Thin, 12 pounds in 12 weeks. I guarantee you. So when people reject me or they don’t reply right away, it’s not about me. I don’t take it personally. I’m like, okay, keep going.

And you gave me that coaching back February 3rd, you said we’re just knocking down the dominos. And so I love that because I always say to myself, okay, I’m going to explain it another way. I’m going to explain it another way. I’m just going to help that person understand my process so that then that will resonate with them.

They haven’t heard my message enough in a number of different ways. So I just get to be really creative in describing what does it mean to lose weight loving yourself over and over and over again. Because then eventually, I’ll be able to help them so they’ll finally believe enough in themselves that they’ll be willing to say yes, let’s do it.

Stacey: And that goes back to your simple offer. People don’t want to give up their multiple offers and especially people who are at 100K or 200K. And I was actually thinking about this recently. It’s like even if you already are at 200K and you have multiple offers, let’s say you have two offers and it’s clean, which is what I always suggest is no more than two at that level.

Let’s just say you have them, you have to learn this process, what you’re talking about, one offer at a time so that you can deeply understand it. That’s the most important thing. And you’re just giving so many brilliant examples of this. Like thinking about going back to the simple offer. Let’s say you have 1000 people watching you and they’re only seeing the one offer. But now, those 1000 people, the way their brain works, you say it one way and it doesn’t click for them.

So now you have to think of 1000 different ways to say it. You have to find the way that clicks for that person who’s still thinking about it that hasn’t jumped on it. Instead of saying no one on my list wants what I have to offer, my list is dead, no one’s engaged, it’s like no, you are dead, you haven’t engaged.

Dara: Eventually everyone on my email or my Instagram, they’re going to eventually come in my program, so that’s why I just keep loving on them. I say it’s okay, you’re not ready for this, we got this.

Stacey: Loving on selling, right? You have to love – I was just telling my friend Lindsey, the way that I think about selling is I get a chance to get the most creative I can be with helping people and bringing them into what I do. I get to think of all the different ways, and to me that’s fun. It’s not about I have to keep trying to master webinars in order to make money. It’s like, no, I get to think of all the different webinars that I can do that will…

Dara: I have the best example of that. So every Thursday I do a free training and I have now – you taught that – the webinar program in the 200K is amazing. It’s so amazing.

Stacey: It is so good.

Dara: It’s so awesome. And so I broke it all down, so you had the five different ways we can do webinars, so I broke it all down for myself and every week I’m like, okay, which one should I do? Here’s my topic, I give myself two to three hours, and I’m getting so good at doing it that I can just every week, just do it. And it’s so awesome because it helps my brain be so much more focused on my process and helps my people beforehand get confidence in hiring me to be their coach.

Stacey: That’s so great. Yes, I love that. Okay, so let’s switch gears a little bit. So I want to talk about the leaky fridge. I just think this is so symbolic to so many people. Especially right now. So can you tell people about the leaky fridge?

Dara: Okay. I actually…

Stacey: Do you still have the leaky fridge?

Dara: Yes, yes, we still have the leaky fridge. We did actually order new fridges back in August but thanks to corona and the kind of fridges that we ordered, they still haven’t come yet.

Stacey: I feel you on that.

Dara: Yeah. My son stepped on the bottom of the fridge, the French door one that comes out at the bottom, and he stepped on it, so the leak is broken. So it’s just constantly leaking. It still works but our floor is now wrecked and whatever.

But the problem Stacey is that the way – the new fridges I bought are the ones that are going to go in the new kitchen. But in order to get the new kitchen, we have to put an addition on our house, which then we have to change the floors and we have to do all these things.

So every time I go in the kitchen, I’m not kidding, I say I love you kitchen, thank you for helping me provide for my kids. I do thank the kitchen, but I’m like, eventually we’re going to get this new kitchen, it’s going to be beautiful. And then I say to myself – because my husband’s like, that’s a lot of extra money for a kitchen. I’m like, well, I’m going to have the kitchen that I want. And now that I’m so good at making money, it’s not going to be a problem.

Stacey: But tell them about having to decide to solve that problem and let the fridge keep leaking or invest more in your business.

Dara: Well, I did want to talk a little bit about this because actually I’ve had a lot of money drama in my life. I was an elementary school teacher, I grew up with five siblings, there’s lots of moneys stories about things. And so I had kind of a complicated relationship with money and the idea of even – that’s why I sent you a handmade card back in August because I thought Stacey makes a lot of money and if she could just hear my story maybe she’ll give me a discount.

I had all sorts of money drama. Anyway, so even for me to spend 2K American on that program, I thought oh, this is just a lot. All the things. And one of your courses actually in 2K really, really helped me. The money mindset…

Stacey: Money mastery.

Dara: Money mastery, yes. Because in that course, you talked about unconditional love. And that blew my mind because I never realized how conditional I was with money and my relationships with certain people growing up. And there was so much tied to money, so much tied to conditional.

So that month actually when I signed up for 2K, I was traveling to Toronto for teaching, I traveled to Houston for quilt market, I was gone for two out of the four weeks. I signed up for 2K and I made $11,500 in that month.

Stacey: Holy crap.

Dara: Yeah. And I had never made that kind of money ever. But that money class just blew my mind about unconditional love. And that was such a transformation for me. And so now, I make a lot of money and I actually put my money to bed, I haven’t spent a lot of my money because I’m like, I love you money, I just want to feel like abundant and with money.

Stacey: Yes, having money.

Dara: Having money. And I’ve also done things like bought my boys really, really nice bikes. And allowed myself to buy new couches. In October I did this awesome launch and so I’m changing my relationship with money in a way that I never have before.

And I have to say when we had the second round, when I had to decide if I was going to do the 200K again, I was having a lot of drama because of the fridge and all the things, and I thought I should have figured this out already, that was a big investment and I should just have the program and I can do this on my own, I can do this.

And then I was doing some peer coaching and I love 200K, but I was feeling very bad because a mother, she should put her kids first, even with all the successes I’d had. And I got peer coached, and she said, so how much money have you made? And I told her. So she’s like, basically you’re making $4 for every dollar you invested in the 200K. And it was so crazy to me.

Because I know the consult guide. I know about the magic ATM, and I know what I’m saying to people. And when she said that, I was like, oh my goodness, you’re right. And so at that moment, I thought – because I’m now being in integrity with who I am. When I’m selling life coaching, I’m selling people that hey, your mind is your very best investment.

And so why wouldn’t I do that for myself? Why should I expect just in one round that I should be able to know everything? Why wouldn’t I give myself the opportunity to be in with Stacey and the process, and then also in a room with other people who are all working towards the same goal who have this invested interest in helping each other?

Stacey: Yeah, that’s so good. So you had – the first round when you went to join 200K, you had the leaky fridge and you were like, as a mom I should fix this fridge, I should not be investing in myself. And you went ahead and invested it in yourself. What was the thought that shifted from – it’s so interesting.

I didn’t know that it came up for the second round too. So let’s just talk about the first round. What was the thought that got you from I’ve got to be a good mom and fix this fridge to I’m going to invest in myself and my business and do that instead and allow the fridge to keep leaking?

Dara: Actually because I had such growth and I had so many – I had such a great month in August and July, I thought for my clients, for my future me, I need this support. For me to be my best person, and I thought if I got that one coaching from Stacey in February, imagine what it would be like if I could be with her for six months, weekly calls, and her process, and I just said to my kids I love you so much, I’m going to do this for myself.

Stacey: That’s so good. Yes. Because I love you so much, this is what I’m going to do. Think about it. It’s like you can invest in yourself and this is for no matter what coaching you’re thinking about. It’s like, when you’re thinking about the most loving thing you could do for your kids, you could fix the refrigerator or invest in your mind.

Dara: And give them a really nice kitchen. How much I’ve spent already on – I could have actually done the addition on the house and had a really nice kitchen.

Stacey: Yeah. But I think it’s like people don’t understand this, the delayed gratification. I was just shopping with my other friend Lindsey in New York. We went to get my dress fitted. And it was so funny because I was like, what do you want to do on your down time? Do you want to go to a museum?

And I’m thinking like, are you wanting culture? And she’s like, I could do some shopping. And I’m like, me too, I’m down, let’s go. And we did all this shopping. And so she was asking me, I bought several purses. I’m obsessed with purses now. And she was asking me if I’ve always been obsessed with purses.

And I told her, I don’t really know. Not really. I said there was a point in my life where it was never available to me, so I didn’t ever think about it. I would just never spend a couple thousand dollars on a purse ever. And then there was a period in my business, I would say four years where I was making really good money, $300,000, $500,000, $800,000.

I bought my first purse I think my first Louis Vuitton at $300,000. And I carried that for another two years. I didn’t buy – it was like that was my splurge and then that was it. And now people see me have all the fabulous things, but it’s only because there’s so much extra money after doing all the things I want to do that why the hell not.

But my priority was always the money will always go to my brain first, to my business first. And then even for investing, I didn’t invest traditionally. We’re just now starting that. It’s like, I really wanted to keep fueling the thing that’s always going to make money from here on out. Your brain, once it knows how to make money, it makes money forever.

So of course I’m going to always put – I didn’t get my cars until almost a million dollars. We didn’t get our house until almost a million dollars. And there were lots of things I wanted. Like the new kitchen, I totally can identify with that. There’s so many things I wanted. Furniture for our house, we didn’t get that until almost two years into living here.

And so I can totally identify with that, but I think that some people, you see the end result and you don’t know that we have gone through delayed gratification in honor of our brain and our business first. And much longer delayed gratification than you would think.

I see a lot of coaches, they make really good money, and then they want to go spend that money right away because they feel like they’re – I don’t know if owed is the right word, but it’s like entitled to I’ve struggled to…

Dara: Deserve it.

Stacey: Yes, I deserve it. Like I got to 100K or 200K, I deserve it. And 100K, 200K, 300K, I was still in that place of – I was still living in an apartment. Of course I didn’t want to live in a little old dingy apartment, but I knew that the end game was a million-dollar business. And I knew creating that would let me have the beautiful house I wanted, any of the things I wanted.

And so I love that you’re such an example of that as well, that you’re willing to invest in yourself first and delay the material dreams. It’s like the emotional wealth versus the material wealth. You’re like, I’m going to go all in on my emotional wealth and I’m going to hold off. And then I’ll do that when my business is so solid that it’s just – obviously, I would do it.

Dara: It’s a distraction too.

Stacey: Oh, interesting. Tell me more. I agree with you, but I want you to tell them.

Dara: What is my purpose? My purpose is to help. And it was nice to get the couches. We ordered them in October, we just got them a couple weeks ago and it’s lovely.

Stacey: I can’t believe you already got them. We ordered couches in September of last year, we still don’t have them.

Dara: It’s a wild time.

Stacey: Wild time in corona.

Dara: But the distraction is for me, my focus so much is on – when I was thinking about this podcast, one of the things I started doing was just loving on my clients. They’re not getting divorced anymore, they’re not considering suicide, they’re living their life. I really have this love affair with what’s happening with my process and with all of them.

And so I don’t want to get distracted by the other things and yesterday I got a message from one of my clients and she said she’s having quite a bit of success with her weight loss. It’s been such a long story for so long, she’s like, what will I do with all this extra time when I’m not stressing about my weight?

And it literally is this new identity crisis. So when I talk about a distraction, it’s like I am now sitting with my money. I’m sitting with who I’m becoming. I’m really being mindful and purposeful of what does this million-dollar Dara look like? What does this look like when she’s the household name for quilters? What is she?

And so I love just being in the abundance of what I’m doing right now and enjoying – the leaky fridge is just amazing. I’m like, you got this. I even did a photoshoot in my kitchen so everyone can see my kind of wonky kitchen. But I’m owning all of it because these are just circumstances, but I get to decide who I want to be and just get really focused and stay on track. Because what I have done so far, it’s amazing. It blows my mind.

Stacey: That’s so incredible. Yes. I love that. I love how emotional you get. It always engages my emotions too. Just like I want to cry together, I love it. I actually was listening to a podcast with Elon Musk, and he talked about this. He was talking to I think Joe Rogan. Don’t ask, I don’t actually listen to that podcast, but Neil was like, you have to listen to this episode.

And he was asking him about – he owns all this crazy real estate, and he was talking about building his dream house. And he bought all these houses on the same block so he could tear them all down and build this insane crazy thing, crazy house. And then he decided not to.

And he was like, I’m not ever going to build – custom build a house for myself. And Joe asked him why and he said, well, I just know how much time someone like me would put into – it would be the craziest house. He would put all of the cool things in, everything would be perfect.

And he said I realized I could spend my brain power doing that or I could figure out how to get humankind to Mars, like the human race to Mars. And which is a better use of my brain on this planet in my one life? And my brain like, exploded. I could spend my time custom building a house, or I could spend my time getting people to Mars. Like what? So crazy.

Dara: Yeah. And with my kids, I have five amazing kids and a husband, and I live in a beautiful place, how do I balance my life in a way that’s the most meaningful? And really with my clients even, being that example of the possible is such a huge part of how I decide to spend my time.

Stacey: Yeah, can you talk a little bit about that? Because I don’t think we’ve talked about – you have five children and a really rapidly growing coaching business. So how do you balance that? What is that like for you?

Dara: So I start work at eight and I finish at four. I have struggled finishing at four, I have to say. I really love my job and so sometimes it’s hard to – so I have really – my kids are awesome. I’ve worked really hard at helping them learn to make meals and we generally make meals together and do a lot of responsibilities.

But just finding that balance of being with them and having mom time, after school time. We have a hot tub, that’s been huge. We have lots of hot tub time. And just making a concerted effort of making sure that I am balanced in my life because that’s a struggle, especially when I was quilting until three or four every night. That was not very balanced.

Stacey: And I think when we say balanced, really what you’re saying is more like focused. It’s like, there’s the focus time with the kids and then there’s the focus time at work. And I think when we want balance, that’s what we really want is we want to be present and work and create what we want in our work, and then we also want to be present with our family.

And not feel that carry over stuff. Be intermingling things. Because I think even if it’s not as much time as you want with your family or not as much time as you want with your business, if it’s focused, you’re always going to get what you need done and you’re always going to feel how you want to feel when you’ve been – whether it’s an hour of presence. You can be with someone for three hours and not feel the same way as an hour of focused presence.

Dara: Totally. I love that. That’s awesome.

Stacey: Okay, so you wrote – I see you have a whole notebook of notes. So what…

Dara: I should show you how many – so this is one of the other things – there’s lots of things, but I have six journals. They’re pretty much almost all filled since September of 2019.

Stacey: Oh my gosh, yeah, you’re definitely like me. I have all the notebooks too.

Dara: I do a lot of journaling. And because our brains need to be uncomplicated. They need to be heard…

Stacey: Heard, organized, yes.

Dara: So the big thing is belief and I love – that’s the number one thing. Just work on your tools, belief, belief, belief. And then the next one is service. So serving your clients ahead of time and then the clients that you have, serve them 100%. And that’s just so important to me.

So doing that weekly free training. So as I mentioned earlier with the webinar program in the 200K, I remember you saying that you need to train your brain to get really good at that. And I thought well, I trained my brain to do the consult guide so I can train my brain to do webinars in that way. So it was a little awkward but now I just give myself, you have three hours every week, do it…

Stacey: You’re going to be so – the webinar expert with this process that you’ve got going on. That’s really good.

Dara: So that’s the other thing. So service ahead of time and then serve the client. Another thing that I wanted to share about how I could make the money that I’ve made, and the success is I spend a lot of time with my future self. I became really good friends with her.

And so what happens is shortening the gap between your current self and future self. And that’s really fun work to do because just like my client who said who am I going to be when I’m not worried about my weight, so I said to her okay, you need to start introducing new things in your life. You need to recognize, every morning I wake up Stacey and I say, can’t believe that I created this for myself today.

I did this. Today is so much fun. Having a podcast with you really is a dream come true. But after this, I get my group coaching, and then I have another group coaching. Anyway, so I have all these things planned today and every morning I look at what I’m doing, and I say I created this from my brain. I made this my reality. And so that’s what I’m helping my clients do and that’s what we all need to do to get to our dreams. And so that future self-work is really, really important.

Stacey: Okay, I have to add a four for you, which is giving credit. You give yourself lots of credit. You give yourself lots of – you’re doing it so effortlessly now so clearly you have worked on it a lot. Being in the celebration, or even it’s like, maybe it’s even being in the breakthrough.

I think that’s why you so easily tear up and get so emotional is you just keep yourself – and I just think that’s the best place to sell from ever and the best place to coach from ever is when you are just radiating being in breakthrough all of the time. That is my experience of you always.

Dara: Yeah. Just even thinking about this right now, when Stacey gives coaching, and that’s the other part too because sometimes it’s hard. Especially when we had the 200K, when there were so many people this last round, it was a little bit hard for me because I thought she’s not going to know me as well, I’m not going to be able to see her as much.

But one of the things now that I have group programs, I say to my clients like, the way that you’re going to learn this process is when I’m coaching any one of you, imagine you are in their shoes. You can learn the process so much more.

And so that has been a really powerful thing. And the other part about that is when you have more people who are working towards that same goal, there is a collective power, a collective purpose that is bigger than you. So you can tap into that power and you can grow stronger.

Stacey: 100%.

Dara: And so especially the people listening to this podcast, you’re thinking about if you’re going to join 2K or 200K is to know that when you put yourself in that room of other people who have those same desires, you’re going to grow even faster by just putting yourself in that same position. And that’s been really powerful for me because I never knew that that was a possibility in my life.

This is not a traditional way of learning. I’m a schoolteacher, I did the regular – the whole individual growth kind of thing. But when you understand coaching and learning about our brains, and then being able to put yourself in those positions, you are literally giving yourself an edge that you never thought was possible.

Stacey: Yeah. I think it’s literally, the bigger the group you are, the more ideas you’re exposed to. When someone else is succeeding, you’re exposed to their thoughts that create that for them. You’re also exposed to – I think the number one thing that is the hardest thing and the thing that will create growth the fastest and also hold you back the most is the subconscious thoughts that you have that you don’t know that you have.

And the work of coaching is constantly bringing those up to the surface and the way that you do that is you expose yourself to them. When you’re hearing someone else say something that you have never identified in yourself before, that all of a sudden, you’re like, oh my god, I do that too, oh my god, I believe that too, and I never knew that.

All of a sudden now you’re speeding up your ability to expose your subconscious thoughts and that in itself, that’s almost more powerful. That’s one of the things I learned in master coach training is exposing those subconscious thoughts that are holding you back is so much faster, and it speeds up your growth so much more than being able to create new thoughts.

Because if you can expose the ones that are holding you back, you don’t even need new thoughts. You just let the thoughts go. The way that you’re thinking that isn’t serving you, you let that go. You don’t need something necessarily to replace it. So I think coaches spend so much time trying to create new belief that they ignore exposing the beliefs they have now that are keeping them where they are, and they work harder than they have to.

Dara: Right. Because that’s what I say – so in the mastermind, in my group work, I say whenever there’s something that you’re triggered by, I said lean into that. That’s where your growth is. So I really love being in that room for that.

Stacey: Yeah. And if you hadn’t been willing to go there, you wouldn’t be able to hold the space for your students and teach them how to do it as well.

Dara: No. And that’s the other – yeah, absolutely. So those are my big ones.

Stacey: Is there anything else? Is there anything else we haven’t covered that you’re like, we have to tell them this?

Dara: I even wrote a little list here.

Stacey: Oh my god, I love it. It looks like one of those long receipts from old registers.

Dara: I was like, I have to just show you. I went through journals, I did tags, everything, because I thought these are times when Stacey coached me. We don’t have time to do all that, but I really went through years of all of it. But I really do believe, I guess the biggest thing is your belief in yourself and then you go to work helping other people get that own belief in them. That’s huge.

Service ahead of time and service to the people you’re coaching. Spend a lot of time in your future self, do the investing in yourself really is the magic ATM. And cleaning up your relationship with money. That’s going to be such a game-changer. And then also thinking about again, the very end of my – I did want to say this one thing.

Stacey: Okay, say it, do it.

Dara: When I lost weight, I started to just start getting curious. Like, could I be a girl that could go on a road trip and not eat French fries? Could I be a girl that has a wedding anniversary and not eat cake? Could I be that person? So get curious. And then I just started – I created a protocol, I just refined it.

And then when I got to 170, and I celebrated all along the way. I was like, I can’t believe this, three more pounds down, and whatever win, whatever it was. So I celebrated along the way. And then when I got to 170 pounds, I was thrilled. Because when I got married, I was 164. I’ve had five babies. And I was like, I’ve achieved, this is so great. So 170 pounds, no problem, doing my thing.

And then I kept weighing myself and I just got less and less pounds. And now I weigh like 150. So that last 20 pounds, it wasn’t an effort, it wasn’t hard, I just started understanding what the role of food was and understanding what I needed to do. And now I’m where I’m at and it’s just so fun. But my worth hasn’t changed.

So what I want to say to all of you out there is if you’re not having fun, it’s not sustainable, it’s not going to work. So you need to get curious. You need to celebrate yourself all along the way. And then you just need to love on yourself and really understand what your purpose is, what you want, and then it’s going to be easy.

Stacey: Yeah, so good. I think that’s like, it all goes back to the service. When you’re serving for what you want to create and who you want to help and who you want to be, it will be fun. And any time it’s not fun, it’s because you’ve stepped out of one of those services. Service for yourself, service for them, you’ve stepped out of that. That’s the only time. Otherwise, it’s just so much fun, even when you’re working had it’s fun.

Dara: Yeah, it’s got to be fun. I always say to my ladies, if it’s not fun, we’re not doing it right.

Stacey: Yeah, 100%. I love that.

Dara: The same thing with building your business, the same thing with your coaching. If you’re feeling stressed all the time, no one wants to work with you and money is not going to come to you.

Stacey: Yeah, 100%. And it’s like, seriously, I know a lot of people are like, fun, whatever. But really, it can be fun. For anyone listening who’s like, that sounds like a line of BS, that’s like, whatever triggers you, you got to lean into it. Consider the idea that exponentially growing and doing something impossible that’s hard can also be fun.

Dara: Yeah. Weight loss is the perfect example of that. It’s like, people think that once they get to a certain weight, then they can start living their life. That’s not how it works. You got to start loving yourself to that weight. You got to start – get a pair of pants that fit you, even if they’re a size 22X. Get a nice pair that fit you and then just kind of – I said listen, you’re going to have to buy bras, you’re going to have to commit to buying bras throughout the way because you’re not going to have the saggy bra problem. You got to look nice, and you got to feel good all the way.

Stacey: Listen, I identify with that so much. I worked with Shira Gill and she edited my closet and one of her things was you never have anything in your closet that doesn’t fit. And at the time I was trying to also lose a lot of weight and I remember having that moment when I was like, I’ve kept off 25 pounds now for over two years.

But I remember the changing, the transformation point for me was when I was willing to buy clothes that fit at my bigger size and stop shoving my body into clothes that don’t fit. Because I remember thinking like, that really is an act of hate for your body. It’s an act of aggression to shove it into clothes that don’t fit.

And what is it about women? We don’t want to keep – I’m not going to buy a new bra because I’m going to lose more weight, or I’m going to keep wearing the small bra because I’m going to lose the weight. It’s like, no, just buy the bra that fits, buy the panties that fit.

Dara: Accept it. We need to accept. Avoid and resist is not going to get us the results we want.

Stacey: Yeah, I love that so much. Just a little side piece. I’m sure that ties into business in any ways.

Dara: Yeah, well that’s the part. We have to have fun. And if it’s hard, of course it’s going to be hard.

Stacey: That’s what it is. It’s like, in order to have fun, you have to be at acceptance for where you are right now. It’s the only way. When you’re out of acceptance, it’s also not fun.

Dara: Avoid and resist won’t work.

Stacey: So good. Thank you so much for coming on. This was so good.

Dara: This was a dream come true.

Stacey: Well, I have a feeling it’s not going to be the last time. So this is just the beginning. I love it. Okay, how can people find you if they want to follow you or maybe they want to try to work with you? I mean, I know they have to be quilters, but we might have some quilters listening.

Dara: You know, I have one lady who wanted to work with me, and she said I’m taking a quilting class. Because she literally signed up and signed up for a quilting class at the same time because she wanted to work with me.

Stacey: This is fantastic. That’s amazing. She gets in for sure. That’s creative.

Dara: That’s right. I love it. So I’m daratomasson.com on the internet and you can follow me on Instagram and…

Stacey: We’ll have everything linked up as well in the show notes and then we always post on our IG as well. So if you’re following @staceyboehman.

Dara: I also have a YouTube channel.

Stacey: What’s the YouTube channel?

Dara: All my free trainings, Dara Tomasson. And if you want some long-arm quilting tips, the beginning of my YouTube channel there’s lots of quilting on there.

Stacey: I love it so much. Alright, thank you so much for coming on.

Dara: You’re welcome.

Stacey: Alright, bye.

Hey, if you are ready to make money as a life coach, I want to invite you to join my 2K for 2K program where you’re going to make your first $2000, the hardest part, and then $200,000 using my proven formula. It’s risk-free. You either make your 2K or I give you your 2K back. Just head over to www.staceyboehman.com/2kfor2k. We’ll see you inside.