Launching Women: Barbara Christensen, Holistic Life Coach and Sports Nutritionist at BijaCoaching
Barbara Christensen is a holistic life coach and sports nutritionist who specializes in helping families make healthy choices when they are dealing with allergies. When Barbara was 13 she experienced her first anaphylactic shock. As a teenager, her world was turned upside down. This was before food was labeled for allergies and she had no idea how to get started. Three decades later, Barbara is one of the most educated women in the world when it comes to dealing with allergies! Her belief is that when she empowers the mom, she empowers the child. She also practices what she preaches!
Barbara focuses on a Paleo Diet and creates 90 Day Challenges regularly for her clients to keep them motivated and accountable. She shares her education on supplements and how they can help with health and healing, but her main emphasis is on greens, fruits, and vegetables. She creates Paleo meal plans that help families to eat whole and healthy without having to worry about nuts, soy, and even seeds.
Why Should You Work with Barbara?
If you or your children struggle with allergies, you should talk with Barbara and see how she can help you. She is allergic to corn, soy, nuts, seeds, bananas,
kiwi, avocado, lemon, orange... and on and on. So it's only reasonable
that she would be very interested in food and how that food can change
your health. Barbara has recipes that cover a flexitarian, vegan, and vegetarian lifestyle. Check her out at Paleo Vegeo!
Heidi Totten is a Storyteller for Launching Women, a place to learn the stories of women who are going for it!
Julie Muller, Chief Chick at Chicks Connect
I first met Julie Muller, Chief Chick at Chicks Connect, in July 2012. I added her as a friend on Facebook randomly, and she reached out and said, "Let's talk!" After about a two hour call, a friendship was born. Shortly after I joined Chicks Connect as a member, and started following Julie more to see if she was the real deal. I know many hard working entrepreneurs, but not many work as hard as Julie! During the year I have known her I have not only watched her continue to organically grow Chicks Connect the old fashioned way - by meeting people - but she has also created products to help women organize their time and their life.
Julie and her husband and twin boys are traveling the country in an RV building Chicks Connect at a grassroots level - literally! One crazy conversation, Julie and I decided that we wanted to do a fun and frivolous podcast called Two Girls Who Talk About Stuff.
So, what is Chicks Connect?
Chicks Connect is more than a membership... It is a movement of women that is growing each month - organically! A movement
dedicated to inspiring women to grow personally and professionally by
connecting, supporting and encouraging one another. Although you can
become a member and enjoy all of the benefits from the comfort of your
own home, the real value begins when you join an existing group or start
a Chicks Connect Chapter of your own.
As a member of Chicks Connect you will receive 52 weeks of basic
work/life balance exercises that are fun and challenging. You will have the opportunity to join a
Mastermind group in your area or start one of your own. You will have
access to the monthly webinars and tele-seminars for FREE. Most importantly,
you will be forming connections and relationships all based on love and
support to assist in your personal and professional growth.
But don't just take my word for it. Like Chicks Connect on Facebook. Watch the Google Hangout interview, and hear Julie's story. This has not been an easy journey for her and at times she has been in that puddle on the floor stage, not knowing if her family would eat more than top ramen for the rest of the month. Hers is a story of strength, tenacity, and the determination to not give up.
Heidi Totten is a Storyteller for Launching Women, a place to learn the stories of women who are going for it!
What IS Launching Women and WHY do I Want to Play?
See these amazing women? I know them all. Who are they? Well, that is quite a story! And it would take quite a while for me to tell it. So instead, I want to start slowly and give you the background of Launching Women.
Believe it or not, Launching Women was actually born back in 2010. It marinated in my head for a while and never felt just right, even though the graphics had been created and everything. I realized that I had actually put the cart before the horse, so to speak, and that I needed to spend time launching myself, in order to pull together my ideas for Launching Women. So I watched, and waited, and attended a bunch of interesting training and events.
October 2012 I thought that perhaps it was time, and then I attended an event that really excited me. In fact, I put everything else that I was doing on the shelf and accepted an offer to become the Executive Director of an organization that claimed to be helping women around the world in business, family and personal life. It was a dream! Alas, when things seem too good to be true, they usually are. After 7 months I had been promised many things (salary included) over and over. I also found out that the numbers that the organization were using as far as their email list, the number of countries that they were in, and the exposure they had were made up. At that point, I resigned.
What happens when you feel like you have failed? Or in this case, just made a huge mistake in trusting someone? Well, I spent a couple of months in mourning and then pulled up my big girl pants and decided to start fresh. But the craziest thing happened. It wasn't really starting fresh, because my network had changed. My relationships had grown. I found out that every entrepreneur has periods of failure and realized that I wasn't alone. I allowed myself to learn the lesson and to grow up a bit.
My mind kept coming back to Launching Women. I called a few friends with my epiphanies. They said, "Do it." So here I am - doing it! I want to tell the stories of entrepreneurs and how they grew their business, and I want to help entrepreneurs in the process who want to build their network, their team, and especially their business. I have spent 3 years watching, waiting, learning, and growing.
And I'm ready to launch!
