Teri Karjala is a licensed professional counselor and Transformational Life Strategist. She’s the author of the Amazon Top Seller Be the Magic of You: Tools to Transform Your Life, a teacher, a trainer, national keynote speaker, and has been featured on various TV and radio shows.
Teri has helped women and female entrepreneurs who come to her living generally unfulfilled lives. They feel weighed down by limiting beliefs, self-sabotage, fear, anxiety, depression, and past trauma.
Teri uses powerful outside-the-box tools that transform your subconscious and unconscious programming to allow you to discover/rediscover your magic within.
What motivated and inspired you to start your own business?
I was introduced to the counseling world very early in my life. I was initially chosen as a peer counselor in high school where I had a life-changing event with a young 6th-grade suicidal student. I, along with teachers, was able to intervene, provide counseling, and support which thankfully ended up saving her life.
With that experience, I knew what I wanted to do in life. I set out to create a large counseling practice to help other children, adolescents, and adults struggling with depression, anxiety, and unresolved childhood trauma. This passion transformed into helping support women and female entrepreneurs.
Thus, Talking With Teri was born.
Tell us about your business.
Talking With Teri helps women who are “stuck in the muck” of life, consumed by fear, doubt, worry, and self-sabotage. They want to feel better and generate more in their lives but just don’t know how to get there.
The side effect of my work has a direct impact on generating more in my clients’ personal and professional lives, including more new business and revenue in their businesses.
I use powerful, practical, simple, outside-the-box tools that transform a person’s subconscious and unconscious programming, allowing them to discover/rediscover their own motivation, magic and passion within.
Are you currently running any promos/contests/giveaways that you would like our readers to know about?
I’m happy to offer your website visitors these gifts and opportunities:
- 15% off my book using promo code LBB15 at talkingwithteri.com/stop-shop.
- Free download of Chapter 1 of my book TalkingWithTeri.com/Chapter-one.
- 25% off any Talking With Teri Virtual Intensive. Choose a date here talkingwithteri.com/calendar.
List awards/certifications/accomplishments.
Awards:
- 2017 Business Woman of the Year – Business & Professional Women of Aurora
- Board Member of the Year Nominee 2017, CBHC Aurora Mental Health Center
- Women Making a Difference Award Nominee 2014 – Aurora Chamber of Commerce
- Ambassador of the Year 2012, Aurora Chamber of Commerce
Certifications:
- Masters of Arts Degree in Community Counseling
- Licensed Professional Counselor
- Credentialed Trauma Therapist
- EFT Certified
Accomplishments:
- Creating one of the largest for-profit counseling centers in Colorado
- Published author of Be the Magic of You: Tools to Transform Your Life.
- Premier Success Coach with eWomen Network
Where is your business based?
Talking With Teri is based in Greenwood Village, CO however much of my work is done remotely, with clients in the U.S. as well as overseas.
What were the first few steps you took to get your business up and running?
Being that I started so long ago, business cards and postcards were super important to have as marketing material to post on bulletin boards around the community.
Boy have times changed! In today’s digital age, the first few steps are now to set up a dynamic website, get an online shopping cart, choose an email marketing platform, and then develop the content of each.
This is where the Lady Boss Blogger website comes in with all its great resources for entrepreneurs. Kudos to you!
What has been the most effective way of raising awareness of your business and getting new customers?
I wouldn’t enjoy the “ease” I have now in receiving new business in my coaching practice if it weren’t for the powerful, collaborative, and win-win-win relationships I formed with referral partners early on.
They are win-win-win as we’re able to offer solutions that support my partners and my practice and all our clients.
Being in business can be a difficult, lonely, up and down road so having a collaboration between businesses that support each other in their success story is key.
What have been your biggest challenges so far?
One of my greatest, and most important, past challenges was maintaining employee satisfaction. I have an incredible team and am therefore continually looking for ways to safeguard their happiness within our company and with our work environment.
For several years now, I’ve felt immense gratitude that we’ve created and maintained a culture to which my team enjoys contributing and showing up.
How did you overcome these challenges?
I created a thorough interview process that gives us confidence in hiring employees who are committed to their career and will contribute to the company in a positive and productive way.
Once on our team, I use imaginative ways to foster an internal culture of fun and a splash of playfulness into the mix. A team that has fun together and is happy together stays together.
How do you keep motivated through difficult times?
I’ve used tools, the same ones I share with my clients, over the last decade to maintain a positive mindset. Let’s face it, we all experience difficult times. What’s most important is how long we stay in that space. Stay there too long and we risk spiraling downward.
One understanding that’s helped me pass through difficult times quickly (like… in just hours) is the deep belief that difficulties, whether perceived or legitimate, are a part of my growth and every trying situation is a moment in time. That’s it.
I can choose to embrace difficulties and find the silver-lining or I can choose to stay where I am and risk despair. The choice is mine.
How do you distinguish yourself from your competitors?
I feel my personal story, passion, credentials and the fact that I have been my own best client all sets me apart from my competition.
Overcoming a traumatic upbringing has provided me the unique opportunity to understand where women who feel stuck are coming from. I’ve unraveled my own limiting beliefs and have personally used my own tools to find happiness and design a life and business I love.
My techniques are unique in that I combine proven traditional psychology, energy psychology, and other powerful and effective tools to shift a client’s mindset and help them get “unstuck.”
My clients and workshop participants report feeling “magical” and “free” once they finally have tools that not only empower them but allow them to take charge of their life and their own success story.
My passions have lead to my mission to impact one million women and female entrepreneurs.
What is the best advice you have received recently?
Go for 95%! It sounds counter-intuitive but for those of us who suffer from perfectionism, this was a game changer. Understanding that 95% is good enough allowed me to stop worrying about being or creating something that’s 100% perfect which freed up precious time, resources, and energy and suddenly I became more efficient with my time.
What advice would you give to other entrepreneurs?
- Don’t be afraid to invest in your personal development.
- Find a mentor that is 10,000 steps ahead of you, ask questions, seek advice, and truly listen.
- Make time to have fun and enjoy the journey rather than look too far ahead at the finish line.
What are your favorite business tools/resources and why?
I would consider myself an outside-the-box thinker. I have brought the Law of Attraction more into my own business and have incorporated its concepts into some of the energy tools in my coaching practice.
As for tangible business tools that your blog readers might be curious about, I have found social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram), Live videos, and blogging to be a fabulous asset to my business. All are must haves these days.
What is a good article or book you have read recently?
The most recent book I enjoyed that contributed countless nuggets to my practice is Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable by Tim S. Grover.
What are you currently learning about for your business or looking for help with?
How to scale to the next level while continuing to build my personal brand. What a fun journey this is! We all learn as we go.
What are your goals for the next few months and how are you striving to achieve them?
Continue the work to build the Talking With Teri brand through national speaking opportunities, book signing events, and media/podcast interviews.
What social media outlets do you use? List them below.
Facebook Talking With Teri, Teri Karjala, Creative Counseling Center
Twitter @talkingwithteri
Blog TalkingWithTeri.com
Linkedin terikarjala
Instagram @takingwithteri
Vimeo @talkingwithteri