What the heck is B- School and why you need to sign up now!

Want to know what I am grateful for these days?

B- School.

What is B- School you might ask? B- School is Marie Forleo’s 8 week online program that helps you position and sell your services and products online.

Marie quotes on her website - “You deserve a business and life you love. We can help.” She is right, she can help. Why spend all your time and effort doing something you don’t love. Good question isn’t it.

For me, my passion is planning recipes and menu plans for people within the confines of food allergies. I know from bitter experience how difficult it can be to plan meals around multiple food allergies and if you are tired and not feeling well that just adds more stress to menu planning.

For years I thought about how I could possibly help others who were struggling with menu planning like I was. I took my time, yes 6 years to be exact, yet in that time I came up with tasty, healthy recipes that I thought other people would enjoy and might make their life a little easier when it came to cooking. 

I found a publisher and co published Finally... Food I Can Eat, a dietary guide and cookbook for people with food allergies, yet in the back of my mind I knew I wanted to do more. I wanted to have my own business that I could work at, at my own pace.

Because I also have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome my energy does not always support what my brain and body wants to do, so learning to deal with what I could do was huge for me. 

Yes, I am a type A personality and I often wonder why I have been saddled with this at times very difficult chronic illness. I had always wanted to go back to school, but the idea of sitting in a class room for hours at a time just wasn’t possible and with being on disability, there wasn’t a lot of extra cash lying around for school and learning.

I have been following Marie for the past two years. My hypnotherapist turned me on to Marie and Danielle Laporte, two of my favourite ladies. I get their newsletters and when I read about Marie’s B-School I thought this would be a great way to get my ideas out of my head and into a plan.

With being out of the work force for so long I often felt like I was living on a different planet. Sure, I knew how to use a computer and what facebook was, but that was pretty much the extent of my technical knowledge. I knew nothing of blogging, Opt- In boxes, or profit plans.

Marie makes you want to aspire to be who you want to be. She somehow makes it fairly simple to put together a plan that is doable for you. She inspired me to keep going and the B -School community was awesome and always there when I needed to share an idea, ask a silly question and even when I wanted to share a new recipe and get some feedback.

Whether you have been in business for years and are needing some updated resources to grow your business to the next level, or whether you are like me, just starting out and are flailing around like a chicken with its head cut off, oh, that isn’t a very nice image is it? Perhaps more like a woman who has just won the lottery and you just don’t know what to buy or which charity to donate your money to? You have all these ideas in your head and they spin around day and night and you are so busy spinning that nothing really gets done. Plus you have no idea how to go about getting these ideas into play. That was me. 

Marie did something wonderful and I will always be so very grateful for her generosity. She ran a contest with a chance to win a scholarship to B- School and to make a long story short, I won. Yes, little old me who has never won anything, well okay once I went to a move premiere and I won a boat cruise on the Ottawa River, big whoop!

This was amazing, I danced, I cried, I hyperventilated in my living room the day I read the email from the Forleo Team that I had won a scholarship to B- School! Get the Fuck out of town, was there a mistake? Did I really win? Yup, I did.

B- School has just ended, and yes I am going through withdrawals. I learned so much and cannot begin to tell you what it has meant to me to have learned from such a talented woman and her great team.

As I mentioned I was green when it came to business, websites, blogging, and really everything else that goes hand in hand with an online business. 

Hell yes, I learned a lot in B- School, but it’s what I learned about myself that surprised me, and this is where I owe Marie my deep gratitude.

I am 47 years old and have been on disability for 17 years. I can’t explain to you how it makes you feel when you feel that you are not contributing to society anymore because you cannot work. The day to day tasks that sometimes seem so overwhelming, that you just want to give up. You can’t imagine ever making a difference in the world again, let alone learning all the skills that you are behind in, and the worry that you may never bring home a pay cheque is hugely scary. Yet, one day during B- School I realized that even though I have been on disability for many years I have been making a difference, I have been contributing and I am able to do B- School at my own pace! 

Yes it took me 6 years to write and publish my cookbook, but I did it. Yes, I may not go to the office and receive a pay check, but I learned about being frugal and living on a very tight budget and can share these skills with others. I learned ways of dealing with a chronic illness that have made me stronger, yet compassionate with others. That because I was at home  I was able to adopt my sisters dog when he was in an accident and nurse him back to health, which in turn gave me such an understanding of unconditional love that I will never forget his love for me on days when I couldn’t even love myself. That sometimes I could look after my nephews when my sisters were so busy with work and just needed a break. That I had time to listen to friends who were stressed out over their kid’s mishaps, and the stress of building their careers. During this time I found out my passion was creating healthy, tasty recipes and sharing them with others whenever I had the energy. 

No, I may not be as young, energetic or brilliant as Marie, but I do, just like you do, have something to share with the world.

What I learned by doing B- School besides who my customer avatar is, how to blog and what is needed to have a great website, communication and marketing skills, is that we all have something to share in our own way and on our own timetable.  I learned that there is something to be said about having humility, compassion and acceptance for myself when I am too tired to do what I want. To celebrate and have gratitude on the days when I do have energy and can do the things I long to.

I am proud to say that I have 50 names on my list and I am building it day by day. Last month I didn’t even know what an Opt- In box was or how to go about building a list.

Maybe you have 10,000 people on your list and you know who your customer avatar is, but I bet there is still a tonne that you could learn at B- School.

So if you are thinking of enrolling in B- School, but are hesitating, don’t, just do it! You just never know what you may learn from Marie and team Forleo!

Thanks Marie, for B- School.