How I Went from High Ticket Coaching to Raising Chickens

I haven’t shared my business story and so I thought I’d update you. Most of you who know me know that I started out as a public school teacher, moved to private school, found Waldorf, then had Sophia…and quit altogether and supported myself with my psychic business.

I was full-on in the online entrepreneur world, following all the internet famous gurus promising 10k in 30 days. I invested 10s of thousands of dollars and before I knew it I had a system using ads that led to webinars, that led to a phone call and I was selling 3k-5k packages.

It was exciting, full of adrenaline and dopamine hits + beyond my wildest dreams. Imagining that I could work from home, be with my daughter, and bring in 10k in a month was beyond exciting. Who cares if I spent 1k on facebook ads if it returned 5? What was 8k for a coaching program, if I could have 20k VIP days? 

I was on the road to bigger and better and before I knew it I was helping spiritual entrepreneurs build their businesses online + teaching them my same model…right up until, I wasn’t. It was January of 2020 and FB banned my ad account. I was locked out. I had violated their community standards (I think I was driving the edge of “healing” ideas in my ads + it flagged their algorithms) 

One day I had a lucrative business making 5k per client and I was on the rise, and the next my livelihood was gone. There was no one to talk to, no one to call…I appealed multiple times, it was a dead-end. 

I’ll never forget driving that day to my mom’s…I had to go there so she could be with Sophia and I could figure out what the hell just happened. My whole life was crashing around me and it seemed there was nothing I could do. I hadn’t felt this level of panic, betrayal, shock, injustice, in years…

After a week or so it was clear…I couldn’t move forward on this path and I had to pivot. So, with Covid upon us and the world locking down, I opened up a preschool out of my home. I could work from home, be with my daughter, and avoid the regulations coming hard and fast from the state. 

Thus, The Linden Tree House was born in the fall of 2020 and I went from days on the computer, feeding the facebook machine to raising chickens under the shade of the Linden Tree. I essentially let it all go. It was a time of reveling and reckoning. 

I let go of blogging which I had been doing regularly for 10 years, I cut back on readings, I closed all my coaching programs, and I played in the garden with the children. I threw myself into homesteading, canning, chicken husbandry, gardening, baking…I began to learn to felt wool, sew, and learn songs for the seasons and puppet shows to meet the emotional needs of the children in my care…

It took me this long, two full years, to fully process this experience and return to working in the world. I’ve heard countless stories now that for many of us, 2020 was the year of perfect vision…for many of us we woke up, saw the writing on the wall and changed our lives. 

After two years of basically being a homesteader, and not socializing with many people other than the ones who saw the world the way I did, I’ve emerged from my cocoon. It was time to be around people, even if they’re different from me. It was time to see if I could still walk in the world, fit in in some way, find a place. 

I applied for a teaching position at a local Waldorf school and though I went through a lengthy interview process, I didn’t receive the job. By the time I knew this was the case, it was too late to fill my home program and my families notified me that they couldn’t wait and had to go elsewhere. I was lost + unsure of what would happen, but deep within I felt a deep trust, beyond what I’ve ever known…that sometimes things have to fall apart to fall together, better. 

I let my world fall apart, I let families and children whom I adored, go. 

I was down to the end of my dollars, and no income in sight…and then, I found a part-time kindergarten job at a different Waldorf school. It fit the hours I desired, I was qualified, and I got an interview immediately. The woman who hired me rejoiced to find me, she called me her “birthday gift” as my resume was handed to her on her birthday. I was taking over her position, which she had done for 15 years. I was met with a warm reception, acknowledged for my gifts, and people delighted in my experience. 

I knew truly that when I got into the game of advertising on FB, that I had deviated significantly from my path. I had gone from teaching, and offering spiritual guidance, to being a high-stakes marketer. 

I believe now that spirit shut down one path, to return me to my roots, to my truth, to my gifts. I’ve known I wanted to teach children since I was 4, and it has always been a dynamic + fulfilling career path for me. Inside of the Waldorf philosophy, I’ve met a marriage of my spirituality with teaching. 

The last two years returned me to the earth, to the cycles of nature, to being held and restored by the changing winds, sky-gazing, listening to birds + creating a nourishing home. It gave me a final phase to truly deepen into a wonderful rhythm with Sophia, before, unbeknownst to me at the time, she’d be flying the nest for full-time school. 

As for me, a funny thing has happened at my new school…I’ve spent the last two years trying to decide if I should continue to fly under the radar, be a school of only 4 families, therefore licensing exempt, or get my license and grow. Whenever I tried to work on licensure, my eyes glazed over…so many classes, so much paperwork.

I’ve had to be early childhood certified as a kindergarten teacher at a licensed school, so now I’ve completed all the courses + paperwork, got paid for all of it, and have had a loving grandmotherly figure telling me what to do, prodding me along, and giving me deadlines. 

Now, I’m a level 3 early childhood teacher, and so when I go back to my own program, I’ll have “Large Center Director” status, which means I can have 12 children, hire employees, and truly expand into having a school.

The universe has a funny way of working out, and it’s taken me a good 44 years to be able to fully rest in trust when my world is crumbling, but I’m learning that I’m always held, and even when things seem to be falling apart, something good is coming. A Course in Miracles says, “All change is helpful.” and I’m beginning to really believe that. 

 

With you on the ride, 

Rachel Ellen