Kathy Paauw with her husband, Doug
(pronounced POW!)
From the time Kathy Wells Paauw was a little girl, she loved to sing. A graduate of the prestigious Interlochen Arts Academy High School (1977) and a former student at Eastman School of Music, Kathy is a trained soprano who was a music major in college. Although singing has often taken a back seat to more pressing priorities through the decades, Kathy is finding ways to bring it back into her life now.
After graduating from Macalester College in 1981, Kathy married her husband, Doug. Since he started medical school two weeks after they got married, Kathy was the only bread-winner for their first four years of marriage. She needed reliable income and knew that would be difficult to find as a singer. Taking a job as an office assistant in the School of Music development office, Kathy unintentionally launched her career in development (fundraising) during Doug’s four years of study at the University of Michigan. By the time she and Doug moved to Seattle for his medical residency training, she had worked her way up in the development field and there was no turning back! After a 13-year career in development work, Kathy felt burned out and realized that this was not the career path for her.
In 1995, Kathy started her own business as a productivity consultant. By 1999, she had become a certified personal and professional coach and added this to her business offerings. Kathy was a pioneer in her field, as she was one of the first productivity consultants (professional organizers) to combine coaching with her work. She was also one of the first to offer virtual consulting services – working by phone rather than in person. Most of her colleagues said that this kind of work could not effectively be done over the phone. Today, many productivity consultants who were mentored by Kathy are running thriving virtual consulting businesses that span the globe. They’re helping people to live and work more productively without leaving their home offices to do the work!
Kathy was leveraging her time by offering her expertise through webinars, teleclasses, and group coaching, but her thriving business still did not generate the kind of income she desired. She was feeling burned out again as she worked long hours to meet her clients’ needs. She woke up one day and thought to herself, “I don’t own my own business—it owns me!” It was then that Kathy realized that leveraging her time through the efforts of others was what it would take to increase her income; she was no longer willing to keep working “harder.” She was tired of trading time for dollars, at the expense of her health and relationships.
In 2005, Kathy was introduced to a network marketing company that was a perfect fit with what she was already doing, and it offered her amazing leverage opportunities. Kathy naturally started sharing her company’s offerings with those she knew, and she quickly became a top income earner. She has served on her company’s Advisory Board since its inception.
In 2009, Kathy stopped taking paying coaching clients. Instead, she offers free coaching to emerging leaders within her team. She loves helping others discover what makes their heart sing so they can incorporate that into their everyday life.
Kathy also loves to write, and she has authored many articles over the past 12 years. These articles are widely published on more than 200 websites. By the end of 2010, Kathy felt compelled to do something she had talked about for years–write her first book: The Music of Your Heart: Freedom to live the life of your dreams through Network Marketing. She also recorded an original song with lyrics that convey the core of the message of her book.
Kathy lives in the Seattle area with her husband, and they celebrated their 30-year wedding anniversary in 2011. Their daughter, Carly, is studying to become a doctor. Doug travels quite a bit as a visiting Professor of Medicine and a popular workshop presenter at medical conferences all over the world. One of the things Kathy loves about her work is that she has the flexibility to travel with him. Now she gets to choose when, where, and how much she works.
Kathy’s boldest dream is to free millions of people from a life of limitation, helping them to achieve financial and lifestyle freedom, while sharing their gifts and talents in a way that makes their heart sing.
Doug, Carly and Kathy Paauw
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico – June 2011
