International Speaker, trainer, and transformational coach is thrilled to share the exciting news that Sassy, Classy & Badassy!: Unleashing the Power of Bold Women Entrepreneurs has reached Amazon Best Seller stats in multiple categories and countries, making the book an International Best Seller! Congratulations to all the authors and all the lives the book has touched!!
USA = 4 Categories
- Best Seller in the Kindle Store
- Best Seller in Women & Business (Kindle Store)
- Best Seller in Women & Business (Books)
- Best Seller in Biographies & Memoirs of Women
United Kingdom = 5 Categories
- Best Seller in Business Biographies & Memoirs
- Best Seller in Self-Help
- Hot New Release in Biographies & Memoirs of Women
Canada = 5 Categories
- Best Seller in the Kindle Store
- Best Seller in Women in Business (Books)
- Best Seller in Women in Business (Kindle Store)
- Best Seller in Motivational Self-Help Books
- #36 Hot New Releases in Women in Business
Australia = 7 Categories
- Best Seller in the Kindle Store
- Best Seller in Women in Business (Books)
- Best Seller in Women in Business (Kindle Store)
- Best Seller in Biographies & Memoirs of Women
- #22 Hot New Release in Women & Business
- #66 Hot New Release in Biographies & Memoirs of Women’s Paris Conference – Leo International Conferences
Karen Rudolf Being Hired To Tell Her Sassy, Classy, And Badassy Stories:
For Conferences, Speaking Engagements, Coaching, Facilitating Events, And Helping Others To Do The Same Professionally And Personally.
Karen Rudolf stands as a beacon of transformation and empowerment in the realms of stress reduction and personal and professional development. As a ‘Catalyst for Change,’ a 5X International Best-Selling Collaborative Author, renowned speaker, podcaster, and workshop facilitator, Karen’s mission is to elevate lives and nurture growth across all spheres. Her journey is fueled by a deep-rooted passion for communication and “W” holistic well-being, guiding individuals to surmount challenges and flourish. Karen’s expertise is not confined to one domain; she excels in transforming lives through innovative communication strategies, self-leadership techniques, and a foundational “W”holistic approach, marking her as a cornerstone of well-being, all while creating fun and play…
Embarking on her path as a Life Strategist and Catalyst for Change, Karen’s nursing background enriches her narrative, complemented by an extensive array of licensures and certifications. Her approach is underpinned by the 7 Pillars of Health, encapsulating a “W” holistic perspective on personal and professional evolution. This unique blend of knowledge and experience positions Karen as a multifaceted guide for those seeking to navigate the complexities of their lives. With each interaction, she aims to unlock the potential within, fostering resilience, clarity, and progress. Karen Rudolf is more than a mentor; she is a partner in the journey of transformation, dedicated to empowering each individual on their unique path toward achieving a balanced and fulfilling life.
During the interview with Business Innovators Magazine, Karen’s story “From Imposed to Empowered: Crafting Your Own Story of Sassy and Classy.” Karen shares her story, “I never saw myself as ‘bad-assy’ until someone pointed it out to me! “Wow, Karen, you are one of the strongest people I know; how do you do what you do?” Say what???? Me? This had me pause and reflect on my life. We all have stories and experiences that shape us into who we are BE-coming. I have always viewed myself as overwhelmed, stuck in a victim mentality, constantly asking, “Why me?” I was a people pleaser from the start; my mother labeled me as sickly due to my asthma, making me feel like I couldn’t function like everyone else. What was wrong with me? I felt ‘normal,’ able to do everything other kids could do!
Being labeled was detrimental to many of us growing up!! As a result, I lived a sheltered life, not knowing how to break free. Asthma prevented me from fully embracing life and living it to the fullest. At six years old, I was a very curious child. Everything was a Wonderland for me. I had so many questions that my dad would often tell me, “Go out and play. You ask too many questions, so leave me alone.” This message conveyed that kids should be seen and not heard; what’s wrong with me? Was I not supposed to ask questions? Despite this, I remained curious and frustrated. I would stomp off to my room or outside to pout, eventually becoming a loner, lost in my thoughts and imagination. Living at the end of a street that bordered a forest, I’d go on my loner retreats into nature, seeking solace. During one of my wanderings, I found a bush that resembled an igloo, a safe haven from my parents’ arguments. I would hide there with my Barbie dolls, covering them with leaves and caring for them. Even then, I knew I was a healer. Being the curious and intellectual person I was becoming, I sat in the front row of my first-grade classroom. We were given a cigar box filled with what seemed like an enormous number of alphabet tiles and asked to spell out words on the blackboard. OK, I realize I’m aging myself here now, so bear with me. I went to work on the assignment. When I ran out of tiles, I recall raising my hand to the teacher, who resembled Snow White with her long, straight blond hair and beautiful smile, for help. Despite my seriousness, she laughed, causing the whole class to join. I was stunned and frozen in place. She came over to my left side, put her hand on my shoulder, and pointed to the blackboard on the back side. I had to turn my body to the right side as everyone laughed. She pointed to the board that read ‘Happy April Fools’ Day”, & I just looked at it blankly. I had no idea what April Fools’ Day was or what it meant. My parents never played that game! It was at that moment I wanted to crawl under the table. I was so humiliated. I did not understand their joke and why everybody laughed so loud, long and hard. They were laughing at me! At that moment, I decided I must be stupid and never open my mouth again.”
“Fast forward. I went through my schooling career with the teachers asking for answers to questions, calling on me where I’d cringe whether I knew the answers or not. My response was always, “I don’t know. “I don’t know “became my default moving forward. Thank goodness I was relatively good on exams and could pass my classes. This later translated into not feeling worthy, not feeling enough. The stories we tell ourselves! Life is about cause and effect. One thing begets another until we feel like we are spinning out of control with no way out. Victimizing! Being a by-product of my parents, my mother’s conversation was always around lack, not being enough, or not being worthy. Through no fault of her own, she didn’t know what she hadn’t known and probably learned it from her parents or experiences. I’m sure I picked up quite a bit from her without realizing what was happening. My ‘not knowing’s translated into further feelings of being stupid and unworthy, which translated into even more levels of unworthiness. Unbeknownst to myself, I began seeking evidence that I, Karen, was indeed “stupid” and unable to do things because I didn’t know how. By default! What we focus on expands. I reached a point where I would cringe when I was asked a question, becoming a people pleaser and later beating myself up for giving away my power. Life is about breathing without thought; basic survival skills are innate: eating, shelter, and seeking love and acceptance. Human nature innately craves to be seen, heard, loved and understood. We often seek these basic needs outside ourselves, not feeling listened to. I became a people-pleaser to be seen. “Here I am, look at me!!! “Look what I did for you. “Thus, we teach ourselves that it’s about others, forgetting about ourselves and self-love, worthiness, and putting on our oxygen mask first. I was Classy, Sassy, and certainly Bad-Assy by looking for love in all the wrong places; my picker was not on the mark, to say the least. Being a people pleaser just created more and more heartache and questions of self-worth; what was wrong with me? What was wrong with my picking abilities? I married for love and gave up my nursing career to raise the family, as I was told my mother-in-law, before me, had. ‘Yes, sir, how high, sir!’ Not that it was terrible, not being a people pleaser; it became easier and easier for me to put others first. I hid behind my children in a very challenging relationship. I shut down. Lost my identity in the mix. When things got rocky to the point of despair, I didn’t have the where-with-all to open my mouth and ask for what I wanted and needed. I turned it over to God. I recall the day I was shoveling horse manure over my shoulder frantically. Dear God, if this marriage isn’t supposed to be, the only way I see out of it was for him to have an affair… Lesson learned: Be careful what you wish for! This gave me an excuse to file for divorce. I loved the idea of what I imagined an ideal family would look like. My self-imposed expectations broke my heart. When asked what I’d do after, would I return to nursing as it was a reputable career, I recall listening to others’ opinions long enough. Although nursing served me well, it also reminded me of my youth of not being heard and not being enough once more. As I questioned the Doctors for sending patients home with scripts, I’d ask, ‘Why are you masking the symptoms rather than getting to the root causes?’… “Shut up and do your job”! I despised not being seen nor heard, and I’d cave or cower. Not knowing the direction of my future, being a single mom of 3 small children, I panicked and victimized myself to the point of a pity party without the hats and hoopla, which wasn’t a fun place to be. Which way do I go? Dang, I could barely make a decision back then, let alone commit. I had no idea what was next or in store for me, for us. Fear prevailed. At one moment in time, during the struggles with divorce and not being spoken to at all by my former husband, feeling quite alone, everything had to then go through the attorneys as the only means of Communication. I was informed we were going to court. Oh no! The judge, who I had put on a pedestal thinking he was going to determine my fate and the fate of my children, scared the heck out of me. It had me pause and realize I was so in my pity party that I hadn’t thought about the fate or future of our children, who were in the middle of all this chaos. I was their first advocate. Who was I?”
Karen’s Transformation Into Sassy, Classy & Badassy
“At that point, I decided to take communication courses and promised never to be out of communication again. I’d learn to open my mouth and determine my own fate, or as close to it. I was becoming the Bad-Ass! I was still that curious child, taking on Quantum Physics and Neuro-Science, and couldn’t get enough information. The world became my oyster! What would I do with all this information? I had no idea; I felt guided, trusting my intuition. Right around the time my divorce after 4 years was coming to a finality, my second horse got struck by lightning! Really Universe? I get that Florida is the world’s lightning capital, but really? Not once, but twice. Scamper, my heart and horse soul-mate, died saving another as he fell. I mourned for a long time. With his passing. When Truman, a few years later, got struck by lightning, my Vet told me to put him down, ‘Karen, you’re going through a divorce, you have small children, it will cost a lot for his recovery, his chances would be slim, put him down.” I recall getting still, closing my eyes, and after a few moments, flung them open to yell out in his face, “No, not only will Truman survive, he will Thrive, and he and I will become catalysts for change!” He looked at me, shocked, and I felt just as shocked; where had THAT come from??? I don’t know. I had been seeking answers to the why me thing for some time… I studied world religion, looking for and seeking something outside of myself. When I mentioned this scenario to my Spiritual Mentor, she asked me if I’d looked up the meaning of lightning strike as if everything was a sign or symbol. “No, I hadn’t. I already know what it means.” I am an intuitive. She asked, “What will you do with that?” I replied, “I’m not ready for that”. She laughed, “Okay, let me know when you’re ready!” I sighed, ‘Ok, I will.”
A “Lightning Strike” means being a Light in the World, a Messenger. After declaring that Truman and I would be ‘Catalysts for Change,’ I suppose I might as well step up. Bad-Ass me!! As luck would have it, thank you once more, Universe. I got a call from my now hypochondriac mother, her attention-getting, victimized survival mechanism. Raising three small children on my own, listening to her go on all during the time I was exhausted doing 6 hours of car-pooling per day with three different schools, soccer, studies, and horse shows, life became quite overwhelming, to say the least. That fatal day, when I hadn’t heard from my mother, I knew something was up. I called and heard her slurring her words. Dropping everything, I opened her door to find her on the floor in a fetal position. I hadn’t seen my mother; I saw a small child overwhelmed by fear, wanting to be loved, heard, and understood. She was 70 and had taken art classes with no one to show her artwork to (hey, look at me, look what I did!!). She’d go to the doctor’s office complaining of a Migraine and share her artwork with the staff, who ooh’d and ahh’d until the next week, she’d finish another drawing and complain about the meds they had given her for migraine now was causing her to become nauseous. She was on 19 medications when I found her that day on the floor. At that moment, I knew immediately. I had my lightning strike while scraping her off the floor, and I declared at that moment, ‘The buck stops here! Not on my watch!’ I AM that Catalyst for Change. I owned my Bad-Ass self that day! My journey from feeling overwhelmed and undervalued to recognizing my strength was transformative and revelatory. It highlighted a fundamental truth: many of us are living stories not of our own making, trapped in narratives shaped by others’ expectations and past experiences. My path led me to a profound realization: if I could rewrite my story, I could support others to do the same. Not knowing the how-to’s as I’d conditioned myself to be, I decided to choose to change that story once and for all.
I realized I wasn’t stupid at all! Rather quite intelligent! I was becoming sassy for sure! If I hadn’t known something, thank goodness for Google! Thank goodness for my curiosity as I set myself on an aligned path of learning the skills and strategies to empower myself to empower others. I was now on a mission. I had a path. I hired a Coach, and although it hadn’t worked out the way I’d hoped with my lofty expectations, through trial and error, I never gave up; I became clearer about who I was and what my needs and desires were until I found my aligned coaches. Many were shocked at the idea of me spending so much money on my personal growth and educating myself. Whose life was it anyway? If I’d gone back to college, it would’ve cost me as much, if not more! I obtained lots of certifications and licenses as a result. It wasn’t to brag or prove myself worthy any longer; I felt the path was opening up before me. Opportunities were laid out, aligning with who I was to become today and how I was meant to serve. I trust that!”
How Has Karen’s Story Helped Others Become Sassy, Classy & Badassy?
“Today, as an empowerment coach and life strategist, I harness this understanding to enlighten others and help them peel back the layers of imposed identities that have obscured their true selves. My approach is rooted in empathy and empowerment, developed through my own experiences of self-doubt and rediscovery. I work with clients to identify and detach from these limiting beliefs, replacing them with narratives of strength, capability, and self-worth today. As a young child, I was fascinated with manipulative puzzles. I couldn’t get enough solving quickly and eagerly awaiting the next. As a magician, in his spare time, my grandfather taught me a lot about perception and introduced me to those puzzles.
Fast forward to today, I am a creative problem solver. I focus on the power of narrative. We can author our life script, yet too often, the pen is in someone else’s hand. I guide my clients in reclaiming their narrative authority—highlighting their innate strengths that have been overshadowed by years of external labeling, self-doubt, and conditioning. I do that in a creative, playful way. The process of detaching from these imposed identities is deeply
intertwined with stress reduction. As we shed these external pressures, we not only find clarity but also peace. It’s human nature to desire personal freedom. What does that look like? Many want it and do not know what it looks or feels like. Once one moves from a state of constant reactivity to one of proactive self-definition, this shift decreases stress and its stressors and increases resilience, opening doors to new possibilities and paths previously obscured by self-imposed limitations. As I teach the tools and techniques for mastering our stressors, I’ve come to realize that Classy is a choice; it’s something we step into like a new garment. We get to adorn it with the energy of who we choose to become. Being around my horses has taught me just how intuitive, elegant, and loving horses genuinely are. After doing many years of trauma clearing alongside Truman being that catalyst for change, I’ve come to realize everything is energy. For me, the horse represents Power, Beauty, Grace, and Ease. All of the energies I wished to embody. When I teach embodiment work, I stand by my choice of Classy-ness, engaging others in what’s possible for their choice of sassy as well. As we navigate this journey together, I am not just a guide but a catalyst for deep, meaningful change. By focusing on empowerment through self-awareness and resilience, I help individuals not only confront their current challenges but also equip them for future obstacles, fostering a life of self-directed success and fulfillment. This by no means that I don’t have my share of angst, challenges, and struggles; I have the tools that support me in managing the stressors, such that I can take a deep breath and deal with them head-on rather than being the deer in the headlights and able to now give back through my services by teaching others the tools and strategies that will support you moving through your own with ease. Consider not discounting or making your past mean something other than what it is.. in your past. Perhaps you were meant for something greater than yourself with your life experiences. Look closer; you might find your gift or hidden gem within your story. Had I not been a curious child, asking questions, playing with manipulative puzzles, being creative, a nurse, studying world religions, communication, trauma release, coaching, etc… today I’ve become a renowned Catalyst for Change in the world of “W”holistic Empowerment, gracing stages, an International Best Selling Author, traveling and presented globally.
As a Healer, I frame the Holistic aspects of life and well-being with a “W” as I believe you are a ‘whole.’ person. Whole, complete, and perfect right here, right now. Being educated in the Mental, Emotional, Physical, and Spiritual, I am prepared to take you and yours on now, all as a result of believing I wasn’t enough; go figure! I like to believe that life happens for a reason or a season. Life happens for me, not to me. “When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change” ~ Wayne Dyer. I love my life today! This quote by Wayne Dyer, which my brain heard as, when you change the way you look at things, the way you look at things change,” (my brain perceived it the way it had) took me to South Africa against all odds making a difference in their educational system there, who would’ve thought. You never know what the Universe has in store for you. Be open, be willing, and be a YES to life!
These things created Karen’s Classy, Sassy, Bad-Assy Self for sure. The sky’s the limit when we get out of our way and see what’s possible when we choose to change.
Karen encourages people to use these 7 Magical Action Items while Setting Intentions and Goals.
1. Create clarity around what you want. Most of us know what we don’t want clearly. Get out the paper and fold it in half. On the top of the left side, label it DON’T WANT; on the right side, label it WANT. Begin by numbering all the things you don’t want first! Write, write, and write; come back later and write some more; get it out! Emoting is healing! Now look at the 1st column, directly across from the #1 listed item; look at it from the perspective of what the polar opposite is. This will create a better understanding of what you want.
2. Next, buy yourself a journal, a beautifully covered one that speaks to you, as well as your favorite-colored pen. You are now telling your brain you are committing to YOU! Get yourself or make dividers; get creative! This is your journal. No one gets to see but you. Divided into three sections:
a. Label, Gratitude,
b, Warm and Fuzzies,
c. Things I wish to accomplish (Bucket List),
3. List Affirmations, Quotes/Songs that speak to your Soul. Affirmations always begin with an I AM statement. IE: I am powerful, beautiful, and energetic. Those are words you wish to expand and take on within your life. You can and will believe things about yourself as you will tell your brain what you want. Part of shifting the old energy. There is always that one song or quote that lifts us and speaks to our soul in the moment. List them here.
4. Daily reflections (what lessons you’ve learned, wins, and celebrations). List at least 3 things you’re grateful for each day. If you’re in the bathroom on a roll doing it, keep on. Minimum 3 / day. You cannot repeat the things for which you’re grateful! Warm and Fuzzies: Smile makers are things that make you smile and feel good when you think about them. What lessons did you learn about yourself today? How might you use these lessons to grow your tomorrow? Remember, knowledge is just knowledge until it’s applied!! What were your wins? Acknowledgment grows and wins magically, especially when you choose to celebrate, no matter how big or small; how will you celebrate? Self-reflection is key to opening up doors of self-discovery. I always like to date each of my entries as I do; when I look back over them, I see how far I’ve come and how much I’ve grown and expanded. Keep it up each day, and watch the magical shifts!
5. Create your bucket list: What I want to accomplish or do with my life is 1. Be a _______ fill in the
blanks. What I will be seeing or doing is ______. Get the drift?
6. Take time for yourself!! Take a break. Meditate and spend time in nature. Make time for fun,
play, and relaxation.
7. Get yourself support where needed; we are not meant to do life alone. We aren’t always taught
tools and strategies for life challenges. That’s not a bad thing, nor is it a reflection of who you are or
aren’t; it’s not your identity. It’s just what it is.
Being Classy means stepping into your authentic self with a sassy attitude that is unique to you. Being Badassy means being courageous and asking for support, taking action to get what you want, living the life you desire, and finding your unique definition of personal freedom.”
Karen can be hired for conferences, speaking engagements, coaching, and facilitating by calling her at 407-920-4288 or going to the following sites:
https:// www.tranquilSOULutions.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tranquilsoulutions
https://www.facebook.com/karen.rudolf.14
Check out her Awakening Potential Podcast: https://open.spotify.com. Then grab yours complimentary: ‘Breaking Free from Misunderstood Ambition: The Sassy, Classy, and Badassy Journey Guide’ – a transformational roadmap designed for ambitious entrepreneurial women at: https://www.tranquilsoulutions.com
