Urgent Fundraising Appeal

For those who don’t know me, My name is Dallas Fell and I am both a colleague and close friend to Kim and Steve.

My background is in traditional psychology—my career is in psychology-based coaching through my business, Mind Switch Coaching and Change

Kim and I met in 2003, when our kids were at elementary/primary school together, and it gradually came clear to me that she is one of the most extraordinary people I have ever met!! Kim and Steve together were a force of nature and everything about their work just knocked my socks off.

Amazing, inspiring and unstoppable.

I had a coach a few years back—a remarkable woman named Ley-Ann Clarke, based in Canada. We would call in once a fortnight and she would help me craft my life direction and deal with my challenges. One day she said to me, “Given the field you are in, you would be interested in this couple called Kim and Steve Cooper, online. They do wonderful work in your field.”

I said, “Yes, I KNOW them!”

She misunderstood and said, “So, you’ve come across their work online?”

I said, “No, I mean I know them personally. We just spent part of the summer break together with our kids at a beach shack up north. And I helped edit Kim’s books for print.”

She was amazed. She had a colleague who had not been convinced they were “real” people with the real history described in their books. I helped Ley-Ann win that argument. 🙂

That was a fun moment—global appreciation of Kim and Steve!

I feel so privileged to have a front row seat to the amazingness of Kim and Steve and the way they take on their lives with such gusto and determination and creative problem solving. You get to share that front row seat in the video above and sense the warmth and spark of this couple in action.

When Kim is running something by me and is taking a while to do it, she will sometimes apologise for being so long-winded. I say, “No, no, no—please go on!” It’s almost always like a masterclass in proactive life management!!

I know Kim in particular has been off the radar so much over recent months that people have been seeking me out to ask “What’s going on?, Is Kim okay?”

If you are one of those people you will know that I have been reassuring but have also had to acknowledge that there is a big life-direction recalibration going on with Kim and Steve and their family. The absolute confusion of their work situation has only just started to clear, allowing them to  judge their best response and action.

The motor inn they have been running has been completely transformed by their brilliant business and people skills. They have turned a place that was run down, seedy and barely functional into something fresh, light, clean and welcoming, with beautiful garden and pool areas—a real oasis for travellers and people in transition. They have truly earned their top rating for the district.

But life can be unpredictable—sometimes deliciously, sometimes despicably.

Kim’s previous quiet patch online was when she needed to support her Mom through cancer, until sadly, she passed away just over a year ago. Although their family’s current situation is not life threatening, it has been hugely stressful and challenging in its own way. The uncertainty and changing nature of what has been thrown at them has required an exhausting round of constant recalibration to know how to respond with wisdom, strength and integrity.

Kim is so determined, resourceful and creative that the last thing we would expect her to come up against is anything that seems like a brick wall. Over the past months coaching her, however, we’ve had to admit, if it acts like a brick wall, and smacks like a brick wall when you run into it, it just might be a brick wall. 

The work and the love they have put into restoring their accommodation place and its business have made it a long process to accept it is likely to be lost, and there are no viable options to save it.

But Kim and I have always said, “Never waste a good crisis”.

A true life crisis is a painful but precious thing, and perhaps nothing less than this difficult crisis would have helped them see the importance of stepping away to a new direction.

Their aim has always been that, whatever they had as their “day job,” should leave them with energy and flexibility to do the passion-work they do—making a difference to the lives of people who are struggling with the same issues they have faced as a couple and helping people reach for their best—as individuals, couples and families. An essential part of that has been interacting with their trusted and trusting community of supporters and contributors. Sadly, the ever-evolving situation around the motor-inn management, along with the huge demands of running the place has pulled them off that path.

I can hardly believe that throughout this stressful time, Kim has managed, against all odds, to not only update The Love Safety Net Workbook, but also completely reconfigure the membership site, making it more ordered and accessible.

This determination, while admirable has nevertheless been taking a heavy toll—including some un-ignorable health effects for Kim that after looking after Steve’s heart problems for so long—very successfully I might add—she has now been forced to take additional time out for self care. 

As their friend, I can’t help but be relieved to see some light at the end of the tunnel with them stepping away from the work load at the motor inn by early next year at the latest.

Kim and Steve both desperately need a less labor intensive day job.

A great deal of wisdom in the world tells us not to get sidetracked from our life mission by less important considerations. Finances are so often the main culprit. We tell ourselves “I have to stay in this situation—I can’t afford to rescue myself, because I won’t know where my next dollar will come from.” Not a good enough reason to hold back the good we can do in the world. So, finally, Kim and Steve are taking the big steps needed to shift out and re-establish in a life that will make room for the amazing work they do. They are not “burning the boats on the beach”, though. Instead, they are attempting to do the kind of shift that does credit to them as responsible family leaders with others still depending on them.

It has been impressive to watch them “practice what they preach” under this tremendous pressure. Family-conferencing about directions, hearing each one’s point of view and moving towards the win-win-win common ground.

The return of true hope and inspiration that is showing up as they find their new path has helped them see the future more clearly. Kim and Steve have pinpointed the one thing that would make an enormous impact on everything—their contribution to things that matter (and their legacy, as I see it myself), their family stability and sustainable finances: securing a mainstream book deal.

It would be more than wonderful to see their work reach an unlimited world audience in the way they describe above. I remember handing Back From the Looking Glass to a friend of mine years ago, who was caught in a terrible marriage situation. She read the first few pages and then retreated to a corner of my living room devouring the whole thing for the next couple of hours, looking up only to say, “This is the best book I have ever read!” I was very pleased at that moment that I had talked Kim into going into print—my friend didn’t “do” online. (She is still with her husband and has managed to change things for the better these days!). A mainstream book deal would supercharge the process of getting Kim and Steve’s work out to a world that needs it more than ever.

Meanwhile, back on Planet Practical, they have a long way to go to get themselves back on a stable financial footing, with big setup costs coming their way that they can’t see a way to meet right now.

The concept of an “advance” on their future book deal advance is a wonderful one. It will put rocket fuel under Kim’s capacity to make that book deal happen, as well as supercharging their transition into a stable, secure and sustainable home and core business, so in the shortest time possible we can get our Kim and Steve back!!

Personally, I will also love seeing Kim and Steve in action as ‘the Good Father and Mother’, running the home-stay place for the luckiest young students on the planet! Can you imagine being a young, disoriented student, stumbling across this household, not knowing what to expect—just needing some accommodation that your parents back home are happy with? Oh, my goodness! I’m sure they will learn even more of value from being part of this amazing and inspiring household than they learn in a whole university degree.

So, I do encourage you to be part of this venture, knowing that any investment you make over $100 will be accounted for and returned when the real book advance comes through. That’s no-cost, no-risk altruism!! My absolute favourite kind!!

From a selfish perspective, I also see it as “buying back their time” for us. 🙂  It will take a few months, but with concerted support from us all, we’ll be seeing and hearing far more from them again—and getting more value from our online memberships than ever before. 

I do hope you will join me in donating what you can—or investing-with-dollars-returned for the larger amounts. I can hardly imagine a better way to put your resources to work for good.

Thanks on behalf of Kim and Steve for everything you do already to support them and their work in making this world a better place.

Warmest wishes

Dallas Fell