Is the 'Calm Launch Formula' the biz boost I needed?

Turning setbacks into stepping stones on my journey to reignite my passion and create with integrity.

In my last post, “Can I Reignite the Passion for My Side Business?”, I shared how I’d been feeling disconnected from Dream Life by Design, but recently started to feel a little spark of excitement again.

That spark? It’s partly because I finally gave myself the rest I needed, but also because of some divine timing — as luck would have it, Caroline and Jason Zook’s Calm Launch Formula landed right when I needed a nudge to take messy, imperfect action.

But first, let me rewind and give you some context.

I’ve been part of WAIM Unlimited since...2018? Maybe? A long time basically. It's an un-boring business coaching program run by Caroline and Jason Zook of Wandering Aimfully (who are also the founders of Teachery), that’s designed to help you build a calm, profitable and peaceful business.

What I love most is how they encourage you to do things at your own pace (which is perfect for me 🐌) and more importantly, create a business that aligns with your values and is sustainable for you.

It’s the only program I’ve consistently engaged with… that is…until my long, unexpected business hiatus, where I had to step away because anything business related because it was so triggering for me. My body craved rest, and I needed to silence the noise to hear my own thoughts.

But when I started feeling that warm, fuzzy excitement about my business again, WAIM was the first place I went back to — and it felt like I never left. What especially piqued my interest was the mention of Caroline and Jason’s upcoming program for WAIM members – the Calm Launch Formula — a system designed to make launching less stressful and more predictable. The cherry on top? For the first time ever they were planning to run a live cohort with built-in accountability, which was exactly what I needed.

I’m not usually a fan of deadlines, but they added a fun twist with “homework” and Hoggy Stickers (IYKYK 🦔 Jason and Caroline always find quirky ways to incentivise their WAIM members). After each session, you’d submit your work, earn stickers, and if you collected all 8, you’d get a shoutout on their site.

While the shoutout was a pretty cool perk, the real motivator was having a set time frame to actually get stuff done. Between balancing my full-time job, school runs, and family life, time is always a rare commodity. And as a recovering perfectionist, I tend to get stuck overthinking things.

Caroline once said on their Growing Steady podcast (and forgive me because this is from memory rather than a direct quote):

“No matter how detailed your plan is or how much you think through every scenerio, you’ll never get as much clarity as you would if you just took action”

Those words have stayed with me ever since, and I believed the gamified approach of the live cohort would help me loosen up, embrace a scrappier mindset, and finally gain some momentum.

So, what’s this Calm Launch Formula all about? It’ll help you:

• Figure out your “Irresistible Offer”

• Plan a Beta test for feedback

• Map out your launch timeline

• Write and schedule a 2-week sales email sequence

• Create your pre-launch and during-launch content

• Write your sales page copy and design it

One additional unique feature is their optional AI prompts to help you through each lesson. Now, I have mixed feelings about AI (more on that in another post), but after 18 months of business burnout, I gave it a try. And honestly? AI helped me connect some long-scattered puzzle pieces in my brain.

It even made me emotional at times. This tech, scary as it may be, pushed me out of my creative block. And it's reignited an idea that’s been simmering in the back of my mind for a while: the Teachery Theme Toolkit.

What I posted in the WAIM Slack community after realising how much motivation the Calm Launch Formula was giving me!

Here’s the backstory: at the end of 2022, just before my daughter was born, I designed and sold some Christmas Advent Teachery themes 👇

To my surprise, they sold really well! But I later found out that some people were reskinning and selling them as their own, which went against the terms and conditions I’d laid out, and it felt like a breach of creative integrity.

Instead of dwelling on it, I turned it into inspiration for my next product: the Teachery Theme Toolkit — a done-for-you Teachery theme designed to help solopreneurs easily create a custom look for their course or digital product. And fun fact, I’d already trademarked the name ‘Theme Toolkit’ for a different idea that never saw the light of day, so it’s like this product was meant to be.

Whilst I haven’t fully built the Theme Toolkit yet, the Calm Launch Formula has pushed me to focus on creating everything around it first — the sales page, emails, and content. Heck, I even had to throw up the most MVP holding page ever so I could have a link ready for shout out on their website. Eventually, this will be a sales page –my focus for next week hopefully – but right now it’s super basic and just contains a short description of the product and an email capture form to add peeps to a waitlist segment in Flodesk.

Strangely enough, working on the launch materials first has hyped me up more than I expected. Reading my drafts has given me a fresh perspective on the value I’ll be providing, and one of my core values is to always create things that will genuinely help someone. I’m not about making a quick buck or hopping on trends – when I can generate an income through creating something that is impactful, that is what lights up my soul!

Also, the deadline accountability has worked wonders in keeping me from falling into perfectionism or overthinking. On an evening, once the kids were in bed, I’d use my spare hour of free time to blitz through the lessons so I could complete the homework on time.

When it’s time to focus on the final product, I know the pieces will fall into place with a little more ease that I’m used to. Will I still run into the same mental hurdles? Very likely. Will I reach the near-finish line and feel like I want to throw everything I’ve made out the window? Highly probable.

However, I know these patterns well. I’m learning more and more that this whole business thing is just sticking to a process, trusting my instincts, respecting my boundaries, and creating something that aligns with my values of integrity and authenticity.

I’ll keep sharing my journey with you as I build the Teachery Theme Toolkit, and if you’d like to follow along, I invite you to subscribe to Unravel. It’s completely free 💖

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PS. You may have noticed that I’ve shared my affiliate link for Teachery in this post, and I have only done so because I whole-heartedly love this course platform. As a heads up, I may earn a small commission (at no extra cost to you) if you use my affiliate link to purchase Teachery #justbeinghonest

If you’re curious about Teachery, you can read my Teachery review over on my website – feel free to ask me any questions ☺️

PPS. Love the sound of WAIM Unlimited? Enrolment is currently closed, but you can sneak in using my affiliate link to take you straight to their checkout page 🤫 Again, I may earn a small commission (at no extra cost to you) if you use my affiliate link to join.