Hi, I’m Karen Skidmore.
I know the dangers of a busy family life and working too hard and how this can impact your stress levels and health. In my 20s and 30s, I saw myself as a strong, independent woman; I worked hard at my career and as a mother.
But in reality, I was a ‘head on a stick’.
When I fell ill in my early 40s, I fell hard. I had lost my Dad to cancer amid my crazy work/life schedule, and I didn’t deal with my grief well. Being ‘too busy’, I zipped the grief up inside of me, ignored all signs of stress and consequential body inflammation and went on to experience awful peri-menopause symptoms for several years.
I burnt out, and it took me years to recover.
Discovering how to get back into my body was life-changing.
After several frustrating years of trying to ‘fix’ myself and ‘make myself better,’ I realised there were no shortcuts to my recovery. But being told to ‘rest more’ became a real challenge, even though I knew logically that I needed to reduce my body's stress.
My brain was constantly whirling away, and my nervous system was on high alert so I found it incredibly difficult to relax and do nothing.
During my recovery journey, I was introduced to sound healing and embodiment work, and these practices became a game-changer for me.
I decided to go on to study sound and movement, and after many years of deep practice, I am now a qualified Level II Sound Healing Practitioner and I will finish my Embodiment Facilitator training in the Autumn of 2024.
It’s been an incredible past few years, and it’s now time to start sharing my wisdom and knowledge with business leaders like you.
Outside of Serotina …
I have run my own coaching and consulting companies since 2004. After an 11-year career as a Business Director with Hays Plc, my children were approaching school age, and I realised how much I wanted a more flexible and fulfilling professional career. I was still ambitious, but the demands of meeting sales targets and managing small teams weren’t going to work if I wanted to be at the school gates each day.
Within six months of starting up a new coaching business, I was awarded European Social Funds for my Women’s Enterprise Programme and Simply Marketing Workshops, which were instrumental in helping hundreds of women start up their own businesses across Surrey and Sussex.
I went on to set up a regional women’s networking group in 2005, created and ran a membership programme for 100+ members for 3 years, became a specialist social media trainer and digital marketing expert, and launched dozens of online courses and group programmes over the next 13 years.
I took another turn in my late 40s when I decided to leave the fast-paced digital marketing industry. The industry was becoming more intense, and people were being pushed to believe they needed to chase the algorithms and be bigger, faster, and better. I don’t prescribe to the 6figure to 7figure success formulas, nor do I believe you must be pushed to ‘add another zero to those dreams’, so I pivoted.
I am now the founder of Grow Strong Business, a small business mentoring company. Along with my team, I lead our flagship programme, Momentum, which helps consultants and business founders run and grow their businesses with more ease and consistency.
As a Menopause Champion, I have hosted an annual Embrace Festival and have been instrumental in developing menopause support programmes for organisations. I understand the unique challenges women face during this phase of life, and I am here to provide the support and guidance they need.
I regularly speak about the importance of slowing down to speed up growth and am the author of two books: Shiny Shiny: How to Stop Being a Social Media Magpie and True Profit Business: How to Play Your Bigger Game Without Burning Out, which was a finalist in the 2020 Business Book Awards.
If you are on LinkedIn, I’d love to connect with you there.
Karen and her coaching team at Grow Strong Business
Why ‘Serotina’
serotinus,-a,-um (adj.A): late blooming, appearing later in the season, often autumn.
Serotina is a name used for plants that have flowers that bloom later in the season of autumn, and it carries a profound message for me.
It symbolises the beauty of patience and the magic of blooming in our later years.
Now 55 years old and two years post-menopausal, I have launched this new business in what I feel is my Serotina phase—a phase of life in which I made the decision to become physically fit and strong, give less of a hoot about what others may think, and choose to go at life at a slower pace while still achieving the impact that is important to me.
Women’s post-menopausal years—the 50s, 60s, and beyond—are not a time of decline, as society has us believe, but a time of huge potential, and these years can be our most powerful decades.
Ageing doesn’t have to be done gracefully, nor should we try to reverse it. It can be a journey of self-discovery, growth, and embracing the changes that come with each passing year.
Thus, this is the energy I choose to bring to the world through Serotina.
No matter your age—and of course, you may be younger or older than I am—this is your time to bloom, to hear the whispers within you, and to embody the essence of who you truly are.
How does this resonate with you?
I hope this excites you even more about what I’ve planned as Serotina takes shape over the coming months.
