Check Out Claudia Mead McBride’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Claudia Mead McBride.

Hi Claudia McBride, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Greetings! And thanks for letting me share a little about myself and my story! As a recent implant to the east valley of Phoenix, I am enjoying babysitting our granddaughter, fishing & camping with my husband Tom McBride, and developing our online curriculum, with the help of my daughter Addie Rausch. Since I retired from a career of 39 years in sales, developing, & building real estate in Grand Junction, CO, I have become the Author & Founder of LIFE SKILLS for CONFIDENCE. My daughter Addie and I help Teens gain more insight as to who they are, become more self-aware, integrate into society, find more confidence, and envision their future.

Having been raised in Denver, CO I attended college in Grand Junction and then later at San Francisco State. After college I was in Charm School in Oakland, CA in the late ’60s for training as an international airline stewardess, taking troops in and out of Viet Nam & Tokyo and, going to many other wonderful countries. Since then I have done extensive traveling on my own as well.When I left the Northern CA area and returned to Colorado, I worked with many families and business people while catering at Hiwan Country Club in Evergreen, CO. After getting my RE license in 1979 we moved to the Western slope where we started a successful solar business. Then I began my career as a real estate agent, and love the many families and beautiful homes we built in that area.

Much of the Life Skills for Confidence curriculum is carrying the wisdom of my life experiences forward. My favorite thing about being a working mom was raising 3 teens. I have seen patterns and discovered answers to help working parents do a better job of helping to guide their Teens for a successful transition into Young Adulthood. I truly believe our Life Skills for Confidence program is something we can use in our society today to help the Teens and Tweens! I hope it will give them the encouragement needed to face their future and, the problems our society has. I know they will have fun and will find interesting things in each lesson that will give them hope. I enjoy working with the tweens and teens and with Addie, as we watch the program’s popularity grow, and see more needs for them. Next we plan on recording an additional 24 lessons this winter.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
My challenges were all new! I began with writing out 24 different well-thought-out life skills & personal development lessons. Luckily my daughter, Addie Rausch, quit her corporate job, determined to see these lessons come to fruition. We had no idea what and how to do it and began to set up many systems like Dropbox, One Note, Pro-Production, Kartra, Canva, Pexels and so forth giving us ways & elements to make interesting and informative online videos for tweens & teens. We had a small email list so next, we faced the problem of where to spend money to advertise our Life Skills for Confidence video lessons, while continuing to create and send out ads with near to no results. We developed social media outlets while watching and learning from podcasts & videos and attended more networking groups exposing our wonderful product.

If you’re going to be an entrepreneur dream your dream to the fullest and hold on tight because it’s often a scary & lonely path. However, it leads to a passionate, joyful life and a confident tomorrow and, hopefully, a pocket full of money! We’re still waiting to see the results & are grateful for the direction and support we get from our merciful Creator who blesses us with His hand and cares about the youth of today!

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
After retiring and moving to the Phoenix area for a warmer climate and be near our daughters and families, we set up a new United Food Bank in the White River Mountains at Ft Apache, AZ. I love to help and had found ways to contribute in Colorado by volunteering on the Board of Directors for Habitat for Humanity for 8 years, creating the River City Singles group for those 50+ which is still thriving, and teaching entrepreneur lessons to young people as a guest in classes. So when I moved here I found ways to teach at the local Parks & Rec and began Kid Etiquette which was lessons for tweens about social and personal growth.

Being near my daughter Addie Rausch, was amazing! She was so supportive and loved what I was doing so she helped on weekends with teaching the young people. She was so impressed with the lessons and convinced me to make them into online videos to share with teens and tweens nationally. She quit her corporate job and career in IT in order to get my lessons onto an online course. Since times changed, and we weren’t able to reach more young people in person, we designed interesting & informative online, self-guided short 10–15-minute lessons. Addie became the Mentor, and she Produced the videos that are designed to walk the kids through where they have been and where they are, and where they want to go. We continue to see Positive Results in the lives of each of our students who hopefully will be leaders of tomorrow! In addition, we see a growing interest from others as we built a stronger team to help us.

Addie started a Zoom Social Hour recently where teens from all across the US can meet weekly to watch a lesson for free and discuss their “takeaway”. This program is growing and going well, giving the teens more confidence, and is available to everyone by signing them up on our webpage. We also do a LIVE Facebook Book event for 10-15 minutes on Thursdays at 5:30pm MST right after the 45-minute zoom, in order to help parents with ideas and approaches based on our lessons.

This has truly been my favorite calling and, it has certainly kept me young and fascinated! The technology today is endless an Writing & having help to produce more lessons is my current project, and writing is my favorite part as of my many articles and blogs, my poetry blog is my favorite! We encourage the youth to write many different things in their journal, and we give them things to practice, challenges, and games. This program is what I’m most proud of.

What do you like and dislike about the city?
Queen Creek and San Tan Valley people have been very warm and considerate to us. We were sad to leave the Colorado towns and mountains so, getting used to the desert and a newer, more modern environment, was our first task. The weather did suit me better because of my age. Arthritis was painful during the colder days, which is one of the reasons we moved here.

The level of professionalism was what I expected. Many sharp, interesting, well-rounded individuals were discovered wherever my husband and I went in the QC and STV areas. That increased even more as I worked with Parks and Rec, the Communiversity, and the in-person INet Entrepreneur networking group. People working in the stores, restaurants, and other shoppers that were around us, were almost always friendly, considerate, and focused. It was great to know you could trust others and that they were nice. We enjoy Schnepf Farms, the City of QC Events, and frequent the Olive Mill, all close by.

Being on the far east side of Phoenix was an advantage because my husband liked fishing and boating so we had quicker access to the beautiful lakes and river. Watching the weather move around the Superstition Mountains is beautiful and we were closer to the Apache Reservation where we had developed friendships while running a food bank up there. Since we didn’t need to commute to the city, we quickly learned our way around with the newer shopping areas & beautiful newer subdivisions. Besides we both love new construction, as well as farmland so, seeing things that were new to us and driving around was a super adventure!

Now, I’ll mention the traffic and crazy drivers. Ha! Everyone seems to push hard and maybe, in a bit of a hurry. I personally love the added speed and precision of most drivers since as a realtor for nearly 40 years, finding my way around had developed into a game of sorts. A challenge. Although the roads seem to be continuously under construction, they make great sense tying one small town or community together with another. When going into Phoenix, I love the multiple overpasses and byways.

Eventually, we found places we liked in Gilbert, Chandler, and Tempe that were reasonably close. Our biggest challenge was accepting the hot summers. Once I started working on the Life Skills for Confidence lessons I wasn’t as available to travel in our RV over the summers, only longer weekend trips. So much growth and traffic are discouraging but we’ve traveled enough to know it is happening all over the U.S. so, hello overpopulation! I appreciate all the comforts and conveniences in this area and just pick less busy times to drive around our city.

My daughter and I also appreciate your publication and the opportunity to be uplifted to your wonderful followers. Thanks for your time and interest! Send all your teens our way and help them review their social etiquette and personal development. You’ll be glad you did!!

Pricing:

• Teen Empowerment Introductory is Top 5 Lessons for $50
• Teen Empowerment Course of 24 lessons is $297 with a $40 gift card received by Teen upon completion
• Teen Empowerment Challenge has the complete course that includes the workbook, the Teen zoom social hour, and 6 personal coaching 1:1 meetings or 1:1 teen or family members for $597

Contact Info:

• Email: lifeskillsforconfidence@gmail.com
• Website: http://www.lifeskillsforconfidence.com
• Instagram: : https://www.instagram.com/lifeskillsforconfidence/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lifeskillsforconfidence
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBFsqkrkH0uRoLtbfFabfhw
• Other: 
  https://www.facebook.com/lifeskillsforconfidence/live/
  www.lifeskillsconfidence.com/parents
  linktr.ee/lifeskillsforconfidence