Why Rodan and Fields?

A lot of people ask me, “Kim, why Rodan and Fields?”  Well, let me tell you a great story that involves a parking deck, a lawsuit, and Brazil.

Coffee and a parking deck

It all started with my then Facebook friend Laura Jasurda.  Laura asked me to meet for coffee.   Being Mayor Pro-Tem for the City of Rochester, I thought she wanted to talk about city affairs.  At the time, the city was building a controversial parking deck.  Naturally, I thought she wanted to talk about the parking deck.  What I didn’t know is that she was going to tell me about Rodan + Fields.

When God closes a door, He opens a window

You may or may not know that I am a woman of faith.  It was at this meeting with Laura that God opened a window.

The night before I met with Laura, I attended an event with 500 other women, where Linda Orlans was the keynote speaker. Linda Orlans is a real estate attorney and one of the most successful women in Michigan.

Linda’s message was about the five things you can do besides hard work to be successful.  Here is my summary of Linda’s five things:

1. You can’t do everything yourself. We all want to be self-sufficient, but in reality, we can’t do it all alone.
2. Expand your entire circle of friends your whole life. Friends that not only lift you up but challenge you.  As we age, it seems as our circle gets smaller and smaller.  We all go our own way and end up feeling a little empty.
3. Say yes to opportunity.  We are all busy, but if an opportunity comes, say yes to it!  You never know what may happen or where it may lead you.
4. Evaluate your life quarterly. Rank things in your life from ten to one.  Ten being the best and one being the worst.
5. Take immediate steps to work on those items you ranked 3, 2 and 1. Take steps to change or eliminate the effect they have on the quality of your life, even if they are baby steps.

Lawsuit

I immediately knew what my three were.  Let me take you back in time a little.  My husband and I own a manufacturing plant here in Rochester.  The plant has been in our family for generations.

In 2009, our intellectual property was stolen.  We found ourselves involved in a horrific lawsuit and lost all our savings.  Luckily, we had no debt, so we were able to survive.

We are still in business today but are finding ourselves making a paradigm shift and working on our three.  However, due to the lawsuit and our financial situation we were no longer able to feed our mission and passion.

Window of opportunity

My window of opportunity opened through Laura and Linda.  I thought ok, I’m going to say yes to opportunity!  However, I didn’t know anything about the products.  I asked Laura to give me a few days to research the products.

My research led me to a paper written by Harvard that said Rodan + Fields is an excellent decision if you’re looking for residual income within the next decade.  Dave Ramsey from Financial Peace University says you should have more than one stream of income if you are in debt.  We weren’t in debt, but we had suffered a substantial financial loss.

With these facts in hand, I decided to say yes to Laura and opportunity.

You can’t do everything by yourself

I fell in love with the Rodan + Fields products.  The products make me feel and look great.  The doctors Rodan and Fields are famous for creating the Proactive acne treatment products.  Proactive is now sold in 57 countries and continues to help people regain confidence by clearing acne and scars.

Currently, Rodan + Fields is in the US, Canada, and Australia and is breaking into other countries making it easy to do business anywhere.  R+F is a 1.4-billion-dollar company, and the beauty industry is a 16-billion-dollar industry.

Since I wanted to work in a team, I decided to go with the doctors and Laura.  Remember, you can’t do everything by yourself.  The doctors have created so many great products that provide excellent results.  Some of the Rodan + Fields products such as Lash Boost, Hydration serum, core regimens are pure dermatology, so it made total sense to me.

Fuel your passion

With the opportunity to work with Rodan + Fields, I knew I could start fueling my missions again.  I support organizations both locally and globally.  My passion is to support The Well a place for Women and Girls, here in Waterford, MI, and ESTHERs Children.

My thought was that I would take whatever money earned and pour it into these organizations.

My heart’s in Brazil

In 2011, I met the father, mother and daughter trio, Mike, Emily and Jenn Sutherland of ESTHERs Children at a tea party fundraising event and we soon became fast friends.  At the event, Emily and Jenn asked me to go with them to Brazil.  In two seconds I knew I wanted to go and immediately said YES!

Me, Mike, Emily, Jenn and my friend Di went to Brazil.  Di is a fantastic friend, and we have funny stories about our trip to Brazil.  However, we also have heartbreaking stories from our trip.  An hour after arrived, we toured the area.  We came across a girl who just had a baby literally on the street 45 minutes before we showed up.  Our hearts broke.  However, Mike, Emily, and Jenn did an amazing thing.  They did something about it.

Since that time, they’ve created a school in that community which teaches women the Gospel of Jesus Christ, shows them how to sew and how to run a business selling their crafts.

My Rodan + Fields business has allowed me to replace my income to fuel missions like ESTHERs Children and help women and children out of sex trafficking, sexual exploitation, and poverty.

Influence others for greatness

I’m still not wealthy, but I do have influence.  Being in the US, we are well-off compared to 80% of the world but as you all know we still have our obstacles to overcome.

Use what we have in our hands

Moses said that we must use what’s in our hands.   I’m using what’s in my hands; influence, opportunity, and hope to make an impact in the world.

You can influence others with what’s in your hands.

Work on your “three,” work in a team and say yes to opportunity.