*My Story

Where did your coaching journey begin?

Can you remember when and how you first discovered coaching?

Sobbing Into A Saucepan

As tempting as it might be to shape our stories into something we think might sound more ‘normal’, I can only share what really happened – as strange as it might sound.

I remember struggling to get a saucepan from the back of a cupboard in a newly fitted kitchen in a gorgeous new house.  I suddenly fell to my knees in a flood of tears. “Please help me know what to do” I remember praying.

Nothing made sense anymore.

I should have been feeling overjoyed at how I’d rebuilt my life since my 17-year marriage imploded.

That day I flew back to the UK and stood on my parents’ doorstep with two broken suitcases, two broken children, a broken heart and a life shattered into a million pieces already felt like another lifetime ago.

My ex-husband and I had long-since amicably navigated our separation and rebuilt a healthy co-parenting relationship.  I’d bought my own place, we were all healing, and even though I’d become a single parent taking on the lion share of raising the children - it had felt like the sun had starting shining again and I’d seen the possibility of a new life emerging from the ashes.

So how did I find myself less than a year later, brought to my knees sobbing into a saucepan, when all had been going so well for so long?

Why, when I now looked around at what was supposed to be a ‘beautiful’ second chance at life, did I feel empty inside?  Despite being intelligent and strong enough to have already overcome so much that life had thrown my way, how had I started to become a shadow of my former self?

My precious relationships with my children were feeling strained.

There was a constant sense of confusion and fear.

This wasn’t the life I was supposed to be living.

And yet, it seemed that no matter how hard I tried, I was slowly losing my power to do anything about it.

Something was slowly eating away at me from the inside.

What had gone wrong?

That’s the strange thing – at the time - I couldn’t figure it out.

But something was about to change all that!

My Prayers Answered

The saucepan-prayer worked hard and fast (although it would take me a while to connect the dots).

The very next day, while out walking my dalmatian, Buddy, I suddenly felt deeply inspired to research how I could help young people.

I’d already taken the big leap of faith years prior, to leave my business consultancy career as the main bread winner and spent almost a decade as an entrepreneur and business owner of various different online and bricks and mortar businesses.

Although this new ‘helping young people’ idea felt very out of left field - it also felt like something I couldn’t ignore.

When I got home, I did a quick search and there was Google’s top answer – Youth Coaching.

From there I disappeared into a vortex of exploration. What is coaching?  What are the different types of coaching?  How does coaching help people? How do I train in coaching?

The more I read about the power of coaching the more I knew there was something about this path I was meant to follow.

Within a couple of weeks, I’d researched just about every coaching training provider out there – online and in-person trainings from around the world.  I narrowed my shortlist down to three.

Following a conversation with Nick Bolton the founder of Animas, I knew I’d found my calling and coaching family (10 years later, I can safely say I wasn’t wrong). 

It felt right.  In fact, it was the only thing that had felt right in a while.

I signed up for a diploma in Personal Transformation Coaching – with the intention of specialising in youth coaching further down the line [little did I know my specialism was yet to reveal itself to me, I just didn’t know it…yet! But, more about that in a bit].

The Year That Changed My Life (And Who I Am)

I remember my abuser saying “You’ve changed since you started this coaching stuff”.  They didn’t mean it as a compliment.  I just remember at that point replying politely “Really?” while deep down, and very secretly inside, thinking “You’re right! And…thank God!”.

You’ll often see me quoted as saying “I believe coaching has the power to change the world”.

This isn’t some glib, throwaway marketing cliché.

I mean it.  REALLY mean it.

I believe it, not only because I’ve witnessed the power of what coaching does for people, their lives, businesses and for organisations over the last 10 years – but also because I’ve lived it first-hand.

I believe coaching is very much about the authentic empowerment of people to be able to consciously choose, change, influence and create their life experiences for the better.

You cannot work with a great coach and remain the same person you were.

You cannot work with a great coach and have life remain the same as it was.

Equally, you cannot go through the process of training to become a great coach and not have your inside and outside world change for the better too.

Becoming a great coach is not just about what you learn in the classroom.  It is equally about who you become in the process.

I believe when we train as a coach (when the training is great training, or course) we cannot start and end the training as the same person.

As we learn to help others to face and conquer their fears, we too learn how to conquer our own.

As we learn how connect others to their deepest hopes, desire and dreams – we learn to give ourselves permission to unearth our own.

As we learn to help others to see, think and feel about things differently – we too learn how to experience these powerful shifts for ourselves.

As we learn how to help others see who they truly are and step into their full power, we too learn how to access our true potential and take center stage in our own lives.

And, as we learn how to help facilitate positive change for others, we too experience transformational change.

This is exactly what happened for me.

Coaching has given me so much over the last 10 years.  But, to cut a long story short, the coaching training alone, quickly did two things that would completely change the course of my life…

Firstly, I was able to see myself and my world through a whole new empowered lens.  A more recent toxic relationship that had love-bombed and gaslit me, was finally visible for exactly what it was.

Secondly, I was able to access and build the personal strength, resources and resiliency to escape – and never look back.

What happened to the sobbing woman, brought to her knees in the kitchen? Well, she didn’t exist any more.

The trajectory of her life, thanks to the influence of coaching, turned the next ten-year chapter from what would have been a tragic tale of a decent into a cruel inferno, into a truly inspirational story about the power of coaching – and bringing to life the potentiality and possibilities that exist for us – with the right support and surrounded by the right people.

Just Getting Started

Having made such radical and positive changes in my personal and family life - I remember how excited I felt about the vision I held for my new coaching business and the difference I wanted to make in the world through helping others.

By the time I completed training and qualifying, I’d decided to focus on supporting working mothers struggling with overwhelm and work-life balance.

But I had no idea what it was going to take to make my coaching vision a reality. 

I was a single mum, with no savings to rely on, no network and only limited time between school runs.

I was starting from scratch!

(or so I thought)…

A Lucky Headstart

The reality was I had a very luck headstart (I just wasn’t aware of it at the time).

My entire life – from my degree specialisms, to choosing my first corporate job, right through to the leap of faith that saw me quit my business consultancy career to become an entrepreneur in 2002 – my whole professional journey had been underpinned by my passion and love of business and marketing.

Blinded by my natural passions (I was one of the business-geeks who always took an enormous stack of business books to read by the pool on holiday – kindle didn’t exist back then!) I thought everyone loved ‘being in business’ and also loved the marketing piece that was an inherent part of that business equation. 

This Missing Piece

Even though my experience in Marketing gave me a head start in raising my profile, building an audience and having potential clients reach out to me, I had never built a 1:1 coaching practice or business.

I still needed to figure out how to master that all essential ‘Initial Consultation’ to be able to convert those inbound enquiries and initial interest into paying clients.

And most importantly for me, I needed to find the right way for me to do it - in a way that felt authentic and didn’t require any pushy, awkward or sleazy sales tactics.  And definitely didn’t rely on the misleading advice that was touted by the big names in coaching back then that the answer was to offer free-coaching and leave them wanting more. Something, like many other coaches, I tried, but just didn’t sit right with me and rarely worked.

I spent a year in a process of trial and error, trying ALL THE THINGS.  Until I finally nailed that missing piece and my coaching business skyrocketed, working both privately with individuals and also expanding into working with organisations.

The Bigger Calling

So there I was, happily working with my coaching clients, making the difference I felt called to make in my clients’ lives, and making a great living in the process. 

Money was not my primary driver – although I’d always hoped my coaching income would one day replace the full-time salary I earned at the peak of my business consultancy career.  A goal, I’m proud to say, I smashed within a couple of years while only working a part-time week and taking all the school holidays.

By this point, I'd also met the love of my life Graham. Between us we have four amazing children and have formed the most beautiful fusion-family (as I call it) - living in our house on a hill with views for miles over the the farm land and breath taking contryside of Cheshire in the UK.

As time went on, it made me sad to see so many of the talented coaches I’d trained with still struggling to get paying client.  They were starting to lose their confidence and starting to doubt whether they could actually make it work.

Coaching peers started telling me they hated the marketing piece, they felt lost and constantly overwhelmed worrying how to get paying clients. “I just want to coach!” I’d hear them say repeatedly.

More and more often, coaches were reaching out to me and asking “How did you do it?”.

It was no surprise to me that the vast majority of coaches were confused by all the conflicting advice, tired of all the 7-figure-global-empire-overnight hype and worried who to trust amongst all the smoke and mirrors.

It wasn’t until I was asked to speak at a national summit for coaches in London to share “The Secret Of My Coaching Success” that the penny really dropped. 

Stood on the stage in front of almost 200 coaches sharing the keys to growing a successful coaching business, it was hearing their response and feedback that it suddenly hit me like a tonne of bricks...

While I love working one-to-one with my own coaching clients (and always will) I realized I also had a bigger role to play in sharing and amplifying the power of coaching in the world.

I realised how much other coaches needed me to share my business passion and expertise and what I had learned through building my own thriving coaching businesses.

I realised that my big mission to ‘empower 1 million people’ through the power of coaching (which came to me one morning during a ‘Beditation’ – I meditate in bed for 20 minutes before I get up – although my kids just say I’m snoozing!) was not something I could alone. 

However, I realised by empowering other coaches to achieve THEIR coaching dream and impact, I could help to create an exponential, positive ripple effect way beyond anything I could achieve individually within my own practice.

And so, Grow Your Coaching Business was born!

Over the last 7 years, I’ve had the honour of supporting many hundreds of purpose-driven coaches.

I feel blessed to be making the difference I know I’m here to be part of – both as a coach and as business coach and mentor supporting other purpose-led changemakers to bring the power of THEIR coaching to the world.

Coaching changed my life in more ways than one – and it changes my clients’ (and their clients’) lives every day.

I truly believe coaching has the power to change the world, and the world needs YOU!

I look forward to helping you be the part of this force for good that you feel called to be.