Hi First name / Friend,
If you're new here, you grabbed my free guide to
The Model, or signed up through the website, welcome. You're not on some random list, and I'm not a stranger showing up uninvited. I'm glad you're here.
And if you've been getting these emails for a while, hello again. It's good to still have you around.
Allow me to reintroduce myself. So much has changed since I started this newsletter in 2020.
Quick version. I left a career in production, waited tables for two years while building a coaching practice on the side. I opened my coaching business in March 2020. (Yes, that March.) The world stopped, I got furloughed, and my coaching business took off. Since then I've coached hundreds of people.
The drive that built this business was twofold. A need to survive and a desire for growth and reinvention.
For much of my adult life I was in survival mode. Could I put food on the table this week kind of energy. I was hustling to survive.
I'm 53 now. Married for the first time. On the other side of menopause. And for the first time in about 30 years I'm not bracing for the next thing.
This does not mean my life is rainbows and daisies. That would be weird. It means that I've increased my capacity for all the experiences of my life. Through the process of coaching, we do this by rewriting the stories of our life and integrating them in a way that feels so much better.
For example;
Story A - I had three abusive relationships with alcoholics who bullied me, a broke single Mum, for years. They wrecked my confidence and left me with chronic anxiety.
versus
Story B - God, The Universe, call it what you will, wanted me to learn love, compassion and forgiveness. My curriculum, in this lifetime, was relationships three alcoholics, one after the other. As a result, my relationship with myself today is built on self-trust and love. I have faith that everything that happens in our lives for our growth, from love.
In one story I’m a helpless victim. In the other story (same facts) I’m empowered.
That’s the thesis of everything I teach. The way you tell the stories of your life matters. Your story will either empower or disempower you. And I want to empower you.
Here's why this matters.
I'm taking my business from £20k to £100k, on top of a senior leadership role, and family life. My daughter is turning 30 this year, my stepson just turned 7. I could do what feels familiar to my brain and body: put my head down and push through it to help me escape pain in my life.
But I already know that road leads to burnout because I spent thirty years on it. Instead, I'm expanding my capacity for more and resting intentionally. Not "push through and call it resilience."
I have a hunch that you know exactly what I'm talking about.
You might not be rebuilding from traumatic life experiences. But you're holding down a demanding role, and family life, and trying to grow something of your own on the side. You're wondering why "work harder" isn't getting you where you want to be.
It's not a strategy problem, but if you've been running on "push" energy for years you might not know what life fuelled by desire versus demand feels like.
That's what I'll be writing about in these newsletters: what it takes to grow your side hustle, without running on empty.
Growth in all areas of your life is sustainable when your capacity is increased.
Capacity for the good and the bad of your life, the ups and the downs, the wins and the fails, as you grow your side hustle alongside your corporate role.
If that's a conversation you want in on, I'm glad you're here. Hit reply and tell me what "pushing through" is costing you, and I'll reply.
Talk soon,
