Ask Me Anything Q&A

I was recently invited to participate in an online Q&A style forum, through Ask Me Anything, whereby the public had the opportunity to ask me any question in my area of expertise.

It was an interesting exercise and a lot of questions asked pertained to mindset, as well as other questions that I have been asked many times before.

I thought I would share my answers here, for anyone exploring my website who may be asking the same questions. You can see the full feed here, or see the full list of Questions and Answers below.

Q. One of the major reasons why people struggle with problems is that they are too involved and are unable to see things objectively, as strangers coaches have the advantage of objectivity. Even as a coach, do you ever feel the need of having a coach to help you figure out your problems?

A. Most definitely!

I, too, work with a coach and am always learning from others (whether directly from a coach, reading books, listening to audio books and podcasts, studying & other means of professional development, through my own coaching accreditation and learning, from accountability buddies, and much more).

I wholeheartedly agree that someone outside of a direct situation has the advantage of objectivity and I often consult with my coach and others in my team when making important decisions.

I also practice what I preach and am held accountable to my goals by others (including my coach), I plan ahead, I set targets, I test and measure my activities, and am endlessly trying to improve and better myself and my business with the help of others.

The vast majority of coaches I know (especially those who are very successful in their own right) work with their own coach, and I'm no different.

A business coach is no different to a sports coach, and I've yet to hear of a hugely successful sportsperson who doesn't have a great coach working with them to help them achieve their dreams.

Q. What is a business plan and why do you need one?

A. One of my top passions as a business coach is business planning!

It's the first step for any business owner to reach success by getting everything out of their head and onto paper. Business owners should have a comprehensive company overview, financial & marketing plan, sales strategy, product overview, industry analysis and a strong road map of strategies (and more).

It’s critical to have clarity of a starting point and end goal, to ensure the right path and direction is specified. By writing down your goals, it places you in the top 3% of people who achieve success.

I have recently written a series of blogs on my website, covering the ABC's of Business Planning.

I suggest having a read of the above blog, then my subsequent supporting blogs on Vision and Purpose.

Q.What do you consider to be the biggest challenges to starting a business? How do you help business owners get through these challenges?

A. The biggest challenge to starting a business it that people often don't know where to start - there are so many things running through their head and they have no idea how to prioritise or what steps to take to get their business off the ground.

I help business owners to get clear on what their long-term vision is, what it is they are going to deliver and then step them through the process of creating a really good business plan which takes them through every part of running a business and breaks it down into clear, easy to follow steps. Having a business plan puts all the jigsaw pieces together into one big puzzle, so that the client  can see the big picture (and everything is out of their head and 'onto paper').

It's important to assess every aspect of a business to see whether it's viable and how to make it a profitable and successful enterprise, delivering to the customers what is promised and ultimately giving the business owner the freedom of choices and giving them the desired result of starting the business in the first place.

Q. Is there an effective way to achieve a positive, long term change in a person’s behavior?

A. Most certainly. The first thing someone needs is the awareness & desire to change. As I have answered above, I consider the steps are as follows:

1.  Awareness of what change is required

The first thing someone needs, however, is awareness of what they want to change.

2.  Desire / mindset / willingness to change

Secondly, once the awareness is there, they need to actually want to change and be prepared to make changes.

Sometimes people are aware they need to change (i.e. they may want to lose weight or get fit or stop smoking) - in fact, some are aware of what they want to change for many years - but it's committing to taking the actions required to make the change, for change to happen.

My husband was aware that he needed to stop drinking for 10 years, but it took a decade for him to finally take action in line with that knowledge and awareness and desire to beat his alcoholism.

3.  Actions

Acting on the awareness is the the third step, making small steps consistently to affect that change.

It's also important to change their environment to break old habits, whatever that means for the person and the challenge they are wanting to overcome. They need to be in the right environment with the right support.

For example, an alcoholic is going to find it far harder to break their alcohol addiction, surrounding themselves with other people drinking at a pub.

By removing the temptation of breaking a habit, or reverting back to old ways, there must be choices made to make that happen the easiest way possible.

They say, you're the sum of the 5 closest people around you; so if you want to make change then you must surround yourself with the people who are living the life you want to live.

4.  Consistency / follow through / keeping the actions up (change takes time!)

The last step is following through consistently to make the changes permanent.

It is said that on average, it takes 21 days to change habits so consistency is key and reverting back to the actions whenever a hurdle gets in the way, is vital to continuing the path to making change.

Sometimes it takes far longer to make a change and stick to it, so it's consistently reverting back to the goal and making steps towards that goal, to stay on the right path.

Q. Have you coached young students to make well-thought career decisions? Are there any success stories so far?

A. Many years ago, I used to run an employment agency and I remember a young girl coming to me straight out of school wanting to get a job as she wanted to start making money.  She was highly intellegent, achieving in the top percentage of achievers in her school exam results, and I had a conversation with her about her direction and choices and where they would lead her, and she came to her own conclusion from the mentoring and questions that I asked; that she wanted to continue her learning and development by studying at university and furthering her tuition.

She realised in her own heart of hearts, that she should utilise the high academic results she received to her advantage (simply by me listening to her and asking her leading questions).

Despite my own pursuits, I was able to mentor this young girl to make the best decision for HER life.

Within a day I had a call from this girl's Mum and Dad, thanking me from the bottom of their hearts for seeing the potential in their daughter and allowing her to realise the potential she could reach by following a different path (and coming to that decision herself). They had tried numerous times to convince their daughter to continue study and go to uni, to no avail.

I feel that I made a difference by listening to and understanding this girl's bigger vision, and helping her to listen to her own heart.

I bumped into this girl many years later, who had gone on to study medicine at university and was now a doctor. She thanked me profusely for the conversation we had and the questions I asked that ultimately led her to believe how much impact her decision would make on the rest of her life.

Q. In what ways business people limit themselves through personal stereotyping?

A. That's an interesting question.

A lot of small business people or tradesmen, for example, may limit their beliefs by thinking that sterotypically, in their industry, most are "one man bands" or have a small team and thus they only consider their business to be capable of that stereotypical make-up (and not greater).

I think it happens a lot that people  look at the 'norm' and stereotype and limit their beliefs accordingly.

If people are looking at the norm, they'll be the norm.

If they want to achieve greater than normal, then they need to look outside the box and learn from other people who have achieved success. As I've said many times before in my answers above, it all starts with a shift in mindset.

Q. How do you develop yourself and continue to grow as a professional and on a personal level?

A. I continue to grow by looking at which areas I need to develop and improve on, and identifying what learning I need to do professionally to icrease my learning in that area.

I look at my big vision, the goals I want to achieve from that vision, and in those goals; what are the areas of those goals that I need to work on or need to develop? I base my learning based on those.

My professional development and personal development is decided through the above process.

As an example, I love classical piano. I'm not very good at it, so I have a piano teacher who helps me learn, I practice as often as I can and it helps to challenge my brain, improve my dexterity and brings me joy.

Profesionally, I am interested in always learning more about people and their personalities. I have worked with DISC profiling for many years, and one of my goals is to be accredited in DISC profiling.

I am also currently accredited as a business coach with the International Coaching Federation, but one of my goals is to reach the highest level of coaching accreditation with ICF and thus, I work to develop my skills and learning through various webinars and resource development/learning.

Q. Can you talk about how ego can get in the way of effective coaching?

A. Some coaches may find that ego gets in the way of coaching because they want to be "right" and have all the answers.

But, I don't feel that ego has a big part for me as I'm not a dominant person and always focus the attention outside of myself, i.e. what are the client's hopes and dreams?

I am results driven but don't feel that's from ego, I think that's from wanting to help my clients achieve good results for their own happiness and ensuring they get a good return on their investment.

Coaching should not be telling the client what to do, it should be listening to the client and asking good questions. Being right & wrong shouldn't be part of the equation.

I would look out for this when looking to work with a coach, as coaches shouldn't feel the need to justify themselves or be right and have all the answers. That can get in the way with the coaching process, and often the less the coach talks the better (so you will notice if a coach has a big ego because they will talk about themselves rather than listen to the client).

Hope this answers your question.

Q. It sounds like you've been through quite alot. I believe we grow the most from adversity. Do you feel there is a clear plan/path for rising above challenges whether personal or professional? What would you recommend as a key approach to overcoming boundaries?

A. I certainly have. You can visit my website and download a copy of my story 'Burning Desire' to read one example of adversity I have overcome (scroll down to the bottom to download your copy).

I do feel there is a clear path to rising above challenges.

1. Be aware of the challenge.

2. Make a decision to get through that challenge (whether you accept it or not) - Make that mindset shift to tackle the challenge head on.

3. Go forth and consciously choose one action (or one small step each day) towards overcoming the challenge.

For example, when I had endometriosis riddled throughout my body, had mutiple surgeries was given 5 years to live when I first came home from hospital, I couldn't even walk. I set myself a small goal of walking down the stairs in my house, and then to walk across the road to the oval and back, and then to walk around the oval. So it's about changing the mindset and breaking it up into small achievable steps, one by one, to reach that bigger goal.

4. Draw on inspiration from mentors.

My mentor at the time, was Lance Armstrong. I grew great strength from reading his book and his journey, and that helped me overcome my challenge.

Success leaves clues so it's important to learn from others who have been through the same challenge as you, and I draw a lot of courage and inspiration from other people (either face to face or through books) who have overcome challenges before.

That's also why I am so open about the challenges I have overcome as I believe it's important to share my wisdom and experiences so others can draw strength from what I have overcome.

It's about what you do with what you have.

Q. What advice do you have for other women entrepreneurs who are looking to start a business or to continue to grow their business?

A. 1.  Work harder on yourself than you do on your business;

2.  Network and surround yourself with people who you can learn from, particularly other female entrepreneurs; that you can also add value to (so it's a reciprocal relationship).

3.  Spend regular structured time working "on your business", getting clear on a business plan and put time aside to proactively work on the business on a regular basis.

4.  Don't make the mistake of just learning about your profession, it's important to develop your business accumen too. The biggest thing that prohibits people in business is their own self-limiting beliefs and their own mindset so by working on your mindset, this will allow you the biggest opportunity for growth and impacting others.

Q. What is the highlight success in your career that is significant to excellence in business?

A. I'd say that the first time I won a Global Award for Business Planning, i.e. helping the most amount of business owners in the world to create a business plan for success (out of any other business coach).

I knew I was passionate about helping owners plan their business for success but out of the thousands of business coaches in the world, I had no idea that I was the most passionate and that I had made the biggest impact in business planning in the world.

That was a huge highlight in my business accolades & coaching career (and I have since gone on to win many more business planning awards both regionally and globally).

On a personal level, I also represented Australia for the World Triathlon Championships in London and that was a pretty significant highlight for me, particularly as I had not long before been told I had a heart disease and I wouldn't be able to compete again. So it was a huge challenge for me, making the Australian team whilst competing at a level where I was keeping my heart rate down under 80% capacity (posing its own challenges when competing in an olympic distance triathlon). Overcoming that challenge was a highlight for me, and still achieving success with that limitation put on me.  It was a great example of what happens to people all the time - they are thrown challenges, but it's what people do with those challenges that determine their success.

Q. What are the top challenges people have in an existing business?

A. The most common challenges I come across with my clients are:

1. People aren't educated enough on how to run a business; they are generally educated in their industry but not in business operations. Thus, they are proactive about professionally developing their own business accumen or that of their team (i.e. they will promote a manager from within, who also doesn't have managerial experience, they have just come from the shop floor).

2. A lot of businessses are running the business owner/s, not the business owner/s running the business. They are therefore making reactive decisions on a regular basis rather than proactive ones. They're not sitting down assessing where they are now, where they want to go, and how to get there.

3. Cash flow. People don't know the areas in their business that are triggers for declining/lumpy cash flow and how to change it. I.e., they may have too much stock, their debtors and creditors might be out, they haven't reviewed their expenses, their wages have increased but their revenue hasn't.

That's a general overview of the main challenges people face, but within those categories comes a breakdown of challenges.

The number one overriding challenge in terms of the above is business owners NOT SPENDING TIME WORKING "ON" THE BUSINESS (but rather, just working "in" it).

Q. What are some of those questions that should be asked before a business crisis happens?

A. Some of the questions you should ask yourself regularly are:

What was my target this month? Did I achieve that target?

What was my gross profit this month, and was my gross profit margin in right range?

Are my expenses in line with my budget?

How is my marketing plan going?

Are we producing a good return on investement with our marketing investment?

Are my team on board with the organisations' vision?

Are the strategies that we are proactively working on to grow the business, working?

Are we testing & measuring our activities against results?

Is my business plan up-to-date?

Is my business pro-active?

Is my business running me or am I running the business?

Do I have a clear picture of where my business is going?

Have I done a competitor analysis?

Is my business properly represented in my industry?

Q. What is the single metric you will measure your success by (not how anyone else will measure your success-- how you will measure your own success). What are you doing about it?

A. My success is based on how happy I am within my heart, how much impact I am making in the world and the difference I make to others' lives.

My goal of being a "Millionaire of Hearts" (reaching and inspiring one million people) was my choice of goal, and I have a calculation for how I measure this (how many people I reach) but more importantly, I measure my success by how happy I am in the heart, how calm I am, how happy the people are around me and how much love is in my life.

If we're talking about how I measure the success of my clients that I work with, that's based on how happy they are and ultimately from a business perspective, how much net profit they are making in their business.

Q. If a better competitor opened up tomorrow, what would you want them to be like?

A. I actually don't believe there are enough business coaches available, helping people to reach their potential and creating world abundance through business re-education.

I would want everyone to have available to them, a coach that is honest, authentic, caring, personable, structured and clear with their clients (with a focus on good results) and transparent.

I work with a lot of business coaches and don't see them as competitors, I see them as colleagues who can work together with me in our joint plight to help others.

Q. Everyone faces adversity in their lives, but why some people just prefer to complain and do nothing about it? Is the key to successfully overcome adversity or failure in each person's approach or mindset towards how to handle these situations or are there other external factors that could be of help?

A. Some people are stuck in their own mindset, that it's second nature to 'complain'.

It all starts with the mind- one person decides to complain and do nothing about it, but then there are people like Stephen Hawking whose mindset drove him to make a huge impact despite his catastrophic physical limitations.

So yes, I absolutely concur that it is within each person's mindset that will determine their ability to overcome adversity or failure. A different mindset is what make people take a different approach - i.e., do something about a problem, or just think about it/complain about it and do nothing.

Everything starts with the mind.

Of course, there are always external factors that can play a part, too. For example, if you have a great support network and people that can help you in your journey and to achieve your aspirations, then you'll have an advantage. You can 'borrow the belief' of someone else, before you have that belief yourself. Great mentors can help you change your mindset but ultimately it's something you have to want.

Childhood experiences and how people were raised, contribute greatly to one's mindset. They can either have a mindset of growth, or a fixed mindset.

Carol Dwek's book, Mindset - Changing The Way You think To Fulfil Your Potential is a fantastic example.

Through wanting to change mindset, with the support of mentors and learning, it is most definitely possible.

A really powerful quote that I often refer to, is "It's not what happens to you, it's what you do about it."

Q. You mentioned that one of the keys to success in life is a balance of mental, physical and spiritual health. How do you achieve this? Where do you start?

A. I recently wrote a blog on my website, outlining my 7 Daily Top Tips that have helped me on my journey of life.

I have also outlined them below for your reading:

1. Have a positive attitude

I choose to have a positive attitude of gratitude, every single day.  Each day is the first day of the rest of my life, so I want to make it count.

2. Plan & set goals

I have created an ever evolving and morphing plan of what I want my future vision of my life to be (including long, medium and short term goals, covering all areas of my life together with immediate family members through our family’s yearly goals & vision book).

3. Exercise regularly

I made myself fall in love with exercise, even if I had to trick myself to become an early person.  Strategies to help me keep this up including eating fresh healthy whole food to fuel my body, putting a fitness plan on the fridge, I have walking & running buddies to hold me accountable and I also regularly enter charity run/walk/cycle events.  Exercise is my free hit of endorphins every day.

4. Follow the law of reciprocity

I work daily to keep open, positive, honest, vulnerable communication with the people in my life that matter, focusing on where I can help them and not me. I follow the law of reciprocity every day, the giver’s gain philosophy.

5. Challenge my brain

I regularly assess where I need to be focusing my learning, and what I should be researching to develop myself more.  Always learning is my way of keeping my brain active and challenged.

6. Tackle challenges head on

6. I tackle challenges head on. As Gabrielle Bernstein says in her book Daring Greatly, ‘Our challenges in life are just life’s assignments and we are never given an assignment we can’t handle.’

7. Meditate daily

I make it mandatory to do daily mediation both upon waking and before I go to sleep, focusing on all the things I am grateful for.  I also mediate during the day when fear comes knocking on the door, and within minutes my fear runs away and my heart rates slows.

Rememeber, these are some of the things that have helped me to live my best life, and overcome obstacles in my way.

I recommend that you too should sit down and think about your core values, and what motivates you to be the best person you can be. If you are regularly going against your beliefs and not living your life in line with your true essence of being, then it's time to reflect on that and make better daily choices to live your best life possible.

Q. If someone asked you which of your traits would make you a great business coach for his business, what would you say?

A. I have an open heart and open mind, and am empathetic to people's situations. I use this, together with my focus and experience, to bring the client back to what it is that they really wish to achieve.

A lot of businesses have "bright shiny object syndrome" - they get distracted by another idea, but I'm always making sure they stay true to their goals and making sure they focus on and prioritise the development of their business in accordance with their vision.

I also consider that my experience starting & running my own businesses, puts me in a position of understanding what it takes to be successful.  One of the businesses I ran for 13 years was with my husband, so I understand what it's like to work with family (so I understand the dynamic of working with family). We also successfully sold our business for a profit, so having that experience first hand puts me in a better position to be a successful business coach.

So I'd say my top 3 traits are:

1. Open mind & open heart

2. Focus

3. Experience as a business owner myself

Q. How long did it take you to really make a name for yourself as a business coach?

A. I would say it took around 5 years, to not only feel that I was recognised for my business coaching but that I had reached success with my clients and more importantly that I impacted many many people through my desire to help.

I have always had the philosophy that if I can help anyone out, regardless of whether they are a paying client or not, I will always do my best to help.

Whether it's lending a book, referring someone to a trusted colleague, connecting like-minded people, sharing my insights, etc, I am always thinking of ways I can help others.

Many times people walk around with a jigsaw piece in their back pocket and they don't let go of it because they're too scared to be vulnerable and put themselves out there, but I have been brought up with the belief that if I can help a fellow human when the situation arises, then I will.

I'd like to think that who I am as a person, and my values, has contributed to me making a name for myself.

Q. How can someone make their voice heard above the masses of people online?

A. I don't proclaim to be an expert on digital/online presence however I will say that it's important to be genuinely yourself and post regularly.

If you post content in your own voice, with your own values and opinions, and if your content inspires others, then you will organically grow your presence as people will notice you for being authentic.

You will draw the people to you, who align with your values.

Q. Do you have remote clients? If so what's your approach to provide the best customer experience when dealing with different locations?

A. That's a great question. Yes, I have remote clients - I have coached people all over the world and am currently working with a client in South Africa, and another locally who does remote coaching sessions.

All of my clients have the option of coaching face-to-face, via Zoom/Skype or via phone. Most prefer face-to-face however my customer service to my remote clients differs only in that I can't offer them a coffee or a hug when they arrive in my office :)

My coaching method and available services to them is exactly the same, and I have had no negative experiences with coaching clients in remote locations thus far.

Hope this helps.

Q. What are some examples of ways in which you have helped clients?

A. I recently posted a Facebook video about the success I have shared with one of my newest clients.

In the last 12 months, we increased their annual turnover by 50% and increased their net profit by around 220%.

How did we do that?

1. The first thing we did was write a business plan, identifying some of their problems,

2. One of the weak areas we identified was that some of their debtors weren't paying on time so we decided not to teal with that target market any more,

3. We then identified their ideal target, getting really clear on the best people to deal with in their industry,

4. We created a website based on that demographic,

5. We created a budget to get a handle on finances, reduced expenses and increased gross profit margin

6. We created a cash flow projection (so the cash flow wasn't lumpy),

7. We started to build a solid team and put some team processes in place.

Hope this helps you - This is just one case study of how I worked with one of my clients over a one year period to dramatically improve their results.

Q. What are the personality traits of a person who is capable of change?

A. I don't believe there are particular personality traits of a person who is capable of change. I feel that ANYBODY is capable of change.

The first thing someone needs, however, is awareness of what they want to change.

Secondly, once the awareness is there, they need to actually want to change and be prepared to make changes.

Sometimes people are aware they need to change (i.e. they may want to lose weight or get fit or stop smoking) - in fact, some are aware of what they want to change for many years - but it's committing to taking the actions required to make the change, for change to happen.

My husband was aware that he needed to stop drinking for 10 years, but it took a decade for him to finally take action in line with that knowledge and awareness and desire to beat his alcoholism.

Acting on the awareness is the the third step, and the last step is following through consistently to make the changes permanent.

To summarise,

1.  Awareness

2.  Desire

3.  Actions

4.  Consistency / follow through / keeping the actions up (change takes time!)

It is said that on average, it takes 21 days to change habits so consistency is key and reverting back to the actions whenever a hurdle gets in the way, is vital to continuing the path to making change.

Q. Do brands and individuals typically contact you for your skills and expertise, or do you reach out to brands you’d like to work with?

A. 100% of my clients contact me first and I work with a range of individuals and businesses through my various services.

I personally think that unless someone is ready to work with a coach, then there is little point in me reaching out & trying to convince them otherwise.

I will work with any individual, business or organisation that aligns with my coaching method and where I can see they will receive a return on their investment.

Q. What’s the single most useful tip you can offer with regards to increasing one's digital presence?

A.  My tip is for you to increase your digital presence and exposure by being GENUINELY YOURSELF. If you regularly post content that is in your own voice, with your own values and opinions, and if your content inspires others, then you will organically grow your presence as people will notice you for being authentic.

Good luck.

Q. What are the long-range objectives that you have developed for your work?

A. I have a long-term objective to be a "Millionaire of Hearts" before I die- meaning, I want to reach and inspire one million people to achieve their dreams (beyond what they thought they were capable of) by coaching, motivating, inspiring and sharing my experiences of my life with them.

I want to continue having a global impact and leave a legacy of my work.

Q. In your experience, are people comfortable working with coaches, or do they think they don’t need one and what techniques do you use when having to work with a somewhat sceptical client?

A. Good question!

Some people are not comfortable working with a coach (and thus don't engage a coach), some people think they know everything and simply aren't open to change.

Techniques I use with people that are somewhat sceptical but wanting to engage a coach, are focusing on the results and how they can achieve their goals in the shortest amount of time. Coaching is about THE CLIENT,  it's about helping them to understand what needs to be done and the client following through with the actions.

For coaching to work, a client must follow through so it's in their control whether coaching works or not.

People sometimes think they are ready for coaching but they are in fact not prepared to do what it takes to achieve results.

A client needs to be ready for change to get results because "what got them here, won't get them there."

Scepticism comes from them, and it's my job to help them understand that frame of mind.

An amazing book that explains this well (and I would recommend you read if you want to explore this question more) is Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts--Becoming the Person You Want to Be by Marshall Goldsmith (who is a top executive coach).

Q. How did you first become interested in assisting businesses with aspects such as personal growth and leadership?

A. As a young child, I was always really good at sport so I started coaching swimming at the age of 13 and loved seeing the potential in someone and them then going on to achieve beyond their own expectations.

I continued to coach through my adulthood and after starting a couple of businesses and running them for 20 years, I then decided that I wanted to join my two loves (the love of helping people in business and the love of watching people achieve beyond what they thought they were capable of) and decided to study to become a business coach.

I love seeing people step up and become better leaders. I once read in a book, "leadership is about what you do when no-one's looking" so I believe leadership is from within, an essence of being.

It always thrills me when I see people step out of their comfort zones and achieve things beyond their wildest dreams.

Q. What makes you different? Why are your clients choosing to work with you?

A. Some of the comments I have received from my clients are that I am "genuine", that I "sincerely care about the results of my clients", that I "walk the walk, not just talk the talk" and that my "success is a result of who I am". Feel free to watch many testimonials on my YouTube channel, so you can see for yourself what my clients have to say.

I consider that my own multitude of experiences and success sets me apart from my competitors, as well as the variance of products that I offer.

You can read my biography here... In summary,

- I am a multiple award-winner in my industry (on both a national and international scale),

- I am an accredited qualified coach with the International Coaching Federation (whereby I am always continuing my professional development),

- I am a small business owner myself,

- I have founded and run many businesses successfully,

- I am highly motivated with solid family values,

- I started coaching as a sports coach,

- I have achieved success in both sport and business,

- I have overcome challenging life set-backs (such as saving my husband from a house fire and watching him struggle with many years of alcoholism and depression as a result of his intensive burn recovery),

- I have overcome a life threatening illness myself,

- I am genuine and authentic, and holisically life my life,

- My passion is to help business owners to achieve their dreams, and my plight is to reach & inspire one million hearts before I leave this earth.

Of course, I always encourage prospective clients to do their research and find a coach that they align with and someone they can see themselves working with.

I offer a comprehensive range of services, as outlined on my website.

Hope this helps.

Q. How can one become an authoritative leader without being too demanding? How is the role of the leader evolving?

A. Becoming an authoritative leader without being too demanding is about understanding the area of expertise you would like to become a leader in and researching and understanding and living that area of expertise.

By not becoming too demanding, I find that you could actually be demonstrating what it is that you're an expert in rather than telling - so, leading by example.

Leaders are evolving by leading by example and leading by having that level 5 leadership (leading greater than your own ego, making a difference, impacting beyond one person and leaving a legacy). The greater a global impact one can have, the greater a leader they are seen as.

Leading is about inspiring people to change and learn and go to the next level themselves, it's not about the leader themselves.

Q. In what ways does the critical, self-sabotaging internal voice (the voice of self-doubt or lack of believing) limit your clients?

A. It limits them in many ways each and every day. My clients are just normal humans like everyone else, so all their limiting beliefs are different depending on the journey of life they have had so far.

To give you a few examples;

I have one client who has mainly worked on the tools so he sometimes does not belive in his abilities around business decisions as his knowlege around business is limited to just one industry.

Another client has had a bad track history with team members stealing from him before so he has trust issues around giving them access to the banking and financials.

One other client finds it very hard to delegate to people in the business, they hold on to every process so much so that they are the bottle neck of their own businesses growth.  Their limiting belief is that no one will be able to do it as well as they do.

Q. How competitive is the business coaching industry? How do you set yourself apart from the competition?

A. Yes, the coaching industry is highly competitive and I consider that my own multitude of experiences and success sets me apart from my competitors, as well as the variance of products that I offer.

You can read my biography here... In summary,

- I am a multiple award-winner in my industry (on both a national and international scale),

- I am an accredited qualified coach with the International Coaching Federation (whereby I am always continuing my professional development),

- I am a small business owner myself,

- I have founded and run many businesses successfully,

- I am highly motivated with solid family values,

- I started coaching as a sports coach,

- I have achieved success in both sport and business,

- I have overcome challenging life set-backs (such as saving my husband from a house fire and watching him struggle with many years of alcoholism and depression as a result of his intensive burn recovery),

- I have overcome a life threatening illness myself,

- I am genuine and authentic, and holisically life my life,

- My passion is to help business owners to achieve their dreams, and my plight is to reach & inspire one million hearts before I leave this earth.

Of course, I always encourage prospective clients to do their research and find a coach that they align with and someone they can see themselves working with.

Q. How many clients do you normally take on? How long is a typical coaching process?

A. It depends on my other commitments at any given time (i.e. on top of my one-on-one clients, I am currently also involved in various focus groups or industry boards as an expert/leader in my industry, which takes up a considerable amount of my time).

At the most, I have 12 one on one clients at once. This allows me to ensure I support the clients I have at the highest of standards, without spreading my time too thin.

Depending on each client's goals, will depend on how long their coaching journey with me lasts. For example, one client may be looking to sell their business and their goal may be to have it ready to sell at the most profitable price after 12 months (thus ending their coaching journey after 12 months). Another client may be a start-up and want to continue their growth beyond the start-up stage into growing a team and later franchising, which may mean our relationship extends to around 3-5 years. I work with each of my clients to find out what THEIR goal is so there is no 'typical' coaching process, other than to help my clients achieve exactly what they set out to achieve (in the timeframe they deem successful).

Q. What has been a project or accomplishment that you consider to be the most significant in your career?

A. As a business coach one would think it would be about a business, but it is actually the opposite. In 1999, my husband and I were running our own business and unfortunately were given the news that due to a disease I had eating up some of my vital organs, I only had 5 years to live. So in the essence of living life to the fullest of what we potentially  had left, we promoted someone we trusted within our organisation to run our business for the year and backpacked the world in 1999 with our 5 and 7 year old children which we home schooled along the way. This is by far my biggest business achievement, because our business was working for us, instead of us working for the business like a lot of people tend to do. I hope that makes sense.

BTW, Yes I did get rid of the disease and am fine, fit and well and truly still alive beyond their expectations.

Q. What variety of training programs do you currently have available and what do you programs entail?

A. I work with businesses through a range of my programs, that collectively offer a comprehensive guide for business owners.

I currently have 4 programs available:

1.   Business Planning (2-day Business Planning Workshop)

2.  Entrepreneurs Unlimited Program (12 month Quarterly Coaching & Accountability Program)

3.  One on One Private Coaching  (Weekly or Fortnightly Coaching)

4.  Engage & Grow Team Engagement  (12 week team program to improve culture and engagement levels in an organisation).

For a comprehensive overview of what I offer, you can see more on the services page of my website.

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