Unlocking personal and professional potential.

My story

The skills that carried me weren't the ones people name.

Resilience is a word I've always felt a little uncomfortable with, and yet it's the skill those who know me say I have. We hear it so often, and for me it screams "dig your heels in", "pull your shoulders back", "suck it up", "put your big boy pants on" and "keep battling on". For many, it's not that easy. It's not always clear what it is you're battling, or what's needed to defeat it. Work-life and home-life are rarely straightforward, particularly as one directly affects the other.

I've come to realise that the strategies I actually applied in my life all too often involved pause, reflection, discussion, clarity, a plan, a joyful and playful mindset, and the self-belief and commitment to stay on that path. Hit an obstacle? Don't push forwards. Step back, to pause and reflect.

For context: at 19 I was homeless, seven months on the streets and in homeless shelters, after an abusive childhood, with only two GCSEs to my name and no support network. By twenty-six I had bootstrapped university access qualifications, achieved a first-class honours degree, and gained a place at the University of Cambridge on a postgraduate certificate in education. Whilst it's easy to attribute that to resilience, the skills I relied on were very different, and for me it was one person's belief that set me on my journey.

After completing my PGCE I became one of the fastest in England to progress from newly qualified teacher to Advanced Skills Teacher and Lead Practitioner, just three years, the minimum time allowable by Her Majesty's Inspectorate. During my 15 years in the classroom, teaching three subjects, I became a Head of Department, Faculty Lead, Internal Assessor, External Verifier, Initial Teacher Trainer, NQT and Early Career Teacher Mentor, INSET Planner, Training Facilitator, county-wide Behaviour Strategist, and outreach consultant providing professional development, mentoring and coaching to staff at underperforming schools. All simultaneously.

Then… Epic Burnout!

In the pause and reflection that followed that obstacle, I realised that burnout actually wasn't workload-related. I spin just as many plates today, running four wellbeing-related businesses, and very few fall and smash. Stress, overwhelm and burnout are far more complex beasts than we're led to believe.

Since leaving education, I've spent years reflecting on past experiences, studying neuroscience and human behaviour, and researching personal and professional wellbeing. Looking back at my life and my work, I now recognise that the survival strategies that carried me through adversity, in childhood, in early adult life, and through workplace burnout, were the key to my transformations, and were actually backed by scientific research. I just wasn't aware of it at the time. It's now clear to me that it's possible to meet your potential, even from the most challenging starting point. That's what I bring to my work with clients. Everyone's journey is different, and the client is the closest person to the solutions. My role is to help them find them, and it's a role I'm fully committed to.