This is a question I’m asked almost every day.
I own Fresh Collective with 3 locations, co-own Rowanwood Daycare and The Space for Wellness, and have a 6 figure coaching business.
And the answer? I don’t.
I have amazing teams in all the businesses, an awesome partner in the businesses I co-own, and key employees who take responsibility for results and for running the businesses.
I also have coaches, to help me keep my own head screwed on straight through all this.
A few years back, I was just starting my coaching business. I was still holding a full-time position at Fresh Collective (you could consider that my day job) and I knew that I wanted to start shifting my career towards coaching.
Making this shift really had me stuck, and at the same time, I was dealing with some big changes at Fresh Collective.
Our Office Manager went on maternity leave, we moved the Queen Street store across town from Queen West to Queen East and we started designing our own line again and shifting the way we stocked the store, which meant major shifts to our cash flow.
I felt overwhelmed, and like a total fraud. How could I be a business coach when I was having trouble managing my own business?
I was emotionally stressed and having trouble putting the effort into the coaching business that I knew it needed.
That’s when I met Andra. We met through Happy Healthy Women and decided to do a collaboration with Fresh Collective. Part of launching this project was us meeting in my store to shoot some videos together.
The day we met I was having a particularly rough day emotionally, and I felt I should tell her I was a bit off.
When I opened my mouth to say it, I started to cry.
That was fine with me, as I’m a crier, and I already knew Andra was OK with strong emotions. She was so awesome and listened and helped me calm down with some breathing and reiki.
I recovered quickly and we did our videos, but based on that I knew I needed to buy whatever she was selling, and I signed up for a package.
Many times, I cried in our sessions. And found my strength. It was draining and purposeful and comforting and confronting.
After 3 months, I had worked through a lot of my shit and felt much more powerful about everything ahead of me.
Logistically, I managed to move myself to a part-time position with FC by training my marketing assistant to handle more. I created systems and used all my business know-how to free up my time to work more on my coaching business, and I’ve continued to do that over the next couple of years.
During that time, I have been working on fast growth for my coaching business. I did the slow and steady route with Fresh Collective, growing it over decades and I don’t have that kind of time left at age 49.
I wanted the challenge and fun of seeing if I could really grow the coaching business to 6 figures fast with only part-time hours.
But that took money.
I’ve invested large chunks of money in making these shifts - thousands at a time on my line of credit. As I see things are moving forward, I invest another chunk.
Investing this boldly was scaring the shit out of me, and I knew Andra had recently added a new service around letting go of money blocks.
I had long sensed I had some limitations about money. As an entrepreneur with this many years behind me, I was still always just doing “pretty good”. Rationally, I knew the sky was the limit for my earnings but something still had me on the slow and steady path when it came to money.
I decided to work with Andra again, and deal with this money stuff.
It was a powerful exploration into inherited beliefs about money, fear of judgement around making "too much" or being seen as greedy.
I completed that program a few months ago, and did the math.
My coaching business was on track to be multiple 6 figures for 2019.
I was taking bolder actions, able to be more self-disciplined and having fun building the business of my dreams fast.
I’ve been holding a part-time position at FC since then, and recently Jane (my amazing second-in-command at FC) and I decided she could hire someone to take that over and my role would move to a more distant overseeing one.
Effectively, I have quit my full-time job to focus on coaching.
Andra is one of the many people - my boyfriend, coaches, employees, peers, my business partner and more - who have supported me on this journey.
So when people ask, “How do you do it all?” my answer is always the same.
“I don’t. Nothing I do happens alone.”
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