Dear friends,
I am often asked “what my story is” and “how I got into coaching” - and to that end, I share the below.
Truthfully, a lot of my clients come to me after traditional means of seeking help hasn’t yielded results.
A common testimonial I receive is “I’ve got more out of one session with you than I have through years of therapy” (I’ll include some below so you can see for yourself).
To speak openly, the real reason why I believe my clients yield such strong and lasting results is because I strive to lead by example.
This is the philosophy I was taught by my superiors in the Australian Army, where I was trained 18 years ago.
In the Army, they taught us that a leader who can just regurgitate a textbook will never be enough; because when it comes to making changes in the real world, the human elements of stress responses, emotions, and personal dynamics coupled with the ever-changing circumstances of life, means that there are practical nuances and subtleties that you cannot learn in a textbook; they are born only through real-world experience.
I endeavour to be an embodiment of the tools/therapies/practices I show my clients. I’ve applied them myself through my own journey, and I’m a reflection of their effectiveness - I believe this is the x-factor that makes the difference in helping my clients get over the finish line.
Below is the journey that led me to coaching, for those who are interested:
From ages 4-14, I found myself profusely bullied by the older children I grew up with, and as my dear parents worked hard to establish themselves as immigrants, I attended 8 different schools.
From ages 14-21, I experienced very severe depression, typically every winter.
At age 21, I was dropping out of Aeronautical Engineering, struggling to perform in the Army, and going through a heartbreak, and for the age, it seemed like none of my aspirations would come true. I found myself asking “what is the point of all this?” - it was my lowest point, but, by some grace, I saw the Red Cross “Donate Blood” van, where it said “By donating blood, you are helping save 3 lives.” To me, this felt worth it for me to go on. I thought “even if none of my dreams and wishes can come true, it’s still worth living to help others.”
I didn’t realise it at the time, but that moment planted the seed of purpose by which I still live now, 15 years later :)
Soon, donating blood turned into volunteering, and later that year I went to Costa Rica, where I helped build an orphanage for under privileged children. I did the same thing at 23, where we build a kindergarden in Ubud, Bali.
As you can imagine, this is quite fulfilling work, and in contrast, I found corporate very unfulfilling. At the age of 25, it seemed like I had achieved a lot for my age professionally as a Project Manager, but inside, I found myself very unfulfilled. So I decided to leave my job, and replicate the model which I knew did make me feel fulfilled, and went to Africa, where I helped build homes in Kenya.
Here, I discovered personal development books, where I felt I finally, sincerely found the answers I had been looking for my whole life. These books spoke of finding purpose, believing in yourself, letting go of past hurts, changing your mindset and freeing yourself of negative beliefs - and when I returned from Africa 6 months later, I followed what I learnt in these books to find a dream job working at Family & Community Services, earning more than triple what I earned just 6 months earlier.
For me, this experience solidified the validity of the concepts I was learning, and I created a goal of becoming financially free through property, and to that end I worked, accumulated a large property portfolio, and shared the knowledge I was learning through the personal development books/seminars I was attending on social media.
Soon, I had many young men seeking me out, asking me for advice on their journeys. I came to realise my early experiences of being bullied led me to value the opposite - to help uplift people, to make them feel valuable, guided, connected, and empowered. My own struggles with mental health led me to learn deeply the fields of mindfulness, meditation and emotional regulation, and my parents’ struggles with establishing themselves financially, led me to find great fulfilment in helping empower others not just personally but also professionally.
So, at the age of 29, I decided to leave my corporate life as a Project Manager for PwC, in pursuit of my own men’s coaching business.
Now, 7 years later, I have been incredibly blessed to have worked with 100s of young professional men 1-on-1, helping my clients make over $8 million in new money through pay-rises, promotions and new businesses started, not to mention the priceless fulfilment they felt from taking back control of their lives.
