“Life is about more than just work”
As a qualified Chartered Accountant and NLP Master Coach I have over 22 years experience in improving, advising and managing businesses around the world.
Combining my extensive Corporate and Small Business background with my coaching and leadership development experience, I not only understand the challenges business owners face, but am uniquely placed to show them how to transform those challenges to create the business and lifestyle success they desire.
I am passionate about showing Business Owners and their Teams how to achieve business growth but also greater Business Freedom, because life is about more than just work.
Away from work
I’m a husband, involved father and lover of the outdoors and physical activities that include road cycling, mountain biking and stand-up surfing. I love a good BBQ and in particular slow smoking american style food for friends and family to enjoy.
I can get lost reading great books, both fiction, biographies and topics around psychology, performance, business and philosophy.
As a family we enjoy spending time in the garden, around the pool, at the beach, camping, theme parks and following Survivor, Ultimate Beast Master, Tour De France or taking in a great movie. We are fortunate to call the beautiful Sunshine Coast our home and are grateful for the wide variety of natural beauty along the Queensland coast and hinterland.
My Journey…
Some of us have had one of those moments in life…You know the one… Things are going really well. You’re crushing it on so many levels and from the outside looking in everyone thinks you’ve got it made!
But something doesn’t feel quite right and when you start looking closer you realise that things need to change or there’ll be some hard-to-live with consequences. I had one of those moments….
Early Wins….
When that moment happened for me, I was 31 and well on the way towards what I’d believed was my goal, to be a CEO, CFO, COO or some “C” of a large business.
I had qualified as a Chartered Accountant, worked in public practice and transitioned to commerce. I had worked for multinational FTSE top 10 businesses as a consultant and employee. I had just delivered, as a project director, on a pivotal multi-national business transformation programme across 40 supply sites, impacting 60 countries, had a team of 80 direct reports, been commended personally by the CFO of GSK, and was ascending the corporate ranks at a heady pace…..
Looking forward…..
And then one day I looked forward 10 years to my reaching the corporate summit and I realised that after 15 year of hard work and focus, that unbeknownst, I’d been ascending the wrong mountain! Working 50-80 hours a week had been in pursuit of an outcome I now viewed as a life sentence rather than a worthy destination!!
Seeds of doubt….
Taking some time to reflect on what was important to me I recalled a little anecdote read as a teenager. In it, a man remarked that; the moments he treasured most as a child weren’t the extravagent vacations with his family, like trips to Disneyland… It was the evenings his father got home early and played with him in the backyard…
That struck a cord for me.
Another book rose in my memory – Rich Dad Poor Dad. It too struck a chord, how to create freedom for yourself, regardless of being an employee or a business owner, by having your money work for you instead of working for money. It got me started with investing in personal development as opposed to just professional and career development.
Life is short…..
Another moment that rose in significance was the death of my stepfather, Colin. He’d been killed in a hit and run accident whilst running to work one morning. He was 53 years “young”. I say “young” because he was an ultra athlete in peak health, competing at international level in multi-day adventure races and triathlons. At work he had been promoted into the CEO role at a major subsidiary of a listed conglomerate.
He was in the peak of his life….
Vital one day and gone the next.
Life can be short. Unexpected.
It was a profound and tragic event in my life that held many learnings for me. Of those lessons front and centre for me was – Don’t take your time or opportunities for granted. Don’t put off until next year or when you retire what you want to do in life. Next year or your retirement may never arrive!
A Change
All of these things had me ask what did I want to do with my working life and how did I want to live my life?
I’d love to say that the answer came to me in a dream, but it just wasn’t so.
I knew coaching was part of my future, so I thought – just start there by getting trained and qualified as a coach.
Taking action….
So I went back to studying nights and weekends, signed up for all the training I could at work and attended seminars and workshops on weekends and even took 4 weeks leave for 28 days of residential, 12 hours a day intensives.
I got trained in corporate coaching, NLP Master Practitioner, Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy, NLP Master Coach, NLP Sales and Presentation.