Why Management Consulting Can Feel like a Toxic Relationship

‘Management consulting is like a toxic relationship – you love the salary, status and perks, but you hate the intense workload, demanding clients, lack of work life balance and lack of praise’ – Career Coaching Consulting Client

Are you a management consultant, lawyer or professional who loves the highs of the job – the big pay check, the nice house and the social status but secretly hates the feeling of being stuck in the ‘corporate cage’ where you crave changing out of the ‘always on’ culture but love the big salary and feel trapped by a big mortgage and other liabilities?

Or maybe you’ve reached the pinnacle of your career, near Partnership, only to realise that all your efforts seem to count for nothing unless you hit whopping billable targets or you’re able to bring in new business.

Or maybe you simply don’t have the time to explore these niggling feelings and doubts – or you don’t know who you could talk to to discover alternatives that meet your wider needs?

Perhaps you’ve normalised feeling flat, frustrated or unfulfilled for so long that you’ve failed to notice the negative ripple effect your work is having on your mental health and your wider quality of life with family and friends?

Can you even imagine what it feels like not to have to be perfect every day at work, like you’re on a never-ending treadmill constantly fending off burn-out?

I get it – as a lawyer turned Career and Life Coach, I help smart, successful professionals working in high stress worlds design careers and lives they love – and much as your monkey mind may tell you this isn’t possible, I’m here to tell you it is!

Whether learning simple mindset mastery tricks to help reduce stress and optimise work life balance, learning how to develop boundaries and people please less, exploring career alternatives that thrive off your superb CV or managing wider life goals like love and relationships, I’m here for you.

It’s easy to boost hope and joy in life when you have the right tools and the space to explore what you really want, what your options are and how to reconnect with your strengths to strategise for change. It doesn’t have to be money or happiness – it can be both.

Check out a powerful example of one of many bright but frustrated career coaching clients I work with in the in the short video here.

What do you relate to?

What are your main pain-points?

And how committed to change are you in 2023?

If you’d like to explore how I can help you master your mind and re-design your career or personal life, drop me a message here for a free discovery call. Helping smart, successful professionals get unstuck fast is my superpower 🙂

Here’s what a recent legal client said:

‘Thank you so much for everything – I feel like you’re the best investment I made in myself in years. I feel much more connected to my true self and have more trust in myself than I have had in a long time. You have a real gift’

The Surprising Reason Coaching will Change your Life

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“Attention energises, intention transforms” – Deepak Chopra

Ever wondered, like the legal client below before we worked together, why you’re unable to make change despite feeling frustration, boredom, anxiety or depression about your personal or professional life?

Here’s why..

To make any big change in your life, you need to do more than recognise discomfort – you need to create the time, space and resources to get real clarity. From there, change becomes easy.

Ever wondered why people telling you what you should do rarely works?

Because sometimes it comes more from a place of projection, protectiveness and bias than objectivity and real listening – truly sitting in the moment with you and really hearing what lies beneath is usually quite different, leaving you feeling heard, understood and pumped to uplevel your life.

This is exactly what I thought coaching wasn’t when I first started out. Honestly, I was hoping it was a quick fix involving talking to a wise owl who could help me cut corners and expedite change fast.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

When I heard it was being guided by the coach asking a series of questions to help me work out who I was and what I wanted, I thought it sounded like hot air.

Then we started practising coaching – and I ate my words fast..

I quickly realised helping someone connect to who they truly are and what they truly want versus telling them what they should do, is where the magic happens.

I see this kind of magic happen daily with clients like the lovely client in the quote below who found coaching more powerful than years of therapy, management consultants sick of toxic work environments, midwives tired of emotions to financiers and creatives ready to change their personal or professional lives.

Screenshot 2023 08 03 at 14.10.52

As a wise friend on Mindline once said, really active listening is like developing a sixth sense and it should have a profound effect on the client.

So I say again – attention energises, intention transforms. Finding space to be truly heard and to deconstruct what’s really going on for you is an essential component to creating the intention required for change.

So if you’re feeling misaligned with your life or career and are seeking greater fulfilment, joy and inspiration in your life, what’s stopping you? As Einstein said: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

I have a very small number of complimentary coaching discovery call slots remaining before Christmas if you’d like to hear more about how coaching could help change your personal or professional life, so if you’re sick of the status quo and want to start next year with a new lease of life, get in touch here.

Disclaimer: If you don’t want results, this won’t be for you!

 

Surprisingly Simple Stress Trick: How to Get Out of Your Head Fast!

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‘Faith is an oasis in the heart that will never be reached by the caravan of thinking’

Khalil Gibran

 

How often do you find yourself overthinking when you’re stressed?

Totally stuck in your head or going round in circles with no end?

It makes sense to think we can think our way around things but sometimes, getting out of our heads and into our bodies is the best thing we can do. Y’see, without learnt tools to master our minds, our brains are designed to keep us stuck focusing on the negative and continuing to do what we’ve always done. Not very evolved, hey?!

Case in point – a career coaching client who was so stressed she was really quite depressed and unable to move forward had a 360 about-turn when she took her focus off thinking about careers and instead reconnected with doing the things that brought her fun and joy in life.

All the things that took her out of her head whether cooking, drawing, running or seeing her friends.

And boom! Then the clarity came – from being more and thinking less. Like a counter-intuitive detour around stress. The renewed energy and clarity came from moving her body rather than just sitting in the stasis of thought. Ironic, isn’t it, that when we stop thinking so much, sometimes we unlock feelings that guide the way.

As the legendary Dr Wayne Dyer says: ‘Think less, feel more’.

What do you do that brings you joy and gets you out of your head? When did you last have this experience? And what were the results?

For me it might be things like travelling, local adventures, meeting new people, working in new cafés, or doing a new activity like paragliding in the wilds of Italy above. Connecting with free spirits in sublime nature is always a sure fire way for me to change my state and get clarity on confusion. Note – most of these things involve movement – as Tony Robbins says: ‘Motion equals emotion’.

What one change can you make today to get out of your head and into your body?

How would that feel?

And what’s the best possible outcome?

 

 

 

Podcast Episode 12: Why Becoming a Mother is the Perfect Time to Start A Business

Sabine Matharu, Author at The Future Shapers

Episode 12 of The School of Success Podcast Series is now live! An inspiring and eye-opening deep-dive into why becoming a mother is the perfect time to start a business!

This interview with the accomplished Leadership Coach, Author and Workplace Wellbeing Creator, Sabine Matharu, teaches you:

– top tips for overcoming the limiting beliefs that stop people from launching their own businesses;
– what’s really going on in new mums’ inner monologues when they go back to work;
– myth-busting around the risks of launching your own business;
– how to use adversity to laser-focus new career goals and expedite health, wealth and happiness; and
– how organisations can better support working parents

This is also for you if you have an interest in how to optimise career clarity before making a change and how to find the killer weapons required to start and scale a business fast. This is also for you if you’re not sure what a Leadership Coach is and the main benefits of investing in one!

In this super informative interview, Sabine shares her expert wisdom from years as a management consultant turned successful author and entrepreneur working with women across a whole host of industries whether new mums, aspiring entrepreneurs or leaders in their field.

You can find Sabine at www.instagram.com/sabine.matharu/ on Instagram and at www.theempowermentportal.com. Her recent book, “Shift – A New Era Begins” can be found here: www.learnmoreabout.info/shift.

Full podcast episode here!

From New York Journalist to Farmer’s Wife: What The Dirty Life Teaches Us About Happiness

Good Husbandry by Kristin Kimball review – a new life on a community farm |  Society books | The Guardian

What are you?

A professional or an entrepreneur, a country bumpkin or a city slicker, a conformist or a free spirit? Or are you a hybrid – a suited and booted banker or lawyer with the ‘perfect job’ but a niggling desire to explore less well-trodden paths? Or maybe you’re just plain confused about where you fit and what really drives you.

Whatever category you fall into, most of us from Generation Y were bred by folks with far less opportunity than us professionally. With more conventional views of what constitutes a ‘proper’ job, our parents may have inadvertently left us stuck between a rock and a hard place – between what we should do and what we want to do. But ‘should’ is where it all goes wrong.

Expectations versus reality

OUR HOTELS IN NEW YORK

Nobody knows this better than Kristen Kimball, author of ‘The Dirty Life’ and former freelance journalist and Harvard graduate from New York. After a chance interview with a hunky farmer, she upped sticks to set up farm with her green-fingered interviewee, leaving the city lights and life as she knew it in her wake. You heard right – East Village in favour of mud and veg in the middle of nowhere. This is a story of two love affairs that interrupted the trajectory of an intellectual glamour-puss’ life – one with farming and the other with a man who milks cows for a living. A striking tale about love, happiness and the power of instinct, ‘The Dirty Life’ is a must-read for anyone feeling a little disillusioned with the daily grind or what life’s all about.

The product of a neat, middle-class world, Kimball’s novel charts the mental and physical challenges she faced leaving the glitzy world of ‘convention’ in favour of rural slog. ‘Writ[ing] with precision, authority and gratitude about what is evidently, despite its rigours, an idyllic life’ (New York Times Book Review), Kimball challenges our views about wealth, success and love, giving food for thought as compelling as the gastronomical delights she chronicles.

Kimball’s union with Mark, a rugged hulk of a man with a passion for food and farming, is a world away from the corporate sphere she might have settled into. But as with the different kind of ‘wealth’ she finds farm-side, Kimball takes us on a journey full of surprises, a journey which exposes some stark ironies about our perceptions of ‘success’ and ‘happiness’ of City life.

Does success equal happiness?

How to Get Hens to Lay Eggs in Nest Boxes

‘The Dirty Life’ makes us question our ‘values’ as we know them. In Kimball we find a cosmopolitan New Yorker who, like many of us, supposedly ‘has it all’. A woman with all the trappings of refinement, yet one who is, by her own admission, blinded by ignorance. Openly admitting her surprise that a ‘salt-of-the-earth-type’ person such as Mark could talk with dexterity and intelligence and that ‘the physical world – the trades’ was not in fact ‘the place you ended up if you weren’t bright or ambitious enough to handle a white-collar job’, Kimball shows us the danger of defining people by what they do. In Kimball we find a highly educated woman who has travelled the world with her job, yet whose eyes are opened by an entirely different world, stunned by the happiness she finds ‘pulling warm eggs out of a nest box’.

Shake things up…

So, what is the moral of the tale? Keep meeting new people, keep an open-mind and be true to yourself. Work out what is important to you and don’t be afraid to question reality as you know it. Have the courage to live a life true to yourself, not the life others expect of you and remember, the most successful life is one which unearths what makes you truly happy. Fulfilment goes far deeper than an impressive job title and it will bring you fruits that money can’t buy.

Watch an interview with Kristin Kimball here.

 

 

Hot Air Or Life-Changing? How Coaching Banishes Stress & Transforms Lives

instincts and coaching

“Attention energises, intention transforms”

Deepak Chopra

Ever wondered why you’re unable to make change despite feeling frustration, boredom, anxiety or depression about your current life?

Here’s why..

To make any big change in your life, you need to do more than recognise discomfort – you need to create the time, space and resources to get real clarity. From there, change becomes easy.

Ever wondered why people telling you what you should do rarely works? Because sometimes it comes more from a place of projection, protectiveness and bias than objectivity and real listening – truly sitting in the moment with you and really hearing what lies beneath is usually quite different, leaving you feeling heard, understood and pumped to uplevel your life.

This is exactly what I thought coaching wasn’t when I first started out. Honestly, I was hoping it was a quick fix involving talking to a wise owl who could help me cut corners and expedite change fast.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

When I heard it was being guided by the coach asking a series of questions to help me work out who I was and what I wanted, I thought it sounded like hot air.

Then we started practising coaching – and I ate my words fast..

I quickly realised helping someone connect to who they truly are and what they truly want versus telling them what they should do, is where the magic happens.

I see this kind of magic happen daily with clients – whether midwives moving into project management, financiers moving into consulting, lawyers moving into coaching or graduates moving into advertising and beyond.

It’s not rocket science, but boy does it work.

As a wise friend on Mindline once said, really active listening is like developing a sixth sense.

So I say again – attention energises, intention transforms. Finding space to be truly heard and to deconstruct what’s really going on for you is an essential component to creating the intention required for change.

So if you’re feeling misaligned with your life or career, what’s stopping you?

And if you’re still feeling stuck, remember, nothing changes if nothing changes 💫

#coaching #life #career #change #listen #plan #goals #transform

 

Podcast Episode 10: How to Re-Wire Your Sub-Conscious to Transform Your Life

AnnaLancasterTherapymainhomepage 2

Episode 10 of The School of Success Podcast Series is now live! An inspiring and eye-opening deep-dive into how to re-wire your sub-conscious to achieve transformative life changes from weight loss and fertility and relationships to career success and beyond.

This interview with the accomplished founder of Anna Lancaster Therapy, Anna Lancaster teaches you:

– how stress works in the brain and why the brain can change;
– where our thoughts and beliefs really come from;
– why re-programming our internal monologue is critical to true happiness and success;
– why early childhood is so key in shaping our identity and top tips for parents;
– the 3 root causes that lie at the heart of all dysfunction and how you can upgrade your life through re-wiring your sub-conscious

This is for you if you have an interest in what makes us us, why we behave the way we do and how we can uplevel our lives to achieve true mastery. This is also for you if you’re not sure you have what it takes to change your life and don’t know where to start

In this super informative interview, Anna shares her expert wisdom as a Licensed Rapid Transformational Therapist and Certified Hypnotherapist working with clients across a whole host of industries and with a whole host of sticking blocks to reveal why transforming your life may not be as hard as you think

You can find Anna @www.instagram.com/annalancastertherapy/ on Instagram and at www.annalancastertherapy.com/

Podcast Episode 8: Insider Secrets to Nailing a Successful Global Business From Scratch!

Beco_George_1

Episode 8 of The School of Success Podcast Series is now live! This insightful interview with George Bramble, Founder of the award-winning eco-pet company, Beco, gives inspiring insight into how to build a successful global business you’re truly passionate about!

My chat with the accomplished, tenacious + resourceful, George, is not to be missed if you want to know:

– how to find a business idea that inspires you + makes great money;
– what the best route to entrepreneurship is;
– why mindset is key to success;
– common myths that will keep you stuck;
– insider tips on how to scale a business; +
– top tips for effective selling.

This is also for you if you’re not sure you have what it takes + have no idea where to start.

In this super informative interview, George shares his expert wisdom from over 10 years’ experience building an extremely successful global business that saw him go from sticking stickers on dog bowls on a roof in the dead of night to becoming the leading compostable poop bag specialist + a supplier of eco-friendly pet products to over 43 markets worldwide in a pet industry worth over $99 billion in the US alone.

You can find George @beco_pets on Instagram + at www.becopets.com

In the words of Beco, love your dog, love our planet!

Listen here!

5 Steps To Building A Productive Business Fleet As An Entrepreneur

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“In the midst of every crisis, lies great opportunity”

Albert Einstein

Some of the world’s most successful businesses were founded during the last recession including Uber, WhatsApp and Pinterest. Could this be the perfect opportunity to home in on that business idea niggling you at the back of your mind?

As a Career, Life and Mindset Coach, I am often approached by budding entrepreneurs wanting to go at it alone.

Here are my most frequently asked questions and top tips to help you on your journey, as published in Be Your Own.

Read my full article for Be Your Own here

Why The Love That Ends Can Be The Most Important Of All

Dummy

“People are put into our paths according to who we can learn the most from at any given time. Like a giant universal computer, higher forces know exactly what combination of energies, in exactly what context, would do the most to further us”

Marianne Williamson

I recently finished a powerful book which I started reading in the wake of the end of a 4 year relationship. Amongst other things, Marianne Williamson’s bestseller, “A Return To Love”, shares potent insights into the 3 types of romantic love:

  1. Love born of ego;
  2. Love that helps you grow; and
  3. Divine love  and how, while the third is the one that helps you reach your highest potential, the second, the transformational kind of love, can feel like the most powerful of all three.

You’ll find the below pearls of wisdom helpful if:

  • You’re newly single and wanting to expedite the healing process;
  • You’ve been unattached for a while and are feeling flat about the coming year; or
  • You’re in a relationship you’re not sure about and are struggling to get clarity.

Despite some 12 years in relationships, it’s only now that I have clarity on love, its different forms, its wider purpose and its power to shape huge learning and growth. For even heartbreak, the antithesis of love, guides you lovingly towards better knowledge of yourself and greater awareness of your boundaries and needs, paving the way for the highest form of love – the one that lifts you and supports you above all others – divine love.

Yet despite that, the second kind of love – the transformational kind — has been my most significant experience of love yet — for that was the love that facilitated my waking up and helped me reconnect to myself, who I am and what I want.

The love that took me to the foothills of Chamonix, Mont-Blanc, to a freer lifestyle without rules and expectations, a place of sublime natural beauty which inspired my soul, gave me space to breathe and to explore worlds entirely different to fast-paced city living. It’s amazing what you discover with the simple luxury of time – time to feel, time to connect, time to explore your passions – fully and guiltlessly. Time with free spirits from paths less trodden who have mastered the art of living in the moment – and in doing so, one of the greatest secrets of happiness:

 “Think less, feel more”

Dr Wayne Dyer

How apt that Mother Nature was the backdrop for a love which held me in its arms as I cried, revealed my unhealed places and loved me anyway. The love that soothed wounds carried from the first kind of love – the egotistical love – born of passion and lust but little care. This second kind of love was entirely different to the first kind. This love spoke directly, lovingly, straight from the heart. A love which taught me that you can say anything, almost anything, if you say it with love. You can even say things without love – and it remains.

A love that showed me how to be vulnerable again — what intimacy really is. A love that helped me grow into a fuller version of myself – that moulded me whole – and in doing so, laid the foundations for the highest form of love – the one that supports you to fulfil your highest purpose on Earth – the third kind of love – divine love. Poignant that we must sometimes lose the former to make way for the latter – like the shedding of a cocoon so we can fly high where we ultimately belong.

Stepping into a relationship with a Mowgli lookalike I met, rather symbolically, on a ski-trip just after I’d left law, was the easiest decision I’ve ever made and the greatest risk I ever took to the outside world. How funny that something that can seem like a wrong turn to others, the path less trodden, can feel so right to you — exactly where you need to be.

I remember asking myself, as I sometimes do when making big decisions, what I’d do if I had a year left to live. I felt a strong knowing that I’d choose to spend it with Christophe. I had a strong sense he’d be good for me, would bring me balance and would help me heal after two damaging relationships which left me battered and bruised.

The love that may’ve looked defiant, reactive and downright bizarre to others, was a love that felt heaven-sent to me. A union that would leave more conventional bystanders confused, bemused and a little concerned — until they felt my joy – and saw a spirit set free.

This kind of transformative love is captured beautifully by Elizabeth Gilbert, the bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love:

“People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life”.

And while the slightly scruffy, long-haired French boy who rented me my skis was anything but my mirror at face value, he was the soulmate who brought me to my own attention and helped me find my feet again — as emotionally intuitive as he was ruggedly wild.

I remember the overwhelming peace I felt in his presence – his serenity in nature – his appreciation of the simple things – his ease.

The way he lived his life in accordance with his values gave rise to an authenticity which was striking – invigorating like a cold wind, it woke me up – refreshing and refined in its simplicity, it was of singular note. He knew exactly who he was and what he wanted – he was his own man – totally unconcerned by societal expectations.

He was free, at one with nature — like a wild bird that carries you home.

Apt that I met him then just as I was moving out of the thought-led, high pressure legal sphere into the more heart-centred world of coaching which hinges on helping people live more authentic lives aligned with who they really are.

The law of attraction right there.

The Alpha female that could have been found herself a little girl once more, craving the simplicity and freedom of the wilderness, never-ending forests like fairy tales and a Heathcliff to balm her bruised soul. And she got just what she was seeking, without even realising it –

a wild-hearted boy who would guide her back to herself.

The Mowgli my parents were worried about me moving to the mountains with —

the boy people flippantly said ‘would be fun for a while’ —

the boy I felt an immediate sense of peace with —

the boy so at ease with his own emotions that he barely flinched as I sobbed on him on the third date (think streams of snot pouring down my face). I remember feeling shocked that someone who barely knew me could love me unconditionally like that. Being loved when you feel broken is a powerful thing.

And while I patched myself up through hard work and determination, he facilitated huge change and growth.

I’m convinced he was picked out and dropped into my path quite specifically, at that very moment, to help me heal and to teach me how to be vulnerable again, to show me that deep love is unconditional, imperfect, challenging and beautiful. That strong love remains through arguments, with highs that open hearts and lows that strengthen your faith in love that lasts a lifetime. And, most importantly, that true love is a partnership which embraces vulnerabilities and loves you anyway:

“Je t’aime quand-même”

So these are a few learnings I’d like to share with you. I hope they help you on your journey through dating, love and the highs and lows in between:

  1. Trust your gut – it rarely lies. Every person comes into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. Christophe came into my life to help me reconnect with myself and learn how to be vulnerable again. No matter others’ concerns at the start, I had a deep knowing he was what I needed. I feel real gratitude that our paths crossed despite their divergence in the end and blessed that I trusted my instinct and followed him to the mountains.
  2. Think less, feel more. Be mindful of your emotional needs and connect with yourself by journaling at important life moments. I rarely journaled back then, but such was the overwhelming sense of peace I felt when I met him, that I did a little writing. What came through was an ethereal feeling that he would be a powerful source of healing and growth and that whatever happened, it would be a positive experience. I also noted down worries which might separate us and those also bore true. This was useful to reflect on when we parted and reminded me of the power of instinct from the earliest moments.
  3. The journey is more important than the destination. A relationship ending does not demean what it was or how it has shaped you. Despite my greatest love story ending, I feel gratitude for it having come into my life because it took me to places I may otherwise never have gone and guided me down paths I might have never otherwise discovered. The Alps, fluent French, a coaching qualification, setting up my blog and taking my business to the next level. Ultimately, though, those four years taught me so much about myself and love, partnership, authenticity and respect. The peace you feel when you’re with the right person at the right time, the importance of internal balance and self-love and balance within romantic partnerships. Your perfect partner may not be just like you or look anything like you to the outside world, but they may have everything you don’t have and vice versa — the yin to your yang. So be led by your inner voice — not the judgment of others — and remember what Marianne Williamson says: “Relationships are assignments. They are part of a vast plan for our enlightenment by which each soul is led to greater awareness and expanded love. They bring together people who have the maximal opportunity for mutual growth. People are put into our paths according to who we can learn the most from at any given time. Like a giant universal computer, higher forces know exactly what combination of energies, in exactly what context, would do the most to further us. No meetings are accidental. Those who are to meet, will meet, because together they have the potential for a holy relationship”
  4. Communication is key. There’s no side-stepping communication and vulnerability if you want a healthy relationship. If you’re not ok with something deep down, it will come out in the end, usually far more dramatically if you repress it. Far better to say how you feel in a loving way, almost as soon as you feel it and open the channels of honest communication early on (‘I really love you but when you do this I feel… please could you…’) If someone flees when they see the truth of who you are, it’s better to know sooner rather than later.
  5. Have faith. That great love may have been your best yet. And you know what? You may never have another quite like it – quite as free spirited, quite as unlikely or quite as dissonant, refreshing or beautiful. You might miss that person beyond belief at times, especially times like Christmas, but stay true to what you trust deep down. They helped you grow into the fullest version of yourself, paving the way for the love that will raise you even higher, that will see you for everything that you are and everything that you hope to be.

Because that’s what divine love is — the highest form of love which transcends all others and raises you up to be your fiery, beautiful, flawed, fullest self —

“The love that asks no question, the love that stands the test,

That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best;

The love that never falters, the love that pays the price,

The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice”

Sir Cecil Spring Rice

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