About the Founder

If you're looking for the nutshell version, please click here. Otherwise, on this page, you'll find the story of how I came to creating the True Power programme. It's rather a journey!

Does any of my story resonate with you? Read on and see...

My Background

I've come from a very straight-line thinking background. I was brilliant at school - top marks and straight A's right from a young age, and top of the class with relatively little effort. I just had the knack for listening to others, especially "people of authority" like parents, teachers, elders and so on. I did as I was told, and soon learned that obedience was a good way to be.

Over the years, as I completed my education and went on to professional life (I trained and qualified as a chartered accountant), I lost my sense of creativity. I forgot that, as a young child, I was continually making things and inventing new ideas as I played. Eventually, when I did my MBA, I declined to take one of the optional modules, "Creative Management" because I was convinced that I wasn't creative, and in any case, I had heard from the students who'd taken that course the year before that one of the exercises they'd done was to look at a brick in a wall and consider its potential. What a waste of time! Or so I had thought.

My ability to really paint a picture of potential, and to feel it, was beyond me. I was clearly out of practice, for I could distinctly remember that at the age of 9, my bicycle was a horse, and that was real as far as I was concerned. I was unable to imagine much beyond my five senses. In addition, over the years, I had also learned to either ignore or suppress my emotions and feelings. Not only had I had to grow up quickly and be strong when my father left the family, but feelings weren't particularly valued in the workplace either. As a result, I lost touch with my own inner guidance and devalued the concept of intuition.

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift." - Albert Einstein

My devaluing of my own inner guidance led me into a relationship that obviously wasn't right for me, and I allowed myself to play the role of a martyr, not realising that the effect it had on me was the loss of my own self-esteem. My only meaningful sense of self came from my job, and being "the perfect wife".

An Unexpected and Rude Awakening

So when my now ex told me while we were on holiday, that there were only two things he really loved, and that I stood in the way of both, I was jolted into thinking consciously about my life for the first time that I can remember since I was about 16. What did I want for me - not what was expected of me. I decided to end the relationship despite my mother's misgivings. And I'm very proud and pleased that my ex and I are still good friends, and that he is now happily married to a lovely woman with whom he has two wonderful children.

And as if that wasn't enough to be getting on with, I also decided to leave my highly paid corporate job to set up my own business in Executive Coaching within the same year.

I thought that things would come easily. After all, I was used to earning a big salary, I had been in investment banking, I had good skills, a professional qualification and a Masters, and I was bright and intelligent. But they didn't. I thought that my business took too long to get off the ground, and all that time, instead of being grateful for the large financial reserve that I had, I berated myself. I was focused on lack, always seeing the glass as half empty. My self-esteem dropped further. Hmmm, is there a message somewhere here for me? I missed it. Remember, I'd forgotten how to listen to my inner voice.

And so began my quest into personal development. I read and read and read, and attended seminar after seminar. Some things got better, but where was the transformation that was promised? None seemed to come. Why wasn't I good enough? Plus, any vision that I could eventually pull together for myself seemed only to revolve around one facet of my life - work and career. Nothing else seemed important enough, so narrow was my sense of self and my definition of success. Yet today, I know that we are all multi-faceted and multi-talented, with many passions for many things. I fought that for a long time, especially with the business. Traditional business thinking is that one must find and create a niche. I failed miserably! I was never able to squeeze myself into a box. Today, I don't anymore, because I now know that I am a creational being, and that all these different avenues are parts of my self-expression.

But, on with my story.

The Tide Begins to Turn

Then I discovered the Law of Attraction, and I felt as if missing pieces of a jigsaw fell into place. I realised that my old relationship was a perfect mirror, reflecting my vibrational level with respect to relationships. And, as much as I would have been the perfect match the other way around, I reckon that I must have been quite a pain to live with!

Understanding and consciously applying the Law of Attraction made a big difference to my quality of life, as I began to become aware of my thoughts and my emotions. As I deliberately began to choose my thoughts and my point of focus, my world began to change. It didn't change overnight, but it did change. My business grew and became increasingly successful in financial terms, but still, my life didn't quite flow the way I had thought that it would. I also didn't find the fulfilment that I thought that I would. I was still shying away from doing what I really wanted to do. I was playing safe instead.

I coached in the corporate market, which I enjoyed, but held myself back from coaching the way I really wanted to - from a spiritual perspective. I coached how I thought I should. Besides, people would think that I had gone soft! (Even now, there is a part of me that wonders if my executive and corporate clients who may read this may think I've lost the plot). So I ran public programmes using the Law of Attraction as the basis of the programmes, but still trying to disguise what I was teaching by using what I thought would be acceptable language. I was pushing the boat out, but only very tentatively. I still wasn't playing the game of life fully. I didn't allow myself to align fully with my own inner knowings and desires; I wasn't letting my Divine Self (my spirit, if you like) out to play too. No wonder the Law of Attraction only seemed to work to a degree and not how I expected. Life didn't flow fully and I knew it. I was blocking myself still.

In early 2004, I lost all sense of motivation and entered a place of unknowing. I also felt strangely alone. I went through the motions of my daily life, and felt totally disconnected from my entire life, including everyone in it. Then one day, amid deep frustration, I realised that my only option was to surrender to a Higher Intelligence. I somehow just felt and knew that I couldn't do it all by myself any longer. Little did I know at the time, that that was my first reconnection back to my essence. I felt a sense of calm and peace, and I felt looked after.

Learning to Truly Listen

Learning to truly listen and trust didn't always come easily. I felt as if I had a foot in two different worlds - one which I had known for my entire life and that most people seemed to follow, and one which I somehow knew was the way I wanted to go - a freer, easier and richer way of living, and one filled with joy and fulfilment. But as I listened more, each day got better and better, and I opened up more and more to doing things for the enjoyment of it. My daily reminder became, "What brings me most joy?" But it isn't about being in a blissed out state all of the time, chanting mantras and doing not a lot. This is about living. You see, joy is the expression of our soul - it's our soul singing - and our "job" is to allow ourselves to bring in the joy of full expression, and then ground it into practical manifestation. It's a blending of the spiritual, with the emotional, through to the physical, if you like.

"The most difficult thing for people to do is hear their own soul." - Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations with God : An Uncommon Dialogue (Book 1)

As I started to truly listen to what I wanted - to what brought joy - and to follow that, I found that life would flow with ease and effortlessness. New clients would show up, old clients asked me to do bigger projects with them, and I was now working less. I experienced the most abundant year ever - financially as well as in terms of time, friendships, and other areas of my life. It seemed as if time expanded, for I had an abundance of time to do all that I wanted, and still met any deadlines. If I wanted to take a day off, and I felt fully aligned with that, I would, where in the past, I'd plod on. Stress and frustration became a thing of the past.

By late August 2005, life was flowing wonderfully, and I began to feel the magic of life. One day, my partner and I got the idea that it was the right time to leave London and the UK. I had been there for 28 years, yet I had the inner knowing that to sell up and leave was the right thing to do. Even though we knew it was the right thing for us, we decided to sit with it for a while, because I felt that I needed some time to be fully aligned with it internally. The inner knowing became stronger and stronger, and in November, we told our respective families and friends. Naturally, they all wanted to know where we would be going.

Well, you know what? We didn't know, other than that it made sense to go to New Zealand because that is where Jeff (my partner) is from, and we would then look for a place that felt right for us. At this point, we simply knew that there would be just the place and that we would recognise it instantly. This was very unlike us, to not have some kind of definitive plan. I can't explain it in any way, other than that we felt very guided. Amazing synchronicities started to happen around our move, which seemed to confirm our decisions. A neighbour whom we hadn't previously met had heard that we were selling our flat, so they came and knocked on our door. We ended up selling to them, and as a result of that interaction, they have since become friends. On the same day that we sold our home, we had a couple of friends around to dinner, and they asked us if they could buy our car, if we were selling it!

We left London in May 2006. Our intention was to take the rest of the year off to find our place. I also knew that I had to break away from what I had been doing - Executive & Corporate coaching - because it was keeping me (and my sense of self) attached to the corporate world, with its expectations and measures of success. I needed to let go of that old identity, in order to truly know myself. It was a time to become even more centred in myself, and to allow myself to simply be. (The old me would be rolling her eyeballs ferociously now). It's been one of the best decisions I've ever made.

"Clinging to any past identity (expansive or limiting), then, acts as a roadblock, preventing one from progressing to other flavors (beliefs and experiences)." - from The Living Word of Kuan Yin

We spent some time looking around in New Zealand, but very quickly realised that the place wasn't right for us. Then both people we knew, as well as people we met in passing, started telling us about the Sunshine Coast in Australia. We decided to visit... and we loved it. We visited again a month later, just to be sure. We were right the first time! We stopped by an estate agents on a Sunday to look in their window. Right at the same time, another couple pulled up and looked in the window too. It turned out that it was one of the estate agents. We told them what we were looking for, and then we saw a picture of a house in the window. I found myself being drawn back to the picture again and again, so we decided to go and see the place the next day. Within ten days of that, we'd signed the contract! We only ever looked at the one property - the one we're in now. It was as if the place was waiting for us.

Playing My Biggest Game

So, now, we are creating "a place for people to come home to", a kind of oasis where people can disconnect from their day-to-day and reconnect with themselves. The intention is that our guests will go home with renewed vigour and perspective. It's the biggest game I'm playing thus far - venturing into the complete unknown; a new place, a new country, a new way of being... People ask us if we have a business plan. We know it, but it's not written, and the plan unfolds itself step by step. It's certainly not the logical way that I have known and studied (remember, I'm a trained chartered accountant! And I may well need to write one one day if we apply for finance). But it's a new creational way of being, and a new way of doing business that works - using desire, imagination, trust, listening and manifestation - all non-straight-line thinking words. There is still physical action, of course, but there is also the trust in the non-physical aspects of things, and knowing that we are divine human beings. I know that more and more people will open up to this way of being too, if they haven't already. That's why it's the biggest game I'm playing - because it is new and uncharted territory.

My involvement with the corporate world isn't at an end either. I know that I will be back there again, working with leaders again in a stronger and more powerful way. In the meantime, my work is with individuals, which still includes executives and leaders, because in order for them to bring a new way of being in and doing business, they need to begin with a different perspective - a higher consciousness - of themselves.

Now I'm being true to my essence. I'm being the pioneer and the creator I always was but previously didn't dare to be. And I'm loving it.