Vicki went from living in a million pound house, Ferrari, Porsche, Mercedes etc, to, ending up in the bankruptcy courts within a couple of years…
I didn’t start out as a life coach, back in my very early days I was a school girl mum. I got pregnant when I was 15 and I had two kids by the time I was 17 and I know what it's like to have big things thrown at you and deal with them.
My first business venture was spawned from watching a Tony Robbins infomercial I was glued to the TV thinking why am I here being a stay at home mum when I could do so much more with myself and so I sent away for his 30 day course and at the time I really enjoy watching all these home development programmes, and I thought I'm sure that I can do that for myself.
I think within a year of watching that coaching program I’d set myself up in a property business and one of the big goals I made for myself is that I want to live in a million pound house in two years.
At that time my then husband was a mortgage advisor and it was very very easy to get mortgages back in the day, this was before the property crisis.
I got really really consumed by my business, it succeeded very very rapidly and we ended up in this million pound house within the two years and we had all the toys. I suppose as a life coach right now it would have made a great backdrop, you know the ones that are very cheesy, they come in and pull up in a Ferrari saying “hey you can have everything I have if you just follow exactly what I'm doing…”
What it wouldn’t have shown is the real truth, My favourite trip was in the middle of the night going into my bathroom and just crying my eyes out, I was crumbling, I was I was on anti-depressants there was a time when I was suicidal and it was all because of the intense pressure I was putting myself under.
And looking back on it, that was the danger of having a really really strong coaching program and following it and following what I thought were my dreams without somebody checking in on me and saying “hey you're doing really well on the financial front but you need to like pull things back a little bit, cos you're falling apart love”
And I see this happen time and time again with with business owners as stress levels goes out logical thinking goes down and you forget what's truly important and that is looking after your own health and your relationships because if you don't have either of those then the money is worth nothing
We didn’t just take out mortgages we also took in investment from other people and one of our investors Got very upset with us when we couldn't prove exactly where his money was, there was no system and that ultimately was our downfall, it was not keeping proper books and records which is how I actually came to meet Kev.
That investor got very unhappy with us, he actually took us to court and the long and short of it was that legal action wrecked our business.
Iit was a monumentally, catastrophic point in my life where I just thought what the fuck am I going to do now?
Looking back on it probably one of the best things ever happened because it got me out of that business and got me to run choose a new career path and also let me into meeting Kevin
We both really understand what it's like to struggle to have challenges but we also know what it's like to overcome these challenges and to become victorious as a result of them.
Today we have a club of eight meeting with our good friends Stalkie and Dawn where we see eachother once a quarter. We’ll sit around the table and we'll talk about each other's victories, goals and challenges and help each other.
We are particularly good at working with couples because we are able to look in on an unbiased way and see the Dynamics that happen between them and get them to work together in the absolute best possible way so they are both contributing towards their success
Dawn Stalker says “We are firmly of belief that if you want to excel at anything then you need to have a coach. There are inevitably times when you disagree in business as a couple and to differentiate your work life from your personal life is again quite difficult especially when you work from home being coached helps us really make that division very clear.
I love working In a partnership with Kevin because he understands everything that's required to have a happy relationship!!!!
We both found out about Earl Nightingale at different times. We were both out to meet people who shared a positive mindset and I think that is one of the major major keys to the success of our relationship, when we say to people we don’t argue, they just don’t believe it, but it’s true.
It's because knowing that you're in charge of your own emotions and that nobody upsets you without your permission.
One of one of the games people play is “my life's worse than your life” and so if Kev came in saying “I'm exhausted, I've had some difficult clients today” I could easily say “oh, you think it's bad for you I've had all this shit as well…”
That's a big game a lot of people play, it’s kinda being competitive about their life and that is not healthy.
If someone else is winding you up, you don’t necessarily have the choice or the power to not get stressed out over it?
You can get fed up with people winding you up because anybody can, from your children to your family members, work colleagues to your customers but actually you have a choice.
A choice to decide whether or not you're going to be wound up by whoever or whatever is winding you up, or take a deep breath and decide OK how am I going to deal with this?
As part of what we do with a lot of our clients we work with, is show them techniques as to how to deal with situations like that and sometimes when it comes down to situations like customers if you have bad customers, then it’s your choice, you invited them into your business in the first place..
You can mitigate a lot of the problems way before they even happen, if you put the right systems in place to prevent them from happening in the first place.
If you are a couple in business we can take you forward in a way that a single coach may not be able to. Sometimes you find that that one person in the couple will gel more with the coach then another and that can increase the alienation of the person who doesn't get on.
I am able to look you straight in the eye and say I can work with you with Kevin who can do a fantastic job with his financial background and we will be able to look at your business and help you make some sensible realistic and achievable improvements.
