Hi! I’m Debbie
If your business is thriving on the outside but behind-the-scenes you’re completely maxed out, working way more hours than you want to, then you’re in the right place.
I’m here to help you structure your business to earn a full time income in part time hours.
With no overcomplicated funnels, unnecessary tech or manipulative marketing.
Instead, simplifying and streamlining to create focus, alignment and space.
How I came to do this work:
Back in September 2022, nine months after starting my coaching practice, I replaced my monthly corporate salary for the first time.
I’d chased it as a financial goal but also because it served to validate my choice to leave a 12 year career as a Geophysicist, while on maternity leave, during lockdown, with a baby and toddler, as one that wasn’t completely crazy.
No sooner had I hit the ‘replace-my-salary’ goal that I was working towards the next milestone - I added a group programme to my 1:1 work, and then another. I ran 5 day challenges, recorded a weekly podcast, built a mailing list and even did the odd dance on Instagram.
From the outside the business was thriving.
But behind-the-scenes the fire in my belly was slowly being smothered by my relentless to-do list and inability to switch off.
I knew that it wasn’t sustainable - working way beyond the part time hours I wanted to, while also caring for two young kids - but working hard was all I’d ever known and I didn’t feel like I could stop now.
It was my work ethic that had won me flawless A* grades in school, a degree from the University of Oxford, a sought-after corporate career and a little side project that had become an award winning business after just six months.
But at the end of all that, as the old cliche goes, I’d ticked all the boxes and still felt like something was missing…..which is why I’d started my coaching practice.
Overwhelmed, exhausted and lacking a business strategy that didn’t require me to only work harder, I tried something different and booked a week long retreat Authentic Relating in the Dutch countryside.
Slowing down, being around real people, eating nourishing food, good conversation, and doing daily practices - meditation, dancing, walking in the forest - that took me out of my head and into my body, brought to light an uncomfortable truth.
One that I suspect I already knew, beneath all of the hard work and never-ending busyness.
Maybe all the hard work wasn’t only in favour of building a successful business - maybe it was also serving the dual purpose of allowing me to avoid the uncomfortable feelings underneath:
The identity shift comes with working part time hours
The identity shift that comes with Motherhood
The tension of juggling work and Motherhood
The fact that I no longer had an impressive job title
Not knowing if my work was really making the difference that I hoped it would
The instability of no longer having a regular, guaranteed monthly salary
The cringe factor that came with 'putting myself out there'
Whereas traditionally growth is associated with adding more - more hours to your day and items to your to-do list - I believe that real growth comes from focussing on less.
I came to realise how much my own internal world was represented in my business:
Continually adding more offers rather than fully committing to what I already had
Creating new content every week so that I (and others) didn't have to dwell on the stuff that was already there
Spending hours setting up automated funnels that didn’t really feel like me
Paying for tech solutions that I didn’t actually need
I also came to realise that it wasn’t just me - on a brave day, I might even say that many mainstream business and marketing approaches that are sold to us pry on this desire to keep busy, regardless of whether they work or not.
As a mum who wants to work part time hours doing meaningful, impactful work - a mum who wants (needs) my work to fill my cup and not drain it further - I went about figuring out how to actually design my business to do just that.
For me that looks like:
Choosing a niche that allows you to charge what you need to.
Designing your services and marketing so they can easily be delivered in the hours you actually have.
Building external systems and internal boundaries that allow you to protect your part time hours with confidence.
Now in my business, I still work hard in the hours that I have, but I also pick my kids up from school every day, have weekends free and get to work with amazing clients who I love.
The goal isn't to work harder. It's to create a business that's simple to run, profitable to own, and leaves you with the time and headspace you started this journey for - and the capacity to enjoy it.
GET TO KNOW ME
I like bullet journalling and look forward to my end-of-month metric round-up. But I also love oracle cards, breathwork and lucky coincidences - like the bird poop (apparently lucky) that landed on me during my now-husband and I’s first date.
I live in Banchory, a small town on the edge of the Cairngorm mountain range in Scotland, where you can find me walking in the forest, dipping in the river or trying to keep up with my mountain bike-loving six year old at every opportunity.
I have a nose piercing that I didn’t get until after leaving the corporate world. Next step is a tattoo of the tree of life on my calf.
A NOTE ON MY APPROACH
Alongside coaching and operations, I have trained in embodiment coaching and regenerative leadership. It is through this lens that I support business owners to not only build new business models and the systems to support them, but also the inner capacity to trust and rely on those systems to hold their business. I have a structured framework that I guide people through but I also don’t believe that one-size-fits all and so apply care and attention to the particular needs of you, your nervous system and your business.
Ready to build a business that energises you rather than exhausts you?
