I believe that learning changes lives. Through self-driven learning, I broke the bonds of poverty and ignorance and built a life of significance and service. I want to give everyone I meet that gift.
Learning doesn’t have to be formal. Any challenging situation is an opportunity for learning.
I believe that self-awareness is key to building a more enlightened world. I’m driven by a deep love for humans, and the need to encourage every person I meet to discover what they could bring to this world if they were more self-aware and more self-accepting.
I possess two powerful competencies. First, I listen deeply. I hold space for what is being said and for what is not being said. I receive and observe, and then I share those observations in ways that bring about deep understanding. When I coach, my goal is to help you go deeper than anyone has ever been willing to go with you, so you can see the stories you tell yourself, and come to new insights that can then be applied in practical and life-changing ways.
Second, when I work with you, my goal is to engage with you on a deep and personal level and to build a mutually beneficial and sustainable relationship. I am committed to loving and serving you always, even long after our coaching time together has come to an end.
The major way in which I shared knowledge and supported others' learning in the early part of my life, was through teaching in higher education. I gradually expanded this to leadership development for young academics.
After a decade of teaching in higher education and training new lecturers and tutors, I left a work environment that had become too toxic. I wasn't living and working on purpose anymore.
I joined an executive search firm where I not only advised the leadership team on strategy, but also took responsibility for internal staff development. I developed staff outplacement programs for large corporate companies, and I facilitated individual career strategy coaching sessions for senior executives who wanted to move their careers forward and/or change career direction.
Years spent studying leadership, trying to understand what drives people at the core and how to engage hands, head and heart in work, led to a Master’s degree in personal and professional leadership and coaching, a PhD in workplace spirituality, and practical training in the science of the Enneagram, and the Co-Active model for coaching and leadership.
The understanding I gained from both my master's and PhD research informed the course contents of the leadership development courses I created and facilitated over the course of my career. The insights and personal growth I gained from the Enneagram and from Co-Active shaped the coaching and mentoring work I do today. I love this work. I believe in it, because I know it has the power to change lives. It has changed mine.
The biggest investment I ever made in my own personal transformation, was working one-on-one with a life and business coach of my own, and learning the key principles of real service as espoused in the coaching prosperity work of Steve Chandler. This journey, more than anything else I have done, has fundamentally transformed my life and helped me create and live a life that felt impossible when we began, and that has surprised me in ways I could never have imagined. I have committed myself to service and will do so until I take my last breath.
Saying yes to working with my coach, pulled me into a deeper level of healing, perspective, self-awareness, and growth. It was in this space where I learnt how, for many years, I had made myself the victim of my own circumstances, how I had viewed the world as a battle field, and how I believed the only way I could be safe, was to do it all alone, do it well, and fight for what I wanted or needed, and trust no-one.
With gentleness and compassion, my coach helped me find my way back to integrity, ownership, trust, and beauty.
I grew up in a broken family and was abandoned early on in my life. I learnt fairly quickly how to rely on myself, but it took years to learn how to overcome the trauma of childhood abuse and neglect and how to trust others. I've always had the grit, determination and resilience to see things through when they really mattered to me. I paid my own way through university by working many different part-time jobs. I worked and fought for every inch of my independence. I bring my whole self and I simply don't ever give up. Ever.
Throughout my life, I've had to reinvent myself a few times and every time, I start over with nothing. I always find a way to create something beautiful out of nothing in particular.
What I needed to learn though, was the strength there is in open, honest, communication and vulnerability. What I had to learn was how to allow myself to receive. What I had to learn was how to regulate my nervous system, so I could choose my response, instead of being hijacked in the moment by fears and patterns that no longer served me.
My husband was my first safe place. He gets me on a deep level, and he is my greatest support. So much of what is beautiful about my life, is thanks to the partnership I have with this incredible person who loves me so deeply.
We have had our struggles, and most of them came from my unhealed trauma, and from not having the skill to ask for what I needed, communicate what was occurring for me on an emotional and/or nervous system level, and the desire to want to control the outcome, because I believed that that would keep me safe.
I carried so much unresolved anger from my childhood, and only once I was willing to slow down and look at it, did I discover the fear, grief, guilt, and shame that was underneath all that anger. It has taken me well over six years to heal the trauma and the shame that came with it.
Learning to let go of the need to control the outcome has been some of the hardest, and also most meaningful work I have ever had to do.
We struggled to conceive, and we had given up on the idea of having children, when I finally conceived. My pregnancy and birthing experiences were the most powerful teachers of surrender I have walked through. My first pregnancy was one of pain, worry, fear, and negative-future forecasting. And yet, ultimately, Life was inviting me to surrender, and realize that I ultimately do not control the outcome of anything.
After my daughter's birth, I fell into a pit of darkness, and my journey through post-natal depression started a healing journey that I didn't know I needed. Our children can be instruments of healing, and I believe the most important work we will ever do as parents, is to heal from our own childhood disappointment (and trauma, if there was trauma), so we can show up more fully to the little humans in front of us.
Four years after we welcomed our daughter into our lives, and three years after immigrating to Canada - my son arrived - in the middle of the global COVID pandemic. I learnt for the first time that it was possible to expand my heart even further. I also learnt for the first time what it really meant to take one day at a time, and to be present to this moment. I learnt what I was made of, and who I am in the scariest moments in my life - for example giving birth to my son, all alone, in the middle of a global pandemic.
My children are my greatest gifts. They have helped me rediscover the parts of myself I lost in my own childhood. My daughter teaches me about joy and deep gratitude for the abundance in my life. My son teaches me about inner peace and focused attention, and the value of really slowing down to the speed of life. I have learnt more from them than I could ever teach them.
My greatest challenge started in 2017, when I immigrated from South Africa to Canada and built a new life in a foreign country where I knew no-one, had no established networks and had to reinvent myself for the fifth time in my life. I'm proud of my Canadian citizenship and every ounce of work, growth, and healing that had gone into the past eight years.
This time, I didn't just reinvent myself, I completely transformed who I was, and rediscovered my most authentic self. I built a business with no real prior knowledge or experience of how to run a business. I have fundamentally transformed my relationship to money, and have learnt the power of intention and a willingness to take bold, brave action, even when there is uncertainty, fear, or resistance. I have learnt that Life rewards action, and that even the smallest step can change the course of your life.
I could not have done it without the love and support of my coach, and I could not have created the life I now live, if I wasn't willing to get real and honest with myself, face my pain and grief, and take ownership of my life and my choices.
In March 2025, I lost my father after a tragic and horrific illness. I showed up to his final days with a strength of courage I did not know I had until the moment called for it. In those final moments with my father, I was confronted with my grief and trauma in ways I have never had to look at before.
Watching my father die was both one of the most painful, and deeply transformative experiences of my life, and the lessons I have learnt from this time will continue to shape how I show up in my life and work moving forward.
I also know that all the work that I have done over the past eight years since moving to Canada, prepared me to show up the way I did, and take care of my father in his final days. I would not have shown up with the level of presence, love, compassion, and forgiviness I was able to bring, had I not been willing to do the hard, and deeply meaningful work of healing from trauma and false stories that held me back.
I have learnt a lot about myself since moving to Canada. I have discovered my calling. It's to serve people like me; resilient, hardworking, gritty, intelligent, and passionate people who believe that there is more to life, and who want to get as much as possible out of this life.
I discovered my freedom in one of the most surprising places - i.e., in discovering that I could grit less, and allow for more grace, compassion, fun, and joy. I learnt that self-care is non-negotiable, because I cannot serve if I'm not resourced, and that I'm actually more effective and powerful when I am well rested, deeply grounded, and present.
My freedom was hidden in learning to see myself more fully, accept myself - even the parts I had disowened, because they had brought me shame - and trusting myself and Life again. I had to learn how to let myself receive. I don't have to have all the answers, and I don't have to do any of it alone. In fact, we never really do anything alone.
I am a woman who has walked through the fire, and now creates the space for others to do the same. My own life journey has taught me deep compassion and understanding. I bring awareness, curiosity and courage to every conversation and that serves more than any other skill I might have.
I have learnt that the most important work we can ever do, is not to be the best of ourselves, but learnt to love the worst of ourselves.
For more on my journey and the insights I've gained along the way, please visit my blog.