From Multi-6 Figure Earning Unhappy Corporate Attorney To Empowered Leader Of My Own Company (Do YOU Recognize Yourself In This Story?)
Telling stories has been one of our most important methods of communication for more than 27,000 years since the first cave paintings were discovered. That’s why brilliant women like you and me really respond to stories. They’re a huge part of how we connect to and recognize our people. So in landing on this website, you want to know one thing – what’s the story? Am I in the right place?
I love sharing my story – the ups and downs, the ebbs and flows, all the drama. It’s not always fun at the time, but afterwards, I think, “Wow. How courageous am I to have come through that?”
The Big Leap
In my late 20s, I was scared to death about leaving my soul-sucking role as an attorney. I’d studied for seven years, worked for several more and achieved a multiple-six-figure salary – and I was dying inside. My life was just work, sleep, eat, repeat. I had no real connection with the outside world; I was living alone, working in my own office and my heart and soul were screaming at me – “This isn’t your calling. This isn’t meant for you. You have to change this!” I knew the life force was being sapped out of me.
I was earning big money arguing over the fortunes of the mega-rich – I didn’t care if they won or lost another small fortune. I just didn’t care. There was no meaning, no satisfaction in my work, and as hard and demanding as it was, I was bored. It all felt pointless. No amount of money I threw at my life seemed to compensate for this feeling of dying slowly. No amount of travel, no amount of horses and polo, no amount of luxury gave me any salvation.
I knew I needed out. The problem was the fear. If I really wasn’t a lawyer, a professional, a “success” – then who the heck was I? If I left, how would I eat, what would I do? Would I end up working in a convenience store? These were totally ridiculous thoughts (of course!); but I was so immersed in my life at the time, I was scared into submission to them. In order to end the sentence “I am…,” I was only able to say: “…I am a lawyer.”
It was my complete identity.
So, without it, I had nothing. The fear was real. And I was falling deeper and deeper into a state of depression, feeling trapped and powerless to actually do anything that was really going to improve my life. All I could see were solutions that had no certainty and made me no money...
Enter the knight on a white horse
Then I met “the one.” I spotted him across the polo field one Saturday; our eyes met and I “knew.” At the time I didn’t too much appreciate being shaken out of my misery – but seriously, who the hell was this guy? What was this connection I was feeling?!
That moment was six years ago but I still remember it like it just happened. I fell in love with him the first time we spoke together: He was incredibly beautiful, a military helicopter pilot, a lover of adventure. He loved to travel and had no interest in a nine-to-five life, no interest in the mundane, in settling down, in the everyday struggle. He wanted to move abroad.
He was so goddamn beautiful; that definitely warrants repeating. I thought my white knight had arrived to rescue me from my tower, my personal hell that was my London life. And I was all in! “Take me, save me!” I wanted to say; “You lead and I’ll follow.”
Some fabulous moments followed. Even when we were still “just friends” out with other people, sometimes we would stare so deeply into each other’s eyes that my girlfriends would notice: “What the heck is going on there?!” I’d smile. “He’s my one.”
One day, I was in my office building in London when he texted to tell me to look out of the window. I saw his RAF helicopter swoop up, just over the roof of the building! There was no coming back from that. I was head over heels. From that moment, I didn’t eat, I didn’t sleep; they were the most intense, tumultuous emotions I’d ever experienced. Whenever I looked at him, I felt I could cry from emotions that I couldn’t describe. It was so uncomfortable and so magical. And like coming home. (I know now that this is how lots of people describe meeting their soul mate or “twin flame.”)
It was almost too much for my senses. I was close to panic attacks at night. He was the most magical being I had ever encountered; and in every part of my being, I needed it to work out.
And then life got very shit.
Almost inevitably, he left. He went away for a month that Christmas and he never came back into my life. Around the same time, a dear friend, a wonderful, full-of-life man, was paralyzed in a riding accident. On the same day I found out about it, one of my horses, the beautiful Canela, was badly injured in an accident. That freezing winter’s night, I remember crying on my own in an empty barn as I waited for the vet to arrive.
Work had become more miserable and demanding than ever before. We even had a deadline for a two-billion-dollar lawsuit at midnight on New Year’s Eve. Oh, the joy. Then, I got so sick from gastroenteritis that I was hospitalized for a week over Christmas. The darkness was everywhere. In my body, in my heart and in my soul.
I was on my knees. But although I didn’t know how or when, I knew that the new year would be the year everything would change. Fear was just no longer an issue: This was a fight for my life.
I cried and I battled for six months. Everything seemed pointless. Most mornings, it seemed there was nothing to get out of bed for. I was getting called up on my performance by my bosses and struggling to maintain my ability to hold my life together. I got the reprieve I was looking for that summer: I had an accident while playing polo which meant six weeks off work. I’d landed on my coccyx and I couldn’t sit down!
During that time, I underwent some serious soul-searching. I kept putting off returning to work. Then I realized – I had to resign. It was now or never. So that’s what I did. I resigned. I had no plan whatsoever. One day I had a multiple-six-figure salary. The next day I had nothing and I was no one. But one thing I knew for sure: My life was worth something more. I wasn’t meant just to sell my soul for cash. I wasn’t meant to be sad and abandoned and broken-hearted. I wasn’t meant to play safe according to other people’s expectations and rules. I’d tried it their way and it sucked. Now, it was my turn to call the shots.
Traversing the globe for answers (several times over)
Man, did I make up for lost time. For the next four years, I traveled and studied and learned lessons about life. I visited Argentina, the USA, countries all over Europe and Africa, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Uruguay. (Click here for a list of the trips I took in the last 10 years.) I circumnavigated the world multiple times. I went wherever took my fancy, or wherever there was a training opportunity that attracted my attention. I was on a mission to find myself, to find out why I felt my life was meant for so much more, and more than anything to try to find why “the one” had showed up and just as soon left. I worked on my mind, my body, my emotions and my spirit.
And so, I healed. I unwound, I breathed. I explored every unconventional perspective, teaching and offering that there was. I tirelessly sought answers to the big questions: Why am I here? Why am I suffering? Why am I not happy? I met many teachers and mentors who shared their wisdom with me. I met many others on the same path. It was amazing to discover just how many people feel lost, are searching for salvation.
But $225,000 investment and four years later – no results.
Nothing in my life had actually changed. For all these experiences, I wasn’t healed and I wasn’t fixed. I hadn’t discovered my destiny, my “what’s next,” my truth or any of the answers I’d set out in quest of four years before. I was still sad, still stuck and still lost. It was a harsh wake-up call.
But just as I was starting to give up on personal development, I noticed a Facebook ad for another workshop: “Discover your genius,” “Create a life beyond your dreams”… My energy was almost spent by then, and my heart so heavy; but some spark within me showed me I had to go. Some part of me knew I had to have faith.
It’s funny – I’ve now learned that it’s only when I’m “on my knees,” only when I’m thinking “I cannot live another moment like this” that anything really changes in my life. “Otherwise, as I realized recently, I don’t listen to what my inner knowledge is telling me.” A nice little kick in the teeth for my stubbornness!
How do I describe that year exploring the further teachings of that workshop? Magnificent, stunning, magical, life altering. I learned so much about my genius and creating a life beyond my dreams. And these trainings all took place in the wilds of Africa, in the bush, in nature’s playground. There were lions roaring at night; I would breakfast watched by monkeys and elephants. Awe-inspiring beauty was everywhere.
I learned that I had genius, that I was born to lead, that I was meant for the big stage; I learned exactly where I was meant to live and who my “ideal man” really was. I gained an idea of the book I was born to write. I learned how to harness my power as a creator, that there was nothing within me that I needed to fix. And I met my soul mate that year, too.
You might be wondering how I paid for all of this. Well, I did contract work as a freelance attorney – and decimated my house equity. I went all in. I was going to discover and realize my potential, or die trying. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure I would mentally survive having to settle for an unfulfilling office job a second time.
Stepping out into business as the leader I was born to be
Then, I launched my own business as a coach and mentor. It was terrifying. I felt like I was jumping off a cliff and learning to fly on the way down. I hated the stress. Hated it. I loved ease and beauty and grace; and this new pressure was so hard for me to take.
And as soon as I had achieved success with the business, it all came crashing down around me. Although my clients were enjoying great success… I wasn’t enjoying some of my clients. I was bored working over Skype. I was lonely. It was like being an attorney all over again – the work was uninspiring, boring and unchallenging. Part of my training in Africa had been about developing a deep relationship with my intuition; but after all of that practice, and all my personal development, I still didn’t feel confident in my own knowledge, in my choices and next steps. I felt all at sea and I just didn’t know how to make any of it better.
I wasn’t making the kind of money I wanted to make, either. It was good for starting out. But it wasn’t anywhere near where I wanted to be. I’d now moved to Australia, “which I’d been convinced would prove my ‘land of plenty’ –” and I was hating it. My relationship was severely challenged by the move and I was becoming desperate again. “Oh no,” I was thinking, “Seriously, after all this? Not here again. Not this space again.”
Divine intervention and it all turns around – the road to success
And then... and then it all changed. I reached out to an acquaintance who became my new mentor. Immediately, we identified the issues: I was strangling my own voice in order to be pleasing and acceptable to others. I wasn’t being or saying what I wanted, or working in the way that I wanted. I was stifling my fierceness, my heart’s desires, for fear of appearing too passionate and alienating people (I was scared of being “too much” – those dreaded words I’d heard my whole life).
I had surrendered to others the authority over my life: I was asking marketing coaches and other mentors to tell me how to be me and how to make myself a success. I wanted them somehow to discover me, deliver me to the world. I believed I wouldn’t be able to sell my services as the woman I truly am. That I wouldn't be wanted. That visibility online “wasn’t safe.”
I was bored by the way I was working; but I didn’t trust myself to do things my own way. Most of all, my relationship with my intuition was ungrounded and fanciful and it was leading me astray. I was actually just using it to validate what my ego wanted me to do – follow the “safer” (and therefore boring) path. Pfft.
The big aha moment – no teacher, mentor or guide knows better than me what’s best for me
My big aha moment was realizing that I couldn’t trust anyone to build this thing for me. I couldn’t trust anyone to know better than me. That’s not how life works: I had to trust me. I needed confidence. To trust in my own abilities to know for myself where to go and what to do – and, very importantly, what NOT to do. To know which path to follow to realize my immense vision to its full extent.
Just as rapidly as things had gone downhill, I was resurrected, free and powerful once more. It happened in the blink of an eye. I started to listen deeply to my intuition, debunking one illusion after another that I’d set up for myself, and a fierce, fiery leader emerged from the ashes.
I was re-born. I had learned and accepted my calling. I’m not a general coach for just anyone who fancies signing up for my services. I am a woman on a mission to ignite the innate potential of special, high-achieving women.
Material success followed. After I stepped up my services, sales were effortless. I marketed myself fiercely – as ME – and the clients signed up like never before. With my new certainty about who I am, my mission, my work, they recognized me as their “one.”
My innate knowledge is my superpower – it’s everything!
What has been the most important thing I’ve learned? That my intuition is a superpower. And you have this superpower too. Being able to listen with clarity and specificity to the knowledge that is already flooding through me has invigorated me, bringing me rivers of certainty and confidence. I learned that I could trust this stuff. I knew it. I KNEW it. I could trust myself.
Second, but right up there, I learned about the BIGNESS of life, the freedom and opportunities for travel, the abundance, the loves and joys. As we’ve already learned, money without satisfaction isn’t freedom. It’s soul sucking. It’s not enough for women like us.
Because money is energy. Once it’s conquered and no longer presents a challenge, when all the motivation that comes with pain is gone – what’s next? Where do we go from there? Expansion, baby. Soul expansion. How high can we go? How far is the ride? Who knows! But let’s see if we can ever reach that limit. My guess is there’s only more. Only more growth, more expansion, more fun, more ease, more meaning.
Because what is life without meaning? Well, it’s empty – we know how this feels! But I’m living my meaning right now, ready and fiercely willing to serve you in discovering your mission, your message. To help you discover the immense life out there that will invigorate you and your work, and secure you all the fun, satisfaction and meaning that goes with that.
If you’re anything like me, this life will feature a wildly successful career living out your purpose, the ability to travel at will, to hang out with fascinating, incredible people, to enjoy BIG love, a sumptuous home, and luxury. Luxury in everything – clothes, travel, food and experiences. Unapologetic love of luxury.
There is no room for smallness here. Not in you, not in your life. Women like us go big, and there is no option of going home. We divide and conquer until we arrive.
So, that’s my story. I would LOVE to hear yours!
The main points in summary:
1. My story’s long and quite depressing at times, right? I know – I lived it. Horrible. All that “failure” I experienced – do you want to know why it happened? Literally, the ONE reason it happened? People talk about our “patterns,” but actually we only have one pattern. Through boom to bust as an attorney, my failed business ventures, the loss of my “knight on a white horse” – my life always followed that one pattern. Check it out here.
2. Why that one pattern, you ask? Because my ego is concerned with one thing and one thing only – BEING IMPRESSIVE so I am not invisible (and therefore stay safe). How do I achieve this? By taking on massive, impossible projects. When it gets easy and normal, I have to shake shit up and quit for the next challenge. (Thank god that pattern of behaviour is in the past. So ineffective and unrewarding!)
3. For every client I work with, the first thing we do is look for their pattern. Because this is the ONLY reason you’re stuck and hitting brick walls. To experience a different life, high-achieving leaders and executives MUST find out how they are f*cking stuff up for themselves. No formula, teaching, self-help program will help you to overcome your pattern if you don’t know what it is. With knowledge of it, you have the opportunity to actually start creating great results and lasting change.
Some questions for you.
In the comments below, let me now:
Did you recognize yourself in my story?
How has your life been similar?
What challenges have you faced and how did you learn to surmount them?
Much love,
Sofia xo
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