How one decision, two thoughts and one skill changed my life forever
Life is too fleeting and fragile to not do what you love
✨ Registrations for What Comes Next? close on May 1! If you’re ready to find your purpose and be who you’re meant to be, all the info is here. ✨
I used to be worried about what others thought of me. I used to play things safe. I used to make decisions based on how I’d come across to others. I used to seek approval in multiple and varied ways.
And then, at 20 weeks, my daughter nearly died in utero. She had a life-saving operation while still inside me, but was still only given a 40% chance of surviving. Week after week, I’d trundle to the hospital for an ultrasound, feeling the love for her deep in my heart and the dread that she wouldn’t make it deep in my guts. It was the first time I felt like I really knew fear backwards and inside out.
Then the nephew of a dear friend drowned in a freak accident. I remember sitting at his funeral, feeling my daughter kick inside of me, and thinking one thought over and over:
Life is too fleeting and fragile to not do what you love.
It was this realisation, coupled with a friend who burst into my life to show me that working for oneself was not the impossibility I thought it was, that propelled me to make one decision, reframe two thoughts and learn one skill.
I decided that, no matter what, I’d follow my hut (my heart and my gut) rather than my fearful mind.
To make good on this decision, I had to reframe change as a good thing, and I had to care far less about what others thought of me.
And I had to get really, really great at pivoting.
These three shifts have all led to the biggest joys of my life, including:
Leaving a supposedly secure and outwardly impressive job to start my own business from my bedroom while my baby girl was still in a bassinet.
Realising that the feedback I was given as a younger woman (“you’re too passionate to be taken seriously when you speak”) said more about the organisation I was working for than it did about me, then creating a highly successful speaking career that was, ironically, about finding one’s passion.
Being a backing vocallist with the Rolling Stones (this is still a ‘what the actual f%ck??’ memory for me).
Giving a keynote at Google HQ in Silicon Valley that was live-streamed to every Google office on the planet, and speaking to and coaching the top leaders across the world in organisations like the NHS in London, PayPal in Singapore and Qantas in Sydney.
Leaving a supposedly happy relationship with an outwardly impressive man, and prioritising kindness as non-negotiable.
Leaving an outwardly thriving and successful business when it stopped being led with heart at its core.
Allowing a spiritual awakening at 40 to take its course and throw me upside down. Letting everything I knew be shaken from my pockets, and creating life, work and love entirely anew.
Listening to hints (well shoves, really) from the universe and investing in friendship with my now Oyster Sister mates and podcast co-hosts, Mia & Taryn.
Taking a risk on love again, and creating a whole new life and family in the process.
This is not a brag-fest, for one simple reason:
Once you have learned to follow your ‘hut’, get clear on your purpose and make decisions that feel right to you (even if they make no sense to others), all sorts of magic happens.
I’m here to share six things:
You have a highest potential inside of you that, once let out of the bag, will nudge you directly onto your highest path.
You need only make a few shifts to access your highest potential.
This is what I’m here to do. To help you light up your highest potential. To nudge you onto your highest path. To be your coach, guide, accountability partner and hiking buddy. To be a lantern-bearer when the road gets dark, and an obstacle-clearer when you encounter your blockers.
And this is what What Comes Next? is all about. Discovering your purpose and your highest potential. Getting you on a life path that’s YOURS.
Registrations close May 1. We kick off on May 3.
All the info + registration is here:
Sending scoops of love, light and rum & raisin ice cream,
Gemma 💛