A Little More About Me (The Longer, Quirkier Version)

The Power Company Years (aka: My Intuition vs Their Spreadsheets)

Before coaching and training became my world, I spent years on the Senior Management Team of a power company — an excellent place to learn how humans behave under pressure, and how they make wildly different decisions.

While the engineers relied on formulas, graphs, and models, I often had a quiet but insistent feeling that something wouldn’t work. Explaining why was another matter entirely.

I could sense the subtle, human factors sitting just outside the spreadsheets — the stuff that doesn’t make it into a business case but absolutely affects the outcome.

It wasn’t that I knew better (believe me, a crystal ball would have been handy). I simply noticed things other people skimmed over.

My intuitive nudges were often dismissed at the time… only to be proven painfully accurate months later. After a while, I became determined to understand what my gut knew that I didn’t have words for.

So I went digging. NLP, neuroscience, human behaviour, pattern recognition — anything that might explain what I was noticing, I was in there with a torch.

And what I discovered was both a relief and a revelation:
my “gut feelings” weren’t mystical at all. They were fast-thinking pattern recognition, emotional intelligence, and a brain wired to notice subtleties others missed.

That’s when everything clicked.

And it’s why, to this day, helping people understand their own internal signals — the ones they’ve learned to ignore — is such a big part of the work I do.

The ‘Get Up and Go’ Gene

One of the strongest values my parents instilled in us was initiative — what Mum called “get up and go.” I took that quite literally. At eighteen, I got up and went. By twenty-two, I’d lived and worked in three different countries.

Alongside the initiative was a healthy rebel streak — the kind that whispers, “Why follow the rules when you could just… not?” It’s steered me into some brilliant opportunities and, occasionally, mild chaos.

But it’s also the reason I’ve carved out a life that actually fits me, rather than one that fits someone else’s idea of who I should be.

One thing’s for sure: I’m thoroughly unemployable. Fortunately, working for myself suits me far better than shrinking into identities that didn’t belong to me in the first place.

Resilience, with a side of mild drama

I’ve learned how to bounce back from setbacks — and, more importantly, how to use them as stepping stones. I still have the occasional freak-out phase (it’s part of my process), but once that’s over, I take a breath, get curious, and work out what I can learn from whatever just happened.

The freak-outs are optional, by the way. I can teach you how to build resilience and flexibility without the melodrama.

Raglan Life… and the Pets Who Think They Run It

I’ve spent most of my adult life in New Zealand and now call the small coastal town of Raglan home. It’s the perfect place for deep thinking, creative mischief, and the occasional excuse to stare at the ocean while pretending to work.

For years, my Tibetan Terrier, Ragz, kept me company under my desk — his favourite spot, where he could monitor my every move with quiet determination. As long as he could hear me tapping on the keyboard, all was right in his world. I miss him terribly.

These days, my Quaker parrot, Shaggy, has taken over the supervisory role. He’s usually nearby, offering enthusiastic commentary, investigating anything shiny, and creating gentle chaos on my desk — but only when I’m not coaching. He may not contribute much to the business plan, but he makes me laugh.

Flip Charts, Curiosity, and Research Rabbit Holes

I’ve always believed there’s room for improvement — a blessing and a mild curse. My curiosity has taken me down more rabbit holes than I care to admit: neuroscience, metaphysics, NLP, human psychology, pattern recognition… if it sheds light on why humans do what they do, I’m already three tabs deep and taking notes.

And of course, once I’ve learned something, I have to share it.

Which is why I’m forever updating manuals, rewriting course materials, and reworking flip charts. (Yes, I still use actual flip charts. Have you ever tried sticking a Keynote slide to a wall? Exactly.)

Learning should be enjoyable. Whether I’m training a group or coaching one-on-one, I make sure what you learn actually sticks — with a glint in my eye, a playful sense of humour, and a story or two up my sleeve (figuratively, not literally).

Over the years I’ve trained and certified hundreds of NLP Practitioners, Master Practitioners, and Coaches — always with an emphasis on real-world usefulness over jargon or hierarchy.

Tiny House Diaries (aka: How I Accidentally Rewrote My Life)

A few years ago, life presented me with one of those “invitations” that felt more like being shoved off a cliff. I had to leave my Raglan apartment and ended up living in a borrowed caravan — affectionately known as Teeny Tiny — with my Tibetan Terrier, Ragz, and my Quaker parrot, Shaggy.

Picture a space roughly the size of an ambitious wardrobe, containing one human, one dog, one parrot, and a rapidly fraying sense of humour.

Those six months were chaos, comedy, and personal growth wrapped into one very small footprint. I learned a lot about myself, my values, my identity, and my tolerance for creepy crawlies invading my space.

I also learned that downsizing your physical environment has a strange way of expanding your inner landscape. When your home is limited to what you genuinely need and love, all the unnecessary noise — emotional and physical — gets louder. Then it has to be dealt with.

Eventually, I had my own tiny house built: a black, Scandinavian-inspired beauty that now sits proudly in Raglan. It’s light, warm, functional, and designed around what actually matters to me — not what society says I should want.

Moving into it was like stepping into a life I had quietly been heading toward for years, without fully realising it.

That whole adventure became my book, Tiny House Diaries — part memoir, part “what on earth was I thinking?”, and part gentle guide for anyone considering downsizing their space, their stress, their stuff, or their excuses.

Tiny living didn’t just change my home.
It changed my mind.

It made me braver, clearer, more grounded — and far less willing to squeeze myself into situations, identities, or expectations that don’t fit.

Truthfully, I wouldn’t trade those months in Teeny Tiny for anything.
(Except perhaps a proper bathroom. Let’s be realistic.)

If you enjoy reading, you’ll find my books and eBooks over here →

If reading this has left you curious about working together, you can explore the different ways to do that here → Work With Me