Five years ago Amy Taylor vowed never to work with people again. Then she joined TCI and now has a coaching business, approaches motherhood differently and has a long marriage in the best shape of its life.
Asked straight up why she’s still at The Coaching Institute five years after her first webinar in September 2015, Amy Taylor laughs.
“So partly I am a lifelong learner and there’s always new stuff to learn, but more than that it’s the community,” says Amy.
“With the exception of my husband, all my best friends, all of my inner circle, are now people from TCI and I can’t find that anywhere else.
I get to bring all my weirdness and as long as I keep learning and loving and growing, I am welcome.”
A mother of four from Lithgow, NSW, Amy uses her coaching skills in her business Wisteria Enterprises but outside of that, she’s improved relationships with loved ones and “my parenting has changed phenomenally in the last five years,” she says.
“I have a kid sick at home today and I just dumped business stuff and snuggled with him with a video because I can, so flexibility comes into my parenting. My language with my kids is so different, my attitude is different—the same in my marriage.”
When it comes to business, Amy works with small business owners to connect back to their goals and overcome self-sabotage and procrastination, but to her coaching isn't a profession.
“It’s a lifestyle choice,” she says. “And it just amplifies who you are are.
"It taps into all my background, I was in direct sales forever, then had a small business and home based business. I am a parent. I have lots of things I bring to it and it’s an extension of who you are. It stacks on top of what you already are and know. It’s an additional skill, like an expansion pack in the kids’ games. An expansion pack on whatever you have in play. Wow, I like that analogy—I’m claiming it!”
“TCI over-exceeded in terms of community but also in terms of competence. I’d started with a different coaching school before and they did not live up to expectations on competence. I never dreamed I could be this good a coach. The models, the frameworks, the structures underpinning how I show up and coach are way better than I imagined.”
Before you came to TCI, what did your life look like?
“I was in a dire sales business … there was a massive mismatch. I grew my team really quickly but then I had all of these people I had no idea how to support. My version of nurture was, ‘Get the fuck over yourself and get on with it’. That was as kind and gentle as I got which didn’t motivate anybody. I ended up quitting and saying, ‘I am never working with people again, I’m done’ then I started an online business and spent three months not talking to anyone. I was miserable. I quit my business which meant I’d walked away from all my external aspirations. I had no idea who I wanted to be or what I wanted to do. I was at the point of, ‘Do I quit my job or do I quit life?’
Then you found TCI?
I stumbled across TCI and I didn’t know coaching was what I wanted to do but I could come and be weird and that felt like a good start: ‘These people will accept me, maybe I’ll become a coach.’ In the meantime, let me get some communication skills, I’ll be a coach. I was gung ho, do a million dollars. I couldn’t be vulnerable and say what I wanted.
What was it that drew you into the school?
In the beginning it was the Critical Alignment Model. I grabbed really tightly to it. My husband … he’s been so patient along this journey because I literally applied that over everything including our sex life, how we stacked the dishwasher. It was something outside of me I could start to trust in while I learned to trust me.
What challenged and surprised you most about TCI?
Particularly in the beginning it was reclaiming me and how that then shaped coming back to my family. There was this jarring—I’d go to TCI and be this awesome version of me then I’d come home and my husband would go, ‘I don’t like this new version of you, this isn’t what I signed up for.’ It was challenging him, that if I got better would I continue to want and need him. I’d been looking at signing up and becoming a coach for about four years, it took me that long to convince him it wouldn’t be a threat and I was doing it anyway. Now my husband and I have the best marriage we ever had, and he thanks me weekly for the work that I’ve done on myself and on us.
“There’s nowhere else I’ve found—and I’ve been looking—with a community that is as connected and cares as much about each other’s success than TCI.”
How have you transformed personally?
The biggest change for me would be accessing playfulness and humour. I joined TCI very rigid, very formal, aiming to be professional which showed up as pole stuck up my ass and now I am playful, fun. I have found unusual ways to be creative and I am being me.
Where are you at on your coaching journey?
My business is called Wisteria Enterprises. I currently have two group mentoring programs that I am building concurrently. In one of those I have five students, in the other I have two. I’ve signed three new clients in the last three weeks. I choose to work very part time so I can navigate family and education and what I want. I work at most ten to 15 hours a week. I'm not making huge amounts of money but I am making what I want. This is about a purpose beyond being a wife and mum and me. I live a life that I love.
Your biggest turning point?
I think when I stopped trying to conform with who I thought I had to be. I am living my life. My conversations with my clients are not scripted. I tell them, 'If you are looking for a coach who has her shit together, try someone else. If you are looking a coach who will answer your emails really fast and maintain the back end of things, try someone else. If you are looking for a coach who will love you and champion you and help reclaim you, let’s work together.' I am being me and I am flawed and my clients love it.
Your most successful marketing strategy?
Be raw [on social media.] I put it out there that I get where you were, I have been there and I am still not perfect and am not aiming for that but I am here for you, People just want to know you’re here for them and have authentic conversations.
Advice for other fabulous TCI coaches?
Know your goals and the process to bring them to life. Follow that because it’s easy to get sidetracked, easy to find shiny new things. Know what you’re aiming for. I had three criteria in my first twelve months when I studied:
That was how I shaped all of my study. The third one doesn’t tend to crop up any more. So it’s what looks like fun, what do I want to improve in my life, how do I add more value to clients.
Where do you see yourself in five years?
Still sitting in my office, looking out over the view. You know in apocalypse films where there’s one valley somewhere that is saved from the nuclear explosion? That’s where I live. I see myself embodying coaching even more in my personal life. My kids are growing up and in five years my youngest will be driving, which is scary. My husband and I are delightfully happy, my business is ticking over, it’s not grown to anything massive but I’ve made a difference, I’ve published two or three books, I have a movement going around embracing being who we want to be. I am being me.
Amy is a coach, professional speaker, trainer and facilitator. She can do the Rubik’s Cube in under five minutes, has done a paid gig as a stand up comedian, loves jigsaw puzzles and with her train driver husband Michael is raising her kids William, 15, Patrick, 14, Tori, 11, and Xander, 10, to be the best version of themselves.
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