"Faith is the natural antidote to uncertainty, uncertainty is a huge stressor for entrepreneurs."
Rach Wilson is “The Entrepreneurs Relationship Coach”, helping entrepreneurs create an EPIC relationship AND a thriving business without sacrificing either one. Often taking them through a deeply transformational process within themselves, their relationship and their business. Other coaches work on the singular area to “fix it” but miss the symbiotic relationship between them that will have the biggest impact overall.
Rach isn’t your typical Relationship or Business Coach; she is upfront and honest, sometimes brutally, is extremely open-minded with a keen intuition for business guidance. Because of her vast professional expertise and personal experience across the areas of relationships (in multiple forms), business, spiritual/energy, personal transformation (emotion mastery and mindset), she has a Mary Poppins bag of solutions that the average coach doesn’t think of. She doesn’t just think outside the box, she lives and works outside it.
Check out more interviews with entrepreneurs here.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO GET FEATURED?
All interviews are 100% FREE OF CHARGE
Table of Contents
Thank you for accepting my interview invitation! I’d love to know how you ended up becoming an entrepreneur? Tell me your story.
Rach Wilson: In all honesty, I became an entrepreneur because I was so tired of the limits being placed on me within a job! Limits around what time I was to start, finish, when to have lunch, what work I could do and or couldn’t (which was frustrating because I’m highly creative). I was tired of IT and being in IT Support, regularly having to learn another operating system or software package just to keep my skills constantly current, knowing that all that time and energy spent learning the earlier one was now obsolete.
I loved multiple aspects of the work, and I really loved the relationships I built with colleagues and clients. I particularly thrived being dumped in a new position and having to learn it AND create new systems and processes at the same time, which was a lot of troubleshooting and creative thinking along with some decent amounts of adrenaline! But once the learning curve was almost a flat line and not much creative thinking or troubleshooting necessary… boredom would kick in and I’d be itching for a new position or project. For this reason, I moved positions pretty regularly and was always working towards my next position, getting promoted faster than the average. I loved the thrill of learning and creating, and loved training others to then use the systems and processes I created, but settling into using and maintaining the systems every… day…? Kill me now.
I was originally drawn to life coaching because I’m a people person and I just love helping others but in meaningful ways! When I saw an advertisement to do a Life Coaching course back in 2004, I felt that internal “F**K YES!!!” so I knew I had to do it. I could learn how the human operating system worked and then any courses or information I learned would only ever build on it, giving me an arsenal of ways to help other people, but REALLY help people (what feels like a thousand certifications, books, courses later, it really is an arsenal). It turns out I still use my troubleshooting and customer relationship building skills in this area too!
Coaching, supporting and assisting someone to completely transform themselves, their relationships and their business is something that really lights me up! You can’t get this kind of high from a bottle, food, or anything else, at least for me..
Being someone with a huge heart, loads of compassion and always the go-to gal for my colleagues and friends relationship issues, it seemed to be a natural fit for me to go into a space of relationship coaching with a side of personal transformation. But being an ideas generator, a highly creative thinker with experience in a thousand marketing strategies, with a huge passion for business and a developed intuition, helping others with their businesses is something I couldn’t close the door on so in true entrepreneurial fashion, I found a way to do it ALL!!!
So the summary version of the answer is… feeling stifled, limited, and my work being determined by other people is why I ended up becoming an entrepreneur. I needed space to be me, to be creative and to fly, not that it’s been an easy road, there have been some moments early on where I thought I may have made the wrong decision but I ultimately, I really didn’t.
Tell our readers what your company does differently than your peers and why that difference is so important to your audience?
Rach Wilson: I’m basically a 3-in-1 coach…
I see connections that most coaches don’t, I see how the self, business and relationships are symbiotic. I can tell you what relationship stuff you have that is killing your relationship but also how it’s limiting your business. I can see what patterns are destructive in your business that are negatively impacting your relationship. I can see what emotional baggage, patterns and behaviours are in the core of you that are sabotaging your business, relationship as well as your health. I’m not a health coach so I don’t add that in. It’s all connected.
I see so many entrepreneurs invest in business after business course, personal development, coaches and mentors to make their *business* succeed. They put 90%+ of their time, energy and focus into it… but in the process, their relationship (and sometimes their health too) suffer. The underlying (and misguided) belief is “I’m doing this for us” or “when I am successful, I’ll have time and financial freedom to take care of myself and make it up to you…” Guilty of this one too. The truth in this scenario is that while so much focus and resources in time and energy are going into one area of life, the other areas ARE being neglected and if neglected too long, irreparable damage happens.
So now I am “The Entrepreneurs Relationship Coach”! Because I truly understand the drive to work, work, work, to constantly learn new things that could help the business succeed, and to think we’re doing this for the greater whole when these patterns are both destructive and will actually prevent the business from succeeding and MAINTAINING it. A big part of what needs to change to create the time that creates the balance is knowing how to work in a FLOW state. In order to get into a flow state, you have to heal the baggage and transform the mindsets that are driving them. After that it’s skills and strategies on working smarter and not harder.
I work on people’s deepest level transformations, simultaneously teaching them how to build healthy relationships with their partner AND clients, design a healthy self-care plan and how to operate from a soul aligned place, a big part of getting into a FLOW state. I still see so many entrepreneurs getting addicted to taking action that leads to burn out before success (I’ve done it myself!!!).
Looking at the issues in anyone’s relationship reveals so many clues as to what is happening internally, and what I do with that is look for the ripple effect of the same problem in the other areas particularly in their business; this is a serious game changer! An example; if you’re a people pleaser in your relationship, you probably are in your business so you lack boundaries, you may not be good at asking for what you want and are forever bending over backwards trying to win over clients so they pay you, and keep your partner happy or at least not upset/mad at you. In the process you are sacrificing your needs, time and energy, and already burnt out or headed there, and guess what, no relationship and no business can thrive if the person at the centre of all of it has nothing to give.
Working with just a business coach will get the business going but often misses helping them maintain a healthy relationship at the same time, in fact often feeding the work-a-holic aspect which is counterproductive. A relationship coach generally doesn’t have enough business knowledge to make any real difference to the business so the financial driver stays in effect, and a transformation coach, while working on the inner world, doesn’t teach strategies and skills to make relationships or business better, or focus on energetic alignment and how to engage faith to fly.
So here I am, I do it all because I so clearly see and know how it all fits together!
Success is not an accident. What are some routines and habits you learned to master that contributed to your current success?
Rach Wilson: I had to learn how to work in a flow state, to listen to my body when it was saying “it’s stop time”. Being a Mum, balancing a relationship AND my own needs on top of my desire to build an amazing business that helps many, burn out was an old pattern and a very easy one to fall back into. I had to learn how to work a lot smarter and when I discovered how to work in soul alignment, with a foundation of faith and doing business work energetically, magic started happening. Opportunities, the right people and resources showed up! You don’t have to work as hard as you think! And learning to work with your natural ebb and flow energy pattern is key. Work – rest/play/recharge – work – rest/play/recharge. If you’re doing work, work, work, using your mind to will yourself there, overriding your body’s communication and without any component of faith, you’ll never be able to hit the level of success you desire and/or you won’t be able to maintain it.
Consistency. I’ll be honest, this has not been my strongest point. In the times where I have been consistently following my core strategies for growth (the ones only aligned with my natural skills and genius), and doing my alignment and energetic practices, successfully balancing my self-care with everything else, my business grew! When I suffer from too many squirrels or shiny objects, I can see it in my results and energy. I’m a lot better at it these days but there is definitely room for even more discipline… This is a word I am learning to fall in love with but have had a rocky relationship with.
At the end of the day – connecting to your grandest and most purpose filled vision, staying in gratitude and appreciation as much as possible, engaging faith and being guided by your intuition for your direction and decisions, facing and healing any of your baggage that comes up as you continue to take steps forward, and always taking steps forward will see you succeed. The growth, marketing and sales strategies are good to know but it’s largely the inner game; the who you are being and becoming, the alignment and depth of faith (in whatever you call that higher power), and a greater purpose than yourself that will make the biggest difference to how far you go and how easily you stay there
Can you share with us defining moments in your journey, please give us details and stories to illustrate?
Rach Wilson: I have had many over the years but this is probably the most recent one which is quite potent in a few ways… I have done a lot of my journey by myself and I have learned a lot, but having a coach (the right coach) is one of my best investments.
Last year I was feeling the desire to restart my business but didn’t know what. I have learned you can’t rush this stuff, you have to wait, feel into it and listen, sometimes asking questions that allow it to unfold naturally. If you try to push or force the creative or birthing process (for new projects, courses, products and businesses), you can make a wrong move. It’s such a fluid and ever evolving process that allows you to evolve with it if you know how to allow it.
So once I got that I was headed back into relationships, I put together a pilot program and put it out. I got a good number of people doing it and off I went! Now being that I had just had 3 years off, I wanted to get up to speed with what marketing strategies were working now because the landscape keeps changing and what worked even a year ago, is now ho hum compared to some new way. I got a bit caught up in the mindset of getting it right so I could short cut the building process. My first mistake.
I got lost in looking at so many different peoples stuff that I was doing 6 courses, mostly free but some paid, all at the same time while fulfilling on my pilot program, building a new business and still being Mum and missing out on a decent nights sleep more often than not… My mind was FULL of other people’s strategies, ideas and what they said was the best and right thing to do. I was trying to “get it right”…
It didn’t take long but I burnt out, not too badly because I caught it quickly and had to give myself some time to recharge. I figured I could pause the relationship stuff so I could really do it properly and just do some intuitive business consulting because that website was up, everything was there and I really loved those too so it would be easy!! So I pivoted. As you do! But in doing so, I actually got stuck. I love doing relationship stuff and was really enjoying seeing my current clients shifting and healing and loving each other again, but my heart wanted more business intuitive and mentoring sessions. The typical marketing guru guidance is to PICK ONE! Health, Wealth or relationships are the 3 main areas and you must choose one then niche down further to be able to really take off.
Ugh, it was frustrating, it was all keeping me stuck and going around in circles or trying to work out how to do both individually, and what strategies to use or not, and internally not wanting to split my energy in too many ways. In fact, I wanted to lock myself in my bedroom and get lost in a season of Criminal Minds or NCIS instead. Yes, that’s calming to me.
Well staying cocooned was not going to help. So I specifically reached out and brought all of this up with my coach. I’m human too, I’m great at seeing all of this stuff for other people but don’t always catch myself in these patterns which is why I invested in a coach who understands energy, strategy and mindset… He told me one thing that fully set me free.
F**K the rules! What does your intuition say?!?
OMG, yes! It unhooked me from the limited thinking from other people’s opinions and in that moment I stopped, I stepped back from all of it, I reconnected with my soul, my purpose and who I really want to be helping, I felt into the ease and fun I wanted it to feel, and how it felt when it flowed. I sat and just breathed slow and deep. No forcing, no rushing… And it landed. “The Entrepreneurs Relationship Coach”! I saw exactly how I could combine all of my genius and all of my passion into one package and one niche, and then everything flowed from there including which marketing strategies were most natural and easy for me, so I could let go of trying to make the other ones work that were just sucking my energy and time away. Opportunities for media exposure came in, people to collaborate with showed up, and people who want to support me building again started offering Facebook lives and interviews to assist.
No more overthinking and stress keeping me stuck, just coming back to feeling into the intuitive guidance and taking the right action for ME. Sometimes it’s that one thing that someone else says that makes all the difference which is why for me, having that right someone outside of my bubble is critical. Once I get that shift, I go back to everything I know that works and quantum leaps kick in again. I do this for all of my clients when they are getting stuck in their heads, I guide them into the calm space within their soul and help them hear their intuitive guidance so they are able to access the flow state way of operating in their business, and off they go!
What are the five things you wish someone had told you before you became an entrepreneur?
Rach Wilson: I’d say:
Focus more on developing a foundation of faith and a strong intuition than endless business courses, mindset and positivity work. Faith is the natural antidote to uncertainty, uncertainty is a huge stressor for entrepreneurs. Not knowing how they are going to make enough money, when it’s going to come in, how to get the business thriving and the various challenges along the way and there are a LOT of them. Having a strong intuition takes the decision away from the mind that can argue the logic from all sides and keep you either spinning in indecision or making the wrong decision because often the right decision isn’t the logical one!
Have 6 – 12 months plus a chunk capital (relevant to the kind of business you are building) of income saved in the bank before quitting your job to launch a business! Oh and have at least some marketing and sales training. This one lesson took me close to bankruptcy TWICE before I learned. Honestly, the BEST thing you can do is have a job or part time job while you work build your business assets, test out the right marketing and sales strategies and iron it all out. It’s not always the best option to jump out of a paying job into a business, even if it feels good! Be smart about it!
Invest in a coach/mentor. It’s going to take longer than you think or have been told it will. Only a small percentage of people to jump into their own business end up super successful in the first year, even the first 3 – 5 years! It’s not that it can’t happen to you, but take some pressure off yourself and see it as a long game and you get help from a seasoned professional who can short cut your learning time massively, and it’s a HUGE learning curve, particularly when you have been mostly or completely an employee.
Speaking of an employee mindset, when you are suddenly completely responsible for the money you make or don’t make, you have to go through the core entrepreneurial breakdowns to breakthroughs; every core belief and fear you have that hasn’t been fully triggered in your job, is going to come up as you step into being an entrepreneur. You can’t avoid it, it’s the initiations and hurdles we all have to go through on our journey to our version of success. So any fear of failure or even success, not being good enough, being seen or not being seen, being abandoned, being rejected, being judged etc, is all going to come up to make you face it, heal it and transform it so you can be a more resilient person who can last the distance. Yup, THIS is one of the fastest roads to personal growth and inner transformation that is available to us and if you are choosing it on a soul level, you have done so on purpose. And that means you CAN do this.
Just never give up. You will need to take a break at times, pivot, try new things, learn new things all on the road to “being a success”. Grasp this though – You are ALREADY a success purely because you are trying. You are showing up. You are willing to fail, make mistakes. If you can truly take this to heart, you will never really feel like a failure. The only time you fail is if you give up completely even though your heart and soul are crying out to do this. If it is, you are MEANT to do this, or some version of this! The entrepreneurial journey is rarely what we expect, it has so many twists, turns, unexpected curve balls and miracles at the same time, but all through it, no matter what, it’s changing who you are for the better and it will change your life too.
Oftentimes we hear: “Your network is your net worth”, please share your thoughts on that adage and illustrate your experience.
Rach Wilson: The times when my business really quantum leaped was when I was surrounded by people who were entrepreneurs, and successful ones at that. Being in high end masterminds, working with brilliant coaches and trainers. Networking with successful entrepreneurs in various industries to expand my thinking, gold! They stretched me, they connect me with the best resources, solutions, strategies that are working for them, they inspired me to think bigger, to give more and be more and being around that kind of person just rubs off on you.
When I was trying to build my business early on while still working in various government departments, full of employees who were content with the limitations and aiming for the next promotion of a few thousand dollars hopefully sometime in the next 5 years was almost as big as their dreams got, honestly, was killing my soul. I was constantly questioned and met with people who thought what I wanted to do was crazy, irresponsible, definitely headed for failure and more. When you are fighting against that kind of energy, mindsets and surroundings, it doesn’t lift you up or inspire you to reach the potential you feel inside you. You’ll really start to questions if it’s even possible. It is when you are around people who totally believe it is and are living it. This is what solidifies BELIEF and belief is the fuel to get you where you want to be, and beyond.
There will always be some people that you love and adore even though their view of the world and what they want for themselves is vastly limited or less than the life you want to experience. The good news is that you can still have them in your life but counter balance them by bringing in more people who are the level of success and energy of where you want to be and those who are on their way there. We are energetic and connection oriented beings, we can’t help but be influenced by who we allow into our physical space and inner friendship circle, so I give you permission to be picky!
What are some professional or even personal goals you plan on tackling during the 2022 year? Share the battles you expect to face.
Rach Wilson: Building and growing a business is not new to me, but 2022 is a big one. Having had 3 years off being full time Mum to 2 littles (5 and 3) who both have extra needs, sleep issues and regular health challenges, I now have to really master working in flow, balancing my Mum role with growing a business that fits my lifestyle needs, expand as a leader within my business, and hit my income goals of $20k/month, while simultaneously doing radical self-care.
Doing all of that pre-littles is one thing, adding them into this means a whole other level of mastery, resilience, planning and flexibility. It’s stretching me because I have to do things so differently to the average entrepreneur, I am finding my own way because there aren’t many special needs Mum/entrepreneurs out there teaching this stuff, but the experience is giving me so much more expertise to draw on, plus it’s so damn nice to be back in the business world, focused on my genius and purpose over and above being an amazing Mum.
One day I’ll show other entrepreneurial parents how to do this with the high demands and high levels of unpredictability that come with having children with special needs, but for now, I need to work it out and refine it – meeting my own needs first then helping others. All of that is more than enough to tackle while still being an awesome Mum, kickass wife, amazing bestie and taking care of myself. It’s going to be a great year!!!
With all the social media platforms available, it’s increasingly difficult to be present everywhere. Which ones do you favor for your company and why?
Rach Wilson: At the moment I’m on Facebook because that’s where I have always been and I am more familiar with it. but recently more LinkedIn. I do love Instagram because it’s easy and being connected to Facebook makes it smart and easy to do both. I’m open to exploring TikTok as I hear amazing things about it for business growth but until I understand it more, and have time to learn it, it will be a “later” option.
LinkedIn is where the business people are so that’s where I need to be. Instagram has a greater response and imagery is key. I’ll likely move away from Facebook for many reasons. I am keen to get a new channel going on YouTube because it’s a huge search engine that lasts forever and is also super awesome for lead generation. I use it for many personal and business things I want to learn or absorb. But one thing at a time! I’m a busy Mum with a huge purpose and business to build.
Jerome Knyszewski, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Rach Wilson for taking the time to do this interview and share her knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Rach Wilson or her company, you can do it through her – Linkedin Page
Did you enjoy this article? Check out similar stories:
Jocko Willink: From US Navy Seal To Millionaire Coach And Best Selling Author
Andy Frisella: An Inspiring Story Of Grit
Allison Stokke: How A Single Photo Made Her The Famous Internet Sensation That She Is Now
Disclaimer: The ValiantCEO Community welcomes voices from many spheres on our open platform. We publish pieces as written by outside contributors with a wide range of opinions, which don’t necessarily reflect our own. Community stories are not commissioned by our editorial team and must meet our guidelines prior to being published.
