Hey! I’m Jamie.
A business coach, entrepreneur, and consultant committed to helping you define the life you want and take the steps to get there.
Dublin is where I call home, but my love for working with entrepreneurs has taken me all over the place. And now, I get to live wherever I want, and still work with some of the most creative entrepreneurs from across the world, helping them unlock their inner greatness.
It’s a bit of a dream come true.
But it didn’t start out like a dream.
“Jamie, you need to declare bankruptcy immediately.”
Words I never expected to hear the CFO of my company say.
At the time, I was eight years into running one of Europe’s fastest growing communications agencies.
My track record included an events business that hosted 30 events per week for up to 20,000 people and two online magazines that were getting over 1 million website visits weekly. The agency was the culmination of all this, bigger than anything I’d ever done. We were working with some of the biggest names and brands in the world.
At the same time, I was one of Ireland’s most watched young entrepreneurs, making a list of top “30 under 30” and winning Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur, twice.
From the outside, everything about my life looked enviable.
But the cracks were starting to widen.
My business was growing too big, too fast. And I wasn’t prepared to handle the pressure.
I came into work one day and thought I don’t even know what I’m doing. I was spending all my time dealing with little bits of drama. I had plateaued and not even realised it. Instead of working on my business, I was working for everyone in it.
I’ll never forget the day my CFO pulled me into a meeting room to break the news to me. In one single moment, I went from thinking I was worth millions to realising I was nearly a million in debt.
I was told bankruptcy was my only option. It was a path that would require years of hardship as I fell to the bottom and toiled my way back up.
Against all advice, I resolved to choose a different path.
Because like you, I didn’t become an entrepreneur to follow someone else’s vision.
So I didn’t declare bankruptcy.
I chose my path, but still, it wasn’t an easy path.
My name was attached to the public downfall of a business. No hiding that. So I didn’t try to.
Taking one day at a time, I worked on my financial debt until it was finally clear. I could breathe deeper with that burden gone, but I still felt like I was under immense pressure, because I didn’t just want to make things better, I wanted to make them right.
I knew the entrepreneurial world was still the one for me. So my next move was to seek out successful entrepreneurs, to spend time with them, to get inside their heads and figure out how they had achieved their greatness. I ended up interviewing around 200 people. I learned so much and picked up on so many patterns of success.
Once again it seemed like everything was going my way, but…
There was a huge area of my life I was neglecting, and it soon brought me to a jarring halt.
I was working too hard. I wanted desperately to make things right, and I didn’t believe I had a moment to spare. I stopped eating healthy foods, sleeping well, and exercising enough. My body cried out for rest, but I didn’t listen.
I didn’t listen, until I ended up hospitalised, and then I was forced to. Burnout.
That’s where the popular mindset to work harder and faster had gotten me.
And it nearly cost me my health.
Your business is an extension of you, but it should never consume you.
I had another obstacle-filled road ahead of me: the road back to health. But this time, I had learned enough to know how to make sustainable progress on the path to create the business and life calling to me.
Now, I tend to my body, mind, and my ambitions. I create a balance between my business and my life that equally fuels and nourishes me.
Contrary to the popular narrative in society, I believe triumphs in business shouldn’t come at the expense of any part of your life: your health, your relationships, or yourself. Real success comes from a balanced and holistic approach where what’s most important to you takes priority, so the work you do compliments who you are.
And that brings us to where you and I are now.
No matter what challenges are thrown up against you right now, I bet they’re not as extreme as what I faced. And if they are, I’m proof that you can overcome them, because you are meant for excellence.
Would I change the past if I could? For the most part, no.
Because I worked too hard for the lessons I learned. But what I would do is seek out a business coach’s help sooner. I could’ve saved myself a lot of strife (and probably a stint in the hospital).
The feedback I get most often from clients is that they’re able to approach their work with a greater sense of ease. That’s massive.
It took me years of wearing myself to the bone to figure out that my life and my business aren’t meant to be a grind, but a flow and it’s thanks to that experience that I can now help you achieve the same sense of ease and flow through working together.
Let’s connect.
A good way to start is to subscribe to my emails, so you always know what’s going on in my world and what new resources and opportunities I have for you.
If you’re on social I’m most active on Instagram so please say hi there.
Listen to my podcast, The University of Life, and you’ll meet some pretty unexpected and incredible entrepreneurs, and you’ll find out how they shape the world according to their beliefs.
There’s also my blog where I share quick tips as well as hard-earned business and life lessons that work.
And finally, when you’re ready to jump on a compatibility call to get an hour of my coaching – for free – do that right here. Maybe this free call is all you need to get you unstuck. Maybe it’s the start of a coaching relationship that sees you grow into the person you’ve always longed to be (even if you haven’t defined exactly who that person is yet.)
