“What have you done and failed at?”
This was precisely the question my sister asked me when I told her I was quitting a very comfortable role at Play’n GO to start my own coaching company, TYS Coaching.
It was an interesting question, and one I’d never considered. She meant it as a morale-booster, something to remind me of how far I’d come. However, what it actually did was make me realise that I had never failed, and not because of some innate desire to succeed, but rather because I’d never taken a major risk.
I am, by my own admission, a stereotypical “type A” personality. I’m someone who packs her bag days before a trip. My car is immaculate. I have systems for my systems. So the decision to leave everything behind and launch TYS Coaching wasn’t just a career change; it was a direct confrontation with my own personality.
First encounters with coaching
I never set out to become a coach. Like the best things usually do, it found me exactly when I wasn’t expecting it.
At the time, I was working in marketing for Play’n GO. We had a generous training budget for the year, and I was recommended coaching. At first, I thought they were talking about CrossFit or something fitness-related. I’d never encountered business coaching and I didn’t see its immediate appeal. That soon changed.
I remember sitting in my first coaching session with my coach Kelly McSherry and having one of those moments of immediate clarity. I looked at him and thought: I want your job.
What I didn’t realise was that I had already been coaching. Looking back at my career, I could see it all. For example, at Play’n GO, I’d been given responsibility for building a video and design team from scratch.
This was far outside my marketing expertise. I couldn’t tell a graphic designer what to do, any more than I could direct air traffic control. So I did the only thing I could: I asked questions. I listened. I helped them think.
I encountered this situation with different teams, whether graphic designers or IP lawyers, the approach was always the same: coach, don’t direct. I was already coaching, I just hadn’t named it that, yet.
This exposure to the fast-paced nature of the iGaming industry has also been crucial to my coaching career. I have experienced firsthand the pressures of a fast-paced environment, and have also seen people rise from a junior position to senior leadership in a handful of years.
When I sit down with leaders and CEOs, and they talk about the challenges of their work, I don’t need to imagine it; I have experienced it.
Taking the leap
Let’s put the brakes on for a second. Knowing something is right and actually doing it are two different things. I stayed at Play’n GO for another four years after that first coaching session. I hired Kelly time and time again, I had my whole team coached by him, and I even got my husband some sessions for Christmas. I became obsessed with coaching.
My mother’s passing in 2022 was a turning point. Grief can be a powerful motivator. It has a way of stripping things back to what actually matters. It forced me to confront how much of my life I was living safely and how much time we assume we have.
It made the question unavoidable: if not now, when?
I finally took the leap in 2024. I quietly handed in my resignation at Play’n GO and began my own coaching business. I went from flying in F1 drivers for a huge industry event to sitting in my home office with zero clients or income.
I wish I could say those early days were smooth sailing, but that’s far from the truth. They were uncomfortable in ways I couldn’t have anticipated. Imposter syndrome hit me hard. I had an empty pipeline and my business had no reputation.
Still, I persevered and two years down the line the business is stable and growing. I work with senior leaders across multiple organisations, deliver workshops internationally and most of my work now comes through referrals. The early discomfort didn’t disappear overnight, but it was replaced with something steadier: belief earned through action.
Suck at something new
If I could offer one piece of advice from those early days to help change your perspective, it’s to “be brave enough to suck at something new”. When you’re so deep into a career, the idea of taking that new step and going back to being a beginner is absolutely terrifying. It is, after all, much easier to just float with the tide than to swim against it.
What surprised me most with my big step wasn’t the business growth. It was who I became in the process.
For years, I had told myself I wasn’t someone who took risks. I was organised, structured, safe. But it turns out that wasn’t the whole story. We all have preconceived ideas about our own personalities and how we will react to things, but if we never challenge them, we will never grow.
I didn’t need to become a different person. I just needed to stop hiding behind the version of myself that felt comfortable. I am a Type A personality who took the least Type A risk possible, and it paid off.
Leading with generosity
Kelly McSherry, the coach who helped me start this journey, passed away in March last year. It was sudden and devastating. In those first days, I remember telling my husband I couldn’t do it without him.
He had read every proposal I’d ever written, coached me on my pricing and shared his own client list with me when we were technically competitors, because he believed there was enough work for everyone. That generosity is something I carry into my own business every day. I refuse to guard my own knowledge and I want to empower the next generation of coaches coming through, just as he did with me and, I’m sure, many others.
I’m proud of TYS in a way that feels different from anything I’ve experienced before, because it’s mine. Every client breakthrough and every piece of progress feels personal. These things would never have happened if I hadn’t had the courage to back myself and hadn’t received the support I received from the likes of Kelly and those around me, and that means more than any promotion or pay rise ever could.
Above all else, it has changed the way I perceive myself. It has taught me the kind of person I really am, and the kind of life I am capable of building.
If you are sitting on an idea right now, toying around with taking that leap, doubting yourself and waiting for that confidence to arrive first, it won’t. My advice is simple: you’re never going to feel ready. So instead of trying to be ready, just be brave enough to suck at something new.