After rapid success in her own coaching business, coach Grace Kelly now helps others wanting to do the same. She has learned the value of trusting our own innate wisdom, and also the importance of taking care of ourselves before we can help others.

Grace Kelly is a transformational coach.
She left her job as a school teacher in London and traveled the world coaching clients. Her work has been recognised by Forbes.

Today she writes about lessons in love and loss and hosts clients on retreats in Italy where she currently resides.

You can find Grace Kelly at GracefulCoaching.net and on Instagram @gracefulcoaching.

You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. 

Show Notes

Resources Mentioned in this Episode

Alexandra: Grace Kelly, welcome to Unbroken.

Grace: Thank you, Alexandra. It’s lovely to be here. Love your title.

Alexandra: Thank you so much.

Grace: My background is as a school teacher. I spent six years in the classroom teaching, ruling unruly teenage boys in a London suburb. I loved the kids, I loved the experience of being with the children, but I really was not lit up by my environment, it was very bleak and dreary. It was in a small, just a very small suburb in North London. And it didn’t even have a decent coffee shop.

That might sound like a strange thing for people. But I was moving to the big city. And I wanted city life and it just didn’t yield that, that location. Now the people were fabulous, the children were amazing, the school was fantastic. But over time, I kept getting this tapping, like, there’s something else for me to do.

I had a turning point, Alexandra, when it occurred to me, is this it? Is this where I’m going to stay and is this what I’m going to commit my life to. And at the same time, I had been so burned out at work, because I really didn’t enjoy what I was what I was doing. Many teachers listening will know that you have a passion for teaching, but you end up doing a lot of paperwork and a lot of a lot of heavy lifting around bureaucracy and around paperwork.

But anyway, it was a good grinding for me because I knew I was a teacher’s from a young age I used to pretend to teach classroom when I was when I was very young. I would pretend I had a set of students in front of me. So I knew that that was my, my path.

I didn’t realize there was another way to teach. I didn’t realize there was something beyond a school teacher, as a teacher, until I was fortunate enough to come across my first mentor. His name was Dr. John Demartini. And he really opened my eyes and those years when I was a school teacher of just what was possible. He was just the most incredible teacher, he was an amazing mentor. And he was a coach really traveling the world doing what he loved writing books, teaching, running his breakthrough experience.

I noticed in my career as a teacher, I was equipping myself. The school bell would ring and I’d be out the door and off into the city of London, and equipping myself with personal development and being around the circles that were interested in coaching. I’d never considered myself as a coach. Interestingly, and all that time I was doing that it never really came to me that I could coach. But at some point, I made the leap. I left my day job and my fiancee at the time and myself, we moved to Italy to figure out our lives. He was from here.

In our figuring out of our lives it was really clear to me that I didn’t want to leave Italy. And it was also clear to me that I had a deep interest in helping people, not just teaching people. So I started to get curious about this whole world called coaching that I had been around but hadn’t really been invested in personally as a coach. So my career really shifted.

I started my own coaching business, I hired my own coach. That was the first step. I invested in a coach who supported me around my own ideas for coaching and what I could offer the world. It was transformative for me, our work together, and it led to a pretty rapid success in the space of six months. I was very fortunate to be finding myself traveling the world much like my former mentor and seeing clients and beautiful locations and hosting retreats in all sorts of places and just doing very, very well.

But a nudge came to me a couple of years into that, Alexandra, where I just noticed that I was burnt out, again, similar to my day job. And I kind of started thinking, but hold on I, I got on to my job, so I could do my own thing and feeling well, what’s going on. So the symptoms in the body began to get my attention again, and I really listened.

I really listened and right at the time, when I was about to sign a contract that would support me and moving to a seven figure year, I did the impossible and I retracted my signature, if you’d like, or my agreement to that potential. I took myself back to Italy, out of the rat race, and into just being. Retreating, being quiet, being at home. In that time at home, I heard my wisdom more and more and more clearly and the more settled I was, the clearer my answers were.

It was during that period of time that I started noticing what was calling me and one of the things that caught me was an event that Michael Neill from the Three Principles community was doing in London. And I went to that event expecting something else. But when I got there, I heard what he was saying. It was really challenging everything that I had learned as a as a coach in a coaching business. And it just piqued my curiosity. It just really spoke to me.

He was my introduction to the Three Principles. And he went on to invite me to be his apprentice and 2016. And that’s where I got this full immersion of the Principles. I had no idea that that’s what was going to occur. But it was, it’s the background to my career, and it’s when it was my introduction to the principles to answer your question.

Alexandra: Thank you for that. One of the things you mentioned on your website is that in your initial coaching business, although it was very successful, you felt like you were getting further and further away from your own wisdom. I love that you framed it that way. And then, when you discovered the Three Principles, it seems like you’ve you have connected again with that.

Grace: The disconnect was I just felt like I was spinning the whole time. Some of my colleagues even said it to me, Grace, you’re just spinning. So much confusion, so much not knowing what to do. I remember being in Australia, in Sydney at the time, and I was attending these chiropractic appointments, there were all sorts of symptoms going on for me. I just couldn’t think straight.

If I were to know what I know now, I had a very, very busy mind. And even though I had a very busy mind, I do want to point out, because sometimes people think they have to have a quiet mind to hear their wisdom.

I could hear my wisdom at the time, really saying no to any more of this way of working. And again, even though I was primed for the seven figure year, I still said no. Because I literally woke up that morning that I was supposed to sign on the dotted line and, and wisdom said no, go home. So I took myself off of that merry go round, much to the disappointment of the coach and the group because she was right. If I had kept going the way it was going it was going to be very much a seven figure a year but my well being was has just always been the most important thing to me.

I just knew I was disconnected at times because of the own groundedness, the confusion, the inability to make a decision, the lack. Even the way I would eat, compared to now was unconscious. Everything I was doing was rushed and unconscious. Being connected to my wisdom was it’s just a very different feeling. There’s just a sense of balance and harmony.

I recognize the innocence of my journey as a new coach, and feel very blessed to have had such a level of success so quickly. But still very clear that well being, for me, is the ultimate success. And when I wasn’t having that, neither mentally or physically, I knew something’s off. And it’s time to slow down, it’s time to come away from this and really come back inside, which is what I did by going home and then eventually ended up leading into the principals and going on that coaching journey with Michael Neill for a year.

Alexandra: I love that you point out that wisdom was there the whole time. It was always speaking to you. And it’s just that we tend to sometimes ignore those signals. I think that’s a really important point for our listeners to hear is that wisdom is always there. It can be a matter of whether we pay attention or not. I love that. Thank you.

So now that you’ve shifted and work in a slightly different way, what this is kind of going to contradict what I just said, but what keeps you connected to your wisdom?

Grace: That’s a great question. I really notice nowadays when my mind is busy. That version of me didn’t know she was spinning, didn’t know she had a really busy mind. Didn’t know there was another way. And nowadays, I really notice that busyness when it’s arising. And what keeps me grounded, I think, is in the noticing of that I begin to speed up, I begin to get impatient. The enjoyment of life falls away, and I begin to be rushed around everything and like there’s not enough time.

I know now, Grace, this is an invitation to settle down. And the thing that helps me settle down is receiving coaching from my coach in the area of the Principles, listening to Sydney Banks – that’s a daily requirement of mine – and doing meditation, getting a siesta. Most recently, learning to really say no to people’s requests from me. Really noticing where I’m pushing myself, where I feel obligated, rather than honoring the fact that the business we’re in as coaches requires an incredible amount of well-being.

I talk to my clients about being energetically open for business, not just open for business online. Being energetically open for business means that you’re in a state where you are centered and you are grounded, and you have enough capacity with your well-being to be of service to others in the world. I think this is an area that really gets looked over Alexandra, in favor of just pay attention to your marketing. Just pay attention to your what you’re offering or just like just even deepen your understanding further.

I’m not saying those things aren’t helpful but there is an energetic component to drawing clients to you, drawing opportunities to you. Divine mind wants to work through us. And so for me nowadays my work is not getting on a tube and going to a day job and going through that. My work now is a much nicer work. I can tell you is prioritizing listening to truth. Prioritizing taking care of self prioritizing, getting my coaching from my coach, prioritizing taking care of risk of that Capital G.

There’s a level of, quote unquote, work. That just helps me personally. Hear wisdom deeply. Now, again listen, these aren’t things you have to do in order to hear your wisdom, I remember being 11 years old, and I grew up in Northern Ireland. I found myself in a very difficult situation between two adults. And what happened was I heard my wisdom, even though I was in a great deal of fear of what could just unfold in front of me, I heard my wisdom. And I said, the words that came to me, and it diffused the potential for violence.

So, we don’t need to be a certain way to hear our wisdom. And for those of us that are in the business of coaching, it’s helpful to do whatever it takes to quiet down a little bit if you are in a busy state of mind, and to connect deeply with divine mind with that wisdom within. And that’s really fueled me through my own coaching business, and my life in recent years, just following wisdoms guidance.

Alexandra: It’s such a, an easy trap to fall into, isn’t it? Listening to all the busyness that’s going on. And following that. I just noticed personally for myself, it can be a learned skill to remember that there’s another place we can go to for answers and guidance.

Our busy mind is so compelling. And yet, trusting the quiet and the wisdom that comes through is, is for me, anyway, always the better choice.

Grace: Always. That’s why I’m a fan of do what it takes to the – I know you don’t need to do anything, but I have find that when our schedules are over-scheduled, when our when we’re busy, busy, busy in life, or with work or whatever, there’s no room. There’s nothing wrong with engaging in whatever works for you to settle down.

Sydney Banks spoke many a time about the power in meditation and I find even just listening to him meditative just that beautiful state. So whatever it takes and I just, that’s my quote unquote, work nowadays. Alexandra

Alexandra: I love that. That’s a great way to frame it.

Connected to that you mentioned on your website that often when we get lost or confused, we tend to work harder and try more.

Grace: A lot. I remember hearing that quote like when an animal in the wild gets lost they stop and center themselves and sense the direction before taking any more action or any more movement.

We on the other hand, when we get lost, we speed up. We start going 1000 miles in the wrong direction. It’s innocent. But I think we want to just notice those feelings of lostness, insecurity, worry, fear and use them as friends that are letting us know, settle down, stop, still get centered. Don’t make any decisions right now. The animal senses the direction before he takes a direction. So we can just begin to learn to do that.

And that is doing less. Honestly, one of the most helpful questions one of my coaches gave to me was, Do I need to do this today? Because I would be convinced I had to do all those things, but they have to happen today. And how often are we in that innocent habit of doing, doing, doing, rushing, rushing, rushing, busy, busy, busy.

My fiance at the time, he would be so generous with his bringing me back home, if you like, inside. So he would say, “My babe’s being a busy bee.” What he meant by that was I was just running left, right and center, I was just a busy bee all over the place. And to me, it was just like the norm.

But again, there’s no room there. There’s no spaciousness. And for those of us, in particular, in this business we energetically shut down when we’re that busy. There’s just no capacity for supporting others or calling in new people to work with so we can do more for our business by doing less than anything else, any marketing plan, anything, just giving to ourselves first, and really questioning, getting suspicious of this thought that that you need to do it now. And it has to be you that does it. And it has to be done today.

Alexandra: I love that. I personally remember years ago, before I understood this idea of listening to the quiet and to our own wisdom, I remember, as an entrepreneur countless times getting 10 miles down the road, working really hard, and then realizing, Oh, actually, I don’t want to be here. I don’t like this. And that wasn’t the right choice. So then I’d have to backtrack.

But I made the same mistake over and over again. Until I didn’t. Until I learned the value of listening to the quiet.

Grace: Because we live in these habits of thought that create urgency. Urgency is a habit of thought, and when you don’t know you’re up against urgency you live in that world of everything needing to be done right now. You are overwhelmed. You feel overwhelmed, and you don’t realize that you’ve just sped up. You’ve just become urgent. That’s what overwhelm really is a super busy mind. That’s just become very urgent.

Alexandra: Yep, absolutely, totally.

Grace: I first heard that when I read Julia Cameron’s book The Artists Way. Over the years, I’ve seen how money shows up for a purpose and what it’s needed for and it’s a form of God in action. It’s a form of Spirit working through us. It’s an energy, it’s a currency. And I’ve come to really respect it as part of Divine Mind’s supply.

It’s just so curious how we all have learned to keep it away from ourselves. This incredible divine channel we’ve been taught is dirty is bad, keep it away. It’s wrong. We’ve got all this thinking about money.

I saw over the years all the times and I’m sure you know yourself being in your own business, all the ups and downs and the roller coasters of you never know where it’s coming from, if it’s coming at all. But over the years, I just saw how it could be flowing to me. Of course, through and about idea to give a service like coaching, of course, through other ideas.

I remember when my fiance died three years ago, I really was like, oh, gosh, I couldn’t work for quite a while and I really needed to take care of myself. And at the same time, I had financial demands and was so interesting to me that my prayer for divine mind to send money, an opportunity to sell a house came to me. I just knew Grace, take it. This is for you. I’m not an estate agent, by the way. But some friends of mine wanted to sell a house. They had a holiday home that they had here. And they were adamant that they wanted me to do it.

I just knew, this is divine mind working. God in action here. Let’s see where this goes. I cannot tell you, it was the easiest, most blissful. I think for 4% of the sale that I like that I’d ever come across. I just walked in there, showed a couple around the house and came out. They accepted the offer. And they contacted the owners, and the owners contacted me and said, Oh, Grace you sold that house. I almost felt like, Oh, God, I can’t take any money because it was too easy. It was great.

But it was an example of God in action. Money is God and action and we never know where the channel is going to come from, we just want to be open to the possibility. And so my thinking about money has really changed over the years. I’ve really come to see now that life wants to help and supply us. And this thing called money is divine mind circulating.

It’s an incredible way for a divine mind to circulate. Because it’s so tangible. And it’s so rewarding. Why do we want to pinch ourselves off from it? But for our silly beliefs about it? I’d first heard that expression through Julia Cameron, but my embodied experience all of it, it just is. It’s just a lot truer for me and I given what I’ve seen over the years about how it flows to us.

We just did a money workshop recently for our Living Miraculously course. And we shared three truths about money.

Sometimes people are busy trying to get money, a certain amount of money, and there’s just no purpose behind it. It’s just for the sake of feeling more secure or paying some bills or whatever. But see, money loves a purpose really means that when you tap into that true desire of yours, rather than X amount of money, when you tap into that purpose for it, that true desire, and you’re actually lit up by that or you’re motivated by that. That’s where money can just so easily and gracefully flow. Again, spirit divine mind and action.

Alexandra: When you first heard that from Julia Cameron, and began to explore this idea that money loves a purpose and wants to flow toward us.

Grace: From Julia Cameron, I heard go money is God in action. Money loves a purpose has been my experience.

I just kept getting to the point where I had hardly anything in my bank account. And it’s almost like I tested the universe. And I had some pretty big demands coming. For example, the year I did my apprenticeship with Michael Neill that was a costly year and my business dropped during that year. He warned me. He told me it might because I was about to go through a shift. But I wanted to show up for the retreats, the events that everything.

On one of the occasions, one of the events was in New York. And I remember, I had spoken to a client a couple of days earlier, and she had agreed she’d like to work with me on her coaching business. And I was happy to do that. And I left it with her that she would make the payment. I knew the payment was going to have to come because there was a purpose, I was off to New York. But as I was waking up that morning, there wasn’t a payment in my account.

Now, what is the normal individual, maybe they don’t get on the plane, maybe they don’t, maybe they call someone and borrow the money first. I just got myself on the plane, knowing it’s going to be there, or it’s not. Let’s see how this works. There was a level of trust, there was a level of keep in mind, it had a purpose. So I was kind of confident it was going to be there.

By the time I got on the other side of the world, the money was in my account. I’ve done a number of those kind of risky things in my coaching career, enough times to trust deeply that divine mind always shows up on time, the right time. I didn’t need money in that moment on the plane, but I did sure as hell needed in New York. I wanted to have a good time, I wanted to have a nice time, I wanted to stay somewhere nice.

I’m always a fan of sharing with people just take the first step, if all you can do is book the flight, just book the flight. If there’s a purpose there for that money, be it a holiday, be it a business investment, be it desire for a beautiful car, be it for food for your family, it doesn’t matter. If there’s a purpose and a desire there, then that money has got to come, it’s got to flow.

Often the way money flows is we get a divine idea, which is why we’re back to the beauty of the principles because the principles support us in a quieter state of mind. And in that quieter state of mind, we get ideas, and they are usually ideas that lead to money when acted upon.

I’m not sure that answers the question, but I’m just giving you a taste of how, why I know this works. I’ve tested it, and tested it, and tested it. And in some cases, just been absolutely flabbergasted at what can happen and the thing I love about it too, and it’s like losing weight that can take days or weeks or months receiving money, just within hours or overnight. There’s no timeline, we’re like, how Divine is that? There is no timeline when it comes to money.

Now we all carry a lot of thinking about it. It’s curious to get like get beyond our silly beliefs about it. But over time, I’ve just seen it more and more as a as divine mind and action. Or as Julia Cameron said, God in action.

Alexandra: I love that and you’re so right. It has such a concrete way of being. It’s either there or it isn’t. So we can see what’s working or what isn’t right away.

Grace: I just probably could share the whole the whole afternoon. It’s one of my favorite things is to be interviewed like this, to be in conversation together. It’s a real joy. For me, it’s back in my teaching role.

I think the only thing that I would encourage or invite the audience to consider is taking care of self. It’s an essential. I think it’s something that we underestimate, especially if we’re running our own business. Or if we’re busy playing wife or mum or caretaker to others, there’s something about really prioritizing that quiet for yourself. Really dropping into that beautiful feeling that arises from that quieter mind. It moves, it awakens all sorts of opportunity and possibility not just deep well being within us that, frankly the world can’t help but notice.

I like to share that when we are up against a lot of thinking about life or business or relationships, or really is a beautiful invite, to come back to self with a capital S. To prioritize that. To quiet the mind and to let your feelings be your guide.

I didn’t know in the early days that my feelings weren’t telling me anything about my circumstances. I was convinced my feelings meant something about my bank account in the future. My feelings meant something about my relationship. My feelings meant something about my health.

I just see more and more, Oh, the feelings of friend. Oh, it’s just letting me know I’ve got a really busy mind. Time to quiet the stress, tension, upset, insecurity. All of it just come back home quiet mind. So that’s what I’d like to share.

Alexandra: Thank you. Beautiful.

Grace: I have two: one is a collaboration with my friend and colleague, Dominic Scaffidi. And that is an eight week program called Living Miraculously. I think you probably have a link for that Alexandra somewhere. And that’s our fastest selling, biggest, most impactful group program that came from a divine download that I had walking around the streets of London over a year ago, and the program has just continued to grow and grow and grow.

It’s really pointing people back to the miracle of who they really are. And it’s really stirring possibility. We have over 200 participants that have gone through the program, 20 different countries, the testimonials are just miracle after miracle, as you’ll see on the on the page if you visit. And so that’s a way to work with us within a group format, if you’re interested in living a more miraculous life.

The second program I have is a program that I have created for those that are coaches. And it’s a small group mastermind, Create Your Thriving Coaching Business. And that’s really going to be pointing people to a graceful, effortless way of growing your coaching business and enjoying your life and the process. So I think you have a link for that too.

Alexandra: I will put links to both of those in the show notes at unbrokenpodcast.com.

Tell us your website address as well.

Grace: The website is gracefulcoaching.net.

Alexandra: Perfect. I’ll add a link to that in there as well. Well, thank you so much, Grace. This has been so lovely. I’ve really enjoyed our conversation and it’s been great to meet you too.

Grace: Thank you. I feel the same, lovely to meet you Alexandra.

Alexandra: Take care. Bye bye.

Featured image photo by James Lee on Unsplash

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