Client Case Studies
Catherine
What made you want to work with Yvonne?
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When I first spoke to Yvonne, I found her to be caring and compassionate with a genuine passion for helping women succeed in their careers and lives. I could sense Yvonne’s strong sense of justice and values from our first conversation. It made me feel that I could trust her to help me achieve my goals for the next chapter of my life, after leaving the workforce and transitioning into retirement.
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What was the experience like?
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I knew I wanted to work with a charity that aligned with my core values and needed to find a clear path towards doing that. Yvonne helped me define and achieve my ultimate career goal of giving back through charity work that resonates with my sense of purpose. While working with Yvonne, I could see that she is focused on the greater good, with such a sense of doing what's right for individuals in her network and the community as a whole. She listened and gave me the space to understand and recognise why it was important for me to achieve this goal.
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What specific results have you achieved?
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I am now working in a fantastic charity organisation, doing food/meal preparation. I am working a four-hour shift with 3 chefs and about 25 volunteers each day. The charity accepts fruit, vegetables and meat that is close to expiry or is not suitable for general sale from supermarkets. It then cooks the food, packages it and freezes it for other charities and community groups to collect it and distribute it to feed needy people all over Queensland. The kitchen I’m based in has already make 250,000 meals so far this years, and 5M meals since the charity kitchen opened four years ago. One of the things I love about the charity is that they also encourage Corporate Volunteering, giving employees from different organisations the opportunity to engage in a shift as part of their team-building program. This work has been immensely fulfilling for me, so much so, that I am looking for other charities who need my help.
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I am at a new stage of my life, deliberately being more reactive than proactive each day. I am relaxing, slowing down and enjoying the simple pleasures of daily life. I am spending more time with the people I love and care about. I am developing and enjoying a quieter and more balanced life. My three primary focuses are now:
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family, friends and home life
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health and fitness
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volunteering
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Would you recommend working with Yvonne?
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I would highly recommend working with Yvonne. Her help, inspiration, guidance and lived examples all helped me greatly this year as I embarked on the next stage of my life. I am grateful for Yvonne's support and guidance in skilfully assisting me to formulate, develop and implement my personal retirement plan.
Yvonne gave me the tools to enable me to successfully transition from a full-time professional business career to a customised fulfilling, balanced, happy, healthy and sustainable retirement.
Selina
What made you want to work with Yvonne?
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Yvonne is a professional coach with years of experience in various business environments and leadership. In addition to this, Yvonne understands the commitment it takes start and run a new business. She’s supportive, approachable and professional, and I knew she could hold a safe space to help me work on overcoming imposter syndrome. I felt Yvonne would understand the challenges I faced, and that she could provide me with professional coaching support I needed to help me take the actions to overcome my fear of putting myself out into the world as a Fiction Book Coach.
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What was the experience like?
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Yvonne listened deeply, was present at all times and asked curious questions relevant to the topics I wanted to explore. She was supportive, non-judgmental and checked in to ensure the coaching sessions met my needs and we were on track. Yvonne created a safe space for me to explore fears and challenges, and she encouraged me to look for the opportunities related to who I am ‘being’ both as a fiction book coach and as a professional business woman launching my business. Yvonne created a very positive coaching experience for me. I had many insights bubble up. I was uplifted and was able to take action on my goals by the end of the sessions.
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What specific results have you achieved?
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The coaching sessions with Yvonne allowed me to reframe fears of rejection into positive opportunities. This was a powerful insight that helped shift my mindset completely. With the safety Yvonne provided, I was able to examine my limiting beliefs and try on a scenario where I can feel the fear and take the action anyway. We explored my ideal self and what I am already doing now that aligns with that internal vision, and what steps I need to take to reach that ideal version of myself. The coaching sessions have helped me to create a plan of action for the next three months, which have included locking in dates for scheduled blog posts, learning more about marketing and promotion, and ensuring I am taking time for self-care.
After having regular coaching sessions with Yvonne:
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I have launched my fiction coaching website, written and published two new blog posts on my website and put a schedule in place to continue blogging on topics relevant to my clients, and I started to learn more about marketing and promotion to help me to connect with my ideal clients.
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I now have a list of evidence of all the things I have achieved already so I can reflect on them when I feel overwhelmed by imposter syndrome. This action helps me to reaffirm that I can do what’s important to me, and I can help genre fiction writers write their best stories.
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I am now consciously aware that it is okay to feel vulnerable while also taking actionable steps toward my goals. I am now focused on strengthening my internal validation.
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Would you recommend working with Yvonne?
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I highly recommend working with Yvonne! She is a kind, empathetic, and encouraging coach who focuses on the person as well as the actionable steps. Yvonne keeps you accountable, and gets to the heart of the challenges while helping you see the opportunities at the same time. If you’re struggling with imposter syndrome or need coaching to help you achieve your personal or business goals, I have no doubt that working with Yvonne would be of great benefit.
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Find out more about Selina's work as a Fiction Book Coach here https://selinashapland.com/
Kim
What made you want to work with Yvonne?
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I knew Yvonne through my organisational Women in Leadership programme. We worked together on the programme, which meant we could share our experiences and learnings with each other. I was experiencing obstacles while mentoring another member of staff for the first time. Our meetings were uncomfortable and my mentee seemed unwilling to open up and was always stressed. She didn’t think the arrangement was going to be useful for her. I wanted to work with Yvonne to get the support I needed to so that I could help my mentee get the best out of the mentoring scheme.
What was the experience like?
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Yvonne is extremely insightful, encouraging, and professional when it comes to coaching. She helped me see the bigger picture so that I could understand where my mentee’s perspectives and feelings were coming from, knowing that they were probably triggered by other factors rather than our mentoring sessions. Once I saw that, I was able to focus on finding different ways to support my mentee like how I could encourage her to open up more at our meetings. Yvonne asked questions that were insightful and she gave me the space to think about my answers. I found my sessions with Yvonne to be valuable as they gave me the tools I needed to effectively support my mentee. Yvonne has a true desire to help people and has helped me regain my own confidence and sense of accountability.
What specific results have you achieved?
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Through having more conversations with my mentee, I was able to help her understand that I am here to support her in her role and she is much more open and relaxed in our meetings now.
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I have developed a worksheet that I shared with my mentee so that she can record her objectives for the mentoring scheme, her learnings and feedback.
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My mentee and I have continued working together when at first; it wasn’t looking as though this would happen. It now looks like we will continue our mentoring relationship indefinitely!
Would you recommend working with Yvonne?
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Yes! Yvonne has given me great insight into my own patterns and ways of thinking that were holding me back from reaching my full potential. Our sessions gave me simple yet effective tools and strategies to change the way I approach these obstacles in my life. Now my mentee is getting the best out of this valuable scheme and I feel confident that I am supporting her in the way she needs. I cannot recommend Yvonne enough!
James
What made you want to work with Yvonne?
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I had shared my issues with procrastination and confidence to Yvonne and she suggested that we work together. I felt very comfortable talking to Yvonne about my issues and what I wanted, which convinced me that we would be a good fit for working together.
What was the experience like?
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Yvonne asked specific questions that really got me thinking and she made sure that we stayed on track throughout our sessions. She was great at accountability and when I hadn’t done something that I had committed to in a previous session, Yvonne explored this further and got to the root of the reason why I hadn’t taken the action.
What specific results have you achieved?
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I found myself becoming more confident as each session went on. I opened up more and more easily to Yvonne and had taken actions to further my plans to have a source of income while preparing for the launch of my painting and decorating business. The sessions motivated me to take tangible actions such as creating my website, printing and distributing flyers and business cards, having conversations with people in my network to let them know about my business. Before our work was finished, I had gained several clients who needed my business. This really helped as it became another source of income for me since retiring 18 months ago.
Would you recommend working with Yvonne?
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Yes, I would highly recommend working with Yvonne. She has a very professional but also compassionate approach that works well for people who are unsure or about next steps towards achieving their goals. Yvonne can help them do that in an environment that is free from judgement as she has others’ best interests at heart.
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