I think it is SO important to learn from those that have gone before us. I really believe success leaves clues. I sat down with Gemma Sharp. She’s someone I’ve been able to work with for almost two years inside of our coaching programs. I wanted to share with you her story and what she’s been able to do in her business.
Read our amazing chat below!
Kimberly: Hi Gemma!
Gemma: Hi!
Kimberly: We’re excited to have you! Gemma, tell us a little bit about you. I’d love to know, share your background, your story, you know, what you do. I would love for them to get to know you better.
Gemma: Well, thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited, a little bit nervous, but you know, I always get like this.
Gemma: So I’m a mom of two and I’m Australian. I live on the Isle of Man, which is a small little island in between England and Ireland. I moved there 21 years ago and I grew up sort of in the corporate world, still working in corporate business. But about five years ago, I started my network marketing business. I didn’t know it was network marketing and completely fell into it by accident. And just said, “Oh yeah, I love these products. I’ll give ’em a go.” I sold them and didn’t realize what I was doing. And so I did that for a little bit and that’s when I actually started my personal development. And I think that is the thing that has really got me where I’m at today because I had this hunger to learn more and to do more.
Gemma: I didn’t realize as a mom life goes on and you suddenly realize what am I now? I’m everything to everybody and I know nothing to me. It was my love of personal development that inspired me to do more and to take the path I’m on. Then I came across you, Kimberly, when I moved to my network marketing company I’m with now. I just love the way that you were teaching us how to do things authentically because I was cold messaging people. I hated it. It didn’t feel good. And therefore I didn’t grow my business because I didn’t like doing it. So it sort of stayed stagnant for so long. You started with the ILC and that’s really when I had to pull on my heart to do something a little bit more because we had a lot going on at home. I don’t know if you want me to tell you a little bit about that.
Kimberly: Yes, please do. As you guys know she was with us in Six Figure Breakthrough Business Academy. We opened a new program at Ignited Life Coaching a little over a year ago. And you were one of our very first students. This program is for those that want to monetize their brand. So there’s something more there and they want to build something of their own, they want to do something different. And I would love for you to share your story of what was going at home because it helps us see how this came full circle.
Gemma: I have a son who is 13 and my daughter is 10. And my first, my boy was just so easygoing. He’s such a laid back, super easy child. I was an extremely judgmental parent, not on the outside, purely on the inside when no one can see it. When we were sitting around and other people were saying, “Oh, I’m having problems with this and that with my child”, I’d be like, “Oh yeah, I’ve got a perfect one.” It’s great. I know your struggles ha! I wasn’t good. Then I had my beautiful daughter who brought me back down to earth with an absolute son because she didn’t sleep. She screamed all the time. She had silent reflux. So she literally screamed all the time.
Gemma: I’m not even joking. And I noticed she was, she was more sensitive than my boy and things started to show themselves up more. When she got to four, we went on holiday and it was the worst holiday ever. We had arrived. And within 24 hours, I was trying to book us flights home. Oh, because she couldn’t deal with change on any level. So the whole thing changed in the morning to go to breakfast, then getting changed for the pool, then getting changed for lunch. Then getting changed to go back in the pool, then getting changed for dinner. It was awful for her and most kids would love that. She did not fare well with that. And of course, that means we didn’t either. So it was the worst holiday of our life.
Gemma: We came home and thought, this is not normal. We started to see that her sensitivities were very, very strong. And as she started to get older, they were building up more and more. And by the time she was seven, literally, we were at breaking point. I was ready to jump on a plane back to Australia. I thought there was something I’m missing in her. That I’m not parenting properly. I’m not doing this as effectively as I should be. I’m parenting the way my parents parented me. And it was completely the wrong way to do it. You know, my parents were very strict. And so I was with her and it was not working. And I was like what is wrong? What is wrong with me? I’m such a bad parent.
Kimberly: The guilt, Gemma. Actually, another reason we bonded is because of Elise, my strong-willed blessing, and because Addison was such an easy baby and kiddo. We really bonded on that level too, where I was telling you, I feel like a failure. Bedtime is a disaster to the point I’m yelling. I think there’s so much mom guilt. Can any of you relate to that where you just feel like, okay, what am I doing wrong? The guilt is overwhelming at times. So I just want to mention that because you’re sharing, but I think a lot of the ladies here can relate to that.
Gemma: I still feel guilty because we all parent differently. We are all triggered in our parenting by something that’s happened to us when we were younger. There are so many triggers and so many things to navigate that it’s hard. It’s really hard. We got to the point where I had to do something or our family unit was not going to survive this.
Gemma: It really was not. It got to that point. So I went to the doctor and said, “Look, I need some help.” We went down the route of finding out if there was anything else medically wrong that we could help her with. But really when I started researching, all I wanted to do was have someone help me and teach me how to parent her to be the best she can be without changing her. Because she is who she is. That was my driving force. We want to be able to parent better rather than squash all this potential that she had that was coming out in all these ways. They say the children that need the most love, ask for it in the most unloving ways.
Gemma: And that was like, yes, this is my life. I started researching things more because basically when I asked the doctor for help, I said, “Look, I’m not coping very well with this. And I need some help as well.” His reply was, “You don’t need antidepressants. You need a bottle of wine and a straight jacket for your daughter.” It absolutely kills me to say that, oh, because I walked out of there going, “I’m not going to get help from anybody here. I’m on my own.”
Gemma: That’s when I started really delving into anxiety because she had so many physical symptoms that we were taking her to the pediatrician for. They said they couldn’t find anything wrong. So that’s when I found out it was perhaps more anxiety than anything else. And I really started delving into that. And the funny thing is that I’ve lived with anxiety my whole life, although I’m very good at masking, I could relate to her so much of what she was feeling and going through and that sort of thing. So I started to talk to other mums about it and just share with my mum friends where I had found out the things I was learning. They suggested I should teach more people about this. And that’s when Ignited Life Coaching came up, I was like, this is a sign. This is what I can do and I could help others. So I started my Facebook group.
Kimberly: What is the name of your Facebook group for those that want to jump in?
Gemma: It’s the Hummingbird Parenting Lounge. I go live there every week and I love it. It is honestly my absolute passion. I love sitting there and talking to a camera, getting the comments back of, “I really needed to hear this today.”
Kimberly: You know what you should be doing and the experience you had with her, you wouldn’t have gone into figuring out what to do and getting some tools in place to help her. Now you can pay it forward and share with other parents. I want to hear the success you’ve had with Mia, but also remember we hopped on a phone call before you got in and you were like, okay, I don’t even know how I could make this a thing. You had so many ideas and I think a lot of you have so many different things that you could do. How did you know, did it help? Obviously, I’m sure it helped to be in the program to get that clarity, but how did you know you were going to take your experiences and the struggles and what you heard from other moms? How did you narrow it down into this? Was it because of seeing the gap in the market that you realized there wasn’t help? Was it because it was so personal to you is what you were going through. What made you say this is what I want to do?
Gemma: I think it was at the one point where I sat on the floor in the kitchen just sobbing because it had been a particularly hard day. I felt absolutely broken and that was the turning point for me. But then looking back on that, I knew there were so many parents that were feeling exactly the same way as me. There are moms sitting on the floor, crying and going, “I don’t know how to help my child. I don’t know what to do.” And I experienced that desperation. I didn’t want anyone to feel that desperation, or when they do, I wanted them to know that there was something that they can do for themselves and for their child. That was the real driving force, and after speaking to so many moms, the feedback I got from them was, “Oh my goodness. You know, I feel the same.” And you know, a lot of the time, the services that are out there are so full that, for some of us, we’ve been on a waiting list for three years to be seen.
Kimberly: Oh my gosh, are you serious? Oh I can barely get through one day, a rough moment, much less three years.
Gemma: Exactly. My drive was that I didn’t want anybody else to feel like there was nowhere else to go. And I still think that there are a lot of people out there feeling like that.
Kimberly: I think for the entrepreneurs out there, which is pretty much all of you watching, you know, we forget how much our personal lives impact our business. Like if you are struggling at home with your marriage, with your parenting, with a child, struggling in school or being bullied, or, you know, maybe you’re just, you’re exhausted and you haven’t taken care of yourself. That impacts your business. We are very passionate about getting this information out there. Like that’s our priority. Why do we do this? I always remind myself. Cause sometimes I’m like the girls need me and I’ve got, you know, emails and I’m like, hold up Chica. Like, why are you even doing this? It’s for those two girls and for your husband, so get out there, you know, get away from your desk and go pay attention to your family. So once you narrowed in on this and started, you know, getting out there, I remember you started doing master classes and the things that we teach at Ignited Life Coaching. Tell us how the journey has unfolded since then.
Gemma: I wasn’t, when I first started ILC, I knew that I wanted to do something, but I didn’t know what it was. And like you say, I had so many ideas. I was like, I want to write a book. I want to do this. I want to do that. And I still am a little bit like that, so I do have to reign myself in quite a lot, but when I first started, I didn’t quite know how I was going to do it. And the great thing with ILC was that I had Chatal as my coach. I had you Kimberley as well to bounce ideas off of, because I was in a space where I didn’t know how to go about it. I knew I wanted to do it, but not how. And I think it probably took me a little bit longer than the other entrepreneurs in ILC to find a path. But now I am doing something I am so, so excited about.
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