Empowering Entrepreneurs To Thrive Amid Rapid Growth – Interview With Sarah Wood
- Dec 11, 2023
- 5 min read
Updated: Dec 12, 2023
Sarah Wood created Sarah Wood Coaching to help entrepreneurs overwhelmed by rapid growth adopt a CEO mindset, optimise their productivity and become burnout-proof.
She has over 25 years experience working in healthcare and wellness, and over 20 years’ sales and marketing experience – both in corporate settings and within her own solopreneur businesses.
Sarah continues her lifelong love of learning today as a part-time Psychology major to bring you the latest science-backed understanding of what helps humans thrive and perform at their best in business and life.
Sarah is a proud single mum to her feisty 8-year-old daughter Gracie (who also doubles as her assertiveness coach) and she can be found coaching entrepreneurs from all over the world through her laptop in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Sarah Wood, Business and Well-being Coach
Introduce yourself! Please tell us about you and your life, so we can get to know you better.
Hi, I’m Sarah Wood,
I’m a mum, coffee snob, cat person, fitness fanatic and a bit of a geek who’s never quite left University.
I have over 25 years of experience working in healthcare and wellness roles overlapping with over 20 years of experience working in sales in marketing – both in big corporate and in my own businesses.
I started out as a registered nurse then transitioned into the pharmaceutical industry where I worked and studied my way up to become the head of marketing in Neuroscience for one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies.
I left the pharmaceutical world at the end of 2016 exhausted, burnt out and disillusioned. I blamed the workaholic culture of my company and the lack of support for parents in the workforce.
I decided to start my own business in the wellness industry, trained as a Yoga teacher and soon after launched ‘Yoga for Busy Mums’ in my local community. I had a hugely positive response and decided to create an online studio so I could reach Mums all over the globe. I thought I’d hacked the system and found a way to be successful, be present for my daughter and avoid the toxic stress of the corporate world.
It didn’t quite work out that way!
I recreated the same frenzied existence I’d become so used to – filling every moment ‘productively’, staying up late to figure out ‘tech’, getting sucked into ‘shiny object syndrome’, undercharging, failing to get the support I needed, not prioritising and treating everything as ‘urgent’. Pretty soon I felt myself burning out again, only this time I couldn’t blame big corporate or my demanding boss – she was me!!
I realised I’d internalised hustle culture – the idea that you need to constantly strive, sacrificing sleep, hobbies, and social connection to achieve entrepreneurial success. Hustle culture blinds us to the opportunities we have to do things smarter and more sustainably – we just accept that ‘this is what it takes’ to run a profitable business.
This wake-up call spurred me on to figure out a better way. At this point, I was back at University studying sports science and Psychology. I learned about high-performance athletes and how they use the stress-recovery cycle to optimise their performance and avoid over-training syndrome (which is a very similar syndrome to burnout). I learned about brain health, the science of well-being, cognitive psychology, positive psychology and many other topics and I began to piece together the components that help humans thrive and reach their full potential – rather than existing in survival mode which has become the norm for so many of us.
As I implemented these insights in my own life and noticed how I was more productive, creative and successful in my business when I prioritised my health, well-being and relationships, I decided I wanted to share this with other ambitious entrepreneurs who were stuck on the hamster wheel and burning out in the process.
I trained as a health and well-being coach, and a sleep, stress management and recovery coach and spent a year developing my coaching skills and signature process. I learned the most vulnerable time for the well-being of both the business and the business owner – is during/after a rapid growth phase. Seeing this pattern motivated me to apply my skills and experience to helping entrepreneurs, who are buckling under the pressures of rapid growth, take back control of their business and their well-being. And so, my 1:1 coaching program – Step UP – was born.
Can you provide some background on the establishment of Sarah Wood Coaching and the inspiration behind its creation?
I established Sarah Wood Coaching at the beginning of 2023, inspired by my own experiences of burnout and filled with a desire to help other ambitious entrepreneurs break free of hustle culture.
My other inspiration is my 8-year-old daughter – I wanted to create an online business I can operate from my laptop so I have the flexibility to be there for her – to do school drop-offs and pick-ups, be there on sports days, and stay home with her when she’s sick.
What is the primary coaching approach or philosophy that sets Sarah Wood Coaching apart?
I’m all about evidence-based approaches to coaching and draw on self-determination theory, appreciative inquiry, motivational interviewing, cognitive behavioural coaching, positive psychology and behaviour change psychology to support my clients to realise their visions and goals.
I believe it’s important to help clients dispute beliefs that hinder their progress AND support behaviour change. While the rise in mindset coaching is wonderful and helps clients become aware of their limiting beliefs, using cognitive coaching approaches in isolation rarely leads to lasting change.
Are there specific areas or niches within coaching that your business specializes in?
I work with entrepreneurs who are overwhelmed by rapid growth in their business. They’ve evolved past that early concept-proving phase where the stress is largely around where their next sale is coming from and they’ve figured out sales and marketing that works. Now they’re dealing with an increasing workload that’s pushing them beyond their capacity and they’re struggling to keep their head above water.
I help them feel empowered as the CEO of their business so they can run their business instead of letting it run them. This usually involves helping them to prioritise, set boundaries, get support, delegate, charge what they need to and prioritise their well-being so they have the energy to focus and bring their A-game to what they do.
Can you share any success stories or testimonials from clients who have benefited from your coaching services?
Absolutely, here’s what Alex – a web designer and developer – whose business exploded during the pandemic had to say about working with me.
“Before working with Sarah I was suffering from severe overwhelm, burnout, anxiety and lack of focus. Since working together I’m feeling much less overwhelmed, more clear about my next steps and what I need to do moving forward to avoid burning out. Sarah helped me figure out how to implement better boundaries, choose better clients, and prioritise my health”.
