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I'm Kelly - the founder of She Is Fierce! and your host on our blog featuring stories and wisdom from fierce women all over the world! 

Fierce Living

2.5 kids plus a hunky husband… What more could a girl want?

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Natalie Tolhopf & Family

 

It suddenly occurred to me one day that just because I hadn’t experienced hardship, extreme conditions or any tragic situations, that because I was comfortable and privileged, that because I hadn’t been a victim, then I couldn’t possibly BE anyone of significance.  I mean who was I to think that I could impact, inspire, or succeed if I my story wasn’t significant?

I thought that I couldn’t have an extraordinary life and BE someone. 

Well then it hit me like a tonne of bricks…That I was actually being a complete and utter IDIOT!

I was in fact being a victim by playing small. I had had a blessed life, happy childhood, I am married with 2 kids, a large male boxer (this is where the .5 of a kid comes in) and a gorgeous husband. Yet, there I was waiting for something BAD to happen so that I could step out and up, to finally do what I always wanted to do.

I had created a life that was all about how stressed I was, my bumper sticker said ”Stress The Small Stuff.”  I had lost all sense of what MY journey was or had become. Playing small and stressing over dumb s**t was making me depressed. Being a puppet pulled along by life’s strings and reactive choices was corrupting my mind.  I had forgotten to listen to my intuition. What did I really want? Hell, I forgot to even appreciate the gorgeous aroma of my morning espresso.

If you are anything like me, many of your recent years have been about raising kids, working in a full time career and forging ahead. But to the detriment of what I really wanted to do. Which didn’t occur to me until a few years ago. I was in a job that I was starting to hate because I was unfulfilled. I have come from a male dominated career journey.  I am a qualified chef by trade and have worked in some of the world’s most iconic restaurants plus cooked with some of the greatest egos of all times. That high kitchen heat and pressure does crazy things to ones head, but I learned quickly as the only female in the kitchen that your passion, skill and tenacity create and forge your success.

The past five years have been jammed packed, I mean rack em’ and stack em’ kind of pace.  We’ve bought and sold our first family home, I’ve had two babies and two promotions. Breathe.

Enter stage left… My promotion and massive transformational catalyst of my life. Thanks to a boss I will never forget. He saw my leadership skills and asked me to run his business. I had a two-year-old at the time and was planning another baby.  It didn’t matter to him, he created a flexible and boundary-less job for me. I pushed the limits, I was in my flow, my zone of genius. I was honored to have led and worked alongside some of the most amazing people I have ever met. I know and can see that if someone values you, believes in you and gives you the platform to perform, magic DOES happen. But, at was at this point I wanted more in my life.

If I was capable of such achievements what else could I do?  So I got fit… I changed my lifestyle, dropped two dress sizes and am committed on being the leanest, fittest and healthiest version of myself. Getting fit and losing two dress sizes uncovered for me how much I had been hiding from the world by playing small.

So here I am today.  Right here, right now.

I walked full force into a life I had only dreamed of. I walked away from my corporate salary and launched my own business.  Every single person deserves the chance to dream and to create a career strategy to get them to a fulfilling career.  Apart from my own BS and self-sabotage, I really didn’t have anything stopping me. I have the most supportive, salt of the earth husband (I would totally clone him if I could so you could experience what I get to). I realised all you needed was the belief in yourself and one raving fan – enter stage left hunky husband.

You don’t need something external, or monumental or tragic to happen in your life to HAVE a life you want right now. You just need a bucket load of desire, a ton of persistence and a lifetime supply of faith (not the blind stuff).

Everything else you need will come to you as you need it. Trust.

Simply moving through the motions because you are one lucky son of a gun doesn’t cut it.

If you can give more, be more, then you need to step up.

Find out what really ignites your passion, learn to dream again. Become one of the leaders the world desperately needs, one girlfriend at a time.  You aren’t just a mum, a girlfriend, a wife, a lover, an aunt, a woman. You are a moving ball of energy who can create an epic life experience not only for yourself but for those around you.

Join me… Get a new bumper sticker “Be More, Be You”

PS. You are enough as you are, but shine some more light on your gorgeous talents and dreams. You won’t be sorry, just pissed off if you leave it till you are dead!

Just sayin’

 


Natalie Tolhopf, She Is Fierce! ContributorNatalie Tolhopf knows what it’s like to try and fit in where you don’t see how it could work. Working as a chef in male-dominated, hot, and pressurized kitchens, she kept focused on her passion and learned from the best in the UK and Europe.

She took these skills into the development of a new café in New Zealand which made her see how important business planning and systems were. There, she discovered a rewarding love of teaching others how to be their best and realized her own worth and that it is okay to highly value yourself, your skills and experience.

From working in small business, she moved into a hospitality and tourism school tutoring young people in the importance of their own efforts and attitudes in even a large organization. Despite having a two-year-old and another baby on the way, Natalie was given the opportunity to run the business where she was in her flow, pushing the limits.

Knowing some time before that she would take the leap into launching her own business, she waited until the time was right and then … went for it! Natalie stopped playing small. She stopped hiding, stepped up, built upon her own journey,  and started to inspire and uplift women to showcase themselves to catapult their career.

Meet Natalie here… www.catapultyourcareer.co.nz

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