We recently connected with Tanya Carroll and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Tanya thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Was there a moment in your career that meaningfully altered your trajectory? If so, we’d love to hear the backstory.

The moment I knew I would have to face some of my biggest fears, and step into a completely different arena, came as a result of more than a year of pitching to a brand new start up company.

At that stage I had been a Corrective Exercise Coach for 15 years, so I was well established in my industry. I had worked as a sub contractor in some of Melbourne’s biggest gyms and then with my husband, owned a gym. From the minute I heard that there was a wave pool opening near to us I was in contact with them in regard to being a land based surf coach. (I had always dreamed of coaching pro surfers but never could see a pathway into that for myself.)

After months of meetings I was finally told that stage one of their development would not be including a gym as they had first proposed. And that if I was committed to working in the surf industry with that company I would need to become an in water surf coach.

This meant that I would need to overcome some of my biggest fears and learn how to surf, as well as learning how to swim. I needed to pass certain qualifications to become a surf coach including an ocean lifeguard qualification which meant swimming in the ocean.

Every part of following through this process brought on anxiety and stress. However the end goal – working with professional surfers – was much greater than my fears.

I often look back at the moment I decided to go all in with becoming a surf coach, as a pivotal point in my life. Jumping deep into a completely different culture – learning and living the surf culture is a whole subsystem of its own! – and almost learning a new language has been both incredibly challenging and rewarding. Now at the age of 50 and 4 years into my surf coaching journey, I can see why people are resistant to making such dramatic career changes in their lifetimes, but I also am able to encourage and inspire people who are unhappy in their life and choices, to be brave and take risks.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

At the age of 32 my first husband died as a result of Melanoma cancer. My eldest two children were just 5 and 6 years old at the time. I had lived four years from the time of his original diagnosis to his passing, within the medical system. I had experienced how modern medicine works from a reactionary perspective and I was somewhat, understandably, jaded at that approach.

Not long after his passing a close friend told me that she thought I would make a great personal trainer.

It was this belief, when in all honesty I was floundering in finding myself as a woman outside being a wife and mother, that turned on the flicker of a flame within me. And I started thinking that perhaps personal training was the preventative side of health that I was so longing to immerse myself in.

After completing the relevant qualifications to become a base level personal trainer I began working in a gym that exposed me to the endless possibilities of career paths that come under the banner of health and wellness. I then continued my study to become a Chek Professional – a corrective exercise coach and holistic lifestyle coach – and grew my business around helping people build their health before being unhealthy led them to a fully blown health crisis.

I had the knowledge and life experience to be able to connect with people on a very deep level.

Fast track to today and the services I offer, as a result of the long evolvement of my study of having a human experience in life, and I coach people in the physical aspects of human movement from the very basics of infant development up to professional athletes, as well as the mental, emotional and spiritual elements that contribute to overall health.

I also provide assessment and support in the areas of organ function, nutrition, elimination, endocrine system health, as well as rehabilitation – including preventative and post surgical – for spinal injuries, core disfunction, pre and post natal health in women and men.

Alongside that I specialise in coaching surf athletes who are on the path to becoming professionals, semi professional and professional surfers.

In myself I am most proud of being able to look headlong into fear and challenges and hold them, whilst still taking forward steps to reach my goals. To me, challenges have always been guiding lights and come at a point when I am being asked to level up, in preparation of something bigger coming. It is my philosophy that it is possible to live with fear and joy in each hand simultaneously, and that fear doesn’t need to be eliminated in order to achieve what seems impossible.

Many business coaches have tried unsuccessfully coach me into having separation between myself and my brand. I am my brand – Tanya Carroll Surf Coach.

I wear my heart on my sleeve and I am my business. What you see and feel is how my business operates and that is with authenticity and emotion.

Any advice for managing a team?

This comes as a more of my failings as a manager and the loss of a business, as well as more recently taking on a role as a duty manager at URBNSURF in order to specifically target an area of my personal growth that had spectacularly let me down!

I have found that it is important to manage people by letting them learn, fail, learn and then succeed.

When I was managing our staff at the gym I owned with my husband I was working from a place of knowing I needed to delegate and let go, but still wanting to control all aspects of that. I was not willing to let my staff bring their own ideas to the table and instead thought I needed them to be carbon copies of myself. I was also scared of having difficult conversations that led to avoidance of confrontation, which then led to customer dissatifaction.

I have since learned that involving staff in the process of finding solutions and resolutions, with support and guidance, means that they feel empowered. And the more people feel empowered, the more they want to contribute and feel pride in their work.

I also have found that to keep morale high, especially during challenging times, it is important to listen to how staff are feeling and be empathetic.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

I love the work of Rachel Hollis – who you can find online – and her ‘start today journal’ was a game changer for me. It feeds into my passion for Oprah and expands on Oprah’s ideas around the more you look for things to be grateful for, the more grateful you feel.

I have followed Oprah since I was a teenager and have even been to a day of taping episodes for the Oprah Show when it was still in production in Chicago, so I would say she has been my greatest entrepreneurial and thinking influence.

I am not sure exactly where this one comes from, but I try and live by the thinking of ‘I get to do ……… today’. Rather than ‘I have to do……… today.’

It has been a mindset practice that has changed my life in terms of feeling like I am not in control of my thinking, to being in complete harmony with my thinking.

Because ultimately every part of my life is a gift. The challenging parts and the rewarding parts. Because I GET TO live this life!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.rawheartandsoul.com
• Instagram: tanyaacarroll
• Facebook: Tanya Carroll Surf Coach

Image Credits
Carlz J Soda Liv Szadurski