We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Emily Neilson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Emily, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

In 2013, my life was flipped on its head when I lost my mother unexpectedly. Her passing was a devastating blow, but it also became a pivotal moment of reflection and growth for me. I knew she had more dreams and experiences she wanted to pursue, and this realisation sparked a deep desire within me to honour her legacy by living my own life to the fullest.

As I navigated the grief and sought meaning in my own life, I realised that despite achieving success in my corporate finance career, I was feeling unfulfilled. I received leadership awards and recognition and I had the stability and accolades, but something was missing. This sense of dissatisfaction, coupled with the memory of my mother’s unrealised dreams, pushed me to embark on a journey of self-exploration.

I delved into personal development, exploring areas such as energetics, mindset, and holistic wellness. Through this journey, I began to uncover a new sense of purpose and clarity. I realised that my true passion lay in helping others who were also feeling stuck to find their path to fulfilment.

In honour of my mother’s legacy and driven by the desire to live a life that resonated with my deepest values, I transitioned to a career where I could make a meaningful impact. I founded my business with the mission to empower women to step into their power, create purpose-led careers, and achieve a life of freedom and balance. My mission is to help them gain the clarity, confidence, and financial harmony they need to live authentically and achieve their full potential through heart-led leadership & business.

Every day, I am inspired by the vision of women waking up excited about their lives, knowing they are on a path that supports their ambitions and well-being. By integrating self-mastery and soulful strategy, I aim to create a ripple effect of empowerment and transformation, honouring my mum’s memory by helping others live fully and craft their own version of success.

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?

My journey into my current field has been deeply personal and transformative. I started my career in corporate finance as a Chartered Accountant, where over a period of 17 years, I achieved the exterior measure of success but felt a growing sense of unfulfillment within.

As part of my self exploration & healing journey after losing my mum unexpectedly, I was led to explore various aspects of personal development, energetics, and holistic wellness. I realised that my true calling was to support driven women who, like me, felt stuck in unfulfilling roles and were seeking a more meaningful, purpose-driven path. Central to this is helping women find and express their authentic voice, guiding them to embrace their true selves and align their careers with their deepest values and passions.

After studying to become a NLP Master Practitioner, I transitioned into coaching and mentoring and finally made the leap to go all in on my business.

I offer a range of services designed to help women step into their power and achieve a fulfilling, purpose-led life. My signature program, Alchemy, is a comprehensive self-mastery course that guides women through a transformative journey. It includes six core modules that focus on self-awareness, aligning with their calling, affirming desires, and activating their potential.

In addition to this, I provide personalised 1:1 coaching packages and retainers for those seeking more tailored support in the areas of personal strategy and leadership, while supporting the whole human, as well as customised Business, Project and Finance consulting services designed to support heart-led businesses for process and system optimisation so they can achieve greater impact.

My work addresses several key challenges faced by my clients:

Feeling stuck & lack of confidence: Through coaching, I empower women who feel unfulfilled in their current roles to gain clarity and transition into careers or businesses that truly resonate with them, and to build self-confidence and trust in their abilities.
Financial Harmony: I provide guidance on achieving financial independence and integrating energetic principles to enhance prosperity.
Holistic Wellbeing: I support women in creating balanced, fulfilling lives that honour their health, family, and overall wellbeing.
System & process optimisation: I leverage my Corporate background to provide guidance on enhancing the efficiency of business processes and functions to make room for greater business impact.
Long Term Business & Finance Sustainability strategies: I support businesses to consider the long term impact of their business so that they are able to move from a reactive space to responsive in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world.

What sets me apart is my holistic approach that combines self-mastery, energetics, and new age leadership principles as well as my love for systemisation and optimisation. I leverage my thorough understanding of tools such as Human Design to add an additional layer of consideration for both personal reflection and harmonising professional and personal relationships. I integrate my background in corporate finance with a passion for personal growth to provide practical and profound support. My personal experience of transformation and my deep understanding of the challenges faced by my clients allow me to offer genuine, empathetic guidance, creating a safe space for them as they elevate and expand.

I am most proud of the transformation I’ve supported in my clients’ lives – helping them move from feeling stuck and uncertain to achieving clarity, confidence, and fulfilment. Seeing women step into their power and create businesses and lives they’re passionate about is incredibly rewarding, not to mention the ripple effect of their transformation and witnessing the impact within their families, careers and communities.

At the heart of my mission lies a deeper truth: that every human possesses an innate power to transform their life and align with their deepest desires, even amidst the chaos and uncertainty of our world. My journey from a secure but unfulfilling corporate career to a purpose-driven business was driven by a deep realisation that life is too short to live out of alignment with our true selves.

The essence of what I offer is not just about career transitions or business success; it’s about awakening to the extraordinary potential within each of us. It’s about understanding that true fulfilment comes from embracing our authentic selves, daring to dream beyond societal expectations, and stepping into our purpose with courage and clarity.

I see my work as a call to rise above the noise, confusion and distraction, to trust in our inner wisdom, and to take bold steps towards creating a life that resonates with our highest values and aspirations. It’s an invitation to see challenges as opportunities, and to transform our vision into reality with confidence and grace.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

Yes, my side hustle eventually became my full-time career. It all started when I was juggling my corporate finance job with my passion for coaching and mentoring. I partnered with an online holistic wellbeing program and began offering one-on-one sessions and workshops in my spare time, driven by my personal journey and the desire to help others who felt stuck like I once did.

The turning point came when I realised that the potential greater impact I could have was being held back by my own feeling of being ‘stuck’ in my comfort zone and safe employee role. So I made the leap to go all in on my business.

Initially, I predominantly worked one to one with clients with the exception of hosting a mastermind called Illuminate. I found myself missing ‘business’ elements so when i was invited to complete some project work helping businesses with system and processes optimisation, I decided to include that as part of my service offerings as well.

I then launched my signature program, Alchemy, which was a game-changer for me because it allowed me to reach more women and offer a structured way to guide them through their own personal transformations. As the demand grew, I found myself spending more and more time on it, and it became clear that this was where my true passion lay.

Making the leap to full-time was a big step, but seeing the impact of my work and the success of my clients made it an easy decision. Today, my business is dedicated to empowering women to find their purpose and create fulfilling lives, and it all started with that initial side hustle that gradually grew into something much more meaningful.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Resilience has been a constant companion in my journey, especially during some of the most challenging periods of my life. Before I fully stepped away from my corporate role, my husband and I were facing unexplained infertility. The stress of it all was overwhelming. Then, in a twist of fate, the month after I resigned, I fell pregnant. It felt like a sign that I was on the right path. But just a week after I finished up my job, a routine scan revealed that I had experienced a missed miscarriage. The grief that followed was something I had never known before.

Despite the heartbreak, I threw myself into my work, launching my first mastermind and filling my private coaching spaces while navigating the immense loss of the dreams we had for our family. Just as I was beginning to find my footing again, I fell pregnant, only to experience another miscarriage five months after my first but this time with some additional medical complications. The emotional and physical toll was heavy, yet I continued to show up for my clients, pouring my energy into the work that had become my lifeline.

I decided to strip back to basics, I prioritised and elevated my health and just a couple of months later, I fell pregnant again, and everything seemed to be going well until our baby decided to arrive six weeks early. He spent time in the NICU and special care, but after 2 & a half weeks, we were able to bring him home, safe and sound. That period was a whirlwind of emotions – relief, exhaustion, joy, and anxiety all mixed together – but to see him now thriving in every sense of the word and our family completed, makes it all worth it.

In the midst of caring for a newborn and navigating the ups and downs of my professional journey, I released my soul’s work and signature program, Alchemy. But just three weeks into the launch, life dealt another blow – my father-in-law passed away unexpectedly. It was another wave of grief, another heartbreak to navigate.

Through all of this – the losses, the challenges, and the uncertainty – I gave myself space to grieve and honour my emotions, but I never stopped showing up. No matter what life threw my way, I kept moving forward, fueled by the deep belief that I was meant to help others through their own struggles. Resilience, for me, has been about embracing the pain, acknowledging the hardships, and still finding the strength to rise each day and continue the work I believe in.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emilyjaneneilson/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilyneilsonca/

Image Credits

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