Welcome to this week’s episode of the phenomenal career podcast. I’m excited to introduce you to someone who I’ve been connected to online for quite some time. Let me introduce you to Maxine Kerley.
Hi, Jaz, thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited. My name is Maxine and I am a Happiness Life Coach.
I focus on helping fellow female small business owners who are self employed to truly embrace who they are, their intentions, their dreams – to feel happiness and joy in their everyday life and beyond.
I love that. How did you become a happiness coach?
I was always into creative subjects at school. I was always sociable and expressing myself in various art forms.
That’s where I felt most comfortable. When I left uni, I floated for several years – working with small businesses, and then I got into marketing for about 13 years.
I went back to work in 2015 after taking a year off to have my daughter and after being back in that space for a year, I was asked to take over my boss’s position, as she was going on maternity leave.
That kind of promotional opportunity in an employed environment really triggered some confidence in me to take the leap and work for myself.
I decided to use my marketing skills to help small businesses grow and so decided to focus on parenting.
Suddenly, I was engaging and seeing all these amazing businesses online and so decided to set up my own marketing business in 2016.
In 2019, I hit quite a big wall in my journey as I was feeling constantly overwhelmed, and insecure. I began procrastinating and felt like I was burning out. It was a whole new roller coaster that I wasn’t quite prepared for.
Although it was tough, it made me reflect on the business I had created and made me realise that I hadn’t been celebrating the small wins and so decided to focus on that and making sure that every win was celebrated.
I started to focus on what made me happy, what I wanted and my own identity outside being a mum and wife. I began embracing who I truly was, what I wanted from my life, and nourishing myself with the things that are better for me. That change of mindset really kick started it for me.
I spent a year on that journey and realised that actually, I wanted to help other people who were feeling exactly like I was and connect with them and their happy pointers. I felt like I found my purpose and that’s what brought me to where I am today.
What is happiness coaching?
Well, you will know what coaching is being a coach yourself but the reason why I wanted to focus particularly on the happiness side of things is because that was such a massive journey for me in terms of really trying to identify what that meant to me.
For me, focusing on happiness, in particular, it just made sense to me because it was the journey that I’d gone on myself in really connecting to who I was, and how I wanted to be.
What’s your career teaching you?
Oh, my goodness, so much. It’s enabling me and teaching me to use a lot of strengths that I have but haven’t used for quite some time.
It’s teaching me that I can do it and I can inspire others to do the same and about other people, and what is going on in their minds and how they’re feeling. The connection – I just think is so so powerful. I feel like I’m learning about people every single day but also about myself within that as well – and also my relationships.
Social connection is a very big part of our happiness and I think working with people in this way, and connecting with people in this way, has definitely strengthened what brings me joy, and what brings me happiness. Whether it’s groups, one to ones, or conversations in a message, it’s like a whole new world.
What are some things that people should know about happiness?
I think first of all, it’s understanding that it is a state, and we’re not designed to be in a particular state for any one time. This goes with all emotions. There’s nothing wrong with you If you’re not feeling happy all the time, because we’re not designed to feel happy all the time.
When you hear people say all feelings are valid, that’s 100% the truth. We tend to compare ourselves so much to one another, but what is important is to get clear on what happiness means to you and not what you think society dictates. It’s memories, experiences and connections that make us happy – not comparing each other to one another.
You don’t need to have massive, dramatic life changing overhauls to be happy, it can start small but can make the biggest impact.
I always remember the quote – happiness is not a destination, it’s the journey. It isn’t just a place that you just magically rock up to on an island one day in your boat – it’s about how you get there. What was the experience? How long did it take? What did you learn? A lot of happiness comes from fulfilment.
I’d love to know where people can find out more about happiness and everything that you’re doing and what you’re up to.
You can visit my website,which is http://www.maxinekerley.com. I’ve also got a called the Happy Rebels Hangout and I’m also on Instagram as Maxine Kerley.
