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Do What You Love to Do Interview: From Corporate World to IVF Coach, Meet Becks Hopkins

April 28 Dawn

Beck Hopkins IVF Coach Australia

Next Up on the Do What You Love to Do Interviews is Beck Hopkins. Becks is a personal coach based in Melbourne, Australia, she coaches women and men going through IVF and beyond to offer support and strategies in untangling the emotional knots that come along creating a family in non-traditional ways.

Becks do what you love story is one that many can relate to – escaping corporate world, spending years trying out lots of different things, and having a that moment of complete clarity when it’s not expected.

Aside: when looking at your own career and when you’re going through the ‘what should I be doing‘ torture – take some time to look at your own story. In my experience, people are very surprised when their love work is something that comes easily to them, or when they have lived a similar story…sometimes the surprise is how close it’s been all along.

Here you go,

Tell us a bit about yourself and what doing what you love to do means to you?

I was born in the north of England and moved with my family to Perth, Australia when I was 6 years old. So I’m technically an English/Australian, which pains my Australian husband when I can’t decide who to support in the Rugby World Cup.

By day, when I’m not being a mother to my beautiful 10-month-old baby girl, I’m a personal coach. Which for me is absolutely doing what I love to do.

As a coach I get paid to listen and ask questions and go into deep conversations to facilitate clarity and shifts in thinking for my clients, which then creates action in their lives.

But for me, doing what I love to do isn’t just about what I do to earn money, although that is a massive plus.

Being a coach means I get to live true to my corest (not a real word) of core values: connection. I’m a connection junkie. So when I’m not coaching, I’m torturing my friends and family by asking them deep questions and challenging their perspectives so we can all be the best version of ourselves we can possibly be.

Seeing people make changes in their lives because of the work we do together or the conversations we have, rocks my frickin world.

What were you doing before that?

I was an IT project manager, workshop facilitator and business process re-engineer-er! Which I also love, but there isn’t a lot of heart in working for banks and insurance companies. I would rather use my powers for good not evil.

How did you make doing what you love to do happen?

I tried everything. It’s all in the doing.

Between the years 2004 and 2012 among my friends I was known as “the course queen” – bag making, jewellery making, life drawing, aerobics instructing, counselling, psychology, sewing, knitting, novel writing, oil painting, short story writing, cooking, wine appreciation, circus skills.

You name it, I tried it. All in the name of getting one step closer to finding what I loved to do.

Can you share the good, the bad and the ugly when you made the decision do what you love to do?

The good for me is definitely being of service to others. Does that sound twee? It’s true.

For me it doesn’t get any better than supporting other people to make changes in their life.

I got a text from my best friend yesterday who lives in Sydney. She had watched my first video blog on how to stop worrying and then gone through the exercise to work through some of her worries. She said it felt like I was sitting in Sydney talking with her and that she slept better that night. That makes what I do totally worth doing.

And the good also includes the incredible tribe of people I am now connected with. Since finding what I love to do, I talk about it all the time (always a sign you have found what you love) which means I have met some incredibly talented, connected, passionate people along the way. I love my tribe.

The bad is how much time I spend on administration. I don’t have the luxury of farming this stuff off to people who know more than I do (yet) so I spend a lot of time learning about SEO and marketing strategies, making social media work for me and building my website. But this is all in the foundation setting part of setting up a business, so it’s short-term pain for me.

And the ugly? Well, it definitely doesn’t pay as well as the world of banking and insurance. But I’m forever hopeful that one day it will.

What were the biggest hurdles, challenges and barriers you had to overcome?

Letting go of my corporate ego in telling people what I do.

Going from the corporate world to the heart-centred coaching world wasn’t easy to explain.

And the term “life coach” often comes with all sorts of hippy connotations. Getting my spiel right when people ask, “what do you do?” was a massive challenge for me.

What led you to this love specifically?

Two key things:

1) During my coach training in the UK I was asked to volunteer for a coaching exercise.

From 7 minutes of coaching, my whole world shifted on its axis.

My coaching topic was “why am I not practicing yoga anymore?” which I thought was an innocent coaching topic that wasn’t going to make me reveal too much of myself. Well, I was wrong.

The coaching unlocked a connection I had unconsciously made in my mind of my yoga and the grief of losing my daughter Ruby when I was 6 months pregnant.

After Ruby was born, my husband and I moved to Bali to practice yoga every day and work through our grief.

After we left Bali I lost my love of yoga. 7 minutes of awesome coaching unlocked the connection that had stuck my yoga and my grief together, which meant that I couldn’t practice yoga without revisiting the grief. I couldn’t see this obvious connection myself. That’s when my love and respect for coaching was solidified.

2) Looking at my own personal story for my coaching niche.

Who knew 7 heartbreaking years of IVF would become the foundations of what I do?

What would be your top 5 pieces of advice, or suggestions, words of wisdom you would like to share?

Lean into the discomfort and have the crucial conversations (yes, those ones with your parents that you’ve been letting rule your life for the last however many years).

Do, do, do. You don’t learn without doing.

Nothing is so hard that you can’t figure it out.

Lead with your heart. Always.

Don’t take criticism or judgement personally. It’s never about you.

What has been your biggest learning in your journey so far?

The shortest distance between two people is a story.

Not sure who originally said this, but it has been huge for me. Share something of you that matters, it creates connection and trust.

What was the biggest piece of learning you picked up and ran with?

How to listen. I have no idea why this isn’t one of the first things you learn at school. How to listen actively, including how to shut off your internal chatter that makes you wish the person in front of you would finish what they were saying so you could tell your super relevant and more interesting story. How we listen changes how people feel.

Pick a quote for life, and explain why it matters to you.

I discovered this quote from Theodore Roosevelt given in a speech he gave in 1910 via the work of Brene Brown. If you haven’t heard of her, Google her TED talks. She’s AMAZING!

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”

What this means to me is that the learning is in the doing. Trying things, failing, trying something else. You can’t think your way to loving what you do, you have to do something, anything, just get started. See you in the arena!

And lastly, leave a little bio where people can reach you…

Okay, I will write it in the third person if that’s okay:

Rebecca Hopkins is a personal coach and the mother of a beautiful baby girl conceived using an anonymous egg donor in Spain. Learn more about Rebecca at her website or connect with her on twitter or linkedin.

Goodbye, Friend.

April 9 Dawn

“A goodbye is never painful unless you’re never going to say hello again”

March the 14th, I kissed my friend, thanked her, said goodbye and walked out of intensive care for the last time. Her death has been described as tragic, a terrible accident, an irreplaceable loss and my least favourite, ‘just one of those things’.

I do know,

Writing this post doesn’t change anything. The outcome remains the same.

I do know,

Her story has been told, and it certainly can’t be re-written.

Hey you,

I’ve been away from here for a while.

I’ve attempted this update many times over the past couple of weeks, I write a few scribbles, judge them, then put them aside. Today, I realise I’ve just been putting it off. Perhaps because to share it here with you means I have to accept the story as the truth.

I don’t actually know what to write to be honest. A tribute? Tell you about her life? What?! Also, I don’t want to get attached to the pictures and thoughts in daylight that go though my head at night.

I would love it, if today were the day that the grief had turned into wisdom, a fuller understanding and acceptance of what happened. But I would be lying to you.

This is a challenging experience, no doubt. My response to her passing has been a mix of my conditioned reaction to death and dying, and my belief that we are not our body (which does brings more peace).

Today, I am grateful that I can catch my breath.

See, I could have skipped this event and chosen to not write about it, you wouldn’t be any the wiser, but that would be a mammoth cop-out on my part.

Living with Moxie is about embracing all life: death and dying is part of the human experience, to leave them out rejects them.

Living with Moxie is about confidence, courage, bravery, fearlessness…in the face of adversity.

When you lose something you love, when unwelcome and unexpected grief comes slamming into your life, when your days are spent simply avoiding the opening to slipping in the downward spiral, when events out with your control are being acted out around you and you have no choice but to take part, it requires (now more than any other) digging really deep to find your inner courage, confidence and resilience to feel fully what you feel (whatever form that takes) so that you can move from grief into mourning, and then into healing.

I am practicing that last paragraph.

Loss is adversity, no doubt.

Unwelcome and uncontrollable change is adversity.

Circumstance out with your control is adversity.

Grief (and mourning) is adversity.

Adversity can be cold, ruthless and cruel, bringing with it a period of total chaos, uncertainty, fear and perhaps anger. Or it can teach you and I about life, living and love.

And yes, for some adversity that appears the road back can be a heck of a long one, with no signposts, instructions or a map to get you home, and it can demand so much from you, even qualities you didn’t know you had before it appeared.

Love waits on welcome

As you can imagine, because I am sure we share the common experience of losing love, even though the passing of my friend is at present connected with pain, anger, fear and utter disbelief – not just from me, but all those who knew her – there is no doubt that love has been ever present (as it is always, if you allow it) these past few weeks.

Truth: it’s love that has been the blanket to all of this, shrouding us, tucking us in, keeping us – friends, family, strangers – close and safe, allowing us to share stories, even laugh at times.

And this is where this story gives me such hope, faith and clarity for us all.

Even though we are all so different, complain and moan about the craziest, insane, and stupidest things at times. Even when we let our egos take over, or when we pay attention to parts of life that really don’t matter. When it comes down to it, we can put all that aside, all that nonsense that keeps us separate from one another and come together as fellow humans beings, sharing this human experience in all it’s form.

The majority of us do know that fear keeps us apart and love brings us together. That love is the first, last and always – gosh, that chokes me up. That we can in the hardest times actually get what’s important, that we can appreciate what we do have, that we genuinely have nothing to fear, and that we need not worry needlessly.

I’ll hold on to that.

Sheila Hyslop 1964 - 2014 — Sheila Hyslop (1964 – 2014)

I wish you had known her.

She was pretty darned special.

She was, with no doubt in my mind, the most compassionate, non-judgemental, loving and giving person I have had the pleasure to know and have in my life for over 20 years.

I won’t go into the details of her story, let’s just say she was one of the brave ones. Against the opinions of others, she didn’t sit down when her values and ethics required her to stand up, she did make a difference in thousands of lives – animal and human.

I am missing her. I will miss her.

You know, she was probably much like your closest friend.

Maybe give them a call today huh?

It will take you two mins. Or someone else that matters. Don’t hang up without saying Goodbye.

Goodbye, friend.

I Forgot to Tell You About My Queue Buddy (& How You Always Have a Choice)

January 15 Dawn

It’s 1 pm, the day before Christmas Eve and I’m standing a queue in my local supermarket.

To get to the end of it I’ve had to trail up the freezer aisles, wind round the bread and pitch up beside the chicken being roasted, the smell alone is enough to make me want to throw up, it’s a vegetarian thing.

30 trolleys are in front me with their temporary owners caring for their precision load, and they are complaining, huffing, tutting at how badly organised this place is and 2 days before Christmas as well!

They try to make eye contact so I can join them in their complaints.

I’m in a moment of choice.

Do I add myself to the queue and join in the choir of complaint?

Do I abandon my load and call it a day?

Or.

Do I decide to take a deep breath, accept that long lines, today of all days, are unavoidable?

Do I decide to stop getting pissed off at things I cannot control. Get off the thrown. And make my decision to choose how I want to feel?

I breathe. Accept. Get in line without the drama.

No sooner had I made my choice my ankles get rammed by the trolley belonging to the lady behind me in the queue.

Immediately,

I’m in another moment of choice.

Let the pain rise to anger and frustration and stay without the drama. Or choose again.

I take a breath, smile, tell her not to worry, it’s fine and start a conversation.

80 minutes later and I’m paying for my shopping. My queue buddy is helping me pack, and I’m loading her wares onto the belt.

We are chattering away, laughing and by the time we’ve reached the end of our journey together we’ve even had take-away coffee from the shop in the store.

I’m away first, so I turn to my queue buddy, and to the weird glances from the man on the till, we give each other a big hug and we both agree that was the quickest 80 minutes and best queue conversation ever.

I wish her a merry one at her friends house where she’s heading to next, and that all her family make it safe home for Boxing Day, that she does start that qualification she’s been hankering after,

…you know how friends say goodbye, a summary of well wishes for the conversation just had. And she does the same.

We agree that if we see each other again, we will team up.

You’re always in a moment of choice.

You always get to decide how you feel about any situation.

Yes, things will appear at your ankles to suck you out of the state that gives you peace.

But, you are always in a moment of choice.

If you find you have made the wrong one, decide again.

It’s. That. Simple.

No?

You’re always in a moment of choice.

everysingle — Not my usual pic, but a perfect little illustration: you choose what side of the bus you sit on. Image credit: quotepix.com

Word of the Year or Action of the Year? (& Why I’m Voting for Action)

January 11 Dawn

Do you have word of the year?

One word to act like a touchstone. You can have a quick check-in with yourself to make sure you’re be-ing what you agreed with yourself.

I’m proposing we take this word of the year thing up a notch and into Action of the Year.

Here’s why,

You’ve probably heard these:

Actions speak louder than words.
People may doubt what you say, but they will believe what you do.
Show me. Don’t tell me.
A persons actions will tell you everything you need to know.

Well used quotes but when I hear them, I think about my relationships with others and not the relationship I have with my own Self. You?

I’ve been thinking about this words and actions thing all morning partly because I’m sitting here slightly pissed off and trying to work out why what’s happening is bothering so much.

Briefly…someone gave me their word that they would do ‘X’, and I’m in the moment of observing their actions as they do ‘Y and Z’.

Did they speak them to please me? Did they share those words specifically so as not to upset anyone? Did they choose their words because it felt the right thing to say at the time? Did they make sounds that people wanted to hear as their way of getting others to like and trust them?

Now, maybe they have genuinely forgotten what their words were, that can happen, I do know that.

But I have remembered their words (promise, intention, spoken agreement), and what do you know…trust, respect and credibility is slowly going out the window.

Can you think of moments in your life where you have heard words being spoken, promises being made, but the actions didn’t match?

How did you feel at the time of they said one thing, did another?

And,

The big question,

Do you feel the same when you go back on on your own words you promised yourself?

Big learning today.

I don’t.

I do say things to me about how it’s going to go, make promises with myself, state intentions, speak words and then (my actions show) I do the exact opposite (some of the time).

I most certainly don’t tolerate the say one thing, do another when it’s coming from any external relationship. But when I’m doing it on me, well, what do you know, I seem to accept it (that’s the learning!) it’s okay at times.

Gosh, if I was in any sort of relationship with me I’d surely be annoyed at how many times I let my own self down…wait…I am in a relationship with me! I’m tolerating crap and making broken promises that I’ve made to myself. Eh? Well, that is no longer good enough for me. Aside: if you do it to you, you decide if it’s tolerable or not, I can only ever speak for myself.

So, I’m booting word of the year and doing action of the year instead, want to join me?

This is the rule,

Action your words, if you don’t intend to keep the promises you make with yourself, don’t speak them.

That’s it?

Yup, pretty much.

Word of the year, great.

Action of the year, next level.

In my morning realisation I came up with some questions, and you can download them here

What promises are you making yourself and not keeping?
What could happen if you followed through on the promises you made to yourself?
What will happen if you keep breaking them?
What would you no longer tolerate for you if never crossed the line in the sand of let-down for yourself?
What could it feel like if you always showed up for yourself first? (What would go, what would stay?)
Where (if anywhere) can you build respect and credibility for your Self?
What may happen if you stopped taking your own Self for granted?
What will it take for you to decide your own needs are a priority?
Where are you saying words and not believing them?
What if you called yourself on your own BS reasons and excuses?
What may happen if you never again called yourself off being you at the last minute?
What would like be like if you no longer gossiped about yourself or told yourself lies about who you think you are?
Where are you words speaking louder than your actions?
How can you switch to actions speaking louder than words? What goes? What stays? What do you need?

I’m looking at those quotes and going to make them about me…

My actions speak louder than my words.
People may doubt my words, but believe what I do.
Show. Don’t tell.
My actions are telling everyone what they need to know about me

Right. My word of the year was ‘trust’, and it will remain for the action.

Are you playing?

What action of the year would you choose for you, that will be displayed in everything you do?

And lastly, The Moxie Project starts on the 20th of January if you would like to come. It’s a 28-day course all about building and reclaiming your courage and confidence. I sure as hell don’t promise you that you’re life will be all neat and dandy in that time or that you will never feel fear again, but I am promising you lots of support to finally be well on the way to ditching the BS lies you are telling yourself about you. You can read more here.

Quit Worrying What Everyone Else is Up To. Stay On Your Own Ground.

January 11 Dawn

Have you heard of a man called Cliff Young?

No? Gather round.

Once upon a time there was a man called Cliff Young.

He was born in 1922 in Australia. He grew up on his parents sheep farm and the best way to herd the sheep, according to Cliff, was to…um..run after them by foot.

He gave up sheep (the farming of them that is) in his adult years and became a potato farmer instead. But him being a potato farmer really has nothing to do with this part of his story.

Where was I?

Oh yes.

Fast forward to 1983, while the rest of the world was shimmying along to Billy Jean or stomping it to Beat It by Micheal Jackson, Cliff, now 61 years of age, entered himself into a marathon. Not the usual 26 miles, easy-peasy-squeezy marathon. No, he decided on the (now defunct) Westfield Sydney to Melbourne Ultra-marathon, a mere 544 miles (875 kilometers).

He trailed at first.

Lagged behind the main runners.

But here’s where it becomes a story of awesome…

Instead of sleeping during the first and second night of the race, like every other runner did, he kept on running.

Not stopping.

He won the race by a 10 hour lead.

It doesn’t end there.

He completed the race in 5 days, 15 hours and four minutes. Knocking 2 days of the fastest record held.

Why?

Well. The first time I heard this story that answer was ‘he didn’t know he had to sleep’. Further digging I read that he said, ‘As a young sheep farmer it wasn’t unusual for me to run for 2/3 days at time straight.’

He didn’t do what everyone else was doing.

Whether he did or didn’t know about the sleeping arrangements is irrelevant really.

He just didn’t follow the crowd.

Go with the herd.

Do what was expected.

He ran in his own unique way.

Not for one second do I believe life is a race. Meh. But I do think it’s about stepping out and away (if needed, required, wanted) from the herd in order to just get on, hit your own darned ground, and get busy on running with your own thing.

No looking over the shoulder.

No comparing.

No wondering what the hell everyone else is up to.

Get it?

Excellent.

Task: For today. Just today. Only one little day. Or a day soon when Cliff Young pops into your head. No looking over your shoulder. No glancing at what others are up to. No comparing. No ‘wanna be like’. Today, stay on your own ground.

It’s Okay to Have a Change of Heart

December 16 Dawn

If something can change, it was never permanent to start with.

You can disagree now with what you defended then. You can make other decisions now, that weren’t in the plans then. You can do whatever you like now, even if hadn’t crossed your mind and heart back then.

Values, beliefs, plans, ideas all made with the very best intentions can change in a heart beat.

You may have started down a path back then, convinced you were heading the right direction, only to discover that it’s not really what you want now.

That’s okay.

You are allowed to have a change of heart.

The plans you spent years on may not fire you up and inspire you anymore. What you poured your heart into once, you may want it back now for something else.

See, you planned back then with the all the information you had about you at that time. Not for the person you are today. She wasn’t even around when you began.

Everything changes.

People change.

So will you.

Want to start over? Begin.

Want to rip it up. Tear it.

Want to remove it? Press delete.

Want to try something complete different? Today is a very good day to begin.

There is nobody policing you to say that you…you…the one who did indeed pour their sweat, tears, time, resources into one thing can do a 180 and start something else.

You don’t have to explain your choices to anyone.
You don’t have to make others understand your decisions.
You don’t need to regret or feel guilty for changing your beliefs.
You don’t need to see an idea to the end because you had the idea in the first place.
You can change your mind freely.

You are going to change, this is certain.

Do you remain attached to beliefs, values, plans or ideas (that were never permanent to begin with) or set free those that fit who you are today?

Even though it may be hard to release what no longer serves you, even though it may feel like you are giving up parts of yourself as you let go of the attachment and perception of who you thought you were, what do you choose? In the giving up, what do you gain instead?

Meet yourself where you are at today. Serve the world from the person you are at this moment, not from the you that you once were.

And remember, she will change too. If you want to get attached to anything, become attached to change.

Go on. Let it go. Rip it up. Decide otherwise. Choose again if you want to. It’s okay.