When Life Happens: What Helped Me Hold It Together (and Still Run My Business)

In this heartfelt episode, I share what helped me emotionally and practically after the sudden passing of my Mum, including how I continued to run my coaching business with just 2–3 hours of work over the next month.

If you’re a coach, course creator, or online entrepreneur, and you’ve ever wondered how to build a business that can help you create your dream life AND hold you through real-life hard seasons, this episode is a must-listen.

You’ll hear:
 - The emotional tools I used to process grief and stay grounded (like EFT, journaling, and nervous system support)
 - What I had in place that kept my clients supported and sales coming in
 - And that running a successful business and living a happy and meaningful life does NOT mean everything has to be perfect.

If you want to build a trauma-aware, spacious, high-income coaching business that works with your life (not against it), tune in now.

💛 Ready to build your own hybrid model? DM me “LEVERAGE” on Instagram and I’ll send you the details for my Leveraged Mastermind.

If you want help building your own 6 or 7 figure Coaching Business, come on over and connect with Kushla:

- on Instagram, you'll find her @KushlaChadwickOfficial

- on Facebook, come join our community here: Community

- To book a free $100k Roadmap Session or go on the waiting list for one, go here: https://calendly.com/kushlateam/roadmap

Transcript

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Today's episode is a really personal one. I'm going to share what helped me keep going emotionally and in my business after my mum passed away recently, including how I continue to make sales even and serve clients during one of the hardest months of my life because your business should support your dreams but it should also hold you through the hard times and yes it's possible to have both. So if you're building a coaching business that needs to work even when life doesn't, this episode will show you what to put in place now so you're supported when you need it most. Hey, welcome to the Confident Coach Academy podcast. I'm your host Kushna Chadwick and if you have an audacious dream to really be of service in the world, build a profitable coaching business online and have an awesome life offline, then my love, you are in the right place. Together we're going to talk strategy, mindset, manifestation, thought work, energy work, all the things. So let's dive in. Hey my friend, welcome back. Today's episode is a bit of a tender one and also honestly for me it's a really important one. It's a bit more personal and I really debated about whether or not to share about this and talk about this publicly or not. So it's definitely not a like here's your five point checklist kind of episode. But yeah, I really want to talk about what's happening or what happens when life you know, just happens when things go wrong or when things are hard, like when something big or awful or completely unexpected turns your world upside down. Because for me recently, that was losing my mom. And even though I have deep faith, even though I, you know, I know I'll see her again. And even though I even had this wonderful piece about her not being in pain anymore it still really hit me like a truck quite honestly so I want to share with you what actually helped me emotionally mentally and spiritually and also practically what allowed my business to keep running even when I stepped away and just you know focused on being a daughter and a human so you know whether I you're in your own hard season or you just want to know how to build a business that can support you through hard seasons, I hope this episode really speaks to you and helps you. So let's dive in. I just want to take you back for a second because I mentioned my mum passed away, but the story actually starts before that. So we had this beautiful weekend and just last month or actually it was the end of May because my mom's birthday is May 30th and all the family gathered together like tons of us. She was living in Melbourne with my brother and she was turning 80 or she turned 80 and so we were there to celebrate her 80th birthday. We had like a Friday night, no yeah the Friday night on her actual birthday dinner and just for like the adults who wanted to come and enjoy the evening without children. And then Saturday we had a big family one. I think there's about 60 of us there. But anyway, it was awesome. You know, I've got the photos and the videos of us just laughing and being silly and mum looking amazing and soaking up the goodness of it. Like we had such an incredible time. and made so many beautiful moments and memories. And I'm so grateful. And actually, my mom looked like a total baddie. She looks so awesome. We took her on a shopping spree the day before her birthday. It was myself, my sister Leanne, her partner Catherine, and my daughter Aaliyah. We took her out, you know, brought her some clothes. She looks so awesome. And I We just had a great time. And away from the birthday parties, we had some really great conversations. And I'm really grateful, actually. Me and each of my children were able to have some really special, amazing moments with her. So that was awesome, right? And then a week later, we got a call from my brother, Daniel, who she was living with, saying that mom couldn't keep her food down and they were taking her to the hospital. And We were actually celebrating my brother's birthday here on that day and we just were really just being hopeful that you know it was something small. Though my mum has like had a lot of different illnesses, had a lot of different health challenges, we were just being optimistic honestly and thinking hopefully it was just something that like she ate that she can't really handle, she shouldn't really have really eaten and you know and they'll be able to help her. But at 4 30 a.m the next morning we got another call and her organs were shutting down and they said that there was nothing that they could do and obviously we were all gutted like you know that kind of feeling when maybe your whole body goes cold or you're like you can't swallow properly because it's like this lump in your throat it was like that kind of feeling and anyway I struggled to think about getting on a plane to try and go see her because I was afraid she would pass away while I was in the air. But, you know, by the grace of God, I got a flight along with one of my daughters, a sister and a nephew. And we made it. And I'm so grateful. I made it to her bedside about half an hour, 40 minutes before she passed. And I was able to, you know, hold her hand and tell her that I love her. And I thanked her for like all the awesome things she'd done as my mom. And then she was gone. And even though I've walked with grief before, this felt really different. And I know some of you will relate in different ways, right? And I'll say even though I knew she was at peace, you know, because she was in a lot of pain before she went, even though I had so much faith, I just felt like a part of me died with her. And like I was still functioning and I was making decisions and, you know, doing my best to show up for my family, particularly my siblings. But I felt like my spark was just gone. So what do you do when that happens, right? So how do you not fall apart completely? Well, you know, and I'm not saying you shouldn't fall apart completely, you know. But how do you hold yourself together, not in a power through it way kind of thing, but in a gentle, loving way so you can do what you need to do in life? You know, because for us, there were a lot of decisions that needed to be made really quickly. And even little things like it was a public holiday in Melbourne. where she lived the next day and so there was just lots of little challenges and decisions that needed to be made and so and I needed to be a part of that process so here's what I did and I'm sharing this in case it helps you when your version of hard comes because let's be real none of us are immune to life being lifey, you know? So I just really quickly want to go through some of the things that were really helpful for me. And these are tools that I teach. all of my clients whether you're in a course of mine like high ticket sales or you know whether you're in the high ticket sales accelerator or whether you're in my leverage mastermind or a private coaching client like um or any or not all of my other little low ticket courses but you know some of them but I love to teach a lot of these tools because life lives so anyway the first one is EFT or tapping and I've been using tapping for years I think I'm coming up I think it's around 18 years now but that particular week honestly it became like my lifeline I did some tapping on the plane I did tapping after receiving the news that she would pass away I even tapped in the hospital and quietly in a hospital room. And I want to add this, for those of you who know EFT or emotional freedom technique, you know, called tapping, it wasn't to get rid of the feelings. Okay, I just want to be really clear on that. But it was just to help me process and breathe through. And I know that like there's a lot of different opinions on grief. I don't think there's any set period of of time that's the right amount of time to grieve but I think we can look at our lives individually and say like how long do I want to grieve and how long do I feel I want to like sit in all the hard feelings of it all right and so for me I knew that it was probably going to come like the waves of grief but I didn't want to sit in it like a really long time. So I started doing work to help me breathe through it from the day that it started. Another thing that I did is I reached out to one incredibly safe friend. Now I did speak to multiple friends who I love all of them and I'm so grateful for all of them. But in terms of me reaching out, I reached out to You know, I didn't post about it. I didn't message 20 people. I just messaged one friend initially. And that's the one I knew would be there no matter what I was feeling. And if you don't have a friend like that yet, I want you to know it's possible. It does take time. You have to invest in the, you know, in the right people. But oh my goodness, it's worth it. So of course, I had clients and past clients and friends reach out and all of that meant so much to me. And like I said, I was really grateful. But yeah, I think when you're going through your season of hard, it's important for us also to just reach out to that one person ourselves. And for some of you, if you reach out and that one person's sucky, then reach out one more time. Okay. Anyway, so that's what I did. It was really helpful for me. The next thing that I did was I looked after my body and I, okay, a confession. I rushed to the airport and I only grabbed magnesium as my supplement. I really didn't bring anything else. I literally packed two pairs of socks and one of them I lent to my niece on the second day I was there. So for, I think almost entire week, you know, cause I didn't have time to like go to the shops and anyway we're all a bit of a hot mess but I had like one pair of socks which I was like thank goodness my feet don't really sweat and anyway so I was there and I got sick I it was funny because one of my sisters was sick here who was visiting like before we heard the news about mum and And I was like, I'm fine. My immune system's strong, blah, blah, blah. But the moment I heard that mum's body was shutting down, that her organs were closing down, I could feel myself like, like, nah. I was like, my body literally said to me, nah, you're getting sick. And I mean, I laugh about that, but it was awful. Actually, it spiraled so quickly. Like, so from the time of, like, I didn't, like, we actually had heard that you know, like I said, the day before mum passed away that she was sick. Um, and then we got a call at 1230 with news that she might need like surgery. And there was a whole big discussion on that. From that point on, I was, I could feel myself starting to like, Oh, this is starting to get to me. And so, um, and I just share this cause I don't normally get sick. Like I can count on two fingers, the number of times I've gotten sick over the, like, I don't know, the last 15 years. Right. And that was one of them. And, um, Yeah, I got so sick. And in our culture, we actually, so for those of you who don't know, I'm part Māori, and so native New Zealander. And what many of us do is we will have the body, it's called a marae, M-A-R-A-E, if you want to look it up, a marae, or at our house, if we don't have access to a marae. And being in Australia here, we don't have a marae. And so anyway, mum came back to our house and we lay with the body. And usually it's like for three days. And because the body's been embalmed, the room's going to be cold. And so it's winter. It was still winter in Melbourne. And so it was freezing and I was sick and grieving and doing a lot of things. And yeah, so... How did I look after my body? I'm like telling you a bit of a long story there. But, you know, I did a lot of things. So supplements was one of them. When I got home, I got back to high quality food and I added my supplements back in. And within days, I could feel my energy shifting. And it wasn't about being perfect. It's just supporting myself as best as I could. We have to support ourselves now. even in our grief or the heart. And in fact, I would say supporting our body and looking after our body, especially in the hard seasons of life is so important. So another thing that I did is I just sat in my infrared sauna. It's like my little cocoon of safety. I'd go in, sweat it out, put on healing frequency music and just be no agenda, no pressure to feel better, just release. And Often I do, like, journaling while I'm sitting in there or tapping or sometimes I study while I'm in there as well. But a lot of the time I just sat and sometimes– I journaled, which was the last thing that I want to say. I did it not every day and not in a dear diary way, but when things felt too much or I just wanted to let out some of my feelings, I'd write. And it helped a lot. It made the swirling thoughts or the heavy feelings a lot wider and a lot better. And I had some amazing insights and beautiful revelations, actually, in the sauna. It was amazing. Anyway. So that's that side of things. Now, let's go to the business side of things, right? Because I do run a business and I've got coaching clients and programs, a podcast, launches, content, all the things. And I want to be super honest with you. I didn't run everything. I didn't keep running everything. You know, I wasn't showing up daily on social media, you not even in my own Facebook group. And there were little things that didn't get done. And you know what? I just think that's totally okay. You need, well, I say you need, I think we need to normalize not being on all of the time. So if you feel like you always have to be on, I just want to say you don't have to always be on to run an amazing business that you can, you know, that supports you in your life. So yeah, I just wanted to normalize that I didn't do everything. Everything didn't go like exactly the way it would have if I had like, you know, being working in my business as usual. So yeah. you're allowed to not perform, especially when your heart is shattered. So that said, my business didn't fall apart, right? Because I'd set it up to support me even when I can't or don't want to support it, you know what I mean? So I calculated the amount of time I worked, not exactly because my mind's a little bit foggy from some bits, but I think I probably worked two to three hours max the month after mum passed and my business kept going clients were still being looked after people were still enrolling in my courses money still came in and it's not because you know I'm some amazing whatever it but it's because I've built something that I um that I call the hybrid model and a lot of other coaches also use a hybrid model because it's amazing right and So let's talk about that for a sec, because this is the thing I'm feeling really passionate about now, helping coaches like you build a hybrid model that gives you both freedom and income. So what does that actually mean? So it means you have... low ticket and high ticket offers. It means you've got evergreen programs that people can join every day. It means that you've got systems that sell and deliver for you even while you're asleep or you sob or you sit in the corner, corner, the sauna. Oh dear, dear, dear. I mean, you could sit in the corner in the sauna. Anyway, that model, that structure is what carried me through the darkest month of my life. I wasn't doing sales calls I wasn't pushing a launch I wasn't showing up every day like I said but people were still finding me buying from me getting coached by me all because the business had been built that way on purpose it's what I help my clients do now not just to scale but to have something that actually supports their life you know because life like I said earlier life will life and when it does I just want you to have a business that can breathe with you as well so um Yeah, okay, if you're still here listening, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for letting me share my heart. And if this hit home for you, if you want help building that kind of business, a business that makes great money, serves your people beautifully, and gives you room to rest, grieve, travel, live, then come find me on Instagram. Just come to Krista Chadwick Official. And make sure you message me before you get distracted by your life or by whatever is on Instagram. Just go into my DMs and I'll put a link and just comment leverage or yeah, just message me the word leverage and I'll send you the details or more info about my leverage mastermind. It's where I love helping my clients make this hybrid model your new normal. It's where your offers, your systems, like all the structure and your energy finally work together to build a business that you'll love and that will support you and your clients. So thanks again for being here with me. Take care of yourself. Lots of love and sunshine and I'll catch you soon.