Building Her Dream is excited to chat with Business Coach Alison Fitzgibbons from Australia. Alison celebrated her one-year business anniversary in January.
Alison, why don’t you start by telling us what your dream life looks like? Are you currently living in it?
My dream life has always been focused on actually experiencing life—being able to travel regularly, spending my days with things that bring me joy and doing something that sets my soul on fire.
I am absolutely living my dream life at the moment!
I moved from Germany to Australia to be with the love of my life in 2020. We live a quick 5-minute drive away from the beach. I start my mornings with yoga or a walk on the beach and then spend my days empowering other womxn in my coaching business.
My family still lives in Europe (and in the US) and I feel immensely lucky and grateful that I can visit them regularly without getting permission from a boss.
Wow, you are living the dream! So tell us more about what you do.
I am a Business Coach. I help womxn in the online space, specifically other coaches and online service providers, grow their online businesses through social media WHILE they are living their dream life.
I see so many people put their dream lives on hold—until they’re retired, until they feel ready, until they have the financial security—and by combining the strategies of social media marketing, messaging, etc and powerful energetics, I help my clients step into their dream lives now.
I love that. What inspired you to start this business?
I graduated High School with absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with my life.
I watched all of my friends go to university and start jobs they were passionate about or not, while I felt completely hopeless and depressed at the idea of having to work a 9 to 5 or start a career.
I dropped out of college twice and ended up working in hospitality for years watching my life pass me by because I simply didn’t believe that there was a place for me in the “normal” world.
So I made the plan to start traveling the world in an “Eat, Pray, Love” find my calling kind of way.
I was looking for options to make money while traveling and came across the Virtual Assistant world. I started my business, quit my job, sold all of my belongings, and flew from Germany to Alaska within two short weeks.
For the first time in my life, I felt in full control of what I wanted to do. I was living my dream life, working with amazing people all while being 100% independent.
Starting my own business, growing it and watching it succeed gave me so much fulfillment, not just because I was making money or traveling, but because it felt like I had found a community.
That’s why I decided to start my coaching business in January 2022—to help other womxn feel the same things I felt, find a community, their purpose AND live their dream life.
You’ve recently celebrated your 1 year business anniversary. What’s a challenge you’ve faced along your entrepreneurial journey so far?
Being true to myself.
I was bullied A LOT in High School, so showing up as myself has never been easy for me.
Running my own business and becoming clear on what I want to represent and how I want to communicate that has been my chance to dive deep into who I truly am—what my core values and opinions are—and simultaneously moving out of my comfort zone every single day by voicing that.
It’s been a process I had to work really hard on and it’s definitely something I haven’t overcome yet!
Has being an introvert affected your business?
I absolutely love being an introvert and I think especially in the coaching industry, is such a valuable trait. I love listening and I think it provides a safe space for my clients.
I also tend to attract other introverts as clients and I love building my own little community of introverted business owners who are doing their thing in a more “non-traditional” way!
Where do you find new clients?
I use Social Media, mainly Instagram, but I am also on TikTok and have a blog.
So social media is a big part of your marketing strategy. Is attending networking events a part of your marketing as well?
It absolutely would be! I travel a lot so so far I haven’t seemed to be in the right place at the right time. But I am planning on attending a few online networking events this year which I have mixed feelings about.
As an introvert, I get incredibly nervous about meeting new people and the thought of everybody being on Zoom and people talking over each other or the connection not working out daunts me!
How do you define success for yourself and your business?
I love this question!
I think my definition of success is that I wake up every morning committed to what I’m doing because I LOVE it.
Not because it provides me X amount of money or fame or whatever, but simply because it brings me joy and I’m making a difference.
What advice would you give to other introverted women who are just starting their own businesses?
It’s okay to do things differently.
Just because there are a lot of extroverted people out there who seem to be successful the way they’re doing things doesn’t mean there’s no room for your way.
There’s a beautiful community of other introverts who are craving to see someone like you succeed!
Thank you for taking the time to share your story. Where can our readers find more information about you?
