My Story - How I Started My Business

My story on how I stumbled upon my life calling..by chance.

Read my blog to Iearn how I transitioned into an entrepreneur.

 

The beginnings

I trained as an accountant and worked as an auditor in Ernst & Young for a few years before I moved and settled down in Malaysia with my husband. When I moved here, he asked me to join him in his family business, which was in textiles trading. For me, at that time, it seemed more glamorous than auditing. Attending fashion shows and buying trips to Korea, China, and Italy seemed exciting.

I helped him in that for a few years, actively handling the financial and fashion side of the business until the children came along. Then I got busy being a stay at home mum but something was missing in my life. On one of my trips to Italy, I saw a children’s clothing fair going on. I got an idea to start my own retail business – selling high end kids fashion in Malaysia.

I come from a business background. My dad was a businessman. My brother is a businessman. My grandfather is a businessman. We’ve always had business in our genes. My business did well. It expanded to three stores. The main reason I started this business was because I love dressing my children up. So I thought if I could do a business out of this, my children could wear all the beautiful clothes. 

The business was a partnership with my husband. He invested in it, as I didn’t have my own money. How could I? Ever since my marriage , I got an allowance. So technically the business wasn’t mine. The autonomy in the business wasn’t there. Every time I made a business decision, my husband would say something different and all this “disempowerment” disturbed me

The rebellion

One fine day, we had this big argument about some financial matters. I decided to quit.Yes, I simply quit. I stopped working and gave everything up. I just didn’t want to do anything. I was at the point in my life where I was restless. I wanted to do something that added value to my life, something that was my calling. I was simply unhappy. Nothing was giving me happiness. For the next six months, I did nothing besides attending PTA meetings, going for lunches with my friends, reading and dabbling into new courses on Udemy.

I did a lot of free courses online. I enjoy studying and learning, so I kept myself busy. I didn’t have a lot of savings of my own. Everything I had was joint with my husband. I hated it every time he taunted me during an argument- “ I pay for your bills” or “You’re staying under my roof.” He usually apologised later, but his words stung me.

I did courses in NLP, angel card healing, reiki and tarot online. I really enjoyed the tarot. After learning the entire course, I decided to practice it. But how? Was I qualified enough? Or intuitive enough? 

I started doing free readings for friends, neighbours, relatives and whoever who wanted a free reading. I wanted more experience so I decided to go on free psychic groups on Facebook to test my skills. I was overwhelmed by people messaging me from all over the world. 

I was happy, at least I had something to do. I didn’t charge – I didn’t know how to. I didn’t believe in my abilities. I didn’t believe anyone would pay me for a reading. People would thank me profusely and say my readings really resonated. I didn’t know where all those intuitive messages were coming from, but I was happy to be busy.

One fine day, one of the ladies I did a reading for asked for my PayPal account as she wanted to send me a “donation”, she really resonated with my reading and wanted to thank me for me by giving me a small token of appreciation. I did not have a PayPal account and I didn’t even know what a PayPal account was. Yes. I was that stupid and unsavvy about money. I googled it and set it up. She sent me a donation of USD15. I was overjoyed. I didn’t believe I could get paid. The last time I ever got paid was 15 years back as an auditor. When I worked with my husband I never got a pay check, only an allowance.

After 15 years having USD15 of my own was unbelievable. I still couldn’t believe that anyone would pay me. It felt surreal. I started jumping and shared my joy with my children. My children looked at me like I had gone bonkers. It was merely USD15. They didn’t understand this USD15 meant. It was my hard earned money. I had never earned in a long time and those USD15 meant so much to me.

I started having a bit more confidence and I started charging for my readings. I started with USD20 per hour. I had people booking me by the hour and I got really busy until I couldn’t cope with the bookings I had. A friend asked me to increase my price and start charging a bit more. I increased my price to USD40. Guess what – I was still overbooked. It was crazy. Clients kept coming back for more readings. I kept getting new clients. I kept getting referrals. I kept getting clients from the free reading site. It was overwhelming. 

I realised 2 things that one year. Firstly, most problems my clients had were relationship problems – boyfriend issues, infidelity or why they were still single! I realised bad relationships were the biggest problem in most people’s lives. Most peoples were bothered by their relationships. Of course, I had clients who were worried about their careers, finances, children or health, but 95% of the people who came for a reading were unhappy with their relationships. 

Secondly tarot was good to predict the future but it could not solve the problems that my clients had. I couldn’t help them change things. I would have repeat customers who would come back but I couldn’t give them a solution.

I went around looking for a solution – a solution that worked! I dabbled into other modalities. I did a deep research on other therapies and tried them on my regular clients and miraculously things started changing in their relationships.I started doing less tarot readings and more therapy work. I am not born psychic or intuitive so how was I doing all this work? 

The new life

The more I worked with clients, the more I realised these modalities were very effective. I could find out blocks in my clients relationships immediately and help them with that. I realised also that root of all problems is a relationship problem.

Imagine a day you had a fight with your husband before leaving for work. It will spoil your day. You would vent your anger on your colleagues, the children and even the cashier at the supermarket. I realised everyone has relationship issues. I started studying more about relationships and how I could support my clients in their journey. 

The relationship coaching industry is a $350 million industry. And it’s growing in leaps and bounds. Everyone out there needs relationship help. Divorce rates are increasing. People are constantly busy and frustrated and their relationships are suffering the most. 

Trust me – I have a lot of clients who make a lot of money but they can’t handle their relationships. I have clients whose relationships matter so much to them that even if they have no money, they would borrow to pay me for a clearing. 

That is how my intuitive relationship coaching business started – it was a journey of trial and error. I started from charging $20 to $2000 for my client coaching package. I make over $300,000 a year from my relationship coaching business. It has been a journey of self discovery and growth. It was an impossible dream for me, honestly. I could not even believe I could earn $15 and now I make 20,000 times of that a year.

What hardships did I face while running my business? Yes I come from a family of traders and business people – it is in my blood. However, it wasn’t easy to set up a business from scratch. Running a business has many parts – from marketing to sales to infrastructure and many more. You need to learn how to handle every part of your business. 

I knew how to use different therapies, I knew how to handle my clients relationships issues but entrepreneurship part of it was hard for me. I wasted a lot of time and money on Facebook ads and other marketing tools to get new clients. There was a lot of trial and error. I finally mastered a system of acquiring new clients, having repeat business from existing clients through marketing tools and exciting new offers. That entire process took me a long time to master.

I was at that point myself. I needed my own identity. I needed a career. I needed something to call my own. I had lost my financial independence many years ago. I had even lost the ability to believe that I could do it. I had no skills. I was an auditor many years ago, but in my forties, who would want me when they could employ 20 year olds. I had left the workforce a very long time ago that I didn’t even feel worthy. 

Running your own business is scary. Some days you would have sales and some days you wouldn’t but following a process is the way to move forward.

This is my life’s work. It was hard. It was a long difficult journey of discovering what people want, learning how to solve their problems, learning how to run a business and learning how to stay motivated as a coach every day. 

I am constantly upgrading and learning new things go help my clients. to better equip myself. The pursuit of helping my clients even further is what egged me to delve into the world of psychology with a Msc in Psychology at Hertfordshire University.

This program course will allow me to capitalise on your own resilience and perseverance, putting me on the path to finding more career opportunities where I can truly make a difference. Also on this course I can meet  like-minded, motivated students from different academic backgrounds with a shared motivation – who can relate to me, help me, understand me and support me in my journey. 

We don’t often get the chance to broaden our perspective or to ask ourselves what our values are. Studying psychology will help me do just that by bringing me face to face with my own biases and assumptions. Learning the major psychology theories and applying them to situations that are relevant in the world today whilst learning the differences between cognitive, social, personality and developmental psychology will challenge my world views.

All as the course is part time and entirely online, I  can continue my work while still developing the specialist skills needed to further my career in psychology. 

In the long term, I envision my master’s degree in psychology as a springboard for elevating my coaching practice to new heights. The advanced knowledge and skills acquired during the program will not only enhance my clients’ experiences but also contribute to my credibility as a knowledgeable and compassionate practitioner. 

Ultimately, my goal is to empower individuals not only with practical life skills but also with a deeper understanding of their own thoughts, emotions, and behaviours, leading to lasting positive change.

This academic pursuit represents a significant step forward in my personal and professional journey, enabling me to bridge the gap between theory and practice while making a meaningful impact on the lives of those I have the privilege to guide.

So this is my story. And this is how I transformed my life and found a purpose.Step by step. I’ve told you the whole process – how I built it up. I had many sleepless nights. I had many tears. But it was all worth it

Kaysha