Seven Figure Consultant with Jessica Fearnley – Details, episodes & analysis

In this week’s episode of the Seven Figure Consultant Podcast, I interviewed my wonderful client, Sherry Lukey, an extraordinary executive and life coach who helps successful professionals worldwide unlock their full potential, cultivate meaningful relationships, and create a life of purpose, peace, and presence.

Sherry shared her inspiring journey into the world of coaching, emphasizing how trauma can significantly impact both personal and professional success. 

We talked about the disconnect between outward success and internal struggles, especially within corporate environments, plus the importance of creating safe spaces for healing and exploring how the subconscious mind plays a crucial role in shaping our beliefs.

In this episode: 

• [00:00:00] Sherry shares her journey into coaching, influenced by her family dynamics.
• [00:02:59] The disconnect between outward success and internal struggles faced by clients.
• [00:06:52] The feelings of isolation experienced by successful individuals in corporate environments.
• [00:10:07] The difference between conscious and subconscious minds and their roles in trauma.
• [00:11:34] Discussion on the different types of trauma and the ingredients that contribute to it.
• [00:13:27] Insights on how early experiences shape negative narratives about oneself.
• [00:16:16] Discussion on the disconnect between rational thought and bodily feelings related to safety and trauma.
• [00:17:16] How addressing trauma can transform long-standing patterns and behaviors in clients.
• [00:18:24] Creating safe environments for deep coaching work and personal transformation.
• [00:21:58] Advice on conducting body scans to maintain awareness of emotional states throughout the day.
• [00:23:36] Discussion on how women often feel guilt for others' emotions and strategies to overcome this.
• [00:24:32] The dangers of taking on others' emotions and the need for clients to experience their own breakthroughs.
• [00:26:10] Challenges faced in pricing coaching services appropriately for transformative work.
• [00:29:14] Discussion on the disparity in pricing between genders in coaching and the need for women to charge appropriately.
• [00:31:59] Sherry discusses her decision to double her prices and the mental challenge behind it.
• [00:34:35] The hidden struggles of seemingly successful individuals.
• [00:35:06] The value of understanding everyone's unique story behind their success.
• [00:36:27] The importance of women achieving financial independence and success.

Key Takeaways: 

• Healing trauma unlocks success. Many high-achieving women unknowingly hold themselves back due to past experiences that created deep-seated fears around visibility and success.
• Trauma isn't just 'big' events. Trauma can stem from experiences that left us feeling shocked, isolated, and powerless - even if they don’t seem significant from the outside.
• The subconscious mind runs the show. While we may consciously want success, our subconscious fears can sabotage us - like avoiding opportunities, procrastinating, or feeling deep discomfort when we try to step up.
• Women tend to ‘freeze’ or ‘fawn’ under stress. Instead of fight or flight, many women default to people-pleasing or shutting down, which keeps them stuck in unhealthy patterns.
• Your next level is waiting - if you’re willing to claim it. Success often requires shifting from ‘Why me?’ to ‘Why not me?’ and confidently stepping into your worth. Once you change your internal narrative, everything else shifts.

Quotes: 

“It's certainly something that I think all of us as coaches see, we have clients who come to us and they are so outstanding as individuals. They have this amazing potential, and quite often they have things that are already going really well. But for whatever reason, there are these deep traumas sometimes really holding them back and old narratives that don't serve them, but everything just feels completely tangled up and they can't move forward.” - Jessica Fearnley

“We can heal trauma and we can have patterns that have plagued us for decades. You always kind of know that you're destined for great things, and every time it's in front of you, you manage to swerve. But to actually be able to heal those patterns, it changes everything.” - Jessica Fearnley

“When the subconscious perceives a threat, whether it be real or perceived, that stress response comes on and then your options are fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. And fawn being people pleasing, which is one of the things that women really, really tend to do.” - Sherry Lukey

“What people don't realize is that really a trauma at any level has three ingredients. One is shock, it's sort of like you've been blindsided, something that just totally came out of nowhere, a feeling of isolation and a feeling of powerlessness. And if you have those three ingredients, you end up with trauma.” - Sherry Lukey

“People have to break down to break through. And so by you taking that on, you're actually preventing their breakthrough. And it completely turns it on its head to be like, ‘oh, this is a massive disservice to take this on for someone’ because you subconsciously and energetically, you're actually saying to them ‘you're not capable of handling this. So I'm going to handle it for you’.” - Sherry Lukey

Useful Links

Sherry: 

Sherry’s website - sherrylukey.com

Jessica:

Buy Jessica’s book, Too Much, on Amazon

Get in touch with Jessica to discuss your consulting business

Leave a rating and review for the Seven Figure Consultant Podcast

Jessica’s LinkedIn

Guest Bio

Sherry Lukey is an extraordinary executive and life coach who helps successful professionals worldwide unlock their full potential, cultivate meaningful relationships, and create a life of purpose, peace, and presence. Using her unique expertise and Tap into Power Method™, she guides clients to break free from deep-rooted subconscious patterns and biases, empowering them to lead confidently and leave a legacy.

Sherry's expertise has been showcased in top media outlets like Forbes, Beyond the Couch, and the Fearless and Successful podcasts. She captivates audiences with powerful presentations, expertly moderates events, and delivers game-changing insights on panels.

When she's not empowering leaders to lead with greater compassion for themselves and others, you'll find her pursuing her passions for personal growth and pottery in her home studio. She shares a beautiful life in British Columbia, Canada, with her husband of thirty-seven years and takes immense pride in being the mother of adult twin daughters.

On Thursday 20th March I’m hosting an online book launch party for my newly released book, Too Much. And I would love you to come and join us!

I’m going to be speaking about the book, sharing some of my favourite things from the book, and we’re also making it a networking call where you can come and connect with other B2B consultants serving corporates.

My goal is that this is a really fun session where you can connect with others, make some new professional contacts and talk about the book!

RSVP for the Book Launch Party

Buy the book on Amazon

In this week’s episode, I’m talking about what happens after you achieve significant business milestones, such as reaching a seven figure revenue goal.

There are many emotional and psychological aspects of success, and often our minds like to try playing tricks on us when we’ve finally achieved something we’ve been working towards.

I share more about the importance of radical self-improvement and self-acceptance, encouraging you to recognise your value and celebrate your achievements without seeking external validation.

Quotes: 

“Alongside actually hitting the goal, the thing I became aware of right away was this feeling not of achievement, but of numbness. Like, I don’t feel the way I thought I would.”

“If it’s been a big struggle, there is the exhaustion of the journey, but also the refusal to admit that this leg of the journey is over and it’s time to rest, it’s time to refocus on something new.”

“These milestone moments are often a little bit mixed. There’s the thrill of achievement. The satisfaction of thinking, wow that’s exactly what I set out to do and I’ve actually done it. Yay for me! And yet, it can feel like an anticlimax because it’s not like a football team winning the world cup in a stadium full of fans. These victories are often deeply personal.”

Useful Links

Get in touch with Jessica to discuss your consulting business

The High-Ticket Consultant: Securing Your First $100K of Consulting Revenue - Online Course

Leave a rating and review for the Seven Figure Consultant Podcast

Connect with Jessica on LinkedIn

When your business takes off and you start growing a team of people to support you it’s exciting - and challenging.

You’ve always been the CEO of your business, but now you have more management responsibility than before, and you have to learn how to work with more people in your business. It used to be that you only needed to communicate with one or two people, now you need to share your vision with several people. And you have to field questions from them.

It’s a stage of business where you can be unused to the amount of chaos that suddenly gets generated. You’re figuring out who is doing what and what needs doing next, onboarding clients, keeping on top of customer service. You can feel like you’re suddenly spending a lot of time firefighting when your days didn’t used to be like that. 

My guest on the podcast this week is Karen Sergeant, a Team Growth Strategist and advisory Chief Operating Officer (COO). She helps small business owners survive their growth-spurts, grow their teams — and build a strong culture based on consent and accountability. She offers short intensives and ongoing consulting engagements that empower owners and leaders to build strong equity-centred business practices and teams. She’s based in Tucson and works with clients around the world.

We talk about:

• What a COO does and how they can help your business
• How what made your business successful could become an issue as you grow
• Developing a company culture
• Enabling team members to meet your expectations
• What’s really happening if you feel your team isn’t performing at the level you want

Useful links

Get Karen Sergeant’s Hiring Guide

Find out more about Karen Sergeant on her website

Get in touch with Jessica to discuss your consulting business

Jessica’s LinkedIn profile

Are you feeling unhappy, overwhelmed and demotivated by your consulting business? It can be very unsettling. You’ve put your heart and soul into building your consulting business and now you find yourself wishing it was different.

It’s likely that all the things you wanted to do when you started your business still light you up. And you know your work is well received by your clients. Why do you feel like work is such an obligation each day, instead of something to look forward to?

It is likely that you are doing tasks which take you out of flow. There’s the work you set out to do and love, and then there are all the things which go with it.

According to Wealth Dynamics, when you are in flow, you are 5 times more productive than when you are out of flow. That equates to achieving a week’s worth of work in a single day!

In today’s episode of the podcast, I am talking about how to tell when you’re out of flow.

I discuss:

• How we ignore signs we are doing tasks that don’t light us up
• How working in flow re-energises you
• Restructuring your role in your business based on your personal Wealth Dynamics profile
• The warning signs you are out of flow
• The cost of being out of flow

Useful links

Take the Wealth Dynamics test for $97

Get in touch with Jessica to discuss your consulting business

Jessica’s LinkedIn profile

It can be extremely scary to put yourself out there. When you run your own business you have to make big decisions. You started your business for a reason, but in the early days, you can lose sight of that as you focus on getting the work in.

But then you get to a point where the impact and difference you make to your clients becomes tangible. You can see the change you have made just by being on the planet and doing the things you feel led and called to do.

When you are in your younger years, it can feel like a big burden that people always tell you that you have potential. How do you live that out? How do you make sure that it's something that is big enough? And you can circle back to that. How can you make a bigger impact? You have to encourage yourself to take these bigger steps. How do you have the courage to do that?

You’re going to get some great advice from this week’s podcast guest, Sharath Jeevan OBE. He is one of the world’s leading experts on reigniting our inner drive (intrinsic motivation), and the author of “Intrinsic”. He was awarded an OBE in the 2022 New Year’s Honours and advises a range of organisations on motivation related challenges, from L’Oreal to the London School of Economics to national governments.

He founded and led STIR Education – arguably the world’s largest intrinsic motivation initiative. STIR impacted 200,000 teachers, 35,000 schools and 7 million children across a number of emerging countries. Sharath is currently the Executive Chairman of Intrinsic Labs, which supports organisations all around the world to solve deep motivational challenges, from governments to leading UK universities and high-profile corporations.

We discuss:

• One of the biggest challenges consultants face
• Developing your personal mission statement
• The multiplier effect of investing in ourselves
• Ways to develop mastery
• Getting buy in from key decision makers and approaching those conversations

Useful links

Sharath’s book Intrinsic is available from Amazon and independent bookstores

Follow Sharath on Instagram & Twitter @sharathjeevan_

Connect with him on LinkedIn

Get in touch with Jessica to discuss your consulting business

Jessica’s LinkedIn profile

Getting to six figures as a consultant is a really good validation of your service, market proposition and your ability to sell.

Now you’ve set your sights on the next level and you might think seven figures in revenue, one million dollars or pounds or Euros, requires huge amounts of hard work and hustle.

But reaching seven figures doesn’t have to be scary. It doesn’t mean even longer hours. Or making yourself do things that make you uncomfortable.

It does involve making some changes behind the scenes. When you’re at the low six figures, so 100, 200, or 300 thousand in revenue or thereabouts, this is often a really important turning point for a consulting business.

If this is where you are now then this episode of the podcast is going to expand your thinking about what is possible for your business.

I discuss:

• Misconceptions about what female-owned businesses can achieve
• Raising the horizon of our expectations
• What you need to start doing to go from low six figures to seven figures
• Why you need to get comfortable with the prospect of a seven figure business
• What happens inside the Seven Figures Club, my community for women consultants making the transition from six to seven figures

Useful links

Apply to join the Seven Figures Club on Jessica’s Work With Me page

Jessica’s LinkedIn profile

Are you good at switching off from work? Or do you find yourself working into the evenings, or even, in your ‘free time’ thinking, ‘Oh I could just do [insert work activity here]’.

When you love what you do, you can get absorbed in it. It can be hard to switch off. You get used to overworking, just as you get used to being a little bit sleep deprived and stressed. You might even feel like something is wrong if you don’t have that background stress.

Then, when you do take time off, you can find yourself wondering what to do with yourself. So you turn the laptop back on, and suddenly it’s midnight again and your morning routine demands you’re up at 6am.

This week on the podcast, we’re talking about sleep and winding down. My guest is Amanda Slinger, a Sleep and Courage Coach for female entrepreneurs. She helps clients to sleep divinely and wake recharged, and to align their biorhythms for peak performance so they can have the impact they need to be truly successful (without the hustle and burnout). 

Amanda has over 25 years’ experience as an entrepreneur and is the Founding Director of two seven-figure businesses, with a third on the way.

She is also host of Courage On Fire, a podcast and community about living courageously, about dreaming big and taking action on what’s really important, instead of allowing fear and uncertainty to get in the way.

We discuss:

• Creating clear boundaries
• Using sleep trackers
• How to activate your body clock
• Becoming conscious about how sleep impacts your day
• Why we can find it hard to relax

Useful links

Take Amanda Slinger’s mini sleep audit

Find out more about Amanda Slinger on her website

Follow Amanda on LinkedIn and Instagram

Get in touch with Jessica to discuss your consulting business

Jessica’s LinkedIn profile

We so often believe business growth has to be hard. All too often as high achievers, we have cultivated a deep belief that we need to put in the hours, the blood sweat and tears, to get the results.

If we can do everything perfectly - or to the highest standard possible - we will get the grades.

That’s how school and university, and to a certain extent, our corporate careers worked, right?

Except when it comes to business - it doesn’t work like this any more.

The title for this week’s episode of the podcast is Embracing the Path of Least Resistance in your Consulting Business and it is a total game changer when it comes to self-care and business growth.

I’m going to share how the path of least resistance has a huge positive impact on your business growth plans.

I discuss:

• What we’re really assessed on in business
• What you need to work on to build the life you dream of
• Finding your personal energetic ‘flow’
• How our beliefs can get us stuck 
• A common mistake I see women consultants making with their marketing

Useful links

Take the Wealth Dynamics test for $99

Get in touch with Jessica to discuss your consulting business

Jessica’s LinkedIn profile

Are you thinking of quitting your corporate role? Or maybe you’ve got an idea for a business, but you don’t know whether it will support you and you would like to test it.

A way of bridging the gap before you leap full time into being the CEO of your own business is to start a ‘side hustle’, a business you run alongside your job. If this is the first you have heard of it, or you know people who have done it but wondered how they were juggling the two, then listen to this episode of the podcast.

I’m talking to Lauren Widrick, who is a Side Hustle + Sales Expert. She helps people escape their soul-sucking corporate jobs by starting smart, sustainable side hustles. Lauren made the leap from Investment Banking to full-time entrepreneurship, and she’s got the process down to a science. Nearly 100 people have completed her Slay your Side Hustle program, which takes you from business concept to cashflow in 90 days. She also runs a Sales Swagger mastermind, so that your new business can become your sustainable, lucrative livelihood.

She’s the host of the Grab Life by the Goals podcast, a wife, mum to two daughters, a professionally trained coach, and proof that you can disrupt and expand in every area of your life.

We discuss:

• How a side hustle could help you transition from your corporate career
• Legal considerations if you are planning to set up a business alongside your job
• How a coach can benefit you as you build your side hustle
• A key mistake to avoid when you start a business
• How to know when you can quit your corporate role

Useful links

Get Lauren Widrick’s Freedom Fund Calculator and Side Hustle Playbook at laurenwidrick.com

Get in touch with Jessica to discuss your consulting business

Jessica’s LinkedIn profile