Keep Working On Your Dreams: The Fierce Kindness Story! (Updated in 2024)

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Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years. Bill Gates

Do you have a big dream? Do you wonder if you’ll ever get there?

Because when the idea of Fierce Kindness began to take shape I had no idea how hard it would be to create the time for something which was so important to me!

In my mind, the dream of creating “Fierce Kindness” just flowed out of me and into the world…

But we all have busy everyday lives. Jobs, families, commitments. And then we have life challenges to overcome. It’s easy for our dreams to get lost or pushed aside.

Below I share the story of Fierce Kindness – to show that anything important takes time – and that perseverance pays off…

The Fierce Kindness Story

In 2009 I began to develop what, at the time, I called my “Kind, Wise Self” as a way to tackle my anxiety. But as I delved deeply into the roots of my anxiety, I found that a “Kind, Wise Self” didn’t go far enough. I came to realise my anxiety was caused by me – my own vicious inner critic – and the way I treated myself.

Then I was hit by a major health issue. My health had been steadily deteriorating for a few years – and with the help of my bullying inner critic – I had kept pushing myself harder. I ignored the signs. Must. Keep. Going.

Well. If you keep pushing yourself, eventually your self pushes back…

So, after an unplanned week long hospital stay with emergency surgery involving 3 different surgeons, I knew it was time for serious change.

I identified a missing element in my “Kind, Wise Self”. At first I thought this was courage. But I found that to shift deeply embedded neural pathways and patterns of self-bullying, courage was not enough.

It needed a small sideways step, a little extra something. And so courage shifted into fierceness – unshakeable courage with added passion!

Fierceness was the missing element needed to protect and stand up for my emerging self!

And so, sometime in late 2010, I began to develop a “Kind, Fierce Self”. No more overriding my feelings and needs. I learned to take care of my self. And sometimes I was fierce! My friends began to notice I was happier, more confident, less tense – and more content.

I was onto something!

Yet it was 5 years later that I purchased the website URL “Fierce Kindness.com”.

I think with any big dream there is always some serendipity—or luck. And this was no different.

In 2012 I had written an article: Develop Fierce Kindness – And Have A Devoted Friend For Life for my website Life Coach on the Go!

Then 3 years pass, and in July 2015, I posted this article on Facebook. And the lovely Wendy Koh commented to say that she loved the Fierce Kindness concept. In fact she seemed so excited about the idea that I looked (yet again!) to see if the domain Fierce Kindness.com was available. Magically, the domain fiercekindness.com was now available to buy—and I snapped it up!

A big thank-you to Wendy Koh 🙂

Natasha Kong

However. At this time, my main business The Coaching Tools Company was growing hugely and was just beginning to pay our bills (pretty important as we’d downsized and moved to a rural island!). I was still coaching, working on my website Life Coach on the Go! and a million other projects. The rest of 2015 and all of 2016 disappeared in a huge website overhaul and upgrade of The Coaching Tools Company.

Oh—and a family situation that involved my husband moving back to England for 18 months while I travelled back and forth.

So it was 2017 before I started looking at Fierce Kindness again. And then suddenly it was 2018! In early 2018 Natasha Kong, my wonderful and talented graphic designer, and I had the energy and time to begin thinking about Fierce Kindness.

Mary Turcott

Then in mid-2018, the fabulous Mary Turcott joined the team. The goal was for Mary to learn to run The Coaching Tools Company – and free me up for Fierce Kindness. We still had a lot of work to do, and the year disappeared in training and documenting business processes (ick!).

And so it was 2019(!) before Natasha and I had time to get really serious about Fierce Kindness. Finally, we came up with a design and brand we loved, and in December 2019, fiercekindness.com went live!

I finally started writing a weekly newsletter for Fierce Kindness in January 2020. And it was when things got really serious with COVID in March 2020 that I finally started the Fierce Kindness Blog to write articles, and do what I could to help!

So, it has been a really looooooong haul!

But that wasn’t the end of my ups and downs…

Mary resigned from The Coaching Tools Company in early 2021 (to follow her career dreams), and I was back to running The Coaching Tools Company full-time. (BTW Mary and I have since become great friends, so this is one upside of her resignation!).

But the downside of course was that I no longer had the time I wanted to work on Fierce Kindness. I hired someone else to help with The Coaching Tools Company, but Mary proved hard to replace, and I struggled to make time for Fierce Kindness.

And while I made sure I sent a weekly Fierce Kindness newsletter, I didn’t have much time left over to grow the readership or build the trainings and community I have been itching to create since 2019!

The last 5 years have been slow going. Although I did finally get my 4Cs philosophy onto the website and create some infographics and free tools!

The latest news is that:

I incorporated Fierce Kindness as it’s own business: Fierce Kindness Solutions Inc. on May 31 2024!
And I will (finally!) have more time to dedicate to and grow the Fierce Kindness vision, following the acquisition of The Coaching Tools Company (which I am now the former CEO of!), which was announced 1 October 2024.

I share all this with you, to say, when you have a dream—stick at it! And get help if you need it.

It took 10 years of thinking, and 7 ½ years from writing my first article on the topic of Fierce Kindness, to launching the Fierce Kindness website. Then it was another 5 years before I incorporated the business.

But I never stopped thinking about it—or dreaming.

And I have never been more at peace, knowing I’m doing something (however small it might be at the moment) to make the world a better place.

I have huge plans for Fierce Kindness. Lots of free resources, online courses and much much more. I want it to be a movement, a practice, a tool. A sacred space to return to often. A community. Trainings. And I just keep dreaming—and working. Slow and steady. I know I’ll get there. After all, if this is my legacy (and I think it might be), then there’s no rush.

Plus, ironically, I learned something else important: I need to be Fiercely Kind with myself WHILE I develop Fierce Kindness 😉

Curious to read the article where it all started? See (from 2012) Develop Fierce Kindness – And Have A Devoted Friend For Life! here >>

Some thanks before I wrap-up: I am very grateful for the support of our team – my husband Duncan (our technical whizz), Natasha and Mary, as well as my business coach Fiona Walsh and fellow “Masterminder” Lynda Monk. Thank-you!

Wrap-up

The most difficult thing is the decision to act; the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. Amelia Earhart

I hope you enjoyed this story. Because if you’re reading this, and if you’re determined, I want you to remember that you can do anything you want—eventually!

I’m going to keep carving out time to share everything I’ve learned about confidence, kindness, determination, perseverance, resilience, courage (and more) with you.

And who knows what we’ll all have achieved in another 10 years?

I’ll leave you with 3 questions to ponder:

Where do you need to persevere and keep going? For what/whom do you need to persevere? Where is perseverance the answer?
Where are you already courageous in your life? Where could you be more courageous in your life?
And lastly, where could you “up” your courage to kind fierceness (unshakeable courage with a pinch of passion!) to make a difference in your life?

Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle. Christian D. Larson

Change the world, start with you!

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Image of Lion and her cub by EDewulf via Shutterstock