Make Today Count With Coach Tina Brigley
In the past seven years Tina Brigley has helped thousands of people unleash their confidence and maximize their potential, earning respect as a coaching leader on the global stage.
Brigley is a four-time Globee Business Award recipient and has been featured in Forbes, USA Today, and Global Woman magazine.
This powerhouse has shared the stage with Marissa Peer (world renowned speaker, author and Rapid Transformational Therapy trainer) and Daniel Priestley (best-selling author, international speaker and entrepreneur).
Brigley was the co-founder of an international coaching company, and after her departure, she launched Tina Brigley Coaching with clients all over the world. And now as of January 2024, a merger with High Performing Coach (based in Europe) has taken place.
For our first issue of 2024, Biz X magazine is featuring this amazing disrupter, who is changing the coaching industry and sharing tips with our business readers.
“Are you happy or are you comfortable?”
This is the million-dollar question Brigley poses and hopes that all individuals will be willing to answer honestly.
During our interview she shares her insights on what led her to follow the path of entrepreneurship. A former teacher, Brigley left her high paying job (with paid vacations and a great pension) filled with guilt.
Guilt — but no remorse — as she knew that coaching was what she was always meant to do.
While growing up, her dad ran a small business, which seemed very appealing to her. He would come home with cash money, make his own hours and do his own thing. Brigley realized she possessed this same entrepreneurial spirit and wanted to be her own boss and decision maker.
She reveals how she was doing prep work one day at school when a pop-up appeared on her computer. It was a 45-minute presentation on becoming a health coach.
Growing up, Brigley always wanted to become a psychologist, but it seemed unreachable, as she was living on her own at 17. She had to give up a dream that required years of schooling to focus on working just to eat and live.
Brigley started her career in education in 1999 as a Child and Youth Worker then graduated from teachers college in 2005 and began teaching right away. She taught from 2005 to 2017 in the area of Special Education.
Coaching now looked like an avenue to fulfill her dream of helping others.
Her first step was to take a course and shortly after she began a coaching business after being certified as a Coach in 2017.
Brigley’s personal coach asked her: “Do you want to be a teacher or a coach?” She knew the answer, but who would give up a secure teaching career for the unknown? Well, someone with courage because six weeks later, she was all in!
“When I was making the decision, I prayed for a sign to let me know I was on the right track,” Brigley recounts. “I picked up my library book and the words: ‘You’re meant for greater things,’ popped off the page. I got in my car and turned on the radio and Fight Song by Rachel Platten was playing, and in that moment I felt I was being guided to choose my dream.”
Walking into her principal’s office to give her resignation, Brigley admits she was terrified. She recalls her principal questioning her sanity because her actions came at the same time that she was in the middle of a divorce. The experience was overwhelming, and she recalls feeling like she couldn’t breathe. Debilitating fear crept in.
“Nothing felt confident after the words ‘I quit’ left my mouth,” Brigley expresses. “The fears and doubts immediately consumed me and I had to remember to keep breathing until this feeling passed. I started to take one action at a time and never looked back because I knew that living with regret would be way worse than facing this temporary fear.”
As a result, Brigley has three teachings lessons that she learned from that experience . . .
The first — don’t wait for the whispers to turn into bricks.
The whispers are subtle messages that your purpose is bigger than you can see. You may feel like you are meant for more, or you aren’t where you’re supposed to be.
Pay attention, because eventually those whispers — when left ignored — will become bricks that feel heavy.
Find peace in your quiet thoughts. The answers you need are inside of you. Slow down to hear the whispers or you will be forced to stop from burn out, exhaustion or poor health.
She continues by explaining that the brain is not wired for change and it defaults to thinking what there is to lose, and rarely focuses on what there is to gain.
This auto programming makes us look for all the reasons and excuses why we can’t do something, instead of why we can do it.
For example, when thinking about starting a small business, the brain will load up on all the ways it will go wrong. It’s your job to interrupt the thoughts.
Ask yourself: “What if the opposite thoughts are true?” The opposite might inspire you to get over your fears and even excite you to take that first action.
