Who is Sophia?

Who is Sophia? Alright then, let’s start at the beginning.

I grew up in the Highlands of Scotland - a shy wee thing known as Miss Mouse, usually happiest scuttling to the back of the room and hoping the teacher didn’t notice her.

Confidence wasn’t exactly abundant. At primary school my teacher regularly reduced me to tears over my total inability to understand fractions. While everyone else seemed to get it, I just sat there wishing the floor would swallow me up. To this day, fractions and I are still about 50/50.

The trouble was, Miss Mouse didn’t stay in the classroom.

She followed me into adulthood.

After secondary school (a blur of family grief and self-doubt) came university and what looked like a sensible career path - journalism (commercial and BBC), estate agency, and communications roles with the NHS and the Police.

From the outside it probably looked like I had things fairly well sorted.

Inside? Not so much.

So I set up my own communications career expecting life to finally feel aligned.

Except the thing getting in my way wasn’t my job, my boss or my circumstances.

It was me.

I compared myself to everyone.

I didn’t feel good enough (hello imposter syndrome).

I overthought everything.

I procrastinated like a pro and became the undisputed Queen of Faff.

I talked myself out of opportunities and occasionally sabotaged things that could have been brilliant (that BBC interview still haunts me).

People told me I had potential. I just couldn’t see it.

Eventually I had a fairly blunt conversation with myself:

“Sophia, stop rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.”

Something had to change.

Over the next decade I travelled widely - India, Nepal, New Mexico, New York, Miami, New Zealand, Australia - devoured more than 700 personal development books and trained in coaching, yoga and hypnotherapy.

Life happened along the way too - including two marriages and plenty of real-life lessons. No judgement here.

These days I’m happy in my own skin. Far from perfect, but much more myself.

And if there’s one thing that still gets my goat, it’s seeing brilliant people holding themselves back because fear, old habits or self-doubt are running the show.

Everything I’ve learned along the way is what I now use to help people untangle the things that are keeping them stuck.

You can learn to quiet the worries.

Let go of fears.

Build confidence so you can go do that thing.

If that sounds like something you’d like a hand with, let’s chat.; you’ve nothing to lose except the self-doubt, the fear and quite possibly a bag load of stress.

These days I’m based in Conon Bridge just outside Inverness and work in-person and all over the world thanks to WiFi. I’ve lived in a few other places along the way - Yorkshire, Edinburgh, Cyprus - but the Highlands will always be home.

Much love,

Sophia x

P.S - click here to drop me a line.