The Business Growth Coach® | Forbes Mentor & Neuroscience-Based Scaling Strategist | Speaker | Wiley Author Dynamic Digital Marketing | Dawn of a New Era Podcast | 30K+ Clients & £45m Generated | Scale to £100k+ Months

Dawn McGruer FRSA FCIM APM APC

The Business Growth Coach® | Forbes Mentor | Multi–7-Figure Founder | Best-Selling Author & Speaker

I’m Dawn McGruer — a multi–award-winning entrepreneur, author, and strategist on a mission to help female founders and visionary leaders scale to £100K+ months and beyond through the fusion of neuroscience, psychology, and high-performance business strategy.

At just 21, I launched my first business — and by 33, I was mortgage-free. Since then, I’ve built four multi–7-figure ventures, including my marketing agency and Business Consort – The Digital & Social Media Academy, a CIM-accredited global study centre with over 30,000 graduates, a 99% pass rate, and a reputation for excellence in digital marketing education.

Over the past 25 years, my clients have collectively generated £45M+ in revenue — and I’ve been recognised among the top 1% of business coaches globally for helping women build profitable, purpose-driven empires without burnout or hustle.

As the creator of THE DREAMLIFE™ Method and The Millionaire Scaling Strategy™, I help entrepreneurs:
✨ Rewire their subconscious for success through neuroscience & quantum psychology
✨ Overcome performance plateaus & scale sustainably
✨ Build global brands, license their intellectual property, and step into iconic leadership

I’m proud to be a Forbes Business Mentor, Best Female Speaker (PSA), and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) — and the host of Dawn of a New Era, a Top 3% Global Podcast exploring health, wealth, happiness, and high performance, with over 25K+ downloads per episode.

💼 Who I Work With

I partner with ambitious female founders already generating £20K–£50K+ months who want to scale to consistent £100K+ months — building freedom-driven, sustainable, and legacy-led businesses.

🚀 Client Results

🔥 On average, clients increase sales by 20% in 30 days
🔥 92% double their income within 60 days
🔥 Most triple recurring income within 90 days
🔥 Clients achieve ROI up to 2,900% in 6 months
🔥 87% reach £100K months within 7 months

💎 6-Month Guarantee: Double Your Money Back if You Don’t Profit.
Scale with zero risk — if you don’t make back your investment (and more) in 6 months, we’ll pay you double the difference.

🌍 Let’s Connect

If you’re ready to scale your business to 7-figures and beyond, build a global brand, or license your IP, I’d love to connect.

📩 DM me or visit www.dawnmcgruer.com
 to explore:

🔹1:1 Millionaire Mindset & Scaling Mentorship
🔹THE DREAMLIFE™ Mastermind (12 Members Only)
🔹Iconic Retreats in Barbados, Marrakesh & Mauritius

Dawn McGruer

I’m honestly disgusted by the amount of scammers on LinkedIn right now.

This week alone, eight people messaged me saying:
“XYZ used you as a testimonial because you worked with them — would you recommend them?”

Let me be crystal clear:
These people are scam artists.

They’re operating unethical businesses, and they are using real founders’ names without consent to get credibility they haven’t earned.

It breaks my heart to say this but:
👉 Don’t believe testimonials being thrown around right now.
👉 Don’t believe name-drops unless you verify them.

The rebrand agencies…
The cookie-cutter lead gen “gurus”…
The ghost writers pumping out the same recycled content…

It’s all starting to look the same, read the same, and honestly?

It feels like churn, not connection.

Social media is losing the thing that made it powerful in the first place - authenticity, integrity, and real human relationship.

Since I got hacked and lost months of work, I’ve been rebuilding.

Posting consistently. 
Showing up. 
Creating real conversations.
Growing my network one meaningful connection at a time.

So please — if you ever see my name in someone’s pitch,
don’t believe it unless you hear it from me.

I’ll always tell you the truth.
And I’ll continue to stand for integrity, transparency, and real leadership in a space that desperately needs it.

I’d live to know what you think and where social media is heading…

Anyway this week I was in Dubai relaxing with my partner making plans for 2026 and I’m off to Miami on Wednesday to spend time with 50 more female founders - my last trip of 2025!

Dawn McGruer FRSA FCIM

Dawn McGruer FRSA FCIM APM APC – The Business Growth Coach® Forbes Mentor | 4 x Founder | Best-Selling Author & Speaker | 30,000 clients + Generated 45m | Scaling Clients to 100k months+

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Wealth isn’t an event. And that’s exactly why most people never get it.

So you feel the pull… but you’re not moving.

You’re waiting. Pausing. Holding.

But sit with this for a moment:

Wealth is a process — not an event.

Freedom isn’t a moment — it’s a strategy.

You can tell yourself “it will come,”

You can set a date, buy the balloons, imagine the celebration…but you’ll only end up disappointed.

Because there is no magical day where you suddenly
got healthy,
got wealthy,
got happy.

It doesn’t happen in an instant.

It happens in a daily evolution of magnificence - steady growth, compounding momentum, micro-actions that build empires.

Promise yourself this:

70% of your time goes toward the growth that gets you to your goal.

Not long learnings.
Not busywork.
Not doing “all the things” because they feel productive.

Those things are nice to face… but they don’t move you.

They don’t build wealth.
They don’t build freedom.

Your ecosystem must be built on conscious growth,
not a wish.
Not a hope.
Not a someday.

Because the moment you stop waiting for an event and start living the process - everything changes.

So let’s get that process in flow — now.

Not when you finally feel ready.

Because in 90 days, if you commit to conscious growth instead of waiting for an event…

You’ll be richer.
You’ll be freer.
You’ll be happier.

And you’ll look back and realise this was the moment everything shifted.

Ready to step into your evolution?

Let’s chat today. 

DM me…
Worse case scenario, you’ll learn something about scaling strategy & millionaire mindset, best case you start living your dreams as reality!

My 4 Rules for December

1.	It’s not over until it’s over.

Yes, I slow down from the 22nd and take two full weeks off…but the magic begins on the 1st of December.

This is where the millionaires are made, in the quiet consistency before the world clocks out.

2.	Forecasting & Planning.

December is where I map out my entire year ahead, so my 2026 becomes nothing but clients, content, and cash.

When you have a system that brings leads in daily and monthly converts them with ease, everything shifts.

Your future feels lighter.

The numbers excite you.

The panic dissolves because you know cash will continue to flow.

You start showing up differently, because you’re already living the life of your 2036 self now.

3.	A goal is just a wish. A plan makes it reality.

My signature 90-minute Strategy Sessions deliver pure clarity, fast epiphanies, and immediate money-making momentum.

We’ll plug your profit drains, uncover your fast-cash opportunities, and create your Money Map, the blueprint to scaling to £100K+ months and beyond.

4.	December decides your destiny.

Don’t wait for January to “feel ready.”

Millionaires move now.

DM me the word MAP to book your Strategy Session.

Let’s set up your most profitable year yet.

Picture this: you walk into 2026 already sitting on £500K forecasted revenue, while everyone else is still scrambling through the January chaos trying to catch up.

November is the quiet power move month - the moment where Q1 is won or lost.

Lock in your model now and glide into the new year composed, intentional, and already ahead of the market.

Spend December in peace - not pressure.

Sip your champagne, enjoy the season, and smile while everyone else is in the frenzy of last-minute campaigns.

Let February be the month you expand with elegance, not exhaustion.

I don’t set resolutions - I architect evolutions.

Make the move now. 

Secure the freedom, the time, and the cash flow your future self is already thanking you for.

Future you is calling — time to reclaim your millionaire identity!

Three destinations.
Three transformations.
One year that will redefine who you are as a founder, a leader, and a creator of wealth.

Barbados. Marrakesh. Mauritius.

Barbados • March 16–21
The Visionary Reset - Start your year with clarity, confidence, and a 7-figure scaling strategy.

Marrakesh • Jun 22–26 
The Icon Era - Step boldly into your next level of power, visibility & wealth.

Mauritius • Sept 7–11 
The Legacy Expansion - Close your year with deep renewal and a long-term wealth plan.

Each retreat designed to unlock a different version of you - the visionary, the icon, the legacy-builder.

These retreats aren’t holidays.
They are recalibrations.

Immersions where clarity drops in, your power returns,
and life finally feels aligned with the founder you know you’re becoming.

Intimate groups, deep support, 1:1 coaching woven into every day…and connections that stretches far beyond the trip.

If your body is whispering “this is the year” — trust it.

Your next chapter is only one decision away.

Want the details?…our early bird and Black Friday offer e ds Sunday 30th…

Comment or DM “RETREAT” and I’ll send everything over.

Your elevation begins the moment you say yes.

“Most founders are sitting on a $1.6M asset… and don’t even see it.”

Most founders are sitting on a 7-figure asset…and still trading time for money.

We build licensing programmes for founders who want to turn their IP into a global network of certified partners.

This isn’t theory.

It’s a proven model that can generate $1.6M+ in licensing revenue within 36 months, with 1,600%–2,000% ROI — without ads, franchises, or bloated teams.

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This is how founders stop selling time and start owning scalable assets.

DM LICENSE for details.

In a childhood where chaos and fear were constant, I learned to listen deeply.

Not out of curiosity, but to stay safe.
I grew up reading the smallest signs, trying to understand if my mom was slipping again.
I watched her moods change like weather.
I listened for danger in her silence.
Every breath mattered.
Every shift in her energy told me if the night would stay calm or collapse.
Her pain was so heavy it pulled her to the edge again and again, more times than I can count.
I was a child standing between her and the end, trying to keep her here with words I barely knew how to say.

Years later, acting gave that sensitivity a voice.
On stage, I learned what it means to be fully seen and to truly see others.
It taught me how to listen beyond words.
How to let emotion move through me without drowning in it.
How to turn vulnerability into strength instead of fear.
It was the first place where I didn’t have to stay alert to stop a collapse.

Then came tango.
What first felt like a dance became a language.
In silence, I discovered trust.
In movement, I discovered presence.
I learned when to hold on.
When to let go.
How to meet someone without disappearing.
How to stay with myself even in closeness.
Tango showed me connection without catastrophe.
Closeness without fear.

Those worlds were never a detour.
They were preparation.

Because healing begins when we learn to be with what is.
When we stop fixing and start listening.
When we remember we’re allowed to take up space too.
For a child who learned to stay small to keep someone else alive, taking space later in life is its own quiet rebellion.

Today I bring that understanding to my work as a coach, an actress, and a tango dancer.
I guide women who’ve spent their lives caring for others back to themselves.
To the voice they silenced.
To the truth they’ve been carrying quietly for years.
To a place where self-trust feels possible again.
I know the weight of holding everything together too soon.
I know how exhausting it is to be the steady one.
And I know the relief of finally returning to your own breath.

Because you deserve more than survival.
You deserve to feel safe.
You deserve to feel seen.
You deserve to feel free.

That’s the work we do together.

Audrey Cremoux ACC

You are moments away from a collapse you will later call burnout.

(Your body knows it long before you let yourself name it.)

And your body has been trying to warn you for years.

I see this in so many women.

Women who lead teams.
Women who hold families.
Women who look composed in rooms where inside they are barely keeping themselves standing.

They tell me they feel scattered
easily overwhelmed
quick to snap at the people they care about
and ashamed afterwards.

Not because they are unstable
but because their body has been whispering for years
and they have been too busy caring for everyone else to listen.

When a woman comes to me in this place
we do not start with fixing her reactions.

We start with listening to her body.

The breath that never drops low enough.
The shoulders that never soften.
The heart that beats faster than the story she tells.

Slowly
she begins to recognise the signals she once ignored.
She learns to feel the moment before she breaks.
She starts responding from truth
instead of reacting from exhaustion.

And something shifts.

She speaks with clarity.
She stands with calm strength.
She leads without losing herself.

Burnout is not a failure.

It is the moment your body refuses to live a life that no longer fits you.

Your reactions
your overwhelm
your tiredness
are not signs of weakness.

They are signs you are ready for a different way of being.

This is the work I do with women who carry too much.
Min
We walk together back to the place where they can breathe again
respond with presence
and feel like themselves in every room they enter.

If you recognise yourself in these words
your return has already begun.

Trauma Informed & ICF accredited Life and Leadership Coach (ACC) | You don’t need to be strong anymore, you get to be free

If you’ve built the perfect life and something still feels wrong

(you’re probably not telling yourself the whole truth).

The first time I admitted I was exhausted,
I felt ridiculous.

How could someone who has so much
feel so disconnected.

The first time I whispered
I don’t think this version of my life fits me anymore
I felt like I was breaking an unspoken rule.

The first time I questioned whether success
was supposed to feel this flat,
I felt like I was betraying the woman
who worked so hard to get here.

Why didn’t I push it down.
Why didn’t I convince myself to be grateful
and move on.

Because every woman I’ve ever worked with
reaches a moment she can’t walk past.

A moment where the responsible one,
the capable one,
the woman who carries everyone,
feels herself slipping away.

Not dramatically.
Quietly.

She realises she’s been performing a life
instead of living one.

She realises she’s been meeting expectations
instead of meeting herself.

She realises she’s built the life she was taught to want
not the life her body is asking for.

That moment is uncomfortable.
It’s disorienting.
It’s the crack where truth gets in.

And here’s the part no one likes to admit.

The life that fits you
usually begins the moment the life that doesn’t
becomes impossible to pretend in.

So don’t rush past the ache.
Don’t label it as stress.
Don’t talk yourself out of what you already know.

The discomfort isn’t failure.
It’s direction.

If you feel yourself inside these words, stay close.

This is the place I walk women through every day.

Trauma-informed Coach | Helping women rebuild safety, self-trust, and freedom after trauma | ICF accredited life and leadership coach (ACC)

“I think someone stole the old me… and I am not calling the police.”

She laughed.
I laughed.

And the transformation was right there in front of us.

When we first met, she carried herself like she wanted to take as little space as possible.

Her steps small.
Her voice light and careful.
Her clothes neutral, chosen to stay unseen.

She told me she felt invisible in her own life.

So we went inside.

Into the part of her she had silenced to keep everything calm.
Into the truth she had pushed down for years.

I guided her back to the place where her voice lived.
Where her body held the answers she had forgotten.

Little by little, I watched her return to herself.

Her breath deepened.
Her shoulders opened.
Her words became clear, steady and honest.

And then one day she arrived transformed.

Her posture tall.
Her energy grounded.
Her clothes full of colour and intention.

She looked like a woman who had stepped into her own light.

That moment reminded me of something simple.

When you take care of what is inside you, the outside cannot stay the same.

Your presence changes.
Your confidence rises.
Your way of leading your life becomes unmistakably clear.

This is the work I do with women.

Holding space gently.
Asking the questions that open doors.
Helping them uncover what was inside them all along.

So they can move with truth.
Stand with calm strength.
And feel at home in the woman they are becoming.

If you’ve ever woken up one day
and felt like a stranger in your own life

(because becoming someone new can feel disorienting).

When I moved to Denmark at thirty-one
people said I was brave.

I didn’t feel brave.

I felt like I had left the version of me I knew
somewhere between two countries.

I was working in a café
trying to understand conversations
trying to find my words
trying to stay warm and light
so no one would see how unsure I felt inside.

They told me I brought good energy.
I smiled when they said it.

But inside
I felt slightly out of my own body
like I was watching myself from a distance
hoping the real me would catch up.

I see this now in so many women I work with.

Women who enter a new season
and suddenly feel unfamiliar to themselves.

Motherhood shifts them.
Leadership stretches them.
Responsibility grows faster than their identity can follow.

From the outside they look steady.

Inside they carry a quiet
unsettling distance
from the person they used to be.

Feeling unlike yourself is not a problem.

It is a transition.
A moment where who you are
and who you are becoming
haven’t met yet.

If this lives in you today
you’re not failing.

You’re evolving.
Your identity is catching up with your life.

You keep believing life will feel better as soon as things slow down

(But soon has been stealing your life for years)

You’ve learned to push through days that drain you.

To hold yourself together.

To smile so no one sees how heavy everything has become.

And without noticing
you’ve been disappearing under the weight of your own endurance.

And the smile you place on top of your exhaustion
is becoming heavier than the exhaustion itself.

There is a kind of positivity women learn to perform.

A smile that says everything is fine
while the body whispers
I cannot keep doing this.

You know this mask.
You wear it well.

You keep going
managing
holding
because pretending feels safer
than admitting this life no longer fits you.

You tell yourself it will get better
when things calm down
when the pressure lifts
when you finally have space.

But the perfect moment never comes.

I see this in the women I walk with.

They look composed
but inside they are tired
lost
and aching for a life that includes them too.

They whisper soon
while their body whispers stop.

I know this place.
I lived behind that smile too.

And one day
I could not perform anymore.

The exhaustion cracked the mask
and I met the woman underneath it.

Not weak
just tired of abandoning herself.

When a woman reaches this moment
we do not start with positivity.

We start with honesty.

And slowly
she returns to herself.

Her breath deepens.
Her presence steadies.
Her smile becomes real again.

You do not need more positivity.
You need more truth.

If these words reach a tired place in you
let this be the moment you choose yourself.

I spent years being powerful on stage
and small everywhere else.

(because performing was easier than being seen).

People often think acting is pretending.
It never was for me.

Acting was understanding something so deeply
that I could embody it.

Feeling the emotion before the line.
Living the truth before the audience ever saw it.

I studied humanity that way.
Not from the mind.
From the body.

From the breath someone held
when they were afraid.

From the softness that appeared
before they cried.

From the silence that said more
than anything written in a script.

But offstage
I didn’t know how to give that same presence to myself.

I could tune into everyone around me
and lose the woman inside me.

I could see others so clearly
and stay blurry in my own life.

What I didn’t know then
is that this way of observing
listening
feeling
would one day become the core of my work.

Because when a woman sits with me now
I don’t just hear what she says.

I feel what she carries.
I sense what she avoids.
I see the parts of her she hasn’t stepped into yet.

Not to judge her.
But to help her return to herself
in the same way actors return to truth
before stepping on stage.

Embodying your own life
is the hardest role you’ll ever take.
And the only one that sets you free.

I’m here for you.

Your fear of losing people is costing you the woman you’re meant to be.

(And something in you knows it can’t go on like this.)

For years
I didn’t realise how much of my life was built around keeping people close.

How carefully I measured my words.
How quickly I softened my needs.
How often I stayed quiet

not because I agreed
but because I feared the smallest wave could push someone away.

It felt like love
but it was fear guiding every step.

Fear that if I showed too much
I’d be rejected.
Fear that if I asked for something
I’d be a burden.
Fear that if I didn’t hold everything together
I’d end up alone.

This fear lives in the body.
In the shoulders that never drop.
In the voice that trembles before truth.
In the woman who keeps performing calm
so no one sees how much she is carrying.

When women come to me with this fear
we don’t talk about confidence.
We talk about safety.

The safety of being fully yourself
instead of who you think you must be to keep love close.

And little by little
something shifts inside them.

They speak with more honesty.
They take up more space.
They stop monitoring every reaction in the room
and begin listening to their own.

They realise that love built on fear
is not love at all.
It is survival.

And they are tired of surviving.

If these words touch something tender in you
you are not the only one.

You are a woman who learned to stay safe by disappearing
finally learning to feel safe by becoming herself.

When you sense, you sense.

Your body never lies.

Even as a kid, I felt things before anyone said a word.

I was polite.
Quiet.

The kind of child who did what she was told.

But when my mom started seeing that woman,
my whole body reacted.

I ran to my room.
I hid behind the door.
I refused to say hello.
Not once.

It wasn’t rudeness.
It was instinct.

Something in me knew before I knew why.

And later, when my mom chose people who weren’t good for her,
the same feeling came back.

I was still a child.
I didn’t say anything.

I just felt it.
That clear no in my chest.

As an adult, I finally tried to explain what I sensed.

And that’s when people around me said I was exaggerating.

Too sensitive.
Too dramatic.

They couldn’t see what I sensed so clearly.

So I learned to stay quiet.

To trust myself in silence
even when others didn’t trust what I felt.

But I wasn’t wrong.

It was exactly as bad as it felt.

That’s the thing about sensing.

You don’t always have proof.

You have truth.

When a woman begins working with me,
I can feel how far she’s drifted from her own clarity.

How she doubts what her body tells her.
How she bends herself around other people’s versions of reality.

She thinks she’s lost her intuition.
But she hasn’t.

It’s buried under years of being told she was too much
or imagining things
or overreacting.

As we move, I watch something return.

Her breath deepens.
Her voice steadies.

The apology in her eyes fades.

She starts hearing the part of herself she silenced to survive.

She doesn’t need answers from me.

She needs space to trust what she feels again.

Her knowing never left.

It was only waiting for her to listen.

If you’ve ever smiled at someone who hurt you to keep the moment from breaking

(because speaking the truth never felt like an option)

My smile has lived many lives.

There was a time it was the only light I had.

A time when danger lived in the walls of my home.

When drama could turn into something darker in a breath.

When surviving meant finding one small thing
that didn’t pull me under.

Smiling helped me do that.

It helped me see beauty
in a place where beauty had no reason to exist.

It reminded me there was still something good,
even if it was only a thin thread to hold on to.

That smile kept me alive.
It kept me hopeful.
It kept me from sinking into a life
that could’ve swallowed me whole.

So I won’t ever call it wrong.
It was my way out.
It was my way up.
It was my way through.

But every survival instinct has two sides.

That same smile followed me into adulthood.

I smiled when I was hurting.
I smiled when someone said something cruel.
I smiled when I was in physical pain,
as if my body could convince itself
that everything was fine
if my face pretended it was.

I smiled instead of speaking.
I smiled instead of crying.
I smiled instead of naming what was breaking in me.

And slowly,
that beautiful, necessary smile
became the place I disappeared behind.

I see this now in so many women I work with.

Women whose strongest coping mechanism
is also the one that hides them.

Women who learned to stay positive
because the alternative was too dangerous to feel.

Women whose brightness protected them
but also kept their truth out of reach.

A smile can save you.
Mine did.

But it can also silence you
if you never learn how to take it off.

If something in you softened reading this, let it.

You’re not wrong for smiling.
You’re not wrong for surviving.

You’re just ready for a life
where you don’t have to hide behind it anymore.

I didn’t choose to read emotions.

I had to.

That skill shaped me long before I understood it.

And it’s the reason I coach the way I do today.

Before theatre.
Before coaching.

There was a child who had to sense everything around her to feel safe.

The breath that changed.
The quiet shift in a room.
The tension that said something was wrong even when no one spoke.

I didn’t have words for it then.
I only had instinct.

But later, life gave that instinct form.

When theatre arrived, it felt like recognition.
Suddenly I could study humanity without fear.

Every gesture.
Every pause.
Every hidden truth rising through the body.

That work shaped the way I listen now.

When I coach a woman who feels stuck, I don’t just hear her story.

I see the way her shoulders tense when she talks about saying no.
I notice the silence she slips into when she mentions work.
I feel the moment she stops speaking from truth and starts speaking from fear.

These details matter.

They tell me where the real story is.

I’ve used this awareness with leaders navigating conflict.
With teams rebuilding connection.
With women who’ve spent years making themselves smaller without noticing.

This is the part of my expertise most people don’t see.

It’s not written on a certificate.
But it changes everything.

People reveal themselves long before they find the words.

If you know how to read the small signals, you can guide them back to who they are with precision and care.

That’s the work I do.

Presence first.
Truth next.

If you’re reading this and something in you feels seen, stay with that feeling.
It usually means a part of you is ready to be heard.

And I’m here for that.

If your old beliefs haven’t changed yet and keep you stuck where you are

(it’s not because you’re failing, it’s because you’re human)

There was a time I tried to figure everything out alone.

I told myself I should know better.
I should be stronger.
I should be able to shift the way I think without anyone’s help.

But if I could have done it alone
I would have.
And so would you.

There are reasons we stay stuck.

Reasons we repeat the same patterns.
Reasons we keep choosing what hurts even when we know it does.

Old beliefs don’t disappear just because we understand them.

They live in the body.
They live in the places we survived.
They live in the moments where we learned to make ourselves small.

I didn’t change my life by accident.

I changed it the day I decided I was done doing it alone.

The best investment I ever made was in myself.

Not in things.
Not in achievements.

In my own becoming.

I chose to be supported.
I chose to be challenged.
I chose to work on the beliefs that kept me quiet, polite, accommodating
long after those patterns had served their purpose.

And this is the work I hold now.

A space where women can meet themselves honestly, softly, and with the kind of support that makes real change possible.

If you feel stuck right now

There is nothing wrong with you.

It simply means you’ve reached the edge of what you can do on your own.

I'm here for you.

I used to think being strong meant doing everything alone

(and I carried that belief far longer than it served me).

It started early.

I remember being the kid who paid attention to every small shift in the room.

The one who stayed quiet so nothing would escalate.

The one who adjusted herself to keep everyone calm.

I thought that made me good.
Safe.
Loved.

But it also taught me to disappear.

As I grew up, that same instinct followed me.

I became the woman who held everything together
and asked for nothing.

The one who had trained herself
not to lean on anyone.

People saw my smile.
What they didn’t see was the loneliness underneath it.

I see this now in so many women I work with.

Women who learned early to carry more than they should.

Women who confuse self-abandonment with resilience.

Women who mistake silence for composure.

There comes a moment
quiet but unmistakable
when strength stops feeling like power
and starts feeling like isolation.

That moment matters.

It’s where a different kind of strength begins.

The kind that includes you.

If something in you softened reading this,
let it.

You’re just tired of doing it all alone.

And this is where I’m here for you.

You know exactly what everyone needs except you

(And your own needs are the ones you silence first)

As the year closes
you make sure everyone is held.

You think about their wishes.
Their comfort.
Their joy.

You pay attention to the smallest details
the ones no one notices
but everyone benefits from.

And somehow
in all that giving
you forget to ask yourself a simple question.

What about me?

Not as an afterthought.
Not when everything else is done.
Not when you finally have energy again.

But now.

You’ve spent another year offering what you do not offer yourself.

You give love
without resting.
You give presence
without boundaries.
You give care
while quietly carrying your own exhaustion alone.

I see this in the women I walk with.
They know how to nourish everyone around them.
They do not know how to gift nourishment to themselves.

So when I ask them
What do you want to give yourself?
They go silent.

Not because they don’t know
but because they’ve never considered they’re allowed to ask.

When a woman finally chooses a gift for herself
her whole way of being begins to change.

She stands in her life with a quieter certainty.
Her choices come from who she is
not from who she is expected to be.
You can feel her returning to herself.

Because the gift was never the object.
It was the permission.

So as this year ends
ask yourself gently

What is the gift I have been waiting for
that I can finally offer myself?

And let the answer bring you back to you.

If you never choose yourself, you cannot expect your life to choose you.

(You feel this truth long before you dare to say it out loud.)

And it shows in the smallest moments of your day.

I was sewing my son’s favourite stuffed toy again.
The hundredth time.

The fabric was tired
the thread delicate
and yet I held it with such care.
Gentle hands
steady breath
full attention.

I realised something as I stitched him back together.

I never hesitate to do this for him.
I never rush it.
I never question if he deserves it.

So why is it so hard
to offer the same tenderness to ourselves?

I see this in so many women I walk with.

They care with devotion.
They nurture without thinking.
They hold everyone else’s needs before their own.

But when it comes to themselves
they become hesitant
critical
uncertain.

Most of us learned to care for others long before we learned to care for ourselves.

We were praised for being reliable.
For being strong.
For being the calm one.

We were taught to be valuable through giving
not through receiving.

So when a woman finally turns toward herself
it feels uncomfortable
almost wrong.

Her body resists
not because she does not deserve care
but because she has never been taught to include herself in the circle of her own tenderness.

When I sit with women in this space
I watch the moment they realise
that the same gentleness they offer to everyone else
is the gentleness they have been starving for.

And when they begin to give it to themselves
something shifts.

Their breath softens.
Their posture opens.
They feel more grounded
more present
more truthful.

Caring for yourself is not selfish.

It is a skill you were never shown.

A skill your body has been waiting to learn.

If you recognise yourself in this
your return has already begun.

You are tired in a way sleep cannot fix because your life is too heavy.

(Your body has been whispering this for a while, even if you have been too busy to hear it)

And still you keep running
Managing
Remembering
Softening everything for everyone else while forgetting yourself again.

I know this pattern.
I lived inside it for years.

There was a time when I moved through life the same way you are moving through these last weeks.

Fast.
On alert.
Holding too much.

Convincing myself I was fine
As long as everyone else was taken care of.

I survived that way
Until my body refused the pace.
Until I could not recognise the woman who kept the world running
but could not feel herself.

That was my turning point.

The moment I understood that endurance is not living
And that silence inside the self is not strength.

So when I see women reach this moment, this heavy end-of-year breath

I recognise the place they stand.

Women who hold families.
Women who lead teams.
Women who look composed while their insides are tired and scattered.

They come to me overwhelmed
Irritable
On the edge of tears
Unsure why they cannot keep going the way they always have.

And I know.

Because I was them.

When a woman is carrying more than her body can hold
We do not start by adding anything.
We start by listening.

Her breath that never drops low enough.
Her shoulders that never soften.
Her heart that beats faster than her truth.

Slowly

She begins to feel the weight she has normalised.
She begins to see the pattern of disappearing inside her own life.
And she begins to come back to herself.

Her breath deepens.
Her posture opens.
Her presence steadies.

And she realises she no longer wants survival.

She wants a life that feels like her.

That is the transformation I lived
And the transformation I now walk women through.

This is the work.

Returning to yourself

Even when the world around you asks for more than you can give.

If these words reach a tired place in you, let this be the moment you choose yourself.

If you’ve ever looked at your life on paper
and felt something was off

(because a life can look right and still not fit you).

There’s a moment many women reach.

A quiet one.
A private one.

The job is solid.

The home is stable.

The partner, the children, the rhythm of life.

All of it looks like what you were told to want.

And still
something feels missing.

Not in a dramatic way.

More in a subtle
persistent
pull inside you
that whispers
this isn’t me.

There was a time I felt that too.

A time when everything in my life made sense on the outside
but felt strangely distant on the inside.

Like I was living beside myself,
not with myself.

You start noticing it in small moments.

The Sunday evenings that feel heavy.

The conversations that leave you untouched.

The moment someone asks
How are you
and you pause
because you’re not sure which part of you should answer.

I see this now in so many women I work with.

Women who have checked every box
and still feel something inside them reaching for air.

Women who didn’t fail.
They simply outgrew the life they built
before they knew who they were.

A misaligned life can look perfect.

It can function.

It can impress.

But it cannot make you feel like yourself.

There is nothing wrong with wanting more.

Not more things.

More truth.

More alignment.

More of yourself in your own life.

If reading this touched something in you, let it be there for a moment.

It might be the part of you that’s ready to be heard again.

I spent years pretending to be ordinary
just to belong

and I lived like a woman who didn’t matter.

(because feeling “normal” felt safer than being who I really was).

For years I told myself I was average.

Not impressive.
Not remarkable.
Just… normal.

It took me a long time to see that this wasn’t humility.
It was protection.

But that wasn’t the whole story.

My life was chaotic.
Raw.
Dangerous at times.
Full of emotion most kids never touch.

Nothing about me was ordinary.
I just learned to behave like someone who was.

That middle space became my armour.

Not too loud.
Not too quiet.
Not too much.
Not too little.

Just enough to blend in.

I stayed there for years.

Being agreeable.
Being fine.
Being “easy”.

Because being regular felt safer than being different.

Different meant visible.
Visible meant judged.
Judged meant rejected.

So I hid the parts of me that didn’t match the room.

The depth.
The intuition.
The sensitivity.
The way I see people.
The way I feel everything.

I wasn’t average.
I was adapting.

I see this now in so many women I work with.

Women who were never meant to be ordinary
but trained themselves to be
because life required survival before authenticity.

If something in you recognises this
let it sit with you for a moment.

You’re not regular.
You never were.

You’re a woman who survived by fitting in
and is now ready to live by being herself.

I’m here when you’re ready.

I almost let someone else’s fear choose the direction of my life.

For a moment I believed their uncertainty more than my own truth.

I almost walked away from a path that was meant for me.

When I applied to coaching school, I was scared.
A new direction.
A beginning I could feel but not fully trust yet.

I wanted support from the person I loved.
A simple yes.
A little belief.
Something steady.

Instead I heard hesitation.
Questions wrapped in fear.
And for a moment, his doubt entered my mind.

I went anyway.
I showed up curious.
Open.
Carrying an energy I had not felt in years.

Very quickly, I felt something shift.
I understood the work.
I connected with it deeply.
I saw how naturally I could hold space for others.

That moment changed me.
I realised I was capable of far more than the version of myself I had almost abandoned.

It taught me something I now see in so many women.
We let other people’s fear interrupt our truth.
We shrink our voice to keep the peace.
We doubt our capacity because someone else is uncomfortable with our growth.

And we forget that our life is ours to lead.

This is the work I do now.
I help women hear their own voice again and trust it enough to follow it.
If something in this feels close to you, let it be close.
It might be the part of you that is ready to come back to yourself.

There was a time when choosing a plate in a restaurant felt overwhelming.

Not because I didn’t know what I wanted.

I remember waiting for everyone else to order first.

Listening.
Observing.

Trying to understand the atmosphere before I made a single choice.

It wasn’t about food.
It was about belonging.

I see this in so many women.

They freeze when someone asks what they want.
They default to I don’t mind.
They soften themselves to stay agreeable.

It is not indecision.
It is adaptation.
A way of staying safe when you have learned to keep the peace.

So even a small choice can feel loaded.

If I choose differently, do I stand apart.
If I match others, do I blend in enough to be accepted.

It wasn’t the meal.
It was the fear of being too much or not enough.

What I know now is this.

Boundaries begin in these tiny moments.

In choosing something because it feels true in your body.
In letting your preference exist without apology.

If this touched a familiar place inside you, stay with it.

This is the work I do.

Helping women meet the parts of themselves they have avoided,
and feel safe enough to choose differently.

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The Battle

Dawn McGruer

Audrey Cremoux ACC

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The Battle

Dawn McGruer

Audrey Cremoux ACC

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Engagements

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Dawn McGruer's LinkedIn Performance

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