I’m thinking this is a good time to tell some of the little things I haven’t shared before in a bit of a flow of consciousness way…will keep it short-ish but be forewarned, it’s not going to be a logical kind of story…:)

Born Ottawa, Ontario, Canada June 1970…to Taiwanese immigrants… we used to joke that I came “THIS close” to being “Made in Taiwan.” Although I was supposed to be “Andrew,” a quick consultation with the nurses yielded “Andrea” as a decent English name since I was missing some plumbing. I still cherish my name today, some of my other first generation friends got seriously caught…one of my best friends in University had three sisters, all four girls were named, who knows why, “Moon.” (Better than MoonUnit?)

But I digress.

From early on, I developed a natural ‘helping/serving’ trait. In many photos as a kid five or younger, I’m feeding my kid brother or in the kitchen with mom. Today, I talk tongue in cheek about the challenges I have still, with this “Smile, Bow, Serve Tea” training I got…but somehow it’s ingrained in me and I’ve learned to cherish it although I don’t serve tea in board rooms anymore.

On this note, I’ve just started a new private blog (the way in which I wrote my first book) for a possible new title…”From Secretary to CEO.” No tagline has emerged yet. I’m curious about how knowing how to ‘follow’ well can be woven into the theme of leadership. I know, not another leadership book…well but, wait and see what it evolves into okay?! At least it will be niche marketed right? What do you think?

Again…not a logical step by step introduction but here we go back on track.

Vancouver was home from age 5 to 16, at which time I left home (yes early…I was definitely fish out of water at home…stuff of poems and dramatic teenage years) for Montreal for four years at McGill. Oh, High School was Catholic Boarding School…I was on the Debate team, did a lot of public speaking, worked in the Drama clubs, loved languages, disliked math, played hymms at assembly, and was definitely in the ‘nerdy’ group the whole way through. I still have a love/hate relationship with plaid and can recite the first few lines of the Lord’s Prayer in Latin, oh the inner dusty recesses of my poor mind!

McGill was a time of freedom, self exploration, personal anguish…typical late teenage years. An important turning point came in 1989 when I was in Mainland China near Shanghai (in the south, nowhere neigh Beijing.) We were there on summer credit courses when all heck broke loose and students starting lighting themselves on fire and stood in front of tanks on the way back from shopping. I did a lot of growing up that summer, breaking down some angst around being a ‘banana.’ No that’s not a website (hehe) it’s a term for being yellow on the outside, white on the inside…it doesn’t matter which culture you are in, bananas tend to feel different.

And so some themes started to emerge. Identifying with fringe groups, my inner renegade, ‘box, what box?’ thinker, doubting cynic, fluorished and ‘rebel me’ was born.

Due to some strange circumstances, I ended up evacuating our raggedly group of out the whole Tiananmen Square situation, landing us in Taiwan…nowhere to live, sleep, eat, or much less study. We found all of those things and ended with our language credits a little more worldly wise…. “What do you mean, leave China when it’s so exciting?? Oh. People are getting killed. Got it.” Looking back, I think it was that summer that leadership was thrust upon me, little did I know it.

What next? I did say I’d keep this shortish.

Graduating university, I did some post grad work in upper state New York, lovely country! Found work in Japan in the local government, and met my husband in late July 1992. Mike said he thought I was an “Ice Queen” but was attracted so walked me home from an informal gathering. Six weeks later he had proposed to me over a meal of scallops and smoked oysters shipped over by his mom. I said yes, and we came back to Canada the year after (Mike’s from Scarborough and Thunder Bay Canada.)

Yes we still eat a lot of sushi and laugh whenever we are in Vancouver again or Chinatown anywhere. Mike: “If you get lost, you have to look for me, cuz I cannot see you.” (It’s a joke, but it did seem like all the asian faces in Japan were the very same height. And I kept surprising people with “How great my English was!” There are perks to looking like one thing and being another you see.
Learned how to build a log home together upon return, married in Ottawa in 1995 with parental disapproval on both sides, Mike is not Asian, but he is SO many other things…moved to Calgary in 1996 where Mike trained as a chef. Started my own business in 1998 as a Recruiter, company was such a fun name “Eureka Recruitment.” And this part starts getting a little familiar so I’ll try to shake it up a bit…

Fall of 2000 I started to get jaded with recruitment…I surfed the net, I found a website with pictures of a very tanned man with a small white dog. It said to ’say hello’ so I did…

I said, ‘Hi Thomas, this coaching thing seems to good to be true.” He said “hehe. coaching is real and so is coach u.” I volunteered for the Coaching Scoop as transcriptionist and two months later then Manager of CoachVille Steve Davis hired me as Customer Service Manager. Another 2 months (approx?) later Thomas convinced me, I should become General Manager of CoachVille.

The rest is online history.
Seriously this is starting to feel narcissistic, so I’ll just bulletize a bit here:

- from late 2000 to when Thomas died, we grew that thing called coachville from about 5000- 39000 members and ultimately nearly $3 million in revenue. it was a massive effort.
- Thomas passed way too early of course, we had only just started. But…six months after he died, I decided with difficulty I had done all I could and stepped down as GM and started to build my own venture in earnest.
- like with so many things, my own venture started with an ezine. Andrea’s Blog. I wrote, I thought, I fasted, I listened, I tried things like Internet Biz Whiz, Online Income for Coaches, hired and worked with several great coaches, and kept on trying to give a ‘pat’ answer to ‘So Andrea, how did you run CV?’ which was every week.
- Multiple Streams of Coaching Income was born bit by bit, not in a thunderclap, but after doing my own grieving, and processing of what I’d been involved in so intensely. I poured a lot of what was stuck in my head, roiling around, into the book. From there, I took cues from interest levels among coaches…and developed a membership, ebooks, teleseminars, and now live events.

It’s been about 6 months now since this last chapter. I’m working 30-40 hour weeks now instead of 60-70. I’ve lost about 15 pounds and am healthier. My marriage is happier. My two dogs see much more of me. About 3000 people are in various stages of the Multiple Streams funnel…whether that be as a one on one client of mine, an attendee of a live event, a membership, a pink spoon offering. I am heart and mind engaged in the mission…to be a bridge in the journey for coaches from heart to head, from money to meaning, from spirituality to commerce…

Oh yes..I don’t tend to have hobbies. I play the piano occasionally, walk my dogs every day, think about going to yoga more than I go, and for fun, my best thing is great food, great company and passionate conversations. I wonder, self consciously whether happiness and passion really ARE sometimes at odds with one another. I love my work. And some days it feels more like passion than happiness and I’m…happy…with that.

After all, it’s all an illusion right? I’m blessed beyond words, with rousing friendships and health, and had fun writing this intro. If no one reads it that’s okay, it’s that time of year to do an introspective isn’t it? With a little more added, I may just make this my new year’s letter this year. I write one to myself every year at the end of the year…and seal it up in an envelope to read…whenever. A couple handful later…maybe I ought to open them up and add to my blog for the possible new book! LOL.

Thanks for your company on a Saturday afternoon. And for those who might have wanted a more formal bio type thing, well…write me and I’ll send you the link.
Cheers, here’s to our lives of love and abundance!

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