I was trapped in a business I loathed, because I’d lost myself
But there is a happy ending.
I found my way back, and so can you.
No founder story is ever the same- and that’s the magic. Your story is yours, and it's probably weird and wonderful and nothing like what the business books told you it would be.
But mine might sound familiar, especially if you're currently trapped in a business that feels like it's slowly suffocating you.
At 16, I built a six-figure business with zero fear. At 38, I was representing myself in family court while running a business full of clients I resented. Everything looked successful on the outside, but inside, I didn’t know who I was.
Somewhere between 16 and 38, I completely lost myself, became a world-class people-pleaser, conformed instead of created, said yes when I meant no, and built businesses that looked impressive but felt like a slow death.
We all lose ourselves at some points in our lives, but when that happens, and you run a business? It can be catastrophic.
This is the story of how I clawed my way back to who I actually am.
And if you've lost yourself too, pour a cuppa, grab a biccie and discover the story that shows you it’s possible to find yourself again.
Act one: Before I learned to play small
Being Quietly Disruptive before I knew what it meant
I was 16 when I started Utterly Horses, a business selling model horses. I started the business during my GCSEs, my maths exam to be exact. I smile now because it was niche of the niche (and talk about timing!). Everyone said it would never work because I was too young, too naive, and the market was far too specialised. I didn't know enough to be scared, which turned out to be my greatest superpower.
I built Utterly Horses into the largest model horse stockist in Europe with fifty thousand customers worldwide, a six-figure turnover, and a product range of 2,500 items that enabled us to do all sorts of cool things like movie launches, premieres, and having high-profile clients whose names you'd absolutely recognise. I travelled the world doing events because it turns out people really, really love model horses, and I was more than happy to show up and sell them things that they wanted to buy.
Then I started Copperfox, the first British manufacturer of 1:9th scale model horses, with our own factory in China making our own products. This meant more worldwide customers, more international events, and more proof that building something completely unconventional doesn't just work, it thrives when you refuse to listen to people who say it won't.
Sister businesses came next, then model horse festivals, then a string of enterprises that made absolutely no sense to anyone but me and worked anyway because I was Quietly Disruptive before I even had words for it: moving in silence, disrupting through action, building boldly without asking permission from anyone.
That's who I was. Completely, unapologetically, unstoppably myself.
I'd spend many years trying to find her again.
Act two:
How I built the cage
(And why I’m not embarrassed to tell you about it anymore)
Growing up on a diet of 80s rom-coms will lead you to believe the Hollywood lie: that everyone is fundamentally good, love conquers all, and if you just try hard enough, be kind enough, give enough, everything works out as the credits roll with a soundtrack and a happy ending.
I still believe most people are good, by the way. I just learned the hard way that believing everyone is good doesn't help when you marry the wrong person.
At 27, I married someone I should have run from, fast. For the next 11 years, I disappeared into a black, all-consuming hole.
This person was a narcissist and very controlling. I always say I should have read the small print, but that belief that "if you try hard enough" became my downfall. I became a world-class people-pleaser. I conformed instead of created. I said yes when I meant no. I sold the businesses that had made me who I was and built a different one, but with a fatal flaw. It looked successful but was slowly suffocating me. I hid my boundaries, my wants, my needs like they were something deeply shameful instead of the things keeping me alive. I was making money and was respected. I was "successful" but dying inside.
By 38, I hit rock bottom in spectacular fashion. Divorced and a single parent, I spent two years in family court proceedings trying to protect myself and my daughter—fifteen virtual hearings, representing myself against barristers, navigating domestic abuse and coercive control—all while trying to keep my business alive.
The proceedings dragged up every skeleton and magnified every flaw. I was told how terrible I was, and the thing is, I believed them. My confidence was gone, self-belief a no-show, and my intuition and trust had run for the hills.
I was floundering, and so was my business.
I found myself working with clients I resented, on projects I didn't want, in permanent, white-knuckled survival mode. I wanted to be marooned on a desert island to escape.
I was trapped in the business I'd built, unable to speak up, unable to say no, unable to admit the truth even to myself. Everyone kept congratulating me on how beautiful my cage was. I just wanted to scream.
The old me would have been too embarrassed to tell you any of this, being too ashamed, and honestly, too scared of what might happen if I did. But now I know it's something different. It's part of who I am, and what made me. It's what enables me to sit with founders who are trapped and say: "I know. I've been there. I know the exact pattern. I know the way out."
Because I've walked every single step of it.
Act three:
Everything broke.
I didn’t
The part where I found my way back
The thing about rock bottom is you finally see the truth.
I'd survived family court—threatened, challenged, and broken—but somewhere on the floor of that rock bottom, I'd found a speck of who I was. I was exhausted, bone tired, and burnout was like a second skin. But I couldn't give up. That would have been too easy, and deep down, that wasn't who I was.
I was a fighter.
So, I rested. I called in help and I rebuilt myself layer by layer. When I did, it reflected in my business. I started setting the boundaries I'd been hiding. I raised my prices. I waved goodbye to clients who drained me.
Everything was breaking open, and I was breaking free.
The final piece came when I said goodbye to my longest retainer client and four years of saying yes when I meant no. I should have done it sooner. I left, and they didn't say anything. It was what I'd always known: underappreciated and overworked. But it was also the moment I knew I was back.
Because the old me—the one who'd lost herself—would have stayed and justified it, several different ways.
By 41, I was free in a thriving coaching practice built in a strict 10am-4pm window as a single parent, with room for writing books, creating art, and building a community too. All of it simultaneously and sustainably.
That Quietly Disruptive 16-year-old who built boldly without asking permission from anyone was back. Older, wiser, with significantly better boundaries, a few scars and a story that proves you can lose yourself completely and still find your way home.
I didn't fix my business first. I found myself first. And the business? It had no choice but to follow.
The business transforms when you do. I'm living proof.
"As an ICF practitioner, she brings the high-level credentials I was looking for, but her 'magic' lies in her lived experience."
- Alicja Copija, ICF Career Coach
A lifetime of Quiet Disrupting expertise
My career (so far!) is like a great mix tape- one that has a few classics and some eclectic choices. My highlights so far include:
2001- Started Utterly Horses, a model horse company aged 16
2003- Running the world’s first online review site, PocketPCLife, for iPAQs and writing for magazines
2004- Starting sister companies, Utterlychaos (a wargaming miniatures company), Devilball (a skateboard Clothing Brand) and Pheo Records (a record label).
2009- Started Utterlysaurus, a business specialising in models of dinosaurs.
2012- Hosted the UK’s first model horse festival (convention) in Newmarket, attracting thousands of visitors from all over the globe. We had events in 2013 and 2014 too.
2014- Successfully crowdfunded a new venture, Copperfox Model Horses, a manufacturer and retailer of models of British breeds of horses.
2017- Sold Copperfox Model Horses to new owners
2017- In need of rest after nearly 20 years of model horses, I joined the IWM Duxford as a retail assistant, rising to Assistant Manager a couple of years later.
2020- During lockdown, the siren call of entrepreneurship called me back, and I became a Virtual Assistant, specialising in content creation, copywriting and social media management.
2020- Self-published my first children’s book, and then officially published (in hardback no less) by Imperial War Museums.
2022- Pivoting to specialise in a subject close to my heart, Branding, and supporting clients through Brand Strategy and Brand Consultancy.
2024- Stepping into the business I really wanted and saying yes to everything on my wishlist, utilising all my expertise, experience and knowledge from the past 20+ years.
I have a dream
A world run by founders who didn’t lose themselves to build it
I'm here to show you that successful doesn't have to mean stuck, profitable doesn't require sacrifice, and you absolutely can build something that feels as good as it looks- not one that impresses people at dinner parties but makes you want to fake your own death on a Tuesday afternoon.
Businesses aren't just revenue streams or LinkedIn updates. They're the backbone of communities and economies, creating jobs and solving real problems. They have the power to do extraordinary good in the world when the person running them genuinely loves what they do.
What breaks my heart is watching talented founders with genuinely successful businesses waste years trapped in something that looks brilliant but feels suffocating, not because they're failing, but because they're stuck in cages they built themselves while trying to do everything "right."
It's a waste. A waste of time, potential, and the impact you're actually here to make. And I know it doesn't have to be that way.
When you find the courage to escape and build something actually aligned with who you are—not who you think you should be—you don't just transform your own life. You become proof. You inspire others. You show your family, your community, and everyone watching from their own cages that success can feel good, that boundaries work, that doing it differently isn't career suicide.
That's the ripple. That's what drives me. That's why I do what I do.
"When I first started my business there were things I simply didn't know how to do. Becky's lived experience in business was immensely helpful. She gave generously of her time to help me build an authentic foundation on which to grow. In working with her you get not only a knowledgeable business coach but also a genuine cheerleader for your business."
Lynda Haynes-McCarthy, Executive Coach
What else I’m building
Because I don’t do just one thing. That’s boring.
Beyond coaching, I write books- children's fiction, business non-fiction, and essays about things that matter- because I've always been a writer and pretending otherwise felt ridiculous.
I'm building Quietly Disruptive, a lifestyle brand for entrepreneurs who move in silence and disrupt through action, set to launch in 2027 when I've finally stopped overthinking every detail.
I host A Quietly Disruptive Business podcast every week with solo episodes and guest interviews that go deeper than surface-level tactics, and I write The Founders Club newsletter for Quietly Disruptive founders who are categorically done with hustle culture and all the nonsense that comes with it.
I’m an example of what’s possible because I'm not just teaching you how to build a portfolio business model while maintaining strict boundaries and actually having a life—I'm living it, right now, in a 10am-4pm window, as a single parent, with boundaries that aren't negotiable and a calendar that proves it's possible.
Everything I teach you to build, I've already built. I'm not theorising about what might work or borrowing someone else's framework and pretending it's mine. I'm showing you what already works, what I've tested, what I'm living proof of every single day.
Why Quietly Disruptive Founders?
I am one. And I recognise you immediately
I work specifically with Quietly Disruptive founders because I understand how we think and how we work from the inside, not from a textbook or framework I borrowed, but because I've lived it for 25 years.
Quietly Disruptive founders don't build cages because you’re weak. You build them because you lost yourself. You tried to look professional, learned to people-please, and suppress that bold unconventional part of yourself to fit in with what a "serious business" was supposed to look like.
The fact is you changed, and the business reflects that.
The loud disruptors don't build cages. They're wired completely differently. They lead with ego, announce everything, and never suppress themselves for a second.
Quietly Disruptive founders move differently. We know, deep in our bones, that we're here to make an impact that matters. Whether that's in your world or on the world that doesn't matter. What matters is it's purposeful, it's real, and it's yours. We don't need to announce it or perform it. We just need to do it. We build unconventionally, move in silence, and make the impact through action, not applause. And when we try to do it someone else's way, or conform to someone else's blueprint… we suffocate.
That's who I work with. That's who I am.
I help you find your way back, not because you're broken or wrong, but because you're buried under layers of shoulds, woulds and coulds. There's a difference.
I can guide you there because I found myself first. My business had no choice but to follow.
That's why I work with Quietly Disruptive founders specifically.
You're not everyone. Neither am I. And that's exactly the point.
“I absolutely adore her 'quietly disruptive' guidance"
-Sharon Talbot, Content Creator
Choose the first step on your adventure
You've just read my story, eaten your biscuit and your tea may have gone cold, and you’ve discovered that I went from boldly disruptive at 16, to completely lost at 38, and then (#plottwist) to free at 41. If any of it felt familiar, if you saw yourself in the cage I built, and you’re ready to find your way back... here's where to start.
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I'm ready to talk
Book an Onwards and Upwards call. It’s 60minutes of coaching, with just you and me. Share with me where you are, and I’ll show you the way out. There’s no pitch or pressure, just clarity.
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I want to understand where I am first
Take my “What's Holding You Back, and How Do You Break Free?” Quiz. It's free, slightly uncomfortable (in a good way), and it'll show you exactly where you are, and what comes next.
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How to make it happen.
Join The Founders Club. Every week I share what the path from cage to freedom actually looks like, featuring behind-the-scenes confessions, quiet wins, and hard-won lessons so you can skip some of the painful bits.