About Imogen Roy – Business Mentor to Unconventional People — Imogen Roy | Accomplice and Mentor to Powerhouses and Trailblazers

Imogen-Roy-body-based-business-productivity-leadership-mentor-for-women — Let’s get one thing straight right away: exhaustion, self-sacrifice and burnout are not the price you have to pay for “success”.

…But you’d be forgiven for thinking they come as a non-negotiable package deal.

Ever noticed how we use the language of war to talk about productivity and accomplishment?

How many times have you forced yourself to “power through” when your energy’s flagging, or “crush” your goals, even at your own detriment?

Or been told by well-meaning friends you’re “killing it” in your career, when really you feel so numb you can’t even remember who you are outside of work?

We’re so immune to this language, we barely notice how it teaches us to treat our bodies like machines, rather than the energetic, intuitive, feeling beings we truly are.

It normalises the narrative that there’s an absurd binary choice to be made between burned out high-performer and drop-out slacker, with no space in between.

But here’s the problem: You cannot live fully into your desires if you’re worn out, run-down and resentful.

Staying perpetually tired, overworked and under-fuelled keeps us stuck (by design!). Worst of all, it stops us from connecting with the wisdom of our body and the powerful, potent key it holds to unlocking our most flourishing, prolific and purposeful life.

I know this because I’ve lived on both sides of the coin, and that’s what led me to the work I do today.

My journey to burnout started young. As a teen athlete, I was trained to ignore my body’s signals and push past pain and exhaustion. These experiences prepared me to become a high performer in many areas of life, but at a cost: I was unable to ever feel what was “enough”.

By 27, my career had included stints in Paris and London as a photographer, fashion blogger, press officer, event producer, crisis communications manager and co-founding a media services company. In 2018 I became a freelance brand & marketing strategist – sometimes travelling to three countries in a week.

My life was go-go-go and I felt on top of the world. That unrelenting pace made me feel unstoppable.

Until it didn’t.

I didn’t believe you could burn out doing what you loved. I didn’t think you could burn out being your own boss. I was wrong.

Unable to fulfill my contracts and losing 80% of my income, burnout left me with no choice but to start all over again.

After a lifetime of leading with my head, I let my body and intuition take the wheel and started a radical experiment: ‘My Year of Magical Living’.

What might happen if I halved my workload (gasp!) and raised my prices? If I prioritised pleasure and joy over Pomodoro and to-do lists? If I treated myself like my most important client?

For a whole year, I threw out everything I’d learnt about being a successful high-performer, and experimented with the opposite instead.

And, counter to what society tells us about success and productivity, my year of intuitive, magical living didn’t slow down my career at all.

It supercharged it.

But that wasn’t the only victory:

My energetic abilities to magnetise support, resources and genius collaborations exploded.

My creative inspiration came back after a six-year dry spell and I found my voice.

I gently wooed back all the personas I‘d so impatiently exiled – the Adventuress, the Shaman, the Rebel – and re-integrated them into my life.

And it wasn’t just me who noticed, or benefitted. My intuition, energy and perception became so powerful that clients started paying me just to sit next to them at a high-stakes meeting or while they recorded a pitch video.

After talking about My Year of Magical Living in my newsletter, it wasn’t long before women all over the world began asking if I would coach them to achieve similar results.

For months, I refused – until one day I realised that I was stubbornly denying the ease and magic of that receptive feminine energy I was so longing to embrace.

I would never have discovered my true zone of genius if I hadn’t trusted that making myself feel good would allow me, my business and my clients to thrive. It showed me that when I take care of my energy, my success takes care of itself.

Now I mentor 1:1 clients and teach body-based business practices so others can do the same, and their results are no less astonishing.

“Coaching kickstarted me into a completely new way of thinking.

Now I see myself as my most valuable business asset, and if I take care of my health and my creativity and feel balanced, I can rise to any challenge. In that way, I can’t fail! Imogen doesn’t tell you what to do, rather, she is the steadfast anchor in your organic process of change who encourages you to think outside the box. She gave me the confidence to launch a new consulting service to monetise my creative ideas; just because something feels easy and fun for me, doesn’t mean I should give it away for free!”

— Clemmie Myers, Vintage Dealer & Creative Consultant

You can have fierce ambition and still show up wholly as yourself and, most importantly, at your own pace to achieve those dreams. You can lean into where your genius lies and find work that makes you feel valued, aligned and unstoppable. You can get paid incredibly, deliciously well for being the version of you you hid away from the world for so long.

When we let our body lead, incredible things happen.

It’s my job to help you design a fully embodied, outrageously juicy life that’s faithful to who you really are.

Work with me

My Professional History

In addition to my work as a business coach and mentor, I am the Director of Marketing for The Academy by Kasia Urbaniak – The School of Power for Women.

My 10+ years in marketing includes roles for major brands like Eurostar and KENZO; as a brand strategist for Missoma jewellery and Rough Guides, and Director of Marketing for London Speech Workshop.

Want to see my full professional history?

Visit my LinkedIn page

5 Facts About Me

I’m Scottish by blood, but was marinated in Germany and matured in France. Yes, I speak three languages.
I live in Bordeaux, France, with my husband. We visited in 2014 and fell in love with the city on instinct. It took us six years to rearrange our lives to make the move possible but in 2020, we did it.
I’m still a keen sportswoman and dedicate about 10 hours a week to training. My current obsessions are rock climbing, ski touring, surfing and roller skating.
I’m a deeply practical person and want to use all the tools available to find what works for an individual client. Which is why I integrate financial spreadsheets AND Human Design charts, fintech AND tarot cards, automation AND astrology into my approach.
The book I gift the most? Unbound – A Woman’s Guide to Power by Kasia Urbaniak

My Teachers

I hold the belief that there is no such thing as “self-made”; no timeless wisdom that can be intellectually claimed as “property”, and that the blooms of our victories are rooted in the contributions of our community. I did not get here alone.

In light of this, I choose to honour and thank my many teachers and mentors here, whose lineages I am proud to be a part of, and whose work has inspired and informed my own.

Profound thanks to Kasia Urbaniak – your teachings, leadership and our ongoing creative collaboration are undoubtedly the greatest influence on my work. Deepest gratitude to Ruben Flores, Co-founder of The Academy, for your friendship, guidance and in particular mentoring me in how to negotiate the non-negotiable.

Thank you to Naomi Powell, my business coach and mentor when I wanted support launching my first coaching offers. Deepest gratitude to the Feminist Coach Academy for the support and direction of your training. Humble thanks to Nicole Lewis-Keeber, my ‘Business Therapist’, in particular for your Do No Harm programme for trauma-conscious entrepreneurs. To Maisie Hill, your teachings on the full power and potential of the menstrual cycle rocked my world in 2019, and forever changed how I served my clients – thank you.

My loving appreciation for Anne-Lorène and Jessica, my first managers: you both showed me what it feels like to have another woman champion you with full trust, and your example paved the way for me to provide that support for my clients.

Julie Granger, your undivided care and attention helped me get into the physical shape of my life after surgeons told me I’d never ski or dance again; the results we created together rekindled my profound awe for the human body. Humble thanks to Eric Bussereau – you taught me how to heal my own spine and thus build a reliable, rock-solid foundation for my life.

Let’s get one thing straight right away: exhaustion, self-sacrifice and burnout are not the price you have to pay for “success”.