Yahoo Finance How an Aussie mum funnelled her grief and inability to sleep into business success
"Patrick would have said, 'That's crazy, how do you sell sleep?'"
For Rachael Coupe, a good night’s sleep used to be a daydream at best because, for years, she’d been living with crippling anxiety attacks.
“I didn’t sleep much, often waking in a panic if I did,” she told Yahoo Finance. “I knew I had endured a long period of stress and I put it down to life. What I didn’t realise was that this was a symptom of burnout.”
Then, in 2011, Rachael lost her brother Patrick in the Christchurch earthquake. “He was caught in the collapse of the PGC building,” she said.
“Day after day, we all hoped and prayed that he would come out alive. I sat by the phone and TV, day and night, watching every story I could find, waiting to see him walk out of that building. I didn’t sleep at all.”
After 10 days, Patrick — who Rachael described as her “best mate, sounding board and guide” who always had her back — was presumed dead after the final search for survivors with dogs failed to find any sign of life.
“This was devastating and my anxiety attacks went to a whole new level,” the 54-year-old explained. “I’d been through some really difficult times in life but this gripped me with a relentless sense of loss.”
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In the wake of her brother’s funeral, Rachael was barely surviving on short periods of sleep — one or two hours at most.
“I threw myself into work, tried to find a way to function without sleep and carry on with daily life,” the Melbourne woman said. “It was an impossible task and my health was failing, my mindset was scattered and I was barely keeping up.”
After a significant health scare, Rachael realised she couldn’t continue like this. “I had to learn to deal with grief in a different way,” she explained. And it was this mission that led her to launch a life-changing business.
From a dream to reality
After throwing herself into studying and devouring papers, research studies and countless books, the mum of two learned that her dysregulated nervous system was linked to sleep deprivation, and that was keeping her in a fixed state of fight or flight.
To counteract this, she made yoga and meditation part of her daily life while she tested essential oils to find the blend that would actually help her with relaxation and stress relief. Then she developed a routine to manage her stress levels during the day, which finally gave her better quality sleep.
“That was the game changer,” she said. “I started to sleep well regularly and I could see a distinct difference in my cognitive function, focus and flow in my work, and my ability to manage all other aspects of a busy life with kids and a business.”
It was this personal success story that made Rachael realise she wanted to help others.
The business of selling sleep
While kick-starting a business at the start of COVID wasn’t easy, Rachael was finally sleeping and had found a new strength to launch The Sleep Boss.
Describing itself as “more than just a natural sleep aid company”, the business sells essential oils while offering its 7-Day Sleep for Success Challenge free, which helps people prepare for sleep by educating them on how sleep works on the mind and body, the nutrition that promotes sleep, and the micro steps that facilitate change in sleep.
“Patrick would have said, ‘That’s crazy, how do you sell sleep?’” Rachael said. “This would have opened up many, probably intense, discussions but now, in this business and in life, I no longer have the opportunity to ground out ideas with Patrick.
“I had to carefully monitor my self-talk, build resilience, find new mentors, and build a support network that would help me achieve what looked like a set of impossible goals.”
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