About Derek Elder

Seventeen days after I signed up with my first business coach, my Mum passed away. She was 39. I was 19.

I grew up in Cambuslang, on the outskirts of Glasgow, as the oldest child. Five years before she passed, an asthma attack had left my Mum paralysed. From that day, she was the reason I wanted to build a business. I wanted to pay for the adaptations the house needed. I wanted to give her a better quality of life, and some of the experiences that might have brought a bit of joy back.

Then she was gone, and my reason why went with her.

I was lost and broken, and I did not know how to go on. But I had three younger siblings relying on me, so stopping was never really an option. I took on responsibility for them. I watched family relationships fall apart. And I kept building the business through the hardest years of my life, mostly because it was the only thing I felt I could control.

I threw everything at it. Almost every penny I made went into coaches, mentors, courses and books. Over thirty thousand pounds, all aimed at reaching the level I knew I was capable of.

And every time I got close to something significant, something quietly pulled me back. I would focus on the strategy instead of taking the action. I would stay busy with what felt productive and avoid the one thing that would have moved it. I kept finding reasons to stay just below the ceiling.

Then I found NLP, and for the first time I had a way to understand my own mind. I became completely obsessed with it. I trained in both NLP and hypnotherapy, and I finally turned the work on myself.

What I found surprised me. Somewhere inside, without ever consciously deciding it, a part of me had learned that achieving everything I said I wanted would mean my Mum was not here to see it. It felt safer to never get there than to get there without her.

It felt safer to never get there than to get there without her.

Once that was gone, everything changed. I went from angry, lost and depressed to feeling real joy, peace and gratitude. I became a better partner and a better brother.

Today I work with entrepreneurs and business owners who are where I was: capable, committed and stuck for a reason they cannot see. I use hypnosis, NLP and coaching to find that reason and deal with it at the root.