When Katy Sayburn earned a seat in the fastest GB junior rowing crew while at state school and went on to win gold twice at GB junior level, she did not know they were just the first strokes towards becoming a champion in her career and life: an experience she now shares with other high achievers around the world.
Many people who have worked at the top of the Balearic tourist industry over the past 30 years will know Katy; she broke all the boundaries. She told the Bulletin this week that Ibiza and Mallorca “made we what I am, they are still the best places on Earth and I continue to recommend them as top holiday destinations although I am no longer directly involved in tourism. I can now holiday as a ‘tourist and a mother’ ”, she explained.
Katy studied psychology at Cambridge and she used her university breaks to work as a holiday rep in Ibiza and Mallorca during the summers and ski resorts in the winters. Much to her parents’ astonishment she moved to Ibiza the night she graduated from Cambridge. “It all happened so fast,” said Katy who started off working for Thomas Cook.
“By 27, I was leading a team of 400 across global territories. I didn’t have all the answers, but I had the same playbook that powered those early mornings on the river: mindset, discipline, absolute belief, and maybe a bit too much caffeine. It worked again. In six months, we grew profit from £1m to £5m. I say this not to boast, but to prove, cliché as it sounds, you can have anything you want if you’re brave enough to go after it,” she said.
Then she joined the board of the UK’s largest independent airline, Monarch, becoming the first female member of the board in 50 years in charge of 74 territories with a 9-figure budget. Then, aged just 42, she launched a hotel chain in Mallorca - BH Mallorca. “Back then, when I started out in the tourist industry, although many of us were young, we were responsible for a host of issues and in many cases had to think on our feet. As you know - having worked ski seasons - we had to handle accidents, fatalities, lost passports, missed flights, booking complications, the list goes on.
"We didn’t have instant access to mobile phones or call centres and back-up teams, so you learnt fast or failed. On the flip side, it was very much about communication. At the end of the day, everyone we were looking after wanted to have fun, they were on holiday and we had to make sure that they enjoyed their holiday as much as possible.
“So you were thrust into the communications industry in different cultures having to speak (learn) new languages. It certainly wasn’t all fun in the sun and I doubt it still is for resort reps today, but I can say that my experience in Ibiza and Mallorca was the making of me,” Katy stressed. Katy and the family would still be on the island today had it not been for Covid.
“I was expecting my second child so we decided to return home to Northumberland for a few months. That was six years ago, and little did we know that it was the eve of the lockdowns. By the time it was all lifted, the kids were in school so we decided to remain in the UK. We still have homes in Bendinat and Ibiza and come over all the time and I am pretty sure that once the girls have finished their education we’ll move back permanently to Mallorca - it’s always going to be home for us,” she said.
Two years ago, Katy, took stock of her life’s experience. “When I look back, by the time I had hit 30 I’d already lived a lifetime. Based between Ibiza, Mallorca and London, I was surrounded by visionaries - ultra-high achievers who operated without limits. That world became my classroom, expanding my mindset and blowing the ceiling off what I thought was possible.
“I kept adding chapters to my playbook and rose into a whole new level where ‘impossible’ didn’t exist.
“I started coaching winners. People not necessarily born into wealth or privilege, but who share an elite mindset. Leading corporate teams and mentoring top achievers taught me what drives change and what is a complete waste of time. I’ve experienced a lot of coaching myself over 30 years. Sports coaching for fitness and performance, life coaching for business and mindset. Excellent coaching has transformed me and I still have a coach today.
“But there is a big difference between coaching and therapy. Therapy helps makes the dysfunctional functional. Coaching takes the functional to exceptional, to the top level. It’s not about looking into the past to make the present better. Coaching, or at least the way approach it and through what I offer, is about taking the present to make a better future, and that could be either in the professional environment or one’s personal life because they overlap.
“At the end of the day one has to think about happiness and one has to be proactive. You have to make it happen and everyone has the tools to improve their lives. It’s just about knowing how and that’s where I help steer people through that process. For example, if you can’t swim but read a book about swimming, does that mean you can then swim? No. How many people actually take action after reading a self-help book. Very few.
“However, if somebody is serious about losing some weight and getting fit, for example, they hire a personal trainer. They set their goals and get the result. As my grandmother told me, ‘There’s no such word as can’t’. People want tangibles to work with and I focus on 20 key areas, 20 components of my clients and we grade each one to decide which ones are going to be useful tools in achieving our goal.
“The challenge to better ourselves has always been there but today we’ve got the vocabulary and the platforms to talk and act on it. In the social media age, we can all see what everyone else is doing - are they doing better and why? There’s no point in simply being a spectator and getting jealous over those doing better. Sitting around and dreaming about people who may appear luckier doesn’t help anyone; especially high achievers who may be stuck in a rut. I can, and am, helping people move up to the next level and it’s very exciting.
“Looking back, I’ve always been coaching and monitoring people during my career. And I think the way in which I recovered from a serious ski accident when was 37 - three years before joining the board of Monarch - was also a key moment for me. After three months in a Palma hospital, three years of yoga, meditation, self-development (an incredible husband and a genius neurologist) Katy 2.0 emerged. Most of that I did myself, so I practise what I preach.
“I honestly believe that given all that I have learnt, experienced and achieved, I should be coaching winners. People not necessarily born into wealth or privilege, but who share an elite mindset. Leading corporate teams and mentoring top achievers taught me what drives change and what is a complete waste of time,” said Katy for whom retirement is not an option - but returning to Mallorca is. “It’s always been home.” www.instagram.com/katysayburn or katysayburn.com