One September afternoon in 2011, Katie Day had a moment of clarity while waiting in traffic behind a motorway accident. It gave her the courage to stop waiting and truly go for it in business, a decision she says changed everything. Her story is ultimately about finding the courage to go for it, and it still resonates for women founders today, at a time when the economic case for women-led businesses has never been stronger.

My Story: By Katie Day

In the spring of 1989 I attended a conference in London where five women talked about running their own companies. I cannot remember the first four. The last woman bounded onto the stage and had me hooked immediately. She had started her own style and image consultancy. “That’s it,” I thought. “That’s what I want to do.”

I was 29, had left school at 17 with a few O Levels and a secretarial diploma, and had always wanted to start my own business. I simply did not have the confidence or belief to do anything about it.

The style and image presentation caught my attention because I had suffered from a very poor body image as a teenager. I had been overweight, then anorexic, and I had turned to self-harming. I knew the impact that poor self-image had and the resulting lack of self-esteem. I was passionate about getting the message out to all women that they are beautiful and magnificent regardless of age, dress size or budget.

I trained to become a style consultant. At the time I was married and my husband ran his own company, which needed input from both of us, so a career in style consultancy had to be put on the back burner.

How I crashed and rebuilt

Two years later, my marriage broke down. I was left with a house in negative equity just as house prices crashed and, because my husband kept the business, no job. I had to pick myself up. I took a full-time job Monday to Friday and did all sorts of things in the evenings, such as office cleaning and taking in ironing. At the weekends, I built my new style business. I used any holiday entitlement I had to give talks and presentations, and gradually built up my client base. I also trained to run self-development programmes for women.

In 1995, I moved from Southampton to be near my mother in Kent. She was very ill with heart disease. I took a job at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development delivering self-development courses to female staff who flew in from all over Eastern Europe. During lunch breaks and after work, I ran style courses for other City employees and kept my own style business going at the weekends. I later moved to a similar role, working with a variety of organisations to develop their culture and policies around women in the workplace.

In 2004 I returned to full-time self-employment, running my own training, consultancy and business coaching company. That is what I do today. My specialism is working with women to embrace their feminine power in life and work, to step out from behind any curtain of self-doubt and to take centre stage with impact and authority. I have worked with women in the City and in the police force, helping them retain their femininity and have a voice with impact and authority.

The turning point on the M23

In April 2010, both my parents were alive and I was in a relationship. By March 2011, both had died and the relationship had ended in extremely challenging circumstances, with police involvement. I was left contemplating my life and feeling shell-shocked. Around that time, I heard about an intensive business programme that was just what I needed to propel myself to the next level. But I was not in a financial position to attend.

Then came my real turning point. I had taken two weeks’ holiday, a luxury I had not given myself for years. That summer, I needed to get away and recoup. As I drove home from Gatwick, I turned onto the M23 but the motorway was closed. There had been an accident. I was about ten cars behind the closure point. It was a hot September day and I sat in my car with the door open. After a little while I heard a whirring sound, looked up and saw the air ambulance land. I got out of my car, leant against the door, looked at the wreckage and prayed. I sent out as much healing energy, love and light to whoever was in the car as I possibly could, hoping they were going to be okay. I watched the air ambulance take off again and, gradually, the motorway came back to life and we all went on our way.

Then I had my “aha” moment. I said to myself: “OK, Katie, your parents are gone, you were an only child, you have no partner and no children. If that had been you in that car and you had not made it home from your holiday, who would know?”

That was a real turning point for me. I realised that this was it. Should I carry on doing what I had been doing for the past 23 years, empowering women to be the best they can be, something I had done very well, or was it time I did what I encourage my clients to do: step out from behind my curtain and take centre stage in the spotlight of my own magnificence?

At the time I was driving my dream car, a white Alfa Romeo Spider, two-seater soft-top sports car. I had been lusting after this car all my adult life and, finally, at the age of 50, I got one. I had only been driving it for nine months. The following day, I contacted the garage I bought it from and asked if they would buy it back. They did. I exchanged it for a sensible car, lovely, but not the Alfa. However, the cheque the garage gave me for the difference was exactly the cost of the business programme I had been thinking about. So I contacted them and joined the next programme.

My new life takes shape

I completed the programme the following spring. Part of the process was to write a book. As a result of my determination to step into my own light, I sat down and wrote it in three weeks, all 60,000 words. It was published a few months later and, as a result, I began speaking internationally, attending conferences in the United States and being interviewed on radio and television in the UK, North America and beyond. I have since contributed articles on women in leadership to business publications around the world, refreshed my brand and website, and taken the time to do some hard work on my personal life with a therapist.

If I had been asked in March 2011 to predict how my life would look 18 months later, I could not have conceived of any of what I would achieve. I strongly believe that if your passion and desire are strong enough and you couple them with solid self-belief, you can achieve anything you set your mind to. That is the theme that runs through my book.

Lessons on finding the courage to go for it

My story is not really about cars, books or conferences. It is about finding the courage to go for it; the moment I stopped postponing the life I wanted. For any woman running, or thinking of starting, a business today, these are the lessons I would pass on:

• Clarity often comes from crisis. I do not wish my losses on anyone, but they stripped away distractions and forced me to ask what really mattered. Sometimes the hardest moments give us the clearest direction.
• Invest in yourself before you feel ready. I did not have the money “spare” for that programme. I created the money by letting go of something I loved. If you wait until every condition is perfect, you will wait forever. For women who need practical funding to take that step, schemes such as Start Up Loans for female founders can help turn intention into action.
• Act while the insight is fresh. The day after the accident, I sold the car. Momentum matters. The longer you sit with a decision, the easier it is to talk yourself out of it.
• Build support around you. A coach, a therapist, a peer group, a mentor; no one builds a business alone. I sought help personally and professionally, and it made all the difference. The right women in business networks can provide exactly that kind of support.
• Own your voice. The business case has never been stronger. According to the 2024 Alison Rose Review of Female Entrepreneurship progress report, women-led businesses contribute an estimated £140 billion to the UK economy. Yet 2024 British Business Bank and ONS data still show women lead only around one in five UK businesses, and all-female founder teams receive less than 2 per cent of UK venture capital. We need more women at the table, not fewer. Your perspective is valuable.

I believe as passionately now as I did more than three decades ago that women own their beauty, their power, their glory and their magnificence. If we all take ownership of our journey we really can change the world and dance with life.

For more stories and practical support for women in business, visit the Prowess community.