SYSTEMS UPGRADE
JAN ‘26 / 20 8 SPOTS LEFT
You want to grow your business. You also can't remember the last time you took a real break.
Systems Upgrade: the 14-week programme where deep nervous system work meets operations, for practitioners and founders who are done choosing between growing the business and having a life outside of it.
You've built something that works - but only for as long as you're the one holding it together. The clients are there, the money's coming in. But only as long as you're operating at full productivity and full emotional capacity, every single week.
Here's what that actually looks like:
You come out of a session still holding what your client just processed, and the next thing on your calendar is ‘post content’ - so either it doesn't happen, or you force something out at 9pm because you feel behind, not because you have anything to say.
You launch something and it feels like an emergency - sales targets, content pressure, the sense that if you stop pushing for even a week the whole thing will stall.
A new client signs, and onboarding them means piecing the process back together from memory, because it's never actually been written down - so what happens next depends on whether you remember to do it this time.
A client asks for a session outside your hours. You're already stretched, but you say yes anyway - because losing the client, or the money, feels like the bigger risk than the exhaustion of squeezing them in.
You want to grow the business, make more money, impact more people. But right now, you know it’s not possible when this version of the business already demands so much from you.
And you've tried the productivity systems, the time-blocking, the CRM, the project management tool everyone swears by. They hold for about 5 days, until the next time you fall behind and you’re back to flying by the seat of your pants.
You've tried the nervous system work, the somatic sessions, the breathwork, the therapy. It helps, until Monday, when you're back in a business that dysregulates you again.
This isn't a business problem or a nervous system problem. It's both, at the same time, and you've been trying to fix them in isolation, one at a time, as if solving one would take the pressure off the other.
It won't. Every time the systems fall short, you're the one covering for them, pushing through the session that ran long, remembering the process nobody wrote down, saying yes when you've got nothing left. And the more you're covering, the less capacity you have to actually fix the systems. The gap never closes. It just moves onto you, week after week.
I know this cycle from the inside, because I lived it for years.
I wanted to grow the business, but I couldn't even picture how - I was already working twelve, sometimes fourteen hour days, and couldn't remember the last time I'd taken a break. Even with all those hours, I'd get to the end of the month with no idea where the money had gone. Stepping back for even a week felt impossible, like the money would stop, and there wasn't a big enough buffer for that to be okay.
My body was running on adrenaline just to get through most days. I'd finish a client session still buzzing, unable to switch off, and go straight into answering emails with my body still braced from the last conversation. That was just Tuesday.
I had the training to ‘regulate’ myself, the therapy, the nervous system certifications, all of it. I could bring myself back down in the moment. But none of that mattered when I was walking back into a business that dysregulated me in the first place.
It wasn't until I met my business partner, Sasha, (who started off in one of my programmes!) who'd spent a decade running operations for big tech, that I understood what was actually missing. I'd spent years pouring everything into the nervous system side of this, and the actual structure of the business never changed at all. I'd regulate, feel better for a few days, and land right back in the same twelve-hour days, the same end-of-month confusion about where the money had gone, the same inability to take a real break. Because none of it touched the thing actually causing all of it. I was only ever fixing half of it.
That's when we started building what became Systems Upgrade. Not another nervous system tool, not another business system, but both at once, each one designed around the other.
These days, I take eight weeks off over summer. Zero client work. The money still comes in. Most days now run at around 4-5 hours because the business doesn't need me holding all of it anymore.
Systems Upgrade is the 14-week programme where nervous system work meets operational structure - for practitioners, founders, and vision-led humans done choosing between growing the business, and having a life outside of it.
We build the structure to hold you through every season, not just the good ones. And we build your nervous system to hold more: more responsibility, more visibility, more rest, without treating any of it as a threat.
By week 14, you're no longer telling yourself you'll ‘fix the systems once things calm down’, or that you'll take real time off once it's quieter. Things are already running differently, because the structure that makes it possible is already built.
Here’s how this works…
The 3 pillars that make Systems Upgrade work…
Structure
Daily, weekly, quarterly, and annual planning that actually accounts for time off - not a block on the calendar you're hoping holds, but the actual strategy behind making it happen.
Content and marketing stop being the thing that gets squeezed in at 9pm or dropped entirely, because they're planned into the week like everything else.
You know exactly what's urgent and what can wait, without relitigating it every morning.
A last-minute reshuffle - a sick day, time off, just needing more space - doesn't take the whole week down with it.
Real white space, already built into the calendar before you ever need it.
State
This works both ends of the spectrum - staying steady when the stakes go up, and actually switching off once the day's done.
Staying clear when a bigger cohort, more visibility, a client crisis, or a jump in income hits - instead of your body treating growth as a threat.
Closing the laptop, leaving your phone in another room, sitting through dinner without checking it every five minutes.
The safety to actually say no - no more 8pm Friday sessions because turning someone away feels worse than the exhaustion.
Genuinely resting during real time off, instead of lying on a beach still bracing for what's falling apart back home.
Systems
A complete system for income, expenses, pricing, and buffer - plus the repeatable processes that used to live only in your head.
Onboarding a new client stops being thirty minutes of scrambling and takes five instead.
Ends the pattern of hitting a high cash month, dropping to a third of it the next, and not being able to explain what changed.
Knowing exactly what needs to be sitting in the account before you take planned leave - not just once, but multiple times a year.
Knowing exactly who to hire and what to hand them, once there's an actual system behind it.
Most founders and practitioners stay stuck trying to fix one area at a time - which is exactly why it never sticks & they inevitably keep hitting the same income and capacity ceilings.
Skip Structure and Systems, and your nervous system just keeps coming back to dysregulation. Skip State, and you keep recreating the exact patterns you're trying to escape.
For the vision-led founder who wants to scale without choosing between the business and having a life outside of it, the integration of all three is the non-negotiable foundation that makes it work.
01: Planning & operational architecture
Daily, weekly, quarterly, and annual planning that actually accounts for time off - not a block on the calendar you're hoping holds, but the actual strategy behind making it happen.
This is where onboarding a new client stops eating thirty minutes of scrambling and takes five instead, where you know exactly what's urgent and what can wait without relitigating it every morning, and where a last-minute reshuffle - a sick day, time off, or just needing more space - doesn't take the whole week down with it.
Fewer hours lost to repetitive tasks, and real white space already built into the calendar before you ever need it.
02: Nervous system capacity
This works both ends of the spectrum: the capacity to stay clear and steady when the stakes go up - a bigger cohort, more visibility, a client crisis, a jump in income - instead of your body treating growth itself as a threat.
And the capacity to actually switch off once the day's done: close the laptop, leave your phone in another room, sit through dinner without checking it every five minutes. Without this, you can have the perfect system in place and still say yes to the out-of-hours session, still refuse the time off, still take every opportunity because some part of you is convinced it won't come around again. The system can hold the business. This is what lets you believe it, and relax into it.
03: Financial infrastructure
A complete system for income, expenses, pricing, and buffer - a dashboard you’ll actually read, built alongside the somatic work for whatever surfaces when you finally look at the numbers honestly.
This is the layer that ends the pattern of hitting a high cash month, dropping to a third of it the next, and not being able to explain what changed.
It's knowing exactly what needs to be sitting in the account before you take planned leave - not just once, but multiple times a year, every year.
04: Boundaries, delegation & recovery
Once the systems are built, you know exactly who to hire and what to hand them.
You build the safety to say no - no more 8pm Friday sessions because turning someone away feels worse than the exhaustion. And you build the nervous system capacity to actually take the time off once it's there - to genuinely rest during it, instead of lying on a beach still bracing for what's falling apart back home or over Slack.
‘Isabel has an incredible ability to make you feel so safe and at ease while pulling you outside of your comfort zone. This session was an impactful 90 minutes, with tangible questions and a focus on the next steps at a realistic pace. Thank you for hosting this!’ - Gena, Canada
‘This course has meant so much to me. I hoped it would help me with capacity and the ability to act on what is important to me, but did I believe it actually would the way it has? Probably not! Obvs this was based on my own self concept and beliefs about myself, rather than the course itself. The course really did facilitate the space & community for meaningful change along with the knowledge & useful practical advice that I could implement immediately. Since finishing the course I am keeping my angst free promises to myself with a consistency I have never before managed. I have integrated the wisdom of showing up daily for doable bite sized chunks and I've felt my capacity expand within 2 weeks!!’ - Sharifa, UK
‘Expect to be held. Isabel comes equipped with the tools, the depth of knowledge and most importantly, the embodiment to guide you into deeper intimacy with yourself. Having you learn on the deepest level that your body houses the wisdom to bring clarity, to bring expansion and to bring more safety. All that’s needed is to simply experience more and more little by little.’ - Iykechi, USA
Where operational expertise and real implementation meet Somatic Experiencing®, NARM, DARe principles, so the business you're building actually becomes one your body and mind can run.
We start with a full, honest audit. Your business, your week, your finances, your patterns. Nothing changes until we see clearly what's already there.
Structure
State
Systems
We install the operational infrastructure inside a Notion Companion you build alongside us, in real time.
Your nervous system expands its tolerance for growth, so the structure you've built becomes something you live inside.
Feedback from the 2025 Beta round + past clients
How it works:
Weekly Core Class (Wednesdays)
A 90-minute live class with Isabel and Sasha: the conceptual and practical content of the module landing in real time, with live Q&A built in. This is where each layer of the rebuild gets taught and questioned.
Weekly Somatic Sessions (Tuesdays)
A live Somatic Experiencing® session designed to integrate the week's material into the body. This is where the strategy meets the state and where your nervous system actually expands its tolerance for what you're building.
Weekly Business AMA
A live group coaching call where you bring the real questions - your numbers, your launches, your bottlenecks, your tech stack, your hiring decisions. Direct operational eyes on your actual business.
SU Private Community
Direct access to Isabel inside the community platform throughout the 14 weeks. And a room of practitioners and founders doing this work alongside you - which changes what you think is possible faster than any module will.
The Notion Companion
Your very own implementation dashboard that will follow you around Systems Upgrade like a pet dog. This is the Holy Grail and the ‘headquarters,’ so to speak, of your ecosystem that we’ll be building and nurturing with you, every step of the way.
Continued access for 6 months
6 months of access to the full curriculum, all recordings, every protocol, and the Notion Companion after the programme ends. So the integration keeps going, long after the live container closes.
Investment
£2,500 EARLYBIRD / £2,900
(Extended payment plans of 6 or 12 monthly payments available)
Dates
January - March 2026
SE Sessions: Tue 4pm Athens
Core Classes: Wed 4pm Athens
Business AMA: Thur 8pm Athens
(Note: times/dates may be subject to change)
Meet Isabel and Sasha: Founders of Systems Upgrade & your two guides for the 14 weeks
Isabel
Isabel spent 10 years researching human behaviour for global companies, before burning out in a career that looked great on paper. She tried to think her way out of it first - more research, more frameworks - and it didn't work. So she went back to her body instead. And back to school. Twice.
Then she built her own practice on the same fault line she now helps clients close: full roster, income coming in, still no idea where the money was going or how to grow past where she was. The SE® training and the MSc didn't give her the operational structure to execute what she could see clearly in her head. Building both together - the nervous system work and the systems work - is what took her from that to booked out six months in advance, the next twelve months of revenue accounted for, and eight weeks off this summer to actually use.
The same skill that made her good at behavioural research - spotting the pattern underneath the surface - is what she now uses to read what's actually running a founder's nervous system, and change it, instead of asking them to think their way out of it again.
She brings that combination - Somatic Experiencing®, Integrative Psychotherapy, NARM, and DARe principles - to founders who are done pushing through and ready to build something that holds without white-knuckling it.
Sasha
Sasha spent more than a decade building the operational systems that let high-growth tech companies scale without quietly falling apart - working up to executive level across media, publishing, engineering, design, and product teams.
Growth almost never fails because of talent or ambition. It fails because the infrastructure underneath it was never built to hold what the business became. The same collapse that takes down a nine-figure product team happens at a smaller scale in a solo practitioner's Notion page and diary - and the fix is the same.
Sasha brings those stress-tested frameworks directly to founders and practitioners through Systems Upgrade - the same operational thinking that decides whether a product launch holds or collapses, now applied to your onboarding process, your pricing, your Tuesday. Systems built around the people running them don't just survive growth. They're what makes it possible.
This is for you if:
You're already running a real business, and you're past the stage where motivation, another framework or another planner is going to fix what's going on.
You can feel that what needs to change is structural and physiological, not motivational.
You're tired of the procrastinate → panic → push → crash cycle costing you growth. You know it's not sustainable, and you're done pretending it is.
You want to build something that doesn't require all of you, all the time, just to keep it going. You want flexibility and space with the seasons life brings.
And you understand that requires both the operational architecture and the nervous system capacity to inhabit it, built together, not separately.
You can feel that what’s needed isn’t more doing, but rather, different conditions. A season of genuine rebuild - not a sprint to optimise, but a real re-planting of the ground underneath.
