I'm Tracy Turtle, founder of Mandala Jade. I'm a simplicity coach, professional organiser and speaker, and I help people simplify their homes, their work and their lives.
I was born in Hong Kong to a Chinese mum, in a very traditional Asian culture where following the right path was expected. Maths degree. Chartered Accountancy qualification. And then a whole career in finance that took me to London, Bermuda and Singapore, and eventually into culture and behavioural change at NatWest. 25 years in financial services.
That career took me to amazing places and gave me experiences I wouldn't swap. But I never really felt like I was achieving anything or belonging anywhere.
At home, tidying and organising was the control I could achieve. And about 10 years ago I got completely sucked into The Minimalists' Netflix documentary, and then Marie Kondo came along, and I started decluttering everything - my stuff, and eventually my whole life.
Then came the pieces that made everything make sense. My son's autism diagnosis. And then my own autism and ADHD diagnoses. Simplicity was something necessary, not just a nice to have, for me and my family.
And the same year I received my AuDHD diagnosis, I was made redundant from my corporate role and also diagnosed with breast cancer, undergoing surgery and radiotherapy. It also made me look at my health and lifestyle - which included cutting back significantly on my alcohol consumption.
So I made the decision to leave the corporate world, and the idea for Mandala Jade came quickly. Helping people simplify their homes, work and lives felt like the most natural next step.
The 'Stop Saying You're Busy' talk is my signature talk, most recently presented to ~100 people at an insurance company and I've spoken at various events both now in my business (at networking events and corporates) and in my corporate life (for over 20+ years). I bring warmth, humour and a lot of honesty to my talks and panels!
I've developed a 5-step framework, the CLEAR method: Clarify Your Vision, Limit what comes in, Eliminate what's unnecessary, Assign everything a home, and Reinforce with systems and habits. Which can be used to simplify anything - home, work or life, and which I use with my clients in homes and 1:1 coaching.
Ten years of intentional living has also shaped how I think about sustainability - for me they're completely linked. When you're really deliberate about what you bring into your life, you naturally consume less, waste less and make more considered choices. I can talk to that practically too, switching products, reducing waste, breaking the cycle of bringing too much in.
We also moved house just at the end of Covid - we wanted more space and a bigger garden. What we didn't clock until we got there was that we actually had less storage than before. So even though we had a bigger house, we had to get even more ruthless with our stuff. Which was actually a good thing - we've never had overflowing cupboards since. We did renovate a couple of years later and put more storage in but now some of those cupboards are empty as we obviously didn't need that stuff in the first place!
