How a homeless Aussie teen became a millionaire

A Sydney woman who spent her teenage years living on the streets and battling a serious drug addiction has revealed how she turned her life around — now owning her own business worth seven-figures.

Shani Taylor, 39, had an incredibly rocky upbringing, which involved a stint of homelessness and battling drug use, but that all changed when she fell pregnant with her son.

Now, the single mum to Oscar, 16, is the founder of Shani Taylor Consulting — a business and sales service worth a huge sum. In a YouTube video published on Shera, a digital platform dedicated to empowering women, Shani revealed how she turned her life around to become an entreprenuer — and the gritty reality of her younger years.

“It’s really hard for people to believe because, when you look at me now, there’s no way this girl has ever had a problem with confidence, there’s no way this girl has taken drugs,” Shani said. “You see the photos [of me before] and it’s like two completely different people.”

'Unstable' childhood leads to drug addiction

Shani grew up in a new small town in NSW and suffered bullying throughout school.

“I was picked on constantly — partly because I lacked confidence from having such an unstable and chaotic home life,” she explained. “I was just generally scared to be out in the world because home didn’t feel very secure or safe — and so of course the world didn’t feel secure or safe as well.”

Shani believes that this lack of confidence is one of the reasons that led her to drug use. “It’s not like you just wake up one day and go ‘Oh I might just take drugs’. It’s very much to do with your upbringing, but the defining moment that led to me taking drugs was I lost my virginity at 16 to a guy who I thought I was madly in love with,” she said.

“Shortly after that, he broke up with me saying ‘I’m a drug addict and I’d rather take drugs than be with you’. So I became very, very curious as to what would be better than being in a relationship with me.”

Teen becomes homeless

The experience, paired with her unstable upbringing, led Shani down a path that would change her life forever. “When I first started putting needles in my arm, I wasn’t the one doing it because I didn’t even know how to do it,” the 39-year-old mum added.

“I don’t think anyone really knows how to put a needle in a vein — you’ve got to be taught. It was actually the drug dealer or the person that I was getting the drugs from that was putting the needle in my arm for me.”

Shani claims she was kicked out of the family home and ended up homeless, often couch surfing and even spending time sleeping on the streets. The thing that finally spurred her on to change? Her desire to become a mother.

“Looking back at it now, I really think that I was subconsciously strategic in knowing that if I decided to have a child, that would be the thing that would make me turn my life around,” she said. “I knew that I wasn’t prepared to do it for just me, but I knew that if I decided to have a child, that that purpose becomes bigger and I’m prepared to make that commitment for that child rather than just me.”

As her desire to become a mum grew, the hold that drugs had on her lessened.

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Mum goes back to school, starts business

Shani then fell pregnant with Oscar, welcoming him 16 years ago — the very age she was when her life spun out of control — having finally committed to getting clean.

She got a job in recruitment, worked her way up to management and became incredibly career-focused despite having never finished high school. “Having work and being purposeful in a career gave me a sense of self-worth,” she said.

Shani decided to go to university to further her education as mature student, studying sociology and completing her degree in two years as opposed to three, followed by a postgraduate degree in law. But she soon realised what she really wanted to do — starting a course on how to start an online business, and eventually setting up her own.

“All the trauma of 28 years and all of the growth — I couldn’t see myself going back and working for someone else and clocking on and being in an office environment,” she said.

Shani launched her company and has built it up to a strong, successful position. Reflecting back on what was missing — and thankfully no longer is — in her life, Shani said: “Ultimately I was searching for a home, I was searching for somewhere to belong, and my desire to belong somewhere was so misplaced because I didn’t feel like I belonged at home in my family or at school.

“That sense of loneliness – I was looking to feel something.”

Jam Press

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