EP#97 From Adversity to Empowerment | Debra Blackman | Empowering Family Health

EP#97 From Adversity to Empowerment | Debra Blackman | Empowering Family Health
This episode on the Empowering Family Health podcast is with Debra Blackman. From a challenging childhood to a powerhouse in the business world, Debra shares her incredible story of resilience and triumph. Watch or listen about how adversity fuelled her determination to build Viessentially Ltd., a business dedicated to sustainable empowerment. 

This is a powerful conversation about self-discovery, soul purpose, and the mission to enrich lives through innovative Virtual Assistant services. 

Debra Blackman was born in the East End of London. Her parents lived in a bedsit, in a shared house with no hot water. Her early years were traumatic, as her family had a history of mental illness and abuse. The family moved to the countryside when the family business grew. They became respected, middle-class members of the community. Debra had a childhood that took her to a top private school, rubbing shoulders with privileged society. However, when at home and behind closed doors, she lived in fear. She has overcome adversity, and in many ways those formative years forged her resilience and determination. Debra has over 25 years of business experience with leading organisations. Through counselling Debra discovered her Soul Purpose... to leave her legacy to charity. To support her in her mission, she has her own successful international business Viessentially Ltd. The company’s culture is about supporting its people, its clients, and their ecosystems beyond. It embraces inclusivity, sustainability, and positive human impact. A business where every member is equal, where every voice matters, and without formal hierarchy. The team gives busy business owners and leaders their precious time back, through high quality outsourced, virtual administration and business development services. All with the aim of enriching lives, families, and communities. Debra’s business culture and personal values have earned her the nickname “Your Mary Poppins of The Office.

Contact Debra
https://viessentially.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/debra-b-62588815a/ https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100094215941498 https://www.instagram.com/viessentially/ https://twitter.com/ViessentiallyDB

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

My mother, I'd worked out, was a uh covert narcissist, and my father, I think, had been abused as a child himself and carried on that behavior. And basically, I wasn't safe in my own home. I didn't have anybody to listen to me. I didn't have uh any friends because one of the things with a lot of children who go through abuse is that you're isolated, you have these secrets that you have to keep uh to please other people, and you're not allowed to talk, and you become what I did, uh, very introspective and uh introverted, and trying to be very small so that I wasn't noticed. It was unfortunately from every aspect um manipulation, basically bullying, um shouting to submission, physical and unfortunately sexual as well.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

Just a little taster of what is coming up on the show. But first, please do like this video and subscribe to the channel, and also tell your friends and family about this podcast. Please let us know in the comments if you would like to hear any particular topic in relation to sleep or health. Then I will create a show especially for you just for asking the question. So let's get on with the show. Well, hello everybody. Welcome, welcome, welcome back to another Empowering Family Health podcast. Today you're in for a treat, as always. This podcast is all about empowering you and your family to do the things that you love in your life, give you the power back to really value and do what it is that's essentially important in your life. That's what this podcast is all about. I'm really showing you that you do have the power, you really, really do have the power to take back control. And as a sleep coach, sleep is a very important part of taking back your power and really stepping into who you truly are. Today on the show, we have got a wonderful lady, Deborah Blackman. Let me read you out a little bit of Deborah's bio before we bring Deborah in and have an amazing conversation. Today, our conversation is all about finding your purpose through adversity. And Deborah really has experienced this herself in her life. Um, Deborah was born in East End of London. Uh, her early years were very traumatic. Um, her family had a history of mental illness and abuse, and she's going to tell us all about that and how she overcame the adversity. Uh, and in many ways, those formative years, how they forged her resilience and her determination. She's over 25 years in business experience and leading organizations. And through counseling, Deborah discovered her sole purpose to leave her legacy to charity. Very powerful. To support her in her mission, she has her own powerful international business physientally. And the company's culture is all about supporting its people, its clients, and their ecosystems. It embraces inclusivity, sustainability, and positive human impact. A business where every member is equal, every voice matters and without formal hierarchy, very, very important. The team gives busy business owners and leaders their precious time back through high-quality, outsourced virtual administration and business development services, all with the aim of enriching lives, families, and communities. Deborah's business culture and personal values have earned her the nickname Your Mary Poppins of the Office.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

Deborah, you're very welcome. Oh, hi, Joanne. And it's a pleasure to be here. And I was listening to you saying that, and I'm like, is that me? Is that me?

SPEAKER_02 4:24

Absolutely. Well, you've been through a lot, like, and look where you are, and we're going to talk all about that. And it's incredible, it's so funny that you say that because uh a couple of people who I've interviewed in the past said exactly the same thing. It's like, wow, is that me? It's it's very funny when you're hearing somebody talk about you and you know all your accomplishments and and what you've achieved in life. But Deborah, bring us. I'm I'm really excited about this conversation because everybody has some form of adversity or trauma in their lives, you know, and it's it's just different levels, right? But it really does make us who we become in our life. So can you bring us back to the beginning to you know your childhood and tell us a little bit about that and you know what your challenges were that brought you up to your business, you know, and what it is that you're you're doing and how you're serving people in the world today.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

Oh, I'd love to, Joanne. Yes, thank you. And this is not coming from a place of being a victim. This is my mission is to share my story so that if I can help one person through their trauma, um, I'm not I'm not an expert, I can only hold my own opinion. Um, but I've been through trauma myself, so you know, use it, lose it. But if I can touch one person, then I've done my job. So um it's very much putting my message out there. Um so I grew up in an affluent family. My father had uh made money, didn't start off like that, but he he'd set up a successful business. And within a relatively short time, and you're a business owner, you'll know it, it takes a lot of effort to grow a business, and so do I. Um he started to make quite a bit of money. And as such, I was very privileged. Uh, we lived in a lovely house in the countryside, and we'd moved there uh from the southeast, as you mentioned. I I was born in the east, and certainly not to that that privilege. This this happened a little bit later. And this happened probably when I was about nine or ten. And I had the idyllic childhood in the sense that there was ponies and horses and outdoor lifestyle, etc. But when I was behind closed doors, I lived in fear. Um, unfortunately, both of my parents, if that has something to do with it, I don't know. But they they were the children in the Second World War. They grew up with that. And I think that they must have seen and been traumatized by things that children shouldn't see and experience. Um, and unfortunately, it's happened during Ukraine, and now we've got you know the Middle Eastern conflict. So children do suffer, and I think what happened is they they were disturbed, but nobody has to take an exam to have a child or children. So they got together two damaged people and they they had me. And my mother, I've worked out, was a uh COVID narcissist, and my father, I think, had been abused as a child himself and carried on that behavior. And basically, I wasn't safe in my own home. I didn't have anybody to listen to me, I didn't have uh any friends because one of the things with a lot of children who go through abuse is that you're isolated, you have these secrets that you have to keep uh to please other people, and you're not allowed to talk, and you become what I did, uh very uh introspective and uh introverted, and trying to be very small so that I wasn't noticed or that I didn't um uh have anything that I could say or do or just be around to to trigger the abuse. Um and it was unfortunately from every aspect um manipulation, um basically bullying, um, shouting to submission, physical and unfortunately sexual as well. Um and it's not all doom and gloom, I have to say. I was an only child. My I had a half-brother, but um he'd gone away and he he was uh older than me. So ostensibly I was the only one around. And what it gave me, which was a coping mechanism that didn't serve me well, and this is how the counselling has helped in the long term, but for then it gave me this fantasy world that I would retreat into into my head, that I would have safety and security there. And so I spent many, many hours either outside with the horses on my own or in my bedroom, almost barricaded into a corner of the room, playing with my little arm set or my toys, etc. And the biggest fear was when I got called downstairs because one never knew what was going to happen. I went through some very expensive schooling, and to some extent, I think those people failed me because I think they could see on the outside what was going on this poor child that wasn't mixing, that was very much a loner, that obviously had issues with communication, and uh I wasn't starving myself at that point, but I wasn't fed very much, and I was very, very thin. And they never said picked up on it or did anything. But the only thing I would say with that is that what would have happened if they had have done, I wouldn't have survived the being in social care because at least I have my horses, my ponies, that side of my life to occupy in my time and get away from it. Oddly enough, it's the devil that I knew. Was it right? No, but there's a lot in the world that is continually wrong, and I wasn't the only one. I look back at it now. My family, as I thought, was normal, and I thought, you know, yeah, and that's this is how children were. I had no point of comparison, so it's not doom and gloom, and moving on from that.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

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SPEAKER_01 11:40

For many years I got it kind of wrong in my relationships because all this self-reliance, all this self-determination, all the courage I had to face every day was kind of misplaced. But what it did do is it helped me forge an amazingly successful career because I was independent, I knew how to function on my own, I was able to take on challenges before I was ready for them because I knew I had that resilience streak in me. But also I was very empathetic because I'd spent my large majority of my childhood reading people, being very in tune with what was going on as far as energy and emotion and mood, even before anybody said anything. So I got to be a really good judge of what was going to happen next or the situation that I was being put in. And I could read people really well. And again, always making sure that I was people pleasing and being harmonious meant that the relationship development that I had with my clients and the people around me were excellent. The fact that it was a mask and I didn't know myself, I cared extremely well for my own self-protection. I was always tired, always exhausted. The more I was giving of myself, the more exhausted I would be. Because you see, there wasn't anything intrinsically me about this whole thing. I'd I'd developed a persona to be able to cope with everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:21

Deborah, just so much that went on. There's so much to unpack there. And and and I just want to go back if if it's okay. I'm sorry you went through all of that, but I guess that you this this is a learning experience, and this is what you're sharing. This is what you want to share with people, and you've overcome the hurts. And I heard, you know, you were saying, you know, your your mother and father, they went through the war times, and and that does get inherited, you know, like any any past traumas. So we've heard that the famine, you know, the time, even going back to time as a family, even prior to that world wars, all these things, this fear of uh lack of um money and scarcity, although your father, uh you said, had had a lot of money, which is which is interesting because you know, we we we seem to think that underprivileged children come from poor families or whatever, but in your case, your father, so so it can happen. It's not necessarily just around money. Um you mentioned yes, you mentioned a few words. You mentioned you were isolated, there was lots of secrets, you kept yourself small because you didn't want to be noticed in case you'd be given out to or made wrong or whatever. And then you also said the word submissive, and these are very, very powerful words. And what I got us to listen to was you know, children need to be seen, they need to be acknowledged, they need to um have a safe space. Children need to have a safe space and loneliness. You mentioned loneliness as well, and loneliness, we know, is a disease in and of itself, and for children to be lonely, this is part of their development, their social development, growing up as children and you know, been able to interact and feel safe in a space to express themselves. So I can hear a lot going on in your childhood, and we hear that, you know, we hear that nowadays quite a lot as well. There's a lot of fear in the world when our parents inherit that or even their experience it now, but they're actually downloading that to the children. This is what we need to be aware of as parents, I believe, or even just as adults, because if you're an adult, you're interacting with younger people, the youth as well. So we we do have responsibility for our younger people and our children. Um, you mentioned you were behind closed doors and you were terrified behind closed doors. Yeah. And this is something that, you know, in our society, there is a lot going on behind closed doors that we're not aware of, you know, in general. There is a lot of it going on. And people put on this pretense, you know, that everything's okay and everything's fine, and and people who are in stress don't look for help because they're afraid. And it's the perception of some people, why why don't they go look for help? Why don't you leave them? Why don't you know all this kind of stuff, you know? And it's not very it's it's not the case of that. There's, you know, the it's their attachment, it's what they're used to, as you say, it's like the normal, you know. But it's a lot to consider and a lot that's very misunderstood. And and that's what I can hear in your story. And so through all that, Deborah, um, you also mentioned the mask, and I found this really interesting. You were very tired, you said, because when we put on the mask and we pretend, because when we pretend we're it's it takes an awful lot of energy to pretend you're something that you're not, and that's what leaves us tired. And me as a sleep coach, I I see a lot of people who are tired and exhausted, and they don't want to look at their truths, they don't want to look at their you know, terrible things that happened, and it's hard, it's not easy. So, so Deborah, tell us um, so I hope I summarise that. Yeah, perfectly. Yeah, yeah, we did. I can see the relatedness, you know, in the world with all that. So tell us now. So you're in your job, you have you have an amazing company, and you've brought a lot of your learnings into your company. So, how does that work? Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Because I learned when I was with big companies, I learned a lot of how to do things right, but how also not to do them. And so um again, I I set up the essentially to give people back their time. Most everybody I spoke to in big corporate business, if there was one commodity that they would want as opposed to money, would be time. Yeah. They didn't see their families, they were working, they were getting up like I was, you know, half past four, quarter to five in the morning, not getting back, and sometimes until 10 o'clock at night. That is, if you want to have a healthy home life, yeah, that is a way to conduct a relationship with with your home life. And it was how do we get this time? And so when I set up the essentially, because we're all about buying back your time and using it wisely when you've bought it back. Because like anything, if you if you've got a space, nature abhors a vacuum and it will fill a vacuum, right? So you've got to fill it with things that you know are going to be valuable for you and your and your loved ones, or whatever you want it to be valuable for. There's a myriad of ways you can use your time, as it doesn't matter what you use it for, as long as it's uh for fulfilling value-added tasks or or doing all sorts, or being with yourself, or sleeping, or eating proper food, uh, because all these things can tend to suffer. So the essential is all about that. So we have wonderful teams of outsourced virtual assistants. So you can buy as little as half an hour of their time a day over five working days, Monday to Friday, of which you can get rid of your administration. So all of your emails can go through them, all of your diary, and I can actually hear people going, I can't get rid of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, well, you can. And it makes a big difference when you do. Um, all the social media things. Now, this is an element when I grew up that wasn't even around um showing my age here, but I was pre-internet. So the mobile thing. You're not an alone, yeah, and so showing the fact that social media content creation, social media posting, liking, commenting, sharing, it doesn't matter what environment you're in. You can be at work, you can be at home, you can have your own business, you can be employed. We are now sucked into this social media world, this life that we have. And we are always surprises me how much time people spend on it. Not to say that it's not valuable, because done right, it can be. But if we think about what did we sacrifice to do it, then surely if you can have somebody whose sole focus it is to do that for you, and then you can have the best version of that time that you've made available to do the things that you really want or that will be really valuable, you could attend uh your child's play or go to see them at sports day, or you could work on your business, or you could meditate, or you could read a fantastic book. You can do sport or you can cook, anything. But that social media, if you got somebody to do it for you in your style, in your kind of words, in the way that you want to do it, then that would free you up of so much. So it's a question of balancing out really what is it that's the most important to me? Why am I here? What's my purpose?

unknown 21:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

So my purpose is to leave a legacy to charity. And the more successful my business can be, the more successful my people, the more successful our clients. It's not about me, it's about creating this wealth, this yeah, to give to everybody else. Now, if my clients and my people are taking that on board, my people delegate to each other. And then when that chain is filled up, we get another person in. So we're always making sure that the busy people are delegating to the other people to keep them busy in all in the efforts of helping our clients and their ecosystems. So, what this is is a completely sustainable paying it forward, giving it forward. Sharing, contributing, helping each other to get more time back. And being guardians, real guardians of our time, being really wise with our time and how we spend it, because you cannot get it back. We can't go back to the beginning of this conversation and restart it like it never happened. We've done it, we're going through a journey. And so what happens now is the value that we can bring to your audience, the value that we can bring to people who are breaking point, thinking, I can't cope. I'm just going to explode because I've got too much on.

SPEAKER_02 22:38

I love it. And you know, one of the biggest regrets that we have on our deathbed is I wish I spent more time with my family or something like that. You know, it's one of the top regrets, you know, and again, it's back to time. And in the world that we're living in, Deborah, it's very busy. It's a really busy, busy world, right? And we're very distracted. And I find a lot of my clients in particular, they're like, Joan, the minute my head hits the pillow, I just can't go. And I'm exhausted. I just can't go asleep. And that's because in the majority of time is we're so distracted during the daytime with all the busyness, all the things that we're doing, but we're not really getting satisfaction, we're not really getting fulfilled because we're doing things just to appear busy because we don't want to slack off or whatever. We want to be busy, but we're not being productive and we're not fulfilling on what really matters to us. And this is your whole point is is fulfilling on your values. What is it important that's important to me? And am I doing this? Am I spending time doing this?

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Absolutely. And the one thing is as well, is that the stress, the medication that people are on, and I'm not saying that people don't need that. I'm not a doctor, but if we can get our heads right, our minds right, now it's not all, it's our bodies. Our bodies regulate our minds. It's not all in the head, it's actually our mind. And often somebody's I've got a sore throat or a funny tummy, or I've got a pain here. That's the first indication that actually something's wrong, and that then transcends itself into a mental state. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But but if we can take time to be outside, it's so important to get when we get up in the morning, even if we live in a flat, to get out into the open air and breathe and get that thing. I mean, I've got a little dog, so I'm out there in the morning walking the dog, but it's so important to get that sunlight. And now that in the UK, our our hours are starting to get darker now as we head towards autumn or winter. And again, it's if you can get a daylight bulb, that can really help redress. I'm terrible. You know, the dark mornings hate them, really do with a passion. I've got a daylight bulb now, and I actually have a little thing with birds singing in the background that I switch while so that I hear that because it motivates me for my day. Everybody will have something different. And if you've got kids and they're rushing around, oh yeah, I'm never going to do that. But there's something about getting up earlier and going to bed earlier. Yeah. That we get this circadia rhythm, which you'll know all about. Absolutely best that we can. I know it's not a perfect world, but if you think it wasn't a few years ago, as I said, all of this internet, um, social media, all of the it didn't exist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I was still busy. So now this has all come on on top of it. It's an additional challenge, isn't it? Yeah. And it's great. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Luddite, you know, I'm not gonna start to, you know, go around in a horse-drawn carriage or anything. All this is important stuff, but we need to regulate it. And it's all happened so quickly, so that we haven't had chance of say a few uh generations to get used to this to make it. And it's moving very fast. Moving very fast. Absolutely. So the worst thing we can do in my mind is goodness me, our phones often on the bedside cable. Yeah. And they're with us constantly, like an umbilical cord. Where and people get separation anxiety. I mean, goodness me, here I am. Here's here's my phone. You know, it's just like it's never really more than a hands with a weapon remake.

SPEAKER_02 26:21

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess it's close to the toolbox, isn't it? Everything is in there. Everything even do measurements with it, it is apps for measuring and things, like it's just incredible.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

You know, so it's it's a great tool. And I'm not saying it shouldn't be, it should be, and we should be developing technology, but to help ourselves and to add value, not so that we get stressed and just overwhelmed with the amount of choice, content, um, stuff that we have have to do, we have to do what actually oftentimes we don't have to do. Um I mean, in a wonderful way, I'm a kind of a naturally messy person, although I'm can get people really organized. But I every now and again look at these things on the floor and I go, you know what? What's gonna happen? Really? And it's not stressing about the small stuff, it's about thinking of that bigger purpose and loving ourselves. You've got this great t-shirt on today, and I mentioned it. Love yourself, yes, love yourself, and that's the thing, just to come back from the abuse with the counselling, and I I waited till my 50s to do it, and and that's fine. I don't regret the time it took me because it happened when it happened, and that's fine. But now I can love myself, the energy taking away that mask and being the authentic version. The counselor asked me, What do you want to achieve from these counselling sessions? And I said, I want to know who I am, I want to know the authentic version of me. Yeah, because I know I'm not because I've carried all this baggage with me and wearing all these different masks and being different people to different people, if you see what I mean, in different situations. Yeah. And so I was pushed from pillar to post, and I wasn't centralized and I didn't have any equilibrium. And my mood swings would go up and down and up and down, and I would fly off the handle, uh, or I was constantly feeling why me, or that person's having a go at me. Um, why don't they like me? Why won't they do and controlling to try and get to an outcome? And oddly enough, I had an epiphany. I know this is going to sound strange, but it happened. It really did. I gave birth to a monster. Yeah, yeah, I got that. I had all the physical manifestations, I was in bed. People would think, oh my goodness me. But I want to share this because it wasn't weird to me. While it was going through it, it was the most natural thing. And I was frightened. I was shivering, I was sweating, and I was shouting. And I live in a terraced house, and I'm sure the neighbors could hear me shouting if I actually was, I'm I felt like I was. Uh, rude words to get rid of it, if you could probably guess what they were. And uh and um when I when that birthing process happened and it looked at me, and I I told it in no uncertain terms to go away and never come back, and it did, it just went poof and it disappeared. And then I got this serene calmness. This for me, because I'd never known what that was like, it was like a magical spiritual experience. Some people go, Oh, and they're not into that, but all I can say is that's what happened to me. And it was like I had been awakened.

SPEAKER_02 29:59

Let's put you like yeah, and and thanks for sharing that, uh, Deborah, because you know, I'd say an awful lot of people can resonate with that, Deborah, and you know, uh to be able to say that on behalf of other people as well, you know, that people can say, Oh god, yeah, I've experienced that too, because that's something a lot of people wouldn't acknowledge, you know, even to themselves having these kind of experiences, you know, that burden process that you were talking about. And it sounded like the power had over you, you took away that you dissolved, you dissolved that power that that entity, if you like, if you want to call it that, had over you. And and and it was a couple, I was writing busy writing there because it's just incredible. You mentioned about switching roles an awful lot of the time, and you mentioned earlier on that you were a big people pleaser, and there's many of us can relate to that, but people please not that's me as well, right? And and with the whole people pleasing, and you're talking about switching roles, and that can be exhausting. You know, there's the damsel and the stress, the warrior, all these archetypes that we can kind of relate to that we we do. We we we were we put on this role, this this this um architect type, if you like, depending on the situation that we're in, how we're responding to a situation, you know, the damsel and the stress, the victim, all these the victory, all these different things that you know, the mother, the mother instinct, right? All these different roles, right? And we're being a certain way in response to our circumstances. And that can be exhausting, especially when we're not aware and we're not having control over. It's like one of my mentors said to me, Who's driving the bus? We have all these different roles, right? Yeah, and that you want to drive the bus. In other words, who do you want to be in control? Which archetype do you want to be in control of your life, right? It's definitely not a victim, right? Because that's the person who feels sorry for themselves and they're small and they're not making things happen. And and I love, I just love this whole conversation because everybody can relate to this because we've all had these adversities, but it's about acknowledging and understanding and and knowing, because we don't know what we don't know, right? But when we can see it and then we can have power, we're taking our power back because and the first step is is to see it, to to realise that it's there, you know, and to value what it is that we want in our lives. What is you know, you ask what's important to me? Yeah, wrote that down, what's important to me to really understand that because this will take us away from the people pleasing.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

Yes, yes, and that doesn't mean to say we're gonna be nasty people, because I was like, Well, what's the alternative to people pleasing? I'm gonna be horrible, I won't have any friends.

SPEAKER_02 32:18

Yeah, yeah. And we have to have boundaries to all this, don't we? There's always boundaries that's part of your values too.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

Absolutely. So so now I don't people please, I am myself. And it's come to the point now, maybe there's a little bit to do with age, but I don't I don't think so. Because of my journey, I think now, because I truly love myself without sounding egotistical, because before it was like, how can you do that with that? Being a narcissist or you know, one of these awful people that goes around with these, you know, grandoise gestures. No, no, no. I love myself for the spirit that I am, yeah. And the authentic version of myself is good, it's okay, I'm worthy. And that's a big thing for me, being worthy, because I was told all through my childhood I wasn't worthy. Otherwise, I would have had a different life if I had been worthy. So now I am worthy. So if you like me, that's great. Fantastic, bring it on. There will be people, yeah, and that's just their stuff. And if you don't, you know what? Thank you so much. We we don't have to we don't have to like the you know, so it's it's interesting because I did shed and I was only shedding a few friends. It wasn't that it it wasn't um and we didn't row or we didn't shout at each other, but I just knew I'd moved, I'd moved on, and they had their journey, and our paths then diverged and we've gone on to our own journeys. Yeah and I wish them well, and I hope they wish me me well. But those people that I was people pleasing, that was not the right kind of wholesome relationship. Yeah, absolutely. Needed to continue. And just naturally, when they weren't getting what they needed out of the relationship, it just kind of ebbed away. Yeah. And that that's fine as well. And there's nothing wrong with having new friendships as we get older and having other friendships ebb away. We haven't got to have the same friends that we had when we were five and six forever and ever and ever. It's lovely if we can, and I do have a friend that's very similar to that. We we've known each other for years and we're like sisters, but we don't have to have people that aren't good for us, because we do sometimes have people in our lives that are not good for us, and unless they can and and there's a purpose to that as well, there's a learning opportunity in that. Yeah. So yeah, so that whole people pleasing side has gone. But interestingly enough, the pleasing and then the actual contribution are very different. So now I can contribute far more to more people, but no expectations, yeah, nothing, yeah. I don't have to be told transactional, absolutely, it comes from the soul. There's more than the heart, it comes from the soul and the spirit that's spoken through the heart, and I'm not controlling anymore. I don't try and fit the square peg in the round hole and flash it around and till I can squeeze something that's not meant to be there, kind of learn about anyway at one point, you know, or other.

SPEAKER_02 35:36

We're trying to go go upstream and the you know against the currents type of thing, you know, and it's very exhausting.

SPEAKER_01 35:42

And that's the thing, people like to use the word getting into the flow, getting into the flow. And I have to say, having the purpose now is I'm very quick to get in the flow, enthusiastic. Things happen. Weirdly enough, I I don't know there's a whole school about manifestation, but things things are happening. It's the whole ethos that I'm creating and my people are creating is this abundance, this there is sufficient for everybody. There's more than we need to go around. And people are kind of like, Oh, this sounds interesting. You know, your Mary Poppins at the office is our sort of our nickname. And it's in your team, Deborah. Sorry. Many is in your team in the office. Quite various depending on the work, but uh at the moment we have around 20, 25 people.

SPEAKER_02 36:34

Yeah, so you've quite a few people. So so I can really hear how that can be very fulfilling and how you've worked together as well. Because you say when there's an overflow of work, you still you you all manage to do between you, do you know what I mean? And it gets done. And and that, and there's no hierarchy. That's what I love about your business. Everybody human being, and that's what's missing. Like we we compare ourselves, you know, uh outside there, you know, that that's something that's that doesn't work when we start to compare ourselves because we're all important in our own unique way. We all have our own skill sets, and that's what I can hear in your business as well, and that's how it works so well, and how you get across this whole point of um you know working well together and then freeing up time and and and helping each other out. I think that's what this is all about is helping each other as well and asking for help where it's needed. This is how we get through life because we're never meant to survive this world on our own, you know.

SPEAKER_01 37:24

No, I mean that whole you know, hunt to gatherer or if you went out on get getting your meat, you had to act as a team, etc. You know, you have to pull together, and you have to kind of get an intuitive understanding of when because um my my people my team are uh offshore, so uh in various countries offshore, so we're not close, and I've never met in physical form anybody from my team. So yeah, so we have um a really good strong bond that we've developed over the internet, social media, etc. Um, and that's what's out of the way. Yeah, well, the thing is as well, and it's different cultures, etc. as well, and different time zones. Um but ultimately when I interview for people, I have one thing. Yes, they have to be able to do the job, so they have to have the skill set to be able to do the job. But more importantly to that, because you can train people, we're not architects, we're not heart surgeons, we don't need to know, you know, sort of like massive degrees and stuff, but our work is very important and they're all qualified to do the work. But what I'm more interested in is the attitude and the behavior that they bring when I speak with them. And it doesn't take me very long because of my ability to read and understand people, yeah, is knowing within about five minutes if that person's gonna suit our resource. Brilliant.

SPEAKER_02 38:52

One question I want to ask you when when you're working with your clients, um, because I hear this all the time, right? And me included, right? Handing over a work to somebody else. How do you guide somebody through that, you know, to be able to let go and believe um that the work will get done and to trust in the process? How do how do you have that conversation with a client? Because I'm sure nearly every and most people would have that.

SPEAKER_01 39:16

Yeah, well, often we start small. So there's something that we do, we don't use any automation tools, they're all very organic and hands-on. We'll do a little exercise, let's say, like for instance, a LinkedIn lead generation campaign, and they're very satisfied with the results that are coming through, and the diaries get really full. And then because of the level of service that we provide, which is standard for us, but it is exceptional to other people, they're not used to this level of deeply personal attention that they get. So then we're starting to understand that person, they understand us. And in the majority of cases, people say, Well, actually, could you help me with X, Y, Z? And so we are able to organically, within their mindset, think, yeah, I trust these people, I know, I like, and I trust these people to do the things that I hold dear that I felt that I could never release. And then there was one lady who lives in Spain, she's great, she's got a group of companies in the UK, and we'd had a chat, and she goes, Oh no, well, I'll never need your services because I've got everything in my team, they do everything. And she read a book called Buying Back Your Time. I don't know who wrote it, so apologies for that because I didn't know if this will come up or not. But she contacted me by um LinkedIn, quite a stern thing. She said, We have to talk now. Exclamation mark, the three of them. And I'm like, Oh my goodness. So we arranged a time to talk. And one of her first things was, Why didn't you tell me that you could do all of my emails of my diary management? And I said, Well, I did. And she said, Oh yes, I wasn't listening. I didn't buy into that. She said, Reading this book has taught her that actually which decent chief executive officer ever handles their own emails or their own diary? They don't. They don't, they just don't. Because one, they're they're doing things that are of that rank and they need to be doing it, and they are able to give it to somebody whose job who gets great pleasure and satisfaction out of doing that. So why wouldn't you? So we now do all of that for her. We freed up at least two hours in her day. So now she's finalized the details of another company that she's created because she's used that with the time, but also she's finished another book.

unknown 41:40

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 41:41

With the time that she got back. So it's it's great because you can see people blossoming and thriving by having that time back, going back to the whole purpose of this, having that time back. And even if it's, as I said, not even, but to have that time to be with your children, your loved ones, your friends, your sport, uh, your health in particular, you know, we all need to be active, whatever it is, yeah, to get your mindset right and enjoy the process of having a life that includes work, having a life that includes being with family and friends, having a life that includes working on yourself and your own self-development, because it's one life. And if we can enjoy each part and we don't feel stressed about anyone, and and and ultimately we've got that nice rounded circle of life, yeah, that's a much easier to wheel to ride on than one that's very spiky. Yeah. And it takes less effort when we've got that roundness, it takes much less effort, as I say.

SPEAKER_02 42:52

Rhythmical and um, yeah, that rhythmical, that routine and all that. I can really hear that. Deborah, we're coming to the end. I can see behind you your website address, but just for the audio podcast, can you just shout it out?

SPEAKER_01 43:03

Yes, it's www.vcentrally. That's V for Victor, I e Double S for Sierra, E-N-T-I-A, D L Y dot com. Right. And you're on LinkedIn and Facebook and all the usual social media.

SPEAKER_02 43:20

All the all the usual suspects, yes. Just to close off, Deborah, can you leave us with one very empowering message or or something that you just want to leave people with so that they can, you know, consider what it is um that's important to them and how they can free up the time. What one last empowering message that you can leave people with.

SPEAKER_01 43:39

My thing is you are fine, you're okay, you can do this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:46

Simple and powerful, absolutely beautiful. Deborah, it's been a pleasure having you on today and having this conversation. And thank you so much for sharing about your childhood and how you overcame those, and you know how you made it possible for yourself and sharing that with people so that they can see the possibility in their lives as well through your story. So, Deborah, thank you so much, have a wonderful day, and we will chat soon.

SPEAKER_01 44:07

Oh, thank you, Johnny. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 44:37

I do need support to help me to keep bringing your knowledge and insights. There is a Patreon link, patreon.com forward slash empoweringfamily health, or you can make a donation via PayPal. All the links are in the description and the pinned comment. You can do a one-off or you can do a monthly support. So I'd really appreciate that. Thank you and have a wonderful day. Take care of the.