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Find your voice - Episode 20 "It's a curse to call yourself a true Entrepreneur, unless you really are" - Penny Power #20Tagline: "Love is the most powerful force in the world, the more you can live within that energy, be that energy and give that energy the better your life will be "Penny Power, OBE is an incredible woman who could complete a podcast series alone. Having labelled herself as an 'Accidental Entrepreneur' Penny formed the first social network for business owners exceeding 650,000 members. However, as many entrepreneurs can relate, she was then forced to handle many ups and downs along her journey and forced to really look deep within herself. Through a journey of self care and discovery Penny began to deal with depression and really find her true purpose and love for herself. A journey she may even consider tougher than the entrepreneurial one.More importantly than the above, Penny is an extremely proud mother to 3 and wife to her husband all of whom she considers the greatest gift she ever received. Penny now coaches people on a 1-2-1 basis transforming not only their lives but also living her true purpose.From depression, to business, to self care to coaching we discuss so many facets that many of you today can relate too and hopefully take nuggets of information to move your lives forward and find your voice!Please check the links below and follow Penny's journey as she is credible, honest and an overall lovely soul.Thanks for listeningFree Audible book sign up:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Audible-Membership/dp/B00OPA2XFG?actionCode=AMN30DFT1Bk06604291990WX&tag=are86-21Best book on Mindset by Carol Dweck: Mindset https://amzn.to/2QajMvZSupport the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/findyourvoiceLinks to me:Website: https://www.arendeu.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/aren.deu/Twitter: https://twitter.com/arendeuFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/aren.singhLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aren-deu-65443a4b/Podcast: https://www.findyourvoicepodcast.com YouTube: http://tiny.cc/51lx6yLinks to guest:Website: https://www.pennypower.co.uk/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PennypowerOBE/Twitter: https://twitter.com/pennypowerInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/pennyfpower/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pennypower/Books: https://amzn.to/2DPEvfUHave an awesome day#JustDeuIt #FindYourVoice[Music]welcome to an episode of find your voicea movement led by yours trulyAren do a guy who has overcomecrippling anxiety adversity anddifficulty like so many of you in lifewhose main goal now is to help youcombat your excuses take control of yourlife write your own story and mostimportantly find your voice so nowwithout further ado I welcome the hostof the show himself mr. Aren do what'sgoing on people thank you for tuning into another episode of find your voice myname is Aren and as always I am thehost of the show so I'm extremelydelighted to bring to you todaypenny power now for anyone who knowspenny they might also know her as theaccidental entrepreneur and the reasonfor that is because penny created thisabsolutely monster of a social networkfor business people in 1998 whichactually had over 650,000 businessowners in it not knowing what she had atthat time penny was sadly disrupted bywhat we know today as linked in sothere's definitely a brilliant storythere and we do discuss that furtherinto this episode alongside this pennyhas also received an OBE in 2014 for thework that she's done and she's seen bymany as a winner and having spoken toher in some depth not just during thisepisode but prior to it she certainly isthat alongside being a mother to threechildren and a wife to her husband pennynow sees herself working with clients ona one-to-one basis and we're in asociety today where a lot of coaches arealmost spawning overnight I mean we'reseeing people with one or two years ofexperience becoming a coach and thenselling their services and being a bitskeptical apart a lot of these coachespenny is somebody I'm certainly notskeptical about because if I was ever torecommend anyone as a coach it wouldcertainly be penny because penny has theexperience and you can tell from the wayshe speaks in this interview she knowsthis stuff so I think without furtherado we're gonna jump straight into thisone it's extremely exciting for me tobring somebody like penny onto mypodcastand I'm extremely grateful for that andI hope you all enjoy this episode thanksfor tuning inok so firstly I just want to thankeveryone for tuning in to today'sepisode today and I've just had afantastic discussion with penny prior tothis actually going live so I've got toknow her a lot there but I think it'svery important that you guys listeningtuning in today get to know the realpenny or Penny powers she is known tomany of us out there today so firstlyhow are you doing todayvery well I feel very well warmed uplovely conversation with you it was itcertainly was I could almost have anepisode out of that just in itself butI'm just for their sake of the listenerswho have just tuned in now and obviouslymay or may not have heard of you couldyou please just maybe give us an insightin relation to where you first started alittle bit about your journey andbasically what brings you here today andso I think you know and I think it'sbeen a journey of finding my voice whichis just perfect I'm gonna try and keepit little 16I went into the IT industry when I was19 I didn't go to university I went intosales and tele sales and joined it whenit was really booming and so it wasfairly relatively easy to excel and Iended up with in about by the age of 24I was sales marketing director of a 80million pound company with about 400staff that I was responsible for and an80 million pound sales line and we hadoffices around the country eight officesand but my first day there I just wentinto there and completely just out ofscarcity and needed to leave home and itwas a job and and I realized I was quitedifferent to everybody else in the roomyou know I wasn't really that focused onthe sale but I was focused on the impactof the sale that would have on whoeverwas buying the product and I actuallyresigned after seven months and I wasgoing to go to the University to do apsychology degree I had finally got myplace and my boss took me into a roomand said why are you leaving I said I'mjust not cut out for business it's notmy world I want to be have more impactin business and he said but you have noidea of the shift that youcreated in the culture of ourorganization and I was ripped shots as a19 year old to be told that and he saidjust be you stay and be you verypowerful when someone says that to youso I did and I built quite a nice careerI'd sort of left that company andactually went off to four othercompanies and then was invited back tobe their sales marketing director whenthey had grown quite substantially andthen at 28 I was blessed with my babyHannah and two more children and that isabsolutely that and my marriage is beingmy highest values my highest joy thething that I think is the most importantthing in my life I think you know thatfall saying charity begins at home Ithink if you put oxygen on your familythen you build a family that doesn'ttake from the world it can give to theworldi I've taken my role as a mum really asmy most important thing in my life andmy merit and my marriage because thatcompletes the family and but I am quitedriven I love I do love business andwhen I was 33 so I had Hannah was fiveand then I had Ross who was three and TJwas just not long born about six monthsold I came up with the idea of the factthat business seemed so lonely peopleworking on their own my husband beingone of them and sort of subject of nightnetworking in 1998 wasn't huge but therewas it was sort of going on but therewas no online networking for businessthere was Friends Reunited and MySpacebut nothing for business so I created acommunity for business online with aculture of reducing loneliness helpingpeople with their self-esteem and herself-worth and helping people to be whothey were rather than just what they didand it grew and it grew and it wasphenomenal but then we got massivelydisrupted we were growing up organicallyit was a subscription-based business tenpounds a month ten dollars ten eurosdepending where you were in the world wewere in 52 countries had 5000 offlineevents here and then LinkedIn took holdso retweet hoffman had actually visitedand used our site a little bit he thenraised three hundred and thirty milliondollars when in theokay we just couldn't raise any moneywe'd raised very small amount of seedinvestment but interestingly he justwent a different route and culture hewent to the business world with hisfantastic tool but it's said it's onlyabout what you are and actually then wesaw that was in 2002 so that was fouryears after we had grown then in 2004Facebook came into the student market2006 Peter came in and the mark I thinkwe all polarized you know this is Who Iam on Facebook this is what I am onLinkedIn an academy sat somewhere inbetween we needed to pivot the businessmodel by now we had lost our house inorder to keep the business going it wasvery challenging the trout childrentraveled around the world meeting ourmembers had little lapel badges withtheir names on them shaking hands atteach ethics or he first startednetworking and anyway in 2008 we went tothe bank and said look can we have aloan to pivot this business and theygave us a 5 year loan enabled us tostart looking at how we can offer freeand start basically doing what we didn'twant to do but in order to survive whichwas going to be sell your data so youyou know what we now upset about in theother markets so obviously that meant alot of our members that were happy topay we're unhappy but did get some newmembers joining who were happy that itwas free but it really challenged ourvalues and then three years into thatwith two years left around the bank loanthe banking crisis happenedwe got a 30 day notice to pay back therest of the two years and they broughtthe business down the bank after 14years so an incredibly painful definingmoments in 2012 and it has been anunbelievable climb to get back any senseof self-worth self belief a big journeyI which we can we can look into it waswonderful in 2014 out of the blue came abeautiful letter and offering me an OBEfor the contributorslovely feeling of validation andbut actually what I really learned isyou can get huge amounts of externalinvalidation in life but unless you canvalidate yourself and believe inyourself and feel your own sense ofself-worth these things are just a bitof gloss on your life and that's been ajourney which culminated in me writingmy book last yearfantastic and your book is called it'scalled business is personal well firstlywhat a journey I probably got more noteshere that again I could do probably apodcast on separately so I just want totouch on a few things throughout yourjourney so you ended with the validationstatement which I don't want to go intocuz I think that's so importantespecially in today's society yeah youwere 19 years old you had almost kind ofdisrupted and made a positive scene inthis industry where there was a fittingcomment and you said just stay and beyou yeah I loved that because I filmedmyself and in an industry where a lot ofmy business comes through social mediathere are people not just beingthemselves I feel that a lot of peoplehave a magic or they're saying thethings that they necessarily feel theyneed to say yeah what people want tohear and I think sometimes we all havesuch a unique gift or skillset that wemay not ever get to see if we're toobusy trying not to be ourselves if thatmakes senseI think I think that was beautiful andyou touched the game moving after thatabout your family and I just resonatedso much with your values in terms ofbreathing oxygen into your family andhow important your marriage is so wetouched obviously prior to this show alittle bit about one of your children Ilost a TJ and just the incredible personthat she is so again that's a testamentto your values and that kind of bringsme to where I am so I touched on theLinkedIn obviously disrupting and it'sand sadly for yourselves you had toalmost kind of pivot but you mentionedsomething which I just found fascinatingwhich was the values bit that reallykind of struck you so it's nice to hearand it's quite refreshing from yourselfthat yes you could have pivoted thebusiness and almost kind of taken on aLinkedIn approach but that's not whopenny is so using that and realizingthat in that moment getting the externalvalidation of OB what did you then do interms of your business I mean is thatstill going now that sort of business orhave you completely shifted it nowtowards really helping people trying tofind out about themselves as in terms offull of himself with yeah I mean Idefinitely has been a thank you for thatthat lovely reflection of what I said Ithink it's been a journey you knowsomething I say when I am coaching andmentoring and I run a mastermind groupnow I take two cohorts yeah so I Isupport people through a mastermindgroup which is beautiful experience wedo need in our values we do need to havea brand we need to know what we're herefor you know that lovely saying to bestdays of your life the day you're bornthe day you discover able all of thesethings are very very powerfulstart with why simon Sinek what it'screated it's created a massive panic ofpeople that don't feel they have it yetand you can't force it so you know wascoaching a lady yesterday it wasincredibly inspired by brainy Brown andher vulnerability statement and simonSinek and all these role models andshe's desperate to find her big messageand I just said just it will come but itabsolutely starts with the seed of whoyou are and you can't force it becauseyou want to market yourself better orwrite a better book or you've just got alot now having a coach or a mentor or aloved one help you coach that out of youis very powerful and I was with abrilliant guy called Sun hartleyyesterday and he's a performance coachand he said these three things you knowyourself be yourself accept yourselfI loved that thought I love that knowyourself be yourself accept yourself andI don't think that we can you know Iwent through a process last year withpsychologists and group therapy becauseI broke and I didn't break to the pointwhere I was you know I was shaking inthe corner but I had a really day ofdevastating experience that dangerousand scary experience on the 30th ofNovember 2017 that I went off to ahospital thinking I had had a stroke orsomething and they found no new logicalthings and and anyway through going tosee psychologists discovered that and Iwas now having some form of mentalhealth challenges and I actually spent alot of time reflecting and thinking andI think I started to break probably foryoubefore I had that incidence it's notsomething I was fat you know you couldstart off you could start off beingcompletely disabled with a bad legthrough or hip through eighth rightousit would start years before you know youget the so I think mental health issuesyou have to start becoming veryself-aware of how you're showing up inthe world before you really know you'vegot them and and you know I believe inmental fitness but there's anothersubject you know starting before itstarts like you do when you look afteryour physical health so the valuesfinding your voice knowing your valuesare very critical you can't force thesethings though and you know when I talkto CEOs of businesses or leaders ofbusinesses they've got pulled into avortex of ambition like this whirlwindof ambition that actually is fantasticif economies create that culture becausethey create to the fear and they createthe culture of you're lacking andtherefore scarcity and and fear and youlack and the market is a brilliance hasit online saying you could be moresuccessful you could be richer you couldbe more beautiful which immediately whenyou actually read that your subconscioushears I am lacking really wave love sobrilliant it's so clever but revoltingso we have to step away from things likesocial media and comparison andRoosevelt said comparison is the thiefof joy it's my favorite quote yeah it'sbrilliant isn't it love it yeahabsolutely and and it's it takes a hugeamount of reprogramming your mind tostop doing thatbut at least once you're aware you'redoing it you feel yourself doing it youcall yourself back into line becausewhen you look at the ingredients of whoyou are you know what makes you up thereis no single human being on this earththe same as you say mercury yourknowledge your skills your intentionsyour passions your experiences youradversities you've it's just absolutelynothing that could make someone the sameas you so therefore comparing yourselfis the first downward spiral really andone that people are so locked into andso you know anyone listening I'll justsay calm down listening to yourself justhave more self-awareness think of yourjoys think of what really sets you onfire all that's that which other peoplewill say but really do it not to makemoney from it to begin with I sawpowerful again I mean I can resonatewith this and I'm not sure if you'vefollowed it in my story or any of myprogression but I try and say a lot ofthis myself because again probablysimilar to yourself I found myself inthe state of comparison initiallyespecially when I started the propertyjourney and I have this habit now andI've kind of I don't do this in a way tooffend people or be rude but I'vestopped almost going on social media andliking people's posts and stuff becausewhat I effectively do now is I have amessage every morning or every eveningthat I want to share with the world andwhat I'll do is I'll write it out andI'll send it out and all of a sudden I'moff social media I'm not there to seehow many likes I get or how many sharesI get because if I fix ain't myself onthat metric in itself what's gonnahappen is if it's law one day the nextday I might be scared to share my truthagain and I think I think one of theimportant things you touched on again ispeople are almost in this panic of wedon't have it but they probably do andit's a patience game I suppose and whereI always say to people he's just speakyour truth speak whatever that comes toyou it's your own perspective it'llresonate with certain people and we'realmost in a society where people aretrying to almost say key and buzzwordsbecause they feel like that's what theyneed to almost same and I think you hitthe nail on the head and I think withyour experiences Ryan you just brieflymentioned the coaching aspect I thinkpeople listening to this show can gainso much value from that so I just wantedto touch on your mastermind that youmentioned is that what's something thatpeople would necessarily need to do inperson or is it something that you cando online from the comfort of your ownhome a really great question so I'vebeen on my own journey and I'm gonnacome back to that if that's not tooannoying so really so when I my - I callmyself an accidental entrepreneur foryears because I was when I came up withhe had a me I didn't know his tiger bythe tail but I had and then I started mysecond business after he had me calldigital use academy which it was highlyimpactful it was workingyoung people I created the digitalmarketing apprenticeship that is nowwidely used and I got investors to putmoney in we invested three hundred andfifty thousand pounds in an e-learningcent system and we distributed thatthrough further education colleges as anapprenticeship and over three years Iout two thousand unemployed very hard toreach young people into jobs giving themthe confidence that their digital skillshad value in the world and and hopingthat they would go into it with us thesort of culture that I believe in aroundsocial media so that was my second whatI call on two-player journey then Istarted my third which is called thebusiness cafe and it was that part ofthe journey that broke me because it wasanother push and what I feel is um theterm entrepreneur is really dangerous tome entrepreneurs are creating somethingfrom nothing and have massive ambitionand Luke Johnson in his book stopsstartup I think it's called saidambition is a curse and not everybodyhas it right to be a true entrepreneuryou have to be massively ambitious andyou have to know how much you're willingto sacrifice in terms of time money andgratification because being true you'rebuilding something as scales and hasimpact and this is the Silicon Valleyworld you know go out raise 300 milliondollars and there and reduce all your 1%and you know it's long busks and MarkZuckerberg the thing that a lot ofpeople your generation and two centsthat my generation came you know we wewitnessed from about 20 to 23 years agowhen ecommerce everything started so Iwould say that you know it's a curse tocall yourself an entrepreneur unless youtruly are so my own personal journey isand where I am finding so much joy nowgoing back to your original questionyeah is that I was employed had mychildren then became an entrepreneuraccident accidentally then they becamean entrepreneur a game with digitalyouth academy then tried to be anentrepreneur game with the business cafeand I still want to bring the businesscafe to market but when I broke my basicmy cup was full I was overflowing foreven a got out of bedmy resilience had gone and I wasexhausted and burnt and the way I'vecome back is by saying actually I'mgoing to be a small business much nicerof course yeaha small business is what is my value toone person and how can I exchange thatvalue for money and impact their livesdirectly so at the moment starting fromJanuary when I launched my mastermindand my mentoring coaching program thisyear I only need to work with about 34amazing people and I will fulfill notonly my emotional needs but my financialneeds and when I go into a room withsomebody I'm coaching I know that I getthat gratification I'm not only seeingthe impact I'm making on that one personbut also they're paying me yeah money isactually ultimately one of the ways weget our worth it is it's I know we don'tchase money but if we're broken and I'vebeen broken and if we can't financiallyafford to feed our children trying to bean entrepreneur is a very very dangerousjourney so going back to your questionam i delivering it online yes I've beenasked that a lotyeah if as soon as I do that I'mstepping away from my direct impacts interms of I'm putting a computer betweenme and and being able to love and holdand touch and care and look in the eyesof the people I'm wanting to impact andso this year that's what I'm doing thankyou for that answer so I want to playdevil's advocate just a little bit onthe the last night you said there so Ifully understand the whole direct beepthere directly impact them hold themlove them and touch these people thatyou weren't have been on a one-to-onebasis and I suppose when I first startedpersonal training I literally startedpersonal training because one I had losta lot of weight and done a qualificationwith a bit of spare change I had but Ithought it would pay for my way throughuni and then obviously doing that Ireally enjoyed it I loved transforminglives and seeing people lose weight gainconfidence which again I felt fantasticas being mothered journey and I got to apoint myself as I and I rememberI should take this online and almost dolike an online coaching for personaltraining where I will check in withclients online again losing that thatone-to-one communication thing but atthe same time getting back some of mytime so my yeah and perhaps potentiallymaking more money and I initially kindof was with yourself I was like I don'twant to do that it's got it's kind ofalmost dilute my power and my gift thatI have when I work with people but thenat the same time I had somebody questionme and again this is a question I wannaask you is do you not then feel becausein this very brief moment with yourselfthe reason I ask this is because I don'twant it to be that penny is based inthis part of the world or this part ofUK and we don't have access to pennyright now because I feel that if you areable to connect with more people yes themessage might be slightly diluted but Ithink your message is so powerful thatyou could affect so many more people sois it something that maybe your identitylater or I used sorry I'm gonna give youa really long answer to this Aren okayso at the moment I don't believe inmyself enough okay it's getting thereand this is the story I'm gonna tell youand it's absolutely true and it's themost up to date story I can tell youabout my life okay yeah please do I havealways wondered why people would spendmoney on an aspen all our mulberry orGucci handbag right so you're gonnathink where the hell she kept okay Inever needed itI never wanted even when Thomas and Ihad money you know and life was a biteasier didn't turn me on Thomas cameback from Dubai once on a speech hasbrought me back in a beautiful good shebox a handbag and it sat in the box forthree years I never used it didn't writeand but my daughter Hannah who we talkedabout a little bit and and hopefully youmight interview so absolutely would bean honor so when she was 20 and I wedidn't spoil our children they had towork from the age of from a young ageand at 16 they got jobs in supermarketsor Starbucks or whatever and age 20 shegot an internship at Barclays and I mether after work one day and we went offto Marburyjust off Oxford Street and she spent 900pounds in a bag I didn't judge her Ididn't judge at all is her money she'dworked hard for it and that was somesymbolism she wanted that bag and shehad this private relationship Reeves mybig my older sister who's 10 years oldand me because my elder sister he's 10years old of me loves designer handbagsand I used to watch quite jealously thisbut I think I want to join that Club I'mnot in certainly sign a handbag but Iwas quite jealous of these this banterthat I would hear and then looking ateach other's bags because ever sincethen Hannah's brought more bags anywaywhen I started this mastermind group wewere meeting at some Pancras stationit's beautiful meeting place and arestaurant there and that's where mymaster minds are going to be in aprivate room there and I had 12 separatemeetings because I have a four-hour oneto one with all the masterminds beforethey join and I would walk past anAspinall shop right eight and I walkpast it looked in sort of smug that allHannah would love that and walked upthese steps into this restaurant anywayone day I about the bath Inc was aboutthe ninth meeting I went into theAspinall shop took a photo of thislovely handbag and said to Hannahyou'd love this handbag Hannah and shesaid yeah is lovely the next time I wentback my 10th time I went in and I got itoff the shelf and I put it on myshoulder oh yes quite not put it back11th time went back went in looked at itand asked him how much it was and talkedto him about it last week was my 12thtime and I said to Hannah the nightbefore I was going back to London for my12th meeting Hannah I fallen in lovewith an astronaut bag yeah and she wentby it by it mom buy it buy it buy itreally and she said I am mom you reallydeserve it buy it so I said don't be nosomebody who works for Aspen orsomething I could get a 30% discountoh yeah I can look into overnight if youwant mum so we'll do that that'd belovely done it anyway next morning Iwoke up to get the train to London myjob meeting and I sent her a text andsaid Hannah I'm gonna buy it I don'twant it discounted I went in and Ibought it and we came home and wechampagne while I opened it at home andThomas said to me just said out of theblue how come you've decided to buyyourself back and I said Thomas I'mworth it and it was so poignant thateverybody cried because Hannah has saidto me mum why don't you believe inyourself you've gotten an OBE look whatyou've done look at the lives you'vechanged look everything you've done andI said I just didn't believe it insideme until I've got I do now so this isthe most up to date story I can tell youour an a my journey and it's been reallyinteresting I share it because I'mreally open with everyone if somebodywants to judge me for the the pain I'vebeen through and the losses I've beenthrough and judge me is a bad businessperson because I'm not achievable youknow I could have achieved I don't Ireally don't care about that I'm just meand um and I will share that that storywith the world because it's we've got tofind our own self worth deep deep deepdown now so in answer to your storywhich was bad to me to go online andexpect somebody to want to pay for anelectronic version of me I haven't gotto that point yet believing in myselfenoughthat's incredible thank you for sharingthat I'm grateful for you sharing thatbecause as you were saying that therewere so many parts of it maybe some ofthe listeners could probably resonatewith it where I'm on thisentrepreneurial journey where I'm kindof bootstrappingas and when I can and stuff like the bagif we use trainers for example where myyounger brother who's nine years youngerthan me we're going spend to endureparents on a pair of trainers where I'mlike I can't do that I can't possiblythink I'm doing that I mean you grew upin slightly different generations wherefinances were different and growing upbut I don't know something tempting justclick there and I thought maybe there isa is an element within myself where myself-worth needs to kind of at least bereflected on and maybe people listeningto this can reflect on that because itwas a beautiful moment I could almostpicture you coming homepopping up and that bottle of champagneand then having this moment where you'relike do you know what I am worth it soit's a beautiful story that you've justshared there and in relation to thediluting the messagething which is the question that I askedyou and you feel that you're notnecessarily worth it now can I just askis that kind of like an impostorsyndrome that's going through your heador do you I think it's partly that I'vewatched so many I don't want swear youcan sway tosses is the places I say sella dream online and manipulate and andcorrupt I don't want to be part of thatworld and I've seen people close to meyou know hire an expensive house rent afat Ferrari and stand outside and sayyou can be as rich as me if you do myprogram and and they are multimillionaires but I have seen so manylost souls back up their lives leavingthat story and so I've got to I've gotto get to a point where for me to jointhat world I've really got to feel safethat I am never going to do that toanyone penny I loved that about youthat's like for me it's kind of likeabout the Family Fortunes TV episodegoing through my head reach that topanswer and it's like kind of bleedingbecause for me it's one of the thingsthat I hold very close to my heart so II got taught off by my wife actuallylast night so this is a very currentstory and I was writing a post and Ikind of just write post from my heart orwhatever I think I don't spellcheck it Idon't think about it I just literallywrite it there and then and as I waswriting it I sinner peeping over it shewas kind of looking at it like why youkind of she's seen it as me being kindof argumentative or not I'm just tryingto think of the wrong bird a bit againstthe grain kind of thing because mymessage yesterday was very similar toyourself so I'm in the property spaceand in the property space there are allthese millionaires selling this poorthingdream and I absolutely hate it because Iwas fortunate that I had 12,000 poundsleft in my account which I spent on theeducation I still believe I would havebeen where I am now without thateducation because in hindsight it wasn'tas good as I've published sin so sincethen I have probablymove people away from the education andI've offered my free service I've givenmy course material that I've paidthousands for because I'm like listenyou can learn all this yourself youdon't need this shiny book or thiscourse that's gonna change your lifebecause I've done it I joined thiscourse thinking twelve months time I'mgonna be a multi-millionaire blah blahblah all of that so you've obviouslyseen these kind of and I put crooks Idon't call them houses but appearancesis probably a better word and it reallyreally it gets it gets to me because atthe same time I also feel I have valuein some of my skills that's where I cango out and coach an extensive amount ofpeople but then I almost getting thisimpostor syndrome myself thinking Idon't want to ever be seen like thesepeople out there exactly doing it thewrong way so I fully get there andobviously we're at different stages inlife you're a lot more advanced andexperienced than myself and I get thatand at the same time I'm like I'm seeingpeople with less experience than myselfwho have fabricated their results takinggood selfies on one Facebook and thenall of a sudden the selling weekendcourses for two thousand pounds and Iread a book recently on it and it wasabout neuro linguistic programming NRPcalled the dark psychology and there wasa brilliant quote in that and what itsaid was you can either manipulatepeople or persuade people basically andthe people there's a lot of people whosay I want to help you I want to do thisfor you and you need to be able toassess are they trying to manipulate youI looking at their own self gainirrespective of whether it's going toactually get you what they're promisedin you or are they're just trying topersuade you to abandon life and I'm I'mgrateful that I've managed to have thisinterview with you and lets you connectwith you because you're one of the goodpeople and it's nice to see somebodydoing it the right way and I do feelthat sometimes we may not get there asquick as other people and we may have toprobably face more obstacles but I justbelieve it's just so much easier to goto sleep at night doing things the rightway well it does it goes back to whatyou said at the beginning about yourcore values and and and whether you cansleep itself you know these CEOs thatSam you this someone was telling me theycoach it said the CEOs are in fear oflosing their jobs or their businessbecause all around them they have nola they've just lost everything we'velost their wives they live norelationship with their children intheir strife for success of whateverthey decided success would be when theywere young they have and now they sit infear in these big jobs because if theylost their job or they lost theirbusiness they have nothing else left andI think we have to think about what isit we want to surround ourselves withTomas and I have lost everything and westill had our marriage and our childrenand it's it's all that matters that's tome that's the possible and I thinkpeople need to go deep into their valuesbut they chase this ambition or thisdream or this comparison or whatever itis that's confusing them yeah absolutelyI think that's a fantastic message thankyou for sharing that penny I reallyappreciate itso now that you're you're definitely anentrepreneur I think I don't thinkanyone's gonna disagree that you're anentrepreneur whether it is by accidentor whatever I mean I feel I'm a bigbeliever that everything happens for areason and if we choose to we can findour own way and I'm grateful that youfound your own way but what I want toask is so for somebody who's beenthrough been through it all should I sayin terms of the journeys of ups anddowns what's your daily routine likebecause I'm a firm believer thatmotivation doesn't last forever and I amstrongly I'm strongly for sorry and thatwe should discipline ourselves incertain aspects hence your nutrition orthe thoughts you tell yourselfaffirmations being grateful all thatsort of stuff in order to get throughthe darker days and not everyone speaksabout the darker days but what's yourdaily routine like Monday to Sunday umso I am always been an early Waker evenas you know child when I was teenagerdid my revision early I always wake sodoes my husband around 5:00 o'clock andwe love that and we go down and get twocups of tea each one of us goes and getsfour cups of teaand we do have that television in thebedroom which we absolutely love so thismorning we watched we loved all thedramas we watched the final of motherfather son for example and we lie in bedtogether and we holehas and we have a cup of tea and wewatch that and then we do that from ournow this is I'm not rushing to Londonfor trade and then I share and then Ifor the last six years I have made avery lovely drinks which containsspinach kale berries chia seeds flaxseeds hue carrot and and then I startwork because I love work so either startwork in the office or I will go toLondon I do try to go to London after10:00 because hey the trains are so muchcheaper oh I go on the train I mean it'syou know how much that makes adifference to your monthly outgoings ifyou if you do have a discipline of doingthat and I just feel better if I do thatthen I get a good start in the morningand then my ideal day is to coach oneclient today about three times a week soin the afternoonsI'll meet at this lovely place and coachthem if it's better in the mornings Iwill do the morning because it's reallydown to where they when they get theirbest energy of course Alice and threetimes a week I'm really grimacing here Itry to go to the gym okay Red Mill anddo some weights but I'm not achievingthat very well moment and I do have ayoga routine that I try to do everymorning before I get dressed that's itfantastic do you do any sort of them Imean I know you've touched on yoga theredo you do any meditation or anygratitude journaling or writing yourgoals down is that so I do I am I have aattitude of blessings and gratitude allthrough the day and I do start my daywith that I definitely don't even haveto consciously do it I just comes intomy mind that I have not that I feel itnow it's I think it's incrediblypowerful that mindfulness meditationthat would completely elude me I justdon't have you do that but mindfulnessI'm trying to learn that my son who'sstudying psychology at University whoand there's quite a high performing butvery him puts a lot of pressure onhimself a lot of pressure on himselfhe's learnt mindfulness and he'sactually done a certificate in it nowand he has it's it's incredible how itstransformed him he said he can't livewithout it and so it is that's andiscipline I'm trying to bring into mylife like I've got itfantastic and just actually if we mayjust going back to something we touchedon earlier we touched on mental fitnessand I know we spoke about this before Iclick the record button yeah do you wantto just briefly elaborate on that aswell because I think that's going to bevery important for the lissa so I when Ihad this sort of breaking moment Iultimately took a while but in the endthe psychologist diagnosed me with PTSDwhich I always thought needed to be ahuge trauma you know something itdirectly happened to you but PTSD isbasically anything that everyday comesback into your mind and it is and itfills your cup before you because atwork Venus that started today and I had12 things that from the age of 3 throughto about 3 years ago that were still onpains that I hadn't accepted andreconciled and I wasn't a victim of thembut they were still front of mind and Ihad to go through a process called EMDRto work through them which was a hardexhausting painful process of acceptanceand letting it go and then when you doit goes into your you might back in yourmind the other thing that I gotdiagnosed with is a form of depressioncalled cursive strong which is a badbook by dr. tim cavanaugh onhe owned a Mazon he worked for thePriory and he found that people thatwere coming to him who were very dynamicvery hardworking high levels ofdiscipline were he'd ended up diagnosinghit them with this and what I gotdiagnosed with and it's basically a formof depression that means you will notself care and look after yourself rightif you just get up every day and youjust keep pushing until until you justyou just just exhausted and so when Iwas going through my psyche my grouptherapy and times with my psychologistwhich talked about in my bookthere was healing triggers and emotionalmental repair that I talked about in mybook that I feel is relevant to everyentrepreneur every human yeah I believearound your belief systems your valuesto thoughts your feelings yourpersonality type etc and what I thenthought was actually if I had no in thistwenty years ago before I became anentrepreneur or even younger I wouldhave focused on my mental fitness notmoment I'd not got to a point where Ihad mental health issues so now I'm anadvocate of mental fitness because Ithink that there are things that wecould learn about ourselves so to meresilience isn't about how hard thepunches are that you are willing to takeand bounce back from resilience is likea boxer you learn what to dodge you'vedone the things that your personalityand your who you are and what matters toyou that you do not want to beconfronted by and you dodge and thatwould enter Fitness to me fantasticactually the first time I've heard itexplained like that I think I think themessage is clear though and I'm quitefascinated now you've got me intriguedinto your own personal book so I know Idon't read books in terms of thehardcovers but I am an advocate ofaudible and listening to books is yourbook available as an audible version oris it strictly a hardcopyno it is I went into studio recorded itso it's on audio it's on Kindle and it'son poppy yeah okay fantastic so there'sno excuse for me not to buy that thenI'll definitely be checking that outthank you for that thank you okay so thenext thing I always ask my guests andagain this is something that willhopefully give the listeners maybelessons that they can take on or somesort of advice is about adversity nowyou've obviously been through a lot ofadversity some of it we probably haven'teven touched in this very short episodeso I know you mentioned briefly and youlost your house you mentioned I think itwas November you were having thesemental health challenges if you couldeither choose one of those or somethingelse in your life where you've beenthrough adversity and just tell us howyou've basically overcame that and thelessons that you've got from it just tokind of give the listeners maybe sometools that they could perhaps use yeahy'know happily so there have been Imentioned that there were I think Imentioned there were twelve things on mylist when I went to the psychologistthat bothered me that was still throwfront of mind went back to his childhoodnot that I was abused or anything butthere was something you know things thatbothered me and all the way up to adultsso I think one of the greatest learningswas that the second business that Istarted digital youth academy I got someinvestors involved I didn't do any truediligence on them but because I hadknown of them and they certainly seemedto have my best interests in the passionof the business in their hearts whenthey invested but I think I was at apoint of scarcity when I went into thatrelationship which is always dangerouswhether you're taking on a client or asupplier or a marriage whatever you oweinto it in a scarcity fear mindset thenit's going to be very difficult and soultimately I had to work my way out ofthat relationship even though I lovedthat business very much we had to exitand sell that business and the issue wasthat because I was in scarcity andclearly was lacking in personalself-worth I enabled them to havecontrol over me and one of the thingsthat strapline of my book is how to leadthe life and business that you want andI was told by actually somebody whoworked for me in that business Russellwho now runs the Starbucksapprenticeship program across Europe hewas a brilliant guy he was ops directorworking with me and he said to me petone day penny I can tell and when Ifirst met you two who you are now thingsyou're not as happy as you used to beI said well that's a real shame and hesaid I watched a documentary last nightand they said there were three parts ofhappiness and they've done a big studyglobally and three parts were 50% ofhappiness is your Constitution are you ahappy person he said penny you alwayshappy and you are a happy person10% is the achievement of the things youwant and you know in this study we knowthat we all always want something elsesoon as we got something we always wantsomething else that's why us so much andinnovate and keep going you know we'renot happywhy we're not animals and that's why weare so progressive 40% of happiness ishow much control you have a have overyour own life and decisions you make andhe said clearly you're being controlledand I was now I had to then unwind thatand I talked about this in my book howsometimes you have to positivelysurrender to a situation and I realizedthat I wasn't going to change a patternthat we had created between us as arelationship where they were assertiveand I was passive where they were theadult and effectively they were treatingme as a child and it was my own doingbecause I went into this relationshipalready in a bad place yeah and so partof the learning I had to go through isI've got to a point in my life whereanybody who was assertive with me I hadwas labeling them in my head as a bullyso I was catastrophizing anybody whoseemed to want to have control over meanybody that had an opinion that wasstrong I saw as bullying and I had tolearn as a naturally not assertiveperson anyway I had to learn to be moreassertive and realized that beingassertive is actually a very adultcommunication style it doesn't have tobe angry that's one one lesson I canpass on absolutely I think that's alesson that I've had to learn myself aswell because when I first I property Iwas very probably a similar situation toyourself as our kind of put people on apedestal yeah I think thinking that Iwasn't worthy or didn't have in muchknowledge yeah yeah in fact I probablydid in hindsight now the funny thing isI got ripped off I got builders runningaway taking advantage of me I hadpotential business partners see me asnaive and trying to make me do more workthan initially agreed to so I had allthese kind of problems and teeth andissues initially as well and I remembermy mom actually saying and you need toyou need to be stronger you need to stopbeing like a walk or a pushover and Iwas just like it's just who I am as inand I was always confident that if Ididn't become this again I assumed ithad to be a nasty dictation person and Iwas as long as I just be myselfsomewhere along the line I will get therightkind of people around me and and maybe Ihave developed some level ofassertiveness over the last few yearsbut I've certainly now got a team aroundme who I can trust and they know me frommy skills I know them for their skillsand it certainly helped but I think youhit the nail on the head there where yousaid it's a skill to learn and and in myhead it's always been if I come acrosstoo assertive are people gonna think I'ma bully or embossing axe or whatever itis so yeah that's really interesting Ithink I think people can definitelyresonate with that good yeah definitelyso penny what's your biggest fear umI suppose my biggest fear is currentlyis long-term sustainable income becausewe you know when you lose everything andI'm it's amazing some people I'mattracting now as co2 coach them is alot of people in their 50s that havehuge skills and but they haven't reallybeen able to manage their business lifethe way they needed to and and createthat sustainable income so I loveworking so I'm going to be very happyworking well into my 70s and Beyond ifpeople still have me but creating somesense of security into my old age is isprobably what what I suppose drives mebut also drives me negatively because itis also a fear okay that's interestingso a bit of a shameless plug here haveyou thought about property investing asI sort of yes I've not anywhere nearthat place to be able to even considerthat well if you ever ask them please doreach out yeah I will I appreciate thatand I will and I think we'll definitelydo that much thank you so much whatwe're gonna do now is actually we'regoing to completely mix it up now we'regoing to go into what I call the funpart of the show so at this stage of theshow all I'm gonna do is literally askyou the most random questions that I canthink of from my list in front of meyou've got no idea what I'm gonna askyou we're gonna do the buzzer for about60 to 90 seconds so there are no rightor wrong answers so literally just saythe first thought that comes into yourhead oh gosh that's very good god yes nono you'll be absolutely fine okay we'regonna start in three two onewhat did you eat for breakfast my shakethe ability to fly or be invisible liewhat is the best thing about being anentrepreneur Breeden if you couldeliminate one thing from your dailyroutine what would it beexercise what is the best gift anyonehas ever given to you my children wouldyou rather have a rewind button or apause button on life pause don't saywhere your fame o'moneyyour proudest moment my childrengraduating your favorite food choiceokay Netflix our YouTube Netflix yournumber-one goal this year to help 34people achieve their dreams yourfavorite TV show ever pride andprejudicewould you rather know how you would dieor when you were dying how if you couldsit with one person in the world for anhour who would it be my husband speakall languages or be able to speak toanimals all speak to animals and finallyif you could abolish one thing in theworld what would it bereligion okay fantastic so that's theend of the fun part of the show itwasn't that hard was itno that's very good okay brilliant sowe're almost at the end of the show nowI just got the last final few questionsI just want to ask you penny and now thenext question is about reflection soobviously hindsight's a wonderful thingwhere we can always think of ways to getourselves somewhere quicker easier orwith less heartache but I guess thejourney also teaches us a lot as well sowhat I want to know is if knowingexactly what you know now you could goback to a younger penny and maybewhisper something in their ears toinspire her for the journey that liesaheadwhat would you say it'll all be okay Ithink I've probably just give her thatcomfort really just that reassuranceit's just the reassurance yeah and thatactually suddenly brings us to the lastquestion then what for the show andagain this is something asked for all ofmy guests and it's about legacy so if in150 years time science fails to save usall and all that's left is this book andthis book is about penny and her lifeand everything she's accomplished andall of the great wonderful thingsfirstly what would the title of the booktell us and secondly what would theblurb at the back read to us cost I offthe cuff yeah well the first the title Ithought was love okay and it would justsay that that love is the most powerfulforce in the world and the more that youcan live within that energy and be thatenergy and give that energy the betteryour life will be thank you for sharingokay brilliant so that brings us toliterally the end of the show and justbefore I leave penny what I want to dois give you a chance to connect with theaudience so if you wouldn't mind couldyou please tell everyone listening howthey could reach you and maybe if youhave time and the capacity for them tomaybe engage with you that's very kindthank you so I'm on Twitter so at pennypower I'm on LinkedIn so I'll be easilyfound as penny power I'm on Facebook butunfortunately I think I've just aboutreached that five thousand limits andI'm absolutely rubbish and got to put mypage right but I don't have a page I'vegot a lovely community on Facebookcalled the business cafe global andthat's a very caring very honest andreal community of small businesses I'mon Instagram as penny F power and then Ihave a website which is penny power UKand on there there's different contactforms that's fantastic and what I willdo is I will put all of those details inthe show notes thank you that's verykindno no you're very welcome I'll also puta link to the book as well because I'mlooking forward to reading that myselfand I just want to say once again pennythank you so much for your time todayit's actually been a fascinating talkeven the stuff we spoke about before theepisode and I just wanna thank you foryour time I want to thank everyone athome as wellthanks for listening wonderful andremember this podcast is absolutely freeso all we ask in return is for you toshare this with a friend and drop us afive star review over on iTunes have anawesome day See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.