16. Turning Life Lessons into Business Power Moves

 ⚠️ Trigger warning: This episode contains discussion around death, miscarriage, grief, addiction and the loss of loved ones. Please listen with care. 

 Using experiences, failures and detours as strategic fuel...

In this episode of Wildly Intentional, Flick and Verity have one of their most honest and emotional conversations to date.

They open up about deeply personal experiences that have shaped not only who they are as people, but how they show up in their businesses today. From navigating grief and loss to processing moments that felt unfair, painful or completely out of their control, this conversation explores how life’s hardest chapters can influence the way we lead, grow and make decisions.

Flick shares her experience of miscarriage and the impact of navigating a system that didn’t always feel supportive, while Verity speaks openly about her brother’s battle with addiction and the lasting effect of losing him. These are not easy stories — but they are powerful ones.

Together, they reflect on how these moments, while never chosen, have contributed to their resilience, perspective and the way they now approach business with more intention and clarity.

And because this is Wildly Intentional, it wouldn’t be complete without a very real, very unexpected moment that brings a little lightness into the conversation too…

This episode is a reminder that growth doesn’t just come from strategy — it often comes from life itself.

 Subscribe to Wildly Intentional for weekly bold conversations on business growth, mindset and building a business that actually works for you. 

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Don't forget to join us in our Facebook Group to continue the conversation and let us know your thoughts on this episode and if you have ever felt the same as we do here.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Wildly Intentional, the podcast of business owners who refuse to play small.

SPEAKER_02 0:05

This is where we'll have bold talks, honest conversations and dig into what it really takes to create big breakthroughs in business and in life.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

We're Verity and Flick, we're two business owners who have built, broken, rebuilt and grown businesses in our own ways.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

And we're here to share the lessons, the mindset shifts, and the unapologetic decisions that have really helped us to level up.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

So if you're ambitious, you're gross focused, and you're ready to do business on your own terms. You're in exactly the right place. So let's get wildly intentional. I'm just gonna well that was a good start, wasn't it? We don't know if we've got a technical hitch going on here.

SPEAKER_02 0:47

We're not sure if this is recording. That's that this could be fun. We could do an entire recording of a podcast and it not record.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Well, for your info, it gave me this met the normal message as you pressed record. So whether it wasn't before, I don't know, but it's saying recording has started. So we should be good. Should we try that again? Hello, hi.

SPEAKER_02 1:10

I think that we should possibly leave that in because it's more fun, it's more us, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

And I think given today's topic, that might actually work. It's like our benefit. Yeah. Say hello, Flick. Yes, okay. All right, hello everyone. Be rude just launching into conversation and not even you know, saying hello and welcome.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

You can probably kind of gather the tone of today and where we are. Chaos. How are you all? Hopefully you're all good and um Perky listening in today, this morning, this afternoon, this evening. Hello, good evening, good afternoon, good morning. She's Truman showing. She's she's gone back to the Truman show every time. How are you anyway? Are you okay? Yeah, I'm not too bad.

SPEAKER_02 1:58

I'm loving the sunshine right now. So it's got go on. I was saying it's got to the afternoon, and the sun comes around and it hits my office, and I've got a couple of like crystals in the window. So like my office just gets decorated with rainbows in the afternoon, and it's like it's just so lush.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

I feel like we winter's just having an argument with me right now because it's like I started the day really sunny and then it went really cloudy and cold, and now it's really sunny again. It's like it's that winter and another thing coming back for more. I like that mem. I don't know if we talked about that, but anyway, relevance. Yes. So um what we're gonna we're we kind of we've decided on today's topic, and the kind of um feeling around it is we keep saying, let's just see where it goes. So we're not really sure how this one is gonna go, but we're gonna try it anyway.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

We're starting really high this time. I think in the last few episodes, we've started a little bit low. We've brought ourselves up. This time I think we've started high. Hopefully, we don't bring ourselves down all the time.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

We might bring ourselves down. It could go the opposite way. So we are gonna talk about turning life lessons into business power moves, um, business decisions, because it's relevant because we go through things as people, as human beings, and it does come into our businesses as business owners and employment. You know, I can say the same thing about having a job. Um, so we're gonna go with that and see because Flick and I have both had some really, really deep experiences over the last couple of years, but it has massively influenced how the future went for us. So I think we should talk about it because we all go through terrible things and some great things, some awful things, and it does, it impacts our entire life, including our business.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

Absolutely. And when you're a business owner, I mean you you know this from Basti Experience Verity. Um, it can feel like, oh, I can't, I can't talk about that because it's too personal. And I I'm a massive advocate for yes, absolutely. People buy from people, you've got to share the personal side of you know your business when you're running it, when you're in it. Um, you know, if you even if you think of like some of the bigger brands, we know the names of the heads of those corporations because they put a person at the top of it. Um, you know, and and think about how many magazines are sold as celebrity gossip magazines, because we want to know about the personal lives of these people. So, yes, absolutely, it filters down to, you know, I want to call us regular Joes, but I don't want to call us regular Joes because we're awesome. But absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

But it does things happen, you know, that are relatable and we all go through things and it does kind of influence infiltrate into that's the right word, into businesses and the way we do things, absolutely. So we need to talk about it. We need to talk about our experiences and things that led us here, really. Because I think if we hadn't been through the things we have over the last couple of years, we might not be here. You know, it's that that sliding doors moment, isn't it, where things happen for a reason. I'm a huge believer in everything that happens for a reason anyway, but um, yeah. So let's talk about let's talk about the last couple of years, how awesome they've been. They've uh they've been wild.

SPEAKER_02 5:10

They have been wild. So but yeah, I I talk about you know storytelling storytelling um and how powerful it is. And the first one that you should always start with is telling your own. You know, and when people go, oh, my story's not very, very exciting, very interesting. I'm like, well, that's because you've lived it and you don't see it from an outsider's perspective. Um I'm like, do you do you want me to share mine first or do you want to share yours first, Verity?

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Happy with either. I feel like you've gone really mellow. No, I'm not, I'm I'm actually really good today. It's like I'm kind of preparing myself mentally for talking about this because obviously you know what's coming, but it's also I'm like, I'm really chilled about it. I'm I think it's a good topic to do our intention is not to depress anybody. So, you know, if it gets a bit depressing in the middle, stay with us because it all gets good at the end.

unknown 6:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

But what you were saying about storytelling, I think what the caveat there is that our stories change all the time, our experiences change. So just because you put it out there once, if you're brave enough to do it once, you need to keep doing it because things change all the time.

SPEAKER_02 6:17

We evolve as people and we meet new people, and and new people come into our world, whether that's on social media, whether that's you know, seeing your website, see you speak or present or you know, networking, wherever it is, you know, you meet new people all the time as a business owner.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:33

Um, so you know, sharing your story like it's not a one and done kind of situation. Um, so for example, you know, um the the the big thing that happened to me last year was the fact that I had the miscarriage, and on the day that I found out I was having a miscarriage, um, crazy personal AM, I posted it all over social media, which, you know, is an absolute alien concept to any woman who's ever been through it. And I do uh, and I'm not gonna abide by our no apology rules, but I am gonna apologize if this does trigger anybody who is listening to this podcast, because we are gonna talk about some serious things that Variety and I have gone through, and there could be some people who are triggered by it.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Keep yourself safe. So if you don't want to listen to this, don't listen, just skip on. But keep yourself safe.

SPEAKER_02 7:15

That's the only apologies we we're gonna allow for this, is if we do, you know, upset people with talking about our stories. Um, but yeah, and posting about it on the day that it was happening. Um looking back, I'm sort of going, that's that's a slightly insane move. But actually, it was a really powerful move for me for my business for um everything that was going on in that moment of you know, I had to live how I taught my clients to live. Um, you know, and it was obviously it was going to affect me, obviously it was gonna impact me for for longer than just one day. Um, but it was it was something that I just felt in that moment of I had to I had to share it. I had to, you know, and I messaged all of my clients, um, and all of my clients were, you know, blown away, sort of like, I can't believe you're thinking of messaging us. And while you're going through this, is there anything we can do? Do you want to pause services? Do you want to cancel meetings, whatever it is? Um, you know, and I'm I'm incredibly grateful to them for doing that. But it was just that was what felt right for me in that moment to message them and say, look, this is what's going on. Look, please be able to bear with that over the next few weeks, I may, you know, and you can never tell how you're going to respond to something like that, can you? Um, and I actually, one person who I hadn't been able to get in contact with, um I'd got um, I'd met them at a networking thing the week before. We'd arranged this one-to-one to happen on a Tuesday morning, so about 10 o'clock in the morning. Um, so I found out two o'clock on the Monday, having a miscarriage. Rob and I both went to work on the Tuesday morning because we were very pragmatic in the okay, we had the the Monday where we sort of just collapsed and dissolved into um primordial soup of people because it was just we were just mush, we were just a mess. Um, and Tuesday morning it was like, okay, so it's not over and done with, but life does move on, and and we needed something to do to keep our minds occupied so that we weren't, you know, lost in our grief. Um, and I had this this one-to-one call with this this client, and we were having a lovely chat, and it was all wonderful. And she started talking about her kids and her family as you do, as you get, and I was like inside my head, I was going, Oh god, the question is gonna come. Because I I then clarified, I was like, Oh, so how many children do you have? And as a minute I said those words, I was like, you know the question is gonna come back. You know that is a standard format of a conversation. If you ask somebody, how are you doing? you know the question is gonna come back of how are you? Yeah, you know, if you ask somebody who you've just met, like, oh, you know, tell me about your kids, tell me about your partner, your home life, whatever it is, you know that question is gonna be reflected back. It's it's a standard format of a conversation. And I was just like, right, take a deep breath because she's going to ask you this question. And the minute she did, and I just closed my eyes for you know 0.3 seconds. It was a really long, slow blink as I took a breath. And I told her, she just went, What the bloody hell are you doing on a call with me if that happened yesterday? I am so you know, I'm so sorry. Um I would never have done this call. You know, we could have rearranged, we could have like, and then and her compassion came through. And yes, I know the fact that I've just quoted her and apologized.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Um but you weren't apologizing, you were quoting somebody else. So it's okay, we're gonna let you have that one.

SPEAKER_02 10:45

Um and it was just it was just this, but that then made me laugh at the fact that you know, this is somebody who, you know, sort of first impression or second impressions kind of thing. Um, and she's still to this day, she's like, I can't believe like when we ever we see each other, and I think I'm gonna be seeing her next week, actually. Um I can't believe you you had that call with me the day after. She just unbelievable. And I was like, well, but it gives you more of an insight as to who I am, is the fact that I like it, you know, a busy mind, a busy schedule.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

Like this is also a coping mechanism that would have come into it as well.

SPEAKER_02 11:23

Yeah, absolutely. And then, you know, a few months later, it was, you know, I was coming to write my keynote speech, and you know, a lot of people had said about oh, you know, you need to share real life experiences and build that into your your keynote speech, and that will make it you know really impactful and powerful. And you know, this is four or five months down the line after experiencing a miscarriage. And for listeners who haven't seen the full story, I don't even think I've posted the full details of everything that didn't happen as it should do with regards to my miscarriage because there were multiple failings across multiple points of contact. Um, and yeah, four or five months later, and I'm sat and I'm going, like, what what you know, you have that moment, well, what powerful things have happened to me that I can incorporate in a keynote speech. Like, you sort of have to sit there and go, Well, I've had a you know, I've had a reasonable life, but you know, a good childhood, or you know, all of this kind of stuff. And you're like, I don't want it to be a sob story. And then it's it tweaked, and I was like, I've got to talk about this because it's so powerful that on the you know, a couple of hours after I had that call to confirm I was miscarrying, I put it on social media. I'm like that that in itself has to be a powerful message, right? That has to be the thing I go out with.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

And I was I remember just to put a caveat in there so nobody's misunderstanding. Flick is absolutely not saying that if you go through this, you have to go to social media immediately. That is not the message he's saying. Definitely that's how Flick dealt with it. That is not advocating for everybody to deal with it the same way. We all everybody's lived experience is different.

SPEAKER_02 13:01

Yeah. Um but no, and it was like this two-day speaker training course, and we'd we've done the first day. The second day was more about like sort of practicing, and you were gonna um deliver it. Deliver the first three minutes of your your newly written um keynote speech. Um, and I spent a good portion of my evening sort of going through sort of meditation or mindfulness or jug what just happened.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Oh my god. Okay, for anybody listening right now, you can't see, but Flick has just taken a massive like throwback from her seat. Something has obviously been thrown on her. What is going on? My desk is partially collapsed and my coffee's gone everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 13:51

That was not my moment that I was I don't know what to do at this point because I'm just dripping in coffee. Like everything is soaked in coffee.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

My pens, my notebook, my desk. Do we need to pause? This is a really I think well, we said we would keep it cheery, Flick. You know, at that moment that you were really getting into it, you know, you've just had a great as well, right?

SPEAKER_02 14:21

Um no, it's fine. I'll be fine. Um so yeah, so I said now drunking while wiping out the coffee. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

I mean, I'm more upset.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

Why did that? That was it hot, are you okay? Not boiling, and I managed to save about two mouthfuls of it. No idea why that collapsed. Um, but yeah, so yeah, I you know, to be able to um what's the phrase that a lot of people use when they come to you know speaking is you know speak from the the scar and not the wound. Um thankfully I have some tissues on my desk. Just like trying to save my notebooks. Um thankfully my laptop is propped up on a stand, so actually the laptop is safe. This is just carpet and uh notebooks. Um but yeah, so I feel like I need to hand over to you, Barrett, you do a bit of talking while I try and um wring myself out of coffee.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

Okay, so what we'll do. So I'll share my story and then we'll come back to kind of how it changed us and how things changed in business. How's that?

SPEAKER_02 15:38

Yeah, because that was uh I'm mildly embarrassed about that, you know, I was just really in a different somber moment of talking. And then like basically a picture frame that I've got on the just collapsed, and to try and catch it, I knocked over the coffee, which is why the coffee's gone everywhere. And you know, save the coffee, it's me.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

Yeah, maybe it was the universe going, What are you doing? Why are you talking about this? What are you doing?

SPEAKER_02 16:05

This is this is really like a somber moment, so I'm just gonna throw a curveball at you.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Well, we always say it's wild, it's unpredictable.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

Yeah, my office now smells of coffee.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

Anywho, you you talk about it. Well, I don't really know how to follow that. I mean, you were like so in mid-flow of the conversation, it's really difficult to then move on from that. Um, but we'll try. So, you know, yeah, you've had um a really traumatic year, and we will talk, we'll come back to how that's impacted your business. You were just kind of getting into that, and I think really traumatic experiences change us as people as well.

SPEAKER_02 16:43

Oh, 100%.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, mine was was I there is a huge change in me, massive. Um, so a few a few, well, a couple of years ago, something happened. Um, my brother was um he had a lot of issues. He was he'd been through a lot of trauma himself, he had a lot of mental health issues, he was undiagnosed, neurodivergent. We would just get into the stage where we were going through that process, but he was um very dependent on alcohol. And it it we were kind of on this journey with him for about 10 years. We'd kind of gone through rehab, um, come out of rehab, kept him sober for a while, then he kind of relapsed, um, couldn't get him back into rehab because he hated that. So and it it kind of put its pressure on the family, and it ended up with just really myself and my niece caring for him, if you like. So we took responsibility. Uh now I've got the ice cream van outside. Can you hear that? I just think the universe is going, I'm gonna make this happy, even if I'm gonna do whatever I can just to make this an insane episode. That's what's happening right now. It's just yeah, so yeah. So um, yeah, my niece and I were main carers for him. Um, my mum's kind of getting on a little bit, so it was she was limited in what she could do, and everybody else kind of um walked away because they couldn't cope with it. I mean, if you deal with anybody with any kind of addiction, it's a really difficult situation to be in. It affects you in so many ways that you can't even describe. Um, and you know, it just it was either we stepped in and we we took on that role or he was on his own. And you know, I loved my brother, I couldn't see that, and she couldn't see either. So we took that responsibility and it was hard. We had years of really kind of fighting and crying and all sorts of emotions that we went through and battling with him and begging him and seeing things from one side. Um, and then we were kind of in and out of hospital with him, lots went wrong. He was in with um he had sepsis, there was E. coli, there was C. diff he caught in hospital. So his blood pressure hit the floor at one point to the point that they literally couldn't let him out of the hospital because he just wouldn't have survived it. Um, and then we kind of came through that, and then um we had there was a load of battles going on on the side of it. So you said about you know the treatment you received. Well, we were kind of in that situation as well. There was a huge amount of battles going on with social services, with the NHS. It was igniting this kind of real anger in me around how we treat people who are addicted to anything because addiction comes from trauma, it comes from there's a mental health um problem behind it. I've got to say it's really hard to tell this story when all I can see is you wiping up coffee. I think this is keeping it, it's keeping it cheery. We're all right.

SPEAKER_02 19:41

I feel more bad to be doing this, but I just want to meet. You're fine.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

So, yeah, so it was years of battles, and it was it it was the experience in itself was very traumatic. Um, and it was bringing back a lot of issues with my dad. My brother and I had very different perceptions of our childhood. My brothers had been very skewed by the alcohol and the drugs he'd taken over the years, so his kind of memory around things were very different to mine. So it was bringing up a whole load of issues, and I was I was struggling mentally as well. Um, and then we got to the stage where it was kind of we were begging for help and help wasn't coming, it was really difficult. If you've ever been in this situation, you'll know that you know, dealing with addiction, there is just the support is so limited, especially if they won't engage. Um, it's really difficult, it's hard on family members. And then we hadn't um we were advised, I won't go into too much detail, but one organization I'll say advised us to step away for a minute because they couldn't come in and help if we didn't, if if he had family support, they couldn't justify their input. Terrible raging. Yeah, terrible raging. That's a battle we're still fighting. It's just it's so wrong. Um, so we trusted them and they told us what the plan was. There was a multidisciplinary meeting, there was a plan in place. Um, so I kind of explained it to him and I said it was hard to explain things to my brother at this stage because he was so deep into addiction um and he had mental health issues and he was neurodivergent and he wasn't taking information in and retaining it, which was half the problem. Um, and I'd said, you know, I'm there, Matt, you can message me anytime, but I can't be here for a while. I've just got to step away.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

And I'd um the last meeting I had with him, it was really lovely. I'd gone over, taken my husband over there, and you know, we were really kind of laughing and joking, and we put a plan in place of where we were going to go once we had this support in place. And he knew what was going to happen, and it was, you know, I think again, that was the universe kind of interfering and saying this will end on a good note. Um, and then we hadn't heard from him for a few days, my niece and I. So we're caring the community coming in to put a doorbell, a not doorbell, a key lock outside his door, which was ridiculous because he locked his door from the inside. So that was never going to be um a solution, but it It's all they would do. So my niece went over and she found a delivery on the doorstep for three days before. So she phoned me and she said, I'm really worried. Um, something doesn't feel right. So I went over and unfortunately her instincts were right, and I found him on the kitchen floor, um, not with us anymore. Um, and that was like, you know, that moment itself caused a lot of PTSD. There was, you know, there's huge kind of mental health issues around that. And and PTSD, I have a lot of flashbacks, I dream a lot. Um it's still, I'm still fighting it now. It's still difficult. And it was probably gonna go away too. No, no, absolutely not. But it changed me as a person massively and as a business owner. And it actually was the start. I went really angry, first of all. I really got angry, and I changed my business into well, I set up a new business, so I set up a kick, so a community inclusion program. Uh I can't remember what it stands for now. Um, and I was gonna go and fight the system, and I was gonna really do it, and I spent all my energy into setting up this kick. And when I actually got it through, it was like, what am I gonna do with that? It was almost like a process that I have to go through to get this out of my system. But it also led me to do my qualifications in somatic trauma-informed coaching because I'd started to understand. Well, actually, I started that in the late stages of where we were with my brother because of what I was going through with all the kind of stuff coming back from my childhood with what it was all bringing up. I I wanted, I didn't want to go to counselling again. I'd done that, I didn't want to kind of drag it all up again. I wanted to find ways to come through it to use the trauma that I'd been through to kind of put positive spins on things. So I did the trauma-informed qualification, which changed my life. That was a complete game changer for me. And then I started to see my business really differently, and I put changes in place for that, and I went down a route of working with um newer diversity, and it came from that because there was such a kind of power, um, a passion for injustice in the world and how we're seen differently, and how people aren't paid attention to, and how people shrink themselves. And it helped me to understand my brother a lot more as well. So the addiction side, the anger towards him went completely because through the trauma-informed qualification, I started to understand him better. And I understood that, you know, when we said to him, Why can't you give it up for us? Why can't you do it for us? It wasn't about that. It was never a choice for him. And it was, you know, I learned to understand that, which gave me peace in, you know, the anger that I felt towards him that he wouldn't give it up, he wouldn't change his life. And it resulted in, you know, a relatively young guy who had everything going for him. And he was a model, by the way. I mean, this guy was like a really good-looking, um, really lovely personality, had really kind-hearted. He wasn't aggressive in any way. He had everything to live for. He had grandchildren. Um, and it was just really sad, but it helped me to understand him. But it also deeply changed me as a person, and it brought things like boundaries into place. And I suddenly got to a stage where I thought, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to be the pushover. I don't want to be the person that people can just knock about and uh, I'll just take it because I'm nice. And it changed me completely. And I actually ended really long relationships because I started seeing things very differently. I started seeing things through different eyes and I could see narcissistic behavior and I could see when somebody was using me and I could see all these things all of a sudden. I can't explain it. It's like it's like everything is lifted that you've kind of held on your shoulders for years. And it became a really strong version of me. And it wasn't not strong as in I'm not still grieving. I mean, we're going into our second year now. I'm still I dreamt about him last night. Last week I cried my eyes out. Um, you had me on a call because something had triggered me the other day. And you know, I still have those moments of deep grief and PTSD, but it's changed me as a person, it's made me so much stronger. It made my belief in the universe stronger, which is irony. Because how can I sit here and say everything happens for a reason? You know, no, I didn't want him to not be here anymore. Yeah, but I still can't say the words. You'll notice I still cannot say those words. But, you know, at the same time, it led me to places in my business, in my life, my relationship with my husband, my relationship with my children, my relationship with my friends, my colleagues, the boundaries I put in place. I am a completely different person now to what I was two years ago when that first happened, or before that happened. I was very easy to manipulate. I was very easy to, you know, I'd be we've talked about it before with boundaries with clients. It was, you know, oh yeah, I'll have that call at nine o'clock at night and I'll respond to that email at 11. And I had no boundaries. And it was like something clicked in me, and it was like, no, life is too short for this. This is not my priority anymore. I don't need to do that. So I went out and bought myself a second phone. So it was a work phone. So that got shut off at five o'clock, and I didn't care what the consequences were. And of course, there weren't any consequences because boundaries are good. Um my business got stronger. I brought things in, I resonated with people so much better. When I went out on social media, I talked about that story. I did guest talks. I still talk about it now when I do guest speaker slots. Um, so there's there's so much that has come from it in a positive way. And uh don't get me wrong, there is nothing positive about what happened. I miss my brother deeply. I am so regretful for what happened. I'm so grief stricken over what happened. You know, myself and my niece will never get over it. We won't. And but there is also you've got to see the light, you've got to see the positive side, you've got to see actually that happened. You can't take it away, you can grieve it, but there is light somewhere. It's not a silver lining. My brother shouldn't have gone through that, but it there is positive. You can either emerge, and I remember somebody saying to me, because I did the same as you, I had the Tower Tribe at the time, and literally two days after he went, um, I still can't say it. This is surprising me actually. Um, a couple of days after he went, I had a Tower tribe coaching call, and I refused point blank to um cancel it. And I think in my head it was a coping mechanism. I needed a distraction. I was staying with my mum at the time. I was the one that had to tell my mum, how do you tell somebody that they've lost their child? It was horrific. Everything about it was awful. And I think that was my distraction. And I remember being on that call, and there was about six of the Tower Tribe members on there, and I kind of said, Come on, then, like, let's let's start. Like, what's tell me what's happening? And one of them just said, We're not here for you today, for me today, but we're here for you. So we're just here to, you know, we're here if you need us. That's all, and and that was it. I was done. I was like, it brought everything, and I was I crashed completely, which is a good thing. I needed to do it, but having that support, and it showed me as well, you god, you learn your who your friends are when you go through an experience. Boy, do you know who is should be in your life? Um and you have to get the seven stages of grief are just the ridiculous because it's not one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. It's one, two, three, seven, four, five, six, coming back to one again. And and I'm still going through it, and I still end up at stage one sometimes. It's it's just ridiculous. But the lessons I've learned and the way it changed me as a person, I just I think it's not like everything happens for a reason, but it's a case of I I almost feel like I that the butterfly spread her wings once that had happened. It brought something out in me. I can't explain it, and it's probably sounds terrible. Um, but it did, it changed me, it deeply changed me as a person. And I think part of it is that I just stopped putting up with people's crap because it just didn't. I thought there's so much worse that could happen. This is irrelevant. Yeah, yeah. And it just, yeah, it gave me that, it gave me a lot of confidence, actually. I can't believe I'm sorry saying that, but I did it did. No, it's because I changed.

SPEAKER_02 30:22

Being one of the people that actually watched you go through that transformation. For those of you who are listening, I've cleaned up the copy as best I can. I'm just reading it actually. Probably can notice the point where I re-entered the conversation. Um, but yeah, being one of the people that was around you at that time and just watching that transformation, it was like it was indescribable in in in so so many ways because nothing massively changed, but yeah, everything shifted for you. Everything just do you know that that moment if you ever I'm gonna liken it to a really strange thing now? But if you ever watch how like some um that viral trip um video of like when a people are laying a wall and they've got all the bricks standing up, and you're like, those all never fit, and then suddenly something tips them, and they all just suddenly do that little thing and they jump and they perform a nice straight line. You're looking at me completely blank. Okay. Um, but yeah, it was just that moment of suddenly like it it was just so cle clear, your clarity had come across once once that happened and what and no, I would never have wished that experience on you, but to watch that transformation was kind of magical.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

It was kind of yeah, you know, it feels it, it does, it feels magical. It's and there's you know, and I also it brought feelings of gratitude towards my brother because I feel like he set something off in me, he ignited a flame in me that kind of I took forward. And I it's also everything I do, he's in my mind, and I make decisions based on you know him and what we went through with him. And I often have a conversation with him and say, Is this what you meant, Matt? And is is this what you were teaching me? And you know, I have conversations with him like that, and it's it's really odd to say that something positive can come from it because I I wouldn't ever, you know, if I could turn back time, then I'd have my brother back every single time. But you know, you've just it's not even how you it's not even kind of having a positive mental attitude, it's not even that basic, it's just something that because you can't, you can't when you're in that grief, you can't just snap out of it, it doesn't work like that. But almost accepting that something good can come from it and you can change for the better, and that will impl it will it infiltrate everything, every part of your life, your business, everything. Yeah. So absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:00

I just for me it was you know, the the biggest thing where people say, Well, why did you why did you share that? And I was like, Because for me, sharing the miscarriage, it wasn't just about me going, oh, this is a thing that's happening to me. It was a I know there are many people who will have gone through this and I want them to not feel alone. Yeah, yeah and that that was a big shift for actually how I deliver courses, is actually understanding that there is an awful lot of business owners out there who feel like they are alone, and actually by sharing stories, by starting this podcast and sharing our stories, is like that's you know, connection and familiarity familiarity are core values that I didn't realize how powerful they are for me. Um but they show up when you know I I posted that when you know when I talked to people after that, and and there is also the thing up for that, but there are certain relationships that I realized in that moment that were okay, it's because I'm serving you in the minute I was going through something, and there were people who were just like, Oh, that's really sad. Um, so anyway, about me. And it's like, and I hadn't noticed that before.

SPEAKER_01 34:08

Yeah. Um, there was a lot of that came out for me, and the whole when you go into people, and you're right, it is about sharing your experiences because people will we do feel alone when we go through this. We don't think that anybody else is going through this, and it's just knowing that somebody else is is powerful when you share that story. And I I had people, I what I found really, really difficult, the most difficult, it and it took me a long time to get over this is how bombarded you are in the first minutes, hours, days, maybe a couple of weeks, and then how everything goes deathly silent again, and everybody else has moved on and you can't move on and you're stuck. And that's really painful, it's really hard.

SPEAKER_02 34:53

Yeah, because you're like, Can I talk? You will start questioning yourself, can I still talk about this? Or am I boring people? Are people or do people not just know what to say? Yeah, you know, have they gone silent because they're out of words and they're out of actions, and you know, they've sent the flowers and they've sent the cards and the gifts and the you know the messages checking in. Um, you know, and I remember when when my friend was uh really good friend of mine, and she was she was losing her mum. She's losing her mum to cancer. And you know, when it came out the fact that her mum had weeks left, she, you know, when she got the diagnosis, we found out she had weeks left. And just every day without fail, I just messaged my mate to say, Hey, how are you? Nothing like, how's things going on with your mum? And I continued that for you know, I think it was probably about a month after a mum died. And I I still now will just message her once a week and go, Hey, how are you? Yeah, and it's because it's like I didn't want to constantly be going, like, how is how are things with your mum? Like, how are you getting on with your mum? But I think we got to about two weeks after the mum's diagnosis. When mum was still with us, she was, you know, and my friend texted me and she went, God, I love you because I know what you're doing. You're not you're not contacting me and asking me directly about my mum, but you are just showing that you are there. And still now, she'll message me and she's like, I love the fact that you just every week, every few days, it's just, hey, how are you? Because it's it's part of my routine now to to go, you know, yeah, she lost her mum, you know, you lost your brother. It's it's not it's not something that's just oh well, it happened and I'm over it now.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

Yeah, and that that is how it feels, isn't it? When you go through something, it feels like everybody else is just over it and you can't talk about it anymore. It's it's just well, I should have moved on. Actually, somebody who I was very close to did say to me, Well, you've just got to get back to normal life, Verity. I hadn't even had the funeral at that point. We're not, we're not, we're not friends anymore. But it was a very, very long friendship, very long friendship. But it was I saw saw it for what it was. It's just it it does. You start to see things very differently.

SPEAKER_02 37:05

You do have that impossible. So I I mean the other month, um, you know, I posted on on social media again about the fact that I'd had a really difficult month because I'd been shouldering the fact that that would have been my June month, and I just hadn't told anybody. I was like just like obviously Rob, no. And it was also the month, you know, it was March, so we had Mother's Day in it, and like seeing all the posts from lots of people about how wonderful it was to be a mum or you know, all the gifts that their kids have bought them, and it's like, yeah, those are great, those are and I'm not taken away from that in any stretch of the imagination, but there was just that grieving part of me inside my soul that was just dying a little bit because I was like, Well, I can't really, I don't I feel like an imposter to talk about, yeah, well, actually, you know, it's yeah, it's Mother's Day, and I want to say, you know, happy Mother's Day to my mum and stuff. But equally, I'm dying inside of the fact that it was also my due week, and you know, I would have I would have been a mum, and it was just like I can't talk about I I don't feel like I could talk about it until a few days later when I put a post out and the amount of people that were like, oh my god, you didn't realize you know, you must have been going through so many emotions and so many feelings, and it's like but I feel like an imposter, like I can't I can't talk about that, and you know that's terrible.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

It's terrible that we feel like that. And I think you know, what actually I mean, I remember in the early days it's having a conversation, and you coming out with your story would have helped so many people who felt like this. And I remember you saying something around feeling like an imposter because you never actually got to have that child. So should you grieve like you've lost something? And we had a really deep conversation about it, and it was like, Yes, you have, you've absolutely lost that child because you've lost that hope, those dreams, those visions you had, you've lost everything. It is grief, and I remember you feeling like you had to justify it, which was terrible. But you sharing your story, am I upsetting you? Were we going too far?

SPEAKER_02 39:05

No, no, no, no. I mean, I yes, okay, this is a very emotive topic.

SPEAKER_01 39:09

So my eyes may water, but I'm I'm but what you did was so powerful because there will be so many other people out there that felt like that, and you gave permission, you gave permission to to grieve.

SPEAKER_02 39:23

I've had so you know, I've I've delivered my keynote speech at a couple of events, and I've had women come straight up to me and say, you know, thank you for talking so openly about mine, because it's given them the confidence to talk about theirs. They've never spoken about it, they've never even mentioned it in a public setting, but they were coming up and they were telling me these stories. Um, and again, I have feelings of imposter syndrome, and I had to remind myself of the fact that you know, when I'm hearing their stories, this is not them judging me because I, you know, I've had people come up to me and say the fact that they've had 13 miscarriages and never spoken about it publicly. And I'm like, they're coming up to tell me, and then I'm like, well, I've only had one, and it nearly destroyed me like it. Clearly on the imposter. So I slap you for that comment.

unknown 40:06

Yeah, I know, right?

SPEAKER_02 40:08

But I do, and I'd like I have to like sort of talk to myself, you know, and go, no, no, your feelings are still valid. It doesn't matter whether you've had one or 13 or or any any number of them. Like, grief is grief, like we all feel it. Um, but turning it into a strategic fuel for what you want and what you know you want from business and what you know you want from life is you know, it's almost a thing that I'd say you kind of have to do. You know, and and anybody who's sitting there and thinking, okay, well, I haven't had that light bulb moment, it will come.

SPEAKER_01 40:38

Like, you know, if you've gone through it doesn't necessarily mean a traumatic event has to happen for you to have that light bulb moment, it's just you know, if they do happen, use them as as fuel to and I think the similarities between us, it's all about impact, really. And we're we're very um both of us work to help people. That's that's kind of always been at the the the core of both of our businesses and even what I do now. And I think that's where it really changed me, it really ramped things up because it was I needed to find a way, even if it didn't go down the route of helping people with addiction. There was also so many other issues with my brother that there were ways that I could help, and it ignited that justice piece in me, that neurodivergent, you know, I have to fight for for injustice. And I struggled for a while on what that looked like, and I kind of went down a different a few different routes with my business, but then it just it sparked and I realized that I was actually impacting people. And someone said to me the other day, you know, that we had a conversation. I think actually on the last podcast, we talked about the fact that I had to come off social media because so because it was just the political elements were terrible. That's my injustice coming out, and I had a conversation with my boss, and I said, I just need to do something. And she said, Do you not know what you do every day? When you're in that classroom, you are impacting people every day who are then taking those messages and impacting other people. So I think a lot of it um was, you know, the fact I'm just I'm just gonna say just put a note in the chat saying, No, that was the episode we scrapped. So you won't hear that, but I did say it. Let's just address the elephant in the room. There's my um animal reference. Um so yeah, it did ignite my kind of need to impact people more, help people, support people in any capacity, really. And I think we've both gone down a route where that's at the core of our business, and it just makes us more empathetic to people and to know we don't know what it's like to ever experience somebody else's lived experience, but we can only empath emphasize empathize based on our own lived experiences.

SPEAKER_02 42:48

Um yeah, I mean, I'm literally in conversations with um somebody at the moment, and they are so they um have a similar experience to me, but but um you know, all miscarriage experiences are slightly different, you know, the trauma and the pain is still there, but um, and they've so they were trying to get pregnant um by using an app to track, you know, cycles and and everything else um that goes into it. And they they logged the the miscarriage in this particular app. Um, and the following day the app was like, here are 10 uh best sex positions to try for getting pregnant. And it was like the the app and the computer and the AI of it for the automation kind of had missed the emotional side of it, so they are now um, you know, they're so passionate about that they've driven forward with developing their own app. Um that's not about the fertility side of things, but actually about the miscarriage side of things of people who have experienced miscarriage and who aren't yet ready to try again. And actually, what does that look like? How does that feel? How can how what support is there out there for? um people in that situation. So they've sort of gathered up all of these stories of all these different women of you know and and and the partners as well. They speak to not just the women who've experienced the miscarriages but um the male side of that relationship because it does affect them. I mean I I remember when we went through it and a few months later we gone to an event and um there were people coming up to Rob and they were saying like oh I you know I'm really sorry to have have learned if your news a few months ago you know is is there anything I can do you know I feel like I want to talk to Flick but I don't know if if it's the right moment to talk to her. And Rob was very good and he was like no go and talk to her. If she's not in the right mindset if she's not in the right frame of you know hearing that kind of um compassion she'll let you know of going today's not a good day to talk about it can you come talk to me tomorrow or a little bit later or you know whatever and they were like oh but it's it's such a taboo subject like you don't talk about it you know it's I mean your your situation is also a to do taboo subject. Yeah um you know people don't talk about it and it's it's like really should because it's not that uncommon.

SPEAKER_01 45:11

Yeah and because it's me I've got to bring a quality into this somewhere so you know there's also the other side with Rob. He would have gone through different emotions and it would have been very much he can't feel his emotions because he's got to support you in yours and other people like you just said can I talk to Flick and it's like who's talking to Rob because he went through it too differently.

SPEAKER_02 45:30

Who's asking me if Rob's okay like you do know what I mean or asking Rob if it's okay. Yeah um although that was quite funny on the on the day that it happened um and I I often use this as an example of like how Rob and I are our brains function different differently um so obviously after we we'd had a lot of you know tears and we told the people who knew um the posts had gone out on social media and we just put our phones on like do not disturb because I was like I'm not ready for the messages. I wanted the post to go out there and when I'm ready I'll respond to all the messages and the um the the compassion um and then what Rob did was he got up and he you know he sorted out my my seat on the sofa he got me a blanket he got me like a cuddly toy he got me some snacks he got me the the ADHD trifecta of drinks so I had one to caffeinate one to hydrate and one for flavor um he got me some of my favourite snacks he'd gone out to the um you got a Tesco at the bottom of our road and you know gone out and come get like my favorite snacks and he put the Lord of the rings on because you know it's like and he just set me up with like a little nest yeah whereas while he gone out to the shops to go and buy my snacks I wrote him a list of things that needed doing around the house like mowing the lawn or cleaning the bathroom and stuff like that. A lot of people like that's really cruel like he went to go and get you all this comfort stuff and you wrote him a list of chores and I was like but no but that's how he functions that's how he processes his emotions by keeping his hands busy and and just keeping his body busy. He can't sit and just overthink things and and just process that way. Again that's why he went to work on the Tuesday because he was just like well you know and it possibly a bit bit callous but he did say to his boss and who turned up on the Tuesday and they were like what are you doing here? And he's like it's gone it's it's sitting at home and and thinking about it it's not going to bring it back.

SPEAKER_01 47:16

Yeah which but but that's how if that's how he needed to deal with it that's how he needed to deal with it. Yeah I I'm not really sure whether we've made this too relevant for business if I'm honest but there's um there's been a reason we've had a we've had a wild ride to get to this point in the conversation we have we have and I do fountains and everything leads us to where we're meant to be in one way or another it always you know it's something led us to be in here having this discussion today doing this podcast and I just think the overall message that we're saying is you know you shouldn't in fact that there's one message that I think is really important is if you're in business and you're going through things in your personal life don't feel like it can't come into your business because there's a human being behind that business. You are allowed to go through personal experiences, tragedies. It doesn't matter how traumatic or untraumatic traumatic it is it doesn't matter what the experience it is bring it into your business because it is all forming how your business runs and who you are as a business owner. Don't feel like you have to hide from it. I would never ever even in an employment stage now I would never work for anybody that I felt I couldn't bring my personal life into because you know work is a big part of life and businesses succeed. Richard Branson is a really good example you know he lost his wife recently and of course that was in the media because he is seen as a celebrity but he didn't shy away from it. He responded to messages he talked about his experience he talked about how he was feeling and you know if we took this kind of oh stiff upper lip we've got to hide things we can't we can't let that come into our business then actually we don't really it's that authentic piece again because we don't allow people to see the real the real people be and the real reason we make decisions because we make decisions based on our personal lives very often yeah so don't be that's my wild words of wisdom Wednesday wild words of wisdom don't hide from your experiences bring them into your business because there are benefits to that huge benefits.

SPEAKER_02 49:19

Yeah I mean the the first ever job I had and it was it was very much the line was leave your personal life at the door when you come to work and it just doesn't fit now. It just doesn't fit in today's society so you know use it if you can like if you but you know there will be a moment I I almost guaranteed there will be that moment where you kind of go okay this has happened this is how I use it this is how it changes me this is how I move forward um and yeah just just be honest with yourself about it if it is impacting your business let people know if you are in a place that you can let people know.

SPEAKER_01 50:00

And that's important because the balance around it is also don't feel like you have to yeah if you don't want to that's okay too. Yeah yeah definitely not me as a social media marketer saying you've got to post every you know all your dirty laundry on social media absolutely not you deal with it how you want to deal with it and what what in whatever way keeps you feeling physically and psychologically safe. Yeah but know that you can and it will not damage your business it can only you will start to you will change as a person you will make decisions that will impact your business because of your experiences so don't hide away from it be you all the way yes I'm not sure if that was a cheery session or a depressing session really I'm not sure I'm not sure how that was gonna land but it's it's it's another roller coaster I mean there were there were things that happened that we didn't definitely didn't plan in that episode yeah absolutely we did not we did not plan for the coffee disaster but it kept things light so it's all good.

SPEAKER_02 51:01

Are you all right I'm all right I just vaguely smell of coffee because my jeans are absolutely soaked in coffee but it's fine right folks I think we'll end it there and then we will see you next time.

SPEAKER_01 51:15

See you next time I'm gonna find out whether my mouse works to stop the recording thanks for spending this time with us on Wildly Intentional. If this podcast sparks something for you take it with you and act on it. Don't forget to subscribe share and come and say hello online.

SPEAKER_02 51:35

And remember bold talk leads to big breakthroughs with no apologies.