✨ True Wealth with Betty ✨

Childhood trauma, healing from workaholism, & building a lifestyle business as a home-schooling mum of 4 with Dr Jo Watkins

• Betty Cottam Bertels • Season 3 • Episode 11

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Dr. Jo Watkins shares her transformative journey from traditional NHS doctor to digital entrepreneur who takes three months off annually to travel with her family while running a thriving online business. 

Jo also talks about working with Betty to uncover the root cause of her people pleasing, lack of self care, and her tendency towards workaholism, which, once she understood and had healed, enabled her to be more present with her family, take time out for herself, and achieve a greater work- life balance.

 Topics covered include:

• Traditional upbringing by medical parents led Jo into medicine despite initial desire to become a sports physio
• Creating a granola business taught valuable entrepreneurial lessons before transitioning to digital work
• Taking a year off to travel the world with four children under 10 changed their perspective on education and lifestyle
• Discovered the benefits of homeschooling when her quiet son thrived outside traditional education
• Menopause and possible ADHD diagnosis helped Jo understand patterns of overworking and fierce independence
• Childhood trauma from surviving an air disaster at age 11 shaped her independence and drive
• Now mentors other healthcare professionals looking to create more flexible careers alongside clinical work
• Cautions against jumping from medicine to entrepreneurship without addressing burnout first

Find Jo at JoWatkins.com with her free download "From Stethoscope to Startup" for healthcare professionals considering entrepreneurship.


From Betty: Being in business means being visible. Being ethical in business means not using dodgy tactics, of course, but also being authentic in how we present ourselves ~~

The trouble is… Many of us carry wounds around being seen, accepted, and celebrated as the individual we are.

Left untended, these wounds divide our will, i.e. we end up with conflicted desires:

Part of us wants to be visible to grow our businesses, but another part of us is absolutely dead set on staying well and truly within the shadows… Becuase that's where it's SAFE.

…whether that means literally hiding under the duvet (I've been there 🥸),

...mega procrastination & self sabotage

…or pretending to be someone we are not, so as not to stand out (I've also been there 🤫).

The push & pull can be utterly EXHAUSTING.

But the good news is, it's relatively quick & easy to fix, once you access the level of the subconscious mind, using a modality such as hypnosis.

Come to my free 90 min workshop on 4th June 2025 and I'll teach you how you can set yourself free from past hurts, and leap confidently in the direction of your dreams.


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Speaker 1:

hello, joe, welcome to the podcast. This is exciting. This is very exciting and, if you are, what I love about every conversation I have with joe on zoom, we're recording this on zoom. So even if you're just listening, I'm looking at her and she's sitting on a tropical island.

Speaker 2:

I love these zoom backgrounds I, I know it's amazing and I'm actually on Swansea Bay and it doesn't look like this every day, but it does today. So this has been my Zoom background now for a year and it was an accidental kind of joke from the children. It's like moving palm trees in actual sea and I've just kept it and it's my thing now it's become like your brand.

Speaker 1:

I love it, yeah, and it does fit quite nicely, actually, doesn't it? Because what I love about you, I mean the podcast being called True Wealth. The idea behind it is hopefully people who are listening have heard it you know they might know this already, but just about how to experience the wealth of the world, I suppose, and not limited to financial wealth, although that does help. But I love that about you because you're really living. That, jo, I mean particularly. I mean I don't think you've been off skiing this year, have you? But tell us about your lovely lifestyle and what it looks like and also a bit of backstory. I mean, just jump right in, please, jo, and tell us the story. You are the digital doctor.

Speaker 2:

Well, yeah, I mean thank you First of all. Thank you so much for having me. It's a real honour to be here and I absolutely love everything I do with you. So, yeah, I feel like this background does actually kind of honour a lot of what goes on in our lives at the moment.

Speaker 2:

We are very fortunate to have three months.

Speaker 2:

We take three months off every year and we are either in Canada we tend to do that once every other year and then the other year we tend to do slightly more different adventures.

Speaker 2:

So we've just been to Thailand for for the best part of the month, um, but we're very, very fortunate and that's come about um through a series of events, essentially and at this point you know my husband is not here, because my husband is is working but he has managed to create a um, a rota, which I will come back to, but through the nhs, where he basically works for nine months of the year and takes three months off and then I do all of my work in nine months and then I carry on working while I'm away, but to a lesser degree. So we've kind of made it work between us. But if it wasn't for his contract, we wouldn't be able to do this. So we still very much rely on our nhs income when we're in the UK, but I am able to work around that as well, rather than us both having employed jobs. So we've made it work, and we've made it work because I'm kind of working backwards. But basically, six 2017-18, we had a period of a year where we went traveling with the kids. We had four kids under the age of 10.

Speaker 1:

of a year where we went traveling with the kids. We had four kids under the age of 10. Just just pause a second, let's. Just did you hear what she said? Did everybody get that? Four kids under the age of 10? Okay, carry on. Yeah, I mean, it seems like the most ridiculous thing to do.

Speaker 2:

And wait a minute.

Speaker 1:

There's something else about the four kids. Isn't there, jo? Were they in school?

Speaker 2:

Oh, no, no, no, we took them out of school, so I'm kind of telling you a backwards story. But let's tell you what. Let's start at the beginning. We'll get to that point.

Speaker 1:

But everything changed.

Speaker 2:

Cliffhanger yeah, we'll come back to the. We'll come back to the trip. I had a very traditional upbringing. I was brought up by a medic and a nurse. I didn't know anything else other than medicine in my life. Really at that time. Um, I was very average at school and I was a classic um just jumping through the hoops, like give me something to do, I'll do it. Really well, um, that's just me. Tell me I can't do something, I'll do it. Even better.

Speaker 2:

An interaction with my chemistry teacher when I was 15 and my dad said to me well, why don't you try and go to medical school? Because you're quite interested in science. I wanted to be a sports physio. He said, well, you're interested in science and, um, why don't you try and do medicine? I was like, oh okay, told my chemistry teacher and he thought it was hilarious. He like doubled up, laughed at the idea of me being a doctor and, interestingly, the words that he said and I and I carry these a little bit with me he said you'll never be a scientist interesting and you know what?

Speaker 2:

now I don't. I, you know, I am a creative soul who has been doing science. So you know, arguably maybe, he told me that I couldn't do it. So I was deliberately, um, belligerent and I went off on my path, despite not getting the a-levels, um, and I wanted to prove wrong. So I've always had this kind of like proving that I can do something and this is something that we'll probably touch on later on but proving that I can do it and that I will be okay and that I will be able to manage this thing that you give me.

Speaker 2:

So medical school is a big thing. I went off to medical school, realised quite quickly that I had made some amazing friends, but I wasn't quite sure it was for me. But I jumped through the hoops because I'm a people pleaser and I'm a I'm a traditionally educated person, um, and actually it's a huge honor to be a medic. It's a huge honor to be a doctor. You know people come in and they tell you their deepest, darkest thoughts and fears and you're able to help people. You know it's a, it's an amazing career and I'm so blessed to have been able to travel with it, met the most incredible people, um.

Speaker 2:

So I was very traditional, went through medical school, did my junior training, um, and then I went off to Australia, as so many of us did and the ones that like travel tend to go away quite early and I came back to the UK and I was kind of like bobbing around six months here, six months there, making up my own sort of GP scheme, um, because I didn't want to be planted in one place. But obviously everything changed when I met my husband and he very much wanted to come down to South Wales. I'm from North Wales, I've got some roots down here, so we decided to come and set up camp somewhere that we could live in an outdoor lifestyle by the sea. The kids could grow up in a sort of lovely um you know, semi-rural seaside environment.

Speaker 2:

So it was that was an active decision and that we're actually, um, we made that decision after Dave had a melanoma. So we had a bit of a kind of one of those life moments where you're like, actually, are we living the life that we really want to live up here, yeah, or should we move? So that was our first one and that was actually the first three-month trip we took together. So that was 20 years ago, um, and we took three months and we then we moved down here and I kind of I was a GP by that stage.

Speaker 2:

I was locuming and I and I found a lovely practice with some, with some great people and you know, you know we hadn't started having kids. They offered me a part time, two day a week partnership and I loved them, I loved working there and I knew that was what I was supposed to do. But I was very much thinking to myself I don't know, I don't think I want to be a GP partner. I quite like being a locum, which essentially means you say, let's, I'll work on these days and you manage it. It's about as entrepreneurial as it gets in the race. I thought, well, I'm supposed to want to be a partner, that's what I'm supposed to do interesting I remember, actually, that thought process thing okay, yeah, I'll do that.

Speaker 2:

Um and I had a couple of lovely years. They were great. I went back to work after my second child so we're talking fast forward two or three years of being in the surgery. I went back to work after my second child, so we're talking fast forward two or three years of being in the surgery. I remember driving to work just thinking I this is not what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. I know I'm not going to do this, but I don't know what I am going to do. And at that point we're talking 16 years ago. You know, I didn't know anything about personal growth and knowing my values and what is my why and all of this stuff that I bleat on about now to other people. I didn't really ever do any of that. I just knew I wanted to jump on a different path and that's where the granola came in. So there was this very three year relationship with granola, which was essentially an idea that I grew into cottage industry from the kitchen.

Speaker 1:

Um that's amazing, isn't it like do you want to? Yeah, like how, how, yeah?

Speaker 2:

how question?

Speaker 1:

do you know how? How?

Speaker 2:

as I went to Canada, my cousins made me this amazing granola. We ate it every day. I came home and I started looking for some of the shops and there weren't. There wasn't any. So I started making it and everyone's like this is amazing. And my husband, who has these ideas and then plants these little seeds, he said I bet you could sell that in the market. I was like, oh, I bet I could.

Speaker 2:

And I jumped over the wall to speak to the neighbor who runs the cafes on the beach and he serves a banging bacon sandwich and great dish for and I said to him night I've got this granola I've been making it's really lovely, you have it with yogurt and you have it with fruit. We're talking, like I say, 16 years ago and it's massive in America and it's massive in Canada. Everyone loves granola and it's on the it's on the menu in most of the cafes as a healthy option. And I remember him looking at me going are you serious? And he goes. Nobody in their right mind is going to go out for breakfast and pay for that instead of a bacon sandwich, yeah what he said.

Speaker 2:

And I was like I think they will now. And he said fair play, let's have a go. And he took it on and we had it in the cafe and he was totally brilliant and a couple of local cafes, but it was really before. That was even.

Speaker 1:

You know, there was no now you know funny, isn't it the time before granola?

Speaker 2:

I feel like I was a bit early to market, basically, um, but it was great. I absolutely and it. What it was was the beginning of a business learning curve. I didn't like, I didn't know what a brand was.

Speaker 1:

Is this pre-kids Jo?

Speaker 2:

Two kids.

Speaker 1:

So you're in it. You're already in.

Speaker 2:

So I'm in the kiddom, but basically what I grew was a ridiculous, a ridiculous cottage industry that I didn't outsource anything to. I was making about 30 kilos of granola a day from the kitchen. Nobody was allowed to use the oven, nobody was allowed in after six o'clock. It was a complete disaster. Basically, my family were very long suffering. My sister, my mom, like everyone was involved. My poor husband had to and the kids had to eat baked beans and pasta. So nothing went wrong.

Speaker 1:

it was called bendy legs granola. Bendy legs granola that's the best bit yeah, so presumably after, like the yoga poses and things.

Speaker 2:

No, it was my, my nephew, uh, charlie, who was three at the time and he used whenever we took, went for a long walk, or we were down the beach, coming up the hill. He'd say, oh, I can't go anymore, I've got bendy legs. So the idea was that you, you know, you have a good breakfast and you get outside and you enjoy the great outdoors, so it was a kind of lifestyle brand okay um, but it basically was um a monster.

Speaker 2:

And I got to the point where I had, you know, lots of orders coming in and I had a phone call from Amazon wanting as much of it as possible and at that point they said they'd buy it for a pound a packet and it was costing me £2.50 to make just for ingredients. And I had that conversation which was like well, you know, I'm sure you can reduce those margins a little bit by playing around with your ingredients and then we'll have as much of it as possible.

Speaker 2:

And I was like I this means I have to get a unit in Swansea, I have to employ people. Yeah, I have to think about distribution. And I was like what have I done? What have I created? I've created this thing, um, and this isn't aligned with what really I kind of want, but I didn't really know what that was do you know what I mean, but this was the point at which you did start thinking about what you want.

Speaker 2:

No, at this point we just literally mothballed the business. I didn't sell it yeah. I went back to work. Well, I was still working anyway, but I just I was doing my two days a week GP stuff and that's actually that's probably a time where I just paused everything. I was like business isn't for me it didn't work out. You know, I actually knew I'd learned a huge amount, but I I thought I'd. You know you feel like a bit of a failure when you've put all of this time into something and it hasn't worked.

Speaker 2:

And I talk a lot about this with my clients now, like what is success, what is working? You know, I built an amazing brand. I absolutely loved it and I learned so much of the you know and you learn from failure so much more than success. Anyway, but I just it was an amazing time, but it was really, really crazy. So I then went on to have two more kids and just work two days a week as a GP, but I was always thinking what's the next thing? What's the next thing? What's the next thing?

Speaker 1:

and were you also home schooling? No, no, no, okay, abnormal okay the schooling thing changed um around.

Speaker 2:

The same time as the next chapter, which was essentially, I was listening to a podcast of a guy called Daniel Prince um he's written a book called Choose Life.

Speaker 2:

Um, and if you're at all interested in travel with your children, homeschooling, I thoroughly recommend you get it. Um, he was being interviewed on a podcast because he traveled around the world with four kids and he'd house swaps. Now we already house swapped, we'd already that was a part of our life. But he had arranged a series of house swaps on around the world trip and I remember this vividly because I was ironing, which is something I never, ever do.

Speaker 1:

I was ironing a pillow case because, I don't know if I've ever done that, jo, I know I've never.

Speaker 2:

I remember where I was and what I was ironing because it was such an unusual scenario. But we were house swapping, so we were about to go away for a week and leave our house spotless. And I listened to this and my husband had already said well, you know, how much more skiing have we got in us because we're past years? And he said should we try and do a ski season with the kids? So we'd had this sort of like little bit of an idea floating. I came downstairs I was like, look, I've just heard an interview with this guy that traveled around the world for a year with four kids. Why don't we do that? I mean he's like, yeah, let's do it.

Speaker 1:

So that started the kind of next chapter so he just took a sabbatical or something, did he for that? Yeah, so we both yeah.

Speaker 2:

So he applied for, yeah, unpaid leave for it. For a year we reordered the house and an enormous trip that essentially was friends found. You know, friends, friends of friends, random people from a long time ago, people we met along the way and then house swaps, um, and went to Canada for a chunk of five months. My cousins are there, we wanted to spend time there. So it was just amazing and that was the point that I started listening to the podcast, reading the books, yeah, to work out what my values were like.

Speaker 2:

I remember just having hot, you know, sheets of paper and post-it notes. What do people come to me for? What can I do what you know? How can I exist and be paid for what's in my head, my experience or my?

Speaker 1:

amazing god, and to think you're doing all of this with four children under 10.

Speaker 2:

Well, I think the schooling bit was the eye opening bit actually, because at that point our third child, tom, had been in nursery for a year and I just we just put our kids in school because that's what everybody does. Yeah, yeah, sure, we really thought anything of it and we live in an area where alternative schoolings aren't really around. But our three year old had gone into nursery every day for a year and I don't think I'd seen him smile. He was very quiet child. I don't think I'd really heard him talk or smile.

Speaker 2:

Um, and then the moment we decided to take this trip so it was, you know, obviously it was a good eight months of planning, but that spring, I, we both approached education in a very different way and we felt that we needed to start learning about how to homeschool and how to educate differently. So the research began on that and I suddenly realized this concept of experiential learning, um, and all of these other ways of educating. It was like this door opened and with that door came the most inspired little boy, and you know, I used to pick him out of school and we'd go, we'd go looking for like tadpoles and watch their, you know, watch their journey into froglets, and then we went looking for snake skins.

Speaker 1:

Oh, you're giving me goosebumps so beautiful. And he just.

Speaker 2:

He just came out of his shell overnight and all of the kids just came alive. When we traveled, you know we, we learned about what we, what we were doing as we were going along and it wasn't just the kids, was it?

Speaker 2:

no, exactly but there was no structure. It wasn't like you know everyone. Oh, covid was awful, you know, I know that you're you're passionate about education as well, but covid was was trying to do school in a classroom while doing 50 other things while at home ridiculous, I'm talking about. You know, let's go out and we, you know we come across some you know a limestone, a limestone rock formation, and we talk about it and we look at, we look at we look for you know, we find out about it.

Speaker 2:

Then we come home and we look it up and and that I think the whole family fell in love with that that is so heartwarming and just so beautiful and what you know.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, what an experience to to have offered that to your children. You know that they'll. They'll always have that, and I'm.

Speaker 2:

That's not the end, of course, because the story goes on yeah, I mean, I feel that that was the beginning, because we, um, you know, we did that, we did the year and towards the end of the year, we were thinking right, we've got to come back and they've got to go back into school, and I, and it was felt like that, it's like again. It was like I should, they should go back to school.

Speaker 2:

So the same thing yes, they should go to school. And and we were on an island, on a house swap on bowen island in um in british columbia. I remember exactly where we were my eight-year-old, who also thrived with homeschooling they all thrived, but the boys particularly he- was tickling like a stick and making a shop or something, and great I was kind of in tears because we had to appeal because they hadn't got into school. So we had to appeal to get them into school back in britain.

Speaker 2:

You mean yeah, back in britain, yeah and I said this just doesn't feel right like I don't want them to go to school, but I've got to work, dave's got to go back to work and they need to go to school, because that's what you do.

Speaker 2:

And my eight-year-old jinx was looking at me and he was like mom, you know he goes, he goes. You know how? Like, like we really like homeschooling, like you really like homeschooling, he goes. Why don't we just go home and just carry on homeschooling, even if it's just for a term, and see how it goes, and then, if it doesn't go, well, we could just go to school?

Speaker 1:

and I was like, yeah, that is genius oh yeah, sometimes it takes the kids, doesn't it to like state the obvious I love it like I don't understand why you're crying and making such a fuss about this.

Speaker 2:

You know, and I think I thought we were going to be kind of social pariahs. Do you know what I mean? Like, like everybody think we were a bit weird and, to be honest, that didn't happen. And people they judge you at the supermarket, check out, why aren't you in school? And then the kids are like because we're homeschooled and they go oh.

Speaker 1:

So it took us a while, but Tom didn't go back to school until he was 10.

Speaker 2:

And then, when he was 10, for year six, he decided he'd like to go and see what it was like, and now he's thriving at secondary school. But the kids are curious. They love learning about what's around them. They he that. You know that. The kids are curious, they love learning about what's around them. You know they. They haven't lost that, which is great, and you know they. We've just been able to be in Thailand for a month and they've got their paddies and they've been, you know, diving and when you say their paddies, do you mean paddy fields?

Speaker 1:

no scuba diving. Oh, paddy qualifications, yeah, so we're talking about rice fields.

Speaker 2:

Rice fields, that'll be next time, but they, you know, so we are. I think, oh great, god, how amazing. Just people that. You know. I love learning, I love learning, and my husband loves learning, and the kids, yeah, but they're all individuals and they just it's.

Speaker 1:

It's funny, isn't it? This idea of school, because what is school? I mean, I don't really want to take the conversation this way, because we could totally do that, but there's other things I want to get on to. But, yeah, this whole idea of this should, yes, and why? Should you know? It's so interesting, isn't it? When you start to unpick that conditioning. Yeah, and I really think Covid accelerated that, actually, because so many people came out of school at that time.

Speaker 1:

You know, there was a lot of home education that happened and now the whole unschooling movement. I mean, I don't know much about it, but like they keep learning, they're curious and like just to follow the child's passion and inspiration and to see when. You know, rob and I are the same as you in that sense of like loving adventure and also being just loving the world and things that we find in the world and being so excited and inspired by it that it's a natural progression then to just follow that interest. And obviously it's a privilege to be able to do that and not everyone is going to be able to travel the world and um, and teach their children in that way. But yeah, I'm always fascinated to hear about these alternative ways of educating our children, yeah, um. So where did we get to then?

Speaker 2:

so so you came back from this trip yeah, we came back from the, we came back from the trip and I think that had ignited in all of us this, like you say, this curiosity and also this concept that you know, school is a. It tends to process people. Yes, and and I'm just I just became really passionate about finding what the children all loved and helping them do that.

Speaker 1:

Oh, Jo, that's amazing.

Speaker 2:

But I would say also that the kids I don't want to talk about education too much, but what they learn at school is sitting next to you know, annoying people learning stuff that they don't like doing. Like, I think when you're home educated, you don't have to learn anything you don't want to. No, that's not. You know.

Speaker 2:

Know in life, sometimes even when you're running your own amazing business yeah you have to do the accounts, you have to do boring stuff, so we have to learn that stuff. So it's a balance, right. But but what was this whole, this whole personal growth thing?

Speaker 2:

I then came up with several different sort of business ideas and and wanted to join forces with a great friend of mine and we created a business called the how people, which was about supporting teenage girls with the transition from primary to secondary school. Beautiful that in person. It's like a sort of cool version of guides. We've been building fires and going, surfing and doing you know goosebumps again.

Speaker 1:

Joe, it was very cold in here.

Speaker 2:

I'm like yeah honestly, that's what you want. I wanted my 11 year old girl to have when she was 11 and then Covid happened and COVID really just has been. You know, obviously it's been awful. My husband was working in ICU, so I very much had the kind of medical side of things, especially with my friends. But from a business point of view, it enabled us, it pushed us into the online space. We created a website for teenage girls and we learned about online business. Again, this is like you know, I think, to anyone that's out there starting a business or wanting to go out there and carve your own path. It is a journey and it's cheesy, but it's a process yeah, you've got to learn this stuff as you go along

Speaker 2:

did an online membership supporting teenage girls through covid, every night seven, uh, thursday seven o'clock for three years we ran this and then we started doing stuff into schools, but but, you know, polly and I running the business together yeah, both of us with slightly different um things that we wanted from it. You know, polly wants to be around, make sure her her. Why is that? She doesn't want her kids to ever need a front door key, which I love, which is what she, you know she had with her mum.

Speaker 2:

Her mum was around every day before and after and then you know I wanted to have an online business. I need to be able to work wherever we are in the world, so I've just been working while we're in Thailand. You know I need to be able to operate from my computer and the how people. There was a lot of pressure on us to go into schools and deliver workshops and, as a business model, it was becoming trickier to remain online outside of COVID. So then people started coming to me asking me to help them. Other medics and other healthcare professionals asking me you know, how do you embark on this business thing? How?

Speaker 1:

do you yeah?

Speaker 2:

how do you live more flexibly?

Speaker 1:

how do you?

Speaker 2:

and that's what I've been doing for the last two years. I've been mentoring and coaching and helping, helping helping medics basically bring an idea to life and bring a side or a personal brand alongside what they're doing in their work or sometimes to grow something outside that will enable them to take their own path as well, so it's been. I've worked with some incredible people over the last couple of years. I feel very privileged yeah, beautiful that is.

Speaker 1:

It's what's it like to come out of something or spend years, decades working inside the NHS, for example, and then to be considering leaving it to do your own thing. I mean, I'm that must be quite a um shock. I was gonna, I was gonna swear there, but a shock is probably what I would say.

Speaker 2:

I think what, the NHS, what, what, the, what medicine, the path of medicine gives you is basically that continuation of the education system after school. So most of us decided we want to be doctors at 14, 15 and then this path and everything is set out for you and laid out, um, and, and you just basically just go through the you just do the next thing so it's all very planned and most people I'm seeing now and maybe I was one of these that that deep underneath is a creative.

Speaker 2:

You know somebody creative, somebody that loved English or art or dance or something that they've has been quite suppressed within this organization and and sometimes it's just that it's that need for a creative outlet and and I think jumping out of the NHS and into entrepreneurship is not advisable without without some input, and we'll come back to that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but when people have navigated that and they have done the work that needs to be done to navigate that yes they are then able to have choice, and I think we talked a little bit about money and I think we have to come down to the fact that we need to have stability in our lives, particularly if you've got children and I have been able to do the stuff that I do because my husband is in a solid job situation. I don't recommend people jump out of the NHS and entrepreneurship unless they have that, so unless one is able to offer that stability, because it's so uncertain there are no hoops there are no rules.

Speaker 2:

You take your own. You take, you make your own decisions and you can duck and weave and dive and all over the place to make it what you want. And that is just. The mindset shift is massive and that's what people struggle with the most. So I kind of helped them through that a little bit. But the reason we came together is because what I'm seeing is that there's so much unlearning and unconditioning that needs to happen.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

During this stage that I feel very wary when people, particularly if people come to me saying you know, I'm completely burnt out. I'm, you know, I can't carry on doing medicine anymore. I need a change. I'm going to start my own business, like that's red flag. Yeah, totally yeah. There's a lot of work that needs to be done. You know, burnout is not a reason to do something else, it's a reason to stop and to reflect on why that's happening.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and this is where our worlds collided, because so much of you know, we carry so much from our childhoods and and I think, medics generally, because of this hoop jumping and early decisions, and because there hasn't been any flex in what they've done. I think there's a huge amount of that that is required and I know that that you'd like you know we can talk about that a bit more, yes, please.

Speaker 1:

Well, um, it's so interesting, isn't it? Because, being an entrepreneur, it it requires us to be self-guided, like to, to access our own um, to trust ourselves, to, to ask ourselves what is important and what do I want and how am I gonna make that? And then you know. Once you know what you want, then how am I gonna make that happen? Come up with your own plan and do the steps required to get what you want.

Speaker 1:

Now, I think that when you have spent, you know and this is so opposite. It's so funny, really, that this is so opposite to my story, because my own personal story, as people might know already, was was quite the opposite. It was just go and do your own thing and have fun. So I personally haven't, which which maybe makes which is maybe why the work that I offer resonates so well for people who have spent their time jumping through all the hoops. Yeah, it's like the antidote is the opposite is how to, how to be self-guided and access your own power really, your own um, um, what's the word I'm looking for? Just ability to direct your own life from within. It's like inside out living rather than outside in living yeah, but we've lived our whole lives outside in as yes forgotten.

Speaker 2:

People have forgotten how to track their intuition and also well, that's alarming. Actually, they don't know if they know, they don't know what they want.

Speaker 1:

Yes, well, that well, I just want to question that a minute because, as medics, surely you need to be trusting your intuition?

Speaker 2:

yeah, I think, medically, we trust our intuition. I think we trust our intuition about other people. I mean absolutely, that's like the biggest thing in the job. It's interesting about what we need. Yes, we've spent so much, you know, you spend so much time in service for others and there's, there is this expectation. You know people stay late, they take on extra shift, they go over and above the whole time.

Speaker 2:

It's like a duty there is this there is this sense of service that I think that when you, it's almost like and I remember we had this conversation because I remember your face when I said to you, you know, I actually just love, I love running my business and you said to me, well, what do you do for your own self-care? And I was like, oh well, and I said, you know what? I don't really need to do anything because actually my business is my self-care. And you were like, oh god, I've got the right one. You know, I just found it so refreshing to be able to do something for me, and you know it's not all bad.

Speaker 1:

There was that that that isn't a bad. I mean, there was something that needed dealing with in there. But but isn't that amazing that you really love your business that much that it does feel like self-care? I mean, yes, yes, and we did uh um, have to uh dig into what would actually like be really restorative, you know, and actually relaxing, and you know all all of that.

Speaker 2:

But but yeah, how amazing.

Speaker 1:

Progress, I would say, okay, okay, look, you're on a beach. This is self-care. So, yeah, okay, we seem to have got to the point at which you and I began working together. I think it would be interesting for people listening to get a sense of. I mean, and you've touched on it, but what? At what point did you feel like you needed some support and what was it that you wanted or realized that you needed?

Speaker 2:

maybe, um, at that point, I always I love having mentors and guides in my world and I'm, and I and I'm always say to people that what you need at one point in your life is not going to be the same as what you need two years down the line, three years down the line. So, you know, a mentor or a coach is kind of in your world for a reason or a season. You know we were I was talking to this with some friends earlier that reason, season or lifetime concept of somebody being in your world. And I think when we met I that obviously this driver to be more flexible in where we're working and what we're doing has come with a lot of hard work. You, you know I would.

Speaker 2:

I would say that I've never worked harder than I have done, probably in the last, you know, seven years since we came home, and I think I've had this sort of idea of what I want life to look like for us. But the reality of the fact that we don't have the income coming in to be able to do that and that we are reliant on our day jobs and where we are. And I remember saying to you you know you were talking about how I know I'll come back to what you said at the time, but it was almost like I wasn't satisfied or happy yes with what I have now yes and I think that that was becoming evident to me and my husband and something we talked about.

Speaker 2:

But he's all you know. He's very much more comfortable in his own skin. He loves being here, he loves being in.

Speaker 2:

Canada, yeah, wherever you know he's much more present than I am, and, and I think I'd recognized it, but I didn't really know what to do about it, and we met us and you explained to me in a sentence what you do and I loved you and I knew that I trusted you because you were in. You know, this kind of hub marketing that yeah, totally you know, you were in a group of people that I trusted, and you've been recommended by somebody I trusted just by being there, so I was like let's do it.

Speaker 2:

I'd really like to explore this and I and I knew there'd probably be some underlying stuff. Um, for me, I, you know, I think there's been a few bits of underlying stuff that have come up. Um, I think, menopausally I know it's a bit on trend at the moment, but I think menopausal shift, I've realized, you know, I probably have got ADHD some of my wet themselves now if you heard them, they were like of course you've got ADHD, you idiot. But you know, it's become apparent to me, whereas I was a box sticking people pleasing non-ADHD girl. So anyway, there's a few things come up that I've needed to to deal with and I just wanted to explore it. So the idea of having some hypnotherapy and the idea of digging into this, like why, you know, why am I always striving?

Speaker 2:

you know, why do I? Why do I kind of shut down and like have, I'm fiercely independent and I don't let people in because I, like I can just do this and I? And then people don't understand what you're doing and then you distance people.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, you know what's that. Pull up the drawbridge a little bit yeah, so what's that about?

Speaker 2:

and you know what is this sort of unsettled thing about? You know? And I just wanted to explore it, so I was just curious, essentially um, and you, you know, came along at the right time. So that's what. That's how it all began, really yeah and uh, okay, brilliant.

Speaker 1:

So there was a. There was this kind of inability to be content because, really and I remember you saying this to me at the time on paper and and people say this to me a lot, this is actually a really common one is like, on paper, my life is perfect, I have got so much, everything going for me and yet I'm not happy, like, and yet I can't relax, I can't kind of enjoy my life, and this like inability to rest really that's what you're talking about, about the self-care, um, or lack of the self-care. You know, I and this, and that is why, uh, medics, like I guess you know that does make sense when you've been just working your butt off for everyone else, working the longest hours, and that just hasn't like looking after yourself hasn't really been on the agenda. So, yeah, so that was all going on. And then there was also the work life boundaries and just working so hard because you were so determined, and this fierce independence you were so determined and this fierce independence, yeah, so I was wanting to make something work.

Speaker 2:

I think, you know, I think probably deep down there was some fear. You know those that, like you know well, what's she doing now? You know like, oh, she's done the granola, it didn't work out, she's gone back to work and then they go traveling. Now what's she doing? You know that sort of what, what? And my, you know, feeling like I have to make something, like this sort of panic, like fight or flight. I have to make this work. I have to make this work and within with the how, people, I was working late at night.

Speaker 1:

I was working.

Speaker 2:

In the morning I was falling asleep on the sofa. As soon as I sat down I wasn't really. You know, I'm not a massive telewatcher, but you know the kids like to curl up and watch tv in the evenings and yeah on my computer and, yeah, I think I boundaries are still something I have to work at and I think it's difficult for my family to see, but it has actually dramatically improved um since then.

Speaker 2:

But I think, people still see me working a lot. But I'm you know, I've got four kids. I'm working at home on the corner of the table in the sitting room. I try and compartmentalize, but I'm you know, I'm only human yeah but I have. I feel like I'm less frenetic in my thought processes around it. You know I'm a farmer. If people want to work with me, amazing.

Speaker 1:

If they don't, then I hope they work with somebody else and do get what they want out of it, that kind of detachment from outcomes, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Just holding everything more lightly yes, has helped massively.

Speaker 1:

And did you want to say something about what you uncovered with the RTT? I mean no pressure, jo, it's all very personal things, that that we that come up in these things.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, no, I'm happy to. I mean, I think it was fascinating what you know, that you talk about your work in other podcasts and you know this concept of taking you back to a time or a scene. You know, I mean, I wasn't sure how that was going to pan out. You know, I've never had anything like this before and you know, the first thing is you're incredibly calming to just be in the presence of, and you made it all very easy. But I think the scene that's made the biggest difference for me and has made me understand myself, because I think that's what part of this is about, isn't it?

Speaker 2:

Definitely Understanding yourself and why you are like you are yeah and then, if that is needed, healing that part of you and being able to move on. So this whole like fierce independence, I can do this on my own. You know slight shutdown if something maybe doesn't go so well. You know, if something happens, my response is like I can deal with this on my own you actually one of the one of the stories.

Speaker 2:

You took me back to an event that happened when I was 11. My parents, my whole family, was involved in a in an air disaster in Manchester, so they call it an air crash, but actually the the plane was on takeoff, there was a fire in the left-hand engine and we had to abort takeoff. Um, there was a fire in the left-hand engine and we had to abort takeoff. Um, so we were I'll cut a long story short in the third the plane, which was a complete accident. My mum wanted to be in the back of the plane because there'd be witch reports about the safest place to travel in a plane. She wanted to be on the back.

Speaker 2:

We actually got the smoking in the back back in the day. We actually got put in row three. So there's a bit a bit of anxiety around the fact that we were in row three and um, mum wanted to change the tickets and dad was like no, you know. Anyway, long story we were in row three and the plane was taxiing. The fire in the left-hand engine. The plane turned at the end of the runway to abort the takeoff and then the fire caught from the left-hand engine took the whole of the back of the runway to abort the takeoff. And then the fire caught from the left hand engine took the whole of the back of the plane was on fire we were right in front.

Speaker 2:

My dad pushed me out, so I was. He was across the aisle from me. There were three of us me on the aisle seat. He was on the other aisle, opposite me. He pushed me out and I was basically the first person pretty much out of the plane. So there was only one shoot, so the shoot. You kind of need a diagram to visualize this, but the shoot on the top right was working. I obviously and I'm paraphrasing I came down the shoot and I walked to the left around the nose of the plane.

Speaker 2:

I just kept walking and I remember vividly walking, walking. The whole sky was full of smoke and the white foam that the fire engines were putting on it. I walked around the front of the plane and I walked and walked and walked and I found a patch of grass and I sat on the grass. Grass and I sat on the grass, so all I could see.

Speaker 2:

looking at the plane was just smoke and and and foam and firemen, so I couldn't see because, if we go back to the plane, everyone else had come down the chute on the top right hand corner and they just walked straight ahead of them and they got on a bus that was there.

Speaker 2:

So the bus was there to provide transport to the hospital, so they'd all got on the bus probably is what, and that talked about a ball. It was like a tennis shaped ball. That was like. It was almost like. This ball sort of appeared in my, in my gut at that point and I guess that ball is around around this fight or flight. Response to yeah that goes on.

Speaker 2:

That I've had since. Anyway, the story finished nicely because what I then heard in the distance was the whistle that my dad used to whistle. Every time he came home from work he had this whistle he used to whistle.

Speaker 2:

So, through the, the, the smoke and the, everything, I just heard this noise and he just came along and he just picked me up and carried me, uh, to the bus where I found everyone else that had managed to get off and and we went off to the hospital and and that was it and nothing more was said about it. To be honest, you know it's amazing, isn't it?

Speaker 1:

I mean these days, I think probably oh yeah, these days put into therapy or something, but um so an incredibly traumatic event for an 11 year old child to go through.

Speaker 1:

For a few moments, thinking that you've just lost your entire family, and in that moment, this kind of grit coming in of well, it's just's just me and I got to do it on my own and then, in hypnosis, being able to put two and two together, make the connection between that moment in the past and also subsequent moments, which then add to that belief. You know, then, once you've got the certain understanding, then you're looking for confirmation of that, so you do end up it snowballs in a way. But then, um, yeah, so interesting that you could look at your kind of current pattern of you know, working so hard, never switching off, um, you know, that incredible drive that you've got, which actually and this is really um, beautiful, is it? It's what makes you you and it's what's given you this ability to create the life. You know, the, the drive that you've got, it's, it's like you've got two sides to it, isn't it?

Speaker 2:

yeah, multifaceted, yeah yeah, I think the the kind of determination and the yes the grit and the and I think you know another. That's great and that's been you know when that in a positive, you know form, it's amazing yes, when you heal every element of shutting down I think happens. You know like give if you? I'm not very good at talking yeah in difficult situations, or if something, something happens, it can you know I can. I'm one of those.

Speaker 2:

I just want to run away like I just want to go like so I do have that sort of guttural fight or flight thing, I think yeah a lot of us do. I'm not, you know I think it's easy to you know some people would say it's easy to kind of pin this stuff on these events, but for me that event was something I've told as a story and you know we were so fortunate as a family to survive that and you know it has been.

Speaker 1:

Gosh, so lucky you were at the front of the plane yeah, exactly, I mean, it was just.

Speaker 2:

I didn't know that bit of the story actually that you were of good luck things and you know we, we were being incredibly fortunate, um, and you know, I think it's something I've never reflected on in anything other than a story way, and I think it's just that understanding of me and my and it's made me understand my sister.

Speaker 2:

You know, my little sister was trapped under a chair and needed like pulling out, and my, my parents you know my parents, my two, my parents who had to then deal with, you know, having two kids that have been through this traumatic event plus, obviously, you know they were. You know that I think we all felt like there were local people that died and how they managed it and how they managed to get us traveling again. And you know it was a real event and I think it was just giving that event a little bit of credence to how that has maybe shaped us all as we've gone through our lives positively and negatively, and it's not something I particularly dwell on ever. And the kids love flying with me, as do my friends well, that's good.

Speaker 1:

I mean, it's good that you fly with yeah, gosh amazing. And Jo, we've, we're at the end of our time together, but, um, it's been such fun, uh, getting to know you and knowing your story and you know, working together is absolutely brilliant. I've really enjoyed that and I'm really grateful for you coming on the podcast and telling us your story. And do you want to just tell anybody who's listening a little bit about what where to find you? You know.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Well, the first thing I would say is that if there is anybody listening here that, particularly if you are, anybody coming from a different walk of life who is wanting to go into entrepreneurship and business and running your own ship running your own ship, driving your own business, sailing your own ship I'm a great one for mixed metaphors. I think exploring this even if you just go to one of Betty's amazing masterclasses that she runs just exploring these ideas and digging a little bit deeper, because I am seeing people who are, who have got stuff that they're really struggling with, going out there and trying to help other people before they've helped themselves, and I don't think that's sustainable so please, if you've been, it's particularly medics that have done their coaching qualifications.

Speaker 2:

We do six months of coaching qualification. We unoff all of this stuff in our coaching conversations and then we go out there and try and coach other people yeah there's a step in the middle and it doesn't need to take forever, like betty will say it.

Speaker 2:

Sometimes it can be one session, one conversation, one unearthing of an experience that will make the difference for you. So I have. I have taken a huge amount of um. You know positives, from understanding myself a little bit better and, like I say, I'm still a work in progress. I still have to work on all of this stuff, um, but I now know what it is and I didn't know what it was before.

Speaker 1:

So thank you, betty, for that.

Speaker 2:

Oh, total pleasure no, if anyone wants to get in touch with me.

Speaker 1:

Yes, that was what I was hoping for, not not how to get in touch with me, but that's great. I just wanted to say that, yeah, thank you.

Speaker 2:

I appreciate that. Joewatkinscom is my is my website.

Speaker 1:

You can find me on LinkedIn or Instagram and you've got a little um starter kit there.

Speaker 2:

Jo, I've got um. There's a freebie there. It's called from stethoscope to startup. It's a free download that goes through the sort of four big things you have to have in place before you start. I then run various courses and programs so I can get you kind of get you started, get you to the point where you know what you want to do and then maybe you want to go off and see somebody else, like Betty, and then come back to me when you're ready to build a business yeah, but you know, just reach out and send me a message.

Speaker 2:

I'm always happy. I'm always on the end of a of a direct message or an email hopefully not always joe no, always in working hours and never never ever in the evening.

Speaker 1:

Okay, brilliant, I feel like that's a beautiful place to finish. Thanks so much, joe, and um come again I would do.

Speaker 2:

I love working with you.

Speaker 1:

Thanks, betty all right, bye, bye thank you.