I've got a few quiet moments whilst my students are out doing an exercise.

I'm teaching a course all this week. It's absolutely terrific fun and on this Little Escape episode of the Great Escape Podcast I just thought I'd talk about what it's been like to sit with a group of people who've never done anything like what we're talking about this week.

A lot of them have no idea, other than that they wanted to join this course, about the real nitty-gritty about what we do every day when we're being a celebrant But one of the joys for me, spending a week with a group of people from all walks of life from all over the country, is the things I pick up from them the little bits of conversation where I suddenly realise that I thought I understood a concept or I thought I understood how something works, or a group of people live their lives, and actually discover that the reality is somewhat different.

So the privilege as as a teacher, as somebody who is helping other people explore their...

Kimberley has created a freebie for you dear listener. Just click here: reprogram-your-subconscious-mind

Her website and contact details are linked at the bottom of this transcript.

- On this episode of the "Great Escape Podcast," I'm talking to Kimberly Spencer who describes her life as a transition from a victim mindset to very much a victor mindset and now runs her own business. So Kimberly, welcome to the show.

- Thank you so much, Stuart, for having me.

- You're really welcome. So tell us what was your life like before you decided to make this transition.

- Well, I grew up in an addict household. I grew up with my dad was addict, my mom was a quintessential codependent. And I didn't really grow up learning positive resources to deal with emotions or thought process. My mom never wanted to deal with emotions, and my dad would medicate them in some way, whether with pills, or with alcohol, or pot, or whatever. And so I learned that if you're feeling feelings, shove it down,...

I'm helping a friend fill in an application for an award ceremony in the industry that she's in. And the first question is, what is the ethos of your organization? Well, it's kinda difficult to answer that question if it's just you as a self employed person, because you're immediately thinking, "But I'm not an organization." But nevertheless, you still have an ethos, the way you do business. Google used to have a kind of mission statement, a thing that said, don't be evil. Interestingly, they dropped that which I found a fascinating insight into the way the company was moving. But having an ethos, having a way you do things, having a kind of a DNA to the way your business exists, is actually really important. And often that way things are done stems from the culture of the person or the people who set up that business. And if you're just a one man band, or a one lady band, then obviously it's pretty easy. It's you, it's the way you do things. If you like to do things in a quality...

One man's journey from the mental "hellness" and a suicide attempt to a TED talk and the experience of our birthright, mental wellness.

David and I recorded this episode on August the 30th, one day before what he calls his "New Year's Day" and, by complete coincidence I'm preparing it for release one day before my birthday. As I watch the sun set over the Pyrenees preparing to help with a beautiful wedding tomorrow (yes, I'm working at the weekend and on my birthday) my thoughts are with a human being I'm incredibly privileged to have begun to get to know.

David, you are an inspirational human. Let's keep saving lives.

And to you dear reader... if you're thinking that life isn't worth living please reach out to someone and get help. In the UK you can call the Samaritans on 116123 and in the USA their number is 1 (800) 273-TALK.

David and I have both been to that place. We both came back from it and life is better - especially for those we nearly deprived of our existence.

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Several people have asked me recently what it's like to work for yourself, to run your own business, and so I thought I'd kind of talk about that a bit today. I've been running my own businesses, or starting businesses, since about 1995, and at that point, my then wife and I had two small children, one on the way. It was a decision in a way that was forced on us at that point. My employer had just been taken over by its largest competitor, and we were basically shut down. The whole business was closed, so I was made redundant along with all of my colleagues. So I had to do something, and to me at that particular moment in time, starting my own business seemed like the only sensible option, which was fine, except I really had no clue what I was doing. So if I was to look back on that now, I'd do loads of things differently. But since then, I've started lots of businesses of my own, and been involved in several startups with other people, and one of the worrying things that you hear...

Check out Ellyn's website at https://coachellyn.com/

- And on this episode of the Great Escape podcast, I'm talking to Ellen Chinke, who describes herself as a former biomedical researcher turned lifestyle management and transformation coach. Go on Ellen, I love that intro. Tell us about the life before and then we'll come into the life after.

- Yeah, how did you go from doing biomedical research to coaching? Well, actually, when I tell the story I like to start when I was in high school, because I was that kid who was told, you know, you're so intelligent, you need to do something with that. But, even at that time I was also the kid who I was singing in choir, I was playing soccer, football. I was doing all of these different things, but that was kind of the thing that everybody told me this is your future. This is what's gonna make you successful so you need to do something great with it. And I'd always really enjoyed science as a subject. It actually was probably my worst...

And a little bit of light relief today.

Yesterday something really strange happened. I was walking down the corridor in the office building where I have my office and I could hear my voice coming out of one of the other offices, and I stuck my head in and there were the group of people. I know they work in the next office down the corridor and said "Hello". And they said "We're listening to your podcast." And then followed a conversation about how much they were enjoying it, and how they thought it was going but it seemed very very strange to me that randomly a group of people who physically, quite close, would be listening to something that I had recorded a few weeks ago just as I was walking down the corridor. And it got me thinking about the whole concept of serendipity, Of things that happen when you're not really expecting them to. So coincidence is just things that happen at the same time. Turning up at a place and bumping into an old friend that you didn't know was going....

Ian's website is: http://www.thedoitforyourself.com/

- [Ian] He knows and I continue to tell him how pivotal it was, what he did for me.

- [Announcer] We are go for lift off in T-minus 30. All systems are go.

- [Stuart] And on this episode of The Great Escape Podcast I'm talking to Ian Harding. And Ian describes his journey through college basically partying, drinking and ending up incredibly out of shape. And how pivotal one particular friends was in helping him make that turn around. Ian, welcome to podcast.

- [Ian] Thank you so much for having me, Stuart. I'm really looking forward to it.

- [Stuart] You're very welcome. So tell us a bit more, what was life like before you decided that something had to change?

- [Ian] Life was partying, going out, having a good time. And it was never, I won't say never, but it was just a fun time. I was just going out, having you know, great memories with great friends. Getting to experience college and getting to really meet some new people...

After last week's conversation with Dawn Apuan, and the last couple of weeks have actually been pretty tricky for me from a work perspective. I took the funeral last week for a 24 year old, who had taken his own life, and it was a real challenge to bring some sense of comfort, and meaning to his family, and to the 150 plus people at the crematorium, at the ceremony to say goodbye to him. And the tragedy of the whole situation really was that he knew, because he said so, that if he'd reached out for help, there would've been any number of people who would have been there for him, but somehow the state of his mind, his mental illness, his depression just meant that he was unable to reach out for that help, unable to find connection with another human being, and that just really left me very, very saddened about the state of society where people are so isolated. So my thought for today is really don't ever feel that you are completely isolated, because that's almost never the case. In...

Still to this day I remember texting my sister, "There's no hope." And setting my phone down on the kitchen counter and just weeping.

Dawn's free resource for Great Escape listeners

- And on this episode of Great Escape Podcast, I'm talking to Dawn Apuan, and Dawn said that her husband and she worked for an organization that provided a fully furnished house with paid utilities, two cars, insurance, and of course, employment. Lots of security, but no freedom. Dawn, welcome to the podcast.

- Hi Stuart, I'm so excited to be here today.

- You're very welcome. So tell us what it was that made you decide that this lovely, secure employment environment had to change, that this was, you needed more freedom?

- Yes, throughout the time, as you mentioned, the job, we were in ministry, and it provided a lot of security for my husband and I. And we had been in a city and in a community for five years, and at that point we had an annual review with our leadership, who basically told us that we...