10 Experiences that Shaped my Life and Career
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When it comes to building know, like and trust with your audience - which is ultimately a core part of why they invest in you - who you’ve become in the process to get to where you are today, is your messaging gold.
Let me show you why and how you create your own supercharged stories in this weeks episode of the Magnetic Woman Podcast.
I’m turning the spotlight inward to the power of personal narratives in our professional lives. Veering from our usual business-centric episodes, I am first sharing a series of deeply personal stories that reveal how our past shapes our entrepreneurial future and then meeting that with some business mastery of how you can use your stories for content too.
Come along with me on a journey through the pivotal chapters of my life that have not only moulded my identity, but have also profoundly influenced my business philosophy.
If you listen until the end, I will also share how you can use your own stories for real, vulnerable content (the stuff that people want to see!).
Here’s what we’re unpacking:
How early childhood wounds taught me the resilience and wholeness essential for any entrepreneur.
Overcoming the labels placed by others and finding my true potential beyond societal expectations.
My leap into independence at 16 and how it shaped my fearless approach in business and life.
How you can use your own personal stories in your own marketing
Resources:
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Find me on Instagram @pandorapaloma_
Transcript
Hello. Hello. And welcome to this episode of the Magnetic Woman podcast, where instead of talking all things business today, I'm actually chiming in with a personal series of stories.
Now, of course, it is in relation to business, and I'm gonna tell you why I'm sharing this. And after I've shared my my ten things, I'm gonna share an exercise with you that will transform your own storytelling.
Now ‘why is this important?’ You might be asking. Well, your ship, your stories is your superpower, and I would call myself a storyteller. I love stories. I love hearing people's stories. I spend many days of my existence supporting women to create their own stories, to remember their stories, to use those stories in their content, their assets, and of course, throughout their business.
And storytelling really, what I believe now, will build success for entrepreneurs. We are so over hearing ultimately things that aren't true or things that have been, let's say, enhanced for marketing purposes. And ultimately, now what we need, and what we are seeing in the industry is how powerful storytelling is. Truthful, honest, raw, vulnerable stories that make us as humans who we are, and ultimately kind of why we all do what we do.
If you are in a service based industry, your superpower is your stories and your storytelling.
I came across a beautiful quote when I was on retreat in LA with someone who was speaking to us about how we can enhance our messaging. And it was by a woman called Shonda Rhimes and it says storytelling remains basic. It is just a campfire, the human connection that says you're not alone. And I loved this, and it was inspiration for this episode of the podcast. So, I will finish at the end with how you can use your own versions of your stories in your own content and your assets. And ultimately, what I'm sharing today is the ten experiences that have shaped my life and my career the most.
So hello. We're gonna go personal personal today. I broke this down between the ages of 0 - 10, 10 - 20, and then 20 - present moment. I'm 39 this year in July. So, you know, I've been around the block. I've been around the block certainly when it comes to business. I've been building my business now for eight years, a little bit longer actually, nearly a decade, and all of these stories have shaped me one way or another.
The first is age zero.
I was, well, six months old, and my dad left. Now, this taught me so much about wounds and how wounds are there to teach us how to remember that we are in fact whole. One of my mentors, Sofia Sundari, often talks about how we as humans come into the world to experience separation, only to heal those wounds to realise that we were never separate. And I know that in my father leaving when I was so young, that it was a wound that was always meant to be there. I cannot tell you how many times in plant medicine ceremonies, in meditations, in my EFT training, I was shown that it was always meant to be this way. I was always meant to be just me and my mum, in those early years and it was just always the way that it was meant to be, and I've really found peace with that now.
For full context, I did meet my dad when I was twenty two, and I found out I had another sister. Well, backtrack, I was told by my dad that there were no other siblings. And about three years after I met him (he was based in Denver in Colorado), I got a message from a girl who was my sister. She looked at the spitting image of my dad, scarily so, and he very much denied it and we stopped speaking. Then a few months after that I was told he had a heart attack and had passed.
So, those early years of my twenties were a real journey with my dad. What was wonderful - there are many things that were wonderful about my dad - but one of them is that he was an entrepreneur. The other side of that was that he never quite got there. There was a lot of debt. He left my mum in a lot of debt. He left his wife (who he was with when I met him) in a lot of debt, and this has been such a piece of healing for me that my version of entrepreneurship not only gets to be possible for me, but gets to be real for me.
And the reason why this experience has shaped my career in so many ways has been
I've really got to learn what it is to really be in an overflow.
For me, holding money just wasn't safe because of the story that had been passed down for me, and the many stories around him just not quite reaching that level of success that he wanted, and hiding a lot of that. It really taught me to be transparent, to be responsible, to be truthful, to have a really intimate relationship with money, and to build overflow through what I was doing mentally, energetically, and physically - very physically allowing myself to hold money.
And that's a whole other podcast episode.
But story one, my dad leaving and and the reasons why.
So experience two was when my mum remarried.
So, aged seven I had to share my mum with two other girls, and I had to fit into a group of children who were already really really tight.
I always felt like an outsider and I feel like the reason why it really shaped who I am in life, and who I am in my career, is it really anchored me into curiosity. I knew that I wasn't like them in many ways, and so I was really curious as to what did fill me up, who did I want to be around in those early years. I feel like that time supported me to be more curious to what the world could offer me, to what was available to me, to who I was in a sense.
I was always a super, super sensitive child. I loved stories. I would make storybooks and I would draw the pictures and write the stories and I would bound them. I found them recently when I was unpacking some stuff from my mum's house, and that was always who I was. And they say, the things that you did in your early years, who you were in your early years was always who you were meant to be. I was a storyteller and I was an empath, I was sensitive, that's who I am now, and it served me very very well in my life and in my business.
So, I feel like I got really curious about life at that age, especially then into my teens,
which leads me to the next story, which is when I was due to take (what we call here in the UK) the 11+
I was not wildly academic, but I was smart, and my mother was told by my headteacher that I shouldn't be taking the 11+. I wasn't good enough.
Where I lived in the UK (we lived just outside of Canterbury in Kent), there was the Langton Girls’ School and the Langton Boys School, and then there were various other schools (the worst being Chaucer Technology, which is where I ended up up going). My mother was told that I was not a Langton girl. Pandora is not a Langton girl and that I wouldn't pass the 11+.
My mum fought for me to do it anyway, and I didn't pass.
My mum - to this day - stands by the fact that she thinks that that headteacher fiddled the results.
Who knows? I can hand on heart say that tests are not my strong point. I feel very anxious when I have to do a test. It's like my whole body just can't operate.
But, I was told that I wasn't a Langton girl. And I think that what that really taught me as an experience was, well, that people will try and tell you who you are.
They will try and tell you what is possible for you and what is not possible for you,
regardless of whether it's true.
And what happened to me - I got into Chaucer Tech and I was put into the bottom band. And within a couple of months, my mum was called and questioned, like, why is Pandora in this band? She should be in the top band. So, I got moved really quickly, and I did really, really well in my GCSEs.
But I remember that experience as something that shaped me. And maybe it didn't shape me at the time - although I do sort of remember that, like, I'll show you, woman. And I worked really hard, you know?
I think maybe that because of that, and being told, no, you can't, it made me want to show her - and show myself - that I could be that type of person. And it comes up so often in meditations and healing work with me that that was a really big deal for me. That was a really big deal. It's probably in part why I do what I do now - I support women by seeing their power instead of trying to take it away, which ultimately is what this lady was doing. Right?
So there we go. 10 - 20. First one is the teacher basically saying I was not a Langton girl and me proving her wrong, which is a little taste of who I am as a person. I think a of my ambition came from that point.
So the second part of this decade was leaving for London.
I moved to London when I was sixteen. Such a huge life transition. Having a daughter now, I often say to my mum, how? How did you let me do that? And she always answers the same thing. She was like, that's what you wanted to do. That is who you were. You were confident and you were a go getter, and you were like, I'm moving to London and that's what I'm gonna do.
So she let me.
So big girl moves to London. I mean, talking about how this shaped my life and career, in every possible way.
When my mum left, she dropped me off. I had this little fuchsia pink bedspread, in this tiny little room with a sink, and then there was a shared kitchen space.
It was quite grim.
Looking back it was quite grim.
I hid in my room looking through the little spy hole of the door when I heard people outside. I was so nervous, and a girl knocked saying that they were going to the pub and I jumped at the chance. And by the time that my mum had got home two hours later, I'd already made some friends.
She called me and I was like, ‘I'm fine mum, I've made some friends, I've got to go I'm really busy’ and that was it.
This whole experience shaped me massively. I really grew up - I had to get responsible. I think that kind of ambition had always been within me, and I really got my ambition met in that way. I met people from all walks of life. I met culture in a way that I hadn't before, and it really opened doors for me in the way that wouldn't have otherwise.
So, I always trust that I was meant to go on that path. Funny now being a mother, but, if that is what my daughter will want I will always support her in that, because it just opened me up to possibilities in huge ways, but also to other people's stories, to my own conditioning versus someone else's condition.
I really started to crave, get really obsessed with with people, their stories, who they were, how they got here. I love love love (it's part of why I'm sharing this podcast episode with you today) our turning points, the turning points that got us here, there is such magic in these stories.
So, leaving to London, big deal. I stayed in London for seventeen years.
So, let's move into, aged 20 - now.
So, the first actually, is a really bad relationship.
The ultimate turning point.
I was aged 27, Saturn returned (for those astrology lovers out there), and I became a shell of myself. And it was a really beautiful experience that shaped me because it was the first time that I sought some therapy. I had a couple of friends, my dear friends Emily and Wallo, and Wallo said to me, you know what? Maybe maybe you should try some therapy. I've been having therapy, and it's been really good for me. And he was sharing with me the date he has with himself once a week. And so I was like, oh, okay. Okay. Well, if you think I should, you know, this could help.
And I sat in that therapy chair for the first time and I cried and I just said I don't know who I am anymore. And that's really how I felt. I'd got to the top of my game in PR. I was a PR director, had a team of nine beneath me. I earned good money. I bought my first flat, and I just felt lost, empty, you know?
This really shaped me, and it particularly was an experience that shaped my life because it really shaped my spiritual path, and from that point I got really interested in the relationship to myself, the relationship to something greater than myself.
They often say it's those turbulent times in our lives where we hit rock bottom,
that we find a new way, a new version of us,
a new way to live.
And that was definitely that for me.
It really shaped my spiritual path. And, unlike many, I got really interested in things outside of the business that I was in, so publicity, communications, marketing,
and actually leads me to my second one, which was leaving my corporate job.
I feel like a lot of people will relate to this, but it was such a big deal, all of that perceived safety.
I left my corporate job when I was 28/29. I went freelance and I worked for a company, a PR agency, that had clients between Ibiza and London.
And at that point, I also started my nutrition degree, and trained as a yoga teacher, and that very much led me to the path of where I am now.
So, I think that leaving that corporate job, if anyone is listening and they're in that corporate job and they know that they want to leave, my advice to you, I would do it one of two ways.
I would either save a good six months of expenses, so that you can do that.
Or I would (like I did), I reduced the number of days that I was in my profession, let's say. So, I was freelancing at that point. And, I set the business up on the side,
which leads me to my third one, which is starting Rooted.
My business name is actually Rooted London Limited. That's what it started out as. And, I'm gonna tell you the story, actually.
So initially, someone who I knew personally, who then also went to the nutrition training school that I was at, CNM, we originally were gonna start the business together. This is a story of intuition. I woke up that morning and I said to my partner at the time, Romilly’s dad, ‘I think Eleni's gonna pull out. I've just got this weird feeling that she doesn't want to do the business together’, and lo and behold, I got a message from her that morning - ‘hey can we meet for a coffee?’.
And she pulled out. And I'm so pleased she did because, actually, what the business was then able to evolve into was (I think) so much more different to what we would have done together.
But actually, Rooted London in the beginning was a juggle of, yoga - So I was teaching yoga at a couple of hotels in London, and a couple of studios. Then I also did food delivery. So you might not know that, so my business started doing food delivery for fashion shoots. I was one of the the first, and only at the time, there was maybe two or three different companies that did a healthier version of shoot catering, and that's what I did.
So I was studying nutrition, teaching yoga, doing food delivery, I used to do things like supper clubs, and events around wellbeing and health.
And then I juggled PR on the side of that.
So, gosh, in the beginning, I was up at five, I was in bed by midnight a lot of the time. It really was a real juggle.
But I loved it. I loved every single moment of it.
So, the experience and how that shaped me, it taught me, as is business, just to keep going.
I didn't know about food delivery. I didn't know about catering. I didn't know about any of those things. And I just found people who would become my expanders, or I would research. I would hit Google searches. I would just really take the next next best step, you know, and I'm still doing that now, running a multi six figure business, scaling to seven figures. I'm still doing the same thing.
It's like, oh I don't know that. How can I learn from? You know?
So I hope that that inspires you that actually, if you don't know the answer to something, you're not alone.
We're all just working out what that answer is, however we do that.
So, the fourth story of 20 - now was writing my book.
Obviously a huge experience that shaped me and my career in many ways.
The reason why that really shaped me is I actually was an Intuitive Eating and Living coach at that time.
So, it was mostly coaching around food and life coaching and, anti diet - body positivity.
After I wrote my book, it became a very natural turning point. At that time, a lot of people were coming to me, saying, do you do business coaching? You're doing so well. Like, how are you you getting these results?
And I know a lot of it obviously was my marketing experience. I've been doing it a good fifteen years at that point.
So I started supporting women in business, mostly with marketing, messaging, and some of the business experiences and mastery that I had gained myself.
Obviously, that has evolved to who I am now, with two signature programme Mastermind hybrids and supporting hundreds of women every year.
So huge, huge transition, huge experience, which leads me really beautifully onto the last.
So, I went on maternity leave and wrote my book during maternity, and when Romilly was two months old, I was at Shoreditch House for a mother's meeting (I don't know if you know mother's meeting), and there were three women sat in a chair doing a panel talk, one of which was Nicky Clinch, a dear friend of mine. One was a coach called Emily who ended up being a client of mine for some time, which was amazing. And the other was a lady called Suzy Ashworth.
And I sat and thought ‘who the f is this woman?'
She is very impressive. I realised that she lived not too far from me, and I messaged her and said, would you like to meet for a coffee? Which we did. And, if I'm honest, at that time, I didn't really know that there were business coaches out there. I thought business coaches were for big corporations. And I met Suzy, and within the next month of meeting her, I signed up to work with her for a year.
I think at the time it was at £18000 plus VAT, and I didn't know how I was going to pay for it. I think I had about five thousand in savings possibly from my my book advance, and I put that money down and was like, I don't know what I'm doing, but there is something in my body that is saying yes to this.
And I hugely evolved from that point. It became an experience that absolutely shaped my my life and career. And to this day, obviously being a business coach, I stand by the power of coaching. It's why I strive to be the best possible coach that I can be for my clients, because I know the significance of a powerful coach and having that support network around you.
So, my final experience that shaped my life and career was was taking a leap on myself at that time.
You know, new mother, you know, knew that a book was coming out, didn't know how that was going to shape my career.
And everything changed from that moment, and continues to change from here.
I have had, I think, maybe a couple of six month stints without a coach or a mentor. And I ultimately always, always, always prioritise the support that I need so that I can be who I want to be, and desire to be, in my business.
Right now I have a business coach, a tantric coach, a mentor, and I am on various other masterminds and trainings, because just the beauty of feeding myself in that way means that I'm a better coach because of it.
So here we are, my turning points.
There's been a whole bunch of micro ones in the last few years. My first failed launch, my most successful launch, three six figure launches launches in a row, which still honestly blows my mind, breakups, heartbreak, all of the things.
But I thought that these ten were the most relatable to experiences that have shaped my life and career.
And I also promised that there would be some business mastery in this.
So, here is how you can use this for your own content.
As I mentioned right at the beginning, your stuff, your stories is your superpower. And the ways in I invite you to start thinking about this is really making a timeline of your own life.
Bring in the stories, the big ones, the small ones, the turning points that you remember being a catalyst for change for you. Maybe note down why you think people could relate to that, people in your audience specifically.
List the experiences, list the expertise, list the credibility that it brought to you, the experience, the moments, and reference that when you're writing it.
And then use that to storytell.
Don't assume that people don't want to see the day to day. Don't assume that people don't wanna know where you've come from. I guarantee now more than ever, it is the thing that will make you stand out from the crowd.
And remember why and how this is so important. People don't know all of your stories, they don't know the things that you have had to overcome to get to where you are today. And it's so easy for us to see that shiny disco ball or see the reel that's like, oh, look.
You're here without really truly understanding what it took for you to get there. And it's what we call in storytelling, content creation, that counterintuitive story.
You know, right now, you see me doing X, but it wasn't always that way. You know, I struggled with this, I experienced this, and here's how I got through it, or here's how it changed. And then Call To Action, and this is how and why I support you to do the same.
People do want to know the graft, the vulnerability, the challenges, because it makes you human. And right now in the service industries, especially the business coaching space right now. We want humans. We wanna work with humans.
And, I guarantee, you're an epic human.
And you've got some stories that the world wants to hear. So give that to your audience.
Think about your own dreams, your own desires, your own fears, your frustrations.
These are the things that drive storytelling from your story and also the stories and the content that you create in your marketing.
So recap.
Make a timeline of your own transitions, your own big wins, little wins, challenges, experiences that have got you to where you've got to today.
And then weave them into your storytelling.
I hope this has been interesting to you, hearing some of my own stories. I would love to hear some of yours. If you've been in my world for a while or you've been in my world for five minutes and you wanna come and say hi, come and say hi. I would love to hear from you.
You can find me on Instagram @PandoraPaloma_.
And if storytelling is something you really want to harness to scale your business this year, I am thrilled to announce my next retreat, which is now over two days. It's called Captivate. It's on the 3rd - 4th July 2024, and it is a two day immersion and retreat for ambitious women to connect, create, and collaborate to break through to their next level in business.
Over the course of the two days, we will not only go into how you can create more magnetic messaging and captivating content, as well as hot seat coaching, but we will also do a live content planning session.
And then the next day, you will record and create that content.
We will have a live content creation session along with a portrait photography session so that you will have new headshots as well. And then we will go into how to optimise conversions and, again, some hot seat coaching.
So expect to be beautifully immersed with a refinement and simplification of your offer suite, knowing what you're selling and how you will sell it through powerful messaging, storytelling, and content creation.
I would love to see you there.
Have a beautiful rest of your day, beautiful rest of your week, and as always, sending big love and magnetism from my corner of the world to yours.
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