Latest / Low to Grow / WCorp: Geeta Sidhu-Robb on Women-Safe Workplaces and Self-Made Power

Transcript

WCorp: Geeta Sidhu-Robb on Women-Safe Workplaces and Self-Made Power · Low to Grow

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Don't be poor, and I know it sounds stupid.
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Don't be poor. Make sure you have enough money
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put by for you, by you, with you, that you can do what it is
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that you need as much as you possibly can.
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Insecurity. Thy name is female.
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Get out of my way and let me work.
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But my biology must come to work.
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Welcome to Load to Grow, the podcast transforming life's
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toughest moments into opportunity for growth.
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I'm Annie, a Folks Under 30 technology founder whose
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entrepreneurship journey ran parallel to a mental health
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awakening. In every episode, I sit down
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with inspiring individuals and delve into how they managed to
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turn their personal or professional challenges into
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opportunities for growth. If you're facing uncertainty in
0:43
your life, feeling down, or simply need a kick of
0:46
inspiration to keep moving forward, this is your space for
0:50
the honest and uplifting conversations that you will want
0:53
to hear. Hit follow so you never miss an
0:56
episode and let's dive in. If you can dream it, you can
1:02
make it happen. My guest today, Liz Fat truth
1:05
every single day. Geeta Sushi Rob is a five times
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entrepreneur and Business Woman of the Year winner and in 2025
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alone she has already received the United Nation Woman's Brand
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Impact Award among many of the. Achievements.
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Now, Geeta is currently the founder of West Corp which
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certifies safe and successful workplaces for women.
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And with the West Corp green flag, Geeta is reshaping the
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flow of capital to empower women LED businesses.
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Her own journey spans corporate law, entrepreneurship and also
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coaching leaders to perform at the highest levels such as
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taking companies from start up to IPO.
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Her work is about transformation, equity, and
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creating space for women to lead on their own terms.
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Today, she will share the challenges that she has to face
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to get to where she is. Kita, it's a privilege to have
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you on the load for a podcast. Welcome.
1:57
Thank you so much for having me Annie.
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It's really lovely to be on. Kita, who do you think will
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benefit the most from listening to our conversation today?
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Oh it's a good question. I always think that it helps
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when you are either stuck or feel like your life is sucks and
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you're the only person that has this terrible life to hear
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someone who's done much much worse than you and still
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survived. If you're feeling bad, low, you
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know what? Is it mad, bad and sad and
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you're doing really badly then I swear to God I have committed
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more failures than you have. So you should feel really good
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by the end of this. I know that for you, your
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professional life started in corporate law.
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Could you tell us a bit about how you went from corporate law
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to doing coaching and now being the founder of West Corp?
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It was really, you know, it's, it's kind of what's that, that
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line that you make plans and then, and then God laughs at you
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or something. So I became, I'm an immigrant.
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So of course I became a lawyer because it's security of, of
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tenure, isn't it? These are the jobs that will
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always keep you safe. And I became a mother in my 20s.
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And my first child was very ill. Like I used to spend nights and
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nights at the hospital with him because there was nothing else
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that you could do. And I didn't want to leave him
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alone. And I would sleep on the floor
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by the hospital bed and then I would come home in the morning
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and I couldn't go to work because I hadn't slept all
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night. And so my job gave me up, I
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think rather than I gave up my job in those days, there wasn't
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the concept of my child is sick, can I be at home, Can I work?
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Nothing like that existed. So basically I got fired and
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then I ended up a few years later, about six years later
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with three small children under the age of 7.
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And I was separated and I had was the sole breadwinner.
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And so I had to find a way to make money while being at home.
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When you think about it now, it's a very different landscape.
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I'm talking about in the early 2000s, mid to the early 2000,
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2006, seven. It was a very different
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environment. And you just didn't do this
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because nobody built a serious business from home.
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And I was trying to fund three children and put them through
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school and pay for the bills. And my bills were so high.
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They were so high and I remember always I had this accounting
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book and I remember the first month I made £1000.
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I have no idea. I'd be like, I couldn't survive
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on that. And then I remember the next
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month I kind of made 1200. But then the month after that I
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made 2000. Then it became three, you know,
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and it grew very quickly. But I basically became an
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entrepreneur in order to make money.
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And so part of my entrepreneurship journey was
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setting up a company called Nosh Detox, which was a massive
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health and Wellness business, and it changed the face of
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health and Wellness in the United Kingdom.
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We were the first home delivery of juice.
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We were the first four drips in the High Street, all of these
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massive firsts. And as a result of that, I
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worked with around 21 thousand women.
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And in that period of time, I had women that came in and asked
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me for something. And I was like, look, you know,
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your body is not the problem, it's your mindset.
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And they were like, what do you mean?
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And one of these women was American, and she was very
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blonde and very tiny and wanted me to give her a juice pot so
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she could lose more weight. And I'm like, I'm not going to
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do that. That's really stupid.
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You clearly don't need to do this.
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And so she was very upset. And she was like, do you know
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who I am? And I was like, no, I'm really
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sorry. I have no idea who you are.
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But I was the only game in town. So she had no choice.
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If I said no, it was no. I said, here's what I think you
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need to do. So she stormed off and she came
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back about 3 or 4 days later and she said can I pay you to do
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that? And I'm like, do what?
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She goes, call me stupid. I'm like, I didn't call you
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stupid. I said it was a stupid thing to
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do. I was like, yeah.
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And she goes I'll pay you £250 an hour.
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I was like, hell yeah, come every day because this was 2012,
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right? I mean, it was a real funny.
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And so she didn't want to come every day, sadly, but she came
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every week. And then I would tell her do
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this, do this, do this. Then she'd turn up the next week
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and I'd be like, but no, don't do that.
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Do this. Why are you doing that?
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Do that. And I'm very opinionated.
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So I was like being paid to be opinionated, which was a
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beautiful place to be. And it turned out that she was
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very famous. And it turned out that she sent
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me her friends and it turned out that I ended up coaching the
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most amazing people like Simon Powell and Gwyneth Paltrow.
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And my clients were, you know, God, two of the Spice Girls,
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some of the Royals presidents, like the people that ran massive
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construction, like the third largest construction company in
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the world, like really insane people.
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And they were just normal, right?
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I just wanted to make money. I was poor.
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I needed to pay the school fees. I needed to feed the kids.
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I was like, whatever, come in and I will absolutely tell you
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what I think. And then if you don't do what I
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think, I don't care. Get lost kind of thing.
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So it was a very helpful approach.
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That's incredible. I want to ask you more questions
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about the coaching, but first I kind of want to ask you about
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market creation because as you were saying with Nash Detox,
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when you started it and when you grew it, that seemed to be quite
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a new market in the UK as compared to how it was.
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We were the first. How?
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How is that process for you? How long did it take for you to
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really find that niche? You know, I didn't.
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I love how people do business plans and look at market surveys
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and I did none of that shit. I was like, we are poor and we
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need to eat now and the only my son had been ill and I'd helped
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him get better. So the thing I knew how to do
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was to make him better. I had a 2000 LB overdraft, which
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I basically begged the bank to resurrect and give me that
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money. So I had 2000 lbs to set up a
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business and I had six weeks before that money would run out.
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So I started the business on the 6th of January 2008.
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I had well the bank forced me to make a business plan, but I
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couldn't add up. So I was like, oh God, because
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I'm more worried. I mean, obviously I could add
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up, but you know, I'm more words than finance.
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And so I had to sell from the beginning.
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There was no niche. If it didn't sell, I didn't sell
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it. And I found the thing that did
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sell. So whatever sold, I created and
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sold. Then I made it better and then I
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made it better again and then I made the next revenue stream and
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I was like we'll sell this and then I made the next revenue
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stream. People would come in with
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problems and we would create revenue streams to fix those
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problems. And as a result we ended up
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doing all this innovation. We had Coca-Cola, we used to
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annoy Coca-Cola and Innocent because we created, in those
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days Innocent was £1.50 and we created cold pressed juices
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because the other stuff was boiled and horrible and I wasn't
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going to sell it. And I remember the guys from
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Coca-Cola come in my house because I work from home and I'm
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Asian. So you have to take your shoes
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off. I always have this memory of
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them in their suits sitting in my house in my front room with
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their shoes off as tasting our juices and asking us how we
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invented them, how we created them.
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And Unilever used to fly me out, speak to them.
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And it was just a very, you know, I'd love to say it was
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really clever, but necessity was the mother of all invention in
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my case. Interesting, I love that.
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And in the early days when you first started Notch Detox, was
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it just you on the team? In the beginning, there was me,
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there was a girl who did OPS because I really my job was
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sales and marketing. There was a girl who did OPS and
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then there was the chef. And then we had the delivery
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driver who I found because he delivered pizza to my house.
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I said, can you do deliveries first?
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And he went, yeah, I'm like, great.
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But he could only do deliveries at night.
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So we started the night delivery thing.
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We shouldn't exist at the time, but we would have the boxes
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dropped outside your house overnight so that you could pick
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them up in the morning and your food was ready.
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Like, it just restarted that. But the only reason we started
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it is because the guy had a day job, so he was cheaper if I used
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him at night. It didn't happen for any other
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reason. Now all these people do it,
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which is really fun, but that's why we did it.
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And yeah, so he would come and pick up all the boxes at three,
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4:00 AM in the morning, and he would deliver them everywhere.
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And then we got 2 drivers, then 3, then we have cars and then,
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you know, whatever. It grew because we needed the
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money. It needed to broad cash as fast
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as possible. And I also love how through your
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first business, you then almost fell into both your coaching
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clients, fell into your shop and from there you can't discover
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this flab that you have for coaching.
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And I've been looking through your profile and it's pretty
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impressive who you have had as clients.
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Can I ask for all the clients that you have seen, you know,
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they are really influential people in entertainment, in
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media, etcetera, etcetera. Do they have any common
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challenges that they come to you for?
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Yeah, and and thank you very much.
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You know, it's been a lot of fun.
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It's a job I love so much. I absolutely love it.
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And then and then from that, some of the women and also
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people that I'm so proud of are CEOs of really big fintechs like
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Sam Smith is still my coaching client today.
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And we took Sam, she came in at around 10:15 million and it took
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us seven years, I think, to take Sam through an IPO.
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And 5th she exited at 52,000,000.
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And she actually wrote my coaching salary into her exit
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contract, which I just was like, I love that.
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Yeah, you know, I was like, Oh my God.
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And she doesn't even tell you this stuff.
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She just just like by the by in passing.
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And I'm like, Oh my God. The reason I'm bringing that up
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is because that is ACEO. And then you have the other
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person is a famous person and then the other person is running
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a country. And the other like this weekend
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I was coaching a Formula One race driver.
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For me, where I speak to is the difference between
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self-confidence and self esteem, because self-confidence is the
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thing you're really good at, is what you do at work, it's what
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you do externally, but self esteem is how you feel about
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yourself every day. And so that's where I work.
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I work in the space between those two because the more you
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help people to align who you are inside yourself and what you do,
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the more successful you are, the happier you are, the more money
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you make. Everything works better.
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Peter, you're obviously a really successful woman with, in my
11:46
opinion, high self-confidence and also high self esteem.
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How did you develop that? Was that something that you've
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always had, or did you have to nudge about for yourself?
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I mean, I don't know, I grew up in like a small town with three
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streets or something. So I grew I'm, you know, I've
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always been kind of a bit of an introvert, but being forced to
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develop a, an infrastructure that gave me the money to
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support my children developed a version of me that I had to come
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out of. So I had to develop that
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self-confidence. Like I'm very good on TV and I'm
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fairly good on stage, But those were by absolutely every time I
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would for about a year and a half, every time I was on TVI
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would read, look at the the tapes and then I'd be like, Oh
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my God. And then that's how I started to
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wear makeup because I never wore makeup and I saw my face with a
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big screen and no makeup. I'm like, we're not going to do
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that again. So I would learn from every
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single thing and then do it better every single time.
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And then when I try to get better at speaking, I said yes
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to every speaking gig. It didn't matter if it was one
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person or 7000 people and I screwed up.
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I forgot my words, I said stupid things, I was embarrassed, I was
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ashamed, I cried, and then I got better and better and better and
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better. I'm a really hard worker, so I
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just felt better at it because I worked hard.
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But self esteem is very different to that.
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For me. When I ended up with three small
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children and I had to pay their bills, I felt very powerless and
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I felt weak and I felt helpless. And the easiest thing to do
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would have been to hook up with somebody with money or marry
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someone with money or, you know, get taken care of.
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And I never wanted to sell my body with what I was doing.
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And it's a very conscious decision you have to make
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because you can slide into this when you're desperate and scared
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and you have 7 lbs in the bank and you have three children that
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have to eat food tomorrow and you don't know how to give them
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that money. You don't have money to buy the
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food. You really have to have a lot of
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courage to say no to the easiest thing because it's the most
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dangerous thing. So I decided that I was going to
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sell my mind and I was going to. And so my mind needed resilience
13:54
to be able to be sold on a day-to-day basis.
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I needed to believe in myself and I wanted to become the most
14:01
powerful person that I could become because I spent so much
14:05
time around very, very successful, very famous people.
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And not all of them are powerful.
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So I had to learn the distinction very early on.
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And I work very, very hard every day to be a very powerful
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version of myself. And I'm a, I'm one of the most
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powerful people I know. And I really like that about
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myself. And I keep that as balanced as I
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can. And it is not relevant how much
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money I have or anything else that I'm doing.
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That's just stays. It's a kind of a quieter place
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to be. Question What does power mean to
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you? Power for me means what is that
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word? It means the freedom to choose.
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It's that sense of being aligned.
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My inside and my outside are very aligned.
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I'm always like this. I'm like this if you're on
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camera and I'm like this if you're in my house.
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I'm never going to be anybody different.
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I still swear and I'm still irrelevant and I'm still intense
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and I'm still, you know, I'm just like this all the time.
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So that's very clear. There's for me, there's a
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wonderful balance in that. Like when people are like that,
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I really appreciate it. I don't have to guess who the
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hell you are. Just know who you are.
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You know when you can be yourself at all times, That is a
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huge sense of power and freedom. Have there been times where you
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felt out of alignment with yourself?
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And the reason why I asked this because I think for myself and a
15:27
lot of my peers who are, you know, in their 20s slash 30s, a
15:31
lot of pivots and careers happened then or maybe a lot of
15:34
choices. So, for example, do I go back to
15:37
work after having children? But something that one of my
15:39
friends is facing up a moment. From my read, those are the
15:42
critical points where a woman could fall out of alignment with
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herself. I, you know, I screwed up so
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many times, Annie, I started to make speeches about how often I
15:54
screwed up. That's how much I screwed up.
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Just so that we're all completely clear here, It is so
16:01
hard to be a woman and make the choices that you have to make as
16:05
a woman because in the old days, you would get pregnant, you'd
16:07
have a baby, you'd make a baby, have a baby.
16:10
And then there were husbands in communities to help you to look
16:13
after that baby. And these days you kind of get
16:17
pregnant, make a baby, have a baby, and then you have to pay
16:19
the baby's bills. And that's a very hard place to
16:23
be because our mothers did not live the lives we live.
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And I would not live the life you would live, right?
16:29
So it's very important to whatever decision you're going
16:32
to make. Don't be poor.
16:34
And I know it sounds stupid. Don't be poor.
16:36
Make sure you have enough money put by for you, by you, with
16:40
you, that you can do what it is that you need as much as you
16:42
possibly can because having autonomy over your own choices
16:47
is the biggest thing that you can do.
16:48
Then no matter what the world throws at you, and it will, you
16:53
can still find a way to survive it.
16:56
So don't worry about the things that are happening because
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change is inevitable and suffering is optional.
17:02
It's always going to come. Pivot, pivot, pivot, pivot,
17:04
pivot. Make a decision.
17:05
If it's not the right decision, change the decision, but make
17:08
the damn decision and make it as fast as you can and you can
17:11
decide now I'm going to go back to work in three months.
17:13
You don't go to work. There will always be something
17:15
else. To be true to yourself is the
17:18
only decision you can ever make in one moment.
17:22
I'm always true to myself, whatever my decisions are.
17:25
And sometimes those were really stupid decisions to the outside
17:29
world, but they worked for me. And that's very hard for women
17:34
because we're brought up to people, please, all the time.
17:38
And so to take a decision just for yourself is one of the
17:41
hardest thing you can ever ask a woman to do.
17:43
Is that something that you have to work with your clients with?
17:47
All the time you would be shocked at the really famous
17:50
women that you think have this autonomy and that they are going
17:54
to do this and this and then they're rich and it's just not
17:57
true insecurity. They name is female.
18:02
No, thank you for sharing that. I actually found that quite
18:05
enlightening, actually. Geeta, I know that a lot of your
18:08
work now is with W Corp and it's about making workplaces actually
18:12
unfair for women. What's your motivation behind
18:14
that? You know, my motivation is that
18:19
women often struggle in life, particularly after having
18:22
babies, where they get stuck because we're economically less
18:26
comfortable. So we have less power, we have
18:28
less voice. And normal is, you know, normal
18:31
really screws us up. Let's just assume the word
18:33
normal every time you hear it means rich white man.
18:36
Let's just assume that because every time someone says, but
18:38
that's normal, just think, oh, that's rich white man.
18:40
And then you don't get hung up on not being normal or not
18:43
having normal, of not being able to do normal because once you've
18:46
dismissed normal as being rich white man, everything else is
18:49
woman. It just is.
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And that's how it works. So I was like, this is really
18:53
stupid. Every time we go to work, we
18:56
can't be women at work. Why?
18:58
Because we cannot bring our biology to work.
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We have to pretend we're men. We have to pretend all the
19:04
things that happened to us don't happen.
19:05
We pretend we don't have periods.
19:06
We have to pretend we don't get perimenopause.
19:08
We have to pretend we don't have to look after elderly parents.
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We have, you know, all this crap.
19:11
And actually none of that is true.
19:13
And This is why women are having less and less babies.
19:15
We do a whole piece on this called womb versus work, where
19:18
if you ask a woman to choose a woman her job, she's going to
19:20
choose her job because work is more safe than than than your
19:24
womb. We go through life having to
19:27
make these decisions. So what if you could go into
19:29
work and have a man's washroom and a woman's washroom.
19:32
They're biologically fit for purpose, but they live under the
19:35
same roof. Super simple concept.
19:38
Been working for fucking eons. What if we have a man's
19:41
workplace and a woman's workplace and they're both
19:43
biologically compatible, but they're under the same roof and
19:46
the train don't have to meet. No woman complaints that there's
19:49
no urinal sitting in her bathroom.
19:50
She didn't care. So don't care about the fact
19:53
that it's different workplaces. Go for the productivity.
19:56
What do you want to gain? You want to gain this.
19:57
What do you want to achieve? You want to achieve this.
19:59
You looking at my face is not going to achieve that.
20:01
It's what I provide for you is going to achieve that.
20:03
So let's create infrastructures that enable women to stay at
20:07
work. Staying at work is no longer
20:09
optional. It is a vital necessity for
20:12
women in the same way it's a vital necessity for men.
20:16
In the old days, you wanted men to come to work because they
20:18
have to provide for their families.
20:19
Nowadays, women have to come to work because they provide for
20:22
their families. Get out of my way and let me
20:25
work, but my biology must come to work.
20:28
So that's the purpose of W Corp. We go into businesses that care
20:32
about this and businesses that need to care about this, and we
20:36
say, I don't know about DEI. Leave DEI on one side.
20:39
Let me just create an infrastructure in your workplace
20:42
within which a woman's needs can be accommodated.
20:45
Biological, not her luxury needs.
20:48
She doesn't need a Starbucks, for heaven's sake.
20:50
Why are you so happy to put a Starbucks at work, but actually,
20:53
if I need to work from home, there's a drama around it.
20:55
Screw the Starbucks and give me the workplace that I can work
20:57
from, right? Let's just be reasonable about
21:00
this and they'll offer you egg freezing, but they won't offer
21:04
you the ability to be actually deliver work at 2:00 in the
21:07
morning because you're having a perimenopausal health flush.
21:09
It's insane because normal just create a place where the
21:14
infrastructure helps a woman and then let's all just go do our
21:17
jobs. And that's the point of West
21:19
Corp. For you, in advancing the
21:21
mission that you have with W Corp, what are some of the
21:24
challenges or pushbacks that you face?
21:29
I'm not different to anything. I was facing challenge and a
21:31
pushback of, you know, like can't you just go home and
21:33
chill? I'm like, this is chilling.
21:35
I like changing the world to me. Well, we've actually now created
21:40
Green Flag, which is looking at a specification to create, you
21:43
know, for investment and women. So we don't have normal
21:47
approaches to investing into women because there's a stupid
21:49
idea. So how to invest that?
21:52
And we're now looking at creating certification for male
21:55
allyship because if a woman has a baby, she's a mother.
21:57
And if a man has a baby, he's a superhero, you know, duh.
22:00
So let's just make allyship something that's actually
22:03
intelligent and has purpose. And eventually I think we're
22:05
going to just become a tech business because we've got all
22:07
these AI bots that we've created to create that link between life
22:12
and womanhood. You know, that's the role that
22:16
kind of AI tech fills for us as a business.
22:18
And we're just going to keep doing it and finding new reasons
22:21
and new things to put into it. People keep saying, like, why do
22:25
you want to do this? Then I tell them, and if they're
22:27
rich white men, they go, well, that's a stupid idea.
22:29
I make loads of money. I don't care about this.
22:31
And I'm like, OK, that's fine. I called called 75 men and I
22:35
asked them what they thought. And they were like, yeah, we
22:37
don't care. And I was like, OK, let me find
22:40
a reason for you to care. So then I went down the route of
22:42
data and ROI and we created the ROI genie.
22:45
And what the ROI genie it does is it tells you how much more
22:48
money you will make if you have diversity of thought with a
22:51
small D. And we're like, don't don't care
22:53
about the women, just care about everything else.
22:56
And they were like, OK, so then we went from the chief, what do
23:00
you call it, HR, into the revenue offices, which is why I
23:04
want it to be because I want people to think of this as a
23:05
reason to make more money, not to help anyone else.
23:09
I just think that if you don't look at this as helping women,
23:12
because who really needs you to help us get out of our face?
23:15
But if you look at this as a way of being more efficient, making
23:17
more money, having it as a capitalist approach to life,
23:21
then I'm a very happy woman because that's what this is.
23:23
I want you all to make more money.
23:24
And we just think this is a better way for you to do it.
23:27
OK interesting. Quite curious, in what ways are
23:30
you using AI tools within W Corp?
23:33
Oh my God, we live on them. We use them everywhere.
23:36
And it's really funny because my team's all like 10 years old and
23:39
I'm the one pushing AI at them and they're just like, Oh my
23:42
God, you're old. Can you not look at this?
23:44
I'm like, I love this stuff because I'm a geek.
23:46
What's your favorite AI tool at the moment?
23:50
I could not tell you that because we couldn't go.
23:52
We, we amalgamate so many and we've taught them all to do what
23:56
we want them to do, you know, And so we are really, we use
24:00
everything from your basic ChatGPT, which we tweaked so
24:04
much through to the app that creates our certifications are
24:07
created through AI as well. But you know, and we've built
24:10
the tech, it's all open source tech, but we've built the tech
24:13
for it to give us what information we want.
24:15
And then we use it to extract data and put it there so that we
24:18
get the information for what we need.
24:20
We use everything. I use it for social media.
24:22
I use it for everything. If it, if there's a way to use
24:25
it, I will. Absolutely.
24:27
In the same way when we have CRMS, you know, CRM, we used to,
24:31
I used to use CRMS like this in the old days because they're so
24:35
binary. They're just 010.
24:36
You can get them to do whatever you want.
24:38
And to me, that's what AI is. It just does whatever you need
24:41
it to do, but it's very racist and misogynistic.
24:44
So you have to teach it not to be.
24:46
Another question like AI, this is more related to coaching.
24:50
So online, and I guess you've probably meant read as far in
24:53
the news, there's a lot of articles about people using
24:55
ChatGPT as therapist. Now I know that you're not a
24:58
therapist and you coach. Do you?
25:01
See a way in which AI tools, maybe chat box, maybe avatars
25:05
can have a role in the coaching industry?
25:09
No, I have a client who's very funny.
25:12
She takes all our sessions, takes all the transcriptions,
25:14
uploads them into chat and she goes, you're so expensive, I'm
25:18
trying to replace you. And it just cracks me up because
25:20
chat sends me what it's done and no.
25:23
So we're trying to make a clone of you online.
25:26
Well, yeah. And they just like everyone
25:28
offers to make a clone. And I'm just like, no, thank
25:30
you. And then one of my children was
25:31
laughing. But they're like, you're on so
25:33
much. There's so much of you out
25:34
there, anyone could clone you. And I'm like, maybe, but it just
25:38
doesn't work because I listen to the advice that it gives and
25:42
it's not, you know, you're never going to be able to clone well
25:47
enough strategic interpersonal communication and thought.
25:52
There's a million coaches out there even without AI.
25:55
The difference in skill between them and me is the ability I
25:59
have to be able to heal, hear what you're saying, to see you,
26:03
and to distinctly go to the core of the problem that you're
26:06
having now. It is a very big struggle for AI
26:10
to do that on a person by person by person basis.
26:13
It can be. It tends to naturally be more
26:15
generic than strategic. So I use it for its skills and I
26:20
enjoy that. But no, I don't really feel like
26:24
I've got this sounds terrible. I don't really ever feel like
26:26
I'm replaceable by currently replaceable by AI.
26:30
I love that and I absolutely respect that as well.
26:33
Have you ever worked with a coach yourself in your life?
26:36
All the time. No, I'm a huge fan of coaching.
26:39
I first started coaching, which I didn't know what it was in
26:41
2010 when there was this amazing man called Jay Abraham, who's
26:46
literally the father of modern marketing and he was holding a
26:50
14 month coaching program in Los Angeles and it was 20,000 lbs.
26:58
Those days I did not know how to afford this at all.
27:00
And I remember a woman coming to me and going, you know, I've
27:03
always wanted to invest in your business.
27:05
Can I invest and then give you the money to pay for this
27:07
coaching? I was like, Oh my God, yes.
27:09
So I took on my first investor like that and I had all these
27:12
clients in Beverly Hills and Bel Air and all this.
27:15
So I would go and coach all these people, do my sessions
27:17
with them and then fly back in two days was terrible.
27:20
It was, I was literally there for 40 hours because the babies
27:22
were so small and I, that was my first instance.
27:24
That was life changing. I became a phenomenal marketer
27:28
because of this man. Then the next coach I got was a
27:31
woman because he was very masculine and I wanted a female
27:35
kind of approach in terms of branding and everything.
27:37
So she was amazing. And I always have coaches.
27:40
Always, always, always have coaches.
27:43
Why not use a shortcut to get to where you're going?
27:45
But I do it slightly differently.
27:47
For me, I'm like, what's my problem?
27:49
I'm stuck here. You've done this, you tell me
27:52
how to do it and I give you money for that.
27:54
And then I go from here to here next.
27:56
I don't even think about it. That's a very good problem
28:00
solving approach and I think it shows to how you tackle life as
28:04
well, which is honesty to me, quite inspiring and also quite
28:07
energizing as well. From your experience, you know
28:10
both on the receiving and also the giving side of coaching, How
28:13
has far changed over the years? How has what changed?
28:17
How has coaching changed over the years?
28:21
I don't know how other, you know, for me, I did train as a
28:24
coach. I trained as a health coach way
28:25
back when because I needed some kind of qualification.
28:27
But for me, like when people are like, are you a life coach?
28:30
And I'm like, no, I'm kind of like a blunt coach.
28:33
You know, I, there are so many different modalities of coaching
28:37
and I don't for me, what has changed?
28:41
What has changed? I don't think anything's
28:44
changed. If anything, I've gotten blunter
28:46
and I'm I'm, I try and get people to the the point much,
28:49
much faster. And also it's to understand that
28:52
you need to get to the place where you're doing all the
28:55
things that you need to do as quickly as possible.
28:57
Learn how to do them, get on with doing them and get your
28:59
coach help you to do them. You know, fear is, let me put it
29:02
this way, fear is very vertical. And when you have a fear at your
29:06
base here, it goes through so many different parts of your
29:09
life. So if you don't dig down to find
29:11
the core root of that fear, you're not going to be able to
29:14
impact all these different things that you want to impact.
29:16
But once you find it, you can impact all these amazing things.
29:20
I'd put a lot more spirituality and quantum physics into my
29:23
coaching. Geeta, this is a question for
29:26
some of our listeners who might be new to coaching or therapy.
29:29
How, in your words, is coaching different to therapy?
29:34
The tender thing is because it takes less time.
29:36
I understand that people take do therapy for years and years and
29:40
years. And I do have to be fair.
29:43
I have coaching fights have been with me for years, like Sam
29:45
Smith, but it's she's gone through so many different
29:47
versions of her life that, you know, it's that's what we're
29:50
doing. But I think coaching is more
29:53
direct. It's kind of more performative.
29:55
Is that the right word? It's like, do this, do this, do
29:57
this, and here's what's next. And that's what where's therapy
30:00
to me always feels like, whoa, what's wrong?
30:03
Well, OK, and what, why did that happen?
30:05
And I don't want to sit in, I personally obviously prefer
30:08
coaching, but and therapy is very useful for so many people.
30:13
But I think the difference in coaching is it just kind of gets
30:16
you and moves you through a process and gets you to, I don't
30:20
want to say goal, but it gets you to a different space inside
30:23
yourself much quicker, I think because it's focused on the
30:26
problem. When your clients come to you,
30:29
are they already at a stage in the life or in their mind where
30:35
they're ready to go through that process?
30:37
Well, if they're resistant, they don't become clients, right?
30:39
Because I'm not cheap. I mean, if you're going to give
30:42
me that much money, so there are.
30:43
To be fair, you're actually probably right.
30:45
I have clients who pay me money and then fight me.
30:48
So I introduced a stupid tax and my stupid taxi.
30:51
And like really famous people, people that run countries or
30:54
make 7000 million a year, you can't tell them what to do
30:57
because no one tells them what to do.
30:59
And I'm like, listen, this contract says that if I tell you
31:01
to do something, you don't do it.
31:03
I'm allowed to find you. And they're like, what do you
31:05
mean find me? And I'm like.
31:06
You have that in your contract? Yes, I do.
31:09
Is that standing for coaching I. Don't think so.
31:12
OK. But it's really hard to coach
31:15
somebody world famous in the world who can't even walk
31:18
through an airport with you and then get them to listen to you
31:21
because they don't listen because no one tells them what
31:23
to do. And I'm like, no, I'm done.
31:25
What are we wasting our time for?
31:27
Just paying me is not enough. You have to see results.
31:30
So I have one client, he was Australian and he's to annoy me
31:33
so much. I don't think he'd ever met a
31:34
woman who told him what to do, let alone a brown woman.
31:37
Like, I'm sure he'd never met one.
31:39
And a friend introduced me to him and I got him to buy me, you
31:42
know, those little bean bags that are made with rice and I
31:45
got him to bring some and he was like, I don't know where to find
31:47
them. I can get them here in
31:48
Australia. I'm not great.
31:49
Come the next time, I had no idea he brought them on his
31:52
private plane. That's like, so when he annoyed
31:55
me, I would throw one at him and that was my fine.
32:00
He was a very good sport about it.
32:02
That's a creative way to keep your clients encased.
32:04
Well, no, because why are you not listening to me?
32:08
Didn't you just pay me to do this either?
32:10
Tell me it's a stupid idea and fire me.
32:12
But if you're here and we're talking about it and I know this
32:14
huge amount of information about your problem and I'm giving you
32:17
a solution and you're not following, you're an idiot.
32:19
So how do I point out the fact that you're an idiot?
32:21
I had one client who I used to charge extra and it was very
32:25
funny. She was very wealthy and I would
32:27
charge her £100 stupid tax if she didn't do what I and I would
32:30
give it to charity. Obviously I never kept that.
32:32
I mean it was, it's just not enough money for her to give it.
32:35
She didn't care, you know? But the fact that she got fined
32:38
100 lbs is to really annoy her. So then she would do the
32:42
homework. Amazing.
32:44
Have you ever X powered a client or refused to pay for someone
32:48
new? There are two people that come
32:52
to mind. One of them took up drugs again
32:56
halfway through and I'm like, meh, can't do anything with
32:59
this. And then the second person was
33:02
just really not very nice. He's the best that took up drugs
33:08
again was a woman. And I was like, we're done.
33:10
But I kept the money because you shouldn't have done drugs.
33:13
And the guy was like, he was, he ran like, yeah, no, I can't tell
33:18
you the story unfortunately. But yeah, I couldn't.
33:20
I just, we had the same conversation again and again.
33:24
And I've got to the stage where I'm like, Oh my God, I've said
33:26
the same thing for like 3 months now.
33:28
Why are we still doing this? So yeah, that's very painful.
33:31
You want to help people? Coaching isn't about me, right?
33:34
It's about the client. It's about help.
33:36
You're there to facilitate. It's like you this this
33:38
conversation, you're having it with me.
33:40
But in theory, the conversation is about me, right?
33:42
So if I'm coaching, the conversation is about that.
33:44
How can I help them? How can I shift them?
33:46
How can I move them? And I have a low board in
33:48
threshold. I'm like, let's all move.
33:50
Let's get better at what we're doing.
33:51
And if you can't move them, sometimes they're not meant to
33:55
move. It's not about you, it's about
33:57
them. But sometimes it's just
33:59
heartbreaking because they're in so much pain where they are and
34:02
nobody comes in the door unless they're hurting, you know,
34:05
seriously, they don't come in. And if they're hurting, I just
34:09
want to help them. I want them to not hurt.
34:12
I want them to feel better. I want them to get all the joy
34:15
and love and success that they can get.
34:17
And it really, you don't meant to get involved.
34:21
Of course you get involved. Like how can you not get
34:22
involved when you're intimately learning about someone's life?
34:25
So sometimes that just really hurts when people don't want to
34:29
move. And then you have to, I have
34:30
clients where it's so difficult and you have to really find
34:35
intricate intelligent, because you know, intelligent women are
34:39
very bloody minded and very stubborn.
34:42
And so to get intelligent women to shift, you've really got to
34:46
find the right thing, and you have to work really hard
34:49
sometimes so that they can see and hear what it is that you're
34:52
saying. And for people who might be
34:55
considering coaching, so for any of our listeners, how would they
35:00
know if they have met a coach that they should be working?
35:05
That the coach doesn't follow a system, they follow you.
35:10
I think that's really important because there are many, many
35:12
coaches that follow systems and I've never quite understood
35:15
that. I'm like, but shouldn't the
35:16
system be applied to the person? So number one, that they're
35:19
interested in you, not their system.
35:20
They should tell you about how they work with someone, not what
35:23
they do all the time. Like if you, I haven't told you
35:26
what I do yet in any of this conversation because it's just
35:28
not relevant, you know. And then the second thing is, do
35:31
you like them? Right.
35:32
Because if you don't like them, you're just not going to enjoy
35:35
having them know all this private stuff about you and
35:37
you're not going to tell them you may need to enjoy and like
35:40
them. I get on quite well with my
35:42
clients. They're not my friends, but we
35:44
get on well. So it sounds like I don't, I
35:48
don't want to say any other working relationship, but it is
35:50
very much a professional relationship and the boundary is
35:53
still there, even if the content that's been shared is, you know,
35:56
very intimate sometimes. So understand that for you
36:00
because I know you balance a lot of things.
36:03
Do you ever feel overwhelmed? And if you do, how do you manage
36:06
that? I do, I regularly feel
36:09
overwhelmed especially when there's too much peopling going
36:11
on. I struggle with a lot of
36:13
peopling. I can only do peopling in in
36:15
batches and then I need to go hide somewhere and reload.
36:18
Or if my children are annoying the crap out of me then I'm just
36:21
like overwhelmed or am I? I'm responsible for a lot of
36:24
people's lives. My mother is 91 1/2 and I have
36:27
kids and I had step kids and I, and that can really get me down
36:31
because when you're responsible for other people's lives, but
36:34
you have 0 control over them, it's like having a million cats
36:38
in your backyard that you're trying to get them to do
36:39
something. So it's very painful.
36:42
So that gets me very overwhelmed because I want them.
36:45
I want to do the right thing and I don't always know what it is
36:47
and I don't always know how to do it.
36:49
And I, you know, I'm human. I struggle with that.
36:51
I struggle with all the normal stuff.
36:54
I wake up and then they go, Oh my God, I'm so fat, I hate my
36:57
life. And then I'll wake up the next
36:58
day. I'm in a Formula One watching a
37:00
car drive, you know, I mean, and so it's just normal.
37:03
It's just my version of normal is a little different to most
37:05
people's. But I get depressed and I go and
37:08
I hide in my bed and I'm like, don't come near me.
37:12
And I read a book because I'm a bookworm.
37:15
And then I feel like a failure and I feel like I'm never going
37:17
to do anything. And then I think that's actually
37:19
not true. So I allow myself to kind of
37:21
wallow for an hour or two and then I'm like, OK, smack myself
37:24
offside the head and I carry on. When my mother went into
37:27
hospital last year because she broke her something, that was
37:31
one of the worst times in recent memory for me because she was
37:35
there for like 3 1/2 four weeks. And it was the time I was
37:40
traveling the most for work and I was booked speaking gigs.
37:43
And the people in the hospital were like, oh, so when you go on
37:45
holiday and I'm like, do you have to be a bitch to me, right.
37:48
You're a woman, I'm a woman. We're all trying to do the same
37:50
thing here. And I cannot do anything but
37:53
what I'd do to put money on the table.
37:55
This is what I have to do. And women get given a very bad
37:58
rap for this stuff. Like, if it was a man there was
38:00
going on a trip, but you'd assume it was a business trip,
38:02
you would never tell a man. But when you go on holiday, you
38:05
know, So you get a lot of these things just make me feel bad and
38:11
they'd make me feel sad. And then you don't last there
38:13
for long. Then you come out of it and you
38:16
keep going. I'm generally think I'm very
38:18
lucky, but yeah. I'm actually really happy to
38:21
hear you share all of that because I think that's something
38:23
that everyone of myself included go through.
38:25
But I think to hear from Someone Like You who have so many things
38:28
on their plate and has achieved so much and is so self driven,
38:32
that's just really refreshing for me.
38:33
It gives me permission to feel down when I do feel down.
38:36
Peter, I know that you've seen and worked with a lot of
38:38
different professionals at their stages of their careers.
38:41
What is the one thing that you think will allow more people to
38:45
have better mental health? You know the thing that gives
38:48
you the best mental health, and this is honestly 21,000 people
38:51
later, is don't suppress what you're scared of.
38:54
I'm very open about feeling terrible, about feeling sad,
38:58
mad. I'm open about when I feel like
39:01
I'm a failure. I manage and process those
39:03
emotions. If you try and suppress anything
39:06
that you resist will process. So if you go through life
39:09
managing these emotions, you're screwed and you will feel
39:14
terrible. Whereas if you go through life
39:16
being able to go, God, I feel terrible, I'm such a failure, Oh
39:20
my God, you know, and manage those things.
39:22
Firstly, that's very good. Secondly, I eat like 1% of the
39:26
world. I'm the most picky about how I
39:30
eat, what I eat, the quality of the food, because anything you
39:33
put in your mouth is going to affect how you think.
39:36
So when someone says I live on processed food at McDonald's and
39:39
comes in and goes, I feel bad. I'm like, no really, there's a
39:43
shock like if you're not feeding your body nutrients, don't come
39:46
and talk to me because that's stupid.
39:48
You know, get healthy unprocessed food and make it.
39:53
It's not only cheaper, but it's better for you.
39:55
You know, the third thing is movement.
39:57
Move every day. Like my poor 91 1/2 year old
40:00
mother is made to go for a walk every day.
40:02
You go with her. No, the carer doesn't.
40:06
But yeah, when I see her obviously.
40:08
But but yeah, they were like, I'll sit at home.
40:09
I'm like do not set it up. Up you go, out she does yoga,
40:13
she works out every day. Move.
40:16
Geeta, thank you so much for sharing your insights on the
40:19
Load to Grow podcast. It was a pleasure having you.
40:22
Oh, thank you so much, honey. Really appreciate you letting
40:25
me. Come on.
40:26
That's a wrap for today's episode of the Load to Grow
40:29
podcast. If it resonated with you, leave
40:32
a review and hit follow to help more people to find important
40:35
conversations. Keep growing and see you next
40:38
time.