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Beyond the Hot Flush: Unpacking Menopause with Menopausal Woman's Beverley Lum · Work It Like A Mum

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Elizabeth Willits and I'm obsessed with helping as many women as possible achieve their boldest dreams after kids and helping you to navigate this messy and magical season of life.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I'm a working mum with over 17 years of recruitment experience and I'm the founder of the Investing in Women Job Board and Community.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: In this show, I'm honored to be chatting with remarkable women redefining our working world across all areas of business.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: They'll share their secrets on how they've achieved extraordinary success after children, set boundaries and balance, the challenges they've faced and how they've overcome them to define their own versions of success.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Shy away from the real talk?
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: No way.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Money struggles, growth, loss, boundaries and balance we cover it all.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Think of this as coffee with your mates, the mixed with an inspiring TED talk sprinkled with the career advice you wish you'd really had at school.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: So grab a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and make sure you cozy and get ready to get inspired and chase your boldest dreams, or just survive Mondays.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: This is the Work it Like A Mum podcast.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: This episode is brought to you by Investing in Women.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Investing in Women is a job board and recruitment agency helping you find your dream part-time or flexible job with the UK's most family-friendly and forward-thinking employers.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Their site can help you find a professional and rewarding job that works for you.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: They're proud to partner with the UK's most family-friendly employers across a range of professional industries, ready to find your perfect job?
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Search their website at investinginwomencouk to find your next part-time or flexible job opportunity.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Now back to the show.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Work it Like A Mum podcast.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: This is a show where we dive deep into the experiences, challenges and innovations that shape our lives and work, and today I have a really special guest who's making waves on social media and beyond.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: We're going to be chatting to Beverly Lump, who is the inspiring voice behind the Instagram page Menopausal Woman, and we're going to be talking about Beverly's journey through the world of work and entrepreneurship, also how she is on a mission to normalise conversations around menopause and provide a haven of support and information, and she's changing the narrative around menopause, one post at a time.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: So if you are approaching menopause, if you know someone that is, or you feel interested in hearing about a story of surviving because I know that Beverly has got a brilliant story to share and entrepreneurship, then this is a conversation, is a must listen.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: So let's cut the small talk and get right into it.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Hi Beverly, thank you so much for joining me today.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Oh, thank you Liz.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: That was quite an introduction.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: Thank you, I'm really excited to be here.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: I've been looking forward to this.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: So am I.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: So I'm like, because you know you've had such a varied career and we're going to talk about that, as well as your Instagram page and the work you do there as well.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: But you know, looking back through your LinkedIn profile, you were a real entrepreneur.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Is that something you wanted to be when you were growing up?
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I don't think anyone thinks I want to be an entrepreneur.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: I think I kind of fell into it because I come from a very working-class background.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I was brought up in a council of Masonettes in East London and I didn't get the best education, unfortunately, but I was a child who wanted to succeed.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think as a child you can't really articulate it and you can't really form it in your mind.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: But you know, I knew that I wanted to get out of that situation and I wanted to take my mother with me.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: So I knew I wanted to be a professional.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: I'd limited knowledge about how that might look out.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: I thought about law or accountancy and things like that as a child.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: But the one thing that stood out for me throughout my childhood was the one dream that I could articulate is that I wanted to buy my mother a house in the countryside because that was her dream.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: My dream was to give that to her, to rescue your mum really.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: Rescue my mum, get myself out of that environment and take her with me.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: What should you do in a bad environment?
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Growing up, then, my parents didn't have the best marriage.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: I think my mother was probably, you know, a little bit more aspirational, but she didn't have someone.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: You know, my father wasn't someone who you know was a team player in that respect.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: And I think, like many women, if they are in an unhappy marriage to this day, let alone, you know, in the 70s and before then, you can feel trapped financially and you limit your goals and the things you want to achieve because you've got young children.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: You put them first, you put your responsibilities first and you come last.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: That's what we do as women, don't we?
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: And I think that really resonated with me and I didn't like seeing her like that and that's not what I wanted for myself and it's not what I wanted for my children.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: So I think that spurred me to action very much.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: I didn't want to be in a situation where I ever felt trapped.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: You know, I knew I wanted to be independent and from very early, you know, a lot of my coaching and wanting to help other people stems from, you know, that early feeling of I'm getting my mother out here.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah absolutely so.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: How old were you in your left hand then?
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: You know, I was back and forth as you do.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: My parents split up when I was around about 16 and then at that point my mother had me when she was 39.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: So in those days that was older than it is today, yeah, and so by the time I was in my teen years and my mother was in her 50s, approaching 60.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: So when they separated, actually I felt a lot of responsibility.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: You know, we, my mother and I, were a team and instead of pursuing education, I felt compelled to get straight into the workforce and start bringing in money.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: And I think that's where my entrepreneurial kind of journey started from, because, you know, I was determined to make it and make our situation better by any means, and that's what I did.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: So you were a bit of a grafter then.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: I'm absolutely a grafter, you know.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: I've had long periods of time, so when I've had two to three jobs and I've been doing courses at the same time, I did whatever it took to get where I wanted to be.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: So what were you doing in your early career then, when you started working?
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when I left school I went straight to that misbank.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you know that was a great job, you know good salary, but I didn't enjoy it.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: I was there for about four years.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: It actually made me miserable and it wasn't a great experience because I had that feeling that I didn't want to have of being trapped and thinking what are my options you know, feeling limited because of educational snobbery as well as being a big part of my journey and feeling that was prevented from getting the roles or climbing you know the career ladder as I should have been able to, and that affected me.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I was at NatWest for about four years and then I that's when I started thinking, okay, well, what am I passionate about?
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: And I found fitness very passionate about fitness.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: So I qualified as a fitness instructor by Thomas 21 and I talked for about 16 years until a long time, that was a part-time job while I was doing, you know, full-time role and yeah, so I would, you know, work from nine to five wherever I was, and then I would teach fitness at the evenings and weekends and also be doing courses at the same time, always looking forward, always looking to the next step.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: What do you want to do next?
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: What's going to get me from A to Z?
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Obviously are you still into fitness now.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: The gym is my church and, yes, I've been working out, for it's part of my DNA.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: I come from a sporting family and I can't imagine who I would be or how I would live if fitness wasn't part of my everyday activity.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: Do you feel funny?
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: If you miss the workout Absolutely.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: It's not a case of do I feel like it or don't I feel like it, or having to motivate myself.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: That is a priority.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: That really is probably number one to be fair, because if I don't do that, nothing else works.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: It's really interesting because there's somebody actually posted out in the Facebook group about they felt that they weren't managing to find the time to do exercise.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: And I know you've had children as well and obviously you've worked and you've been busy.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: How have you made that a priority for you and what would you say to other people listening?
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: Before I had a family, I was teaching.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: I'd be teaching hours and hours each week Before I qualified.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: I'd come home from work, get changed and go straight to the gym.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: I think as a single person, it's very easy to prioritise that because of my entrepreneurship.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: I'm a planner.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: I was plan ahead.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: I knew that I wanted to be financially secure before I had children.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: I knew that I wanted to bring my children up.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: I didn't want to be in a situation where I had to pay someone else to do it because I didn't think anyone else would do it as I would.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: That's what I did.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: By the time I had my children, I was an investor.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: I had a real estate business.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: I had various properties that I bought, sold, refurbished, was letting out.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: I had an income.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: I had a passive income and I could bring my children up In that transition, once I had my children and once they were in preschool, for instance, then I would train.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: I was in a privileged position to be able to do that.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: A lot of people said to me.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: A few people say, oh, you're lucky.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: Maybe I'm lucky, but Santa Claus didn't turn up at my front door and give me anything.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: I had to work and I did work.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Talk about your investment.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: You read that female investors is a really small percentage of investors.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: How did that come about?
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Were you working at the same time that you were doing it?
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: Absolutely Always working Full-time job, teaching, fitness, spinning houses I've never stopped.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: I've stopped for a little bit the last few years, but no, the hustle and the grind were real.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: In my mid-20s, I think I probably, got my first property with a partner at that time refurbished.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: It sold it on, did that a few times.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: As a child, I always had an interest and a passion for a property in architecture.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: Coming from East London where there's a real mix of architecture from Victorian mansions to council flats.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: When I travelled through other areas like Mayfair and more profitable areas and more gentrified areas, I'd be fascinated by architecture and Victorian houses.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: I always looked and always had that passion for property.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: It's just a very natural transition to want to invest.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: That was always my interest.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: I'd say from a very early 20s that I wanted to get into property investing.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: I started, like we all do, slow.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: I didn't have any financial backing.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: I had a full-time job, had a part-time job and I had an IQ of 148 and nothing was going to stop me.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: I just started small and started spinning houses and carried on.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: I bought an investment property and then bought more.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: I taught them.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: You were self-taught initially.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: So everything I went into property, I wasn't one of these young people that was going out of your weekend, was living month to month.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: That's never been who I was.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: I was always about what's the next thing, when do I want to get next?
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: I was all about how I wanted to succeed and fulfill my dreams.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: I've never been about instantaneous fulfilment.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: It's all about okay, what's down the road?
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: Let's focus on that.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, were you doing that for your mom?
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: Do you think initially it was one of those houses you intended for that?
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we got there.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: In the end I got her out.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: I got her to Epin Forest, which you'll know, but unfortunately, by the time we got her there, a health wasn't great and we didn't get to enjoy her dream as long as I would have liked to.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: But I can't fit myself with knowing that I did it.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I did it on my own.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: You had your children, you continued investing in property.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: Have you ever done any other investments?
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: Yes, I do invest in other things.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: Now I invest in art, I'm looking at investing in a gym, which I think would be a very good fit for me.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I remember I got to my 40th birthday and at that point I was coming towards the end of a three-year acrimonious divorce from a very abusive ex-husband and I sat down and I opened my box, which I'd used 20 years previously to manifest my hopes and dreams, and I had achieved everything in that box and I just thought, okay, what do I do now?
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: I was a little bit lost, but I sat in that moment.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: For a few years I sat in my motherhood and I focused on my children and I met my next husband and married and I think when you become a mother, you start to put yourself a little bit further down in the pecking line.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: So I was very focused on empowering my children and making sure they had the best education and that they were enabled to fulfill their dreams when the time came and, of course, supporting my husband in his entrepreneurial dreams too.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: I did take a minute.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: I took a minute and then, once my children were going into senior school and I had a little bit more flexibility, I've always had the unfulfilled professional desire.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: I feel like I'm unaccomplished professionally, although I've been an entrepreneur.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: I guess I felt that I haven't had the acknowledgement in my career path, and so I did want to get back into the workforce and almost kind of prove to myself what I was capable inside of a corporate environment.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: In my mid-20s I actually went to university and got my masters in business management.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: So I was supported by my boss and my company at the time paid for half of the cost.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: So again, I was working full time, I was doing a degree, I was teaching fitness.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: I was still hustling, but I think, because I got my education slightly later, I always felt a little bit behind the curve.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Did you feel like an imposter then?
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Yes, if you were to do what you do and you obviously had the children, but you were investing what would you have?
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: You know, people do ask you know, what do you do.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: What would you have said to?
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: them yeah, when people are, yeah, I'm a property investor, that's what I do at that point.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: Now I've broadened the field, but ultimately, yes, I'm a property investor.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: That's how I identify myself, yeah.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I went back to work.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: I went into estate agency because I thought, because I loved property, I would love being the other side of the desk.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: So I danced with that for about 18 months.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: Did you enjoy it?
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Not as much as I thought I would, and I think that's because I prefer the US model of estate agency, and in the UK it is slightly different.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: And yeah, so I was great at it.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: I have to say I was good at it, but one thing led to another and I ended up in property recruitment after that.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: And then that led on to, you know, in 2020, when COVID hit, I decided to do it myself and set up my own recruitment business.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I thought you know, I can do this myself, I don't need to do it under someone else's umbrella.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: How have you found the challenge?
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Moving back, sort of flitting between self and employed work?
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: You know, work for yourself and working for somebody else.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: How have you found?
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: that I've always done it.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know quintessential investors always want more than one revenue stream.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: They don't like to rely on one revenue stream.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: You know, I tell young people that.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: You know, ask me for advice.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: I never spend anything out of my pay packet.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: The only thing I spend has already been spun.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: So the only money I spend is something that I've already earned off an investment.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: So you know I'll get a salary.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: I'll invest it.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: The interest I get on any investment, I'll spend that.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: So I spend my money all the time.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: Do you need a lot of money to get into investing?
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: I think these days?
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: You know, 20 years ago mortgages were a lot different.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: There were easier to get.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: You know people.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: You know big banks were given out mortgages left, right and centre.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: You know property prices have gone up.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: The economic climate has changed.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: We've had Brexit, we've had COVID.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: Obviously, as I've always said to people, like the price of bread, property will always go up.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: You know you hit peaks and troughs, but ultimately it will always go up.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: So, unfortunately, young people today are looking at very large deposits to be able to get on the property ladder.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I don't think salaries have necessarily gone up in line with the cost of real estate.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: So people are staying at home or going back and forth to their parents' houses until they're 30 because it's so difficult to get onto the property ladder.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: And that's part of the reason why I also wanted to make sure that I was financially secure so that I could help my children when the time came to get on the property ladder and to not have the struggle that I had with no financial backing, no support, no one to give you me a leg up, and it's really hard out there.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, no, I don't think it's easy.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: You know, once you're in and you start to turn things around, I think certain parts of the country, obviously property is a lot cheaper and if you've got the flexibility to and you have the skills to refurbish things yourself luckily I had a lot of those skills no, I might not look at it if you're looking at me.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I can tile as good as the next person.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: You know, I know two ends of a drill, you know.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: So I think if you have a little bit of know-how and you can travel, when you have some flexibility, you can definitely, you know, get into real estate as a side hustle, but you've got to want it and you've got to design your life so that you can make that work really yeah.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: You mentioned about investing in a gem.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: I'm just wondering you know about other investments, something you'd like to see more women investors and you know generally, and I think generally, women need to be educated around investing.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: I think you go to school and nobody talks to you about investing.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: You know societal trends are focused on, you know, having people work a nine to five for other people.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: They don't encourage necessarily entrepreneur city and certainly don't focus on women.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: You know being independent, being financially independent.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: I think we've come a long way, but obviously you know the fifties and sixties.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: You've got married, had children.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: Most women didn't work.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: My mother did work.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: She worked to make ends meet.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: You know she would have retail jobs and have cleaning jobs to make ends meet.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: And my mother was born in 1932.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: She lived through the war.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: You know she started working when she was about 13.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: She left to art school to go to work because, you know, her parents are so poor.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know my mother had to hustle too and she had limited resources, limited education, to be able to bring in, you know, a decent wage.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: So I think, as you know, the years have progressed since.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: You know, prior to the seventies and pre-war, we have progressed.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: I think we've come on leaps and bounds, but there's still a lot of work to do and I think women really need to think about being independent.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: You know there's a lot of also media out there If it's not to be completely independent.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: I guess, with property prices so high, it's hard to not have to buy with somebody else and save a deposit with somebody else.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: But it's also having that independence that if you want to leave your situation, you can leave your situation, and I think that's what I mean by being independent is not being scared to get out of a difficult situation that you're in.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: And a lot of women feel like that because the husbands are the main breadwinner and they've been at home with the children.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: And I really advocate, you know, if you're in that situation, if there's any way you can create a side hustle and start working on making sure you've always got your independence.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: You know, I would strongly advise it because you know it's not good to be dependent on the man because when things can sometimes unravel, particularly in menopause, there's a lot of breakdown of relationships, there's a lot of separation and a lot of women in a very difficult financial situation while they're dealing with a very difficult, you know, health challenges.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: And I think you know we need to look forward.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: Women need to be taught to look forward.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: You know there's a lot of media out there.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: You know how can I put this?
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: Young women that aspire to marry footballers or marry men that have a good income so they don't have to work.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: And you know that's great if you love your husband and you're happy.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: But if you don't and you're not happy, you're screwed.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: And I don't think any mother wants to see their daughter in that situation and I look at everyone as you know.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: What would I want for my daughter?
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: I don't want anyone to be in an unhappy situation.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: I've been in an unhappy situation but luckily I was the main breadwinner and it was roles reversed for me and I had a very expensive divorce because of that.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: But at least I wasn't feeling that, you know, trapped and wondering what the future will hold.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: I knew, you know, I had the confidence.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: I knew I could.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: You know I didn't need anyone.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: So you set a property recruitment business.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: How was that?
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: Because you set that up in COVID Sure so you know, I set up a recruitment business which focused on financial services.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: So I was looking at estate agents, mortgage brokers, wealth managers, financial planning, and it was great business and it was flourishing.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: But unfortunately, at the same time, covid hit and I started my business, my menopause symptoms hit as well, and I didn't know what day it was.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: What were your symptoms then?
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: My symptoms really manifested when I was postmenopausal.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: Postmenopausal means one year without periods.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, so after a year beyond the age slot period, okay.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so postmenopause is one day in the diary.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: A lot of people refer to menopause as the menopause transition, but actually menopause is just one day in the diary.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: It's the anniversary of one year without periods.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: The next day you're postmenopausal Praise in it, yeah, and the day before you're perimenopause.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: I'd never heard the word perimenopause.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: I had again.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: I was thrown in the deep end, like many of us are, and I had to learn real fast what was going on with me, what I needed to do to make it better, and just try and figure it all out.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, after about 18 months of running my business, it just was not sustainable for me anymore because I was really fighting for my life.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: So what's your way about that, what were your symptoms and how are you fighting for your?
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: life.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: So there's probably around over 40 symptoms in menopause and I probably had all of them.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: The major ones were Insomnia.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: Probably didn't sleep for two years during COVID before.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: Was that menopause or do you think that was COVID or a bit of a?
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: That was menopause.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: I'd never had COVID.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean to worry of being the COVID.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: No, it was menopause.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: Insomnia is a massive problem because your issues and progesterone, your hormone levels, are lowering.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: Progesterone in particular has a big effect on sleep.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I was up trying to build my business three, four o'clock in the morning because I couldn't sleep.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: The night sweats, the anxiety not wanting to go out of the door, feeling like you can't go out alone, you brain fog.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: I remember a few years during perimenopause, because perimenopause can be up to 10 years before menopause, so probably from 40 or later on.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: I was going through menopause and I had no idea and I remember maybe 2018, 2019 being out with my best friend and she was talking to me and I was looking at her, thinking I have no idea what your name is, and I was just frozen and paralyzed and she was speaking and I couldn't hear what she was saying and I was in an absolute panic, thinking I have no idea what your name is and I've known this woman for 30 years.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so, and it's very common, women think they're getting dementia.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: I thought I was getting dementia.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: We will go through this.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: What is wrong with me?
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: Is it dementia?
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: Am I getting Alzheimer's?
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's very.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: It's really, really scary.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: And then it's you're not being able to articulate yourself.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: You can't get your words out, you can't think of a word, you're just a stumped and you start to feel like a moron.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: You think I'm actually dying.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: And then there's the depression that comes along with it.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: And at one point, you know I'd say over two years ago, coming up to two year anniversary I was in a very, very deep depression.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: I called my husband and I said I don't think I'm going to make it.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: The biggest suicide rate for women is around the age of 51, 52, 53.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: And that's menopause.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: You know, I know people and I know of people on story in particular.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: You know a gentleman's come home and found his wife hanging in the bathroom, you know, and but that information isn't out there, because what do you put on the death certificate?
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: People aren't putting on the death certificate, menopause.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: But there's a clear correlation between menopause and the average age of menopause is 51, 52 and the high suicide rates.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: Because you're in this awful, terrible depression.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: Your body's falling apart, you're losing your mind, you can't cope, you've got anxiety, you're tired, you're fatigued.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: You know, I remember being in the gym many times when I wasn't crying and I'd be crawling around on my hands and knees because I was so fatigued, but I just had to get up.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's debilitating, not to everybody.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: Everyone has a different experience.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: I had an extreme experience.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: Some people have all these symptoms during perimenopause.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: You know so the fact that all of my symptoms really hit postmenopause.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: You know, I think I think, because I've always had a very fit and healthy lifestyle, that my body was able to cope with a lot of it until my hormones completely left the building and then it just put me down.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: It just took me down, took my legs from underneath me.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: It just sounded.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, at least sometimes do sound horrendous.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: So I mean, what would help?
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: I guess is there anything like you know relieves the symptoms or you know, and we were going to talk about HRT as well.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: But what do you think would help people?
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Maybe it work at home, relationships going through the menopause and you know, very in my mind, half the skin throughout.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: Information and education and there's a lot of women like me that are out there.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: We call ourselves menopause warriors and we're getting pumping out as much information as we can for women of all ages so they can be educated and plan and prepare for menopause, because if you're not prepared it will put you on your backside.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: But if you prepare and you have a fit and healthy lifestyle you look at what you're eating and drinking.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: So how do you prepare then?
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you need to.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: You know the fitter you are, the healthier you are.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: You know, eating the right foods, not drinking too much alcohol, self care, the easier it will be, and getting in touch with your body and understanding the changes.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: But education is key, you know, understanding what the symptoms are.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: So once you get and some people go through early menopause and also surgical menopause.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: So there's women out there at 17 years of age that are in menopause, you know, that have had hysterectomies or endometriosis, and there's women that go through early menopause, you know, in their 30s.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: But then the doctors you know only 40% of doctors GPs are trained in menopause and that training is around an hour in the seven years of their medical training.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: So there's a lot of doctors out there that can't help us, and I know I've been to about five or six before I found someone who could help me.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: And I hear stories every single day where women are going to doctors and they're being offered antidepressants.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: I was offered antidepressants, you know.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: I had to tell my GP I'm not depressed, I'm in menopause.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: It's not a chemical imbalance in my brain, it's a lack of hormones in my body.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: So no, I don't want antidepressants.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: This is not going to help.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: But that's part of a menopause scandal.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: You know, so many doctors are just prescribing antidepressants to women and women don't know any better than they take them and it doesn't actually help with the symptoms because this is hormone related.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: So education is everything.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: You might think I'm okay, I'm in my 20s, I'm in my 30s, like we all do.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: You blithely go along and you don't know what to expect and it's really important that you start to think about this early on.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: So understand how your body works so you can identify changes, you can look for the symptoms and really get your head around HRT and what your options are with medication.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: You know, unfortunately my generation are still living off the bad propaganda that was circulated, you know, in the 60s and 70s that came out around synthetic HRT and how it can cause breast cancer.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: Hrt is not.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: There are some synthetic HRTs out there.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: Hopefully they'll be banned soon but HRT today is bioidentical, which means it mimics your natural hormones.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: My particular HRT is called bioidentical HRT and it's made, it's plant based.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: It's made from yams and natural plant extract so it's not dangerous.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: But my generation was when it came out in newspapers.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: Hrt can cause breast cancer and you know, for the last 50 years women have been scared of taking it and we have come on leaps and bounds but we're not getting you know positive press out there.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: The generations below at my age and below me still think HRT is going to hurt them.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: When if you get you know natural HRT, not synthetic HRT, you know bioidentical, body identical HRT, it's going to really help you because you are in post-menopause for the rest of your life.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and menopause is very closely related to heart disease in women and dementia and statistics show because of the past generations and the cause of death for me that have been a hrt, this is a clear correlation and that's because we have issues in receptors throughout our body, in our heart in particular.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: If you don't have that issue in your heart, your vessels become, you know, your blood vessels and your veins become smaller, more sticky.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: The blood can't get through cardiac disease.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: You have issues and receptors throughout your brain.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: If you don't have that issue in there, your cognition is affected, which are the major symptoms in menopause, with, you know, not remembering memories we call it brain fog.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: It's very, very difficult.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: You go to a room, you can't remember why you went into the room, you don't remember people's names, you can't speak.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: You know cognition is heavily affected and you know there's been a lot of deaths.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: You know women dive dementia Because you know what you get to that stage it's you haven't got long after.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: And then, of course, osteoporosis again issue in your bones.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: If you're not getting the issue in the bones, you get osteoporosis, which means as you get older.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: You know if you don't have muscle strength and tone in your body, if you don't have strong bonds, are more likely to lose balance for love.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: Once you fall over as an elderly person again you don't really ever recover because your body isn't in a situation that can repair, it's not renewing the bone cells, is not repairing that properly and again, there's not much after that.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: You don't really recover.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: So it's really important that we start to be fit and healthy as soon as possible, not just menopause before then, so we are fit and healthy to fight it.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: And then we get that ht and we replenish the hormones that are depleting in our body so that we don't become frail, so I skin isn't sagging, so I must, so we don't have atrophy, so that you're getting what you need and I think we deserve that.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: I think we should be allowed to do that.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: Historically, women, you know you have your children.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: You know seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, in Victoria times.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: You know my grandparents were born, you know, before the nineteen hundreds.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: You know my grandmother said ten children each and then you could be a grandmother by time you're thirty five and you know, historically we're not of any use because once you've had children in those days you didn't have career, you wasn't, you know, financially contributing to society.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: You only there to get married and have children.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: And look at, you know things have changed now we are holding down careers, we're looking after elderly parents were, bringing up children, were supporting our spouse.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: We're holding the universe together and you know we can't afford to fall apart and we deserve to enjoy because you know we live longer than men.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: You know we live to eighty, ninety.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: We deserve the last thirty, forty years of our life to be as good quality as it was in our twenty thirties.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: Why don't we deserve that?
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: Why can't we bring up children and contribute to society and have a career and then slow down and actually still have our bodies and be able to rely on our bodies and our minds to enjoy the rest of our life?
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: We deserve that and it's only us that are going to give it to ourselves.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: Nobody else is going to do so what about those people that maybe don't still not want to take a hrt, or can't take it for whatever reason?
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: Is there any natural alternatives?
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: What can they do?
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: it's tricky, but there are adaptogens out there.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: I've got on my instagram page, menopausal underscore woman, lots of information about adaptogens okay, so it's herbal remedies.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: So supplement, yeah, you have to get good quality supplements.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: Don't go to your local supermarket and get magnesium off the shelf.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: You know it will be full of additives and other things that are not going to help you and actually could make you worse.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: When you're looking for a supplement, you want to look for something that is a close to the source, the plant, as possible.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: You know what, to be a hundred percent natural.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: You don't want it to be filled with a pumped up with other processed additives and, of course, a lot of us don't think about that.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: Again, it's a process of education.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: You think, oh, I know this brand, this is where I shop all the time, and you just, and you don't think about it, you just put it in the basket and you pay for it and it does nothing.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: And then you think why does everyone say magnesium works well?
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: I took magnesium because you bought some crap off the shelf.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: Quite frankly, again on my page I've got some suggestions about places where you can get really good quality supplements and that's key.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, you know, get on google, read your books, look at your symptoms.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: I'm very broad minded about, you know, women's health advocacy, so I don't just rely on medicine.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: I am very interested in, you know, natural health remedies because they work.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: You know medicines are made from them and doctors aren't, that you know, educated in functional wellness or functional medicine.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: They just want to give you what big farmer want you to have, which is sometimes, you know, drugs that are not great for you.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: So you know if you're stuck and you can't take HRT you're being offered synthetic HRT and you don't want to take that yeah, well, you know, if a doctor's you know offering you synthetic HRT, then just say no and go to a different doctor.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: They shouldn't really be offering it to you.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: It should be a really nice result and it suggests that they're not being trained.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: Quite frankly, I always say to women your instincts are never wrong.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: If it fills off, it's off.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: Women's instincts are everything and they're 100%.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: If you go to a doctor, you don't feel comfortable.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: If you're like they're not listening, there's alarm bells ringing.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: Cut them loose, go elsewhere.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: I say to my children you know, if you're not getting the answer that you want, you're speaking to the wrong person.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: Don't ever take no for an answer.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: Your GP is not God and don't think that they know more than you do.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: Go out there and make sure you know more than they do so you can have an informed conversation.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: Take a friend with you to your appointment, because you know you can forget what you want to say, you can get flustered, you can have a hot sweat and you can fall apart.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: You can start crying.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: We've all done all of those things trying to talk to someone who you don't feel is listening.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: So take someone with you to have the conversation.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: Take a support system.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: And again, if you're not satisfied, go to the next doctor, go to the next doctor, and I just did not stop banging on doors and asking for recommendation until I found the right doctor.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: And if you can't take HRT, as we were saying, I would also suggest find a really good nutritional therapist who knows about menopause.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: You know he's trained in functional medicine and can really help you drill down on, you know, supplements and adaptions that can ease your symptoms.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: But always the first point is a good diet and exercise, and that means, you know, alcohol is the worst, it's liquid sugar.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: But the problem is for women and I've done it when you're in menopause and you're working, you get to the end of the day and you just want a glass of wine because you can't take anymore, and that will trigger the night sweats and that will, you know, compound all of your symptoms.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: But it's a vicious circle and you're putting on weights that you've never had before.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: You go to the gym, the training that you've done all your life suddenly stops working.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: And there's so many unanswered questions out there and I'm happy to say on my Instagram I answer a lot of those questions because I've been through the journey and I've searched for the answer and I found the answer and it's taken years.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: But I want to share those answers with everybody else because I don't want to see anybody go through what I went through.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: So please just Google, follow you know, lisa Snowden, penny Lancaster, caroline Harris, mp, who is working every day in parliament to get you know better representation for women that are going through menopause, and all of those menopause warriors, because they are, oh, divina, of course you know, of course, divina.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: You know there's lots of doctors out there that will help you.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: So just put yourself out there, don't be embarrassed.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: There's nothing to be embarrassed about.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: It happens to us all.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: Menopause is stigmatized again.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: It goes back to, you know, past ages, where a women's value was based on how they look, and so women are forever wanting to stay youthful because they think that's where their value lays.
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: We need to get away from that.
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: You know we are holding the universe together.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: We pump everybody out.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: You're only here because we pumped you out.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: You know we are professionals, we are educated and we've got a lot to offer, and it's not all about how you look, it's all about how you feel, and there's absolutely nothing to be.
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: I don't care who knows how old I am and who knows I'm.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: You know, I tell everyone I'm 52, I'm post menopause and this is what it can look like.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: You don't have to be on the floor, you don't need to go through that phase of being suicidal.
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: You know you've got this, but you need to do the work because no one, like a, say, father Christmas, is not going to knock on the door, unfortunately, and educate you, not today, maybe next week, maybe next year, but today you're on your own and there's only people like myself out there that willing to help and talk and educate, and you need to do the same.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: You need to pass on the information to your children, your nieces, your mother, your friends and just talk, because the more information and the better educated you are, the easier this is going to be for you and your daughters.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: That could be really you know you could be applicable to anything, to any stage of people are going through in life.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: So where can people find you, verbally connect with you?
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: Where can you follow your page, remind people of the page?
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: The Instagram account again.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: Yep, so my menopausal underscore woman is on Instagram, I'm on LinkedIn, I'm obviously I've gone back to work now, which is how we reconnected Liz, and you know I really want to advocate for women, that's who are, you know, going through a hard time in menopause.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: They're either working full time and their employers don't understand and they really need to scale down in hours, or they're left with the option of leaving the job.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: I have so many women reaching out to me saying I had to resign last week.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: I couldn't take anymore and I'm really worried about my financial circumstances.
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: I've got women whose relationships are breaking down and they need to go back to work because they can't afford not to, and you really get in that stage where your confidence is knocked, your cognition isn't working as it was, your memory isn't working as it was and you just feel unemployable.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: And I have just gone back to work, which is what I desired for a number of years.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: Now I'm actually in my dream job.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: I'm playing to all my strengths and actually the fears I had around not being good enough, my brain function not working, not being able to do it's just fallen away, because once you are doing something that you love and you enjoy.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: It all comes back.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: That's my experience.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: It's come back and I feel as strong and as powerful and as confident as I ever did.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: So I don't my messages don't be scared.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: Don't be scared, just do what you need to do and put yourself first to be where you need to be, and there are people out there that will talk to you and help you and want to listen.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: You're not on your own.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: I know there's women out so many women out there were surrounded by family, a partner, children.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: You really just don't understand what they're going through.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: There's a lack of empathy and understanding and sympathy and that's where relationships break down.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: And women reach out to me all the time saying I think I'm losing my mind, my kids don't care about me, my husband's an idiot and I don't see any reason for going on.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: It's a really scary place to be.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but then you can get through it, yeah, and it sounds like they're not alone and there's a lot of people obviously going through it and feel the same way and wanting to help with this as well, that you are.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: There's 13 million women going through menopause in the UK right now today Crazy, okay, and there's about 30 of us talking about it.
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so you're definitely not alone and you don't have to be embarrassed, and we need you.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely need to make noise.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: So that's the only way anything changes is if we make noise.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: So it's menopausal underscore.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: Menopausal underscore.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: Woman, Woman, Brilliant On Instagram, you're obviously leveling on LinkedIn and you're helping people as well get back into work.
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm giving free advice.
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: I'm working.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: Actually, it's really interesting because, as we just mentioned, we reconnected because I wanted to get back into work.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: My confidence was gone.
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: I thought it's best to really start with a part-time role and build up into full time to, just because it's really overwhelming and it's quite daunting.
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: You know, and I like to think of myself as an articulate, educated, confident, successful woman and you go through menopause and you feel like you can't get out of the bed.
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I wanted to, like a lot of women, maybe start part-time and you know I've got some advice with you regarding that.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I'm actually working in a company now I mentioned before.
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: This really is my dream role.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: It plays to all my strengths, it plays to all my experience and it's really interesting.
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: Actually, it's like the universe has conspired to put me in this place.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: But I'm working for a company called Keller Williams Plus.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: They're the number one real estate company in the world.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: They're not as well known in the UK.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: They're mostly well known in the United States.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: So if you watch things like, you know, millionaire State Agent or Selling Sunset or any of those programs in the US about real estate agents, keller Williams will be part of that story.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: Keller Williams have now been operating in the UK for about five years and the model is you work under the Keller Williams umbrella as a self-employed real estate agent, and so it's perfect for me with my background.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: But it's also that kind of role is perfect for, you know, a professional woman or a budding entrepreneur who wants to work when they want to work, wants to write big checks for themselves, you know, wants to has an interesting property, who wants to start a new chapter and who wants to, you know, be in charge of their own destiny.
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: And I love that about the company that I'm in because it gives everybody but women in particular, you know, is what I'm passionate about gives them the opportunity to really have that financial independence that they want to have.
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: And it's an incredibly successful company and you are provided with all the training, the tools, the resources, everything you need to set up.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: I did a post today saying, you know, I had to hustle for everything I've got.
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: I had no financial backing, I had no training, I had no, you know, resources.
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: So, you know, succeed under this model.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: You're just not built to succeed because they make it easy and it's a really great opportunity for women out there who need to work around their children or want to work part-time, want to work remotely and just want to build a career around their needs and wants, it's a great opportunity.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: We'll put all the links in the show notes.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Beverly, for joining me today.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Liz I appreciate it.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: Thank you, take care, you too.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to another episode of the Work it Like a Mom podcast.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, and don't forget to share the link with a friend.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: If you're on LinkedIn, please send me a connection request at Elizabeth Willett and let me know your thoughts on this week's episode.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: You can also follow my recruitment site Investing in Women on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: Until next time, keep on chasing your biggest dreams.