Overcoming darker days w/ Nicky Pattinson

Episode 42 – Overcoming Dark Days

Transcript

:: 00:04

Welcome.

:: 00:04

To mental wealth, the podcast to invest in your mind. Here I will help you make sense of your mind and behaviours, giving you the tools to have your best life. There is so much to share, so let's get into this episode and explore another great topic.

:: 00:22

Welcome to Episode 42, and in this episode I am delighted to say I'm sharing this space with a very special lady who I.

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Met in a.

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Networking event and we're going to talk about some of the darker days, but maybe hopefully inspiring you to move and do something different in those days. So let me introduce.

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My special guest today? Nicky Pattinson.

:: 00:45

Hello and welcome.

:: 00:47

Well, I and let let's hope that you're equally as delighted when we get to end of this. Allison, you've not all come to see me in a private hospital or in hospital. And you know I'm not actually in bed. I'm on my way to Johannesburg to work. So I'm just in a an airport hotel, going over to the terminal.

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A bit.

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I love it.

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So very yeah. We're very blessed to have you here as you are jetting off to South Africa.

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And you are.

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A connection expert aren't you, but you are so much more than that. Tell everyone a little bit more.

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About who you are.

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I had to become a connection expert. I you know, I'm basically not the shiniest button on the jacket. I can't count. I can't organise things. I did a little TikTok yesterday because I were trying. It took me two days to try and pack for a week, but my brain wouldn't compute it and actually set off to the train station.

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Got there. I went back home again, changed the train and I had to get somebody to help me pack, cause my brain wouldn't do it. And I knew that I've not done it right. So I'm not the shiniest button on the jacket.

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But I learned very quickly what made the world go round. It's not how many qualifications you've got. You know, my son is a master of this and God knows what. But I always say to him that will get you very far, darling. It's how you make people feel in your unique presence. That's what.

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That's the that's the Golden keys these days. So yeah, first job working as a as a shoe shop girl could sell more shoes in one day than anybody else could sell in a week.

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e do, we all evolve. It's not: 1942

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stall in Huddersfield doing £: 1000

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A £2,000,000 a year business and we were 10% more expensive than anybody else. They're exactly the same stock. Now. How did we do it? Because I watched every wink of the eye, every wave of the hand. What had people stood in our queue? The way we moved, the way we used our voice, the body language.

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What we said.

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We it was all very thought out and yeah, you know, as a market trader, you had to learn that you had to become a master of instantly activating people within two seconds to stand and talk to you and buy something that they got no idea that they were ever gonna buy that pound of biscuits.

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So yeah, it's kind of been my fault too. I lost everything. As in all good stories, long story. My son died. Jackson negligence at nursery. My mum died. My dad died.

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Let's just say there were no money in.

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The bank.

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I were divorced.

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Creditors came at me, lost everything, ended up in a little cottage with a four year old son.

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But Alison, I still have what I learned on the markets modified it and I reapply it everywhere, from lawyers to supermarkets.

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Love it, love it. And I think just I remember seeing you speak when I first met you, Nicky, and and just that.

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Of.

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Relatable, wherever you are, wherever you're starting from. Anyone listening today, wherever you're starting from, there's a point, isn't there? That you can start because I hear people say.

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Often you know.

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I I I don't know how to. I don't know what to do.

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I don't know where.

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To go and and we don't always do it. We don't always know what to do and where to go, but just.

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Hearing that journey that you've been on, and I also have my own journey that I talk a lot about and just hopefully being able to help everyone go. It's OK and we can start wherever we start, but I think something that you said before we came on was about those dark days and what we get from those because again.

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There's a lot of people out.

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There who have.

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Many dark days, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, because I think it's a refreshing space to be in.

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Absolute well, first of all, I'd like to comment on what you just said.

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So it finds you. If you don't know where to start, you become it and it finds you. So I had COVID thought I were dying. They had long COVID didn't work for 18 months.

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And what I do now found me there is no question. You become it, you don't chase anything, anything you chasing your life. You ain't gonna catch it. You become it and then it finds you. And it's almost like a miracle. It it it really is. It's, you know, what do you wanna feel like? Who do you wanna be? Who do you wanna meet? You become it and it finds you. Well, let's talk about those.

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Dark days cause, you know, everybody thinks when they meet me.

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But Oh yeah, she must always be like that.

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Nah.

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When my son died, negligence at nursery.

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It was just as anybody, as anyone who was lost children, to explain that to you, when I lost everything, my marriage split up, blah, blah, blah. I was left with nothing and a four year old.

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Boy.

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There were some days that I literally would just engulfed in grief because my identity was that I would, you know, inherit what would have been many millions now. And you know that it didn't really matter because that were me. I had kind of, I've kind of had an identity. And then at age 38.

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I had nothing and I was a single parent on benefit with a four year old boy.

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I still have my dreams. My dreams were bigger than my fears. So those dark days, actually.

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Saved me and let me explain what I mean. Anybody who is a creative person will understand. So you access parts of yourself when you just sat there with your head in your hands that you could never dream of accessing. When you're out, you know, doing the big.

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You know the big life thing.

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And I had a chance to ask myself who I really was. Was I that person that I've been told I was? Was I actually thick or had I created, you know, a sales function in that market store business that changed everything? Was I actually a bad person?

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Were I stupid other things that had been called.

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And then I started to write it all down and realise that actually no I wasn't. And from that minute everything changed. But I had to ask myself. Nicky, who have you become? Who you gonna be? And and now you know, if I get those dark days, I'll always get a pen out. And that's where some of the best ideas come from.

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And do you know what I've just thought of? I think where that comes from, Allison, I think about how can I help the people who feel like me today. So I write it down and I find the answers. And then I package it up.

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And I put it in my programmes because it's from freaking real life, not freaking book. I read, you know, it's from actually having my own head in my own hands and crying that much you can't get out of chuffing bed. So I kind of answered your question. But yeah, from some of my.

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Great downs have come me best work, but also.

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When I feel better and I'm out there again, I appreciate it so much. I can't tell you.

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Yeah.

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I love that and I think just hearing you say that and is something I talk about, you know, we can distract ourselves when we feel low, when we feel frightened. Sometimes that's the right thing to do, isn't it? But sometimes I'm often saying to people just sit with it, just sit with it. Just like you say, write about it, walk.

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Scream into the pillow, go out into the onto the top of a mountain and scream it out. Whatever it is that you need to do because you're right and I've had that for me also many times where the most.

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Unusual link to how you're feeling. Thing comes out and you think that determination, that thing of like do.

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You know what? No, I'm gonna.

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Do this thing. I mean, I set up my business, I left the NHS after 24 years. I had a safe job pension, all these things and I just left literally overnight and people around me were saying.

:: 09:48

You're mad, but I knew. I just knew and that.

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Was 14 years.

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Ago.

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Oh, do you know I had a similar. I had a similar experience cause I were 45. I had a brilliant job, company BMW, you know.

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Plenty of cash that would long story of how I've got that as well. You know, after my big demise and at age 45, I will selling design for a design agency, but I brought in Nike, big big international companies.

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Just well, just by ringing them up basically. But anyway, modifying what I've learned on the markets and reapplying it to working on the phone to get meetings. But yeah, I woke up at 45 and I thought well, I could get, I could get a meeting with God to rebrand heaven today and I wouldn't feel it and.

:: 10:43

Within a few hours, I jacked in my cards, car went and I was sat there going right.

:: 10:49

Yeah, we've had his ups and downs, but it was definitely the right thing. Again, it finds you, finds you.

:: 10:56

Yeah, I think as well that risk that people worry about, you know like, say, giving up your safety, giving up your car. I mean, I wouldn't just whenever had anything like that. But you know, you were still giving up your security and your safe pension. But actually when you do it, that's where almost it. That thing happens, doesn't it? It's like, right. OK.

:: 11:17

This is serious and I think there's lots of people who do feel nervous to take that big step because.

:: 11:25

They don't really know how a how they're going to manage without the thing they used to have, but also what what does the other thing look like? What kind of things do you think people need to pay attention to when they're not? They know they need to leave something. It might be a relationship it.

:: 11:41

Might be a.

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Job, but they're in that sort of.

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Place because there's so many people out there who are sitting halfway halfway.

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, look, let's look at reality: 2024

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You might not be safe in that job anyway. I know people that have been made redundant after 30 years, you know, I know people who've put into pension things that aren't turned out. You know, it's, are you really safe?

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You're the only person you can rely on is yourself. You know, you never know what's gonna happen. And I think I've just, you know, and I've just had a little one to one with someone before I came on here. And that's part, I mean, greater later group and.

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We she's in a similar thing. Do I stay or do I go and cause which are you most frightened of? You know, if you can actually put yourself in that position and you're gonna stay there for the rest of your life for another five years and think that that's alright. Or is that such a frightening?

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Consideration. You've gotta perhaps be creating something else. Yeah, I.

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You know your heart tells you.

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Yeah, you know, the world has changed. Your heart tells you, you know, that's it. Your your heart tells you it did me anyway. I couldn't have stayed.

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I love that my one of my heroes that I've read a lot of his work is Wayne Dyer, one of his sayings is don't let the music die inside you and whatever your passion, whatever your thing is finding that way to take those steps and and do it. But you know, but like you said earlier.

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Our minds might be giving us all of those thoughts and beliefs that you're not good enough and you you're thick or you can't. You know, I was told I'm I'm a huge disappointment and I'm not good enough. So you know, I lived by that for a long time and challenging that gently, respectfully.

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Me too.

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For yourself, you know, and not just doing the ohh yeah.

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It's easy. You.

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Know again, I'm sort of right, you, Nicky? But you know you see some of the stuff that's out there at the moment and it sort of portrays that. It's just easy to just flip a switch and be something different. And it's obviously takes a lot of work and patience and respect for yourself and kindness.

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To be able to make these changes.

:: 13:56

It does, but again, the world has changed, you know, 50 years ago, if you went bankrupt, it was a terrible thing. Now uh gives one.

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Who gives one.

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OK, cares, you know, if you have to fold something and go get a job, who cares? The world has changed.

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We don't look at it failed my I remember my mother not wanting me and my sister to play with kids from broken homes.

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Now you know, I think I don't. Well, I don't know too many people that have been married for ever. You know, the world has changed. And at the end of the day, or is it that evaluates you? You do. You know, I have lost it all. And I remember walking down. It was a, you know, big estate, you know, first.

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And I lost everything and.

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I remember, and my identity walked out of the that out walked out of those gates, you know, which we've just been talking about. But I just remember walking out and and thinking, dear God, I'll start all over again tomorrow now and.

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I've lost everything. What's everybody gonna think? And then I just thought also what everybody else thinks. What I think, you know, I am my own evaluator. And actually I think I'm alright and you should too, whether.

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Listening. Don't let anybody else anybody else who tells you that you're rubbish. Who tells you that you're doing the wrong thing, who criticise you? They are projecting onto you their own fears. You know they want you in a particular place for their for the way that they feel. It's got nothing to do with you.

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Forgive them. Release them. Let them go, and then you start being responsible for you and that's the.

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End of it.

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And I love.

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That, and I think something that I often talk about is.

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If you are listening to others feedback, make sure it's someone that.

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Is you respect you. You like you rate because we so often pay attention to things that those people who we think will actually when you actually ask yourself the question, do you rate them, do you think anything of them? No. So why are we interested in what they've got to say about us?

:: 16:14

What anybody thinks let you know. I've got a sesame. I'm just laughing at myself. I had these eyelashes stuck on yesterday and I didn't realise they were that long. My glasses are like halfway down my nose. It's just made me smile. I thought I'd explain myself. You may not even have noticed, but I've told.

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You all anyway.

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So yeah.

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You are your your - look.

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We we create our own life. I'll give a damn what anybody thinks about me. I've genuinely don't care because half of those people that are whinging about who they think you should be, you know, they haven't walked a mile in your shoes. They don't know who you are. They don't know what you've been through.

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And after those people giving, that could never have coped with what half of the people that I meet have been through exactly. So you know what? And I just wanna say one of the thing as well. So ohh God, this is gonna make me sound arrogant and I genuinely don't mean to. But look, you gotta decide.

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What class carriage are you going through life in?

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Can we make it first class?

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And if you are wanting to be at the back of the train or the plane, can you please explain that to me? And so I'm going off where I'm going today and there were no way, even though I wasn't paying for.

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Wait and I got an. Oh, I'm telling you this. So it's just a way that I think about myself now. We were brought up or you can't have that you can't, you know, get a cup of tea cheaper than a cup of coffee. I'm sorry, there were no way that I wasn't gonna be business first on that flight. Cause that is where I positioned myself when I set up for myself.

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At 45, I used to end my events by going this one thing I want to promise you.

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I could. It makes me emotional even now, but I used to wanna promise you, me and my boy. We will walk up the flight up the flight up the stairs to the aircraft of life. Or maybe it's a real one and we will always turn left. And that makes me emotional when I think.

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Of all the times that we have, so it's a question and it's not just about flying, it's just I'm flying in a few hours.

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It's it's about life.

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What it and if you if.

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Anybody tries to tell me they should be at back and they should be second or third or not even registering, not even with any value at all. Well, I'm sorry. Text me because we need to sit and talk because I can promise you, I will make sure you know that.

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You are worth a little bit more than perhaps.

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Being told.

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And that's it, isn't it? It's the relationship between what we've been told and ourselves and believing and, you know, believing that you deserve to be on the 1st or what, whatever the context is, I think it's very important, isn't it? And, you know, I think for me, we're.

:: 19:12

We're all.

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On that sort of conveyor belt of up and down or up and down, up and down about that, you know?

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As as much as I've done work, I can still have times where I feel.

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You know less than my where I really know. I've got to. And I think it's just saying that and and being OK with that because again, that thing about people feeling like they're the only one, it's. It still fascinates me that we get so lost. I mean, the human brain is so selfish it only ever thinks it's about us, doesn't it?

:: 19:42

Yeah, yeah.

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And I think it's, you know, really important and that's why I created this podcast, is to, you know, to have conversations like this with people like you, Nicky, so that others can sit there and think, OK, right. It's not just me. And what am I going to do then? You know what? What's the one small thing that I can take action on based on what?

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We've talked about.

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The other thing is of course, you know, I'll be talking about this when I get there tomorrow. I never say one working with, but it's a big supermarket chain and.

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Having said all that, money don't make you happy. It's purpose that makes you happy. You know, when I were, when we were doing 2 million a year, it's 30 year ago now.

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It weren't the brass that made me happy. I just were slightly more comfortable in Nice hotels than I would have been. But I'll tell you, I've been thinking about this as I've gone through my presentation this morning. What makes you happy is the purpose and on the market stalls. And I've done big jobs for supermarkets.

:: 20:44

It's when that Lady comes in and she's confused and she's upset and you can go and hold her hand and go. Come on, tell us what's happening. Come on. How how are you doing? Let me come through here with you. Let no, let me help you with that. And it's how you make people feel better. If you can make people feel better in this world, that's a great purpose.

:: 21:04

Beyoncé might make 20,000 people feel better in a 2 hour gig, but maybe we make people feel better one by one by one with a real.

:: 21:14

I know it's cliche and I'm not for flowery words, but it's like heart sharing that it's a purpose in life. So I've not actually contradicted myself there in any way, you know, cause if you can have both, then brilliant, but money alone won't make you happy.

:: 21:33

And it is something like you say that people are chasing or looking comparing themselves?

:: 21:37

To others, which again is a disease, isn't it? Comparative aitis is a disease. If you're looking elsewhere, you're thinking everyone else is doing this, and that just creates more problems for ourselves.

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We'd never know.

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You were now listen, you know, in my life, I've, I've, I've been loaded. And I've been absolutely on my ass where people have put food on door step. It's still me. Yeah, I'm not.

:: 22:02

Different and if we see people, if we really give people a value, if they've got loads of money, then you know people's values gonna go. You're never gonna know where you are. I yeah, you know, I know who I am. And I'm the same person with. I've got it with that. I haven't got it. That's not how I evaluate myself, which is not a contradiction from what I've just said.

:: 22:23

Not at all. Not at all. Ohh, thank you so much. What a fantastic conversation. And I know to do know some of the people.

:: 22:29

Who listen in and they. They often messaged me and and I just know that today is just a complete breath of fresh air with you, Nicky.

:: 22:36

Uh, I've loved it. Can I just say as well I? So I became a bloody pensioner in January. Well, I have a bit of Botox. I'm I don't done yet, but I will be doing. And if anybody's interested, I have got this and it found me long story not for now, but.

:: 22:56

It's greater later.

:: 22:59

And you can only come if you're over 40, but we have got a new, I don't know when this is going out. We've got a new group starting on the 30th of April. Message me only ever take 10 people. Four places have already gone, but we talk about how to put yourself in the world in a way that you are seeing related to and get what you chuffing want.

:: 23:20

40,50,60,70 you don't put yourself in the world at 66 in the same way as you did when you were 22 and expect it to give you what you want. So just message me if anybody wants to come, we'll, we'll we'll be running a few in the year, but that's.

:: 23:36

The next one.

:: 23:36

Brilliant. Well, we'll put that link to your where people can find you in the show, notes Nicky. So everyone can.

:: 23:43

Go and have a look.

:: 23:44

Ohh fantastic. Well.

:: 23:46

You've made me day. What a bloody brilliant start today. And you know what? When I get to Heathrow, I'll raise a little top to you all. So thank you so much. Anybody that's listened. And thanks for having me, Allison.

:: 23:57

Ohh, you're so welcome. Thank you so much, Nicky.

:: 24:03

Thank you.

:: 24:04

Listening and sharing in this episode of Mental Wealth, Remember?

:: 24:09

You.

:: 24:09

Can subscribe wherever you get your podcast.

:: 24:12

My last question to you is what is the one small thing that you can take action on from this episode? Message me on Instagram or through our website with questions you'd like me to explore. You'll find the links in the show notes. I'll be back with more tools and tips to make sense of your mind in the next episode.

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In the mean time, be kind.

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To yourself. Bye for now.