From Council Estate to Entrepreneur

Where I came from

I grew up on a council estate in 70s England where money was scarce to say the least. My dad held multiple jobs at points to keep his young family going – they were just 18 years old when they had me. My mam worked too on an evening around dad’s shifts so that there was always someone home with me and my little sister. 

I know my mam would work wonders with the small budget she had to make sure that everyone ate – but I know that sometimes, she went without so that we all were fed. My parents saved all year, squirreling away whatever they could to make sure Christmas was magical for us and to this day, I don’t know how they did it – but there would never be one thing on my Santa list that wasn’t under that tree. 

I didn’t grow up around entrepreneurs. I grew up around people who earned by showing up to work for long hours and taking home a wage at the end of the week. It was built on sacrifice and scarcity – that was the model I saw so that was the rhythm my young brain absorbed and understood how life had to be.

When work equalled worth

I always worked too – from a young age I would have a Saturday job, I loved the feeling of having my own paycheque! After university I got a job that paid what some people considered to be a very healthy salary – and that’s where my corporate career started. I knew I wanted to do well, make my parents proud and be able to pay them back and treat them for all of the hard work they had put in just to raise us.

I loved when I could treat them to love things… nice watches, experiences they hadn’t had – I even paid for their first trip abroad together which felt amazing to do. It felt amazing to be able to get them a new kitchen or new bathroom, or just be able to help out so they didn’t have to worry for a change.

I mostly loved my corporate roles, won awards and I took great pride in being good at what I did too. When I had Kaleb, things changed though. I was made redundant from the role I was in whilst on maternity leave and I got a new role which meant I worked away Monday – Thursday for the first 4 years of his life.

It was so hard to be away from him after trying to have him for 4 years! But I told myself that this was life! That you had to sacrifice to make good money and look after your family. This was what adulting was all about. This was responsibility and I was the one who wanted the ‘big career’ and wanted to be able to do wonderful things for the people I loved…

So the price was not being there to actually see them for half the time! I sucked it up, I got on with it and just kept swallowing the pain I got in my chest when I thought of all the things I was missing. The first tooth. The first step. The first trip to school – all happened in my absence. The pain was palpable.

Becoming the entrepreneur I couldn’t see

My idea to start Now Is Your Time was like a bolt of lightening – it wasn’t a gentle nudge. It was a Divine Download that I couldn’t ignore and it was the passing of Cheryl’s dad, Davy that provoked it. 

It wasn’t the first time I had had the idea come into my head to start a business. But every time I had told myself I didn’t have the luxury of flights of fancy – I had a family to take care of. I didn’t have entrepreneurs in my family and as you’ve read, I hadn’t grown up around them, so there was no blueprint to copy. 

To leave corporate and build a brand I had to become a new version of me first. I made the decision, asked Cheryl to join me with really zero idea of how we would make it work. I created my own evidence that it could be done because there wasn’t any to borrow. 

I found people online who said it was possible and I decided to believe them because I knew I didn’t want to miss any more of my son’s life and I knew in my soul that I could help other people to become the best version of themselves.

The rebirth

I had seen for years the difference that my coaching made in a corporate world and I just knew it was time to play a much bigger game… and the alternative – of leaving this life with a song left unsung in me – just was no longer acceptable. 

The girl from the council estate had grown up around world-class resilience and had knew one thing for sure:

If you want something enough, you will find a way to make it happen.

That meant I had to leave the old identity of the corporate me who exchanged time and sacrifice for paycheques and become the in-demand coach, speaker and writer with a global brand. I had to become that version of me before it was a reality and so did Cheryl. 

That was the work we did day in and day out alongside working on the systems, progammes, products and whole range of stuff we had to learn to get a business off the ground. It was an induction of fire. I had never worked so hard.

We worked on how it would feel to charge a client £20k to work 121 with us for a year, which was our goal when we started – and we worked on that before we even had our first client and they paid £1000 to work with us. We knew from our decades of coaching that the rule is simple – the shift happens inside before you see it outside.

This is one of the fundamental laws of the universe – as within, so without.

So whatever goal you’re holding in your heart and questioning if you can do it – yes you can! Because the universe wouldn’t give you a dream to have if you weren’t meant to experience it.

The work is to align your identity to someone who has already done it – the rest will flow from there.

Faith and Love,
Dr Donna

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