Deborah, with her thirty years of being an ltrepreneur and creating over seven companies,
knows exactly what it means to accept the mission. When you make that
decision, when you accept the mission to become a solopreneur, to take yourself
and your talents to market, then you embrace a life of not only unlimited
possibilities, but also the unknown. It's an elixir of fear and bravery that
only someone who's taken the leap really understands. On our show, deb digs
deep with her guests to highlight what you the listener wants to know the stories,
the whys, and the hows to navigate the journey to success. Get
ready to hear from some of the most incredible mission takers from Generation Z to
boomers. So sit up, perk up, and get ready to be blown
away. Now here is your host, Deborah Drummond. Well, well,
well look at you coming back here more. I know it's fantastic, right,
my god, you get so that we have I know that who we
have on today totally believes an energy and iron telling you, the vibration of
the guests that we have had is vibrating high. So of course you've come
back to spend some time with us today. Thank you so much. I
love you. You are the best podcast listeners and followers ever. And I
have to say it kind of like that because Selene O'Donovan, who's here from
Ireland, has her own fantastic podcasting community and you guys need to meet each
other. You guys need to meet each other. They need to pop onto
her show and see what's going on there. And I know, thank you
so much. There is a lot of people from Ireland that follows us and
so I'm sure you know who this incredible woman is. So look, you
guys, it's about mission accepted people taking on the mission. And I think
the topic that Selene has decided to share with us today is exactly in alignment
with that, because you know, I'm going to ask what made her,
you know, decide to take the mission of doing what she's doing. But
there's something about deciding to do a mission and that could simply just be life,
you know. And she's going to talk about how, you know,
when difficulties happen in life, what we do, how it changes us,
and how that change can be because life in itself is a mission. But
then you've got people that go, oh, I'm going to take on another
one and I'm going to be an entrepreneur. I'm going to venture out on
my own, or I'm going to write a book. And she's wrote an
incredible book and it's about the gifts from the devastation. And I'm sure she's
going to show us. If you are listening, just keep doing your thing,
but if you're able to watch us and see, she's going to show
her book and talk about that as well. So Seleine, thank you so
much for coming on Mission accepted today. Thank you so much, Deeb.
I am just so delighted, so delighted to connect with you from the West
coast of Ireland with all of your listeners. Yeah, really excited to talk
to you today. Absolutely absolutely as as well. And my listeners know how
much I love your country. So tell us a little bit about, you
know, the mission that started for you, how you got into this and
doing what you're doing. If you could share that with us, it would
be fantastic. Sure. Well, I suppose it dates back really to twenty
sixteen when I think my mission, let's say, came online without me knowing
I was diagnosed with breast cancer in twenty sixteen. Now I will say that
before that. I live in Goalie on the West Coast in Ireland. I
had a career in marketing, in banking. I then worked in the university
sector. Had my ups and downs like everyone in life. You know,
my marriage broke up when I was quite young. I did all the things
that many of us do to try and survive. I distracted myself. I
traveled, I drank, I partied, I know, overworked, overshopped all
of that. And you know, I was putting on a good face for
many years. You know, I was doing my best, like all of
us are. You know, I have a lot of compassion for anyone suffering
or in pain because I've been there and we all go through it, unfortunately
is part of the human condition. And so yeah, I was sort of
doing my thing on the outside, looking successful, looking like I had it
all, looking like, you know, very happy. So I was doing
all ticking all the boxes I thought I needed to tick to get to the
place where I can say, Okay, I'm here, I made it.
I'm happy. The destination, you know, this is what will make me
happy and feel fulfilled. And at a certain point I'd say it probably was
around twenty twelve. I could feel like I just feel this rising sense of
anxiety and anxiety and me, no matter what I did, I worked harder.
I did everything harder I suppose, and I give everything to my work.
I loved my work. I worked with teenagers, supporting them making decisions
about university and careers. But I could feel this anxiety rising and rising,
and ultimately, in twenty fourteen, I had a car accident. Wasn't surprised,
very stressed. I was on the road with work and I literally my
glance shifted to somebody walking in the street, and I said, I'd loved
their life. They just looked so relaxed, and you know, I knew
nothing about them, but in to me, it looked like they had it
all. Had a car accident, recovered from that, and you know,
came back into work and thought, Okay, what do I do? I
work harder, I must be doing something wrong. Apply for other jobs.
So cut to the chase. Basically a year and a half later, I'm
very feeling, very burnt out. I wake up in bed one morning.
I'm reading a book at the weekend, and I find a love and cancer
didn't really go through my mind. You know, I was very good at
sort of not facing reality in a lot of cases. So I did my
best to keep going and said I'll think about that in a few weeks,
and eventually I did. I set it to a colleague at work and they
just said, look, you know, maybe you should go. Is it
a doctor? And I did, got the diagnosis, and yeah, I
hope then started a whole journey of falling apart. But also I would say
nearly falling into me and waking up and finding myself. And yeah, it's
been a roller coaster as life is and should be, I believe, but
yeah it was. But I will say, firstly, with the shot this
may surprise some people I was. This will give you the extent of where
I was at. I was deeply shocked and devastated when I got the news,
But after very short period of time, I felt relief. And I've
said this to so many people and they are looking at me like I'm crazy,
But I say relief because I could stop. I could finally stop,
you know, I you know, to Shay to Shay I as you're talking.
I think there's a lot of people nodding their head and a lot of
people that when you say that relief, there's many people that have had different
situations that have had that sense of relief and it probably comes from this really
deep internal place. And for you, it was the allowance to stop,
because it sounded like you like the way you described it is very much chasing
something, you know what I mean, chasing something? And good for your
colleague for prompting you to you know, but I could just imagine the headspace
right like you're like, you know, I got stuff to do, Like
I'm you know, I've got stuff to do. So I think that there's
a lot of people that would really relate to that. As surprising it is
as it is, it's probably surprising to people that haven't burned themselves out yet
or haven't had that long length of drive yet or the same experiences. So
so here you are, you're feeling a sense of relief, like what was
it like to put the brakes on? What was it? Like? What?
What what happened next? I mean, we know that eventually you wrote
your story and it's in a book, and I think you know stable and
thank you for your transparency, But at what point? So how did that
change? I mean, we now know you're an author or a podcast to
you're a speaker, you were working, you had cancered. What's some of
the in between. Yeah, so I got the diagnosis. I ended up
back living in my own home. When you talk about it was the analogy
of the car and putting the brakes on, I would say, I took
my handle off the steering wheel. And you know, that was the greatest
I was, you know, and I understand it. I lived with a
lot of fears so many of us, I believe, are conditioned to do.
You know, the world we're in has a sort of programmed into different
That's how I felt growing up. I never felt like I fitted in,
so there was no other choice, you know, when everything falls apart,
I just I felt like I am falling, free falling, and I took
my hands off the wheel. And what I can say is, once you
do that, you are always held. Yes, you fall, but you
are always held. And I sort of I can describe it as cracking open.
And when I say this, you know, it might sound a bit
strange to people, but basically, for me, it was a very very
spiritual experience. It was a mind body spirit I firmly believe and I know
from my experience, I can't speak for anyone else that when you start to
embrace that, you are much more than just this physical body going around,
and you really allow yourself to expand into something greater. My God, there
is there is nothing that can stop you. You know everything, and they've
universe. This is the other thing. Whatever you believe in or not,
there is a greater force. I think we can all acknowledge there is a
greater force, a greater power. Whatever that is for you. It can
be nature, it can be anything, but it wants the best for you.
So I had to have the experience of everything being shut down through cancer.
I was describing this to a friend yesterday. Through the treatment, through
the cream of therapy, I couldn't think, I couldn't do and I was
just, okay, what am I I'm not thinking I'm not doing. There
is something else and it's beautiful and it's peaceful and it's calm. And I
had to be taken out for want of a better word, because I wasn't
stopping for anything else and I needed It was a two year period, so
I think there was a slowing into and a settling into. I needed that
to sort of I suppose be reprogrammed or reset. And what happened. You
know, I had a lot of fatigue and this will I think many people.
I wasn't able to get back into what I had been doing, even
though there was a part of me feeling like I should. But I think
what I would say to people as well, Once, once there's a sense
of okay, I'm letting go here, you will be shown. We are
always shown always if there is a desire within you to you know, to
sort of come into something you know, you know, I think we all
know that. I can say it was like my huge the spirits, my
spirits Selene was had been sort of suppressed and there was something that started to
just organically wake up with me and the right people showed up. This is
you know, I was going to ask that. I mean, you clearly
were. I mean, you were in a certain mindset with certain people because
that's how you were vibrating. We talked about vibration. That's how you're vibrating.
And you know, it's easy to feed that off people, right like
you're hustling and you're rustling, and it can be a beautiful thing if you
if you're in balance and in balance. I don't mean like every day in
balance. I mean if you are, you know, soulfully driving yourself.
But yeah, all of a sudden to stop and then have the words of
someone go oh, it was a relief in such a you know, beautiful
spiritual awakening is what I'm hearing. Where, Yeah, what kind of support
came in to make you even know that's what was happening for you. It
took time, you know, I'm saying that now. I cannot say that
in that moment at all. But all I knew was I was. I
had been so slow down. It was just like taking the next step,
the next step. And I remember I just met a friend for coffee and
I said, you know, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't
know what to do. I can't go back, I don't know what lies
ahead, I don't know who I am. And she so I think this
thing of reaching out and connecting with people that feel right for you, and
it's you know, it will. It didn't happen for quite a while.
I was about a year year and a half and this friend, So this
is sort of the moment I would say something started to happen this friend said,
and I hadn't seen her in twenty years. This is a friend I
hadn't book. This is how things happen. She said, Look at AA.
There's a very good friend of mine, retired teacher, and she's running
a course called The Artist Way. Would you're not the book by Julia Cameron?
Would you think of doing it? And I'm not an artist and I
don't know what I'm doing. She said, it's just to get together for
women, connecting with yourself and getting to know yourself. So I did and
that turned out to change everything. That woman. I'll remember the day sitting
having coffee with her. She said to me, Selene, she said,
you're always talking in the group about what you've learned from cancer, what you've
gained, how it's changed you, how it's transformed you. Why don't you
write about it? And I said, I'm not a writer, and she
said, just think about it. I went home and I was bubbling,
you know, And I'm a firm believer we often need other people to unlock
the next step of our story. We can't do it on our own.
And if yes, sometimes we get the inspiration, sometimes we don't. So
I opened my laptop and I sat down and I just basically just wrote for
six months and not knowing it was a book, you know, I just
knew this, whatever is inside is needing to come through. And as it
turns out, I went to a publisher locally, a self publisher first,
and they said to me, when I had a draft, would you think
of writing fiction? And I looked at them like they were crazy. I
said, fiction. I've only just written my story and all of this,
but I've been through and I said, okay, well I'm doing nothing else,
so okay, and I went away, and little voice that started in
my head. So I ended up writing the second, the first book,
the first book that I published. Second. So I went away and I
ended up writing a fictional story about three three generations of women living in Galway
City where I am, and how because this is what was most alive in
me at the time, and I called it It's called the Tapestry of life
to show you there, but as it was like tea and cake and women
meeting, but it really was. It was resonant. I suppose of my
story, how all of these women had suddenly weaved a tapestry into my life
to change it and how important we are and how we all need each other.
And that story was about the power of community, particularly for women,
which is another big passion of mine now. And then I I self published
that, so that was that was I suppose everything is bringing you to the
next step. And I'm a big believer that life is all about initiations and
we sort of we expand through that, we go through some tough times and
then we sort of level up, and then we're sort of at that level
and then there's another sort of you know, and when we're ready, when
we're ready for the next step. So following that, we went into lockdown.
It was I launched it. We went straight into lockdown with COVID,
and then I thought, what am I going to do? So I started
started editing the second book, which is and then I went on and published
that. So you know, there's a lot of other things going on at
the time. And then I started training. I was trained as a life
coach. I did reiki and you know, all all facets on my personality.
But yeah, that's but once you give space, I think that's for
me. Once once we allow ourselves in whatever way, it doesn't have to
be through cancer. Sun space. You know, what's in us will start
to bubble up, It'll just naturally start to bubble up. But I have
never allowed myself that space. And I think a big part of that is
often having to go into a process of clearing a lot of old traumas and
grief and emotions and energy that gets blocked in our body, and that is
what suppresses the spirit that is just dying to get out and express. So
it's it's a different it's a challenging, but it's it's it's just yeah,
this is life. This is the journey of life, isn't it. You
know, we either step into it or or life it was I think this
is a push. Well, I mean it's interesting because really, just listening
to you talk for this last bit of time, you really have taken us
through quite a journey and you've answered so many questions that one would ask you
right like how did you start to find yourself? And you talked about well,
it took some time. I would imagine that you yourself with you know,
your your self preservation was tested. I'm sure there was times where you
were scared, Like you went to your girlfriend who hadn't talked in twenty years
too, like I don't know what's next. I think that is what stops
a lot of people from what you just said, giving space, slowing down
and having nothing aarrived, being in the nothingness. I mean, it's difficult
enough to listen to a meditation, do you know what I mean? Like,
it's difficult enough to put on a kind of meditation and find twelve minutes
a day. It's so funny. I'm listening to a meditation right now,
and it's so beautiful. The first time I heard it, I was looking
for one specifically, I was looking for brain meditation and this popped up and
I'm like, oh'll give it a go. I mean, and I was
crying through the whole thing. And this was a few weeks ago. I
started listening to him and it was like, in these next twenty minutes,
what we're going to do here? You are going to accomplish more than you
do in an eight hour day. And I'm like, I bet you put
that in the beginning of your meditation for all of us that are like,
oh, right, like producers, right, We're all like producing. But
I think it is very difficult to be in the nothingness. And I think
it is very difficult, and I think it's very scary for someone just why
we hear these experiences of multitude of I got this condition or this happened,
or car accident or and it was the thing that stopped that person because it
was big enough to go. I need to listen to what's really going on
inside. But I think we are concerned, or we're like, but we
don't know what next to do, or we're caught up in our own wheel.
A lot of times it's not even like people are pressuring us. Yeah
we're so we're still in that wheel because we don't if you stop, what
to you do? Who pays the bills? Right? I mean I think
fiscal comes into people's trunk with finances. Well, if I don't do this,
what I'm going to Like it's hard to get someone to stay in the
nothingness and let it come to you, right, And sometimes you're balancing,
you know, it's I remember people used to say to me, you don't
have to just you know, in my case, it was quite dramatic.
It doesn't have to be that for everyone. But I can remember even someone
saying to me a few years earlier when I was in this sort of questioning
mode going. You know, you don't have to leave your job, say
you know you can always you know a lot of people have to keep two
things going at the same time. And I had tried that. I tried
that I was working and I was also working training and all these other things.
But that wasn't to be my path. And I think the key for
me, which has given me such food or passion in my life is to
know that every I think Wayne dyr the Great Wayne Dyer said no experience is
wasted, and every single if you can start to look at every single experience
in your life, is happening for you. You know, And even just
by that, I know that can sound in the moment when you're going through
something very very very challenging that you know may not be possible, but maybe
with time you can start to hold up what if it was? What if
there is something? Because I can say for sure and I have not met
anyone who has had a contrary experience that every single challenge they've gone through always
always has you know, if they if they have opened themselves up to it
has always led them to something better. And yes, we go through some
things that maybe we will never understand in this lifetime. But what's the alternative?
You know, I know so many period people and I've experienced great grief
in my life, but as well, Bush, you know, yeah,
yeah, you will always be held. You will always be held if you
make the choice that honors your heart and your soul. I am there's no
one I know that regrets that, despite the challenges, despite the pain,
that is part of being a human being. In this clash. I love
how you reframe it, Selene, when things are happening for you, you
know, because I think sometimes we get in that place and I say this,
it's not like selfishness, but it gets self observing. We feel like
things are happening to us and only us when you're in pain. When you're
in pain, it's your pain, right. You wake up with that pain
silently, you go to work or you talk to people and you've got that
smile on, but you feel like you're in pain, and it's hard and
to understand that other people very much can be having the same experience and it
is feeling like it is happening to not for so I really love your reframe
on that, and I'm sure that's what your book must have some things in
it. I know that we're kind of coming close to the and oh my
gosh, you've to sit there and talk forever. Yeah, but I'll just
say I suppose there's three parts to this book. Really. The first is
sort of my story and you know, giving a bit of background to that.
You know, I'm just like everyone else with all the you know,
ups and downs of life. And then I sort of go into the experience
itself then how it started to change me. And I finished then with a
lot of ice caull it like inside out living, so I have a number
of it's using a wheel of life sort of a coaching tool, but it's
really looking at all the different aspects of your life that really are driven from
the inside, whether it's your your boundaries, your beliefs, your values,
you know, honoring your intuition, you know, finding your purpose creativity.
So there's a very practical sort of step by step to hold people's hands,
you know, in the process, because it's going to be unique to everyone.
And I have had which is lovely. I have had many women who
have had cancer and many who have but not you know, it's not a
cancer book. I knew that from the very beginning. This is not about
cancer. This is awakening to who you truly are and to your potential in
this life. And you know there is no greater gift. And I say
that at the very beginning that every single one of us, you know,
because that is what we are. We are a spark or something greater,
and each of us shining that into the world is what makes the world a
better It's you know, it's it's it's what helps everyone. We need everyone
to shine their lights so brightly, particularly now, and it's time. I
think it's time for all of us to do that. So absolutely. I
love that. I love how you say that it's an awakening. You know,
you had an awakening, and we have awakenings, and if I could
hear a message and share it, I think you probably had nigglings of the
awakening many times. And I think that's really important. I mean, turn
the volume up on the voice on the inside that's starting to say say those
niggling things to you. It could be something that you're eating that's not healthy.
It could be someone talking to someone in your life that maybe you need
to shorten your time with. Maybe it's you know, you've got this niggling
saying I don't know why, but I need to go to this location in
the world. I don't know why, I don't know anyone there. I
don't know what's supposed to be there. I don't know what that door opens
to. But if there's that niggling inside, and then hang out, hang
out with the people that support the niggling, you know, it's like you
know what's really happening, and be exploratory in life. And I think that
needs some bravery and courage. Right, you have been very brave. I
think I don't know if the third section is about bravery, but you certainly
stand tall for that. I think that's amazing. Well, thank you,
right, and just one fine a little thing to say to people if you're
going about your business every day now and you're just in your normal saying I
don't know how to break out of this, Like you said, I would
just say even once and once a day, just say to yourself for the
next week, whatever little voice, and trust what I would say is the
voice of the intuition and the voice of the heart is not the the critical
inner critic voice is a very difference. So any little soft whisperings that start
coming to you, like you said, to go get that book, to
go meet that perk, just followed, followed, because it's a breadcrumb trail.
That's how I've experienced. There's a bread from trail and we're only ever
shown the next step. But we as humans want to see, you know,
everything, but no, no, no, you don't really because it's
an adventure. But you're always shown the next step. And I get days
where I'm like, what am I doing? You know what about I'm just
going to run back to my own career, you know, and it's it's
still there, you know, at the moment for me. But I'm going
no, and I'm always shown and it does take it. You know,
it's a process. It's just but yeah, just i'd say i'd challenge,
not challenge, but I just suggest do that because it always pays off.
It always pays off. I love that. I love that. I think
you have a new hashtag. I think that sounds like the cover of a
book. You know, my media brain goes follow the bright crumb trail,
follow the breadcomb trail. I like that. Yeah, yeah, I'll support
that T shirt. I'll support that T shirt. Okay, I'm going to
completely change the topic and my listeners know exactly what we're going to do right
now and putting everything aside. When we come back, I'm please going to
ask you to share with our listeners and our viewers where they can reach out
to you. Even though everyone knows it's in the show notes, but there's
some people that just like to listen and hear it. So before we do
that, we're going to completely change directions. And let's pretend you're on your
way to a desert island and this is your final journey and you have you're
packing your suitcase, and in that suitcase you have room for one album.
What album could you not imagine not listening to for the rest of your days
on this gorgeous beach? What album are you packing in that suitcase? Selene,
I don't know if I'm going to disappoint you, but you could never
disappoint me. When it comes to me, I'm not well, I'm going
to say I'm not so much an outgum person. I'm really a sort of
any music that the sounds a bit of a copy, any music that really
rare, And I'm going to give you a song if I can. Firstly,
because this song just changed everything with the first interviews I did. And
it's called I Am Light by India Ari Simpson. I don't know if you've
heard of that song. It's but it's the most beautiful and it finishes with
so it's basically saying, you know, I'm not the mistakes that I made.
I'm not only of the things that cause my pain. I'm not the
pieces I have it here, of the dreams I left behind. I am
light. I'm not the color of my eyes, I'm not the skin in
the ads, and I'm not my age. Basically, I am divinity defined.
I am God on the inside. I am a star, I am
a piece of it all. I am light. And I think if you
know, I could listen to that over and over. Other than that,
I would bring an unusual You may not have heard a snat on car She's
a of course, I know, yeah, Yeah, I'm beautiful. I
love Yeah. So anything that for me raises my frequency, brings me to
that place of pi and enjoy. I can live at that on a lo
Island. Well, you're gonna have to send me that song on WhatsApp.
I know our time is up, my friend, and so please share with
our audience where they can reach out to you. Sure, and my website
is Selenodonovan dot com. It'll be presumed in the show notes. I also
have the YouTube channel Selene O'Donovan. I'm on Spotify under my podcast wild Woman.
I'm on Instagram, Facebook generally if you search me under my name,
you'll find me and I'd love to hear from you, and I'm an to
reach out and connect absolutely absolutely well. It has been a pleasure having you
on mission accepted today and if any of you out there want to be sitting
where Selene is, you know this is not difficult. It's debitdev Drummond dot
com, shoot us an email and we'd love to hear how you are on
your mission, living your mission and it is going strong with this two hundred
and sixty two. Stand up, speed up and show up. Yes you
so at least yes you get to these incredible summits. There has been thousands
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the most enlightened. So it was enlightened and rise ups of the podcast today.
Mission accepted and we will see you again. And until then, you
be well and you stay droovy by for now, and thank you so much
for me, Thank you dog, Thank everybody.