The Good Listening To Show: Stories of Distinction & Genius

Founder Story: Lost your Spark or Hiding your Inner Genius? Rachel Shelmerdine from 'Alchemy Inside', on How to Transform your Inner Potential into Real World Impact & Gold

• Chris Grimes - Facilitator. Coach. Motivational Comedian

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What if your best leadership tools were already inside you—waiting for the right spark? Expert Coach & Advisor to Founders & Leaders, Rachel Shelmerdine, joins us for a 'Founder Story' that blends rebel grit, design-world savvy, and the gentle audacity to be yourself. Once one of the first specialist coaches in the UK design sector, Rachel stepped back to homeschool her son in Italy and is now stepping forward again, bringing a richer lens on creativity, courage, and clarity.

We talk about how “Alchemy Inside” turns survival mode into agency. Rachel unpacks the Coaching philosophy that helped major firms like Landor and Gensler, then dives into the work behind the scenes: shaping identity through story, protecting flow for deep work, and leading with humour and heart. 

Her mental clearing—the Lido di Venezia—becomes a metaphor for stress slipping away so that better choices can appear. Along the way: Laurel and Hardy, the power of good design that marries beauty with function, and the surprising tale of reading castles and trees on beermats in a Belgian pub.

If you’ve ever felt pressure to perform someone else’s script, this conversation offers a reset. You’ll hear practical ways to reclaim your narrative, sleep on tough calls, and use language to make strategy sing. Rachel’s take on coaching isn’t a formula; it’s a catalyst—reflecting your strengths back to you until you can see them clearly enough to act. Leaders facing anxiety, phobias, or a crowded market will find grounded tactics for momentum without the burnout theatre.

Ready to rediscover your own gold and be known for the right reasons? Listen now, share with a friend who needs a nudge, and leave a review to help more creative leaders find their clearing. Subscribe for more founder stories, creative leadership insights, and warm, human conversations that move work—and lives—forward.

Tune in next week for more stories of 'Distinction & Genius' from The Good Listening To Show 'Clearing'. If you would like to be my Guest too then you can find out HOW via the different 'series strands' at 'The Good Listening To Show' website.

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Thanks for listening!

Chris Grimes:

Welcome to another episode of the Good Listening to Show. Your life and times with me, Chris Grimes. The storytelling show that features the clearing. Where all good questions come to get asked, and all good stories come to be told. And where all my guests have two things in common. They're all creative individuals and all with an interesting story to tell. There are some lovely storytelling metaphors. A clearing, a tree, a juicy storytelling exercise called 54321, some alchemy, some gold, a cheeky bit of Shakespeare, and a cake. So it's all to play for. So yes, welcome to the Good Listening to Show, your life and times with me, Chris Grimes. Are you sitting comfortably? Then we shall begin. Good morning, good morning, good morning, good evening, good afternoon, wherever you're tuning in on the old World Wide Web. I'm Chris Grimes and this is Rachel Shelmer Dean, and we're here to do a very special founder story of the Good Listening to show to help uh Rachel amplify all things alchemy inside. We have many, many connections. We both love Laurel and Hardy, which is one of the things we most quickly connected about. But also you are on Julia Duffy's podcast, People Are Everything recently. And uh Rachel Shalmerdeen, welcome, welcome to the show. And thank you for bearing with me. Thank you. As we had technological glitches to get us to this point. So welcome to the show. Thank you. Hurrah. So yes, um you mentioned in our conversations building up to today that you've felt a bit sort of hidden before in the fact you've just been weaving your magic, grooving your magic. And this is an opportunity now for you to sort of go back onto full display of what it is, you know, who you are, what you do, and what you're here to achieve. So, what's the thing you're most interested in in helping to amplify today? And then we'll get on the open road of doing that.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

I think just being known again in my industry, I was very well known when I first started out. Um, I actually was the one of the first experts on the Design Business Association Experts Register many, many years ago, so over 20 years ago. And that that amplified me straight away. And I became very well known because I was the only coach who specialized in the design sector. And I was very lucky. I worked with big names straight away. I worked my two biggest clients from the very beginning were Landor, who are one of the biggest branding agencies in the world, and Gensler, who are the biggest um design firm in the world, architecture and interiors. And, you know, everything was just so easy. So from that, I never really had to publicize myself. I just did my work, which which I love. And then after having my son, when he was five, I was in a situation where I needed to homeschool him because I his school got taken over and I couldn't get him into another school. So on the hoof, whilst running my business, I began homeschooling him. And that began a totally different part of my life, quite a different odyssey. We traveled a lot, we lived in Italy, we did homeschooling in olive groves. So it was a very interesting time. And then I have really my attention has been focused on doing my work, coaching my clients and homeschooling my son and getting him to a point where he can take his exams and get ready to go out in the world because he's he turns 16 soon. And I would just like to reach out and just get a bit more attention, perhaps, for the work that I do and just build my reputation back again with new clients because I have a huge hit rate of clients who come back to me. Pretty much every client I've worked with will come back to me, but new new people don't know me at all because I'm I'm just not out there.

Chris Grimes:

And can I commend you for the word Odyssey as well? And hosting that in early in Olive Groves. This is a show that's all about storytelling. So I just love this. This is going to be absolutely wonderful. And it's all about alchemy inside and about the power within. So if people don't have a frame of reference hitherto about you, what is it about alchemy inside that brings you to how you how you like to do leadership coaching?

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Yeah, so my first company that I set up in 2000 was called 2BU because I very much wanted to be very different from in those days. The only kind of coaching that really made a mark in the business world was American style. It really hadn't taken hold like it has now in the UK. And there were quite a lot of personality coaches, and it was very much about them. You know, and I did some training with some, they were amazing, you know, big American star coaches, but it was very much about them. And I wanted my work to be about the person I was working with. So I called it To Be You because the work that I do, I wanted it to be not my philosophy of life, but to help them bring out what they wanted, what they needed. And then when I set up my second company, which is Alchemy Inside, and it's a few years old now. Again, I'm just fascinated by what lives inside every single person. And I believe that everybody, everybody has the potential to be exactly what they want to be, to be happy, to be successful on their terms. That doesn't mean they all have to be rich, doesn't mean they all have to be well known or famous, they don't have to build something massive, but to to make an impact on the world in their way. And so alchemy inside is very much reflecting that there is magic and you can transform yourself. And really, I'm a guide and I'm a help to help someone do that. Because true alchemy, the real alchemy is turning yourself from what they call, you know, base metal, really, is your sort of your baser self where you're unknown, you're just in survival mode, to the highest level where you are very much aware of who you are, you're connected, and you have real agency in the world.

Chris Grimes:

That's my passion, my absolute passion. And now uh I know your son is called Max, and you said it's Maxim, borrowed from a book Maxim de Winter.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Yes, because I love Rebecca. I mean, I love I love all her work. Daphne de Morrier, to me, is a very, very underrated writer. I mean, extraordinary writer. People, they will only know some of her very famous books, like Rebecca, and they think she just writes romantic fiction, but she's she doesn't. She writes some really straight. I mean, she wrote The Birds, which of course was that dark Hitchcock film. And I just love I do love Rebecca because it's just a very interesting psychological, it's not a romantic drama, it's a psychological drama. So, and I love Maxim DeWinter, he's one of my favourite male characters, so um and also we must talk about our love of or shared love of Laurel and Hardy stuff in particular.

Chris Grimes:

And I know that you and Max obviously dine out or watch very much.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Yes, I brought him up on Laurel and Hardy because I didn't let him watch TV, much to the disgust of my uh mummy friends in the uh preschool group that I belonged to. So he wasn't allowed to see any TV until he was three, because I wanted him to form his own feeling and connection with the world. I didn't want him to be spoon-fed, the junk that um, you know, friends' kids were watching stuff like Peppa Pig and just junk, mindless stuff. And so for entertainment, we would watch YouTube videos or DVDs. So no TV, no adverts, none at all. And one of the early series of films I got him to watch when he was probably about two was Laurel and Hardy, because they're all on YouTube, and he loved them from the moment I mean, the very first one he ever saw was Busybodies. Yes, you know, when they're working in the sawmill, and it is just hysterical. I mean, we watch it still now and we still laugh as if it's the first time we saw it, and I remember watching him watch it, and he just to watch a little kid laugh that much, it's just brilliant.

Chris Grimes:

So we definitely share the soul chime of Stan Laurel in that, and I do remember that film very well indeed. There's a car that gets sawed in half that they're sitting in at the very end, too. The very end, yeah. So, anyway, let's get on the open road of curating you through. Okay. Yeah. As and I know you have, but if you're watching and listening for the first time, this is the show in which I invite movers, makers, shakers, mavericks, influencers, and also personal heroes into a clearing or serious, happy place of my guests choosing as they all arrive to share with us their stories of distinction and genius. And Rachel of Shelmerdeen, beautiful name, by the way, we'll get into the derivation of that too, joins me for a special founder story episode today. So, any questions about the structure before we go? And just to reassure you, also, there'll be a very exciting bit at the end, which is called Show Us Your QR code, please. We're gonna be able to point listeners and those watching on the old uh World Wide Web as well, to um where we can find out all about alchemy inside. So it all takes place energetically in a clearing or serious happy place of my guests choosing. So, where is Rachel Shelmer Dean's serious happy place or clearing? Where do you go to get clutter free, inspirational, and able to think?

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Okay, so this was quite hard because I I have one place that is my above all beloved place that I'm completely in love with. But there are lots of other when you talked about energetically, there are lots of other places, but in the end, I did go with my number one place, and that is Venice, but specifically, it's the Lido de Venecia, which is the little island, it's a little strip which is has the Adriatic on one side and the Venice Lagoon on the other. It's tiny, it's a it's a mile across, and I think it's 10 or 11 miles long, and it is just beautiful, and you can watch the most amazing sunsets when you sit and you look at the lagoon and you've got the skyline of St. Mark's Square, but then you can just turn around, and you know, in about 10 minutes, you're then looking at the turquoise of the Adriatic, and so it is just I've never been anywhere like it. I've I've lived in Sicily, which is also a very, very beautiful island, much, much bigger, of course. And I was born on an island because I was born in Malta, which is a tiny little island, but very, very special. But the Lido in Venice, I've never been anywhere that makes me feel absolutely, completely without stress. There isn't, I mean, I'm a you know, I'm a perfectionist, stressful type of person, but uh I arrive in Venice and all stress just melts away. And I think it's the beauty, I think it is just the beauty of the place. So energetically, it's amazing for me. So I'm I'm writing my first book, and when I go there, and we my son and I go there a lot, I'm just um I just write, you know, I carry a notebook with me and I take photographs all the time, and I'm just I'm just inspired by the beauty and the history, the history of the place, because it's got such a rich, rich history. But the Lido is very real. Whereas if you go to St. Mark's Square, if you go to the famous bit of Venice, because Venice is lots of islands, it's an archipelago, but if you go to the famous bit, the history there is literally coming out at you from every single brick. But it's kind of unreal, it's a surreal sort of place. It looks like a stage set, but the Lido is real. It's got schools, it's got sports grounds, it's got normal shops, and people actually genuinely live there. And you know, we go up and down the island on a bus or or or we cycle, but when we go on the bus, you know, we get on the school bus and there's loads of kids coming out of school, and it feels very real, but it's still got that just gobsmacking beauty. Just love it.

Chris Grimes:

What a conjuring of a clearing that is. That is so beautiful. The Lido de Venezia. Venezia. I love that. It's making me think of Cicero and it's just conjuring all sorts of beautiful stuff. And uh going back to you know, your homeschooling in the in the olive groves, yes, of Siena.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

We we moved to Siena and I first homeschooled my son. I used to send photos to my best friend. She'd say, Stop, stop sending them to me. Because you'd be in a swimming pool in an olive grove, yes, and you could see you know, Siena, the blue hills, very much like the the blue hills in the background of the Mona Lisa. So, I mean, it was, you know, we'd be sitting there working our way through the school curriculum.

Chris Grimes:

Saying blue hills, you've now made me think of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Of Virginia, absolutely. Absolutely on the trail of the old of the lonesome pine pine, yeah. Well, that that's a great clearing. In all my circa 270 episodes, I've never had anyone name that gorgeous place as this.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Oh, lovely. I think everyone, if they can go, should go to Venice at least once in their lifetime because there's nowhere on earth like it. It is extraordinary. And just if you're an architect or a designer, which is the world that I work in, every single one of them should have gone there because the the ingenuity of the way it was built, the structure. I mean, when you go there, you've you know, you might have read about it that it's this you know, sort of floating wonder. But when you go there and you actually see how huge and solid the buildings are, yeah, and they're resting on tree trunks. Yeah. You know, they're resting on just you know, wood that they've piled up, but in a very special, very ingenious way. It is an engineering wonder as well as a design wonder. It's just a magical place.

Chris Grimes:

Well, what an epically wonderful, beautiful, perfect place to base the great hair.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

So, yes, I'm on the Lido di Venecia. I'm halfway along the island. There's a place called Malamoco, which is literally halfway, and you are looking out across the lagoon on one side, and then you can just cut across and you've got the Adriatic. And my favorite place is sitting watching the sunrise or the sunset on either side, and it is just I I've done it, you know, a hundred times, and it it never fails to inspire me. Just give me joy, joy for being alive, even in the crazy world we live in. It it's just joy.

Chris Grimes:

You have taken us on a veritable odyssey. I love that, and there we are. I'm now gonna arrive with a tree in your clearing, and it's a bit deliberately waiting for Godot-esque, a bit Samuel Becketty, a bit existential. Yeah, shake the tree, and here comes an Italian reference because it's gonna shake your tree to see which storytelling apples fall out. How'd you like these apples? And then uh what you're gonna do is you've had five minutes to have thought about, you know, in the period that we've known we're gonna be recording together, four things that have shaped you, Rachel Shelmer Dean, three things that inspire you, two things that never fail to grab your attention and borrow from the film up. That's gonna be oh, squirrels, if you've seen the film, if you have, and then the one is a quirky or unusual fact about you we couldn't possibly know about you until you tell us. It's not a memory test, so over to you now to interpret the shaking of the canopy of your tree.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Okay, so four things that have shaped me. So, first of all, it has to be my parents. They were extremely individualistic, very unusual. They were older parents. My father was 52 when I was born, my mother was 40, 40, just short of 41, 42. And they had been married for nearly 30 years. They'd met when my mum was 16, my dad was in the war, he was in the navy, and they were such powerhouse people in individually. He had run away. His his family had left poverty in Ireland and swapped it for poverty in Liverpool. So he grew up on the back streets of Liverpool and he ran away and he managed to join the Royal Navy when he was underage in the days when I suppose, you know, they they obviously didn't get a guardian or a parental signature, they just took him. They probably thought he looked like a strapping lad, and yeah, okay, we'll take you. And you know, he lived such an extraordinary life because he, you know, he travelled the world, he went to war, he was trained as a diver, and he was trained to put mines on German U-boats. Wow. So and then he became a diver after the war, and he then worked, he worked in Salvage and then he worked for oil companies, and so he saw so many amazing places and places that were intact, that are no longer intact, so all across the Middle East, very, very beautiful places. And he took my mum. So my mum and he met during the war, and she was an absolute rebel. She was the daughter of a Labour MP, an Irish Irishman who had come and you know settled in the UK, become a Labour MP, and was a very long-standing Labour MP up in Penniston, um, near Sheffield.

Chris Grimes:

And he has a McGee surname in your background as well.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

McGee. That was her father, McGee, Henry McGee. And his father, Richard McGee, also political, was actually an Irish activist. He was a fighter for home rule, he was a nationalist, even though he was Protestant, he was actually a nationalist MP, but he fought for the right for the Irish to have their, you know, their own, rule their own country. And he was a he was a unionist and a real union activist, a real radical as well.

Chris Grimes:

Yes.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Um, and so it brought his son up, who then became very political. But and my my mother went to Irish Catholic boarding school, which she hated. Yeah, um, and this was just pre-war, and she she actually got expelled, and she I love it because she actually got expelled because she locked the head nun and the visiting bishop in the air raid shelter and had thrown the key, refused to say where the key was. I mean, she just so she was kicked out.

Chris Grimes:

I don't know how what they did to deserve being locked up, the the bishop and the heads.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

I mean, later, strangely enough, I then went to Irish Catholic boarding school and it was very cruel. There's something in Irish Catholicism, there's a real hardcore, which is very different from say Italian Catholicism, or I have, you know, I have Polish friends. Polish Catholicism is is much softer, but Irish Catholicism is about suffering. There's something in the Irish temperament, you know. I'm predominantly Irish, a little bit of Greek, is there's a there's an element of suffering you've got to uh got to go through. So she hated it, she just hated it, she was very, very rebellious.

Chris Grimes:

And I couldn't help hearing, obviously, that they had you quite late on. So was that very late in the uh as they call a happy surprise, is what it's called. So they it's yes.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Well, my mother was told she couldn't have children. She had lots of lots of problems, health problems, and she was told she just couldn't have children. Yes, and so she had resigned herself to this. Jimmy, she'd been married a long, long time. She wanted loads of kids, and then suddenly I came along with a twin brother, but but sadly, my my twin brother didn't didn't make it. We had we were emergency cesarean, and I just survived. And she always called me her miracle baby because really I shouldn't have survived. You know, I was very premature. Um, like I say, sadly, my my twin brother didn't make it, but I did. And they, you know, they didn't have much tech. I'm in Malta. know I mean a little hospital in Malta but but they managed to um and keep me asked did did you name was your twin brother named or or it was just no and in those days they just took the baby away you know the the mother wouldn't even been allowed to hold the baby like they like you know you can now and you know that there is a sort of process a mourning process no they felt you know let's just take it away so my mother and father I mean my mother didn't tell me this you know I found out in a really strange way many years later and my mum didn't want to tell me because she said we never talked about it it was you know it was something that was was so devastating but also they weren't allowed to process it because the baby would have been whisked away taken away but like I said mum always calls called me her miracle baby so you know I was a little bit up in that so a lovely through line of feistiness as in your mum's feistiness and of course you know my experience of you is that you're obviously feisty and and clear in what you want and how to get yeah and and that's you know that's like I say the the big influence is is both my parents but particularly my mum so she was an absolute out and out rebel. So she was kicked out of school she ran off with my father against the wishes of her family that you know they then travelled the world together and she said when they first went abroad they went to Bahrain and it was a real expats kind of enclave and all these very posh older posh English ladies came you know with hats and gloves you know and all that heat and they basically told my mum how she should be behaving and they were telling her off because she wasn't wearing her hat and her gloves and also she was she was she was mixing with the natives which was very not the done thing and my my mum just told them to go away and you know no uncertain terms because she had no interest in being an expat she just wanted to launch into whatever country they were living in so she was yeah always a rebel never followed the rules of society and she brought me up very much to be that kind of person and I mean you know when I was a teenager and I would turned it on her she didn't quite she didn't like it quite so much. And I used to say well you brought me up to be this and suggestion everything. And my assumption would be that they're because they were such older parents they're no longer with us I'm assuming no no my father died years ago and my mum died um over over 10 years ago. Yeah I was very very close to to my mum we had a tempestuous relationship when I was a teenager but incredibly close when I was a child and incredibly close once we got through the thorny period of me being basically was talking of apples I was like the apple that fell from the tree I was very rebellious and I also got kicked out of school as well much to my mum's horror and disgust.

Chris Grimes:

And of course the question on everyone's lips presumably the key was found and the head nun and the bishop were eventually I presume so she yeah she didn't know she didn't care.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

She hated her school so much they'll be discovered in 200 years' time as naughty as her but I I also got kicked out. The joke is they'll be discovered in 200 years' time and be heralded as being the hide and seek champions of the universe absolutely yeah probably and there'll probably be some story that they were having some illicit affair and that's why they were in the air aid shelter together rather than they'd been locked in by some very disgruntled very naughty 15 year old she shaped me with her rebelliousness her she always stood up for what was right. So if she saw someone being bullied or if she saw someone not not well someone in trouble she would just step in. She had no qualms and she brought me up to do the same where she said you must always do the right thing and I used to say well you know well what you know even if it's a difficult situation she'd say your heart will always tell you if it's the right thing or not and you must just do it. And she said for no other reason other than it is the right thing. And that was so clear and it it used to embarrass me because she would step in if we were once in Selfridges at Christmas and there was a man draped across the back stairs you know we went down the back stairs because the lifts were so busy you know it was a few days before Christmas Eve and people were stepping over him and you know my mum checked him out she she was a nurse and she went and tried to get someone off the shop floor and people had no interest in in helping and she made such a fuss to make sure and he'd had a heart attack wow but people were just stepping over him and I was I remember being embarrassed you know I at that time I must have been about maybe 12 yeah and I was embarrassed you know it was like mum don't make a scene and but you know my mum felt that to make to do the right thing you must do whatever it takes. So great and I've inherited that now I didn't at the time because I was embarrassed because you know she would she would just step into situations and I go oh no not again please no but now you know I I do the same thing myself and I you know I admire her and she she's been the biggest influence for for how I how I behave when there might be a part of me saying oh just walk past and don't get involved but there's that big draw to if someone's in trouble I just go over and say are you okay? Yes you need something great first initial shapage next thing that shaped you yes well then traveling you know I was born in Malta I then grew up in Libya because my father worked in Libya and we we traveled all over the place so I spent most of my child young childhood on a plane and going to lots of different places and I have continued that theme through my life where I've done a lot of traveling and I would say that has shaped me so much to go and see different places and see different cultures and really the the thing that is the the the strongest impression that I've taken away is that people are people are people wherever they are in whatever situation most people I find are good even though you know the media seems to want to portray that that's not true. But actually the majority of people I find are good. Yeah they have good hearts and most people want the same things they want to um look after their family they want to work they want to have a decent life yeah and most people are searching for happiness and to just that is what I found wherever I've gone. And in working as a coach of course that's the sort of the currency and the beauty of sort of people whispering if you if you have a a a lens of kindness because everybody you know it's humanity that binds us all obviously absolutely and I remember being um a teenager and watching there was a BBC series called Tribe which was with Bruce Parry who was a quite posh army ex-army person and he wanted to go and find and spend time with the last true nomadic tribes across the world and that was the thing that he found. So even when he was with the most remote tribe they all had humor all of them they would all you know they'd all take the Mickey out of him and play jokes on him and they all had kindness and love and you know respect self-respect and respect for others and it was wherever he went and I have found that to be true in in my travels and and in my work as well lovely and shapage number three please I've got a belt at yeah so then with all this traveling around so my my father ran off and left my mum and me when I was about six wow long complicated story but it meant that mum and I then were in a very precarious situation because he he took all the money with him and left left mum with basically he left her with a triumph a maroon triumph 2000 if you remember those cars from the 70s and and very little else. And so she'd never worked she'd done a lot of voluntary work and she had been a corporate wife for many years an amazing cook and she was told she had to get out of the house we're in because he you know he'd stop paying the mortgage and she went and found herself a job as a housekeeper where she was allowed to have a child and again that shows such strength because she didn't tell anyone she didn't go to her friends or her family she just thought well I've made my bed I married this man and nobody wanted me to so I'm I'm gonna you know I'm gonna lie in that bed and so she she went and forged a life that had you know so everything had fallen apart in her life and then she re she rebuilt a new life and we moved around a lot as a result because she would get different jobs and we moved up and down the UK so ultimately I went to 11 different schools. Your dad would have been sort of um of its day couched as being a CAD I suppose if that's the a little bit of a CAD and a bounder yes and we found out much later that he had actually met someone but he he didn't tell he didn't tell my mum he just disappeared yes but I so I went to lots and lots of different schools and in lots of different parts of the country and it was kind of you know I joke about it now but it would always be that I would have just learned the accent of one place. You know we'd be up north and I've just started to to pick that accent up and fit in where then mum would be like right we're moving and we'd be then we'd be in a totally different part of the country and a different accent. So I'd always be turning up as the new girl with a strange accent and it was hard but I don't know I I think it became almost like a it was like an existential exercise of how quickly can I win people over yes it's accent convergent is a convergence is a way of blending in.

Chris Grimes:

Also I I know that it informs what you're like or what we're like as coaches if you can be someone that's traveled around a lot because you've got this outside sort of outlier propensity the outside looking in with super objective perspective.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Absolutely and again you you know you ultimately find out that everyone's the same they have you know different accents but you're right accent is a great way to to assimilate and to to to bond with someone very quickly if you use their language and you you know you use their sounds and I did that just unconsciously so I used to pick up all the different accents and I suppose it was like being a mimic really in some ways but I think it has helped me I mean I've got no set accent myself my accent is very fluid. So you know I've lived a lot in Ireland I've lived in Dublin so I pick up the Irish accent very very quickly but I do if I'm with anyone I will pick up their accent and it's not you know conscious it's just an unconscious and so my accent goes up and down and all over the place.

Chris Grimes:

Sometimes it's very posh sometimes it's it's a dialect of somewhere and a capacity a capacity for mimicry is is a really good way to be able to belong.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Yes absolutely and you start to understand people I mean I'm fascinated by language I'm not very good I'm I'm learning Italian at the moment because even though I've lived in Italy I haven't picked it up really properly you know I can chit chat so I'm now learning it properly and I I'm not a natural learner of language but I'm fascinated by language because when you speak a different language I found anywhere and I'm sure other people have experienced this you become a slightly different version of yourself. There's a different expression and a different persona that then comes out and so if you are doing that same thing with accents again a slightly different version of you comes out. Yes and it's just very interesting and I'm I'm interested in all the different personalities that lie inside one person.

Chris Grimes:

It's very relatable because in terms of character acting if you personify with a different accent that gives you a whole different identity very quickly.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Yes absolutely and um I can't act I can't I'm I'm rubbish at anything like that at all.

Chris Grimes:

But but I'm probably not fair if you blended in all of your life you're actually a very good protagonist enable to to role play which is the equivalent thing really.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Yes and that and like you say it's very very good for being a coach I mean it's almost like my life everything has shaped it in order for me to be what what I am now and to work with people because there isn't a story or a type of person that surprises me that you know ever I I embrace everybody you know no nobody can tell me a story that's so shocking you know that it pushes me away because I just embrace every type of person because I think I've met every type of person in all these different schools all the different places I've traveled to and I just think that's like this encyclopedic knowledge of of of people which which then just fuels my interest because I am fascinated by people.

Chris Grimes:

There's the currency of empathy within that as well being a true empath as a coach.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Yeah definitely definitely it's that and it's it's being able to put yourself in someone's else's shoes because people think that empathy means sympathy and it doesn't empathy really does mean understanding what it is like to stand in someone's place or to walk in their shoes. And then if you know language is a great way to get into that which is why probably a lot of actors will will go to a language an accent coach to get into that because that's a very sort of quick fast track because all the secrets of what people are like are hidden in their languages. Yes you know their expressions and it tells so much with you know each different part of the country that I went to with all these different schools there would always be these sort of idioms and special little phrases and they talk about what that what that place is like you know what's important to those people so so I believe we're that's the four shapages now I believe is that correct well no I think no no that's three isn't it so I think I've got yeah one more and I think that that is is reading my mum was an absolute voracious reader and in fact when she died and I had to clear her house most of it it was like clearing the British Library because every single wall had bookshelves. She even had books all lined up on her dressing table you know she you know a little tiny bit of jewelry but predominantly books spilling off every surface and she genuinely read them all you know she was a huge huge reader I mean she would she could quote you know poetry and you know just beautiful prose so she you know she was she was an education most definitely so she passed that on to me from a very very early age I fell in love with reading and I am glad to say I have passed that to my son because he is a voracious reader too he's more like my mum he can read a stack of books. Wow you know I'm a I'm a slower reader but it shaped me because I've I've read so much and again so I've travelled the world a lot I've you know I've seen a lot of the world I've met a lot of people but it's my reading like I was thinking about this because of you Chris because we both love Laurel and Hardy and I wonder if you love PG Woodhouse as well.

Chris Grimes:

I don't actually I don't dislike them but it's not something it's not a rabbit hole I have a very positive rabbit hole that I ever went down.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Oh see I went down that that rabbit hole at the same time that I found Laurel and Hardy. So I found Laurel and Hardy from BBC2 repeats when I was probably a young teenager.

Chris Grimes:

And at the same time I went to the school library and I discovered a book of Bertie Worcester and Jeeves by PG Woodhouse and the comedy in that I remember Brian Laurie doing it and in fact my my interest went to Monty Python round about the same time that I would think oh yes yes absolutely yeah I love love love love Monty Python.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

But um yeah my my love of books has shaped me so much because it's given me access to everything. I love history I love ancient history but I love comedy and I'll read I'll read PG Woodhouse again and again and again and if life is a bit grim I just go straight to PG Woodhouse because it's so lovely it's beautiful humour very very delicate comedy.

Chris Grimes:

That's the beautiful first part of shaking the tree four things that are shaking now three things that inspire you Rachel Shelmerdean.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Yeah so let's pick up then with comedy because you and I have that as a as a big part of our lives so definitely comedy inspires me. I mean all my friends have have really great senses of humor and they all love Laurel and Hardy and Workman wise and just a lot of slapstick but also a lot of very sort of more cerebral comics so I mean I love Stuart Lee. He's one of my favourite comedians I love his wordplay he's so clever and my son and I banter all the time and I hear him with his friends and they just banter the whole time and they're just laughing and these you know wise cracks and just very quick wit. And I that that just inspires me. I love comedy I think that even in the darkest darkest moments in life in fact quite often in the darkest moments there is huge humour.

Chris Grimes:

One of my favorite quotes about that is we have to laugh because laughter as we know is the first evidence of freedom. So in in time I love that quote what what's that from somebody called she's first name is Rosie but I was reading a really dark book about the cartels in amongst this darkness was this beautiful golden thread that as I say to reincorporate it you know we have to laugh because laughter as we know is the first evidence of freedom when you can begin to laugh absolutely and that's so true it's like um Rosie Lenos I think it's the attributing uh person anyway oh I must I must look into that because that that is definite definitely true and one of the funniest things I've ever seen in public was actually going to see the producers by Mel Brooks.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Yeah and I actually went with a Jewish friend who a lot of her family had died in camps as had her husband's most of his family had been wiped out in camps like Belsen and Auschwitz and we went to see um the producers which if people haven't seen it it you know Mel Brooks is real proper American Jewish humor and big part of the producers that there is a scene where there's a song which is springtime for Hitler in Germany and it is just it's so ridiculous. It would seem to be in such poor taste that it is the funniest thing you will ever see and I think Mel Brooks always said you know he it's the most powerful weapon you have is to laugh at tyrants dictators and people who do evil in the world if you laugh at them and make them ridiculous. And you can never ever ever see Hitler as anything other than the way Mel Brooks portrays him once somebody is cathassis beautifully that's so well put. And we laughed so much my friend my friend and I we laughed so much we actually we laughed all of our makeup off mascaragon everything. We had nothing left we cried with laughter and we had to go to a really really posh cocktail bar afterwards where we'd we'd booked we'd booked a table and we just turned up shiny with you know crying with laughter but yeah that's that's my biggest biggest inspiration I watch Laurel and Hardy at least once a week it's just no that's lovely. Inspiration number two now please okay number two and this this goes really closely well with the work that I do because I I work in the design sector and I chose to be in the design sector I I'd worked in the tech sector before that my first business I worked with tech startups um but I chose to work in the design sector because I can't design myself I cannot draw I cannot design I don't have an eye For design at all, but I have a passion for design, good design, and I get very cross at bad design. So it's so I suppose good design inspires me. And for me personally, good design is a mix of beauty as well as function. So I'm not a brutalist, I don't like minimal minimalism taken to extreme. I do love beauty, so form and function together. And I'm hugely inspired by beauty. And when you see something that's well designed, and there is a sort of beauty, but there's also a playfulness for me in great design. And that really inspires me. So to that's probably why I love Italy so much, because they are the masters of design, and they're the masters of function, but there's always that element of beauty, but playfulness. The Italian design is very light and playful. So hugely inspirational.

Chris Grimes:

Lovely. And now your third inspiration.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

I think my third inspiration is just sounds naf, it's just it's just people. It's people who have the courage to be themselves. So in this world, that is still such a radical thing. So for people who stand up for what they believe in, for people who speak their mind, who speak from the heart, I I don't care if I agree with it or not, but I admire anyone who actually follows their own path and bucks society, what society tells them to do. So some of my big heroes. So I was actually just over the weekend listening to a documentary. I wasn't watching it, I was listening to it as I was doing stuff. And it's an old one, it's Melvin Bragg, and he was doing a documentary on John Wycliffe. And John Wycliffe was a medieval religious scholar at Oxford University, and his mission in life was to translate the Bible from Latin into English. And the reason being is he wanted the common man to be able to hear the words of God in his own language. He, like he said, he wanted the word of God to be accessible to the boy that ploughs the fields. And he was such a hero because we we can't imagine it now, but it was such a radical act that if you were caught with a copy of even a part of this Bible translated into English, you could be killed. It was, you know, it was punishable by execution. At the very least, you could be, you know, imprisoned or tortured. So it was a huge, huge radical act to free this elite Bible written in Latin, which only the elites understood, and actually to translate it. And not only did he just translate it, he did write the most beautiful prose. The the Wycliffe Bible is an inspiration. And a lot of our common phrases actually come from his Bible, but he knew he was going to be killed. So he was absolutely pursued by Henry VIII all over, yeah, all over England, all over Europe. But he, even though he knew he would be tortured and killed, he still did it. He's such a hero. And he was, they eventually did catch up with him. And he was, you know, he was terribly tortured, he was killed. Even after he was buried, the church later dug him up and set fire to his remains and re-buried him in unconsecrated land. That's how strongly they felt, you know, he'd done such a radical act. But it was too late because that Bible had gone out in pamphlet form, it had been sent, you know, everywhere. And the most ordinary person could read a piece from the Bible that would inspire them, that would comfort them.

Chris Grimes:

Yes.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

And it would elevate them. And so that that's my biggest inspiration is people who dare to be different, who stand up for things. As I said, even things I don't agree with or I personally don't understand or support. I always support anyone that has the courage to do that.

Chris Grimes:

Um your golden thread of a sense of justice and righteousness is is there, even from your mum's observation of you know when she interviews.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Always do the right thing, yeah.

Chris Grimes:

Always do the right thing.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Yes, and it's in my coaching because I hope that a big part of my coaching is is I inspire the courage to be yourself, just to be yourself and it and to not have to refer to someone else and get permission of what that means, but to actually find it within yourself.

Chris Grimes:

And and no doubt you'll be familiar with the Oscar Wilde quote about authenticity, which is be yourself because everyone else is taken.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Absolutely. I love that. I love all his quotes are good, but yeah, I love that.

Chris Grimes:

And now this is where we're borrowing from the film up. The two is what are your squirrel sometimes called your shiny object syndrome?

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Shiny things, yeah. I love shiny things.

Chris Grimes:

Never fail. What two squirrels never fail to grab your attention, uh, Rachel Shelmer Dean, irrespective of anything else that might be going on for you.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Yeah, so number one, this this was really hard because to try and sort of whittle it down. Because I yeah, I'm I'm I'm always attracted by you know new things, shiny things, that little mag magpie. Woo, look at that. You know, I might be looking at that and then suddenly, ooh. But food, I'm a real foodie. I love good food, I'm passionate about good food. Um, and that you know, that's been exacerbated by living in Italy, you know, a number of times. So good food, and again, I've passed that on to my son. We shop local, we go to we've got an amazing um organic farm shop. Where is near yeah?

Chris Grimes:

We didn't ask where you're actually. So I'm in Dorset. Dorset.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

I'm in I'm in Dorset. I'm looking out, I'm not far from Shaftsbury, so I'm high up, big rolling hills. Lovely, um, very, very beautiful. Ancient woodland, so it's it's just a very beautiful place.

Chris Grimes:

When we first met, I wondered whether that was going to be your clearing outside your window.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Yeah, and I did think about that, but it and I love it, you know, and I go out and walk in it all the time and looking at it out through my window now, but um no, it still can't quite capture the wow of uh of Venice. But yeah, food. So my son and I are big, big foodies. I love cooking. All my close friends are amazing cooks, and that you know, again, that's been sort of a thread because my mum was the most extraordinary cook. I mean, she used to make people cry with her cooking, her pastry. You know, people used to just say, What have you done to this to make it so good?

Chris Grimes:

I've never heard that. It's such a great expression. My food's so good, you're gonna cry. I love that.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

I haven't inherited, I know I can't make I can't make pastry, I can't make cakes or anything like that. But I'm a good cook. I make really good food. And I've to me it's love to cook for someone you love with good food and good, good heart is to me, it's just yeah. So yeah, shiny things, always looking for new food things. I'm always looking for new recipes and you know, new flavours. You know, my my son and I, if we if we go to Italy, we quite often will go off the beaten track in search for strange, new, wonderful tastes. And then the second shiny thing is I'm an absolute addict to ancient history. Stone circles, a long barrow, just obsessed. Don't know why. It didn't used to be, but yeah, in the last, I would say in the last sort of 15 years, I have become more and more obsessed with ancient history. So anything that's in ancient history, if I can get to it, I'll if I if there's some new discovery, I'll be in the car and I'm going to look in the rain at uh some stone circle hidden in a forest somewhere.

Chris Grimes:

And because of your love of Italy, I have to ask you if you like the Robert Harris trilogy about Cicero, because that's just the most wonderful history novel. Uh which if you haven't read it, it's fantastic.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

No, I haven't read it. No. Yeah, and Cicero, he didn't he watch when Pompeii was happening. Didn't he write about a mark? They were in Naples and they were watching, watching it happen happen, I think. Cicero and his son. But yeah, ancient history. But I'm in the land of Stone Circles, Dorset, I'm on the edge, you know, near Somerset, Wiltshire.

Chris Grimes:

Yes.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

And so there are so many things, and lots of them are hidden. You know, I've I'm grubbing about, you know, I'll be going in the rain, in the mud, and I've I've read somewhere that there's a there's an obelisk somewhere or a stone circle.

Chris Grimes:

You're looking for clearings all the time within your screen.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Yeah, definitely clearings all the time. I mean, I for my birthday, my birthday treat this year, and it was it was rainy. My birthday's in March, but it's always rainy. I read about this clearing of nine circles. So I think they're called the nine ladies. Well, I was scrambling through mud to get to them very early.

Chris Grimes:

The tenth lady arrived in the nine ladies' circle. I love that.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Absolutely.

Chris Grimes:

The one now um we're on to, which is a quirky or unusual fact about you, Rachel, that we couldn't possibly know about you until you tell us.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

No, I think you can get the measure from just me talking. I do have quite a lot of those, to be honest. Not I've not lived a very normal life, so I've had quite a lot of quirky moments. But the quirkiest that most people don't know, in fact, not many of my friends know, even, is that I used to read trees and castles, almost like tarot cards, drawn on beer mats in a Scottish pub in the middle of the red light district in Ostend when I was in my early 20s. And I became quite famous, so much so that when I went back for a visit, the owner, Maggie, had got bin bags full of beer mats with trees and castles. And it was just was a it was a weird thing. I had um I'd been in England, I had been chatting to an IT manager who had just done a psychological profile for him to get promoted, and as part of that, he'd been told to draw a tree in a castle. And I said, Why? And he said, Oh, apparently you can tell everything about it. So I I got him to draw one and I I could read it.

Chris Grimes:

Wow.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

And he was like, God, that's even better than the one I've just had. You've actually uncovered a lot of stuff. So I started to do it ad hoc, and then I moved to Ostend. I went and lived in Ostend and I got a job in a very well-known Scottish pub, a rugby pub and football pub, owned by a Glaswegian alcoholic called George, his Cockney wife Maggie. You couldn't make this stuff up, honestly. Right in the heart of the red light district of Ostend. You know, all the girls in windows, you know, quite quite a rough part of town, but very, very popular. Tiny pub packed. And I used to read people's trees and castles that were drawn on beer mats. So I didn't take any money, I just used to do it. So the girls, as they used to come off their shift from the windows, would draw me a tree and a castle, and I would tell them, tell them their future or tell them stuff about themselves. And then tourists, rugby fans. Yeah, it's very strange. It was just a strange time in my I understand correctly.

Chris Grimes:

The conceit is that you are you invite someone on a on a on a beer map to just draw you a castle and draw a tree and a castle. Both, okay.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

And even sometimes there's a joke, because people say, Oh, that's rubbish. They would draw a tree, they'd just draw a line, you know, and they'd just draw a box as a castle, but I'd still be able to read it.

Chris Grimes:

I I will I will proffer you with my castle and my tree. I haven't done it for years, but it's what an amazingly brilliant the idiosyncratic, quirky, or unusual fact. I love that very weird, very weird. Rachel Sherman, we have shaken your tree thus far. Now we're staying in the clearing, which is the in Venice. Awesome. Can you just say the beautiful way you said it again?

Rachel Shelmerdine:

The Lido di Venezia.

Chris Grimes:

Of course, it is lovely. And now uh we're going to talk about alchemy and gold. When you're asked purpose and in flow, and obviously your company is alchemy inside, which is another great resonance that we had. So when you ask purpose and in flow, what are you absolutely happiest doing in what it is you choose to do in the purpose that you bring to the world?

Rachel Shelmerdine:

So, number one, because I think about this a lot, of course, because that's what I'm trying to help people to be, because I'm very much an advocate of the ideal state for anybody is to be in flow. And it's really hard, it's not an easy thing to get into. I think creative people can tap into it more because they go into that sort of alpha state when they're creating, that means they're not sort of looking backwards or planning ahead. But for me, I'm a great planner, I'm a list writer, so I it's hard for me to get into flow. But when I do get into flow, it's when I'm writing. Yeah, you know, I do creative writing, I write little short stories and poems all the time, and I'm, you know, I'm very, very much in flow in that, in that yes. And I find it very easy to write. I love writing, I love playing around with words, so that's why I like comedy so much because I like wordplay, you know, I like messing around with words. That's and I'm just one thing I love about Irish people is they really mess around with the words. My my best friend from Ireland used to carve up a word and re-jig it and just make it so funny. So that's when I'm really in flow. And also, and again, it does it does sound enough, but it is true, it really is true. It's when I'm helping someone, yeah. Because I disappear, you know, the Rachel, the all the you know, the all the force of sort of personality and bossiness and all that stuff just disappears, yeah. Which is why, as I said to you before, my my focus is is the other person, and it's it is such a privilege. I mean, you you do this work as well. It is such a privilege to have someone trust you and allow you into their space, into their headspace, into their heart. Yes, and I find that that is when I'm truly in flow. Time can just pass, I don't exist anymore. It's it's just into that other person's world. So I I love it, absolutely love it.

Chris Grimes:

With alchemy inside, the invocation you're imparting is that you believe, as I researched on what you're up to, is the idea of the magical potential we all have within us. Yeah, is the alchemy inside very selflessly draw out by giving them a good listening to, really, in effect.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

A good listening to. I mean, I'm not a I'm not a passive coach. I was actually told earlier this year by a newly trained coach who'd done a coaching degree that I'm not a coach. I was like, oh, what have I been doing for the last 25 years? And she says, You're not meant to give opinions if you're a coach. Well, I kind of think that's rubbish. I do give opinions, but as I say, it's not about me imposing a formula. I hate all that stuff. To me, that's not coaching. I can't bear that. I'm very anti that new style of coaching. And the world and his wife now calls himself a coach because they kind of learnt that, and that to me is not coaching. I mean, it's about helping to draw out by giving support, giving space, listening, but also being a catalyst, you know, by throwing in, using your instinct to throw in something, you respond to something they say, you see something within them, you kind of maybe show it to them because most of the time people just have no idea how beautiful and amazing they are. And you know, that's that's the biggest pleasure is when you can reflect that and you show that beauty to them, and for a moment they go, that's me. And you go, Yeah, that is you, and I see it, and they they don't. So that that to me is coaching, but I do give opinions as well. I'm you know, I'm I'm not a passive going oh, what do you think about that?

Chris Grimes:

I I love the the reciprocity implicit linked to that Hamlet line of showing as twere the mirror up to nature. So, what you've just described in terms of your own description of how you like to coach. I mean, I I I'm always all about what's your story is my main thing.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Oh, yes, absolutely, yeah.

Chris Grimes:

So that's that's really resonant for me in what you just said.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Yes, and I do a coaching program called The Story of You, which I developed, gosh, it's it's nearly 10 years now, which is very much about helping someone to get in touch with the story of them. Because most of us, that's you know, myself included, we're shaped by what other people are telling us from the moment we're born, what we are and what what they think our story is or should be. And so many people get lost, they never have a time where they can actually discover their own story. And I wanted to be able to develop a way of coaching, very much it is within a it's the most sort of framework coaching that I do. It's allowing someone to actually genuinely connect with their own story and rewrite it as they want it, yes, instead of it being their parents' memories or you know, sort of enforced on them by friends, you're this, you're that.

Chris Grimes:

Yeah, so rather meaning detethered to old narratives, there is a way of attaching to your story, but also future-focused for you.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Yes. Absolutely. And I I've done it with companies as well, where they lose their way, you know. Usually when they grow, when they go onto a big growth spurt and they lose that original reason why they set up, you know, the founders sort of just lose touch. And so again, it's bringing them back to what is their story, why are they why are they doing what they're doing? But yeah, I love that. You and I resonate on that so much about you know, and owning your own story, it's your story.

Chris Grimes:

And now I'm gonna award you with a cake, Rachel Sherman. I've got a bit of a comedy dog's toy that looks a bit like a carrot cake, and you get to put a cherry on the cake. First of all, do you like cake? I know you said you can't do pastry, but do you like cake and what cake would you like, please?

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Okay, I do like cake. I'm going to well, I'm going to have a tiramasu. It's not quite cake cake, but it's as cake cake as it as it gets. I do love it. Yeah.

Chris Grimes:

A proper, authentic tiramasu. And now you get to put a cherry on your tiramasu, if you'll pardon that particular expression. And this is stuff like now. What's a favourite inspirational quote that's always given you sucker, first of all, and drawn you up.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Oh, that was the only one out of all this that was so easy. So, my favorite quote of all time that has helped me through everything is, I can't think about that now. I'll think about that tomorrow.

Chris Grimes:

I love the accent attached to that too. Where's that from?

Rachel Shelmerdine:

That's Gone with the Wind, Scarlet O'Hara. So whenever she got into a tricky situation and she couldn't think how the hell she was going to get herself out of it, she would say, I can't think about that now. I'll think about that tomorrow. And it's just such a and it does. I say, I say when I'm in a really tough situation and I have no idea immediately how I'm going to get out of it. Instead of stressing and working on it, I say that to myself with the accent. And it's basically just reminding you kind of let things settle. Something will come, something will come. You know, let it come. Don't don't kind of get too stressed and react because you make a bad decision when you react. Just wait.

Chris Grimes:

And using a deliberate ploy of re-incorporation, as it's called, I'll just like you to do it with the accent.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

I can't think about that now. I'll think about that tomorrow.

Chris Grimes:

And now, with the gift of hindsight, what notes, help, or advice might you proffer to a younger version of Rachel? And you can choose when you go back to uh appear as a bit of an enigmatic holograph in your own life, wrap your hands around your shoulders and just whisper in your own ear, where are you and what you're whispering?

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Yes, I would go back to my teens when I was at my last school, the last, the 11th, the 11th school. And I I was struggling at this stage. You know, I was I was very anxious, teenager, well, like most teenagers, very anxious, but I had panic attacks. I started to have quite stress. Strong panic attacks. And I would go back to that time in my life and I would just say, stop trying to be like the crowd. Because I was trying so hard to fit in. You know, this was the last school, it was a secondary school. It was in a in a small town where everyone, you know, they they had history in that town, and I didn't. And I think I'd reinvented myself so many times, I'd kind of probably run out of the ability to reinvent myself at that stage. And I was trying so desperately to be like everyone else. But in reality, at that stage, there was no way I could be like them. You know, I'd moved around, I was born abroad, I had strange family background, and I tried so hard to be just like all the people in my school, you know, just everyone that I knew. And I think that's probably what was the real trigger to me getting such huge panic attacks. Because I was trying to do the impossible. So I would go back and tell myself, stop trying to be like everyone else. Just allow yourself to be yourself.

Chris Grimes:

Again, be yourself because everyone else is taken. Also, it's the birth of true autonomy when you've got to stop when you started on the path of stopping to people please and just realize you could be autonomous.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Yeah, and it's a long path of people pleasing. Some people are just born being people pleasers. And I think, you know, I had a strange, strange background. I had some trauma in there. Like most people, I desperately wanted to be liked and accepted. And then that does tend to put you on a path of people pleasing. And in order to people please, you have to then sort of deny yourself the pleasure. You're giving the pleasure to other people, and you're carving yourself up to make yourself acceptable. And you, you know, you do you do cause some harm to yourself by doing that.

Chris Grimes:

Yes. What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given by somebody else?

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Well, it's actually again, I was there was lots of things. Well, lots of really great business advice I got when I was first setting up. But actually, I'll go back to my mum, who is my you know, my big, big influence in my life. And it's very like the Scarlet O'Hara quote. Because my mum, again, when I was in trouble, would always say, Sleep on it. Don't do anything until you've slept on it. And she would always say, However, you feel when you first open your eyes is always the truth. She would say, That's always the answer. However, you feel about it. You know, if you're if I'd be really angry about something or had a row with someone or something wasn't working out with work, she would say, Sleep on it. And how you feel about it when you wake up, yeah, that guides you. And she was always right. She was always right.

Chris Grimes:

Yeah. Ramping up slowly now to talk about Shakespeare and legacy, but just before we get there, this is a moment called Pass the Golden Button, please. So don't like it up, Mr. Manry. So having experienced this from within, who might you like to pass the golden thread of the storytelling or the golden button along to who might just really like being given a damn good listening to in this way?

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Oh gosh. I think actually, yes, there's a creative director who is just amazing. And I've actually I've just started trying to record my own podcast talking to some creative leaders, and she was my first person that I did this recorded interview with. And her name is Natalie Gibbs, and she is a powerhouse creative. I mean, just true, true, true creative, a maker, real maker and a thinker, and real powerhouse personality as well. Just a lovely, amazing person.

Chris Grimes:

Thank you for that very generous golden baton pass. And now, inspired by Shakespeare, all the world's a stage and all the bedded ribbon billy players. That's so true. From the seven ages of man's throat, woman's speech. How, when all is said and done, Rachel Shelmer Dean, would you most like to be remembered?

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Hmm, okay. How I would like to be remembered might be different for how I am remembered. I'd like to be remembered as a catalyst. Just that a catalyst.

Chris Grimes:

Yes.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

I come in and bring energy. Um, I've done some healing. I've I've trained as a healer and trained in energy work years and years ago. Um, and I've been told that my energy is very, very powerful, but you know, kind of lifts lifts people up. And I've been told my coaching does the same. But because I I think because I'm passionate about what I do, and I think some of that passion, that energy, but also I'm intensely serious about what I do. It's it is my life's work. I genuinely mean that. Again, that sounds maybe a bit, you know, bit naff, bit cliche, but it is true. It's my life's work. Um, I feel I'm being of service, it isn't just a job, it it means something, really. So I think that's how I'd like to be remembered. I I can see in some people who've come to me, I've had some people come to me in real trouble, and I have helped them shift and get onto a good path, you know, and I've done that a number of times. And that, you know, I've done it with friends as well, and and just you know, people I've met. So I I hope that's what goes on my my tombstone.

Chris Grimes:

She was a catalyst. She was a catalyst. This is a perfect moment now because of the Alchemy Inside to point people to Rachel Shelmer Dean's show us your QR code. This is where we're going to point people. So if people are listening, not watching, if you're watching, you can scan the QR code and go straight to Alchemy Inside. But just give us the path to follow to find out all about.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Yeah. So it's alchemy inside.com.

Chris Grimes:

Lovely. And what can we find there?

Rachel Shelmerdine:

So you'll find just sort of more information about my coaching philosophy and what coaching is, because a lot of people don't know what coaching is. What does it mean? So I've I've sort of explained what it is, how it can help you, and just my my coaching philosophy. I mean, I think I've you know sort of distilled some of that into our conversation. I believe everybody has, and that's on my opening page, everybody has that magical potential. Yes, it's just that they quite often can't see it or they don't believe in it. And I think that's my that's my job is to show them and to help them to express that.

Chris Grimes:

And resonant with what's going on here with alchemy and gold, it's helping them to discover or uncover their own gold.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Absolutely, most definitely.

Chris Grimes:

And then the other QR code to show you is connect with Rachel Shelmer Dean on LinkedIn, please. So, um, if what does it say on your LinkedIn page if the people are listening rather than watching?

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Yep. So that again, it will just tell you about the the work that I do and the work that I've done, who I've worked with, the client quotes of which again gives a sort of essence of the kind of effect that um working with me has. I predominantly work with leaders and founders, but I do do individual work as well. And I'm a I've I've this is on my LinkedIn where I'm a specialist in people with anxiety and phobias as well. So I've worked with a lot of people who have phobias, and I've got some information about that as well.

Chris Grimes:

Wonderful. And also I just love the interpretation of castles and trees on beer mats as a sort of silky skill, quirky or unusual thing.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

So funny, when I went back there, it must have been about, oh gosh, a year and a half later to go and visit and go and see Maggie and George, who owned this pub. Maggie just went, hang on a minute. She went out back and she brought two full bin bags. She said, People come from all over. They've heard about this English girl that does trees and castles. I was like, I can't go through all of these.

Chris Grimes:

You'd have been burnt at the Monty Python stake back in the day, I'm sure.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

Oh, I know.

Chris Grimes:

Probably. In a couple of moments, there's one final, final question, but just a quick couple of announcements from me. If you'd like a conversation about guesting in the show, too, the website for the show is thegoodlistening to show.com. You can connect with me on LinkedIn too, flashing up my own Q car codes. And then very, very excitingly, there's a particularly um I'm very passionate about a new new ish series strand. It's been in the mountainside of the good listening to show all along, but it's called Legacy Life Reflections, which is to record either your own story or the story of somebody really precious to you for posterity, lest we forget before it's too late, with no morbid intention, but it uses this unique storytelling structure, which has been likened to having a day spa for your brain and an oasis of kindness go me to curate the story of that precious special someone. So, Rachel Shammeldeen, Alchemy Inside, wonderful guest as you have been, as this has been your moment in the sunshine in the Good Listening to show stories of genius.

Rachel Shelmerdine:

In the in the Venecia sunshine.

Chris Grimes:

Yes. Is there anything else you'd like to say?

Rachel Shelmerdine:

I think I'd just like to say if you have hit a bump in your life or you want to uncover that gold that um Chris has talked about, then get in touch with me. Drop me a message through my website, get in touch with me through LinkedIn. I love what I do, I love the people that I work with. It's just wonderful hearing people's stories and then helping to reflect back the very best of that to them and help them get through sometimes very difficult stages or just to go on to the next stage.

Chris Grimes:

Wonderful. So, ladies and gentlemen, I've been Chris Grimes, but most importantly, this has been Rachel Shelmerdeen. Anything else else you'd like to say?

Rachel Shelmerdine:

No, it's been wonderful. Thank you so much.

Chris Grimes:

You're very welcome. Thank you for bearing with the three uh sort of comedy uh interweb gremlin pictures before we've got there. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you. Good night. You've been listening to the Good Listening to Show with me, Chris Grimes. If you'd like to be in the show too, or indeed gift an episode to capture the story of someone else with me as your host, then you can find out how, care of the series strands at the goodlistening2.com website. And one of these series strands is called Brand Strand Founder Stories, for business owners like you to be able to tell your company story, talk about your purpose, and amplify your brand. Together we get into the who, the what, the how, the why you do what you do, and then crucially, we find out exactly where we can come and find you to work with you and to book your services. Tune in next week for more stories from the clearing, and don't forget to subscribe and review wherever you get your podcasts.