E2: Who is Emma?

In this episode I share my raw and honest story with you.  I open up to who I am, what I have experienced in life and in business and where I am today.

TRIGGER WARNING: My story does include mention of suicide and death, so feel free to skip this episode if it may cause you any distress.

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Want to connect? Find me here:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamemmahine

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/behappybesuccessful

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-hine

Website: https://www.emmahine.co.uk

You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/@EmmaHineStrategy

Transcript

Hello & Welcome to today’s episode of Dream Business Dream Life.

Today I thought it would be a good idea to tell you a little bit more about me and my journey, after all you are going to be listening to my voice a lot so I figured you might want to know a bit more of the person behind the voice 

Oh my goodness where do I begin.

So I was born on August 29th 19…only kidding, this won’t be a biography, I just want to share with you the bits that really matter, the bits that will help you to understand where I have been, why I do what I do with such passion and where I am right now.

But before I do I want to make you aware that my story does include mention of suicide and death, so feel free to skip this episode if it may cause you any distress. 

I want to start with a quote. 

 “You will never make anything of yourself”

This is something that a teacher said to me when I was about 14 years old. 

Now, I appreciate I was not the best-behaved student and studying wasn’t top of my priorities list, but looking back I realise what a cruel thing this was to say to any child.

 And I also now realise that these 7 words played a huge part in the next 30(ish) years of my life as unbeknown to me that statement had set a thought in my mind that said whatever the cost, I will make something of myself, I will prove the teacher wrong. 

So, life continues, I meet Adrian (my now hubby) and at 16 I became a mum, welcoming the first of my 3 amazing daughters, Becky into the world. 

 I imagine at this point the teacher is thinking “I told you so” but do you know what I honestly believe that meeting Adrian and becoming a mum at this point was the best thing that could have happened to me. 

 I started my first ‘proper’ job when I was 18, it was an admin role at one of the UK’s largest Building Societies and I loved it.

 The next 14 years fly by, I worked my way up the career ladder and by the time I left in 2008 I was the Sales & Regulatory Change Manager. What a title; corporates love a big posh title don’t they?! 

 Basically, I was responsible for the processes and regulation across the entire branch network and direct sales channel which involved managing a team of project managers and going to lots of meetings.

 I was never unhappy at Britannia, the people were mostly lovely, and I had gained a whole wealth of business experience, but despite having a lot of control over how my team operated I always felt stifled by the red tape and the office politics. 

 Trying to get anything signed off was sooooo hard.

 I hated having to ask for a day off and I hated the mundaneness of the same routine day in day out.

 So in 2006, we (me and my hubby) set up our ecommerce business, we were determined to create a business that gave us freedom. The dream was to move to Spain or at least to spend lots of time there.

 But as with many people who start a new business the first priority was to get it to a stage where I could leave my corporate role. I was the main bread winner in the house at the time, so we had to ensure we had financial stability for us and our 3 daughters, but beyond that it was time to create the life of freedom that we both longed for. The life that meant we were in Spain all of the time.

 After 2 years it happened, I resigned from my job. Now was my time to shine, now was my time to stick 2 fingers up at the teacher…but first I needed to grow the business more as for now it was just replacing my salary, we had not yet got the lifestyle we wanted to go with it.

 The years go by, the business grows, we work a little harder each time to push it to the next milestone and to the next until it finally tips that 7-figure mark. This should have been a celebration, surely now I have made something of myself; it takes a lot to grow a business from nothing to 7 figures. 

 But to me it was not a celebration, I did not feel happy and proud, I felt exhausted, and I hated my business. Deep down I would have swapped my 7-figure business for a much simpler life at the drop of a hat, yet I still kept on pushing and pushing until I reached breaking point.

 I started the business for freedom, I wanted a less mundane life, I wanted to live in Spain, and I wanted to be proud of what I had. I wanted a legacy for my children, and I wanted to be able to feel like ‘someone’.

 Well, none of this happened, all my focus had gone on growing the business, I was working 80-90 hours per week, it felt like the children had to book an appointment to see me.

 When I went on holiday I took my laptop, I only ever had Christmas Day off and even then, I would check my emails!

 The freedom I so desperately longed for could not be further from the reality…I hated my life, and I hated my business.

 The really sad part is I hated me too, in my mind I was a bad mum, a bad wife and I was sure as hell a bad businesswoman. 

 Life could not be further away from the dream.

 In December 2010, it was our Christmas peak, we were working crazy long hours and as usual there was no time for anything beyond work. Our youngest daughter, who was 8 at the time, ended up in hospital with a broken femur and at the time we did not envisage what was to come, we thought it would be a case of pop her in plaster and we will be home…sadly it was not that simple. They discovered that Emily had a cyst in her bone, and she had to have load of tests, scans and surgery. It was going to be a long stay in hospital and a long road to recovery for Emily.

 Now our priority here was of course Emily, she was such a brave little girl and there was no way I was leaving her side. But we had invested in a lot of stock that had to be sold and December was our last chance to do this, we had staff and bills that needed to be paid so one way or another we had to find a way to make this happen.

 So, we did what we do best, work harder! Adrian was a rock, he was the one in the warehouse from very early in the morning until very late at night, he was the one rushing over to the hospital, in the snow, to spend an hour with us whilst trying to keep on top of everything at work and at home. I was dealing with the admin as best I could from my daughter’s bedside, but back in 2010 it was hard as the internet was pretty crap back then, especially inside a hospital ward.

 My other 2 daughters, Becky and Charl were a little older, they were amazing, but it was hard on them too.

 Over the next few weeks, it reinforced that our business was not giving us any freedom. Never in our lives had we been so tied to something and right there in that moment I could see it. I did not admit it, I did not say, but I knew it. I knew we had created a monster.

 Life for me was a bit of a downward spiral from there, my time in hospital with Emily had given me chance to subconsciously assess our lives, it had given me the time to reflect on the monster we had grown, and it had given me time to sit back and watch our lives in slow motion. 

 Seeing Adrian working so hard and seeing the children having to fend for themselves was heart-breaking.

 But instead of taking action and instead of taking this opportunity to make lifestyle changes we just pushed on…even harder! 

 The harder we worked, the more money we seemed to have and maybe, just maybe if we kept on pushing it would eventually pay off and we would get the freedom we desired. 

 This was me waiting for the magic to happen; this was me thinking it would get better once we got there; wherever there is

 By now we have bought a villa in Spain, and we are driving around in some pretty swish cars, we have some amazing holidays (with my laptop of course) and life has become very materialistic. I was trying to convince myself that the next expensive purchase would make it all better…but of course it never did!

 I found a way to drown out the pain…alcohol and lots of it!

 By now I am unhappy, miserable, obsessed with spending, doing everything I can to avoid people and I am drinking excessively. Clearly a recipe for disaster.

 Over time it gets out of control, I become a horrible person, drunk most of the time and nasty, really nasty. I am not justifying it at all, how I behaved was wrong, but it was all because I was lost, I had no idea who I was or what I wanted but I knew it is not what I had.

 I loved my family, I loved them dearly but, in my mind, I failed them, and they deserved better than me, their life would be so much better without me in it.

 So, I planned my own suicide, over the months I had come up with so many plans, what if I accidentally fell off the bridge down by the canal, what if I fell into the road as a wagon drove past.

 Then one evening I sat with my wine and my pills, and I started to swallow them one by one… the universe was looking out for me that day as before I was able to swallow many of the pills my hubby walked into the room; it was the early hours of the morning, so I have no idea why he came downstairs, but something made him and in that moment he saved my life. 

 I am not sure exactly at what point I started to feel stronger but in 2020, after dealing with the unexpected spike that COVID bought to our ecommerce business I knew something had to change, I knew I had to stop pretending to be okay and I knew that I was now in a much stronger position to tackle it.

 So, into 2021, over 10 years after I realised that I was unhappy, we came armed with a new plan, a plan that was no longer driven by profit but by freedom, a plan that would give us back some time and that would enable us to be free from the ball and chain we had grown.

 Within 3 months the plan had been implemented and my working hours had reduced massively. Revenue had too of course but that did not matter; I needed to be happy.

 So, now the business was tamed it was the time to blow the dust of my dream and to set about making it my reality.

I invested heavily in myself, with both time and money and I really explored what success looked like to me.

 Once I had that clear dream in my mind, I was able to set about making it happen. 

 Was it going to happen overnight, absolutely not, I had a lot of scars that needed to heal, but I was determined that I would enjoy the journey this time.

 It took me a couple of years to get real clarity on how I would help people, I knew I wanted to help people to be happy in business, but it took me a while to work out the how.

 2023 was the year…I was strong, I could finally say I was happy, and I was enjoying life.

 Then we were hit with the worst news anyone wanted to hear, my beautiful 31-year-old daughter, Becky, was diagnosed with secondary liver cancer.

 Becky was the strongest person you could ever meet. She fought it so hard for 6 weeks but sadly she was just too poorly to beat it and suddenly the happiness slipped away…again.

 As a family we were broken. Totally broken.

 It is now just over 12 months since we lost her, and the pain is just as strong today; in some ways stronger.

 But eventually I realised that I had to keep going; I could not allow my mental health to spiral out of control again, I had to be more Becky, I had to be strong. 

 So, I turned my sadness into my strength, and I came back into my business even stronger.

 More determined than ever to not only live my dream life but to help others live theirs too.

2023 showed me that life is precious and for as long as we have breath left in our body, we absolutely can have it all!

 Now I feel like I need to raise the vibration here a little as I know my story, as are so many people’s stories, is packed full of heartbreak and sadness but it is also packed full of experience and learning.

 Experience and learning that has made me the person I am today.

 Experience and learning that I am able to share to help others.

 Today, I am passionate about helping others to grow a business they love and as a certified business strategist with a whole heap of experience under my belt I have all the skills I need to make that possible.

 As you listen to more episodes of this podcast you will soon learn that I am a big advocate for living life to the full, for having fun and for being totally transparent.

 You will also learn that I love being amongst people and that I love a glass of wine, margarita pizza and the sun. Especially the Spanish sun.

 But most importantly you will learn that you too can have your dream business and your dream life.

 Thank you for listening; see you next time…