#085: Finding The Gift Inside Ourselves with Veronica Pullen

Veronica Pullen

And that’s really the basis of my mission. I want everyone to have that. I want everyone to stop feeling like they got to follow their shoulds. Or that they’ve got to fit into somebody else’s box. Or tha their income is limited by what the people around say is right.

Sue Revell

Welcome back to the Women on a Mission show. This episode goes out as we celebrate International Women's Day, so I want to start with a shout out and thank you to all the women, and supporters of women, who have contributed to this show in any way. Our guests, our sponsors, our team and you, our audience. Thank you for being part of my mission so far, and do keep listening as I'll share a reminder of how you can help me to reach even more women, a little later.

In the meantime, I hope that you've had a great week. It's been a very busy one here, including a very quick event-planning visit to Venue Cymru in Llandudno with some of my Practice Solutions team. We were only away for just over 24 hours but managed to squeeze a lot into our trip, including a lovely supper together and a late night wander along the promenade. I do treasure time spent by the sea, it's always good for the soul. It's an incredibly scenic route to North Wales at the best of times and we travelled up yesterday in glorious blue skies and sunshine and travelled back today amid gentle snow flurries in some parts and full-on blizzards in others!

Anyway, let me briefly introduce you to our next woman on a mission. As always, her full bio will be in the show notes at https://www.womenonamission.club.

Veronica Pullen is the online marketing and copywriting expert for introverted and ambiverted coaches, therapists and service providers. She works with people who want to create standout social media content that builds engagement, authority and trust. Let's hear what Veronica had to say about her mission.

Sue Revell

Today's guest will be familiar to some of my longer term listeners because her name has popped up a couple of times when I've asked guests what is now one of my favourite questions: who inspires you? At least two of my previous guests have mentioned her in their response, so I thought it was time I invited her to share her own story of her mission. She was one of the first women that I met online when I set up my own business in 2015 and I'm really looking forward to our conversation today.

Veronica Pullen, welcome to the Women on a Mission show!

Veronica Pullen

Thank you for inviting me. I'm looking forward to our chat and seeing what comes up.

Sue Revell

Me too. I'm sure I'm going to learn more about you Veronica that I just don't know, in that time. Although you're pretty much an open book a lot of the time, I think, so it will be great for other people to hear your story too. Over time, the episodes have found their rhythm in three parts really. There's the story of your mission and what's important to you. Then we delve a little bit deeper into who you are, who’s the woman behind the mission and who you're becoming as you take your mission forward. And then we'll talk a little bit about who has inspired you on your journey, and look a little bit outward to learn from you as well.

But let's start with what your mission is. If you had to tell us in two or three sentences, how would you describe it?

Veronica Pullen

My mission is to help the introverts and ambiverts of this world, an ambivert is somebody who can be an extrovert in some situations but then needs time to recover afterwards which is what I am. So I’ll appear as an extrovert on this interview but then I’ll need time afterwards to refuel, to recharge. So I help introverts and ambiverts who are service providers to help them to find more clients online but not just to find more clients on line; to get well paid for doing what online that they love with clients that they enjoy. So their whole business feels aligned and I call it soul aligned and sold online. It's about having that freedom, that flexibility to work wherever you want to work; to choose how much of your business is in-person. For an introvert, it's perhaps very attractive to have a completely online business. For an ambivert, it's perhaps very attractive to have half and half. You get to design your own life. So my mission is to help you to do that; it’s to help you to get in front of more of your people, to build relationships and connections with them; and then to be able to communicate what you do and what you sell in such a way that it feels like the right best decision for your ideal client to say yes, they want to work with you. So it's having more financial freedom, and more actual freedom and more alignment in your life and business.

Sue Revell

And there's so much in that. Let's start with where it all began for you. Where did your mission begin?

Veronica Pullen

So, back in 2009, I was declared bankrupt and, as a result of that, previous to that I had been a freelance book keeper, payroll consultant and I had actually risen to the very top of the AAT, the Association of Accounting Technicians, letters; so I wasn't just an MAAT,well nobodies just an MAAT, but I wasn't an MAAT member, but going beyond that to becoming a fellow member, an FMAAT. And then I became a member in practice, I had my own business.

So with all of that I was running, technically it was a job; I would go to different clients and do their books and their payoll on site; so I would be travelling up and down the south coast on the train and on the bus, going from here to there. And so in 2009, just before I went bankrupt, I knew that if I went bankrupt while I was still with the AAT I’d be pushed into disciplinary, you’re not allowed to practice, if you're not financially fit.

So I resigned the whole lot and, in truth, bookkeeping was never my passion. This was, what do they call it, a zone of excellence, where it’s a topic that I knew, I studied hard for it and I knew it but I didn’t love it. And so evidently now, because I can't remember much, you have to do three years to become a member of AAT and the first year was the one I enjoyed the most. This is where you're learning double entry book keeping, and that’s the only part of all of it I can still remember apart from a couple of little costing calculation, you know, like last in first out. So when I was declared bankrupt, basically it just draw a line theoretically under all of that.

I've never been out of work. I went from school to work, there was about a two week gap. So I then had six months off. That was pretty much straight after, as all this as going on I went into a RA flare up. I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis, when I was 12.  I was born partially deaf, about 70% deaf in both ears. At the age of 25, I had then been diagnosed with another condition, an eye sight condition called Retinitis Pigmentosa and that is a loss of field of vision. And night blindness, you have night blindness as well.

Sue Revell

That’s an incredible combination.

Veronica Pullen

It is, but actually I later learned that the hearing loss and the eyesight go together to create a different syndrome called Usher Syndrome. But it's easier to explain them separately because most people  understand the two things separately and I've got to explain it anyway cos no-one knows what Usher

Syndrome is, even me.

Sue Revell

I've never heard of that one. That's a new one on me.

Veronica Pullen

And so, I had a couple of part time admin jobs. At one point I was working part time for Surrey Probation, but I was born and bred in Worthing on the south coast. And I'd moved to Redhill. I'd just met Bill online, who's now my husband: on Facebook, we met. And I'd just moved from Worthing the day after my bankruptcy hearing. I moved to Redhill, let everything go, and I moved in with him in Redhill. So I started in Probation for a while. I loved Probation but it was a very low level admin job for me, from where I had been. That's not to say it was a low level admin job but the difference in what I’d been doing. I was basically keeping records of community service, or as they call it now, community pay back. And so I then found another job as a payroll person in an insurance company, that was three full days a week rather than five half days. Absolutely detested that job, so so much. At that time, I used to sit in the office, day dreaming about working from home writing, because there was somebody that I knew on Twitter who was being paid to write. I don't even remember what, reports or something. But, oh, that would be amazing; I love writing and I’d just love to work from home.  The payroll job let me go, thank you!!!!

Sue Revell

The relief on your face! 

Veronica Pullen

I'm just a year out of bankruptcy, and I said to Bill, we were now getting married the year after and I said to Bill, I just can't go back into another job. I’m a business owner, you know, I want freedom. Let me out, let me out!  And so he said, right, you've got six months. If you can earn back your part time salary, then all well and good.  And that’s how I operate. Give me 10 years and it will take me 10 years. Give me 6 months and I'm gonna do it in two. Tell me I can't do it, and I'm gonna do it.

So the very next day I stuck a profile on Elance which is a freelancing platform. And I just started bidding for blog jobs. Somebody asked me a few years ago… did it ever occur to you that you couldn't do that? Or did you ever stop to think you couldn't just do that. Actually no. I just decided that I was gonna get paid to write blogs and so that’s what I did. And very quickly I was getting these gigs and I was getting repeat gigs. You don't get paid well on Elance but you do the first one, cheap, and then you get hired again. And then what happened was it took my freedom. I lost my freedom. I was being told what to write about. You know, I love writing when I'm inspired to write, but you’re telling me I've got to write about widgets. So I put that off, and I put that off, procrastinators united!

It was taking all my time and then I got an email selling me a programme about social media management. Now, up until when I lost my license, when I was diagnosed with the eye sight condition,  I lost my driving license. They immediately take it away from you. You’re not fit to drive, so that was my physical independence compromised. I made the decision then to move my social life online. No, let’s keep a modicum of cool, MUCH of my social life online. And so I had been going to work and then coming home and hanging out in texts for years at this point, and I had this email saying you can get paid. This is when social media was just coming out. You could get paid by business owners who want to know how to use social media for business.  I mean wow, I’m doing this for free. That’s where this business began. It was draw a line under your old life. Make one decision for the thing that you think you want, and then realise actually that not what you want, and then another one just dropped in your lap which is actually the thing that you're already doing, and you can get paid for.

And that’s really the basis of my mission. I want everyone to have that. I want everyone to stop feeling like they've got to follow the shoulds. Or that they've got to fit into somebody else's box or their income is limited by what the people around them say is right. And I want them to have that moment where they’re, oh my God, I've been doing this thing and now I can make it my whole income. So that's where it began and then it just evolved. Now I learn it every day. Learn something new every day or otherwise it's a wasted day. I’m always improving the skill. So I kind of moved away from the copy initially but copy writing has always been underneath everything I do because it's how you communicate. It’s how you communicate on line is in copy, and so I’ve gradually grown that back. And that's really nice because everything I do is not platform dependent. Facebook won't be there soon. We won't be the most popular platform soon. Prior to Facebook I was all over Twitter. So wherever you can type to people, this is where you can create opportunities.

Sue Revell

Yeah, I think that's one of the reasons I really enjoy following you. I think your copy is excellent. It feels as though there's something in it for everybody even though it feels you're writing to me. I recognise that's a huge skill in itself. But I also know you're one of those people who very quickly factors in new developments. So if you're changing up what you're writing, then I know that something's happening that I need to look for.

Veronica Pullen

I look for the opportunity in everything - who can benefit from this? And you know at the moment there’s a whole lot of chat about AI, ChatGPT.  A lot of copy writers are afraid of this. People are very afraid.     I think no, look at the opportunity that it presents. It’s not going to request copy writers at all because there will always be a human element that will win. Connection will win out. But it can help. It can help you to get to a base level and then it can help you, or you create your own base level and it will take you to the fizzle. There’s opportunity everywhere.

But I’m also autistic, I’m also on the autistic spectrum, which presents another kind of benefit, a win if you like because I'm hyper focused. When I have a goal, I will go through that goal, and nothing will take me away from that goal. There was no sacrifice too great for that goal. The other part of what I do, or other part of my mission is, there's a lot of I don’t know if it’s shame, or lack of confidence or lack of belief or again, a society label around people who are on the spectrum in some way whether that’s what we don't any longer call Aspergers, or whether they're dyslexic or whether it is now ADHD, it feels like it now comes to a point where it feels like a limitation. It's not a limitation. It doesn't have to be, it's part of the gift that you bring. It’s part of what makes you, you.

So another aspect of my mission is for people who are on the spectrum to recognise that what they have previously seen as a limit, is actually an open door. So another part of my mission is getting that message out there, that you don't have to conform to somebody else's expectation, that the world is designed by extroverts, taking the spectrum out from it. It’s actually designed by extroverts for extroverts. Introverts and ambiverts already feel that they're not doing it right. Because if you're not out there all the time, you're wrong. And that's not true. That's just their perception of what you should be like, based on where they thrive. And that's another part of my mission, that I want people to see that wherever they feel they are most expansive, wherever they feel great, is actually where they could be and thrive.  Every single one of us has a gift inside of us, and wouldn't it be amazing if all of us found it,  honoured it and then thrived in it? That’s why perhaps when I've come back five lifetimes later, that might be real. It won’t happen in this lifetime. A future life mission.

Sue Revell

And I suppose one of the points that has always interested me about your work is that it's easy sometimes to think of copy in the sense of broadcast. You know, another method of broadcasting our message. But what I see in your work is always that the emphasis is on connection. And wherever you're using that, wherever you're sharing your words and your wisdom, doing that from a place of connection and building relationships.

Veronica Pullen

Yes, absolutely. And I look at everything. I want to feel connection with people online, and in person, but mostly online because that's where you’ll find me. And it's very easy, I see, for people to burn those relationships, posting short term tactics, and everything that I do and I teach is the opposite of that. It's about creating a relationship, acting in integrity, but mostly when it comes to writing, we've got to think about that other person. Sure my programme is the most amazing programme in the whole wide world, but if you can't communicate that in a way that the other person can feel it, they're not gonna… so copy, for me is a love letter to your dream client. With love at the core, to be read by the person or the type of person; not the age or the demographic, but the actual personality or heart of the people that you want to draw in, and you're writing from your heart to their heart. You always keep that in mind when you're writing copy, but you have to sell everything that you're after and a lot of people can't do that. It’s very hard, as well, when we are the way in and it’s all about selling ourselves. It’s our brain, it's our expertise, it’s our work. That is the thing that we're selling, it's hard to detach from that and we can get very, very caught up in trying to sell the mechanics of it. I want you to buy my online course because it's an online course. No! That’s the mechanics of it. This person over here on the other side of my screen has a heart. They have emotions of their own, with dreams and desires of their own. How am I gonna help you? That's what copy is for me.

Sue Revell
And that's what I see every day in what you do. Putting people right at the heart of your mission.  I love that.

[COMPETITION TIME: Today, I'm asking for your help.

I'm on a mission to stop women playing small so that they can think, dream and be bigger in leading the change they want to see in the world. And I need your help to reach more women. 

As a thank you, I'll be giving away a free online coaching session each month during this season. So four lucky listeners will win an hour with me during season six. 

It's super easy to enter. Go to the Apple or Goodpods platform and leave a review of this episode, telling us how it helped you or why you enjoyed it. 

If you take a screenshot and share it on your own socials, you'll get an extra entry for each post. Use the hashtag Women on a Mission and remember to tag me in so that we see it. 

The winner will be announced on the first episode of the following month. So do keep listening.]

Sue Revell
What had to happen for your mission to begin? 

Veronica Pullen

Well, it was the loss of my driving license because a driving license had been a goal of mine for seven years. I’d tried to learn to drive, and this is probably part of the autism, but I found it really stressful trying to coordinate the looking out of the window with the steering of the wheel, with the gears, the clutch, too much was going on at once. And I spent a year trying to master that, until one day somebody presented me with a miracle. And I had no idea this miracle existed. You could have a driving license that was purely for automatic cars. OMG. Changed my life. Blew my mind that did. So now I’m on a different goal, no more of this steering wheel, window, mirror, gear, clutch… I still have nightmares about that biting point!

Sue Revell
I’d forgotten that, the biting point!

Veronica Pullen

So much stuff without thinking now, you’re all so clever!  When you’ve got knee pain, and I’m having to look out of the window… people are listening to me now acting out trying to look out of the window, looking at the lights, steering the wheel, oh no, the lights are changing!

Right, so the automatic car. The day I had my first automatic driving lesson, I bought a car. This is how confident I am now, a car.  A nice red, automatic Mini. I have six automatic lessons. Pass my test first time.

Sue Revell

That's a real game changer, isn't it?

Veronica Pullen

Oh I’m a world class driver, Sue. A world class driver.

And so I passed my test in May and six months later the clocks change and we have this dark time of the year, don’t we. And I already knew that I had night vision issues. I already knew that and I wasn't ever intending to drive and I never had, at that point, driven at night. I'd always organised to be home in daylight. But I figured that with the clock going back I was now possibly gonna get caught out.

So I went to the optician. My mom was 42 when I was born so she’s like two generations away from me. She was much more like my grandmother in thinking and acting, and she used to get these catalogues, that were a lot of living aids. And one of these living aids was glasses to cut the glare. One of the big things with Retinitis Pigmentosa is glare, and glare is painful. And so, in bright sunshine when, you know in Winter when the sun’s really low, all I can see is a sheet of white. I’m blind when it's dark and it's raining, car lights are on, it’s painful. So I went to the optician and he gave me some of these nice glasses that I’d seen in my mummy’s catalogue. And he said, I can do better than that. I can diagnose you with this eyesight condition that means that the DVLA will take your license away from you. So this is six months, after the seven years, of world class driving. How can they take the license away from this world class parallel parker. Cos now I’ve taken all the other distractions away, all I’ve got to do is look out the window, look in the mirror and break.

Sue Revell

I’m just sat here shaking my head.

Veronica Pullen

Actually, Rob Beckett, the comedian Rob Beckett, he has had exactly the same journey. It wasn't quite as instant as that because I'd pushed back a bit. But then the license is gone, the police came to my house because what happened is… and most people who listen to this are never going to experience this… but you get a letter from the DVLA, telling you that in seven days, six days from the day of receiving the letter, you will no longer be fit to drive. Now isn’t that absolutely daft?!

Because either you are or you’re not. It’s like you’ve got six days now to live your best life behind the wheel of a car. And so in the seventh day, you’re meant to pop your paper license (back then), into a little stamped addressed envelope or pre-paid envelope, post it back to the DVLA. But I was not a happy bunny. I was very unimpressed that they wre removing the license of this world class driver who was never going to drive at night, and incidentally I later learned that in Australia, they actually separate daytime and nighttime. So you can (or could several years ago) have a daytime license between sunrise and sunset, but be disqualified at night. And that would have been perfect. I learned this in the intervening period, and I was not a happy bunny.

So that’s what happened and the police said really sorry to have to do this, can you give me your license. And I said I don’t have a choice now. I had created a little bit of drama and inconvenience that this spoilt child wanted to create. And so really, it was losing that and having to make a decision about this was either going to define me for the rest of my life… I was 25-26, I’m going to sit here now and watch everyone else. As I sit here it sounds very dramatic for something I had had for six months,  but because it had been seven years and I had this best life for six months, when it went it was a much bigger drop than if I’d never had it.  

Sue Revell

Yeah, I understand that.

Veronica Pullen

The first thing that we did, I was with my first husband, my dream car had always been an Escort XR3i. Now I knew that I would never be able to drive it, once I gave up the manual, because they don’t make them in automatic. The very first thing that we did, I think it was days later, was to travel here to the Isle of Wight, because this has always been my happy place where I came with my dad. When my dad died I was six months off being seven. And that year when he died we’d been here for a week and the year after I came back with a Youth Club. This is my place. We came here to the Isle of Wight, from Worthing and we bought a white XR3i with an Isle of Wight number plate. If I can’t have a license, then I or we are having a car – obviously I’m a passenger now.  And when I was declared bankrupt, I drew a line under that and I discovered that I could get paid well for doing what I enjoy, what I love to do anyway and what I’d been doing for fun, and attract through good copy, because copy is responsible for who you work with - through your words, you are calling in your ideal people through your language, through your energy. And once I had that I realized the impact of that on me and two major things happened that really brought that home to me…or three!

What happened in what order….  the first thing that happened was Bill who was then my husband, remember back to when he gave me six months. He's now working full time, he’s been working full time all the way through. But he was working in Reading, which was a two hour train journey each way, for an insurance company and he was not enjoying it. And he would be coming home, moaning about the day and he wouldn’t get home until about 7.30pm and then he’d be back on a train at 5.50 am. And he wasn't happy and I was like well we're at a point really where ok, it wasn’t at a point where most people would decide that there was enough income, but I was at a point where I could see more predictability. I could see predictability and I could see growth and I said let's just do it. Go in tomorrow and resign and come here. That was June/July 2013.

Once that happened, we now realised that we're not tied to this place anymore. So it made no negative impact on the business at all because when you're online, nobody knows where you are. So at the same time as we moved here, one of my other friends moves a similar kind of distance and had to start  completely again, because they focused their entire networking offline, in person, the whole thing. Whereas for me, you all just came with me.

And then the third thing that happened, oh no I’m out of order! This was actually the first thing that happened. In 2012, I went 85% blind and they found that I had three full cataracts on both sides. This is apparently part of Retinitis Pigmentosa. It's quite common, to have early onset cataract, both happened at the same time. 85% blind, you know, we can adjust to that. Everything can be adjusted for, I couldn't see the PC but I could see the phone. We can just work on the phone, it's okay, we'll carry on. But once it became clear that these cataracts needed to come out, it was a case of where and how?  And I decided, I work very much intuitively, I now know that, having incorporated Human Design (psychology) into my work to help you use your design to effortlessly create your marketing copy, I now realized that what we've been doing for ever is following my inner authority. My inner authority says go back to the guy who took the license away, and he was the person who the optician referred me to and he was the person who….  I became a bigger pain in the backside because at this time I was working for the NHS:  he sat me down in his consulting room, and the very first thing he said to me was yeah your optician’s right. You have got Retinitis Pigmentosa and then the next sentence was I'm gonna have to take your license away.  That all just came out as one line and I, on behalf of everybody, my little spoilt brat came back out and said how dare you approach this with that cavalier manner? That statement is completely gonna change my life, and I know it’s every day for you but you know, mate, a little bit of heart would have gone a long way. And he said, okay, okay, that's a fair point. Fair point. He took it. So I loved him for that.

So then what happened was, I would have to leave where I was working at the other hospital base to come over to his hospital base, about 40 minutes away. And then they were saying I was going to be there for three hours. So I said to him, again. Pain in the backside, I am. Mate, the NHS are paying me. Do you think maybe we could do something that would mean that they weren’t paying me to sit here for three hours? Remember, I’m 25 or 26 and I make bold moves when I know what I want.  He's an ophthalmic surgeon, I’m not sure if I called him mate. I probably did call him Mr Fox, but could I see you outside of my working time. I’ll leave work so that they're not paying me anymore and I'll come to you, which meant he was seeing me after theatre. Bless him he did. This is big. I recognise this was not the done thing, for sure. I think I think perhaps the fact that he was the budget holder, and I was working in finance department at the NHS. He was the budget holder. I don't know if I did, but I may have spoken to my finance manager about it in conversation and then maybe… I don’t know, but it happened. I would go there at six o'clock. He would see me at six o'clock after he came out of theatre, having spent a whole afternoon sewing new lenses into people.

So when it became clear that I needed some of those new lenses, I wanted it to be him. I don’t need it to be him but I want it to be him and so, we were in Redhill then, obviously he’s not my local surgeon and now I go private. He wasn't in any way impressed by this at all. I sat in his surgery and I said to him, you probably do remember me, you know I wasn't the most appreciative at this time. But I want to let you know that as I sit here all these years later, thank you. If you hadn’t done that I wouldn't be sitting here about to sign a thing for several thousands of pounds, for you to do this surgery. That's why it was important for me to come back to you, because I wanted you to have that money. And not only that, because as an autistic he was somebody that I knew. I wasn't gonna bring in another new thing, the surgery was new enough and I wasn’t going to have a new associate. And he was great, oh right, so let's look at the diary. He hadn’t changed. He’s probably autistic himself. And he goes, let’s look at the diary and let’s book you in. And he gets the diary out. May 24^th at 2.00pm. And I went, Oh My God. And he must have went, oh what now. Do you know what that day is?  No. And because he’s got no clue he’s not really interested. It’s the day I took my driving test. And the time I took my driving test. Oh really?  Can you do that? Let’s book that in then.And he’s not interested in that at all.

And so that it was because he did that, that my mission started. And because my mission started that we were able to square that circle. I was able to go back and give him, I think it was about three and a half grand. Finished private surgery twice. Actually it was three times because the first time they had to send me home. On the day of the of the driving test date. I am always in such a state, really really hyperpanic, meltdowns. I don't often have meltdowns in public but I really lost myself that day. He was like, your blood pressure is through the roof. You are not coming in my surgery. You can go home and you can come back next week. All right. He didn't charge me for that either. Thank you!  And then next week, I’m all right now because it's not new anymore. The hospitals not new. And then a month later I had the second one done. And he’s still not interested in any of that. But when I wrote my first book in 2012, I dedicated it to him because without him doing that bad thing, in a very bad way, I wouldn't have got to know him in the way I had and I’ve been a pain in his side for so long.  

And I don’t know if he’s still practicing, but if I ever had any other eye issues and he is still operating, I would be back. And he’s probably listening, going no no no, no, no, no. So yeah, it was that freedom. That I had the freedom to pay for the surgery, I had the freedom to do it, to travel all that way down and I had that time off without any consequence, without any second thought and the fact that it's quite an exciting story to tell, but it's purely all of these like little coincidences, from alignment and purely the whole thing was aligned. And that happens when you follow your gifts and that's what I want for everyone.

Sue Revell

So on the subject of the various parts of your mission, what are the areas of personal resistance that you've experienced? Or maybe what's been your biggest fear? And how have you overcome it?

Veronica Pullen

My biggest fear? So when I was growing up, we were a single parent family. My mum was 42 when I was born, so she’s always been 42 years older than me and there were a lot of generational challenges there. She thought more like… anyone trying to explain something to your grandparents is much more difficult, generally, than trying to explain to your parents, there’s a much less level of understanding. Second to that, my mum was a very complex person. With the benefit of all the personal development I've done, now I can't diagnose but I think, co-dependency was a big one, always the centre of the world positively and negatively.

Every eighteen months - two years she would have these six-week periods of pure hate and she would be obsessive. Sometimes it was aimed at a family member, sometimes it was me and I was either the most perfect person in the world or was the worst person in the world. And so, a lot of my life, a lot of my younger life, I left home when I was 18 and I've been self-sufficient albeit with debt in my history. I bought my first flat when I was 19, and my first house when I was 26 but I never went home again after that to live, and the first 18 years of my life were very walking on eggshells. My entire priority was to keep her on an even loop because I am an emotional authority, I now know and if I emotionally feel good I operate, but if I don't, I don't. And so I call it level one, two and three. Level one is the state I get to when I'm ill: I just shut down, my hearing get worse, my eyesight gets worse. I just shut down, I’ve got no tolerance for anything, I just exist. Level two is where I know what I'm doing and level three is where I go around, make bold moves. I do things like calling Mr. Fox out. Go for big PR, go for jobs…. Head of Finance for a travel group four moths after passing AAT. I'll do bold moves at level three.

And so for a long, long time and, to a degree, still, there's been a lot of… I take a lot. I let people do things to me that they shouldn't be doing to me. Tolerance is the word I’m looking for. Letting people treat me in ways they shouldn’t be treating me and I'll tolerate it because if I stay stable, I can thrive. Now, I’m not anywhere near that now it now, it's very low level. But there have been times where I've gone outside of myself in fear of somebody being upset with me.

Now on a general day to day level, I don't worry about people not liking me. I don't embody a belief that there are people talking about me behind my back. Oh, they absolutely will be, but I don't embody that belief. And if I do get stuff, I can stay if for what it is, so I don’t live in fear of that. But I live in fear of disappointment. This fear of being a disappointment, because of my childhood history. So that has been like a murky cloud to escape from because in a business world, I see this a lot with women and maybe men as well but basically, in the coaching business, in the helping industry, where we worry too much about what the other person will think, so that we compromise ourself. This comes from under earning, not asking for the money, not asked for or letting people not pay you. That was in my history but it’s not in my present because I've worked through it.

So that’s been a challenge. Because I come from not a lot, we lived in a council house, my dad left my mum in debt because my dad was like me. Or, I am like my dad in that I like nice things. And I deserve nice things. It’s fine now but in the past when I deserved them, I still deserved them and then the credit card company would pay for them, or the loan company would pay for them. So my mom was always like, your father left loads of new clothes in the wardrobe unworn. That's probably been me as well. Not so much now because I see the value. It used to be having things for best, because you didn't feel worthy of having them in the present. Well I don't do that any more. If I've got it, I have it, and Bill’s more like that now. Spent £8 on hand soap, and he won't use it because it's £8 and we’d best use it sparingly, and I’m like squirt, squirt, squirt, come on, let’s go for it. It’s a nice smell, if it fills you with joy, have it.

So there's been lack. Lack brought up fear. A fear of someone taking from me, what I believe was mine. My mum used to do that, she used to take money out of my savings account to buy things that she deemed were necessary. So for probably the first five years in business I would fear somebody leaving. It would create this big reaction in me and so that had to be overcome as well. And now I've done a lot of work on myself, my inner self, to change the version of me that came into this business world. And I still got a lot more to do.

Sue Revell

As you look back, Vee, at how far you've come, what would you say is the biggest difference now in how you show up? 

Veronica Pullen

The biggest change happened when I realised that I could get paid for what I was doing for free. What I enjoy… very, very occasionally I see it in other people and they can't see it for themselves. They’re usually my client but I see them out, doing their thing, and I’m like, that’s your money. That is your soul aligned, sold online offer.  And they’re like, really? I just do this. I know. Isn't that great? And then they’re out doing it and that’s their core business. So that was the moment that flipped everything.

Sue Revell

So who would you say you are now in your mission? And who are you becoming?

Veronica Pullen

I think I'm about 50% of where I could go. I think the hardest part is here, getting to here. And then just like overnight, and I'm doing that in speech marks, you realise you can get paid for doing what you've been doing for free for 15 years anyway.  Overnight, the thing that you've been doing because you love it anyway, will suddenly become a global phenomenon. And I say suddenly, in inverted commas, because it will seem like that, but it will flip and it will just skyrocket. So I think I'm, it hasn’t happened yet, but everything that I've been doing has been with that in mind. And actually, when I read my human design chart, a little bit more below because I'm really all about the headlines - are you a generator or manifesting generator, because then you're designed to respond. You’re not designed to initiate and I can help you use your response to make marketing and copywriting easier. But as I started to look more into that gate, and things online,  I saw a line that says ‘no compromise is too great when it comes to you reaching your goal’, and that is absolutely true.

Sue Revell

We often talk about things that we would do differently if we had time over again. What one thing would you be differently, if you were starting again?

Veronica Pullen

I think I would have done… At the beginning, I would prioritise (I invest a lot I learning) and I would prioritise strategy. I went large on strategy. How I'd be different is that I would start changing myself earlier, so I was being different earlier. The first time I invested in therapy was many years in and I think in 2020 we spent about £15,000 on it collectively, me and my husband. And that's life changing. I would have done that earlier, not spending 15 grand but I would have not gone as hard on strategy, I would have spread the investment and done a bit more. I've already kind of read personal development books, but I would have gone harder with a coach who would call out the rubbish that I was fully believing in. I needed someone who will go no, that's rubbish.

Sue Revell

I always say your mission only goes as fast as you do. So I would only reinforce, you'd expect me to reinforce that as a coach, but yeah, I just know the difference that that makes when you really work at who you are not just what you do. 

Veronica Pullen

Yeah, and you will never get where you want to go the way that you are now. You've got to change your truth. We all know that there’s your truth and that truth and the truth. Your truth is the biggest block and for a long time my truth, you know when something is perceived to be so far out of our reality, our immediate reaction is that’s fake, it’s a scam.

12 years ago, I would have been very firmly set, rooted in the camp of there's no money. I would have been surrounded by the evidence of it. I could always have surrounded myself with the evidence. But now I’m like, that’s a percentage. But look, again, look the other way. People spending. I don't know.. what are people paying for Beyonce tickets right now. The travel market is huge, luxury cars are still being bought. There is still plenty of money being spent. We’ve just got to look a different way or think a different way, and that’s the thing that I would change if I could do this again. Next time I come back, I'll do it earlier. Next time I come back into this life, I mean, I'll do it earlier, but I wouldn't have sat in that camp of lack, as long as I did.

I honestly believe that we all experience what we are meant to experience when we're meant to experience it. And so, you know, there are people who go from zero to £2 million in a year. That's not the reality I was born to have, because I was born to experience all the lead up to it and believe every that you do is a lesson and I was born to have that experience. And that's made me wiser and added to the wiseness that I was born with. I was born old, and it means that when I receive it, I will be ready for it.

Sue Revell

Let's look outwards for the last couple of questions. Who has inspired you in your mission and why?

Veronica Pullen

In an inverted kind of way, my mum. Because I never want that life. I never want a life of dependency on benefit. There's nothing to say that it’s wrong to claim benefits. I don’t say this very often. I still get Disability Living Allowance. That's not a means tested benefit, it pays for the car. It pays for a new car every three years and I pay for that with pain. I pay for it with cash but I pay for it mostly with pain. I don't feel guilty about that. But other than that, being on means tested benefit, in my view is the hardest work that you can do. Because they don't give you that money easily, rightly. But they take your self-esteem in exchange because you really have to beg for that money.

That, plus the limitations of that container, plus it’s quite clear that she was not living her level three life, at all. All of those things combined, I never want to be my reality. I will always be financially independent and create any life that I am ready to create financially, and I’ll live my best life. So that that is an inverted one.

In a positive way, it's a lot of people and I have a lot of people who inspire me at different stages of their journey, and then they no longer do. And it's not any one person. I suppose the first person I can recall inspiring me was Dan Priestley. Daniel Priestley. Because one of the very first books that I read in this business was his, and I can’t remember the name of it obviously. The one about being an expert.

Sue Revell

Key Person of Influence?

Veronica Pullen

Yeah, that's the one. And I could see this for lots of people, other people. And I might be able to see this for myself.  Bob Burg. He inspired me with Go Giver.

Sue Revell

Yeah. That's a great book.

Veronica Pullen

It is, isn’t it. A great book. Russell Brunson, he inspires me with his energy! I don’t know if he’s like me, and he can only keep that up… I think he probably is. A lot of people, I’m like there's no way that you’re introverted. I am, because what you’re not going to see is the hour of silence that will need to follow this. Nigel Botterell, he inspires me but none of them inspire me wholly. I’m inspired by bits of them, but then there are parts that I don't align with at all so I can't say there is one person.  

And I notice they were all men. Joanna Martin inspired me. She was the first person who hired me, I wrote her copy. I worked with her for several years. She inspired me by what she showed me was possible. She was the first person who introduced the aligned business. Now Kat Loterzo was probably the biggest inspiration. I feel very, very aligned with her in like, we're very similar personalities. I worked with her in 2016, a huge investment. That was probably a bit too huge for where I was at the time. It caused challenges that took all of my money, and I didn't get the benefit really. I didn't trully get it until maybe three years after that. But she showed me a lot of what my potential could be, because I related to her. Now, one of the stand out… was where she was saying, because she's out somewhere at an event or in a coffee shop, or with someone, and she gets that inspiration to write, she has to purge it. That absolutely is the same as me. She will leave the thing because it's too painful, not to purge.

Yeah, so I'm not just anti-social, you know? So yeah, Kat was massive and I go in and out of her as a thread, she’s been there all the way through. Joanna Martin has been there, she believed in me early and I don't fully align with everything of Joanna Martin.

Suzanne Dibble, again, I don’t fully align with Suzanne Dibble but oh my! Suzanne and I, the GDPR quarter, was one of the best times of my life.

Sue Revell

She's one of the reasons you're here!

Veronica Pullen

She showed me a different reality. Twice I said no to that project, because it's a running joke that if I don’t think I’m gonna enjoy it, I’ll decline it even when we have very little money. And it would cause arguments here. But if the work isn't gonna excite me, I'm not going to take the money. And then we did it, and was that not fun or what! And the numbers…  and I loved every second of it once I said yeah, well, not everything but I loved a lot of that wholeexperience. I basically breathed in Suzanne for three months.

And then there are other people who don't conform to a male/female gender separate, but they stand for who they are. And I love that. The thing that lights me up the most is seeing somebody in their truth,  you know? Like when we are on a cruise, and there’s somebody on the stage. And you really see that they’re alive. I love it. I want everyone to be alive and alight from the inside. So anytime I see it, I’m inspired by them going for it. I'm inspired by them standing up, when they stand up for what they believe and what they feel is their truth. So, you know, that's men and women and everyone that doesn’t fit. I try very hard to be accessible. I'm inspired by disabled people who, like me, who don't let that limit them. They do what they can, and strive.

I have named a few names but in general it’s like a pick and mix of inspiration.

Sue Revell

I'm gonna be really specific with my next question. It’s our last question, Vee. I'm going to ask you, I love asking this question of guests. Who else would you add to the guest list for the show? Just one person? And what one question would you leave for them? CHECKED TO HERE

Veronica Pullen

I’m gonna say, Jo Rees. And anyone of my clients listening is gonna say, why not me.  Jo Rees is a power house. Jo Rees is dyslexic and Jo, like me, strives very hard to achieve her goals within, you know finding a workaround, through her dyslexia. What she does now is help parents help their dyslexic children and she came to me, she lives on the Isle of Wight, and I hadn’t met her. I don’t meet people very often. She came to me with a fully off-line business, wanting to move more online. Initially she didn’t believe this was possible for her, but more than that, initially she didn’t believe that she could write. This is the thing that is most powerful for me, she didn’t believe that she could write because, as many people with dyslexia have probably experienced, she had been told that writing was not her gift.  And I don’t subscribe to that. And so, through coaching and support and teaching, I’ve taught her to let go. And now, she writes posts and words, and people are like ‘oh my god, Jo, this is amazing’. And that’s why, Jo Rees.

Sue Revell

And what one question would you leave for her?

Veronica Pullen

The same question that you asked me. What changed for you, where did she start to see her dyslexia as a super power?

Sue Revell

Lovely. Great question. Vee, how do people get hold of you?

Veronica Pullen

VeronicaPullen.co.uk

And then if you search any of the socials, I am sure you will find me under my own name. A little tip: any new social media platform that comes up, get your user name asap. The one I didn’t do that for is TikTok so there’s a little underscore in the middle. VeronicaPullen.co.uk is my website, and then you can locate everything from there.

Sue Revell

Veronica, thank you so much for joining me today. You have been, as I knew you would be, an absolute inspiration. There's so many facets to your story and to the work that you're doing in the world. And it's a real privilege to share your story, but also to spend time with you today too.

Veronica Pullen

And with you too, thank you.

Sue Revell

I hope you enjoyed today's conversation. There's so much that we can learn from Veronica's tenacity and enthusiasm, as well as the specific commitment and focus that she brings to creating relationship-based content. She really is a master at it, and I thoroughly recommend following her approach to creating connection across her social media platforms.

We'll be looking at what I noticed as I listened in next week's insights episode, I do hope that you'll come back and join me. If you hit follow now, wherever you're listening, the episode will automatically arrive in your listening list, like magic; something I find very helpful when I've got a lot of listening to squeeze into a week.

Before we sign off a quick reminder of those free coaching sessions that are available this season. Do remember to head to the Apple or Goodpods platform and tell us what spoke to you in this week's episode. All the details of the Giveaway will be in this week's show notes.

As ever, thank you for sharing this incredible podcasting journey with me. I really appreciate you. Have a wonderful week, my friend.