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