Welcome to the Inside Out Entrepreneur® Podcast, your cosy corner of the internet where I (Suzi Belmont) invite you to grab a coffee (or a smoothie) and join me in exploring the inner, mental and emotional journey of women who are looking to uplevel in their life and business. 

Together, we’ll explore topics all focused on mastering who you really are so you can break through the inner invisible glass ceilings that are holding you back.  

In this very SECRET and exclusive episode, I share two of the big lessons I learnt from taking a 4 year sabbitical after selling my business. I also reveal the real reason I changed my surname!

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Who is Suzi Belmont?

Suzi Belmont is a multi 7 figure entrepreneur (15 years), therapist, coach, mental health and psychology expert known for ‘creating seismic shifts in women and entrepreneurs’, causing ‘quantum leaps in their abilities’ and ‘completely transforming confidence’ in her clients. Her work has been described by clients as ‘mind-blowing’, ‘like having a fairy godmother around’, ‘the most extraordinary coach’, ‘pure gold’ and ‘absolutely life changing’.  

She blends her 15 years entrepreneurial experience with psychology, emotional intelligence, leadership, energetics, consciousness, early childhood development, trauma, mindset, neuroscience and a touch of ancient wisdom (she can read Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs fluently) to help you understand how you inner world REALLY operates so that you can harness it to create massive success as an entrepreneur. 

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Hi, I'm Suzi Belmont. And thank you for downloading the first secret episode. In this episode, I am sharing two lessons I learned whilst I was on sabbatical that I don't think I would have learned had I not taken that break. Okay, let's go.

[00:00:37]

So, pull up your chair and get ready to change your life and your business from the inside out. This is the Inside Out Entrepreneur Podcast.

Ooohhh, hello and welcome to the secret episode of the podcast. Now, before I say anything more. If you have downloaded this before you have subscribed to the main podcast, then make sure you do that. You can find the links on my website on the podcast page, or just look up

M.A.D. Women the podcast with Suzi Belmont on your favorite podcast player, whether that's iTunes, Spotify, Amazon music, or another. And if you are already a follower of the podcast, make sure you listen to the new episode one where I talk about what really happened when I sold my business, because that will dovetail with this secret bonus episode. In this episode, I am going to share three big lessons I learned from over three years.

Well, actually nearly four years away from the online world. And of course, if you are a brand new listener, wandering into my world for the very first time. Well, hello. And I hope you and I are going to be friends. I am Suzi and I have been in this entrepreneurial game since 2010 so a pretty long time

now. In that time I built up a lot of experience and a multi seven figure business. However, in 2020, I decided to sell my business and take a very long sabbatical, [00:02:00] study time and completely reassess my life, how I approach business and more. You can hear more about that in episode, one of the podcast. You see what I thought was going to be a journey of just taking some time out was actually a period that completely changed the trajectory of my life and my future businesses. So let's jump straight in with one of the big things I learned by going inwards and reevaluating my relationship with myself.

So lesson number one, I guess if I were to sum up this first lesson, it would be the sentence you get to choose your legacy, no matter what your past is, and you get to change anything you want, even if that is part of a bigger system of cultural heritage that you inherited in some way. For me, part of re-empowering myself was having the courage to discuss more tricky issues and not being afraid to do something for me or for us. Us being my husband and my children, because it was right for us

even if that thing might piss other people off. You see, one of the things that happened when I was away was that we chose to change our family surname, not just me, but my husband too. And that journey was so interesting because of how different people reacted. In fact, I got very different responses from my husband.

As you will hear in a moment what started out as quite a fun educational tool for our kids. Ended up having a lot of feminist significance, both from my husband's actions and from my own. My husband is a pretty modern husband. He's called James. For those of you who haven't come across him yet. So he comes at life and business with a focus on equality. We both work.

We both parent, we both clean up. We both do things as equally as we can. We both try and share with a focus on an equal partnership.

But he also sees how the external world is still weighed heavily in favor of men. Although that is not where this story started. Let me explain by taking you back to about 2019. [00:04:00] At the time, James, my husband and I were just starting to talk about whether we wanted to keep our surname. And honestly, at the time we were purely looking at it just as a fun thing.

Life is just too short and we were playing with funny ideas, like changing our surname to Mr and Mrs. Sunshine, which by the way, I thought would have been really fun. And I really pushed for that one, but our kids solidly vetoed us being called Mr. And Mrs. Sunshine. We didn't take this conversation too far. And actually one of the big reasons for that was ancestry and tradition. We were still in a place in our lives where we felt compelled to follow traditions so that no one in the family, the extended family would be upset. And our people pleaser tendencies were were strong and we didn't want to upset my husband's father. So to be honest, we parked it there. A few years passed, and then as part of the big transitions that were happening in my world, which were also affecting my husband after 2020 James and I started to really work with our kids on values. Each week we had a family values meeting and our family values were put up on kicked on the kitchen wall when, on huge sheets of paper, as constant reminders as to what our family stood for. This was a really important thing for us because these days parenting is not just about parents. Schools, teachers, and the internet play a huge role in influencing children's values.

And we knew that for example, that the internet in particular was going to have a big impact on things like values if we didn't up our family game and solidify our family values. So in our weekly values meeting, we'd take it in turns to go around the table and share one thing from the values list that we all did really well and one thing that we failed at. This was each individual person. So each person would also then comment on everyone else's. For example, I would say one thing that I did well, and one thing that I failed at, but then my husband and my children would also tell me from their perspective, one thing I did well, and one thing I failed at.

And so this meeting was usually about an hour by the time that everyone had taken [00:06:00] a turn. And obviously with younger kids, it takes a bit longer to go through things. And so sometimes it will be shorter sometimes longer. Now I'm not going to lie. This was not always easy. It took quite a lot of coaching for the kids to get used to sharing something that they had failed out each week because society in schools tend to focus on promoting what you do well, not what you fail at, but our approach was that you learn most from failing at something.

So this is why we did it this way. Our goal was to try and get our kids to embrace failure and learn that it's no big deal. And you just need to get back up again and you will be supported if you fail in something, whether that's big or small, it's not a big issue. There's a difference between failing repeatedly over and over again at the same thing and failing once, because you didn't know, and this is what we were trying to teach them. And it was in one of those meetings where one of our children questioned whether our extended family had the same values as us and well, the honest answer was on that particular value that was being discussed

the only honest answer was no. And that then led to our children, ultimately questioning why we all share a surname. If we don't share the same values and how a family name was kind of like a brand or a stamp that represented you and your family unit in some way. And so you got to choose the values in that unit and how you would treat each other

and so on. And again, we had questions come up about why other people with the same surname didn't treat us in the same way. And the focus of this conversation was not on comparison or on blame. It was all about choice. We wanted the kids to understand that everything in life is a choice, including your values, including how you respond to things, including how you treat people.

Everything is a choice. We were also trying to teach that you get to choose how to create your life even if you haven't got everything perfectly aligned for you, even if your parents make mistakes, even if you make mistakes. And then with quite a lot of lightness, one of the children said. Well, if we choose our family values together like this, and we try and operate like this as a [00:08:00]

unit. Why can't we as children choose our family name with you as the parents.

Why do you get to choose that? And just put that in place. And we then said, well, actually we didn't choose the family name. And we explained how that all happens, where the name came from tradition through the generations and that there wasn't really much choice about it. And this of course led to more and more discussion about whether that was right or whether that was wrong and where the choice lay in that decision. And you could argue it both ways, depending on your own personal values, there's no right or wrong to this, and for us, well, you know, the end of the story, because we did together agree to change our family name. And so the original trigger for the change of the family name was a fairly innocent and fun conversation with kids about the power of choice. But ultimately it developed into a demonstration that you have the right to make any choice that suits your values.

You don't have to live according to other people's choices that are made for you. You don't need to be defined by historical traditions if they don't work for you. Or if they don't make much sense to you in your time, in the time that you are on the world map.

And of course that you can, if you choose break traditions, without that, meaning anything insulting to anyone else. It's simply means that for you it is not a value. That doesn't negate that it is a value for someone else. It was really important for us to show our kids that changing our name was not in any way to insult other people.

It was nothing to do with other people. It was nothing to do with our ancestors. It was about choice. We could respect our ancestors values while simultaneously curating our own independent and conscious new values. Now, of course, that doesn't mean that everyone else's reaction will be based the same way that we perceived it.

And as it turned out, James, his father, the one that we were most worried about was totally fine with all of it. He thought it was fine. He didn't have an issue. Uh, other family members were perhaps a lot more judgmental and unaccepting, but that kind of proved our points to the kids really. Being [00:10:00]

bullied or guilted or made to feel that you had to keep something just to keep other people happy was not going to fit our values. As we said to the kids, your choice is about you. Someone else's choice is about them. And it's as simple as that, you work on yourself, you can't fix or change other people. I should add that this is a really official change. So we've changed all our passports, bank accounts and everything like that.

But my eldest child said that he wanted to stay with the old surname for now. For his values, his choice, tradition was something he wanted to keep. And we were totally okay with that. That was his choice. We are no less of a family, even if one child has a different surname. There are many families, for example, with divorced parents or all sorts of setups

and just because they've got different surnames doesn't mean anything lesser about that family. Everything is a choice and ultimately a name, a label whatever it might be doesn't define you. It is not your name that makes you who you are. It is not your name that makes the family on its own. But it could be representative of something that you choose to do. So, why am I telling you this?

It's just a name, right? Well, I guess the first part was about choice as I have explained, but actually what happened next was fascinating. You see, it was the reactions from other people that were so eye opening. The number one reaction we had was, Are you guys under witness protection? So many people, including longstanding life, long friends assumed that there was some kind of criminal reason for the name change.

Like we were running or hiding that, like we'd done something wrong and we needed to hide it all by changing our name. We haven't, by the way, just in case your brain is taking you there, you have to think about why your brain might be taking you there. We haven't done anything wrong. A lot of people filtered this decision through their perception, that the only reason you would do this was due to something like witness protection or skipping the country. And a couple of good friends found it really hard to just accept that there was nothing like that. a general study on human [00:12:00] perception of energy and consciousness, it was fascinating to watch. Indeed

if you follow me on socials, you will know that both James and I posted very publicly about this. So people would not be confused or jump to conclusions which would be pretty pointless if we were under some kind of witness protection scheme. So, you know, we wouldn't be telling everyone we changed our name

if we were, if we weren't wanting to keep it secret, it was a very open thing. So one lesson was that people make a lot of decisions based on assumption, not based on facts. And even when you tell them the facts, sometimes they find it hard to break that assumption. The second reaction was even more interesting.

This was the male female response divide. When I told people about 99% of them thought it was exciting, they thought it was interesting. They thought I was a bit wacky and I was like, well, no change there. It was very, it was very positive feedback. When James told people, it was a little bit different.

He was often met by a bit of silence, not rudeness, but just a bit of stunned silence. And to be clear, I was often present and witnessed this silence or when I wasn't, there will be comments like really. Like, you're actually going to take your wife's name? It's not my maiden name, but there was an assumption there or comments like, but what about your reputation?

Or even things like, oh, that's so embarrassing. And I bet Suzi made you do that. There was quite a lot of prejudice and a lot of assumption that this had to be against James' will somehow, that he'd somehow be forced. In fact, one person we know who it was, but it's one person commented on my Instagram account that they felt sorry for James, because he must have been forced to do this.

It's kind of tragic that that person felt the need to make that comment and be so judgmental.

And I, I really want to emphasize this, that actually, just before we decided to go ahead, it was actually me that got cold feet and it was James who pushed it forward and said, we're doing it for all the right reasons. And he talked me back into doing it. So ultimately what this was all about demonstrating was choice. So, how does this relate to you?

Well, everything you do [00:14:00] in life is choice. Maybe not every circumstances choice, but your reaction to it, the thoughts you have, the energy you bring your assumptions and how you react are all ultimately choice. For my husband and I, our choice was initially for educational and fun purposes for our kids. But over time, it became a bit of a declaration of independence.

It symbolized breaking free from constraints and societal expectations. It matched the journey we are on in our lives, not just the journey of our ancestors and it solidified our partnership whilst respecting individual choices within the family, which was an important lesson for us to show our kids. True partnership in a marriage empowers rather than restricts.

And this act of reclaiming and owning our own unique identity as a family was a really symbolic moment for both of us. Because we all have the power to redefine our destiny. Choice also extends to our children and they get to choose what is best for them at any point in their life.

Perhaps who knows, one of them may end up being Mr or Mrs. Sunshine one day, It's their choice because they don't have to live their future lives based on our traditions or traditions of the past, if they don't want to. I think I summed this up best, this kind of first lesson on a post that I put on socials when I said the following. Our former surname is the name of my husband's ancestors, James and I, and our children

aren't our ancestors. We can respect them without being their traditions. We are here to honor the past whilst embracing the future. We are here to forge a unique path of our own. We are here to redefine our legacy. We are here to modify traditions. We are here to solve problems. We are here to write our own story in the book of human time. We are here to have fun. And we are here to be us truly us.

So turning this a little bit more back to how this is maybe relevant to you and your life and your business.

Well, your name, your identity, your business, your life. It is [00:16:00] yours to shape however you choose. Breaking free from molds traditions, expectations, your current habits, your ideologies, your assumptions, things that don't fit you and your path is your choice. That doesn't mean it's easy, but you can still do it. Boldly claiming the life that you choose, boldly making your business, the one that you want it to be. Boldly taking the path you envision for you is your choice. It is about being you and honoring you and your values in everything you do. Empowerment in my opinion, begins with the courage to choose to be yourself. , And for those of you who remember me before, well, I hope you get used to me being Suzi Belmont. And I hope you enjoy rediscovering me.

The true Suzi free from this conditioning. If you don't have any idea what I'm talking about when I say that, then head on over to episode one of the podcast as I talk about it more there, you can find all of the details on my website at www.suzibelmont.com. .

The second lesson that I want to talk about in this secret episode is what happens. What really happens when you stop, when you completely stop.

You see, you will have heard over and over again. Don't stop. Never give up show up every day. Be consistent, never slow down, but I didn't do that. I absolutely 100% stopped dead. . Now, granted I had sold my business

so I was super privileged financially because I could stop the business. I wasn't running a live business so there was no reason for me to show up other than to stay in contact with people. And I don't a lot of money before selling to, so I was well set up in a 2 million pound home and all of the niceties that go with that. I could stop. But if I ever had this period of my life again, would I stop?

Well, if you had asked me that in the first year, I would say yes, I probably would have said the same in the second year too, because I was healing and it was hard. I was also learning so much and I was loving it or because my human design of 1-4 [00:18:00] manifesting generator means I love learning. And I love teaching what I learned to others. But now, if you asked me whether I would stop completely to do the healing journey, if I had the choice again, I would say absolutely 100% not.

And here is why. I would have chosen just to slow down and start learning about my inner world alongside running a business, rather than stop. Because when you stop, it is really, really hard to start again. Stopping being an entrepreneur. did not realize how hard that would be. Entrepreneurship is part of me and I was stopping something that was part of who I was rather than just pivoting my business. You see, I went from a hundred percent public facing entrepreneur to a hundred percent student and full-time mum. And I was not in any way prepared for that.

And I'd say that I wasn't really great at this new role because I had not really ever done it. So I was learning that on the ground. It was hard being a mom and a student is tough and it's a lot more isolating than being an entrepreneur. Now, I don't want to go too far the other way and completely mislead you.

It wasn't impossible. It wasn't really bad. I had a lot of great times in my time off. We got to travel loads and I could be with the kids for the entire time and the holiday without any interruptions. We went Austria and Bali and Singapore, France, Denmark, Greece, and all sorts of places. Not having to share every single moment on Instagram stories or anything like that was also a new way of living for me, which meant I was way more present when I wasn't also thinking, oh, that would make a good thing for a post.

I did share some of it, but not all of it, But here is what is really hard about stopping, and it is just one single word momentum. When it came to coming back to work. When I really wanted to come back, it felt so much harder than I expected it to be. Imagine it like this.

Imagine you are a child playing in a park on the swings and roundabouts. Now let's pick the swing. You're happily swinging back and forth, back and forth. And sometimes you slow down a bit, but then you just bend your legs backwards and forwards a little and you speed up again and you go back to going really high. It doesn't take much [00:20:00] effort to do that.

You can slow down, speed up by just moving your legs. And it's quite easy. You play with the other people on the swings next to you and you laugh a lot and it's fun. Now imagine that you don't do that and you get off the swing and you go and sit on your own for a bit. Next time you go back to the swing.

It takes a lot more effort to get it started, especially if you were playing with lots of little friends before. But they've all gone off somewhere else now. So you're on your own, starting back up. That is kind of what it felt like coming back. I knew I could reach out to so many lovely entrepreneurs.

In fact, during my time off, hundreds of you reached out to me to check in on me over the years, which shows the power of the female community and a couple of men to. But starting a swing back up from no momentum and also realizing that I didn't want to always play on the swing, but I also wanted to go on the seesaw to was harder than expected. It was much harder than just slowing the swing down. Just enough time to get my grip on my inner world to go up a level and then speed back up again. Another big fear for me in coming back was my determination to be really raw and honest about what had happened and wondering whether anyone else would want to play on the swings with me.

This became a real fear. Like what if no one wants to play with me? That is an inner fear I had to work through and understand why it was coming up, where it was rooted and then release it. And it was things like this that were unexpected side effects of stopping. It was also really hard just observing others, move on when I was not. My collaborative side, sometimes just wanted to join in and encourage people along.

And then I would be torn as to whether I was going back or whether I was stopping for awhile. Where was I sitting? Was I half in, half out? Not in, not out. Did I want to be half in, did I want to be completely out? It was kind of confusing at times. For that reason, I would say that stopping being an entrepreneur, stopping your business, even with all the money and everything else was one of the hardest things ever for me. If not the hardest thing I've ever done in business. It might feel like your business challenges are [00:22:00] hard,

going live on socials is hard. Sales issues is hard. The work of being the visionary, managing a team, these might feel hard, breaking through six and seven figures. They may feel hard. It might feel like you don't have time to work on your inner world when you're busy with all these external strategies and things that you have to do. But if you build a business only focusing on all of those things, then ultimately you will end up stopping at some point. Because the key to a sustainable long-term success in your business, it's not the external strategies. It's the inner world. And none of the challenges that you face on your journey are as hard as stopping, then starting over again. The other part that was super hard and I kind of knew this bit would happen. But it was way harder than I expected

and that is what happens to your confidence when you stop rather than slow down, something weird happens when you stop. Your confidence drops. And honestly, had I not been doing so much inner I don't think I would have caught this. I wouldn't have seen how deep and rapid that descent can be. It's kind of like skiing off a mountain with a very fast black run and hoping for the best. This stopping and dropping in confidence is something you see all the time with women in society.

If a woman stops for a career break for kids or for ill health or for caring or responsibilities, it's often the case that they don't return to work. That is usually not because they don't want to it's because restarting the momentum on the swing, once it stops is so much harder than you think. Whether that is stopping from childbirth or health or stopping because you have to, for another reason, it's still hard. My advice from having stopped for such a long time is don't. Slow down rather than stop. Slow down and work on your inner world, , because that is where it is likely

the real issue will be found that is making you feel like you want to stop in the first place. Now that isn't always easy when you pull out Instagram and all the bro marketers are filling your feed with how you have to keep going at full speed. 24 7. But it's just not true. They are selling you their way of doing it, but there is a better. In my opinion, better, more chilled [00:24:00] out, more relaxed way of being in business. It's not meant to be a race to the finish line.

It's a journey. And you're meant to enjoy that journey. Some of you will like speed and the thrill of the fast chase. Some of you will prefer more focus on calm and lifestyle. No these things is right or wrong. They are both possible in business. And it's your journey and it's your choice. So I'm being really honest with you about this, because if you're listening and you're feeling like you're struggling in your business, whether you're at four or five, six or seven figures, you may have stumbled into my world for a reason. Finding out what is happening in your inner world

so you can just slow this thing down a bit recalibrate and then swing again is a million times easier than swap. the swing and starting again on a new swing. Sometimes stopping is right, but most of the time slowing down first in order to work out how you want to speed up again or what you want to jump to is a lot easier. If you are struggling right now in your business, if there's something blocking you and you want to level up, but you can't, and it sends you into a place of holding back, feeling like you should stop or give up, then I'm probably one person you should speak to. Because I've really lived this part of the journey of entrepreneurship. I get you.

I know the feeling you have, but honestly, if you can find a way to go slower rather than stop, take that opportunity. And either way whatever you choose, you know, you can reach out to me or look at my programs and I definitely have walked the walk on this one. So I'm sure there'll be something that would help you there. So I sit here now with a bit of a smile on my face because the fact I am recording this means I came back. I once remember many years ago when Adele was interviewed about taking a break from her music and she burst into tears and said, honestly, I wish I could do Adele's accent but I can't do it um, honestly, I thought I might never have come back were, her words on it.

I honestly thought I might never come back. And I never understood the emotion behind that until I took this part of my journey. But I had my own dark moments on this sabbatical where I honestly thought I might never come back. The fact that you're hearing these words means that I did. [00:26:00] And I'm super happy to tell you this, and I hope you are happy to have me back as well. And I have so much more to tell you than what's in the secret episode, but right now it's time to finish for today. I hope these three lessons have really helpful for you, but to recap on the points from the secret episode.

So you've got them. Number one, everything is a choice. Even when an awful situation happens, you get to choose how you respond. And number. two , if you're feeling like something is blocking you in entrepreneurship, maybe it's time to slow down. And explore your inner world, whether that's with me or someone else rather than pushing through and struggling more or ultimately stopping where you just lose all of your momentum. As a female entrepreneur and leader, you have the extraordinary ability to transform other people's lives and to help them with their problems. But you mustn't when doing all of that, forget your own life. Because, unless you have stability in your inner world, you just won't see or maintain your outer success in the longterm.

As I said earlier, success all starts within. Your greatest power in business and life lies within you.

[00:27:17]

So make sure you subscribe to the Inside Out Entrepreneur® Podcast on iTunes, Spotify, or Amazon music or wherever you normally listen. And if you want to take ESP quiz, I mentioned unraveling some of your inner world head on over to my website at www.suzibelmont.com. SUZ, I belmont.com. And you can get it for free there.

Thank you for listening today and see you over on the main public episodes of the podcast. See you soon.