Building Her Dream is excited to learn all about Emma Bradford. She is from Spain and has been in business for 10 years.
Emma, why don’t you start by telling us what your dream life looks like? Are you currently living in it?
I see life as a continuous unfolding.
There are some parts of my life I am moving through and creating change – my dream life would be living connected to an eco-community with people who want to live off the land and share skills, resources and connect with each other whilst also having space for individual reflection.
My current work now feels much more aligned with the changes I’ve made over the last 10 years and I love sharing what I do with my students with creative arts and dance.
That sounds pretty cool. Tell us more about what you do and who you help.
I support people (mainly women) to fall back in love with themselves and life, to awaken to the magic life has to offer. To learn to relate to themselves and their body with a little more self-tenderness.
This isn’t a spiritual bypass, ‘think positive’ type of work – this is a journey, a returning to our authentic self within, finding the gifts within the shadow and any challenging emotions.
As an NLP Trainer, I have 10 years of experience working with the unconscious mind and for the last 4 years I now blend that with creative arts and dance for deep embodied change with the training I created called Creating Change: The Art of Expansion, Connection and Celebration.
That’s the thing, self-awareness can be fun too!
What helped you to fall back in love with yourself and life?
It’s an ongoing practice, it’s a journey of remembrance… coming back to the senses, back to the body, noticing stories from the mind as just that, stories. There is something far greater that is witnessing those stories, you, the real you. Come back to that.
And if you don’t know where to start, start with the breath. Back to the breath, hand over your heart and whisper to yourself “I’m here”.
There may be easier days and other days and experiences that are hard, really hard. That’s the beauty of life – there’s it all.
Reconnect with life, back to the breath, start with the breath. This is what helped me hugely in the past with panic attacks I experienced and other challenges including overcoming deep trauma.
So you’ve been in business for a decade. What inspired you to get started?
It all started when I learned some useful tools to help me overcome the weekly panic attacks I was experiencing many years ago and realized how useful this would be shared.
Ever since I can remember I’ve felt a strong urge to be of service to humanity, to support others during dark times and open up people to new insights.
It’s been quite a journey, with many twists and turns though looking back every single experience was a blessing no matter how difficult or easy at the time.
I love that you consider the journey a blessing. What’s a challenge you’ve faced along the way?
I hated public speaking when I was younger. I would literally be the person standing there in front of the class shaking with nerves holding the paper in front of my face.
It was through NLP, hypnotherapy and plenty of practice, practice, practice that now I can say I absolutely love teaching. Talking with others and standing in front of a group feels fine.
I took part in a few trainings on public speaking techniques in the past though they felt so forced and inauthentic. I prefer to just show up as me, speak from the heart and connect to others by sharing my truth.
It might not be ‘perfect’ for some professionals but at least it feels good and I often get great feedback when I connect with students in this way.
That’s great you were able to get over your fear of public speaking. How has being an introvert affected your business?
I love alone time so working by myself, for myself naturally feels good. It does mean that I need to be consciously aware of creating balance and not live as a hermit!
It has also challenged me to move through any discomfort of being visible and as I mentioned with the public speaking. I am still navigating the whole social media world. It’s a useful tool though it has its shadows too.
And as an introvert I continue to challenge myself doing live videos to keep growing, learning and expanding.
What do you do to attract new clients?
The online marketing world is not my favorite. I’ve seen a lot over the years and as a NLP Trainer, I know how powerful language can be and when this awareness is in the wrong hands it can be used unethically.
I prefer to love and support my clients so much that they naturally want to recommend me and my work. I also focus on platforms where I can share more from the heart, rather than a quick reel or short.
I have a Podcast ‘Creating Change with Emma Bradford.
I do live videos on YouTube and I also love connecting in interviews to spread the word about my work. It feels more aligned and where humanity is meant to be moving towards – community, sharing, connecting.
Marketing is definitely a challenging part of business. Do you attend networking events?
Only if the event resonates and I see genuine, authentic connections can be made. How things feel are important to me and my intuition says no if I can see people’s focus is on numbers rather than connection.
That makes sense. So how do you define success for yourself and your business?
Who are we BEING? This is something I’m bringing to my focus even more each day.
Am I showing up as the true embodiment of what I teach? And not just online, though in everyday life?
I see that as success, when we are living a Soul led life with respectful honour for the life within and around us.
What advice would you give to other introverted women who are just starting their own businesses?
Just start. Where would be all the stories, knowledge, skills, wisdom, insights, experiences and gifts if everything you did was perfect? Speak from the heart, live from the heart, share your work from the heart.
Thank you for taking the time to share your story. Where can our readers find more information about you?
WEBSITE: www.emmabradford.net
INSTAGRAM: www.instagram.com/emmabradford5/
PODCAST: https://anchor.fm/creatingchange
CREATING CHANGE: www.emmabradford.net/creating-change.html
Photo credits: Agnes Perspective Photography
