E52: What every business owner needs to know about therapy and mindset with Nicola Noel

This episode is all about the importance of working with qualified therapists and doing your due diligence...especially as a business owner. I’m joined by the brilliant Nicola Noel, and we dig into how deep-rooted mindset blocks can show up in your business, often without you even realising.

Here’s what we cover:

• Why not all therapists are created equal and how to spot the real ones
• What makes Nicola’s approach so powerful (spoiler: she gets to the root fast)
• Common mindset blocks that show up in business (like fear of showing up or not feeling "authentic")
• Why you don’t always need to know the trauma to move past it
• The polar bear vs. the house fire metaphor...yeah, you’ll get it
• Strategy vs. mindset and why they have to work together
• Nicola’s top tip for business owners: schedule self-care like a boss

Who is Nicola?

Nicola is the award-winning founder of Brainworks Therapy, an online mental health clinic specialising in empowering professional women to rewire their brains, shift mindsets, manage emotions, and build resilience. 

With over 20 years of experience in community, acute, judicial, and custodial psychiatric services, Nicola’s expertise includes trauma, PTSD, perinatal mental health, and forensic mental health.

She’s worked with global organisations like the UN on prison reform and the HRH Duchy of Cornwall estate on menopause awareness, and she regularly appears in media outlets such as Metro, Good Housekeeping, and BBC Radio. Nicola also hosts bi-weekly mental health Coffee and Chats in partnership with MiB International to break stigma and build connection.

Known for her bold, transformative approach, Nicola combines therapy, coaching, and corporate training to create lasting change in mental health and wellbeing worldwide.

Follow Nicola:

https://www.instagram.com/brainworkstherapy/

https://www.facebook.com/nicolabrainworkstherapy/

Want to connect? Find me here:

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

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

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

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

Transcript

Hello and welcome to Dream Business. Dream Life, helping ambitious people like you to grow a business they love. I'm Emma Hein and I'm on a mission to show you that it is possible to grow a business without sacrificing your life. Having experienced the rollercoaster of making millions of pounds, but feeling overwhelmed, anxious, and totally unsuccessful. 

I know firsthand the importance of growing a business on your terms. On this podcast, I'm gonna share with you lots of tips and advice that will enable you to grow a business that gives you the financial freedom to live the life of your dreams while sharing with you some inspirational growth stories from other fabulous business owners ready to live the dream.

Then let's get stuck in. Hello and welcome to today's episode of Dream Business. Dream Life. Today I'm joined by Nicola Noel. Nicola is the founder of BrainWorks Therapy, an online, private medical health clinic. She's an award-winning specialist, psychiatric nurse, solution focused hypnotherapist and mindset coach Nicola is making huge waves right now in the world of mental health awareness, and I am super excited to be chatting with her today. 

Hello, Nicola. How are you? Hi, Emma. Lovely. I'm good, thank you. How are you? I am good. Good. I'm super excited for this conversation. Super, super excited. So let's dive straight, straight into this. Tell us a little bit about you, who you are. Why did you start your business? So, who am I? So as you've heard, I'm Nicola Noel.

 Well, I just start my business. So, so this is gonna get deep, real quick. Um, so I started my business, or rather, in the world of mental health and therapy because of my own experience with domestic violence. And childhood essay. So the childhood essay led to, um, vulnerabilities in in myself, which then led on to me.

 Choosing relationships that resulted in domestic violence. And then there was an incident, one particular incident that took me to a e, and then the way that I was treated by staff in a e, I then decided that I could do better and would do better. And I then went on to become a mental health nurse. So at the time I was an award-winning makeup artist, and then you couldn't get any further away from that.

 And I became a mental health nurse. And then as times gone on, I've progressed and sideways moved into therapy as well. So about me, I have worked in specialist. Psychiatric care for over two decades. So I've gone from perinatal psychiatry, which is mother and baby, all the way to forensic and judicial. So you know, you would know that as work in prisons, police cells, anywhere along the criminal justice system, you will find me managing.

 Caseloads of, um, people who have mental health, whether it be, you know, uh, the worried well or severe and enduring. And then a lot of that time I spent managing the care of the UK's most notorious criminals and murderers within the criminal justice system. Wow. I mean, that is a change, isn't it, from makeup parties to psychiatric nurse helping murderers.

 You know, it's like a complete couldn't, couldn't be further apart. Couldn't be further apart. But it, but what you said there, I think there's quite a thread there with a lot of, a lot of situations that we see, isn't it? Because I suppose it's a learned behavior, isn't it? That we experience something traumatic in our childhood or in a lifestyle that we then go on and, and sort of.

Put ourselves into more scenarios to make that happen again. It's a bit of a strange one. That one, isn't it? Yeah, it's, it's, it's the perfect storm, essentially. So even though these situations and the behavior that we are doing or might be shown is risky, it's because that's what we know, maladaptively as our safe space.

So we will put ourselves back in those situations because we only know that as a safe space. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's the same in business, isn't it? A lot of our bus, our, our, our listeners here are business owners. And I think that's the same in business, isn't it? And I think my own personal story was a prime example of that.

 Something that happened to me in childhood made me behave in the way that I behaved in my business that affected my mental health. But. I did that because I was going back to where I was as a child. Yes. Um, so I think, I think our, our, our mental health can be affected in business the same as it can in, in personal life, can't it?

 100%. And mental health and mindset has a lot to answer to in business. So what you'll find is, and what I find at the moment is, um. When you use the word mental health, when you use the word PTSD trauma, people give you a wide birth. They know they've got issues, but they're like triggered trauma. Nothing to do with me.

 But you say to them, I'll help you make a hundred K in six months, they'll be on it. Not realizing that 80% of that work that is gonna be done is gonna be on mindset, mental health, how you look after yourself. Because that's the cornerstone to everything that's cornerstone to you showing up in your business to you getting more clients through the door for or, or putting yourself out there to sell more products or being authentically you or connecting with, 'cause the Y is 99.9% of the time personal.

 Um, somewhere along the line. And that's how you've gotta connect. And to connect. You've gotta put yourself out then to put yourself out there. You've gotta have the mindset. Yeah. Completely. Completely. And I, I always find it interesting that conversation between what is the difference between mindset I.

 And mental health. Yes. And I dunno what your take on it is, but I think, I think people are more open, especially in the business world, might be different in the, you know, the consumer world. But in the business world, people are more open to say, I can help you with your mindset. 'cause they're thinking exactly what you said, that's gonna help me to make a hundred K.

 But if you say to them, I can help you with your mental health, the more likely to scroll past your posts yet technically as you say. And that's. Same. Am I right? Am I understanding that correctly? Yeah, so we, so we say generally there's a difference between like everybody's, um, got mental health, but has everybody got mental wellbeing.

 But then, you know, that's semantics. And it, potato, potato, if we're talking about how the, the, the layman understands it, it's the same stuff. I'm just addressing it up to make it more, um, palatable. And I guess I didn't realize until I got into business, until I started to talk about it and then what, how my marketing was doing or wasn't doing.

 How much people. Avoid this conversation because everybody's like, oh, do you know, you need to talk more about men, you know, mental health, and we need to say it slow and talk about it. I literally had to go through my marketing and do things like, uh, what other, what, what other ways can I talk about trauma?

 PTSD, without you, like without using those words, cannot use those words. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I think also that, you know, when people, you, when you say the word trauma, I think people assume that something major has got to have happened to you. Yes. To mean that you've got that trauma. So yeah, domestic abuse, you know, some sort of violence, some sort of grief, you know, loss, something like that. 

There's gotta be something major that's happened to, to, to actually be traumatized, whereas I now realize. How I behaved in my business and how that affected my mental health and all of that sort of stuff was because something that traumatized me as a child, yet it was, yeah, technically the simplest things.

It was just somebody telling me that I'd never be successful, basically. And that is what that, that trauma which I now realize is a, is a trauma. It did traumatize me and in a way. I would never, ever have said to anybody when that, when I was going through all of that, that if I saw something that said I can help you heal from trauma or whatever, I would've just gone, I haven't been traumatized, you know, I haven't gone through grief or abuse or anything like that.

 Um, so I think it's just our understanding outside of the medical world perhaps as to what that word means. Yes. Yeah. And breaking it down. Make it understandable because I think sometimes within our professions, what we're guilty of is speaking and uh, delivering content or training, whatever, like we're speaking to our peers and we're not because the people that who need us, that's not where they're at.

 No. No, they, they, it's understanding the language, isn't it? The language that is normal to you isn't necessarily normal to people like me who haven't got the training and everything that sits behind them. And it, and it's interesting you said that because out of all of my clients and I work with lots of different people, um, a few, a few of which are therapy, so, or in the, that sort of feel, so to speak.

 Mm-hmm. And the one thing they all struggle with most is the marketing. And that's because of the messaging, isn't it? It's because of hitting the spot in terms of. What they do. What they do is amazing and it gets the results. But getting the people to actually understand that's what they need, unless they talk about mindset, but I dunno if you are in that camp Nicola, but a lot of people who are actual therapist therapists mm-hmm.

 Don't always sit comfortably talking about the word mindset because it's the, that they help with, or positive psychology or, you know, it's, it's more than mindset, isn't it? In, in, in a way. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I think that's the thing. 'cause that's when we get really, um, God, I got me on my soapbox. Ah, some people are gonna hate me, but you know what?

 Yeah. I'm not soapbox. Come on. Just gonna say, I'm just gonna be real, but okay. So the people who struggle with exactly what you said are the people who have. Qualifications over qualifications, who literally you say to them, what's your qualifications? And they get their little scroll out and then they walk along and that scroll pulls behind them because it's that long.

 What we aren't is you, Demi, we didn't get our qualifications after you demi. So no disrespect to any, and I've got mindset coach in one, but obviously for a reason. No disrespect to any mindset coaches out there. But really come on, because there's so many people out there who don't have the qualifications, who don't have the experience, who don't have the knowledge, and they're like, I'm a coach.

 And you're like, you couldn't coach a cockroach. Stop it. You don't have the qualifications. And so that's where you get really where we're like, hmm, where we find mindset a bit f fluency, because. Like myself, when you've done, you know, over two decades worth of, you know, training of experience when you've, like, I've looked at the ins and outs of neuroscience, still learning.

 I don't know everything. I'm not Google. And when you've put your. Your time behind learning. So different modalities. So I do C-B-T-N-L-P-D-B-T, you know, solution focused, brief therapy, solution focused hypnotherapy. And then you get somebody who's in a 10 week call saying, I'm a therapist or a counselor.

 You are like, sit down. Yeah, yeah. Sorry. That couldn't co coach a co cockroach. Can't even say, nevermind that, that tickled me thing. Sorry. That was the funniest phrase ever. I've not heard that one before, but I absolutely love that. But I think that's the thing, isn't it? I didn't realize until quite recently, as in the last couple of years or so, that that therapy wasn't as regulated as I assumed it would be that people can call themselves a therapist if they are not.

 A therapist, uh, you know what I mean? They, they've just took a book. They've done it, like you say, a course of Udemi or somewhere like that. Yeah. That they could still then, uh, I didn't realize that, you know, to be a therapist, I assumed that meant you'd been to uni, got the degree, or, you know, whatever it is you needed to do, like a doctor, like a nurse. 

You, you, you've got the time served stuff. I didn't realize that that wasn't the case and that wasn't particularly regulated. Yes, there's parts of it. For us, ones that I work for. So, you know, we'll be part of, I I always get this one now, so don't nobody shoot me out there. But like, it's B Bcap, BCBA, C-P-B-B-A, ccp.

 So that, yep, that's the one. Yeah. Or you know, or like the health or, there's different ones, but they'll be actually registered with them. So for me, I'm on, I spend. Mortgage worth on on stuff. So I obviously still on the register as, so you can find the NMC people. So I'm on the NMC register, then, you know, the Association for Solution Therapists, then the National Council of Health, um, and so forth.

 So it's looking for people who are actually registered and affiliated and part of a governing body. So most PE you know, will have. To do that you haven't done, just done like a course in, say, counseling. So I'm gonna get shut again because I'm just gonna say it. So here's the thing with counseling, I get some good counselors, but.

 Counsel is about talking about your problems and not come up solution when you have a therapist. Therapist, we're looking about keeping you especially solution focused, but we're looking about keeping you forward, focusing where we're not here to retraumatize you, so you come in and talk about your problems and then you go out feeling worse.

 We're here about moving you forward. So it's a skill, it's an and that normally comes with. Ridiculous. Spending a ridiculous amount of money to trying to have it done and years of knowledge. Unfortunately, it does not come from a 10 week course. Yeah, yeah. And I think this is, you know, I, I know you say you're gonna get yourself shot, but I think this is really important information for people, isn't it?

 cause there'll be lots of people listening to this who, who, you know, possibly think I need some support from a mindset perspective. May well be that they need mental health support, but they'll be thinking from a mindset perspective. Yeah. That, that might just look for somebody, you know, look for somebody that they connect with or whatever else.

 But it's important, isn't it, to do that due diligence to make sure when you are working with something like mental health, you don't do that exact thing you just said, which is re-traumatizing yourself. Yeah. Um, that you actually get it. Uh, you move forward from it. You actually don't, you know, just spend 10 weeks going over and over and over and over everything that happened.

 You actually come up with a way that enables you to either walk through it or, or, or on from it, isn't it? So I think it's important to, to have those conversations and to be honest and say there is people out there who are doing this job that probably shouldn't be or should be coming from a different perspective, maybe.

 Yeah. Yeah. 'cause the thing is, you'll get a lot of people who like to gas, gas themselves up and give themselves title. So to stick a opinion in that, there'll be business owners out there who need help with their mindset and, um, you know, might be traumatized from different things. If you got somebody say who's, oh God, they're getting hammered today, aren't they?

 Who's done a udemi course? And they, they. I'm gonna guarantee that they don't know how to contain trauma or help that person contain for when they leave or have the skill set to realize when somebody's maybe disassociating. Um, 'cause it doesn't, like you say, it doesn't have to be what we would assume is a mega trauma.

 It could be anything, but if somebody's disassociating in their business from a trauma. There's all sorts of problems going on there. There's all, there's all sorts of things happening, and if you get somebody who comes along and says, and opens a can of worms, and they're like, off you go, that could go left really quickly.

 That could even, and not being dramatically to somebody just being like, do you know what? Let's just shut down. Let's stop this business. You know? It could just stop everything in its tracks. Yeah, it absolutely is. And I think that's the difference, isn't it? Between. There's, there's, to me, there's two camps here.

 There's, there's the camp where it says it's, it's about I need some positive affirmations. I need to do some journaling. I need to do some things that are just gonna help to boost your mood, perhaps to make you feel a little bit more positive about yourself. There's, there's that side, isn't it, of, of mindset, which isn't going deep and delving into the, you know, the.

 The reasons behind that is just helping to boost your mood a little bit to, to do that sort of stuff. But then there's the, the stuff that goes deeper, isn't it? And I think the minute it's going deeper, I think the advice here has to be. Do your research and make sure that you are using somebody who is actually qualified to, to do it, to actually go out and, and, and do that thing.

 And it's, it's funny, isn't it? Ti titles are a funny thing. I get asked this a lot by clients. What shall I call myself? Um, you know, am I a coach? Am I a mentor? Am a strategist. Am I a therapist? Am I a coach? What, what, what actually do I call myself? And I think that that's quite a conversation. I could never call myself a coach because in my head I haven't trained to be a coach.

 And a coach is a totally different role than somebody who is a strategist. I am a qualified as a strategist. I've done strategy all my life, but I am equally a mentor because I have. Walked the walk. I've done it. I've grown the business. So I can help you from a mentor point of view, but I could never actually call myself a coach.

 I tried it for a while. 'cause anybody can call themselves a coach, can't they? You know, without the qualifications and everything else. Boy, you did it, sit uncomfortably with me. You know, it really, really did sit uncomfortably with me. So I think that's the key, isn't it? For, for a title Should be what you do.

 Surely you would think so.

 Absolutely not. It's a bit like the, the mother hen story of like, you know, picking all the corn and making the bread, and then everybody comes to eat the bread, but nobody wants to pick the corn. You, you'll get people who, who want that accolade or title so bad, but don't wanna do the work. Yeah. Or so, you know, you'll get people who will be like, I can do that better than a nurse.

 And it's like, oh really? Go, go, go spend your three, four years at university, then come to and think after that. Yeah. Go on. And why would I want an unqualified surgeon to operate on my brain? I don't think so somehow. So why would you want them to do that from a a, a healing perspective or from a a therapeutic perspective?

 Anyway, anyway, we, I think that's a soapbox that I could join you on. Um, 'cause it was a real eyeopener for me when I learned that. My assumption was, um, and the reason I wanted to, to let you talk about that is 'cause I bet there's lots of other people who have that same assumption. Everybody that's using that title has been through.

 Everything that you have been through to enable you to earn that badge of honor, which is what it is, isn't it? It's something you've really worked hard to, to earn. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I think though, what I will say is I do understand that when people want, when people are in a situation or they want to know is how you can help them, which is cool, and I get that you just want the pain.

 You want stuff to stop, but please, at some points. Just do your due d due diligence and make sure that you know that they are safe and reputable. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Let's flip this round a little bit. So we assume these people have now done their due diligence and they know that, you know, you are the right person to come and help them. 

From a, from a business owner's perspective, why would a business owner come to a therapist? Because. With like magic. Well, I dunno about other ones, but I know I'm like magic. So my, uh, so my sweet spot on my whole career has led to me being really good at rapidly assessing somebody rapidly, getting to the core of the situation and then fix it, outcome with a solution.

 And that's because I just worked in high risk situations. From ever from day dark. So when somebody is coming to a therapist who may be in business there, there's genuinely, there's a problem, there's a problem. And what we can't afford to have is it's taken forever in a day. So, you know when people are like, oh, do you know I've been with my therapist for six, seven?

 What are you doing with therapists for that long? It's about getting in, solving the problem and getting it out. So if that problem is like we say, trauma, um, of any sort of degree, and that's the reason why they can't solve it, then. What we do is we come in and, or I come in and we get to work on it really quickly so they can start looking at like, and changing their mindset or more changing their thought patterns, getting to the roots of the program.

 'cause somewhere in there, there's a program that, because you've, you've. You've come to me because there's a problem, but there's a program in that's stopping whatever result you wanna get, whether that's, you wanna show up more and because that's 'cause it at the moment you not showing up is resulting in you not having, um, having a lack of customers or maybe you not showing up is resulting in you not.

 Presenting as authentic because you're not being vulnerable enough and you're not willing to like share parts of your story. Whatever it is that's stopping you, it's my job to find that program, switch it out, and then essentially help you be the best you and build that resilience, that confidence, and just show up as luck as a badass bitch.

 That's just, I love that show. He's a badass bitch. And I, I think there's something in there that listening to what you were saying is that you're not saying We need to know what the problem is. We just need to know that something is stopping us from doing something that we need to do. Such as I'm afraid to, I'm gonna text to real basics here.

 I'm afraid to go live, or I, I, I'm, I'm not posting on social media 'cause I don't wanna talk about something. So we don't actually need to know that this is caused by. Yes, something that happened back here, we just need to know that there's something that's stopping, is doing something. And your job, if I'm understanding what you've just said correctly, is to either find what that thing is or find a way of moving you forward from that thing, regardless of what it is.

 Is that right? Am I just summarize that? Yeah, yeah. So what I often say is um, when somebody comes to me, although they believe it is called what I call the polar bear, so. They're looking at this thing and they're like, it's a problem, it's a problem. And I'm like, definitely isn't a problem. But that's cute.

 We'll play along and then it's something else. So my job is to help you, guide you to see that the polar, you are looking at the polar bear, when you should be looking at the put on the fire that's like totally gonna burn down the house. And so. I do it in a quick and gentle way, so we get there like really quickly, really effectively, and that you can just, because all you want is relief.

 That's all you want is relief. Relief and whatever problem it is. I could, I could say any symptom, whether it's like you wake up with a heaviness, you know, things like, I wanna feel lighter. You know, you wake up feeling like you've got the, the weight of the world on your shoulders, or you know, you're so overwhelmed that you can't make a simple choice or you can't put yourself, whatever it is that's happening.

 It's just my job to get in, solve it, and get out. Fabulous. Absolutely amazing. So if there's something going on in your business and you're not quite sure why, maybe what you need to be thinking about is working with somebody like Nicola to help you to find out what that is and come up with some ways to move it forwards.

 I always, always. Always say when people ask me the question, what? What comes first, strategy or mindset? The two have to be done together. You can't have one without the other. Yeah. Best mindset in the world. If you haven't got the strategy, it still won't work. Best strategy in the world. If you haven't got the mindset, it still won't work.

 So the two absolutely do go hand in hand. So we're coming towards the end as I do with all of my guests. Nicholas, share with us a top tip. A top tip. Always put yourself first and make sure. That you have time scheduled. Bosses never cancel appointments on themselves. So scheduled time to have self care and doesn't always have to be bubble baths and all the rest of it, but to have that time out and to check in with yourself daily.

 So if it's five, 10 minutes or half an hour, but schedule in fun, fun, relaxation, leads way to innovation. So if you're dying from no innovation in your business, I'm gonna guarantee that you're not taking time out for you. So do it. Love that schedule. Time to check in on yourself. Great phrase. Absolutely love it.

 So finally, if our listeners wanna come and learn more about you, where's the best place for them to connect? So on Facebook. So Nicola Noel, finally, uh, apps. Brain Works Therapy and Brain Works therapy on Instagram. And I'm Nicola Noel on LinkedIn and I will share all of that in the show notes for you as well.

 So thank you so much for joining me today, Nicola. It has been lovely chatting with you. And thank you to everybody else for listening. I will speak to you next time.

 You have been listening to Dream Business, dream Life with Emma Hine. If you want to know more about how I can help you to build your dream business and your dream life, then visit my website, emmahine.co.uk. Until next time, remember, you really can have it all.