From Banking to Building Dreams - Rachael Uí Bhaoill on Redirection after Injury & Starting Spreag

After 17 years in banking, Rachael Uí Bhaoill walked away from the being extremely successful in the corporate world to starting from scratch building something completely her own, after an injury opened her eyes to what needed changing in her life. 

In this week’s episode of Shake the Ground, Nathalie chats with Rachael about taking the leap from a high earning financial planner to starting from scratch. Rachael is the founder of Spreag, the renovation strategy business helping people create beautiful homes without losing control of their finances. But this conversation goes far beyond bricks and budgets. 

We talk about the career that shaped her, the injury that forced her to slow down and reassess everything, taking the risk of leaving security behind, and why financial clarity is one of the greatest forms of freedom. 

We also dive into the power of social media, how Instagram unexpectedly became a huge part of growing her business. If you’ve ever dreamed of changing careers, renovating a home, starting something of your own, or simply finding the courage to begin again, this episode is for you. 

Follow Rachael here: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/the.renovation.strategist?igsh=dHAzam1wMDV4ZHc2 ⁠

Follow Nathalie here: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/nathalielennon_?igsh=eDNpdGcwbWVncmtu&utm_source=qr ⁠

Check out Spreag here: ⁠https://www.spreag.ie/⁠

Subscribe to our YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/@shakethegroundpodcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Shake the Ground Podcast is brought to you by Amplify Podcast Studio. They don't just produce podcasts, they build podcasts designed to last. See Amplify.ie. Welcome back to Shake the Ground, the podcast that's here to inspire you to keep working towards your wildest dreams and build your most unbreakable self. I'm your host, Nathalie Lennon, and every week we're diving into the stories of people who dared to do things differently and basically shook the ground within their own lives. Today's guest is someone who's completely changed her own path beyond the norm and the way people think about home renovations. After spending 17 years building a successful career in AIB and becoming a certified financial planner, she made the huge decision to leave corporate life behind and build a business from scratch. She is the founder of Sprague, a renovation strategy company helping homeowners save thousands by making smarter financial and design decisions. And many of you may also know her from Instagram as The Renovation Strategist. I know so many of you listening may be thinking about buying, or you're in the process, or you're starting to renovate or want to renovate. So I'm sure there will be plenty for you to take from this episode in that department. But also, behind the beautifully renovated homes is an incredible story about taking risks, trusting your instincts, recovering from setbacks, and building a business around something you genuinely love. Rachel Eveil, welcome to Shake the Ground. Thank you so much for having me. Did I pronounce your surname correct?

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Very good. Eve, yes. Very, very good.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

I meant to ask you before we start recording.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

Some people say Rachel Eve Whale, some people say Rachel Eve Weil, but either is fine. Okay. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Um, I'm so excited to hear more about your story, like your own story from leaving such a successful career to start your own business and then the business itself. We have so much to dive into today. So do you want to start off by maybe telling us a little bit about yourself and who you were as you started to build your career in AIB? Let's start there before we move into the change.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Okay, perfect. So yeah, so I was a very early school starter. I went to school at four, which meant I was 16 for my whole leave and search year. I only turned 17 in the April and then did my leave-in search. So I was very young. Um, I'm the eldest of four, so I would have been quite mature. People would say, Oh, she was here before. Um, but was always kind of responsible, didn't really know what to do when I was doing the leave and search, even when I was filling out the CAO. I said to my daddy, like, I don't know what to be doing, like, what am I doing? And he said to me, You like maths, keep going with the maths. It's it comes easy to you. Numbers are good for you. So I said, Grant, so that's what I did. I went on to UCD to do four years college. I did chemistry and maths, and I absolutely, when I tell you, I broke my heart in the lab. I was the last one leaving every single day. I had to start my experiments 50 times over, I was terrible at it. And I got a two-two, I think I scraped by, and I barely went to the maths lectures and I got a first. So that's the chemistry side of things. It was the chemistry side, I was really struggling with.

SPEAKER_02 3:10

Chemistry was tough though.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

It was so tough. Yeah, and like it was all this, and like he had to be attention to detail. And at the time, like I just was so distracted. I now know that was undiagnosed ADHD that I got diagnosed when I was 39, but at the time I didn't understand why. Basically, I found the chemistry so boring, so I couldn't apply myself to it, whereas I actually found the math so interesting. So I could apply myself. So, anyway, that was a good lesson to me to say, right, just stick with the numbers, which is obviously what I do now. So, even though I've changed careers completely, I'm still sticking with numbers. Um, I came out in 2007, it was a mad time because it was the crash was happening. I graduated in 2007, um, and I worked a little bit in Pharma before eventually moving across into banking, did the graduate programme in Bank of Ireland and just generally worked my way up through the bank. Yeah. I never loved it, okay, but I never hated it. I always got up every morning. I just got up, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the banter of the branch, I enjoyed the crack. There's great camaraderie in banking. Uh some of my best friends are still in banking. I would have met them through banking. It's a great bit of fun. There's some social life when you're young in the bank. Oh, great fun. Nights out. It's just, it's just, it's it's really good discipline as well because it's very um structured and that worked well for me. So I work my way up through the bank. Uh I'm very competitive, I'm very motivated person. Um, I'm uh I've often referred to myself at the risk of sounding egotistical as a high achiever. Whatever I put my mind to, I want to be the best. I wish I didn't sometimes, but I do. So as I work my way up through the career, I just kept getting you take you get promoted more money, you get promoted more money, more money, and then you build a life off that money. So you have a mortgage that's built on that money. So then it's very hard to give up that job, if you like. But anyway, I work my way up through the bank. I had been flipping houses for years on the side.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

Can you define flipping houses for me?

SPEAKER_00 5:01

Yeah. So you're buying something, doing it up, and selling it straight away. That's a flip, right? So sometimes you'll hear a lot of say, I'm a millennial, but if you're those out boomers like my parents, right? So boomers would tended what they tend to do was buy houses, do them up and keep them and rent them and become landlords. Yes. I have no interest in becoming a landlord. It's too like if somebody ringing me at four o'clock in the morning and telling me their washing machine is leaking, I don't want to know about that because time is my greatest commodity. I have four kids. So I'm happy to take something, particularly that's vacant or derelict, I've a real gras for that because we're in a housing crisis, fix it up and put it back on the market for somebody else to be able to take it back into a rental or a house for somebody else.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

So when you were working your way up the career ladder in AIB, you were doing this all along on the side. Correct. Like, where did the love for that start? I don't, I genuinely feels like such, you know, like a random. Because it sounds so random.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

I think it's probably if you boil down to it, like I'm probably a very creative person. Okay, but when you're working in the bank, there's no creativity necessary. You know, it's not to say it's not allowed, but like it's numbers, it's you know, it's logical explanations. It's it's not about being creative. So I think I needed a creative outlet. Love that. I think that's what it was.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

And were you helping like advise people on housing and mortgages and yeah, yeah. So maybe that sparked a bit of an interesting.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

And I think the first house, like, so I obviously because I'm a certified financial planner uh and I have lots and lots of different exams, I'm good with the economy. So when the markets start to rise in 2011, I was like, right, it's time to buy. Now I was only 24.

SPEAKER_02 6:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

So I was like, it's time to buy. The market's going up, house prices are going for nothing. Like, this is crazy. I'm on a good salary, I'm permanent. So was my boyfriend at the time, now my husband. And I was like, it's time to buy. So we ended up buying a house out in Carberry first, um, in Norkel there. I'm from NACE, so it's about 25 minutes from home. But I think we bought it for like 150 or something. Stop. It was a four-bedroom house, it was a beautiful house, bought it for 150, spent money on it, did it up, left there, made 20 grand. So I was actually flipping houses for myself because ideally I wanted a house in the country with land close to Nase, where I'm from. But anybody who's from Nase or anywhere in Kildare will tell you that right now, that type of house costing a million euros. Yeah. So I knew I wasn't going to be able to do that first time, which is what a lot of young people are trying to do now. They're trying to buy their first house as their forever house. Yeah. That old style that the boomers and us millennials would have done, where you buy a house, a small house, put a bit of work into it, sell it, make a profit, buy another house, do it up, sell it, make a profit. That skill or desire to have that skill seems to be gone now.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

Could I ask a quick question? Of course. And now I don't want to jump ahead too soon in our conversation, but just since you said that, um do you still think it's a wise time to be doing that? Because in Italy, as someone who really doesn't know enough about the property industry at all, uh I would just presume that it's a bad time to buy something to do it up to sell it, because is the market potentially not going to change at some point soon?

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Yeah, like I like I actually only had the masterclass on Wednesday night and I spent a lot of time teaching this on Wednesday and give people the context behind the market. So it's hard to say exactly what's going to happen. Like, even though I mean I'd probably be more qualified than most, given all my background and my exams, to talk about this. Nobody has a crystal ball. Yeah. Nobody really knows. But the reality is we're about 60,000 homes a year short of where we need to be. So as long as demand is outstripping supply, the housing market won't go down.

SPEAKER_02 8:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

That's the simple way to look at it. Okay, yeah, that's true. You need to have more houses than there's people who want to buy them before a market starts to drop. And we're nowhere near that. Nowhere near that. Now we are at a place now where you start to see houses are have been leveling off. Why have they been leveling off? Because the the prices are going so high that young people can't afford to get the mortgages to buy those houses, which means young people are priced out. So then there's not as many people going for that house, which means the house doesn't go for 100 grand over. That's what's happening now. Okay. It doesn't mean that the supply is outstripping the demand. It just means that the I think what'll happen is they'll level off for a while.

SPEAKER_02 9:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

But if you buy a house, which is what I encourage people to do on Instagram, that is an absolute dump. And it costs you 100 grand or f to buy that dump, and it costs you 100 grand to do it up, but you get 70 grand or 50 grand of a grant, then it's only cost you 130 grand. Yeah. You're never going to be in negative equity with something like that.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

You know, so and in the meantime, the reason I was doing it for myself. So the first house was in Carberry. Then we sold that, made a profit, yeah, yeah. Then we went to NACE and I bought a five-bed semi for 230. So this was your second my second home. Okay. So we went to NACE, we bought a house for 230, a three-bedroom, uh, a five-bedroom semi-D in Nace. Like you wouldn't get a five-bed semi-d in Ace for less than 700 now. This was 2014. But the builder, he's a bit of a cowboy, uh, he wasn't able to finish it because he'd know money and nobody would work for him.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

I think I saw this on your Instagram when I was looking through it. Yeah, when you kind of got left.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

I've had no, that's a different story. I've had a few cowboy builders. Builders are this guy, in fairness, had an estate, but he was under pressure for money, as a lot of builders were, to be fair to him, in 2014. He couldn't afford to finish the houses. He needed to sell them, but he needed a dig out. So I went to him and said, I'll finish the house, knock 20 grand off the price. I have 20 grand, and I'll pay the electrician to come back, I'll pay the kitchen, I'll pay the plumber to do the second fix, and I'll give you 20 grand less. But at least then you'll have 210 grand that you can do the next one. And then otherwise you're not getting out of jail bud. This is a good deal. So he was happy enough with that. We did it up three, four years, we sold it again. I think I made, I think I bought it for 230 and I sold it for 340. So I made 110 grand in four or five years.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

Now I was a prime time. Perfect time.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

But then why did I know that? Because I'm a banker. Most people wouldn't have the confidence in the economy. But the economy is secular. Yeah. So we go crash, uh, boom. Boom, crash, boom, boom. It goes around a circle. It's very simple. It happens over and over again, but it's just the time when people start getting confidence is like two years ago. Oh, now is the time to buy. No, the time to buy was 2010.

SPEAKER_02 11:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

So again, I'm lucky in that. I'm I'm not I'm not that that's not lost to me. I'm lucky that that's my trade, so I know when to buy. So I sold that and I ended up buying a house out in just outside of Two Mile House. And it was a little cottage on an acre. I went for $360. It was really run down, needs a lot of work. It's on my website if anyone wants to have a look. And I've spent about $300 grand on that over the last say four to five years. So you bought it for $360,000. Bought it for $360. It was a three-bed cottage. We spent about $300 on it, give or take, give or take. And it's worth about $1.1 or $1.2 million now.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

Wow. Right. And I wasn't expecting that for that. That's insane.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

It's it's amazing. Last year we put in an outdoor kitchen. An outdoor kitchen I was quoted $35,000, I think, to build. And I think I built it for $11,000. So that's a lot of what I teach is no, you don't have to spend ridiculous amounts of money. And I won't cut corners. I talk about that a lot on Instagram. I won't cut corners in terms of stability or you know, uh fire safety or anything like that. But I will look for clever ways to make clever swaps to get a really good result that doesn't impact the sale price at the end. And that's what flipping's all about. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Um so between those three houses when you were flipping, yeah, at what point are you still in AIB when you got into that third home? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

So I'm still in AIB, I'm flying up the corporate ladder.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

I got sorry, can we just take a moment to appreciate how inspirational that is? Like you've gone three houses, flipping. I love the term flipping, I haven't brought it. Flipping. Flipping houses, working your way up to the ladder in a serious way to being really high up in AIB. And do you mind me asking at the same time when I was also having babies? Yeah, so you were having babies throughout this. When did the kids start?

SPEAKER_00 13:09

So when I bought that second house in 2014, I was pregnant with my first fella. Oh my goodness. So yeah, so I was pregnant with him and had him, and then I ended up, I'm the eldest, and my husband is the eldest, and none of our friends were having babies, obviously, because we were only 28. I was 28 when I had him, he my husband was 30. And basically then the two of us kind of thought, well, he's no friends because none of our friends have babies, none of our siblings have babies. We'll give him, we'll give him a a sibling. Um, we'll just have one. And we knew we wanted to have a few, but we said we'll just have one more and we'll leave it a little while and we'll have another one. So when I was, I think he was 17 months old, I went into the coomb for a scan, and then your woman says to me, I'll never forget it until the day I die. She was a new doctor and she'd never found them before. And she's like, Oh my god, it's so exciting! There are two babies in there. And I was like, What? I think you literally had a heart attack. I tell still to this day, the panic that rose up in my chest because I knew I had a 16-month-old. I remember I was only 29. So I literally was like, Oh my god, like what? And um, I drove in at the time my husband was managing uh Bank of Ireland Smithfield, and I drove into town from the coomb and the hands were going on the wheel. Oh my god, Rachel. And uh I rang him and I was like, Come outside, I need you to come outside right now. And he was like, Rachel, there's a cash difference in the box. Anybody in banking will know what that means. They they had a lot, there was money missing that day. He was in counting cash to try and find the transaction where it was gone wrong. You're gonna have to wait a half an hour. I said, if you do not come out to this car now, I'm going to go into that branch naked. Get out to this car right now. So, in fairness to him, and I mean he I kept saying to him, they're like, There's there's two babies, like two babies. And he was like, I know, like Liam and the baby. I was like, No, no, no, no, no, no, two more babies. So did twins run in your family at all? Afterwards, my granddad told me that his dad had been a twin.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

Okay, I'm always really curious when I hear of twins.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

Is it somewhere in the genetics? And especially when you have non-identical twins like me. Okay. So I'm a boy and a girl, yeah, and they're non-identical, and that means that the woman has released two eggs, so it's genetic because you're hyper-ovulating. Yeah. So you release two eggs, that's what caused. Whereas when you have identical twins, it's just normal and just split. It's just a freak. Yeah. You know, it's just a one-off. But anyway, so my my grandda told me his dad was a twin and had been his mother had had three sets of twins. Oh wow. So there was a lot of twins. There was a lot of twins. And then my mum, I knew my mum had had a few miscarriages, but my mum told me she had miscarried twins. Oh. Again, I didn't know that at the time. So lo and behold, anyway, we had three babies now under two, so it was all gold. And you're in house number two now. We're in house number two. Okay. So we're living in house number two. I have I ended up having twins, boy and a girl. Um, so when my young lad was 25 months, I had the twins. So now we had three under 25 months. So we're living in that house, beautiful house. Thought we probably wouldn't move, to be honest. Um, but I got the the itch again. And I think having had at that stage I had two boys. Very boys are very boisterous. You know, that word really does come from boys. They need space, they need space, and I'm a big believer in not trying to contain boys. I think they need to zip line and jump up and down and trampoline and all those type of things. Regulate. And um, I said to my husband, like, we've got a gorgeous five-bed house here in Ace, it was 2,000 square foot, but our garden was like a postage stamp.

SPEAKER_02 16:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

And I said, I will take a smaller house with a bigger garden. Yeah. So we thought, right, one more move. And that's when we bought the house in T Mile House. Um, so we moved out there, that was grand. Now I'm not moving again, so I'm told by my husband. I'm not allowed to flip any more because the four of them are settled now. Um, so we moved out there, we did the first build, we borrowed 150 grand because that's all we could afford. Yeah. So you do an equity, you buy the house with a mortgage, and then you do a top-up mortgage for the work that needs to be done. Okay. So we did that for 150 grand, and that allowed us to rewire the existing house, re-plumb the existing house, put in new bathrooms, and build a small extension on the side. But as you said, what you saw on my Instagram during that build, it was COVID.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

And our builder ran off with 30 grand of our money.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

That's yeah, that is what I saw on your Instagram. And I again don't have experience in this industry yet. How can that even happen? I don't understand how someone can run off with that much of your money.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

I think what happened was so generally what would have been done, what is what is done across the industry is when you start with a contractor, they'll ask you for money in advance, like a deposit as such, which is fine. So we had given them deposit of I think it was twelve, like I think it was maybe what it was, 20% of the bill, which would have been the 30 grand. And what we didn't know at the time was he had legacy debt. So he owed money to his carpenter, his plumber, his whatever. So in order to get them to come on my job, he had to use my deposit to pay them to come back. So effectively, he was using my money to pay off work that they'd done on other people's houses. Okay. And that was the problem.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

How sickening for you is that.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

And we didn't realize at the time, it was only what happened was we've got about four or five months into the build, and he asked me for more money. And I was like, Because, and again, I was so lucky because I am a financial advisor, financial planner. I was like, No, I've worked out based off the work you've done. I've overpaid you already. I'm not giving you any more money until the roof is on, or I'm not giving you any more money. And he was like, Well, then I can't finish the job. And I said, Well, why? Because you have loads of money. I can't understand why. And that's when he said, Oh, well, I actually owed 15 grand and such and such a building providers, and I actually owed this, so I had to get it. He was, he was blatantly blatantly honest in fairness, uh, which was great, but at the same time, it didn't help us. So we were away at the time on holidays. We had done a week, I think, in we went to that place in Kilkenny, is it Mount Juliet? Uh yeah. Because you weren't allowed to travel abroad, obviously. It was COVID. Yeah. And then my parents have a house in Tremor, so we were down there for a week. Hopefully. Um, and when I came back, he'd pulled all his tools off the site. He was just gone.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

And you couldn't contact him.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

He he did come and meet me and just said, There's nothing I can do. Like, I've no money, like, just get over it basically. Well, long story short.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

I didn't hold that against him, and he has to be even.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

He got a court judgment for 30 grand, 29,000 and something. But he didn't have any money to pay me back.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

So you can't take money from a so it just gets tied up in his his business. Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

So if he ever gets rich, I have a leg to stand on, but right now I don't.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

So you just keep annoying.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Yeah, so like we had to brush ourselves down. We were both working in jobs. Obviously, banking never closed down during COVID, so I was still working as such.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

But at this point, you have three children.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

Yeah, three children.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

And you're still only under 30 grand and you're you're in the middle of trying to renovate this home. Correct.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

So again, it was a good lesson learned for kind of the work I'm doing now, it was a a prerequisite to what I'm doing now. Like all those experiences have shaped the company I've built now.

SPEAKER_02 19:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

And I think what happened was I probably felt sorry for myself for about two days, but I'm a quick woman to get over things. I'm good in a crisis. Um, and literally I was like, right, what are we going to do? So we had to strip back our finish. So I had planned on spending like 20 grand on solid wood floors, and I had spent on spending like 10 grand on extra on the kitchen, but we had to start stripping back. Okay. And actually, again, that was probably another prerequisite to what I'm doing now because I learned I'm not really compromising that much. And I would have spent that 30 grand and I wouldn't have got that much more for it. Do you know what I mean? So that was grand. So it was on house number three. In the meantime, I've gone on to do two more drawdowns and mortgage. I think we did a 50 and we did a hundred, two separate. So I've spent about 300 grand on it at this stage, but we have a five-bed A-rated house on an acre within the guts of five miles an ace with an outdoor kitchen. Like we have everything we could ever want. Like every time I flick the uh electric gates, I think to myself, how lucky am I? You know, like I'm it's not lost to me that people all over the world, people in Gaza living in tents. I'm very, you know, passionate about that. Look how lucky we are every single day. So yeah, no, I'm definitely not going to flip my own house anymore because I've four kids to travel along with me. But when you do flip, for anybody who's listening who likes this, you don't have any tax to pay. Okay. That's massive. So as a financial advisor, I spend a lot of time talking about capital acquisitions tax, capital gains tax. Capital gains tax has to be paid on any gain you make, generally on selling of a property, if you like. It's 33%. So if you made 100 grand on a property and it wasn't your own home, you'd have to pay 33,000.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

What if it's your own home?

SPEAKER_00 21:23

You pay zero.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Right.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

As long as you live in the house for 12 months.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

I feel like I need a no care for myself today.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

So yeah. So you as long as you pay you pay 12 months, you've lived in it for 12 months, you pay zero.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

Uh lived in it for 12 months before you start the the flipping. Oh it's been your only house for the 12 months. Yeah, even if you are renovating during that time. Correct. Okay. Correct.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

So as long as you're it's your only house, you don't have another house that you live in, it's counts. Yeah. So that's that really helped us because each time we moved with the money, I didn't have any tax to pay.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

Each time you could do that because you were there for 12 months. Okay. And God, there's so much to dive into. Sorry. No, but like I'm just I'm in all. Of how I guess brave you are with your moves and with your money. No, I think a lot of people do play it very safe because of well, I guess right now, because of the way the economy is, but also most people don't have the understanding that you have of the economy. So I think it's incredible that you have left AIB to educate people more on what it is they can do. So talk us through that, going back, I suppose, a step again, because there really is two stories to talk about here. It's your company and it's the advice that you can give to everyone with what you do, but it's also your your story and of how you built Sprague. So let's talk about how that all started. Okay. Um leaving AIB. When you first got the thought to leave AIB, what you were doing in AIB at that time.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

Okay. So yeah, so at this stage now we have the house, it's 2020, we finished the build. I'm I'm flying up the ranks of AIB. So I had become done the graduate programme and then became a financial advisor. I then got promoted again into what's called a wealth manager.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

So you're giving advice to AIB's wealthiest customers. So think about all the celebrities, all the artists, all the singers, all that type of thing, those type of customers, like the CEO of the largest companies in Ireland, they're the type of people you're giving advice to. So they're coming to you with their money and you're telling them how to plan their pension, how to get out earlier to retire, what to do about tax, and so on.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

So you're literally advising the wealthiest people in Ireland what to do with their money for five years.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

So I did that for five years.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

You must have come across so many incredible people.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

I would say they thought, who's this mad one coming in here? This wild one. Um, but I think as well, I covered Dublin North and West, which is the branches from AB Malahyde all the way down as far as AB Tala. So they're very working class areas, Blanchardstown, you know, um Drumcondra, Klandock, and Talla. Yeah, those people generally don't come from what I call old money. It's not passed down, they've earned it. And there's huge value in that for me. So again, I love to learn. I'm like a sponge. When you're giving advice to these people who came from a two up, two-down house in Klendack, and they're now sitting with 15 million on deposit. Open your ears and close your mouth. What are they saying? How did they do that? I just found that so fascinating. Their stories. And you know, they'd give you tidbits along the five years. Yes, they're getting advice from me on tax and pensions and investments. Yeah, no problem. I can learn all that in a book. But I'm getting advice from them on life.

SPEAKER_02 24:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

And just so clever and so inspiring. I just found it so inspiring.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

That's the sort of advice you you can't get from a book, you can't get in school. And it's so rare to come across so many people that have worked their way up to such a high position. And you came across individual after individual to like start kind of taking little bit of knowledge from every single one to then put into action in your own life. Correct.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

It was just unbelievable. And like I was like, as well, because I was in that area, they're very easy to talk to. So you know what I mean? Like there's there's no errors and graces, there's no pretentiousness across Dublin West, which I love. I love the fact that they're salt of the earth people, they're just wear their heart in their sleeve. Ronan will always say, Don't say anything about the dubs, Rachel won't hear television. I love those people, and I had such great conversations for years and years and years, and I learned so much. So I did the wealth manager role. Then I went off to have my last fella, Dara, he's four. And when I came back, I said to my boss at the time, I'm bored. I like I've kind of I had been number one in the country a few years, like it was very target-driven in AIB. I'd be number one in the country, uh, financial planner manager, most sales, most this, most that.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

Oh, this is incredible. You say that like you're just kind of going over willy-nilly.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

At the same time, you've got two trick, three children and you're flipping houses like that. Who doesn't? I did tell you at the start, it was all undy losed, AD, HD. People say, What batteries you're on? And I used to be like, I don't know, but now we do know what batteries I'm on. Um so I have to be moving all the time. That's how I regulate. So I said to her, like, I'm not challenged, I need something else. And she said, just hold your horses there. Will you just come back from maternity leave and relax yourself there and get going? But in the meantime, a few opportunities come up. AIB were building a new life company called AIB Life. And I basically, between the rigs and the rules, I was asked to go across and become the head of advice over there. So, what that means is running a big team to generate advice for these wealthy customers and to build that customer journey. What does it look like when a person comes into AIB life for the first time? How do we give advice? And I probably threw the rule book out the window because before it had been very um, oh, you're coming in, you have a business, do you want a pension? Whereas actually, I believe in holistic advice, whether that's with houses, whether that's with banking. So I don't want to give any advice. I could I don't feel you can give any strategic advice unless you have the whole picture. Yeah. So what I call a helicopter view. So you need to know everything. So we totally changed the way of giving advice to amazing results in A B life. Um, and that has that is one of my proudest achievements is that you know, like now every A B customer who works walks in is getting different advice than they would have got before because of the way we looked at it. But and you basically we built up that up with a team, not just me, obviously. There was a team of us, but like, yes, I was responsible for advice. Other people were responsible for compliance. I had people who worked on the team with me who were amazing, like at two assistant managers, they were just unbelievable. And we worked as a team and we pulled together and we got that done. But like it was a startup, it was it was an 80 million euro startup. Wow, but it was a startup, so it was 70, 80, 90 hours a week. It was crazy hours. And if I'm being honest, I didn't have any work-life balance. Whereas I did in the branch, okay, because when I worked in the bank in the branch, it was only open 10 to 5, 40 so once you go home at five, I was mommy.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

And you're clock you can clock hours, you don't need to be so you're mommy, but you're still flipping, but you're flipping like that. That's your passion project. That's a hobby.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

Flipping was a hobby to me. I enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_01 27:49

At this point, you weren't doing that to any other properties, it was just grown. Okay. Correct.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

So I had done one for my parents, their holiday home in Tremore.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Which is like family, so it's kind of like I genuinely just felt it was a hobby. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

I enjoyed it, I didn't see it as work.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

Yeah. And at this, sorry, when you were going to move into helping to build AIB life, had you had your your son. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

So you just after. He was about one and a half. Yeah, he was about one, one and a half, so so or so, yeah. Oh my god. So I went. I know. So it was it was mad and it was busy.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

I know we kind of mentioned this on a phone call we had, you were up till all hours, working. Crazy hours. You had four children at that time.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

I know, I did. And I was mad. And like I remember there was a running joke in in because there was a few heads in AB life, and one of them, my own boss used to say to me all the time, You're not the only one with four kids, Rachel. And I used to say to him, 'You're not yeah, but I'm the only one with a stay-at-home without a stay-at-home wife. How do I get one of them? How do I get a stay-at-home wife? We used to have a bit of cheek about it because it was almost like, 'Yeah, you have four kids.' And I said, 'Yeah, but like I'm the mom.' Like my husband is amazing. They're cheeky. Yeah, no, and it was. It was the cheeky mom, but some happily put in the basket's pocket. To be fair, he's a bit of crack. You can have a bit of crack with him, Tom. But like at the same time, I was like, no, Tom, I don't have a stay-at-home wife like you do. How do I get one of them? Because I am mom. I do have to do the sun cream before they go out. I have to pack the lunches, I have to remember the swimming gear, and then I have to clock on and be head of advice.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

That is insane.

SPEAKER_00 29:14

You know, so it was insane. And when I look back now, you know, it was a very stressful time in my life. It's only when you come out of that you can really understand. But I'll if I'm being honest, if I had not have got sick, I would still be there.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:29

So I was flying up the ranks. More money, more money, more money, more money, up into the six-figure salaries, more money, more money, like car allowance, you name it. And then as I said to you, it's very hard when you're on that money and you have a very big lifestyle built around it. So two weeks in a villa in Portugal in the summer, centre parks for the week, nice car, nice house, you get a little bit of notions.

SPEAKER_01 29:51

Yeah. You do. I really respect how honest you're being about that because I think not a lot of people who are on good money would would say that as it is. So I respect that. But you know what? I understand it. Because if you're earning that much money per year, like, and you've worked your ass off to get there, you're you're entitled to have your notions. You are, you do have notions. You worked hard enough for it. Correct.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

But there's also the bank works like a chain of command, similar enough to the guards, so uh or the army, like so as you work your way up, you know, it's more superior. And as I said to you, do I like to think I didn't have too many notions, but I definitely had a few. So and I was young, I was the youngest person doing my job. So again, that gives you a great confidence. And to be fair, like I got a lot of confidence for my work, and I would have worried a lot when I was younger about what people thought. So that really did help me. That was real positive. But I was working and I just thought I'd straight to the top of A B. That was my plan. Up to the top, up to the board, keep going, more money, more money. And then I woke up one morning in October, I think it was September 2024, and I couldn't move my right arm. And I got a terrible fright. And I said to my husband, he was lying in bed beside me, I said, I can't move my right arm. And he said to me, I said, I think I might be having a stroke. And he he was half asleep, he's bad in the mornings, and he kind of props himself up and he goes, Is a stroke not the thing when your face goes all funny? I think your face looks grand. I don't think it's that. I was like, What the hell? Bit of sympathy, please. Yeah. But he was having none of it. But anyway, the jigs and the reels, I got diagnosed with four herniated cervical discs. Okay. So anybody who's ever had a disc problem. Just one. Even one will tell you it is the worst pain of your life. I was in labour for two days with the first fella. It was nothing on this.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Really rich.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

It is nothing. It is the most random. Do you know you know if you hear people that have an abscess on their tooth?

SPEAKER_01 31:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

And it's nerve pain, it's like that.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

Nerve pain is the worst type of pain. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

Because you can't treat it. Yeah. Because there's no pills to take it away. You can't, you can go on an antidepressant, actually, is usually what they prescribe. And a tryptaline, I think it's called, but they that takes five to six weeks to work. And even then, it only moves your pain from a 10 to an eight. Okay. So you can't no neurofin, no tylex, no nothing is going to take it away.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

And so you woke up this day with pain down the right arm. Yeah. Had you had any signs before that?

SPEAKER_00 32:11

So didn't it literally happen overnight? Literally happened overnight. I woke up and I just couldn't. So what had happened, obviously, my all those hours, my my disc had been working its way towards the nerve.

SPEAKER_01 32:22

Because of the position you were in working on a laptop?

SPEAKER_00 32:24

Is that the so like is it there was probably a whole host of factors at play? Stress stress, time.

SPEAKER_01 32:30

Sorry, I wanted to go back one little step. Um one thing I suppose I feel like I'm really in tune with or love finding out is if people think they're living in fight or flight. You know that we speak about your nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system and whether you ever turn that on or engage it or switch off. Did you feel like in those years, although you're thriving off the busyness because of, like you said, the ADHD that you got diagnosed at 39, you do thrive off the busyness. Do you think you ever switched into rest and digest? Or do you think you were always fighting or flight?

SPEAKER_00 33:03

I was in fight or flight the whole time. I didn't even understand what that meant at the time. Yeah. I've done a huge amount of work with a mentor. I'll tell you about him now in a minute. Over the last 12 months, changed my life completely. My central nervous system is I'm a different woman.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

It's just something I am so Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

No, I was in fight or flight the whole time.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

I'm too in tune with it, where I'm like, oh, I think I'm getting too fight or flight-ish. I need to just You're absolutely right though.

SPEAKER_00 33:24

It's interesting. So you're you're in fight or flight. I'm in fight or flight. I'm working, I'm giving as much as I can to the job. And fairness, everybody who worked in there was everywhere. Everybody who there was no slackers in every everybody is working as hard as they can. Um, and effectively then what happens is I wake up, I I'm in the most horrific pain, I'm off work for a week or two while I try and get on top of the pain. Then to be fair, I actually asked to come back, even though I signed off because um I was a distraction from the pain. Yeah, it was a distraction because when I was sitting at home, it was really worse.

SPEAKER_01 33:56

Certain projects within there, and you probably just wanted some of the things.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

And my team was very under pressure. I didn't want to leave. I had a big team and they were really under pressure. I wanted to help them. I just I'd be very ethical and it just broke my heart leaving. So I worked my way through. Anyway, lo and behold, six weeks later, I had to have a major surgery, had to have the full disc out, uh, have a plate on my spine. Yeah, C6 C7. Okay, so very much that yeah, so C6 C7 is gone, and I have a big plate now. You can see I have a scar there across here. So, yeah, so I have a plate there, but I still have three discs out that I'm managing on a day-to-day basis.

SPEAKER_01 34:27

My God, do you know we barely kind of spoke about your injury before recording? I never realized you had such a serious surgery done.

SPEAKER_00 34:33

Such a serious surgery, but it was the only way to get out of pain. Yeah. And I woke up the next morning and I was like, I was on the ortho ward in the Hermitage, which was gas, because people are getting the knees done and the hips, and obviously I was getting spine. And uh everybody else is in dying pain because they're after getting their hips sawed through and all this. And I uh my surgeon comes around to see me and he's like, How are we? I'm like, I feel great. All my pain is gone. This is amazing. I love you forever. Yeah. So he was like, You're the only person who loves me forever here today. Everybody else hates me. I was like, I think you're great. So lo and behold, instant relief then. Instant relief. Now, within about two months, the next one started to play, which is very normal. Okay, because once you take the pressure off the first one, then the next one that was out is starting to give trouble.

SPEAKER_02 35:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:13

But I had six weeks off. I wasn't allowed to drive, had to lie on my back, wasn't allowed to sit down, blah, blah, blah. Went through the rehab. And when I was six weeks, yeah. When I was going back then to work, uh, this consultant had said to me, If you go back working while you were working before, you are going to be back in my chair in six months. You're going to be in a wheelchair by the time you're 45. You just can't do this. So um my husband in fairness was the one who encouraged me. He was like, Give up the job.

SPEAKER_02 35:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:40

And I was saying, What are you mad? Like, I'm flying up to your AB. And he was like, give up the job. Um, our mortgage is 2,800 a month, so it's a lot. But he's on good money.

SPEAKER_01 35:49

And he said, And he's in banking as well.

SPEAKER_00 35:52

He was in banking for years. He actually works with my parents now. Ah, go back. They have a publishing business. Okay. So he works as their GM. But he said to me, I can just about afford to pay the mortgage, but we'll get by. And he said, I like in fairness from I'll never forget. He was like, I know your energy. You will find something to do. I'm not worried about money. Like, you will figure it out. And you have to give three months notice when you're at my level in the bank, anyway, because you have to inform the central bank that you're stepping down and you have to get someone else to apply, blah, blah, blah. So I had three months' grace, but I didn't know I was going to do. Yeah. So left the bank. Everybody told me I was mad. Are you crazy? You're flying. Blah, blah, blah. You're this is the wrong decision. And I said, well, no, it's not because health has to come first.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

I think when you are climbing the career ladder and you're in such a busybody business where everyone is at like the same state of mind. No one is is everyone's in fight or flight. And everyone's thriving off that. And everyone's addicted to the I suppose the growth and the work.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

I feel like no one really takes health seriously.

SPEAKER_00 36:57

No.

SPEAKER_01 36:57

Um, and I know, like you said, you know, the socialising is great and it's so much fun, but personally, that's something I wouldn't be able to keep up with because now my voice is kind of gone today after being sick, ironically. But it's kind of something I struggle with, Rachel, that I'm like, you got to where you are in life by working so hard and by living in this stressed state, although you didn't really realize it at the time. Whereas I do think it's very hard to work your way up in life to being so successful without going through a period of having to work yourself into the ground. And it's just something that annoys me about life that there's very few people become extremely successful without going through a period of deteriorating health. Correct. It's terrible.

SPEAKER_00 37:38

I think, and you're so right, Natalie, but you have to come through that to gain the perspective that it's not the push and the performance, which is what I was doing for years. I was performing at a very high level all the time. I didn't like I actually said this recently. I have a coach, a fellow called Brian O'Lachlan. Yeah, don't know if you know him, he does Infinity Movement. He has a a very good following on Instagram, but he um I think I do.

SPEAKER_01 38:05

Yeah, he does.

SPEAKER_00 38:06

Does he do a lot of mobility stuff? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And he used to be like coach the Dublin football team when they were winning all the All-Irelands, and he's my mentor. Wow and I locked in with him about a year ago. It's the best money I've ever spent.

SPEAKER_01 38:17

Mentor from a side of just lifestyle or like business. A bit of everything. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 38:22

A bit of everything, yeah. So I think you're gonna love. I'll tell you about him now, but I think you're gonna love what he does.

SPEAKER_01 38:26

Okay. So So you were saying everyone in AIB thought you were mad to leave?

SPEAKER_00 38:30

Mad because I had been handpicked as a future leader of AIB. I was on this course with these top, top performers, these are stars of the future. Like even my own parents were like Jeannie Mac, okay, at the start. And I and then I was like, I have to make a change. I don't, I know myself, I don't have the discipline. If I go back in there, I'll go back to working the hours I was working.

SPEAKER_01 38:52

You don't have the discipline for self-care.

SPEAKER_00 38:55

No, I don't.

SPEAKER_01 38:55

It's funny.

SPEAKER_00 38:56

I don't.

SPEAKER_01 38:57

Like when I hear discipline, I I see it the other way.

SPEAKER_00 38:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:59

Most people don't have the discipline to work as hard as you worked, but you uh didn't have the discipline to remind yourself.

SPEAKER_00 39:05

It's addictive. It's addictive. Yeah. When you're working in that industry, it's addictive because you want to make well for me anyway, I want to make the customer journey better. I want to make the AIB customer experience better, better, better. So I'm always thinking of more things, more hours. But what it was was it was time away from my kids. Yeah. I mean, I literally got up in the morning, start working at seven o'clock, then I'd come down at eight, help get them ready for skill, put them on the bus, out they go out the door. They didn't come back through the door till six o'clock. I'd feed them, I'd be shouting at them. Because it was in fight or flight.

SPEAKER_02 39:34

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:34

I wasn't that kind, considerate mommy that I had been when I worked in the branch. I was just so my nervous system was on edge.

SPEAKER_01 39:40

Yeah. I think that's what a lot of people kind of don't realise as well, is when there's a lot of stress in other areas of your life, you take it out on the people closest to you and you don't even know that at the time.

SPEAKER_00 39:48

No, and I didn't. And then I'd put them to bed and then I'd go back upstairs and work from like 8 p.m. until three o'clock in the morning.

SPEAKER_01 39:54

That that was one thing you can't show me when we had a chat beforehand. I still can't wrap my head around that. But there wasn't just me.

SPEAKER_00 39:59

There was loads of people doing it. Because we used to actually call ourselves, excuse my French now, we used to call each other each each other the hardcore bitches. Yeah, no fair. Because we were like you'd log on and you'd be on at one o'clock in the morning, be two or three other people. And you're all on at the same time. All on at the same time. So it was the culture in there. You know what I mean? It wasn't really it was it is the culture. It's the culture.

SPEAKER_01 40:17

And I'm sure there's a part of uh maybe a part of it then where some people feel like they're not doing enough if they're not locked on at those hours.

SPEAKER_00 40:25

I tried to protect my team as much as I can, and I think that's that's the big thing. But as I said to you, it wasn't done. There's no malice in it. It was just everybody was striving towards one common goal.

SPEAKER_02 40:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:34

And it nobody had the foresight to take a step back and say, you know, oh God, somebody could get hurt here, or somebody could get injured like me, or somebody could, you know, this isn't good for everybody to be in fight or flight.

SPEAKER_01 40:46

Well, you never really think about an injury like that, Rachel, when you are working, like it's it's desk work a lot of it, is it?

SPEAKER_00 40:52

Like you don't really think of an injury. No, because it's on three screens, you're constantly moving around. But as I said to you, like I decided then afterwards right I'm not going back. So I gave my notice in and I left the bank. And in fairness, I had I've helped my parents a lot over the years with um their holiday home, their own home, their own pensions, their own bits and pieces. And they kind of came to me and were like, We'll give you a few bob to get you going. Uh we can be your first clients. Okay. So we'll give you a float and you buy houses and do them up. So did they come to you with the idea that this is what you could do? My mom.

SPEAKER_01 41:28

You actually didn't sit at home going, This is what I'll do.

SPEAKER_00 41:31

No, my mom came to me. Yeah, and she was like, She, and to be fair to her, long before I even left the bank before I got sick, she had been asking me to do another one for them because I had done a house in Tremor for them.

SPEAKER_02 41:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:40

And she had asked me to do another. And I kept saying to her, When am I meant to find the time, ma'am? Between the four kids and the mad job, like, when am I so it was then at that stage, she was like, We feel like you've done a lot for us over the years. And I was like, No, I just I what I have their very best interest at heart, always your mommy and daddy. And I said, She was like, No, we want it's payback time, we're gonna help you. Oh, which is honestly it's heartbreaking. But she she was like, We're gonna give you a few bob and that's your money, and get started, and we'll do it over a three-year deal. And at the end of the three years, you pay us back all the money, plus loads of profit, obviously. Yeah, it's no pressure on me. But it'll get you going, and it did, and they were my first clients, and then I have other clients now as well I bring on or whatever. So I think the one big thing I learned when I worked in A B life was as a certified financial planner, I planned everything out to a T.

SPEAKER_02 42:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:29

And the one skill I learned in that, and I was control freak. Yeah, but the one skill I learned in AB life in a startup was you cannot control. So actually, what has happened with Sprague, which never would have happened before, was I haven't made any plans. I have let what is in me naturally express itself with with total uh Brian O'Lachlin being my biggest cheerleader telling me stop performing, yeah, stop working at this high level, relax, let your central nervous system relax. I've done a huge amount of shadow work. I love this, Brian. I love it. Shadow work, yeah, done a huge amount of shadow work about how I felt guilt, and that's probably why I performed, how I felt shame, and that's how I performed. I've got rid of all of that now because I've sat in the guilt, I've sat in the shame, I've done the shadow work. Sorry, no, you don't have to answer this.

SPEAKER_01 43:18

The guilt and the shame around what?

SPEAKER_00 43:20

Around leaving the dob you were in or I think I just felt a lot of guilt and shame my whole life. I don't know why it's an eldest child thing. I don't know, my mum would have always said to me for years, now you're not to feel guilty. Don't feel guilty because she knows that's I I so say you said to me tomorrow, can you come around tomorrow and help me paint my sit-room? I see where you're going with this. Say I didn't want to help you paint your sit room because I'm exhausted. But I would feel guilty. Yeah. I want to be helpful. Yeah. Maybe it's an eldest child thing, I don't know. Or like I would keep saying yes to you, yeah, and then feel so I don't feel guilty, but then instead I'd feel resentment.

SPEAKER_01 43:54

It's kind of like people pleasing, deep empath. Um, I actually really relate. To that rate of. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like the I barely said to you before we start recording the journey I've been on with fitness and food, my body, and all that. Uh I feel like I have learned a lot from that early on that I have no problem feeling like I'm letting people down to mine myself.

SPEAKER_00 44:16

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 44:17

But the guilt is always kind of there.

SPEAKER_00 44:18

And it is hard to work through. It is really hard. And that was part of the work when I went with Brian. So when I left the bank, I set up Sprague straight away. I was like, right, I don't know what this is going to be. I don't know what services I'm going to have, but I know I have my mum and dad as my first client. Yes. And I know I'll buy a few houses for them and I'll start to do them up. And that's what I did. I bought a few houses out of the money they gave me and I started to move along. Fantastic that you had a few houses.

SPEAKER_01 44:43

I was so that you know that your parents were in that position and these were your projects to build sprag from the ground up. Correct. Literally. And Sprag, um, you told me this, but can you define a person?

SPEAKER_00 44:52

Yeah, Sprag is the Irish word to empower.

SPEAKER_01 44:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:55

And that's what I try to do. Like I would have spent a lot of time in the bank as a key motivator. I can be very motivated, and I know that's one of my good qualities. Um, you know, and I will try to motivate you and empower you to say you can do it. Don't listen to all that rubbish. You absolutely can do it. So I kind of wanted to see how Sprague I I knew I had enough money because I'd have income coming in every month from the houses I was project managing with my parents' money. And then I said, you know what, what I'll do now is I will try to see what falls out of Sprague. But in the meantime, I really did feel like my energy, I'd say it was jet lag from two years working 90 hours a week.

SPEAKER_01 45:35

I believe in that 110%. I am I 100% would say that is the case. I think when you slow down, like some people think, What's wrong with me? What's the virus? What's the illness? But it takes a long time for your body to recover from stress you put it through. Like even slightly different now. But say when I was going through eating disorder recovery, the dietitian was like, for every like you know, year you spent restricting yourself, your body's going to need two years of like a surplus to remind your nervous system it's a safe place again. Yeah. And it's the very same with just stress. Your nervous system takes a long time to to cop onto the fact that it's now a safe place to let go of it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:13

Yeah, you're absolutely right. And that's why the work you're doing now is paying off now. But it probably took a long time of you prioritizing yourself and saying no to get there.

SPEAKER_01 46:22

Yeah, yeah. And I guess it's still a constant up and down journey where sometimes you will push it a bit too far and realize, oh, that's the line. That's the line. I've I've put my toes just over the line, I need to step back. But we spent years way beyond the line, so at least now we know when we're just a little bit above it, step back. Amazing. And I I'm sure I'm sure it's similar for you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:40

I think I think that's what happened. I I I felt I had lost my mojo. Okay. So for years I was able to perform. That's that's what Brian calls a performance.

SPEAKER_02 46:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

At a very high level. And I had followed Brian for a long time as he's just really motivational and he's just not a spoofer. Yeah. He just says things like they are, and it just really resonated. I was like, I think I have a feeling like I need this guy. I need I I just need to go check out a social media.

SPEAKER_01 47:06

It's unbelievable. Right.

SPEAKER_00 47:07

So lo and behold, anyway, I reached out to him and I asked him about his coaching program, what was involved, and whatever. And he's very particular about who he takes on because he only wants to take people on who actually want to change. Yeah. So I really wanted to change. I was like, I know I've worked at this high level. I know I do things so many times because I want to be liked. And I feel like sometimes I think I probably spent a lot of my younger years being told I was too much, too loud, too blunt. Now I know that to be ADHD, but I didn't at the time. And you know, oh, you're so more you're so loud and you're so blunt. And like again, I'm quite a resilient person. A lot of that would have water off a duck's back. But it's just horrible for people to say. It does cut deep, I think. So I think what I did then to compensate, I'm gonna be the kindest person in the room. Yeah, I'm gonna do more for other people so that they like me.

SPEAKER_01 47:54

And that's and prove those people wrong. Correct.

SPEAKER_00 47:57

And you know, and even if I am a bit loud, then they won't mind that I'm loud if I'm really nice to them, yeah, or if I'm really helpful, or if I'm really giving of my time. So that was embedded deep in me from probably when I was in school and people who say those things. And then he got me to to look at that and be like, why are you doing all those things when you don't want to? Like it's not bad to say no. It's it's okay. And we were we went through six months of what's what he calls shadow work, where you really sit with the guilt, you sit with the shame, and you start to trust your gut. I'm actually gonna get a tattoo very shortly. I have one very small one on my ribs, but I'm gonna get another one here that says trust. I love it. Because that's all he says to me. Trust what is your body telling you? Don't perform, don't do what he wants, what she wants. What do you want? And you and like he's like, you're not going to be unkind. He was like, You're one of the kindest people I know. You're not going to be unkind. Don't think it's you're a bad person if you do what you want. So he gets you to stop performing and to start trusting in what your body is telling you. And that's what I've done with Bragg. So every time I come to a crossroads and there's a decision to be made, I'm like, what feels right here? And I just keep trusting. And lo and behold, now he said this since the start, he'll say to you, I know you're brilliant, but your brilliance is going to come out as long as you trust. But again, as a person who spent 25 years performing, it's very hard to let go of the control freakedness and just be, but that's what I do now. So I live life in a very different way now than I did even 12 months ago.

SPEAKER_01 49:40

That is so powerful. Thank you. Like so powerful. I'm sitting here going, oh my god, I feel like I need to ring Brian.

unknown 49:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:46

Yeah, but I feel like I'm having pennies drop. Just listen to you. And I know there's probably so many other people listening going, oh my god, I need to do the same. Because we do live in a world where we don't listen to our gut anymore. And we go with our head and we many of us live to please others. Like that is such, it's such a prominent, I think, action in today's today's generation. 100%. So I think that that is so powerful. And I love the tattoo idea. Thank you. Go for it. I'm into all those little tattoos. I have a few, but they're all like kind of hidden, and I'd love to get more. Yeah. But you want them to have meaning.

SPEAKER_00 50:20

I want them to have meaning. And like I like, as I said to you, I think that big thing for me is like sometimes I forget to trust because I'm only new in my work with Brian. I'm working with Brian about a year.

SPEAKER_02 50:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:29

And I'm in a 13-month time.

SPEAKER_01 50:30

Brian, I'm gonna be knocking.

SPEAKER_00 50:31

Brian or Knocklin, Brian. Yeah, he's amazing. Amazing at what he does. And like the one thing is like, so he'll obviously we have meetings regularly in the month, but we send voice notes over and back all the time, tidbits. So he's always on my mind, and I'm trying to express to him, and he helps me to decipher. It's like a four, it's almost like a four of therapy as well.

SPEAKER_01 50:49

Yeah, but it kind of keeps you in that healing state and stops you from running away with yourself again, which you probably would have a tendency to do too.

SPEAKER_00 50:56

Correct. So, like on Wednesday, my children too, my children are neurodivergent, and anybody who has neurodivergent kids needs to look into something called retained primitive reflexes. So that would be like the one everybody knows is the startle reflex, where you walk by a newborn and the arms shoot up in the air if you make a noise. It's called the morrow. But a lot of your primitive reflexes, it's all central nervous system based, yeah, are meant to be gone by one.

SPEAKER_01 51:19

Right.

SPEAKER_00 51:20

And when you have a section in particular, which I had four, three sections. Well, I have four kids, three sections, all those sections. Yeah, yeah. Um, the first fellow was in labor for two days and he just wouldn't come out, ended up having a section. But what particularly with section babies, they don't go through the birth canal, so it doesn't activate all that for them. So they can have retained reflexes. When you have kids who are neurodivergent, they tend to have more uh retained reflexes. Long story short, two of my kids are neurodivergent. So we have been treating that with the psychiatrist and CAMs and all of that and the school, but separately, I'm trying to look at all the holistic things that might make life a little bit easier for them. So we were up at um the retained reflex occupational therapist on Wednesday with the four kids. She was she does an assessment with them, see how much they've come on, then she gives us exercise for eight weeks. We go home work and then come back, they get better and better and better. Um, had that for four hours on Wednesday morning. Then I had the masterclass on Wednesday evening. There were 43 people on it. There was millions of questions, they were an amazing bunch. They kept me on my toes, asked me loads of intelligent, difficult questions. So I was thinking, oh God, what am I going to say to that? Um by the time yesterday morning came up, I was meant to be working yesterday. When I tell you, I was exhausted.

SPEAKER_01 52:28

Yeah. Now the masterclass must take it out of here.

SPEAKER_00 52:31

It really does because it's three hours. Yeah. Very intricate detail.

SPEAKER_01 52:34

Sorry, we've mentioned the masterclass a few times, but just to let people know what that is.

SPEAKER_00 52:37

Yeah, so I do a masterclass. It was really important to me when I built Sprague that whether you had 20, whether you had 100 euro to spend or you had 100,000 to spend, that you'd be able to work with me if you wanted to. So I tried to tier the levels according to affordability. Yeah. So I do a masterclass, I only do it four times a year. It's only a hundred euro. Yeah. If you go to that masterclass, I can guarantee you'll save a minimum of 20 grand on your build just by all the tips I'll give you. It'd be money I it's really important to me that when you work with Sprague Sprag, any money you give us, we wipe our own face.

SPEAKER_01 53:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:07

So the money you give us, you make it back tenfold every time. And your website is www.sprag.a.

SPEAKER_01 53:14

Brilliant. Anyone who's listening now going, oh, that's like done my alley. No, because we've mentioned the master class a few times, not really. What it is.

SPEAKER_00 53:21

So but it does take a lot out of you because you want to give so much to everybody. So like that was it.

SPEAKER_01 53:25

You are the type to want to like please the people and so. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:28

So that was eight hours of intensity on Wednesday between four hours with the kids in the OT session, and then three, three, three or so. Barbara had about an hour getting revved up for the master class before I take them. And then we ran over, we did a huge QA session. So we actually was nearly three hours. So when I got up on Thursday, I was meant to work. Now the old Rachel would have performed. The old Rachel would have pushed through that. The old Rachel would have got on with it and been absolutely exhausted. And I got up yesterday morning. I was like, I'm not working today. I can't. I have nothing left in the tank. My body is telling me I need to rest. So I sent back three urgent emails. And other than that, I didn't work for the day. I was gone. So that is how my day-to-day life has changed with Brian. I knew I was coming here to you today. I wanted to be able to give you the best of me.

SPEAKER_01 54:18

I appreciate that, right?

SPEAKER_00 54:19

So I need thank you. So I needed to I needed to fill my cup for you yesterday. So I was like, you know what? I need to do nothing today. And that's where that trust comes in with Brian to say, no, I'm not going to push through.

SPEAKER_02 54:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:31

I'm going to listen to my body. I'm going to trust what my body's telling me. And I'm, and then actually what happens is you're better.

SPEAKER_01 54:38

I couldn't agree with you more. I'm like really smiling as as I'm listening to you say all this because I relate to it so much. And it's just so funny you explain it that way because yesterday I was literally the very same. I've been a bit, you know, run down and kind of overvoids, whatever, like you get over that. But I had other work I could have been doing yesterday, and I just like that did not do it. Sent a few emails. But when you're self-employed, that's not an easy decision to kind of make or sit with at the beginning.

SPEAKER_03 55:08

No.

SPEAKER_01 55:08

And like same as I was like, I have that podcast recording tomorrow. Yeah. That's what I want to be better for. Met the girls for one of the girls for like a long walk, came back, chilled for the evening, feet up, didn't even go into the family. I sent them a message, I was like, guys, I'll see you tomorrow. Yeah, 100%. Because we have to fill our own cup. So but I really appreciate you, you know, putting the podcast there as what you wanted to fill your cup for. And I'm sure the listeners do as well. And there's been some fantastic advice uh from a self-growth perspective, from like a listening to your body, trusting your gut perspective, but also a working, a working perspective and and setting up your own thing and and two sides of it, like learning when you're pushing too much, when to step back. Um, I feel like Rachel, we could do a whole other episode, a full series, yeah. You need to start your own podcast. Okay, it's um with with what time? Yeah, exactly. That is it. Like it like I always say this on on the podcast, it's such a good sign when I have cue cards full of questions and I haven't literally looked at them once. Yeah, I've looked them there a second ago, I'm like, yeah, we've we've done covered everything. Yeah, we've covered everything. We probably could dive more into the actual renovation side of things and the advice there. Um I'm just gonna ask you one or two questions because we're probably coming well near time. If someone is making the decision to go into a renovation project of their own, flipping their own home, yeah, um, where is the one place you see people make the biggest mistake?

SPEAKER_00 56:38

I think people, young people in particular, have FOMO.

SPEAKER_01 56:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 56:42

I think they do the same at weddings. I'm only doing this once, I'm going to do everything.

SPEAKER_03 56:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 56:47

I'm gonna have the DJ and I'm gonna have the people standing on the table singing, and I'm gonna have this, and I'm gonna have the 10 grand wedding dress instead of the two grand wedding dress, and I'm not doing that for the bridesmaids, and oh yeah, I'm only going to get like, you know, um Charlotte Tilbury over to do my makeup because uh otherwise I'd look ugly.

SPEAKER_01 57:03

And I think flowers only in season.

SPEAKER_00 57:05

All these tiny, what I call, I'd like to call it with anybody who works with me, they'll hear me rabbit and on about it, the micro decisions.

SPEAKER_01 57:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 57:13

Over and over and over again. How do you run a marathon? It's not you get up one morning, you run a marathon, you get up one morning and you decide to do 2K, and then you do 5k, and then you do 20k, and then you do your long runs and then you do your hill sprints. You that's how you run the marathon. Think of my language. Yeah, I know you know you're a runner. My daughter's a sprinter. You were sorry, yeah. My daughter's a sprinter, yeah. So like I'm I'm into the running now. Not for me personally, but for her. She's a big intro runner, yeah. So she's the All Irelands now in August. But like she's she's a sprinter, she's a hundred meters, so I'm used to her with her hill sprints and blah blah blah. But like that's how you run the marathon. It's all the micro decisions gets you to cross the finish line. It's not any one big thing. And I think there's so much pressure on young people at the moment. It's like because when I was growing up, and I said this to someone recently, and they were howling laughing. I was like, when I was going growing up, the nightclub in NASA was time. That was the big nightclub in Nace. Yeah. And I used to be able to go out every weekend and wear the same outfit. Why? Because it was nice on me, I looked lovely in it, I felt lovely in it, and there was no pictures. Yeah. Young people now have to have so many outfits, everything has to be done, different earrings, different hair, different this. The pressure is unbelievable. So it's like if I don't have the best of everything for my wedding, it'll be a crap wedding. No, it won't. It'll be if you had just your nearest and dearest in City Hall. Now I see people having two weddings. They're getting married in City Hall and then they're having another bash abroad. And again, that's becoming the done thing. And that's more they're having two hens, they're having two weddings. Like when I was getting married in 2013, there was just one wedding, obviously. But I'm just saying, like, it's it's this, I feel it's they feel if they don't do that, they'll fall short. You won't. I love that. And it's the same with houses. If I don't put in the electric blinds and I don't put in the underfloor heating, and I don't put in the best of blind, don't put in the best of couches, I'm gonna fall short. You won't. So actually, when I was uh speaking at the Renovator of the Year show in February there, I was asked to deliver a keynote speech, and the title of that speech was Know When to Say No Before You Blow Your Budget.

SPEAKER_02 59:10

Brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 59:10

So it's what you don't do, yeah. Actually, so it's it's can and I I said this the other day like, can we get you 95% of the way there from an aesthetic point of view on Pinterest? So this is the Pinterest picture I love. Yeah, can I get you 90 to 95% of the way there for 40% of the cost?

SPEAKER_01 59:30

And I'd say you can. Oh, I can all of the time.

SPEAKER_00 59:33

I can, yeah, but you have to compromise a little bit. Yeah, you have to compromise, not loads, just a little bit. Lower your expectations. And people say all the time, like to me, God, you're so relaxed and you have four kids. How are you so relaxed? Like usually my friends who have one. And I say to them, have more. The more you have, the more children you have, the more you lower expectations. Your expectations used to be, you know, feed them pure aid, caviar, and your expectations now are keep them alive. You know what I mean? So it is it's lower your expectations. Like, stop being so hard on yourself. Good enough is good enough in any part of life when you're planning a wedding or when you're renovating, good enough is good enough. I think if we can get people to come back the way a bit, stop comparing. Correct, keeping up with the jobs. It's not the things, it's the people and the memories. Correct. But you can still have a gorgeous house. Yeah. And like, why does that matter to me? It matters to me because whether you spend a thousand euro on your tiles in your bathroom per square meter, which some people do, or you spend 30. This is how I look at that as a flipper. The house is still going to sell for the same price.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:36

Nobody walks into the house with a thousand euro tiles on the floor and says, Well, I'm going to pay an extra 50 grand for this house because it has those tiles. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So that's why that's my guiding light as a pro professional property developer. My guiding light is, what am I going to get for it at the end? Yeah. So, no, I'm not prepared to spend millions of euros on tiles or millions of euros on a kitchen because it's not going to add value to the house value at the end for me anyway.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:59

And that's the way I think people need to come back. So do less.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:02

Good enough is good enough.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:03

That's fantastic. I love that. Thank you. Again, there's so many more questions I could ask you from the property side of things, the renovation side of things, but maybe we'll just have to do that in a couple of weeks' time, have an episode purely. I would love to renovate I would, and I feel like my audience is exactly that age now where people are renovating or they're in their first home, maybe thinking about doing another one down the line. Or like me, we didn't get into that at all. Like we said we said at the beginning that we might use kind of my own my own situation as like an example to get advice from. But listen, we're just gonna have to go back there and I would be delighted to come back.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:38

If people want to send questions, I'll more than happily answer them. And I think you'll get for what you get. Hopefully, what you got from today is uh there's no there's no door up but me. I'll try and be as approachable as I can. Anything you ask me, I'll give you a completely honest answer.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:50

I love that. You're incredible, Rachel. You really, really are. You're such an inspiration. Uh, Instagram has grown for you a lot over the last six months. You share so much helpful information there. So let people know your handle.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:01

So my handle is so I obviously have a Sprague page, but that's very upmarket kind of the Sprague Instagram page. But if you want to come and follow the madness that is Rachel and the four monsters, uh, we're on at the renovation strategist. You'll find me on there. Thank you so much for having me. Really enjoyed the chat.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:16

It's been the dream, it's been the dream. And guys, we'll link Rachel's website and her Instagram in the show notes as well. If you're listening on Spotify, you can go there quickly. On YouTube, if you're watching there, you can go there quickly. Um, I'm gonna finish up with one more thing. Yes. Although by the time I get to the end of the episode, I feel like I know the answer to this question already with everyone. Um your ground shaking confession. So confess to us something you've done that really shook things up, big or small, within your own life.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:45

I think the biggest thing I've done actually is start to work with Brian, more so than leaving the bank.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:50

I wasn't expecting that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:51

I think I think like I think it fundamentally changed who I am as a person. I think I'm I never ever ever would have described myself 12 months ago as a calm or a grounded person. I would have used the word frantic, Tasmanian devil. Like these were what people say used to say, Rachel goes into a branch like a Tasmanian devil. And but then like all of a sudden the branch who mightn't have been having any sales is flying out with sales because I bring so much energy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like that was what I was known for, and I still bring energy, but actually, since one of the things Brian, the my favorite thing that Brian has taught me is that when something occurs, I used to never have space between the event occurring and my reaction. It was just immediately I react.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:33

Now when something happens, there's space and I have a much more measured and grounded reaction to it. So I would now describe myself, which I is is is is hilarious to me as a grounded and calm person. And that's because I reached out to Brian. I I really think that was what made the difference.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:51

I think everyone listening was expecting you to say leaving AIB. Yeah. And it just goes to show the power of self-work.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:59

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:00

For that to be the ground shaking confession that you shared, it really emphasizes the power of self-care, self-work, healing.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:06

And remember, that's not just for me because now I'm a different mother. Yeah. I make different choices, I guide in a different way. The butterfly effect. The butterfly effect. So now that's like, you know what I mean? It's it's generational. That's going to be passed on to them. They're more grounded, they think about things in a different way, and that'll feather out and feather out and feather out. So yeah, that's my best work.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:25

Oh, Rachel, that's incredible. Thank you for sharing that. Guys, do go check her out on social media, the renovation strategist. We'll have her tagged if you're listening on the day of release as well. And like I said, it's in the show notes. Before we finish up, I just want to take a moment to thank our partners at Amplify Media. Working with people who really get what you're trying to create makes all the difference. And Amplify don't just produce podcasts, they help you build something that lasts. If you're thinking about starting your own show or taking yours up and not, check them out at Amplify.ie. And lastly, thank you for listening. We are eight episodes in to Shake the Ground now, and honestly, I cannot believe we're coming towards the end of our first season, and hopefully, we are at the end of our first season, guys. Hopefully, season two will be up and running for you very, very soon. I'm doing my best behind the scenes to get guests booked in, ASAP, so we don't have that much of a break because my goal with Shake the Ground is to get to a point where we don't have weeks in between episodes at all, and we're rolling, giving you all of these inspirational guests like Rachel, week after week. So listen, I'd really appreciate it if you could follow the podcast and leave a rating or a view wherever you are listening because it does help us to grow and bring conversations like these to you way more often. So until next time, keep asking questions, keep challenging what you think you know. I want to say thanks so much to all of you for your support to this point. Give us a shout out on social media or send us a message individually if you have enjoyed this or if there's topics you think we should be covering here. And don't be afraid to shake the ground.