Samantha Bradford - BeWild 2023

“I don’t have to fight upstream any more!”

Sam is a Chartered Financial Planner and Certified Money Coach and is founder of Simplicity Financial Planning. Sam had never worked with Jen before but felt the call of BeWild and jumped straight in after a recommendation from a fellow financial advisor. Here she shares some of her story.

What was it that made you jump straight in with BeWild?

“I had been following Jen on LinkedIn because I used to see this beaming smile and this lovely person sitting in front of the fire outside in the woods, and I was immediately drawn to that. In my personal life I'm a Scout leader and have been for about 18 years so I'm used to being outdoors, but what appealed to me was that in all of those years of being outdoors with campfires and enjoying nature, it's always been for other people, it's always been looking after others. I've been through a lot of self-discovery and personal coaching myself and this was just another dimension of personal development, but it has totally been everything I expected and more, which is why I am now signed up for BeWilder too!”

You're a coach yourself and you’ve done lots of personal development in the past. What was it then, that you were hoping to get from going into something else?

“For me it was having a unique perspective on what the world was all about. When we do personal development and inner work, we think about how things fit into our emotions and the way we do things. But what we haven't always looked at in that work is what outside influences such as nature have on how we show up in the world. [BeWild] is about learning from nature. It’s so refreshing and freeing when you immerse yourself in that. Because when you sit down and you're able to see that the world goes by no matter what problems are going on, and that still the trees stand firm, in the dark, in the light, in rain, in sunshine, and they carry on doing what they're doing, it puts so much into perspective about our lives, our worries, our concerns and all the things that we feel affect us and our relationships with other people. When I’m out in nature I know that I’m small and insignificant and vulnerable. That's the most important lesson that we can take from everything.”

That sounds like it's not a good thing! “I'm small, I'm insignificant. I'm vulnerable.” What about that was really powerful for you?

“I learned that when you open up to vulnerability, you see a new perspective. You can let go of worry because we are insignificant to the grand scheme of nature and the world and how we're evolving. We are just on part of that timeline. If we can see that and we can look to the past and look to the future and say, “but we're just here right now”, that's the most mindful thing you can do. When things come along that have the potential to derail you and you can take yourself back and ground yourself again and think “well, what would Mother Earth teach us from this? What would nature teach us from this?” then we can put a new slant on it. A new perspective.“

One of your intentions for Bewild was to peel back the layers and embrace more vulnerability, to help you show up as more of yourself in your life and business. How has BeWild and being part of the group helped you in that respect?

“I have changed beyond recognition, though I think it's probably just that the masks and the layers have been peeled back. I am so happy now to be who I really am when I show up at work. I know I could be seen as a disruptor, not in a challenging way, but in a “she's showing her true colours where she's just being who she is and she's perfectly OK with that” way.

My client and I will sit down and I will be more interested in what their lives are like than what their money is going to be doing, because actually it's more important to understand what their money is going to help them achieve in terms of the quality of life. It's all about quality of life. My driving force is what's important to you. Where do you want to be in the future, what do you want to have done and who do you want to have been?

Putting myself in that position, stripping back the layers and getting back to what’s really important has helped me do that with clients. They like hearing my stories too! It's a big adventure, right? Yes, we've talked a bit about the personal development side of it, but BeWild is a beautiful wild series of wild adventures too. People always ask, “so are you going away in the woods again soon?”!

The most important person is you and knowing what's at the heart of your soul and that's what BeWild allows you to do. To actually understand the essence of you. So my mission now is to take my essence and broadcast that in everything I do. You won't see a different Sam in the workplace, at home, out in the woods. She’s the same person!”

What's the impact, for you and those around you, of you being that same person?

“For me it's just letting go, so it's like I can ride on the tide. Be on the current and like I don't have to fight upstream anymore; I can just let go and be taken along on the ride, down the current of the river.

For others I'm a role model and I've started daring to share my philosophy and my understanding of what I've been through. Because I've been doing it now gradually over time and I'm continually evolving, it just becomes second nature. For example I was chatting with two people in the same industry the other day and sharing how we treat our clients, and their jaws just dropped. It’s amazing, but they just didn’t realise you could work with clients in the way we do!

Rachel, who's my daughter and works with me, has not been in the woods but she benefits from all the things I bring back from my time out there. She had a similar situation as well yesterday. She was out with a group of fairly new advisers, but again similarly, the way that we do things here is streets away from what other practices do.”

What have been your highlights from BeWild?

“Wow, lots and lots of highlights! For me one of the main highlights has been the foraging. I'd never really done it before, and I’ve always had a wish to do it. Through Jen’s guidance and through us going out and finding things, I'm able to now see things in my own hedgerows or wherever I'm walking and I'm picking things to eat and use.

I even had a foraging book for Christmas and I can't wait. Yes, so foraging is the is one area that I've really enjoyed and I'm still getting through my daily dose of nettle seeds and I have a little bit of my elderberry tincture every day I and have not had any colds, all Christmas and all winter! Another area I’ve loved is the crafting, the “what can we do in nature with our natural materials”. [In BeWild] we carved our own spatulas or butter knives and I’ve now taken that further and I've been carving my own wooden spoon and I'm going to continue to carve with the wood in my garden.

I love being with the community of women because it's been really nice to share other people’s journeys as well. One of the most memorable times of last year was sitting around the campfire in December, and I was in front of a roaring fire, but it felt like I was indoors in front of a roaring fire, it felt that warm! And the warmth of everybody around us. We were telling stories, and we were singing songs. And it's a magical experience. I can only describe it as that and it's so needed in our world, in our lives. And we don't have that. If I could do it more than three or four times or three times a year I would!”

You knew someone who had been on BeWild the previous year, but you didn’t know Jen. You literally just decided it spoke to you, we had a conversation and you jumped straight in! But were there any reservations that that might have stopped you doing it?

“I was a little curious about the group dynamic. Whether they would be people I would want to be with over an extended period of time. After retreat number one, it was pretty obvious that that was not a problem. Everyone was wonderful! The first retreat is getting to know everyone, and by the end [of the year] we were just always super excited to see each other. We were all completely different people by then. I'm really excited about continuing the journey [in BeWilder] with some of our fellow wild sisters from last year, but equally meeting some that were with you the year before. I think that there'll be a new dynamic but equally powerful one because we've done the work in the BeWild year already.”

It's hard to describe what this work is and what people get out of it. Is there anything that you would say to someone who thinks it sounds amazing but they're afraid of jumping in?

“Being able to switch off and unplug from the noise and the busyness of modern life is probably one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves…being able to connect with nature, ourselves and build powerful connections with my fellow "BeWilders" has allowed me to dig deep and peel away the layers of judgement and expectation of modern life and just simply be me.

So first of all, if you are unsure about the investment, put the money question to bed, straight away. It's best value for money you're going to get in anything. Because you get that time to understand you, to support other people and to learn fantastic, really useful skills at the same time. So really it’s a no brainer. It’s a truly transformational experience like nothing else. It is really life changing!

Other things that come to mind is that it's not as physically challenging as people may feel it is. And everybody was so supportive, even if you weren't feeling up to certain things, everyone would be there for you. Equipment wise, again there was a lot of support. I had a lot of equipment because of my scouting background but things can be always borrowed as well so it doesn't have to be a big outlay of cost.“

Is there anything else that you want people to know or you want to share about your experience?

“What I would end with is that if you have anything that's tingling inside your belly in your gut that says “yes, yes this feels right”, then listen to it. If somebody outside says “why do you want to do that?” then that's their limiting belief getting in the way, not yours. You're already listening, or you're already feeling the signs that it's the right thing. So I would suggest that you try to block everyone else out, take yourself to a quiet spot and listen to what's going on inside, because if that's there now, come on BeWild and ohh boy will that come out even more! You'll not regret it and you'll be able to trust your instincts a lot more because of what the nature that you'll be surrounded with will teach you.”

Samantha Bradford

https://simplicityfp.co.uk/

Check out more BeWild client stories and reflections live from the fireside over on my YouTube channel here: BeWild: in the words of participants