Podcast S2:E3 - Creating Fulfilling Morning Rituals with Marsha Powell

You can connect with the amazing Marsha Powell over on Instagram, Facebook or her website!

Show notes:

(Please note that these are computer generated and therefore imperfect).

Ellie: Welcome to the capable collective podcast, a place for women who want to ditch the overwhelm and learn to run their business with ease. I'm your host, Ellie McBride. And I firmly believe that as women and non-binary folks, we are best as a collective. So together with my expert guests. We are sharing the tools, systems and ethos behind a simple yet thriving business.

This season, we are talking all about working with your natural rhythms and the episodes will be coming out every other Wednesday. I'm so excited to dive into topics like working with your menstrual cycle, living with lunar cycles, living seasonally, working from a place of rest and creating boundaries and so much more.

Ready to dive in. Let's go Marsha Powell, is the founder of Beleve UK, a London-based girls, charity that equips girls and young women with a support network skills and competence to make informed choices about their future, committed to the development and social mobility of young women. This HR professional uses all her transferable skills, knowledge and experience.

From her 15 year career and the city and her masters and personnel development to develop and sustain a platform that contributes to the female empowerment. And gender equality narrative in the Beleve UK gives girls and young women support guidance, education, confidence, self-esteem opportunities, positive solutions, and role models.

With eight years of experience, working with girls and young women, Marsha has developed and successfully facilitated the learning of over 5,000 girls aged eight to 19, contributing to their social mobility, improved educational outcomes and wellness. Believes outcomes are delivered through employability leadership workshops and career development support, a strong believer that every girl needs a mentor.

She has recently relaunched a mentoring and skills development program matching 50 professional women with 50 young women. The program is set to support girls and the next steps and their educational and career journey to ensure they have the right skills and support to achieve their potential and their goals.

Today we have the amazing Marshall Powell. I'm so excited. Can you tell me Marsha where you're from?

Marsha:  I am from Lewisham in terms of a bar.row So from a London perspective, I would say I'm a South girl. Um, and specifically I come from Brockley.

Ellie: Okay. Although  that as like I've been to London once on a work trip. All of that means very little time

Marsha: That's fine, They will know what i'm talking about .

Ellie: Very cool. Very cool. And so what are your preferred pronouns?

Marsha:  She, her.

Ellie: All good. And when did you start your business? So I know you have a couple, but, so tell us a little bit about when you started your businesses.

Marsha: Okay. So, um, My first business is a charity and I started that over eight years ago after the death of my mum.

So my mum died 10 years ago on the 10th of February.

Ellie: Oh.

Marsha: Um, so we just celebrated her 10 year of Parson. And during that period, I spent a lot of time with my mom and really appreciate in life. So appreciating the life that she had and. Really appreciate it. And that she was going to pass. And one of the key messages that my mum left me with was be happy with your life.

Everything you do be intentional and make sure it makes you happy. So, um, when she died, I decided to be happy. And it's our fraternity called bell Eve. And it works with young girls between the age of eight to 21. And. It's really about supporting girls and their confidence and self-esteem, but most importantly, developing leadership capabilities in order for them to be able to lead their own world.

So again, take charge of who you are and show up and be who you want to be. So, um, I started that eight years ago and then about four years into me starting the charity. I had an epiphany and that was all around. The gap in the market and in the wellness market well, I identified was that the wellness market or industry was, Oh, so what.

Ellie: Oh, yes,

Marsha: Yes. Oh, so White. Oh, so blonde and Oh, so tall and Oh, so skinny,

Ellie: Oh so very leggy

Marsha: Leggy. leggy And I don't fit into that because I'm a black woman and I'm five foot, one Covey. And I was like, okay, I feel there's lots of women who want to experience the wellness offering, but can't quite find their place. So don't want to go to a gym.

Don't want to go to yoga studio, where do they go? And also being a part of a space that has no judgment. So I've been to yoga studios where you feel like, okay, Because I can't put my leg around my neck. I'm not good enough. So I created a space, a beautiful space, actually called Eve and grace, um, in the practicing.

And the ethos was wellness with my judgment. So welcomed all women, no matter your race, your size, your color, we you're welcome to. And it was really successful. In supporting those women who sat. In between that gap of not wanting to go to yoga studio and not wanting to escape to a gym. Sorry. I achieved my objectives .

Ellie: That's so cool to hear. I've never really liked most traditional forms of working out either. Something like that would have been very, very cool. Um, and any of the places that I've lived.

Marsha: And, and for me, it was really about making sure we had a diverse and time tables that we did dance. We did bar Panola, tase and yoga. So, you know, if you came, you could get involved in all those different disciplines and still come away feeling good about yourself. And that's, you know, that's really important for women.

Ellie: It is really important for women. It's also really important when you're working out. Like you don't want to be trying to improve your own wellness or fitness or health, and then B the whole time being yeah. Or having to compare yourself to everybody else in the room who seems to be doing it so much better. Somehow it's so much better to work out with like real people.

Marsha: So that was the space.

Ellie: Very cool. And so you've kind of covered a little bit about how you started your businesses as well, but especially valuev, but how did you get in to starting this a little bit more of this charity and specifically what the charity supports?

Marsha: So when my mom died, I fully understood what it felt like. So it's like not to have a cheerleader, not to have a supporter. And I was, I was approaching 33 when my mom died and it made me realize that I was very fortunate. I had a great cheerleader, a sponsor, someone who supported me in everything I wanted to do.

Whether it was, I want to be a dancer too. I want to go back to university two nights a week. Can you look after my children, mum, and I think the, your role models and the support that you receive as a young woman, very much shaped you into who you will become. So with that, I was like, okay, I can see again, there's a gap in the market at the time.

There wasn't female empowerment. Wasn't really on the agenda. And there wasn't a lot of interventions outside girl guidance and Scouts for girls, especially in London, I think in the U S you know, they are trailblazing in terms of mentoring programs and. Go initiatives. So I was like, I could do this. I could make a real difference by supporting girls and raising the confidence and their self-esteem, but using my transferable skills.

So I'm HR business partner by profession. I know what organizations look for. I know what capabilities you need to develop to be a great candidate and actually to get a fantastic job. So I could just build all those things into my programs and create an organization that supports girls in raising their confidence.

But most importantly, bridging the gap between their aspirations and their reality, because again, lots of people have dreams, but just don't know how they're going to realize those dreams, who they need to connect with in order to make it possible. So that's really the framework of believe mentoring girls and connecting them with amazing women.

But most importantly, making sure that they develop the right skills and capabilities in order to be whoever they want to be.

Ellie: Yeah. That is very cool. I think you're right. Like people really, in general, a lot of people would struggle with sort of the strategy of getting to where they want to go and having help, whether that be, you know, in your case, helping women get from point a to point B or girls, or, you know, in. You know, my most recent cases, things like therapy getting from point a to point B kind of me clear my mind up a little bit when the pandemic hit or business coaching, because I, again, getting from point a to point B sometimes it's like how there are too many options.

Marsha: It's so important. I just think, you know, as women, we, um, we have such a big role to play in the world. And what we tend to do is play really small. And I just want girls to know that. They can do absolutely everything. Everything is possible. And I know that sometimes you just need one person to make you realise, actually one you're amazing until you can do this. So for me, believe is just so important.

Ellie: Yeah. And that sort of touches, it brings us right to our next question, which is. What do you love about your businesses?

Marsha: So as a person, I am naturally a server, so I like, I love to help. And in both businesses, it's really about a DDO service. So for the girls, I am, I become intrinsic in their next steps. You know, as a, as a, as a charity, we support, we empower.

Which is all a part of service and, you know, we've even grace again, you support and you empower women in reaching their goal, whether it's to lose weight, whether it's to clear their mind, whether it's to, um, strengthen it's it's. We are, we are a vehicle to enable, you know, our customers, our beneficiaries in moving from one place to another.

And that brings me joy. Seeing the transformation of young girls or women who come into our site.

Ellie: So in essence, you're helping people to live their most fulfilling lives is absolutely Epic.

Marsha: Yeah.

Ellie: So one of the things I like to tackle in this podcast is this sort of myth with solo entrepreneurs or small business women that we can do it all.

And we do, we do so much, but it's more the idea of. So often when you see social media, you see, Oh, they're doing this thing, they're doing this thing, they're doing this thing. How, and so I want to ask you what help and supports do you have in your business?

Marsha: Okay. So firstly, I do nothing by myself. I have amazing sisters who very much on my cheerleaders and whenever I have a crazy day, they're like, okay, she's got a crazy idea, but I know it's going to work.

Or we got to do is get on board. So my, um, sisters help me in both of my businesses, but we, we know our strengths, so I know what I'm good at. I know what my other two sisters are good at. And what we do is we play to Australians in order to ensure that the delivery of the service offering. Is of excellence.

And it also means that you've got your critical friend by feedback is good. And in order for you to grow, you need someone who's going to say that didn't work well. And this is why I believe. Or you could do this better. So I think in business, whether you are a solo entrepreneur, you still need to have a sounding board, whether it's a mentor or a coach or a therapist.

Ellie: Absolutely. I think that having those types of supports can be inevitably so good. You need the height person. That's going to be like, you can do it, you can do anything. And that for me is typically my best friend. And more, the more critical person, um, often is my husband and I, and he's an entrepreneur as well, and we can bounce ideas off him, but I also don't listen to everything he says, because he is in a completely different industry than me.

And I  it's funny because he's a software developer. So it sounds like we do the same thing, but we don't like he builds apps, you know, like, and we're in completely different spheres of who we work with and how we work. And so, yeah, it is something where you have to, you have to have that person that's helping you get feedback, but you also need to know when you're right.

Marsha: Correct. However, I was listening to a podcast this morning by Yolanda Benson and she said criticism is still feedback.

Ellie: Oh, yes. Yeah. So my business coach always says that criticism is often more off, is often feeds back about the other person.

Marsha: Yes.

Ellie: Okay. And then the other question I like to ask is more around the tools and systems you use in your business to help simplify. So do you have any simple systems or tools that you use to help you do your business with ease?

Marsha: So. My number one tool is a things to do list is so simple, simple, but so necessary. It really empowers me more things to do lists. So ticking off things off my list makes me feel happy and it makes me feel like I'm moving.

And I think obviously sometimes when you are in the detail, it can feel like you're not going anywhere. So just having that list helps you feel more accomplished when you get to, and even if you don't get to the end at the end of the day, you can still see what you have achieved within that day. So things to do lists all day, every day.

Ellie: Yeah. Yes. Do you have any other systems or tools that you use?

Marsha: Um, so. There are a number of systems. So, um, you know, we have regular meetings, which is a part of our systemizing to make sure that we're communicating effectively. We use a number of tools in order to be more efficient and effective. So we use MailChimp in order to communicate with our external customers.

And I actually use Google for some things. And, um, Microsoft three 65 for some things. And it's, you know, for some people they'd be like, why don't you just use one platform because they're both great platforms and they do things slightly different. And there were some things I like on Google. There's something I confuse. It's fine. So I just use my, for them,

Ellie: Yeah. I mean, we all have to work. How, what works for us.

Marsha: Yeah.

Ellie: Yeah, absolutely. There's no one size fits all model for how you do business.

Marsha: A hundred percent.

Ellie: Yeah. I love hearing. I mean, I'm like a massive like tech geek, so I'm like, what tools are you using? So to make your visits easier until I biggest it's like one of the things that I love love, love, and

Marsha: I'm not techie. So I actually have sometimes phobias and I won't go, it's something new. But I know that there were some things that are just necessary.

Ellie: I think that that phrase right there is exactly why I created the capable collective. I cannot tell you how many times a day in my work, I hear the phrase. I'm not techie as a tech VA back before and in websites and things.

Like, what I love is helping women feel like that they can, can grasp those things a little better,

Marsha: But nothing about me and what I get excited about,

Ellie: We are here to talk a little bit about working with our natural rhythms and cycles. So tell us a bit about how you do that?

Marsha: Okay. So I have a morning routine. I go to bed. I actually go to bed quite early in some, I guess, in some people's world. So by about 10, 10 30, I am comfortably in bed and most probably be sleeping. So I fall asleep before my children, however, I am a DY, . So I wake up roughly about four Oh very early riser, very early riser. So within that, what I try to do is, you know, I don't get hot brides you way cop.

So I have rituals that I conduct in order to start my day. And it's really about. Giving myself an opportunity to send to myself. Like energy's a big thing for me balancing my energy, but also giving myself time to reflect. So I do meditate and I pray because I I'm a Christian. I saw, I believe in God. And so I pray, I do a gratitude prayer where I'm thanking God for just waking up, especially in this time.

Um, where people are dying quite suddenly over COVID. And then I have morning tea, so I have black tea. I want to say two sugars. I should only have one, but I do have two sugars. And again, I tend to have it on my dining room table, and it gives me time again, to think about what might, what I want to achieve with my day.

Ellie: Yeah, I think a good morning routine is so essential because it gives you time. Like you said, to center yourself to set your intentions, to check in with yourself. I would be not somebody who's very good at taking the time to check in with myself. I do try and journal, but I don't do it enough and so much.

Can be solved internally that you don't, sometimes you don't even know you're facing certain things or that you're stressed or that you're whatever, until you check in. And I think that having routines and I know some people would have, so it sounds like, you know, you have your prayer and meditation and your tea.

Um, for me it typically looks like getting up and I. Tidy the house a little nuts. It's quiet. Like there's no, no. You know, and then I do some form of moving my body. It used to be, I started couch to 5k in September, and then it got really cold the last couple weeks, um, last few weeks to be honest. And so, but around that same time, Apple fitness plus came out with their thing.

And so in front of my TV, I yoga or dance or. Sometimes do hit workouts.

Marsha: Okay. That sounds good.

Ellie: Having different phases of a routine are really important. It's just sorting out kind of what works for you. I know a gal who wakes up every single morning and the first thing she does, um, and we're going to have her on the podcast here soon, Sasha, and she journals where her mood.

What her body feels like, how she slept and what she's doing with her. Um, like how she feels about her word of the year, so far for that day. Like, and then, you know, she probably flows from there because journaling is her, her superpower. Like, she's very good at it, but yeah, I think that finding the things that really work for you, that set you up for a day of being centered, being grounded, being intentional. And helping you like tackle whatever it is you have to face that day.

Marsha: I think it's important for TVs ends because it gives you a compass when you don't feel good, you will know that you don't feel good because you, your, your routine will kick out and that's whether you're too busy, stressful, or your body's telling you something.

So the routine is really to support you. In understanding whether your well.

Ellie: Yeah. So is part of your morning routine, also setting up that to-do list?

Marsha: Yeah. So after, after I, um, shower and then get on the table then to do this is always written. And like I said, I'm not saying I always complete everything because my to do list, I always say intentions influence behaviors.

So. It's always about, you know, put down as much as you, you believe, but what are your two big things that you're going to do today? And maybe what are the two little things that you can achieve today? So being realistic with that to do list, because again, it's not about, Oh, I feel like I have not achieved because I haven't completed all of my to do list. It's about, I've done as much as I could.

Ellie: Right. So it's about balancing that like, What I can realistically achieve with maybe like a slightly ambitious stretch is correct. And being okay if you don't cross everything off.

Marsha: Yes. And I think we need that. We need, we need to always be aiming higher in order to continuously be growing as people, whether it's stretching your mind, stretching your, your, your, your physical agility.

We need that. So, you know, I might have 10 things on my list, but I'm telling you, I don't cross off 10.

Ellie: I keep my dates in my list digitally, as most people that know me would know. So, but there's times that my brain feels a little cluttered or like I have a lot on, and I write things down and it helps, like, it definitely helps.

Do you have any tips or tools for people getting started with creating their own morning routine?

Marsha: I think you should do things that you like or enjoy and put them on your morning routine. So if you like coffee, you should drink coffee. You know, if you like reading, you should read for half an hour because that's your time.

I think, you know, your morning routine should lead you to joy. Tammy Thomas. It should move you to joy because you have to own it. So at least enjoy it, whatever you do.

Ellie: I love that that's probably going to be the snippet for this episode. Your morning routine should lead you to joy, so you have to own it. I love that.

So coming back to your kind of life and business, um, what would you say was your biggest win in business so far?

Marsha: Okay. So I went to say my biggest win was, I think it was the second year, second year of believe we had a hundred gals on a summer camp and they absolutely had a board of a time over the four weeks that they were with us.

And I guess the reason why it was a win was because when we had never done it before to the girls, all enjoyed themselves, immensely and girls are very different from boys. Go smiling you've won, but most importantly, yeah, again, it's, it always comes back to how are you making a real difference? And I was able to tangibly see how we made a good difference in that period of time and the girls came back, you know, and if you can retain girls again, you're winning. So, yeah, that was one of my, one of my biggest highlights wins.

Ellie: So cool. That in your first year of running that camp, that it, we were like so successful and that you managed to pull together that camp a four week camp is like a feat in itself, like four weeks, four weeks.

Like I went to summer camp as a kid and I remember it was probably like 10 days, like four weeks.  

Marsha: Four weeks, you are naturally just wanting to lie right down because it's the, it's actually the mental stress, the mental. Capacity that you have to switch on because you're looking off to someone else's child and children.

You've got to think about safeguards. And you've got to think about ensuring that, you know, all the activities run on time. You've got to make sure that all your staff are doing what they need to be done. Yeah.

Ellie: You're like an organizer brain all the time for four weeks. Oh, I was a camp counselor, um, for a medical camp for a medical career exploration camp for five years, for five summers.

And it was every summer, just one week out of every summer that I went to help a bunch of teenagers learn about medical careers, because especially in rural. Rural rural, rural communities. Like when you think of medicine, you kind of think doctor, nurse, dentist, and there's so many more career opportunities.

So it's really to teach kids in rural areas to get involved in those. And anyway, every summer, like it was, it was still that thing of like, Even at night, you know, you, you have to be sort of on, you have to be listening. If kids are to each other's rooms or if a girl's crying in the bathroom or, and so forth, you're not ever off.

And I couldn't like four weeks would be a lot. Um, but to also, not only just to have such a success, but to have a hundred participants in your second year of business, like you've had quite a lot of great recruitment there. That is very cool. Very cool. And what would you say has been your biggest mistake or learning experience?

Marsha: So I'm going to talk about even grace. So when I started even and grace, I had great intentions. I knew what I wanted, but I had never run a studio before. So I didn't know what I didn't know to be fair. I think my biggest mistake was not finding a good. Business coach who had been in the wellness industry or done something in that space because there was lots of trial and errors.

And whilst obviously we've, Charlynn Evers. It means that you're learning, but there are some things you don't need to learn.

Ellie: There's some things you don't need to learn the hard way. Yeah. Thanks to a mentor or someone in the space could have probably helped with I get that.

Marsha: So I think that would be, that would be my thing.

So I'm an advocate of mentoring. And I would say if you don't have a mentor, you should definitely have a coach. It doesn't matter where you are in business, because having someone guide you be your critical friend challenge you, but also support you from not just a business perspective, but mental perspective is so important.

Ellie: Absolutely. And I think, again, that's sort of why the capable collective has been created because I really, my big passion is helping women feel. Like, they don't have to make their mistakes in tech or in software, around their business or in systems like the curtain needs to be pulled back and women need to be talking about how they do business and the, like the technical critical nitty gritty sense, because you shouldn't have to go down a Google or YouTube rabbit hole to figure this shit out.

Marsha: Yeah,  yeah. Do you know what again, as women, I think we find it difficult. To be vulnerable. Whereas a man, he won't get it and he'll say, I need help. Can you help me? And he'll find help. Well, we as women. We want to work out. We want to figure it out. And sometimes it's to our own disadvantage.

Ellie: Yeah. I think that women need to lean into their, up to our strength, that of community. We're really good at building community. We're really good at helping and kind of doing this collective thing. Right. Um, something I talk about on my website a little bit, is that like. Up until pretty recent times children were raised as a collective.

Like all the moms in the community were moms to everyone. Right. And so I think women need to lean in to the fact that we are so good at building like a community system and built, leaning on that when you can, and it can be harder to find these days, like, you know, than it used to be, but they are out there. And if you can find your people, it means...

Marsha: Definitely, definitely. I agree with that.

Ellie: So are you working on anything exciting right now?

Marsha: So I don't share this much, however, I am. Okay. Founded a surveying business three years ago.

Ellie: Oh, cool.

Marsha: So we, we, we say we're in more of the tech space because obviously we use online as a vehicle to, um, get our customers.

It's a business. I have no experience in. However, again, I think if you have good systems, you know, how's good systems and processes in place, you don't have to be the expert. What you need to do is lean in to your expertise, which is. For me, it was putting the systems and the processes in place. My button-downs hate trauma, as I said.

So really focusing on the areas of the business that I was able to shift from. Good to excellent. And three years on, we have a growing workforce of surveyors and we now employ 30 people.

Ellie: Oh, very cool.

Marsha: But yeah,

Ellie: I think that's so cool though. Like you are. In a very different way from your other businesses making a difference.

You're you're helping people. You're making the system easier.

Marsha: Yes,

Ellie: Because from, I never done anything in that area, but I've heard getting all of that stuff done is not a walk in the park.

Marsha: And that is our main vision. Our vision is to become a one-stop shop. So the organizations called reliable property group and our brand ambassador is Rio Ferdinand.

So that's quite cool. And our objective is to really, like I said, be the one-stop shop whereby if you're a first time buyer, you can come to us and we'll be able to support you with your conveyancing and your surveillance and you'll move.

Ellie: That's really, really cool. You wear a lot of hats.

Marsha: Yeah, I'm a Leo. So, um, you know, I challenge always, I'm always out for challenge.

Ellie: Amazing. Well, thank you so much for coming on. Can you tell everyone where they can find you?

Marsha: Okay. So you can find me nine times out of 10 behind believe @marsha_powell_and_grace, our website is up. Um, but on Instagram I also have a personal account and it's Marsha Powell and grace.

Ellie: Very cool. Thank you so much. And I will make sure that all the links to. All the things we've talked about will be in the show notes. And you should definitely connect with Marsha. She's just, as you can tell, like a force, like there's so much like a force for good it's so it's amazing. And yeah. That's thank you everyone for listening today.

Marsha: Thank you Ellie Thank you!.

Ellie: Thank you for listening to the capable collective podcast. I really hope you enjoyed this episode and have gotten value from it. If you did, please subscribe on your chosen listening platform. And if you happen to be listening over on Apple podcasts, please take a moment to leave a review. It helps other people to find and trust this podcast.

And it would mean the world to me. This episode was edited by Emily Crosby media. She's amazing to work with. And if you are looking to start a podcast or for some practical media solutions, definitely check her out. Thank you so much. Again, have a great day.