Tamsen Garrie

Loving Living

As you know, I am a huge believer in Self-Leadership.  Self Leadership is the capacity and the commitment to take responsibility for and create our own outcomes. It is the opposite of shifting responsibility for those outcomes onto other people or circumstances.  Learning to self lead is challenging as it goes against our natural tendencies, but once we stop looking externally for motivation and accept that it is an internal job, we are able then to achieve our goals and to enjoy the journey of discovery along the way.

I am priviledge in my role as Network Director of 4Networking to be able to observe the personal journey’s of many, from adversity and fear to independence and self-belief.

Denise McCallum of Detective Denise is an inspiring lady with a powerful story to tell and I am honoured to have her share her story here:

Loving Living

I’ve learned over the years that there are lots of things I can’t control, but what I can control is my attitude and my reaction to those things.  That’s not always as easy as it sounds.

I had a business in computer repairs along with an ecommerce shop.  It was ideal for me as I could run it from home, around my three children.  We then added ‘catalogue returns’ to the portfolio and soon we couldn’t move in the house for boxes.  Against my better judgment, we decided to get some premises.  You see, I was always easily led; I had this thing that I needed to please people, and apparently, getting premises was ‘the way to do it’.

While all this was going on, I was going backwards and forwards to the doctors with non-descript symptoms that often left me crippled with stomach pain.  After a colonoscopy, I was diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome.  The pain continued and my GP suggested I had gall stones and sent me off for an ultrasound scan. The following day, I got a call from the GP asking me to ring as soon as possible, I knew then that something was terribly wrong.

The oncologist I was sent to told me that my liver was a mess:  How did I look so well? I was sent for scan after scan but nothing uncovered the source of the problem.

On 12^th September 2001, I was booked in for a biopsy, and afterwards, I lay flat on my back for 6 hours watching the Twin Towers fall on the TV.  I stopped worrying from that point, I felt it didn’t matter what the result of the biopsy was – at least I would have a little time to right a few wrongs, do a few things I’d always wanted to do and make sure my children were sorted.

The result of the biopsy was that I had Carcinoid Syndrome, the prognosis at that time around 3 years.

A few days before, I had landed the biggest deal of my life:  A £42,000 contract to supply computers to a national charity.  I set up accounts with several suppliers, maxed out several credit cards and borrowed off my parents to fund it.  It soon became apparent that I had been taken for a ride by a con woman.

I managed to scrimp through Christmas before deciding that I was going to quite literally walk away from it all.  This might sound depressing, but in fact it was a wonderfully liberating experience.  I was running a business in a way I didn’t want it to run, I had damp awful premises where I kept a cot, and the TV babysat while I tried to work.  I was living in a house I didn’t want to live in and actually all I wanted to do at that point was tick off some of the things on my ‘bucket list’ and enjoy whatever time I had left with my family.

I didn’t go back to the unit after Christmas.  Instead, I wrote to the creditors and told them if they wanted the house, to “come and get it”.  We moved to a lovely country house and did some seriously fun things for the next three years.

Over those three years I took a great interest in natural health.  Some new treatments that had been developed saw my life expectancy rising (carcinoid is the best cancer to get if you’re going to have one because it’s the one they experiment with to find treatments for others!)

It dawned on me around that time that I’d literally been sitting around waiting to die for three years and that when that didn’t happen I had no idea what to do next.

I had ballooned to 15 ½ stone from inactivity and my self-esteem was at an all-time low, but I’d been using natural health products for my son and myself with really good results and I saw an opportunity to help other people and start a little business for myself at the same time.  The business was a network marketing company, I wasn’t entirely keen on the whole down-line angle but I did think that lots of people would love to hear my story and receive the same help I had.  Boy did I come at that from the wrong angle!  I soon learned that people hate to be told what they need and to make things worse I wasn’t getting support from those closest to me.   Comments like “how many of your trinkets have you sold today?” felt like a pat on the head:  “Now, play nicely Denise, while the real workers get on with their jobs”.

I attended lots of motivational meetings and I learnt that you need to get out there and talk to people to make any money in this game.  Business networking was mentioned.  4Networking that had just launched in Northallerton and so I went along in March 2009 to try that.  I had no idea what to expect and I rambled through my 40 second pitch.  I wasn’t sure what I was trying to sell, but I was made to feel incredibly welcome. It felt ‘right’ and so I joined.

Soon after, I heard Brad (MD of 4Networking) speak and the line that hit home was this:  “If you don’t look forward to Monday mornings, you’re in the wrong job”.  He was right.  I literally decided there and then that I needed to find something else.

I’d had the good fortune to sit next to Nick Hill (Mr Presenter) in that meeting and, recognising that I needed to invest in myself, I booked a session.  I looked at my background:  I’d been in loss prevention, computers and an avid genealogist but none of those fit.  Through conversations with another 4N member who was a Private Investigator, I realised that this is what I really wanted to do.

It’s been over two years and everyone says I am a different person.  I’m not.  Actually, I am simply the person I want to be, doing the stuff I want to do and as a result of gaining self-belief and confidence, and losing the excess weight, I am loving living for the first time.

As I said at the start, I’ve learnt that there are lots of things I can’t control, but what I can control is my attitude and my reaction to those things.  Now, I concentrate my energy on the things I can control and what I’ve noticed is that others feed off my positivity.  That makes a difference in their lives too, so, I also fulfill my desire to help people (whether they like it or not!)