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Dream deeply, rise up strong. A change is coming. These powerful words form the foundation of Manda Scott's revolutionary work, where ancient wisdom meets urgent contemporary need.

In this profound conversation, bestselling author and shamanic practitioner Manda Scott takes us on a journey from the world of pre-Roman Britain to our current precipice of ecological and social collapse – and most importantly, charts a believable path forward. The contrast she draws between "initiation culture" (the indigenous way of being that characterized most of human history) and "trauma culture" (our current disconnected paradigm) offers a framework for understanding not just how we lost our way, but how we might find it again.

Scott's journey from veterinary surgeon to acclaimed historical novelist to political visionary demonstrates the power of following one's calling, even when it seems impractical or impossible. Her Boudica series wasn't merely entertainment but a political statement – an attempt to show readers who we were before colonisation and who we could become again if we shed the trappings of what she calls "the predatory capitalist death cult."

Her latest novel, "Any Human Power," is her response to our current crisis – a "thrutopian" thriller that presents a path forward from our current reality to a future we'd be proud to leave behind. What makes her approach particularly powerful is that everything in her novel is based on solutions already being implemented somewhere in the world.

The conversation culminates in a powerful call to action, centred on healing ourselves, our communities, and our relationship with the living world. As Ursula Le Guin noted in the quote that inspired Scott's book title: "Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings."

Manda's Website: https://mandascott.co.uk/

Manda's Shamanic Dreaming: https://dreamingawake.co.uk/

Manda's Accidental Gods Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/accidental-gods/id1492827360

From Betty: 

✨ Join the True Wealth Membership✨
 A warm gathering of good people - with a big vision - doing deep inner work together; committed to being the change they wish to see. Each month: a live session with me, a private community, my full recordings library, and a direct line into this very podcast. £33/month, cancel anytime.
👉 [Join here: https://buy.stripe.com/7sYbJ13Ux9cU4w239IaVa0b]
First call: Friday 3rd July, 1pm UK / 8am ET.

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Tad Hargrave shares his profound insights on culture making – the practice of enriching our communities by honoring life transitions and creating meaningful ceremonies that acknowledge our significance to one another.

• Culture making addresses collective problems rather than seeking individual solutions
• The Orphan Wisdom School provided Tad with a taste of what culture could be – beauty, ceremony, and acknowledging what matters
• Most problems are not personal but collective in nature
• Creating ceremonies for farewells helps people know they mattered and had consequence
• Even failed attempts at culture making keep "the scent" of it alive for future generations
• Small acts like thoughtful toasts, intentional gift-giving, and slowing down important moments can create cultural richness
• The focus shifts from consumption to contribution – asking "what can I bring?" rather than "what can I get?"
• Traditional cultures contained deep stories behind everyday objects, creating meaning and connection
• Being willing to try cultural interventions, even imperfectly, gives others permission to do the same
• We don't need to wait until we need each other for survival to begin practicing village-mindedness

Sign up for Tad's Substack 'On Culture-Making' here: https://substack.com/@tadhargrave

And learn how to market your business beautifully à la Tad here: https://marketingforhippies.com/

From Betty: 

✨ Join the True Wealth Membership✨
 A warm gathering of good people - with a big vision - doing deep inner work together; committed to being the change they wish to see. Each month: a live session with me, a private community, my full recordings library, and a direct line into this very podcast. £33/month, cancel anytime.
👉 [Join here: https://buy.stripe.com/7sYbJ13Ux9cU4w239IaVa0b]
First call: Friday 3rd July, 1pm UK / 8am ET.

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Music by Ahmad Mousavipour from Pixabay

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Do you crave simplicity & spaciousness as a busy business owner & parent? Me too! 

Today's guest, Gemma Gilbert, is a down-to-earth & successful business coach, ex-teacher, and mother. She's built a successful business that works for her, giving her the spaciousness & balance in her life that she longed for when she was working in the corporate world. I had so much fun hearing her story. 

Here's what we talked about: 

• Winter morning dog walks & why mittens are superior to gloves!
• Gemma’s niche: a flagship evergreen group coaching model 
• Gemma’s story, from teaching to corporate, and how becoming a mother changed her priorities
• Coaching skills and how they don’t help you grow a business
• Choosing a niche when you don’t feel you have any particular expertise
• How Gemma grew her business as a new mother, and then realised it wasn’t what she wanted
• Gemma on her current offerings Amplify & Weeks That Work
• Creating balance & focus, as a mum with a business
• Betty on reading novels again after being obsessed with personal growth
• Betty asks Gemma about her experience at Summercamp
• Gemma on Satish Kumar and simple living 
• Gemma on her experience of speaking at Tad Hargrave’s London workshop last year 
• Meeting people you have only previously met online
• Gemma on feeling less confident in group environments
• Knowing when to NOT offer your opinions 
• Gemma on picking ONE THING to grow your audience
• Half-arsed social media and when to run ads
• The golden era of Facebook & Facebook Groups & the algorithm changes 

Find out more about Gemma at : https://www.gemmagilbert.com/

Learn how to scale one evergreen group programme to 10K+ months without exhausting launches: download Gemma's free workshop series

From Betty: 

✨ Join the True Wealth Membership✨
 A warm gathering of good people - with a big vision - doing deep inner work together; committed to being the change they wish to see. Each month: a live session with me, a private community, my full recordings library, and a direct line into this very podcast. £33/month, cancel anytime.
👉 [Join here: https://buy.stripe.com/7sYbJ13Ux9cU4w239IaVa0b]
First call: Friday 3rd July, 1pm UK / 8am ET.

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My friend & colleague, Debbie Lee, helps purpose-driven doers and dreamers design, build and grow businesses they adore. She is Business Mentor, Embodiment Coach, a Corporate Escapee and a "mum to two Duracell bunnies"

This conversation covers:

• Debbie on business as an eco-system
•  ‘Regenerative’ business’ vs ‘Extractive’ business
• Business as a vehicle to build community
• Collaboration for mutual growth
• My getting my needs met vs meeting the needs of the community
• Our obsession with productivity and how that lacks balance
• The importance of rest & replenishment in a world of optimisation
• Debbie’s own struggles with resting
• Cyclical ways of working; trusting the downtime
• Debbie’s previous position in the corporate world and the ‘always on’ mentality
• The shock of becoming an entrepreneur and creating your own schedule
• The analogy of the seasons
• The problem with the 6 steps to 6 figures way of thinking
• Success as an oak tree
• Somatic coaching: getting out of our heads & into our bodies
• Listening to & honouring your body-wisdom
• Accessing your intuition to grow your business your way
• What does it mean to embody the vision of your business
• Betty on the need to believe in ourselves as business owners
• The Pygmalion Effect
• Finding someone to fan the flames of your ‘inner spark’ of inspiration
• Debbie on the best ways to find out more about her and her work and book a gift session

https://www.debbielee.co.uk/

https://www.debbielee.co.uk/100-gift-sessions

From Betty: 

✨ Join the True Wealth Membership✨
 A warm gathering of good people - with a big vision - doing deep inner work together; committed to being the change they wish to see. Each month: a live session with me, a private community, my full recordings library, and a direct line into this very podcast. £33/month, cancel anytime.
👉 [Join here: https://buy.stripe.com/7sYbJ13Ux9cU4w239IaVa0b]
First call: Friday 3rd July, 1pm UK / 8am ET.

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IG: Betty_Cottam
www.truewealthwithbetty.com

Music by Ahmad Mousavipour from Pixabay

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Betty talks about her Buddhist teacher Ngak'chang Rinpoche (see episode 1), and how his teachings on Wealth and Appreciation have led her to believe that we need to first heal our pasts, in order to have the courage to become an individual -- and stop giving such a shit about what other people think -- so that we can do the work that only we can do in the world.

From Betty: 

✨ Join the True Wealth Membership✨
 A warm gathering of good people - with a big vision - doing deep inner work together; committed to being the change they wish to see. Each month: a live session with me, a private community, my full recordings library, and a direct line into this very podcast. £33/month, cancel anytime.
👉 [Join here: https://buy.stripe.com/7sYbJ13Ux9cU4w239IaVa0b]
First call: Friday 3rd July, 1pm UK / 8am ET.

FB: Betty Cottam Bertels
IG: Betty_Cottam
www.truewealthwithbetty.com

Music by Ahmad Mousavipour from Pixabay

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Laurence McCahill, together with his long-term friend and business partner, Carlos Saba, runs The Happy Start Up School, whose annual Summercamp in Sussex, England, is the UK hippy business owners event of the year -- where festival fun meets inspiring talks, workshops and invaluable network connections with like-minded entrepreneurs & change-makers from around the world. 

• Laurence tells the story of how The Happy Startup School came to be; from starting out with a design agency with co-founder Carlos; and feeling there was something missing somehow
• The evolution of Summercamp – from a one day event in Hyde Park and the evolution into a three day festival-style event
• Laurence on how growing up in pubs and in an Irish family gave him the vision for a more relaxed, authentic style of networking
• The power of letting go & saying “we need help” 
• The Summercamp Church of Fail - Betty on deciding to share her “fail” – and how it turned out not to be a fail after all
• The increased need for authenticity in business in the modern times - bringing your whole person to your business
• Laurence; we are bringing wellbeing & business together
• Betty on how being at Summercamp felt like finally being at home
• Laurence’s favourite moment of Summercamp
• Laurence tells the story behind Alptitude, a week-long retreat for business owners
• Betty asks Laurence for tips on starting & running an event
• The importance of finding a good venue
• What to avoid when launching an event
• Being ok with saying “I don’t know what I’m doing”
• Laurence on his and Carlos’s group coaching program Vision 2020
• Covid and cancelling Summer camp
• What / who is the happy start up school for?
• Laurence on his new podcast ‘50 WTF?’
• Laurence on a near fatal accident while backpacking in New Zealand, and how that has impacted his life

The Happy Start Up School website: https://thehappystartupschool.com/
Alptitude, Summercamp & other events: https://thehappystartupschool.com/events/

Laurence on LI: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/laurencemccahill

From Betty: 

✨ Join the True Wealth Membership✨
 A warm gathering of good people - with a big vision - doing deep inner work together; committed to being the change they wish to see. Each month: a live session with me, a private community, my full recordings library, and a direct line into this very podcast. £33/month, cancel anytime.
👉 [Join here: https://buy.stripe.com/7sYbJ13Ux9cU4w239IaVa0b]
First call: Friday 3rd July, 1pm UK / 8am ET.

FB: Betty Cottam Bertels
IG: Betty_Cottam
www.truewealthwithbetty.com

Music by Ahmad Mousavipour from Pixabay

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Kate Valentine is the founder of the highly acclaimed non-profit Singing Mamas. She knows the transformative, healing power of singing together.
 
After tragic events and living through heart-breaking adversity, she had a vision, and she WENT FOR IT. (And the culture of our country is changing as a result of that. IF SHE CAN DO THIS SO CAN YOU - trust your vision!)

Her story is one of utter alchemy, and I adored every second of it. I hope you will too. 

• How a teacher's harsh words put Kate off singing as a child
• How Kate losing her brother as a child led her to become an intensive care nurse
• Realising during the pandemic that she was going close to others’ trauma because she hadn’t resolved her own
• The idea “You’re either a singer or you’re not” and the damage that does
• How the burning of the witches has given women a fear of using our voices & shining
• How Kate’s friend ‘set her up’ and Singing Mamas was born
• Being a single mum to three sons, on benefits, working agency night shifts
• The mental health crisis new mothers face 
• The moment in the ICU when Kate decided to make Singing Mamas a reality
• Betty reflects on the need to knit communities back together
• Kate tells stories of some of the mothers’ experiences 
• Overcoming competition; and the power of women coming together
• Kate sings Cry Heart, But Do Not Break
• How Kate encourages the singing mamas leaders to collaborate instead of compete
• Where Singing Mamas is at now; being prescribed by the NHS
• The research behind Singing Mamas that is raising the credibility even more & helping get funding
• Kate on piloting a neonatal intensive care outreach program
• Being a singer, without needing to be a ‘performance singer’
• Performance & the false dichotomy between being an artist or being a consumer of art
• Kate on reclaiming the identity of ‘singer’
• Betty asks Kate about the science behind singing together as a means of lifting mood and decreasing stress & anxiety – as well as enhancing the connection between mother & baby
• Kate on the magical explanation of what she thinks is happening when we sing together
• Where to find your local singing mamas group, or if you don’t have one, how you can set one up
• Betty thanks Kate for her contribution in the world

From Betty: 

✨ Join the True Wealth Membership✨
 A warm gathering of good people - with a big vision - doing deep inner work together; committed to being the change they wish to see. Each month: a live session with me, a private community, my full recordings library, and a direct line into this very podcast. £33/month, cancel anytime.
👉 [Join here: https://buy.stripe.com/7sYbJ13Ux9cU4w239IaVa0b]
First call: Friday 3rd July, 1pm UK / 8am ET.

FB: Betty Cottam Bertels
IG: Betty_Cottam
www.truewealthwithbetty.com

Music by Ahmad Mousavipour from Pixabay

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Louisa Shorney is an artist, writer & healer. She is a student in the Aro gTer Buddhist lineage, and she also sings with Betty in the Savage Cabbage Blues Band. In the first half of 2024 she was a participant in Betty’s signature group program Ignite Your Power.

In this conversation:

• Louisa speaks about her energy & spirit work, animism, and the objects in her room
• Louisa on her intuitive childhood experiences 
• The power of story & Louisa’s fiction book The Sacred Forest
• Psychic / intuitive powers in the family
• Witchcraft & magic and how it’s not been safe to speak of these things
• Betty on witchcraft in Wales
• Louisa on resonance & how she can physically experience what another person is experiencing
• How Louisa navigates her healing sessions; getting the person to discover the issue for themselves
• Soul retrieval, parts work & other healing modalities
• What we work on is not the thread they’ve picked, but the whole knot
• The Medicine wheel and how it can be applied to areas of our lives
• The Great Smoking Mirror of our delusions & illusions 
• What is a shamanic healer? Where the term comes from, and what is meant by it
• Charlatans in the healing, coaching & therapeutic world; the dangers & how to spot one
• Using your intuition, and watching for knee-jerk responses
• Louisa’s experience of Ignite Your Power
• The phrase that 3-yr old Louisa heard from adults that impacted her lifelong financial wellbeing 
• Betty & Louisa discuss the power of hypnotic recordings
• The joy of finding people who can support you & circles
• How you can work with Louisa online & in person
• The crafts that Louisa practices

You can find out more about Louisa & her work at https://louisa-shorney.com/

From Betty: 

✨ Join the True Wealth Membership✨
 A warm gathering of good people - with a big vision - doing deep inner work together; committed to being the change they wish to see. Each month: a live session with me, a private community, my full recordings library, and a direct line into this very podcast. £33/month, cancel anytime.
👉 [Join here: https://buy.stripe.com/7sYbJ13Ux9cU4w239IaVa0b]
First call: Friday 3rd July, 1pm UK / 8am ET.

FB: Betty Cottam Bertels
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www.truewealthwithbetty.com

Music by Ahmad Mousavipour from Pixabay

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Ella Carey is a Naturopathic Nutritionist who lives in Cardiff & practices both locally and online. She was a participant in the second round of Betty's program Ignite Your Power, which provides childhood healing as a foundation for sustainable and ethical business growth.

In this conversation:

• Ella introduces her work 
• How our birth can affect our microbiome later in life
• How our bodies hold the wisdom re what we need to heal
• The heart field & how children’s systems pick up on our dysregulation
• Eliminating eczema & from non-verbal to verbal; Ella’s client success stories
• Ella’s (almost) 100% success rate with eczema & her family support group
• The gut-brain connection & detoxification 
• Ella’s experience of Ignite Your Power and how it wasn't what she expected
• Betty’s story of why Ignite is priced as low as it is
• Ella’s experience of the high price, high pressure sales tactics in the coaching world
• How you can work with Ella
• How Ella helped a lady heal her eczema & anxiety & overcome her fear of being seen

Ella's website: https://www.fullspectrumhealthwithella.com/ 
IG: https://www.instagram.com/fullspectrumhealthwithella/

From Betty: 

✨ Join the True Wealth Membership✨
 A warm gathering of good people - with a big vision - doing deep inner work together; committed to being the change they wish to see. Each month: a live session with me, a private community, my full recordings library, and a direct line into this very podcast. £33/month, cancel anytime.
👉 [Join here: https://buy.stripe.com/7sYbJ13Ux9cU4w239IaVa0b]
First call: Friday 3rd July, 1pm UK / 8am ET.

FB: Betty Cottam Bertels
IG: Betty_Cottam
www.truewealthwithbetty.com

Music by Ahmad Mousavipour from Pixabay

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Lauren Van Mullem provides copywriting support for coaches who want to grow their business without pushy, sleazy non-ethical tactics. She is passionate about helping people express themselves authentically. 
She also likes vintage fashion hat-making, tea, and chickens. 

In this podcast we talk about:

• Lauren's background & how she came to ethical copywriting
• what is ethical copywriting, and why it's so important
• how to present ourselves authentically on our websites
• a nifty trick for zhuzhing up your Zoom waiting room
• how to build a non-salesy salespage
• what is bad copy?
• Lauren reviews my sales page for Ignite Your Power - eek!
• Lauren's signature craft & copy sessions 

...and a lot more. I loved talking to her, and I think you'll love her too! 

You can find Lauren at https://www.truerwordsbylauren.com/

From Betty: 

✨ Join the True Wealth Membership✨
 A warm gathering of good people - with a big vision - doing deep inner work together; committed to being the change they wish to see. Each month: a live session with me, a private community, my full recordings library, and a direct line into this very podcast. £33/month, cancel anytime.
👉 [Join here: https://buy.stripe.com/7sYbJ13Ux9cU4w239IaVa0b]
First call: Friday 3rd July, 1pm UK / 8am ET.

FB: Betty Cottam Bertels
IG: Betty_Cottam
www.truewealthwithbetty.com

Music by Ahmad Mousavipour from Pixabay