Turning 40 and the Powerful Magic of Personal Development

Forty Drinks

Turning 40 and the Powerful Magic of Personal Development

Angie Simmons remembers being happiest around when she was 30. She met and fell in love with someone. They bought a house, got married and had a baby girl they named Summer. Then, on the day after Summer’s second birthday, her life imploded when her brother was killed riding his motorcycle to her house. That led to a bunch of dark years where Angie felt stuck in an endless loop of things not going well. A chance Facebook message from an old school friend, and a single audio CD changed her life so much that, 10 years later, when her mom died she was able to process her grief and sadness in a much healthier way.

Guest Bio

Angie Simmons is a single mum and pet owner who lives in an old mining town called Mansfield in the UK. She is a qualified coach, personal development and mental wellness mentor, author, Inspirational public speaker, and the founder of the Growth Development Foundation.

Growth Development Foundation was born after five years of intense inner work, therapy, and study. By turning her mental mess into her message, Angie inspires, empowers, and supports open-minded mission-driven Individuals, who are looking for change but are not sure how. Angie helps them create a life of fulfillment, find their unique power within, improve their mindset and gain more clarity by helping them untangle their internal world so they can expand their external.

The Best of Times, The Worst of Times

Angie Simmons looks back at the time she was around 30 as the happiest time in her life. She met and fell in love with her brother’s best friend. They bought a house, got married and had a baby girl they named Summer. Then, on the day after Summer’s second birthday, her life imploded when her brother, who was her best friend, was killed on his motorcycle while he was on his way to her house.

She felt guilty because she was the one who introduced him to motorcycles. She started drinking to deal with her grief and, on top of some anti anxiety medication, it numbed her out. For the next two years, Angie tried to stay busy but she never really dealt with her grief - she didn’t know how. Then, on Boxing Day in 2009 her husband left and Angie says she hit the self-destruct button.

She found herself in significant credit card debt, which made her feel like she had to work all the time to pay the bills. She even started a dog grooming business on the side. But that meant that her daughter was with other people most of the time, either in an after-school program, with one of her grandmothers, an aunt or her dad. And Summer wasn’t doing well, either. She was being picked on at school, unhappy, angry, at the bottom of her class.

Angie says this went on for what felt like forever. She says it was like a bottomless pit. Every time she clawed her way up a little, she slid back down again. She felt like a failure.

The Day Life Changed

Angie received a Facebook message from a school friend she hadn’t seen in 20 years. They went to get coffee and, when Angie learned she was a therapist, she unloaded. After hearing her whole story, her friend said she might be able to help, but that “help” came in the form of another business - network marketing. Angie was not amused, seeing as she was already on a hamster wheel. The friend gave her a CD and asked her to listen to it on the way home. It was a personal development CD.

Angie listened to the CD anytime her hands were busy and her mind started to walk. She listened to it nonstop for six weeks and realized it was starting to make her think differently.

Meanwhile, she was exceptionally stressed and struggling with her emotions so she asked her boss for two days off each month. In response, her boss asked how her dog grooming was going. Angie told her it was earning her a couple hundred pounds each month, which was helpful for paying her credit card. The boss said, "Well, you need to decide whether it's your job or whether it's the dog grooming."

If she hadn’t been listening to that CD nonstop for weeks, Angie might have been cowed. Instead, she said, "So I've got to decide whether I've got to build you your life, your business and your future. Or I've got to decide whether I've got to build mine and my daughter’s and our lives. Now let me think. You'll have my resignation on the desk by the end of the day.”

Angie wondered what she had done. Her family thought she’d lost her mind. Even her daughter exclaimed, “Mommy! The bills!” But Angie decided she was not going to build somebody else’s future and her own internal prison any longer. Then she wondered, if this CD can do that in six weeks, what else can it do? Within six months, the dog grooming business was earning a full time income with part time work. She was able to bring Summer to school and pick her up.

She doesn’t consider leaving that full time job a leap of faith, because she didn’t really have any faith at the time. Her advice for others in that situation is to trust in somebody that believes in you. Borrow somebody else’s belief. Her friend believed Angie could be an entrepreneur. And since her friend believed in her, Angie started believing in herself, which led to her building a life beyond her wildest dreams.

Tragedy Strikes Again

Angie had successfully taken control of her life. She had stopped drinking as self medication. She was working in her dog grooming business and in her network marketing business. And then, right around Summer’s 18th birthday, Angie’s mom died suddenly and she felt everything starting again. She felt the same pressures from her family as when her brother died. And she started with the same coping techniques, including making herself very busy. She noticed she was drinking more again. But this time she felt like she had a shield around her and fewer of the slings and arrows were getting through to her. She also realized that “no” is a full sentence and started to deploy it to protect her peace.

That one personal development CD she listened to, that one step forward, compounded into many other things. Now she’s excited for her future. Her daughter is thriving and following her own dreams.

When her brother died, Angie realized that she lost her spiritual connection. When her mother died, years later, she found it again. Somewhere along her path of self discovery, Angie learned about journaling. Her first reaction was, “who’s got the time?” She didn’t get it. But when she was cleaning out her mom’s house, she found her mom’s journal that had only two little entries. So to maintain a connection with her mom, she started using the journal. She wrote a couple sentences in the morning and a couple in the evening and monitored three key actions. Then she noticed how much that was helping her, so she went looking for a journal where she could track the daily steps she’d been using. She couldn’t find one so, in 2009, she became the published author of a yearlong undated journal.

When the Covid lockdown hit, Angie had to shut down the dog grooming business. She decided to become a coach and design her own mentoring program. Today, she's got big, scary goals, which she contrasts with her old self whose only goal was to get home and open a bottle of wine.

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