Clare Downham
Clare Downham is a Transformational Teacher and Life Coach. She is the Queen of Calm, but hasn’t always been calm! In 2015, she burnt out and did not work for a year. When she resigned and started a business, she got the idea that she wasn’t good enough. This led to a lot of self-development, therapy and reading to ‘fix’ herself. In January 2020, she learnt about the Inside Out understanding and saw that she was okay and did not need fixing. Now she helps busy founders, leaders and CEOs go from feeling stressed, overwhelmed and stuck to accessing calm, clarity and contentment more of the time.
What were your initial years of growing up like? Tell us about your life before the venture/ corporate journey?
There is not much to say about my childhood really. Typical UK middle class upbringing. High expectations as I was a bright girl. Fairly standard 1970s critical parenting and physical chastisement but nothing more than the norm at that time. Never quite felt good enough even then.
Every industry that is now a large-scale, top-notch business once started as a small idea in the minds of entrepreneurs. What was that idea or motivation that made you start your business/initiative? What motivated you within to say “YES, go for it!”
I tend to see that both my business journeys happened by accident not deliberately. My first business happened because I received an email 10 days after I resigned from my career in education. My second business is more passion based but still started by accident. A friend invited me to be coached as practice and it all started there.
I am passionate about sharing the inside out understanding now because I can see the potential it has to change the world and how humans are in it. I would love everyone to see what I have seen over the last 3 years because it has changed my life.
Tell us something about your initiative or current role. What is it about, and what impact are you trying to make?
The inside out understanding is a renaissance in psychology. It is a paradigm shift from thinking that our feelings come from the outside world to understanding the truth that our feelings come from inside us and are an indication of our state of mind. The inside out understanding is true for all humans all the time so it has the potential to change how we feel, think and behave but without endless tools. techniques and trawling through the past.
I want to share the inside out understanding and help people experience less stress, overwhelm and feeling stuck. In addition to this impact, I know that understanding that our experience is created inside out, impacts on every area of someone’s life. Relationships, physical health, creativity, energy, positivity, productivity and more.
I truly believe that this understanding has the potential to change the world.
Your journey and your vision are very inspiring, but are there any achievements or accomplishments you would like to mention?
I have been doing live broadcasts on LinkedIn since August 2020. I have created a podcast from these broadcasts called the Calm Cast which is making what I share accessible to more people.
Would you like to share with our young budding women entrepreneurs the change you would like to see in the world if given an opportunity?
I would love everyone to see that their feelings and experience of life is created inside out not outside in and for them to experience the freedom from victimhood which comes with this understanding.
Women are a growing force in the workplaces worldwide, standing shoulder to shoulder with their male counterparts. There are cracks in glass ceilings everywhere, with many women breaking through to carve out a space right at the top of the pyramid. What are your thoughts about women’s leadership today?
The most important thing in this drive to help women break through that ceiling is how they see themselves. This is more important than how the world of work sees women. If all women were able to be at a level of consciousness where they knew that they were not their thinking and that the negative things they think about themselves were lies and misguidance learnt through their conditioning, women would be smashing through those ceilings more and more.
What would you want to say to our young women leaders/audience reading this?
There is nothing at all wrong with you, you just think there is. You are perfect, whole and well and have access to everything you will ever need inside you.