We recently connected with Laila-Elizabeth Risdon and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Laila-Elizabeth thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

The idea for Indigo Brave was easy! We were actors and – whilst it had been enormous fun – the search for quality jobs was getting tiring and I wanted a family and to be more settle. A small group of us were lucky enough to get a great job doing ‘drama workshops’ for kids on subjects like bullying. This fitted completely with a growing desire in us to have more of an impact in people’s lives and support people in their creative expression. So we decided to start our own company and then had to come up with a name very quickly to apply for a grant!

We won a bid to provide these drama and self development workshops for a group of teenagers and we were off!! The following is an extract from my book which paints the picture of how we came up with the unique approach – the SELF model which has been driving force of all our work since!

“As we approached the dilapidated building which had once been a school, fear gripped my stomach; I was terrified. We were actors, so if someone offered a job we tended to say yes! We had been asked: “Would you like to work with a group of vulnerable teenagers using drama and music? We need to build their self-esteem”. The answer was “Yes, of course!”

The contract was to hold weekly group for sixteen-year-olds who had been found guilty of a crime – in most cases this was for drugs-related crimes or TWOCing (Taking Without Consent, otherwise known as joyriding or just plain stealing cars). We were asked to create a project that gave them something to do, engaged them and built their self-esteem. They weren’t in any sort of education and were just awaiting sentencing. Imagine their level of motivation and energy for life in general!

Most teenagers have a pretty good line in ‘what’s the point?’, but these guys had this in spades. They had already been found guilty and were just waiting to see how long they would be spending in prison. They were in no man’s land, and we didn’t have the faintest idea how to reach them.

We entered a cold, sterile, classic classroom with that cold, cream-tiled floor only found in comprehensive schools of the 60s and 70s, and those horrible plastic bucket chairs designed to wreck your back. Our hearts sank. We unpacked our gorgeous African Djembe drums and tried not to look as terrified as we felt. Our subjects and their ‘carer’ shuffled through the door looking a mixture of horrified, bored to death and disgusted.

The ten young men were completely cut off emotionally. They looked hopeless, or angry, or both. Secretly we felt utterly hopeless just looking at them; we had no idea what we were supposed to do. We had started Indigo Brave because we had had some measurable successes with hard-to-reach teenagers, but this was another level. “OK. We’ll be fine, surely?” But this immediately seemed to be on a completely different planet. The voice in my head said, “We are sunk; we have nothing.”

We tried to stay positive, smiley (but not too smiley.) “Let’s all get in a circle.” I said cheerily. They looked down at the floor with their arms folded and bodies twisted away from us; disengaged, disinterested, and pretty disgusted that they had been dragged here from their probation centre. No, they were not interested in a drama project, no, they didn’t want to be there, no, they weren’t interested in music, or telling stories and no, they really didn’t like our stupid drums.

You did not need to be a body language expert to know that these young men had zero motivation to be here and certainly did not want to engage with any of the theatre, drama or circle games we had planned. “OK, well how about a cup of tea?” OK, fine, they would have a cup of tea – right then. We ran down to the vending machine and got tea for all of them. The best interaction we got was “thanks, but where are the biscuits?”

Miraculously, the next week we were still up for the challenge! As the cup of tea had been the only positive experience of the session, the only thing we could come up with was to try to prove we were genuine by appealing to their stomachs! We brought in our homemade flapjack and a kettle and some decent sized china mugs (no more vending machine tea in plastic cups), so they could have as much tea as they liked! We also decided to tackle the sterile classroom environment and carried comfy chairs from the staff room to replace their terrible plastic ones, and put them in our (disdainful, to them) circle and played our beautiful Djembe drums till they arrived.

They laughed at us pretty mercilessly for playing our drums as they walked in – but at least that was a reaction of some sort! They accepted the flapjack and tea. But, no, they still didn’t want to do any drama games, and no, they did not want to play the drums. “We’re not kids you bloody hippies!”, they scorned. But they seemed to begin to believe, at least a little, that we (nutters though we obviously were), seemed to have some weird but genuine care for them. And we did, we adored all of them! All we could see were crushed, damaged young men who had been let down by ‘society’, abused and traumatised by ‘the system’ and who now felt like they had been left to rot on the rubbish heap, waiting for the inevitable.

“Create a project that builds their self-esteem” the project brief had said. We had jumped at the challenge, confident that Indigo Brave could reach anyone… but our confidence was seriously beginning to wane.

A few weeks went by and a lot of tea and huge amounts of home-made flapjack, biscuits and brownies were consumed. They still thought we were idiots, but they started to trust us just a little. They began to talk a bit in our circle. Share a tiny bit. Hold the talking stick without laughing their heads off at us. When they did, it was humbling in the extreme.

Their self-esteem was non-existent for sure, they knew they had done bad things, but the more we listened, the more the idea surfaced that ‘building’ their self-esteem was impossible – they were about to go to prison for crimes they knew they were guilty of. They had got caught, they had hurt people, they felt guilty, they were guilty. They felt utterly and completely wrong and furiously angry for being so wrong, and they “didn’t care”. Oh, how often they told us they didn’t care, but they did. They really did care, but they couldn’t care, because there was no point caring, no point in any of it. They were bad.

We wondered how we could go forward here.
“Don’t worry, what you have done isn’t so bad!” we could say. But that wasn’t true; they were going to get a custodial sentence.
“Well, Ok, it was bad, but it wasn’t your fault; you’re a victim of the system.” Not very empowering at this moment in their lives.

We settled on: “So what are we going to do with the time we have together, lads? We are here and we want to listen to you. We think you are worth listening to. We make theatre and tell stories and we think your stories are worth telling.” We let them know with every cell in our bodies and every word we spoke, that we thought/felt/saw/believed their stories and lives had worth.

Slowly we earned a bit more of their trust; and with more flapjack and plenty of sugar for their tea stories started coming out.

We still had no idea how we were going to complete the project brief and build their self-esteem. It did not seem even vaguely possible. When we tried to talk about any good stuff they had done, they clammed up – they couldn’t remember doing any good. There were also the stories of how a few of their friends hadn’t got involved, hadn’t been so stupid, walked away, and not done the ‘really bad’ stuff.

They told how they had belittled them – called them ‘chicken shits’ and a lot worse. The lads who had ‘bottled it’ were not held in ‘high esteem’. There were also stories of ‘harder’, ‘badder’ lads – the ones who had ‘done worse shit’, ‘didn’t care’, ‘got away with it’ and ‘not got caught’. The ‘worse’ things you did, the higher you were praised. The self-esteem picture was very confusing. We just kept listening and mirroring a place of non-judgement, of compassion, of acceptance.

Then came the session we were dreading: one of them was missing. Troy had been sent to prison. They sat still in the circle, gutted and seething angry, although they insisted, they weren’t. Much shrugging of shoulders happened that week. We silently sent them love and held a space for them. If someone had been checking up on us, we would, no doubt, have been in quite a lot of trouble – we were not doing anything! But we could feel their pain, we could sense their hopelessness.

Somehow, we were determined to let them know there was hope, that their lives had worth. Troy’s departure was painful. I remember processing my own feelings of hopelessness, my own regret at mistakes I had made, my huge failures, times when I wished I had behaved differently, times when I wished I could have seen some other choices. I had made loads of awful mistakes. I wondered: how was I still going? How did I have any self-esteem? What else was there when I hated myself so intensely? (And I hated myself very intensely at times). Perhaps there was something else at work that I hadn’t taken into account, another part of the equation, something separate, perhaps underneath the self-esteem? A different sort of relationship with myself; a place where the bad things I had done didn’t make me a bad person.

One night as I was preparing for the group, I drew a triangle. I thought if their actions were bad and inside this triangle was where their self-esteem was based, then could there be a deeper level untouched by actions, a ‘being’ level? Perhaps this was their worth? Not their self-esteem at all, but the deeper, supporting level of self-worth that was under it, the self-worth they didn’t currently believe existed; innate, inalienable, underneath it all. The beginnings of the Indigo Brave Self Model™ was born.

The model was simple, and the Indigo Brave team loved it. We were buoyant at the next session. “Ok guys I know things look bad right now, but…” – I drew the model for them – “but your actions live here. They are separate from your worth!” ”

The book is called “It’s not about Self-Esteem…. Self-worth is the key to success”

This has become the IDEA which has forged our whole business!

The dictionary will tell you that self-esteem and self-worth are synonomous, but they are not!

So we knew this was a unique approach which did not require a spiritual connection or meditation (although we had those things in our lives) other people did not and this solved a big problem!!!

The model got such great results for that group :)

“We spent every moment from then on separating their self-esteem from their self-worth. We set out to completely ignore their self-esteem, in fact, and just focus all our attention on their self-worth. We started to agree with them. “Yup, we agree, that was a bad decision, a behaviour that caused pain; yup, you did a really bad thing there.” But then we always followed up: “Now, that is strange isn’t it! What would a great person like you be doing, taking a choice like that?”

We worked on our body language; you were allowed to respectfully touch teenagers back then. We offered hugs and patted shoulders when it was invited. We never took our presence out of the room for a second. We worked so hard at every unconscious cue and body language message so that we were communicating the following on every perceivable level: ”

It had a profound effect and we were SO excited, fired up – super keen to get this work out in to the world! And that model has underpinned my life and my relationships and all my work since!!

Although now I can be found offering businesses a C-Change (Cultural Enhancements for a healthier, more sustainable business) or coaching top execs or working with our SELF Camp for vulnerable teens…. the basis of the work is the same :)

Laila-Elizabeth, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Indigo Brave is a tripple bottom line social enterprise. This means we audit ourselves on planet and people as well as profit.

We work with businesses, third sector organisations and individuals… anywhere where people want to affect real growth and change….

We exist to facilitate and inspire your growth so that together we can build a more sustainable, profitable and joyful world.

We (the business owners) live on a Sustainable Eco Small holding in a gorgeous passive house which is half under the earth and half a glass conservatory.

We coach individuals and one of the services/products we are most proud of is our Quantum Success Leadership programme. We have Quantum Success for Women Execs and Quantum Success for Men Execs. These programmes are Coaching plus E-Learning plus Group support and are having real success in supporting men and women to gain insight into what real success is in their lives and achieve it.
*promotion
*pay rises (up to 20%!)
*recognition
*work life balance
*challenging bosses
*finding a new job
*managing a team
*turning overwhelm in to growth…

All objectives that our course has succeeded in giving people the power to do!

Our Social Enterprise works with People with long term mental health challenges on the small holding where we live.
It also runs the SELF Camps for vulnerable teens (which we will be making available to all teens as of next summer!)
and we run the annual Basket Brigade for Nottm and Notts! This was an idea of Tony Robbins and we have been running it for 20 years now! Every year we provide baskets of gifts, treat food and a LOT of joy for people nominated to us by community groups or the local community, and then our team of volunteers pack and deliver those boxes! Exausting, Challenging and phenominally rewarding

Our Future Leaders programme works with Young Leaders and Apprentices and supports them to become the leaders we need for the future.

Our 121 coaching provides support for Leaders wishing to reach their potential and to grow their team’s and organisation’s potential.

Our C-change Programme offers bespoke Cultural Enhancement and Transformation so your business can be high performing and values driven and a source of pride and a powerhouse of the new future.

What am I most proud of?
We are still going 27 years on!!
The thank you’s we get when we have supported people to change their lives
Our work sticks!

My amazing kids
My successful 25 year partnership
My Eco home and lifestyle.
My Eldership to find ways to be part of creating a better future.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

YES! quite a few!! on May 13 2010, an arsonist set fire to our home, and burnt the walls and into the house, and it was uninhabitable for 9 months. I managed to keep the business going with the help of my amazing team. We had to live in hotels – with 2 small children – for 3 months till we found a place to rent. It was a very rough time!

The Dr asked me ‘how many happy pills would you like’ and I did collect those pills… but i never took them. I figured that if what I was teaching in my work, my coaching, my understanding of ‘HOW’ to be successful in this life in the truest sense (which I would say is Your Successful Life, living your true purpose, being your trueSELF), then the methodology should work in the darkest moments… and I was definitely in those! And that is what we did. We used our models, we kept on practicing what we knew, what we had learnt.. what we believed as true. Always building our resilience by looking only to what we can control and putting our power and energy there. It was a lot easier to forgive the arsonist (who was not trying to hurt us – he actually banged on the door to get us out – and he had set 17fires in 2 years!) than it was to forgive the insurance company!

We build enormous resilience in that time. We moved back in in February 2011, the arsonist was found guilty in April and we moved on to land to build our Sustainable Eco Home in August 2011. We now live in a beautiful Passive Eco home on a shared sustainability project and have realised so many of our dreams, thanks in no small part to the resilience and strenth from that experience.

The story is told fully in my book, “it’s not about self-esteem, self-worth is the key to success” available on amazon!

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Indigo Brave was founded in 1996. The ability to pivot has been the single most important thing that has kept us going. I love the word pivot, as it reminds me of my netball days – one foot must remain in place! For us that is our VALUES, we are firmly attached to our values, and that is our foot which is stable. This means we can be very flexible about the ‘way’ in which we deliver our values driven work to the world without losing our identity or our core.

In 2008 we lost all our education work over night. We had to make people redundant and it was extremely painful. We did this by maintaining dignity and respect at all times an taking responsibility for all our feelings and emotions. We knew what we had to do and we cried with the people we had to let go. We pivoted towards the Apprentice market which was gaining traction and it turned out to be the best thing. Everyone who left us at that time has gone on to amazing career and life success, carrying the Indigo Brave methodology with them.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.indigobrave.com www.selfcampsbyindigobrave.co.uk
• Instagram: indigo_brave
• Facebook: Indigo Brave
• Linkedin: Indigo Brave

Image Credits
Mathew Risdon Jo Welch Coe Media