Being No Ordinary Woman
The time to become No Ordinary Woman is NOW
Joanna Petrie-Rout
This is a week I will never forget. I have been manifesting the incredible moments I have experienced this week for the past eight years. And now, they are my reality.
To understand this, we need to go back eight years.
In the middle of one of the most difficult phases of my life, my dream was born. As I look back now, I can smile at the irony. I had been dealing with years of infertility. The rollercoaster of endless hope, disappointment and heartbreak and was finally accepting that giving birth was not my path.
It was in that acceptance and release that what I was meant to birth in this world came through. Not a new human, but a vision for a mission that I was meant to lead.
I had recently returned from a walk which actually turned into a pilgrimage. During that walk I had been forced to go inside and look at me and my life through a new lens. It involved deep introspection and some home truths that I had no choice but to face. I shared with Rob that I felt it was time to give up on the dream of being parents and with sadness in our hearts, we let the dream go.
I had not appreciated at the time, that holding on to that dream was preventing a new dream coming through. I had been so blinkered that I had not allowed any space for any possibility.
Shortly after I came back from the walk, I received a strong intuitive nudge to rekindle my connection the law of attraction and manifesting and it was as if the spark in my soul was reawakened. I received intuitive nudge after intuitive nudge and suddenly a new possibility emerged.
I realised that my gift for seeing the potential in others they did not see in themselves put me in a privileged position to help them transform and create lives that felt extraordinary. I had spent years working in the field of human potential and development and as a coach and I suddenly knew this was my path to fulfilling my purpose.
As I sat in my home office one Sunday afternoon in early 2017, I suddenly looked at the mug I was drinking from. It said, “the right time is always NOW”. I had used that mug many times but suddenly I was seeing it in a new light. The words kept swirling round and round in my head and then suddenly it stopped, and I heard something so clearly it gave me goosebumps.
No Ordinary Woman. NOW
I knew my mission had been given to me.
I started work on it straight away. Deciding what I was going to do and who I was going to help. I had a brand image designed (it was pink, green and purple) and I started to be more visible online. I developed some short programmes, but it wasn’t really getting the reach I wanted. Something felt ‘off’. For 12 months I kept showing up, I posted, I shared but still nothing seemed to be working.
I was still working in my corporate job four days a week and had been considering stepping away to work full time in my business. In 2018, there was a plot twist. I was given a huge project to run. I was going to create a leadership academy that would help thousands of people be better leaders. It was a blank piece of paper, and it was exciting.
I grabbed it with both hands.
All of my creative juices started to flow, and I immersed myself in the project. I had told myself I could create the Academy AND work on my business at the same time, but it just didn’t work like that. I put ALL of me into the academy which meant there was not much left for my own business. Slowly but surely, No Ordinary Woman took a back seat.
The next few years went by fast. My work on the academy won an international award and was a finalist for two further awards. It felt so energising however if I am honest, I was starting to get bored. However, I had put my heart and soul into that project, and I could not face the thought of stepping away. So, I stayed.
Over the years, I tried to reignite No Ordinary Woman. I changed the branding (because if I am honest, pink, green and purple is not really me!), I even changed the name to Femmepowered but just kept starting and stopping. I started to believe that I was just not meant for it.
Then there was another plot twist. The funding for the academy got stopped overnight and everything I had worked so hard to build got paused. It felt like my heart had been ripped out of my chest.
I had never been someone who took time off work sick. Over the years, I had been so fortunate to be healthy, but everything started to unravel. I woke up one morning with severe vertigo, it was almost as though my world had moved off its axis. I ended up at the doctors, signed off with stress and was off work for a month.
I now realise that this was my mind, body and soul’s response to dealing with the loss of my heart and soul project. I also know this was the Universe working its magic for me.
You see, I realise that when I was given the chance to lead on the academy, this was the universe testing me to see if I was ready for my bigger mission and I wasn’t. It protected me until I became the woman who could truly step up and lead it in the way it was intended.
I now realised that the Universe was telling me it was time. Time to step up. Time to lead. If it had not moved the academy out of my way, I would probably still be hanging on in there instead of stepping up and stepping out.
But let’s get back to 2025. I was now fully holding the belief that in the next 18 months I would be leaving my career, going travelling and leading in my own business. The universe had other plans for me again.
I chose my word for the year and chose the word trust. I decided to tap into the gifts I have as a master manifestor. I decided to put my trust in the universe and my trust in me. It felt good. It felt aligned and I was eager to see what magic would unfold.
The universe was about to blow my socks off!
In March, I stood in front of an audience of 80+ women and delivered a talk on the power of creating an unshakeable identity. As I delivered the talk, I heard myself say something I had not articulated before. It was as if the world paused for a moment and I was looking at myself speak. I said this…
“I now know that I am here to live experiences, to learn from them and to share them with others and to help them lead themselves through it”
I received so much incredible feedback from this session that honestly it got a bit overwhelming, but I lead myself through it. It had felt incredible sharing my personal story and seeing how much it impacted the women in that room. I knew this was the path I should be on.
The following week, I was asked to join a sensitive project at work. The organisation was going to offer an early exit scheme to senior leaders only which meant I would be eligible. I could not believe it. It was as if the stars were all aligning in that moment and I honestly believed that this scheme had been written for me (with the help of the universe). As soon as it became available, I applied, and I was successful.
Which brings us to today.
Yesterday I left behind my 36-year career in the corporate world and with it a legacy of helping thousands of people to become the best versions of themselves in a professional sense. Helping talent rise and leaders be better leaders. It is a legacy I am incredibly proud of.
I have been blown away by the number of people who have reached out to say goodbye and the many cards and gifts that I have received. It has made me realise the impact I have already made in this lifetime. AND I also know there is so much more to come and as always, the universe has a plan.
Over the past eight years it has been easy to feel like my dream, my mission and my purpose have been far away. It has sometimes felt like the universe has been conspiring against me. What I now know to be true is that the universe had a plan all along and was asking me to trust its timing. There have been times it has tested me to see if I was ready and I chose the easy path. There have been times when I have said I am ready, and the universe has whispered back “not yet”.
I now know who I am at a head, heart and soul level. Over the past 8 years, I have had experiences that have grown me and shaped me in ways I could not imagine. Some of those experiences have been magical and some have been painful, but they all enable me to grasp my mission and deliver it in an impactful way.
So today I become the Chief Inspiration officer of No Ordinary Woman, and I am ready to lead a global mission to...
“Activate 100,000 women to break free from identities they have outgrown and to lead themselves in the direction of their wildest dreams”
I can lead this mission with integrity and authenticity because I have lived it and am living it.
I have worked through the doubt to discover what my purpose is.
I have taken micro steps and bold actions to move me in the right direction.
I have transformed into the woman who can lead other women in the direction of their dreams because it is my lived experience.
There is no hiding for me anymore. The right time is NOW, and I am ready to become No Ordinary Woman.
This is likely to be the last blog post I write as I move into this next phase.
Today I launched my new podcast. I wanted to use a platform where people could hear my voice and not just my written words.
It is not perfect, I am still learning BUT it is me role modelling the transformational power in taking messy, imperfect action.
I hope you will listen, and I would love to hear your thoughts and reflections so please drop me an email to [email protected]
P.s If ever I was in any doubt that I have made the right decision, last night in the sky there was a crescent moon and two planets that aligned to form a smiley face. I think the universe is happy in the progress I am making :-)
You can listen to the podcast here:
o
Ordinary
Woman
This is Personal. This is Collective. This is LEGACY
Becoming
Joanna
Petrie-Rout
with
