This story is about…
Female Entrepreneur: Adèle Théron
Location: UK
Company: Naked Divorce
She started her business because: she went through a divorce and couldn’t find anything to help her heal quickly.
Age range: 30s
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your business…
My name is Adèle Théron and I am the founder of Naked Divorce – a company dedicated to providing support for professional men and women in healing from divorce within 21 days. I have spent 12 years in change management and am a specialist in how to facilitate people through massive change, fast.
What was your main motivation behind starting your business?
I went through a divorce in 2009 and could not find anything to help me heal quickly. As a professional career person, I also didn’t have the luxury of time to fall apart so therapy and counselling definitely didn’t work for me. I therefore reckoned that I was the one I was waiting for, and got busy creating a programme for myself. I put myself through it and had a massive breakthrough – after that, loads of people around me wanted to do the programme too and it grew from there!
What’s a day in the life of you like?
Crazy, varied and a lot of fun. I spend a lot of time abroad running change and trauma programmes across divorce and corporate change, so a typical week is some time based in London working directly with clients, coaching my Divorce Angels to support clients and running change and trauma programmes internationally. The big game is to create change/trauma programmes across ALL major life changes and to revolutionise the amount of time you need to heal from a trauma based on the trademarked technology I developed running underneath Naked Divorce.
What challenges have you faced?
There have been some therapists, counsellors and old-school critics who have lamented about my programme being too fast and it being ‘impossible’ to heal in such a short period of time. Therapy and traditional healing practices have based their disciplines on the premise that you need time to heal. I often hear of counsellors giving people advice similar to, “you just need some time to process everything.”
The concept of needing time to heal is consequently so ingrained in our society, that challenging this notion is usually met with an extraordinary amount of resistance, and in some cases, even anger or dismissal. The thought of healing quickly feels fake, shallow or unbelievable and could be misconstrued as a trivialisation of the healing process. Healing does not need to be a long drawn-out horrendous nightmare. Healing can be a journey of self-discovery. It can also take a shorter period of time than you can even imagine according to the new sciences and technologies that I base my work on.
What I discovered in the early trials I ran was that healing is definitely not a passive process where you sit on someone’s couch once a week. Real healing requires an active engagement with the subject matter with focused intensity. Without some kind of focused intensity, human beings would not be interested in doing the work to heal as it’s easier to take the road most travelled. The naked divorce is not about waiting or wondering what to do. It’s an intensive healing journey. It’s about taking your healing into your hands and taking action. The programme has been created in a way that virtually guarantees your healing, provided you do everything it says to do in the way it says to do it. That is a bold claim, but over the two and a half years of trials, I worked with so many people of different ages, backgrounds and divorce situations that I know the program works.
How have you overcome the challenges?
I did the work and I have the results to show for it. I have sufficient case studies and evidence which illustrate that the critics are wrong. You don’t need time to heal a wound. This has consequently given me confidence to challenge traditional professions and give people a choice about how they would like to take on their healing.
What is your biggest achievement so far?
On the surface, one could say some of the PR we have had or the distribution networks/ television programmes interested in what we are doing, but in reality, it’s the women and men who heal and in particular, the children who thank us for giving them their mums and dads back. That is the most fulfilling part of the job.
How have you raised the awareness of your business?
Writing the book (The Naked Divorce for Women) raised major awareness, and social media is a good friend of ours. Other than that, it’s about networking with the right people and just keep plugging away with determination at getting the message out there.
How do you keep motivated through difficult times?
My boyfriend, Simon is my absolute rock. He is such a positive influence in my life. I would also have to say a big thanks to Mike Harris, my mentor and founder of First Direct as well as Daniel Priestley (who founded the Key Person of Influence (KPI) programme) – who have both been incredibly supportive and good to brainstorm issues with – they have tackled much bigger problems in building their massive enterprises, so they always help in my strategising and analysis of how to deal with challenges. The KPI community and my mum and dad are just simply wonderful.
Who inspires you?
The constant thought that I only have one life, one opportunity to make a difference and to therefore make every second count. I have never been someone who is satisfied with playing small, I therefore am pushing myself out of my comfort zone on a daily basis. Even if I am kicking and screaming from fear, I will still do it ☺
What advice would you give to other entrepreneurs?
Find your niche and find a way to deliver a service and provide value in that niche better than anyone else can and then work hard at delivering that value and service. Love your clients and care deeply about them getting the result they want and there is no such thing as ‘work/life balance’ for a person building a business to eventually become a seriously successful entrepreneur. Mastery takes some hard work and commitment. By surrendering to this fact, you can just get on with doing the required work vs. being in some struggle about how you should or should not be achieving that work.
What’s your favourite quote?
“Be the change you seek in the world”
{Gandhi}
Do you have a business philosophy?
Naked Divorce is a business which loves our clients enough to do whatever it takes to get them over their divorce. We are known for our tough-love compassion, leaving people feeling empowered and connected with themselves and their new life. We get out of bed every day as Angels (sometimes with pitchforks), walking alongside our customers through the dark, back into the light
What’s your goal for the next year?
To make Naked Divorce the most successful and most talked about divorce healing programme in the United Kingdom.
