by Nicki Bannerman

With a business name as strong and assertive (and possibly even slightly fierce) as ‘Your Body means Business’ it already portrays the image that you must either have the success and confidence to take on the world or that you are disciplined and motivated enough to challenge anyone who gets in your way. It conjures up images of lithe toned athletes with glowing angular physiques and lean muscles and skin and hair that ooze vitality and top of the range fitness to live extraordinary long lives with successful careers. 

Well you may not be far from the truth when you see the discipline in action and the results that you really actually can achieve when you meet the extraordinarily motivated head honcho Angela Middleton.  Unsurprisinglyshehas already got an MBE from Her Majesty the Queen Elizabeth II for services in business for one of her other success stories and how to help youths with their careers as she works tirelessly for causes she believes in.  Her own personal business acumen has even included working with high-flying inspiring visionary leaders such as Richard Branson and Tony Robbins and she has access to a range of talented and well-known experts to speak with her in all her businesses.

Angela is brimming with energy, health and vitality with an iron mindset and steely determination as her own strict daily routine starts at 5am after monitoring her own sleep cycle (which she has done for the last 3 years) and monitors her daily goals (documented for the last 5).  She plans her day into a strict and rigid schedule of 2 hour windows to maximise productivity and enables her to accommodate her daily exercise, her 5 times weekly weight training and running her 4 businesses and other team of 100 staff simultaneously with limitless potential and energy.  She even sets herself 120 accountable goals to get through her day (that she ticks off in bed at night) and motivates her staff, colleagues, friends and family to push themselves to learn, change, grow and benefit their own bodies, minds and businesses.  Her tribe want to be and look just like her and aspire to her stringent routine to become even half as fit or successful.  She has motivated hordes of women to get on board for the New Year to be coached with her body goals, mindset tools and career objectives to reach incredible results in only 13 weeks and literally change their lives.

The ethos behind her success in actually reaching your goals and getting the perfect body and achieving and becoming top of the game in your career is all down to your MINDSET and you making the daily decisions you make.   We all have choices daily (because as most of us know that we should eat the right foods and that it is important to exercise and to look after our bodies) but how many of us actually do it and make the right choices and have the devotion and knowledge to help us change our bodies and lives.  Well this programme which I am thrilled to be in (albeit largely observing as participating in some of the activities whilst I am in rehabilitation after surgery for a hip replacement is frustratingly rather ostracising).  I can however see that the mindset truly drives the goals to really achieve the right body and the perfect career indeed follows.

Without giving all Angela’s YBMB secrets away it is a whole number of things working together which seems to cause a shift in the body and the mind.  Whilst she is incredibly capable and high achieving in her work she still allows herself downtime for relaxation, meditation and even healing which she then shares with the group with one of her experts on a Sunday night downtime session and still has the time for this kindness to support others with their personal journey and will even coach you 1:1.

At the weekly online calls for the group – experts are brought in as speakers to motivate us and this week’s guest, Patty Morehouse was utterly fantastic – she was the original life coach to American guru and motivational award-winning speaker Tony Robbins and she was extraordinarily thought-provoking.  I concluded from her wisdom that If we allow our negative self-talk and the questions we ask ourselves daily to be negative then we will seek out evidence to support the downward spiral. She was so inspiring with her re-education of our thought process and how we really are in control of how we bring change and success into our lives and tips for what we do and how we get there. Her mantra of ‘Where your thoughts go energy flows’ resonated and inspired me.

The YBMB Your Body Means Business programme is like having a whole combination of experts and coaches who all have your back.  You have regular update sessions, downloadable modules to inspire you on video which you can watch on demand, drop in exercise sessions at convenient time slots, workbooks to plan your goals and your individual coach assigned to uplift any setbacks you may be facing and remind you to up your protein and to drink more water.   And there is no competition to wear the right fitness gear or to train harder or faster or lift heavier weights than anyone else because the only progress that is required or expected is is from you, by you and only for you, in order to go forward for a better version of you.

With a combination of personal trainer and nutritionist to help your diet and fitness, a life coach to inspire your personal goals and avoid your limiting beliefs and a mentor to inspire your business passions and purpose it is all encompassing and just what every woman (or brave man) needs.

The mindset challenges she sets include practising being grateful so that our minds don’t become negative and stay in our safe comfort zones.  We

are also encouraged to visualise who we want to be and what we want to look like and if you tend to think on the spiritual side then maybe we are literally manifesting who we will become.  With books to inspire us and colleagues and coaches who are like-minded we can all motivate and support each other in a group led by such a high achiever.  She is very hands on and runs several of the workout sessions and evening coaching sessions herself.

If you were to talk to Angela about how successful she was – you would hear her story in one of her modules about how she was lacking in energy and relentlessly tired running her business several years ago that led to the work, discipline, reading, research and journey of discovery she went on herself.  You only need to look at Angela’s ‘before and after’ photos from when she began her mission at 55 (to how she now looks at 58) and the results are astonishing.  This isn’t someone lulling you into a false sense of security as a fitness club – this is an empowered leader who can literally help you transform your own life.  In her own words she says she isn’t going to tell you what you want to hear about how wonderful you are (as that is what your friends and family are for) but she will help tell you maybe what you don’t want to hear.  She is extraordinary how she can understand immediately what is holding you back and what you have to do to change it.

I was setback myself with recovering from an operation and hitting multiple hurdles in my recuperation which affected how far I can walk on crutches to do some steps and occasionally give me a mindset wobble towards comfort food.  Angela cut through all the barriers with one tough conversation and convinced me and others that 80% of action is mindset and to get out of the safe space and follow the steps to get the results you want and need even if you are affected by illness or surgery.

I now know this programme can work as I can see from the others who are already getting great results with their weight loss, muscle tone, vitality and others seeing and noticing they are doing something different.  I am slightly lagging behind because of my physiotherapy and limitations with weights and restriction in walking the steps that I so want to do.  I know I will get there and have to still have an X-ray when the hospitals are allowed again and it may take just a bit longer.  I have however set myself a goal of 10,000 steps by the Summer and I know I will progress when my body wants to catch up with my mind and the protein I am eating I have increased which is helping my abductor muscle heal faster as it is painful having not used these muscles to walk with a decline over the last 7 years.

Angela is a bit like the headmistress of a school who are there to help you with each coach supporting a group of women wanting to improve their body, mind and business.  With the exercise programme spread between the leader and her army of female coaches they are all available pretty much whenever you need them and only a WhatsApp group away if you have a question.  There are workbooks and modules and limitless information to support you and apps and recommendations to be as brimming with health and vitality as they all are to get your head in the game or your ‘game face’ on.

This tough love ‘no excuses’ strategy is almost boot camp like and not for the faint-hearted but perhaps necessary in this climate particularly with setbacks of appalling weather, anti-social Christmases, never-ending lockdowns and constant reasons to overeat and not care.  By getting back on track and focussed and committing to a high level of routine, discipline, determination it can actually make a real difference in a very short space of time. You actually can change your whole life from mindset to body and lifestyle in literally only 13 weeks and I can see how it works.  With the right tools and knowledge she has gleaned throughout her career – her team of trained expert coaches can guide you through a programme that actually makes sense and gets results.  And they are human too and share their challenges with getting back on track and adjustments they make in their own lives, diets and eating plans too which makes it even more appealing.

I am really looking forward to the next steps of my journey now and soon I can drive I will be able to get to somewhere to walk more (supported by one crutch) but on beach fronts or in wider open park spaces and to progress without crutches or pain, yearning to getting fitter, trimmer and embracing the next Mind,  Business and Lifestyle sections that follow the Body and Mindset initiation sessions.

Let’s face it – we are all struggling to cope right now in this strange pandemic era but this YBMB can possibly help you ride the storm, change your mindset, get the nutrition you need to heal whatever you are facing and help you bounce back with your business and career goals. They have already inspired me and just you wait a new version of me will re-emerge off crutches a bit later in the year!

Nicki Bannerman is a content creator, broadcast journalist, podcast producer/presenter and health and wellbeing radio presenter.  She produces, founded and host presents The Influential Women podcast, is soon to host the Fem-Foundry podcast for the new women’s networking space and the new Vanilla pod podcast for the lifestyle magazine for East Anglia.  Her new health and wellbeing radio show is also soon coming to digital talk radio soon.  Find her at @NickiHBC and @InfluentialPod and www.nickibannermanradio.co.uk or for marketing through www.nickibannerman.co.uk

The Influential Women Podcast is available for download on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple podcasts and Alexa.   Nicki has worked for the BBC and Radio Academy in London with podcasts and presented on a number of London and regional radio stations including BBC Essex, BBC Suffolk, London mens and womens radio station, London Radio Gorgeous, Cambridge Q103 fm and is a london storyteller for downloadable walking tours.