5 people who inspired you during the early stages of business development

My business and work combine a variety of disciplines, including professional organizing and decluttering, the psychology of people’s relationship to their homes, and interior and spatial design. As a result, the group of people who have influenced and inspired me is also quite diverse.

One of the first people who inspired me in the early stages of my business development was Steve Jobs. A tough guy, his commitment to excellence and high standards, along with his genuine belief that great design can empower us all and transform people’s lives, resonated and motivated me deeply. He was not known to have particularly good people skills, but his vision of creating products that were innovative, beautifully functional and had the highest design values ​​struck a powerful chord with me. His perseverance and faith in the face of adversity, buying back Apple after being forced out and turning it into an industrial titan were extraordinary. I love how his determination and vision for all Apple products to be seamless with cutting-edge design and user-centric functionality became so ingrained in the company culture that it has continued since his death. In my own way, this is what I strive for when redesigning and furnishing people’s homes.

Another source of inspiration was the designer and creator of Habitat, Terence Conran. His vision to revolutionize the way we live and use our domestic spaces, and to make modern design accessible to more than just the few, had such a far-reaching impact. This matched my ambition to make living spaces simpler and more functional. As part of his interior design process, he advised people to take everything out of the room and place it in the garden to properly assess the space: something that is routinely done on TV shows these days. I share his belief that decluttering a space is an essential part of gaining clarity about what it can be. I know from experience working with hundreds of people that beneath their piles of junk lie rooms and homes with endless possibilities. It is my passion and calling to free my clients and their spaces from clutter and help them re-visualize and redesign them. I love transforming homes from places that drain people’s energy, to places that empower and inspire them every time they walk through the front door.

In my early days of business development, I had the opportunity to work with Daniel Priestley from Dent Global. His masterful way of explaining business concepts in a very accessible way helped me understand the steps I needed to take to build a solid business. His work and education were instrumental in creating a business that would eventually grow into something I never thought possible. Daniel talked about the importance of developing the 5 P’s! Pitch, profile, partnerships, product and publication. This inspired me to create my Home Declutter Kit, a product people can use to help themselves or a friend declutter. And to publish my book ‘The Secret Life of Clutter’, a way to connect with people about how deep the need is to understand personal stories surrounding the meaning and significance of our home and possessions. I would add another P: goal. While writing my book, I discovered that my purpose was to break down the wall of shame that surrounds clutter, and to educate and empower people to be more compassionate towards themselves and others, because there is always a reason is why we get stuck.

Oprah Winfrey has continued to inspire me as a powerful and successful woman. She shows that it is possible to be both strong and vulnerable, and to lead with ambition and passion. I love how she has delved deeply into people’s struggles throughout her working life and has consistently shown so much compassion and care for the human experience. In her later years, interviewing great writers and bringing revolutionary ideas and concepts into everyday consciousness have been a constant inspiration to me. I love this quote because it reminds me to appreciate my own unique mix of skills and interests: “No one does it like you, and when you understand that what you have to offer, what you come to give to the planet, your gift is, what you offer in a way that no one else can, and how much that matters.

Finally, as a working psychotherapist whose practice informs so much of my other work, I must mention the depth psychologist Carl Jung whose life’s work was based on his fascination with the archetypes of the psyche. His exploration of his own dreams and how he conveyed those concepts into reality had a profound influence on my approach to understanding how people relate to their homes and what deeper factors come into play as they struggle to create spaces that truly make them cherish and support. I so often feel that when I work in a profound way in someone’s home and with their belongings, I am also entering their inner world, their psychological space. I am constantly amazed as the story of their lives unfolds before me. I attribute this in-depth knowledge to my studies and work as a therapist. I have been particularly influenced by Jung’s own profound inner journey during the construction of his house, the Bollingen Tower, on Lake Zurich. One of his many insights that resonated most powerfully with me was the concept that our home is an expression of our deep self. The main living spaces are the face we present to the world; the lower floors or basement, which reveal our cultural influences, history and unconscious; and the attic and loft space, or in his case the tower, which reflect our spiritual life and ambitions.

I believe it is the diversity of these influences that have organically led to the development of my unique business, the way I work with both people and their homes, dancing between the sacred and the mundane. I really love my job, every day is an adventure and every customer a privilege to work with.