Self-described as a ‘blind optimist’, Nahla cycled 3000 miles across America, despite not having owned a bike in twenty years and walked 500 miles the length of England, relying only on the kindness of strangers. In 2020, she made a world record by travelling 5007 miles on an ElliptiGO bike, through every UK city, in the middle of a pandemic. At the same time she was creating the biggest Strava art in England that spelled out the word, ‘KINDNESS’. Nahla's unique selling point is that she completes these challenges, asking for people to pledge an act of kindness for a stranger, rather than sponsoring money to a charity. Founder of the Sunshine People and a Culture of Kindness, Nahla has built up a strong following, inspiring others to use kindness to effect change, worldwide. Her profound experience of kindness during a period of deep grief led her to build her resolve to ensure others, at both a corporate and social level would benefit from kindness too. She has learned how to face fear and difficulties positively, by changing her mindset and encourages everyone to work on their self-belief by telling themselves, ‘I am enough’. Her new book, The Accidental Adventurer launched on November 1st 2021.

 

Zoe Langley-Wathen  00:14

Hello, and welcome back to HeadRightOut, the podcast that is here to encourage you to step out of your comfort zone and do things that scare you on a regular basis.

 

Zoe Langley-Wathen  00:26

My name is Zoe Langley-Wathen. I'm a writer, speaker, midlife adventure seeker - ooh, that rhymes. I'm a teacher, an artist, long-distance walker, plus a daughter, a mother and a wife. There are so many things that we all know we are, and there's so many more things that we could be. I wonder how many things you've wanted to do, but have never quite managed to get your head round doing them. Because they all feel a bit daunting or a bit big. Perhaps you think a bit TOO big for you? But believe me... they're not.

 

Zoe Langley-Wathen  01:08

Today, I have an amazing woman that's come to chat to us. Obviously, this is all about inspiring you to head out of your comfort zone, do something that scares you, and I think that this person is the most ideal person this week to talk to us. Nahla Summers is just an incredible woman that I've been following for years now and we actually had the pleasure of meeting up about eighteen months ago, and we had a great conversation. She is going to talk to us about her adventures that she's been on and what she does.

 

Zoe Langley-Wathen  01:45

Hello Nahla!

 

Nahla Summers  01:50

Well what an introduction and oh, I hope I meet the criteria of that. But thank you so much. That's ever so kind of you.

 

Zoe Langley-Wathen  01:59

I am just delighted that you agreed to come on the pod. So I'm going to read a bio for you Nahla. This is something that I think just encapsulates who you are, what you do in a nutshell, and then we'll kind of dig down into that a little bit more and just tease out some of the things that we both think are going to be of particular interest to our listeners.

 

Zoe Langley-Wathen  02:19

Nahla Summers is a cultural change consultant, award winner, author, public speaker, podcaster and the driving force behind a culture of kindness and '44 Rays of Sunshine'; it won the most inspirational book in 2017. Her story and how she overcame adversity has been inspiring businesses and people around the world. Nahla is the founder of Sunshine People, the social movement that inspired her to carry out yearly adventures to highlight the power that kindness has to transform societies. She was awarded a Point of Light Award from the Prime Minister for transforming the concept of sponsorship. Nahla cycled 3000 miles across America having not owned a bike in 20 years, she walked 500 miles from South to North England, relying only on the kindness of strangers. And in 2020, she made a world record by going 5007 miles on an ElliptiGO bike through every city in the UK, in the middle of a pandemic whilst also producing the biggest Strava art in England by writing kindness across it. Nahla's unique selling point is that she completes these challenges and asks people to show their support by doing an act of kindness for a stranger, rather than sponsoring money to a charity.

 

Zoe Langley-Wathen  03:36

As the founder of the CIC, Sunshine People, every year, she takes on a new challenge, and every year, she discovers something new about the power that kindness has on people. As an author of several books, including an award winning book in 2017, Nahla is an inspiring and established speaker. Among the many messages that she delivers, she shares how we can change the chatter in our minds to allow us to achieve anything we dream of how resilience is built, and when the world gives us lemons, how we can in fact, make lemonade. How the actions of one can change the world and therefore what we each do, really does matter. Nahla gives every leader, and every person that listens to her, the knowledge that they too can do anything they wish to. If SHE can, they most definitely can.

 

Zoe Langley-Wathen  04:29

Wow, that to me Nahla is what HeadRightOut is all about. It's all about resilience. It's all about facing those fears and saying but if they can do it, so can I. So, where did this start? Are you happy to share some of your background to tell us how Sunshine People and how this facing fears and resilience building started, and the Culture of Kindness. You know, that's Sunshine People.

 

Nahla Summers  04:57

Yeah, it was really around understanding, and this is not meant to sound depressing in any way, but it was really understanding my own mortality and the death of my partner who I was living with at the time. When he died very suddenly of a heart attack, while he was on a charity cycle ride, he wasn't much of a cyclist, and he hadn't done loads of training, but he had gone out, on this work thing. He didn't know if he'd finish it, but he was going to go out and have a go. You know, I was dropping him off for a cycle ride and two hours later, he was calling me, telling me he thought he was having a heart attack. I think there'll be listeners here that fully understand that that grief, whether it's a parent or best friend, or somebody, you know, impacts you all very differently. But for me, it impacted me in this understanding that life can change in a moment. And while we think that we are living our lives, to all the things that we want to do, you know, I would say, Oh, I'm going to do this, at some point, you know, I wanted to foster children. And I would say, I'm going to do that at some point, and I'm going to quit this corporate job that I'm completely tied into, that I've been doing for 15 years, I could do it standing on my head. I don't really get that much enjoyment, and I don't feel it, it's my purpose in life, but I'm kind of doing it now, and I'm just gonna keep on doing it. After Paul died, that changed significantly. I'm not advocating wait until somebody dies, I'm definitely advocating taking a look at 'am I living the life that I really want to live?' There is this old, saying, if you only had one day to live...? Well, if I only had one day to live, I go to the pub with all my mates, you know, that's what I would do.

 

Nahla Summers  07:00

But if somebody said you have a year to live, would you be happy in the life that you were in right now? It's asking yourself the question, if you had a year to live that if you were in your current place, would you stay doing that work? Would you stay in the environment and the place that you are? Or would you make a change, and if you would make a change, then you need to make that change right now. Because we just don't know what is around the corner.

 

Zoe Langley-Wathen  07:31

That's a powerful message straight out there isn't it? I think there's a lot of people that DO get that - there's a lot of people that have experienced that moment of questioning their own mortality, because of the loss of a loved one. And I'm so sorry that you went through that with your partner.

 

Nahla Summers  07:47

But you know,this is the life that I'm in now, and I wouldn't have raised 250,000 acts of kindness, I wouldn't have met these incredible people, I wouldn't have travelled as much as I had. I would have done some travelling, but I mean, I've travelled the world three times over, researching about kindness. So while there are so many times that I think I'd just love to have him back, because it was just easy. It was easy to be loved unconditionally by him at the same time to do that means that you take away the last ten years, and the purpose that I now have from that side of things. So yeah, it's a hard one.

 

Zoe Langley-Wathen  08:34

You can see the joy and the benefit that you have from both sides of the story. So you know, having Paul and having the life you have now and to actually say, well, sorry, you can have one or the other, to say you can only have one or the other is so h