Female Disruptors: Jennifer Cairns of Rebel World & Lady Rebel Club On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
“Get it on the field of play.” — Todd Herman would have said this to us often. He’s right. Having something in our heads doesn’t mean anything. We need to stop waiting for the perfect time, put stuff out there, and test it. Yes, we’ll fail, and things won’t work, but we can only adjust a product or offer if we have tried it. All action happens on the field and that’s where we need to be if we want to move our business forward, not sitting on the sidelines constantly planning and fidgeting with things.
As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jennifer Cairns.
Jennifer’s the Founder of Rebel World ltd and the Lady Rebel Club® movement that’s out to empower, connect, advocate for and elevate women and all marginalised gender entrepreneurs, creatives and small business owners who are neurodiverse or have disabilities. Being neurodivergent and having several disabilities, including Fibromyalgia, GAD, CPTSD and rare blood cancer, Jennifer knows how high the hurdles can be for humans like her. Learn more at Our Rebel World.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I’ve always felt different. Even as a child, I struggled to fit in with those around me. I was very good at masking or hiding traits that stood out too much and adopting a lot of mannerisms, speech patterns, dress styles and interests of those around me. I was quite the chameleon, although now, I feel that’s helped shape my diverse taste in music, art, style, food and more. The negative side is that all that pressure and stress to hide who I was taking its toll on me constantly, and I had more than one anxiety disorder.
In theory, this is why I always wanted to be an entrepreneur and own my own business. Even as a kid, I loved being at my grandparents’ campground or my other grandmother’s insurance agency. I would sneak office supplies home after summer visits and set up my “office” in my closet or cardboard boxes I kept underneath my bed. Being an entrepreneur would mean having a business I loved as much as my grandparents all loved theirs. That, however, wasn’t the case.
As I became older, my health started to plummet, and I developed chronic illnesses like Fibromyalgia and chronic headaches. As time went on, other autoimmune disorders plagued me. In early 2020, right after my husband’s stroke and right before Covid-19 hit the UK, I was diagnosed with rare blood cancer. Off the back of my cancer, I developed Paraneoplastic Syndrome, where my immune cells attack my nerve nodes along my neck, spine, and brain. This condition is causing things like loss of feeling in my hands, feet and face, nerve pain, seizures and facial tics.
My whole life, including in the consultancy business my husband and I ran together before his stroke, I felt like I had to hide. I had to hide my disabilities and then my neurodiversity after joining the neurodiversity party in my early 40s. It took me nearly two years to tell my mum after I found out. I was used to hearing and dealing with all the biases because my son is also neurodivergent.
And then, when my husband and I went to move the business online in 2019, I was blown away by the number of women who, like me, had so many hidden disabilities like chronic illnesses, pain, fatigue or conditions, and diseases. Or maybe they were hearing impaired or were Autistic, OCD or ADHD. A vast proportion of us were out there, yet most of us felt alone, hiding in the dark, waiting to be “found out”. Ironically, this was the most common thing between us that we all hid.
We didn’t want our clients finding out or our audience to know about our disabilities or neurodiversity. We knew these were what others labelled our “limitations”, and we feared how it would affect people wanting to hire us. We knew that they wouldn’t want to work with us because of the way we could hear people talk about humans who were disabled or different in any way. After my husband’s stroke and Covid-19 hit, the business couldn’t go on the way it was. I had been struggling online, which affected my confidence and mental health in the real world, too. I felt like I was standing on a cliff and could either continue to hide like I had been or jump and change things. So, I jumped, and that’s when the name Lady Rebel Club® came to me.
I wasn’t sure at that time what Lady Rebel Club® would be, yet I knew I couldn’t go on hiding myself from everyone in the business world. It was toxic and not only affecting my health and self-belief, but also, I was keeping my business in a box. By this stage, I had spent a couple of years getting to grips with how I could work best in a way that suited me. I also got clear on my definition of success. I refused to use cookie-cutter restrictions that said we had to build our business a certain way, run it a certain way or be a certain way. I knew attitudes, behaviours and thinking in the entrepreneurial and business world had to change and how we, the neurodiverse and disabled entrepreneurs talked to ourselves.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
We see three elements that need an excellent shaking-up: conversation, coverage, and cookie cutters.
Firstly, we want to spark genuine conversation. Even if those are small conversations, between business besties, for instance, sparks often lead to giant flames, and that’s the goal — to light a fire in the entrepreneurial and business worlds. We want honest conversations to take place, where we can openly discuss ourselves as the shame and limiting beliefs we are forced to carry.
Secondly, it’s about changing the narrative and messages put out about us and providing more control over our media content. Many people will have heard a saying in various disabled and neurodiverse communities: “Nothing about us without us.”. Most stories, interviews, profiles, quotes and other content portray us as a sad story that requires pity as entirely superhuman. No matter the intention, both approaches give false impressions. If a select few are being elevated in media to this superhuman status without any kryptonite; we mortals feel even worse about ourselves.
The impact of seeing all these superhuman stories is that we believe we’re doing something wrong. When we believe that we’re the problem, it can affect our mental health. Instead, we need to see someone say, “Hey, look at me and this awesome thing I can do but also look at all this stuff I struggle with, AND still, I’m freak’n incredible!”. Having hurdles, we struggle to jump over or can’t jump over isn’t something we need to hide. We should be able to openly talk about those things and all the ways we have a purposeful impact and excel at various things in our business.
The real story — the in-between story, is often left out. That’s, in part, what the new media and publishing part of our organisation is focusing on — showing us as the actual humans we are, weaknesses and all because it’s perfectly okay.
The third part that needs shifting is this idea of a cookie-cutter approach to building a business and how we show up and work within that business. I was prey to thinking I had to work a certain way, behave a certain way, be a certain way. When I spent two years focusing on improving those things, I realized the whole cookie-cutter needed to be thrown out.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Cash flow forecasting, of course, has its place and investors, funding bodies, and revenue modelling will all require various forms of cash flow forecast. I remember the first funding grants I applied for, one of my cash flows was nearly 12 pages long! I had it detailed over five years, showing all the scales on all products. I spent weeks and weeks on it and was proud of its complexity. Ironically it wasn’t very helpful! Refrain from assuming that everything in your cash flow projection will come to be the way you plan.
We always overestimate the desire for our products and services to succeed. Usually, we need to pay more attention to the costs associated with producing and selling them in real time. It’s great to have projections but be aware that what is on your paper or screen and real life are often different things, especially in the start-up phase. So, as I’ve learned, get on the field and test as that’s the only way you’ll find if your numbers are correct.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who has been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
I’d love to shout out to my Grandma and Grandpa Harper and my Grandma Williams. They were instrumental in instilling in me that I could do anything. They taught me that working hard for something, even if we don’t achieve it, is a reward in and of itself and that ceilings, walls, whatever is holding you back is there for you to smash through.
More recently, there are a few people I’d mention, including Janine Cummings for helping to support me through my Facebook® live video days, it was a considerable struggle and after being bullied by a coach for several months she really helped me come out of my shell more and reach my goal of being comfortable doing live video. Courtney Foster-Donahue was someone I learned a lot from regarding course building. Yet, her best teaching was seeing her being her lovely sparkly self while still having a solid business acumen. You can have both. Most recently, John Swain has been an invaluable mentor while I’ve been on the SLAP programme.
To date, the most impactful for me, personally and professionally, has been Todd Herman’s PRO programme. Here I had the wonderful experience of being mentored and coached by both Todd Herman and his Head Coach, Dave Cooper. Two very different personalities and approaches in how they coach, too.
Together they gave me the tools and confidence to go and figure out how to build a business that suits me and my life rather than one I couldn’t work in. Their process made me realise I didn’t have to work like everyone else. Especially within my community, we often grasp these cookie-cutter approaches because we’re desperate to struggle less and want to fit in. They helped me say to heck with the cookie-cutter and build a business that suits me.
Todd Herman’s book, The Alter Ego Effect, was also instrumental in helping me to create my alter egos like Buffy-O. She’s a hybrid of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Oprah. It brings together qualities from both that I that align with, and qualities that have allowed me to grow more confident in networking and speaking especially.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is always disrupting good? When do we say that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time? Can you tell our readers when disrupting an industry is positive and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
In my opinion, knowing if disrupting is good or bad will depend on the person you ask. Let’s assume we’re disrupting an industry or market because we see a need around limiting beliefs about someone because they are a woman founder, we seek to correct those and show we’re just as capable. Yet the hurdles are even higher, and limiting beliefs are often more entrenched when talking about a woman or any marginalised gender who is also neurodivergent or has a disability.
Our Lady Rebel Club® movement is out to open up conversations to evolve that thinking and portray us as how we want to be represented, as humans. We are aiming to disrupt, to use your term, the current thinking, behaviours and attitudes; it’s creating conversations around them in the hopes of evolving them. I often say that we’re not about destruction or tearing down but more about changing the view and building something new because I see what we’re doing in a positive light. Others who do not support our ideas or don’t want to acknowledge their biases will likely see us as being harmful disruptors. They’ll see us as wreaking havoc versus wanting to evolve.
A perfect example of this is an experience I had applying for funding. I offered the organisation some straightforward and quick feedback about an experience I had numerous years previous. I made it clear this was only to help them improve an approach towards humans, for example, who are neurodiverse or have anxiety disorders. I fully expected to have a short, pleasant conversation with them before proceeding to supply all the business information I knew they needed. Instead, I was blown away by the negative and defensive attitude I received.
Furthermore, after making an FOI (Freedom of Information) request, I was shocked by the conversations that went on about me behind the scenes between the Business Services Team and the Equality Team. One of them stated how they didn’t believe I would get funding. They had formed this opinion despite never seen my business information, knowing what the business was about or having any discussions with me.
And that incident is far from obsolete. These are the attitudes my community face all of the time. That caused undo stress that impacted my physical and mental health and my business at that time. People need to realise that things they do and say can have far-reaching impacts beyond their desk, social media profile or blog. So yes, if archaic attitudes like these stop any other humans like me from even being able to apply for funding — something needs to change.
Yet because that funding body will probably say they offer many ways to access their information and are fulfilling their responsibility. They may likely see our work as a negative disruption.
I’m very blessed, too, in that my work allows us to connect and support so many changemakers. Within our community, there is a movement to change the travel and healthcare industries for those affected by chronic illness. One aims to advocate for and uplift black moms with ADHD and another to help them create bespoke nutrition and fitness that suits them. Someone is looking to grow her multicultural movement. One is all about supporting and empowering social communication among neurodiverse humans, and another is changing how we view ourselves in our skin and advocating for visible differences.
Ironically, I’ve said 2023 will be the “year of the rebel”, as, besides us, I am working with numerous changemakers ALL around us. People often laugh at me when I see us not only as changemakers but also as the dirt that is here to help grow and nourish other changemakers. Although that statement may not be visually stunning, it’s true.
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
“Get it on the field of play.”
Todd Herman would have said this to us often. He’s right. Having something in our heads doesn’t mean anything. We need to stop waiting for the perfect time, put stuff out there, and test it. Yes, we’ll fail, and things won’t work, but we can only adjust a product or offer if we have tried it. All action happens on the field and that’s where we need to be if we want to move our business forward, not sitting on the sidelines constantly planning and fidgeting with things.
“Don’t bet all your pennies unless you are happy to watch everyone else play without you.”
My Grandma Williams used to say this a lot, and she, my Great Grandma Nardi, Aunt Lee and I played many cards, including poker. She made me aware with significant risks come big rewards but not to bet all the pennies if I wasn’t going to be happy to (literally) sit and watch them finish playing. More challenging lesson for a kid to take on board, and I remember sitting not so happy after losing all my pennies in one bet but growing up. I always remembered this. In business, it’s the same; make sure the strategy you use, the risks you take, and the money you spend — that you are okay with the outcomes if they don’t work or if things go wrong. If it’s a huge risk you’re taking and there’s a chance your business won’t survive, ensure you’ll be okay with that outcome, too.
“You don’t need a degree or fancy title. Your experiences are the USP, and nobody can copy those.”
I’ve always had a bit of a rebel side. Standing up for others has been built into my DNA. Moving into speaking and talking about my experiences on stages, in the media and bigger groups was a huge fear. I often compared myself to incredible humans with qualifications I don’t have or titles that I wasn’t even that fussed on. Yet, those two things meant I wasn’t qualified to speak, write or share about my experiences and those I saw around me because I didn’t and don’t have either of those two things.
Yet, I was wrong. Dave Cooper, from PRO, was very right in saying that my speaking about my experiences was more than enough and had colossal value to give. I’ve seen it open conversations that others are now having, and more and more people come to Lady Rebel Club® and me saying, “Me too!”. They can see they’re not alone and that there are others like them out there.
My point is to not cut yourself short because you maybe don’t have the exact qualifications, experience, perspective or approach as someone else. Pull from what you have and use that and try not to compare yourself to others.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
We have big plans for Lady Rebel Club®! We are amid planning chapters on a global scale, real-world events, innovative hybrid events, merchandise and more.
We also have some cool things on the media side of the business plan, including additional books, the launch of our cable show, Indomitable, at the end of 2022 and the launch of our full-service agency. We aim to be the agency to come to. If you want to be elevated or work with someone who is a woman or marginalised gender entrepreneur, small business owner or creative and who is neurodivergent or has disabilities.
I’m also Co-Founder of, Redefined Workforce, where we are creating a new type of digital intelligence. I have ideas of how we can tap into that digital intelligence and use it in very cool ways.
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?
Men can’t give birth. This statement may sound odd, yet giving birth is one of those things you can’t explain as your body is being stretched, ripped, pulled, and changed in ways that we don’t even understand. My point is that it takes a lot of work. We are capable of far more than peole often believe. If men truly understood how strong we are, they’d give us more of a chance to show up on the field of play and be judged by that and not assume we’d fail before even entering the field.
Another challenge is that we need to pay more attention to the words we tell ourselves. I talk about this a lot within our community, which also applies to all women. We have a lot of ideas about the things we want to change, yet the way we talk to ourselves keeps us back. We have these thoughts for numerous reasons, but flipping that internal switch is enormous. We will never truly change how others talk or think about us until we change how we speak to ourselves.
There is a lot of negative association with women having that title disruptive. There’s that connotation that we must be aggressive. For men, it’s great — they’re cheered, and their peers see it as natural. For women, it’s different, and culturally, most societies still see us as gentle caregivers. We are humans that see a problem and want to solve it or evolve something, so it’s better. Often, we need to be fierce as it is challenging to disrupt and create change, and you do ruffle a lot of features. Being fierce isn’t the same as being aggressive, though, and that perception in society also needs to change. I am powerful yet still a caregiver, and it’s time women stopped having to choose between them.
Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?
As mentioned before, The Alter Ego Effect for me was a biggie and although the concept of wearing different hats isn’t new, his approach makes it so easy to implement. Plus, I love his no-BS approach to how he speaks to you.
Another book, which may sound like an odd choice, is Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. Of course, it is a brilliant read, but ice-nine to me sums up the fact that as leaders and disrupters, we have a duty of care to our communities and society. As lessons of ice-nine show, and history show, there are always consequences and being benevolent to those can be disastrous. This thinking, of course, can apply to many things in our business and having that awareness and taking the time to be aware of outcomes and impacts is a huge advantage.
Also, an interesting new read was The Heroine with 1001 Faces by Maria Tartar. It looks at the role women have played in folklore and myths. It is interesting to see how women have played in storytelling over the years and how that reflects the real world. It challenges the existing male role-model blueprint for “hero”. It explores how heroines, rarely wielding a sword and not often having a pen, “Have flown beneath the radar even as they have been bent on social missions.”. Sound familiar?
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
That’s a great query and at the heart of everything I’m looking to do at Rebel World is Lady Rebel Club®. It’s a movement about empowering, advocating for, connecting and elevating women and all marginalised gender entrepreneurs, small business owners and creatives. It is great we are starting to see a lot of conversations in the corporate world. However, there is such a gap in the small business, entrepreneurial and creative landscape. According to research from the IPSE, in the UK alone there are approximately 264,800 women who are self-employed and according to the CDC, one in four women in the USA has a disability. More and more women and those with disabilities and neurodiversity are entering self-employment and growing a business. Yet we face even more significant hurdles than our sisters who are not disabled or neurodiverse.
Attitudes around women in business still apply to us; however, we face additional biases and archaic attitudes that believe we are less capable. We face tremendous amounts of shame not only from our male peers but from society, often as a whole. That shame keeps us stuck. We do not want our clients “to know” or “find out” that we may have a chronic disease, pain, fatigue or illnesses like Fibromyalgia, Crones, or cancer. We do not want our peers to know we’re neurodiverse or have mental health conditions. Because we are caring that ashamed, we hide. Being women, too, we feel like we often have to do “more, “ and we already have to work harder than our male peers to be counted as equal. On top of that, not being considered “normal” weighs on you like a lead weight.
The attitudes, thinking and behaviours in the entrepreneurial landscape mean that funding bodies, organisations, peers and even governments see us as less. People often feel that we’re not as capable or lazy, even though living in a world not designed for us has meant working twice as hard. I’ve experienced this first-hand, as everyone in my community has.
It’s not a glass ceiling we’re up against. It’s an entire box society wants to shove us into and getting out isn’t easy.
When we hide part of ourselves, we also hide many attributes that are our strengths. Hiding our weaknesses isn’t a positive thing either. It can cause additional physical and mental health issues and prevents us from finding the support we need. Everyone has weaknesses and needs help, training and improvement in certain areas. Suppose we can stop hiding and normalise talking about our neurodiversity and disabilities. In that case, we can liberate not only ourselves but significantly improve the impact we can have on our businesses. Thus, the impact our businesses can have in the world.
For anyone reading this who thinks, this is me, I feel this way or have experienced this, too — please know that you are not alone. We do not have to hide who we are to be successful; only you define what success is for you. For each of us, it is different.
Can you please give us your favourite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.” Nina Simone.
Some might not understand why I identify so much with this quote as a white woman. Yet, feeling so different, out of place and incorrectly labelled my entire life I do. I can never understand what it is like to be a black woman, and this isn’t a comparison to what that is like in any way. It’s more about identifying with process itself in how one aspect of society chooses a label without including the people related to what or who they label. I know we humans have that basic need to sort and label things. As we evolve, we must better ensure the community related to what we are labelling is doing the labelling themselves.
This ties in with the concept of #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs, a popular hashtag in the neurodiverse and disability communities. It is why we have our media outlets with the philosophy of #MediaForUsByUs. We’re tired of being labelled, portrayed in specific ways or shouting to be seen and heard at all.
I’m going to be cheeky and offer another one from Marilyn Monroe, “We are all of us stars, and we deserve to twinkle.”.
I have a saying that says we all have gold to share, and I genuinely believe that. Having a disability or being neurodiverse doesn’t mean we don’t twinkle, or as I like to say rock. We do rock and sparkle. Even if that sparkle is slightly different, it is just as bright.
Be more rebel. Know your worth, own your sparkle and rock your business in your own unique way.
How can our readers follow you online?
Jennifer’s Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/JenniferLCairns
Jennifer’s LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-cairns
Lady Rebel Club® Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/LadyRebelClub
LRC IG: @lady.rebel.club
https://www.instagram.com/lady.rebel.club/
Rebel World Media Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/RebelWorldMedia
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
