The Short Version...
Sammy is a multi-award-winning international speaker, 10-times best-selling author, creator of 1000+ online courses, resources and programs, Founder of Global Ripple Makers and Co-Founder of The Impact Catalysts.
Having mentored more than 70,000 change makers to build their brands since 2002, surveying over 41,000 of them about what stops them succeeding, Sammy knows that too many small business owners paralyze their success because their self-esteem holds them back.
That's why she and husband Greg developed the One Year No Fear book series and Invincible Impact Program, mentoring small business owners all over the world how to courageously, persistently and relentlessly build successful businesses that create invincible impact.
Their next mission is to build the world's largest network of local business growth masterminds, raising financially sustainable enterprises that strengthen local economies globally.
Since developing an easy-to-follow brand-building and business growth system, thousands of small businesses have followed it to launch and grow their companies. Could you be next?
The Long Version!
The Story Behind The Story :-)
The Impact Catalysts was originally conceived as an idea back in 2002. It started when the Founder, Sammy Garrity (then Blindell), attended a business seminar, where she saw the following slide (right) on screen.
Sammy was fascinated by this Ryunosuke Satoro quote, thinking long and hard about what it means to be a One Drop and and to be an ocean.
Then she got thinking about what it would mean to be a One Drop in business, and how, by bringing all One Drops (business owners) together, we could create 'an ocean' of opportunity for each other and other lives all over the world.
"Individually, we are One Drop. Together we are an ocean"
The concept filled her with excitement as she spent the rest of the seminar making over 90 minutes of notes, filling her notepad with ideas about what a One Drop business could look like.
She came to the conclusion that each and every one of us has our own unique life purpose, our own unique mission and, therefore, our own unique One Drop ripple of impact to leave the world.
We have our own unique purpose in business, our own unique brand story and our own unique message.
We have our own unique treasures, traumas and transformational experiences that have led us to the path we are now on.
We have our own unique gifts and talents (superpowers), and we have our own unique legacy to live, lead and leave the world.
Yes, individually, we are absolutely awesome One Drops. However, it's when we collaborate and partner with other One Drops that we dramatically amplify the results of anything that we could ever achieve individually on our own.
T.E.A.M... Together Everyone Achieves More!
Sammy set to work the very next day, and it was on this foundation of collaboration that she built her first five businesses. This enabled her to grow each business quickly through the power of collaborations, partnerships, referrals and being champions of each other, introducing each other to more people, places and networks that, individually, we could never have achieved on our own.
Sammy's team grew quickly between 2002 - 2013, as she and her partners focused on growing the companies to support hundreds of other business owners to brand, build and expand their ideas into thriving businesses. To everyone on the outside, life and business were going extremely well.
Her businesses were growing, her profits were growing, and all of Sammy's clients' businesses were growing too. Her team (above) was growing to meet the demands of the bigger and more profitable projects that were now coming in. However, Sammy's life was shrinking. She had no social life, no friends outside of the business, she never saw her family and health challenges were starting to mount up.
On the outside, Sammy was happy and what people would describe as 'the life and soul of the party'. However, nobody knew the pain she was in emotionally, mentally, physically or spiritually. Nobody knew what was going on behind closed doors because she wore her smile well and it was always 'business as usual'.
But on 25th June 2013, things came to a head when Sammy’s beloved Grandmother passed away, leaving her absolutely heartbroken. As Sammy hugged and chatted with her family at the funeral, she realised how little she knew them anymore.
The grief got harder as the guilt got deeper listening to their stories with Grandma over the years, many of which she didn’t feature in because she was never there due to work commitments.
Not only had she missed out on twelve years of their lives, but she was now missing out on their growing families too. It was at the point that Sammy wasn't even enjoying what she did anymore. She craved having the freedom to spend more time with her family and animals, but she just didn't know the first place to start. It was becoming mental, emotional and physical torture to get up every day and carry on as 'normal'.
Sammy started to ask herself if missing all these experiences with the people and animals she loved really worth it?
Less than two weeks later, Sammy woke up with debilitating pains in her chest and was rushed to hospital in the early hours of the morning with a suspected heart attack. This turned out to be the first of four hospital admissions with chest pains over the next three and a half months.
Sammy wasn’t happy in her business; she had no life outside of work, she craved being in a loving relationship, and the people she loved most in the world were living without her as if she didn’t exist - because she was never there for them. Sammy’s heart was literally breaking, but she felt trapped and didn’t know what to do to change it.
The fourth time Sammy was rushed into hospital, she lay staring at the bright ceiling connected to a heart monitor again, thinking about her life. Was all of this really worth the £7.8 million that her and her business partner were busting their backsides to secure through the sale of their business?
After a thorough examination, the consultant had a very concerned look on his face.
"Ms Blindell, from the notes I have here, I see that you have now been here four times in just over three months. If we see you in this room even one more time, I cannot guarantee that what you are doing to your body is going to be reversible. You have to change what you are doing."
He signed the paperwork to release Sammy, and as he got to the door to leave for his next patient, he paused for a moment in deep thought, before turning back. As Sammy sat on the edge of the hospital bed putting her shoes back on and taking in what he had just said to her, he put his hand on her shoulder and said in a very loving and compassionate voice...
"You know, you can leave here and do what you want. You are free to make your own choices. But just remember that you are not free of the consequences of those choices. You have to change what you are doing and look after yourself."
With that, he left the room and Sammy's mind began to race with panic.
Could she really walk away now after everything they'd put into the business? Maybe.
What would happen if she died right here on this bed? Nothing.
What would her business partner do? Continue running the business.
What would her team do? Stay or get another job.
What would her clients do? Stay or find another service provider.
What would she have really worked so hard for after all these years? Nothing.
What would she have to show for it? Nothing.
What would she have left behind that proved she was really on this planet at all? Nothing.
Her thoughts turned to the future...
What would life look like if she did walk away from it all? Blank.
Where would she go? Blank.
What would she do? Blank.
Who would she be if she no longer had the ‘always busy working hard’ label? Blank.
Sammy's mind was blank as she thought about the future. Her only model at that time had been to work hard, burnout, rest, repeat. Work hard, burnout, rest, repeat. She didn’t have time for love, fun, family, or friends, because she was always too busy feeding the business machine and working 18-20 hours every day.
That’s what everyone else around her was doing, so Sammy didn’t have a model in front of her that could show her another way. So, she just worked more and more, becoming less and less fulfilled.
The measure of her bank account was full, but the measure of her life was not.
When the deterioration of her health, mindset and spirit finally forced her to walk away from it all after 12 years of running herself into the ground, she was hit with the harsh reality that if she died in that hospital room, she would leave this world with nothing to show that she was even here.
Yes, she created a bunch of businesses, and supported hundreds of customers. But without those businesses, who was Sammy now if she was too ill to do anything else?
What was the point of having all these beautiful material things if she had no time to enjoy them?
What was the point of having all this money if she had no time to spend it or enjoy it?
What was Sammy’s identity if she didn’t have the title of ‘Business Owner’ anymore?
Sammy knew that if she was going to own her lane and legacy in something, there must be another way. Whatever business she built next would need to fuel her life vision, supporting her dream life, not consuming it.
Her next business would have to be something that gave her time and freedom. It would need to operate smoothly without her full-time attention as she savoured time with her family and travelled around the world, AND it would need to make a global difference to others. She had to find an alternative solution to do what she loved, reach more people with less stress, enjoy more family experiences, AND get paid well for it! Not too much to ask, hey?!
So, back on 30th September 2013, at the age of 38, Sammy signed her business over to her operations director for just £1, buying her the freedom to find her purpose without knowing what would come next. She just had the faith that everything would ‘drop’ into place as she allowed her body to heal at her parent’s home in France (pictured below). All she knew was that she needed to rest, recuperate and retire for a bit as she worked out her next move.
She wanted to get to know her family again, because she had worked too much to build relationships with them over the previous 12 years. The sad reality was that Sammy had put profit before purpose and it had almost broken her heart. It was time for a BIG change.
As Sammy recuperated and got really focused on what and who was important to her, the thoughts of building another business were calling her. With nothing else to do Sammy was able to tap into her core creativity, listen to her calling and get super clear about her vision for the life she was born to live. But how could she have it all... a life, a loving relationship, a family and a business?
For the first time in 12 years, she had started to create a fun and rewarding life. She had recently met someone whose friendship showed signs that there could be something more in the future, and she loved spending time with her family again. For the first time in many years she felt free.
Didn’t building another business mean building another prison for herself?
Didn’t it mean having zero time for herself and her family again?
Didn’t it mean burning out all over again?
Didn’t it mean choosing a business instead of love again?
The trauma Sammy had created in her head around what it takes to build another successful multi-million pound business scared her so much that she was terrified of giving up her peace to even look at building a business ever again.
But as she healed, her creativity skyrocketed and instead of seeing business as the ‘got to', 'should do', 'must do', 'have to’... daily grind, she thought to herself, ‘what if I chose to see my business as an adventure?'
Sammy played with some more positive what if’s and came to the decision that if she was going to get into business again, she was going to have one clear rule…
"If it ain’t fun, I’m not doing it!"
She concluded that the best business model for her to enjoy full-time travel, a loving relationship, friends, family and time in nature with her animals was to build an online resource that would give her the freedom to serve globally at the same time as being creative, supportive and scalable.
It was the perfect business model for Sammy as it meant that she could run it from her iPhone and laptop, giving her the freedom to work wherever she woke up, creating both peace and pace.
How To Build A Brand Was born!
Sammy started again back in 2014 with a mission to build the world’s most supportive online brand building resource for entrepreneurs of purpose-driven businesses.
She didn't have the fancy logo (above) or website when she first started, and because she walked away from her last company with nothing, she was starting on a zero budget! So, without anything in place, she set up a simple WordPress blog called How To Build A Brand.
She then set to work on blogging, creating downloads & resources, posting daily videos and helping small business owners to brand, build and expand their ideas into profitable, sustainable businesses.
During the first 12 weeks of building How To Build A Brand, she launched her first book, 'The 7 Reasons Why Customers DON'T Choose You' and her first online program, The B.R.A.N.D. Accelerator.
While she had supported hundreds of others to do it, she was still gobsmacked when in just those three short months, armed with only a nice looking blog and a Facebook profile, she was already making £18,000 + per month.
In that same 12 weeks, her blog went from being 437,000,000 in the search engine results to #3 at the top of Google for the term 'How To Build A Brand', flooding the front pages of Google with highly relevant, supportive and educational content that bought thousands of new visitors to the website every week.
To say it was a big success would be an understatement!
Sammy didn’t realise it at the time, but building that online resource would take her all over the world, publishing four of her own books and co-authoring four more. She created hundreds of articles and online resources, and regularly featured across the press, radio and news.
She even featured in two locations of a TV documentary series called Awakening Giants, taking her to San Diego, Ecuador and the Galápagos Islands to film each of the episodes. At the same time her speaking career took off, enabling her to inspire, educate and transform thousands of business owners from stagnant and invisible to shining brightly worldwide.
After all that worrying about the future and asking herself 'what if it all goes wrong?', she kicked herself, 'Why had she not been brave enough to make this move sooner?'
She had gone from having no life, working 18-20 hour days, managing all of the stress that comes with having 13 other humans to manage and £23,755 of overheads to lay out on wages, offices, and other fixed costs every month before she even opened the doors.
But now, here she was with her new program bringing in a secured income of over £18,000 every month for the next 6 months, with ZERO COSTS, ZERO RESPONSIBILITIES, ZERO TEAM, ZERO LIABILITIES, and working only 20-30 hours a month!
She wondered if it was a fluke and set out to do it again. It worked. Then again and again. With each launch she tweaked the process until she had it nailed. This led her to create her signature programs, The 7 Step Brand Kickstarter, The Impactful Income Accelerator and The Impactful Income Blueprint Programs, which small business owners are successfully using to this day to build highly authentic, visible, sustainable and profitable online businesses.
A New Brand Is Born...
It was off the back of her first 30 Day Brand Building challenge in January 2017 that The Brand Builders Club was born.
It was only ever meant to be an online daily mentoring service, run inside a Facebook group.
However, within three years, Brand Builders Club went on to become a global business, growing physically into locations with Ambassadors supporting to run it all over the world, from London, Manchester, Southend and Bristol in the UK, to Amsterdam, Utrecht, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Miami, New York, Atlanta, Brisbane, Cape Town and Johannesburg, with many more members joining in online from all over of the world.
Sammy was in her element as she traveled globally, meeting and greeting her members and working closely with her Ambassadors team to attract new members into the 12 month support program. She ran online and physical courses, programs, workshops and events all over the world, which also led her to the creation and launch of over 1000 mini-courses, resources, trainings, products and programs for the online learning centre to support her members.
Everything was going great and the Brand Builders Club was running up to 34 live physical events all over the world every month. It was successfully growing with 12 new locations on the map ready to launch within the first half of 2020. The plans were exciting, but clearly not meant to be, as she ran what none of them knew would be their final members event in London at the end of March 2020. We all know what happened next!
The world went into lockdown and the Brand Builders Club had to go back to being online only again.
Without the ability to connect physically, Sammy ramped up her online support and went live with her members every morning for eight months solid to keep them focused on sustainable growth.
She bought a group of them together to launch their first collaborative book, The Law of Brand Attraction 1, giving them the positive focus and proof that a product could be conceived, created, campaign ready and at the top of the Amazon best seller list within 7 days.
That book was so successful that she launched The Law of Brand Attraction 2, featuring more Brand Builders to build their visibility, credibility and profitability at the same time as supporting small business owners all over the world with easy to implement brand building strategies that could save AND grow their business successfully through lockdown. 100% of the proceeds from every book was donated to different charities that desperately needed support during lockdown.
Not only did these books enable so many incredible things to happen for each of the authors, but many of them were so spurred on by the process, that they became product creation machines and excitedly built new streams of income in ways they hadn’t conceived before.
Sammy launched more products and books, but as she motored forward, she realised it wasn’t the same success story for everyone. She was intrigued to explore why some members achieved success seamlessly while others didn’t? She noticed that most of her Brand Builders Club members were flying, but others were flailing or holding back.
Why was it that these brilliant people with brilliant ideas, tons of experience and all the tools and strategies in front of them to build a brilliant business were not acting on it?
When Sammy dived deeper into it, the #1 thing that was holding them back was unanimous... They were questioning (as she had done all those years before) if their business was even in alignment with their core purpose?
Sammy responded by running an online event in November 2020 called RippleFEST, to get her followers aligned with the ripple of impact they were born to make. She interviewed some of the world's greatest movement makers to demonstrate how they own their identity, their value, their gift, their impact and their lane, enabling those going through the process to identify where the gaps were for them.
At the end of that 5 day program, Sammy spoke to everyone who went through it. The verdict... If they were going to go global and be seen by thousands, or even millions of people and step into the limelight to attract a global audience, did they want to do it with the business and brand that they already had? The answer was NO.
They realised that they were doing what they needed to make money, but not because it was their passion, their purpose or their calling.
The lockdown had given them time to pause, stop and think about what they really wanted. RippleFEST had called them out on why they were afraid to be visible. It had given them a chance to get still and think about the ripple of impact they really wanted to create in the lives of others.
What a perfect opportunity to pause, reconnect, reinvent and recreate!
Sammy realised they were all so focused on the 'get sh!t done' strategy and tactics of building their brands, that they'd forgotten about moving towards their own personal purpose. Their personal reasons why weren't clear enough.
They were in danger of taking the same burnout path that Sammy herself had become desperately lost on back in 2013. Now this very same thing was happening to her members, she felt a duty to turn it around for them before they took the same exhausting, overwhelming, confidence-killing, health-destroying path that she had.
What was even more disturbing to Sammy was that her members were not alone. There were millions of other entrepreneurs also becoming desperately burned out, making bad decisions in a state of overwhelming stress that was slowly killing them and their businesses.
These were good people with great business ideas. But she could see that the stress and burden of not knowing their next best step was killing their confidence, creativity, and the passion they once had for being in business. She knew that her program could take away that stress and if they really wanted to build something meaningful, she could give them the answers and support they needed to stop feeling lost, lonely and broke.
Having supported over 60,000 entrepreneurs by that point to successfully create, brand, build and expand their businesses, she realised it was time to bring How To Build A Brand and The Brand Builders Club together under One Drop Movement.
This would enable her to build the world's most supportive and practical online mastermind, giving small business owners the daily, weekly and monthly tools, resources and mentorship they need to perfect their purpose, grow their brand and build their business.
One Drop Movement Is Finally Launched!
After twenty years of blood, sweat and tears, Sammy came back home to her One Drop vision.
Finally, she had one home that entrepreneurs can feel safe in as they explore their purpose, expand their vision, create their foundation to grow sustainably and build their brand, visibility, credibility and profit around ONE Brand, ONE Mission, ONE Message & ONE Movement.
Now all One Drop Movement needed was a home, so it was time to create a movement that could move with her wherever she went!
By this point, Sammy and her best friend Greg had been married a few years and they decided that living life on the water was the perfect solution, enabling them to travel full time at the same time as being at home! So they, along with their four dogs and two cats, moved onto a 61ft x 12ft wide beam barge to travel around the UK as she focused on building the movement.
Launching One Drop Movement while living on the water was the perfect fit and it gave Sammy the opportunity to inspire and support her clients as they adventured, demonstrating to her members that they can live life on purpose, enjoy their families and have time to focus on their health at the same time as building a business that really stands for something.
Sammy now had the time to enjoy beautiful sunsets with Greg, playtime with her nieces and nephews, and time to enjoy their animals as they travelled.
She set to work on building a new platform for her members called Ripple Makers Mastermind, which supports entrepreneurs all over the world on a daily, weekly and monthly basis to work through the next best personal step for each of them to take.
One Symbol To Unite Them All!
As the movement started to grow, Sammy wanted to design ONE global symbol that would unite all of her members. She wanted Ripple Makers all over the world to know that they are not alone on this journey as they are now part of something so much bigger than themselves.
She collaborated with her jewellery designer mother, Gillian Cossins, to create the One Drop Pendant, which has now become a globally recognised symbol of the movement.
After eleven months of painstaking daily experimentation, they celebrated the launch of their beautiful luminescent One Drop Unity pendant that all Ripple Makers all over the world wear with pride.
One thing is for sure... When you see someone wearing a One Drop, you know they are a Ripple Maker who is safe to approach for support, connection, and collaboration.
Then through the Ripple Makers Mastermind, the Ripple Makers brand was born. This led Sammy to design a beautiful range of meditations and other Ripple Maker merchandise to raise money for charities, such as the 30 Day Ripple Maker Journal with guided Meditations, Ripple Maker Caps, T-Shirts, Hoodies, Mugs and Gratitude Cards that hundreds of people order every month to thank those who have been a Ripple Maker for them.
Giving Back And 'Dropping It Forward'
One Drop Movement cares greatly about giving back to humanity at the same time as paying it forward. That's why Sammy pledged 100% of the tickets sold to RippleFEST to charities all over the world, supporting over 80 charities in just the first 12 months. She also runs other events, publishes books, creates products and collaborates with other business owners to raise money for charity.
Here are some of our favourite charities at One Drop Movement...
Let’s Make An Even Greater Ripple of Impact Together, Starting Now!
Join us at One Drop Movement now so that we can support you in branding, building and expanding your own One Drop Movement... whether you want to move one customer or one company to action at a time, or reach thousands of lives with your message each and every day.
Whatever you need, we have a product, a program or a mentorship package that can meet you where you are at and take you where you want your life and business to go.
Sammy has created hundreds of different online courses, resources and programs to give you the step-by-step guidance you need in all areas of your branding, marketing and business growth success.
Plus, she created three levels of mentoring packages if you prefer one-to-one guidance and support...
Here are some of our members favourite features...
As this is a growing global family built lovingly on trust, quality relationships and authenticity, it is critical that we have a chat as soon as possible to find out more about you.
It's crucial to make sure that if we are a good match for each other, you are joining at the level that is best for you. To book your 15 minute Clarity Call, simply follow the booking process here...
Let's take these next steps together. It's an incredibly long and lonely journey to go it alone and when you become a member of the Ripple Makers Mastermind, you really don't have to do it
on your own anymore.
It's time to build your dream surrounded by a support team.
Here's what some of our members and graduates have said about what the mastermind has done for them...
A message from Sammy Blindell, the Founder...
Welcome fellow Ripple Maker! I'm delighted that you found us and even more delighted that you have taken the time to read all the way to the bottom of this page. That tells me a lot about you. Firstly, it tells me that you are a trusted, credible leader who is ready to get focused on intentional creation, brand elevation and business acceleration. What it also tells me is that we already have a few things in common...
If you answered YES to any of the above points, you are definitely in the right place!
I have created so many programs to support you every step of the way on your journey. However, my signature Ripple Makers Mastermind is the place where you can get access to absolutely everything I do, and everything I have ever created through How To Build A Brand, The Brand Builders Club and The Business Builders Hub.
It's also a beautiful community of like-minded, mission-driven business owners from all over the world who care greatly about connection, collaboration and championship of each other as we create blessings beyond our businesses.
Our online resources and commonality of kinship is what makes this growing global family a place that people come home to, and for many of our members this is the first time in their business life that they have felt so held and supported at each and every step.
This Mastermind is perfect for you if you want access to...
• Real-time ongoing daily, weekly or monthly support
• Live programs, as well as recorded
• Interactive online community
• Online learning centre
• Laser focused advice
• Team accountability
• Masterminding with coaches & mentors every week
Whether you know exactly what you want, or you have absolutely no idea, the very best place to start is by booking your Clarity Call. It's important to my team and I that we know what you need help with so we can direct you to the best place to start.
You can book your call by selecting your preferred date and time in the calendar above and I shall look forward to seeing you on the other side!
To your greatest success,
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