Our latest interviewee is Kenny Mammarella-D’Cruz – a renowned Personal Development Consultant who is also known as “The Man Whisperer”. We had the opportunity to discuss how his career developed, what kind of consultations he offers, and what is the most important detail in maintaining a relationship and mutual trust with customers.
What inspired you to start your career as a personal development consultant?
I didn’t mean to start a career as a personal development consultant, I didn’t know there was such a thing as “personal development”, let alone a consultancy. It just unfolded.
I ran a successful publicity business in the 80s and early 90s where I managed lots of small business launches and entertainment world tours from the Royal Russian Ballet to James Brown. I noticed that business boomed for my clients who would speak to me about their personal lives, sometimes before our publicity was rolled out.
I realized that those who spoke things out and worked things through had inner shifts – allowing the world to reciprocate as they got in alignment with themselves. They were no longer limited by negative, limiting beliefs about themselves, so the world could bring them opportunities and they were present enough to notice this and consciously respond to them, as much in their personal as professional lives.
So I found a simple, effective, and efficient new tool to help people get out of their old grooves and live into their purpose, passion, and live beyond the same old story. The alchemy of living out of the dark shadow and into the gold shadow.
What sort of sessions or consultations do you offer?
I see so many clients online these days, as well as in my therapy room on Regent Street and as a visiting consultant at the College of Psychic Studies in London. I also hold workshops and personal development groups for Alternatives.
When I work with private clients, I place chairs around the room and invite different parts of them to speak from a chair, then we go back to the center between these different parts of them. I invite the most relevant parts to speak, maybe a less dominant but more vital part in moving their lives forward, maybe a stuck part who needs to be heard before things can move on. The work is powerful and we meet at a different level of reality. Sessions are recorded on Zoom or on their phone so they can refer back and build the bridge from our ‘higher level’ work to practical daily life.
For example, I’ll ask a client to move so I can speak to the part that’s been protecting them. I might ask this part what’s its job is and generally, it’s survival and protection. I might ask when it showed up and generally, it’s when their spirit was broken in childhood or adolescence, or when there was a tragedy or trauma in their life or in their family. Whatever it is, I ask how it limits their life; whether it knows the adult part in them who might be waiting to move things forward; or what is its relationship to the inner child. Things start to make sense because the protector and the person are often enmeshed so our work helps them separate from the survival trauma, enabling choices for a bigger, actually safer life.
Then I might speak to the adult in my client, the emerging man or woman, and the primary part that needs to take its place so the protector can be heard, and not have to control. I get to know the adult part that may be somewhere in the background but now needs to take its place in the fore. We talk about how safety can be managed and about how the protector and the vulnerable child are enmeshed and in limbo. When there’s an adult in the room though, there’s a shift and the child is no longer vulnerable and can be safe and free-spirited again. This enables strong spiritual guidance.
One of my clients put it in this way: “When my children know I’m in the yard, they play and think of nothing else. But when I’m not there, I’ve observed them to be more wary and alert as they know that someone doesn’t have their back”. It’s the same on the inside. When the adult in anyone is present, the child can be safe inside. When the adult is not there, it’s all about survival rather than living, it’s looking for trouble and to survive trouble as is the norm in that life thus far. For me personally, it was an addiction to adrenaline and a trauma that recreated trouble to survive because that’s all I knew.
After the Inner Adult, we might get to know their Inner Critic, or their Inner Spiritual Guide, or their Inner Parent as a lot of people enter parenthood and they want to avoid being like their parents to their children, as well as to their inner child.
So much of what I do is get people out of their heads and into the here and now. Getting them out of fear, fantasy, and fixing, and getting them into their bodies, the present, in alignment with themselves between heaven and earth. They can then respond consciously, rather than react unconsciously, so magical shifts can happen from their very being, beyond the control of their doing.
When the inner adult is present and the child is safe, that free-spirited child can be heard as the voice of spirit, of guidance, and of intuition. A voice of moving onto greater things. The frequency that goes out is not that of “bring me trouble, I know how to survive it”, it’s more “I’m safe, bring me signs and temptations, bring me goodness and opportunities”.
I know that in my life, the best things that ever happened to me have happened way beyond my imagination. Life has provided coincidences and I’ve had to be present to notice what it has provided me and then step forward and respond, rather than step back, retreat into my head or run away.
Before making a shift like this, I ask my clients to complete a personal discovery questionnaire https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScdumkO5-Ts0qSorohK-_lqCOuCpcumpbWGwYSb_8tao4IMvg/viewform. There are questions in a certain order about their life that go into areas from pre-birth and social standing, to love and losses, illnesses, addictions, home environment, family, and ancestral history. This separates the story so far from the life that wants to live beyond this story – building on the best bits. There are so many insights when pulling their story together and so many benefits to getting the story out and seeing it as separate.
Then comes understanding of belief systems and understanding the script that needs to be broken and lived beyond. Sometimes people need to understand the “why” about everything to get the logic out the way, so we can make the real inner shifts.
So that’s the process – making sense of the story than making inner shifts with their different inner parts, so my clients are able to respond to life and consciously connect with the outside world with purpose and passion.
What can a person expect from a session with you?
My sessions are two hours long and if it’s online, it’s recorded on zoom and if it’s in my therapy room, it will be recorded on the client’s phone. The first session is going through the history and making sense of it, the next sessions are focused on making a shift which can happen quite quickly. It’s an internal shift from “Am I?” to “I am”, from fear to love and from survival into living. Most people buy a 12-hour package, as this is enough time for most to empower themselves and be able to consciously walk their paths, unencumbered.
My sessions communicate and make connections with the spirit to allow it to guide people as they navigate life, but also navigate signs for goodness from temptation and trouble ahead. Overall, It’s on-the-ground alignment with purpose, self-awareness, and passion.
What is the most important detail in maintaining a relationship and mutual trust with customers?
The first thing must be a connection. Without connection, it’s not going to happen. I choose to work with people I can connect with, and I know I can get results with, relatively quickly and sustainably because I don’t want to slowly become part of their problem. I love my clients. I’d recommend someone more fitting to those who I don’t feel there’s a fit with, though generally I attract the right people for me and we have an initial 25-minute chat before committing to anything.
It is all about connection for me and when I train people, I let them know it’s not about ‘fixing folk’ and being the hero, it’s about dropping into their own feelings and experiences so they can properly meet people where they are. I meet my clients in my place of pain or fear as if I can meet myself here, then I can meet them there and we can shift things that way. It’s not just about making sense of it, it’s about naming it, summoning where they’re stuck, being with it, and letting it shift so they can live beyond it.
Was there anything that you felt you needed to do to develop your skills or abilities?
This has been a lifelong journey for me to free myself from my own ‘busy’ childhood, making sense of my relationship with spirit, living beyond my life-threatening dramas and traumas, refining my tools, and learning from the experiences and training of others. Speaking to different parts of a person is the Voice Dialogue technique that was started by Drs Hal and Sidra Stone that I’ve adapted. It’s more like summoning or invoking different parts of a person and enabling their free spirit to show up and lead the way, the way I do it.
I’m not a therapist, I’m not a coach, I have my own code of conduct and ground rules that I share with those I train. For me, it’s about walking my path and being true to myself, unlearning things, and gaining insights and tools along the way.
It’s about my personal work, my awareness, and I’m living it whilst walking beside people. I don’t have answers for them, I have questions. They are guided to their own answers so it’s about walking the path side-by-side and being open and connected.
What do you love most about your profession?
I love it when the penny drops for my clients. It’s about me holding this space, asking the right questions, then guiding and enabling this process to happen. Seeing them in alignment with themselves, seeing them come alive and feel their hearts open, feeling a light go on inside of them – that is worth its weight in gold! I attract people who are ready to live beyond their old stories and empower others to do the same.
