The end of an era

Four days on and I want to pay tribute to someone who has been a significant part of my life for the last year. I wanted to include a photo of her but unfortunately the one photo I have of the pair of us was lost when my laptop crashed in December. In a way that is fitting because she is a very private person. If you are curious you can find a copy of the photo on Minerva's Mind. Karen is the one on the left of the photo.

Karen and I set up Minerva's Mind at the end of last summer. We had a vision and part of it was that we wanted to work with Mums who had two or more children and were wondering what was next for them: go back to work, embrace being a stay at home Mum or forge a new path. We threw our energy into the idea and what emerged was a six week course, lots of publicity, a venue, shed loads of marketing from flyers to all sorts of online routes. Unfortunately there were insufficient takers for it so it never ran. Undaunted we then created Minerva's Mind at Home which generated some interest but again did not really take off.

Increasingly as the months rolled on, cracks began to appear. Let me explain. Karen has a very successful business as an HR professional. She learnt how to use wordpress earlier this year, initially as another way of promoting Minerva's Mind, and in the spirit of play set up her HR blog which has been hugely successful, attracting lots of interest and comment. This helped her to see which way she wanted to take her business and it was different from what I had in mind. Things drifted for a while but then she had the courage to say this is not working and it is time for me to move on. I have huge respect for that because although I too could see it and was getting frustrated about stuff, I did not make the call.

Here's what I learnt from Karen. She is a consummate professional in all that she does. She has very high standards, is very composed and self-contained too. She also holds strong convictions and values - no one gets between Karen and her family for example. From these and other things I observed during our working relationship, I can see how she got to the position of HR Director in an NHS Trust. In addition she gave me the space to grieve the loss of our business partnership for which I am truly grateful because it has allowed me to come out the other side and start working on my ideas. Finally and perhaps most importantly, going through the whole creative process with Karen including the running of events together, showed me that I am a good facilitator.

All that remains is for me to say thank you to Karen for all that you have given me. I hope you will retain your link with the Minerva's Mind fan page and I wish you all the best with your endeavours going forward. I will always think back on our time together with fond memories.

re: something worth celebrating

What a difference 24 hours can make! Yesterday I had a day when I spent many hours struggling with fear. It was black and oppressive and made me feel very unproductive and a whole load of other things which were unhelpful. Feeling stuck is not a great place to be.

Today has been so totally different. It ended with dancing round the living room with my two girls and OH although the 2 y/o's idea of dancing is jumping! It has all happened in such a short space of time.

So what was different about today? There were struggles but they were not overwhelming. One of my challenges is to get my blog to be recognised on networked blogs which requires a set number of people to verify me as an author. Never have been a fan of sending people lots of emails requesting that kind of info so just put it out there on twitter and on my FB profile and within a short period of time two of my twitter buddies had become FB friends just to help me out and this evening I have had other FB friends offer to help out. It just goes to show that if you ask you receive.

On top of that the level of interest in my social media course has been really high. There are still one or two places however we have the number that I wanted to run it already and that has come about with the minimum of marketing. All done through email and a couple of meetings to sell the idea. I cannot quite believe how easy it has been. If that was not enough I have been approached to speak about social media for another group and I had been wondering how to get more speaking events. For the first time in my life it feels as if there may well be something in the Law of Attraction.

Finally I have been noticing how much Minerva's Mind has been taking off over the last few days. It has been great to see the growth in interest in our facebook community. It really seems to be appealing to women with their own businesses. Karen, my business partner, and I had a brief conversation too today and we both have loads of ideas about how to grow it even further and are getting together on Thursday to create the strategy over the next six months. It really seems to be coming together and I have to say that I am grateful to the Universe for the part it has played in all this.

I would love to hear from you. So tell me what's happening in your life right now?

The power of positive thinking

I feel compelled to share with you what has been happening to me over the last few days. It is amazing. In energy terms I feel as if I have tuned into this very positive, incredible life force. It is as if I could do anything that I wanted to do and it's as though someone is watching over me.

On Saturday I realised that one of my favourite earrings had fallen out. I was very upset because they were from Tiffanys and of great sentimental value too. Normally I would completely lose it and drive my family nuts but I remembered Gretchen Rubin's wise words about emotions in a crisis and decided to believe that it would come back to me. The next day both my husband and I took turns to search the bottom of the pool to no success. By chance I explained what I was doing to those swimming in the lane so they did not get irritated and the woman in the group came up to me a few minutes later with my earring in her hand!

Over the last few months, I have been working with another coach, Karen Wise, to develop a programme for Mums. What is incredible is that it has gone from one programme to two programmes aimed at different types of Mums thanks in part to feedback from friends on facebook in particular Jan Morgan, Becky Alexander and Annette James. One is aimed at Mums with 6-9mth babies and the issues that they tend to be facing such as whether or not to go back to work and lack of identity, me time etc; and the other is for Mums with older children who have made sacrifices for their families and feel that there is something missing. They are either SAHM, WFHM, invariably working from home with little prospect of promotion/ progression, almost on a treadmill with children, husband, work competing for their attention. They are thirsting for a mental workout.

This morning I met the editor of a new magazine aimed at Mums in the car park of Hitchin swimming pool. She is looking for interesting articles for the magazine and Mumpreneurs to put forward for the annual inspiring Mumpreneur awards in September. What a great contact!

It is incredible what can happen when one has taken a stand and lives by that stand. New opportunities keep showing up. As I sat down to write this article I read Rosalyn Clare's post about saying your dreams aloud and seeing what happens. It is so powerful because if we believe in what we are doing, others will too.