Being Unique in Business to

stand out from the crowd

by Andrea Beadle

I did a talk last week at my local Women in Business group and although it wasn’t recorded I wanted to share with you the contents of that talk.

What I said caused a few of the ladies there to have some big insights and so it only feels right to share in the hope that it might be just what you need to hear too!

Of course, sometimes when we have big insights it can cause big change so only read on if you are ready to step up into a better version of yourself!

In many ways I see that life is like a training ground preparing us for the work that we are here to do later.  As painful as it can be sometimes, even the hardest things that we experience in our lives have lessons to teach us and “gold nuggets” that one day in the future will be invaluable. The trouble is we don’t always see them that way!

In various parts of my website I describe how I believe that life is like a puzzle.

Our jobs, hobbies, experiences and passions are like pieces of our own unique puzzle that we collect on our journey. Sometimes however, we discard them in a trail behind us as we move from one experience to another or from one job to the next.

When we do this they make no sense to us and we see them as disjointed parts of our lives that have no real connection or importance.

At a certain age we are called to put the pieces together and use EVERYTHING that we have learned.

Whatever you call it; a mid life crisis, a soul re-direction or just waking up to the fact that there is more to life than the way we have been living, there is a big disconnect somewhere that makes us question what we are here for.

Many people go off and do seemingly bizarre things, others seem to find their calling but there is usually a period in our lives where we try to make sense of the things we have done.

I like to see it that the further “off track” we are, the bigger the “course re-direction” we need to make!

So how does this apply to your business?

My belief is that if we are not using enough of the pieces of our puzzle in our business, it will be tough:

• Feeling like having one arm tied behind your back
• Feeling like you are paddling up stream
• Feeling torn in different directions

Whatever the feeling, if your business doesn’t feel joyful and easy then I believe that you need to look at your puzzle and see whether there are some major pieces missing.

Feeling scattered in business might be because there are so many things you could do that you can decide on a direction.

The confusion comes from feeling that we have to choose – one thing over another, this or that.

I believe that we don’t need to choose. If you can find a way to incorporate all of the things you love everything comes together in a way that makes you totally unique.

And if you are doing things that you love, you light up and become someone that people are attracted to and want to do business with!

When you work from that place, there is no competition for what you do:

• Your business becomes unique
• You stand out from the crowd

and

• Your ideal clients will be drawn to work with you and not a competitor

If you are feeling that you don’t stand out from the competition or if things aren’t flowing in your business then it is likely that there is a puzzle piece missing for you.

No one else on the planet can do what you can do in the way you can do it; it just means that you haven’t found “it” yet!

If this resonates with you and you know that you are using everything you should be, you can start by getting all of your puzzle pieces out of the box, laying them out on the table and being open to how they all fit together!

Please do leave me a comment below and let me know your thoughts!

How Marketing is like a Lifeboat

by Andrea Beadle

If you are a heart based entrepreneur, marketing can feel like you are lost at sea. You know you need to do it but either don’t know where to start or traditional marketing feels too “salesy”.

Maybe you’ve launched a product and dipped your toe in the water to market it but nothing is happening so you lose heart? Working with some clients recently made me realise how uncertain heart based entrepreneurs are about the whole marketing thing.

If you are helping professional of some kind, I hope that this analogy will help you.

You have a product that you know can help people. Let’s call this your life boat.

In order to help people, they need to climb into it.

So you have this beautiful, shiny new life boat and it is sitting in the boathouse.

No one knows it is there yet but people are sending up flares around you and you have to learn how to spot them and know that they need your help.

For your clients, what do the flares represent? What are the symptoms that are causing them to send up the flares? What are they struggling with? What do they really want right now?

Until you identify this you won’t recognise the flares and more importantly unless you decorate your life boat with things that people will recognise, they won’t know that your life boat can help them.

You need to start speaking to people in terms that they can understand. Highlight their problems and symptoms, let them know how your life boat can rescue them so that when they recognise it when it arrives.

Blogging, social media and your newsletters can all be ways that you are sending out the message to people that you are there to help them.

Now you’re ready to launch your life boat; take it out of the boathouse and put it on the rails of the slip away so that you can push it into the sea.

As well as through the methods above, this might also include something like a product launch a tele-seminar or a free event of some kind.

But it isn’t enough to get your lifeboat into the sea alone

Lifeboats don’t sit waiting for people to swim to them! They have to go where the people need them. They spot the flares going up and scramble to the rescue.

It is no good putting up a website or launching a product if you don’t then scramble the lifeboat and go and find the people who need you. You must keep moving and looking for people to help.

Taking action with your marketing is key. Developing relationships through social media, blogging, your content and your newsletters is vital. You must regularly put content out into the sea (the Internet) in order for people to see you. Failure to do that means that another boat may come along and rescue someone that you could have actually helped better.

When you reach people, they will need different levels of support to take action and get into the lifeboat with you.

Some will recognise that you can help them and climb in straight away with very little support. Others will be in a state of shock and not be able to act without some warmth and comfort first. You may need to offer a hand and tell some people exactly what to do to take it whilst other you may have to haul lifeless out of the water.

So how does this relate to your marketing?

Imagine you have held a free tele-conference promoting a course that starts in a few week’s time. Maybe you expect that everyone will get into the lifeboat at the same time (sign up for your course)?

Firstly be aware that it might not happen like that. Don’t lose heart if no-one signs up straight away. The lifeboat has only just scrambled!

You now have to find out what each person needs to encourage them and make them feel safe enough to get into the lifeboat.

A lifeboat doesn’t motor up to each person and disappear if they don’t climb in. They assess the situation, see how best to help them and do all they can to rescue them. And sometimes they just need to throw the life buoy close enough that they can reach it!

Find out what your client needs to help them make a decision. Follow up emails with different viewpoints are critical. Offer a hand to people by letting them know you are a real person who understands where they are. That it is ok to feel scared, cold, exhausted but that you can help them.

Let them know exactly what it will be like in the lifeboat.

Help them to see what their life will be like when they have climbed in to the lifeboat and are being taken back to shore.

Let them know what experiences previous clients have had with you so that they feel safe enough to climb in.

Blog, create videos, send emails that encourage and support whilst telling people exactly what they can do to get help.

Tell them to connect with you through social media, email or call you if that is an option. Remember that people might be in a state of paralysis and too scared to reach out. You must reach out to them.

And keep your lifeboat circling inviting people in right up until the point that you have to return to shore. In other words, don’t give up and think that your marketing efforts have failed until the actual event or course that you are promoting has arrived!

Thinking you have failed to fill your event before it even starts is like returning to the boathouse before you have searched until dark!

I would love to know your thoughts on this post, please do comment below and let me know!

If you are a heart centred entrepreneur and you need help with marketing in a more heart centred way then do feel free to contact me and see how I might be able to help.

Why being yourself in business is good for your bottom line

By Andrea Beadle

For most of my life I suppressed my thoughts and rarely spoke my own truth. As a child of separated parents, I wrongly believed that it was unsafe to express your thoughts or feelings in case people left you.

I worked in professions such as Customer Service and HR where I was a “people pleaser”. For many years I saw adaptability and flexibility as strengths which allowed me to work with many people. I have always been able to see both sides of an argument which in HR was a true gift; to be able to enable both parties to see how perceptions coloured what was really happening. Always the mediator, I rarely expressed my own opinions.

Recently, over a period of 18 months during which my life was turned upside down, I finally learned that it was safe to me and express who I was. No longer afraid of whether people would dislike me, I realised that I could be me and that I liked it!

I finally found my voice and allowed myself to be seen as I truly am.

I believe that is what I am here to help heart-based entrepreneurs to do; to find their voice and not be afraid to express it; to step out and allow themselves to be seen online through their websites and social media.

So many people when they start out in business or begin to write blogs worry about whether people will be interested in what they have to say. Perhaps we see someone else having great success and try to emulate them with little success?

Here’s the thing… you will never have real success unless you can be yourself; Unless you can stand up and be proud of who you are without worrying about the naysayers that you will inevitably come up against.

People LOVE it when you express yourself authentically. People buy from people first and if you are hiding yourself behind a mask of “business” or are too afraid to just have fun and express yourself, your natural light just won’t shine through.

I was with a new client recently and the upshot of our meeting was that she chose to use my services because I was not afraid to be myself, to share and be vulnerable. I had dropped the barriers that I used to hide behind in my professional career and I showed her the real me. It was the real me that she connected with and was found inspiration from.

The same is true of your website and your blog posts. You MUST find a way to allow yourself to be seen, to express your voice in an authentic way. Stuffy, business-like websites are not for heart-based entrepreneurs like you!

Stop worrying about perfection because people would much rather see the authentic you than the one worried about every tiny detail.

If you need any more persuasion to throw of the stuffy attire, as soon as I showed up in my business as ME, threw of the dowdy business suits and started dressing and showing up as my colourful self, my business began to take off.

You must find a way to allow your light to shine brightly and to be seen through your online presence as the shining light that you are. Your business will do so much better if you do!

I would love to know what you think, please leave me a comment below – I read and respond to them all!

Frustrated with your Marketing? Consider Attraction Marketing

by Andrea Beadle

I asked a question on social media the other day about what frustrates people with their marketing.

The response was that marketing is boring, you end up with very little or no ROI for the efforts and that people wanted to just show up and do their thing! Wow! That great eh?

I said that I would give it some thought and share my views and here they are.

Traditional marketing might seem boring and expensive and if you don’t hit it just right it probably WILL be a waste of money. However, there are ways to make it more fun, authentic and natural so that you CAN just show up and do your thing.

Here are my thoughts:

We are entering into a new era of marketing where people don’t like to be sold to. They want to buy but in a way that they are in control. The internet has made massive changes to marketing but not everyone has embraced it yet and many are still doing things the same old way and the results just aren’t there.

Firstly, my view is that, as business owners and heart-centred entrepreneurs we are building relationships with our customers that go beyond terms like marketing, sales and customers. If you are anything like me, you aren’t looking for a just a customer – you are looking to help and support them for the foreseeable future. You are looking to build a supportive community of clients who stick around for more than just whatever offer you are running.

This means that the way you market yourself has to change to embrace that concept – particularly if your services can be offered over a distance like mine.

Rather than thinking about “marketing” think about building a community and building something that is attractive to your clients.

Something that I’ve talked about for a few years now is Attraction Marketing

I like to think of this as positioning yourself and your marketing in a way that draws people to you and your solutions rather than “chasing” business or sales the traditional way.

Rather than the focus being on the “sale” and the “money”, the focus shifts to what the customer actually wants and to you simply finding out whether your product or service is a match for them.

Using the internet and social media it is possible to draw customers in to you in a way that prequalifies them so that “selling” becomes almost obsolete.

Blogging and the Internet – Content Marketing

When people turn to the internet they are almost always searching for the solution to a problem rather than your business. They are looking for content that will help or advise them.

The key is to get into the head of your ideal customer and understand what problems they are searching for. Focus on their problems and not your offer. 

Imagine what people are typing into Google – that is your focus!

Very often people won’t know that you are the solution to their problem so you have to show them how you can solve their problem and are a match for them.

Having a blog allows us to share our knowledge in a way that helps people to see how we can help them as well as using knowledge of how google works to get us found online.

You don’t have to write, you can record video, audio or any manner of creative things that allow you to express yourself the way you feel most authentic.

However, you do it, talking about your ideal clients problems and offering advice about how they can solve them is a great way to draw them in to you as someone who is knowledgeable in that field. Sharing free advice is a way of getting them to trust you.

But it has to be done in an authentic way – without the energy of doing it to get something in return!

Social Media Marketing

So many people still don’t quite grasp how powerful social media can be as a marketing tool. I like to think of it this way:

How many times have you or someone you know asked if anyone knows a good plumber, hairdresser, kitchen fitter, restaurant…..?

When you find a new shop, restaurant, special place that gives you great value, great service and is just wonderful, what is the first thing you do? Don’t you just love to tell everyone about it?

As social beings we love people to recommend things to us. It is reassuring and somehow when we use that service it gives us a good feeling. It also matters to us when we recommend something to a friend or colleague that they also have as good an experience as we did.

Social media is a way of expanding our reach to do exactly the same.

Again, our focus is about building a community and supporting people. Being our natural selves and just sharing what we know and love.

If we are active on social media and we need a service, we might ask for a recommendation or see a service that someone is talking about that we need in exactly the same way as we would in our own community of friends.

As someone who is active on social media with my business, I see this a LOT!

I regularly see people putting work out there for people to recommend their friends for.

I regularly recommend people on social media that I have had a good experience with and am active in a number of communities. I have also had a number of referrals through social media which has turned into business for me.

What’s more, because people can see exactly who you are and who you stand for from the things you share, when they do search out your services there is no need for any selling. The conversation is just a natural extension of the one you have had on social media.

In my view, these two ways of connecting with people are a great start in changing the way you market your business so that it becomes more effective and most importantly FUN!

If you would like to find out more about how I can help you, please feel free to contact me via my website or social media of course! You can find me via the box on the right hand side of my site.

5 Reasons you should be Blogging

by Andrea Beadle

I speak to many people who, if they know what it is, are resistant to blogging. They have a view of stereotypical bloggers and don’t identify with them at all much less want to be like them.

Some think that bloggers are computer geeks or nerds who spend their whole time at the computer and don’t have a life outside of the “blogosphere”.

Others see bloggers as people that are incredibly witty, intelligent, know all there is to know about their “thing” and are probably famous. With an image like that to live up to, they believe that there is no point in even starting…

I hear time and time again that “It isn’t for me”, “I don’t have anything interesting to say” and “no-one would be interested in reading what I have to write anyway!”

Let me dispel some of the myths about blogging and show you how it might actually be something fun that could help you to grow your business.

Blogging helps to build a community of followers

Your website needs to do something if you are going to effectively use it to build your business.

I like to paint a picture of your website being like a comfy, cosy lounge area where you serve up tea and biscuits to potential clients whilst they decide whether or not you can help them. It is somewhere that they can come for inspiration, advice or support and guidance 24/7.

I hear clients saying things like “no-one would be interested in reading what I have to say”.

Wrong!

Everyone has a passion and expertise for something and there will always be people that share that passion and want to learn from you.

If you are a heart-centred entrepreneur, try turning things around and think about what your clients need to hear.

You have all sorts of information that your clients are probably itching to hear about.

If you are in business and you are blogging about topics related to what your customers want, they will come back repeatedly to hear it.

Blogging allows you to help more people

You can help and support far more people via blogging that you can on a 1:1 basis.

When an issue or question comes up for you or one of your clients you can create a blog post which helps other clients without you needing to help each one individually.

Imagine the aha moments that your clients could get from reading your posts.

Sharing your knowledge and expertise means that you have the material on your blog that you can direct people to and it only takes a few seconds.

Doesn’t that mean I will get less business? I hear you ask.

That might be how it could look but in actual fact many clients with still need help with the same issue, it just means that they can identify that they need that help more easily.

Other clients will work through the things that they can themselves and come to you for the things that they need help with.

Blogging sells for you

A well written website will help you to sell your products. If you have built a community of loyal followers and customers through your writing and if you are seen as someone who knows what they are talking about people will come to your blog when they need help.

Because of the information you share, you are far more likely to be the only person they consider if they need to actually buy anything.

What is more, because of the wonders of modern technology, you can very gently lead them through the sales process to an online product which they can buy direct from your website.

Not only can you sell things without having to do any “hard sell”, you can create useful products that you can sell online and make money from your information and not just your 1:1 time.

Blogging enables you to share successes

Blogging allows you to share success stories which allow people to see exactly how you can help them. You can also share inspiring messages and stories that touch people’s lives in ways you can never know. Particularly if you are a heart-centred entrepreneur who is an avid writer, perhaps with channelled messages, you have a wonderful medium to spread those messages.

Google loves blogs

You have a beautiful shiny new website and you are very proud of it. It is printed on your business cards and you are giving out your details to people to have a look at it. If you are on facebook, you may even be sharing the link for people to go and take a look.

However, unless you do something with your website, it will continue to sit there looking pretty and the only people that will look at it will be those that you send to it. It is effectively a very expensive brochure!

Google loves fresh content and your site will be ranked as much more interesting and important if you can regularly write and publish something interesting.

If you have a blog that you are not using enough, I hope that this article prompts you to begin writing some fresh content and sharing it with your community. If you don’t already have a blog or even a website, you might like to read some more information about why a WordPress Website is a good platform for you to consider.

You might also like to find out more about how I build WordPress Websites

 5 Reasons to choose WordPress for your Website

There are lots of reasons why WordPress websites are so popular – the key one being that they are just brilliant! I used to build websites in html but now use WordPress for virtually all my websites. So far I haven’t found any reason to go back to building them the old way!

Here are just 5 of the reasons that I think you need a WordPress Website:

1. WordPress makes design easy

WordPress makes the design of your site easy. It is flexible and can easily be customised to your own look and feel. With thousands of templates to choose from there is something to suit everyone’s taste.

If you don’t like the way something looks you can change it quickly and easily. It is easy to change things like the header, the background or where things are on the site. It uses drag and drop features so that you can just move something quickly and easily. Once you get the hang of it, you will probably even be able to move things yourself!

2. WordPress can grow with your business

With WordPress, just like your business, you can start small and grow at your own pace. Your website can start simple but you are secure in the knowledge that your website can grow with your business. WordPress uses “plug-ins” which are adds on that make your site do even more things than it did before. You can add shopping carts, added security, membership sites and all sorts of other cool stuff.

Many really large companies use WordPress as their platform and so you can be sure that with such pedigree as eBay using it, a WordPress website is more than capable of expanding as your business does.

3. WordPress websites are easily maintained

Once you have had your site built and it is up and running, apart from your monthly maintenance to stop it breaking, you can pretty much manage it yourself.

If you can use Word or a similar text editor, WordPress is as easy to use to edit pages and to create new pages and blog posts. Many traditional website designers don’t like WordPress, preferring to use more complex platforms but that choice will leave you dependant upon a technical guy to update your site. Every time you find something you want to change you will have to get someone else to do it and when it is a minor tweak you will probably find yourself at the end of a long queue!

With a WordPress website, you can update it yourself in minutes – no waiting, no cost!

4. Search Engines LOVE WordPress

Set up properly and with a little know how about keywords, tags and links (don’t worry it really is simple – I can teach you to do this!) you can rank quickly in the search engines. There are lots of features in WordPress that with a little training will help you to shoot up the search engine rankings (and don’t let your web guy tell you otherwise!)

Along with a few key strategies and features that support them, you can do your own SEO.

5. You NEED to blog!

Don’t let the term put you off – Blogging is really just writing regularly for your website. If you are a heart-based entrepreneur or a helping professional in any way, then there are lots of things you can share with your audience: Tips, hints, observations, channelled messages, recorded meditations or you tube videos. Blogging is the perfect platform to interact with your clients and create a community. Not only can you help more people, inspire and motivate them but you can also use it effectively to showcase what you do and get more clients.

If you would like to explore a bit more whether WordPress is right for your business, please feel free to contact me and I will be happy to talk you through the options.

Photo Credit - jtram

How many times have you set New Year’s resolutions and broken them before the end of January – sometimes even within the first week?

Did you set New Year’s resolutions this year whilst wondering how long you could stick to them?

We all know that New Year’s Resolutions rarely work and yet a huge proportion of the population still insist on setting them and then “beating themselves up” when they don’t’ stick to them.

In my view, when we set resolutions we expect failure and to feel bad later on in the year and that is no recipe for lasting change! Not to mention the anxiety and stress that this makes us feel.

So if you have broken your New Year’s Resolutions already – don’t be too hard on yourself. There is a better way!

This year I didn’t set any New Year’s Resolutions

My husband asked me on New Year’s Day what my resolutions were and I told him that I hadn’t set any.

Instead, I had written what I wanted my life to look like this year. I focussed on the things that I wanted more of and I committed to finding ways of getting more of it.

It prompted a wonderful discussion where we talked about what we both wanted more of. What we wanted to achieve, how we wanted our lives to expand and what dreams we wanted to fulfil. It was an amazing process.

Instead of saying that I wanted to lose some weight my focus is on being “fitter, healthier and more vibrant.” Yes I have set a goal for my weight but it focuses on how I feel then rather than depriving myself now.

Joy and happiness is another intention – “Life is full of fun and laughter”.

Who couldn’t use more fun and laughter in their life? When we feel happy and have fun, everything feels better. Life flows better and we feel more energised and inspired in all areas of our lives.

So instead of being on a diet or joining the gym, I’m looking for ways to improve my health. Focussing on the things I know I should do rather living in a constant feeling of denial. And as I look for more fun things to do with my family we exercise more, laugh more, feel better and so I’m far less likely to need to turn to food for comfort…. Win – win!

I have set similar intentions for my business, relationships and personal development.

Instead of focussing on what I’m not doing, I’m focussing on what I want to do more of, what I want more of and what I want my life to look like at the end of the year.

So when one day I don’t do something that I want to do more of I don’t feel like I’ve failed and broken a resolution because I haven’t! I can do it later or the next day. Doing more of something allows for the slip ups and allows us to feel that we can get back on track.

So if you have set resolutions that you know that you can’t keep or have already broken them, try a more positive approach.

Describe your ideal life, see what is missing now that you can easily set an intention to increase and take steps in the right direction without feeling any sense of anxiety about not sticking to it.

Please do feel free to comment below and let me know what you think.

I have always loved the colours of autumn. To be surrounded by such beautiful colours fills me with joy and one day soon I will fulfil my dream of visiting New England in the Autumn.

Yesterday, I had a beautiful channeled healing from my friend Lisa Dorey.

For much of the time I was surrounded by beautiful autumn leaves. The colours were of red, orange, yellow and gold. Beautiful colours that fill your heart with joy.

At first leaves swirled around me whilst I played joyfully catching the leaves and enjoying the sensation of the wind in my hair. Later, I sat with beautiful leaves falling around me. I was reminded to look in nature at the abundance that is everywhere even as the leaves fall.

I left contemplating abundance everywhere and being very grateful for my life. However, there was one sentence that left me thinking and I couldn’t quite grasp it. “Don’t look for the leaves, look for the Gold”

In my journalling this morning I explored this further and this is what came to me. I contemplated the fact that there were many levels to the message – some of which are personal however these are the messages that I received and I hope they resonate with you as deeply as they did me.

“Play and have fun; look for the fun and not the sadness.

Leaves fall and die but they first give us joy with their exquisite beauty; Beautiful autum colours to enjoy!

They fall to the ground giving us a beautiful playground.

Crisp leaves to scrunch and play in, the wind whrling them around us in play.

They are material for small hand to make beautiful collages; playthings for young creatures.

Then they are food for animals, insulation for nests and burrows, fertiliser for the soil as well as food for the worms that aerate and enrich the soil so that more trees can grow.

Don’t look for the leaves, look for the gold means to see the true abundance in every situation.

There is always a lesson or a blessing in everything no matter how sad it seems at the time.

Don’t take things at face value, see beyond the physical for everything is so much more than that.

Life is a cycle and each stage brings joy and abundance if you allow it.

Even as things fall away and die there is joy to be had, lessons to be learned and gold to be mined.

Don’t focus on the falling or passing, focus on the joy and the lessons.

Focus on the gift in everything and life becomes so much richer.”

I hope that you will look for the gold with me today!

If you use any form on mobile device or use Facebook and Twitter, you can’t have failed to have learned about the death of Steve Jobs today. It is somehow ironic and yet a great tribute that most of us learned the news on one of the very devices that he created.

If you didn’t know very much about him there are numerous videos and quotes on the Internet that can’t fail to move you.

This video of Steve at The Stamford Commencement Address has moved many people today including me. Please take the time to watch it, it will be time well spent.
 

 

One particular story stood out for me.

Steve dropped out of college which enabled him to stop taking the classes that held no interest for him and to drop in unofficially on classes that he wanted to take. One of the courses that he took which appeared to be totally off the wall at the time was to do with calligraphy. He was fascinated by it and loved how beautiful it was. There appeared to be absolutely no reason for him to take this class until some 10 years later when he was working on the Mac. Instead of using boring typefaces, he incorporated his love and knowledge to do with typefaces learned during calligraphy classes into the fonts on the computer. A stroke of genius that we all take for granted.

Steve talks about the fact that you’ve got to find what you love and that the only way to do great work is to love what you do.

He explains that you must follow your heart and trust that you will connect the dots later.

His story is a perfect illustration of how he connected the dots years later.

In my own story, I went to University in my late 20s planning to study Social Anthropology. However, during our first year we were able to take a number of courses to give us a wider experience and to ensure that we followed the right course. I very quickly realised that the subjects I had signed up for didn’t fill me with passion and somehow I “fell into” computing.

I took one course and found myself totally and utterly hooked. I just loved it! Call me a geek or what you like but I followed my heart and my passion and ended up majoring in Applied Computing and achieving a first class degree as a result.

I continued studying computing throughout my teaching degree and specialised in ICT as a teaching specialism. After a brief spell in teaching I set up and ran all of the computing courses at a University college, teaching on many of the courses as well as creating a course in building websites for children.

And then I got a proper job!!

I left behind the computing in my “work” although I continued to develop skills in this area in my free time for many years.

Now some 10 years later, I have finally connected the dots. Computing and building websites as well as supporting people with technology is the medium through which I know I can do my greatest work.

It is the thing that I love that will help me to throw a lifeline to young people; teaching them skills that they can use to improve their lives.

You can read more about it in my story but for today, watch the video of Steve Jobs and listen to his advice very carefully.

“You’ve got to find what you love. The only way to do great work is to love what you do. Follow your heart and trust that you will connect the dots later.” ~ Steve Jobs

And when you are attempting to join the dots further on down the road, look at the things that you love, the things that give you energy, the things that you could do without getting paid. Amongst THOSE things will be your greatest work!

This time last year I was facing major surgery and whilst I had some nerves, I was feeling strangely at peace with everything. I had begun to do some inner work and had found myself in a place of accepting that where I was and whatever happened, everything was perfect.

I truly believed that my surgery was a turning point; an opportunity to leave behind any part of my life that wasn’t serving me.

I visualised rolling all the negative through and behaviours that I no longer wanted into a ball and, without being too graphic, placing them into the areas that were to be removed. (You can read more about that here if you are guided to!) Anything that I decided I no longer wanted I put there too.

I visualised and believed that when I woke up from my surgery, it would be the first day of the rest of my life; a clean, fresh start, free of all the pain and negativity of the past.

The last year hasn’t all been easy and there have been some highs and lows, but I am so grateful to have the opportunity to look back from a significant anniversary and see how much has changed and how far I have come!

Deciding to step into a new life was an incredibly powerful decision and I feel that the universe has supported me in making enormous and dramatic changes in my life.

I’ve manifested some amazing things the year!

• The most incredible support and friendship from some amazing, amazing people
• The happy release of a job that was making me ill and no longer served me.
• A redundancy that didn’t exist
• A huge shift in my financial perspective and an amazing vision of a totally fulfilling way of earning a living

Things are beginning to flow to me in a way that I could never have imagined before and I have an amazing sense of knowing that everything is working out perfectly.

Personally I’m living a larger proportion of my life in happiness and peace without the anxiety and stress that used to plague me. I’m able to take my son to school each day which was the one thing I started with that I wanted to be able to change in my life.

Career-wise, I thought I was trapped in having my job but having made the decision that I needed to leave, I have finally broken free and realised that you are only ever trapped by your mind!

I’ve finally found a way of pulling together all of the things that I love into a business that I feel absolutely fired up and passionate about. I know that I’m helping people in a way that is unique to me and in a way that totally connects my clients at a heart level.

I have an enormous vision of helping underprivileged young people to build skills that will give them a chance in life at the same time as helping healers, coaches and conscious entrepreneurs embrace the Internet to take their business online, get more clients, help more people and make more money.

You can read more about my story here and find out how I’m turning my vision into reality.

And if you can see a way that I might be able to help you or feel that there is someone that I need to connect with to help make my vision of a social enterprise a reality then I would love to hear from you.

Until then, I hope that my story inspires those of you struggling to find a way out of a job that is making you ill, or to align your business with who you really are.

There is hope, you CAN change whatever you want to change. The trick is to realise what you no longer want and DECIDE what you want instead!

So this week, make the decision to leave what is no longer serving you behind, visualise what you want instead and be open to the opportunities that present themselves to assist you.