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Who are the strongest people at the gym?

There are people with amazing bodies at the gym that I can’t help but admire. Some people go to the gym every single day. They work out because they absolutely love it. They love the feeling it gives them, almost as much as the body it gives them. The buzz of adrenaline lifts their entire day. They have the toned physique, the rippled muscles, the raw strength and the cardiovascular superiority. They have the ability (if required) to bench-press me and the whole of my little family all at once.

They. Look. Amazing.

There is certainly a lot to admire in these people. But they’re not the gym-goers that I wanted to write about.

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Today we have a guest post from Marie Betty Davis – vintage fashionista, legendary multi-tasker and general all-round nice person. Hello Inspiration collaborated with Marie on the ‘Inspiring the Inspirers’ project, and Marie has shared her feelings about the project in her own no-nonsense style. Contains strong emotions (and strong language!). Over to you, Marie…

“Those of you who know me will be more than aware (thanks mainly to my packed Facebook and Twitter feeds) that I have gotten myself involved in a lot recently.

I share a health & wellness business with my partner Andy, I am an ambassador for a beauty company, I do a bit of social media management for a new hairdressers in Manchester (who are brilliant by the way) and now I am a personal stylist for a fashion boutique. All of this is in addition to my full time job and busy home life with my kids Lucy (aged 9½) Roddy the Wondercat (aged 2) and Andy (aged 41¾)

I cannot yet say that I have reached a point where I can quit my day job, but I can see that opportunity is on the horizon, so I keep trooping on.

The hardest thing for me has been (along with losing touch with a lot of my friends) is that I have encountered a fair bit of negativity from people; from being told that the products I sell are “a load of shit”, to “you are neglecting your daughter”

I will be brutally honest and tell you that this negativity has drained me at times. Although I know that I should let such poisonous comments wash over me, it is really hard to put that method into practice. Only yesterday was I sat in the kitchen in floods of tears (no, I hadn’t been peeling onions) mascara streaming down my face onto Andy’s shoulder and white tee (sorry, luv) wondering why I am putting myself through all this stress and heartache.

Then Andy reminded me why I am, because it is ME and what I LOVE TO DO. He also made the following points (as he always does when I have one of my episodes)

1. The things I sell aren’t shit. I wouldn’t be wasting my time selling them if they were.
2. I am not neglecting Lucy, I am building a better life for us, so we can have a holiday next year, and every year thereafter (and nice clothes, days out, a rainy day fund, a nest egg etc…)
3. The negative people are far outweighed by the positive people, who can see what I am doing and my WHY.
4. People are in awe of what I do. I receive a lot of messages from people telling me this, commenting that I have a lovely aura and who notice that I am still smiling all the time.
5. People who say they wish they were like me…!? He tells me that all these people see greatness in me, I just need to start seeing it myself.
6. If any of the above points were not true, then Hello Inspiration would not have got in touch…

Which brings me (finally) to the topic of my post…

A couple of months back, Chris Keep, owner of new company Hello Inspiration, and fellow resident of Urmston, got in touch with me via my favourite platform, Twitter.

He had set up a new business, which combines motivation with art, and he wanted to use me as a muse for a project he was doing, entitled ‘Inspiring the Inspirers’

Of course as confused as I felt at that point (in my Typical-Marie ‘why me’ kinda way) I accepted his kind request. He had already thought up some ideas of what he wanted to do from reading my earlier blog post (my post about finding acceptance after encountering a rude man in a pub) but being the perfectionist he is, he asked me to complete a series of questions:

• What three words to describe your outlook on life?
• Who/what inspires you?
• What’s the best compliment you’ve ever been given?
• What would you like to say to your younger self?
• What job would you do if time, talent, money etc were not factors? Why?
• Do you have a mantra or set of words you find yourself going over when things are challenging, a piece of advice that you rely on?

After a couple of weeks, he came back to me with a series of pieces of art which he felt encapsulated what I am all about.

All of the pictures contained a quotation or word which highlighted my strengths. We shortlisted the pictures down to two, and Chris decided on this as the final piece (which also happened to be my favourite)

He went for a subtle but strong message, which hints at the greatness which he sensed in me….’There is greatness within me’

Cool!

He then delivered to me, a mounted copy of the image, which is now hanging proudly on the wall of my hall (it stands out nicely against my vintage pictures) I was emotional, as you can imagine!!

Chris is a lovely gent with a brilliant concept. We all love to be inspired and motivated day to day, and one of his pictures on your living room wall or on your desktop will keep you feeling that way.”

On Thursday 30th October, Hello Inspiration is going to be participating in a shopping and pamper event in aid of the Macmillan Cancer Support charity. This promises to be a great event in support of a fantastic and worthwhile charitable cause.

It also promises to be a nerve-racking experience for me personally

Thus far, Hello Inspiration has lived the whole of its short life on the internet. I’m free to create designs, publish them and watch the feedback (or not) from the safety of my little computer screen. I design and produce primarily for an audience of one – me. If I like it, and I’m happy with it, it gets published. If not, it doesn’t. Simple. I don’t have to worry about seeing people’s up-close-and-personal reactions – their love, their hate or worst of all, their ambivalence.

All of that will change at this event

I will be eye-balling potential customers, and they will be eye-balling me. In the flesh. Person to person. IN REAL LIFE. Arrrgghhhhhh.

They can look at my creations and react accordingly, and I will be able to see it all happening right there in front of me. Will they pause for a second, look and then move on? Will they flick through the display, pick out ten or twelve favourites and buy them all? Or will they walk on by, without even giving my work a second glance?

What will happen? I have no idea

This kind of in-person sales is completely new to me. The closest I have come to it previously was working on a trade stand at a telecoms technology exhibition, many years ago and in a different life. That experience did not go well. I spent the entire day looking into the middle distance, hoping beyond hope that no-one would try to catch my eye and horror-of-horrors, actually ask me any questions. That tactic worked well for most of the day, but on the two occasions where my defences were breached, I was quickly pulled in out of my depth by a rip-current of technical questions, and had to call on more experienced colleagues to save me from drowning.

Not a great experience

But Hello Inspiration is different – and deep down I know that. It is something I am very passionate about (something I would never have said about the telecoms industry). It is also something that I know a lot about – you can’t really avoid that kind of in-depth knowledge as the founder of a small business. And hopefully, it will be an occasion where I will be actively seeking to catch people’s eye and engage with them, rather than trying desperately to avoid their gaze.

So if you come along to the event, please do stop by the Hello Inspiration stall. I’ll be the one wearing the nervous/welcoming smile.

This inspirational artwork design was originally produced ages and ages ago, back when Hello Inspiration had about two-and-a-half fistfulls of followers on Twitter.

I re-posted it to Twitter and Facebook a couple of weeks ago and had a mini-hit on my hands…

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You hear it all the time… “Follow your passion”, or the alternative “Do what you love”.

It seems like the new mantra for entrepreneurs and wannabe entrepreneurs in today’s anything-is-possible world. And sure, it sounds tempting – I mean, who doesn’t want to follow their dreams, right? What they don’t tell you is why the ‘follow your passion’ approach works…

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