So how did you spend IWD this year? I hope you did something fabulous to celebrate all of the wonderful things we have to be thankful for. I had lunch with my female colleagues at Uni, and we had chocolate brownies to mark the occasion!
I love IWD because it is also the birthday of the pink book. 5 years! Wow! I sold 100 copies of the book on the day, it still has a life of its own it seems. I’m planning to do a new edition soon, with the hope of launching it on a future IWD! I’m now looking for sponsors so if you know of anyone who might be interested please let me know. I’m proud to say that nearly 20 000 books have been distributed across Australia and the world in the past five years. No small achievement! Thanks to all of you that made it possible.
I want to share a couple of inspiring TED videos to mark this special day. The first is from Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook. The main message is “don’t be ashamed to ask for help!” I know that I’m guilty of this, I often take on too much then struggle through getting things done but don’t want to bother others by asking for help. But I’m now working on changing this. I’m also keen to read Sheryl’s new book “lean in” – which I’ve read good reviews from Wired etc..
The other I want to share is by a musician called Amanda Palmer. You might not know her music but It doesn’t matter, this is still worth watching. Amanda is incredibly inspiring in encouraging us to put ourselves out there, being strong in our beliefs, and living your dreams. Similar to Sheryl’s video, The art of asking, or “putting yourself out there” bit really hits home with a recent experience of mine.
I make jewellery with semi-precious stones. I’ve done this for quite a few years and I love it. It helped me to get through my PhD (using the other side of my brain and doing something quite monotonous was good (and still is) good therapy). So I became quite addicted to playing with those beautiful stones, so much so that I now sell my jewellery. So on the weekend I spent an entire day sitting in my local shopping centre attempting to sell my stuff. This required me to really put myself out there, giving people free reign to come and inspect my creations, maybe liking them but possibly hating them. Kinda like Amanda in the video allowing the crowd to draw on her (but not so physically personal). I have to admit, this scared me a lot! I’ve been selling my jewellery in a shop for some time but it is a whole different experience for me to put my face behind it and welcome feedback. Luckily the feedback was pretty good, I sold a bit and one woman said she wanted to buy the whole table of jewels! So I made it through without too many scars, and I may have even raised my confidence a little. This is good because I’m just about to start selling my jewels in one of the biggest shopping centers on the planet, Garden City! From the end of March, check out the MyCube store (a great concept) and the Madly Creative cube inside, I’d love to hear what YOU think of my creations. Time for me to go and follow my dreams. Ciao!
Jx
Posted in Uncategorized
|
Tagged Celebrate
|