Growing businesses and forging new relationships.
When you're starting out it's scary. You have an absolute passion for your subject, and you know you have the skill set, but even then you can doubt yourself.
This post is, I guess, about self belief and self esteem, and how, sometimes, that needs to be shored up by others.
We attended an expo yesterday with a keynote speaker called Emma Jones. Emma has a degree in Law and Japanese, and after a 5 year period of working for Arthur Anderson she set up her first company, Techlocate.
Within two years she had sold. Many years later, after a working with Government promoting start ups amongst others, she now runs Enterprisenation.com a company aimed at helping small business become big business. She has earned an MBE for services to enterprise and champions those people passionate about building their companies.
At the panel at the end I asked a question and when I introduced myself and explained what we do I saw her eyes light up. As a 'connector' myself I could already see the cogs whirring as to where she thought we would fit, and when I got to speak to her at the end, she grabbed my attention as she was speaking to someone else. "You guys are doing absolutely the right thing at the right time.'
She was kind and immediately spoke about which companies she thought we would fit with. Always connecting, not thinking of what angle there was for her company to make a buck, but sharing some of that wealth of information, just because it's the 'right' thing to do. Why wouldn't you help someone up ?
So how is this about #mentalhealth ? Well it is about how we get the opportunity on a daily basis to say well done, or you are doing a great job, when that is the case.
It made a huge difference to us to have that input - we knew it - but now we know it.
Don't waste the opportunity to give someone some praise or some validation. We are not good at it. But good people, especially good managers, do it as a natural part of their everyday..
