Bear with me. Before I get to the crux of this week’s roundup, I want to go back to the beginning of the week.
Tuesday was the first day of the Small Business Marketing Bootcamp and I was really nervous about it. There was so much to get done last minute and I wasn’t sure how it was going to work out. This Bootcamp is something I’ve been working on with 2 colleagues for the past 3 months and the whole programme is something I have wanted to offer to my clients since the beginning of the year.
Since I started running my own business (and maybe even before that), I always wanted to help small business owners and freelancers improve their social media (and to grow their business that way). The biggest challenge wasn’t lack of knowledge or lack of opportunities to learn (the problem might even be the opposite – too much knowledge).
The challenge I kept facing was taking an action! Implementing learnings and actually doing something consistently to be able to see some changes. That’s why the Small business Marketing Bootcamp came to be!
What it means being ’award-winning’
So, I won an award! It wasn’t 1st place, but I’m still absolutely delighted about getting the 2nd place in the 3rd Cambridgeshire Digital Awards for the use of social media for business.
Accepting this award was a bit weird as there was no ceremony. Everything happened online and I only discovered that I’d won in between my meetings. My first reaction was: “oh, I’ve won, cool, let’s do some more work then”.
Let me tell you something. At first, I wasn’t really sure what winning this award actually means to me. Don’t get me wrong, I was really excited to get nominated. Seeing my name together with some truly inspiring people and companies was a great honour.
After the official announcement of winners, I posted about my success on my social media and that’s when the madness started! I’ve never received so many messages, best wishes and words of support. I’m really lucky to be surrounded by an amazing community of freelancers and entrepreneurs, but their reaction to this absolutely blew my mind.
Be proud of yourself
I need to tell you something else.
Last year my previous employer and its teams won quite a few categories in this particular awards. I remember watching the ceremony where my ex-agency (a company that fired me because I wasn’t good enough and working hard enough in their eyes) and my ex-colleagues were being praised. I was feeling jealous and a bit defeated. I must say it’s really satisfying to be presented with the same award a year later!
Not only because of that, but also thanks to more time to process, I’m starting to realise how proud I am about this achievement (yes, I’ve said it, I am proud of myself!). It took me awhile to get confident enough to actually accept praise without feeling nervous or worried that someone will discover that I am a fraud!
Be proud of who you are and what you’ve achieved so far (repeat to self x 100)!
Finding your tribe
The second half of my week was filled with networking and more celebrating! On Friday we were celebrating 1 year of co-working at CambrideSpace and we had lots of fun!
I’m really grateful that I have so many amazing and supportive people around me. I feel lucky that I’ve found my tribe (a few of them actually) and that I can truly be myself with these people!
What’s next? I’m really excited about the future and can’t wait to share all about it with you. Stay tuned!
Book Corner
In this week’s book corner, I want to quickly mention one really inspiring and thought-provoking book that I’ve been reading recently. It’s called Money: Know More, Make More, Give More by Rob Moore and especially the audio version is really engaging!
It’s not what you’re doing now that earns your wage, it’s what you’re not doing.
In a way it reminds me of Rich Dad Poor Dad: What The Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! By Robert T. Kiyosaki as both talk a lot about mindset about money and hard vs. smart work.
In school we learn that mistakes are bad, and we are punished for making them. Yet, if you look at the way humans are designed to learn, we learn by making mistakes. We learn to walk by falling down. If we never fell down, we would never walk.
Winners are not afraid of losing. But losers are. Failure is part of the process of success. People who avoid failure also avoid success.
Have you read any of these books? Would you recommend any other books on this topic? Let me know in comments or tweet me at @lenkakopp.
