Why I shop local, and you should too.

I have spent two days lying in my bed (with occasional sorties to my sofa just for a change of scenery).

I have 'flu.

I feel miserable.

My husband is doing everything that he usually does and everything that I usually do. He feels pretty miserable about that too.

Then this happens:

5:56pm

Salvation! I’ve tried this juice tonic before and despite my initial skepticism, it works. Plus it tastes great, an added bonus when you are sick.

But, the juice is a half hour bike ride away, in the rain and the wind. Right now I’m not sure I could make it down the stairs let alone across the city, and my husband? Well, he’s a little busy doing all the things.

The juice owner and I converse through Facebook Messenger, checking logistics, could it be picked up from this location? That location? At what time? Tricky logistics. It’s not looking good. Then she says she can call a local delivery service, it adds to the cost but they can get it to me that night.

YES

Payment details are exchanged. Delivery is set. I flop back on the sofa and listlessly tap in the payment via mobile banking.

6:47pm

I get a message: Your juice tonic is on its way.

7:10pm

The delivery rider pulls up and hands over the tonic. I start doing shots, of the juice. The placebo effect has me feeling better already.

74 minutes from posting on Facebook about the product to it arriving at my door.

This is why I shop local.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good Amazon delivery as much as the next person. But, building relationships with your local businesses allows you to work things like this out. To find a solution after traditional business hours, combining local service providers, so that I can start feeling semi-normal again. Amazon can’t gift wrap that for me, or deliver it in the same time frame.

Lessons learned here:

• Good service is always worth the extra expense.
• A local service provider who knows and works with their local service providers is worth their weight in gold.
• Take care of your local businesses and they will take care of you.

With grateful thanks to Healthy Happy Green and Tring Tring. What a team

3 Lessons from "What the Most Successful People do on the Weekend"

Do you, like me, you find yourself in a weekend "rut"; doing the same things every weekend? Are you mostly in your pyjamas and often not leaving the house? Then Laura Vanderkam's e-bookette (mini e-book?) is just the thing to jolt you out of your cosy routine.

These were my three favourite takeaways from the book....

There is nothing like cold, hard numbers to make you realise what you are wasting. A whole working week? I would never have guessed that. 

Ooof. As a mother, this one hit me hard. I only have 1,000 Saturdays with the light of my life. Quick! We need to do stuff. We need to be making memories.

I am tired. I am a mother, a wife, a business owner, a daughter, a friend, a curiosity seeker. Frankly, I'm exhausted. But Vanderkam is absolutely correct in order to replenish your depleted energy you must draw it from meaningful things. It takes very little to do so. After all, how much better do you feel when you know you have achieved something, even if it is just one thing rather than being asked on Monday "What did you do this weekend?" and answering "I have absolutely no idea."?

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What the Most Successful People do on the Weekend by Laura Vanderkam is available as an e-book from your preferred online retailer.

You have permission. Now go and do it.

Let’s make a deal. 

I’m going to give you a permission slip, a bit like the ones we used to get in school but “virtual” because things have moved on since then. 

With your new virtual permission slip clutched in your sweaty palm, you are going to stop doing the things which you think everyone else is doing to be successful, and start doing the things that you do really well.

Right now. This instant.

Do we have a deal?

Somewhere, somehow we’ve lost our way a little bit, us entrepreneurs (or whatever we are calling ourselves these days). 

It begins like a twisted game of Chinese Whispers, played out on social media; 

“If you do this, then you’ll be successful.” 

“If you do that then the money will start rolling in.”

“Join this program, guaranteed success.”

And then we begin to question and doubt ourselves, 

“What do I have to do to be successful? This? All of it?”

“Is what I know I can do enough anymore?”

“Everyone else is doing it, shouldn’t I be doing it too?”

“I’m going to stop you right there.”

No. You should not be doing it, whatever "it" is. Just because it works for someone you know or someone you’ve read about online, does not in any way mean that you should be doing it. 

Unless, of course, you are utterly brilliant at it and it is the very thing that your business has been missing. In which case, smack your forehead that you didn’t do it sooner and off you go. Success awaits you.

Whatever your “it” is:

Do it because you are inspired to do it.

Do it because you are exceptional at it. 

Do it because you do it better than anyone else does it. 

But don’t do it, please don't do it, because everyone else is doing it. 

Every time you do that a fairy dies. 

I’m kidding, a fairy doesn’t die, but part of your business does. Every time you flagrantly copy someone else out of fear. Every time you slavishly follow someone else’s “golden formula”, you take a step further away from your business, from your skills, from your dream. You step back from the very reason that people want to work with you in the first place, because you do what they need, in the way that they need it.

Of course, it’s scary to walk your own path. It’s much, much easier to walk in someone else’s footsteps, but what’s the point in that? You didn’t start your business to feel safe, you started it to make a difference, to you and to them.

And that means it’s time for you to step up and do it.  Do it your way. Do it the way they need you to do it. 

You have your permission slip.

Now go and do it.