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Inspiration

GUEST BLOG: TOXIC PERFECTIONISM

GUEST BLOG: TOXIC PERFECTIONISM

THE TRAP OF PERFECTIONISM Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be perfect, to have the perfect life? Or is it actually making us sick?

FIVE TIPS & TRENDS FOR 2021

FIVE TIPS & TRENDS FOR 2021

HOW DO YOU FEEL WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT 2021?
Nervous? Worried about economic chaos? Concerned about the level of uncertainty?

SNIPPETS OF INSPIRATION

SNIPPETS OF INSPIRATION

BUSINESS PLANNING Here are three important facts about small, entrepreneurial businesses that you should know… they will help you to grow your business, grow your impact and create change…

FIVE BIRTHDAY LESSONS

FIVE BIRTHDAY LESSONS

CELEBRATE If you’ve been on Mars this week you may not have noticed that it’s my birthday! As the years whizz past I sometimes wonder about the alleged link between age and wisdom.

SNIPPETS OF INSPIRATION

SNIPPETS OF INSPIRATION

TAKE ACTION I haven’t always had the greatest relationship with my Mum. That’s an understatement. I won’t rehash the details. We don’t have that long and besides, it isn’t just my story to tell. Suffice to say that years would go by when we didn’t speak…

SNIPPETS OF INSPIRATION

SNIPPETS OF INSPIRATION

WHAT IF? LIVE YOUR LIFE WITHOUT REGRETS Twenty years ago, I got married. But it’s not the thing about this story that will most surprise you. Or even shock you. That comes later. Twenty years ago I stood in a town hall in Tunis and married a man I had known for less than a year…

SNIPPETS OF INSPIRATION

SNIPPETS OF INSPIRATION

CHOOSE JOY I’ve been talking a lot about joy recently. Why? Well mainly because when I talk to my clients at the moment what I’m hearing is the absence of joy. Life is a slog. Filled with hard work. I’m so busy. I’m so exhausted. I am barely holding it together. I can’t spend another moment in this house…

ARE WE ALL GENERATION Z NOW?

ARE WE ALL GENERATION Z NOW?

If your first reaction to that question is “the who, what?” then read on, because Generation Z (‘Gen Z’) are now your customers, your employees and also some of the most exciting entrepreneurs and changemakers around. Think Greta Thunberg, Billie Eilish…

FIVE LESSONS ABOUT SALES

FIVE LESSONS ABOUT SALES

Since the lockdown began. I have been offering free 30 minute clarity and connection calls to members of the Actually community. One of the key themes that has emerged in these conversations is a reluctance to sell during this crisis…a resistance to having a sales...

SNIPPETS OF INSPIRATION

SNIPPETS OF INSPIRATION

For those of you who don’t know her (where have you been for the past five years?), Gina Miller is a successful business owner, campaigner and activist. She initiated the court case against the British government in 2016 over its authority to implement Brexit…

SNIPPETS OF INSPIRATION

SNIPPETS OF INSPIRATION

Next week is February. And it’s one of my two annual ‘care and curiosity’ months. It means I won’t be working. Instead I will be focussing on self-care. Letting my system completely relax and replenishing my energy. And once…

FIVE LESSONS I LEARNT FROM CANCER

FIVE LESSONS I LEARNT FROM CANCER

Sometimes life will throw curveballs at you. You’re happily beavering away at a job you love and you’re made redundant. You marry the man of your dreams only to discover that he has somewhat different ideas about fidelity to you. You’re filled with joy, travelling...

SNIPPETS OF INSPIRATION

SNIPPETS OF INSPIRATION

Imagine a world in which we do more than turn up once every four or five year and mark a cross on a piece of paper and then sit in the pub with our mates and whinge about politics. Imagine a world in which the electorate feels informed, engaged and empowered. Imagine…

FIVE INTENTIONS FOR 2020

FIVE INTENTIONS FOR 2020

It’s almost a new year. Time for celebrating the year that’s past and setting intentions for the year ahead. I have never been a fan of New Year’s resolutions – at least not those that involved giving things up. Given the statistics on how many people actually stick...

FIVE LESSONS FROM 2019

FIVE LESSONS FROM 2019

I was chatting to some friends earlier this week, talking about the highlights of 2019 and our respective plans for 2020. It has been an extraordinary year. From the creation of Actually to the delivery of my first ever online training course; from my stay…

FIVE LESSONS FROM BEING AN ENTREPRENEUR

FIVE LESSONS FROM BEING AN ENTREPRENEUR

Being an entrepreneur isn’t easy. It can challenge you in ways you can’t even imagine when you start out on the journey full of excitement about your ‘big idea’. And sometimes what started out as a passion can feel like purgatory. And yet…I find it hard…

SNIPPETS OF INSPIRATION

SNIPPETS OF INSPIRATION

In this ad hoc series of blogs, I offer some thoughts on the people, campaigns and sometimes poems that inspire me. This week – in honour of the International Day of the Girl Child coming up on Friday (11th October) – I’d like to share with you three campaigns or...

FIVE LESSONS FROM KERN PRISON

FIVE LESSONS FROM KERN PRISON

Last week I learnt a new acronym: LWoP. Life Without Parole. That’s the sentence that 32 year old Mike* has been serving since he was 15. Mike is incarcerated at Kern maximum security prison in California and I had the privilege of meeting him there whilst…

SNIPPETS OF INSPIRATION

SNIPPETS OF INSPIRATION

A little while ago, I published the Actually Manifesto on my Facebook page. This is what I wrote: “We live in interesting times. Our dominant culture is often cynical and negative and at a time of significant global uncertainty, pessimism is an understandable...

ACTUALLY INTERVIEWS ROBIN GORNA

ACTUALLY INTERVIEWS ROBIN GORNA

Robin Gorna, CAMPAIGNER & ACTIVIST I recently conducted the second of my changemaker interviews. The first was with Kate Levine of The Body Shop. This time, I interviewed Robin Gorna. Robin’s incredible career spans over 30 years, campaigning in the…

FIVE LESSONS FROM FOREVER AGAINST ANIMAL TESTING

FIVE LESSONS FROM FOREVER AGAINST ANIMAL TESTING

Recently I interviewed Kate Levine, Director of Global Activism and Communications at The Body Shop for an ad hoc series of interviews with changemakers. One of the things I asked her was which of the many campaigns she has been…

ACTUALLY INTERVIEWS KATE LEVINE

ACTUALLY INTERVIEWS KATE LEVINE

Kate Levine, Global Director of Activism & Communications at The Body Shop In this series of ad hoc interviews, I’ll be talking to campaigners, changemakers and visionaries and asking them to share their wisdom, lessons and inspiration with the Actually…

SNIPPETS OF INSPIRATION

SNIPPETS OF INSPIRATION

In this ad hoc blog, I share with you some of the things that I find inspiring. Last week I attended an event run by the How to Academy – an evening with Elizabeth Gilbert. For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past decade or so, Elizabeth Gilbert...

SNIPPETS OF INSPIRATION

SNIPPETS OF INSPIRATION

I’ve been reflecting recently on inspiration. I’ve been fortunate to attend some truly inspiring events and gatherings so far this year including a one day event with Roger Hamilton and a 5 day leadership event on Necker Island with Virgin Unite. But I believe…

FIVE LESSONS FROM REPEAL THE 8TH

FIVE LESSONS FROM REPEAL THE 8TH

There’s a lot of chat about referendums in the UK at the moment: the one we already had; whether we should have another one; what the question should be if we do…yes, I’m talking about Brexit. I don’t know about you but I have found the conduct of both sides…

FIVE LESSONS FROM NECKER ISLAND

FIVE LESSONS FROM NECKER ISLAND

Picture the scene: it’s a balmy 26 degrees, the sky is blue, the sun is shining and sending shimmers of light fracturing across the surface of the ocean. At the front of a beautiful room furnished simply but luxuriously with wood, bamboo and linen, a man is speaking...

FIVE LESSONS FROM ROGER HAMILTON

FIVE LESSONS FROM ROGER HAMILTON

Last week I was fortunate enough to attend a Roger Hamilton event in London: Entrepreneur 5.0. Roger is the creator of Wealth Dynamics, Founder of the Entrepreneurs Institute, GeniusU, Entrepreneur Resorts and a multitude of other businesses all designed to support...

FIVE LESSONS FROM FREE PERIODS

FIVE LESSONS FROM FREE PERIODS

“If you see something that makes you angry or resonates with you, don’t wait for someone else to do something about it. “ (Amika George) As a seventeen year old in the midst of her A’ levels, Amika started a campaign #freeperiods to persuade Government to do…

SNIPPETS OF INSPIRATION

SNIPPETS OF INSPIRATION

In these days of ‘constantly on’ – when we are endlessly pouring over our social media, when our phones are constantly pinging with the latest message and our email never seems to go silent – it can be difficult to find true inspiration. From time to time, I’d like...

FIVE LESSONS FROM EXTINCTION REBELLION

FIVE LESSONS FROM EXTINCTION REBELLION

"So come and join us. Rebel for life. For the planet. For our children’s children’s futures. There is so much work to be done.”  Extinction Rebellion If you’ve not heard of Extinction Rebellion (XR) then I can only assume you’ve been in a coma for the past few weeks!...

FIVE LESSONS FROM NO MORE PAGE 3

FIVE LESSONS FROM NO MORE PAGE 3

“If I can start a movement, anyone can.’ Lucy-Anne Holmes In 2012 a young woman asked herself why a ‘family’ newspaper would publish images of topless women and what that said about the place of women within our society. That woman was Lucy-Anne Holmes and by 2015,...

FIVE LESSONS FROM GRETA THUNBERG

FIVE LESSONS FROM GRETA THUNBERG

“I don’t care if I get into trouble at school. I believe that one person can make a difference.” (Greta Thunberg) From one lone schoolgirl sat outside the Swedish Parliament to a global movement involving more than 1600 events in more than 105 countries, there can be...

YOU HAVE MARKETING SUPERPOWERS®

You’re not bad at promoting your business, you’re just trying to do it in a way that doesn’t work for you.

Find out what your MARKETING SUPERPOWERS ® are and start communicating with your audience in a way that resonates with them & feels comfortable, authentic and natural for YOU.

Phew! Doesn’t that sounds awesome?  

week I wrote a newsletter that caused more people to unsubscribe from my list than almost anything I have ever written before. I'm not concerned - clearly they are not my people - but I thought I'd share it here so you can tell me: would this cause YOU to unsubscribe?

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"Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, except backwards and in high heels."

I remember the first time I heard that quote.

I was in my teens. I laughed.

Then as I began to think seriously about my career, my Mum explained to me that to be a successful career woman meant working twice as hard as a man to be considered half as good (and paid half as much).

I was in my early twenties. I thought she was exaggerating.

After I burnt out for the second time, I went to a conference and listened to a passionate and eloquent woman - who has subsequently become a great friend - explain something that should have been utterly obvious to me: that our entire cultural paradigm is based on structures set up by men and for men.

I was in my forties. And I cried.

Because it is exhausting having to don your Superwoman cape every day to ‘compete’ in the workplace.

As a single woman, I didn’t have to juggle work with family.

As a white, middle-class, cis-gendered, heterosexual and mainly able-bodied woman, I wasn’t dealing with the raft of intersectional prejudices beyond your average, everyday sexism.

But I was still exhausted.

And it wasn’t just because the systems that we work within weren’t designed for women but for men who had stay-at-home wives doing all of the work in the home.

It’s because for me - as for so many women - every day was and is a balancing act.

Every day is a tightrope walk between safety and danger; between being listened to and dismissed; between familiarity and harassment; between authenticity and playing the game.

Every day is a fight to be seen, to be heard, to be respected, to be autonomous, to be considered, to be valued, to be safe.

Every day.

In the workplace, in our social spaces, in our homes, in our politics, in our media.

Everywhere.

This week my friend and client Harriet Waley-Cohen shared a post about this on LinkedIn. I’m going to share a section of her post here because she has put this so much more eloquently than I could:

"Sometimes it amazes me that there isn't a massive uprising.

Women are fed up of being objectified and judged on our looks, and only respected by how fu*&able we are deemed to be.

We are exhausted by feeling unsafe everywhere we go and watching our backs.

We are exasperated with not being paid the same, of our careers, choices and finances being marginalised because of caring expectations.

We are in despair about our allegations against powerful men being ignored because these men are too valuable to be held to account.

We are done with being told our tone of voice is the bloody problem, that we are too emotional.

We have had enough of not being able to trust the police or the legal system, and of people saying 'innocent until proven guilty' when the stats for prosecutions are laughably low and we all know most rapists never face any real consequences.

We are fed up of being told that it's not all men, because we never said it was, and it hurts to see so few men actively working towards making things better."

There has been an outpouring of grief, support and righteous anger in the comments on Harriet’s post. Of course there has. Because this is nearly every woman’s lived experience. And it is not OK.

I have written about these issues before in this newsletter. In the wake of the Sarah Everard murder and after the US Supreme Court struck down Roe v Wade. And there’s a part of me that didn’t want to write about this again. A part of me was concerned that you - my wonderful community - would grow bored of me ‘ranting on’ about this issue. A part of me that feared being judged or dismissed.

And that’s exhausting too, right?

The constant self-censorship. The constant voice in my head telling me that I can’t say this, shouldn’t write about that, mustn’t be too emotional, too strident, too ‘shouty’.

Well, in the nicest possible sense: f*&k that.

I am in my fifties now and as tired as some people may be of hearing me talk about these things, trust me I am WAY more tired of still having to talk about them. But until there is equity, it is up to every one of us to keep ‘banging on’.

And we need to do more than rant, we need to ACT.

Because here’s the thing, whatever your gender, you can either be an ally or you can be complicit in the problem. Please choose to be an ally. Here are three things you can do:

  1. Support people like Harriet when they share publicly about these issues. This kind of content often attracts trolls and the ‘not all men’ brigade - and it can be overwhelming to have to do all the rebuttal yourself. Another friend and client - the fabulous Stephanie Aitken, also did a post this week on a related topic and spent many hours having to deal with trolls in the comments. Help them.

 

  1. Call out misogyny, sexism, harassment, prejudice and bigotry when you see it - and when you feel safe to do so. I’m not advocating that you intervene when doing so would put you in real physical danger. But if a colleague makes an off-colour remark; if a family member behaves in a way that is inappropriate; if a friend displays ignorance, aggression or bias: name it. Don’t just smile and secretly roll your eyes. Don’t dismiss it. Don’t be afraid to be ‘awkward’. Have the conversation.

 

  1. Engage the next generation. Several of the commenters on Harriet’s post talked about children watching violent porn. They shared stories of how boys’ attitudes to girls are in some cases worse now than they were when I was a teen. The murder of Elianne Andam this week makes it clear just how important it is to speak to our children about these issues. Talk to the young people in your life. Find out about their experiences. Give them a safe space to explore these issues. And educate them about respect and equity. If we are going to break this cycle, this is VITAL work. Don’t shy away from it.  


There is so much more that we could all be doing but this would be an amazing start!

OK. Rant over, for today.

I’m not promising I won’t come back to this again.

My most fervent wish is that there will come a day when it won’t be necessary.

I hope to see that day in my lifetime.

My biggest fear is that I will not.
 

 

 

 

 

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I think that will do for now - I do hope it has been helpful!

Big love

Sara 

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