I thought you might like to hear how you have inspired me to start my own business!

Having spent several years after graduating, working in London’s fashion industry and being uninspired to continue working in the industry or find another job that I wanted to do, I decided to take a sabbatical and fulfil a long held ambition to travel across Asia by myself.

It was there that the seed of an idea was planted, which I immediately dismissed as being far too ambitious for little old me to pull off.

Mundane…

When I got home I swept this idea under the carpet for a couple of years and took a mundane office job to pay the rent while I figured out what to do with my life was.

Pre-Asia I had been toying with the idea of setting up as a bridal-wear designer but I just couldn’t seem to get motivated about it.

Sadly, marriage seems to be going out of fashion and the market for bridal wear is so saturated, even for the non-meringue style of dress, that I started to consider alternatives – but there were so many options I couldn’t decide – interior design and decoration, dancing teacher, travel photographer and writer, artist, even solid things like accountancy and medicine that would require more years of study.

One of the ‘unique’ aspects of my personality has always been my ability to combine practicality with creativity – it’s rare to find someone with ideas and practical skills too.

Searching For A Challenge

None of my previous jobs had stretched me, so I was really searching for something that would use all my skills and fit in with my ethics too as there had been many aspects of the fashion industry that I was unhappy about.

Overwhelmed by the possibilities, and terrified to start on a course that I might change my mind about, I decided the best thing was to do nothing!

Fortunately I had read a newspaper article about life coaching and decided to try and help myself out of the career rut I’d become stuck in. The consensus was that the definitive guide to life coaching is your excellent Be Your Own Life Coach.

Anything Is Possible

The minute it arrived from Amazon, I couldn’t put it down and spent every evening of one week working through it. Just about every area of my life needed some work but the one that needed the most help was my career.

Inspired by your philosophy that ‘anything is possible’, I realised I’d held myself back from fulfilling my dreams for too long, mainly due to fear of failure.

For some obscure reason hidden deep in my subconscious, I felt that I didn’t deserve to do the work I was born to do AND enjoy it.

At this time I was also coming to terms with a progressive hearing loss that has left me profoundly deaf and completely reliant on hearing aids. Despite many companies paying lip service to disabled integration, the avenues open to me have narrowed considerably as my hearing has worsened.

Ethical Shopping

When I returned from Asia, I had made a decision to shop as ethically as possible by buying fair trade products that give the producer a decent price. In time this ‘shopping policy’ led me to investigate fair trade fashion, but I was shocked at the limited and badly designed clothes available.

This made me realise that there was a yawning gap in the market for something stylish and attractive that ordinary women could wear.

Even if I wanted to shop ethically, I certainly didn’t want to look like a frumpy sack of potatoes, so I figured that there must be other women that felt the same way.

Having worked with clothing factories before, I knew I would need a miracle and the patience of a saint to make my idea work. It’s hard enough to deal with factories on your doorstep in the UK, but when they are on the other side of the planet and speak a different language, all potential problems are magnified to the power of ten.

Getting Started

My first task was finding a suitable supplier that could produce to my stringent quality standards, so after doing a business course, I had no option other than to get on a plane and visit as many potential factories as possible.

For two weeks in May 2004, in sweltering pre-monsoon temperatures, I covered practically every airport in India, flitting across the country – north, south, east and west.

It was exhausting but hugely satisfying and I was in my element looking at wonderful traditional fabrics and soaking up the local colour. Best of all it didn’t feel like ‘work’ at all.

I couldn’t wait to get back and get started on designing but there were numerous teething problems so in the end I had to postpone the planned launch by a year.

Completion

At times it’s just been one problem after another but for the first time in my life I have stuck at something and seen something through to completion.

At school I was one of those lucky ‘straight A’ students that Fiona says often come to nothing because life is just too easy for them. Even getting a first class degree wasn’t exactly hard work.

My biggest challenge has always been maintaining an interest in something – I am great at ideas and initiating projects but I rarely finish anything – I am always thinking about the next thing!

The motivation has come from knowing that what I am doing is making a difference to someone’s life on the other side of the planet and it is this that has kept me going over the past two years.

I feel that it is my job to prove that being stylish doesn’t mean sacrificing your ethics.

Think! Clothing

To cut a long story short, my first fair trade range has now launched and can be bought from Think! Clothing.

Never in a million years would I have thought I had the confidence to go ahead and do this but once you take the first few steps and set the cogs in motion you just have to go with the flow. If anyone were to say that they were thinking of starting their own business I would tell them to go for it – it is so exhilarating to know that you have done it!

So many people are stuck in dead end jobs that they hate and we all have our own special talents that we need to use to feel useful and fulfilled in life.

Thank you Fiona for your brilliant book – without it I’d still be wondering what I want out of life!