do what you love Page 43 of 81

Love letter to you

Written by

Love heart Rachael Taylor

‘Love’ by one of my talented business partners Rachael Taylor

I have never really made a big thing of Valentine’s day but this year… well I’m getting married in a few weeks’ time, people! So love is very much in the air, and I am feeling grateful and loved and excited and hopeful and all the good things that come with being about to embark on the rest of my life with someone amazing.

But I also feel the same about my dear business, Do What You Love. One of my treasured business partners Kelly Rae Roberts and I often talk about how our businesses are living breathing things, just like we are, and that we should care for them like people, talk to them, nurture them, champion them, love them. And that is something I am really feeling right now. I want to reach out and give mine a big hug.

There are so many awesome opportunities flying our way, new projects unfolding, spring cleaning of older projects, and on and on. In part that is due to the awesome collaborations I am truly grateful for – with Kelly Rae, with Rachael, with Lilla, and with others we haven’t announced yet (you know who you are!) – I love that I get to work with women like this (and our fab team!) day in day out.

But I want to take a moment to recognise that actually, the fact that I get to do what I love is largely because of YOU. Without your enthusiasm and support, your wholehearted participation in our classes, the stories you share about how they have changed things for you, and your being here, reading this, there would be no Do What You Love.

So this is a love letter to you.

Thank you for being here, for sharing this crazy wonderful business and life journey, and for your courage to follow your dreams.

May this day, and all your days, be filled with love

Beth

I love business trips – wandering Boston

Written by

Wandering in Boston

A few days ago I got back from a fantastic trip to the US, where I filmed a series of videos for this exciting new project with Lilla Rogers (more on that in the coming days!). When we had wrapped up filming I had a couple of days to myself in Boston. I love having a bit of down time in a new place after several days of work, to explore it and be inspired whilst gathering my thoughts before plunging back into my life back home.

shop front

Boston is a particularly good city for walking, and for sitting in cafes, and I did much of both those things. I wanted to share a few photos from my wanderings, so here you go… I just love the wreaths hung on so many of the brick buildings and lampposts, even though Christmas is long gone. They are so pretty and welcoming, and bring a warmth to winter.

Boston signs

Boston Art

open sign

Boston street

I stayed at the lovely Encore B&B, a very cool little place inside a beautiful house owned by a former architect and theatre director. It is in the heart of South End, and I loved having the attic room with a balcony looking out over the snowy city.

Encore b&b

The Encore B&B – My home from home for the duration of my stay in Boston

I feel very lucky to have this kind of business trip!

Want to reach way more people and make significant profits? This helped me and it could help you…

Written by

Beth working in Japan

Doing my own marketing ‘work’ on my iPad from a cafe in Kyoto [Image: Takeshi Kohari]

A couple of years back I took Marie Forleo’s ‘B-School’ online class, and I can say hand-on-heart it was a major part of helping me move from someone who didn’t know what a blog was, to someone who was a finalist in Digital Entrepreneur of the Year, in under three years.

It is an online marketing programme aimed at women who are doing it for themselves, and it offers detailed strategies and great advice for online marketing whatever your business model. Marketing is a massive part of any business, and has been crucial to allow me to do what I love.

I don’t often single out other people’s courses to share in this blog space, but I truly believe in this one as I have taken it myself and seen the results. If you want to learn more about online marketing, to grow your audience exponentially and boost your profits along the way, B-School is for you! It has launched today – check out this link to find out more!

Featured in Where Women Create!

Written by

Where Women Create - cover

I have just got back from Boston (more on that soon!) where I was thrilled to walk into major bookstore Barnes & Noble and find the latest copy of Where Women Create, with a 10-page Do What You Love feature in it! It is always such a special moment when you see your writing and photography in a magazine, and especially when the publication is as beautiful as WWC. I have long loved this magazine, and am truly honoured to be included.

Featured in Where Women Create! WWC DWYL

In this article I shared my experience of spending six months in Japan, where I was surrounded by inspiration, and had luxurious time to think, but was without my studio all that time. I talk about how I came to realise that you can be creative anywhere, and sometimes it is worth leaving behind all the bits and pieces of a full studio to head out into the world and create wherever you are. It was quite an unusual article for a magazine which is filled with stunning photos of women’s physical studios and creative spaces all over the world, so I must send my grateful thanks to Jo Packham for including it, and recognising that a creative space can be different things to different people, and different for each of us at different moments in our lives. When I was in Japan my creative spaces ranged from temple gardens and paper factories to the riverbank and a bamboo forest.

You can download the first two pages of the article below, but I would encourage you to get the whole magazine if you can (from Stampington here), because it is filled with inspiring articles and delicious eye candy.

Download the first two pages here: BethNicholls_WWC0213

PS A four-page sneak peek of my new column (co-authored with Kelly Rae Roberts) from the new publication Where Women Create Business was included in the back of this issue of Where Women Create. What a treat and a lovely surprise!

A living worth scraping

Written by

making a living worth scraping - Mickey Smith

Image via Mickey Smith

I don’t believe that doing what you love always has to be at the expense of a healthy income, but if ever there was a good argument for ‘making a living worth scraping’ this is it!

I promise it is worth 6 minutes of your time to watch this brilliant short film by surfer Mickey Smith.

Where does your heart beat fastest?

What do you desire?

Written by

What do you desire? desire introducing

Those of you who have taken the Do What You Love e-course will know that something life changing happened to me nearly two decades ago, when I was 17 years old. I was on a boat in the middle of the Bay of Biscay, on the first of many big adventures, when I had a major a-ha moment. It was the summer before my final year of sixth form (like high school in the US), and I was getting ready to apply to university. Up until that point my mind had been set on a career in finance, and that had been a major influence on my academic choices. But then, on one particular glorious day on the high seas, I realised that I felt free, and that that was how I wanted to feel for the rest of my life.

Ever since that day I have used ‘How do I want to feel?’ as a major driver for how I make decisions about my life. I have not once made an important decision without considering this, and I think it is the most powerful question of all.

If you have never asked yourself ‘How do I want to feel?’ in relation to any or all parts of your life, try it. It works miracles. It not only opens your eyes, but gives you a completely different perspective. And it means you chase what your soul desires, not what your peers or bank balance tells you you should. And there is a major difference.

Recently Danielle LaPorte brought out a brilliant new programme called The Desire Map which, at its heart, asks this simple but powerful question. But Danielle digs deep beneath the question, and helps you excavate your desired feelings in every area of your life. I have been doing this for the past twenty years, but never before has someone so brilliantly and clearly laid out a path to help you work through your own feelings to find what it is you truly desire. And therein lies the key to where your best life is waiting.

The Desire Map is a brilliant resource which I would highly recommend if your New Year’s Resolutions feel a bit like a soulless to-do list, and you want to dig deeper this year.

Go on, make 2013 the year you use your desired feelings to make your decisions, and ultimately do what you love, for life.

Thought for the week (5)

Written by

Dreams

This is really really true. Are you taking steps to build your own dream or are you spending all your energy building someone else’s? This doesn’t mean you have to be an entrepreneur – it just means you have to know what your OWN dream is, and be sure you are spending your limited resources working towards that!