I have many failed businesses on my entrepreneurial resume.

I have a defunct website design business. I have an Etsy store earning pittances despite five years of painful development. I have a defunct online directory, with an evaporated friendship and any hope of recouping the start-up costs. I have more business failure than I care to admit.

I can’t blame everything on the pandemic. Most of my businesses suffered financial fatality long before the world suffered together. Sometimes I invent a scenario when I could blame all my failures on the global crisis. …

Are we destined to find Prince Charming? Or will our princess be waiting at the top of the tower, waiting for us to rescue them?

The short answer is no.

We’re wise enough to know that the love fairy tale doesn’t exist. We know these are stories set in a land where people don’t age, evil people suffer in misery, and the heroes find happiness.

With our wisdom and dating maturity, we know the fairy tale doesn’t exist. So with this tiny part of cynicism instilled into us, we give up on the idea of finding “Mr/Miss Right”. And settle for “Mr/Miss Right Now”.

Too often we compromise more than we should. We give up on being with someone we’re attracted to, that makes us…

If I was to give anyone advice about venturing into the freelancing world, the ‘f’ word I would use wouldn’t be freelancing. It would be frugal.

When I began my freelance writing career, I didn’t realise how little you earn in the first year. Your business, such as it is, runs on the smell of a good idea. Cash flow is non-existent. Unless you work for an agency with structured payments terms, payments aren’t predictable. You can’t determine when your earnings will arrive, or if your clients will even pay their invoices.

It’s only normal, nay necessary, to become frugal…

A part of me doesn’t want to tell this story.

I don’t want to reveal how much someone hurt me. Because that would be giving them the power, the control over me. And I don’t want them to know the effect their throw-away comments have.

Yet I don’t want to suffer in silence. I don’t think it’s fair that people can break your heart and not know about it. I don’t think others should keep doing what my best friend did to me, thinking they’re helping when they’re doing the opposite.

I have mixed emotions. But here goes.

The Heartbreak

Two years…

I was watching the Friend’s reunion the night it aired. If you haven’t seen it, by the way, it’s worth the hype.

Without giving too much away, they of course had to speak about the biggest love story to grace television screens. Even if you haven’t seen friends, you know about Ross and Rachel. And the loyalist Friends fans will have their side as to whether they were on a break or not. And if you ask me, they were on a break!

Yet it was the lesser spoken relationship between Monica and Chandler that struck a chord with me…

There it was. A new state of being I had never experienced up until that point. Paralysis.

I couldn’t move, think, comprehend, or even reason the events unfolding before me. He had broken my heart and discarded me with little care for the wreckage.

I couldn’t crawl into a hole and disappear. I couldn’t reach for the bottle to serve my loss. I couldn’t pretend that everything was fine, or that everything was crumbling around me. I couldn’t do anything after he broke up with me.

I was numb.

I remember sitting on the edge of my bed, after reading…

As a carer for someone with a mental health illness, I’m constantly debunking the misconceptions surrounding treatment.

Among other things too.

But there is significant misunderstanding surrounding treatment. Those that understand seem to be those dealing with it, or caring for someone else.

The problem is that false information about mental health treatments hurts everyone. Not just those suffering and needing treatment.

For the people seeking help, it can feel disappointing when our expectations don’t meet reality. When the promise of medical intervention doesn’t pan out as we’re led to believe.

For the support systems, it can feel like we’re…

We’re no strangers to the problems with influencer marketing.

I’m a part of an amazing group of women business owners on Facebook. We post about problems we’re having in business, and people chime in with their help and advice. The influencer debate is constant within this group, more than any other topic. And with over 150k business owners, there are more entrepreneurs on the hate bandwagon than fewer.

I’ve noticed where the hate comes from. It’s because the businesses that worked with influencers didn’t see the return on their investment. But as so many point out in this group, this…