Stories: ours
and yours

It is not just through social media that your kids can communicate with others online. In the last few years, the demand to supply in-built user engagement has increased and now gaming platforms, shopping channels, and more have opportunities for people to connect with each other digitally.
Bobi Robson, Surbiton based digital communication expert, shared her thoughts, advice and raised a great debate with parents on the types of platforms and apps kids are using:

Fiona inspired our audience with three main techniques for generating business ideas at our session held on Tuesday 27^th June.

We heard about Lean Start-Ups: how to easily and effectively embark on a business idea without applying a traditional business model structure. Fiona explained how to invest your time by testing and iterating business ideas to meet the needs of early customers, without pouring a huge amount of time, money and effort into a project. We also heard that if you want to turn your passion into a business, think of your autonomy – your time and constraints – and if you need any skill development.

Fiona proposed using ‘effectuation’ to make your business idea a reality: what do I have right now in terms of skills and resources to start on a new venture? How can we use existing or new contacts to collaborate for the skills we are lacking and need to make our business successful?

Fiona used a practical exercise with building blocks focused on the market we are trying to reach, the team we have or can find and any skills we have or need to buy in, to be able to realise a business vision. This 3-pillar approach can then be used to find new ideas based on available resources and effective collaborations.

The first steps to start you on your journey are to talk to potential customers (what are their needs, who is your ideal customer etc) and test your product or service. Finally, explore ‘why do you want to start a business?’ and explore the criteria of this idea for it’s suitability FOR YOU.

Fiona’s recommendation is ‘go make it happen!’ and we couldn’t agree more. After all, with all the opportunities available around us, this is the time to start exploring your business ideas and make them a reality. Small to midsize businesses drive the nation’s economy and we’ve seen numerous small start-ups disrupt entire industries!

24^th June 2016

At Multiple Minds we believe that integrating fitness into your lifestyle is a great motivator for tackling the challenges faced by parents when planning to return to work, changing jobs or starting a business.  We teamed up with Nick Gray and Mike Hughes from the Surbiton Fitness and Racket Club on Friday 24^th June 2016 to provide a fitness and tennis session for parents who either hadn’t played lately or wanted to have a go at playing.

The sun was shining on the courts providing perfect pre-Wimbledon conditions for play!  Mike Hughes (personal trainer at the club) began the session with a great warmup then Nick Gray (LTA  Level 3 coach) got everyone quickly hitting and playing points and ending  with a well-deserved coffee in the club house!  It was a great session and everyone left feeling fitter and inspired to play more tennis!  Surbiton Racket and Fitness Club offer Tennis Xpress group lessons for adult beginners and improvers – for details and next available dates see www.surbiton.org

Many people having worked in the same industry for 10+ years find it difficult to see beyond the ‘same old’ even though their gut is telling them ‘but what if?’

Likewise, many people who have taken a career break to look after their kids often feel apprehensive of returning to work since their old job seems a million miles away and doing something different appears to be an even bigger hurdle!

However, help was at hand last night (7th June, in Surbiton) with Muriel McClymont, Coach and Trainer www.lumiercoaching.co.uk , who shared her perspective and experience of working with people facing similar challenges.  Muriel’s advice included:

A good starting point in reinventing your career direction is collating your skills.  This might, on the surface, seem too simplistic or obvious; however, Muriel made a brilliant point that we often see our skills too focused on the ones we have built up and use at ‘work’ and often forget to consider and build a list of skills we naturally use in everyday life (outside the workplace) since these skills are intuitive and often go unnoticed when we are considering changing jobs.  This wider skills-set can help open up new opportunities and the cross over between ‘work’ and ‘everyday life’ skills can help innovate and spark people into creating a landscape of ‘what if?’ work opportunities that better fit their individual strengths and interests!

Muriel McClymont shared a few simple tools that help draw out these everyday skills for example, asking yourself:  what do your friends, colleagues and family always ask your help & advice, e.g. they ‘go to’ you for…recommendations for people and places, fixing objects, advice on negotiating a situation, reviewing something they have written, etc.? These are great skills that we sometimes forget we have!

In addition, Muriel focused on structuring achievable goals to make change happen – her advice is to set goals that are under our control, as often we set goals that we can’t control.  For example, getting a specific job is out of our control – only the interviewer can make this decision, however, the planning and preparation to get the job is under our control and it’s this we should focus and set as our goal to achieve!

It was a great night, and an inspiring starting point in helping people reinvent their career.

This session is part of Multiple Minds Programme to inspire people to achieve better work-family life balance see details http://www.multipleminds.co.uk/services/

Over 60 people attended our launch party, on Wednesday 18^th May, to celebrate our new programme to inspire better work life balance for parents. It was fun and inspiring to see so many people interested in our programme and discussing the detail with our amazing experts:

Muriel McClymont, Reinventing your career, 7th June

Vanessa Corrigan, How Image Matters for Work, 14th June

Jenny Mayhew, A series to create your CV,  15, 22 & 29th June

Nick Gray & Mike Hughes, Fitness Works, 24th June

Fiona Quinn, Generating Business Ideas, 28th June

Clare Cohen, Confidence for Interviews, 5th July

Sessions run from 7th June to 5th July with more planned for the autumn: for details click here!

In addition, we invited a few local businesses, as inspiration for anyone thinking of setting up in business, to share their personal stories about why they set up in business, lessons learnt and how it fits in with family life!

Thank you for all for taking part:

Cathy Harcourt –Director of Harcourt Michaels, Executive Search Consultants to the Construction and Engineering Sector

Clive Percival, Creative Director 2PM Design – brand and design agency & specialise in marketing and communication.  Thanks to 2pmdesign.com for our fantastic website!

Karen Ross, Tappy Feet – Tap Dance Classes for Grown Ups

Robert Palmer, Chartered Financial Planner, www.palmerwealth.co.uk

It was a great evening and we look forward to meeting you again very soon!

Multiple Minds bring together experts to share their knowledge, experience and skills to inspire parents who want to return to work after a career break, change jobs or start and grow a business.  Through short courses, events and talks we will give parents the confidence, tools and techniques to enable them to make a step change with confidence.

We would like to thank two local businesses, Walsh Vehicle Management and Hawes & Co, for their support by sponsoring this event.