Founder's Thoughts – 2018 Year's Reflection

My Guiding Word. Yearly Reflections. Christmas and New Year in Poland and Cyprus.

So it’s December and that’s the last post of 2018 so its only suitable to summarise the year, reflect on the good, the bad and the ugly, set some goals and choose the guiding word for 2019.

A guiding word.

Let’s start with the guiding words. In 2018, I had 2 – habits and leverage. To make habits show up in my life, I’ve started my monthly journal and I am happy to say, I did not miss a single entry! I also started a journey with personal trainer to improve my habits around healthy eating and regular exercise. Aside of this, I made self-care my habit by taking on a SPA membership and also heavily reducing working evenings and weekends. Leverage was about freeing myself from all the doing in my business and building a team that I can leverage to achieve more with less effort so that I can focus on investing in my health and taking care of myself – until this year, I’ve been absolutely terrible at putting life into the work-life balance (my last year’s word was balance). I feel like I’ve worked for 2 years to achieve balance – and it took an extra two words – habits and leverage to finally succeed at my 2017 goals.

My word for 2019 is RELATIONSHIPS.

I want my year to be filled with amazing friendships and collaborations. To make this happen, I’ll actively seek out those opportunities by opening myself up to meeting new interesting people this year. So, if you think we could be friends – drop me a message to lidia@visuable.co and let’s see where this might take us…

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Reflections.

2018 has been a quite a ride, full of amazing achievements but not short of challenges. Here are my top highlights:

1. Written 12 self-reflective journal entries documenting my business journey, sharing my ups and downs and inspiring entrepreneurs everywhere to follow their passion, create a brilliant brand and live their dream vision, you can read my earlier entries HERE 📖

2. In collaboration with Rin Hamburgh and Kimba Cooper have funded £7000 worth rebrand to help one lucky company get the visuals, voice and visibility they need to succeed 💷 We’re launching this project soon, so watch out for it online.

3. Launched ‘Define Your Brand’ – a workshop based around my signature brand launch methodology – it’s been such a success that I ran it 4 times: as part of CNWM Expert Series with Sarah Cook, independently with my very own Visuable Team, as part of Bristol Bloggers and Influencers events with Heather Cowper and as an online webinar with Christina Jones. 👩‍💼 In 2019, I am planning to do more speaking and also turn my Define Your Brand methodology into online resources and tools to help even more entrepreneurs to get to the heart of their brand and figure out what they are about and what’s their competitive advantage.

4. Mentored 8 amazing student interns to help them build up their digital and professional skills and expertise. I loved seeing their skills and their confidence transform whilst at Visuable. It’s so rewarding knowing that I played a small part in helping my mentees secure awesome jobs in digital marketing after their training at Visuable. 👩‍🏫 In 2019, I am planning to mentor even more and extend my mentorship programme to also support my clients on their entrepreneurial learning journeys through private 1:1 sessions.

5. Worked with so many amazing business owners on transforming their brands from bland to brilliant – I loved being part of every single transformation and I am so excited to see what they will achieve 🚀 I can’t wait to start working with new clients in 2019 to transform their brands. If you’re thinking about a project with us, we’re currently offering ££ vouchers that you can use towards buying our services (valid on bookings made before 28th of February). You can get access to the vouchers by joining our Visuable Insiders mailing list, here is the link: www.visuable.co/signmeup

6. Hired a brilliant full time employee – a graphic designer Inka who is now my right hand at the creative studio helping me deliver brilliant creative work to our clients. 👩‍💻👩‍💻

7. Spent the whole year transitioning Visuable into a digital agency with a big team just to realise it was not the business model that is right for me. I love being the expert, leading through collaborating, sharing knowledge, coming up with new products, creative ideas and bringing my whole true self to everything I do. Staying behind the scenes, doing desk time and reviewing spreadsheets is not the best use of my time and expertise so in 2019, I aim to be out there more again. I have some exciting plans when it comes to our design offering so watch this space, great things are on the way to you! 🚀

8. After 2 years of intense work on my own and my business development, I’ve graduated from a business accelerator programme run by NatWest, after a successful progression through all 4 stages until there was no more… the programme has helped me develop my business knowledge, mindset and confidence and pushed me to become better at what I do. All this learning about business made me hungry for more, so I’ve taken on a new challenge… 👇

9. Started an MBA executive masters degree – everyone who knows me knows that I love business and that I am an entrepreneur at heart. This year, I’ve decided to consolidate everything I’ve learned during the 7 years that I’ve run various businesses and attended entrepreneur support programmes into an official qualification to deepen my knowledge in the area of business growth, strategy and leadership.👩‍🎓

10. Had my story featured in Psychologies Magazine and appeared in Enterprise Nation e-book that celebrated 100 inspirational business leaders. What’s more, I’ve been nominated for an entrepreneurial spirit award in Great British Entrepreneur Awards. In 2019, I am looking to do more interviews – I love talking about entrepreneurship, all things creative, innovative, inspirational, aspirational, laptop lifestyle, following your passion, lifestyle design and anything when it comes to realising your dreams, ambitions and potential. So if you have a blog, podcast, a networking group, or a young entrepreneurs group who would like to hear about any of the above, drop me a message to lidia@visuable.co

11. Travelled to Poland (x3), Cyprus (x3), Spain, Ukraine and Malaysia. 🌎🌍🌏 I had so much fun exploring new places, cultures and cuisines – this is what makes life so good!

12. Got engaged to my soul mate in the middle of Andaman sea whilst riding a jet ski 💍 it was nothing fancy and that’s what made it so perfect – just the two of us, sunset, beachwear, sunglasses, messy hair, GoPro and a lot of fun – boy did well 👍

Here is to an awesome 2019 🙌

In the words of Oprah Winfrey: “Cheers to a New Year and another chance for us to get it right” 🍾

Christmas and New Year in Poland and Cyprus.

In my usual style – I’ve Christmas and New Year away. I do it every year and I am so grateful that my business allows me for it. This year, I went to Poland to break the engagement news to my parents in person and have some snowy fun in the traditional Christmas Markets. Right after Christmas, I’ve flown to Cyprus to see family and friends there, spend some time relaxing and reflecting over the year that just passed. As always, I treasure my time in Cyprus as it’s the time of the year that work emails magically stop and I get to spend time working on my business, rather than in it. As usual, I had a good re-think of my strategy, revamped my service range and came up with new ideas for products that I want to introduce in 2019.

One thing that I’ve realised is that I want to spend more time with both my team and my clients doing things like creating and mentoring. I don’t want to build a big organisation – boutique, lean and personalised is what I feel my values are. So for 2019, I am scaling right back down when it comes to people and only keeping my core, awesome, close-knit team with me and investing into developing digital assets for my brand – hello Lifestyle Boutique model! I am genuinely super excited for what 2019 holds for me and the plan that I have dreamed out during my trip to Cyprus feels right and aligned with my whole true self.