One of my business friends has made the bold move of relocating this week. Tanya Mann Rennick is leaving the metropolis to settle in beautiful Cornwall, somewhere I wouldn’t mind moving to myself.
Tanya and I met a year ago on one of Leigh Ashton’s sales training courses. I say business friends because we don’t know each other’s birthdays or middle names but we share similar views and values about work and life. We both live in homes with pianos, books and chocolates, and dislike lilies. We love Fleetwood Mac, find calm through meditation and thrive on networking. In fact, Tanya found such incredible value in cultivating relationships that she set up and runs the successful Oyster Club – an upmarket networking group that includes delicious meals and quite a lot of bubbly.
Tanya is one of a handful of women whose emailed newsletters I look forward to reading. Her easy style and humorous approach to life sit nicely with my bowl of Alpen as it drops into my inbox at breakfast time. Invariably her topic is something I can relate to. For example, a couple of weeks ago she highlighted the increasing danger of simply wandering along from one meeting to the next:
“Since when has it been my responsibility to move out of the way for people texting as they walk down the street? Who has decided that these lolloping liabilities have the right to command priority? Why are they not arrested for undue care and attention?”
Tanya’s words immediately struck a chord! I completely agree that it’s so annoying to have to “carefully navigate my way around the mobile wielding moron, oblivious to his or her environment, or I’d collide with them. Crashing straight into someone with your eyes wide open is the sort of thing you do on a rugby field, not in heels and handbags on Regent Street.” And, being a walking daydreamer, crash I do!!
I understand why some may text on the go. I couldn’t agree more that “the demands on us to stay in touch place us under enormous pressure to respond with immediacy, lest we be considered rude, inefficient or dead.”
Another business friend who’s never rude, inefficient and is always lively is Leigh Ashton. She’s the second superwoman whose emails I read religiously. Her advice on sales techniques is pragmatic and quite simply, wonderful – offering tricks and tips that sway between the psychological and common sense to help increase your sales. Her words often come to mind as I’m about to close a deal. When I meet a potential social media client and talk through the services I offer, Leigh is like a little angel on my shoulder, reminding me to get into their mindset. (Leigh, it would be helpful if you could also nag me to stop eating chocolate please – this time of year makes me very naughty!)
The third woman whose emails I read every day – and they make me laugh before I’ve even read them - is my best friend Gill, a girl who gives Helen Fielding a run for her money. I can’t repeat anything here, of course, so you’ll have to take my word when I tell you she’s been entertaining me, putting up with me and advising me on life, love and everything else for more years than I even admit to being alive.
And we knew all the words to this decades before Carrie Bradshaw and her friends… “Oh yes, I am wise, but it’s wisdom born of pain. Yes, I’ve paid the price, but look how much I’ve gained. If I have to, I can face anything… I am strong! I am invincible!! I am woman!!!” If you’d like an introduction to any of these wonderful women, I’ll introduce you here: @WeekendWitch.
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