The, supposedly, un-employable cooked my lunch beautifully!

There is a restaurant in London called Hoxton Apprentice.
It is set in a fabulous old Victorian school house on Hoxton Square.
I was invited by the proprietor, Val Corbett, to attend a ladies lunch in aid of raising money to help their training program.
You see Hoxton Apprentice is no ordinary restaurant, they train and employ the young, long term un-employed.
You can read their full story on their website: http://www.hoxtonapprentice.com/
What a fantastic lady; it was a great lunch too!


Since I started my women's network I have had the pleasure to meet some amazing people. From a wonderful half Scottish, half French lady who owns diamond mines to a young single mother who manages to look after 2 small children while running a small business from home.

One thing that I have learned is that women really do want to help women.

I know that every time someone joins our network with a new business or product to sell, I feel I want to buy everything and make everyone else do the same.

Times are tough, as we are told everyday, but I myself avoid the newspapers with their doom and gloom. I would rather use my energy thinking of all the positive things that are happening, like the inspiring Hoxton Apprentice.


I direct my thoughts towards what I want in life and what I want to do for others.

I have a mentoring program called "Women Speak Inner Circle", where for a small monthly fee, you can have "me as your mentor on tap" but believe it or not I also have a mentor myself.
She helps me to stay grounded and tells me when she feels I am going down the wrong path. She does not judge me and I know that I can be totally honest and open with her.

So if you feel that you would benefit from having that person to talk to but can't afford to pay a mentor then why not ask one of your peers to mentor you and in return you can mentor them.
You don't have to meet every week, you can make it monthly or 6 weekly but please believe me when I tell you how great it is to know that someone is there for you and how satisfying it is to know that you are also helping them in return.

If a mentor is not for you then it will be down to you to motivate yourself , you need to make that decision to do what ever it takes to move you in the right direction to achieve your dreams. Just a small thing everyday towards your goal. If it is to lose weight then decide to cut one thing out, just one thing but stick to it. If it is to improve your business, decide what you can do, just one small thing but you do it everyday. It could be to make one cold call or write one promotional letter or e-mail. So get on that phone and smile and dial!

What ever it is, make the conscious effort to do it everyday, it is so easy to do but the problem is it is even easier not to do! This is the philosophy of Jeff Olson's "The Slight Edge" it changed my life.
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Pat is known for her visionary thinking. She has a passion for technology and the Internet and believes that a business can not succeed unless they have a large Internet presence and marketing strategy. As a trusted motivator, Pat inspires her mentees with her "can do" attitude. Pat prefers to teach people to take action for themselves, her philosophy is "Tell me and I will forget, show me and I may not remember, involve me and I will understand".
Pat has 2 vibrant social networks, one is a Women's Business Network at:
http://www.womenspeernetwork.com
and the other is for Tarot enthusiasts called: http://www.thetarotnetwork.co.uk
Pat's contact details are:
E: patsutton@patsutton.com
Website: www.patsutton.com
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We need more encouragement not reminders of the failures!

“It is said that over 80% of small business start ups fail in the first year!”

I am thoroughly fed up with everyone using this same line.
It is said by whom? For the life of me I have not found where these people get their information from. Is this supposed to encourage people to start businesses? Don’t you feel sorry for the poor budding entrepreneur?
In America, most serious entrepreneurs have had one or two failed business in their past, they see them as steps in the right direction towards getting the big one.
Sadly, this entrepreneurial spirit is looked down upon in this country; we would see them as “too big a risk”, in reality, the experience that they’ll have gained will have taught them not to make the same mistakes again. I would call them a “better bet”!
I am a “glass half full character”; a believer in positive thinking and I say, “if you believe it will happen and if you can see yourself in that picture, then you will be successful”.
I have heard people say to me, “It didn’t work because I’m just unlucky!”
I say there is no such thing as luck! A successful business person is someone who’ll go that bit further than others by doing the things that others don’t like to do and to keep doing it until it becomes second nature to them. So if you want to sell those widgets get on that phone and “smile and dial”.

Everyone needs a chance!

I am a magistrate and the other day we had a young black youth in front of us who was just nineteen years old. He had, only recently, come out of prison. His mother had died of cancer a year previously and he had no father.

As his girlfriend was having a baby he had decided to turn his life around and leave the gang that had had a stranglehold on him since he was thirteen.
Sadly, he had accumulated a number of driving offences from driving without a license.
In his efforts to become responsible he had managed to pass his driving test just seven days earlier and had managed to secure himself a job, (hard to do when you have a record). He was working for a car hire company, cleaning and delivering cars.
The problem for us was that because of his driving offences our guidelines told us that we had to disqualify him from driving.
We asked him what impact this would have on him and he answered with tears in his eyes that for him to walk the streets in the areas where he was once a gang member would be suicide, yes he said suicide, because he said that once a gang member always a gang member, in other words, leave at your peril!
He had already been the recipient of three beatings one of which had left him with a large scar below his eye from a pistol whipping. So without the safety of the car he would not only lose his precious job he would probably lose his fragile life.
Of-course we did not take his license off him; we accepted his "Exceptional Hardship" plea.
You know, he may well have been lying to us but somehow we felt he was being truthful; all we could do for him was to send him away with a stern warning, we couldn’t help his situation but as he left he gave us a really cheeky smile and I knew that we had “done good”!

Pat's E-Motivator

In case you missed it, here is the link to view it online.
http://www.patsutton.com/newsletters/E-Motivator1.html