I Gave Up...and found a new adventure.

I Actually Gave Up... And then a chance meeting changed things!

I sat in bed at 2 am on December 29th, 2016 and gave up. The business had flatlined and the income wasn't covering my overheads, particularly the roof over my head.

I had kept going week after week all the time seeing the revenue shrink along with savings. Everyone told me to give up and settle down on my pension. On that morning, in that bed, I gave up. I looked into closing my business and closed my office.

Over the next weeks, I wandered through life going from coffee shop to coffee shop where I 
shared a little about the work I had been doing helping people become more comfortable in facing a live audience to people who asked about storytelling.

On one of those occasions, I was talking to a business owner who's dream was to perform Stand Up comedy. He had a problem!  Anxiety! It was a major block to his delivery and timing.

Over the following weeks, we worked together and delivered a stand-up performance to 8-10 of the business owners who rented offices in the building. My client delivered and we talked about the future.


He came up with the StoryTelling Corner venture. An event, held live, where storytellers, authors and poets would be invited to perform for up to 15 minutes and the guest storyteller for 40 minutes.

He took to the project and we began to put a business plan together for a grant. We interviewed business owners for their views and put the figures together.

I Have Booked A 2- week Holiday...wait until I get home.
 

As he left for the stay at a Shamanic Retreat in South America, I put together a marketing plan to attract storytellers and artists for the planned opening two months into the future. 
I waited for the message of his return, I waited and waited...and then!

"Hi, Ernie, I am having such a good time that I'm staying a little longer, see you on my return!" 

What Happened Next? 

Some weeks later I received another message to say that he was not 'coming back'. I had a choice to make. Follow through or drop the project entirely. I decided to do the best I could and carry on collecting the names of performers and looking for venues.

Where Now?
We settled on an art gallery in the centre of Leamington Spa and opened in October 2017. Our first theme 'Tears and Laughter in War' and the first charity we invited to the event was 'Help For Heroes'. My thinking was that 'Armistice Day' was just around the corner.

For two years we held monthly events at the gallery and each event took the position of donating all the door money to a different charity and, to having a female storyteller to every event.

Then, we were hit by another block. The gallery closed because the rent and rates made business impossible, we were on the move again.

Fortunately, the owner of the gallery suggested we try a newly opened café, 'Temperance Hotel in it's prime. Since then it has been an embroidery shop and a piano shop in the past. (It has been interesting to see the number of people coming in for the first time and remembering it as one of the other shops).

The building consisted of the café itself is an upstairs room for meetings, one floor down is the art gallery and one floor below that the basement, the home for live events and the stage for StoryTelling Corner.

Two years into our event the Virus hit and the location closed. Once more I faced choices and this time I chose, with great sadness to close. The group was dissolved and I looked for something else to occupy my time.

New Beginnings... 

I looked at an online 'Worldwide Virtual Storytelling Guild' joined and within a few months was sharing my stories, on Zoom, with storytellers and story lovers throughout the virtual world.
I also joined a virtual writing group. It was this group which opened up the next chapter of my adventure.

One of the members was a man living in Preston, UK who was a play write and stage director. Over the next six months, working together, we have a one-act stage play and a second act on the way. I guess that is where my focus was...until I unrolled my first webinar, 'How To Shine Instead of Shiver When You Face A Live Audience.'


The webinar has had good feedback and will now be an introductory webinar to announce my 'Selling Through Storytelling' course of 4 webinars in 4 weeks leading to a membership group where we can go on a deep dive into finding the keys to unlock your Awesomeness!