“A ship in harbour is safe,
but that’s not what ships are built for.”  
<<John A. Shedd >>  
(seen in “Built Through Courage” by Dave Hollis)

Hi there and welcome back! 

Thanks for joining me for the second part of my little writing adventure. I promised you in my first post to tell you a bit about how this whole blog thing came about. So here we go:

In the beginning, there was… a foggy idea

I have been playing with the idea of writing something, anything, for quite a while but had not been sure about what and how. I have always loved writing and have been told repeatedly that I’m good at it – I guess that’s for you to judge now 😉. I had heard and read about people writing “blogs” on the Internet, which somehow sounded easier, more casual and accessible than “writing a book”. However, I didn’t even really know what a blog was exactly, let alone how to go about starting one. There was just this foggy but naggingly persistent idea, surfacing in my mind over and over again – and each time leaving me with this bubbly excitement of a possibility to be explored… just to be pushed aside by another everyday task to be dealt with. Ah well, someday…

And then a few things happened. Well, people, actually. 

Mel Robbins

First, one of my personal heroes, my “gurus” as my daughter teasingly calls them, announced her one and only tour stop in Europe: @melrobbins was taking her LET THEM THE TOUR to London in June 2025. Are you serious??? WOW! London! That’s absolutely doable, even if you live on the other side of the Channel!

For a bit of background on the significance of this turn of events:

A few years back, multiple challenges piled up at the same time: my dear parents in a different country appeared frailer with every monthly visit and my mum was disappearing gradually but inexorably into dementia. A beloved and close family member was battling severe depression. And my one-and-only daughter was in her last year of high school and in the midst of college applications and important life decisions. To top it all off, I stumbled over a hole in the pavement and broke my ankle.

During that very difficult season, a handful of personal growth authors and creators and their content literally became a lifeline for me. They helped me find my bearings when things seemed unbearable, stay grounded in the chaos and develop skills I didn’t even know I had in me. They provided me with invaluable tools to handle whatever life was throwing at me, practically keeping me sane amid a crazy turmoil of emotional and organizational challenges. Mel Robbins was one of them, if not THE most important one for me.

So, when this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity presented itself, I only hesitated very briefly – before deciding to go for it and go ALL IN! (Ok, admittedly helped by the fact that my sweet husband spontaneously offered me V.I.P. tickets as a birthday present.) I got front row seats, smack in the middle, meet-and-greet included, for my daughter and myself. I was so incredibly happy she agreed to join me, I suggested to make a little mum-daughter city trip out of it. Hey, life’s too short, isn’t it? Also, I find that at my age and in this stage of life, it’s less and less about STUFF and more and more about EXPERIENCES and about creating MEMORIES, don’t you think?

Paula and Craig

Along comes June 8, 2025. Eventim Theatre London. We are giddy with excitement, and we show up at the venue so early that we end up third in the VIP line – over an hour before VIP admission even starts. We quickly get chatting to the lovely couple in line in front of us: Paula and Craig from Scottland who flew in just for the day! We talk about how we discovered Mel Robbins, what her content means to us and how it has helped us, how excited we are to get to meet her in person and to experience her live! 

I don’t know why – I had not mentioned the idea to many people yet – but I started talking about this dream of mine, this idea of starting a blog. Must have been the vibe in that line, the exhilaration of a shared experience and of having something significant in common. Paula and Craig were really enthusiastic and encouraged me to “5-4-3-2-1 Go” for it (referring to Mel Robbins’ 5 Second Rule). That the idea sounded great, that they were sure many people, especially women, would love it. And they asked me to keep them posted, to let them know when I went live so that they could cheer me on and celebrate me! How wonderful is that!!!?? Talk about fanning the flames…

And then there is the poster…

Among the merchandise at the event is a poster that says in big bold Let-Them-cover grass-green letters

 “LET ME make myself proud. This is the year I _________!” 

Obviously, I must get this as a souvenir and as a reminder to actually make my dream a reality! Invigorated and motivated by the incredible energy at the event, I got it laminated back home, and now it hangs in my little “office”:

It has been hanging there for almost a year… together with the VIP lanyard…

And yet …  there had to happen a few more things and people before I would finally pluck up the courage and go from dream to plan to action.

Dr Lynne and Dr Brooke and the quiz

A few weeks after the Mel Robbins event, I stumbled upon another inspiring and uplifting account on Instagram: @life.afterkids. Well, probably more the result of some algorithm doing its magic, but anyway… Dr Lynne and Dr Brooke, two women and mothers in midlife talking about their experiences and those of their patients in this new stage of life.  They mentioned a quiz on their webpage to help you find new purpose when the empty nest feels too much. One rainy afternoon in October, with my daughter back at college and the house eerily quiet, I sat down with a cuppa and took the quiz. And guess what?! My results identified me as a “Magnificent Motivator” (Go me, I guess???) and asked if I had ever thought of bringing my talents to writing a blog or a book? I mean… is that a sign or is that a SIGN?!!!

Okay, so now I am really motivated to finally get started!

“Dr. Google”

Where do you go when you don’t know anything about anything? Exactly: “Ask Dr. Google”, as we joke in our little family. Off I go, bravely typing “How to start a blog” … naively thinking I’m almost there!  But no! Of course not! I am immediately met with what sounds like Chinese to me: tech terms with a scary ring to them, mysterious acronyms… I basically have NO idea wtf they are talking about. 

Pfffft… that’s my excitement evaporating right there… ok, looks like that blog thing is not for me after all. Honestly?! …What was I even thinking??!! At my age??!! All that social media stuff is for young people anyway! 

In a stage play, the directions at that point would probably read 

(heroine exists, dramatically throwing her arms in the air in frustration and sighing deeply). 

“F.E.A.R. has two meanings:
 Forget Everything And Run or 
Face Everything And Rise. 
The choice is yours. “
<<Zig Ziglar>>

(enters Dillon, knight in shining armour)

Dillon

Seriously though, Dillon was (and still is) in fact the person who has saved this project of mine!  See on the home page, bottom right corner? “Designed by Dillon Shah”? That’s him. Brilliant, funny, warm-hearted, hard-working, kind and extremely resourceful “old” school friend of my daughter’s, student and journalist in one AND…former head of their school’s media team… and therefore well-versed in the ways of all that scary social media tech stuff. 

How did I twist his arm? One evening at our house over an impromptu dinner with my daughter’s old friends, I mentioned my predicament, took heart and just asked him if he would maybe be prepared and available to help me find my way through that jungle – and he agreed! Suddenly, everything seemed possible again! Through hours of (mainly his) work and in-person and online meetings, I finally felt that giddiness again:

IT IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING! I AM STARTING A BLOG!!! 🥳

After a few more hick-ups over privacy and security, my – or more accurately – our blog website was finally ready to be launched! YEAH! 

So here we are! Thanks again, Dillon!

It takes a village…

You know who else deserves a big THANK YOU? 

My awesome and amazing daughter who has demonstrated almost as much enthusiasm as myself for this project and never tires of showing me that she believes in me.

All my wonderful women friends who keep cheering me on and boosting my confidence every time the infamous imposter syndrome maliciously creeps up on me.

Some of my daughter’s friends who – a mystery to me, to be honest – have kept asking if the blog is live yet. I feel quite honoured by their interest in a “vintage” woman’s passion project 😉.

Eric, my “oldest” friend’s husband and IT specialist by profession, who helped me with security and privacy and saved me from throwing my laptop out the window during the frustrating feat of installing an antivirus and VPN.

i even have the enormous honour to include a celebrity in my Thank You list! Barbara Scully (@barbarascully111 on Instagram), Irish writer, broadcaster, author and comedian, who kindly and generously agreed to meet me (an enthusiastic reader of her first book “Older, Bolder, Wiser”) and my daughter almost two years ago and has been and still is a great inspiration.

And, last but not least, my husband, who is often the rock in the waves of my wake-up anxiety, the calming voice of reason in the turmoil of my “what ifs” and the cautious sceptic about internet security and privacy.

This blog would not exist without them. The ship would still be in the harbour, safe but with a very frustrated captain wondering why the heck she’s not taking her ship where it’s supposed to go!