A Truly Inspirational Day

I am thoroughly exhausted but have had a very fulfilling and rewarding day.

A few weeks back I came across a leaflet for a 2 day a trade fair for small businesses, self employed people and of course entrepeneur's in general. It's called 'deGUT' (link in German) and is taking place at the old (and now closed to air trafic) Templehof Airport which is pretty local to me. The fair features loads of exhibitors such as banks offering information on financing, to organisations made primarily to support such business start-ups and also a large selection of talkers speaking about a wide variety of subjects.

My initial reason for going was to meet a very inspirational American woman who has been based here in Berlin for many years now: Cynthia Barcomi. She is the owner of 'Barcomi's', two of which can be found here in Berlin, one in Kreuzberg, the other in Mitte (and they come highly recommended, check out their amazing vegetarian lasagne and their cheesecake selections!!!) She has not only built herself a very successful gastronomie business but has also written 3 books (sadly only available in German as I'd love to buy my mum one! I personally own the baking book) and is a mother to 4 children! Impressive huh! VERY.

Whilst at Barcomi's, partaking of one of her delicious cheesecakes, I decided to take a couple of photo's of said delicious treats as I am trying to build my photography portfolio and get some more paid work in that direction (alongside my jewellery and writing, photography is a great love of mine). The photo's came out well and when I saw that Cynthia Barcomi herself would be talking at this exhibition I decided I simply had to go there and to hand her prints of the pics along with my contact details. I was nervous about doing this but having wrapped the pics with a ribbon and written (thanks 'The Englander') lovely cards with my details, I thought it might be the right way to touch her with the effort I put in and it would make me stand out more then a simple email could ever do. I watched her talk and she was so inspiring, so full of energy and welcome advice, talking about how you just have to grab the bull by the horns so to speak, that I thought that this was the perfect way to appeal to her and so after her section was finished, I went up to her and speaking in German (rather odd considering she's American and I'm British and we share a common Mother tongue!) I chatted with her about the family/work life balance and how a mother manages to build a successful business for herself etc etc and then I handed her the photo's. I am very happy to say that she seemed genuinely thrilled by the gesture and said that she would be in contact so please all keep your fingers crossed for me and I will let you know if something does indeed come of this!

Other then getting to meet Cynthia Barcomi, I also watched a number of seminars on marketing, business insurances, the creative industrys and more and made the most of all the little freebies on offer dotted around the large room. One of the my fellow students from my German course was there too as a fellow self employed person and we both feverishly grabbed at the mini packets of Haribo on offer and I even managed to get a toy for Milo and a few balloons with which he'll be able to entertain himself. Brilliant! It took me back to the days of when I used to go to car shows with my dad and brother and I would just spend the whole time wandering from stand to stand grabbing every leaflet I could find and every sweet and accessory on offer. Ahhhhh the days of childhood. I was a little more self conscious of doing it this time, many years later but after the first few grabs I started to realise that there was little judgement of when I helped myself to the tidbits so I did it with more fervor as the day went on.

All in all the day was a great success. I got to meet a woman I greatly admire (and have hopefully started the very early groundworks for a possible working relationship of some sort), I learnt some interesting facts about German business laws and rights, worked on my German (it got pretty tiring listening to detailed, work related German being spoken at a rapid rate) and on top of all that have come home with a large selection of useful leaflets and brochures and a yummy selection of sweets. What more can you ask for of a day?!

I love to read your comments so please feel free to let me know what you think...