Raw 02 - September 2008 - (Page 19)

HEIDI WEIR RAW I was born in the East End of London in a Tower block. I had one Polish and one Ukrainian Granddad and one German and one Irish Nan – I can tell you ‘Christmas Day was always a blast’! I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who has funnier Christmas tales than I. I didn’t have a rough childhood by any stretch of the imagination, I had an amazing Childhood; in fact we moved out of London for my benefit as the schooling was not strong and my mum and dad felt that the area was not a great environment to bring up Children. I have the most amazing mum – who continues to worry and fight for me to this day and the most supportive dad – who truly understands me and is the best person in the world to have a drink, a moan and a laugh with and I love them both to bits. I have a little brother who is not embarrassed to be seen with me and even tells me he loves me every time he says goodbye (sorry Tom – not great for your macho image) – I can’t explain how much that means and what a special guy you are. Although my parents never had much money whilst I was growing up and they faced many tough times financially, I never wanted for anything so I was extremely lucky. I was a bit of a troublesome child; I seemed to have a slight anger management problem as a young girl; I grabbed my best friend by the neck and in my words ‘squeezed and I squeezed until he went blue’ at nursery purely because a bit of his spit hit me in the face when he was talking to me, I kicked the school bully when he started on me, I escaped from school and ran home (not the cleverest place to run so maybe not the most intelligent of kids), I threw a boy down a hill when he was trying to trip me up and I used to stand in the naughty corner if I had nothing to do so that I could build up points to enable me to be naughty later on in the day. Which ultimately meant that if my mum was ever asked ‘Are you Heidi’s mum?’ she would always respond with ‘Why?’ before admitting to anything! I struggled when we moved to Chelmsford as I was several years behind the other kids of my age but somehow managed to catch up and despite some schooling problems (of which there were many) achieved good results at GCSE and A’Level. I would love to say that this was through hard work and dedication but in the spirit of being open and honest that would be lying through my teeth. I hated every minute of education and put in minimum effort. I could not wait to ‘get out into’ the business world and faced a lot of scepticism and criticism at college for not wishing to go to university but despite this I went out to work. I attempted every career from being a PA to telesales, from sales to marketing to training, from banking to law, from finance, investments and pensions to electronics. I am a self confessed control freak and completely impatient so if something was out of my control or I wasn’t getting to where I wanted to be then I would switch companies, switch roles, switch careers. I always worked in male dominated environments because the challenge was greater and I was never happy until I felt I had conquered the role – unfortunately once this was done, I had lost the challenge, so I became bored and generally this meant yet another change! I’ve jumped about throughout my career like a happy little rabbit hopping about from field to field and most of the time completely unaware of how lost she actually was! Luckily it seems that the challenge never disappears with Million Impossible because each day, each week, a new one rears its (sometimes ugly) head! Anyway, as most that know me are aware, as well as being an impatient control freak, I am also unfortunately a workaholic. Work has always ruled my life. I have recently faced a health scare which has pretty much knocked me out, I was finally forced to my bed and despite my feeble attempts to fight it by discharging myself from hospital, keeping it a secret from friends, family, colleagues, and still coming in to the office. I eventually failed my fight and my body got the better of me. The most frustrating thing for me is the complete lack of control. It has been through my days of bed rest that I have been giving the chance to reflect upon my life. Over the years I have found many ways of trying to gain control, most of them damaging. The sad thing is, these were all problems that I thought I had battled and won however, it dawned on me that my new method of control is work and this is where I’ve been hiding. www.millionimpossible.com Impossible Plc Through my fight to keep control I have ruined many a friendship and many a relationship (yes unfortunately, there are quite a few) all because of my belief that ‘work’ or ‘my career’ was the only thing that was able to control. Like an epiphany it struck me that all along; the other aspects of my life were also in my control – I was just choosing to ignore them. It is possible to have it all; a successful career, a happy relationship and good friends, it’s your choice! Do you choose to live or do you choose to die? It is that simple. We are building a business based on what many have thought impossible therefore if any part of your life is lacking; remember that you have the power to change it and if you’re very lucky, like me, you’ll have somebody to turn to when you need support and sympathy (thank you everybody – you know who you are) and you will have someone to say ‘Enough, pull yourself together, you’re stronger than this’ before you start to fall apart (thank you Bradley). I hope you can see that no matter how much it seems that your life is falling apart, you are always able to take control of one aspect of that life. This success will then be the foundation for your building blocks. So the question as I asked in the title; Is honesty really the best policy? I believe so and I hope that by reading this you will not think any less of me, I therefore I ask that you all follow our footsteps, visit the MI Forum and open up. The truth cannot hurt you. Make the most of every day, keep smiling, keep laughing, keep building and keep your heart open. Work hard, Play hard. Thank you to everyone who has supported me, I love you all heidi@millionimpossible.com Tel: 0845 468 5000 millionimpossible.com 19 http://www.millionimpossible.com http://www.millionimpossible.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Raw 02 - September 2008

Raw 02 - September 2008 Contents Scott English Rachael Elnaugh Colin Stroud Heidi Weir Chris Wright Million Impossible Emma Thompson

Raw 02 - September 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.