WomanzWorld Founders

It’s ironic that my personal blog for friends and family is called Global Adventures, particularly as right now I’m confined to National travel only. Yep I’m treading a fine immigration line. It dawned on me 2 weeks ago when I was going to book my flights to NYC to hang with great friends and capitalize on 5 days worth of US Open Tennis tickets (including the finals!) that it may not be a smart idea. My work permit expires on the 9/9/09  – right when I was going to be away.

The immigration lady basically told me to avoid any travel outside of Canada or risk not let being back in.

This was a big wake up call, since when has this nomad ever been stopped from travelling? I felt a little trapped. Unless my work permit extension letter came through in the next few weeks (unlikely) or my Permanent Resident application was suddenly approved (very unlikely) I was going nowhere!

For once in my life, I had to make a sensible decision:

1. Spend close to $2K on 8 days in NYC watching a sport I love and catching up with friends I love too.OR
2. Stay put, save money and get on with launching two businesses…..

So this spur of the moment adventurer made a very adult decision to not go. I know, what’s become of me? This has allowed me instead to enjoy the joys of true Canadian life. A trip to Vancouver Island and Sproat Lake was a

Sproat Lake

truly relaxing weekend thanks to Drew and allowed Liz & I to work on our new online business – WomanzWorld and get super excited about it. It also saw me become so focused (reading `The Power of Focus’ can do that to you) that I set not just 1 but 3,5 and 10 year goals in the space of a weekend and detailed out the 1 and 3. I was pretty exhausted after that but also very…focused.

I also got to enjoy the beauty and culture of `The Peg’ as Winnipeg is fondly known where our women’s ultimate Frisbee team Zephyr had an amazing time at Canadian Nationals just last weekend. Ok so truthfully Winnipeg was a scary city – especially downtown and not a place I’d revisit. But we came home with a bronze medal after 4 days, hopefully a spot at World Clubs in Prague next year and having won the party as true cowgirls. I can’t describe how awesome it was to play with the ladies of Zephyr and I’m looking forward to more shenanigans with them as head to Sectionals in September. I was super proud to be awarded `Miss D’ for defence over the tourney, that meant a lot, and the hand made and embroidered sash was so pretty – thanks Kiwi.

I’m really hoping my visa comes through as I don’t want to miss launching FundRazr in San Francisco in September with Daryl –  can’t say why we’re launching as it’s part of the terms of the competition we entered and made the top 100 who get to present on the day to PR, investors and the tech world so will be really big for us. Big for me if I can be part of it by actually being there! Same with sectionals just over the border 5 days after.

The great thing is that I have had time to really reflect and out of that great things have happened. First off I’d like to thank you all for being a big part of my life, wherever you are in the world, and for making me believe in myself and to go after my dreams. I’m proud to start my own business WomanzWorld.

It’s come about from my 10 months as an `Entrepreneur’ and co-founder of ConnectionPoint Systems Inc with Daryl. On the rollercoaster ride of developing FundRazr – our awesome application for Facebook that helps you collect fees and donations and manage members (had to plug that and thank all our friends who became our fans recently), I was really surprised to see so few female CEOs at business and networking events. I recently found out 35% of all businesses in BC are owned by women. So where are they all?

There have been many times when I’ve wanted to chat with women in business to get their take on how they’ve coped with the challenges, what they’ve learned and more importantly their perspective, as a woman. From my constant discussions with everyone I met I started getting really positive feedback on my idea and that made me more passionate to get women into business. That perhaps I could help drive women to do that, to motivate, inspire and advise. At the same time I could learn from those succeeding right now and pass that on to others aspiring to become entrepreneurs. A win win situation for everyone.

So hence the idea to start a blog and recount my journey right here, right now, interview amazing women, review great resources for females in business and build a community of great women. That journey has already begun. Wish my good friend and talented business partner Elizabeth and me luck and please tell anyone you think who could benefit from WomanzWorld to visit our site www.womanzworld.com – as Tessa my good friend and the talented designer of our site noted, it was an apt domain name as I’m an NZ Woman.

Keep living life to the full