![]() Whenever I spend time with my brothers I revert to being a kid, messing about doing silly stuff. As the only girl and middle child, my brothers have always teased me and we laugh until my cheeks hurt. Our time together is precious as we live thousands of miles apart and we’ve planned countless playful activities; going to theme parks, the zoo, paintballing and most recently axe throwing, where my competitive tomboy spirit was unleashed. Actually, in truth, I act like a child whenever I can get away with it.I dance for hours around my kitchen or nightclub, it doesn’t matter. When I am on the beach I like to bury my legs in the warm sand. When I go out I dress for how I feel and not for how society expects me to look for my age.Making social media reels also keeps me connected to my inner child; they’re entertaining and silly and reminds me that it’s ok not to be so serious at times. Acting like a child is great fun, not only is it therapeutic in a world littered with stress, but it’s key to being happy and looking younger too. Studies have shown that laughter increases blood circulation and reduces pain and boosts our immune system. It raises your energy levels. Having six children also keeps me playful. When we’re on holiday, guess who’s the one splashing about, being pushed off the floaties, encouraging volleyball in the pool, starting water fights, pretending to be a shark underwater and generally not caring about the state of my hair or swimsuit.When we’re home guess who’s standing behind doors and leaping out screaming “boo” before collapsing in heaps of giggles. One Halloween I bought some six foot cardboard freestanding zombies to decorate the hall, my eldest son moved them to the end of my bed whilst i was asleep. I got up in the night to do a wee and screamed the house down and was laughing so much. Getting in touch with my inner child reminds me of the simplicity of childhood without the anxiety and responsibilities of adulthood. When you’re a kid, you just get up and do things without being self conscious. Children don’t worry about that, there’s magic in simplicity. Children are also naturally inquisitive and creative, wanting to draw, write and make things out of shoeboxes, buttons and string and aren’t bothered what people think.They’re happy to make a mess. Children express themselves so much better than adults, they’re downright honest and have no filter. But as we get older were conditioned to control ourselves and think before we speak, which can often leave us feeling frustrated and second guessing how others will react. And this isn’t being true to ourselves and we all end up in therapy! So act like a kid and do whatever you feel like doing. Age is just a state of mind and why should all the kids have all the fun! ![]() Sometimes you have to just get away. They say a change is as good as a rest and I have been feeling stagnant with my business and frustrated with the slow pace of my divorce proceedings. I don't understand people who say they never go away.Sometimes you have to just change your scenery to re-energise. So I spoke to my brothers who live in New York and booked a week away to spend time with them, wander around Manhattan, almost shattering my kneecaps during the process of walking endless kilometres to seek clarity in where I want to go with my business and indeed myself. The past year has been littered with emotional confusion, financial stress, separation from my children and business anxiety and whilst I haven't been feeling overwhelmed, I haven't been able to focus as my brain is switched on to too many things. This week, however, I paused. I reflected on how far I have come and where I want to go. My business suffered terrible losses due to covid and I lost virtually all my advertisers. I felt sorry for myself, felt angry at the injustice of not being in control of my business that I had grafted to build up so well before the pandemic and I was living in the past. I realised this week that success comes with planning and execution, something I have always been good at ( shame I can't execute the ex husband). Instead of focusing on everything I lost I shifted my mindset to everything I have achieved. As my brothers reminded me, I wrote a bucket list in my 20s of things I wanted to do and I have done them all. I jumped out of a plane over the Great Barrier Reef, I created a large family filled with love, I bought a holiday home in a hot country that I love, I lost weight and transformed my image, I wrote and published a book, I created an Lifestyle awards ceremony in a city that is now part of their annual business calendar, I set up a magazine in not one country but two. Basically everything I set my mind to I achieved. I have done it once and I can do it again so I have created a new bucket list. Enough with the procrastinating and self pity. It's time to reclaim my power, my burning ambition to have financial freedom before I am 55 years old, fall in love with someone who shares my desires and embrace the beautiful life I have created. ![]() Winter fitness tips from my personal trainer and partner in Lifestyle Fitness Bootcamps The cold weather is the most challenging time to continue on your fitness journey and to achieve those goals. It’s dark early, finances may also not be in the best shape and there's and there's an overwhelming feeling of ‘this is too hard’ If you have not got back on the ‘active’ horse yet, then now is a great month to start as we are approaching spring, light nights and warmer weather. So what can you do about this dip in motivation or to get motivated………………. your mind rules your body not the other way round. Your body tells you when it is tired and when it cannot be bothered. There are reasons for this such as not having enough sleep, not eating a cleaner diet, not resting and not getting enough sleep. You need to recognise what you are doing and use your mind to change it, pushing your body through the dip. It is not too dissimilar to ‘hitting the wall’. We have all heard this term before, in simple terms the body becomes exhausted because it has run out of energy but the body has more to give. You may hit the wall after 10 minutes or 30minutes. If you push over or through the wall, your body will kick into another source of energy. If you can just keep going for a few more minutes you will feel a rush of refreshment through your body and you will be good to carry on. Breathing correctly when exercising will help with this. I have trained people who need to stop running after 2 minutes because they cannot breathe. No oxygen no energy = exercise is too hard. It is important to focus on your breathing, slow it down, make it deeper; get into a rhythm. If you focus on your breathing you will be surprised how your thoughts move away from what you are doing, before you know it you have exercised for longer, gone further, lifted more than before. If you are in the gym, breathe out when you push or pull, breathe in when you are lowering or relaxing the weight. You need to sound like a steam train, but not too loud. We have all gone to bed early and then got stuck on social media for another hour or three. Sleep is so important to your exercise routine. In simple terms your body recovers when you sleep. Your body does all sorts of funky things whilst it is asleep so you can get up and go again. You need at least 7-9 hours of sleep at night. When you get your joggers on, tie up your trainers the next step is warming up your body before going all out during your routine. Warming up is you basically saying to your body that in about 5 minutes you are going to get your ass kicked. Your body has a quick word with your muscles and energy systems, in effect saying ‘on your marks, get set’. Imagine someone waking you up in the middle of the night asking you to run 5km compared to someone bringing you a cup of tea in bed and saying ‘be ready to leave in 5 minutes’ Eat or not to eat, that is the question? This part is definitely not rocket science. To drive your car, you need petrol/diesel. If you fill the car up too much it overflows, so manage what goes into your body to give it enough energy to exercise and recover. You need twice as many grams of protein than your body weight in kg’s. So eat more chicken and have a few protein shakes on the go Get this bit right and when you are sleeping for 7-9 hours your body will be recovering real good. Before your workout get some porridge, fruit, brown or wholemeal bread down you. My favourite is peanut butter on toast with chocolate spread and a banana. Some of us can get carried away at times and get consumed by needing to exercise every day. Rest is as good as a visit to the gym. If you are in a good routine and are training hard make sure you rest. You may get that guilty feeling of being lazy but your body will love you. You will see improvements quicker and you will avoid injury. It sounds crazy but if you are on it like a car bonnet your body will need 2-3 days to recover if you are doing similar exercise during each exercise session. If you are focusing on strength or building muscle, then you can get away with training each body part twice a week. Good luck, it will soon be summer! What makes your services valuable?
The core value to me is to make your clients feel special. People do business with people and in PR, when I am looking after your company, your business becomes my business. 90% of my clients come from word of mouth recommendations. Clients don't want to feel like a file on a desk which is opened once a week. Frequent conversations, advice and assistance goes a long way. Mapping out your social media posts saves people time but is essential in growing your profile online. The work of public relations is often invisible and people do question what you're actually doing. Phone calls to the editors of newspapers and magazines, emails, social media content and copywriting takes times. Often companies want you to research and source relateable and engaging content and there's a lot of chasing to be done to ensure your client is at the top of their list when they're looking to be published. Building trustworthy relationships also takes time with clients and colleagues and I say public relations is like going to the gym. You will spend days and weeks working out without seeing any change to your body shape and may feel like giving up, but don't. On average it takes three months to get media hits. Consistency and discipline is key to success. And don't forget that the media works weeks, sometimes months in advance. I am already working on January issues of Lifestyle magazine. Intelligent and successful public relations is a long term goal but if you are patient you will see results and the value in your investment. One thing is key though - ensure you post at least once a day across ALL your social media platforms. I can make you famous It's funny, I've just turned 51 and as my children point out, I'm not middle aged any more, unless I live to 102! Which would mean I would have to work for another 50 years to sustain my lifestyle.... no thank you very much.
Don't get me wrong, I have a lust for life. I live it to the fullest of my capabilities. I take risks, I regularly live outside my comfort zone and I continually challenge myself but I don't want to be working for another half a century. At the moment many of us of faces challenges beyond out control - mortgage hikes, ultilty and food price rises and it's easy for anxiety levels to rise. For me personally, I've recently had additional stress of the ex-husband slandering me on social media for having the nerve to leave him and move abroad to set up a business. It's not the first time I've been trolled but you don't expect it from the person you're financially supporting. But I I have learnt that negative people who wallow in their own bitterness feel the need to project their own failings onto others through unkind words. His words have stung me, not because I harbour any feelings towards him, but because he still shows such a lack of respect for the mother of his children, the women he was married to for 20 years and rarely worked, who I single handedly financially support. I made the choice to move out of the family home and move abroad because the marriage had disintegrated. I left with my children's blessing and encouragement, they saw how unhappy I was and they also didn't want to be in the centre of a toxic environment with their parents fighting. I left because if he went, he wouldn't have stayed in contact with his kids, through his own laziness. I grew up without a father and didn't want my children to experience the same. No one except a mother understands the sacrifices we make for what we hope is in the best interests of our children. I spend every moment I can with my children and I hope they understand why I don't live with them. It ties me up in knots everyday, I miss them even though I speak to them everyday and I hope they really do understand why I left. Life is full of incredibly hard decisions we have to make and if you're a good person, you hope they're in the best interests of your loved ones. I hope I have taught them not to settle in life when you're unhappy. I hope I have taught them that opportunities are everywhere and you can achieve anything you want with hard work, focus and determination. I hope I have taught them to be independent and confident as they hop on and off planes like buses and travel around the world I hope I have taught them to put their happiness first before others. You can't pour from an empty cup. I hope I have taught them not to give the best years of your life to someone who doesn't appreciate you. Mum of 6 and entrepreneur, Amanda Moss, shares her insights into her lifestyle and business empire
Today I'm talking about why you need to advertise....... Every month I hear “I don’t need to advertise"……. here’re the only 2 reasons why you do 1. When you don't have enough customers and you want more. 2. When you're super busy with customers and want to stay on top of your game. The first point is obvious. If no one knows about you, how do you expect them to buy from you? You have to create awareness and more importantly, a desire for people to want to work with you. What are you offering that will benefit them? Tap into their needs. Sales is all about emotions and create the desire for your customers to buy from you. The second point is more tricky. More often than not, business owners tell me they don't "need" to advertise because they're so busy. Do you think Coca Cola, or McDonalds, the biggest brands in the world, ever slashed their advertising budgets as they got busier? Of course not. And why do you think they're on top of their game? Without advertising you'll undoubtably keep busy in the short term but it's easy to get complacent. People have short term memories and aren't loyal. They'll go to your competitors with a sniff of a better offer or the temptation of something different. And within a couple of weeks of you going quiet, you'll be forgotten. Trust me. Consumers are also put off businesses who can't handle busy times, this is the most important time when you should be stepping up your marketing plans for long term growth and this is is also the time when you demonstrate to your customers how you deal with them during these busy times. Ensuring quality care and customer service isn't compromised. And you'll be guaranteed they'll be telling their friends about their experiences. make sure it's a good word of mouth recommendation. If you rely on always assuming you're busy you're not thinking clearly about your business. Sales can dry up overnight. The pandemic has proved this. Unfortunately advertising budgets was the first thing many businesses cut first and these are the ones that never recovered. In times of recession and economic squeeze, this is precisely when you should be doubling your advertising spend. You need to be shouting the loudest about your business whilst your competitors go quiet and struggle to turn over. Because when the economy recovers, your future and existing customers will remember the names that stood out the most in these uncertain times and remained solid. This in turn creates confidence and they're more likely to work with you and buy from you Let me help promote your business! I offer very attractive rates for long term growth to stay memorable so let’s chat! Email amanda@amandamosspr.uk |
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