NESTA & Lebanese entrepreneurs

Over the course of the past two weeks, the British Council and with the support of Berytech, organized a workshop entitled FROM START UP TO SUCCESS: A CREATIVE entrepreneur’s PLAN. The workshops were led by Sarah Thelwall, founder of MyCake.org, who has been working with creative entrepreneurs for over a decade as a consultant, business development coach and trainer. And Percy Emmett – NESTA’s lead Creative Industries trainer, coach and mentor. The workshop combined the methodology from NESTA’s Insight Out programme toolkit with MyCake.org’s Market Day marketing training.

I was very pleased at the diversity of the participants, as this added to the experience when they shared. The sessions were very informative; a bit daunting in terms of how much work there is to do. Both Sarah and Percy were very personal, accessible, very willing to answer questions and explain in detail.

Many of the participants have lost their fear of planning through true participation in the workshop. It comes to grips with what your conversation is about yourself that holds you back and then sets up a structure for fulfilling on any goal or dream that you want.
The trainers approach to breaking down the beliefs, resistance that prevents entrepreneurs from owning their feelings and controlling or taking responsibility for their own actions had an enabling and empowering effect on the participants. Though it seemed a lot to absorb in four days, it definitely gave them the resources to practice and learn more, and left them feeling much more in control and with a sense of relief about some difficult professional situations

The financial planning workshop gave a very powerful tool to link entrepreneurs accountabilities to their goals, to their measures, to identify the support they need, to understand the positive and negative consequences of their actions and most originally, to rethink the nature of their relation with money. I’d like to thank all workshop-participants and especially you Sarah and Percy, for sharing your knowledge and experience in this workshop. You are both great enablers.