Throwback 2019: The biggest ups and downs this year

Reading time: 6 min

How was your 2019? Which moments will you remember forever as they brought you pure joy, happiness, and fulfillment? When was your lowest moment? We all have those moments. 

What will you celebrate at the end of 2019 and finish it with a bang?

You want to hear about my 2019 and all the ups and downs?

My year actually started with a massive downtime.

At the end of 2018, I was working with an amazing client and in addition, I started a new business that failed before I even launched it. I spent a nice 5 digit amount and 7 months working smart and hard on it. I was just about to spend another ￡10K on marketing, branding, website and all the final touches before I launch it officially. I had several clients lined up. Everything looked so good until the day before I was about to pay that amount. I received a call from a person I deeply respect and is from one of my networks. She asked me to take down my domain, all the webinars I did so far, change the name and re-structure my business as she taught I copied her business. I was devastated. I chose the name because of my biggest client at that point. I ran 4 teams there and half of their projects had that name, just different ending. As I was listening to the same name every day I just used it for my new business. There was a lot of anger and frustration for several days. What's the chance for all that to happen to me??

My gut kept telling me all this is a message that I'm on a wrong path and I should just leave it as it is. Now, if you know me - I don’t give up just that easy. Hence, it took me several months to calm down and let go.

Looking from the place I am right now my LESSON LEARNED is to: trust more my intuition. Let go faster. Move on faster.

Today I am deeply grateful that this beautiful soul and female entrepreneur stopped it all. It would’ve been something I enjoy but indeed, it’s not my true path.

However, the start of 2019 for me was the lowest point this year - my whole system was full of doubts, lack of self-confidence, confusion what my next steps should be. On top of it, I had plenty of negative thoughts and “what if I didn't” questions in my head.

In addition, I had injured my shoulder in 2018 so I was in constant pain and by the start of 2019 I couldn’t move my left arm at all. I couldn’t use it and I needed help to wear my clothes.

It felt like everything was going in the wrong direction and it was just the start of the year. Great start of a new year, right? - being depressed and in pain 11 out of 10, where 10 is the max you can take on.

LESSON LEARNED: Physical pain shows an imbalance in your body which comes from an imbalance of your energy (all levels and types of energy), feelings, thoughts and everything you do.

The turnaround: 

In Feb I decided to take a completely new approach in my life and start learning neuroscience, quantum physics, bio brain hacking. In the beginning, I watched the courses from home. When you are depressed you don't really want to go out, do you? In April I went to my first week-long retreat in Mallorca which, no coincidences in our life, was called ’The New Normal’. It took a lot of courage to get over my shoulder pain, other health issues and go spend one week with another 1,400 people, in a tent, doing long hours of lectures and meditations. Guess what? It changed so much my life that I repeated it again in November, as I know now how powerful my mind is. Actually, scratch that! I'm still exploring it! The more I discover, the more I feel I'm scratching the surface.

THE BIGGEST LESSON learned in 2019 was that every 6 months of working smart and hard I should give myself a break and put myself first. Does this ring a bell? My job is to support others, advise them, be there for their businesses. I'm also there for my family, the people I love, for my friends and for all of you. Even if I don't know you in person, I feel a calling to answer your questions on my social media channels.

However, if I want to keep giving my best to others, I want and need to give the best to myself too. The best gift I can give to myself is one week every 5-6 months to concentrate on my own values and life. This way I can keep developing, connecting to my own source of energy, experiencing the void and the multidimensional life in all its beauty. I let go of the old, I trust, I forget about myself and surrender into the unknown. I open my heart and expand. Life it is not about me but about something much bigger than me. I look at the physical world around with new eyes and I explore. I teach my body emotionally what the future feels like. I create for fun and I tune in the universal powers and feel. 

Keep in mind all the lessons above as I will tell you also my most memorable great moment in 2019.

I will start with my most proud moments this year - the 4 awards I received for my work:

• The Professional Speakers Academy's 1st prize at the June’s Professional Speaking Competition
• The Professional Speakers Academy's annual award 'The Most Improved member of 2019'
• The Women Economic Forum's award 'Iconic Woman making a better world for all'
• I became a TEDx speaker

I spoke on various stages at:

• Retail Expo, London, presenting the role of senior management when implementing RFID technology 
• The Fashion Law London, talking about e-comm platforms and the Digital trends for Fashion Retail industry
• I spoke amongst 200+ speakers from 49 countries at the Women Economic Forum giving my first ever motivational speech but not just one - I gave two - Women in Business and Does your past determine your future
• TEDx AinleyTop Women 2019 talk amongst another 20 speakers that day, presenting a bold idea to Executives and Senior Managers so they can stop wasting their time and do what they are hired to do. I can’t wait to watch the recording!
• I gave interviews for Page 1 Woman and '100 entrepreneurs Journey’. The first will be published this month in December and the second one will be out early 2020.
• I also wrote blogs for InTouch professional network serving other Non-Executive Directors, and
• I spoke at the book launch of an incredible woman who I'm blessed to know and be a friend of

LESSON LEARNED: When you want something to learn how to embed the whole energy of it, feel it, taste it, smell it, touch it before it happens and enjoy the feeling as it already happened. Its a matter of a few days or a few months before that dream of yours comes true.

Which were your highest moments of the past year? Will you celebrate your achievements and your hard work? 

You may be wondering, how did I score all the awards above? The second half of 2019 felt like being all the time on stage or in front of the camera. I loved it. As much as you see the end results, the edited videos, the pictures of the achievements let me tell you this - I had so many sleepless nights to be able to deliver on time. I had weeks with very quick breaks and no weekends as this year I decided to run my business in a completely different way.

Here are my lessons:

TEAM: Firstly, I built my team: they are one of my biggest achievements too! One of the biggest challenges for every entrepreneur out there, at the begging of a new business, is to find the right people for their team. I proudly say today that I have created an incredible team - people who are so gifted in what they do, who put up with all my rules like zero internal email policy, 1 weekly meeting, and short deadlines. Thank you, guys! It is a privilege to work with you!

Truth to be told, we have never been all together in one room! I believe in a distributed workforce. Two of them are internet nomads, traveling around the world and working for me. One lives in Albania and just survived the earthquake there. Few of them live in South Africa but also travel a lot.

VISIBILITY: While having very few clients still, I started gaining visibility on social media platforms. When I started in February only a few people knew I changed my career to become Non-Executive Director. Now, at the end of the year, more than 1,000,000 people know my name, have seen my face and engaged with me on social media. THANK YOU, everyone! I appreciate you ?? 

MENTORS: I hired various mentors and coaches to help me with my brand, my message, up to my speaking skills, shape together my social media marketing strategy. To thank them I posted about each one when we celebrated 8 years since I found the company.

CONSISTENCY: Together with my team, we posted thousands of posts, 56 articles and 21 videos on LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. 

RESULTS: The biggest and the most mind blowing result for me was when I hit that 1,000,000 post views between LinkedIn and Facebook. That's a result achieved in 8 months. Plus another big one for me was when my LinkedIn followers tripled from just above 3,000 to now 9,000+, in the last 5 months. Thank you everyone who watched my videos, read my articles, liked, commented, shared my pictures, quotes and posts. I appreciate every one of you as it is your way to tell me that each topic I chose is not just close to my heart but to yours too. Thank you! ?? 

 Now if you are thinking - Oh, she is rocking it and everything is just perfect for her - yes I am rocking it NOW but let me remind you how I started 2019.

My question to you is:

Do you allow the bad mood and failure to take over and run your day, month, year?

I celebrate both the highest and the lowest moments this December. They have ultimately made 2019 wonder-full for me.

What do you create for yourself today? Whom are you walking as right now? How do your breaks from work look like and do you come back from them recharged? May be you come back as a new person? 

Wishing you a Merry Christmas full of joy, love, and magic!

???? Watch the full video on this weekly topic on my LinkedIn wall: https://bit.ly/2M4FH3r

Thank you lots,

Bilyana