GLOSS Issue 22 JUNE 2015 | Page 15

I was in a country where I knew noone other than my husband and his family. I battled it out and struggled through, as I didn’t have any network to fall back on. I had no history in the country. I really felt the isolation, the overwhelming fear of not knowing if what I was doing would work. I didn’t have anyone to bounce ideas off. I took a leap of faith, backed myself and never looked back. OK, so I make it sound as though that was easy to do. It wasn’t. There were (and still are) a significant amount of tears, doubt, failed ideas, wasted time and of course wasted money. I realise how much I missed the connected community of my youth. I began to yearn for a space where I could work with like-minded people and so 10 years after I started WRD, my next journey into a start-up began. As with all businesses, The Creative Fringe started with an idea. Damn those ideas! It seemed like a simple concept, especially as it was based on some of my core beliefs which include collaboration, abundance and the power of relationships. The idea was to design a space where many creative GLOSS JUNE 2015 15