Maintaining Her Inner Strength
22 April 2022
What an amazing SHINE Networking event today.
It’s the first real in-person event we’ve had this year and wow, was it worth the wait.
Our speaker was the amazing Carol Leeming MBE FRSA.
Carol spoke to us on these three topics:
- How you have maintained your focus, determination, and mindset about your own potential in your industry.
- When everyone tells us we should focus on only one thing, how have you circumvented this to achieve success in so many different areas, yes, all in the arts but still separate streams within the arts?
- A little about your journey as a black female and the challenges you’ve faced. How do you overcome it?
Carol’s many years in the arts and theatre sector gave us much to contemplate. She shared some of the routines that she engages in to keep her focused on what it is she wants to create in her life and maintaining who it is she wants to be.
Carol said it has to start with dreams, some sort of desire that is within you. A very central part of that is you have to have passion. That is the thing that will drive you forward.

A second part is not forgetting to realise where the joy is in all of what you’re doing. This is going to be a good guide to keep you centred on what it is you want to be doing because this will also fuel your creativity and creative thinking. And you have to feel the fear and do it anyway because you can guarantee that somewhere along with the line fear is going to kick in. Take on board a commitment to feed your dream and your ambition consistently. Carol shared a number of ways in which she has done this for herself over the years which has helped her to learn and to grow. She spoke about being kind to yourself and speaking lovingly to yourself. She also mentioned the importance of having a tribe on which you can fall softly back on those occasions when things don’t go as you’d want them to or you face failure, criticism or disappointment. Being adaptable, having flexibility. You set your dream in motion, you have goals and ambition but you still need to be flexible and adaptable.
Carol shared so much wisdom in her talk that it would take a long time to share all of it. Each member and visitor in attendance went away with a wealth of information, ideas, and tips that she will be able to apply to her own life to further develop her own inner strength and resilience.
Thank you Carol-Leeming MBE FRSA for a really wonderful talk and for being such an open-giving speaker.
Here is some of the feedback we’ve already received from the event,
What a great way to spend Friday morning! Meeting with lovely friendly women and hearing about their different businesses. So welcoming, the next is in June, watch this space. I would highly recommend any of you who are in business, at whatever level, to join us and make some great connections 🙂 – Mar J-R.
There was lots of time for networking and getting to know each other better during the two-hour period.











Thank you also goes to the wonderful Mina’s Cupcakes who provided our cupcake treats including some that we gluten-free. Leaving us with no excuses but to indulge and they were lovely.
We really excited to note that we will be inviting Carol back in a month or so to run a workshop on Time Management, Personal SWOT, and Clarity. Some of the many points of interest that came out of the session and the Q & A that followed.
We hope you will join us at our next networking session. Keep your eyes on our Events page and note the dates in your calendar. Our next in-person event is in Derby with our Guest Speaker Claire Twells, Winner of the Women’s Awards East Midland’s Inspiration Female Leader of the Year 2019.
Hope to see you there. Find out more and book your seat here
Categorised in: Community News, Events, SHINE Networking Events