I spent a very cool couple of hours hanging out at the House of Lords celebrating Small Business Britain. We drank Pimms on the balcony, overlooking the River Thames, on the most beautiful sunny day.

I was amongst lots of other micro and small businesses who had been invited by Small Business Britain, to come together and celebrate. It is damn hard (but brilliant) running your own business so it is really important to stop every now and then and see how far we’ve come and to celebrate.

It was so good to be others doing the same thing as me; to make things better for our communities, trying to find solutions and sharing the highs and lows of being a small business.

It was super inspiring to be amongst a load of brave, brave people who have started their own business - who have gone way out of their comfort zone and who are just so passionate about what they do.

The energy was immense as everyone swapped stories and I loved hearing about how their businesses were born or how they survived and came out even stronger from COVID lock-downs.

It was just awesome.

There was just great quotes from the speakers and sponsors of the programme that resonated and may well with you too if you run your own business.

“There are tough times and there are good times. But there are no bad times” and “The journey is the reward”. And my favourite; “you have to be a nut job to start your own business (they could be right).

If you run your own micro or small business, you can get involved with Small Business Britain too. They provide training, coaching and mentoring and it was so worthwhile doing it.