Happy International Women’s Day - Michelle McFarlane
My main story started when I was 12 years old. My life shaped into something I had never dreamt about, when one day I had a horrific train accident leaving me on the edge of death. During my recovery from 12- 25years old I had gone through many emotional and physical challenges in life to recover from the horrific injuries I had sustained.
I was in hospital for about 14weeks, and after multiple surgeries, I later left the hospital with a plaster jacket from my chest to my knees, along with many more stages of recovery after that.
With Family, faith and many friends supporting my recovery I feel extremely blessed to be here today. I left school at 19 and met my now husband, who I must say has been my rock all these years.
I have worked in many industries to learn as much as I could, and to challenge myself. Working for the health service in different departments gave me a chance to give back what was given to me. I may not have been a nurse or a doctor but this was a start of volunteering for the elderly, worked with cancer patients for the look good feel better program and more. One large part of my recovery was learning salsa which lead me into teaching. It helped strengthen my body and since then, I have been free of pain killers.
I left teaching behind to spend more time with my children while my husband travelled with work. A few years later my husband got a job offer in Singapore. Due to my injuries, living in Australia is all I had known. I travelled for the first time much later in life so moving to Singapore was very exciting and daunting at the same time.
As humans, we gain our personalities and attitudes through our relationships and experiences in life. I must say that my accident did play a massive role in creating who I am today. I have grown to be very determined, self-driven and never to give up.
I have also learnt not to just expect anything in life. If you want to achieve something, no matter what it is, you need to work at it.
While in Singapore, I needed to rediscover myself again so I went back to drawing, did some photography and kept myself busy when I started Affordable Cards. Greeting cards are very expensive here so I decided to start something different. While building my business I wanted to meet other ladies doing the same thing so I started a Facebook page and held my first meeting.
Starting BWN has given me the strength, the drive and motivation to improve my own business and focus on my own personal challenges. So many wonderful ladies in the group have inspired me to create a network to help, support, motivate, and feel inspired.
I have met such lovely ladies and have made some great friends; I look forward to building BWN as a great platform for startups and working professionals/ Entrepreneurs and to create a great network for women to connect with other ladies working towards the same or similar goals.
Happy International Women’s Day - Make it happen.
Michelle
My main story started when I was 12 years old. My life shaped into something I had never dreamt about, when one day I had a horrific train accident leaving me on the edge of death. During my recovery from 12- 25years old I had gone through many emotional and physical challenges in life to recover from the horrific injuries I had sustained.
I was in hospital for about 14weeks, and after multiple surgeries, I later left the hospital with a plaster jacket from my chest to my knees, along with many more stages of recovery after that.
With Family, faith and many friends supporting my recovery I feel extremely blessed to be here today. I left school at 19 and met my now husband, who I must say has been my rock all these years.
I have worked in many industries to learn as much as I could, and to challenge myself. Working for the health service in different departments gave me a chance to give back what was given to me. I may not have been a nurse or a doctor but this was a start of volunteering for the elderly, worked with cancer patients for the look good feel better program and more. One large part of my recovery was learning salsa which lead me into teaching. It helped strengthen my body and since then, I have been free of pain killers.
I left teaching behind to spend more time with my children while my husband travelled with work. A few years later my husband got a job offer in Singapore. Due to my injuries, living in Australia is all I had known. I travelled for the first time much later in life so moving to Singapore was very exciting and daunting at the same time.
As humans, we gain our personalities and attitudes through our relationships and experiences in life. I must say that my accident did play a massive role in creating who I am today. I have grown to be very determined, self-driven and never to give up.
I have also learnt not to just expect anything in life. If you want to achieve something, no matter what it is, you need to work at it.
While in Singapore, I needed to rediscover myself again so I went back to drawing, did some photography and kept myself busy when I started Affordable Cards. Greeting cards are very expensive here so I decided to start something different. While building my business I wanted to meet other ladies doing the same thing so I started a Facebook page and held my first meeting.
Starting BWN has given me the strength, the drive and motivation to improve my own business and focus on my own personal challenges. So many wonderful ladies in the group have inspired me to create a network to help, support, motivate, and feel inspired.
I have met such lovely ladies and have made some great friends; I look forward to building BWN as a great platform for startups and working professionals/ Entrepreneurs and to create a great network for women to connect with other ladies working towards the same or similar goals.
Happy International Women’s Day - Make it happen.
Michelle
