noSh-​it! Pizza Blog

Hi Folks

It never ceases to amaze me how, when one is at one’s low­est ebb, the ‘Uni­verse’ (so to speak), calls upon those True few, who lov­ingly cast a golden thread into the abyss, as a life­line to strengthen the heart of a fel­low explorer

Thanks to The Aviary for the Image

So inspired by some of these great and hereto­fore unher­alded lights of the world, I wanted to say thanks, as I’m able and in my way.

What Has Come to Pass

As you may have gath­ered from my ear­lier posts, good o’l noSh-​it! Wood-​Fired Pizza is no longer able to trade. She barely took her first steps before suc­cumb­ing to what so far passes for ‘small busi­ness sup­port’. I did my best with what I had…but it wasn’t enough. But rest assured, though a body can get bashed and man­gled, the Spirit is alive and growing…and the Phoenix will rise from the ashes.

I admit that over the past week I have strug­gled with what to tell you…moreover how to tell you. In the Spirit of noSh-​it!, it’s all noble ‘n stuff to say one is being hon­est and true and say­ing it how it is, warts ‘n all ‘n all that; but it’s a whole ‘nuther thang’ when the skin starts to dis­ap­pear under the warts. How much can a Koala ‘Bear’…indeed!

noSh-​it!, noFl-​owers!

Nam myoho renge kyo — Some of you may be famil­iar with this old Vedic/​Buddhist/​Japanese mantra/chant/spell/affirmation…call it what you will. It was made famous in the ‘West’ by among other remark­able folks, Tina Turner.

I’m not going to pro­vide some smancy ‘qual­i­fied’ Web-​based ref­er­ence to jus­tify my use of it here. I’m just going to tell you what it means to me:

• The deeper you go, the higher you go;

• That heaps of shit grows stun­ning flowers;

• It refers to the roots of the Lotus that go way down into the depths of the mud to pro­duce their stun­ning flow­ers (in other words, the Crown Chakra); and

• Lit­er­ally, it goes some­thing like this — I bow to that I am within me the rev­e­la­tion of mys­tic truth of the life giv­ing lotus petals. That’s my take any­way. Have a play here (Ok! Just one smancy ‘qual­i­fied’ Web-​based ref­er­ence then…are you happy now? ), and make up your own ver­sion if you like…but you get the drift?

The Stun­ning Flowers

This is not a list of every­one that has ever inspired me. These are just the folks from the last week or so. How dare I feel sorry for myself…

Tracy & Pete Hansen — The only thing you haven’t done is sign the adop­tion papers I’m hon­oured to have become part of your fam­ily. You didn’t know me from a bar o’ soap, yet, you sup­ported me and my busi­ness when oth­ers wouldn’t. You con­tinue to do so. I love your great words, great inspi­ra­tion, great guid­ance and the best bluddy hand-​forged pizza tools on the planet. Thank you

Paul Has­s­ing — Geez mate! What can I say? You’ve done every­thing humanly pos­si­ble. And you absolutely bluddy gob­s­macked me today with your lat­est arti­cle. I can only say that I’m hon­oured and Thank you

Charly Leetham — Charly is a great friend and small busi­ness men­tor. She has helped me through thick and thin and her great­est gift is that she lis­tens. Just her friend­ship and her con­ver­sa­tion are a great raft of san­ity and her hon­esty pro­vides a real­ity check that you just can’t buy. Actu­ally in her case you can. She is a great con­sul­tant help­ing a great deal of peo­ple. Thanks Charly, you lis­tened to me rav­ing on the other day…it helps me so much

Michael Mar­tin — A strange Pommy fella that isn’t just a ray of light of a par­tic­u­lar color; he’s all of ‘em on high beam! I can only highly rec­om­mend Michael to any­one that wants to enter into busi­ness and/​or take their busi­ness to the next level…even if your cur­rent level is (like mine), 6ft deep in the pooh! Michael has done it all and exem­pli­fies what for me will one day (soon I hope), become our New Busi­ness Par­a­digm. You know? Busi­ness that ACTU­ALLY ben­e­fits Peo­ple and the World?

Mal­colm J Owens — An even stranger Aussie fella ;-P, that qui­etly and deftly sews Lotus seeds wher­ever he goes. Even so, I still give him heaps on Paul’s Small Busi­ness Owner Blog . Mal­colm has not only directly con­tributed to get­ting my busi­ness as far as it got, but his wis­dom and expe­ri­ence (some of which is embod­ied in his MUST READ eBook), con­tin­ues to inspire and guide me as I rebuild my business.

Dr Stephen Saun­ders — The SHOP­POL­O­GIST — This bloke takes the ‘strange’ cake, and he’s got more bluddy nation­al­i­ties than even I can poke a stick at…but I’ve sucked up enough to him already on my Blank Can­vas Con­test post. ;-P

Melody Lea Lamb — Melody is one of those rare peo­ple who, sim­ply by nature, makes you believe in ‘Good’ whether you want to or not. I only know her via Twit­ter, as I do quite a few of these folks. But in her own lit­tle ways she has made such a big dif­fer­ence. She is like the Sun. And she is a gifted artist. Thanks Melody

Kate Gilby — Wow! All these strange Pommies…and there’s more to go . I met Kate via good ol’ SpikeTh­eLob­ster. Both amaz­ing writ­ers from whom I will always be learn­ing a great deal and hav­ing a lot of laughs. There respec­tive Blogs — ITISI - well the name says it all and Spike’s Blog — Scrawl­bug are like great books that you just can’t put down. Thanks guys

Bambi Gor­don, Debra Tem­plar, Rebecca Der­ring­ton, Rae Brueck­ner and Dear Sheila Nearly Evil Bas­tard (don’t believe me?.. check her blog ) — Absolute bluddy nut­ters the lot of ‘em…except Rebecca, who’s just so bluddy nice it’s almost scary . These guys are like my Twit­ter fam­ily; all bluddy ‘moth­ers’ though…Geez! They don’t let me get away with any­thing! But don’t let their car­ing exte­ri­ors fool you…within each of them beats the heart of a lioness and they are all amaz­ing and very suc­cess­ful busi­ness women in their own rights. I have a great deal of respect for them and con­tinue to learn heaps. And luck­ily for me they are the good eggs…they so often give of their knowl­edge openly and freely…too rare these days. Thanks ‘per­sons’ (gotta be care­ful, Debra will kill me if I’m polit­i­cally incor­rect )…I appre­ci­ate your death defy­ing support.

Car­lie May­hem & Steve Galvin — I met Car­lie & Steve on Twit­ter too. Fine folks from the town where I was born. Though I don’t assume any­thing, in the short period that I have known them via Twit­ter, they have sim­ply been good, authen­tic friends. Fun, seri­ous, light and dark, all of it inef­fa­bly and tan­gi­bly real. They have made a dif­fi­cult week so much more enjoy­able and valu­able. They have some­where to stay down my way when­ever they like. Thanks guys

Joi Muru­gavell — I’ve saved Joi for a spe­cial rea­son. Joi did an amaz­ing thing this week for which I am both hon­oured and grate­ful. And this amaz­ing thing that she did directly inspired me to do this arti­cle, as a kind of a homage and a thank you. I won’t attempt to describe what she did; best if you just have a look for your­self. It puts all the ‘Twit­ter­ated’ ‘Rec­om­men­da­tions’ and other online attempts at ‘mass pseudo you’re so spe­cial’ stuff to shame. Thank You Joi…It meant a great deal to me

And last but by no means least Karen James — Karen is my part­ner and best friend. Yes, that old say­ing — ‘behind every great man there is a scared woman’ — works both ways. There is a truly great woman behind this very scared man. Though her strength and love holds me up, I’m secretly hop­ing that some of it actu­ally rubs off; I’m sure I’m not alone in that hope . She is a truly great woman…and not just because she can stand to be around me for more than 5 min­utes at a time; which is a feat of heroic pro­por­tions in itself. She is ‘sim­ply the best’…and I love her as best I can. Thanks Dar­lin’ for keepin’ me smilin’ and breathin’

So, thank you all for help­ing me through a dif­fi­cult time. Rest assured that you have not heard the last of noSh-​it! Wood-​Fired Pizza.

The Phoenix will rise from the ashes, and great flow­ers will bloom…noSh-it!

Cheers

Stephen G