Why Brighter Side?

During lockdown, I received an email from someone who has been at the heart of the creative community in Bradford on Avon for a few years. She always says the nicest things and signed off with the following:

“Your spirit does comes through in e-mails and chimes with your up-beat e-mail address. Love it.”

The up-beat email address (and name of my business) is @brighterside.co.uk. I’m delighted that it may trigger some positivity with one or two people.

Which took me on a trip down memory lane... why is the business called Brighter Side?

There are brighter sides to life.

The initial idea came from a song by The Smiths (rather than the song at the end of The Life of Brian).

“And if you must go to work tomorrow

Well, if I were you I wouldn’t bother

For there are brighter sides to life

And I should know, because I’ve seen them, but not very often”

(From Still Ill by The Smiths).

Those lyrics were written at a time when Morrissey wasn’t an embarrassment; but spoke to a generation.

The lyric has resonated with me since I first heard it as a 15 year old adolescent. It had the balance of humour, rebellion and the bravado of youth.

Morrissey’s lyrics are often accused of being miserable. That’s not how I see them. They are full of humour and, in this case, even hints of optimism – there are indeed “brighter sides to life.”

I like this optimism. The hope. The idea that there are two sides to every story, every action and every opinion. That you have a choice in how you react and I prefer choosing the glass half full option.

A challenge that I can’t solve immediately? Ok, I’ll have a think. I’ll search for a prompt that may nudge me in the right direction. Nine times out of ten I’ll sleep on it, do the morning dog walk and something will occur to me.

If you must go to work tomorrow.

The lyric also refers to escaping ‘work.’ Not all work but, for me, a certain type of work.

When I started the business in 2006, I was escaping from working for corporate bosses; from driving up and down the M4, messing about with spreadsheets, persuading supermarket buyers to buy stuff their customers didn’t always need so their (and our) shareholders could receive a bigger dividend.

I was filling up my working day with tasks that were ok to get to the weekend and to pay the bills; but it didn’t excite me.

I wanted to look forward to Monday mornings.

I wanted to escape this type of work and follow in the family tradition of setting up my own business.

To do something I enjoyed, that challenged me and gave me space to learn something new.

To be able to create, have the freedom to decide how to do things and the autonomy to follow my instincts.

I wanted to use my knowledge and intuition to work with entrepeneurial businesses and community groups to help them succeed online…

… and to experience the brighter sides of life more often.