#IconsAround – If You Have an Inspiring Story We’ll Share With The World

You know I’ve thought about this for so long. From my school days I suppose. This is one of the things from my bucket list, things I want to do before I die. We have enough, or I should say more than enough negative stories in our life. Ranging from newspapers, news channels, gossiping friends, relatives, neighbors in offline world to sensational negative viral news online. But isn’t there positive stories that can inspire people? Yes! There are! But those stories aren’t reaching to common people. Why? Because of a pathetic excuse ‘positive stories doesn’t sell’. But the reality is gradually common people are being programmed to be addicted to negative stories. And this non stop negative programming is creating lots of troubles in people’s lives today. That’s why this initiative. To remind people that goodness still in the world, dreams do come true, true love exists, challenges can be won, and above all life is wonderful!

What is #IconsAround?

It’s an initiative to inspire common people, sharing inspiring stories from common people like them. There are many successful inspiring people most of us know about. But there are also many inspiring people around us, who are little known. Purpose of this initiative is to bring those people & their stories in the limelight of the world.

What Types of Stories Qualify for #IconsAround?

Any stories can qualify for #IconsAround as long as it does inspire people. This can be your own story or story of someone else you know or read about. It should be a real story, not work of fiction. There are absolutely no limit to what types of stories you can submit. To give you some idea, let me give you some examples –

• Story of an Entrepreneur, who has started his/her own business & living his/her dreams. 
• Story of a woman, who started following her heart inspite of family challenges.
• Story of any person who dare to follow his/her heart, believe in his/her dream.
• Story of any person who overcame any physical disabilities, accidents or serious illness.
• Story of a couple who kept their love alive for long years.
• Story of professional couples who are balancing their works and person lives.
• Story of a common man/woman, who take time to make a difference to the world taking time from busy schedule.
• Story of those wealthy men/women, who created their own wealth through some awesome products or services.
• Story of non conventional career paths.
• … keep adding through your own imagination.

How to Submit Stories for #IconsAround?

Email your story to [email protected] with subject line #IconsAround. Please confirm that I received your story, through Twitter or Facebook.

Guidelines for Submitting Stories

Please keep in mind the following points while submitting stories for #IconsAround

• Write in English. 
• Don’t worry about spelling, grammar or organizing. Your story will be published after necessary editing.
• Write the story in small blocks covering different relevant sections. E.g in case of story of an Entrepreneur the sections might be:
  • How did he start
  • Why Entrepreneurship
  • About his venture
  • Challenges faced … etc
• If you are submitting your own story, please don’t be shy to share your achievements. You are doing this to inspire others.
• If you are submitting story about someone else, please make sure you have asked for permission to submit & get his/her story published.
• If you want to share any photos, attach those on mail. And mention in your Email why are those relevant.
• If you want to share any video, upload it to YouTube and share the link in your Email.
• Provide contact details of the person in the story. (Only if the person is interested to be contacted)
• Inventing stories, exaggerating for publicity and unauthorized copying  from other sites/ blog/ articles/ books is strictly discouraged.

How Else Can You Participate in #IconsAround

Other than submitting your own story for #IconsAround, you can participate in many ways like:

• Be an #IconsAround volunteer cum reporter. If you have a mobile that can capture good videos, what else do you need? Go and search inspiring people around you, interview them, then share their story. It’ll be published with your name as the interviewer. 
• You can volunteer for #IconsAround project online, doing:
  • Sorting the stories received.
  • Editing the stories for publishing.
  • Promoting on Social Media.
  • Finding inspiring people online and asking for their interview.
• If you have any idea/ suggestion about this project, feel free to share.

What is this # in #IconsAround ?

In an era of # (hashtag), this will help find updates on Social Media related to this.

Enough talking, now it’s time to collect and share inspiring stories. If you have an inspiring story, share now! If you know some inspiring people, and want me to interview them, tag them or leave their contact details in the comment section.