What's a movie that you've seen over and over again but never get bored of?
Honestly, I've got quite a few including anything Disney, anything Marvel, most musicals and Forest Gump (among others).
Forest Gump is one of those movies that has so many quotes and titbits that have now made it into mainstream culture; so it's clearly not just me who loves it
Be it real life Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurants, my favourite meme for saying hello below
Or quotes such as "Run, Forest, run!" and "Life is like a box of chocolates," there's no denying it's impact
The issue with the idea of life being like a box of chocolates, though, is that the analogy is no longer true.
Once upon a time, you'd never know what kind of chocolate you were going to get until you took a bite out of it. These days, boxes of chocolate come with menus so you can literally pick and choose exactly what you want- which is nothing like life at all!
So, allow me to suggest another analogy that came to me a few years ago: "Life is like long multiplication". Not as sexy, I know, but hear me out:
Within the UK education system, there are certain foundational skills that children must have in place before they come to learn long multiplication.
For example, children must first learn the basics (1+1=2)
Once they've got the basics, they learn repeated addition (2+2+2=6)
Once they learn repeated addition, they're introduced to their times tables (which is the idea that 2x3 is the same as saying 2+2+2)
Until they can build up to handling larger numbers via long multiplication
Much like learning long multiplication, life requires us to have the basics in place before we can uplevel
Whether it be communication skills, motor skills, educational, or any other milestone-
One level of success typically leads into another and PR is the same.
For example, in the beginning, my "why" of empowering other women to speak up, step out and shine as the woman that God created them to be led me to:
Write blog posts on my own platform which then opened the door to writing on other platforms
Go live on social media which gave me the tools I needed to do speaking gigs
Network which helped me to build rapport and do great interviews with podcast, radio and summit hosts
And more!
I say all of this to say: this will also be true for you, sis.
PR is simply doing what you do now but on a larger platform so that you can get greater exposure and therefore make greater impact.
Don't make the mistake of trying to rush the process or despising the day of small beginnings (i.e. resenting starting out on smaller platforms before getting to appear on larger ones)
Like with long multiplication:
Know that the skills that you learned on previous levels, and currently have, are transferrable and can be used to build up to the next
Don't be afraid to learn and implement new systems/operations to get to your end result faster
Expand; keep using PR to leverage larger platform's audiences so that your business doesn't become as obsolete as Forest Gump's chocolate analogy.
Want more PR tips?
Click here to access my free Media Attraction Audit- the checklist that helps you to make sure that your website proves your expertise, credibility and authority so that you can be a #mediamagnet, attracting PR (and therefore clients and collaborations) on autopilot!