Last month my dad turned 70
As he dropped me off to the station after his celebration dinner, I asked him 2 questions: "How does it feel to be 70?" and "what advice do you have for younger people?"
Listening to his answers, captured in this video, it was really apparent to me that he was answering this question with his younger self in mind.
This got me thinking about what I would tell my younger self about getting started with PR and I think it would be this:
Love it or loathe it, you can’t ignore Facebook as it is the social networking platform with the largest number of users (2.936 billion active monthly according to DataReportal). As such, it was my complete honour to share my top tip for using it for PR success in PR Moment’s recent article on “Ten top PR tips for using Facebook”. This was the fact that…
One of the positive things to come out of lockdown last year was that I started exercising more by walking in the park for about an hour before I started my work from home routine. I enjoyed it for many reasons, not least because it became one of the only reasons that I would leave my house.
As life returned back to ‘normal’ and I became busier, I found that I was walking less and less until finally, I just wasn’t walking at all. Wanting to revive this healthy habit and develop some others, I decided that I would incorporate ‘become more healthy’ into my plans for 2022.
But by the following month, I had succumbed to the statistic about people tending to give up on their resolutions by February. It started out well enough, drinking water and moving around more, but I found that this quickly escalated into feeling guilty about eating certain foods or beating myself up when I didn’t sweat that day.
I also found myself becoming more critical of my body, frustrated that after all of my sacrifice and effort, I couldn’t see any ‘positive results’ to make it all worth it. “You didn’t even start this journey to lose weight, though,” I remember saying to myself out loud in response to my negative self-talk. “You just wanted to be healthier.”
It was then that I realised that I had internalised diet culture’s message that healthier means thinner and that certain foods were inherently good or bad. I couldn’t help but feel disappointed in myself. These were thoughts that I had not had since I was a teenager who loathed her plus sized body because the world told her to. It had taken me a long time to shed those beliefs and truly love myself, only to find that I had never really formed new ideas of health that included me.
In order to rectify this mistake, I interviewed experts like:
Monique Melton, anti-racism educator, author, international speaker and founder of Shine Brighter Together
Chrissy King, writer, speaker, fitness and strength coach, and creator of The Body Liberation Project
Trina Nicole, body confidence advocate, dancer and founder of The Curve Catwalk
and collated their expert advise into an article on How To Become Healthier Without Succumbing To Diet Culture for Black Ballad.
Continuing in this spirit of rectifying mistakes, today I'll be switching gears from talking about my recent blip with diet culture to talking about the ones that I had with HARO initially and what I now do to avoid them (so that you can too!) For example:
Since last week, I've had the pleasure of doing 2 presentations within a 4 day period
The first was on "How to Overcome the Toxic Cultural Beliefs Holding You Back" with The 360 Lifestyle Support Network and the second was on "How to Attract Your Ideal Clients and Get Paid What You Want Through PR" with the London Chapter of IAW (The International Association of Women).
I'm not going to lie, I was quite nervous about them for a number of reasons.
I tend to prefer the back and forth of interview scenarios, which I'm more used to, and I don't enjoy creating anything graphic related.
What ultimately helped make both presentations successful and stop me spiralling into overwhelm was the fact that I have a system in place for creating good presentations.
This includes:
Writing my presentation out as an article first
Assigning each point made in the article to a slide
Getting the presentation designed
Practising beforehand
Presenting on the day
Speaking of 5 step processes, this is also what helps me stay on top of HARO enquiries and will do the same for you too:
As we entered the new year, one of the trends that caught my attention was the resurgence of the ten year challenge on social media. This got me thinking about who I was ten years ago and what I would tell that version of myself if I had the chance. In the absence of that kind of technology and know-how, I wrote an article on what millennial women want Gen Z to know for Black Ballad- outlining my advice to the younger generation coming up after me as well as the advice of 10 other women that I interviewed. While that article features general life advice, here’s what I would tell my younger self about getting started with PR:
We've been doing a lot of talking about purpose recently
Including why purpose is important to your PR strategy and how to do purpose-driven PR.
The reason for this is because when I reflect on the nativity story, particularly from Mary's point of view, that's the overarching theme that jumps out to me about this season
Here's why:
In giving her the gift of Jesus, God took an average little girl and gave her the opportunity to present herself in a new light by lifting the lid of her potential; endowing her with His power and giving her purpose.
But, most of all, God gave her something special to share with the rest of the world- an expression of His love.
To me, this shows us as modern women that we are also pregnant with purpose- meaning that we have something to give and contribute to the world too
However, as a person who sits at the intersection of many identities, I know how hard this can be to believe at times (if not all the time)
You are literally presented with messages built from systems that contradict and try to convince you otherwise every single day but...
Guess what?
Your ability to speak up, step out and shine as the woman that God created you to be is tied to coming out of agreement with society and accepting your divine status as "blessed among women" (Luke 1:28)
Yes you!
Simply put, you can't be a thought leader if you don't actually believe that you have ideas worth sharing...
You can't make impact if you don't believe that you have the power to...
You won't use your voice if you don't believe that it's significant...
You can't be visible if you don't feel that who and what you represent matters...
Because it's impossible to shatter glass ceilings that you continue to uphold
Ready to break them down?
Here's what you must do instead
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 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…
