One of the things that I like to do to de-stress is play Tetris.
For ages my high score was in the high 6000s and I spent ages trying to beat it until one day I stopped and just went back to playing for pleasure.
A few days ago, I opened up the game to play it again and had to laugh. My new high score was 7032 and I had absolutely no idea when I'd done it!
It's Mother's Day in the UK today.
If you follow me on social media, you'll see that this has caused me to reflect on some of the ways that I am the person that I am today because of my mum.
One of the things that comes to mind as I sit down to write this, though, is a saying that she used to say a lot to me when I was younger:
"It's not me that you're doing, you're doing yourself"
A Nigerian Pidgin (or broken) English way of saying, "You think that in acting out you're hurting me but you're actually only hurting/harming yourself"
Not only does this saying give you a glimpse into the kind of child I was <clears throat> it sheds some light onto the many ways in which, although you might think you're protecting yourself by refusing to be visible, you're actually doing more harm that good.
For example:
If you’ve been in the online marketing space for a while, you may have heard the phrase “facts tell; stories sell”.
You may also have been encouraged by well meaning coaches to “share your story” to better connect with your ideal clients and, ultimately, sell your products or services.
The problem with this advice is that it can create more questions than answers
Like:
How much of my story should I tell?
Can I be authentic and relatable without oversharing?
Who even wants to hear my story, let alone publish it on their media platform, anyway?!
If you’ve been asking one (or more) of those questions, this post is for you! Here’s what you need to know:
I remember when I was in secondary (or high) school and my chemistry teacher, Mr Williams, practised something called “peer teaching”.
So, what this would look like is, if I managed to solve a problem or really impress him with my work, he would have me come up to the board, write out how I solved the equation and talk both him and my classmates through my process.
But the reason that he wanted me to do this wasn't because he thought I was a science genius, but because he wanted to:
Check my understanding (or that I didn’t cheat!)
Give the class the opportunity to hear an explanation in language that they could understand and relate to
I say all of this to say that a lot of the time, when it comes to PR, we tend to feel that it’s for people who have “arrived”- making us feel that we we need to wait to:
Become more of an expert
Gain more experience
Jump through a bunch of hoops to prove ourselves before diving in (or further)
But my teacher was calling me to the front of the class to help my classmates, that wasn't an issue or what he was even looking for.
He didn’t wait for me to get a degree or years of experience in his chosen field.
What he wanted was someone who knew just a bit more than his other students and could share it effectively. And that's all you need when it comes to PR too!
In other words…
Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a HUGE Disney fan!
The film that started it all? The Little Mermaid, which I got for my 5th birthday.
One of the things that I love about Disney movies is that they typically have deep, inspirational messages that can be applied to everyday life. The Little Mermaid is no exception.
In case you’re unfamiliar with the story, here’s an example of that:
Ariel (The Little Mermaid) dreams of being human.
When she falls in love with Prince Eric, she goes to Ursula (the sea witch) for the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone:
Become human forever
See Eric again, get him to fall in love with her and seal it with a kiss
Ursula agrees to help Ariel, but the gag (catch) is that:
She wants Ariel’s voice as collateral
Ariel will only have 3 days to find Eric and experience true love’s kiss
Without that kiss, not only will Ariel not get her happily ever after, she’ll be Ursula’s prisoner forever.
I know what you’re thinking, “How do mermaids, sea witches and having magic spells broken by true love’s kiss relate to my life, Nina?”
Well, the truth is that we all have Ursulas in our lives- even you
Your Ursula may not be a plus-sized purple octopus with a powerful singing voice like Ariel but, as a woman, there are plenty of things vying to sabotage your visibility dreams and steal your voice.
In fact, there are 5 voice stealers that personally stopped me showing up before I learned the tools needed to overcome them.
I recorded a video (below) about them because I don’t want the same things that stopped me from stepping out into the spotlight to also stop you.
If you’ve been rocking with me for a while then you’ll know that I have a background in Speech and Language Therapy.
In the UK, the route from a NQT (Newly Qualified Therapist) to becoming a specialist means you have to serve your time as a “generalist” where you’d treat a bit of everything either in schools or a clinic.
Once you’ve paid your dues, usually about 2 years, you get to specialise in one specific area.
Now this is a really simplified explanation but I’m telling you this so you can see why a lady called Miriam Levine was such an angel to me during this period of my life.
You see, just before I graduated I’d applied for a job at a clinic in the London Borough of Brent. I managed to get an interview and Miriam and another lady, called Fiona, were the ones who interviewed me.
I remember coming out of that interview feeling like it had gone really well.
I’d answered the questions as best as I could but —most of all — I felt like I’d made a personal connection with the ladies (I had determined to be authentic yet professional, making them laugh more than once in the process).
A few weeks later, I received a call from Miriam but my hopes were crushed when I heard her say that- although they really liked me- there had been other candidates that suited the position better.
A few weeks after that call, I’d continued attending my last few lectures and applying for jobs but still was having no luck even securing another interview.
Then, one day, I got an email from a lady from a school that I’d never heard of- let alone applied to- saying that she wished to speak to me about the possibility of working for them.
Long story short, Miriam had recommended “a lovely girl that they had interviewed recently but weren’t able to take on”-
Me!
The best part about this job that plopped into my lap?
I’d be working in a language unit attached to a primary (elementary) school which would mean that I would bypass the 2 years of general practice and end up specialising in language disorders straight away!
As you can imagine, I took the job and it completely fast tracked my career development, saving me (years of) time!
The only other thing that’s fast tracked my career like that has been PR
Here’s how PR can do the the same for you:
Just before my Wickedly Smart Women podcast interview in October I suffered a series of unfortunate events:
My ring light cut off
The lack of light messed with the brightness of the content I was trying to capture
I tried to compensate for this by moving my phone closer
Then my phone fell
By this time I was almost late for the interview; so I had to leave the phone and get started
You can see the live footage of this below:
