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#03 | Networking for Success in Male-Dominated Fields - Kiana Kamalian
21 Plays1 year ago
In this episode of Nelly Talks, join Nelya as she sits down with Kiana Kamalian, a creative director who shares her inspiring journey from engineering to the creative industry. Whether you’re looking to reinvent your career, build your personal brand, or navigate the complexities of freelancing and entrepreneurship, Kiana’s insights provide actionable lessons that you won’t want to miss.
Timestamps:
00:00 Nelly Talks Intro
00:54 Meet Kiana Kamalian
01:33 Where are you working from today?
02:42 Did you always know you wanted to get into this role?
06:34 What joys and challenges come with your current role?
09:51 Do you achieve a good work-life balance working for yourself?
13:09 How has AI impacted your role so far?
18:27 Did you find representation and diversity in your industries?
21:57 What can companies do better to support diversity in these industries?
26:54 How do you build and use your network for success in the creative sector?
29:49 What advice would you give your younger self?
33:14 Nelly Talks Outro
Key Points:
Kiana transitioned from engineering to a creative career after realising she wasn’t fulfilled despite being successful. A personal turning point (breaking her wrist) led her to explore freelancing and creative roles.
One of Kiana’s challenges in her new career was understanding and articulating her value as a creative professional, especially when entering an industry without a traditional background.
Kiana uses AI tools like ChatGPT to handle administrative tasks, research, and even creative enhancements. These tools help her work more efficiently and focus on higher-value creative work.
Networking was critical for Kiana’s successful transition to a creative career. She regularly attended co-working spaces, networked with other entrepreneurs, and asked for mentorship. In her engineering career,
Kiana noted the lack of diversity and how that impacted her experience. She suggested companies partner with organisations like the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) to bring diverse perspectives and training.
Let us know what guests you'd like us to interview in future episodes!
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Transcript
Introduction to Nelly Talks Podcast
00:00:19
Speaker
Hey everyone, I'm Nellia from Nelly Wax. Welcome to my podcast Nelly Talks, a careers-focused show for those who are considering careers in tech industry, or maybe looking for a change of direction in this space. We will be interviewing different speakers in this field to understand their journeys, their hurdles to face, how they overcame those, and any tips and hints that they would like to share on the way.
00:00:55
Speaker
ah Hi, everyone.
Meet Kiana Kamaliyan
00:00:56
Speaker
Today we have a lovely Kiana with us. Kiana, I know we've met a couple of months ago at the STEM event. um So I know a little bit about what you do, but it'd be great if you could introduce yourself professionally with our audience. Yeah, sure. um So thank you for having me on your podcast. I'm Kiana Kamaliyan. I'm 25 years old from Iran and currently live in the UK.
00:01:21
Speaker
I'm a creative director, ah freelance creative director, and also co-founded a media production and creative agency currently, which we're kind of working to build up. And in terms of yourself, Keanu, where are you working from today? It looks like a really nice background. I know you're also kind of mainly remote. um but yeah Do tell me, I know you're local, so I'm interested to learn, so I could perhaps come and explore new places as well. Yeah, for sure. So currently I'm working from X and Y in Unit Place, Milton Keynes Central. It's actually one of my favourite spaces. I have made a couple of posts about it on my Instagram if you were interested to see the interior a little bit. But yeah, I do work remotely most times. I tend to find like different co-working spaces, nice cafes.
00:02:07
Speaker
If I'm traveling, then even better. There are lots of nice cafes, but if I'm around, I tend to use the co-working spaces because I love the community, the people are great. As you know, the Milton Keynes community is absolutely amazing and they'd be super supportive with my ventures since I started last year. I love this place.
Educational Journey and Career Pivot
00:02:24
Speaker
It's great. And I think like not just in a creative role, like you're also in any job, I think.
00:02:28
Speaker
It's nice when you go to different places, you get different ideas, you meet different people. Yeah, exactly. I just need to myself get out of the house a little bit more often. So thanks for sharing. Just to circle back to your lovely summary. Growing up, I don't know, for studies, did you always know that that's the area you want to work with? What made you decide this is what I want to do? Well, this is actually a very long story. So in Iran, how our school systems work is you go up to the age of 14, then you have to kind of choose your subjects around maths and physics or like biology, or you go towards like literature and different arts and sciences. So, sorry, arts and human sciences. One of the interesting parts was that I wanted to do kind of like all of those.
00:03:16
Speaker
And I couldn't. Growing up, I've always changed my life, what I want to do, blah, blah, blah. But I ended up going with maths and physics, because my parents are both engineers, and I kind of like got prone to follow their steps. And when we moved to England, I was really good at maths, so I just ended up doing physics, maths, you know all the A levels that were within that scale. And then when it came to go to university, I just was like, OK, I don't know if I want to pay that much money. I'm ah i'm not a home student, so I had to pay around $18,000 a year to go to Nottingham University.
00:03:45
Speaker
It just didn't feel right at the time. So I took a year out and in that year out I studied art and design. I was doing photography for like clubs and doing lots of like creative stuff on the side. And I ended up getting an apprenticeship in engineering and just kind of like went into engineering suddenly. So I did one year of art and design, loved it and just like hid it in the corner. During my apprenticeship in engineering, I just built my skills. These are soft skills, you know, of communication, being able to time manage, get better at things.
00:04:13
Speaker
Up to like four years later where I actually became an engineer, I was working you know full time in engineering roles and you know getting paid quite well for my age especially at the time, but I wasn't feeling fulfilled or happy. Even though I loved engineering, don't get me wrong, I love problem solving. It's such a fun thing to do. Maths is one of my favorite subjects. However, it wasn't giving me the life skills I wanted, it wasn't allowing me to enjoy myself as much as I wanted to.
00:04:36
Speaker
so I was like, you know what, I'm just going to do freelancing, I'm just going to decide, see how it goes. I started like designing logos for people, designing social media posts and just doing it for free. I remember walking into the cafe next to my house and I was like, can I just do your social media management for like a couple of months for free? And they were like, no, we'll pay you £100 a month, that's fine. I was like, yay, my first paid gig.
00:04:59
Speaker
And then I broke my wrists, and that was like the turning point. During that two months of having broken wrists, I couldn't go to work, so I was just sitting on my laptop constantly designing, editing my photos, editing videos, whatever I could do on a laptop. And those two months, I was socializing a lot as well, networking, getting out there, meeting the entrepreneurs around latikins. I didn't know anything about this realm. I had no idea what I needed to do, or where I needed to be.
00:05:24
Speaker
So I was like, okay, this looks like a good co-working thing to do. And the more I did it, the more I got to know people, the more I got to know the community. And within that two months, I managed to find myself a social media manager role that allowed me to be creative in a media production company. So it was like perfect for me. So I was like, okay, I'm i'm going to take the leap and just leave my job and start this now. And that's kind of where you
Balancing Freelancing and Business
00:05:44
Speaker
started in the past year. I've been doing a lot of different roles and a lot of different things by myself with different companies. I guess the rest is history. I've just been full on creative since then. It's really interesting to hear that you've had like a ah ah massive career pivot. And I think in a lot of people's cases, like
00:06:00
Speaker
It sort of forced in you, like in your case, it was literally physical, like breaking your wrist. Like sometimes you have actually time out to say ways that you actually want to do. Like all of those like hidden things that you always wanted to do or like talents, hobbies, commoners. I was like, come on, it's time to perhaps try it out. Or suddenly it was the case post redundancy with me.
00:06:21
Speaker
I was like, I've got some time, I don't have to go back to work. What is that I want to do with my career long term versus like, just the thing that I did by default, you know, for so many years. So that's great. In terms of your role right now, kind of what do you enjoy the most? And also, what would you say are the kind of like, you know, nothing is perfect. What are kind of the biggest challenges that you face perhaps?
00:06:46
Speaker
Oh my god, so many challenges. Don't get me started on those. I think the whole entrepreneurship and freelancing, and like firstly, that the battle between those is like which one I want to be is like the first battle. I think when you start out, you start to have because it's like, do I want to run a business or do I want to just do this on my own? And then secondly is actually getting the skills quickly and being accountable when people actually wanting to work with you, they want to see your previous work, they want to see who you are and how you're bringing value to the team. And being able to value yourself when you've never worked in an industry is like, oh my God, what's my value?
00:07:20
Speaker
what do i bring to a team so i think there's a really it wasn't for me was a big gap of because i i just went for it i didn't really have a plan so it all happened very randomly and that was a very big challenge for me because i had to figure out okay what is my value what do i need to get better at and currently i I do a lot of things. that This role is very diverse ah because we we do a lot of photography, videography, graphic design. It's just all around creative.
Creative Role and Personal Wellness
00:07:46
Speaker
But I think I mostly enjoy the video side of things and just filming like the whole weekend we were actually in London.
00:07:53
Speaker
filming first was my friend's music video and then it was a campaign for our own brand so there was like a lot of different things and then at the end we were just like oh we have like these lights lights here in this park and I had this like my favorite drink on me called trip which is lovely each trip and I was like oh let's like take some photos of this maybe we can send it to the company so It's like some paid work, some fun work, and then the rest. Because I'm such a creative person, I'm my free time. I'm also just creating stuff for brands and people I like and things I like. So it's like all over the place. I do so much. The role is very diverse and it fits my personality. I think that's one of the biggest things that made me want to do this was being able to have every day being different. I can choose, okay, let's go take lots of photos and let's go to take lots of videos and let's make a podcast. Like I shot my first ever podcast ah last week and it was so good. I loved it. I enjoyed myself so much. So I'm i'm very inspired to just keep going and try new things. but Sounds like you found kind of, I don't want to say you're calling because I know it sounds cheesy, but like it really does sound like
00:08:56
Speaker
there is a blend of like work and life and you it generally comes across like you really enjoy what you're doing. I'm sure you did that when you were in engineering but I think you can't like fake the energy and like look as a recruiter I've been doing this for like over 15 years. I speak to people like so many people every day that talk about their jobs and that level of energy and like passion it is rare to come across so like it's great that you've made that move. Do you feel however I i mean as I know I run my own business like it can take over, there's always something else to do. Not just the work, but like even like you know things like sending invoices and paying yourself, all those things that I took for granted. I'm like, oh gosh, this end of the month, I still haven't paid myself salary. I've got bills coming out.
00:09:40
Speaker
Do you feel this type of environment, you know, running your own business, working in an area that you're really passionate about that can, you know, take over because I'm sure you can do your job 24 seven. Do you feel like it gives you a good work life balance? Obviously with nine to five, it's a little bit easier to shut down the laptop and switch off. How have you found that kind of blend and balance side of working for yourself?
00:10:03
Speaker
I'll tell you, honestly, I haven't found a balance yet. I feel like I have spoken to many people and I listen to a lot of podcasts of you know entrepreneurs and how it was for them at the beginning. And they all have had a very similar experience. It's really hard for the first couple of years to just have a balance because you're constantly thinking and you're constantly worried.
00:10:23
Speaker
And you know having those doubts because you don't you're not sure about your own value and you're not sure because it's your first time. You have not failed yet. And if you have, you don't you know it's kind of like still fresh. So it's just getting used to those failures and coming back up, failures and coming back up.
00:10:39
Speaker
I think over time then when you know that okay it's okay to shut down because it will be okay tomorrow it will still be there but currently I think I'm still not there because I'm constantly want to strive to get this to a point that I can feel maybe comfortable maybe that point would never come I don't know I hope it comes But I try my best to enjoy and do my most important things. So one of the best things I ended up doing was prioritizing exactly what are my most important things in life. So my first is my health and fitness. So I try my best to as much as I can to keep on top of that first thing. That's like first thing I need to do and then my dog and then everything else creative, which is my work. And my socializing kind of comes under that as well. But it has stopped me from going to a lot of parties. so
00:11:25
Speaker
I haven't seen my friends in a whole year and I finally went to one of the barbecues because I was like I need to come see everyone this is so
AI's Impact on Kiana's Work
00:11:31
Speaker
bad. So you do end up compromising a lot for a lot of things but also I feel like the rewards are so powerful and so strong especially when you love and enjoy what you're doing and you have that passion and you keep seeing it coming to life even you know if you're not getting paid enough or if you're not ah getting the right customers or people are treating you wrong there's there's a lot of like challenges that come with it but If you really like what you do and you're really enjoying this and you believe and you see the vision, I think it's it's worth it. It's worth all the hard work. I think I can relate to a lot of this. There are a lot of comments when people find like common experience when you start a business. and um also say yeah I'm a mom, but I'm also a dog mom and a cat mom. and you know For me, like dog vlog is like a religious thing. It's my headspace.
00:12:16
Speaker
you know, yes, there could be, well, could be kind of collapsing around me, but that like, you've got to prioritize your time because like, it's very, it's very easy to skip it and just kind of focus on like, ah you know, tactical things, they still will be like, like you said, but the more likelihood is, they probably will still be there tomorrow.
00:12:34
Speaker
um But, you know, um the time with like pads, kits, whichever commitments you have, it's kind of what powers us up, right? Like you can't give back energy if you don't have it in the first place. That's awesome. Thanks for sharing. Slightly different topic now, and perhaps links to your podcast. I kind of had a sneak peek from LinkedIn. and I know you kind of Especially creative sector, but as as well as like recruitment, other sectors have really been impacted for some time now with AI. I think perhaps even last year with the generative AI, like true, I think like tools like OpenAI coming through and loads of companies, you know, digital tools companies embedding AI.
00:13:10
Speaker
How has it impacted your role so far? I'm not even asking if it has, but how has it impacted and any other tech developments in your field that really excite you? Oh, for sure. I i firstly cannot leave for that AI right now because I... I definitely do a lot of my admin work through it. I hate writing emails, so it really helped me out with that, especially, you know, English being my second language. But generally, since I started this whole journey, AI was about, like, when I literally left my job, AI, chat GPT, like, first or second, maybe, generation was out, so it was just, like, okay for some text. It wasn't doing any, like, image generation at the time. So I was still using it. I was asking it questions, and someone like me, i one of the biggest issues I had before this was,
00:13:55
Speaker
I like to be educated, I like to learn constantly and Google, it can get hard to come across some like information that is like right in your face and you get overloaded with different websites and all the ads. I feel like it's very time consuming and also for someone like me that my attention spans like, ooh, it's cool. It just looks away. it It was really hard to kind of keep myself, okay, read this, understand this.
00:14:15
Speaker
Especially recently with the new AI models and like being able to actually reference it and find the resources for it, it's been amazing. I can just be like, okay, I don't understand this subject. Can you elaborate on this and tell me what I need to understand? I research companies I want to work with through it. I research people through it because it's just so amazing. And companies like Propexity, I use that to kind of like fact check and reference check. So I feel like it's it's really crazy and it's just really changing the way we work. I don't think it's taking over. I think it's definitely changing the way we have to manage it and how we're going to work with different things. But also it's helping my marketing with the generative stuff I've been actually playing around. I don't know if you've seen on my LinkedIn. I do a lot of like logo changes through Firefly, which is Adobe's model. And also me and my business partner have been playing around with the video editor. No, sorry, video generator.
00:15:06
Speaker
So there's a lot of like different things that we're still playing around with. We're not using it specifically in our work, but we're using it to boost our portfolios. We're using it to make our websites look cooler, make our logos animate in such a weird way. I don't know, there's a lot of weird things around it. And I'm a big tech advocate. i One of the first companies I did their logos for was tocar.ai. So I'm really like, integrated in the tech world even though I'm not a techie person myself I tend to really try and keep on top of it and I'm really excited for when Sora becomes you know public and cheaper because right now it's extortionate to be able to use it you know you need very big companies to be able to even pay for any of that so I'm really excited to see how the video image generations are gonna go and my friend Jordan he actually sent me a paper that was just released a couple of days ago about this new video generator and I'm just really excited for that to actually start being used so the tech world right now is crazy It's just constantly new things are coming in. I'm just trying to figure out the people to follow so I can keep on top of it as much as I can because it's very overcrowded, I think. Yeah. I mean, there is a huge amount of information. I think you write following people who really kind of make it their life mission to digest it, like unbox all of this tools really helps. I love like curated content, so I use AI for that, but also
00:16:18
Speaker
people who well into the topic a little bit more knowledgeable or perhaps work in the space so yeah but it's a huge info of overwhelm and you're right people who can embed AI in their workflows and their toolkit certainly will probably outperform others.
00:16:33
Speaker
there i feel like a lot of people don't talk about this it's the customizing your GPTs and stuff so there's this there's a video creator out there that he's very good he's called Sam Kohler and he's read the whole manual of DaVinci Resolve which is a video editing software that's over 4,000 pages And I was like, how has this guy done this? And with AI, with my friend, he's actually created a whole customized GPT on this manual. So every time I have an issue while I'm editing, I'm like, OK, this is coming up with an error. I don't understand what's going on. It's like having your own in-house tech person. OK, chat GPT, this error keeps coming down. Can you help me out? And it just gives me like this stuff. OK, this could be the reason. This could be the reason. This could be the reason. I don't have to go read that manual.
00:17:16
Speaker
It's reading it for me, giving me the relevant information straight, spitting it out. So it's crazy how much is like helping, even without the generative parts, is helping just the workflow to be a bit easier. And that's something I don't think a lot of people are thinking about how much their workflow can be shortened or if more efficient using it these tools. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if you like to remember when you were in your engineering role, when you get like an average employee handbook, it's not the most exciting document. Like having like,
00:17:43
Speaker
AI just like pick up points that i don't know like you want to find out what is adoption leaf whatever you know you don't have to go through the document yes in most companies hopefully it sits somewhere on like some sort of shared drive you can search but in most cases it's not it's like a really clunky document Just like those things, making people's work and experience nicer. Yeah, but it's a great example. ah You would not find me reading any, my attention span is horrendous, but um you know, it just shows like how it can really save
Challenges in Diversity and Inclusion
00:18:16
Speaker
time. And also you can then focus on tasks that you love, which probably not reading user manuals. Awesome. And it's kind of interesting, maybe two-fold question for you, kind of relating perhaps to your own experience, but also your experience now.
00:18:30
Speaker
How did you find kind of um representation in the industry? You know, you're obviously like first generation immigrant like myself, you know, you've been to schools in different countries. When you went into engineering, how was the representation versus what you thought it would be like? And also how is it?
00:18:49
Speaker
Is it different now in the creative space? um What were your views on like diversity, inclusion? I was the second ever girl engineer in the whole company. And the first one was also another apprentice. So there were two girls in the whole company that were engineers that were girls.
00:19:09
Speaker
That's wild. And both were apprentices. So it was a very very weird male dominated industry. And especially our company was super, super undiverse within the engineering role. I don't even think we had any female engineers like even the higher up. I don't really personally remember having any female role models in a way. And not having that I feel like it's a very big issue because subconsciously you're thinking I cannot get to that role. I cannot get to you know a director role one day or like an engineer manager role because I don't see any girls doing this. They're never going to listen to me, maybe they're never going to understand me.
00:19:46
Speaker
And I definitely felt like there's a communication barrier there because people didn't want to give us certain tasks, especially in mechanical tasks, being two little girls walking around like, yeah, we can do big stuff. And technically, we can, because you know all the the whole workforce are doing ah to stuff to do with you know ah manual handling and making sure you don't hurt yourself. So everything was prepared for us to be able to do our roles perfectly.
00:20:11
Speaker
But sadly, there are those, there's like cultural differences. You know, people, most people that we worked with were over the age of 45. They were all kind of like at the, a you know, we've been doing this for 15 years above. Some of them started their apprenticeship in this company engineer as an engineer, and then now they're retiring as an engineer. So there was a very different experience for me personally. And how I kind of went around that was finding engineers, girl engineers outside of my company. So I was part of, a I was actually a board member on the Wes Apprentice team, which is Women Engineering Society. And we basically, you know, they have newsletters, they have events, they have ways you can socialize and network with more female engineers in industries. And I managed to find people near me through college. I had some girls that were also doing engineering in different companies. So I kind of surrounded myself with that energy, female energy, to be like, OK, you know, i'm I'm allowed to be here. You know, this is this is my right. And um I'm OK to be an engineer. Even though like some people may not be open to it, it's still something I want to do.
00:21:17
Speaker
And I really hope, I feel like it's getting better. I feel like people are actually caring more about it and colleges are really trying hard. Like the college I went to, Melton Kids College, they're really working hard to bring that diversity up, trying to help girls get into this more. and come People like Lakeisha from the Girls in Science, she's really trying to get girls into, ah you know, science-based subjects.
00:21:39
Speaker
so I feel like there's a lot of stuff happening out there and I will always try and advocate for it as well because now I'm in more of a tech industry and even media is very male-dominated. i don't like Everything I keep going after is male-dominated so hopefully you know we can kind of get rid of those barriers and just keep helping girls do what they want to do.
00:21:58
Speaker
And is there anything you feel like companies can do? You know, recruiters, HR people are the first gatekeepers typically, you know, just bring in the talent board, of course, and there are things you need to do to keep that talent, because I'm sure some of those things you mentioned, at the start of your career, like, you know, like, you shouldn't have to go proactively source all of this networks, there should be resources, right? I know that's like, ideal, some industries do it better than others, and typically depends on I'm desperate there for talent because there's a huge talent gap. You know, ah if you said people are retiring, got new people coming in with new tech tools, new ideas, it's important to always feed that pipeline. So anything you think businesses can do better to make like a faster progress in this field, is there anything that, you know, you think would have been really handy to you, whether it is partnering with the societies, with the, you know, you um people like Letitia,
00:22:52
Speaker
to kind of actually bring those tools and those conversations into the business versus relying on individual being super proactive. Because not everyone's like extrovert or like knows has those social skills as the confidence to do that. any Anything that you think would have helped you at the start of your career? Of course, I think.
00:23:11
Speaker
Well, I actually knew about the WES, so Women in Drug Society, through my college. So they had like a newsletter out saying, okay, this this they're looking for board members if you want to apply. I didn't end up applying and I got it. So it was like a very great way to kind of get into that. I'm really appreciative of Milton Keynes College, everything they've done for me. Through work side of things, I think, Definitely there's a way to kind of go around this I personally might not know exactly how because I've never you know been in that recruitment or understanding of like a bigger in bigger entities understanding the management systems But I think there's a lot of girls out there that want to do this and they don't do it because they don't think they're good enough They don't think mechanical work is as easy or they think they you know people are going to judge them in some way or form so I think is a really
00:23:58
Speaker
good way to go around this, as you said, kind of partnering up with, you know, Girls on Science, with the VES, trying to bring the role models into the company, maybe bringing outside ah perspective, freelancers, consultants to come and have a look at the system, see, okay, these girls are feeling this way towards your company right now. How can you make that better? How can you improve on that?
00:24:19
Speaker
Maybe we can have training sessions with our engineers that, you know, they're more old school, kind of bring them up to speed up. Okay, I know you're not comfortable giving these girls mechanical roles. Maybe you're not feeling comfortable to teach them welding. However, they are here to do this. They are willing to do it. They're saying that they're willing to do it. So let's give them a try. Let's put these steps in. Let's put these educational or training days in specifically for them to be able to come up to speed.
00:24:48
Speaker
So I think there's definitely stuff can be done. Maybe they don't have to hire someone internally straight away, just a consultant like Lakisha from Girls of Science, like someone from WES, just to come in and help them out with this situation. Because when you're running a big company, when you're like an engineer manager at Salzburg or, you know, Santander or something that you just have to work so many different roles, or so you have to oversee a lot of different things, it can get hard to kind of push brush it away and forget all about it. Hopefully they will start i become implementing that more often. As a like ah telling acquisition person, ah there is a bit of a sense at the moment, there's a bit of like a diversity and inclusion fatigue, like, um you know, in terms of like, you know, moving beyond the branding, like where you get, okay, you go and do presentation in college, university, you know, fancy logo, flash of hate to actually then
00:25:41
Speaker
translating it in relatable like experience when people join. Cause I think you're right, it starts like education. Companies practically have to think, how can we make this better as the, ah as the workforce changes, right? Like what people are now looking for is very different to what they were looking for even five, 10 years ago, you know? Um, like the whole world I've balanced and and then kind of relating that back to existing workforce. And it's the whole thing about like unconscious bias. It's unconscious that often don't know that they're doing it. And if you're not capturing feedback from new employees,
00:26:11
Speaker
and not then translating it into training for existing interviews. And linking it together is like a nice collaborative knowledge sharing and culture. You're always going to have these issues. And unfortunately, you will have people leaving the industry because of it. Because it's only for so long you're going to go against the grain. There is a point where I'm just going to cut my losses and change into something that's a little bit more inclusive.
00:26:31
Speaker
but the whole culture of like freelance economy, etc. um So yeah, no, that's really interesting take. Thank you for sharing. um I don't think this is a problem that will be solved like tomorrow or, you know, within our lifetime. But um yeah, it's still a problem because I think a lot of companies kind of don't even realize that. um yeah know Really cool. And and from I guess kind of in the creative sector now, I know you've said it's very kind of male dominated.
Mentorship and Networking in Creative Industries
00:27:01
Speaker
Are there similar kind of communities like, you know, I don't know if there are societies or kind of how do you connect to people in your industry? How do you still gather like
00:27:12
Speaker
mentorship, role model, coaching, which is important to anyone regardless of how many years they've been working for. um What does it look like in creative space? I think it's as hard as it is ah in many other industries. For someone like me, so in the creative stuff, depending on what part of creative I go, I tend to have female role models or very like small amount of female role models. um More in the like video and media, I feel like there's less skills, but more under like design and at creative direction, there's a lot more girls. So there's a little bit of a balance for me there. And to be honest, how I go about finding people in communities and stuff like that,
00:27:49
Speaker
I just turn up to a lot of co-working spaces. I am very friendly so I just say hi to everyone, make friends with entrepreneurs. I'm very active on LinkedIn. I try to kind of build that community on social media ah and I actually ask around so I go to my community and I have actually done this recently. I went to some of the people I know already and I was like I want a creative director to mentor me for a couple of weeks. I just want to see how they work about, how they go about business and they even day to day, just to understand what does the role ah need from someone and what are the skills I need to build on.
00:28:26
Speaker
And they you know showed me, okay, these are the three people you can contact. I'll talk to them for you as well. So you're kind of getting that report through that person as well. So I think what I would recommend anyone starting anything is just to get out there. I know it's hard to meet people. I know it's hard to network. It's so scary. I'm constantly you know doubting going to say hi to someone, especially when you're not feeling super social. But it always it's always better on the other side. When you actually talk to people, when you make those connections, those are going to be the ones that are helping you go through your journey because It's hard, it's so hard out there. It's not an easy journey and you need to have a good community, a good support system to help you out with that. Yeah, I know that's really, its ah like for me, like always like asking for help is really powerful and I think actually a lot of people who maybe kind of done a similar journey, very happy to share like learnings and insight and actually maybe quite like to support someone, maybe support they didn't have.
00:29:19
Speaker
It's like giving back, right? It's giving back to community. It's great. and like And obviously networking is as interesting as it can be. And maybe not extra about it.
Overcoming Fear and Pursuing Dreams
00:29:30
Speaker
It is really useful, especially in a, I guess, a role that where you are running your business, you always have to be network and you always have to be looking for business. Sometimes it comes from like wedding, wonderful places.
00:29:41
Speaker
um that that's That's really, really useful. Thank you so much. And I guess to wrap us up, um I know you've kind of just almost preempted my question, but is there anything else, um any other advice you would give to your younger self, like starting up, you know, thinking a about career?
00:29:59
Speaker
whether it's in tech and mechanical world or in creative space which is probably kind of more your world right now. um what What advice would you give them? Any tips, hints, anything that's been kind of really defining for you when you were deciding to like take this career of COVID, it's obviously working out really well.
00:30:18
Speaker
I used to be so scared of making change and I would just think about the mountain before actually thinking about the steps I need to take before I get there. So I always thought about the vision instead of actually, okay, what are the steps I need to take to get to that vision.
00:30:33
Speaker
And I would freak out, I would look at all this information, I would say look through all these websites, I would go there's so much I need to do. For example, like starting my business, I was like okay, branding. So I went crazy into branding, where really I just needed to get portfolio going. I just needed to start working and figure it out.
00:30:52
Speaker
And over time, I started to learn that that things take time, step by step, stop being scared, stop thinking that you cannot do it because you can't do it right now. It doesn't mean that you can't do it in two weeks. It doesn't mean you can't do it in a year. For example, my website, I just became so overwhelmed about my website that I just I was just like going crazy for a while. And I actually deleted my whole website after paying for it. I was like, I don't want this. I don't want to deal with this right now. And a year later, when that ah My membership finished, and I had to renew it. I was like, you know what? Let's try this again. Now it's been a year. I have a portfolio. I can put it on the website. Let's figure this out. And you know what? Step by step, page by page, it came together. Right now, like I think I've added a page recently for my photos. you know Every day, you're adding something on top of that. You're adding something to your knowledge.
00:31:40
Speaker
um I think that's a very big thing I learned through this and I'm still learning constantly is stop doubting yourself. You are way more powerful than you think you are. Our brains make us feel like we're more limited than we are. We are actually limitless. We can do so much more than we believe. That is a fact. I have read way too many books about this. like People really bring themselves down without without knowing. They really don't know that.
00:32:04
Speaker
The more you do, the better you get constantly. You just have to keep doing that and stop bringing yourself down because at the end of the day, you you do a little bit more than someone else, you're already getting ahead. So it's just do it. Just do it. Keanu, stop being scared and do it. That's why I would tell myself. That's awesome. I feel like just do it.
00:32:24
Speaker
stop being scared. I think the fear of failure stops so many people from pursuing their dreams. um And you know, one cares really if you fail, you know, like, I think I used to like always think worry about like, oh, you know, I had this corporate career, what would my friends say, et etc.
00:32:42
Speaker
And then when I actually started doing running my own business, most of my friends said, I could really see you doing this. It's such a great idea. I always thought this was for you. I was like, well, you never told me this. I thought you'd be like laughing that I quit my like you know real job at the age of 35 with a mortgage and kids and everything else.
Conclusion and Next Episode Teaser
00:33:02
Speaker
But you're right that like I think it's better to have tried and failed than kind of not having tried and then regretted for the rest of your life. And in most cases, as you'll know, speaking to people around their business, it actually works out. um ah So yeah, no, look, I'm generally wishing you ah the best of success and hopefully
00:33:21
Speaker
I'll get to see you really soon in one of the networking events or that very lovely co-working space you're in now. I'm definitely sold on the background. Yeah, for sure. We'll be featuring on the next podcast, but on my side of the screen, hopefully. Yeah, hopefully. Thank you so much for um joining us today. I think our audience will really enjoy the insides and looking forward to meeting in person soon. Yeah, I know. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me on this. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. See you soon. Bye.
00:33:51
Speaker
Thank you to all our lovely listeners for sticking with us. I hope you found this useful and please do share, like, et cetera. Check out our next episode that comes out in two weeks time.