Wading into the water: The pursuit of career freedom
7 years ago I embarked on the career of a lifetime. I entered the world of PR in London — one of the most influential markets for news, globally. Bright eyed and bushy tailed, I stepped into one of the largest PR agencies in the world. Little did I know that these would be some of the most formative years of my life so far. I started from the ground up, learning the tricks of the trade as I went along. I cut my teeth on Technology Trade PR, learning how to create and sell news stories about data-centres and cloud computing (yup…), moving onto Corporate PR for brands such as Accenture, Vodafone, Spotify years later. This is where I learnt the art and science of storytelling, saw my work published in the likes of the BBC, Telegraph, Financial Times and Wall Street Journal, and made some great friends and industry contacts along the way. In many ways it was a really thrilling time.
That said, the days were long and at times gruelling. As time went on I realised I wanted more. More freedom to create a lifestyle that suited me better. At that point I commuted almost two hours into work and the same back home again. It worked for a long while and I actually really enjoyed it but I knew I wanted to start a family and couldn’t see how it would work then. I mean it could be done, but I’d hardly see them. Work was hectic and I think I reached burnout. I knew it was time to move on. They say a change is as good as a rest. I actually think only a rest is as good as a rest but I see the principle behind this statement and agree.
The question was, what would I move on to? I had lots of creative ideas and liked the thought of creating a brand and setting up my own business. Life in a PR agency teaches you a lot of basic commercial skills that I felt I could put to good use. I needed to give myself the opportunity to pursue this so I left my job with no job to go to. Risky but so freeing! I could make what I wanted of my life. I was my own boss, so I started asking myself what kind of hours I wanted to work, what kind of work I wanted to do and gave myself the permission to do it. I did a course called the ‘Startup-Tribe’. Fantastically inspiring and a lot of fun, it challenged my corporate mindset and taught me how to take a lean, pro-innovation, fail-fast approach to business.
Next, my plan was to make sure I was in a stable place financially so I freelanced for the following two years, contracting with other PR agencies but working less days per week. This worked well. It gave me space to breathe and I grew my skill set, working on some great brands — Lucozade, Ribena, Tata Steel — and met lots of new people. I learnt how to operate as a self-employed consultant and grew more confident in selling my skills and negotiating.
At that point I became pregnant. I knew once the contract came to an end I needed to change my working lifestyle even further. I wanted the freedom to work around my baby either from home or from the other side of the world if I so wished! Moving my consulting work online would make this possible, but I needed to improve my digital marketing skills. My communications background gave me the strategic skills required but I needed to get up to speed with the ‘nuts and bolts’ of things like SEO and Google analytics.
Surprisingly, maternity leave gave me a fair amount of time to dream about what I wanted and how I could achieve it. After much research and talking to industry friends I decided to do the Udacity Digital Marketing Nanodegree. So here I am — mid-way through the course, learning lots and slightly behind (because babies and life happened…), writing a blog post about my journey. In tandem I’m also developing the brand for my online PR and marketing business — completely exciting and scary all at the same time, despite my background. I’m sure I haven’t seen the end of my PR agency career, there are things about it that I love. But this is where I am right now.
I realise this is probably completely boring for anyone other than me, but I write all this to 1) pass my course (an admission: I was tasked with writing this for a project), 2) provide some form of explanation as to what I do, for those who I regularly confuse and 3) share a little of what I’ve been up to for anyone at a similar cross-road in their career.
I have no idea where this will go but I’m realising that the best things in life take place outside your comfort zone so here we are. Not sure if I’ll blog again, ever. But then I might, in which case, watch this space for further musings on life, career, motherhood, and everything in between.
