The hard thing to do hard things
How to bring a women-centered event to Brazil made me overcome the fear of “no.”
Hello reader! This is my first text in English. I don’t know if you have ever tried to write something in another language, but it’s hard (very hard)… so if you see a mistake or have a suggestion, please leave a note for me. Thanks!
If you are a Portuguese speaker, please click here.
In the past month, I decided (without much planning) to host an international event whose objective is empowering creative women. More specifically, women designers. The event is called Ladies, Wine & a bit of Design, created by Jessica Walsh founder (and fantastic designer) at Sagmeister & Walsh.
Ladies was created “after this happened and she realized that sometimes women can be competitive or unsupportive of one another. Only a small percent of creative directors are women, and LW&D wants to help change this through mentorship circles, portfolio reviews, talks, and creative meet-ups. In less than two years of launching, we’ve spread to chapters in over 180 cities all over the world.”
Why make this in Brazil?
In Brazil, aka my country, this scenario of inequality is not different. Here we have a huge disparity between men and women as creative directors, for example. In fact, we women represent less than 20% of this positions. Expanding for others sectors like cinema, music or even as founders or occupying leadership positions in advertising agencies, the representativeness in the creative industry is less and less.
Where I currently live, a beautiful island in the south of Brazil called Florianópolis, we have a good number of creative women. Maybe due to living close to the ocean or (more probably) because of the courses in the design area, this is a city with creativity above average. But, like others places around the world, the collaboration movement between women happens very timidly.
In addition to not having many events or meetings to discuss the position of women in the creative industry (and to make the thing a little more difficult), I recently moved here. So, even with a high probability of the whole thing going wrong, I saw in LW&D a way to connect women, do networking and pull my ass out the chair.
The hardest part: the fear of “NO.”
Organizing an event is not easy. Even more so if it is an event designed to empower the smallest part of an industry. For the most part, it’s difficult to find partners who are willing to support events or who understood the importance of movements like this — that promote and, consequently, bring more diversity to your business.
Excluding the fact that we are in an economically and politically unstable scenario, in general, partnerships are not too easy to do. But, somedays we are lucky. After a cup of tea, I found my partner in crime to make LW&D together and help to force me to put in an uncomfortable position: make deals to really CREATE a great event.
So, let me help you to understand the recipe of “nothing’s going to work”:
- An unstable scenario: what made the companies became more resistants to support non-profits events which they are not familiar;
- A total of 0 contacts in the city: excluding Belisa, my new friend for making LW&D, and who doesn’t have many contacts too;
- A big fear of hearing “NO” from my non-mapped list of possible partners;
- No money.
Tan-dan! Here we go!
During the last week, I did almost every checklist item to make good partnerships. But, the answer doesn’t always come and I remembered than worse that“NO” is the silence. It’s there, in the limbo without answer that lives the “uncomfortable zone.” And my part of the job is to cross this dark swamp called silence and, you know, get supporters for our event.
Look, let me give you some free advice: when you want something to happen, you need to be willing to do different things. And, most of the time, “different things” are the hardest things to do. It’s like running at noon, in the summer, without sunscreen, with the mission to keep a big smile and wave at your neighbor while you run!
Is it easy? Puff. Of course (not). But, somehow after discovering the desert that your neighborhood can be, it’s gratifying when you arrive at your home, drink water and take a shower. You feel like, “well, I can make it happen.”
Understanding where my fears live — and overcome them — is the first lesson that I learned with this new adventure of hosting the Florianópolis chapter of the LW&D. We didn’t finalize any deals YET, but I have discovered that supporting others women makes me stronger because now I don’t have only the mission conquering to hard things, I have the mission to help other women believing that they can do it too, and I couldn’t be more lucky to tell them that if we can, WE CAN. And as soon as the Ladies’ first event gets ready, I’m going to tell you what that experience was like. ;)
Florianópolis chapter of Ladies, Wine & Design is coming!
And if you want to join us, please feel free to send an email to ladieswinedesign@gmail.com or send a message to me or our Instagram account @ladieswinedesignfloripa!
