Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019

Copyright © Patricia Bright 2019

Patricia Bright asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © January 2019 ISBN: 9780008263096

Dedicated to my daughter, Grace

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

INTRODUCTION

1 NATURAL-BORN HUSTLER

2 YES, I WORK FOR MYSELF ON THE INTERNET!

3 THE IMPORTANCE OF BUILDING A FOLLOWING ON SOCIAL MEDIA

4 THE SCIENCE BIT – PRACTICAL ADVICE FOR BUILDING UP A SOCIAL MEDIA PROFILE

5 TAKING YOUR AUDIENCE TO THE NEXT LEVEL OF GROWTH

6 ONLINE VS REAL LIFE

7 CREATE YOUR WEALTH

8 A CAREER VS GOING IT ALONE

9 HOW TO RUN YOUR EMPIRE

10 A WOMAN’S WORLD

11 DISCOVERING WHO YOU ARE (AND WHAT YOU VALUE)

12 STAYING THE COURSE IN STYLE

13 THE POWER OF A PEP TALK

14 STREAMLINE THE STRESS AWAY

15 FEELING GOOD FROM THE OUTSIDE IN

TIME TO SAY GOODBYE

MY READING LIST

About the Publisher

Introduction | Killing it?

I’ve never been someone who sits back and takes it all in. I’m not going to lie – the truth is that I often feel I’m an imposter, wondering how I got here and struggling with the idea that I might actually be any good at anything!

Take a recent fortnight: I was shot for the cover of Glamour magazine, nominated for a Shorty Award (think: the Oscars of social media), announced a lipstick collaboration with MAC Cosmetics and reached 2 million subscribers on my YouTube channel (which, as I’ll explain, I started as a hobby to kill my boredom at uni). The week before that, I was sitting with a private equity firm discussing negotiations for a future project and organising a trip to Disneyland for my two year old. That was a busy one! But, when I’m in the moment, I don’t give much thought to the immensity of what’s happening. I’m on autopilot. It might look like I’m holding it all together, but I’m often scared, nervous and feel like I’m winging it as I go.

That’s the reality of my life, just as it’s other people’s reality too. Of course I’m excited every time something great happens, but in the same moment, I’m filled with fear because it’s almost too good. Still, I’m learning to appreciate every experience and achievement, and I don’t take it for granted. As much as I talk about being scared, I don’t let the fear stop me. It’s part of the hustle and, ultimately, it drives me forward.

That’s just one of the reasons why I wanted to write this book: to pull back the curtain on my experiences as a business owner and digital-content creator sharing my heart with my followers (not to mention a husband and a baby), and pass on some of the insights I’ve gathered along the way. In this book, I’m going to show you how to hustle like I do, using your head and heart. All it takes is three steps:

> Your Brand: how you can leverage who you are to kill it online and boost your work and personal life, whether you have 20 Twitter followers or 20,000.

> Your Business: how to run your side hustle like a total boss, know when to go it alone and turn your side-hustle into your full-time game.

> Your Beliefs: how to adopt certain ideas about yourself and the world that will serve you well, and ditch the thinking that’s holding you back.

But before all of that, I want to reveal more about myself, to show you what I’m all about and the principles I live my life by. I’ve never shared the full story of why being able to look after those close to me, achieving what I set my mind to and ‘securing the bag’ has always been – and still is – so very important to me. So here goes …

My story: the upbringing that shaped me

I grew up in Battersea, London. I’m a south London girl for life, with African heart! My mum was a jack-of-all-trades, who loved makeup and fashion. Before she ever clapped eyes on my dad, she used to travel back and forth between London and Nigeria, where she had a salon/boutique, buying beauty and hair products to sell back home. Then, one day, she met my dad, who was also over from Nigeria, as an international student working for his university degree in the UK. It was a Clapham Junction love story – well, that’s what they told me. Their eyes met across the shopping centre there, at a time when there weren’t many people who looked like them in that part of south London. When they got talking, they realised they were from the same area of Nigeria, and spoke the same dialect … I suppose it was meant to be!

Not long after that, my mum became pregnant (with me), then, eighteen months later, my younger sister decided to join the party. My dad graduated with his printing technology degree and began working at a boutique publishing firm. Mum got whatever work she could, while raising two small children. But they made it work, and I have happy memories of those early days.

Then, when I was six years old, my dad was deported.

It came as a total shock. One night there was a frantic knocking at the door and a team of policemen came through the house to find my dad, before taking him away like a thief in the night. I can still clearly picture my mum sitting on the stairs pleading to deaf ears, while my sister and I sobbed. We didn’t know that it would take another six years, a court case, and much sweat and tears until our father would be back with us.

Now I’m older, I understand what happened. My dad was essentially an illegal immigrant: he had outstayed his student visa and was working, but he hadn’t applied for permanent residency. It was a mistake that caused a lot of pain, but that ultimately made us all a lot more resilient, as I’ll explain.

Learning to hustle

Now, with Dad gone, we were on our own. When I think back on it, my mum could have let what had happened break her, but she didn’t. She’s about five foot, with a huge smile and doll-like eyes, completely ‘butter wouldn’t melt’. But, let me tell you, she’s a force to be reckoned with: the most amazing example of hustle and heart.

Back then, Mum worked as a cleaner. From offices to trains, she put in the shifts, getting up in the early hours for 5 a.m. starts on some days, and trudging home after 10 p.m. finishes on others. And, while we were at primary school, my sister and I learned to put in the shifts, too. I suspect this might be considered very illegal nowadays. However, when you don’t have an option, sometimes you just do what you have to. Because Dad had been deported, my sister and I had to go everywhere with our mum, as she really wanted to avoid leaving us home alone.

So, at four o’ clock in the morning, with sleep in our eyes and our school uniforms already on, the two of us would often go with Mum to clean offices in London. My sister and I would vacuum, wash the dishes and wipe down the surfaces – we weren’t very big, but we were strong. We would put in the work then, after we had locked up the offices, Mum would take us to school. This, of course, was a secret, and somehow (maybe it was Mum’s stern looks) we knew that that part of our lives wasn’t meant to be known. We’d already had an experience with the authorities and, deep down, I think we were scared that they might take our mum away like they had our dad. So we kept quiet about this part of our lives, playing at school just like all the other children.

Over the following years, I watched my mum elevate herself. She had a secondary school education and not much else, but while she still worked as a cleaner, she also began training as a nurse. She would read and study when she could and, in between her shifts and training, rustle up meals for my sister and me. Somehow Mum knew how to make a meal using basic ingredients like corned beef and packet noodles taste gourmet. Though we never had a lot in terms of material things, we never felt we lacked. There was so much love that we always felt comfortable.

Meanwhile, we were moving from council house to council house. To be honest, these places weren’t great. The three of us dealt with racists, being attacked by a neighbour’s dog, and the day-to-day struggle of living in what were just downright dodgy locations. Eventually, in a huge stroke of fortune, the council housed us in a lovely two-bedroom flat with carpets, freshly painted walls and even a new bunk bed that my sister and I could share. Our neighbours were relatively normal – in fact, some of them were even nice! We felt that things were on the up in our world.

At the same time, I know it was far from easy for my mum. During that time, we’d speak to Dad every week on the phone, and we visited Nigeria twice to see him while the court case was under way to try to bring him back. For years, this placed huge pressure on Mum, who just wanted to have her husband home. Since she was now working as a nurse, doing all the shifts she could, my sister and I were often at home alone. There were a few things we always knew we mustn’t do – instructions drilled into us to keep us safe. Above all, we knew not to open the door or the curtains.

And yet, Mum turned it around. Because while she was busy working all those hours, she was also saving. Eventually, she got together enough money to be able to buy the flat we were now living in off the council for £17,000 (this was in 1997). I remember the number clearly: she was rightly proud and let my sister and me know. We felt like millionaires, to own our home. Years later, after the property market went crazy, she was able to sell that flat for £250,000! Off the back of that, she bought our next home and decided to learn how to invest in property. It wasn’t long before she had created her own property portfolio. With more than ten properties under her belt in seven years, she was able to become self-employed and set herself and her family up for the future. She had grinded – that’s the only word for it! – her way to success.

I was in secondary school by the time Dad returned. I don’t know why it took so long, but I remember being at court when the authorities finally ruled on his case. The judge said, ‘I can’t see why this man is not allowed to be with his wife and two children.’ The upshot was that he was given permission to come back, permanently. Finally, we had our dad home. It had been a long journey. But despite that setback, my dad had continued to develop himself while he was out of the country. After getting his printing degree, he had even published some non-fiction books. On his return to the UK, things had changed significantly in that world, so he went on to study law and work within the immigration services – the irony! (I draw qualities from both parents: my dad’s more academic, whereas my mum’s a hustler. Put it together and you get me, in the middle.)

The blueprint for my success

Despite things often being difficult, I can’t regret the lessons of those tough years. Through all my childhood experiences, I had been learning something that has shaped the path of my whole life: that it’s within your own power to change your situation. Mum showed me, through her example, that what you expect of yourself is usually what you will achieve. Her limitations and the circumstances of her life were mere obstacles to work around – it wasn’t so much that she didn’t see them, but she simply didn’t focus on them.

Similarly, it might not seem like you’re on the road to success – perhaps you sure as hell don’t fit the traditional mould of someone who’s on their way up – but who cares? A stranger watching my mum graft away on her cleaning shifts, kids in tow, would have struggled to predict where she’d end up. And this is something that, even today, motivates me throughout my journey: the truth is, whether your path to your goals looks like it’s ‘supposed’ to look doesn’t matter. As you’ll learn from the stories I’m going to share, there have been many occasions where it looked like the odds were stacked against me, but I’ve achieved goals anyway – and you can, too.

LIFE LESSON: Your past doesn’t have to define your future. As my mum taught me through her hard work and hustle, things don’t have to stay the same: you can change your situation. You can change your life.

I also learned from Mum the power of thought and words. She was – is – always positive about herself and her situation (sometimes, it can seem, to the point of delusion!). That’s why one of my favourite proverbs is, ‘Life and death are in the power of the tongue … so speak life’. What that means to me is that the spoken word is incredibly powerful: you have to speak positively to yourself. And, in the same way, you have to see the good in your situation and stay hopeful. You never know what your story will be – but, regardless of your situation, if you give in to negative thoughts and put out negative words, negativity will be the result. It’s not ‘fate’, it’s the power of your brain and will: if you don’t think and feel like you can, then you probably won’t. That’s something I’ve held onto over the years, and through every adversity I’ve faced.

We’re all human

There’s one more thing it’s important to remember: the way things are portrayed on social media can have us all seeing things through rose-tinted glasses. In a world filled with meticulously planned feeds and carefully selected, glamorous images, it’s easy to get the impression that other people are living the ‘perfect life’. And those with the most interaction online, with likes and comments streaming in, must be in a great position, right? Well, what I know, and have seen and experienced first-hand, is that behind the attractive photos, upbeat videos and funny status updates, will lie a long, winding journey filled with ups and downs. Everyone has experiences that can’t be corrected with a pretty filter, and that will likely not be shared with the world. That doesn’t mean they didn’t happen. It’s normal and it’s real life. Nowadays, I can look back at my hard times and know they have provided me with the head, heart and hustle (in other words, the mental attitude, the emotional resilience and the ability to grind) that have propelled me along the journey I am on today.

I’ll give a few examples. At one point, I didn’t have any friends. At another, I was made redundant from my job in the City. I also broke up with Mike, the man I thought was going to be my ‘forever guy’ (he’s now my husband, so go figure!). Another time, I quit my job to be a full-time YouTuber and that didn’t work out so well … as you’ll find out. But all those experiences have helped to shape me as an individual and lead me to the place I am at now.

Take the situation with my friends – or lack of them. That came about when, at university, I was sharing a house with a roommate. We didn’t argue, but the atmosphere grew very cold and distant quite quickly. Even today, I can’t pinpoint exactly what the issue was: it was all unsaid, which was harder to resolve. I found solace in the online world. When she’d go out, I’d go straight upstairs and get on to my computer. There, I was able to escape my reality, distracting myself by getting deep into the world of makeup, hair and beauty – things I’d always loved, but had never had anyone to chat to about passionately. I started on a picture-sharing forum for women who wanted to grow their hair, improve their skin, and slay their makeup, where you could also write comments: Fotki, the Reddit of all things beauty. I would spend hours reading through people’s profiles, following their journeys to a greater glow and even longer hair. They would share pictures and then eventually move on to video: that was my fix before Instagram! You could swap tips and share praise. ‘Oh my gosh,’ we’d tell each other, ‘your hair has grown so much. And your skin looks great!’

I wouldn’t let anybody in my real life know that I could spend hours on these forums. How crazy would I sound talking about my weekend with a garlic and mayo scalp mix slathered on my hair, an egg face mask on and sweet potato skins on my eyes? It wasn’t really bragging material. Some people would mix hair-growth stimulants and sulphur with oil! (I don’t recommend you try that.) Or, they’d share unusual ideas such as the inversion method – tipping your head upside down and giving yourself a scalp massage to stimulate blood flow (also a headache). But we hoped an enviable head of hair would result! We’d set ourselves challenges and update each other every day on what we were doing. Looking back, what we were into was pretty niche, but it was amazing to be part of a community of like-minded people. Some people are into computer games and films, some of us are into the finer things in life, like sulphur mixes! All the time, I was tapping away, immersing myself in this world that I loved.

Now that I look back, I think, What the hell was I up to? It does make me laugh. But the people on those forums really did something for me, though they didn’t know it: they saved me when I didn’t have any friends. (And, I do have to say, my hair was so much healthier in my days of mayo masks – really full and thick!) What’s more, my time online back then led me to my career today. I was spending all this time on these forums looking at photos and watching a ton of videos on all things hair and beauty, and eventually fashion-related content too. I had fallen in love – and knew that I wanted to do this. What ‘this’ was I wasn’t sure, but that didn’t stop me. So, while still a student, I bought a cheap camera – you couldn’t just use your phone to film in those days – and started recording.

My first YouTube video was just a minute and a half long, introducing me to the world … or so I hoped. ‘Hi, I’m Patricia. This is my new channel.’ I probably had an American twang, because I was watching so many people who did. ‘I’m going to do fashion,’ I announced. ‘I’m going to do makeup. K, see you, bye.’ That was pretty much it. I was staring into the lens, trying to be quite sultry! Back then, I imitated people I liked, so it wasn’t very me, but that didn’t matter. It was a start.

My second video was a ‘haul’ – which was basically like sitting down with your girlfriends and sharing with them what bargains you were able to pick up at the stores. Back then, I used to go vintage shopping and so I showed off some of the items I had bought. And my third was a DIY, where I put buttons and trims onto a few Primark tops. I remember the moment I finally reached ten views. I was so excited, until I realised it was because I had refreshed the page ten times – they were all my views! Still, I gradually started to get a few people checking me out. I used to comment on other people’s videos, and sometimes they would comment back and watch mine. I’d think, Oh my God, they’ve noticed me! And then, I just kept going … So, although in my real life I was quite lonely, I was connecting in the digital space – and something truly great came of it.

Always remember: you never know how your story is going to turn out. You will go through sticky moments, as I did, and still do, and you might not enjoy every step along the road, but I promise you the results will be worth it. All the good things that have happened for me didn’t happen overnight, or without hard work, but they did happen, and they can for you too. YOU have control! And even when it’s really tough, it’s still not as hard as waking up in five years’ and realising you could have started turning your life around five years ago – but you’re still exactly where you were back then. So buckle up. YOU are in the driving seat!

Let’s make a start – going all the way back to the beginning …

1 | Natural-born hustler

Everyone starts from somewhere – and usually it’s not the place where we want to be. As Drake puts it, ‘Started from the bottom’. Most of us, even if we want to build a long-term hustling strategy, start out working for someone else. That doesn’t mean you won’t – like me – eventually become your own boss. Although, funnily enough, I did start out as my own boss …

Growing up grinding

Even before I ever had a job, I was earning money from the age of thirteen. I knew I had to get my hustle on early, because nothing was going to be handed to me on a plate. As a kid, I didn’t get pocket money – I got dinner money, and that was about it. My parents (Dad being back in the UK by this point) weren’t stingy, but they wanted me to learn how to look after what I had. So, I’d be given my £10 or £15 for the week, and then I could do whatever I wanted with it. A lot of it went on McDonald’s pancakes and sausage for breakfast, but I tried to be smart and save at least £2 per week here and there, even if that meant skipping the school lunch and making my own sandwiches at home.

But there was nothing spare to have fun with. I thought that there must be a way to get around this – I didn’t have to be broke. So it was only natural that I decided to use my head and figure out ways to make some cash. I’d taught myself how to do braids and cornrows, having watched my mum do my sister’s hair, and had eventually become the family’s resident hairstylist. For aunties and cousins, I was the go-to girl, and I loved it. I did hair like it was therapy, and practised a lot on myself. At secondary school, I was beginning to get a lot of attention because of it. Girls would say to me admiringly, ‘Your hair is so nice.’ I’d tell them I did it myself, and they’d ask me to do theirs. Cha-ching! I saw my opportunity and started a little business. I became the playground stylist, and for £5 half a head and £10 a full head, I would do whatever they wanted: zigzags, patterns and other designs. Soon I had regular clients and could make what my parents gave me for a week in a single day. Now I had the extra money I wanted for ice lollies and McD’s pancakes – the finer things in life!

Entering the workforce

I got my first ever job when I was fourteen, delivering kitchenware catalogues and any subsequent orders to houses. Yes, I knocked door to door offering a catalogue listing all the fancy utensils you didn’t know you needed! I’d do this during the school holidays, accompanied by a few other kids from the local area. I don’t know how legal it all was, but we were doing it anyway! The adult accompanying us was a neighbour, a well-respected man in the area who everyone liked, with that ‘Del Boy’ East London charm. Mum was happy to see that we were going out and earning some coin. And so we’d be dropped off from street to street, handing out catalogues one week, delivering orders and collecting payments the next. We earned a pittance in commission from every order that customers made. Despite that, if I worked all summer I could easily make £200 by the end of it, and as a kid that honestly felt like a lot of good, hard-earned money. I was proud.

In fact, I put those summers of work experience on my CV, which helped me to get my first ‘real’ job, in retail. I had just turned sixteen and was at sixth form when a shopping mall opened up nearby in Croydon. It was new and shiny with a super posh department store called House of Fraser. I remember writing up my CV, listing out my skills and of course jazzing up my work experience. All that knocking on doors had to count for something! It had helped me to develop my ‘customer service’ skills, I wrote. Packing up orders honed my ‘organisational skills’, while taking door-to-door cash payments was my ‘financial management’ experience. And just like that, I had myself a job. I’d leave school on a Thursday in my work uniform – occasion wear by Coast, the store I worked at in House of Fraser – so I’d be on the bus in my shiny satin skirt. It really was a look! My working hours were 6 p.m. till 10 p.m. every Thursday, all day Saturday, and occasionally a Sunday.

For the next four years, including part of my time at university, that was my routine. In all honesty, sometimes I hated it. Late-night Thursdays could drag, while in retail the customers are always right (even when they’re not! That’s just how it goes). Being on fitting-room duty wasn’t exactly stimulating, and I often found myself clock-watching. But despite not enjoying it much, it was my hustle at the time, and the company looked after me when I went to university in Manchester. There, I was transferred to Selfridges and when I needed to move again, they transferred me into their new sister store, Oasis. In all, I worked within that company for almost four years. It paid for a whole lot, and kept me busy and potentially out of trouble.

While I was at university in Manchester, I also went back to my secondary-school side hustle. Rather than the playground, my halls of residence and student accommodation were now my shop floor. By that point, I’d taught myself how to do weaves, extensions and even chemical relaxers. I wasn’t a trained salon professional (and I would never advise doing this; people should go to salons to have chemical treatments), but at-home relaxer kits were available and, growing up, I’d never gone to a professional salon to have my treatments. At university there were plenty of students who wanted their hair done, and I took full advantage of this. I had a set rate, the proper kit, and soon a new list of regular clients, some of who would even travel from other cities to see me. For every relaxer, weave or braids I did, I was earning £30, £40, £50 a time, matching what I could make at my part-time job in retail. Growing up, I’d had no idea that not having the money to go to the salon would turn out to be an advantage, forcing me to learn skills that would later help me earn money.

My first business failure

Mind you, my ventures didn’t always work out, because that’s the reality of life and business. Another side hustle I set up was a beauty community. I wanted to bring girls together who loved makeup but couldn’t afford the typical retail prices. I’d found a distributor online that sold MAC makeup and other well-known brands, and I honestly couldn’t believe the prices. While store prices were anywhere between £12 and £15 per eye shadow or lipstick, this guy had these same products on sale for £3. By anyone’s calculation it was a bargain. Even if I sold them for £9 each, I was going to make a profit, right?

So I spent my money on stock, investing a few hundred pounds, which was a lot for me at the time. I printed out flyers and organised a space at the student union for my event. Then, my stock came in. It looked great from afar, but on closer inspection all was not as it seemed. For a start, the spelling on the packaging was wrong: ‘MAC’ was spelt ‘NAC’. That wasn’t all. The labels on the backs of the items didn’t look like the labels on the products you could buy in store, and the colours were all off. I realised I had been ripped off. The products were trash and very, very fake. I learned that day, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. I’d got burned, but I was also growing. Slowly but surely I was developing my skills as a ‘multi-hustler’ – someone with multiple sources of income.

Real-world expectations

I’d already been working, in one way or another, for years when I finished university. But that didn’t mean I was relaxed about the future. I want to take a moment to talk about my university experience – what I was doing when I wasn’t busy with all my jobs and side hustles! So let’s rewind for a second.

When I was at school, it had always been expected that I’d go to university, and, grades-wise, I did OK. In sixth form I studied biology, chemistry, psychology, business studies – all academic subjects, but when it came to applying any of these to real life, I didn’t want to. I wanted to study fashion! After all, it was my passion, right? I found a fashion and marketing university course, which got me super-excited. Initially my parents were a bit unsure about it: ‘Fashion? You don’t want to be a doctor or a lawyer?’ But I wasn’t deterred. It was full steam ahead (well, for a season at least!).

But early on in that course, I realised it wasn’t for me. I was hating it! My passion was fashion, but not in that context. I didn’t connect with the people on my course and, more importantly, I didn’t warm to the subject matter in the university setting. My expectations simply didn’t match reality. In one class, a group of us designed a single shirt with four seams. I thought, What the hell is this? I didn’t want to make clothes or cut out patterns. At the same time, I found out the graduate salary in the fashion industry at the time was around £10,000 to £12,000 a year – for a starter role at a huge sports brand, for example. I thought, Hold on, can that really be the salary after all these years, not to mention the cost, of university? Hell, no! I had a reality check: it was hard to understand how the salary could be that low, considering the effort and commitment I was going to put in. I remember thinking, This is not enough, especially for what I want to achieve for my future. I couldn’t risk continuing as a fashion student when I wasn’t sure if it would support me or my future family. I needed more security.

Some people are fortunate enough to have parents fund them when they’re getting started. I didn’t have that option. I wasn’t resentful, but I knew that I was going to regret it if I didn’t make a more financially stable choice for my future. In hindsight, my past-life experiences likely contributed to my craving for security. As it happened, one part of the fashion course I did enjoy and found fairly easy was the accounting module. The cogs were turning … I said to myself, You know what? I’m going to do accounting and finance.

The way I see it, life goes in seasons. I figured that if I stuck with the fashion course, it wasn’t going to set me up in the way that I wanted. So I switched, believing that afterwards I’d be able to get a better job, earn more money, and that would provide me with more freedom and opportunities. I wasn’t necessarily going to be an accountant all my life – and, I was right, that’s not what happened – but I wanted to give myself options. I didn’t necessarily love my new course, but I realised my mind really connected with the subject matter. I liked the spreadsheets and crunching numbers – I’m analytical. Changing my path was right for me.

I learned an important lesson through that. When you’re starting off, it’s important to find that sweet spot between your passion, your ability and what’s practical. You don’t have to start off in your dream job or career – most of us have got to pay the bills somehow, right? In the US, young workers now switch jobs on average four times in their first ten years after graduation.¹ My approach is to think big, and take small steps.

LIFE LESSON: When it comes to life, it’s never a straight line – it’s more like a zigzag! Think of every experience, good and bad, as a stepping stone to the next opportunity.

But Patricia, what should I do?

The short and honest answer is: I don’t know, the answer is different for everybody! But I will tell you something: where you start off doesn’t matter as much as you think. For example, the thing about studying is that it’s not just about the subject you choose. The skills that you pick up and the people you meet along the way can be even more valuable. Some degrees, like medicine and dentistry, are vocational, of course, but otherwise much of the experience is about learning the skills to equip you for life in general, rather than for a particular job. Things like understanding how to think critically, analyse, research independently, and even just how to be someone who can show up, sit down and meet deadlines on time. Of course, not everybody wants to carry on studying after school, and often for those people university can be an expensive waste of three years! The days where having any degree was considered highly prestigious and a guaranteed ticket to a life of comfort and good income are long gone.

The problem is, when you’re younger, you don’t really know what career options are out there. It all seems very rigid – lawyer, accountant, doctor, nurse – but there are so many more options that you have no idea about, and what’s available changes as the world changes. You can even write your own job role aligned to your strengths, bring it to a company and say, ‘I will do this for you’, and they might agree – and pay you a salary to do that!

No wrong jobs

In the same way, we have a tendency to get really connected to our first job, thinking it’s a lot more important than it actually is; we believe that we’ll be ‘stuck there for life’ and it’s nothing like the area we want to work in. Sometimes you’ll hear people say, ‘There’s certain things I wouldn’t do,’ or ‘I can’t do that, I’ve got a degree!’ But pretty much any job is better than sitting around holding out for the perfect starter role.

As I’ve tried to show you by explaining my own first jobs and hustles, I’ve come to learn that all experience is valuable and can be a springboard to greater things in the future. Working in a kitchen, for example, will teach you time management, teamwork and how to cope under pressure. Data entry will teach you how to stay focused and, at a basic level, to turn up and get the work done even when it bores you! You just have to remember that if you’re doing something you don’t like, you don’t have to do it for ever – but you may have to do it for now. I’ve had people work for me who studied at Oxford University alongside those who have left school at eighteen and worked jobs some would consider ‘menial’. But what I’ve learned is that ultimately it doesn’t matter whether someone’s got a degree or not. It’s all about whether someone can apply themselves to a task, even if it isn’t the most glamorous thing to do, and deliver results. Success lies in the ability to learn and consistently execute.

LIFE LESSON: Sometimes you have to do the lower-paying job or the role you’re not so keen on, to build up the experience that will put you where you want to be.

So by all means have a plan – but keep your options open. You don’t want to close yourself off to opportunity. You never know where your next break might come from. In my own case, after university, I ended up in the City, in the high-flying world of big investment banks. It wasn’t an industry I knew or where I had family that could get me an ‘in’, and I really didn’t have a clue how it all worked. So how did I do it? Let me explain …

Use your network

I’ve always had that overriding sense that I’ll be fine, a mentality I picked up from my mum. I felt somehow I’d be successful, but how – or even what my definition of success was – I really didn’t know. But, as I neared the end of my university course, I did have a wonderful friend from college, Emeka, who was doing a computer science degree at Manchester University. He was a bright guy, going places, and I would confide in him because he inspired me and his door was always open. I would ask him a ton of questions about everything – love, life, careers. Nearing the end of our courses, I happened to ask him what he was doing after uni and whether he’d heard about any opportunities. I was worried. I had no idea what I was going to do next. He shared with me that his friend had just got offered work at an investment bank called Merrill Lynch and was getting paid £30,000 for his first job. Emeka himself was about to do a summer internship there. I was shocked: that seemed a lot of money and a great opportunity. I wanted in. Emeka encouraged me to apply for an internship. He gave me the recruiter’s email, I got in touch with her and she told me there was a Women in Technology dinner taking place, aimed at female students interested in going into the City. Women who had senior roles in technology at Merrill Lynch – directors and heads of departments – would be attending. I wasn’t a tech girl and I knew nothing about the City, so I got my friend to give me the lowdown. In fact, I prepared for this ‘networking dinner’ like it was an exam (although it was super-casual). When the evening arrived, I was ready with my note pad, pen and article clippings to stand out.

The night of the dinner, I quickly noticed the other students were chit-chatting among themselves and not talking to the women who had come from the business. I’m not sure if nerves or hunger were to blame, but I decided to take it upon myself to work the room, dropping in references to all the research I’d done. When it came to the sit-down part of the evening, I was that annoying person with my hand up to ask questions related to the industry: ‘What’s it like being a woman in the business?’, ‘Where do you see the financial markets going?’ The women from the bank seemed slightly taken aback, to be honest – Why is she asking these questions? – but they were intrigued. And I wanted to stand out: I was hustling. That didn’t mean I wasn’t perfectly nice to everyone there. You can be nice – and totally shameless! But I was focused on what I wanted from that encounter, whereas the others were a bit more laid back about connecting with the executives from the bank. I’d gone prepared, and the executives remembered me.

Preparation is key in a situation where you want to impress. You don’t have to think of clever questions off the cuff. If you’re shy or unsure, put together a mental ‘cheat sheet’ for the conversation ahead. In my case, I’d spoken to my friend Emeka, picking his brains about what I could ask, and I knew what subjects I hoped to talk about.

While I was never going to be exactly like my friend, I could learn from him. He even read my statements for my internship application – ‘you could put this in’, ‘watch out, that looks wrong’ – and mentioned ‘my friend Patricia’ to the recruiters, so they looked out for me. Some people suggest seeking out mentors, even people you might respect that you’ve never met before. Go for it if it feels right for you, but you don’t have to do it that way. My friend was my mentor – even if he didn’t know that (till now!).

LIFE LESSON: Associate with people who are doing what you want to do, but who are doing it better than you. Don’t be threatened – you can climb together. I knew my friend was more informed than me, I knew he was on a really good trajectory, so my attitude was: Mate – hook me up! And that’s exactly what he did.

Acing the interview

Soon I learned that I’d passed the first hurdle: I’d been selected for the interview process. But how do you get that great job or secure that fantastic internship when you’ve no experience? It’s the classic frustrating catch-22 situation for a lot of graduates, school-leavers and career-switchers. Again, it’s all about preparation and accumulating a working knowledge of the industry you want to enter. But, at the same time, when you’re starting off no one’s expecting you to be an absolute expert in, say, financial markets. You’ll learn everything when you’re on the job. The key thing is just to demonstrate what skill sets you have. Now, when I was chasing this Merrill Lynch internship, I hadn’t done a placement in the City already and therefore couldn’t draw on experiences I hadn’t had. So I talked about what I did know: I’d always worked in retail, and I had my hair business. I wove narratives – told compelling stories about my experiences – to show the recruiters that I had experience in something.

In my case, I had what seemed like endless interviews. There was a woman quite close to me in age who was in HR – the gatekeeper. Then, there were a panel of men in suits. But my approach was the same: charm, share, talk! You don’t have to be embarrassed about your past experience – draw on it to show, for example, how you dealt with difficult situations or how you took the initiative. So much of work and business is firefighting: share how you put out flames, what you learned, and showcase your ability to come up with solutions. This is exactly what I look for today in my team members: that story about the tricky customer you managed to deliver for really can serve you well.

I’d also done lots of unpaid activities that packed my CV. I’d been a mentor to school-age kids and shared with them what it was like being a university student. And I was involved with Young Enterprise, a scheme helping young people set up their own businesses. I was able to draw from both experiences. So get involved in real-life activities! If you’re at home twiddling your thumbs or always staring at a screen you’ll have nothing to draw from. Your experiences can help you get that role, though they might seem unrelated to the job. Sometimes recruiters simply want to know that you’re a well-rounded person.

LIFE LESSON: Business is about people working with people. You want to connect with the interviewer. Preparation is important of course, but once you’re in there don’t be afraid to let go of the pressure to remember every tiny detail. You don’t need to remember to ask what happened to the company’s tech division in the last quarter. Try to be a little more personal and find common ground.

Break the rules

I know a lot of people can feel scared about applying for jobs. The list of requirements can seem so daunting! And this lack of confidence in our abilities seems to affect women in particular. You might have heard this statistic before: men will apply for a job when they meet just 60 per cent of the requirements, but women only apply if they meet 100 per cent of them.¹ It’s been called the ‘gender confidence gap’ – we can be hesitant about taking action to push ourselves forward.

My thinking is: just do it – even if you’re not sure of the outcome, try it and see what happens. When I applied for the internship, the odds were stacked against me. I knew I didn’t have the grades they wanted. I wasn’t in my second year of university, like most applicants, but in my final year. The bank required 360 UCAS points to apply, but because I had dropped an A-level (chemistry – I hated it!) I only had 280 points. That, in normal circumstances, would have automatically taken me out of the running for most of the graduate schemes I was interested in. But I completed the application form, despite my situation. Some people would have thought to themselves, ‘I don’t have the right grades so I’m not going to apply’ – to be honest, that’s what I thought at first! I had never submitted any other similar applications because I was scared of rejection. But, encouraged by my friend Emeka, I did it despite my fear, explaining honestly why I didn’t have the UCAS points, and why it wasn’t an issue. In that way, I set the ball rolling for my future.

Later, as part of that process to get an internship, I failed one of the maths tests. I cried straight after taking it, as I knew it hadn’t gone well. With thousands of people applying for the internship programme, I knew that if you failed one of the tests, you didn’t get in – that was the general rule. But because I had tried to build those relationships at the dinner, and connected with a few of the right people – because they’d seen my drive and determination first-hand and considered my potential to be more important than my ability – they gave me the opportunity to come in and retake the test. This time I made sure I was ready. The questions were mainly algebra (my nemesis!), so I spent a few weeks improving my knowledge of the principles, doing practice test after practice test, night after night. When it was time to do the real test again, I smashed it and got the internship.

LIFE LESSON: Your limits are based on how you perceive yourself. Challenge your perception and you might be surprised. Every time I hit a stumbling block, I might have been momentarily disheartened, but I pushed through and the results were better than I could ever have imagined. Sometimes that’s all you have to do: push through.

The upshot was, I graduated, did my three-month internship in London, then was offered a job at the bank! I couldn’t believe it. My starting salary was £35,000, with a £5,000 sign-on bonus. For a twenty-one-year-old, that’s a lot of money. I’d done it! I thought to myself, I’m rich! I’ve made it in life.

Of course, I didn’t know then but this was just the beginning. And we’ll get into my time as a full-time employee. But I want to stress that as much as I talk about ‘doing your own thing’ and being an entrepreneur, I 100 per cent appreciate the values I picked up in the workplace. The skills I gained from all of my collective experiences and side hustles brought me to where I am today, providing me with valuable knowledge and experience that university could never have given me.

Nail that interview

It can be difficult to get that crucial first role and the dreaded interview can be a major stumbling block. But a good interview can also be the most impactful thing you do. So I’m going to share my cheats to make it a little less painful:

> You do not have to know everything – what you want to show is that you are willing to learn everything.

> Draw on your experiences to give specific examples of what you would do in the role. For example, ‘If scenario X happened I would do Y, because when I dealt with situation A I applied B and XYZ was the result.’

> There are a lot of cookie-cutter questions (some of which I’ve listed below) you can be asked, so prep a response for each one that has a little more fire than, ‘I’ve always wanted to work for this company because [insert what you read on their online bio].’

> Practise your interview technique out loud. Yes, it could be embarrassing but it makes a difference. Find a friend to ask you questions and practise your response. Alternatively, you can find a mirror and practise with yourself.

> INHALE. EXHALE. SMILE!

The old chestnuts

Think of strong responses to the following before you walk into the interview room (and keep them safe for future use):

> Why do you want this job/internship?

> Why should I hire you?

> What can you bring to the role or the organisation?

> What relevant experience do you have?

> What relevant skills to you have?

> Where do you see yourself in five years’? (Progressing within that company, of course!)

> What are your strengths?

> What are your weaknesses? (Talk about areas in which you’re already improving and what strategy you’re applying to do this. You want to be honest but not too honest.)

> And if you’re thrown a curveball? Don’t panic. Take a moment to think, then take a stab at the most sensible, thoughtful answer you can reach for. So much of this is about delivery. Be enthusiastic, respectful, and make eye contact – you’ll have them eating out of your hand in no time!

2 | Yes, I work for myself on the internet!

I do sometimes get tired of answering the ‘What is it you do?’ question I hear time and time again, coupled with the ‘Is that even a job?’ remark IRL. But in the digital space, people like me get a different reaction. I see a lot of #GIRLBOSS, #HUSTLE and #Buildingmyempire hashtags, sprinkled with copious amounts of praise in the comments. It can make it look like going it alone is the most exciting thing in the world – the one thing everyone should be aiming for. In 2017, it’s estimated that nearly 660,000 companies were started in the UK, a new record – and that figure is expected to be broken year-on-year.¹ So what’s the truth?

The myths around being your own boss …

WARNING: I’m going to bust some myths around being in the coveted role of boss. ‘Entrepreneur’ has become a bit of a buzzword of late, and it can feel like being an employee is second best. But some people are amazing employees, great at hustling within their roles and climbing the ladder. They love the structure, they like the industry they’re in and they’re able to deliver consistently. My sister, my dad and my husband are all amazing employees. Never missing a day of work, they thrive. And being an employee can offer a great work-life balance and lots of stability, depending on the job you do. I’ve worked with some amazing ‘employees’ – my bosses and other senior executives around me – who were making a huge impact in their industries and the wider world. There is plenty of power and skill involved in being a mover and shaker in the workforce. Doctors, nurses and members of the armed forces for example, are all employees, providing essential services.

Meanwhile, some people think being self-employed means a life where you can wake up when you want, go to bed when you want, go out when you want, in between drinking champagne on a yacht. Well, that ain’t it! While being self-employed, I’ve learned that it involves sacrifices bigger than I could have ever imagined, that income is not guaranteed, that you can lose all you achieved in a second, and that you can end up working round the clock. I may have to have a call with partners in China at 1 a.m., or a call with clients in LA at 9 p.m. – ‘free time’ is not in my vocabulary.

Of course I’m grateful for everything I’ve achieved. I’ve had so many amazing experiences. But I don’t mind saying that there are times when I wish I could just go back to one of my regular jobs. Even though I’m established, I work ten times harder than I used to as an employee (at least, it feels that way!) because there’s a little voice in my head telling me that it won’t last for ever. I’ve got to always be thinking ten steps ahead: if everything crumbles, what would I do? With that in mind, I’ve made sure I have some money saved up and a back-up plan, just in case I ever need to make the switch to something else. If it all disappears, I’ll go into marketing and digital advertising, because it’s what I know about and genuinely enjoy. In fact, that would be my dream career if I wasn’t doing what I’m doing. That’s my plan B and I think everyone should have one. Having a back-up plan doesn’t for a second mean I’m not pushing full steam ahead and committed to the path I’m on, but it gives me peace of mind.

… And about being an influencer

So now we’ve covered ‘girlboss’ myths, let’s move on to those around being a social media influencer – and if you’ve picked up this book it’s probably something you want to know more about. I know there are lots of misconceptions. The thing I hear most often is that we make money for doing nothing. The reality is that we’re just like most self-employed people. We are creating, distributing, working with customers and partners, we’re investing thousands of pounds in our equipment and we’re at risk of losing all of it at the drop of a hat. Like everyone who works for themselves, we have sleepless nights and worry about what’s going to happen next. For those who want job security, who want consistency, who want guaranteed money, who want overnight success, this isn’t the industry. You can be popular today, and – one Twitterstorm later – public enemy number one. You can find yourself working for free for weeks for the ‘exposure’ (which you can’t pay a mortgage with). You can even work for an agreed fee for months and not receive a penny. There is no trade union for bloggers!

HOW I LOST £60K

Cue my own horror story. In the not too distant past, I worked on a number of projects with huge brands via an agency. These were very recognisable brands and, when I was approached to create content for them, I was beyond excited to have been considered for the work. The payment terms were three months, which was a long time to wait to be paid, but I was willing to take the risk bearing in mind their calibre. I delivered video content for the brands and it was shared globally on their social platforms. My face was everywhere, and I was really proud.

But three days before my payment was due, I received a call that the agency involved in the deal had gone bankrupt … and I had lost £60,000 in one fell swoop. At the time, I had a three-month-old baby, a mortgage and a loft conversion that still needed to be paid for. Yep, that happened. In a moment of delirium I actually laughed, and then I cried. I spoke to my solicitors and my accountant. ‘Unfortunately, the agency have to pay all their creditors first, and maybe in five years from now, you might get a pittance after they’ve paid their landlords, their taxes and their employees, who haven’t been paid their salaries.’ I was at the back of the queue. I then reached out to the brands that still had my content on their platforms, and asked if there was anything they could do. I received one uniform response: no.

A number of other influencers were in the same situation, so I wasn’t alone. I’m not holding my breath for that money now. And, of course, stories like this aren’t confined to the social media world. Talking to other people who run their own businesses, I’ve learned that it’s all part of the wild ride. I tell you all this to show you that the life of an influencer is not all filters and flights.

Now the good news

Haven’t put you off yet? Good! Because, despite all the risks, I absolutely love working for myself and running my own business, especially one based around social media. It’s true – being an entrepreneur is not easy and it’s not for everyone. But for those who do want to be their own boss and are willing to put in the work, it’s incredibly rewarding. The career I’ve built means I get to go to wonderful places; I get to try new products and test everything out before it hits the market; and I get to create my own product-based businesses, all because of the relationship I have with my online community. And most importantly, I get to share what I enjoy every single day with people who actually want to hear it. That’s crazy!

Those are the highlights for me. For others it may be the autonomy they enjoy, or the flexibility in terms of organising their life outside of a traditional office. In fact, there’s research showing that, despite not knowing where the next pay cheque is coming from, self-employed people are happier than employees. A recent study from the universities of Sheffield and Exeter involving 5,000 people from around the world found that those who worked for themselves ‘were not only amongst the most engaged but also experienced greater opportunities for innovation, achieving challenging targets and meeting high standards’.¹ All that, plus you get to dodge the rush-hour commute #WINNING. Even if you don’t want to go it alone – or not yet, anyway – lots of what I’m going to tell you still applies. Because, really, you’re always working for yourself and your future (whatever your manager thinks).

How I started (stumbled into) being an ‘entrepreneur’

So, as you already know, I got my start in the City. I had a good salary, but meanwhile I continued my hobby of posting YouTube videos on the side. In time, I started making a small amount of money from the adverts played alongside my videos here and there, which was a nice bonus. I remember when I received my first payment from Google AdSense (I’d signed up to their programme that puts advertising on your content) of £60! When I saw it on the computer screen, I was so happy that I could make a little extra cash for drinks and so on, simply by doing something I enjoyed in my free time. I’d only been going for a year or two, making videos on fashion, beauty and makeup, and at this point I still didn’t expect this to be my main business. If anything, I was spending way more on clothing, makeup and camera equipment than I was making, as I enjoyed it so much! I remember one of my early requests, as a present from my hubby, was for a new camera costing around £200, which felt like a lot at the time. Back then, my friends and family were surprised that I was spending so much on something that was, after all, just a hobby. Little did they know that I was investing in my future.

After a while that £60 turned into £600. But I was totally naive, and didn’t know to tell the taxman about it. I was just enjoying the additional income. I found out later that not declaring this extra income would come back to bite me in the butt … but for now I was blissfully unaware. My career continued to move forward, and despite being made redundant from my first job during huge staff cuts, I was able to move on to working as a consultant in the City, then within an international financial institution.

But, even though I was becoming more and more settled in my career, the hobby that I’d been busy with in the evenings and every weekend for the past few years had begun to make me £2,000–£3,000 every month, and I was starting to receive offers for work and collaborations from companies and brands. Almost without meaning to, I’d developed my hobby into a fully fledged side business that was close to matching my City salary!

My first big deal

I remember when I booked my first four-figure deal with a brand. I didn’t have a specific fee or rate, and there was no rulebook or precedent that I knew of in terms of making money online. I’d been used to charging a few hundred pounds here and there to partner with brands, which I was happy with (considering that I’d been making all my content for free prior to that). Then one day I was approached by a production company who wanted me to make some videos for a fairly big brand. I remember the lady from the company saying in an email that they only had ‘3’ for the work, which I took to mean three hundred pounds. While I would have accepted that, the hustler in me said I wanted ‘4’. She responded to say that she couldn’t manage ‘4’ but that she could offer £3,500! The whole time she’d meant £3,000! By accident I had stumbled into finding out that I could potentially make enough out of this hobby to turn it into a business. That deal, coupled with my Google AdSense income, meant that was the first month I actually earned more than my monthly salary. My revenue was growing!

That experience was a real eye-opener. When I got married to Mike, what I generated through my channel contributed to the budget for our wedding, and went towards the deposit on our first house. But I wasn’t getting too carried away. I wasn’t prepared to leave the prestige of my City job, or the potential to be a senior manager or even partner, for a quick buck. I decided that I would keep up my hobby posting videos online on the side, while also maintaining the steady income and security from my day job … I was ‘multi-hustling’.

And I was learning so much along the way. As more work came in, I began to standardise my process by auto-responding to emails, creating a rate card, and putting aside set times to manage the business side of my social media profile. Before long, I was booking three to four projects a month, and making double to triple my salary, but I was still scared. I couldn’t fathom a future where I was reliant on myself and not a boss or stable company. What if it all disappeared? I knew that once I left my industry to do something completely unrelated it would be extremely difficult to ever go back. I wondered what my parents would think, what the bank would think, what my friends and colleagues would think. But the numbers didn’t lie. I could see this was a viable business. I didn’t know what the future was going to hold, but something told me that if I was smart about this, I could make it work.

Not just a leap of faith

I’m a fairly risk-averse person, and I like to make calculated decisions. Leaving a stable job to build my business online was not done on a whim. But I could see my revenue growing more and more. My calculations, based on the data that I had, indicated that I would continue to grow in the future. Planning for the next five years, I weighed up the pros and cons for pursuing my business, or staying in my City career. My business won. I made the decision then to become a full-time YouTuber (more on exactly how I got there later). Even now, I find it amazing – crazy, even! – that I was able to turn my secret hobby into my business. It came from a genuine place of passion and love, with no expectation of financial gain. When I first started there wasn’t even the option to make money in this industry. But I realised I could build a long-term future doing something I was happy to work on day, night and weekends, for ever and ever.

Finding your grind

You might be thinking, What exactly am I going to do if I want to go it alone? I’d better follow my passion, right? That’s what you hear all the time. But hold up a second. Because …

Passion isn’t everything

What’s your passion? Speaking candidly, I’d confess that my passions are sleeping in late, watching TV and eating food. I’d watch Netflix all day if I could! But you can’t make a living watching telly (let’s call the guys on Gogglebox the exception that proves the rule). You have to find something you like to do in life, but you need to acknowledge reality at the same time. And that’s a philosophy I’ve always followed, from choosing my first job after university to deciding to become a full-time YouTuber and influencer. That doesn’t mean abandoning your dreams – in fact, it’s the total opposite – but it does mean acknowledging the circumstances that you’re in and which lie ahead, rather than blindly ignoring them. That’s why, rather than telling you to focus on finding your passion in life, I’d say focus on finding your grind.

Here’s how I see it, whether we’re talking about finding a hustle IRL or building your brand online. The truth is, if you’re playing to your strengths, these should really be one and the same thing. This is important. Everything that I do, from my hair-extensions business to my clothing partnerships, works in synergy with what I’m doing on YouTube and my other platforms. The growth of my businesses has been natural because I’d already found what excited me and made me want to get out of bed in the morning. In fact, pretty much everything I’m going to say now applies as much to finding your business path as finding your space in the online world.

LIFE LESSON: As well as following your dreams, you want to find an equilibrium between your passion and your unique skills, while also appealing to an identifiable target market – or, if we’re talking about influencers, an audience. When you’ve managed that, you’ve identified a path that could be worth exploring.

Here’s another way of explaining that idea. There are lots of versions out there of this Venn diagram. In the digital world I replace Market with Audience. The sweet spot in the middle? That’s your grind:

Yes, you’ve got to have a PASSION for what you’re planning to put out into the world – you need to feel fired up, engaged, interested. What is it that sets you alight? What could you talk about for ages and not get bored? What would you be willing to dedicate all your free time (and perhaps, eventually, all your time) to? It might be making (and eating) great food. It might be running your own business. It might be being the best mother you can be. Only you know the answer. While you’re at it, ignore the naysayers. People can turn up their noses at other people’s interests. To that I say, who cares? Immerse yourself in what you love.

You also need to have the SKILL to back that up – that might be in the form of knowledge that you’ve acquired, because you’re so interested in your passion you learn everything there is to know about it. It might be in terms of experience, because you’ve spent so many hours, days, weeks, dedicated to actually doing it. Whatever it is, it’s not just a fleeting interest – you’ve got, or are prepared to get – the credentials. What does that look like? In my case, I was spending hours and hours on forums discovering everything I could about beauty and fashion and putting it into practise with my hustles. This was all before I started my YouTube channel, where I shared my passion for those subjects. Which meant I’d put in the time!

The third piece of the puzzle is: who’s your AUDIENCE, a.k.a. your market? Does anybody else actually want to share in the thing you’re passionate about? If so, who are they? Do you want to be an influencer in order to build on what you’re already doing in your professional life, speaking to your peers in your industry and impressing people who could give you work? Are you speaking to consumers, who might order your product or hire you for your services? Or are you leveraging your tastes and personality to build a following of supporters who like what you’re about as a person, with a view to launching a business that caters to them later on? They’re all totally legitimate options, but determine what’s important to you.

Once you know who your audience is, you can allow that to guide you. For example, if you have a blog aimed at fellow online business owners, it makes no sense posting photos that shout ‘Look at me, I’m a bad B on the beach’. It’s not related to your enterprise. Or perhaps you want to make you, as a personality, your product: do you eventually want to be able to partner with big brands, appealing to as many people as possible? Or do you only want to find a small sector of people who think exactly the same way as you – to find your tribe?

And if your audience is niche, and you’re worried that what you want to do online seems a bit obscure, or not mainstream? That’s totally fine! That’s the beauty of the Internet – you might not have anyone in your town who shares your passion for say, shark movies, but you’ll definitely find them online. You don’t have to appeal to everyone: I don’t. But I would rather have 100 engaged, enthusiastic followers, than 1,000 who aren’t that interested.

Try out your grind

You might need to try out a few options when you’re finding your grind. I’m a big believer in testing the water, be that IRL or online. You might think that something is your passion and, a little while later, realise you’re done with it. For instance, you know that I used to style hair to earn money. I loved doing it, but eventually, I got to a place where I couldn’t even be bothered to do my own hair, let alone other people’s. My whole attitude was: I need a break from this. I realised that as much as I had enjoyed it in the past, styling hair wasn’t something that I wanted to do for ever or even full-time. Yes, I had the skills and even the potential audience – or customers in this case – but it wasn’t going to be the right grind for me. I’d thought it was something that I was really passionate about, but I certainly didn’t want to go on to train to be a hairdresser.

So it’s important to cast your net wide and see what sticks, and what you connect with the most. If you think you’re going to spend the next five years reviewing eyelash brands online simply because you’ve decided there’s an audience who want that content but aren’t being catered for by anyone else, it’s more than likely you’re going to be completely bored. That is unless you can bring the passion, skills and knowledge to back that up. You’ll need the willingness and enthusiasm to really explore that segment of the beauty industry, so you can become an expert – the connoisseur! – of lashes. And if you can bring all that, great! You can be the go-to girl for eyelashes – the only one whose opinion matters.

LIFE LESSON: Passion alone is just one part of the equation: find the thing you’ll be willing to grind on and dedicate every hour of the day to.

Start off as a multi-hustler

I never tell people to just quit their jobs and start a business. In the same way, I wouldn’t recommend that people with an Instagram account suddenly jack it all in to rely on their social media output as their sole source of income. If you can make that work, great, but that’s putting a huge amount of pressure on you and there’s a lot of risk attached. My approach was much more softly-softly. As I said, at the start I had no idea that my YouTube channel would become my career. At university it was a hobby, not a moneymaker. I still worked my weekend job and did hair as well. Later, I made a few career moves, and continued with YouTube on the side. It is totally OK to do more than one thing until you’re ready to go all-in on your side hustle.

WHAT’S YOUR GRIND?

Ask yourself these four questions to help you discover your grind before you start putting yourself out there:

> What could you talk about every day and not get sick of?

> What would you do, or be interested in, even if you didn’t make a penny from it?

> What are you doing or do you know about already that you could potentially share with others?

> What could you keep on doing, without it feeling like a chore?

Once you’ve figured out your grind, that’s when you can start identifying your personal goals.

In the next few chapters we’ll be exploring how you can build your influence to help you achieve those goals. We’ll be looking at the ins and outs of social media, building and owning a profile and honing your content. Ever wondered about embarking on the influencer journey, or growing a brand online? Read on …

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