On female founders and owning your story

When I was in my twenties I had a failed career in acting. It taught me a lot about resilience – but that's a post for another day! This one is about owning our story.

The thing I loved about acting was getting to play different characters – exploring different facets of emotions in a way that felt exciting but safe because I wasn't being 'me'. I'm not saying I never experienced stage nerves, but performing wasn't an experience that made me feel particularly scared or vulnerable (no doubt because I never got to the stage where I received much attention or critique!).

But public speaking on the other hand that terrified me – and even now in mid-life it's something I find very challenging, because there's nowhere to hide, you have to be yourself and use your own voice.

Building a personal brand with confidence and joy 

I generally avoid public speaking – and by this I basically mean giving presentations for work to generally small groups. If I do have to do it, I do a lot of preparation beforehand and that gives me more confidence, even if I still don't find it easy. And I’m finding it’s a similar experience with founding my business and building my personal brand.

Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing we’ll ever do.

BRENÉ BROWN

There's something about this quote by Brené Brown (from her book The Gifts of Imperfection) that I find so powerful and inspiring, and it's so relevant to anyone building a personal brand.

We've got to own our stories. We can't be afraid to take up space, to say this is my vision, these are my values – and this is what I have to offer the world.

Female founders in the UK 

In 2023, women founded a record number of businesses in the UK (164,000) which sounds good… and there are now 1.6 million female-owned businesses in the UK, 76% more than in 2003 (1st Formations). But... men continue to outpace women when it comes to founding companies, being entrepreneurs and owning their story – with women establishing just 1 in 5 companies each year.

My mission is to support women on their personal brand journeys, through photography and content creation that fills them with confidence and joy.

We can all see the world is in a difficult place right now. There are clearly no easy answers, but one thing is pretty obvious, we need more women leaders.

From climate change to economic crises, escalating conflicts and access to healthcare – improving gender equality in all areas of public and private life is the best chance we have of tackling these challenges (UN Women).

Women leaders in public life

As the slogan goes, when she rises, we all rise. And it’s not just about having more women leaders in government – we need women leading in all walks of life – which includes more females founding businesses with purpose and passion. It doesn’t matter how big your business is, you can have an impact.

For those of you already out there building your personal brands and doing your thing, I salute you! And for those toying with the idea of starting a business – let this be the sign you were waiting for :)

I’m still in the early days of building my own personal brand – after having spent two decades working in brand, communications and marketing for non-profits. So I find myself in kind of a strange position where I have a lot of the skills, knowledge and experience needed to build a personal brand – but owning my story, and putting myself in the picture is something new, and makes me feel pretty vulnerable.

Dealing with imposter syndrome

Dealing with the old imposter syndrome is one of the biggest challenges when you start building your personal brand. I turned 50 this year and my gift to myself was to commit to leaving my part-time job by the end of this year and going all in with my personal brand photography business, which has been a side hustle for the past couple of years.

I mentioned earlier that I tend to do a lot of preparation and research for things that scare me – like public speaking or now building my business. So I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, planning and research for my business for a while now – working out exactly what I want my brand to stand for, and how I want to spend my time in business. I have a million ideas in my head of things I want to do and I know I have a lot of skills and experience to offer - but when it comes to marketing myself through social media I’m still getting used to it, I still feel a little bit silly sometimes and I’m incredibly good at procrastinating rather than posting! All this to say, if you’re nervous about having your brand photos done and creating content which is about telling your story - then I get it! And when I work with clients I am totally dedicated to making them feel comfortable and confident throughout our collaboration.

As for my own journey, I’m incredibly excited for photography and content creation to become my full time business and to take it to the next level. I don’t know that I feel 100% ready for this, but wisdom has it, if you feel ready you’ve left it too late. So my advice to you today is jump in, find your purpose and own your story.