Attending Women in Business and celebrating worldwide achievers
Last week Merewyn and Sabrina attended Giants Women in Business event in Huddersfield, and as usual it didn’t fail to fulfil its objective.
The room was packed with 200 businesswomen in and around the Kirklees area. Amongst the participants were women who run their own business, work in businesses as well as offer to support to businesses.
The commercial team of Huddersfield Giants organise this event, recognising that a large proportion of their fan base are women, and want to bring them together and empower them further.
The day was hosted by the wonderful Kristen Jackson from the Giants and assisted by the incredible Lisa Darwin from Huddersfield Giants Community Trust.
Women in Business first speaker Rebecca Jackson, is the newly appointed Director of Huddersfield Giants – that’s not all, she is the first female & youngest member of the board appointed.
She started life in Tax Planning, however lost her training contract because she failed an exam by 1 point, twice. However, she didn’t stop there, she overcame these adversities, made positive change for future candidates, and faced her workplace bully, all whilst also experiencing the pain of death to a well-loved member of her family.
Fast forward to today, Rebecca became chartered, and appointed as director of Huddersfield Giants – a team that she has adored for many years.
A lot of work has gone into making this possible. Both in professional life and in her studies. Her story was not only inspiring, but it got us thinking about the importance of determination alongside commitment and resilience. Being confident can help you achieve whatever you want, and as Rebecca then went on to say-
“Ask yourself, what do you deserve!”
Annabel Pitcher
Next up was best selling children’s book’s author, Annabel Picker. Annabel told us how she set about life, all determined to be successful. Her way of getting there were setting goals.
She decided she was going to become a runner – even pinned a poster of Sally Gunnel on her ceiling … she thought about becoming a football player … then actor … until she finally decided to be a child author. It made sense since her mum was an English teacher and one of her favourite subjects in school was English!
After watching a film about 9/11, she couldn’t sleep, got up and started writing…. the clarity she experienced meant that she could even visualise the characters. And wrote and wrote.
However, after seeing a family photo sometime later, she realised children don’t have full image memories. Instead, they have snapshots. Which meant she changed the whole book, and how it was written.
The book took off once published, and there was a continuous bidding war for the rights in various countries around the world like UK, USA & Germany. This would normally be every author’s dream; however, she wasn’t feeling it. This kind of success didn’t make her happy. There were short lived highs of course, but her general mood & mental state had not altered for the better.
Despite theoretically achieving her dreams, she kept waiting. Waiting for the moment of realisation that she was happy. But this feeling never came.
Annabel identified a gap between her current self and ideal self, although proceeding to hide behind a fictional story she’d created – always appearing to “be the best version of herself”, although that was not the case behind closed doors.
This gave her a shield of protection from the public & a chance to “Edit out all the bits” she didn’t like, thus altering herself to suit society standards and mirror the ideal self she had imagined.
But she soon found out that this fairy tale had no happy ending.
One day, her hubby gave her some advice. And on that day, she listened.
“Just top fighting, stop trying to hide what you don’t like” he said.
Since then, her world has changed. She discovered the power of mindfulness, and the importance of living life without being judgemental. Up until that point her life had all been about judging, whether it was others or more importantly, herself.
She has now found, that meditating for 10 minutes a day has miraculous outcomes. Meditation comes with many stigmas, and no one is as surprised as her to find out it worked.
She has now given up having to create fantasies about the woman she could be. She has accepted who she is. Her current self.
The lies told about what kind of women should be successful, need to be challenged. The truth is that anyone can be successful, but success needs not to be measured by a fantasy, or an idealistic view upon what society deems as successful. Sometimes success is finding happiness within yourself and accepting who you are currently- not who you could be, but who you are right in this very moment.
Victoria began by expressing how amazed she was by events such as Women in Business and didn’t realise this community existed, but vowing to make sure she provided plenty of support in the future.
Currently appointed as CEO of global business Principle, Victoria started life in an Accountancy practice. As a receptionist, she began working as an apprentice.
Growing up on a council estate in Preston, college was never an option, never mind a discussion- so she had to focus on other things. Her apprenticeship meant she was earning £37 a week, which made her feel like she was on top of the world.
Victoria studied while working, and it was hard not going on gap years or having summers off which all her friends were doing.
Through her job she was later relocated to London, where she had the best few years a young adult can ever imagine. It was only up from there, having endless opportunities to work all around the world- even meeting a man who was sat next to her on a plane, who later became her husband.
Victoria is now CEO, managing a company of over 600 people with 23 offices based around the world & proud mum of an 18-month-old.
Principle, headquartered in Huddersfield, is a leader in ‘brand strategy, experience, design and implementation’ (Principle, n.d.), working with some of the biggest names in the world- Jeep, Rolls- Royce, and Burberry. It often amazes her how her company, located behind a Home Bargains in Huddersfield, is approached by Amazon to ask for advice.
She is a fierce independent female who is also self-indulgent, and always determined to make time for herself despite her hectic life.
Her advice is to love whatever you’re doing in the moment, living life in the moment. Appreciate moments and whatever you’re doing, regardless of it if may not feel like you’re living the dream- it is the step which you take in order to get there. She joked that-
“If you’ve made it out the house with mascara on and the kids are where they need to be, with shoes on, then you are bossing it!”.
Similarly, to Annabel, she finds happiness in her current self & chooses to focus on today, not tomorrow.
Concluding her speech, Victoria reminded us that success rarely comes from luck, or is predetermined by your upbringing. The reality is that there is a right person for every role.
Everyone should have opportunities to grow and realise their potential. And you must not give up on yourself- who knows where you will be, or who you will become? We only know today, so enjoy every second.
Finally, was Rebecca, who specialized in NLP aka neuro-linguistic programming. If you have a confused look on your face right now, not to worry- we did too! NLP is a technique used for modifying someone’s behaviours and thoughts in order to assist them in getting the results they want (Kandola, 2017).
She begins by stating that success is different for everyone & what we see is programming us to believe what success is, but does that match what we internally see as successful? Or is it an idea formulated by those around us?
Our minds have a mind of their own…literally! And as humans, we are often taken back by their capability of governing our behaviours and actions. Some of our thoughts can be described as irrational, and if we find ourselves sitting alone for too long, our brains often panic and try to fill up our minds with things to preoccupy ourselves. Sound familiar? How about thoughts such as…
“I will be happy when…when will that happen…how long until…?”
This is something completely normal. Having these thoughts is completely normal. It’s what we do with them that matters and makes all the difference. Rebecca mentions that we tend to forget about the journey or being present or in the moment.
In today’s world, we are surrounded by a vast amount of information and an abundance of insider knowledge towards various things or people. This has led to the worst kind of plague…comparison. ‘She has this…he’s achieved that…she’s my age and already done this…’.
The truth is that life is hard…for everyone! And one of the worst and most toxic ways of thinking is taking stuff personally-when it’s got nothing to do with you.
The only things we can (and should focus on) control, is ourselves. Who we are and how we choose to react. By having an awareness of how we operate and how we are feeling can have great lasting effects on our mental health and wellbeing.
Our brains are programmed to be ‘problem-fixers’, therefore feed us thoughts and solutions to problems which are sometimes inexistent. But if problems do arise, it is often due to the way we are being programmed, whether that’s by external influences such as TV shows, movies, & social media, or by comparing ourselves to those around us.
Rebecca also talked about the limiting belief- a mental state or self-perception that limits you in some way. These beliefs are frequently incorrect accusations you level against yourself and can have a variety of detrimental effects. In order to identify your limiting beliefs and breaking them, you must recognise that they’re simply just…beliefs. You must then have the strength to challenge them, think about why you’re feeling this way, or what has caused it? Are you sad because of something you watched on TV? What has programmed your brain into feeling this way? Then you must acknowledge the damaging consequences which are yet to follow e.g. feeling sad and therefore not getting out of bed and going into work, or doing your chores- things which will only make your life harder later on!
Once you have established all that, it’s time to break that belief and adapt a new one! Focusing on something new, something which will aid in improving your life. This may seem difficult at first as you may feel as though you’re no longer in your comfort zone- but over time, practising your new beliefs will become simple and an everyday occurrence.
Rebecca concluded with this amazing quote which we find crucial towards living your best life-
“You can make the change, no one else can”.
To find out more about NLP, you can check out Rebecca’s book here.
If we met at Women in Business – or other networking event – and you would like to book a networking follow up chat, you can do so here, alongside the other sessions that we offer.
References:
Kandola, A. (2017) Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP): Does it work?, Medical News Today. MediLexicon International. Available at: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320368 (Accessed: October 25, 2022).
Lockwood, R. (2022) Rebecca Lockwood, author at Rebecca Lockwood, Rebecca Lockwood. Available at: https://rebeccalockwood.org.uk/author/www-rebeccalockwood-org-uk/ (Accessed: November 8, 2022).
Pitcher, A. (2022) Annabel Pitcher. Available at: https://annabelpitcher.com/ (Accessed: November 8, 2022).
Principle (n.d.) Global brand strategy and brand implementation consultancy, Principle. Available at: https://www.principleglobal.com/ (Accessed: October 25, 2022).