Creative people, this one’s for you.
Founder and managing director of The Comms Department, Sydney-based Bec Brown is a powerhouse in the PR world with over 20 years of invaluable experience. She’s worked with noteworthy brands such as reality show The Voice, Amazon Prime Video, Universal Music, and represented the likes of Katy Perry, Kyle and Jackie O, and the Wiggles (just to name a few).
Now, sharing her wise and profound tips and advice, Bec, 40, has launched You’ve Got This: The Essential Career Handbook for Creative Women in hope of helping other females build their dream career in the creative industry.
Joining forces with designer Inga Campbell (also, the illustrator of the book), You’ve Got This reads like a magazine with snackable pieces of information and drawings, so you can easily dip in and out. It’s fun, refreshing and helpful. We can’t get enough of it.
We sat down with Bec to give us the low-down on knowing your passions, finding happiness at work, building your personal brand, and strategies on being successful as a creative.
What was your inspiration for You’ve Got This?
There were two main reasons: one was I was getting a lot of graduates and young professionals coming to me for career advice and I was just compiling a lot of that information and writing it anyways and then distributing it to them. I suddenly thought this probably should be turned into a book. I also had a lot of angst in my early teens and twenties when I was in the early stage of my career and then again in my late twenties when I was changing careers, and I wish somebody had handed me a book full of advice and strategies of what to do and not to do. I wrote the book that I wish I had when I was going through that part of my career.
How will You’ve Got This give us the confidence to succeed when life is so unpredictable?
What I would love to happen when people read this book is that they realise how capable, adaptable and resilient they are. It’s just understanding what some of the strategies and tools are to do that. The world will continue, and yes, we’re going through the strains of the times right now, but our grandparents before us went through wars and people have been through economic downturns before. It’s coming back to the fact we are more adaptable than we think. You just need to be able to put the strategies, tools and structures in place that put you in the best possible position.
What are these strategies and tools?
Definitely having some diversity in your skillset, but also just having an adaptable mind set. Things will happen to us over our lives. We always can’t control what happens to us, but we can control how we choose to react. The three things you can do to really set yourself up to overcome setbacks and deal with change is firstly having the ability to get over disappointment. The other one is having an exocentric view. Having a view of reaching out to your family and friends or focus on the community rather than always coming inwards and being like ‘things are terrible for me. What am I going to do with my career?’ Make it less about yourself and more about others. Lastly, have a purpose, so it’s about following a passion that’s actively pursued.
What’s the best way for someone to find their purpose?
People say you’ve got to find your passion and that will help you find your purpose. But sometimes you’re like ‘I might not have one. I’ve got things I kind of like or am interested in.’ I talk about this in the book because it’s OK you don’t have a passion, but I bet you there’s something you’re curious about and sometimes if you follow that curiosity and keep asking questions, it’ll slowly but surely lead you into this direction. There will be something that you’ll come across which will just light a fire in your belly. Was there something you did as a kid you absolutely you loved to do? There might be things you do sometimes, where time stands still, and you get into that flow state.
Where should we start to build our personal brand?
Your values will become your guiding light to every decision you make. Your personal brand is how you show up to the world. It might in your day-to-day interactions with other people, but it might also be with what you’re putting online. Then, keep going back to your values. The reason we curate this personal brand is people like to do business with those who they like. You end up attracting a crowd of people around you who hold the same values as you and when you’re working in a space where your values are aligned. That’s where the magic happens. That’s when you end up having a sustainable purpose driven career.
What is the key message readers should walk away with?
I think the title is a great indicator of what I want people to go away with. It’s that feeling of being really capable and knowing that you’ve got this. You can create an amazing career you love, can earn a great income doing it without getting yourself burnt out or anxious. You just need to know some of the strategies and tools and then you’ve absolutely got this.
Order your copy of You’ve Got This here and trust in yourself that you’re beyond capable. Plus, part of the proceeds from every book sold will be donated to two incredible charities that support women – Fitted for Work and Life Changing Experiences’ SISTER2sister.
In the meantime, follow Bec on Instagram and her work at The Comms Department.
