The Love Letters - To My 21 Year Old Self by Marielle Legair
“Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it - Maya Angelou
As I reflect on my teenage years there are a lot of big life lessons, I wished I knew back then. It was Steve Jobs who said we can only connect the dots looking backwards. I couldn’t agree more!
Here are a few life lessons I wish I knew as a 21 year old:
1. Be bold- Growing up in the UK, it took me a long time to realise that most people suppress who they truly are. By conforming to societal norms, the ‘stiff upper lip’ thing will leave you too afraid to speak up and say what you really want. What you really want to do with your life, the job or business you really want and too afraid to ask for the money you really feel you deserve to make. In my early twenties, I spent a long time sat in my comfort zone afraid to say what I wanted then wondered why I was not making progress! One day I decided enough was enough. I quit my dull 9 to 5 job and booked a one-way ticket to Brazil to travel alone back in 2010. Friends and family thought I was crazy! I wasn’t. I just need to make a big change and to push myself past all my fears. A trip across the world seemed like the perfect way to do it! It was there that I discovered a powerful life lesson: Everything you need is within you. Too often we search outside ourselves to feel fulfillment. Two years after that I hustled my way to New York city to create a new life for myself. Since then, I’ve always chosen courage over comfort to go after what I want.
2. Network well and often - All of the opportunities you want to create will come from another person. This is why it’s important to constantly build your network to ensure you’re being given access to the best opportunities. If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room!
3. Invest in a coach or a mentor - You can’t see the frame when you’re in it. Many of us have real issues with investing in ourselves to get the support we so baldy need. We’d rather suffer alone than pay money. I know because this used to be my outlook too. It’s only when I became a business owner and went to a Lisa Nichols’ workshop that I learned that all successful people have coaches! She told me that Oprah has four coaches. I then started to invest in mentors and coaches too. The first coach I hired was a career coach while working in my corporate job. She had me do some tests to determine the career path I should take. Turns out I wasn’t made for the corporate world after all! Even though I’d spent 10 years working in corporate roles, it was only from seeing the career coach that I discovered that a heavily bureaucratic environment was not aligned to my values. Freedom is important to me and working a 9 to 5 just didn’t allow me the freedom to create a life I truly loved.
4. Work on your limiting beliefs around money - Money is important. Growing up in a traditional working class Caribbean environment I was subconsciously programmed to have a ‘lack’/scarcity mindset around money. ‘Money doesn’t grow on trees,’ was just one of the limiting stories I had been programmed to believe about money as a child. This hugely impacted my success and ability to make money as an entrepreneur early on because I had limiting beliefs around investing in myself. Now I have a much healthier relationship with money and invest it heavily into my development - all successful people do it. I’d rather pay a cleaner to clean my house than spend 4 hours doing it myself! When I can be out having fun or resting after a long, stressful week.
And finally….
5. Practice public speaking - Whether you’re in a 9-to-5 or an entrepreneur, you need to be able to influence people with your ideas. I’m a natural introvert (much to the surprise of those I tell!) this means I need to work a little harder to ‘put myself’ out there. I wished I’d known about Toastmasters, the global public speaking programme growing up. It would have helped me get more comfortable with speaking up and sharing my ideas more early on in my career. Now I’ve been through the programme, I can’t recommend it enough to anyone looking to improve their public speaking skills or do speaking engagements.
Marielle Legair is a PR and Personal Brand Strategist, International Speaker and Author of Vincentian heritage. As the founder of Women Who Influence, she helps entrepreneurs and professional women increase their visibility to get clients, paid speaking engagements and media features. Global brands such as EY, Microsoft, Red Bull, Santander and Yale University hire her to deliver transformative personal brand and LinkedIn workshops. Her work has captured global audiences' attention through top tier media channels including BBC, Bloomberg, Financial Times and Forbes. Prior to founding her company, Marielle gained over a decades’ international experience building brand reputation campaigns for CEOs and senior leaders at some of the world’s largest companies in London and New York including Deloitte, Grant Thornton and Experian. Her book, The Personal Brand Bible for Ambitious Women is available now on Amazon.