Miann Scanlan Shares Her Best Fashion Career Advice
If it doesn’t feel right, don’t do it. Your instincts will always lead you in the right direction. Thinking about signing on with a new business partner but something feels off? That’s the women’s intuition we’ve been blessed with telling you not to go ahead. To strengthen your intuition, practice meditation and mindful decision making.
It’s commonly understood that success comes to those who make careers their number one priority. I once made the mistake of throwing everything I had into my job—my health wasn’t even an afterthought. I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t exercising or eating right, and I wasn’t happy—which translated into my work. To produce the best work, you need to have a clear head and a healthy body, so make looking after yourself your number one priority and the success will follow.
Whether you know it or not, you are a walking, talking brand. Every message you emit into the digital and professional world, needs to reflect your brand qualities. Everything from how you communicate in email, to how you dress, to the clients you work with and your business ethics, all inherently define who you are. So every minute of the day keep thinking to yourself “what message does this send out?” It can stop you short from firing off a rude email and tarnishing your brand and from working with a client that doesn’t reflect your values.
During my very first university lecture, I realised I wasn’t going to learn what I wanted to sitting in that room. After that, I emailed every magazine in town and landed my first internship—and had one consistently for the four years I studied. The moment I graduated, I was the successful applicant from 250 resumes to land my first PR job. It taught me to be creative in your persistence. Want to pick someone’s brain? Offer to take them to lunch. Be the active role in chasing your dreams.
Making the leap from full time to freelance is terrifying, but the fear you feel is an indicator that the risk will be worth the reward. If you hate your job, quit. If you hate your industry, jump to a new one. If your career seems to be on a straight and narrow path, don’t be afraid to completely shake it up.
Hard work doesn’t have to equate to long hours. My favourite business author Tim Ferris explains it all in his book The 4 Hour Work Week, where the name of the game is to get the maximum return from the minimal amount of hours. Maybe you work better if you only check your emails three times a day so you can focus on your projects. Create digital products for automated revenue streams, have a few big clients in place of lots of small ones.
Having clients in different time zones across the world means I have to be a highly effective communicator, because generally there are only two hours in my day when my clients are in their offices. It’s taught me to problem solve autonomously and to present my client with a solution to a problem, rather than just the problem itself, so they can quickly sign off on my suggestion. It saves on precious email time and minimises stress.
