Money Buys Happiness If You Know How to Spend It | Behind The Growth with Hosanna Hali

0:00Do you want to make more money? Because being great at your job can only get you so far. And again, in the world of AI, it's much easier for everyone to have the same skills.

0:08Laura Donadio: The entry barrier to building a business is much lower than we did before. In a world where everything can look the same, how do you differentiate? Ambitious people need to leave their corporate jobs and build their own thing. Do you feel like this is a new culture that we're being fed? When I was at Microsoft, my managers used to always say, we need to get your story right. What is your story before promotion? They would all go into a room, essentially. And it's whoever sells the best story. Exactly. We're still expected to have the nine to five, the side hustle, build a family and do all these things.

0:37Oh my God, it absolutely is exhausting. People will always ask me, how do you manage both? And I'm like, hey, I work all the time.

0:44Laura Donadio: Everyone's always said money doesn't buy happiness. What's your thought on that? Lies. Money buys happiness if you know how to spend it. I'm Hosanna Hali. I'm the founder of Payslip Millionaire. I want to help women build big careers and rich lives. And this is Behind the Growth.

1:01Laura Donadio: super happy to have you i'm happy to be here we always start by asking our guests to introduce themselves and let us know what they're known for so i'll let you go okay that's a really interesting question so hi everyone i'm hosanna halley and what am i known for i would probably say that i'm known for being the girl who talks about tech um so full-time in my nine to five i am a solutions consultant um so i've worked at some of the largest tech companies in the world including Microsoft and Zscaler and now I'm another tech company and as part of that I funded a platform called the Tech Corner that's probably where most people will know me which was all about helping women start a career in tech and because there's a lot of conversations about women in tech online but there's hardly any women in tech in reality it's a very small number something like three percent and then when you look at women of color it's even less and so that was what my platform was about for about five years kind of giving advice tips demystifying attending events um partnering with companies on like their tech roles and then recently um I've kind of pivoted away from just talking about tech because I've grown my audience has grown you know my career I'm not kind of like in the starting point of my career anymore um and my audience I think are are further along with me right they're five years six years in so now I am focused more on building around money and growth of businesses, career opportunities, and I'm scaling a platform called Paceslip Millionaire.

2:29Laura Donadio: Obviously, build your career in tech, which is already an incredible accomplishment. But on top of that, you've built two businesses. Were you always entrepreneurial? Is that something that you always had the itch for? Or is that something that came later in life? Absolutely not at all. I've never been entrepreneurial at all. I always had the view that I would kind of just climb the corporate ladder that was always what I would be thinking you know I was like I'll be a an IC an individual contributor for a couple of years move on to manager director and hopefully one day I plan to be kind of like a VP or going to like go to market that area of kind of the business I'm saying no not at all and then one day and I think it's kind of COVID and I think COVID did it for everyone a lot of people yeah I was like I'm at home all the time you know before you'd be you know going to the gym you'd go to work you'd have work events and then all of a sudden you had all this extra time and I think a lot of ambitious people were like well what do I do with that time I've kind of got to think of something to do and then that's kind of where it all started I don't know if I was the same for you but I think COVID like really stopped me in my tracks I think I was like swept up in like how busy life was and then for me it stopped overnight because I came back from a work trip and I was traveling a lot for work at the time and I went straight into lockdown and I was like whoa what do I do with yeah as you said all this time and I think it also makes you think about do you like where you are in your life do you like what you're doing do you actually enjoy work and then I think it's like it sparks all these questions that make you rethink what you're doing right yeah absolutely I completely agree I was like what am I going to do if work doesn't work out yeah and we were all seeing it right like there's a bunch of layoffs like the tech industry has completely changed well all industries right yeah um so it's like yeah let's think of something else and yeah how much have you seen your industry change and i'm probably gonna ask from like two different perspectives because i hate the fact that there's not enough women in the tech space but i'm hoping this is something that is changing um from sort of like the women proportion of it but also and i'm so sorry i'm sure many people ask you this but how much ai has impacted what you do yeah no massively both both on both sides I think with the women perspective the great thing is that a lot more women know about the tech industry like a lot more and a lot more women know about different roles so when I first kind of started my path to tech um so I did computing at university um for my second degree and I was like okay I'm gonna be a software engineer right like that's that's it that's that's what you do when you work in tech did you always want to do that no I just thought I have a technical degree so software engineering is what people with technical degrees do okay um and then I went into I went to a career fair and I was like it's funny I was like these people are not like me it wasn't even about the job I was just like I looked around I was like these people are not like me like they're not like me they don't dress like me they don't sound like me they don't look like me I don't think software engineering is actually going to be for me um and then that's how I ended up in software sales I started looking for other tech related stuff that wasn't yeah to do with software engineering and then I got lucky and um applied for the role and managed to get it.

5:37But now a lot of more women kind of know that there's other roles, which is amazing. But the issue with tech and the tech industry and generally the skills gap with tech is that it has to start very young for it to make a generational change. And we're not there yet. And I think after COVID, there was actually data to show that less girls were taking computer science. And that was the issue. It's like, it has to start at a very young age to impact the long term because the perception of the tech industry for a lot of young girls is not where it needs to be. And so they don't pick a technical degree and therefore it's harder to kind of get the girls in later on.

6:14Laura Donadio: And convince them to like even look at these careers. Exactly. Yeah, that makes sense. It is something that I would have thought the same as sort of that prerequisite idea that it's very like male dominated and then it's quite intimidating as well, isn't it? For a woman to think, oh, well, do I want to get there if I'm going to be the only one? Exactly. And most likely you are. you know most likely you are so it's something to kind of like try to prepare yourself for but how are you going to say that to someone who's in like year nine right like you're thinking about your a-levels you want to be with your friends you don't want to sit in a room um with just boys on computers and it's already really overwhelming to have to decide what you're going to do with your life to then on top of it have to put yourself through not being sure that you're going to like it or feel comfortable or like that's a lot of additional pressure And then from the AI perspective, yeah, it's made a huge change.

7:02It's made a huge change. Like a lot of people will say, you know, it's just a fad or it'll go. And it definitely won't go. Yeah, you still get people like that. You still get people who are like, oh, this AI thing will pass. And I'm like, it won't pass. No, it won't. It won't pass. I'm telling you, like, you know, the CEO of BlackBerry said the same thing about like iPhones and look at him now. He's not, you know, like it's not going anywhere. and I think people do have to pick up the skill of leveraging it you know figure out how it's going to help you to do your job do I think it's going to take over every single role no I think it will change the roles it'll bring new ones but I think there's some work that you know the governments and the higher ups have to do to kind of support everyone on that change as well.

7:46Laura Donadio: I agree I am one of the brands that I work with has a AI championing program where they take some of the grads and actually put them through like AI courses. And I thought that's actually super clever. Like how great to make sure that your young resources are learning more into the space and becoming more efficient at their job. I actually thought that was brilliant. I was like, go corporate, you know, like, great initiative, not another pizza party because, you know, we didn't hit the target this year. It's actually something helpful. I was like, wow, okay, cool. We'll take this. Exactly. So you still work full time.

8:19Laura Donadio: Has any part of you ever been tempted by leaving your big corporate job or is that something that you actually want to hang on to because you still want to climb the corporate ladder? Yeah absolutely so I actually took a year out of corporate last year yeah I took a year out I had just been had a very good year in my corporate job and a very good year you know with the business so I was like you know there's not a better time to do it now I'm kind of you know I'm childless I've got kind of a little bit more freedom so I can kind of try this these out and in my year to be honest I think I didn't spend enough time really focusing on growing the business I just wanted to go on holidays I was like let me go on holiday I don't think we can blame you exactly I really I think I really just needed the rest um so when I kind of wanted that year finished I came back into corporate and I was like yeah I'm going to really focus on both things now like I really need to um continue kind of growing my career and then also kind of looking at growing the platform um and then yeah long term Absolutely.

9:18If I think, you know, with what I'm building right now, I think there is an opportunity for the future for me to kind of look at. Certainly soft retiring, but I'm not sure if it'll be completely leave corporate or consult or. Yeah, I'm not sure what that will look like. Or again, take take a couple years off, you know, relax in a couple of years. But I still have a lot of work to do to get there.

9:43Laura Donadio: very fair I also feel like it's probably a slightly different perspective on it when you take just one year off because I think if you want if you take one year off like you just want to enjoy the most of it whereas I think you know for example when I quit it was almost like well I need to figure out what I'm doing next so you kind of like jump straight into something else rather than actually taking that much time to like relax and I forced myself on a three-week holiday when I quit and that was the first time in my whole career that I didn't have a work phone didn't have work emails to read nothing and it was really weird because I realized that I switched every single jobs to like the weekend or like to the next day and I really never had that break and never say I feel so lost it was I was almost having like not panic attacks but little mini ones I would sit on my sofa and it'd be like 2 p.m and I'll be like I need to work and I'm like No, no, there's no work.

10:37Laura Donadio: There's no work. There's no teams, relax. There's no teams. I was haunted by the team's music, you know, when your laptop rings. Oh my God, like forever, this music, I'm like, extreme anxiety straight away. I get it. Do you feel, because I feel like I've seen a huge change of a lot more people, probably more, maybe more in marketing than in tech, but like quit their nine to five and, you know, becoming consultant freelancers, entrepreneurs. do you feel like this is a new culture that we're being fed that you know ambitious people need to leave their corporate jobs and build their own thing i think this is something that's been around for a very long time actually i think we're just seeing it more on social media i think it's always been the idea of real success is your own business not really the nine to five which which makes sense right because um for the most part for most people the nine to five it can be quite limiting in regards to as far as you can go right like you can maybe only become a manager director or something like that but you know with an entrepreneurial company with an organization that's your own you know the world's yeah the world's your oyster you can you can take it as far as you want so I think that's been actually a push that we've seen over the years quite a lot I think now though yeah I think we're seeing more on the side of like the marketing girls open up their stuff and kind of really leading the way and I think it's fantastic because well if not I honestly think even though the world is crazy right now don't get me wrong I'm absolutely in agreement with that I think there's never actually been a better time to try to build something of your own whether it's something that's worth one billion pounds one day or if it's just something that makes you 200 pounds extra a week yeah you know the opportunity to learn a skill has never been easier opportunity to network has never been easier the entry barrier to building a business is much lower than we did before um so yeah I think there is I wouldn't say there's more culture around it but i think we're seeing it more because people are posting about it that's so true and do you know what i think like i i've kind of been able at least from my perspective to identify why a lot of us are you know quitting and because i've always been one you know like very similar to you i never thought i'd have my own business and i've been very vocal about this over the years i never believed i would have my own business and i'm here today with two so you know we live and we learn yeah we eat our own words and we take it back but from my perspective I always saw myself like you know climbing that corporate ladder getting to a c-suite role and you know working for a big corporate business that was always my ambition like you know the big shiny career and I think something that I've seen firsthand is that because my career started in celebrity endorsements PR and kind of like sort of the evolution of social media as I was growing older I never saw a CMO or a CBO come from an influence and marketing background because it didn't really happen yet and I think the more I was working the more I was seeing these people from like you know the more like technical side of marketing or the more like old school channels and marketing becoming those like senior people I was like wait am I just too early in the industry am I not going to get a chance because influencer and social is still like something that is not necessarily identified as performance or transferable skills or you know giving you the same sort of background in marketing that other channel necessarily would.

13:57Laura Donadio: And I thought maybe I need to just take a step back and like see what else is out there. And then I think that ended up taking me on a completely different path, which I'm loving. So, you know, no regret. I love it. Yeah. I think marketing is being rebranded completely. And I'm sure you've seen the content around it, right? Like obviously, so I work for a company that uses AI heavily and we kind of sit in all the AI spaces that you can think of um so I have a lot of connections with people who work at those companies like the frontier AR companies and now it's like it's not just marketing it's marketing engineer or go to market this or that like the names are changing like there's a whole rebrand but we run with growth as well like growth is everywhere which I'm very happy I called my business growth but yeah it's but it's just the title when I met someone the other day I do growth that um I think it was open AI or Anthropic I was like what does what does that mean I had to ask what does that mean is that marketing then or um so yeah sometimes it's sales as well it's a mix but it's marketing which is what a lot of people have already been doing for years um and I think like you said it is it's getting a a boost and a growth because of social media but I also think because of AI yeah in the in a world where everything can look the same how do you differentiate and that's like the biggest question I work with a lot of organizations as part of my role around differentiation how do we look different if we are all using the same systems to build our platforms to build our brands there's never need there's never been a better time to kind of understand what marketing looks like and how to position your brand kind of differently yeah absolutely well I'm gonna put you on the spot sell me your businesses oh okay wow show me your your marketing strategy how do we position them oh my goodness okay so I'm gonna talk about um payslip millionaire um as kind of the main one because that's the one I'm focused on at the moment um but essentially it's all about kind of supporting women in women again someone's gonna people are gonna be like do you only support women I'm like yes unfortunately sorry guys I do get it like I feel like we've had it really tough for a lot of years I feel like we deserve it right and it's all about so yeah payslip millionaire is all about supporting women to build wealth um essentially outside of their nine to five um so there's been a huge push like you said before around kind of like either climbing the corporate ladder or kind of being an entrepreneur so you kind of had to go one way or the other but i think what we're finding is is that climbing the corporate ladder isn't that secure as it used to be right like and it's not the the shiny thing that we that we used to think it was right well cost of living has changed like you know properties it's not such a great investment anymore like a lot of things have like really changed changed right like you used to be able to like like have an entire family and look after them on like 30 000 pounds a year literally buy a house you know you have a stay-at-home wife send some kids to school on that salary and that that really doesn't exist anymore and then on the entrepreneurial side i think because it's never been easier to have a business there are so many more businesses on the market so many people opening things um and i think we've always been kind of like you've got to be one way or another but what we found now because of social media people are like having you know evening jobs people are doing things over the weekend people are building things people are scaling things after the nine to five you know the whole five to nine thing yeah absolutely so it's really all about that's what pace limit is all about so how can we support you in understanding what that could look like for you whether you're making like i said 200 pounds extra a week or you want to go on to kind of scale something that you'll eventually maybe have options with it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to quit your job and suddenly become an entrepreneur it just means that you know I am kind of um bringing forward potentially that retirement um age or maybe just building new skills opening a network and even within your corporate job it's kind of if you are staying how do you kind of expand that brand out to kind of beyond the four walls of your job titles who do you speak to like which networks you build so kind of supporting women in that really just getting power in their wealth and finding new ways of growing that pot essentially.

18:06Laura Donadio: I love this I have so many follow-up questions it might be like a slightly controversial opinion but I feel like because I'm right in the middle of it I feel like it particularly hits home but I feel like with women empowerment we've found new ways of adding pressure on women because you know ultimately women are the only part of the relationship they're able to bring a family to life, for example. But at the same time, we're still expected to have the nine to five, then have the side hustle, then build a family, then sustain the home and do all these things. At what point do you find that this pressure just becomes exhausting and that, you know, it's just building almost this hyper-independence as well at the same time?

18:48Oh my God, it absolutely is exhausting. You know, like people will always ask me, like, how do you manage both? And I'm like, hey, I work all the time. I work all the time that that is kind of the reality of it I have this belief and I don't know if anyone agrees like in life I feel like you can only either have fun or be healthy or you can have fun or make money or you can be well you can't have all three you have to pick and right now I feel like I'm having fun and pursuing money yeah you know the healthy bit I need to kind of like be working you know like the gym and the sleep and you know really kind of like upkeeping yourself it's really difficult it's really tough to balance the routine of everything at the same

19:28Laura Donadio: time and I find that there's always something that has to give and what I've been working on is to find everything at like a six seven and then having like different parts that go higher but nothing dropping below all the way to the bottom right exactly and so it's like really trying to like maintain that balance but at the same time working on like the ambition of different things at the same time and that's really tough I think it's really tough and what you said about women like the expectation for women it is so much but I think that's where that lever for some things are dropping that's why I think the birth rates are dropping absolutely because people can't you can't be doing it all I can't do everything I can't work and work and work and then also have kids and then you know I'm sure like the rates of marriage have dropped as well like all these things are changing and women are redefining what wealth and their lifestyle essentially looks like and I think you can have everything but you can't have it all at the same time no it's just not not possible at all even though back in the day that's what everyone said they were like oh women can have it all we we really grew up well I'm a millennial so I grew up in the the girl boss era yes and now it's kind of like girl boss yes but not in the same hustle way and then I also think do we really have a choice um in by um on whether or not we pursue more because like what else are we supposed to do like look at the economy and look at the options that we have but what frustrates me is that there is money yeah yeah absolutely money is there plenty of it as well it's just like we now have to figure out a way to kind of pull it in our direction without burning out which it is difficult absolutely so speaking of money everyone's always said money doesn't buy happiness what's your thought on that lies money buys happiness if you know how to spend it I think that's that is the the core thing I think people's idea of happiness looks different absolutely that's what it is there's a lot of arguments whether or not you should buy designer bags or yeah you know go on really expensive holidays or spend that money on this shoe but at the end of the day if it truly makes you happy then what can we say that's your idea of happiness and happiness and and contentment i think money pursuing money is difficult so i think that can bring you um some unhappiness and it's you know it's hard but i think actually having money is nice i think people always associate money to like very materialistic things where like people don't think about like the simplicity of life that money can buy you and like remove some troubles and worries that you don't necessarily need to have or like that just makes your life easier right much much easier and money gives you options money gives you options i would not have been able to take a year yeah exactly stability like your your home food freedom time options you can be with someone you cannot be with someone if you don't you can be in a job you cannot be in a job you know like like i said I wouldn't have been able to take a year off work yes and a lot of people always ask me like oh how much did you save for that and it was like I didn't I didn't save for it because I had been working on the business and you know my corporate job for long enough and then also when I was off from my corporate job I still made money from social media yeah right so that's the kind of side hustle then picked up I don't think you can call it a side hustle anymore but you know yeah Yeah, your second career.

22:52Yeah, exactly.

22:54Laura Donadio: Absolutely. I'm curious, would you rather take 250K working for someone or 100K working for yourself? Oh, that's a good one. 100K, I think, working for myself. Yeah, because with my own kind of money, I think you have more flexibility to kind of do what you want with it. Whereas I think when you've got your, it's working for someone else, you also don't have the time. If you're working for yourself, you have the time and the money, you know? and I don't think 150k which is what you'd get extra it's probably worth the time yeah yeah I'm quickly going to interrupt this episode to remind you to please hit subscribe if you're listening on YouTube and for those listening on Apple or Spotify to not forget to hit the follow button it only take a second it's free but it will mean the world to us what is the biggest financial mistake you think ambitious people make oh and I'm sure everyone is going to say the same thing is that they start spending money once they start making it right like your lifestyle creep is the number one I think mistake and you know we see it all in the big celebrities you know you see someone who's like super famous and then 10 years later they're like I'm completely bankrupt I don't have anything they have like really big debt yeah and it's difficult I think it's a it's a balance because I think once you start earning more yeah you know you should be able to enjoy that money but I think it's thinking about how you can enjoy it for the long term so it's like if you earn more can you get something that's gonna make you happy longer like can you improve your living conditions or you know can you put money in your pension and thinking about future youth I've definitely been super tempted to like spend it as soon as it hits my bank account so I'm not gonna sit here and be oh I have on the moral high ground I have in the past yeah with like you building your audience and you know advising and helping all these women navigate um you know careers ambition money um and everything around that do you ever feel like there's a piece of advice that you give that you struggle to follow yourself oh yes I think I always I always give women advice around like thinking of themselves and putting themselves first and like you know you have to rest and you know you're gonna burn out and stuff like that yes I struggle to follow it myself like I joke with my husband like one day you know I'm gonna be a stay-at-home wife and he's like you you will you would never sit still for long enough to even you know consider it literally it's like how would you even stop like you would never ever say don't say that um so that's probably the one that I struggle with the most for sure how did you get into social media and building your personal brand where did that stem from yeah so when I started um on Microsoft because because it's of course like a big company they used to kind of um do lots of panels and kind of support they do workshops and you know talk to local schools about you know girls coming into tech and stuff like that so they were really great with those initiatives um and I've always kind of been doing things around like um advancement of women even when I was in um in sixth form and stuff I did some competitions and things like that um so when they were doing it I was like sign me up sign me up so they basically used to push me out to these schools like to these universities Yeah, of course.

26:07Laura Donadio: A woman in touch. Yeah, literally. They were like, off you go, mate. Go off and have fun. It was amazing. I managed to bring like year eight girls from my old secondary school into the Microsoft offices. Like it was just brilliant. Yeah, it was really the best day. One of the girls was like, the Microsoft office is better than the Love Island Villa. And I was like, wow. High praise. High praise. But that's kind of how it started. When I started doing these things, I would post about them on LinkedIn. not really regularly but regularly enough and I realized and when I was sitting on those panels and going to those like workshops people would ask me the same questions again and again and again and I was like oh I need to figure out a way to um speak to people more people yeah more people get it out there because I'm tired of kind of speaking to people every time they connect with me on LinkedIn they ask me the same question so it started off really as I was going to write a blog I was I'm gonna write a blog and really in 2020 there wasn't that many um education content creators on Instagram and stuff maybe YouTube but not as much so that's kind of where I started very niche topic at that point in time yeah for sure yes especially kind of the tech space yeah um so you know some amazing people who already do an education like Ali Abdaal and things like that were you know way ahead but yeah so that's kind of how I started I was I'm just gonna try and reach more people um and then yeah I posted or I started posting on Instagram and I said to my sister I was I don't think this is working you know I was like this isn't working there's people that people don't care and then I remember one day kind of logging into Instagram and realizing that I had 28 followers and I was like that is a room of people there's people here now listening I was like 28 I've got followers oh my god um and then from then just started posting and then I kind of started learning about because you'd always heard about personal brand in the corporate space but yeah how how do you build that beyond kind of the walls of your work and that was through through social media really do you feel like you've seen a huge shift recently of like people that now almost become louder through their personal brand than letting their work shine through if that makes sense oh yeah absolutely Emma Emma Green was just talking about this so yeah no you know I understand what she's saying I think in this day and age it's easy to build a personal brand or at least it's easier to build a personal brand online right like you can really sit at home you know learn as much as you can about something in a few hours post about it enough and that becomes your brand essentially right whereas like I think in the corporate world I can't go to work tomorrow and say oh guys I'm an expert in marketing they're gonna be like no you're not right like you're an expert in software sales that is your your element that is your brand that is your niche um so I think yeah it's very easy to be very loud on social media however on the flip side I do think that um the young generation is right like they don't have an option they have to do that you have to be visible online now you have to shout as loud as possible because you're competing with thousands of people not only for your job um for brand deals for businesses um so yeah I think I think it's inevitable that it was going to be like this what would you tell someone that is great at their job but hates posting online or pushing themselves online I would say do you want to make more money do you want to make more money because uh typically you know being great at your job can only get you so far there are plenty of people who are great at their jobs and again in the world of ai it's much easier for everyone to have the same skills yeah right like i can be great at a job today you can be great at that job give you enough time with claw door um open ai whatever chat you could probably also get there in enough time um but now what differentiates people is the brand that they've got around them how are they remembered um so i would say if you want to grow your career and make more money you kind of don't have much of a choice to go that route apart from building it doesn't have to be online and i think that's what people don't realize you don't have to build a personal brand on instagram or tiktok or even linkedin there are people that i know they're not on linkedin yeah they make a killing but what they do do is go to networking events they host things they speak to people um so i think that's really important if you want to get to the top of your career i've always called it when i worked i worked corporate size personal pr within a business it's like you know shouting about what you do because there will always be people that take credit for your work or you know and I've always um said to to my teams um back to when I was managing big divisions it's like shout to your leadership team about you know the things that you're doing the projects milestones you're hitting the results you're generating make sure that people know what you're doing as an individual yeah and if you can also shout about your team below you then even better yeah but in a way that doesn't necessarily feel always like self-promotional and you know what's wrong with self-promotion I think that's the thing yeah I think especially in the UK I think people just feel like oh you know and I understand as a Brit myself but when I speak to Americans I go to America quite a bit for work they are the kings of self-promotion and then they have absolutely no shame and everyone knows the game everyone's like yeah we all have to do it we all have to about our achievements um but i understand here in the uk it's a little bit it's it's painful for us but you have to try i think you're right and it really is a cultural thing because like you're so right like the american culture is like completely different like the work relationships are just like next level is you know and like don't beat around the bush like it's like straight to the point like i find it quite refreshing in loads of aspects it's so different like i was at a wedding on thursday and someone was there they were interested in coming to the company that that i am at and yeah every time i went past him he was like we've got to change up we've got to um exchange details we've got to exchange detail like he was not ashamed about the fact that he was like no i need to like i need to get into this company i was like yeah fair enough that is one that you know like you're right why not do the self-promotion that what is wrong with that like if you've achieved great things like shout about them be proud of them speaking of that what's something that women are told when navigating their career that you think is fundamentally wrong I think people might not say it out loud but they imply that if you just work hard enough you'll get rewarded and I think a lot of women have that kind of very risk adverse attitude to their careers it's like if I just stay long enough if I just do this if I just follow this manager then I'm sure you know the reward will come if I work hard enough it's just not true like I'd agree you you can be the hardest working person and absolutely not be the most successful because you're again you're not shouting hard enough right like if I'm a manager my job is to promote the people around me right and who am I more likely to promote the person who's bugging me about it every single time I meet them and that's what for sure the people that are in your face all the time about it all the time and that's what men do like when i was at microsoft my manager used to always say we need to get your story right like what is your story before promotion and that's what she used to say because they would all go into a room essentially and it's whoever sells the best story exactly is whoever sells their candidates yeah yeah whoever sells literally comes in like you're a model in a cast of like a tv show or something whoever sells the best person and i think that's the thing a lot of women um again shy away from that so then for therefore or end up kind of like working really, really hard and then being disappointed that they didn't get it, which is fair enough, right?

33:54Like it shouldn't be you relying on confidence and networking, your work should speak for itself, but it absolutely doesn't.

34:00Laura Donadio: Well, we always talk about the confidence of a middle-aged white man, right? Absolutely, everyone's got to get it. Sorry, I think it's true. I mean, I think we will always believe that our work will shine for itself and no, you have to push a little bit. You have to push and I think you have to push, um yeah from the beginning at every angle and you you can't let up and I think that's what women do they they kind of think they're bothering people I'm nagging or if I speak to a manager about this again but actually if you were like I want to get promoted I want to get promoted I'd be very close about it I want to get promoted literally shout about it yeah and like show what you've done to like deserve it obviously but yeah definitely going back to women um you know the financial independence that is sort of like being pushed a lot more on us I know you're married so it might not be that relevant to you you might not relate to this but do you feel like that makes it harder for women to then build a relationship because they're forced this narrative of like you have to like you know be your own person and be able to like sustain yourself financially whereas we know like women back in the days were not really fed this narrative yeah yeah it's so interesting because I actually do really think there's two narratives at play at the moment yeah So you kind of have the soft life, marry rich, he's going to kind of save you.

35:16My man is my financial plan, people. And then you actually have the other women who are going the other way, like, no, girls, come on, we need to make money. We need to have our own independence. We need to do our own thing. And I think there are difficulties in both because the independence route is the right route, right? Like you should attempt to have your own money for financial security, even if you are, you know, like a stay-at-home mom or stay-at-home wife and you're not necessarily kind of making money outside of the home, even though you are working. I think there is difficulty in that because the way that you're perceived as an ambitious, successful woman, I think can be intimidating to some men.

35:53So I think that's an issue, right? And I think women are really raising the bar. And I'm not joking, like the women around me, my God, like they are outstanding. Like running multiple businesses, you know, incredible mums, like, you know, best, the best sisters, the best daughters. They're just like doing everything. So then when they go out to look for someone, it's kind of like, well, where do you fit in in all of that? So that can be, that can be really difficult. And I know, of course, the other side is just financial security. that's you know we've we've all seen it it's it's quite scary to to rely on anyone just um for your

36:32Laura Donadio: financials you just never know what's going to happen in the long run and yeah and that's the and for me that that narrative I'm just like we have already case studies you know it's not nothing new and for me growing up as an African girl like my aunts and mums and stuff like that they were the OGs at this thing I like you know your husband kind of looks after you financially um my mum is very financially savvy actually she's a great example of you know growing up in a certain culture but actually um being able to build up your finances but a lot of women just aren't it's just scary very scary if we took away the drop titles the money the online recognition what would still make you feel successful or impact impact yeah yeah impact that I've had yeah any impact that I've had on you know someone's life and supported them in the way that's what makes me you know feel really that's what actually I think makes me feel successful because I do find sometimes where I'm like okay I could do this thing and it could make me a lot of money but then I'm like it's not really like it doesn't give me that warm feeling obviously the money would be great but then so I don't end up pursuing it as much as I could um so yeah I think impact would be i think that goes back to your answer and i completely agree and relate to that but your answer about like making a certain type of money working for someone or making less money working for yourself is because you feel like you're making an impact by working for yourself there'll be businesses where you can make an impact as well but it's never never the same it's never the same no i agree the least glamorous part of growth in one word oh invoices fair enough you gotta chase and chase and chase you know some people think oh well you know I'm gonna be growing and I'm gonna get all the even if you get brand deals yeah it's like a three month waiting period for those for those invoices so yeah but that I had a client this year pay me five months late literally like literally I had a business go into administration and not get paid at all yeah that's after the work was completed I know some of my friends when I launched my business were like be careful cash flow is an important one and i am so grateful for that piece of advice because when i look back i knew that i could afford for that invoice to not be paid straight away because i knew i was you know cash flow positive but it's scary it's scary and i've seen it having worked in influencer marketing my whole career like i've been on both sides of it and it's so painful especially when even when you work at a brand you're not in charge of the finance department you know and like you would chase internally and you would raise it to like whoever you can but ultimately you're not the person pressing the button to make it you know to make the payment go scary it is scary because you also know that the people on the other side are waiting to be paid and it's a big part of their life and it's just it feels very unfair there's not a lot that i miss working corporate side but i have said the fact of knowing that every month on the same day there's a beautiful little sum of money that lands into my account it's amazing that that was really nice and that you didn't owe money to the tax people exactly after that after that after that if you could go back and make one decision differently what would it be oh I would start my platform sooner that's definitely I would start just doing something for myself much sooner than I did uh obviously like we talked about COVID giving you more time and stuff but yeah I just didn't consider it before and I feel like I could have been a lot further ahead had I had I done that but do you feel like you almost needed covet to happen to like push you into that space yeah absolutely i had no ideas about building something on your own i didn't have anything so none of us had the time to even stop and think about it yeah exactly what's something that your parents were annoyingly right about oh my mom always says about like if you give she's really big on like giving yeah she's always like if you give it'll come back to you and um as i've gotten older i've been like yeah she was actually right um and and that doesn't have to be money it can be time no it can be opportunities um and i think opportunities are actually probably the biggest one like if you give someone an opportunity um you pay it forward or whatever it often gets um back to you uh more often and also they were right about kind of like being careful with your money which my parents did also teach me yeah i feel like mine tried but it just didn't land really my mom was always oh we're still trying all of these shopping bags always shopping shopping and back then I was like mom but now I'm like yeah she was right it's all polyester tat anyway like why am I spending you know like spending like so much money on it I hear you promise I still do it but you know you've got to do it what is the hill you're willing to die on oh god this is a good one a hill that I'm willing to die on I guess for me is that women have the capacity to do a lot and if we're given the right support um and the right resources that's something that I'm like really really passionate about women are amazing I guess yeah I mean preach yeah exactly I would agree on that one um what is something you think you're still trying to prove and to whom I think I'm still then this is very honest I think I'm still trying to prove to people and even myself that my business isn't really a business if you get what I mean like I'm still trying well no I'm trying to prove to people that it is and to prove to myself that it is I'm kind of like when people talk to me about it and they're like oh you know you do this thing and still I'm like oh it's just this thing that I'm doing and so I know like you're building a business I'm building revenue you know founder yeah literally I've had a team I've had a team of people to support me you know what else is it you know isn't it crazy how much time it takes for your brain to like associate to the idea and actually feel not cringe when you say it out loud like I'm still navigating it it's difficult and I think it's hard of like because a lot of it has been related to content and still is I think you know influencing has not been considered a business yeah of course you know for apart from like about a year ago people were just oh you know you just make those videos you know online and then now we're kind of seeing people make real revenue that people are like okay this is actually yeah and for the longest part of my career people were coming to me saying oh yeah you you pay people to post pretty pictures cool eye roll i'm like yeah exactly that but you should show them my eyes i pick one and then i send them money yeah exactly yeah and and i think it is that thing where it's like anything a lot of things that are like related to women things that women enjoy are not taken as seriously you know like social media absolutely pop culture or things like that um so but now now the boys are in marketing they're all gonna yeah that's very true now that we're rebounding marketing all of a sudden everyone wants in exactly what is the best thing about owning a business in one word oh i was about to say money which is really bad.

43:41Oh, honestly. Opportunity, I'll say. Opportunity is a better word for it. Yeah, I would say all the opportunities that you get from growing a business, all the people that you meet, it's amazing. And the things that you can do, events like doing this podcast, you know, it's really cool.

43:56Laura Donadio: What's something that you believe about success that you think most people would disagree on? You know, when people say, oh, there's no such thing as overnight success, I would actually disagree with that in this day and age. Yeah, I think this day and age, you can absolutely be literally an overnight success um not in maybe like it might not last 10 years it might not last 15 years but I think these days you put enough planning behind you you've got enough resources you press push you can go from making nothing to making a heck of a lot of money um so yeah can I challenge you on this go ahead do you think it is an overnight success or do you think is a really long stint of hard work that is suddenly paying off?

44:41I think it really depends on the person. I think, yes, for the most part, some people have loads of work in the background and they've done it and they've thought about it. But we are seeing literally like 19-year-olds who are launching our apps. I think like the AI calculator thing, the food one, I don't know, I can't remember the name of it. it's an app that you take a picture of your food and it calculates your app the guy who launched is literally like 19 and he it was like worth it's worth millions he sold it i think to apple um so yes of course i'm sure he worked but it wasn't you know i've been working for 20 years yes right like you know like people say it takes 10 years i mean he would have been nine so you

45:20Laura Donadio: know it's not so it's not him it's not it's not maybe not him and i'm sure he worked hard but i think like these days the opportunity to be like literally overnight and I guess maybe success can mean different things yeah right like success in the words of money I think yeah overnight literally you could make a lot of money but maybe success um looking at it from a perspective of longevity branding a legacy not overnight right yeah that takes time no I would agree on that no and you're right I think there are definitely some exceptions today that you know it is really overnight success but I feel like most of the time when I look at, it's when I hear loads of people say like, oh, this person has become an overnight success.

46:00Laura Donadio: And I look back and I'm like, this person has been working for 10 years. You just didn't see it. You just didn't see it. And I feel like sometimes we're, I don't think you are, but like I think some people are quick to forget that there's a lot of work, even especially I think from a social media perspective, I would say more than anything, like it's like what you said about posting when you had 28 followers. It's like, you know, like that would have grown and compounded over time. Yeah. and you're now in a position where you're super successful but it would have taken times and I'm sure that there was times where you felt like about to give up or like you know that you like it was just not working but I think it's like you then turn a corner at that time right yeah absolutely and I think a lot of founders have started something before yeah and they just flopped like big flop um and now you're kind of seeing them be more successful in the thing that they're doing um so yeah I agree I agree last question how much have you seen your own definition of success change over the years oh yeah massively I think when I was in my 20s success was all about money um absolutely it was all about money titles and kind of really just like growing my career um so being at a certain state it wasn't really enough to make money in my 20s it had to come with the status as well I wouldn't have worked somewhere where I thought oh you know I'm making more money but the brand isn't behind it and I think like my resume speaks to that for the companies that I've worked at but now I'm in my 30s no way I'm like I want definitely the money still yeah but the brand doesn't have to be behind it or if it's a great company and I like it I'll work there but then also money only if it's bringing me something later down the line which often is options like options is what I want I want to have the ability to like I said take time off work if I want I'm you know a lot of people are switching careers really quickly so if I have money I can do that I can leave I can work for five years I can quit I can you know I yeah literally I can kind of make my career what I want it to be rather than this like I have to stay on this rat race for the next yeah you know 50 60 years whatever it is I'm right there with you when I started all I cared about was how great that company looked on my CV and how cool my title was and for the longest time that was like the only race I wanted was like can I get a higher title can I work in a cooler business yeah can I work in a business where I feel proud to like tell my friends that yeah that I work there and then people would look at me like wow yeah she works there yeah that was such a high like it makes me want to like slap myself so bad and now I look back and I'm like I've also had like the delusion of working for companies where you know I thought they were really great businesses and then joining and being so disappointed with it you know yeah and it just kind of like puts everything into perspective when you realize actually if you don't like what you do day to day if you don't feel like you're making an impact back to what you said like the money is almost like not worth it no absolutely and I think as well what you realize is that especially for me from a corporate side the bigger companies aren't really the ones that are paying the most.

49:04Laura Donadio: No, absolutely not. You know, it's like these, it's a big misconception. Yeah, like when I left my first big company, literally like doubled my salary overnight because I was going to a smaller company, but the smaller companies are growing faster. So therefore, they want to compete as well. They want to take people and stuff like that. So bigger companies make money because you keep the money. They keep the money to themselves. They keep the money to themselves. That was my big learning as well. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a ceiling to how much big companies pay big money. Exactly. Agreed.

49:34Laura Donadio: Well, thank you so much. We started the podcast by asking you who you are. And we always finish it by asking you, what do you want to be known for? I guess in the future, I want to be known for someone who has made an impact in women's lives. And I think that is at the core of kind of what I do. Everything to do kind of with women advancement and, you know, supporting women, ensuring women are in a better space. That's kind of my passion.

50:05Americans