In short
The Motherkind Podcast Episode Summary
Podcast Details
- Title: The Motherkind Podcast
- Hosted by: Zoe Blaskey
- Episode Title: It’s Never Too Late to Change Career — The Blueprint from the #1 Personal Brand Expert
- Episode Description: In this episode, entrepreneur and personal branding expert Amelia Sordell discusses visibility, ambition, and building a career alongside motherhood. She emphasizes that confidence often comes from taking action rather than waiting for the "perfect moment."
Key Themes and Concepts
Introduction
- The podcast marks a new chapter for Motherkind: more intentional, deeper conversations, and a focus on visibility and ambition in motherhood.
- The transition to a video-first format means episodes are also available on YouTube.
Key Takeaways from the Episode
- Personal Branding Beyond Social Media
- Personal branding encompasses behavior, values, and experiences, not just online presence.
- It's essential to take control of your narrative to improve employability and business opportunities.
- Building Confidence Through Action
- Amelia advocates for starting small career experiments to build confidence and visibility.
- Overthinking is counterproductive; taking action is more effective.
- Redefining Success
- Success should be about freedom and fulfillment over status and money.
- The idea of "just a mum" is a limiting belief; mothers possess immense capabilities.
- Juggling Motherhood and Business
- Amelia shares her personal experiences of overcoming burnout and aligning her career with her values as a mother.
- She emphasizes the importance of choosing yourself and not waiting for permission to pursue your ambitions.
- Practical Tips for Mothers
- Start building a personal brand or business while on a career break; being a mother is a valuable experience.
- Use small experiments to test ideas (e.g., workshops, side hustles) before committing fully.
- Leveraging LinkedIn
- LinkedIn should be treated as a professional networking site where personal branding is crucial.
- Profile optimization is key: have a professional photo, compelling about section, and share relevant content.
Personal Experiences Shared by Amelia Sordell
- Big Red Button Moments: Amelia describes pivotal times when she took risks, including quitting her stable job to start her own business during the pandemic.
- Learning Through Failure: She discusses the lessons learned from her first failed business and how it shaped her approach to her current ventures.
- Work-Life Integration: Amelia advises on creating boundaries between work and family life to improve productivity and mental well-being.
Conclusion
- The episode encourages mothers to embrace their identities beyond motherhood and take bold steps toward their ambitions.
- Amelia’s final takeaway is to cultivate the confidence to act because the act of doing often leads to empowerment and success.
Additional Resources
- Subscribe to Motherkind to support the community.
- Free Matrescence Cheat Sheet for clarity on personal growth post-motherhood.
- Connect with Zoe: Follow on Instagram and YouTube, and acquire Zoe’s book, *Motherkind: A New Way to Thrive in a World of Endless Expectations*.
Sponsorship
- Presented by Wild Nutrition, offering discounts on women’s supplements.
- Usbourne Books for children’s reading.
- Sponsored job credit through Indeed.
Final Thoughts The conversation highlights the importance of embracing your multifaceted identity as a mother and a professional. Taking calculated risks and believing in oneself can lead to fulfilling career paths, all while navigating the complexities of motherhood.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOIntroducing Amelia Sawdall: Personal Branding Expert
1:20 to 2:29
Get to know Amelia Sawdall and her mission to help women build influence.
“You gave birth to like an actual person.”
The Importance of Personal Branding
2:29 to 3:56
Discover why personal branding matters, especially for busy mothers.
“You're sort of known best for your expertise on personal branding.”
Overcoming the Motherhood Penalty
3:56 to 6:35
Understand how to navigate challenges and build confidence as a mother.
“It's, did you say thank you to the barista this morning when you grabbed your coffee for them?”
Big Red Button Moments: Taking Risks
6:35 to 9:07
Learn about the concept of 'big red button moments' and how to embrace change.
“It's because we don't back ourselves enough.”
Building Confidence Through Action
9:07 to 14:03
Explore how incremental risks lead to greater confidence and personal growth.
“We I really want this episode to be like, unlock that confidence in in the person that's in the room with us listening.”
Building Courage for Change
14:03 to 16:40
Learn how to cultivate courage and confidence to take risks in your career.
“And everything for me is on the other side of just getting on with it.”
The Journey of Resilience
16:40 to 19:38
Discover the importance of resilience and learning from failures in business.
“Like I grieved that business in the same way that you'd probably grieve a loss of someone.”
Leveraging Experience for Success
19:38 to 22:23
Understand how to gain valuable skills and knowledge from your job for future ventures.
Using LinkedIn for Career Growth
22:23 to 25:32
Explore effective strategies to use LinkedIn for networking and job opportunities.
Crafting an Impactful LinkedIn Profile
25:32 to 28:00
Learn how to optimize your LinkedIn profile to enhance your professional presence.
Show all 21 chapters
Creating an Engaging Online Profile
28:00 to 29:52
Learn how to craft a compelling online profile that showcases your personality and achievements.
Balancing Personal and Professional Identity
29:52 to 31:29
Explore the balance between sharing personal experiences and maintaining professionalism in your career.
“I think, look, it depends on your, I think it again, depends on your outcome.”
Defining Success Beyond Material Gain
31:29 to 33:54
Understand how redefining success can lead to greater fulfillment and happiness in your career.
“and you are going to be working like 6am to 8pm and your job is insane, like your ideal customer as in the hiring manager is probably not going to be like, oh my gosh, tell me about your kids.”
Navigating Challenges in Business and Motherhood
33:54 to 36:14
Discuss the unique challenges of managing a business while being a parent and finding effective strategies.
Redefining Productivity and Work Ethic
36:14 to 38:26
Learn how to leverage time constraints to boost productivity and efficiency in work-life.
Starting Your Entrepreneurial Journey
38:26 to 42:00
Discover the initial steps to take when starting your own business or project.
“And there's also not a single thing in my house that I look at that I'm like, that's a manifestation of how hard I worked.”
Unlocking Decisiveness in Corporate Meetings
42:00 to 43:50
Learn how time constraints can enhance productivity and decision-making.
“Would you advise someone has like a vision?”
Finding Your Vision for a New Career
43:50 to 45:50
Discover the importance of having a clear vision when starting a new venture.
Pre-validating Your Business Idea
45:50 to 47:50
Explore practical steps to test your business idea before going all in.
“You just need a thousand people to say, I want this.”
Building Confidence as a Mother and Entrepreneur
47:50 to 50:00
Understand the unique strengths mothers have in business and how to leverage them.
“because if you can't get 100 email addresses, you probably haven't got business.”
The Power of Motherhood in Business
50:00 to 50:30
Mothers possess the capability to start businesses successfully despite challenges.
“What do you mean you can't start a business?”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Zoe Blaskey:I'd like to take this moment to thank our headline sponsor, Wild Nutrition, who are offering MotherKind listeners 50 % off for the first three months. When I was pregnant with my first 10 years ago, I asked a few nutritionist friends, what's the best pregnancy supplement? And they all said the same thing, Wild Nutrition. So I listened and these incredible supplements have kept me feeling great through two pregnancies, starting this podcast, writing a book, a relocation and everything in between for the last decade. so it's magical to me that I now get to tell you about this incredible woman founded brand every week so the food grown pregnancy and new mother multi is expertly formulated to support you from conception right through to postpartum and beyond and food grown magnesium is backed by a gold standard scientific study that shows it has the potential to help you sleep an extra 42 minutes a night and increase sleep quality by 32%.
0:56Zoe Blaskey:Yes, please. I know how much of a difference Wild Nutrition has made in my motherhood journey and we want you to experience it too. That's why they're giving Motherkind listeners an exclusive 50 % off for three months and a free personal consultation with a nutritional therapist. Just go to wildnutrition.com forward slash motherkind to get started. That's wildnutrition.com forward slash motherkind so you can feel a difference yourselves start 2026 rooted in wellness t's and c's apply i really want to dive into the messiness
1:27Amelia Sordell:because that is what you are known for two under 18 months was like a wild journey and at the time
1:32Zoe Blaskey:i was also building my business amelia sawdall who built a multi-million pound personal branding agency teaches founders how to grow influence and opportunities through powerful online content
1:41Amelia Sordell:my now mission is what i can do for women you know if you've got something to get done give it to a
1:45Zoe Blaskey:mother. You gave birth to like an actual person. What do you mean? You can't start a business? Are you insane? How does someone have that confidence?
1:54Amelia Sordell:You have these moments in life that I call big red button moments. Stop waiting to be picked and pick your damn self. How can you make it super simple? All of this comes from where does someone start?
2:08Zoe Blaskey:Amelia, I am just buzzing for this episode. I have binged all your content and I love your perspective on being a female founder. I love your perspective on personal brand. And I just can't wait to dive into all the messy, what it is really like to be a mother who wants to be out there, wants to be growing businesses with all the realities that we face. So welcome.
2:30Amelia Sordell:Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
2:32Zoe Blaskey:You're sort of known best for your expertise on personal branding. And that's how I first found you, I think. And I... Probably swearing on some social media platform telling you to just do it. Telling me to just post it. I was like, okay, she's watching. I'm just going to post it. But I feel like there is so much noise at the moment around, you know, you have to be out there, you have to build a personal brand, you have to do this, you have to do this. And I suspect there'll be some of our audience listening who are like, really? Because I've got two kids, I've got a job or a business, I am all in on just trying to keep my job or keep my business afloat.
3:06Zoe Blaskey:And now you guys are telling me that I've got a post on LinkedIn. So why should we kind of care about personal branding and how can it help us with all those other things right so that it doesn't feel like another thing another thing we have to add to our yeah yeah and it's it's
3:21Amelia Sordell:such a great opening question because literally before we hit record we were just talking about listening to podcasts where they're like cold plunge like wake up at this time do this thing do this thing do this thing and we're just like we literally already doing the most i don't want to feel like i'm not doing enough so i understand there is always like a the objection of like do i really need to be doing this but i think about personal branding in a little bit of a different way. So it's not, your personal brand to me is not what you post on social media. Like your Instagram is absolutely popping, obsessed, but that's not your personal brand.
3:49Amelia Sordell:Your personal brand is like what you're wearing today. Like the fact that we had a hug when we first met each other, like the way that we've interacted before I've got here. It's, did you say thank you to the barista this morning when you grabbed your coffee for them? Did you, like, how did you speak to the school teacher? All of your behaviors, the way you dress, the way you act, your values, your knowledge, what you bring to the world both online and off make up your personal brand and I suppose personal branding and why you should do it it's a strategic way of controlling that narrative because like we all have a personal brand and if you don't take control of what that looks like you might not like what it says um a great example of this is I went on a date my fiance is gonna be like what you went on a date before I met you darling um went on a date with this guy and we were having dinner and I remember he was such a gentleman to me he was so lovely but he was so rude to the waitress and I immediately was like who does this guy think he is obviously never saw him again but that is personal branding like it has to be authentic so if you're a you know woman man anyone listening to this thinking like why should I do this you know you need to take control of your narrative I think it's something like 70 80 percent of employers even in 2025 said they think a personal brand is more important than a CV.
5:05Amelia Sordell:Like even before I came to this, you know, the recording today, I looked you up on LinkedIn to like make sure that I knew which person you were when I walked into the room to like make sure I beelined the right person. Like you need to have a presence, otherwise people don't trust you. And I'm not sitting here to be like, post every day, like you need to be an influencer because like that's not what I care about. What I care about is people taking control of what the first impression is that they're giving people, because that ultimately is the most important impression you can give and is probably the one
5:33Zoe Blaskey:that's going to open the most doors for you and i feel like this is so important for my audience right for mothers because we are so time poor we might be on a career break and we might be thinking
5:44Amelia Sordell:this doesn't apply it's not a break though is it really like i was speaking to someone earlier about this i was like and she was saying that on her cv instead of saying career break she was like mother and she listed all the jobs that she did as a mother i was like you are a fucking badass I love that.
5:56Zoe Blaskey:Exactly. Yeah. A break from paid work is what we should call it. Exactly. I'm just doing a harder unpaid job for a while. Work is a break for me. 100%. Me too. 100%. But she is so important, right? Because that is the time when you're, you know, if you can build this personal brand in those transitions, in those changes, it's going to make those opportunities easier. and we know all the stats don't we we know about the motherhood penalty we know about the fatherhood bonus we know about the vc funding gap we know all these issues that we have as women especially as mothers so do you feel like this is something that we can do that is kind of an fu to keep to keep doing this not to shy back not to shrink down and think i don't have anything to say or i don't want
6:38Amelia Sordell:to do this do you know it's so funny so there was a statistic that came out i think it was last week and it said it was from santandaya and they said eight out of ten young people can't name a single female founder not one right i on the other hand i'm like grace beverly sarah blakeley only name female yeah right because we because but that's because we're proactively in that space yes and i think when you're in this like bubble of like you you love meeting other women and like that's your your world is doing you know stuff like this it's very easy for you to be able to name these people and know these people because you've met them and you're aware of them and all this kind of stuff but the general public has got no idea and i genuinely believe and this is my absolute mission this year we don't have enough brilliant female voices online and one of the reasons like i'm not saying this is the only reason because of course there's bias that exists in all capacities not just for women it's you know in every single capacity there is there is bias as always but a big reason why i think female founders don't get that funding we don't get that recognition women in the workplace don't get that promotion, that pay rise, that job that they deserve.
7:42Amelia Sordell:It's because we don't back ourselves enough. Like we genuinely don't believe that we have something to say and therefore we don't say it. And therefore someone with half the experience, half the talent and probably kind of mediocre get the opportunities that we deserve. And I'm just like, why the fuck are we putting up with that? Like we are all brilliant. We're all smart. We're all managing multiple things at multiple times. Like we're dynamic, we're soft, we're hard, we're strategy, where all of these things like bring that to light so that people can go we choose you instead of waiting to be picked yeah because there is you've got to release yourself from the trauma of waiting for someone to go you're enough and actually give yourself that gift yourself and that's what this has done for me like you know to talk about like I'm a mother I've got two children my daughter's eight my son is six you know two under 18 months was like a wild journey and at the time I was also building my business and also you know going through a divorce and lawsuits and all the things So I understand acutely like the to-do list.
8:38Amelia Sordell:And I still did all of this stuff because I knew what it could do for me and what it could do. More importantly, my now mission is what I can do for women. Like I want to work with women. And it's very, very hard to find those women if they're not visible and they're not easy to find. It's very easy to find. And men are great. I love my fiance. My son's awesome. My dad's awesome. My brother's awesome. I'm not a fuck the patriarchy person, but I'm also like, oh, where are the girls? Like I want to see more of them.
9:04Zoe Blaskey:I think it's so true that that it's that confidence piece yeah it's you know I'll speak to someone you know back in the day I used to do a lot of one-to-one coaching and these mothers would say to me you know I haven't really achieved anything and I'm like okay tell me she'd be like well I started a business and I have got it to like 300 ,000 turnover and I have got twins that are one and I and I'm like whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa it's phenomenal how much we downplay what we've done there's that famous phrase isn't there oh to have the confidence of a mediocre man And I think it's so true. So you're here to help us.
9:38Zoe Blaskey:We I really want this episode to be like, unlock that confidence in in the person that's in the room with us listening. Right. How does someone have that confidence to go? The truth is, I don't feel like I've got that many skills. I don't feel like how would you someone was sat in front of you, draw those out of them, create that narrative and that personal brand to give them the confidence to actually start talking about it. and then maybe shouting about it.
10:06Amelia Sordell:Do you know, I think you have these moments in life that I call big red button moments. Like you're presented with something where you can either press the big red button and make dramatic changes that might blow up your entire life. I've definitely been there. I'm sure you have. Or you can just continue to accept what you've been accepting and continue on as you're going on. And I had a big red button moment. I've had them throughout my life, but a big, big red button moment in 2020, 2020 when the middle of the pandemic like everyone's on furlough I'm in a safe job
10:40Zoe Blaskey:really boring relationship like it was your job I was working in marketing for a private equity
10:45Amelia Sordell:company and like no shade my CEO and the people I worked with were unbelievable like you know to this day I'll never forget when I said to Joe my then CEO like I'm gonna go do my own thing and he was like well it's what happened you hire really ambitious people they fuck off and go and do it for themselves and I was like you are so amazing and still to say have a great relationship with him um but I remember I was like either I can sit here and just continue to pick up this paycheck and go month to month and maybe go on holiday once a year and you know whatever or I can just press the blow up button and just see what happens how old are the kids uh Hendrix my son would have been like 18 months old and my daughter was four yes they were like little little little um still very much needed me and the thing is like transparently it was a different time like your house couldn't get repossessed but your bank couldn't come after you so or I had no equity I had no investors I had no nothing but I was also like I've probably got three months to make this work and then I'm kind of screwed so I'm just going to go for it and even now I'm like I still have that same sort of mentality you know I quit my job started my business on the Friday started on Monday had my first two clients on Thursday literally by just posting on LinkedIn being like I'm doing this thing and I had like five people be like we need you two of those people then became my client did a great job those two so then I got more and more and more and we went from like just starting to a team of five in about nine months like seven months so it grew very very quickly and the reason why I'm telling you this story is I had another big red button moment last year when I'd grown this multi-million pound business and I was like I don't want to do this anymore Like, I really hate this.
12:24Amelia Sordell:This is actually sucking the life out of me. And the thing that motivated me before, which was changing my life and changing my lifestyle and being able to take care of myself as I was going through a divorce and like, how can I, you know, be that woman? Like, that's got it, you know? And I wanted to be her so desperately and I became her. And then I was like, what's next? Like, I didn't want to work how I was working for like another million on the bottom line. Like, what to make, you know, a potential sale look amazing in me to say that I've exited for whatever wasn't motivating to me. So I spent all of last year kind of like, like, what's the, what am I going to do?
12:59Amelia Sordell:What am I going to do? Big red button comes, I'm going to shut the agency down. And everyone was like, why would you do that? You could keep doing this for 18 months, you got great profit, you could exit, probably take a couple mil off the table. I was like, because I don't want to. And the reason why I'm telling you this is because getting the confidence to do something doesn't come from having the confidence to do something. it comes from having the fucking bollocks to press that big red button and just go you know what let's give it a go like let's see what's going to happen because it's very very unlikely if you have that mentality that you're going to lose because the more big red button moments that you have and the more you press that the more you blow up your life the more you leave that relationship that's been drowning you for the last 10 years leave that job that you know you're undervalued leave that situation and make a conscious choice to, as I said earlier, stop waiting to be picked and pick your damn self, you are going to put yourself in a position where people will be like, how did you get so lucky?
13:55Amelia Sordell:Because you just did it. Confidence to post, confidence to build a personal brand, confidence to start a business, leave a relationship, start a relationship, walk up to someone and be like, you are fucking gorgeous. Like all of this comes from courage. And everything for me is on the other side of just getting on with it. And I think that is something that I really want women to take from this if you take nothing from this conversation it's just have the courage to go and do it because when you do it and you don't die you're like oh okay i could do this again and then doing it again and doing it again and doing it again is where you get that confidence
14:28Zoe Blaskey:from before you had that first big red button moment as you call it when you had these two kids you're going through divorce you go how do you build up to that because what my experience has taught me that is that i started taking little risks right so i spoke up in a meeting where i would have been quiet no one died actually I was listening to I was like this is interesting the next week I did something bigger and it looks like I quit my job and started mother kind that was not the case for years I had been practicing this muscle of choosing myself putting myself out my comfort zone taking on projects that you know I would never have taken on before I started a little marketing consultancy you know on the side almost to practice that entrepreneurial and then was that the case for you too had you been building this muscle yeah i think i've been it's been a slow
15:12Amelia Sordell:burn for me like we were talking about um the book um overnight take 10 years to be an overnight success yeah um it does genuinely take 10 years to become an overnight success so i had a business when i was 21 i got funding for it grew up very very quickly year one year two administration liquidation like absolute distress awful awful situation and i i am solely responsible for that and I think when you're 22 23 you're like I know everything and you literally know nothing everyone's trying to give you this help and you're like wow that is young to get hyper independent yeah but like we were doing so well like I was like brand was in the daily mail every week like we had like Cheryl Cole Colleen Rooney who at the time were like the people to have pictured in your stuff um Danielle Lloyd like all of these women wearing our clothes and getting pictured in them and they were put in the paper and like you know flying right but I was doing everything by myself and when you do everything by yourself you make stupid decisions because you have no one to bounce ideas off and i now understand acutely the importance of surrounding yourself with not just like-minded people i really don't like the term like-minded because you kind of need people to challenge you like my partner and i have very different views on things which i love because he'll be like don't agree with that because of this reason and i'm like hmm interesting i still might do what i want to do but at least i've got the opposing perspective yeah Yeah.
16:31Amelia Sordell:Whereas before I was just, you know, in that first business, I just did what I thought was the right thing to do with having no experience. So that business blew up in my face, felt like a death. Like I grieved that business in the same way that you'd probably grieve a loss of someone. So it was like an alcohol, cigarette and coffee diet for like three months, lost loads of weight. My parents were like, you need to go and get a job because I had to move back in with my parents with my little dog and had no money. And, you know, it was a very humbling experience having been like a 22 year old MD whose business is featured in Daily Mail every day.
17:02Amelia Sordell:And you like got a direct line to Colleen Rooney's agency who are asking you for free clothes to then being like, hi, mom, I'm back. So I then went back into the workforce and had to spend the next 10 years, like, as you said, like building my confidence again, you know, and step one for me was like, I went and worked as a recruiter because that was the only job that you could really do with no work experience. Yes.
17:25Zoe Blaskey:So many people start in recruitment, don't they? Yeah, literally.
17:28Amelia Sordell:And do know what i did a post about this on linkedin the other day i genuinely think it every person who wants to start their own business should go and work in sales yeah because you're on you're on the phone you've just got to learn how to do it right yeah but it's not it's it's absolutely that and that by the way is a fucking confidence booster like yeah if you can go through 100 calls a day yes fuck off eight times in every 10 calls and leave that day and be like i did an all right day's work you become untouchable like untouchable and i feel i still credit to this day all of my skills in negotiation, in conflict management, in difficult conversations, in pitching clients.
18:01Amelia Sordell:Like I can pitch a client and win a hundred thousand pound contract on a 30 minute call now because of all the skills that I learned in recruitment. And I highly recommend it. It's not for the faint hearted, but if you can do it for a year and you make money doing it, like you'll be set up for life. Like I genuinely believe that. So I was slowly doing this. And it's funny because if I look back, I'm like, no, but there was a button that I switched, that big red button. But actually now you've said like, did you run little experiments? absolutely like the next 10 years was a series of experiments and i think it's that that's
18:29Zoe Blaskey:important for people to hear because it can make it look like you just do these huge and it's it
18:34Amelia Sordell:is rarely it is rarely like that 100 it was like a it was like a hockey stick right like a trajectory and i remember actually sort of six months before i quit my job when i was working for the private equity company i was already getting messages from people be like how do you get so many followers on linkedin like can you teach us how to do that and because the company was already operating sort of recruitment space i was like well should i just pitch these people to do workshops and my ceo was like obviously and we'll just charge it to the company there's me thinking like maybe i'd get a bonus absolutely didn't but i was getting all the leads delivering all the workshops and that's how i worked out how to start my business because i'd done like five workshops made the company that i'm working for an additional like seven grand that i didn't get paid for they didn't have to do any extra work and they were getting an additional seven grand it's a smart way to do it
19:21Zoe Blaskey:this more yeah of how we learned how to build my business before i launched it a hundred percent how we transition because it makes it look like in this kind of social media age that people are just turning one thing off and turning the other on no it's like those moments what that was so smart because you actually learned the playbook on someone else's you didn't get the reward right
19:39Amelia Sordell:but you also didn't have the risk that was brilliant i got every they're so so funny i had this conversation with a girlfriend of mine at the time she was like they're taking you for a ride i was like no I'm taking them for a ride because they're paying my salary they're making sure my mortgage is paid and I'm learning how to run this business and also like Joe you know he's an amazing guy would bring me into all of these meetings with all of these different people so I understood P &Ls I understood that in order to hire someone they needed to make you like three or four times more their salary I knew that you're like I saw everything and it was a real-time MBA like I got every single little nugget that I possibly could have and I'm so grateful for that experience because even though I made them all this extra money in the long run it made my business four
20:22Zoe Blaskey:or five million I think that's a really helpful reframe because there'll be lots of listeners who are you know in jobs maybe for the you know for the security of it while you're raising your young family who are like oh my god this is quite painful or I know this isn't what I want to do but I really like that reframe which is like have half an eye on document the skills that you're growing I think that's so important like I'm getting this skill I know how to do this I know how to run a P &L I'm getting in that meeting and then start to think about okay what could this lead to I think it's such a good way if someone is in that period when they're in a business yeah you know like you were and like I was actually that I knew I didn't use and abuse
Read the full transcript
20:58Amelia Sordell:the system baby hate the player not the game like exactly what can I take from this yeah
21:03Zoe Blaskey:hey it's Zoe quick one can you subscribe I don't know about you but I do this all the time I find content that I love that is helping me and then it just adds to my mental load that I have to go and find it again if you hit subscribe wherever you are listening or watching to this you don't have to do this it is just going to show up in your library when you need me most I will be there it is completely free so hit subscribe you've really got nothing to lose
21:32Amelia Sordell:and also what meetings can I elbow my way into like they would be running like board meetings and I'd be like can I come in they'd be like yeah sure so I'm in there now working like understanding how like investors look at businesses how these guys are hiring people for their team what they value how they structure deals I would never have had access to that if I would like oh I'm gonna go start a business I've got this great idea I was like no I'm gonna literally soak up as much and I don't know if it was like a conscious decision because I knew I was gonna start something or whether just genuinely I am quite curious like I love understanding how people's businesses work and like what their revenue streams are and like the psychology of why someone would buy that product.
22:10Amelia Sordell:Like, especially the niche stuff. I love really understanding like, oh, this thing does this tiny little thing for this one little bracket in a car. I'm like, but why would like, I love that kind of thing. But I've always been really interested in other people's businesses. And I'm very grateful for that situation. As you said, like you learn on someone else's dime and like, sure, is it soul destroy working for someone else when your body is screaming in every single part of its core that you should go and do something for yourself? sure but why wouldn't you use the opportunity of as you say security you know you're getting a check you know the worst case you've got four weeks to figure it out like you know god forbid you get laid off why would you not try and soak everything up and you don't like i was in working in a smaller business right like a vc you know private equity company is typically not a huge business that was probably a hundred and something odd employees total but like you can do this in big corporate like there's no reason why you couldn't dm the ceo right now and be like hi probably sir um like i'm i'm trying to like gain some more experience like i'm really interested in getting to leadership position like would love to come and just grab a coffee with you if you could if you would mind like once a month like appreciate you're mad busy but like i'm really interested in how the business runs and that kind of stuff no one in their right mind who is running a business of a large size or even of a small size is going to turn around to a woman or a guy or whatever who's like i'm really ambitious and you're my idol and be like fuck off they're going gonna be like i love that you're taking an interest like let's go and even if you only get one session with them one coffee one 30 minutes one 60 minutes whatever it is now that person knows who you are yep and now you can be included your name's gonna get mentioned in rooms and this comes back to the whole thing of personal branding you don't have to be posting content to build a strong
23:48Zoe Blaskey:personal brand yeah and you talked about you know linkedin and we you talked about you checking me on linkedin i think that is just the way of the world now so if someone is like do you know what but I've completely neglected my LinkedIn because I've been locked in raising the kids and trying to earn a bit of money. And it's just trying to survive and get through the day, damn it. But they might be inspired by this. Where does someone start? Because it feels, I don't know LinkedIn as a platform, right? Instagram is my thing and I understand it and I can tell you about the algorithms and I get it.
24:17Zoe Blaskey:LinkedIn is like a dark art to me. What do we need to know, right? If we've got, let's say 15, 20 minutes a day, which is probably quite a lot, let's you know 15 max what should we be posting are we posting about our skills our experience our job should we be posting personal stories should we be hiding the fact that we've got kids or should we be celebrating that where do where do we start i think it all starts with what you
24:40Amelia Sordell:want from it okay so linkedin used to be a job board and now it's a professional networking site so i find all my customers have found me there so as i said like we grew the agency to just over four million in revenue 100 % inbound pretty much off LinkedIn like I'd say 70 % of it was from LinkedIn the other 30 was probably from like Google and you know AI search results and things like that so very significant amount of money so if you're running a business and you need to customers or investors like you have to be like it's founder-led marketing like 80 % of people would rather buy from a business whose founder they followed online right so like if you want to run a business like you need to be promoting your business but the other side of that I think I mentioned that start the start earlier around like employability so 70 80 percent of employers rank personal brand is more important than a resume or cv so you need you need a presence on that platform in terms of posting I think it comes from you know what you want do you want a new job are you trying to get customers trying to get investors do you just want to let people know what you're doing like are we trying to get people to the podcast like what are we trying to do here um and that's normally where my strategy kind of starts with with with most of the clients that we work with now so i do a lot of consulting now um my main focus is kind of building my personal around at the minute because i've got big aspirations and fun things that we're doing this year but like paying the bills like obviously unfortunately we have mortgages and like mouths we need to feed so i do a lot of consulting work and we always start with like what do you want from this like fast forward 12 months what does success look like to you and success for you might be i just want to optimize my profile or like i just want the shop window to look yes i just want an
26:10Zoe Blaskey:employer to look and for it to look professional and like i know what i'm doing and there's
26:15Amelia Sordell:credibility and i'm not just some ghost profile like which by the way totally ruins your credibility when i was a recruiter 10 years ago we used to call um like cvs that we knew had to be submitted to a particular customer a yellow cv and the reason we called them a yellow cv was because like back in the day they'd print them out in yellow paper so that you could acknowledge like see who it was on your like a bunch of white papers the yellow one was the one you wanted to reach for right and the yellow cv to me used to be someone whose profile not resume was a tier one because as a recruiter you've only got a one in five percent it's probably lower now chance of getting paid if you're working on a contingent role right and contingent is basically like no placement no fee so it's a race to the finish line basically of all the other recruiters that are working on that role to see who can find the candidate first so i only ever used to put forward and this was like blanket across the industry i only ever used to put forward people who had a strong linkedin profile because i know the first thing that my client is going to do is look you up on linkedin yes so i'm on the phone up phone to you and they go hang on let me just find that person if your profile looks bad i've already lost that role so why would i bother putting you forward um and that's something that a lot of people don't think about with linkedin they're like oh it's a job board i'm like no it's a future pipeline of your career whether it's you're a founder or whether you are a career person and you're going for corporate people are going to look you up and find you on that platform and if you're gotten doesn't matter how good your product is if your shop window is not merchandise no one's coming in so you need to merchandise your shop window um we have a like a playbook on how you can do this but like top line you know think about your banner as marketing real estate that's a billboard for your career what would you say um you know do you want to add trusted by and have like a bunch of logos of companies that you worked for before like social proof people need to see that you can do stuff rather than you've been like telling them that you can do those things your profile picture for the love of god please stop using pictures from weddings and like zooming in in your face like grab your friend put it on portrait mode go and get some natural daylight and take some snaps like we've all got access to like more better cameras than they did like three years ago right you're good um and then just think about your about section being like not you know about your career like if i hit see one more profile that says like i've got five years marketing experience and i'm a professional and ambitious i'm like that's the bare minimum like no one is hiring someone who's like i'm experienced and i'm ambitious i'm like great what else are you bringing to the table like this is the entry point your about section should give people about you why did you start this job like this career what made you stay what are the key achievements that you've gone social proof like show me don't tell me and then add a bit of personality in there like one of the best about sections is when i was running the agency that we did for a client he was a divorce attorney in america um and we put in his about section that on the weekend he plays golf collects basketball shoes and shoots tequila and like we had like a line at the end that was like if you want to discuss any of the above email is best like wink and you've got so many dms about like what is your favorite tequila like what is your favorite golf course like what's your favorite sneaker like do you love the lebron like whatever and most of his business started with that which is not surprising because when you go into a meeting as a lawyer you're going to be like oh you're wearing basketball sneakers and a suit like that like oh we've got tequila on your shelf like what's your favorite tequila the personal moments is what we build rapport with people over even when you're an interview one of the guarantee you're going to get asked by the interviewer so what do you do on the weekend what do you do outside of work because people want to know about you if it was a job they needed doing it wouldn't matter who was doing the job they want a person to help them do the job to help them build the business so therefore the person matters so if the person matters why wouldn't you lead with that so thinking about your profile page more like a landing page and a shop window for like what you want to represent is like step one content like that's like level up you know if you're wanting to build a business post about your business bring people behind the scenes like you're doing this podcast like selfie like you know document what you're doing it doesn't need to be complicated you don't need to be an influencer no one needs to be posting infographics it's like just think about what your customer or what your audience would want to see from you like what do you my test for my team is like would we
30:20Zoe Blaskey:share this yeah would we share this with someone else and if we wouldn't then we posted something
30:24Amelia Sordell:on instagram the other day and i was like would we share this and they were like no and i was like cool like that's it would you share this that's it i think that's so powerful and how much should we
30:33Zoe Blaskey:talk about family life right you and i are incredibly passionate about integrating the two we think that's just you know we've already got that just you know it's crazy but we still do live in this world right where a lot of people who are deciding about funding or recruitment or are like oh she's got kids or she's pregnant or she's engaged she's of that age you know but this is the kind of world that we're in right how much in that profile and when we're building you know i want to talk about my kids all day long it's easier for us right we run our own businesses we're proven to some extent but for someone who wants a career changer is looking for a new job how much are we celebrating the skills that we've learned as a mother something i feel really passionately about or how much are we sort of dialing back on that depending on who we're talking to?
31:19Amelia Sordell:I think, look, it depends on your, I think it again, depends on your outcome. Like what are you wanting to get out of this? Like if you are a, I don't know, wealth manager and you are going to be working like 6am to 8pm and your job is insane, like your ideal customer as in the hiring manager is probably not going to be like, oh my gosh, tell me about your kids.
31:41Zoe Blaskey:Tell me about your kids. And like, wow, you're getting pregnant again. That's so exciting.
31:44Amelia Sordell:like they're gonna be like nope because as you said like bias like it doesn't matter how good you are at the job if you don't fit what they're looking for they're not gonna be interested it's the same with the product like if you productized yourself what why would your customer buy you um we want to attract other mothers i want to attract female founders so of course i bring that mother female founder element to my content because i want someone to see my content and go me too like and that's what creates this incredible community and that's what you've done with this amazing podcast people are listening to this going me too and that's why they subscribe right um so you need to think about like what do you want and then who do you need to attract to make that thing happen and then what do they want to see so i want to attract female founders predominantly founders in general but more specifically female founders so i share a lot of stories from like my kids and like trying to juggle everything but also my fuck ups my failures like how i managed to do it like how this year i made a pact with myself that i was only going to do normal time pick up at school which was a big big thing for me because i've always been like Like working day, I have to have them in clubs from 7.30 to 6 because I've got work to do.
32:49Amelia Sordell:And this year I was like, fuck that. It's my business. I can do what I want. So now I'm picking them up at normal time. And that was a huge thing for me. The amount of messages I got off the back of that was like, you can do that? And I was like, yeah. So you've got to think about who you're trying to attract. And also the question about how much, how personal should you be is entirely up to you. Like I never share pictures of my children's faces because that's just a personal choice for me. You like could share pictures of whatever you want. I think you just need to understand of like what are you trying to achieve out of this and then create content for that and also like what would you want to see like I hate this idea of forcing it like forcing content that you feel like you should be sharing because someone like me told you to post content like don't if you don't want to do it don't do it like don't force it there are plenty of people that do not need to be posting content just make a profile just make
33:36Zoe Blaskey:your profile professional optimize it yeah get your shop window optimized and then let the rest
33:40Amelia Sordell:leave it yeah network with people comment on people's stuff like so this is really interesting dm people that you want to connect with and be like i listen to your podcast like you're gonna
33:47Zoe Blaskey:get a flood now yeah i get a lot of those already yeah but like i love the podcast like just want
33:52Amelia Sordell:to connect that's another form of personal branding that people don't talk about there is plenty of things that i hate the word personal branding i was saying to leah my marketing manager it gives me the ick now because what do you want to replace it with i don't know like founder-led marketing yes like something like this like it's because that's what it is it's like i'm using my story to connect with people i want to buy the thing that i'm selling and the selling the selling bit might be i'm selling myself because i want to get hired or the selling bit might be i'm selling a product or a service that i want to sell to people but like we connect we know that we could people buy from people it's always been that way yes it's why trip advisor exists yes trust pilot exists yes we don't trust companies because companies lie but we do trust the stranger on the internet who's like the bedding in this hotel is next level i highly recommend you buy it right but we trust them we don't know who those people are but we don't trust the brand it's so true it's
34:39Zoe Blaskey:so true i want to dive into you know we touched on it but i really want to dive into the messiness
34:45Amelia Sordell:because that is what you are known for as i love that you are known for the chaos yeah very true
34:52Zoe Blaskey:for the honesty but that's what we want right no one is inspired by people that have it all buttoned together and it's perfect exactly exactly so boring so what what have you found the hardest list right let's start there and then I want to talk about some things that you found that have really helped because there will be so many listeners running businesses with young kids exactly like we are what has been those moments where you talked about the school hour I mean that's just a nightmare isn't it the what they do the two do not fit together why does the school day not fit with the working day I know you talked about that what else is so difficult and yeah how have you sort of muddled through it and what have you found really works you want people to hear
35:34Amelia Sordell:as it pertains to being a mom running a business or with content mom being a business running a business do you know what i used to think that it was when i first started my business i felt like i had a real point to prove because my previous business had failed and quite spectacularly i was like this is going to have to work at all costs so it was i'm waking up at five i'm going to bed at one I'm working around the kids like I'm living literally in cortisol like I was swimming in the stress hormone 24 7 and it was so unhealthy and I look back at myself now like Leah said it to me this morning my marketing manager she was like you're so different who you were then like the girl that I was then was I would say not to like go woo woo on you but I do really believe in masculine feminine yeah masculine feminine energies I was so I was living excessively in my masculine I was like I don't need help I'm going to execute like I'm just next thing next thing next thing next thing next thing and that did make me very successful but I was also dying inside because it felt so not me like even my girlfriend said it they were like like like are you okay like what's going on like it just it was very hard to maintain that and sure you can get some success out of it and many people have but like you end up breaking because you're naturally not meant to live in that all the time and now I'm very I'm very I would say in my feminine energy I'm like when I'm at work I'm like we're executing we're getting shit done like if you want shit done hire a mom like we have a finite amount of time we're gonna fucking work for it um but I'm like right this is what I've got to do today I'm gonna be realistic with my list I've got three core things that have to get done these are my quick tick things that I can do immediately and then I finish at three o 'clock because I gotta go and get my kids and I don't even think about work when I'm with my kids and I don't even think about my kids when I'm at work that's probably a big thing as well like I'm not sitting here being like oh I hope they're okay I'm like no they're fine they're at school like they're having a great time they're not thinking about me so I'm in it I'm rocking and rolling I'm in this moment with you like we're having a great time not thinking about what's happening at school so that was a big shift for me is like balancing out that masculine feminine thing and realizing that you need both to be really like successful the second thing is that I've completely redefined what success looks like like I always thought that to be for me to be on a podcast like this with you I had to have an exit under my belt and I had to have like you know a million pounds in the bank and be driving the Ferraris and all this kind of stuff because that's then a physical manifestation of how successful I've been and actually what I've realized is I can take my trips and I may go to an amazing trips with my kids I can afford to pick them up at 3 30 on a Tuesday I can go and have drinks with my girlfriend in midweek if I wanted to like
38:22Zoe Blaskey:that to me now I feel I'm like that is real that is real success time freedom is real success yeah
38:30Amelia Sordell:I can do what I want when I want with who I want that to me is like wow I've made it and you know it's really funny I've I've got loads of friends who are very successful founders like you know exits for like half a billion money and none of them have that not a single one none of them have that and i was speaking to someone who's very very very famous in the uk the other day and he was like you've literally like done what everyone is just trying to do but you've you've
38:57Zoe Blaskey:realized early doors that that's that's it yeah because we get sold this idea that these material possessions and are gonna somehow make us happy and it's just such it's such a broken idea that but the annoying thing about it is that I think you have to have a taste of it in order to realize it's one of those things I think you have to make that mistake to then go oh okay well I've got the thing and it hasn't it hasn't made me happy so what would make me happy the best thing I ever
39:26Amelia Sordell:read was um Tim Dennings who's a who's a a journalist or a writer like he's built a whole career just writing amazing stuff basically um I read a couple of years ago he wrote something he said um the feeling of buying a rolex only lasts seven days and i was like that's so true like every time i've bought like oh i didn't say my car because i still love my car and i got my car like a year ago and i'm still every time i get it i'm like ah like i still have that like oh my god i love my car but like stuff like when i look at my stuff i'm not like oh if i was a fire i'm not grabbing any of this shit like i'm not getting any of it i might get some pictures obviously my kids like don't care like if i literally house burnt down there was not a single thing in my house that I'd miss, not one.
40:06Amelia Sordell:And there's also not a single thing in my house that I look at that I'm like, that's a manifestation of how hard I worked. So I think that's another thing. And then just from like a practical perspective, I have become very high agency. So if I have to get stuff done, I'm doing it. Like I used to be that person that like let my inbox rack up and then I'd treat it like a to-do list or I'd have like 80 unread WhatsApps and then I'm like, oh, I'll deal with it later. And this year even, like to be honest, like in the last couple of weeks i've been made the decision to be like urgency because i have such a small amount of time to get this done i'm doing it now i'm not leaving it till tomorrow there's an email i can reply to immediately it's going like yeah i'm not sitting here being like oh you know i'm in the middle of a meeting right now so i'm not going to deal with that i'm like i'm dealing with it right now because if i don't deal with it now i can't it won't get done well
40:54Zoe Blaskey:they add up don't they and i think that's overwhelming it's an open tab and we already have the mental load right which is all managing all of our home lives it's i think i'm the same actually if something's going to take me less than two minutes get it done i do it it's done it's done and also it makes you feel like you've really achieved something when you get to the end
41:12Amelia Sordell:of the day like i sleep so well now because i can go to bed knowing i've smashed the day because i've got so much done even though i have half the amount of hours than i had two years ago or a
41:23Zoe Blaskey:year ago it's so true it's so true that I think that what you said you know if you've got something to get done give it to a mother that that is my experience if I think about my productivity and my output pre-kids right I was full-time and I think about it now where I work nine to three four days a week it's night and day I am so productive the amount that we create in this business in those hours because I've got those constraints I'm not messing around I rarely take meetings this is like my biggest yeah just get it done if it's an email it's an email if it has
41:56Amelia Sordell:absolutely has to be a meeting it's 20 minutes most meetings can be an email anyway 100 people
42:02Zoe Blaskey:in my corporate days the whole day was just taken up of hour-long meetings that were 10 minutes you know it's just i feel like these time constraints really can unlock decisiveness
42:14Amelia Sordell:prioritization like so much energy force you to do stuff like yes you take i just wish that the
42:19Zoe Blaskey:corporate working world realize this superpower that we have do you know what they should do they
42:24Amelia Sordell:should literally have a timer on every meeting that's taken in a week in like let's say kpmg or like something like this and then add up the hours i'm sure that's been done i'm sure yeah it's probably like a million quid they were literally wasting a million quid a week on
42:39Zoe Blaskey:meetings and if someone is listening they're like i'm super inspired by what amelia has to say and I want a bit of that energy and I want to start something or maybe I've got something and I'm going to grow it. Where do you start? Would you advise someone has like a vision? Like have you always had a vision or is it just take the next right step or is it just get amongst it? Like what would you say to someone who's like right I'm ready I'm going to press stop on this podcast and I'm going to do something. What is that thing that you want them to do?
43:08Amelia Sordell:I think it's a hard question to answer because like do you need a vision? I think you need something bigger. Like you can't just be like i want to i want to start a business okay but why like what is that business what do you want to do like if there's an itch that you need to scratch why and a lot of people go into businesses like and this is why so many again i'm not gonna make this like a man versus woman thing but there is i was having this conversation the other day with someone in fact it was last night at stephsward williams um oh yeah book launch such an amazing woman like if you haven't come across her go and look her up she's great she runs a business called fuck being humble um which i'm already i'm like tick tick tick like all over it um i was having this conversation last night and i said if you look at like big brands that are made for women that all run by men and that's because they find a pocket where they're seeing the market is regurgitating back to them like there is a need for this thing and instead of being like i have a i have a vision and a mission for that industry they're just like poor cool we can make some money that's 100 and then they get rich off it whereas women i think we need to be intrinsically tied to what we do because we are more emotionally intelligent we are more empathetic and for me one of the reasons why i blew my agency up was because like i don't want to help rich people go richer like it's not an intrinsic thing for me where i'm like this is my life's work like my life's work is i want to inspire other women to just go fuck it like let's go because what if it all works out because it does all work out right in the end like if you go for it enough something's going to land right and so I suppose the first thing is like do you want to make loads of money in which case go do what men do just go and pick a thing and like go for it or do you want to wake up every single day and be like I love my job and I love my job like I wake up at 5 30 every morning bounce out of bed like excited because I get to do something I'm I'm really enjoy doing so make that decision second thing is like if you're I think if you're listening to this podcast just in general you're probably already someone who has that thing like you you're going to be someone who has a vision of something that you want to build and there's going to be things that are holding you back and they normally are financial stability what if it fails what if what if what if what if I think the number one thing I want you to take from this and I suppose this has been the golden thread throughout the whole podcast is like just fucking get on with it like you can run small experiments like I did with the workshops I was running to see whether you can pre-validate something before you go all in on it like start an Etsy business why don't you go and you know start selling your kombucha at the local farmers market that's how poppy started and they just sold for over a billion dollars like you don't have to have the scale like and this is my issue right with all business podcasts which i would love to consume because i i'm so interested in other people's stories i find them interesting like you can learn someone's whole life history by just and all their mistakes by just listening to an hour and a half podcast right i think it's great but all you hear is scale revenue exit funding like but where is the where is the poppy story like we literally made a kombucha soda and we sold it in farms markets for two years and we made like twenty thousand dollars in two years and like where is that story that's that is where you start you don't start with the here's the deck let's go get funding i need 50 million you start with the what is one thing i can do today that can pre-validate my idea and it might be as simple as i was having a coat i was mentoring a a young woman who's building an app for um uh free from families so you know people who can't have nuts gluten all this kind of stuff there's apps for gluten-free and celiacs there's not one that kind of covers everything specifically for families it's called free eater um it's not launched yet but it's an amazing app kate who's the ceo and founder is awesome and it's based on her story um and she was saying to me i want to do this i want to do this i want to do this and i was like why and she's like well because this is what people do and i was like no no no no what is one thing you can do right now that's going to connect people with you set up a landing page email address get away great content yeah that's it You don't need even the app.
47:24Amelia Sordell:You just need a thousand people to say, I want this.
47:27Zoe Blaskey:That's all you need. A hundred percent. I am so with you because before I started MotherKind, what people don't realize is I was pre-validating the idea for months in tiny little ways. And I think that's what often gets missed in these big stories that we keep hearing about. Of course, people want to hear about those because they're glossy and they're sexy. They're sexy, right? But the reality is, how can you make it super simple? because if you can't get 100 email addresses, you probably haven't got business. So go and, you know, get that first. I think that's just amazing advice. Absolutely amazing.
48:00Zoe Blaskey:I can visualize people stopping this and thinking, right, what is, how could I get, you know, 100 people to this? That's it. I want to start a Pilates studio, right? That's massive at the moment. I want to start that in my area. My girlfriends just start, two girlfriends have actually just started one. Same in my area. There's like 10. I'm like, I love this. If that's right, see if you can get 100 people to sign up for a wait list of your new studio. And you know what's funny?
48:21Amelia Sordell:If you can get a thousand people, then you can get 10 ,000 people. You can get 10 ,000 people, you get 100 ,000 people. If you get 100 ,000 people, you get a million. You then just scale it, right? So try and get the thousand, make them interested. And that's it. That's all you need to do.
48:34Zoe Blaskey:I absolutely love this. I always ask the same question at the end, which is if you could give just one gift to all the mothers in the world, what would that one gift
48:44Amelia Sordell:be and why the one gift i would give probably every woman not just mothers is the confidence to just do it like we know like we have so much confidence as mothers in in taking that action with our kids like whether it's the you know we don't want them to eat that thing or we want them to go to that school or we want them to you know go to that class because we like that teacher we're so decisive with that those kinds of things and yes of sure of sure we have you know moments of insecurity and mom guilt is a very real thing particularly when you're highly ambitious but just get on with it like what's stopping you this this whole thing in our head of like but i'm just a mom that's what i hear all the time i'm just a mom are you insane like you brought a whole human sometimes multiple humans into the world fed them raised them they're lovely little things and you can't start the business are you insane this is light work compared to doing that.
49:41Amelia Sordell:100%. Light work. This is a break. Like I'm here having a great time because I'm like, I'm tired. These kids are tiring me out. So the one gift I just want to have, like a little tablet I can just pop in everyone's mouth that goes bring and they were just like, I can do this. Of course you can. You gave birth to a thing, like an actual person. What do you mean you can't start? What do you mean you can't start a business? Are you insane? There are like all these people in the world running really shite businesses who are driving around in fucking Ferraris. PPE, like there are billionaires off PPE and you gave birth to an actual human and you can't start that kombucha business or that Pilates studio.
50:22Amelia Sordell:Are you insane? Just fucking do it. It's not that hard. Men love to gatekeep business information by overcomplicating it. It's not that difficult. start your waitlist get your emails ask your girlfriends just get on with it that's it right
50:39Zoe Blaskey:I'm gonna go and start another business now I'm so inspired like what else can I start thank you
50:44Amelia Sordell:so much where can people find out more about you and come follow me on Instagram TikTok LinkedIn YouTube Amelia Sordell you're I love your Instagram it's so fun I love it I feel like it's like my girl my WhatsApp chat yes like I literally just like you know you were saying about how do you create content. I don't. I just document when I'm ranting about something and then I just share it.
51:05Zoe Blaskey:That's the best way, right? That is the best way. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me.
From the publisher
Welcome to the new era of Motherkind.
This is a new chapter. More intentional. More expansive. The conversations are deeper, the guests are bold, and the ambition is clearer.
We’re now video-first, which means you can watch every full episode on YouTube. I’d love you to subscribe and join us in this next season of Motherkind.
If you’re ready to think differently about ambition and motherhood, you’re in the right place
What if confidence comes because you start, not before?
In this energising, honest conversation, Zoe sits down with entrepreneur and personal branding expert Amelia Sordell to talk about visibility, ambition, and building a career alongside motherhood.
Amelia shares how she grew, and later closed a multi-million-pound agency, rebuilt her career on her terms, and now helps women stop shrinking and start backing themselves.
This episode is for mothers who want more — but feel overwhelmed about where to begin.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
. What personal branding really means (beyond social media)
. How small career experiments build confidence fast
. Practical ways to grow visibility — even on a career break
. Why action beats overthinking every timeHow to redefine success around freedom, not status
Amelia also opens up about juggling motherhood and business, burnout, and having the courage to walk away from success that no longer felt aligned.
This is an episode about courage.About choosing yourself.About just getting started.
Because you are not “just a mum.”And you don’t need permission to build something extraordinary.
Remember to subscribe to Motherkind — it helps more mothers find the show and keeps our community growing.
Feeling different since becoming a mother? Get clarity on who you’re becoming now and download your FREE Matrescence Cheat Sheet
If you liked this episode, listen to this next:
Connect with Zoe:
Follow Zoe on Instagram
Watch every full episode on YouTube and subscribe
Get Zoe’s Sunday Times bestselling book, 'Motherkind: A New Way to Thrive in a World of Endless Expectations’
This Motherkind episode is sponsored by:
. Headline sponsor Wild Nutrition, the brand raising the bar for women’s supplements. Want to feel the Food-Grown difference yourself? Get 50% off for three months at wildnutrition.com/motherkind. Ts and Cs apply.
. Start your children’s reading journey with Usbourne Books
. For a £100 sponsored job credit, visit Indeed.com/ Motherkind
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