Why You’re Being Overlooked in Your Career—and How to Stand Out Instead

0:00From GEICO Subconscious News, I'm Tammy Racing Thoughts broadcasting from your brain. You think you live in a pretty safe place, but you just heard about a break in four miles away, which isn't close, but it isn't far either, you know? Art Palpitations is on the scene. I sure am, Tammy, and I don't even know why I drove out here, because as you know, you got customized renter's insurance through GEICO, so your stuff is covered. Oh, well that's great. Any sign of crime there, Art? Just some light littering, Tammy, but like they say, a little litter can lead to a lot. Wise words. It feels good to worry less.

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1:05So that it doesn't feel like another thing, another thing we have to add to our podcast. Yeah.

1:10Amelia Sordell:And it's 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 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.

1:38Amelia 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.

2:08Amelia Sordell: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. A great example of this is I went on a date. My fiance is going to be like, what? You went on a date? Before I met you, darling. 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 waiter 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.

2:54Amelia 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 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 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.

3:45Exactly. 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

4:27Amelia Sordell:want to do this do you know what'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 blakely 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 capacity it's 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 get that recognition women in the workplace don't get that promotion that pay rise that that job that they deserved 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 with 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.

6:24Amelia Sordell:So I understand acutely like the to-do list. 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 brothers or something 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 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 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 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 we 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 if 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 do you know I think you have 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 um 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 yeah 2020 when middle of the pandemic like everyone's on furlough I'm in a safe job really boring relationship What was your job?

8:36Amelia Sordell:I was working in marketing for a private equity 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 when 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, I have a great relationship with him. 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 But I was also like, I've probably got three months to make this work.

9:34Amelia Sordell: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 a Friday, started on a 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 with those two. 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 don't want to do this anymore like i really hate this 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.

10:25Amelia Sordell:And so 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 and 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? What am I going to do? Big red button comes, I'm gonna shut the agency down. And everyone was like, why would you do that?

10:58Amelia Sordell:You could keep doing this for 18 months, you've 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 gonna happen. Because it's very, very unlikely if you have that mentality that you're going to lose because the more big 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 because you just did it confidence to post confidence to build a personal around confidence to start a business, leave a relationship, start a relationship, walk up to someone and be like, you are fucking gorgeous.

11:57Amelia Sordell: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 from.

12:25That was the episode. I hoped you loved it. If you did, please make sure you subscribe and I will see you next time.