The importance of individuality

2016 has been a sad year for the world of entertainment, with the loss of many well-known and well-loved celebrities – individuals of exceptional talent and ‘larger than life’ personalities, like David Bowie, Ronnie Corbett, Victoria Wood and Prince. As the news passes, I have found myself pausing and reflecting on how I have been influenced by these incredible men and women, and how I could continue to learn from their example.

When I think of David Bowie and Prince, the first thought that springs to mind is their integrity as individuals.  Despite popular trends and cultural ‘movements’, both the Goblin King and Prince remained fiercely individual and loyal to their own sense of ‘self’.  As a result, they remained almost ‘ageless’ – existing outside of passing trends and fads, remaining unique and ‘other’ in the predominantly mainstream, ‘middle of the road’ world of popular music.  This broadened their appeal, allowing their music to touch the hearts and minds of a far wider variety of people than many of their contemporaries.  It is this honesty and individuality that I have tried to emulate in my own life, though without embracing the off-the-wall make-up of Ziggy Stardust or adopting a symbol as my name…

I have embraced individuality as a cornerstone of my business, and I’ll explain why: in this digital world where more and more people are taking the leap and becoming ‘remote workers’ (including Virtual Assistants), we all need a Unique Selling Point to make us stand out from the competition – why not let your USP be yourself? When you focus on your strengths, are honest and maintain your personal integrity by not taking an ‘easy option’ if it interferes with your moral interpretation of what is acceptable or ‘right’, then you should already be standing out from the crowd; the likelihood is that your customers, colleagues and suppliers will already have been spreading positive testimonials about your abilities and positive work ethic, without you even having to ask! In addition, if you let your personality shine through your work – for example, highlighting your sense of humour in the odd, irreverent social media post – then you will also stand out from the crowd, as an amusing voice in a sea of bland and sales-y content.

But don’t just take my word for it – Richard Branson is also a firm believer in the power and value of individuality:

“To me, business isn’t about wearing suits or pleasing stockholders. It’s about being true to yourself, your ideas and focusing on the essentials”

Individuality doesn’t have to mean that you turn up to customer meetings dressed as a chicken, or carry out telephone conversations entirely in Klingon – all you have to do is lift yourself out of a faceless crowd and make a potential customer or supplier remember you, so that you are the first person to spring to mind when they think of your product or service.  As a result, this week, if I’m faced with a decision that I’m not sure about, I’m going to try asking myself ‘What would David Bowie do?’ before I make a decision.  I’ll probably still follow my head and decide what is most appropriate for me in any given situation, but at least I’ll have a moment to think of the often-bizarre, always-genius David Bowie and his eccentric costumes in what can often be seen as the grey world of corporate Britain!

Thank you for reading!

Self-Employed Holiday Survival

I’ve recently been away on holiday for a week (that’s me in Chamonix), and I must admit that as a Self-Employed person, holidays aren’t quite as relaxing as they once were! When I was an employee, not only did I have the financial ‘buffer’ of holiday pay, but there were other people that I worked alongside who could take some of the strain off me whilst I was away – answering calls, dealing with urgent enquiries and paperwork, etc.  As a Self-employed person, that ‘comfort blanket’ of financial and moral support from colleagues is stripped away.  Much as I love spending time with family and friends, there is now a constant, low level anxiety that fills my time away from the office: what if I miss an important phone call? What if I miss out on a brand new customer by not attending my weekly networking session?

We’ve all heard the old adage about how it’s important to ‘work to live, don’t live to work’, and articles on achieving the perfect ‘work-life’ balance frequently appear in magazines and newspapers, but when you rely solely on yourself and the work that you do for income it is easy to get carried away and continue to work day and night, come hell or high water!  However, despite the difficulties associated with ‘switching off’ for a few days, evidence suggests that a break from work can actually be beneficial to your productivity and general well-being.

In an article entitled ‘Psychological detachment from work during leisure time; The benefits of mentally disengaging from work’ (Sonnentag, S. (2012) Current Directions in Psychological Science, 21 (2), pp114-118), Sabine Sonnentag of the University of Mannheim collated evidence from a variety of psychological studies focusing specifically on recovery from work.  Her analysis of dozens of studies lead her to the conclusion that taking a break from work, both mentally and physically, is essential to maintaining top performance in a job role.  This not only highlights the importance of holidays and days away from the office but also regular ‘mini-breaks’ every day at work – whether it’s 5 minutes to make a nice refreshing cup of tea (or something herbal… or something incredibly calorific and topped with cream and marshmallows), or a brief walk to the post box and back to get some fresh air and exercise.

If you are planning a holiday and the anxiety has already started to hit home (‘But who will look after my clients when I am away?!’), why not consider working with a Virtual Assistant? The Virtual Assistant Community in the UK are incredibly supportive, and as a result, I have now built up a network of contacts who can assist me when I’m away.  As a VA myself, I am also in the perfect position to help you when you are away, or just to provide a ‘buffer’ on a weekly basis with the day-to-day administrative tasks that tend to pile up without warning! If you would like more information about the services that I can assist with, please head over to my website to take a look: http://www.hourglassvirtualassistant.com/.

Have a good week!

Networking

This week I had my first opportunity to network as a Virtual Assistant. A two-day family wedding, a large and busy family wedding. Having not seen some of the guests in over a year (Facebook updates don’t quite count), I was quite excited to see them and to swap stories.

I wasn’t too sure what to expect when I spoke about the business, surprisingly, no one I spoke to had heard of a Virtual Assistant. I thought “Great! Now is my chance to use my unprepared elevator pitch”. I know the importance of a good elevator pitch and am aware of what it should include… What I found as the wedding event went on and the more people I spoke to my elevator pitch lengthened, with more detail and relevance but not too much to bore people. Working the room, my confidence grew, feedback was positive with many questions on the possible success of such a role. Were people really that busy that they needed help with their accounts? Can people not find a few minutes to post a Tweet? Explaining what I worked on with clients and why to a new audience was empowering. It reaffirmed my career choice.

Unfortunately I didn’t have any business cards at hand but I will definitely be following up interest via Facebook and LinkedIn.

I’m looking forward to my next opportunity to network. I’m a member of a few relevant groups via Meetup.com and Ladies who Latté, August is going to be busy but fun.