I quit my job to build a strong personal brand
Hey Sisturrr!
How are you doing? Forgive me for taking almost forever to pen this down. I’ve been struggling with a myriad of emotions, especially negative ones.
These negative emotions were born from a place of self-doubt and imposter syndrome.
And if there are times you’ve ever felt this way, I'd love to share with you this powerful poem composed by Marianne Williamson:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
I know you’re probably wondering why I decided to start today’s newsletter this way. It’s simple because July brought lots of doubt, unbelief, and imposter syndrome.
And this powerful poem brought me right back on track and liberated me! (We'll touch more on this later!)
Lessons from living in Aba over the last 30 days
In last month’s newsletter, I remember mentioning that I was fleeing Port Harcourt for Big Lagos, but I lied.
Ok. It’s not exactly like I lied, but I’ve been stuck in my Mama’s House in Aba for precisely one month today.
When I left Port Harcourt on the 2nd of July, I thought I’d stay in Aba for just a week or two weeks max.
Unfortunately, the day I arrived in Aba was the day my Mama’s Mama fell ill. So upon my arrival, we headed straight to the hospital. And over the next 3–4 days, Mama was admitted.
Although I didn’t plan to stay in Aba as long as I did, the last 30-days have taught me a few lessons that I’d love to share with you guys:
We don’t live forever! - My Mama’s mama is 79 and will be turning 80 next year, and over the last 30 days, Mama has been in and out of every kind of sickness. This is simply because, as we grow older, our immunity (the body’s ability to withstand diseases) starts going down. This is why it’s very important to take advantage of the years when we’re more active, those times when we can fly without our bodies feeling weak. These youthful years won’t last forever!
Relationships are everything - Anyone who knows me closely knows I’m very big at relationships. I don’t joke about friendships. Owing to this, my coming to Aba gave me an opportunity to catch up with a few of my friends who I hadn’t seen or conversed physically with in years, and it was definitely a heartwarming experience. I met with my old schoolmates, Ikechukwu Emole and Uchenna Nwaobasi. I also had a date with Igboma Cookey, Jaachi Anyatonwu, Nelson Ukodei, and Comfort Moses.
Insanity is doing the same thing over a period of time and expecting different results - The part of Aba my Mama lives in is around the road I walked on for 6 years (between 2010 and 2016) while I was a student at Royal Rock Academy Secondary. And after returning here after 7 years since I left secondary school, not much has changed. A lot of people I’ve known since 2010 are still doing the same business they were doing when I knew them. They are still selling at the same shop I knew them at. Pretty much nothing has changed, except the fact that they all look older and more stressed out than I remember. What point am I trying to make exactly? You can’t expect different results by doing the same thing over a long period of time. If you want different results, then, you’ve got to try out new things, you’ve got to make a change. This was a very profound lesson for me.
I’m more GenZ than I would even admit it - After being away from Aba for a long time, I found myself wondering where I was going to attend Church Service 3 Sundays ago. So, since I attend Living Faith Church back in Port Harcourt, I decided to attend one I discovered within my vicinity. Ladies, that was the worst decision I ever made! Immediately I entered the Chuch and sat for a few minutes, I knew I shouldn’t be here. The church was way too old-school for my impatient GenZ mind to comprehend. It’s not like I didn’t know about some other Gen Z-friendly churches in Aba, but I didn’t attend. After spending two and a half hours in that church, I instantly began to understand what it means to be “a square peg in a round hole.” I instantly had more empathy for people stuck in jobs they hated for 5 years, 10 years, and even longer. It reminded me of my dad, who did a job he hated for 13 years (between 2009 and 2021) and complained every single day, and yet still didn’t make a change. The GenZ in me can never! I mean, the longest I’ve been at any job is 10 months, and I feel like I’ve been there forever.
I quit my job (again!)
Many of you who follow my newsletter know I’m a freelancer. I’ve been freelancing for like 2 years now.
My most recent freelance gig was with a lady who I did work for as a subcontractor.
I’ll try my best to tell this story and paint the picture in the most vivid way, so, you could see exactly why I quit.
Sometime towards the end of last year, a lady chatted me up. She mentioned she had gotten my contact from a contact of hers and that I was a good social media manager.
She wanted to offer me a gig to manage two Pinterest accounts and one TikTok. She was pricing me really low, and that was disturbing.
Although I’ve never really managed a Pinterest or TikTok account, being a social media manager makes me fit to handle all types of challenges.
After a couple of weeks, I didn’t hear back from her. Till sometime in February this year, she reached out and said she wanted me to help her with LinkedIn Page Management. I felt cooler with this.
After several back and forth, she finally outsourced a job to me. This one was an Influencer marketing gig and not social media management.
My month, the task was simple:
Send 30 Instagram DMs to influencers. Send emails to those who included their emails. Then conduct a follow-up a week after.
During the first 6 weeks, the job was super cool. It took me about 3-4 hours daily, and I had time to do other things.
By April, my boss asked if I could take up sending emails to 60-70 influencers daily plus follow-up for double the initial pay.
At first, I consented. But after 3 days into the job, I almost died.
I told her I couldn't continue that much and that I wanted to return to sending out 25-30 emails daily so I could have time for other things.
She declined. She said she didn't want 2 people on the job I was doing. She wanted just me!
The job was gradually becoming toxic. There were lots of changes happening. And the team in charge of searching for influencers were beginning to run out of names.
We communicated with my boss, and she acted so cold and nonchalant. She insinuated that the team in charge of name searching were lazy and bringing up excuses and that if they couldn't meet her demand, she would lay them off.
Honestly, there were so many days I didn't feel like working, but I didn't have a choice. I'd have to buy petrol (no matter the price), send in my daily work and write a report.
Even when the price of petrol tripled, my boss didn't even bulge. I always tried to make sure my generator had power and I bought petrol.
Fast forward to this month, when one of my colleagues quit working with her, he gave me a complete behind-the-scenes.
Apparently, my boss got this job in December and had since then made $10,545 (punch your calculator and convert that to naira).
Yes, you heard that right! But I and the others did all the work, and she was still unfair. She still wanted to cut down on the peanut she paid us.
I was the highest paid, and my salary was 100K. The other 3 were paid between 50-60K monthly.
So altogether, this lady was only spending 260K on salary monthly, and the rest of over 1 million Naira seats in her pocket 🥺
Never ever have I felt so cheated. Never ever have I felt so used by a person. Especially when I know how hard I was working on a daily basis.
The USA-based company was paying her $15/hour for that project, and I and the whole of the other teammates weren't making up to 10% of the total fee, yet we were the ones doing all the hard lifting.
Once I found out about this information, I was broken. I gradually started growing resettlement towards the job, and would eventually tell her I needed to quit.
I can't be spending 10, 12, or 14 hours daily on a job and earn 100K by month's end when I have the potential of earning way higher on the same kind of project.
Even if I decided to continue working with her till December, I was only going to continue living from hand to mouth.
After working for 12-14 hours daily, I was too exhausted to even create time for my 90-day job-hunting challenge.
So yeah, on the 14th of July, I quit my highest-paying job to pursue something that'd have a higher return on investment. It's a path less travelled, but I'm sure my future self will thank me.
I quit my 90-day job-hunting challenge
As already mentioned, the month of July was one month full of challenges and drastic changes.
Towards late May, triggered by the success of Hilda Baci and her officially becoming a Guinness world record holder, I decided to embark on a 90-day job-hunting challenge.
The challenge was supposed to last between the 1st of June to 29th of August, 2023. My goal was - To search for jobs, apply and land a high-paying remote job within that 90-day period.
For reasons I could barely understand, I felt extremely uninterested in "landing a high-paying remote job."
There was something in me that was screaming! Something in me that just wanted to do me regardless of if I earned money on it or not.
There was something in me that was screaming "fun, freedom and flexibility".
There was something in me that wanted to be as remarkable as Steven Bartlett, Ali Abdaal, Latasha James, and all those startup founders I listened to on My First Million and Founders Connect.
There was something in me that really didn't want a job with an international company, a big salary and yet full of unfulfillment.
I want to build a strong personal brand as a YouTuber, a Podcaster, a digital marketing & social media consultant, an online writer and many more.
I want to maximize all my superpowers of writing, speaking and teaching. But why wasn't I using them? As fate would have it, almost everything I was reading/listening to/watching in the month had a similar message: "Back yourself!"
If I could give in 40-60 hours weekly to someone else's cause, why couldn't I do the same for my own cause? Why couldn't I give it all to making me the woman of my dreams?
I figured the problem was fear. I had a fear of the unknown. I had lots of "what-ifs". What if things don't work out? What if I fail?
But if I succeed? I would never know if I don't try! So, I promised myself I really didn't need a job, I needed to build myself a brand.
And so I started! I began the journey to this pathless path with my FREE LinkedIn Optimization Webinar.
I hosted my first FREE LinkedIn Optimization Webinar
At the beginning of this year, I decided to be more judicious about the money I make and keep track of everything, so that by the year's end, I can determine which of my freelance services I made the most money on.
So, I started keeping track of my business money by having a Canva Doc. It's more like an invoice, so, I just include the service, the name of the person I provided the service for, the date and the amount they paid.
Something I've gone on to notice is, lately, I've been having a very high demand for LinkedIn Profile Optimization.
So, in my world of trying to figure out what exactly to do with my life, I decided to host a FREE LinkedIn Optimization Webinar.
The rationale behind this was simple, this is a service I offer that is in high demand. If I can let more people outside my current contact list know I offer the service, it will drive more sales for me.
Although I was hoping to make at least 10 sales at the end of the webinar, it didn't happen. I was only able to close 2 sales. Although not my goal, I was able to make my salary for a week (60 hours of work) in one 2-hour webinar.
I hope to host more free webinars to drive traffic and generate leads for all the services I offer.
Although more than 60% of people who signed up for the webinar didn't make it to the LIVE class, we have 130 new people who know I offer LinkedIn Profile Optimization as a service. And that's my goal!
I received an Inmail from a Prada Recruiter on LinkedIn
One of the things I achieved this July in a bid to attract more recruiters was optimizing my LinkedIn profile.
This is by far the best optimization I've ever given my profile!
And in less than 72 hours after optimizing my LinkedIn profile, I received this message:
For the first few seconds, I was certain this was either a scammer or a dream.
But it wasn't. I looked up the man, and he's been working at Prada for 10+ years.
Prada is an international luxury brand, and yes, they inmailed me about becoming one of their Facebook Advertising Managers.
Without any previous application or anything, just an optimized LinkedIn profile 🥺
I thought for a moment how much my life was going to be transformed if I earned around $13,000-18,000/month.
Although Jim never responded to my message after that day, that moment gave me so much assurance and validation!
It reminded me of the power of my dreams, my skills and how talented I am.
I visited my cousin in Umudike
It's crazy how adulthood changes us.
The older we get, the less time we have to spend with people we actually love.
We all get caught up in the everyday hustle of making money and no longer have the luxury of spending time with our close friends and family.
As a child, Nnaemeka was my rock. He was my favourite human on earth.
How are you guys related? Well, our dads are twins. His dad is a day older than mine.
As a child, the next thing you knew after my name was the name of my cousin Nnaemeka.
So, since I stopped working for my boss and was now my own boss, I decided to pay a visit to my cousin in Umudike.
I spent 3 nights there, and I was beyond rejuvenated.
There was so much to talk about - the past, the present and even the future.
I even feel like leaving his side at all 😥
I'm really glad I went because I felt extremely happy. I felt loved, seen and heard.
On your dying bed, your biggest regret won't be not making an extra million, but not spending enough time with people you truly love.
I don't know the next time we'd see, but I'm sure these memories will stick in my heart forever 🥰🥰
I started binge-watching "Young Sheldon"
One of the things I am most grateful for about travelling to Umudike was having access to Emeka's Netflix.
Shortly before going to Umudike, almost every Short I see on YouTube is from Young Sheldon and I was dying to see the movie!
I wanted to watch the full thing and not all the tiny snippets littered all around the internet.
Emeka rescued me! He gave him access to his Netflix and I've been watching Young Sheldon since then.
The last time I checked, I was on season 2 episode 17. It's been such an adventurous ride 🥰
In conclusion…
If you've read this very lengthy newsletter up to this point, I want to say a very big THANK YOU.
You are the reason I show up every month! You're the reason I keep writing this newsletter!
By reading this newsletter, you keep reassuring me of the importance of owning my stories. I know this particular piece was full of rambling but I just hope you find value in the fluff.
I don't want to be the only one owning my stories. I want you to own yours too. Through journaling, writing a newsletter, podcasting or having a YouTube channel. I can't tell you how therapeutic this experience often is for me!
If you'll love to share with me and all 240+ Figure-8 sisters what you've been up to, the good and bad, the highs and lows, the beautiful and uglies, we'd absolutely love to read you!
Feel very feel to write me an email at bookieeyes19@gmail.com using the subject line OWNING IT, and I'll be sure to publish it in the next issue.
Till the next time I write to you, keep staying awesome 👍
I know it's already late, but I'll still wish you a very happy girlfriend's day! You all
make girl friendships and sisterhood so beautiful ❤️🥰