A Platform to Inspire Women To Actively Support Women

I have not blogged in SO LONG and I don’t even know how to write any more, doh!

Life has been insanely busy with work and personal projects. I know, I previously talked a lot about Train My Bunny and Keffie and all the other things I explored but this time this one is the ONE. I’ve spent all of my free time invested in just building out areas of ideas without realising where I was going. Now, I’m 100% consumed and dedicated and I think it’s because it’s pushing towards a cause and a mission and not an end goal.

I can’t explain it. It’s like before I was just trying to create an idea out of nothing but this time it’s something that really affects my life and my work life. This time, I can use my skills to help others and it’s giving me this newfound energy – I’m ALIVE!

MAD about Madhat

I started up a platform about 3 months ago called Madhat Girls. It was initially started up with my friend Simi as we wanted to do something that focused on helping others with Email Marketing. The name actually comes from Marketing AND Design. It’s M.A.D and Madhat is a play on the term White Hat SEO. What we wanted to do was partially related to that world. Madhat is our own term as there’s Blackhat, Whitehat and MAD hat is off the chart and in its own another level. Anyways I built the platform but Simi was very busy with helping her brother with his book and contacting influencers and investing in Pinterest advertising so it just wasn’t the right time for us both to fully invest.

Work Stresses & Need For an Outlet

Around this time, my work was getting increasingly stressful. I really wanted to become full time and it wasn’t looking like I was able to. In addition, I felt like I had no control over any of my work despite working remotely to my team. This is natural when you work for another business – you just don’t get a say in what you do unless you can explain it in a way that benefits the business. I have always lacked certain softskills in the business environment – which I am trying to work on – but unfortunately, it just doesn’t happen overnight.

Anyways. I just felt this urge to implement these new ideas that were all waiting to explode out of me. I found working in any company it’s hard to implement any processes outside of your own expertise. I don’t know whether any of these ideas will work but it’d be cool to experiment. When there’s money involved and the business is established, there’s so much more risk involved so I guess any ideas have to be quarantined to see whether they’re worth the hassle and beneficial for the business financially and by then they become the skeleton of the idea and barely recognisable due to restrictions and all sorts.

I am merely stating how I feel about the business world – this isn’t any type of scrutiny it’s just noticing how they are run.

Starting up Madhat Girls gave me an outlet to explore different ideas and trial things, BE CREATIVE, experimental and most of all enjoy it all without limitations and deadlines.

How To Smooth out Assumptions at Work

Being a woman of colour who looks and acts a lot younger than her age probably hasn’t helped my career. I never thought about these things until I got to the stage where I wanted to progress. I would talk to new people and they would ask the same question “Did you just come out of uni?” which makes me assume what they are thinking. It’s not even “Where did you work last” it was the automatic assumption they had. Whilst, other people’s assumptions are not physically holding you back, it creates barriers in your own mind because you start getting paranoid and doubting your authority whilst what other people say to you give you reasons to feel like they are doubting your skills – it’s all psychological but it really does affect you in a physical way.

I recently watched a Soft Skill video on Lynda and it covered that topic of people undermining your ability, years of expertise and it talks about eradicating those assumptions on the first meet by smoothing out those assumptions by saying something like “I know I may not look experienced but I look young for my age and I have actually worked in this industry for 7 years”. Just to establish yourself on the first meet.

Maybe others will find this defensive behaviour unnecessary but honestly, I think I would rather say this stuff than to be assumed elsewise. It was something I was never told in my career which I would have felt helpful,

Wanting a Mentor

I’ve always wished there was a woman who was more experienced than me that I could relate to who was also from a similar background. I wished for that person to give some guidance. Have you ever wished you could ask someone who knew a business, your field, that understood you, that you trusted who you could ask a load of questions? Even if it’s something small like; how do I advance in my career? how do I approach senior management?

I come from a poor background where my mum is migrated over from China for a ‘better life’ who also has no experience about these things. Furthermore, our home is really strict and we’re prone to experiencing high pressure and the fear of failure.

Anyways, Madhat Girls soon became something where I wanted to promote driven and successful women who were from all different backgrounds and industries to inspire other women. I wanted to tell them how it’s done to give them the knowledge to do the same thing. I wanted it to be a way to provide information on unique careers out there for younger women rather than doctor, lawyer, now Instagram influencers. I wanted to pass along this information I have learnt from experience and for other women to do the same. Maybe it’s too big of a dream but I really want to encourage more women to get into tech.

Maybe it’s a selfish pursuit but I just know if there are more women working in all industries then the different needs would be taken more seriously and it would provide different types of women getting into the industry, knowledge and support that’s actually catered to them as an individual. Maybe Madhat was built on selfish purposes but I want to drive and work towards making it an inclusive mission to help others who have felt the same way as me using the skills and knowledge I have – which is marketing and design.