Adulting - #82 Creativity, Financial Freedom and Entrepreneurship with Patricia Bright

Episode Date: November 1, 2020

Hey Podulters, I hope you're well! In this week's episode I speak to the inspirational Patricia Bright about her career, financial freedom and becoming a creator. Patricia is the host of Caught Off Guard podcast, creator of The Break platform and Influencer and Youtuber!Patricia's BooksFeel The Fear and Do It Anyway, Susan JeffersAtomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones, James ClearHeart and Hustle, Patricia Bright Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. Hello, poddlters. I hope that you're all doing well, that you've had a lovely week, whatever you have been up to and that you're staying safe, of course, in this very strange time. This week's episode is with the wonderful Patricia Bright she is a YouTuber entrepreneur businesswoman extraordinaire um I watched her on YouTube years ago and still do sometimes and she's kind of one of the only YouTubers that I ever really got into because her personality is just so lovely and infectious and I was really excited to speak to her in this episode about her new podcast caught off guard, which really is like a deep dive into different

women in our industry and differing industries on how they kind of came to be where they are today. And it's very juicy, and there's lots of scoops in it. So we talk a bit about that. But we also focus on her career and how she got to be where she is today, as well as the importance of talking about finance and learning about how to make money and look after it. I have got a special clip from the next season of Court of Guard, which is coming out very soon with the frugality, who is also called Alex Stedman. You might follow her on Instagram. So if you listen right to the end of the episode, you can get a little glimpse into what you can expect from Caught Off Guard, and I really hope you enjoy. Bye!

Hello and welcome to Adulting. Today I'm joined by Patricia Bright. Hello, I'm happy to be here today. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm very excited to be talking to you. For people who don't know who you are and what you do, could you give us an introduction to Patricia? So I come under the category of influencer or content creator, as I like to put it. I've been kind of in this game for the last let's say nine to ten years I stumbled into it and I carried on creating ever since so I personally never really used to watch YouTube but the only person who I would if I felt like I felt a bit down or I wanted something distracting or I wanted something was gonna like make me feel

better I would just watch all of your hauls and I just used to watch them for hours um because you're just it's so funny you really captured that personality that people need to understand you were the person that made me understand YouTube because I do Instagram influencing but that's a very different ball game from video content and the kind of stuff you produce on YouTube um how quickly did your channel start to grow? Cause I think when I came to you, you already had a very big platform and a very big audience. How long did it take for that platform to start to grow? I say it took me seven years to make a million subscribers and then one year to make another million. So it was very much slow and steady. And it never felt like it

was blowing up until I had like a season probably about two years ago where I was very viral for like maybe a year and a half ish, which is a lot of the whole videos that people talk about. But you know, I was I've been there creating a lot of content prior to that on the platform as well. But it was a slow and steady growth. And then there were some large moments as well. I feel like that's the thing people never see, do they? That build up. You see that overnight success, but no one ever realizes, you know, just how many years

you might have actually been plugging away before that kind of overnight success idea happens. And in people's minds, they always think it's kind of like that explosion you mentioned, but actually it is that slow burn quite often. A hundred percent. Like no one knew who I was, you know, five or six years ago. I was very small or low key, but you know, little by little, I've definitely grown a lot more and been a lot more substantial in in this space how do you think the climate's

changed on youtube because i guess the other interesting thing is when you first started there probably wouldn't have really been anyone with a million subscribers like that would have been i remember when i first had 3 000 followers on instagram and i thought i was famous because back then it was like no one had that but it wasn't it was like influencing kind of wasn't a thing I imagine the time frame that you're working as well like that word didn't really exist it didn't even exist it wasn't even a thing it wasn't even registered in my mind that it was a thing so you know when I started I was just using as a way to talk to people across the world um because I used to be

in forums so before there was reddit there were different forums based on the things that you were interested in and I was really into hair and skin and then some of the girls who would talk about their hair and their skincare products would upload videos and so we used youtube as a way of sending videos to each other and it was very much more of a community of almost I'd say weirdos like people who are really into very niche things it wasn't like a cool thing to be making videos on the internet it sounded very strange whereas now it's definitely more of a you know complete and utter industry and a big thing where people have a plan and a strategy for creating which is really essential um but prior to that it was just like let's just see what happens and see what sticks yeah and I think that now a really great thing is that there's

no shame around wanting to start a channel or wanting to get into being a creator as you say whereas I think back at the beginning it was kind of like cringe and people really looked down on you if you had an ambition to make something of yourself which I'm really glad that's changed and I think especially for women it was like who do you think you are why are you filming yourself like what do you think you're doing no one knows you no I had like a really bad encounter because prior to being on YouTube I worked in investment banking and I was interning while I was creating YouTube videos. And I think at some point in time, one of the other interns,

and this is for a really big like financial institution. So it's very like, you know, blue collar. Everyone's got their shirts on and not blue collar, white collar, but everyone's got their, you know, their suits on and very professional. And I think someone found a video of mine and they like played it to the whole internship class I was the joke of the class and I was told to stop my close friend was like you shouldn't be doing this this is not

a good look and I actually privated my YouTube page I didn't delete it but I stopped for about two or three months because I didn't want anybody to know in my industry that I was doing it but I loved it so much I was like you know I don't care what they say and I put it back on a few months later that's so awful though because that's so like humiliating and I wonder if and I think this is what sometimes happens with people is I remember when I first started creating as well I think people find it quite affronting because it takes quite a lot of confidence to just be like whatever I'm just going to film myself and it's different at the beginning, I guess, because you don't really know if anyone's watching.

But for some reason, I think it really triggers something in people where it makes them feel uncomfortable that you're comfortable to do that. It's a really weird dynamic. I almost think there's a level of they probably wish they could do it or find a topic that they were as interested in to do without being embarrassed about it. And I think anytime anyone you know steps out of the norm it's gonna be something that someone's gonna laugh

about but the the main thing is to keep going but nowadays you know I say who's laughing now like my internship were you know laughing at me and half of them are balding and stressed out so who who cares what they think now exactly and I really kind of love that you did that transition from such like a normal corporate job into this and you've really flourished and I guess this is kind of like the focus of your work that you talk about now is entrepreneurship is kind of like taking the leads and taking the reins on your own um kind of like what the rest of your life is going to be in your career. But did you ever imagine that it would go from, because you've had such a story arc kind of with your videos, and to still be creating, and to have grown up with your platform,

I guess, and to keep changing and evolving is quite a difficult thing to do. Like, could you have ever foreseen where it's got to from where it started? Honestly, no, not at all all there was no blueprint for this before besides you know there were one or two other creators who had blown and they've become very very successful the ones in the very beginning so that whole early adopter scenario usually they do well but I never saw myself as one of those I didn't look like them I didn't talk like them I wasn't where they were from so I saw this for as one of those. I didn't look like them. I didn't talk like them. I wasn't where they were from. So I saw this for a lot of American people or people in the US and in other

countries. I didn't see that for myself necessarily because there were no other examples before me. But what I did start to learn and what I picked up from the community is that if you continue, that inevitably some form of success, depending on how you define it, will come, which I think applies to all things in life. And I feel like I've learned so much on this journey that I really felt like moving on, I had to, you know, translate that into something that was valued to other people, because my community has always been women, making them always been women making them feel good making them excited showing them the things that I love and the things that I've bought

and then you know how do I transition as I transition myself is where I'm at now. So at what point in the journey did you like start making money and did you realize that it changed from being that hobby as you said with that small community of other weirdos as you called yourselves to being something where you're like shit this is actually like I'm starting to make money from this this is really exciting probably about two years into it so I started to make a couple of bits of chicken change here and there so obviously I was working a job and I was getting 200 pounds here and I was using all of the money on makeup that I was wearing and using in the videos so all the money I made went into the videos and it wasn't anything that felt like it was going to be a full-time job until I accidentally stumbled into the fact that oh this could be a full-time job, which is when I started having campaigns.

And I had this moment where I was asked to do a job by a well-known high street brand. They reached out and they emailed me and I was like, oh my gosh, this is great. And at this point in time, I'd been earning maybe 200 pounds. And we were negotiating a rate while I was still a consultant. And we're very coy. And I think she said we only had like two available. And I thought she meant two as in 200, but she, and I said, oh, let me be smart. Let me negotiate it and say, I want three thinking I meant 300. And what I didn't realize is she actually meant 3000.

So I had no clue of what my value was, but that was a light bulb moment to think, oh my gosh, I could get 3,000 pounds from doing a project like this. And if I did three projects like this, because I was getting requests in that I could be making 9,000 pounds a month, which was mind blowing at the time, but I had no way, no benchmark,

no one said that this happened. I stumbled across my rate accidentally because of this circumstance it's such a wild but yeah that was about five years ago yeah that's it's it's interesting I think everyone who works in these industries has the same point where you suddenly realize that oh my god what I'm doing is actually really valuable because you don't realize in your head like you've built up an audience and like people like what you're doing but until you're educated on like how much that is in market value you don't really realize that what you've done is what brands and companies and people have been trying to do for years with for their products and it's

annoying because I guess now it's changing but people really didn't value influencers and youtubers and you know content creators for how powerful they were or they didn't want to admit just how much it was worth because people kind of look at it as an easy job or something that anyone can do and it's it's really not it's like it's it's a lot more hard work than I think people realize goes into it and it must be a thousand percent how did you actually balance that like when you were still working in investment banking because it's it's be a thousand percent how did you actually balance that like when you were still working in investment banking because it's it's really like a full-time job doing YouTube in of itself yeah so I mean it was a passion project for me so I'd left and I was

working at a really like you know hard consultancy firm so my hours were insane I would work till 9 10 o'clock at night go to sleep and be up at six and go to the office. But every weekend I would film videos. And if I was off project, so, you know, as a consultant, you're either on a project or off, I would, you know, work from home. But really I was like editing YouTube videos. I spent every weekend, every evening that I had available editing, filming, and watching videos. So my life completely revolved around it and you know I always had my partner who was very very helpful like he's like cheering me behind the camera like you go girl I'll help you so he was always there on my journey I think help is really essential um but you know I made it work because it was something I was really interested in doing and I loved it I think that it's it's great now that your transitioning has become to talk about it

for what you are as an entrepreneur because like you said like it starts off with this passion project it seems so much fun and some of it almost seems too good to be true like you know when you get that first bit of gifting and you're like oh I can't believe I've just been sent something for free this is like unbelievable and then to turn it around and it's really it's there's still such a funny attitude towards I think and I think part of that is because it's a woman-led industry like it is women that are smashing all of these records and yeah nobody says this about gamers yeah sorry I'm just talking about the gaming industry no one's got issues with gamers and it's guys but because it's an influencer who's a girl yeah there's a far more

of a like I don't know attitude towards it but hey but even the way that we look at now this word influencer as if it's a negative thing and I the same as you like I want to say content creator because influence has so many negative connotations but years ago you would always talk about men who had influence and that meant they were really powerful which is what influence is but at some point down the line that word changed to be this thing that people talk about when it comes to Kim Kardashian or people that are selling products that they don't think are very you know like moral and it's become this really dirty word which is really unfair for what it really means which is like a really positive thing if you have

influence um but yeah sorry I was going to go back to the fact that you've like broken some records in terms of you were the first black woman to get a million subscribers is that right on YouTube yeah that is right there might have been one other person in America beforehand, like a woman who was a comedian, I think. But yeah, no, made it clear to me that that was the scenario. And it was very exciting to be able to be one of the first to get to that number by just trying to be myself, which is unheard of, really. Yeah, it's incredible. I mean, it's also so frustrating to think that we still keep hitting these milestones where it's like everyone's not coming up at the same time but when you when you were coming up did you recognize that there were I suppose you said you didn't really realize but like in the Instagram space and YouTube like a lot of it is whitewashed like when you were creating did you ever feel a

sense of like not loneliness but feel like god I'm really kind of there aren't that many people out there like me doing this like was that something you felt at all or not really 50 50 so because I was on a hair forum and it was particularly around black hair so everybody I was connecting with was black right so it never felt isolated if anything it felt like I was with you know a group of black women who cared about their hair and skin issues and um you know the videos I watched were black women and the videos they sent me were all black women so I never recognized how big the ecosystem was but the bigger I got I realized I was actually in this ecosystem that didn't have a lot of people like me and there was just this small group of us here while others were out there and then you know I came up at the

time of like say that I don't know what they call it I would say them the brick pack people who are great like the Zoellas and the Marcus yeah yeah um that kind of group and I was definitely not an insider of that group like I I knew them, but they never hung with me. We weren't like close, but I, you know, we'd see at events and say, Hey, Hey, whatever. But I was never invited for collab just to say, and that really helped that community grow. So there are definitely times where I felt like, Oh, how comes like, I don't get brought along to this kind of stuff. But in the same breath, I felt like we're completely different. I have to just keep doing

me and what I do and whoever wants to connect with me they will connect with me and then that has worked for me in the long run I've found but there was elements once I realized how big the ecosystem was where I felt like oh okay what's going on here and then I also looked a lot to the American communities as well so there was a lot of African Americans and black people um around the world creating content but we had a small ecosystem in the UK where we were able to connect yeah that is interesting when you talk about like that BritPap group and like that sense of collaboration that is really interesting to see I mean it's it's fucking shit but it is weird to look back on it and recognize.

But I guess that I hope that those kind of things are changing. I feel like there is a bit of very late change coming when it comes to, you know, whose voices are actually being heard and like who are working with brands and who's doing what. But definitely at the time, I imagine when you were coming up up that was something which people weren't even willing to talk about then I mean I guess people only just kind of know yeah you didn't talk about it like there were definitely the agencies who signed people and I would be signed and I would I was with the same agency as certain groups of people and I even shot with certain groups of people and they would be in separate rooms so they wouldn't have to say hello and I wouldn't say that was ever like a racial thing but a lot of people had like anxiety and you know their own emotional issues and got to a place

where maybe they just didn't want to connect and and you know talk to other creators on the platform I don't know but there was a sense of that like you can't get too big for your boots and I think that the world the face of the world does change and it's important to connect with everybody um as much as you possibly can and there were times I was like wow this group here they're not doing very much yeah that's with the mental health side of stuff I think this is a really interesting well not interesting it's a really difficult thing which is what I was saying Ali it's amazing that you've had your platform for so long and you've been able to really grow with it because I know there's other creators who kind of got stuck into having to be the personality

that they were when they started their account when they were like 16 or whatever and their audiences kind of find it really hard to let them grow is that something that you have a struggle with or do you feel like you've luckily been afforded the freedom to kind of continually be who you are on your platform which includes always like growing and evolving uh I'd say 50 50 because obviously I you know I didn't blow up on the platform I wasn't as big as certain people so I've had that steady climb and I worked a job and I got married and I had a baby so people have seen me on so many parts in my life that they've grown with me but I have also found that you know the haul videos or the fashion videos a lot of people watch those and so they really really want those videos as well and as much as as I'm moving to spending less

money in that way I know that there are people who miss that stuff so I also have to kind of break over break out of the shell or opinion that sometimes people or of all I've got to break out of the thing that people expect of me as well sometimes. But we're free to do whatever you want to do. There is no one pulling any strings. And I think most of us have to reach within ourselves and make sure that we work optimally for ourselves, even if it means lower engagement. And that's the challenge really, to really lean into yourself and create what you want, because that's the only way you'll stay happy in this space totally and I think you have to have almost like continual psych cyclical like breakthrough periods where you do that thing where you take that hit of low engagement because you're just

like fuck I've just got to change this up and then when people get used to it they're like fine and it's fine again and it's normally at the point where everyone feels like really in the swing of what you're doing but you're like okay I'm gonna I'm just gonna do something a bit different now and it starts like all over again yeah oh my gosh yeah I feel like I'm going through that phase right now like post-covid I've been a bit like what do I want to do like the world is ever changing and I think there's other things that I'm interested in that I want to bring people on my journey with you mentioned earlier about people's mental health how has like being in front of the camera

do you think impacted you and being so visible is it something that you feel like you feel very guarded against obviously I think because you're grounded and you have a family and a baby I think that maybe might almost help in some ways because you're already quite certain of who you are whereas I think obviously if you're like super super young I think it can be quite really difficult to know who you are without everyone else's voices you know having so much impact how have you managed to like manage your mental health whilst growing a platform so what I found really interesting is that I thought I was really strong and I'm invincible and I'm fine and I'm a bit older and I can handle this. And little did I know that slowly but slowly,

you know, slowly, this is actually having an impact on me and not realizing because I thought I'm so strong and I can handle this. And I think that being in the public eye, having people's opinion on you all the time can have an effect on you. And I think the thing that most people need to look at is like

self-awareness like understanding yourself understanding your triggers understanding when you're low and being impacted and then having the strength to be able to stop when you need to stop so I used to film like my family me my husband and all this stuff quite regularly like it was a thing and people really liked it and it was really popular. But I actually chose to stop because I couldn't take the opinions of people on my personal life. It was just too, it was impacting me too much.

And I know a lot of people will just keep doing it even if it's tearing away at them. And I think therapy is really essential. So, you know, I've invested in therapy a number of times to really just help me hash that out and I think that as creators we sacrifice our our self and our minds in a way that no other career has to do so if you if you work in a an office you might see a occupational therapist or you might get help or you can get you know what's you can get sick leave

if you're having um depression or some issues you can't get that when you are creator so a lot of people burn themselves till they can't I don't know so they can't take it anymore till they reach the end of their tether and I think it's really important to not do that so yeah being a public eye is hard yeah and I think it wears away at you slowly by slowly especially when people are kind of like constantly jabbing at anything you do even if it's really small I've started to find this where you kind of go like oh fuck I can't be able to say anything at all now because I'm like it's always going to get some kind of feedback um yeah and you don't always feel like ready to have to go to battle or like go to war every day about like I don't know it could be a

flippant comment and you're just like oh I just won't say anything but then the difficulty is you have to keep showing up yeah yeah that's really true no you're 100 you have to keep showing up but you also feel like whatever you say is could be taken incorrectly and you're one foul sweep away from being counseled so what do you do you do have to just keep going yeah and do you think you'll move towards because obviously you've got your caught off guard podcast which I've listened a few episodes of and I and I love and your new platform is it called the break but yeah yes the break yeah it's it's kind of that's the direction I really want to go into yeah do you think that's because

it's focusing on something outside of yourself where you're positioning yourself now as kind of like the expert who can help to coach other people but rather than your life being the spotlight it's about your expertise and what you've learned uh yes and no but I created the platform because I know there's a need and something there was an itch in me and obviously my background's like financial services and I've come up from like you know my upbringing was not an easy upbringing I'm from you know South London know, my parents are immigrants and I've seen what happens when, you know, economic growth happens to people like myself and people like my mum and many people that I know. And I feel like I shouldn't be the only person afforded that opportunity. And I feel like, I don't know, I had this thing where I really do things based on how I feel a lot of the time.

So I really felt like I had to do this. So that's why I've done it. But a bonus is that it is outside of me as well. FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling, winning, which beats even the 27th best feeling, saying I do. Who wants this last parachute? I do.

Enjoy the number one feeling, winning, in an exciting live dealer studio, exclusively on FanDuel Casino, where winning is undefeated. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600, or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. Yeah, and it's like going back to what you were saying at the beginning is there's so much secrecy around these industries and like how much you can charge and what you're really worth and, you know, like what the work really takes. And actually, the secrecy doesn't help each other. Like when I was first coming up, I mean, all my friends were like, how much am I supposed to charge for a postal? Like, what do you do for this?

And actually, we always did talk about it. And that was really helpful because then we knew we could go back to a brand and say, no, actually, so-and-so got charged this. But there is sometimes people who, and maybe it's the brand, I don't know where it's coming from, but people want to kind of keep it a mystery. And it just makes it harder because there's no regulations in these industries. And there's like, all the numbers are still pulled out of a hat like I don't really like I know my race now because I've been like similar to you like doing Instagram for like five years and I've worked with agencies and management so you got a pretty good idea but even then you could have someone with the same engagement and audience who charges five times more or five times less and there could be like no rhyme or reason to it really exactly and I have another moment actually

where it was another great influence on, on the platform who told me how much money she made a month, right? No, this was the first time anyone had ever done that to me. And my mind was blown because let's say she was double my size in following, or maybe like three times my size in following, but she was making probably 10 to 20 times more than I was making. And I was like, what in the hell? Like, I had no clue. And that was the day where I was able to completely look at my strategy, completely look at my media pack and change my game in this industry. And I feel like people just need a bit of information. And this is even when it comes to careers and negotiating salaries and many industries,

which are a bit more, I don't know, cloak and dagger. But communication is essential for growth. And I don't think there's anything wrong with talking about numbers. And I will proudly talk about my numbers to anyone who asks because I would love for someone else to achieve the same as I've achieved. When did you get comfortable talking about money because I think when I started to learn about I didn't come from like a financial

services background I really learned quite late about like the importance of investing and getting a pension and when I started to learn about it I'm now fascinated and I'm like obsessed with talking to all my friends who especially freelancers like oh my god you should get this pension and we need to do like a lifetime ISA and once you find out it's really empowering because you understand it but before you know it's terrifying to talk about money that's so funny you guys sound like my kind of people let's talk about pensions over like wine. I love that. For me, it was as I've been in this industry, as I found that, you know, my success grew and then a lot of people would ask me, oh, you know, how did that work for you? Do you mind sharing? Can you give me any insight? And I felt comfortable to tell people what they should charge or what I charged or what I got for a deal

because I knew that it was important to help them and it didn't take anything away from me. And it's only been in, let me say, the last five years or so where I got comfortable with just talking about salaries and earning. And it's funny because I knew so many guys from the financial service industry who would talk about their salaries and talk about their bonuses and talk about how much they paid for something or how much they've invested in something and I didn't realize that I'd never done that before now like I'd never done it we never talked about it maybe there's a level of embarrassment of sometimes of not earning enough and then there's the embarrassment I think sometimes women also feel of earning too much or being too successful yeah I I definitely think that I

it took me ages to be able to say out loud like I want to make a really good living because I thought I should just be happy with what I had and not be both not be like that it would be greedy for me to want to make a lot of money whereas if a guy friend was like oh my god I'm gonna start working at this company so I'm gonna make however much a year everyone be like that's so cool whereas I couldn't imagine you know any of my girlfriends saying that before and now I'm like why why is that not open to me to say the same thing it's kind of seen as shameful or greedy or like too much and I I used to always say that like I think that people think I'm too much I was really concerned of looking more humble and

what's the word demure like it's very unladylike to talk about money and to say no I'm on my grind or actually no pay me my right rate um like it's not you know the most female thing to do but whatever like who who made that definition so I think it's important for people to feel confident to talk about numbers it's not about showing off it's actually about changing changing how things work yeah and I have an amazing friend called Africa Brooke, who's a mindset coach. And she always talks about like limiting beliefs and how, especially with women, we're so conditioned to think that we don't deserve certain things. We don't have access to them. So because of that, you don't even think about the ideas of like investing your money for

the future or, you know, how can I make extra money for x or buying myself nice stuff so then without even realizing before you've even started you've cut off all these opportunities for yourself just because of how you're thinking about life and what you deserve um and I remember her saying that to me I was like shit that is so true it's like obviously it takes a lot of other things before that but before you even start like one of the first things you've got to say to yourself is like fuck I want to make some money from this you know I'm investing time investing energy or whatever it might be and I want to see some kind of return and you're worthy of that return as well there's nothing wrong with wanting nice

things there's nothing wrong with being profitable and being rich and I think there's this association with with having money and being a bad person but you can do good things if you have resources you can do something in your local community if you were Jeff Bezos today maybe you would set up amazing schools but you've got don't even have two pounds to rub together so you can't do anything but complain so sorry this is me ranting in my head to someone else but that's that's my thoughts behind why it's important to be resourceful and also when we say like making money that's I think like when I first started making even just enough like a proper income from a creative like when I first made 25k I was like oh my god I've just made natural salary from doing something that I love that wasn't like and that was like a few years ago now that wasn't like making loads of money

but it was just making money and I think sometimes we conflate like exactly what you said about like people being rich and we immediately think like Jeff Bezos as if we're gonna like wake up in the morning and be like billionaires yeah like that's obviously not to happen but there's like a certain amount of money that we should be able to like want to achieve and there are certain industries that get so well rewarded like some financial services companies where it really they're like not doing that much when they get to the top but they're making fuck tons of money it's like why shouldn't you be allowed to access that same level of like comfort and happiness through the resources that you can make for yourself I wanted to ask you a bit about your podcast because I've been listening some of

your amazing interviews I listened to the one with Leomi Anderson and also I listened to one from next season with um Alex Stebbin from the frugality but I wanted to talk a bit more about like your idea behind that and like how you choose people that you want to interview um talk me a bit more about it yeah I mean so I'm an influencer so I loved being able to talk to people who are in this space but have um I wouldn't say a little bit more about them but have other things outside of their imagery. And they have other messages and experiences so that people can connect with them. I'm also really passionate about business and people who are trying to do their own thing. So I've got a lot of people who've created businesses that are almost associated with the world of being an influencer or Instagram as well, just to see

what their journey looks like and just talk about things really in general. I love listening to podcasts as a lot of people do. And I find a lot of inspiration from people's stories. So I thought that I could just bring my own spin from my own community. And I started off with a lot of people who I know personally so you know a little bit more of the grassroots circumstances but you know we'll see where that goes to yeah I think again it is so interesting to come from the influencer angle because when you're in the industry you see how many different ways people do things and actually how smart people are behind the scenes and like all of these people are business women and men it's mostly women I actually don't know many guy influencers but it's really fascinating to see like how they got there and everyone's

hustling and everyone's kind of being really creative and it takes it's a lot more interesting than the term influencer which I find so flattening makes it seem like as you said everyone tends to have like four or five different projects that they're working on at any given time and you might go on their feed and they've got a really nice picture of them in their outfit but that's kind of the last thing they did that day and it was you know that's the superficial part um and it's really interesting I think it's so cool to give that a voice um and to also kind of encourage people to recognize that they can go off and start something freelance. I think that especially during this pandemic, people are realizing now like, wow, I could actually work

from home and maybe I could start my own business. And it's interesting to think how things are going to change after now. Like what is the landscape going to look like? So I guess like so many people have been through awful situations, losing their jobs and money is really scary right now and health and there's so many things. And I wonder if that's actually going to push more people into thinking, do you know what, I'm just going to try and start something of my own. I 100% think that. I think the landscape of work is completely different now. You know, there are less jobs on the market because people don't really know what's going on. There's a lot of uncertainty. what's going on there's a

lot of uncertainty but with that there's also a lot of opportunity as well and I think it is going to be great for those who have a bit of you know tenacity some balls on them because it's so scary it's so scary to go alone alone and try something and do something where you don't have maybe all the resources and all the knowledge but for those people that's where it's going to be really powerful to see what comes of it and I think as well that you know my mission is to let people know that everybody has the ability to to do something right you just need to feel a little bit confident you need to just see like one step ahead of you and think okay I can I can make that move. And, you know, that's what we really want to do

from telling the stories of the people who are on the platform is just show, well, they started here and they did this. Not that you have to be in Forbes or, you know, be a Victoria's Secret model, but even those people have had to come from something. And yeah, I think that, you know, resources like your podcast, my podcast, they're just going to help the next gen of people who I think are going to be, I don't know, more productive maybe? Because it's scary. It is scary. And I think one of the other things that is afforded to you by being like a creative industry, which obviously doesn't happen at the beginning that we spoke about everyone sees everyone they're successful and you forget to look at that backstory but the other amazing thing of being creative is even though you do have to

kind of always be front-facing and always be available you also just have a lifestyle which I think is so much more productive like you get up when you want to get up if you want to have a nap in the middle of the day you can you've set up your schedule for how you want to work and I feel like that's so much better for everyone like your mental health everything um compared to like this corporate nine to five work course that you kind of get churned and churned out like you're saying before you might have to come home from the office at 10 p.m because you're kind of you're a prisoner to your boss who says you have to do it you know yeah I kind of agree but also kind of disagree so with me I'm a mum of two now so I'm waking up

and whatever time they wake up unfortunately like my hours are not my own anymore but I also had this thought that sometimes like when you work and someone else set your hours there's also some freedom because your time is allocated I think the responsibility of having self-control and managing your time and waking up when you need to and getting your projects delivered that you know you could just let slide is even harder than having a boss breathing over your neck and I think that a lot of people don't necessarily recognize that though it looks like you have a lot of free time it's up to you to determine what you do then and if you don't use it effectively you won't you know succeed in very much normally yes well so I used to be what like one of those people when I first started where I got up at 6am I'd be on my laptop

and I'd be on it till like 9pm I like wouldn't set any boundaries around my work because like you said you've got no boss so you're just constantly working and then like a couple of years ago I started to just get really structured and now I think I'm so good where I like really good at allocating my time making sure I do have downtime which still makes me feel I'm sure you get this but sometimes like if you're not being visible or feel like you haven't done something for your audience that day, or you haven't created something, it can make you feel really guilty and really anxious. And you're like, oh my God, I can't relax because I have to make sure there's something to show because you feel like you're so visible all the time. But I've tried to really sit on that and not let that overwhelm me because I'm like, everyone's going

to be there tomorrow. If you just need to not be online for a day, like nothing's going to, and that used to freak me the hell out. Like I couldn't do it. And I've spent ages teaching myself to be like, no, it'll be okay. Everyone will still be there when you wake up in the morning. Oh my gosh, can you share what you do? I want to know.

Well, so my boyfriend works in like finances and he's really organized. So every morning he gets up at six, he goes to the gym and then he starts work. And so I just started doing that, like getting up really early in the morning and then I have my time six, he goes to the gym and then he starts work. And I said, I just started doing that, like getting up really early in the morning. And then I have my time. So I go to the gym and then I drink a coffee and I don't speak to anyone.

And then I don't start work like on my laptop, like emails or anything until nine. I don't let myself do it as if I'm like in a work day. Um, and then I do any filming and stuff in the morning and then the afternoon, but I have each day set up. So like I'll try and do podcasting on Tuesdays and Wednesdays Mondays will be like admin and filming then Thursdays and Fridays I have any setup meetings or any like ad content I need to

do but anything that isn't like in my diary or like say something's couldn't wait till Monday I just leave it like if I don't need to post I just don't do it whereas before I would there's always more you can do when you're a creator right like you're constantly like well I could just exactly make another thing and now I'm like no you've done everything you need to do you just stop for the day it's crazy yeah oh yeah okay this is like everybody needs to know this this is so important like they're having the boundaries they're having set in the calendar because work play life when you work for yourself or creator just becomes all-encompassing and that's also really unhealthy so I think that life of balance has to be talked about and I love hearing people's tips of what they do yeah and it's I think this happened so when everyone first went into lockdown and working

from home I just did this thing like tips on how to work from home because obviously I do it all the time and it got like the most it got shared by everyone all these brands like can we send it to people because people like I don't understand how you can work in your house and like chill in your house and have and you like have to be really good at like blocking out time where the place where you work is the place where you play is the place where you eat is the place where you talk to your kids it's like it's actually quite hard psychologically to not find that really mentally draining but I think we've probably adapted to it because you've always been creating from your house and actually I felt like lots of my friends who are in corporate jobs found it super difficult to like I guess it's like the difference between going to

the gym for a workout versus doing it at home I find that really hard to work out from home so oh yeah I stopped I'm like I'm over that I'm like no I'm going to the gym mask and gloves and all I'm going oh my god yeah all that that's all I care about now I'm like as long as I can go to the gym I don't mind if we go back into another lockdown I just need to be able to exercise it makes I feel like I'm going insane otherwise um so I wanted to know like what your plans like looking forward so you've kind of traversed that you've really created kind of like your own empire and it did start as you say like just in your bedroom creating videos about makeup have you got any like big dreams and goals for the future or are you building and building on what you're working right now and you're not looking too far ahead what where's your mind at the minute with your work well I feel like I always have big goals I just like Drake says I just want to be successful

right and I enjoy working and I love creating I realize that as long as I'm able to think of something and execute it and keep doing that and make a living off the back of as I'm able to think of something and execute it and keep doing that and make a living off the back of that I'm going to be really happy um but for me personally right now I really want to work on building the break platform further as I think we are moving into a society that's a lot more conscious that spending all the time you know I was I will put my hands up like I encourage people to spend money on stuff they didn't quite need um and I kind of want to also help people learn more about their finances so you know we're building an app at the moment and wanting to move that platform further that's part of my next plans I love that you said just then that you're always trying to be successful do you feel successful now yes I do feel successful I struggle with feeling successful

I struggle with feeling that I'm there yet but I realize that there is never going to be a thing like it's never going to be a thing so my focus is always on enjoying the journey like am I enjoying this part of the journey that I'm on and if I'm not then I need to reflect and enjoy another form of journey yeah it's always hard I think but I think if you look back to like right at the beginning of the career and imagine like young Patricia looking at you now I always imagine that I can imagine she'll be like what the fuck like you're probably so much more incredibly successful than you can ever imagine but it's really hard to stop thinking like what's next which is it's like what next syndrome can't stop thinking about it I've learned

a lot more to kind of enjoy the present and also like if I'm not enjoying the present stop like I will leave money on the table I will not do certain things I can say to myself you know this isn't working um to make sure that I feel good which is a bit what's the word impulsive but I've accepted that's who I am as well no it's good I think that's really important for this season I'm asking everyone their top three favorite books but it could be like it doesn't have to be a favorite of all time but I've just sprung this on you well I know my favorite book is uh feel the fear and do it anyway by Susan Jeffers I talk about it all the time it's like the mantra that I live by atomic habit by James oh yes my boyfriend's always telling me to read that because I'm I used to be so

disorganized and apparently that's like the one to read yeah it is I like self-help books I'm that kind of person and um your book oh yeah heart and hustle heart and hustle yeah let's do that that's amazing it's a really interesting journey and I put a lot of stuff as my experience as a creator, but also more my journey. And that was the first time, you know, I'd really put pen to paper and share a lot about myself. So that was a great book. Amazing. Well, I guess if people want to find out more about you then,

then they can get Heart and Hustle. But if people do want to follow you online and find your work and your podcast and things, where are the best places to get you? Well, Court of Guard is on all your standard um podcast platforms so wherever you're listening to um podcasts you can definitely find caught off guard and you can also find me on instagram as the patricia bright and youtube patricia bright as well and my favorite platform should i say is the break platform because this is really where I'm enjoying bringing as much value as possible oh amazing well thank you so much for joining me

um it's been an absolute pleasure to chat to you that's gone I feel like we've been talking about five minutes it's gone so quickly I know right oh well yeah I've got it amazing thank you so much um I'll let you run off now thank you everyone for listening and I will see you next week bye okay all right bye do you feel like by nature you're a frugal person do you feel like this is something that is you're either like that or you're not like that? I've definitely been terrible with money in the past. I suppose you learn a lot from family and family values. My nan is very frugal. You know, she would like knit all clothes,

including like swimming trunks for my dad. Wow. So he had, yeah, like woolen. Breathable. Yeah, beautiful. She was a seamstress she worked in a factory and she yeah she made everything and everything got a new lease of life and every scrap of food was saved and so I definitely learned a lot of that from my nan um but I think working in fashion I think also made me really frivolous as well in my younger days because my first job was in Notting Hill working at matches and obviously you're around loads of people with money and they all lived in zone one and everyone went for cocktails after work and I was 21 and I'd never even been to Notting Hill before and then I was just opened up to this world and everyone was you

know buying Balenciaga in the sale and you know living beyond our means so I think I definitely and obviously I was living at home with my parents at the time so obviously all my wage was just like money that I could spend on clothes um so I definitely I think I thought again that the money conversation didn't apply to me because I didn't earn enough to be able to worry so I was like why not I'll just go on holiday and I'll just spend it and it wasn't I suppose until probably when I met my now husband and we were both kind of on the same wage really and we were both struggling and I think we were like okay something's something's got to give

yeah and I think being able to talk about things with him as well probably helped me really address money. And there was no shame because he didn't have any more than I did. So we kind of were just really honest with each other. And I think that really helped. And then the satisfaction of getting out of debt and actually being able to save a little bit is so great that I I suppose kind of clung on to that and actually I really enjoy saving money and and now I suppose

because of social media you get people that again agree with you and have the same kind of outlook on life and that's like amazing so one thing actually I thought I'd ask you then you mentioned your now husband that you kind of talked about money is that something and I think that all girls like or whoever's dating someone you need to talk about money to your partner and it shouldn't be a topic of embarrassment because I think they say that's the number one reason why people get divorced because of the issues they have around money. So how did you approach those conversations? And was it awkward? My husband's really open and really, he's really honest, and he's really easy to talk to. And I think he was just always as honest with me. And it was funny, actually,

because I was just listening to your podcast with Donna, I was like oh god she'll be ashamed by our first date no her first date was wild okay that's crazy she she would definitely uh like have a thing to say to me about our first date but I'm sure she wouldn't mind we went to Nando's uh for our first date and we went to a bar and basically we got there and they didn't take card so I had to pay like everything which but it's funny because it never ever ever crossed my mind like that's really normal to me and like Chris is a great guy I would be like not even I don know, it didn't even cross my mind that, oh, I was just like, oh, that's fine. I've got money.

I've got cash. And this is an interesting thing. Like, there's this debate of, you know, should a guy pay? Should a girl pay? It doesn't really matter so much if you think that it's going to go somewhere. The issue is if you feel like you've wasted your time and it isn't someone you want to see again. You're like, oh, I've just paid for this.

Yeah, I wouldn't have spent £8.50 on you you yeah but but it's funny because obviously that's like hilarious how our date started I had um I had to pay and we we actually split everything we're and I think that comes from I suppose we've always known each other when we didn't have much money. And even if it's not that much money, sometimes I knew that he couldn't afford to not have it because I knew I couldn't afford to not have it. Like if we spent like 50 quid, I'd be like, oh, I owe you 25. Because I'd be like, at the same time, I would know that actually that 25 pounds matters to me. FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling, winning. Which beats even the 27 number one feeling, winning.

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