She's the Business: The workshops

I attended an event back in November called She's the Business, an empowering female-networking event offering advice to either aspiring business entrepreneurs or to anyone who had already started up their own business. Their slogan was "empowering women to embrace their inner creativity and entrepreneurial spirit" and I can wholeheartedly say it exceeded in doing so. Despite feeling anxious about going on my own, I decided it was best for me to enhance my knowledge and understanding of the business world. I had also never been to a networking event before, and so I wanted to put my name out there. The event consisted of successful businesswomen and guest speakers, many of whom were social media marketers and content creators.

The event ran a series of panel talks with female entrepreneurs, Q&A's and business workshops, all of which helped tackle fear in starting business ventures, lack of confidence and most commonly impostor syndrome. The event is held annually The University of Manchester and they provided us with a brilliant afternoon of creativity, inspiration and networking.

She's the Business helped me gain a huge insight into the business world as a woman, instilling further how important it really is. I was able to utilise the advice I was given throughout the day, alongside some workshop exercises, in order to feel more comfortable in stepping into the business and marketing world. I hope to share what I experienced and learned from all the influential women in business there.

Following on from this, I want to share what the workshops were like and how they inspired not just me, but every woman who attended them. Many women experience fear within the workplace; they often feel inadequate, under-qualified or just feel very nervous when it comes to communicating or coming out of the comfort zone. A lot of us spoke about these fears and feelings throughout the workshops, and so guest speakers ran exercises in order to help us overcome these fears and anxieties. The first workshop, communicating with confidence,was taken by drama teacher Elaine Clark from the University of Manchester. She began by telling us that we are all capable of communicating successfully, however sometimes stress and anxiety can get in the way.

"You were all a baby once and would use your body in any way you could to communicate unfortunately as we get older, we start to doubt ourselves.”

A baby can communicate whether it is happy or sad, whether it wants or doesn’t want something, without feeling embarrassed. She told us we need to revert to our childhood selves and unleash our confident, communicative skills. By encouraging us to take part in physical activities such as posture stances, vocal warm ups and relaxing our body, she taught us how to relax. By relaxing, you can overcome fear and adrenaline in order to communicate effectively.

Elaine’s method of converting anxious energy into confidence was extremely helpful, making us feel in control of our bodies and minds.

The next workshop was with Life and Careers coach Kat Horrocks, who supports women in business. She also runs her own podcast, Put Yourself First, where she applies techniques for female entrepreneurs to overcome fear. She told us that we must work alongside fear in order to progress successfully, otherwise you would never come out of your comfort zone and make much progress.

To begin with, Kat asked us all to think of things that would make us nervous. We discussed as a group, examples such as applying for a new job, performing a show and running a 5k came up. We even spoke about how coming to the event that day made us feel anxious, as we didn’t know what to expect. Each girl admitted they were nervous before each activity but once it was completed, they felt excited and had an adrenaline rush. Kat said this is exactly the sort of feeling we should remember whenever we get nervous. These feelings come and go all the time, they simply happen because you are coming out of your comfort zone in order to take one more step in the right direction.

Kat spoke to us about fear in the workshop, and how coming out of your comfort zone comes hand-in-hand with fear. She told us that we need to work alongside fear, and not push it away to try and ignore it. Fear is a universal problem everyone deals with, it isn't just singular. I think its very important see the bigger picture when it comes to fear; it isn't just attacking you personally. Kat said that she would speak to people she looked up to and admired for their work and even they would say the felt fearful of what they were doing, and questioned their live choices based on fear. How come someone that she looked up to be so unsure of themselves?

"Success correlates with fear."

Kat explained to us that she almost gets annoyed when she feels fear because she knows whatever shes doing is another step in the right direction in terms of reaching her goal, which can lead to feeling anxious about it. That's why she learned to lie with fear, and that a goal wouldn't be worth striving for if you didn't feel fear, because it wouldn't mean much to you. In terms of fear, we have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

"If there's no fear there, we aren't stepping out of our comfort zones."

Both workshops were really inspiring and solidified the idea that you are not alone when it comes to facing your fears and being nervous. Both women used their life skills in order to help us which I am hugely grateful for, teaching us techniques to tackle fear and instead utilise it and communicate better. Despite feeling fearful not just for the event but for achieving business and career goals, these tips certainly helped in making me more confident and accepting of fear. These workshops furthered my understanding of what life will be like after uni and I will utilise their tips and methods in not just job-relating scenarios but in every-day. By going to networking events such as she’s the business, you meet a lot of like-minded people, which also put my mind at ease. You are never alone!