Business | The School of Visibility

Lessons in irreplaceability by Coco Chanel

In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different. Gabrielle Chanel

Were you either picked on as a child or did you see other people get picked on for being different from the crowd? I clearly remember a game called ‘The odd one out’ where everyone would stand around in a circle and you’d wait for the instigator of the game to come up with a reason to reject you for being different.

Awful.

And, of course, it sent a clear message; ‘Do everything you can to fit in.’

Which is fine for some careers. But when you start your own business or you’re a creative, fitting in is a death nail in the coffin of your career. It’s vitally important that you stand out. That you’re memorable in some way.

You don’t have to be wildly different like Lady Gaga, but you do need to reach for those … [Read More...]

Are you fully expressed?

It all started last week when I was running the first of a series of energetic up-levelling classes around visibility with my ‘A Visible Woman’ students.

The classes take you through a process to identify your visibility ceiling; the place you just can’t seem to break through in the pursuit of being seen and heard by the people you’re here to reach.

That might look like reaching 1,000 subscribers, or 10,000 IG followers, or getting people to engage with your social posts, or scoring an interview on the podcast you really love.

Whatever it is, in the class you start by establishing where you currently are and then you work through a clearing process that sees you raising your energetic ceiling. That means that when you do hit that 1,000 or 10,000 or 100,000 you can comfortably sit in that level of visibility without freaking out and sabotaging yourself.… [Read More...]

The Visibility Compendium, May 2019

This month at the School of Visibility we focused on speaking up around controversial topics. We traversed racism, ageism, abortion, disruption of dominant narratives, and taking insufficient and/or too much responsibility in a world of blame and outrage.

Below is where you can scroll through everything we shared and catch up on all the goodness. So grab a cup of tea and let’s get into it!

FROM THE BLOG

I can’t say that, it’s too controversial!
[Topics: leadership | feminism | visibility]
‘To begin, it’s important to remember this about controversial topics; everything that’s really important in the world is controversial in some way.

Think about a few controversial moments in history:

The Suffragettes were ridiculed for being so ‘brazen’ as to presume women would have something valuable to contribute to the political arena.

The second wave of feminists were considered to be destroying families and stealing men’s jobs for

… [Read More...]

I can’t say that! It’s too controversial

One of the most common things women say about why they’re not speaking up on a topic they’re passionate about is; it’s too controversial. ‘People will be upset, challenged, they won’t understand me’ are some of the ways it’s expressed. So for the next couple of months, we’re running a mini series, where we’ll be diving deep into the topic of controversial visibility.

To begin, it’s important to remember this about controversial topics; everything that’s really important in the world is controversial in some way.

Think about a few controversial moments in history:

The Suffragettes were ridiculed for being so ‘brazen’ as to presume women would have something valuable to contribute to the political arena.
The second wave of feminists were considered to be destroying families and stealing men’s jobs for promoting a woman’s right to work.
Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for speaking up against racial injustice.
Oprah’s comment about

… [Read More...]

Why ‘How frequently should I post?’ is the wrong question

At the School of Visibility we’re not about vacuous visibility – pursuing fame for the sake of it or mindlessly pursuing vanity metrics. We’re focused on visibility because we believe that every person is here to share something important with the world. To gift the world in some way.

To be in a position where you can bestow that gift, you have to be willing to be seen, or heard. To affect others in some way.

This form of visibility is very different to the hustle for the sake of hustling form of visibility. That’s a form of visibility that’s about pushing yourself on other people and competing to put out more content than anyone else. It’s an approach that’s informed by lack and when you adopt this approach to visibility, what you put out there – no matter how much you put out there – is never enough.

So … [Read More...]