Hi there
Today is a really exciting day! We’ve been building up to it for the last 9 months, like a pregnancy…and today – ta-dah – we are unveiling our baby: Our new online course Rebrand Yourself™.
Now, lots of you know that for the last 3 decades I made my living as a journalist, primarily as an Editor, Interviewer and Columnist. And all of those things involve telling stories.
How I discovered my “rebrand”
When I got whacked from my big job, it took me a while to work out what my core skills were. Yes, I’d edited magazines and written stuff, but it was only a while afterwards that I realised that being able to tell a story well – work out what the juiciest and most engaging lines were – was actually a whole other thing, separate from being a hack.
During the pandemic I made a living as a media trainer, helping (often female) CEOs and others work out what their story was and how to tell it most effectively.
Many women are scared to reveal who they really are, or they don’t want to be the tall poppy. They think that staying shtum or playing small is safe. But it isn’t.
Why we need tell a story about ourselves
The truth is that when we get a job or a promotion or someone talks about us in relation to a new opportunity, they tell a story about us, our potential and our possibility. If we haven’t seeded with them the tale we want to tell, they will create one which suits them.
This doesn’t just happen with civilians. It also happens with politicians. Take Theresa May, whom I interviewed. She was so terrified of saying the wrong thing she sounded like a robot. Every answer had been so screened for anything contentious that she was bland and characterless. That’s why the story became about her shoes or leather trousers. No woman wants to be defined like that!
That’s why it is so important to sing a compelling song of ourselves: This process is like reverse engineering what I did as an interviewer. Getting people to tell their story and then explaining what the best lines of the story are so they can tell it themselves.
How do you work out what’s important?
I came up with a method called the Mills Matrix™ which follows the golden threads of purpose, personal life and professional achievement and creates a plait, or braid, of those 3 things so it is always easy to tell a persuasive and coherent story about who and what we are and what we want to do next.
During my time at NOON, I’ve realised that for many of us Queenagers, it’s quite difficult to sing a clear and true song of ourselves. We’ve done so much, we’ve had squiggly careers or breaks or retrained…. How do we cut through everything that we are to explain it clearly?
This applies not just to job interviews. How do we do it when, say, we’re put on the spot at social events. How do we do it in our LinkedIn bio or a CV? How (more whimsically) do we do it on a dating profile? That’s where our new NOON Rebrand Yourself™ Course comes in.
It takes everything I used to do with personal clients, everything I know about interviewing and storytelling and showcases it in 40 short videos, worksheets and webinars, allowing you to follow the process yourself, fitting it into your busy schedule in a way that works for you.
What people are already saying about it
We’ve already had a beta cohort try it out with life-changing results. Broadcaster and award-winning podcaster Wendy Lloyd said it helped her completely redefine her life, while educator and television producer Allison Havey says it helped her reframe her past achievements to turbocharge her next chapter.
I know how powerful telling your story can be – it’s the basis of my bestselling book and the origin of NOON.
The biggest mistake people make with a rebrand
Often we shy away from the tricky bits when we craft our life story. But what my Rebrand Yourself™ Course shows is that it’s a mistake – often those rocky parts are the elements that give our lives true meaning and substance. It was by sharing in The Telegraph my tale of how horrible it was to be made redundant that helped me launch NOON. Thousands of people got in touch, saying it had happened to them too.
The trick is to show only a bit of emotional leg, not the whole tsunami of drama – to share our big life lessons in a way that’s comfortable for us.
Another inspiring example
Let me give you another example. I was doing a speech about singing the song of yourself to a big corporate audience. At the end a woman came up to me. She explained she was a partner in a management consultant firm and she had a big secret that she had never talked about: She had grown up homeless. She had lived in 18 houses by the time she was 16. She had camped under a bridge before going to university. She was tearful as she told me about it, because it still filled her with shame.
I told her that if she could articulate a little of that journey (without the trauma, of course), it would be hugely inspiring to others. If she could go from that to being a partner at such a company, that trajectory would be so helpful to others wondering if they had what it took.
We worked together to frame a story which she felt comfortable telling … and it acted like a rocket booster to her career, because so many around her realised all that she was. They were inspired by her incredible journey.
How we created the course
To put this course together, we worked with the brilliant Joy Foster, CEO of Tech Pixies, who is an expert at them. As part of the course creation, I did my Mills Matrix™ process on her. We found a way to work into her story how she had grown up with “2 moms”. Her birth mother suffered a terrible head injury when Joy was 2 and was never the same again. Her stepmum, a career woman, raised her.
Joy saw viscerally the difference it made to be a woman with agency and a job, rather than one who couldn’t work – it has propelled her to create courses and programmes to empower women with digital skills. She had never talked about it before but now uses it as part of her founder origin story. She said the work we did together suddenly made her whole life’s work, her purpose and her personal journey fit together.
Your story is powerful
I am so passionate about storytelling. Tyrion in Game of Thrones puts it best: “There is nothing in the world more powerful than a good story. Nothing can stop it. No enemy can defeat it. It is more powerful than gold or armies….”
Stories are the way we make sense of our world, the way we inspire people. I know that’s true because you are reading this newsletter now, part of our NOON story: about how Queenagers aren’t done yet, we’re only halfway through, it’s only noontime in the 100-year life…. I created that narrative through my own story, my purpose and my professional career. Here at NOON we want to do the same for you too.
Come to our free webinar & sign up for the course
So check out the free webinar I’ve made – it takes place on Tuesday at 12:30 where I reveal the 3 biggest mistakes people make when rebranding themselves and the Rebranding Framework. Sign up to The Secret to Rebranding Yourself in Midlife Webinar.
At the same time you can sign up for the Rebrand Yourself™ Course – enrolment is only open through Monday 29 September and spaces are limited.
The Rebrand Yourself™ course includes a live video kick-off with me as well as a session where I talk through the process of identifying Golden Threads and do it with a couple of participants. Real live rebranding in action!
You can even book a personal storytelling session with me on top of the course if you would like. (You’ll be given that opportunity after signing up.)
Is this for you?
Wondering if this groundbreaking new course – developed specifically for women in midlife – is for you?
👉 😶 If you’ve poured years into a career, but now it no longer fits who you are…
👉 🧐 If redundancy, burnout or change has left you wondering, ‘What’s next?’…
👉 🏆 If you want to feel proud of your story and excited about your future — but you’re not sure how to position yourself, or even where to begin
…then this webinar and course are for you!
Ready to get started on your exciting new chapter?
Good luck, thank you and see you soon!
Eleanor
Hello Eleanor, I’d love to sign up for the webinar but I have a meeting I can’t get out of. Will you be running it again? I also won’t be able to do the course this time due to surgery but after the surgery I will be in need of rebranding myself, when will the next course be?