Following your curiosity, with Mel Wiggins

Things We Talk About In This Episode:

• Multi-layered, multi-hyphenated careers and what to call yourself if you’re asked at a party
• Being led by curiosity, the value of deep-dive research, and the joy of starting something new
• Mel’s early career in the not-for-profit charity sector, and the turning point she reached that led her to galvanise a group of volunteers and ultimately, to co-create Freedom Acts, a not-for-profit group aimed at ending modern slavery
• How pregnancy can be an impetus for both creativity and personal rebellion
• Doing something new, how to “be a learner at every stage,” and how to get things done despite feeling totally unqualified
• Pivoting careers, self-doubt and self-worth wobbles when it comes to moving from charitable work to for-profit work, the desire to “do good,” and the realisation that roles, and work, can be “both-and” rather than “either-or”
• Finding your ‘ideal community’ on Instagram, and building space to make that community part of your offline life
• Starting an “accidental business”
• Allowing your values to drive your business, or the work you do in the world
• The inner work that goes into making peace with charging for your services, skills and time
• That women need to have more stakes and autonomy in economics, finance and making money... and that we are to be trusted
• Navigating the world of online influence
• The concept of being influential as an improvement (what it means to be “improvingly influential”)
• Mel’s research into what people consistently find “influential” in both social and personal contexts (three core pillars of intuition, integrity, and impact)
• The value of finding and maintaining our own personal boundaries when sharing online
• The very human desire to “be seen” - and giving ourselves permission to admit this and pursue it

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Mel’s website
• Mel’s business, Assembly
• Mel on Instagram, @melwiggins
• Freedom Acts
• Sara’s podcast episode “Using Instagram for Charity Fundraising, with Creating for Good”
• Sara’s story in Stylist magazine: “How becoming the breadwinner changed my relationship with my husband”
• Tara Mohr (coach and author)

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