19 | The Fast Lane, From Public Relations To Upgrading Women | Rebecca Leppard
Tags: career, news, podcast, beginners
Published: 2023-04-26 17:05:00

{% embed https://youtu.be/hXi9oewMVZc %}

**About**
Rebecca Leppard is doing her best to upgrade women from around the world. She built her first career in public relations and now helps decrease the equity gap, detoxify the workplace, influence social justice, and promote happy living for women.

Rebecca Leppard:
[Website](https://www.upgradingwomen.com/)

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Alternate Titles For The Algorithm:
From Public Relations to Life Coach
From Public Relations to Career Coach
From Public Relations to Entrepreneur
From Editorial to Public Relations
From Public Relations to Women Empowerment

**Show Notes**
0:01  
Hey y'all. This is your host Elyse Robinson, with nobody wants to work though podcasts. I hope these stories will inspire you to switch careers. I was an auditor in my past life and I'm in tech, then let's get to it.

0:20  
We are switched into tech tech resources to accelerate your career in information technology, monthly classes on tech topics. We offer free or discounted exam vouchers, scholarships for you to me courses, free events, free boot camps and more. You can find us at www dot switching to tech.org.

0:44  
Yep, yep.

0:46  
Hey, Elise Robinson, when nobody wants to work, though, podcast today, we have Rebecca. And we are on number 19. So we ain't even a month into this. And we're on number 19. I'm excited for the future of this. So, Rebecca, where did your career start? And what are you doing now?

1:08  
Oh, thank you for having me. Because this podcast, I love the title. First of all, nobody wants to work though.

1:17  
So my career started

1:20  
since I became a writer, when I was nine. And then I became a public speaker when I was 12.

1:30  
But my professional professional career started, of course, when I got paid, which is when I was

1:38  
22. I was an editor and in the magazine in the national magazine, it's called mother and baby. So it's all it's about pregnancy about health and safety of your kids and toddlers and all that.

1:55  
Sweet rainbows and unicorns. And a few years after that, I switched career into the dark side of communications, which is the public relations.

2:10  
So I switched career. When I was 2526, I was thinking, oh my god, I had a quarter life crisis. Oh my god, what am I going to do? Am I just going to be pursuing my editorial career, all the way up to being an editor in chief, because that's, you know, literally, like a military career, you go up to become a four star general.

2:39  
Or you switch. And I decided to switch career.

2:46  
And it was crazy, because I not only that, I switch lanes from editorial to public relations. I also switch industries, to hospitality industry. And then I switched the location of my work from a big city to an island. So it's a tourist destination. So I had to completely change my mentality from you know, the city girl who's like,

3:15  
just imagine if you in America, you are a New York, New Yorker, and then you move to LA, right, it different pays, different

3:27  
personality that you deal with on a day to day basis. And all that. And I have to say, I was so glad that I got to do a career switch at a young age because that means I had no baggage. I had nobody to answer to I had I did not have to consult with anyone. I did have a boyfriend but you know, like, this is my life.

3:56  
So yeah, and I ended up breaking up with him anyway. And so I did make the right decision. That was the first the biggest career switch. I did, thankfully, because my passion for writing. It never really ends because

4:19  
it's almost like when you're born with a very good singing voice, you will never stop singing. So I never stopped writing. So I took up freelancing gig from different magazines and I never stopped that bit that that passion for writing. I still keep it but then I pursued the public relations, and then the marketing communications so I

4:50  
studied or learn on the job, and even more, and my career was actually

5:00  
going

5:02  
very, very well. And I ended up being a an account director by the time I was 2627. So I was very, very happy with the result. And,

5:17  
and that moved on all the way until I was 35. And again, the question

5:27  
Okay, Rebecca, you are in the corner office, you're a Director of Public Relations of a five star hotel, you literally have a physical corner office, you can see the city from, from your office, what else are you going to do, you're going to stay there until you retire, which is what is still a few decades, right. And I thought, Okay, this is again, another make or break situation. So I thought, Okay, I think if I want to ever try anything new, and it will have to be now before I'm quote unquote, too old. Of course, I don't subscribe to you know, think you're too old to do this and that.

6:13  
But I think it's more that my personal

6:18  
quote, unquote, oldness, in that, I still have the drive the ambition and the humility to start from scratch with anything and anything that I decided to do. And then I moved to tech, of course, like everybody else.

6:39  
But I had always been in the creative side. And, again, as we were just talking about it, not a lot of people think that what you know,

6:52  
there are so many professions within an industry or within a banking industry, there are so many profession in it.

6:59  
Within hospitality industry, you can be you can still be an accountant, in a in a big five star hotel, you know, not everyone in the hotel, mixing cocktails and stuff, or tidying up beds.

7:15  
So I thought, oh, what can I do with with the skills that I have,

7:22  
that I can work in tech, and the,

7:27  
the, what you call it the the overlapping bit is a property tech. So I then move to become a general manager of a co working space. So that's still within the hospitality industry that I know. But with a large, large aspect of tech and scaling up businesses around it.

7:56  
And then, of course, now, moving on from there, I now own my own company, which is a learning and development company. So I train women in tech, because I have seen how women in tech are struggling. And we cannot have it that women in women only make up a quarter

8:22  
of the workforce in in the tech industry, which is a dangerous, dangerous place to be.

8:29  
As in, if it keeps up like that our world is going to be so dangerous because then the tech will only be serving the men.

8:39  
So that's that's my whole CV right there.

8:43  
You got me on the it will only be serving men. There you go.

8:48  
I mean, you touched on so much between

8:52  
the way I've mapped it out in my 20s was because I had a guest on here and she was 26.

9:00  
And I was like, Oh, you're in the confusion phase.

9:06  
Where you're like, do I still want to do this for the rest of my life? Do I want to stay? And so my boss Oh, my computer is getting ready to die. Hold on. I thought it was all the way charged up and plugged in. Um, the way my boss kicked it to me and she she put the bug in my back was

9:25  
the golden handcuffs. And she was like, Yeah, you're gonna make a whole bunch of money and then you're gonna become you know, auditor, you know,

9:35  
you know, leading people and a manager and things like that. And, you know, a lot of money is something that you want to do and I'm like, You know what, I don't know.

9:48  
I'm like, I haven't traveled I haven't did this and you know, I want to do that. Um, and at the time like you like you're saying you you probably have a man Yeah, you know what

10:00  
partner. And I was like, Yeah, I don't, I don't really care to have him anymore either.

10:06  
Because we talked about marriage or anything like that. So, you know, let me let me do what I do. And you know, around that time my mother was was really sick and stuff like that. And

10:19  
so it was a lot of things for me. And I ended up quitting my whole life due to my mother. Um, but you know, that bug was still there. And then, you know, that's when I left and went to. I went to China for a little bit, and then I went to Mexico, and in Mexico for almost five years. So.

10:41  
Yeah. Fortunately, people that are in their late 20s I mean, that's the I call it the real confusion phase, like people think, you know, the midlife crisis is one but now you're in your late 20s. The quarter life crisis is real. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I remember

11:00  
celebrating my 25th birthday. And I was even saying to myself, Oh, I have never even had a one night stand in my

11:12  
girl.

11:14  
That is the sort of thing that went through my mind. Because it's like, I haven't lived, you know?

11:25  
Not that it's the definition. But it's like, you know, your your, your, your life.

11:34  
Your let's say, carefree life is ending, you know, when you're 25. Because, because then you have to take everything seriously. So in my mind's like, Damn, if I have to take everything seriously, from here on end. This would be there's my 25th birthday, this would be the last day I can mess up.

11:54  
So yeah, and I.

11:57  
But again,

11:59  
not only that, in my, for my 25th birthday, or for my 35th birthday, I had another I guess if life expectancy on average is 70, then 35 would be the midlife. Right. Well, I guess it depends on the country, but in the States. Well, it recently dropped. I think it dropped down to like 7576, but it was 78. So it's what yeah, what yeah, 3839 Yeah, yeah, exactly. So. So life begins at 40 thing. So whatever all the saying the midlife crisis and Life begins at 40. So yeah, I was

12:38  
I, I was quite fortunate that I had the access for education.

12:45  
I did, I was born and bred in a third world country. But I have to acknowledge my privilege as well that I was born into a middle class family that that could afford good education for me. And then I took it up to then be a very good student, very good worker,

13:08  
which led to me achieving

13:12  
the top position. So early on, that it gave me the bug, like, should I stay here? Just enjoying? Because I paid my dues, you know, in the past couple of decades, but now can I just sail through cruise through all the way until my pension age? Or do I venture out and, and stumble and fall again, and I chose I chose to stumble and fall again. Because I think my ambition was way too, too big to ignore.

13:54  
And I want to tell the girls out there that it's fine. It's absolutely fine to have an ambition at it and admit that you're ambitious.

14:05  
Definitely, definitely my father thought I was insane when I left my good government job, you know, do that. And I'm like, Daddy, like, first of all, like my mother was sick. That's, that's why I left and second of all, like, I figured, like, if I can do it one, I can do it again. And ya know.

14:23  
Exactly. And by the time you do it again, it won't be from absolute scratch.

14:29  
Right. So I, there's a few because

14:35  
one of the things that I do on the side as well is I do take on clients

14:42  
who, who's who's looking for a career coach. And normally these clients are those who are already in C suite wanting for a career change. And, and the struggle the common question is always the same.

15:00  
Am I too late of doing this?

15:04  
But it took me 20 years to get to where I am.

15:10  
Could I, you know,

15:13  
do I have to do this for the next one years to get? You know? And I said, Of course not. Because a you have a long list of transferable skills. And secondly, you have done so many mistakes that, you know, you can avoid this time around.

15:33  
You know, really definitely, and that's one reason why I started the podcast too, because it's like, you know, people are confused about, you know, taking their previous skills and experience and how and when to apply them.

15:47  
So, yeah, like you said, you know, now I know the process of getting a government job, and, you know, I can actually do seminars on it. And I've actually done a seminar on it, I have one coming up in March, you know, because my thing is, I have this knowledge, I should be able to, you know, talk about it, and yeah, circling back to people not knowing about certain positions and careers, and like, you're saying, Oh, well, I didn't know the government, you can be an engineer and accountant, a doctor, lawyer and et cetera, et cetera. You know, like, I didn't know, but the government does everything. We didn't know that there was a Dr. Fauci.

16:32  
Right. Right. Right. Like, like, you don't know. So, you know, this is why, you know, I encourage people to talk about their experiences and their knowledge, their skills, because there's a whole subset of people out there that don't know, and they want to know, but they don't know how to get the information. Yeah, absolutely. Um, all things come at a cost. What did that cost you? And did you have support from your friends and your family?

17:03  
The cost is, I don't have social life, I tell you,

17:09  
because I have a family life, I have three children. That is three to many.

17:17  
For any ambitious person, that's three to many. So you know, you have family life, you have social life, you have work life. So since I cannot divorce my children,

17:33  
I will I had to recalibrate my social schedule. And I thank God for social media, because

17:43  
you even without, you know, back back in the dark era, before social media, the only way you can catch up with your friends, is to physically meet them, or telephone them.

17:58  
Hey, what's going on, and how's how's your boyfriend that

18:03  
and that's how I, my friends, and I used to do it, we used to hang out

18:10  
once a month in a cafe and just do a roundtable of updates. And now we simply just need to see what's on their Instagram story. And, and if there's any concerning, you know, if I see my friend's child on Instagram story, being in a hospital, then I can go, Hey, what's going on girl, what's going on with your son is everything all right? And so on. So that is so my social life is just then basically DMS and in terms of support,

18:47  
I have to say my husband

18:51  
he, I chose the right husband in that he is 13 years older than me. And he is a decade further than me in terms of his career trajectory. So he arrived he has arrived in his destination before I did, so there was no ego

19:14  
racing and also he knows he appreciate that I still have a long way to go to where I want to be and he appreciated that. And so he knows he's already at his Finish Line seeing me still in the race saying like, come on, you can do it girl

19:38  
and not us racing at the same time. So that is very, very good. But of course, back in my my late 20s My parents would be like why are you working all the time make time to meet guys and stuff?

19:58  
So yeah, I was the labor

20:00  
Write? Well, based on Indonesian standard, I got married when I was 28.

20:07  
No, I get you. I get to my parents were married at 21. And they waited six years to have me. So my mother was 27 when she had, and I have a nephew. I don't have any kids, but it's like, okay, like, what's what's going on with you? Your parents married at 21? And I'm like, Yeah, I couldn't imagine being married at 21. But my parents knew each other since they were kids. And, you know,

20:36  
my mother swore she wasn't gonna date anyone from the neighborhood. But lo and behold, here comes my father. You know, he's grown up and he looks good.

20:46  
But he did his glow up. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. My mom says they used to call him bubble died. Howard is my father's.

20:58  
So, um, so yeah, like, my mother is like, yeah, I don't know if I'm gonna get any grandkids and all that kind of stuff for me. You know, my sister did all that stuff. So I'm like, Okay, well, I'm Yeah, in the wind. And, you know, my sister is in healthcare. You know, she's a frontline worker. You know, what all this COVID stuff and brags about her? And I'm like, you know, I'm doing my thing. And Mexico or whatever, you know, starting businesses and stuff, and he ain't got none of

21:28  
that part.

21:30  
Yeah.

21:36  
About you, he never talks about you. I'm like, Okay, well, I guess that's a good thing.

21:41  
Right?

21:44  
Yeah, girl. I mean, that's the whole point of this podcast, and my podcast as well. There's this, there's no one perfect path for every single girl, then definitely, the only the only thing that I feel really bad about us is that we do have biological clock. That is one thing, because honestly, your parents could wait six years to have you. And an N. I'm like,

22:19  
I wish I could wait six years.

22:23  
I had I was pregnant three months after after our wedding.

22:30  
And it wasn't planned.

22:33  
So

22:36  
because we wanted to have, you know, a long honeymoon and whatnot.

22:41  
But But yeah, it's it's crazy that

22:47  
some, some women really do want to be mothers, and I appreciate that. But at the same time, if society is not allowing us in the sense of infrastructure policies, then then I'm not surprised at all, if many women choose not to have children or choose to freeze their egg for until the time is maybe not perfect, but but more ideal than having children. Now, you know, it's

23:24  
it's heartbreaking when I started my business,

23:28  
here in England, my baby was only two years old. And even though there is a universal health, not health care, childcare,

23:41  
the childcare will only start kicking in when the babies are the child is three years old.

23:49  
And I was saying, so what do you expect women do for the first three years of this baby's life? Just postpone? Or is our, you know, three years is a lot of time wasted. Right? And while our male peers, you know, can just go up in the career ladder, or even do you know,

24:15  
businesses their business can take off in three years. But we, what can we do? And as we know, time is the most expensive commodity.

24:28  
Right? So at the end,

24:31  
at the end, I begged my husband and say, Okay, let's live as if we are just broke, broke bougie.

24:43  
Just like, let's not do any fancy holidays or whatever. We don't need to upgrade our iPhone every year. But we send our baby to nursery and I tell you, we spend 1000

25:00  
200 pounds sterling.

25:03  
So that's in us probably almost $2,000 every month to pay for child care. And that's essentially a whole month of salary. For right. So, but I'm like, Okay, time is expensive. So I would rather that I start my business in 2022 Rather than wait.

25:29  
Because

25:31  
I'm not going to

25:34  
go through my life based on a policy that is not pro. Not only, not pro women, not pro parents, and at the same time, people in the

25:49  
first world country are saying that, Oh, our populations are aging, and we don't have enough young generation. Well, yeah. All the Gen Zers. They refuse to have children. Thank you very much.

26:06  
No, I guess my reasoning on it, we're so off base on the podcast. But I mean, it has to be said is, I was about 22. And you know, how to do things about marriage, whatever. But you know, our life path was different. So that's why we're not together. And somebody had came back from maternity leave. And literally, this is when I worked for the government. So I mean, they have good stuff, you know what I'm saying? And she had to save up her time in order to take, you know, the four to six weeks off. That's number one. And she was like, yeah, the daycare for the newborn. I think she said it was like, $1,500 a month. So mind you, I'm at the beginning of my career, so I wasn't making much money. So I'm looking at my paycheck, like, Yo, that's like, almost how much I'm bringing home. So it was kids supposed to fit in here, you know, and I made a conscious decision, then, like, I don't know, if I if I want them, because I don't want to be out here struggling, you know what I'm saying. And, you know, at that time, I had moved away from home to find a job, because there wasn't any jobs where I lived at. And so I was on the other side of the country, and I'm like, I don't have support and my parents, so you know, what am I supposed to do with this?

27:20  
Exactly. So it's not that it's not even about want or don't want, we cannot afford it.

27:28  
And that is why so many women aren't.

27:32  
In the pandemic, there's so many women were forced out of the workforce. Because they're, they have to take care of the family, etc. And, and here's the sick thing.

27:50  
It's not because mothers are better parents than fathers. I'm not at all saying that. Even though there's a lot of cases where it's true. But

28:02  
in the day to day decision making, it's almost like okay, so well, you make you dear husband, you make more money, and therefore it makes more sense for me. who earns less money?

28:16  
To stay back? But then the question again, why do women earn less money? That's another systemic problem. Right? So it's like, Oh, my God, literally, we're pregnant then screwed.

28:33  
Yeah, I didn't really care about the clock, because my grandmother had some at 47. It was Oopsies. Like, but ah, you know, so I'm like, Okay, I think my womb is good. Like that.

28:46  
You know, but who wants to be 47? You know, having again, having okay, my bones are aching at this point. But, ya know, so, you know, the clock didn't really bother me. Like, I didn't I didn't care if I had some at 35 or whatever, but it was more so the money thing and the time because it's like, Okay, I gotta save up my time and then what if I'm sick or my baby's sick, then I gotta borrow time and, you know, the list just really goes on. I think I think the feds have had some maternity leave now. So but you know, that was that was a huge fight. But um, but ya know, it's it's it's really, really sick out here. And you know, I actually I have friends that don't want kids, you know, for these reasons alone. And their men and women. They're like, yeah, I want to be about the broke poor life like

29:40  
and that is why that is why career switching

29:44  
is is important because these days there are new companies

29:51  
who would accommodate Flexi hours, remote work, and even childcare on site?

30:00  
or that would offer childcare vouchers and things like that. So I want more women especially, or those who are parents, to really, listen get over your fear of career switching, if it will allow you to be a better

30:24  
caretaker. Because it's not only kids you're taking care of, you're probably just like your story, you probably have to take care of your elderly parent, right? So caring, caring for someone, it's not just because you have children, but you definitely have parents, okay? So,

30:44  
or a sibling, who's ill, or what have you, you have so many potential life circumstances that would benefit from you switching career into something that is more flexible, something that is that gives you less stress. Because if you have already a stressful situation at home,

31:08  
you won't thrive in any job, you know, that you already, if you have a toxic workplace, plus you have a a challenging life structure, or no structure at all. So your life is kind of in a quite messy situation. So yeah, take that leap. Those who are now thinking about, Oh, that job, pay me less, but would give me more flexibility. Maybe you should take that one, for now. Right. Because if you situation will get better, that's how the world works, you will be if you're

31:50  
at rock bottom, now the only way is up. So things will get better with time and with effort. And then by that time, when you get better, you will also then be more promotable at your new job.

32:06  
So you will regain that that income, but you can never buy back time that is lost, and you can never

32:14  
probably recover if you lose

32:19  
precious time with your family that you're taking care of. So I think that is

32:26  
that that is what our whole conversation about, you know, having a child having ill parents having responsibilities at home, outside of work, even though the biological clock is not.

32:44  
It's not the enemy you're facing now. But probably you have a different situation, maybe your spouse needs taken care of, you know, and as we know, it's not only physical illness these days that is taking, taking us down it's mental illness as well.

33:03  
Listen, listen, listen, listen, you touched on so much. Because I've, you know, one thing that me and my friend, you know, go through, you know, especially as entrepreneurs is you know, the, the depths, the depths and the hills,

33:17  
then it's like, Okay, at this point, we're down. So we just got to deal with the damn part of it, but it's gonna come back.

33:25  
So this is just our standard gonna be down right now we got to,

33:29  
you know, I'm blessed that I have, you know, a friend that we talk about this stuff and we don't yell and we do yelling, screaming, yelling and screaming at each other. And, you know, we we vent and all that good stuff. So, you know, he talks about his experiences, I talk about mine, and you know, we come to a conclusion on a this is, this is what it is, or sometimes we don't you know what I'm saying? But, you know, we just, you know, we're venting, so, you know, I'm like, he calls it his his Kanye rant. Yo, yo, Kanye, right?

34:03  
Like, I'm about the Kanye rant. So, so ya know, you you are so right. And you know, but the thing is, you have to take the steps to kind of make it better to you can't just can't just wallow and you know, not take any action. So then people forget that part two, they're like, oh, yeah, we're in the hills and valleys you know, but what are you doing to kind of you know, mitigate that and try to make it better you know?

34:34  
So yeah, that's my perspective on it. We're so off I don't know how much time you got left.

34:40  
With

34:43  
you know, you kind of touched on this but we both kind of touched on a lot but I wanted on how did you make the transition to you know, being from

34:55  
you know, public relations to you know, what you're doing now, like, what did you do?

35:00  
Word resume, how did you convince someone to take a chance on you?

35:05  
Oh, gosh,

35:07  
my recent most recent experience is, I think, probably the worst. Because not only that I moved from public relations to move to tech, and then now building my own company. But I'm now doing it in a foreign country.

35:29  
English is my second language. So there's another layer of a problem. And I'm an immigrant, as another layer. I had, I know nobody here, aside from my in laws.

35:42  
So the the answer to convincing people to trust me, even though I'm all of that all of the above, plus, I don't have a Western degree, I don't have a degree from a Western country, that's what I mean,

35:57  
is to build my personal brand.

36:01  
I know it's a, it's a trend these days. But personal brand has always been

36:11  
at the forefront of,

36:14  
of someone in.

36:16  
In professions that is client facing. I mean, you probably don't have to be, you don't have to have a personal brand. If you are an accountant, or you.

36:29  
You work in procurement or purchasing department. But if you're client facing, you need to have you need to ensure that you have the reputation the good reputation, that you are not

36:45  
that you are some someone that they can trust. You know, people want to work with people they know they liked, they trust. So in 2022, my entire year was dedicated to building my website, my polishing my CV, polishing my LinkedIn profile, because and I tell you this,

37:16  
especially for

37:18  
a lot of millennials and Gen Z's out there, we used to think that

37:25  
social media like Instagram, even LinkedIn, and so on, are only for those who are actively seeking for a brand deal or seeking for a job. But actually, if you are consistently building your brand, presence, every time you're doing something great, you post it online, make it like your own wall of fame.

37:51  
So by by the time you need it for your career switching, or if you want to switch from being an employer employee, to become becoming self employed, or building your own business, you don't have to start from scratch. This is my mistake before and learn from my mistake. Don't wait until you need to build a personal brand. You build it as you go along. So if you're a fresh graduate now, build it from now, showcase what you do, as a volunteer showcase your projects that you did in school,

38:30  
or even if you're doing something for the local community, for your church,

38:36  
for your neighborhood, posts it because the more you post something that is not just your outfit of the day or get ready with me pose the more potential client potential employer out there will see you as someone who is

38:57  
trustworthy and plus someone with essence, you know, not just

39:04  
because, and this is what I hope as well for the HR community

39:10  
and founders of companies

39:14  
to not hire CV but hire the people. You know, because AI can write your CV for you. Right?

39:26  
But the actual so when when I post something on Instagram, Tik Tok, or especially LinkedIn, I post something about me about my worldviews, including my political views. And, and it doesn't have to mean like,

39:45  
it doesn't mean that you mentioned outline that I vote for this guy or that guy, but for example, in England this week, teachers are striking

40:00  
because they don't have enough pay race. And I personally believe they should get very well pay their teachers. And the week before it was nurses, and I believe in that as well. And I post, even though it does sound political, but for me, it's humanitarian, you know, teachers and nurses, they're the actual heroes, right? And they deserve more. So these are the things, my personal values and worldviews, those are the things that I pose. So when people want to work with me, even though they can work.

40:42  
I'm not, I'm not unique in my profession, I don't think anyone is unique in their profession.

40:48  
But the same way as

40:51  
to have the same doctors with the same specialties. Want the one with a better bedside manner, will cure more patients?

41:02  
That is the way I approach things. So

41:06  
even if you're career switching, and you think, Oh, how do I compete with other job seekers eyeing for the same job?

41:18  
And they have been in that field longer than than I have been?

41:23  
And this is the answer, you showcase, that you might be

41:32  
more of a newbie, in this particular position. But you as a teammate, you as a colleague, you are dependable, reliable, you have morals, you have integrity, you're honest. And you're a leader. And that is the one thing that that cannot show up in just this one page of CV. You know,

41:56  
it's funny that you say that, because during 2020, when I couldn't go out and pound the pavement and get clients and Mexico.

42:05  
I got on Twitter, that was the first time I had ever been on Twitter before even though I had I had a podcast. This isn't my first one. It was black woman in Mexico, right. And I would post stuff from there automatically, like using buffer or something like that. And so that was like the only thing I had on Twitter as some house the way I had a following, right. So that's number one. And so I got on Twitter. And you know, I was like, Okay, well, I'm in, I'm in tech Now technically, like, I've been in tech since I was like nine or 10 years old, though. But, you know, I need these certifications. And I'll just start posting my progress and stuff like that. Yeah. And so I was like, Well, I don't want to pay for them. So you know, let me find some scholarships, and you know, stuff like that. So I found them. And you know, I'm posting my progress, or one this today or one that today. And so people were like, well, how do you pick one of these things. So like, I turned it into a business, and I got my first customer my first day, and I technically never even worked for a company in tech.

43:08  
But I came out there swinging, you know, with this knowledge, and I'm helping people and you know, and they're like, Who is this? and stuff? And you know, so yeah, it really works, you know, in that extent, because I built that brand over, I'll say I might have got on Twitter, like in maybe may or something like that. And then I started in November, so maybe like six month or foe, you know, daily tweeting progress and things like that. And then you know, when I was ready to sell it shout out to my friend because he was like, Yeah, you should turn that into a business and people keep asking, I got my customer my birthday, you know, so. So I'll agree that you know, you you have to put yourself out there and I'm an introvert. So, you know, I'm like, I feel like fill up form with people today, you know, but yeah, yeah, do it anyway. Um, and my mindset on it is, you know, I'm going to get my money. So I have to put that introverted and this to the side and get out here and make my money.

44:13  
Absolutely. I was glad that, you know, when I got recruited by Microsoft, I, I was like, Okay, I really got street credit now, because I got recruited by, you know, one of the largest cloud providers, you know,

44:27  
so, you know, I was like, Okay, well, let me start doing seminars. And you know, that was a festival and, you know, people were coming to see me, you know, I'm telling my friend oh

44:40  
five, you know, that turned into 300 You know, so, so yeah, it's really crazy how, you know, the hills and the valleys go, gotta put in the work and you have out there. So, you know, I say all that to, you know, basically touch on what you were saying and then also

45:00  
gotta close out the podcast but

45:03  
where can we find you, Rebecca? Yes, so go to my LinkedIn. Rebecca lap Bart

45:13  
there are a few Rebecca leopards out there but I'm the only one in pink

45:19  
on and for the especially for for the Gen Z ers out there. I just recently created a tic toc. It's Rebecca lap art as well. So I want to be basically your big sister in your career journey because I know what it's like to be the newest generation I was that millennial that all the boomers hated because oh you millennials? What do you know about work and life, etc. So I'm taking everything that I know how to navigate the career. Jungle, it's not even a ladder anymore. It's a jungle gym. And yeah, follow on I talk about how to not only career switch out what to talk about during appraisal, how to talk yourself up for interviews, what to read on the CV these days, because it's the robots who are reading the CV these days, girl, let me tell you. So yeah, find me on tick tock.

46:30  
HR swears that they read them though. So I don't know what there's been many, many comments on LinkedIn where they're like, Yeah, we review all the resumes. I'm like, You're not reviewing 300. Stop, you're lying.

46:40  
Yeah, no, they will only read it after. So the first layer the first gatekeeper, is you would say, you know, in a nightclub, the bouncer is the AI. Okay.

46:53  
So there you go. And, yeah, there's tons of tips out there on how and especially again,

47:00  
one thing, one thing that is annoying me because job descriptions and job title, these days are so confusing. You can be in HR and your official job title is talent acquisition, right? People and culture. And robots cannot differentiate that.

47:22  
So yeah, so the one thing is to when you're applying for something, match the words the exact word, because you can be a marketer. But then the job that you're applying for says customer acquisition, you got to change your CV from you as a marketing expert to a customer acquisition expert. That is how crazy it is. Because otherwise, the robot will be like, not a match.

47:58  
Definitely. And you know, if you sign up for my resume, I do resume reviews and live LinkedIn reviews. I'll choose three people from the audience. And that's one thing I say I was like, if your title is, you know, Process Engineer like, the hell is that? So you know, it should be what you're doing and match it up to other things. But someone told me that companies do that. So other companies can't poach you. That's, that's what that's what I heard. You're like, yeah, they can people dumb titles. So when you put it on your LinkedIn or your resume, like you're saying, HR doesn't know what you do, and then AI doesn't know what you do, and then they can't find you. So now you're stuck. So I always always say change your title you and you know, of course, don't don't embellish it, but it should match up to something that is very well known.

48:49  
Absolutely. Oh my god, I've never heard that. And that's what somebody in HR told me. They're like, yeah, we give these dumb titles that mean nothing. So other companies can't poach them. But you know, companies in that industry, no, but if you're trying to leave that industry, like you were saying, you went from, you know, hospitality to something else. Yeah. The Saudis not gonna know what that is. You know, they call it the real name.

49:16  
Oh, yeah. Oh my god, that is so annoying. It's almost like how Starbucks baristas misspell your name on purpose. So that you will take a snapshot of your Starbucks cup and posted on social media. The thing is, because I just saw that the other day.

49:37  
Okay, well, that's a good brand awareness. Right. That's a good brandy.

49:41  
That's correct. Yeah, it's like look, they spell my name with with a k instead of a CD or things like that.

49:52  
That makes perfect sense, especially since I've been digging more into like marketing strategies and stuff for my business. So it's like yeah, okay.

50:03  
coming on the show, Rebecca. We got off topic, but I mean, a lot of this stuff needs to be said. And yes. Like I said, I appreciate you coming on. She is in the UK. And so this is our third third international guests. And

50:20  
yeah, if you haven't subscribed already, we're on YouTube, Google, Apple, Spotify and whatever your favorite podcast app is. And yeah, nobody wants to work though. Until next time.