I've always wanted to create my 'own thing' but for a long time couldn't work out what that was.  Ironic, given I've spent two decades crafting other people's stories and have now created a consultancy focused on identity!  But the search for my thing was the making of Yellow Shoes.  As soon as I took the time to rediscover me and was brave enough to back myself,  I took a chance on using the things I can do to help others.

 

Teaching through storytelling is what I get to do now.  I collaborate with businesses, brands and most importantly people, to answer the questions: How real are the stories we are telling?  Both to ourselves and to others.  And how do these stories connect people to brands and businesses, people to people and people to the person they are under all those layers of life?   To do this work I combine two decades of building brands, business cultures and future leaders with my recent professional coaching and design qualifications, as well as my studies in psychology.  

 

I see myself as a coach without the cringe, a business consultant without the BS, a 'funsy' rather than mumsy mum and a creative spirit who also needs a finite plan of exactly where I'm going. They say focus on one thing to succeed, but I've never done what 'they' say (ask my mum). And so while for me, everything comes back to identity, at Yellow Shoes we offer bespoke range of services based on the needs of each client to help them succeed.

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And I want to do more.  While I'm aware I come from a place of privilege, I have felt otherness in business and in life.  Because of this, I'm particularly passionate about supporting people (and especially women) to generate their own power by seeing themselves in new ways.  I'm driven by the fact women - and all underrepresented groups - are still far from equal in terms of what they're paid, in the language we use everyday and even in the basic right to feel safe.  How can things change for good when the system is still unbalanced?  For me, change can start with everyone embracing otherness as a unique superpower.

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The name Yellow Shoes comes from a time when I wore a pair of yellow shoes for my first ever board meeting.  Young, female, from a different world, I was the subject of a bit of banter because of my choice of kicks.  Banter between the rest of the group, I wasn't included.  But I kept going, and kept wearing every version of those yellow shoes that felt like me.  As an added bonus, I eventually became very fond of one of the people that made me feel so small that day. I discovered they connected through banter and teasing me was their way of bringing me into the group.  New perspectives like this, I've learned, are hugely powerful in building confidence and building relationships.