Heart and Hustle: What it takes to make it to the top

Heart and Hustle: What it takes to make it to the top
Patricia Bright

”I’m going to show you how to hustle like I do, using your head and heart. All it takes is three steps…”YOUR BRAND: how you can use who you are to smash it onlineYOUR BUSINESS: how to run your side hustle like a total bossYOUR BELIEFS: ditch the thinking that’s holding you backFrom the early lessons she learned growing up in South London, to the moment she gave up the 9 to 5 to do what she loved, Patricia Bright’s story will revolutionise how you think about work, life, and what it means to succeed.Packed with her trademark attitude, style and sense of fun, Heart & Hustle is an inspirational guide to taking control of your own future.

Copyright (#ulink_bfcdc9d4-72d4-54c9-87d7-b41abb4e063a)

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019

Copyright © Patricia Bright 2019

Patricia Bright asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © January 2019 ISBN: 9780008263096

Dedicated to my daughter, Grace

CONTENTS

Cover (#uea7d90d2-37f7-510f-93b3-a79239b9a453)

Title Page (#u7d17c3a6-8ec3-5f5d-8079-f3c4734749c2)

Copyright (#ulink_6accfe99-27d2-5c39-b9d6-3cfca1782b5c)

Dedication (#u3d54ddca-14b8-5192-9191-1a36282700ec)

INTRODUCTION (#ulink_397cd1c9-ea88-5285-9cf7-7a03c37bd131)

1 NATURAL-BORN HUSTLER (#ulink_e66e9099-a849-548a-bd68-bfa55d60277e)

2 YES, I WORK FOR MYSELF ON THE INTERNET!

3 THE IMPORTANCE OF BUILDING A FOLLOWING ON SOCIAL MEDIA

4 THE SCIENCE BIT – PRACTICAL ADVICE FOR BUILDING UP A SOCIAL MEDIA PROFILE

5 TAKING YOUR AUDIENCE TO THE NEXT LEVEL OF GROWTH

6 ONLINE VS REAL LIFE

7 CREATE YOUR WEALTH

8 A CAREER VS GOING IT ALONE

9 HOW TO RUN YOUR EMPIRE

10 A WOMAN’S WORLD

11 DISCOVERING WHO YOU ARE (AND WHAT YOU VALUE)

12 STAYING THE COURSE IN STYLE

13 THE POWER OF A PEP TALK

14 STREAMLINE THE STRESS AWAY

15 FEELING GOOD FROM THE OUTSIDE IN

TIME TO SAY GOODBYE

MY READING LIST

About the Publisher

Introduction (#ulink_d13e6c31-408a-5d3c-9e4e-7116d051afe4) | Killing it? (#ulink_d13e6c31-408a-5d3c-9e4e-7116d051afe4)

I’ve never been someone who sits back and takes it all in. I’m not going to lie – the truth is that I often feel I’m an imposter, wondering how I got here and struggling with the idea that I might actually be any good at anything!

Take a recent fortnight: I was shot for the cover of Glamour magazine, nominated for a Shorty Award (think: the Oscars of social media), announced a lipstick collaboration with MAC Cosmetics and reached 2 million subscribers on my YouTube channel (which, as I’ll explain, I started as a hobby to kill my boredom at uni). The week before that, I was sitting with a private equity firm discussing negotiations for a future project and organising a trip to Disneyland for my two year old. That was a busy one! But, when I’m in the moment, I don’t give much thought to the immensity of what’s happening. I’m on autopilot. It might look like I’m holding it all together, but I’m often scared, nervous and feel like I’m winging it as I go.

That’s the reality of my life, just as it’s other people’s reality too. Of course I’m excited every time something great happens, but in the same moment, I’m filled with fear because it’s almost too good. Still, I’m learning to appreciate every experience and achievement, and I don’t take it for granted. As much as I talk about being scared, I don’t let the fear stop me. It’s part of the hustle and, ultimately, it drives me forward.

That’s just one of the reasons why I wanted to write this book: to pull back the curtain on my experiences as a business owner and digital-content creator sharing my heart with my followers (not to mention a husband and a baby), and pass on some of the insights I’ve gathered along the way. In this book, I’m going to show you how to hustle like I do, using your head and heart. All it takes is three steps:

> Your Brand: how you can leverage who you are to kill it online and boost your work and personal life, whether you have 20 Twitter followers or 20,000.

> Your Business: how to run your side hustle like a total boss, know when to go it alone and turn your side-hustle into your full-time game.

> Your Beliefs: how to adopt certain ideas about yourself and the world that will serve you well, and ditch the thinking that’s holding you back.

But before all of that, I want to reveal more about myself, to show you what I’m all about and the principles I live my life by. I’ve never shared the full story of why being able to look after those close to me, achieving what I set my mind to and ‘securing the bag’ has always been – and still is – so very important to me. So here goes …

My story: the upbringing that shaped me

I grew up in Battersea, London. I’m a south London girl for life, with African heart! My mum was a jack-of-all-trades, who loved makeup and fashion. Before she ever clapped eyes on my dad, she used to travel back and forth between London and Nigeria, where she had a salon/boutique, buying beauty and hair products to sell back home. Then, one day, she met my dad, who was also over from Nigeria, as an international student working for his university degree in the UK. It was a Clapham Junction love story – well, that’s what they told me. Their eyes met across the shopping centre there, at a time when there weren’t many people who looked like them in that part of south London. When they got talking, they realised they were from the same area of Nigeria, and spoke the same dialect … I suppose it was meant to be!

Not long after that, my mum became pregnant (with me), then, eighteen months later, my younger sister decided to join the party. My dad graduated with his printing technology degree and began working at a boutique publishing firm. Mum got whatever work she could, while raising two small children. But they made it work, and I have happy memories of those early days.

Then, when I was six years old, my dad was deported.

It came as a total shock. One night there was a frantic knocking at the door and a team of policemen came through the house to find my dad, before taking him away like a thief in the night. I can still clearly picture my mum sitting on the stairs pleading to deaf ears, while my sister and I sobbed. We didn’t know that it would take another six years, a court case, and much sweat and tears until our father would be back with us.

Now I’m older, I understand what happened. My dad was essentially an illegal immigrant: he had outstayed his student visa and was working, but he hadn’t applied for permanent residency. It was a mistake that caused a lot of pain, but that ultimately made us all a lot more resilient, as I’ll explain.

Learning to hustle

Now, with Dad gone, we were on our own. When I think back on it, my mum could have let what had happened break her, but she didn’t. She’s about five foot, with a huge smile and doll-like eyes, completely ‘butter wouldn’t melt’. But, let me tell you, she’s a force to be reckoned with: the most amazing example of hustle and heart.

Back then, Mum worked as a cleaner. From offices to trains, she put in the shifts, getting up in the early hours for 5 a.m. starts on some days, and trudging home after 10 p.m. finishes on others. And, while we were at primary school, my sister and I learned to put in the shifts, too. I suspect this might be considered very illegal nowadays. However, when you don’t have an option, sometimes you just do what you have to. Because Dad had been deported, my sister and I had to go everywhere with our mum, as she really wanted to avoid leaving us home alone.

So, at four o’ clock in the morning, with sleep in our eyes and our school uniforms already on, the two of us would often go with Mum to clean offices in London. My sister and I would vacuum, wash the dishes and wipe down the surfaces – we weren’t very big, but we were strong. We would put in the work then, after we had locked up the offices, Mum would take us to school. This, of course, was a secret, and somehow (maybe it was Mum’s stern looks) we knew that that part of our lives wasn’t meant to be known. We’d already had an experience with the authorities and, deep down, I think we were scared that they might take our mum away like they had our dad. So we kept quiet about this part of our lives, playing at school just like all the other children.

Over the following years, I watched my mum elevate herself. She had a secondary school education and not much else, but while she still worked as a cleaner, she also began training as a nurse. She would read and study when she could and, in between her shifts and training, rustle up meals for my sister and me. Somehow Mum knew how to make a meal using basic ingredients like corned beef and packet noodles taste gourmet. Though we never had a lot in terms of material things, we never felt we lacked. There was so much love that we always felt comfortable.

Meanwhile, we were moving from council house to council house. To be honest, these places weren’t great. The three of us dealt with racists, being attacked by a neighbour’s dog, and the day-to-day struggle of living in what were just downright dodgy locations. Eventually, in a huge stroke of fortune, the council housed us in a lovely two-bedroom flat with carpets, freshly painted walls and even a new bunk bed that my sister and I could share. Our neighbours were relatively normal – in fact, some of them were even nice! We felt that things were on the up in our world.

At the same time, I know it was far from easy for my mum. During that time, we’d speak to Dad every week on the phone, and we visited Nigeria twice to see him while the court case was under way to try to bring him back. For years, this placed huge pressure on Mum, who just wanted to have her husband home. Since she was now working as a nurse, doing all the shifts she could, my sister and I were often at home alone. There were a few things we always knew we mustn’t do – instructions drilled into us to keep us safe. Above all, we knew not to open the door or the curtains.