#iwd2023 Jaimee Brooking
International Women's Day is a day to recognise the achievements of women globally and to celebrate the progress that has been made in the fight for gender equality. The day is a reminder that we should all strive to create a world in which everyone has the same opportunities and rights, regardless of gender.
We celebrated by hosting a yoga class and smoothie bowls for the women of our community, and invited four inspirational women to share their stories with us.
Jaimee is a digital producer and woman of many talents, including being a marriage celebrant. Jaimee has worked in the advertising agency industry for over a decade and has recently become a freelancer.
Tell us about you, whats your story?
I’ve always been quite a social butterfly type with a lot of friends, so when I started getting back pain and symptoms of anxiety around the age of 14/15, I didn’t initially connect it to the fact I was getting bullied by my ‘friends’, and just tried to pretend everything was ok. My main goal at that time was ensuring everyone liked me - a total Type A people pleaser. I never explored the anxiety or its cause, but found myself very up and down emotionally and often very stressed. This is probably around the same time I found my ‘party girl’ identity. Drinking was an easy way to fit in with my peers and be accepted. I loved the feeling of being silly and drunk, so I didn’t have to face any of the real issues in my life around identity and self-worth.
As I was well into my party girl years after high school, I realised the next thing that was the ‘right thing to do’ was go to University as everyone else was doing it. I never had considered ever owning my own business or doing anything overly challenging. I decided to choose a Bachelor of Arts because those subjects interested me… but had really no idea what I wanted to do with my life. At that time, Digital Marketing wasn’t really a thing, I guess it was, but it certainly wasn’t as mainstream as it is now.
Although I was pretty smart and good at racing towards last minute deadlines and managing to pull through I lacked a lot of confidence and found I was more drawn to following the crowd rather than forging my own path. I was partying and drinking a lot, not really looking after my health. Although I did get some good grades, I generally ‘scraped through’ with C’s and then my career began.
After finishing my degree at the University of Auckland, I fell into different marketing roles. I lived in Wellington for a couple of years, this was the first time I actually spread my wings to live anywhere outside of Auckland. I met a tonne of interesting people and found more confidence. In this role however, I really struggled with female leadership as it was always quite cut-throat, negative and bitchy. I knew I didn’t want this for myself as I am quite down to earth, I was looking for more fun and balance, while learning from great people.
“The moral of the story is, you don’t need to be an asshole to be a great leader as a woman. I love working with women who are powerful, have an opinion, but also lead with empathy and compassion.”
From there, I moved into agency land. I was super excited about this as I knew it would be more varied and fun. I figured it out really quickly and made some epic friends who are still my good mates, to this day. Anyone in marketing looking to shake up your skill set, I would highly recommend going agency side. I was in client-services and started as an account manager, moving up the ranks to account director in a few years. The only downside is you think it’s going to be glitz and glam, drinks with clients, working on fun productions and managing projects. But the expectation is really to work hard and play hard. We certainly played hard!! I struggled to see lots of my colleagues staying til 10pm at night to get their work done as they couldn’t manage their time. I had found ways to be more efficient and was actually really good at my job. So good in fact, every new client that would come on board, the big bosses would allocate to me. By the end of leaving my first advertising job I had 12 clients on my own and was absolutely worked to the bone.
Unfortunately, little did I know, this career path was leading me to the most horrific burn out I have ever experienced, and I do not wish that upon anyone. I had to quit the job to put a line in the sand as me speaking up didn’t seem to work, and noone was able to help me. So I started a new job at a boutique agency which was super exciting as I was able to own the digital team and make it my own. I absolutely loved my boss there, she was hilarious, powerful and a down right boss bitch. She inspired me to build my confidence and was always super supportive.
To cut a long story short, over the span of 10 or so years I’ve been in advertising and marketing roles that were epic for my growth. I had to learn fast and became super skilled in a short period of time. I was able to climb the ladder quickly and become a senior head of the team while building a lot of great relationships, but it wasn’t until I hit absolute rock bottom with my mental health that I realised this life was no longer for me, and that I was worth more than I was paid and that the politics were too much. This was around the time of Covid, and 50% of the staff were made redundant. I was kept on as the head of my team, and with such a lean team… the clients piled back on my plate.
I tried to find other jobs, but given the Covid landscape there was nothing really out there. I honestly was so desperate to get out of there, I applied for so many jobs I would NEVER imagine doing now.
To keep myself distracted from all the craziness at work, I started a Workplace Wellbeing company with a friend of mine which focused on free tools available for anyone and everyone who was looking to start a wellbeing programme within their workplace. It’s called Realgood Wellbeing and the tools are still available today. They essentially walk you through, step by step, how to put together a wellbeing programme within your business and how to get buy in from senior stakeholders. This was my first taste of owning my own business, but unfortunately my business partner's brother passed away and with all the stuff I had going on at work, we decided to leave it as it was and not pursue a bigger opportunity of consulting.
Now I was really unsure about what I was going to do with my life. I was seeing naturopaths and iridologists, seeing a therapist for CBT, exploring meditation and yoga… and I started seeing multiple specialists to understand why I was experiencing chronic back pain.
After several specialists telling me there was nothing wrong with me, I asked to be referred to a musculoskeletal specialist who assessed me and at last I found out I had a mind-body condition caused by stress and repressed emotions. From learning more about this I can proudly say I am finally pain-free. THANK FUCK!
While all of this was going on, I knew I needed to seek more help to get me on the right path. I sought out a life coach, her name is Bridget Paddon. I worked with Bridget for around 3-4 months and the amount of stuff I was able to achieve during this time was unreal.
I started planning what it would look like if I went out on my own. She taught me more about connecting with my soul’s purpose and spirituality. She helped me to deal with a lot of unresolved trauma and issues I was having with body image, self confidence and my weight.
Now I was really like “what the fuck am I going to do with my life”. I knew it was now or never and decided it was time to go out on my own. I took a week to make a plan of who I might be able to work with clients-wise. My boyfriend at the time told me he would support me for 3 months and if it didn’t work out I needed to find a new job. But I never had to. Within 3 months I had replaced my entire salary and it just kept growing from there.
Now I work as a Digital Marketing Specialist with clients spanning both agencies and small to medium businesses looking for extra support. I am also a marriage celebrant which I fell into a little later, so it just made sense to add this to my repertoire and run it through by business.
What was the key moment that ignited your fire and kicked off your journey (into what you are doing now?)
I realised a few things about working for someone else. One is that you need to play by their rules and the way they do things, even if you can see better ways of doing certain things it’s not always easily adopted. You get caught up in the toxic shit going on behind the scenes, especially the more senior you get. You’re working for someone else's dream - not yours. And lots of times you don’t agree with things that are going on, but you can’t say anything about it.
The second thing is happiness and work life balance. When you are employed by someone you are really beholden to their rules and I always felt so guilty if I rarely needed to leave early, needed to take a sick day or book in leave. It just shouldn’t be that way. It was always frowned upon to work from home in most of the jobs I’ve been in. Obviously Covid changed all of that, but that was a major draw card for me. I wanted to be able to work my own hours, and be my own boss. If I’m feeling mentally drained, I’ll literally drop the tools and take the dog for a walk, have a nap, read a book or watch a movie. So long as I’m hitting my deadlines and getting the work done that I promise to clients, no one has a say as to how I do it which I love.
And finally, the earning potential. Realistically, you are only ever going to make GREAT money if you forge your own path. In my first year of business, I earned $30k more than my salary. And this financial year I’m looking at another $20k increase on top of that.
What is your best advice in overcoming your biggest doubts and fears when starting a business or when starting out a new pursuit?
You need to assess your skills and passions. What you bring to the table. Talk to people who you know in business, this is what I did and through conversations I realised it’s actually not as fucking terrifying as it seems, especially if you start off as a one-woman-band without a team to pay.
I would highly recommend starting small and scaling. Pulling in people/specialists you can use to help you, but only paying them for their time rather than having them as an employee at first.
It’s also important in my opinion to become a specialist in your field before you go off on your own. Work in jobs to learn the ropes and understand everything you can about your industry. Literally be a sponge and soak it all up!!
I would also recommend looking into therapy or working with a life coach like I did. They can help you work through some of your limiting beliefs.
And another really silly one (but is so powerful) is listening to affirmations. I know this can be a bit hard for people to wrap their heads around, but your subconscious mind is a powerful force! It takes up about 95% of your brain power and handles everything your body needs to function properly. It also holds all the “programs” that control the way you think, what you believe, the way you feel, act, react, and pretty much everything else that forms part of who you are. Listening to positive affirmations can really change everything. It certainly has for me!!
How did you get over that feeling of “I’m not qualified enough or experienced enough?”
That is a really good question. Somehow over time, I have gained confidence to fake it til you make it. Of course I have the skillset to do what I’m doing, but I don’t know everything there is to know. I’m always surrounding myself with people who are smarter than me and leveraging my outgoing / empathetic / easy going personality to build trust.
To be honest, I’ve probably more so overcome feelings of ‘imposter syndrome’ by working in jobs with epic female leaders who have g’d me up to go out and be a force to be reckoned with. Once you realise everyone is on that ‘fake it til you make it’ buzz, you’ll realise that it’s actually not that hard to be confident and show people you are experienced enough. It’s all about confidence and telling yourself YOU CAN DO IT.
Would you say you had to work harder for the same things or do things differently from male counterparts?
Oh my god yes. The gender pay gap is a big bone of contention that has only recently been addressed, and barely. The biggest struggle I’ve had with men is whether they’re clients or colleagues who try to assert dominance over you. This has happened to me several times during my career. I’ve found with men it’s all about ego, and they are so precious about protecting it. Sometimes so much that they can’t see through feedback, and instead put their backs up trying to protect their ideas etc. I do believe this is getting better, and it’s not something I have had to focus on at all since I’ve been working for myself.
How do you empower other women or younger girls through your work?
I am always offering support and advice to anyone who needs it. That goes for both my clients and just generally women I know - whether they’re working for someone else or working for themselves.
If my client doesn’t know how to do something, instead of trying to just do it for them… I always like to walk them through how I did something or why we do something a certain way so they can upskill too. This builds their confidence and gives them added value - they pay me to help with their digital marketing but they get to learn shit along the way.
What does equality look like to you?
Equality means not seeing gender when it comes to opportunities, but also leaning into the qualities that come with gender - I find women to be more compassionate and empathetic and this should be celebrated. Men can be more logical and methodical and this should be celebrated too!
But all in all, it means that if I am doing the same job as a man and have the same experience / skillset, I expect to be paid the same. It should come down to what you’re capable of, not your gender.