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How To Build Your Confidence At Work?

Created by Greer Riddell in Portfolio for Freelance on 08 Mar 2018

Watch seven women from across the radio industry (BBC Radio, Talk Radio, Global Radio, Women’s Hour) discuss their top tips for how to build your confidence at work. Panel held at Goldsmiths University for International Women’s Day.

Watch our Building Confidence At Work Video on YouTube.

Another post in the Women In Radio series (thanks to Wired Radio’s International Women’s Day panel), this time where the panelists discuss how to boost your confidence in the workplace.

Olivia Cope, Assistant Producer at BBC Women’s Hour says she took some time to settle into her role at the BBC. She felt like an outsider in a typically male environment but now feels able to embrace her originality and has realised it helps her have a creative edge.

1.Get To Know Yourself

“Going straight into my first job being in national BBC broadcasting especially speech radio which is still quite white middle-class dominated it felt like a huge culture shock almost and I felt like I didn't fit in and I felt like I wasn't smart enough and I wasn't educated enough I hadn't I didn't spend my weekends going to the Opera or reading this book or heard of that feminist theory and then you know I think if you are some if you are either a woman or young or a person of colour or all three and you're stepping into a creative industry not even just radio a lot of creative industries are still dominated its by why older men you know it's very easy to question yourself and how much you belong there and kind of feel like you have to mould into someone else to fit in and what I kind of learned is as long as I had the passion and the willing to learn then my unique selling point was that I came with a fresh set of ideas a fresh set of eyes and you know it's kind of learning to really you know make myself fit into this new space where I've had been to change who I was and I think you know at the start that comes out in the know at the start that comes out in the way you speak and the way you dress and you know how you have your hair and obviously now I just embrace Who I am completely but it took a long time and it can be really hard so just for anyone starting out in the industry now it can be really difficult to just really ground yourself and it can take a long time but once you get there you learned that you bring something new every day that is valuable and is as important as someone who's been there for twenty thirty years” - Olivia Cope, Assistant Producer at BBC Woman’s Hour on How To Build Confidence At Work.

Jen Crowthers, founder of Boogaloo Radio in the famous Boogaloo Pub in Highgate encourages the audience to decide what they want and to go after it.

2.If You Don’t Ask, You Don’t Get

“I would say daily I'm constantly surprised it's working and I can't believe I… have my radio station it's all completely ridiculous… I'm DJing at some of the biggest most hard to get into clubs in London! I think it just comes to my belief if you don't ask you don't get and one piece of advice I would give you is if you want to do something like DJ, radio or do a podcast or whatever it is make the person you're asking [have a really easy] job so just bring the idea to people. I think it starts from the small things where you… ask and you get and then…you get encouraged by that and you're like ‘wow I ask for something [then] I get it’ just as long as you can ask and they say yes and then you work your ass off to prove them that they made the right decision.” – Jen Crothers, Founder of Boogaloo Radio on How To Build Confidence At Work.

Yasmeen Khan, a presenter at Talk Radio and BBC Three Counties discusses how she feels ahead of opening the microphone. She says that panicking goes with practice…

3. Keep Practicing

“I'd been doing a late night show that was at BBC London a couple years ago and late nights is great because you get so much experience of people because it's callers that are important at that time of night and you really realize what a lifeline radio is to people. When you're doing a show like that that doesn't have a script, you sort of have an idea of what you're going to be talking about but it's largely unformatted. [I was asked what do you] think about just before you go on air? I said just before I open the mic the noise that my brain makes is something like blind panic and then the minute the mics open I calmed down and get into my groove but that is through practice.” - Yasmeen Khan - Presenter at Talk Radio and BBC Three Counties Radio on How To Build Confidence At Work.

Thank you to all panelists for sharing their stories on the night.