Nicole Hatherly speaks with confidence, clarity and an ease that appears to have been there her entire life.
An award-winning global brand strategist, leadership expert and international keynote speaker, Hatherly is used to speaking in front of crowds of thousands – it’s her job.
But ten years ago, she could barely speak in front of three people.
“I was petrified,” Hatherly tells Women’s Agenda. “And I knew that was holding me back in my career. I knew that I had a lot of value – I’m able to articulate value really well and I’m able to use words really effectively.
“But not speaking in front of any audience was really holding me back personally.”
Back then, she succumbed to the voice in her head, the inner critic telling her she wasn’t good enough. By stepping outside her comfort zone and using that inner critic to her advantage, she got through it.
Now, she is teaching others how they can do it too, through bespoke workshops and masterclasses for teams in large organisations, conferences and other events
“We can sit under the radar or we can play it small and safe,” Hatherly says, “but we know we need to be visible, we need to be vocal and we need to be really strategic as well about how we present ourselves and how we present our expertise.”
Your signature brand
Hatherly has worked with thousands of corporate women and small business owners across the globe and finds that many confuse “business” with “brand”.
To Hatherly, they are completely different. While the business is the logistics side of things – products, services, the operational parts – brand is all about perception – how customers and clients view you and your business.
“It’s the glue that connects humans to you,” she explains. “It’s the feelings, emotions, connections and desires that people associate with your product or service.
“So we can’t just build a business without creating and nurturing a brand.”
There are three tiers to one’s “signature brand” – the personal, professional and purpose brand.
“Your personal brand isn’t about posting what you ate for breakfast in the morning, or sharing details about your personal life,” says Hatherly.
“It’s about you as a person and your personal attributes, the uniqueness that makes you a person – what drives you, those beautiful human elements that makes you, you.”
For the professional brand, Hatherly has one key message: your work doesn’t speak for itself.
“What holds women back is that deeply ingrained belief that our work should speak for itself,” she says.
“And as we know, in this fast-paced reality, the work will speak for the work you do, but it will not reflect all of the elements of you as a human, all of your potential.”
“Often women will be less confident sharing that success. They will be less confident in standing up, standing out and shining.”
“That hesitation comes from societal conditioning.”
Fear of judgement
The hesitation that Hatherly talks about often comes back to a fear of being judged.
It’s something that held Hatherly back all those years ago, stemming from an internal voice making her second guess herself.
But she has since learned how to take back the power from her inner critic.
“The truth is we will be judged,” Hatherly says. “If we’re going to be judged, let’s have our authentic words that we want to use to express ourselves in the right order and feeling like we’re comfortable enough.
“That feeling of being judged starts dissipating when we’re more in control of our narrative.”
Hatherly is not saying to get rid of that voice altogether. It’s more about harnessing the power of having an inner critic to the best of your advantage.
“The voice is a call from the past. It’s not a call from the future,” she says.
“That voice is small. It’s a smaller, younger version of ourselves, and it’s afraid.”
One way to use the inner critic is to face it and simply ask: is what my inner voice is saying true?
“We as women are socially taught that staying in humility is a good thing to do. And so we stay humble. And I see so many women that I work with feeling that the opposite of humility is loud confidence, and they don’t want to be that person,” she says.
“But the opposite of humility is actually authenticity.”
For corporate women or women small business owners, she has a key piece of advice concerning brand.
“Never underestimate the power of your brand and storytelling to connect with your audience, your customers and your advocates.”
Thanks to our partner CommBank. CommBank supports women in business and the community across all industries and sectors through its Women in Focus team. For more information head to WomeninFocus.com.au.