Embrace Your ‘Culture Add’: Turn What Makes You Different Into Your Superpower

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I wanted to talk to you about your culture ad.

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Now,

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you’ve got some course product thing that you’re sharing,

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a message you’re sharing,

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something you’re making,

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expertise you want to share with the world.

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And then you’re looking around and you’re going, oh, other people are doing it.

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Other people are making courses about goal setting.

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self-care riding horses whatever it is and then you’re thinking like why are they

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gonna get it by for me when so many people do that now here’s the thing so many

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people might be doing the same thing but no one is doing it like you so that’s

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where this culture ad piece comes in I heard it from Danielle Leslie

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And then she might have, I don’t know if she coined the phrase, but I heard it from her first years ago.

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And it’s about those things that make you different, the things that make you.

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And these are things from your culture,

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from your lived experience,

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from your life and how your life has been.

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So it’s those things that make you different where you almost be like, oh, I can’t do this because…

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i’m x y z so all the things you actually think are the reasons you can’t do

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something actually tend to be the reasons why you’re different and unique and those

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are the things you need to draw into and lean on so for me it’s like i have got a

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bit of a different upbringing so i don’t think if i meet someone on the road like

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there’s not likely to have lived the life i’ve lived or you know experience i’ve

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lived i was born in zambia in africa

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Moved to the UK when I was about four or five, lived in Wales, which is my father’s country.

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Moved to Kenya for a couple of years as 10 to 12, that kind of age.

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And all those things have actually shaped my worldview, shaped how I see things.

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being mixed race and not and yeah even just being mixed race you could say oh but

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there’s loads of mixed race people and there are but when I was younger most of the

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time if I saw a mixed race family I saw a black father and a white mother and I had

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the opposite I have a black African mother and a white Welsh father so that was

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again different so even when you feel like oh that’s kind of the same I’m the same

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as everyone else there’s still something different and you know unique and that is

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going to draw people in

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Because there’s people who are going to see something of a shared experience with you,

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a sort of sense of like,

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you understand me,

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you get me.

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And those things are all the things that you should bring into it.

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And, you know, sometimes, you know, I grew up, I didn’t actually have black or brown friends growing up.

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I lived in an English village that was pretty much mostly white.

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I think there was two Asian families when we moved there in the late 80s.

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My mum was like the first black person there.

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We were the first mixed race family.

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And there was another lady who I think was Afro-Turkish.

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So she was very light but her hair wasn’t like straight like maybe most Turkish people you’d think of.

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It was like more Afro-textured.

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you know there was them and then it was like us and it was just like people would

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look at us and kids would ask funny weird questions and you know ignoring questions

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because they just weren’t familiar so you know there’s that experience that’s gonna

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like make me see the world differently from someone else and growing up in a small

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um small medium village in England my life was completely different from someone

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growing up in the inner cities and

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so when I actually first started having had my you know first black friend that was

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like my own that I’ve met through like school college etc I was 16 so that might

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sound really strange to someone else who grew up somewhere like London who has had

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friends who look like them all their whole life my friends who look like me were

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were scattered all across the world and

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And then we’d sort of try and meet up every now and then,

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you know,

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someone’s over,

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we meet up and we do these other get togethers.

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But it was not my experience to live with people who look like me, apart from my brothers.

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So again, that shapes my outlook in life.

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And then when I went to uni and there was a lot more diversity at university.

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My friend and I, we were getting teased.

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They were calling us country and saying that we spoke properly and laughing at our

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accents and how we speak.

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And to be honest, I feel like I speak pretty casually, a bit too, you know, slang and all of that.

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So I was just like, what are you on about?

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talking how we talk and you know my parents would be like can you speak properly

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you know so I didn’t really get it but that’s like something again that just was a

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very different upbringing and so someone else who might essentially look like me

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could have a completely different experience of life than me and that’s the thing

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to remember and then those things that make us different make us unique and instead

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of like feeling ashamed or I don’t know like feeling like oh oh I need to be a

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certain way to fit in

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i need to be this way to fit into this group i need to be that way to fit into the

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group it’s just to accept like that is all of you so i’m too what you know i’m

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white for certain spaces i’m too black for certain spaces and i you know i just

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accept that i’m too african for certain spaces i’m too european for certain spaces

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and i you know i just go with it now i’m like that’s you know i am me

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I am all these random mixes and all these different experiences.

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I like what I like.

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I grew up how I grew up and I liked how I grew up.

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And you might look at it on the outside and like, oh, that was quite a white life.

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I’m like, what’s a white life?

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What’s a black life?

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To me, those phrases, that all sounds kind of funny because it’s just like we’re human beings.

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But, you know, that’s how someone else might see things.

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And this is how I’ve lived and this is my lived experience.

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So,

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it shapes how I see the world and for me then I’m a person who’s like a bridge

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builder who wants to connect people who sort of puts you know puts our hands across

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the divide um likes to focus on what I have in common with people what we you know

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what we are working towards what we the positive outcomes that we both want though

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we might see things very differently and the way we think to get there is going to

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be different

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So that’s been me,

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a person who’s like,

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you know,

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always sought to understand someone who might see the world completely different

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for me to hear what they say,

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respectfully hear what they say and know that,

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okay,

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that’s a different part they’ve chosen for me.

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But that’s kind of how I’ve seen the world.

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And I think because of how I’ve lived, that is done that.

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So being in different cultures, living in a culture that’s not my own,

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You learn something new and you see a different way of doing things.

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So I think all of those types of things, you’ve got those experiences too.

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You’ve got something very unique and you’re thinking it’s a reason that you can’t

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do something while you won’t be taken seriously.

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It might be something else for you.

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It might be you didn’t go to university or you didn’t learn your skill in the usual way.

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You taught yourself or something like that.

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But that’s what’s going to make someone actually be drawn to you

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Because there’s someone else who’s just learning and figuring things out by

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themselves and they’re like,

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okay,

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if they did it,

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then I could do it.

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And there’s someone else who has gone to university and wants to learn with someone

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who’s gone,

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you know,

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had that similar path.

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So all these different things are not a reason to like dismiss yourself and cross yourself out.

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It’s a reason why you’re even like more, more the right person.

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to share what you’re sharing because there’s someone out there who will connect to

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your way of seeing things,

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your personal experience,

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your personal aspects.

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So those are reasons why they’re going to actually want to buy it from you, not from someone else.

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And I’ve seen that in my own life where…

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I’ve seen, you know, I’ve seen different people and I’m like, oh, I can identify with that bit of them.

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Oh yeah,

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I get that thing of like living in a,

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like a smaller place or I know what they’re talking about when they’re describing a

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childhood in,

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you know,

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in Kenya or Africa.

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I can kind of understand that too.

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And I’m,

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so I get drawn to different people and I like,

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I love it when,

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and sometimes I’m drawn to someone and it’s not because there’s that connection for me,

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but it’s what I see is that they own

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who they are they own what makes them different they own their culture ad um so one

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of my coaches is um she’s called mandy and she was born in jamaica and been living

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here i don’t know a long time but she sometimes just starts talking about what and

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i was like i have never seen that in an online space in a professional like

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coaching um pro you know professional coaching person

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And I was like, I love that.

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Like, I was just like, I love that.

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Like, just be you.

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Bring all of you.

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Bring all of yourself, your culture, your experiences, what you think makes you different.

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And you’re just trying to hide it away.

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You’re trying to, like,

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polish over it with a professionalism and I don’t know how to say it.

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Like,

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yeah,

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you’re,

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you know,

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painting your walls magnolia when you really want to paint your walls pink and

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green or have a crazy wallpaper.

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And you’re just like putting magnolia over your whole life.

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And it’s like dulling out all the amazing things that make you different and unique

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and why someone’s actually going to connect with you.

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So, you know, look at your branding.

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look at your messaging,

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look at your products it creates,

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and just say,

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like,

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where am I,

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like,

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watering down,

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like,

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who I am and why I’m different and why I’m unique?

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Where am I watering down because I think it’s not the acceptable way and I need to, like…

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do it the right way,

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the proper way,

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the professional way,

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the sleek way,

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the polished way,

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the marketing way,

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whatever it is.

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So just,

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yeah,

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look at your business,

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look at all the course you’re making,

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all the thing you want to share.

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Maybe it’s not business,

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but you’re just blogging about something and teaching,

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making posts about making,

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I don’t know,

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crafts or something.

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And just see where you are sort of trying to fit in with a more commercial version

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of it and how you’ve seen it taught that you think that’s an acceptable way.

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and then think okay what are the things that i think disqualify me from doing this

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and then just bring them in bring those things in and just yeah just let more of

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you be through your work through your message through your craft your creation your

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design your speaking your teaching whatever it is so just wanted to share that with

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you today