We were lucky to catch up with Angela Todd recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, so we’re so thrilled to have Angela with us today – welcome and maybe we can jump right into it with a question about one of your qualities that we most admire. How did you develop your work ethic? Where do you think you get it from?
I think my work ethic developed initially from not having a lot of people around to rely on at various points throughout my life. Having spent some time as a military wife and then the sole provider of income for the household, there were often periods when the normal jobs only covered our bills and basic expenses.
I began working from home as a necessity, having only one family vehicle, and that not being available to me throughout the week. With freelancer jobs and remote work, there were often opportunities to work additional hours to make additional income. Being a freelance writer meant adhering to strict deadlines and receiving an endless stream of feedback to use to grow. Spending time in any role or position, I would tend to notice issues that were present and solutions to common problems that had maybe been previously overlooked. My natural problem-solving skills coupled with my desire to be more productive always worked in. my favor, allowing me to receive more assignments or responsibilities.
What started as motivation to fulfill a financial need using my writing skills and available resources, and to do so more efficiently, transitioned into something much more substantial. Using my knowledge and insight to help others to be successful or to pave the way where a previous path had not existed helped me to realize that my work ethic had value. Witnessing the tangible impact of my efforts, and the additional hours I had spent, contributing to the betterment of both the business and its clients molded my work ethic so that it is characterized by dedication and excellence.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
As COO of Creative Global Branding, I take pride in helping streamline, improve, and refine operational procedures both for our staff and our clients. From consistently researching new trends across all aspects of brand development and marketing, to finding the best means of helping facilitate more than 50 years of combined experience in business to our growing community, I am always looking for new and innovative ways that will resonate with impactful positivity all around. Creative Global Branding focuses on elevating brands to where they want to be. It’s not just about marketing their business but really helping them in all aspects that we can, including operations and how to utilize trends and tools for efficiency without compromising aesthetics or branding.
With our All Okay movement, the nonprofit organization our company has established to help people find ways to work towards being okay emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and physically, we’re currently shifting our focus towards more engaging content. Our goal is not only to help provide these incredibly helpful tools and processes, but to also really connect with our followers and our audience, being more than just another “wellness” group on social media, but truly creating powerful emotional connections within our audience. We want to be a tangible presence advocating for wellness in ALL ways.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
I would say that understanding fully what it means to research, would be the most impactful skill certainly. Much of marketing as an industry requires constant research. Having the ability to locate reliable information on trends and changes, staying updated on sources of information for new developments, and identifying key competitors for perspective—all these aspects of branding demand proficient research skills.
This also leads to the second most impactful skill, which would be analysis. Having information is wonderful, but it can be absolutely useless if you aren’t well-versed in how to derive meaning from the data. Having a keen sense of identifying patterns and translating those into realistic action is critical for this industry.
Finally, organization is key. With the volume of information that has to be maintained to work with clients, both as a freelancer and now as a COO, organizational skills have been invaluable to me in maintaining my workflow.
The advice I would offer individuals early in their professional careers is to be realistic and start managing their time more effectively by seeking balance in time. Start with your household chores or maybe the repeated tasks you have daily. Create a real schedule to occupy not just your working time, but also factor in time spent on activities for self-care. Being analytical in your personal life schedule can seem restrictive at first, but it does help to create awareness of how much time you’re spending on work activities and enjoyment, which leads to more balance. For me, I wake up at 4 am to get in my daily yoga and gratitude journaling before starting my creative work for the day. I have my working hours and then have time set aside each day for reading and teaching myself to play the piano.
Creating balance in your life will help you with researching, analyzing, and organizing. When you can manage your own life this way, you will naturally develop stronger demostrations of these skills in your professional life as well.
What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?
A few years ago, while pursuing my PhD., I had a therapist who recommended that I schedule time for self-care or enjoyment activities every day in the same fashion that I scheduled study sessions and work tasks. For me, self-care was more than just having a bubble bath or a indulgent meal, but more about really stopping my ambitious focus and switching to really just enjoy the life I’m living. My self-care includes things like writing and editing my fiction novels (that I hope to one-day have published), finding new ways to learn things I want to learn (like playing the piano or how to make sourdough bread from scratch), spend time with my family and snuggling with my kitties. In addition to the standard self-care checklist that most people recommend.
Initially, it was hard for me to really “dedicate” time that I would spend just for myself. I felt selfish, being a mom first, student second, and boss babe all before really being my own friend. Any “free” time I had, I felt I could be using it to get further ahead in my career. But it would only lead me to burnout after burnout, where I’d hit a wall and need a full 24 hours of physical rest before I could recover.
So I tried my therapist’s plan. I started doing this initially on the weekends, taking a few hours on Saturday afternoons to clean a closet, taking a relaxing bath, working on a novel, or watching a 30-minute television show. But the more I incorporated these “little appointments” for self-care, the more I found that this must become a daily practice.
When I’m feeling overwhelmed, my first internal flag is for me to evaluate my schedule to make sure I’m not missing these daily appointments with myself. When I need to, I can adjust my schedule so that I can spend more time prioritizing self-care to avoid hitting burnout or feeling overwhelmed.
This is a strategy I’ve passed on to my 17-year-old son, who has also come to realize the benefits of carving out time daily for self-care and listening to the signals your body is giving.
Contact Info:
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angela-todd-622b51aa/
- Other: https://www.healthdigest.com/author/angelatodd/
