We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Laura Best a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Laura, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?
Well, I wish they sold “resilience” at Target! I am still learning how best to build and sustain resilience but have picked up some lessons along the way.
I had high expectations for myself academically, and my parents were going through a divorce when I was around 16/17. So, I had a major life change happening at precisely the same time that I needed to apply myself to important exams. Getting the grades that I needed would give me a ticket to a world of opportunity. I felt like if I missed by one grade, my future would be over! That wasn’t true of course, but the pressure was palpable.
I loved both of my parents, and they navigated their divorce as best as they could. However, it was still a challenging time to focus, and I realized that I needed to step up and take care of myself. So, I asked my beloved Grandma if I could live with her for a while, just to get me through my exams. She accepted instantly (something I will always be grateful for), and I was able to move to her house in a small, quiet Dorset village for a few months.
Looking back, it may have seemed selfish to others, but, I knew I had to create space for myself.
That was a lesson in itself – recognizing that something needed to change and asking for support.
Fast forward many years, and I found myself in a very unhealthy work situation. The firm had a culture of toxic positivity and aggressive competition with scarce resources. I hadn’t truly experienced “gaslighting” until then, and let me tell you, it was brutal.
It was during this time that I experienced my first panic attack. For a confident marketing professional, I was shocked. Me? Panic attacks? That doesn’t happen…
One morning, as I stood over the kitchen sink, shaking, not wanting to go into work for fear of what I would face, my husband said to me: “You have more power than you think.”
Those words made me realize that I’d forgotten that I had a choice to create my space and take back my power.
So, I did. And I put myself on a new path. At the time, I remember being exhausted, but that’s where resilience comes in. Somehow, you need to dust yourself off, and try.
Since then, I have learned that practicing the things we love helps us to build resilience, which is why I love my work with Passion Collective. Doing a job that we love is still hard work but if we love it, we can grow and be fulfilled by it. Finding a creative hobby that we adore can get us the space and feeling of flow we might crave.
For me, resilience is a puzzle with pieces that change depending on what life gives us. The key is being aware that we always need to nurture it.
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?
I started Passion Collective in 2014 to connect professional women with real conversations about passion, identity, and fulfillment at a time when many women didn’t feel they had the permission to support each other or talk openly about their paths.
At the time, I was a successful digital marketing leader, running two teams and pitching/winning business for a national technology company. I was quickly realizing that while I was excelling at my work, I was disconnected from my passions and the women that I wanted to spend time with. So, I began the conversation about what it means to “rediscover and follow our passions”, hoping I wasn’t the only one who was seeking an alternative. Luckily, I was not!
Passion Collective offers community, coaching and connection with events and workshops (in-person and virtually at Passion Collective On Demand.) We inspire women to act with our 100+ “Passion Stories” and our quarterly Atomic® Grants that give cash and coaching to women who are pursuing their passions. We also help businesses nurture their women leaders through custom events and workshop programs.
What sets us apart is the experience we create for our “Passionados” – it’s genuine, practical, and meaningful. We focus on thriving in work AND life, because it’s all connected.
We are an open, inclusive community – I’m no fan of “invitation only” women’s organizations that require taking out a mortgage to join. The last thing we need is for women to be excluding each other – we need to stand beside each other, regardless of where we are in life – lifting each other up. This energy is woven into all we do.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
As an entrepreneur, one quality that I couldn’t do without is the ability to break down an idea, and figure out how to get it done, often on your own. You MUST be willing to get your hands dirty, to ask questions, to try things and make mistakes along the way.
Finding a way to beat procrastination is also key. As a recovering perfectionist, one of my favourite phrases is: “Done is better than perfect.” As women in the workplace, we are often judged harshly for our mistakes and learnings, and it can be hard not to let those moments of criticism form a hard shell over your personality and your drive. You’ve got to get your work out there and you’ve got to keep creating. A lesson I learned back in 2014 when I started Passion Collective is that people generally want to support you. They want to cheer you on. You’ll only know if you put your work out there!
Finally, I’m a huge believer in the power of being able to write. I started my career in Public Relations in the UK, working for the awe-inspiring (and now one of the world’s top PR leaders) Loretta Ahmed. She taught me so much about how to write in a compelling way, the journalistic style, knowing how to create a story and the importance of accuracy. She also showed me that being a strong writer isn’t just about the writing – you have to read and you have to immerse yourself in content. As junior PRs, we had to read every national paper, every day. We were expected to study journalists’ style, what made the news. We had to know to be successful, and it was in those daily habits that we learned how to write. So, if you’re reading this – yay! But also, look at your habits – Tik Tok is fun, but what are you reading every day to help build these skills?
Tell us what your ideal client would be like?
Passion Collective wants to help more businesses who want nurture and empower their women team members. So many organizations have good intentions when it comes to giving their women opportunities to connect and grow, but so few follow through. We’re seeing DEI suffer from reduced funding (and women being asked to take on DEI initiatives in an unpaid capacity) and some organizations are realizing that it can take a significant effort to produce special, effective programming and experiences for their women.
We’ve worked with companies like Old National Bank, Atomic Data, Insperity, Mentormate and Auer Steel to create experiences that creates meaning and impact, and we want to partner with more!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.passioncollective.co
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/passioncollective
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/passion-collective
- Other: Our membership destination is: www.passioncollectiveondemand.com. We have virtual and full membership options available.
