We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mireille Beckwith a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Mireille , first a big thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with us today. I’m sure many of our readers will benefit from your wisdom, and one of the areas where we think your insight might be most helpful is related to imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is holding so many people back from reaching their true and highest potential and so we’d love to hear about your journey and how you overcame imposter syndrome.
This really resonated with me because I feel like any successful person in their field gets to a place where they look around and say how or why me. In the social media world you are constantly shown content and accounts of peers that you feel are smarter, more experienced. Yet at the same time, with years of experience, you get to a point where that wisdom and knowledge is valuable. I remember as a young adolescent, daydreaming of adulthood and the thought that by then, of course I will have it all figured out. It’s easy to still have pieces of that mindset as we age and grow up, not realizing that while growing along the way, we ARE figuring it out and it’s harder to take a step back to realize who we have become. This is where so much of our imposter syndrome comes in. I finally had to realize that the experiences in my field and overall in life is my ticket to having the confidence to share my skills and talent. There will always be people that are looking to you for inspiration or knowledge, the same way we also embody that and look towards other people that we feel are more knowledgable in a certain space. All that to say, own where you’ve been and what you know because it’s such a great human journey to be able to share that with each other.
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?
The backbone behind the blog that I started 10 years ago is styling clothes in a thoughtful and creative way, to inspire people to take certain styles and thought processes about fashion and outfitting and make it their own. The intent has always been to inspire women in the world of fashion, get excited about the frivolity that in so many ways, can spark joy and confidence. The blog of course snowballed and morphed over the years into content creation, supported by the world’s largest brands, to bring content in the form of campaigns, partnerships, and creative ads. I’ve been able to create an online community with Instagram and connect with so many women on topics we all can relate to, with fashion and outfitting being the common denominator. Throw in some motherhood, millennial nostalgia, and navigating the world of not having to give up style once one becomes a mother or even as they age. My blog/website has been a soft landing place where my content forever lives, in the ever evolving world of social media that I do not personally own. It’s been a few years of figuring out my place as TikTok and videos take over, when my true calling and creativity comes with creative outfitting in the old school form (think 2014) of photo posts. I am not an Amazon haul kind of gal; when I tell my followers and readers they need to have something, it’s always genuinely thought out and (somewhat) practical. I coach on how to wear trends, what to invest in, thoughtfully share how brands fit what kind of body, and how to think differently about color pairings as well as styles.
Alongside the blog business, I am a wardrobe stylist for the Atlanta Apparel Mart, styling their bi-annual runway shows and market demos in between. In 2015, I started with personal clients all around Atlanta, where I come to their closets to create outfits with what they have, leave them with a virtual look book of their own clothes for inspiration as they get dressed, and work with them on intentional shopping lists to get them where they want to be style wise. The intent is to make their lives easier and nurture their own personal style. I truly love this part of it, it’s making women feel amazing by getting to play in their closets.
It sounds like a lot of branches and moving parts, but it all somehow relates and comes back to the passion that drives it all, which is creative styling in the fashion world.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Taking risks is so important to advance in your journey. In the beginning I always joked that I blogged for myself and didn’t care what people thought, because I couldn’t worry about that or I would be constantly critiquing myself the whole way, and it’s easy to stand in our own way. Adaptation, which is something I have struggled with lately, as this industry is constantly changing. There have been years where I’ve said, ‘I don’t want to change.’ I’m currently navigating not changing who I am, but how I am going to share my business and talents.
Being willing to be your own PR and sell yourself is something I’ve learned through entrepreneurship. I of course wish I knew how to do this when younger, even in my 20’s, but it’s been something I’ve learned while running my own business as the sole employee for so many years. These days, I see people really going out there and doing it with no shame, which is awesome to see, because no one else is going to go out there and do it for you.
We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?
I actually had to have a parenting meme teach me this lesson to realize that I truly believe in going all in on your strengths and investing in those efforts. It was about nurturing a talent when you see a child excelling at something, rather than getting a tutor to help them get up to par in a subject they hate or are naturally not good at. That’s a little extreme because as a parent you are going to do both, but I understood the lesson and see it differently. We definitely want to run with talent and shape it into the most it can be. Obviously being well rounded in a social and moral aspect is important. But when it comes to a skill, I see how important it is to not get bogged down by things you struggle with.
I am a creative through and through. I am best (in my writing and content creation business) when I can just be my most creative and daring. I am the most productive too. If I have to spend all my energy and time on accounting, back end processes, and office technicalities, my work struggles and there is nothing left for my talent. I’ve learned this the hard way of course, as there are up and down years and I’ve handled everything, getting burnt out. As a business owner, the value in scaling a business, is to outsource the things you are not good at, or processes that are best handled by someone else… that is not me lol.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://city-peach.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/city.peach/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/citypeach
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mireille-beckwith-212b5054/
Image Credits
Naomi Hopkins Photography KVC Photography Focus Minded Photo
