We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Rebekah Louisa Smith a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Rebekah Louisa, sincerely appreciate your selflessness in agreeing to discuss your mental health journey and how you overcame and persisted despite the challenges. Please share with our readers how you overcame. For readers, please note this is not medical advice, we are not doctors, you should always consult professionals for advice and that this is merely one person sharing their story and experience.
Many years ago, I was diagnosed with GAD – general anxiety disorder, it was pretty mild and I could carry on living my life, however it got worse in 2021 due to the stress of my US visa problems and the sudden drastic change that occurred in my life. At one point I was banned for life to enter the USA due to poor legal advice and I was in Mexico figuring out what to do with my life. It was constant stress and anxiety and an in limbo situation to be in. This experience brought up some issues from my childhood that I wasn’t aware of that needed healing. As I type, the panic attacks I’ve been experiencing got worse.
The therapist I’ve was working with got me thinking about the topic of mental health and how important it is to prioritize it. The stress of my visa problems and my reaction to the situation is what flagged up the fact that I needed to take more care of my body & my mental health as I didn’t do this when I was younger.
There are a lot of different methods and techniques that can help you look after your mental health such as meditation, cognitive behavioral therapy and also Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) which I was introduced to.
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) is an alternative treatment for physical pain and emotional distress. It’s also referred to as ‘tapping’. Therapists who use this technique believe tapping the body can create a balance in your energy system and treat pain. EFT style tapping has been used to treat anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. EFT focuses on the meridian points – or energy hot spots — to restore balance to your body’s energy. The therapist told me to ‘tap’ my shoulders once or twice a day as this was where there was an imbalance and the energy was severely blocked. She also told me to repeat the following affirmation ‘’I am undefeated’’. By stimulating this area of my body, it helped me to significantly reduce the stress or negative emotion I was feeling from the experience. After one month, it helped me to restore balance to the disrupted energy in my body.
It was also at this point when I noticed how well the EFT was working that I had forgiven the people involved who gave me the poor legal advice. I also managed to find a new immigration lawyer who got my visa issues resolved. Clearly, as the therapist said, the tapping worked! I started to feel much more positive and could see more hope for my future (and I finally managed to move to the USA later that year).
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I was born in Worcestershire, United Kingdom. I worked my way up to become an award-winning consultant and British media personality who now has more than 10 years of film festival strategy consulting experience.
After choosing not to pursue a career in Academia teaching film studies, I began my film industry career in 2009, working as one of the producers of Wales’ most successful national horror film festival; the Abertoir Horror Festival, and during that time I began to develop a great knowledge of the film festival business, which led me to become inspired to start my own innovative company in an industry that I love.
Myself and my hard-working team behind my company The Film Festival Doctor are creators of success and we are committed to nurturing filmmakers in order to help them secure film festival screenings, win awards, and a positive recognition within the film industry. Currently, my company has won more than 1,900 awards for my clients and one Oscar nomination. I have supported over 850 creatives across the world, enlightening and inspiring their journey towards achieving their goals and following their filmmaking dreams.
My mission is to help filmmakers get their films seen in festivals around the world so they can gain visibility, get their films sold, win awards and create more opportunities for their careers.
I am my brand, my company is called The Film Festival Doctor and this is what I am known as my nickname is ‘The Film Doctor’. When people say that I’m the best person to work with to get the results that my clients want this is the pressure that I feel I am under. If I can’t take on a film because it’s not what festivals want, I don’t take it on for the money. If I know I can’t get the results that the client wants then I won’t take it on. I care about every one of my clients and ensure that they get results.
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?
Certainly these 3 –
1. Delegate
Firstly, I’ve learnt in order to be more successful delegating is essential. I used to be extremely controlling to the point where I believed that no one could run my business except for me which did not make running it a smooth process at all. My family often used the phrase ‘if you want something done right do it yourself’ and that’s what I grew up believing however I soon learnt that inherited belief was a limiting one for my business, and I stopped believing it when one of my coaches said ‘how can you grow your company if you think you can do everything by yourself?’
As soon as he said that I knew that I was blocking hundreds of opportunities from coming towards me. I started trusting my team and delegating more work to them which soon saw the company grow and gave me more time to spend doing other productive and more inspiring things. Each year I delegate more and more jobs as possible to my team so I am free to grow my business even more.
2. Hiring a Publicist Too Early
When I first launched my company, I chose to hire a publicist. I was eager to inform the world that my niche business had just launched. I was a young woman filling a massive gap in the market, and I was open for business.
I had no clients at this point, no testimonials, or any newsworthy results. I just wanted to get my start-up noticed.
The publicist secured no media coverage, and I learned the complex and costly way that the best time to hire a publicist is when an entrepreneur has a powerful story to tell, or a business has a viable product and some happy customers.
3. Trusting Business Coaches Who Are Not Who They Say They Are
When I was new to the world of business, I met several female business coaches whom I thought were helpful but instead were charging me a good amount of money for telling me general essential advice from a book. Not all coaches are like this, and all of the business coaches I work with now I research and get to know before I hire them.
I met my business mentor Gerlanda Milioto at what started to be a horrendously dull networking event, a London Business Owners mixer event for entrepreneurs. It was the type of event you are unsure about attending as it could be hit or miss in terms of whom you meet and the overall event quality.
During the event, Gerlanda gave a fantastic presentation that clearly defined exactly what she does and how she can help a business grow and become more successful.
I spoke with her for a long time afterward and followed up with her the next day. Later, we spoke on the phone, and she told me what was missing from my company: infrastructure. I had spent the first couple of years running my business with what I thought was an organized system. However, Gerlanda soon made me realize that my main problem was the ‘back end of my accounting system: it was nowhere near as organized as it should be! I then quickly hired her to work with me as I needed to create a pipeline and monthly key performance indicators (KPIs), and I also needed to position myself as an expert for my clientele. I thought I was doing well by closing deals, but it turned out I really needed to refine my sales pitch so I could work with more clients.
And it’s thanks to her expertise that I now have this knowledge.
Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?
Without a doubt it would be Kubi Springer’s book I Am My Brand
A lot of business women forget about their personal brand and the important role that this plays to sell their products/services and to build up the know, like, trust process with a prospective client.
Kubi’s down to earth & light hearted book provided me with a tool kit to create, package and build my personal brand.
In a world where business grows via social media and which also provides a lot of opportunities, it has become more of a priority now than ever before for women my age to learn how to utilize and build their personal brand to expand their businesses and build an empire – which I love doing.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.thefilmfestivaldoctor.com/
- Instagram: @rebekahfilmdr
- Linkedin: Rebekah Film Dr
- Youtube: Rebekah Film Dr
