How to get recommnded

We speak to Jessica Huie, author of Purpose and founder of The Purpose Academy. Jessica shares her tips to getting your message heard, and getting recommended.

Jessica Huie MBE is author of Purpose and Founder of The Purpose Academy and the annual Purpose Retreat held in Jamaica. Jessica enjoyed an accomplished career as a publicist, and has worked with some of the world’s biggest stars and business people, including Samuel L. Jackson, Simon Cowell, Kelly Rowland, Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle.

Jessica co-created the Diverse Wisdom initiative with Hay House to bring more authors of colour into the personal development publishing space. The initiative is now in its third successful year bringing black, Asian, mixed heritage and indigenous author’s stories and cultural wisdom on to book shelves globally.

Jessica has spoken on the topic of purpose for corporations ranging from Google, EY and Bloomberg to charities including Save the Children and Barnardos.

What was your 'Rethink Work' moment when everything changed for you?

Unquestionably when my father’s terminal cancer diagnosis hurtled me out of workaholism and incessant doing, constantly thinking about the next goal, into a state of presence as I stopped working to care for him. From the space between life and death, what is real, has a way of waking you up and I found the whole six months from his diagnosis to him passing, transformative.

My values and identity changed from being hemmed in to output and what I did for a living, to who I was being in my life and in the world. Everything changed from the inside and eventually out through my work.

Do you remember the first time you got recommended?

Hmmm, the very first time, no. Mariah Carey’s publicist recommending me as a journalist worthy of interviewing her for a cover story happened very early in my career and that was a big break for me in my early twenties. Reputation is everything. Particularly the one we hold with ourselves.

What's the best piece of advice you have been given?

“In order to be successful you have to make yourself vulnerable.” I didn’t get it fully at the time. Now I recognise he couldn’t have been more right.

One of the hardest parts in growing an idea is to get your first customer, your first paid gig, what advice do you give for people who are starting out?

Become the embodiment of what it is you are offering. So often we teach what we need to learn and that’s fine but where we become a living proof of concept, is where we are just talking about why our product is effective, we are embodying it.

Find out more on https://www.jessicahuie.com/