From Postal Worker to Viral Content Creator | Claire on Accessibility, Authenticity & Why Every Job Is Shaping You

Most people wouldn't put "sorting parcels at 18" on their highlight reel. Claire would — because that job taught her everything about resilience, people and showing up even when nobody's watching.

In this episode, Claire shares a career journey that spans twenty years in the travel industry, redundancy, health challenges, and an unexpected pivot into content creation — not because it was planned, but because she had something real to say and people needed to hear it.

We talk about what early, unglamorous jobs actually teach you, why authenticity on social media will always outlast perfection, and how Claire built a loyal community around accessibility advocacy without compromising who she is along the way.

We also get into the practical stuff — brand partnerships, knowing when to say no, and why your story matters infinitely more than your follower count.

Warm, honest and genuinely galvanising — this one's a reminder that every chapter of your career is building something, even when it doesn't feel like it.

⚡ What we cover: → From postal sorting office to twenty year travel industry career → Navigating redundancy, health challenges and starting over → The pivot into content creation — unplanned, authentic and community driven → Why the unglamorous early jobs are often the most formative → Building a loyal audience through real, unfiltered content → Accessibility advocacy and using your platform to genuinely educate → Brand partnerships, integrity and knowing when to say no → Why your story and life experience are your greatest creative assets

🎙 She's Lost Control — the podcast for ambitious creatives who are done playing small. 💌 Join #TheChaosClub → www.instagram.com/sheslostcontrolpodcast/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Today on the podcast, we're joined by Claire Sisk, a blind content creator, accessibility advocate, and former travel industry professional whose journey proves that no job or life experience is ever wasted. From working at the Postal Service at 18 to building a loyal online community through her content and advocacy work, Claire's story is rooted in resilience, authenticity, and trusting your gut. In this episode, we talk about the lessons hidden in the unsexy jobs, creating content that genuinely connects, navigating setbacks, and why staying true to yourself will always take you further than chasing perfection. Let's get into it. Claire, thank you so, so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me. I want to go right back to the start. Did you always know that you wanted to have a creative career?

SPEAKER_00 0:40

No, not at all. My career actually started as a postperson. Oh.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

So from where we are now, it's it's very different. Yeah, it seems like a world away. And what age did you get that? Was that one of those like postal jobs when you were really young?

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Yeah, so I well, I had a Saturday job and I was in retail and I just was like, I can't, I can't do this forever. Yeah. I just didn't appreciate the way the general public used to speak to you. And I was like, yeah, no, I'm not cut out for this. I I'm polite and I'm friendly, but there's only so far you can be pushed. And um just in my local paper, they were advertising for post people, and I thought, well, that sounds like a good job. Like, you know, you finish at two in the afternoon, and it just sounded perfect for me. Obviously, you start at 5am and I applied and I got the job, and I was I was 18, and back then there I think there was over 300 of us in the sorting office, and five of us were females.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Wow. But like I say, I've got a postwoman, and she's honestly such a vibe. If she sees me coming out, she won't make me wait for my post. She'll be like, oh, here you go, babe, hold on, hold on.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

And I'm like, oh, what about I was like that, I was like that. I loved it because once you were out on your delivery, you were your own boss. And I had my walkman because I'm that old. I would just listen to my music and get lost in my delivery. I mean, it used to take me hours because I was a very slow walker, but yeah, I loved it. And then you'd be home by sort of two o'clock, and then back then the money was really good. So then I'd pick up more shifts, like you can do the night shifts where you're sorting, or you can go to all the post offices and do the collections. I think it is completely different to uh to what it is now, but yeah, I absolutely loved that job. Didn't like it when it was raining or snowing, though.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

That was a challenge. No, I can imagine or if there's like a crazy dog like running at you from from the house. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Or crazy people had that a few times.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

I really want to dive into those roles because I think nowadays we live in such a different career market. Young people going into those early roles. I think sometimes they don't necessarily appreciate those jobs that might not sound as sexy, but they can teach you so many skills. What do you think that those sorts of early retail jobs gave you that you then ended up using throughout your life and career?

SPEAKER_00 2:57

I think it definitely teaches you um people skills, which I feel a lot of people do lack in, you know, socialising isn't huge anymore because of social media and everyone is just stuck to their phones. So, you know, you you think before we had social media, you would when I was younger on a Saturday night, we as a family we'd all sit around the telly and that would be your little community, or you'd go to your friend's house, yeah, and watch Top of the Pops and something. You don't kind of have that anymore. Everyone is just in a world of their own, on their phones. A lot of people still work from homes. There's that lack of people skills do exist, and the entitlement that you you come across nowadays, and I feel those early roles definitely taught me that fundamental things that we're not actually taught in school that we do need in life. When are we ever going to use pie? Do you know what I mean? And I feel like, yeah, we I just learnt so much, just almost being forced into it, and none of this pampering and being molycoddled and wrapped up. It was just like if you want to earn money, you go out and work to earn that money. If you want to buy something, you have to save up and get it. None of this, oh, my parents will buy it for me, or I'll get a credit card or anything like that. It was just hard, cold work. That's what it came down to. And it did it, it shaped me to be a bit more resilient, which I'm glad because of what I went through, but also fiercely independent, which I think as a girl, we need to be. We shouldn't have to rely on a man, rely on yourself. That's one thing I've learned in life. There's only one person you can rely on in this world, and it is yourself.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

I really love that because I always say to people like, there's no one who will back you more than you, and it's no one's responsibility to sort your shit out, whatever that shit may be, whether it's paying your bills, you know, just maintaining yourself, anything in life, like no one's responsible for that other than you. And yes, and be blessed with people along the way that can push you, help you, support you, but fundamentally everyone's got their own shit going on and they've got to deal with their own shit. So there'll be a point where someone's not available to help you. Do you know what? I read that you said something in an interview that really stood out to me. And correct me if I'm misquoting you, but you said something to the effect of if I'm going to be blind, I'm going to be the best bloody blind person there is. And it reminded me so much of what my mum used to say to me when I was younger, because she used to say, I don't care what you do with your life and what you want to become, if you want to be a bloody dustbin cleaner, you better be the best dustbin cleaner that there is in the world. Well, I'm curious, what, if at all, did your role did your parents play in steering you into a type of career?

SPEAKER_00 5:30

My parents were very, very sort of do what makes you happy. There was there was no pressure to do anything we didn't want to do. Even with exams and revision, they just left us to it. It was like, it's your life, you choose how you want that. If you don't want to revise and you don't want to get a good job and you don't want to succeed, then that's fine. We're not going to push you to. But we're also not going to be the bank of mum and dad for you if things don't go go right. Obviously, they help you out if you really desperately need it. But there was there was never you've got to do well, you've got to do this. You it was just, we just want you to be happy. And I wasn't the most academic kid. I found school very boring, I was bullied quite a lot. I just I didn't have the attention span that I should have had. But when I liked a subject, I was in it a million percent. And um I I had since been diagnosed with OCD, and I can see traits of that when I was at school, like I absolutely loved drama and performing, but I couldn't perform in front of an audience. I could perform in my class, but not in front of an audience, and so then it was like, well, I still love this artistic space, what can I do? And I fell in love with the whole engineering side of it and the lighting and the sound. So I wanted to become like a lighting and sound technician, but then you have to climb ladders, and I'm scared of heights, so that didn't that didn't happen. Hence me becoming a postperson.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

And so after those early roles, where did where did you start to see your career going, or did you even have a roadmap for what you really wanted your career to be?

SPEAKER_00 7:09

I didn't have a set idea. I after I'd sort of realised that I wouldn't be a sound or lighting engineer, um, I gave up my Saturday job. I became a posty, and I kind of thought I don't want to be doing this for the rest of my life. I didn't mind it in the summer, but the winter mornings, and one morning uh it was icy, and I came off my bike and I delis I dislocated my shoulder and I thought, yeah, this isn't for me for life because this yeah, and I fell in love with makeup and I thought I would love to be a makeup artist and thought, oh, I'm gonna pursue this. So I booked myself on like a week's intense course at Teddington Studios in London. Sick. And then I found out I was pregnant, and that's kind of stopped that because I was like, okay, not gonna be able to be a makeup artist with this massive bump in the way. So stayed at the post office whilst I had my daughter, and her dad was also a postman. Guess where we met? And um and I was like, Well, we both can't start work at five o'clock in the morning because we've got a baby, and one of our friends worked for Virgin Atlantic, and she said, Oh, my company are recruiting if you fancy travel. And I was like, Yeah, I'll give it a go. Interviewed for the role and got a job in the call centre, and that's where nearly a 20-year career started in the travel industry for me.

SPEAKER_01 8:31

I mentioned to you on our last chat, yeah, I used to work in travel, and I remember I used to walk down to the contact centre, and then I I remember they did used to have a very big turnaround of staff in that department, rightly so, because some of the rude people that would pick up. What did that period teach you? And I guess how did you then start to maybe say, all right, maybe this part of Virginia Atlantic's not for me? Let me see what other part of the company I can move into.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

I think being in a call centre, it teaches you to have the patience of a saint. It also taught me a lot about empathy. You know, I I used to work with being different teams, and my team, we would um filled all the sort of Florida destination calls, and so that meant that you would get a lot of people with terminally ill children taking them on their very last holiday to Florida, and it taught me so much about myself and also dealing with Nylon as well, how how cruel the world is. It taught me a lot about that, but it also taught me that still customer service was not my forte. I I was okay at it, but I wasn't a salesperson, and they gradually brought in the commission. And I thought this isn't gonna work for me because I'm not a pushy person. If someone wants a holiday, they'll they know you can't force someone to book a holiday, you know. I can sit there until I'm blue in the face and tell them how fabulous Mickey Mouse is, but if they haven't got the money, they're not gonna they're not gonna buy the holiday. And so I thought, right, where where else can I go? I loved working there, I loved the people, I loved the perks of the job, and I just loved the brand and everything they stood for. Um, and um, I had met somebody on in my antenatal classes, our girls are like a a week or two apart, and she was actually a manager in the database department, and she said, Well, why don't you interview for a role? You know, you're not gonna get it just because you're my friend, and I was a bit like rude, yeah, but I interviewed for it and I did get the role. And I kind of my career then started sort of more on the analytical side within the company, and the systems changed, and with that, your jobs changed. So I kind of stayed within that data loading kind of space, but as as I got older and a bit more well, less gobby and a bit more mindful of other people and a bit more career-driven, I kind of grew into my final role, which was a contract supervisor, and then I was made redundant because of COVID.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

That bloody COVID, do you know what it really made me so upset because I had a lot of friends that worked in travel at that time and it was just like it was just such a short period. It was just so really was, and I just think I still to this day don't think that people appreciate how much the hospitality industry suffered during COVID, and it's like I almost feel like it was the forgotten industry, but you could get me going on a rut about that because that really, really, really bummed me out to see because it's such an amazing industry, and and to be honest, there are so many people that do the legwork. Just to get someone on holiday, people don't realise how many people are behind that fit to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

It takes, yeah, exactly. It does, it takes a small village to kind of get get them to where they are. So when they're having their best time and posting their photos, they don't forget, they they forget that people like me are the ones sat there till two, three o'clock in the morning loading that information into a computer so they can go online and book it.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What what what was your biggest learning from working in such a big corporation?

SPEAKER_00 12:05

I grew up there, I was 21 when I started working there, and I pretty much grew up there. I also um went through my stroke and sight loss whilst I was there, and they were incredible and so supportive. But when I look back at my earlier years, I think to myself, I I probably stopped my own progression due to my kind of attitude, and I was just a bit mouthy, thought I was funny, and just rubbed people up the wrong way just to get a reaction. And that's not how you make friends in life. I had my friends and they all thought I was hilarious, and and they kind of enable that behaviour. But then as you get older and you you kind of think, well, I can't progress any further because that person doesn't like me, that person doesn't like me, I annoyed that person, I was rude to that person, and it's it's just that whole. I was probably a little bit entitled myself, but it it's just sort of being a bit more mature, I was very immature, very immature. But then I always put that down to the fact that I was a young mum, I never really got to grow up because I had to go from sort of teenager to parent, and I didn't have that like rebellious stage where people went out drinking all the time and went on girls' holidays and stuff. I missed all of that, and I kind of feel that's why that came out of me in a work environment.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

Totally. And I also think like it just highlights the reason why, like I always say you never know what someone's like life story is that took them to that place that maybe makes them act in certain ways. And like you say, it's kind of that element of when you get older and I look back and I cringe at myself sometimes, and I was like, um, I know exactly what I'm talking about, and it's like, bitch, you have not a clue what you're on about, like just shush, like just embarrassing yourself. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? I was like, now I'm 31, and I think back to like 21-year-old Camilla, and I was just like, oh god, like, oh god, it's so embarrassing. But it's it's also that humility that allows you to go, do you know what? It's all right, we all kind of learn change.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

I think the biggest thing I learned was to stand up to myself. There were a lot of, I wouldn't say bullies, but they had bully tendencies where they would, you know, slam things on your desk and be like, do that now. And it was learning to have a voice but in in a professional way and say, I'll do that when I'm ready, or well, you want me to do this and you want me to do that. Which do you want first? Because I can't do both at the same time. And it's just learning to have that voice but in a professional way. That taught me a lot about myself, and again, it it all helped to be the independent person that I now am.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

And you experienced your stroke and sight loss while at Virgin, you say they were amazing. How did that then transition you into content creation? Like, what was that moment we said, you know what, I'm gonna start posting online?

SPEAKER_00 14:47

So, I mean, they were incredible, and all my team were so, so supportive. They got me all the equipment that I needed as I was sort of going through the gradual sight loss because it I didn't lose my sight all of a sudden, it was over a period of time. Um, and they just supported me in every way that they could, and then it got to the point where I did lose my sight overnight, and I then was very limited to what I could do. So they just worked me at my strengths, which was managing the team, doing all the appraisals, doing what I could do. So the systems that we actually used to input the data weren't compatible with screen readers, so it was like, okay, well, Claire can do all the jobs that are compatible with screen readers. Yeah. But I was struggling with severe fatigue and migraines, so I had to go part-time. And I kind of feel that's when the redundancies happened, they feel in a way that's where they were potentially unfair because they did kind of get rid of all the part-timers and kept all the full-timers. Whether you were good at your job or not, it was kind of like you need to go. And so, for a period of time, I was unemployed and with a big percentage of the world because so many people were made redundant in that time. You have more people applying for jobs, but I was applying for all kinds of jobs, jobs in uh restaurants, anything and everything to office work. I even did apply to back to Royal Mail, but obviously this time it's very different because I'm now registered blind and I'm disabled. And over a six-month period, I applied for over 250 jobs. Oh wow. And every time I selected the box to say I had a disability, the one job that I did not select the box to say that I had a disability, I got an interview for. And I truly believe that it was because of my disability. I think the minute people were like, Well, she's blind, how's she gonna be able to do that? Because people are aren't I educated on in knowing our workarounds and and how we do things. And I got, I got, I thought I had already been at rock bottom the day I lost my eyesight, but I felt a new rock bottom. I just thought no one's gonna employ me. You know, I I just felt I had no purpose in life anymore. My daughter was at university, although she was at home at university. I thought she doesn't need me, no one wants to employ me. I'd moved away, I'd moved up to Hertfordshire to be with my fiance, I had no friends around me. I felt so and just like I just didn't need to be here. That's the way I felt. And um, and my my friend had called me one day, and she knows I love Buddy the Elf, and she was like, Oh, Tesco's are selling Buddy the Elf bags for life. And I was like, Oh, I'm gonna go and get one. And um, I tried to walk to Tesco to go and buy one, and we've got no pedestrianised crossings where we are, and I couldn't cross the road, so I filmed myself trying to cross the road and I put it on my personal Facebook page, and people who I hadn't spoken to in years were like, Oh my god, I didn't realise how hard life was for you. And one one guy said, You should put this on YouTube, people need to see this, and I was like, No, we don't need my big moon face all over the internet. And then he came back to me, he said, I've showed my friend whose partner's going blind, and he found this really helpful. And I thought, I can help people. So my mindset changed completely, and then I just started doing little pieces and putting them on various social media platforms. And at the time, in lockdown, TikTok was huge. I didn't know how to use it, it didn't work with my screen reader, it was a nightmare, but I figured it out and I started posting, and that was sort of in the March of 20, I think it was 22. By the October, all my videos were going viral, and I was just showing simple things like how does a blind girl make a hot chocolate, how does a blind girl brush her teeth, how does a blind girl cross the road, and they were just getting so much traction, and that's kind of where I guess it it became a realization. Actually, this could be my job because then brands started getting in touch, and corporations and like, you know, I I remember a massive energy company being like, Would you come in and do a talk? And I was just like, Oh, okay. And they're like, Oh, how much do you charge? And I'm like, Oh, I'll do it for free because I want people to be educated, which was a big mistake. Um, but my my passion for wanting people to learn and understand about other disabilities just drove everything for me. And then the the DMs started coming in saying, Oh, because of you, I was able to get on an escalator today, because of you, I went out and used my white cane today, and that is still my drive. Every single morning I get those kind of messages, and that still is what keeps me going to keep doing it. And yeah, that's kind of how content creating started.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

You know, when you're here today, we need to have a content strategy or whatever, or is it literally just I'm gonna wing it and see what's going on and what keeps happening?

SPEAKER_00 19:50

I mean, there's so much online, isn't there? Oh, to be a successful influencer, you need to do this, you need to do that. It's basically if you've got good content, you will do well. That is basically what it comes down to. If people find it interesting, they will watch it. Because they're then watching it, they might engage with it. That is what pushes it out. That is that is the algorithm. There's none of this, oh, if you then go back into your video after you've posted it and do it. It's all, it's just if your content is good, it will do well. It doesn't matter what time of day you post or what day you post, it will do well if it is good. You know, I've had I've had videos that have had over seven million views. I've also had videos that have had 700 views. And it's like it just wasn't a good video. The the colour wasn't good, the sound, something like that. But no, I've never sat and got, I need a strategy. I do a bit more now because I do a lot more different work. I don't just do content creating, I do keynote speaking, I'm an accessibility advisor, I do TV and radio presenting. So I have to have a bit more strategy now. But still, when it comes to content like yesterday, I was like, Oh, I'm gonna practice my makeup for an event next week. Oh, I'm gonna film it. And then I posted it last night. I got my editor to edit it, she sent it over and I got it posted last night, and it's done okay. Done okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

And do you think that's an approach that people need to because I think we live in this social media world and especially you know, the pressure that young people are under, and when you are putting yourself out there online, you know, like I said, I I still struggle with it sometimes, and it's like on my mood board of things that I will deliver this year and just get over the fear. Do you think that's something that people need to kind of forget, you know, what others will will perceive? Other is this video going to do well? It's like just enjoy it and put it out there.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Yeah, I think the minute you start looking at all your analytics and you deep dive into that story only got that many views, or that video didn't get much traction, that's when you lose it. I never look at it. I I mean, unfortunately, I have to at the end of each month to give over my stats for my media deck, but I don't get so self absorbed in it that I'm like, oh my god, no one likes me, no one wants to watch me. I create the content because I want to give. Other people hope that is purely it. I don't create it because I want to go viral. I don't create it because I want 9,000 comments. I want people to tell me that I'm this or that. I do it because, like the makeup video yesterday, I've done that in in case someone was thinking, Oh, well, how does she do her makeup? Oh, she used AI. I'm gonna give that a go. That's why I do it. And I think a lot of people they they try to be too polished, and we've lost that authenticity within social media. There's so much clickbait and lies. So many people come on and be like, So today this happened, and you're like, No, that's it.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

Getting out of the bed, you know what one really pisses me off is when people get they do their like morning routine and you they like film themselves getting out of the bed. I was like, You div, you've got up, you've put the camera up, set up your tripod into bed. What a div. And it was just so silly to me because I was just like, That's not real, like that's not real life.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

It's not real life, or they'll set their tripod up so they can start crying on camera. And it's like, don't get me wrong, I've cried, I've cried on my stories before, you know. I've been overcome with emotion and stuff, but I haven't set my tripod up and been like, right, today this happened to me.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

It's just it was really a real person, be real.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

That's what people want to say. People are nosy, that's what you've got to remember. They're nosy and they want to know what is going on in other people's lives. A lot of the time it's to make us feel better about our own lives, but sometimes it's because we want to have a laugh or we want to be educated on something, or we want to experience something that we potentially won't ever experience. Like, my guilty pleasure is luxury unboxings because I know I'm never going to be able to afford something like that. And I'm like, oh my god, good for you. I'm oh my god, this is exciting. You know, other people find joy in cooking videos or skits and stuff like that, but just that authenticity, I feel like we've lost it, and the platforms have become, I mean, most of them they're just selling you crap that you don't really need, but you're buying because everyone else has bought it.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

It's like, oh, what is that? I'm gonna for I'm gonna forget his name, but he's a he's like a well-known TV presenter and he put he has a podcast as well, but he put up a post the other day where it basically said, please know nobody leaves running a multi-million pound business to teach others how to run a multi-million pound business. And I was like, This is the realest freaking post I've ever seen because I have, by God's grace, a couple of friends who've done very, very well for themselves, and you know, they have become millionaires off of their businesses. I can tell you for a fact, she's not leaving her three multi-million pound businesses to post on Instagram to tell you like exactly how to do it.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

I love some of the things that I see online. I don't know if you've heard of Nal Harbison. He runs We Are Happy Doggo. It's like a dog, um, like a dog sanctuary in Thailand, and he had a really, really difficult like journey in his life. He was a functioning alcoholic for many years. He ran a very successful marketing company and then he hit rock bottom and nearly died, and then he started basically feeding dogs in the morning. He now runs a huge charity, and I honestly log on every morning just to see what's going on with these dogs. Like, I'm so invested in the specific names of the dogs, the stories, where they're going, are they rehomed? I think there's so many beautiful things online, but there's also this weird, like fake world that's just like guys, this is not real. Doesn't it's it's really ranky and it's not real.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

They get so invested in it and so invested in each other's drama, and it's like you said it there yourself. You log on to go and watch his content. He has built a community, a loyal community, and that's for me, that's what social media was about. Like I have this wonderful community who I cannot post for months on end, and the minute I post, they're all there for me. Yeah, because I've built that up. I've I I'm not selling them anything. I I work with brands who want to be accessible or are accessible, or brands that I love dearly. I don't just go and work with any old brand. I'm quite I've got morals, you know, and I stick to those. Whereas sadly, not a lot of people do have that and they see the money and that's what takes over them.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

And I think what you've just said there, that point of I have morals, I think it's a testament to you. I think it's very easy, especially when you blow up online, like like we said, you know, so many people seem to lose that element of either why they started or what just they as a person kind of live and believe in their day-to-day lives. They lose that when they go into social media, and I think that's obviously why you've grown this incredible community. And if I if I'm not mistaken, that's why one of the producers from um this morning reached out to you.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

Yeah, so she's no longer there, but her she has a relative who is going blind, and she saw sort of what I'd been doing, and they thought that it'd just be a great sort of addition to the show to sort of introduce this. Um, and because at first it was just kind of a little VT, a day in the life. Then a second one they came and we did another VT with me cooking, and they were just blown away by how I was able to navigate my kitchen and and still cook meals despite not being able to see. And they were like, Would love you to come on and and do a live live cooking segment. And I was just like, Are you sure? Like you're gonna let a blind person live on TV with knives, this is gonna end well. And and it kind of led from there, but I've also done other segments where you know they they need somebody with a disability to maybe give their opinion on something, like for example, when the the the disabled Barbie came out, I've done a makeup tutorial on live TV, which ended up being the highest watch segment of the of of this morning. Um, and it's it's just you know, TV is sadly dying because everyone's on their phones, but you've still got a huge portion of people that watch it, and a lot of those people are going to be in my community because technology is not accessible to them. Whereas turning on a tele, they've done that, that's in their memory muscle, so they still can tune in. You know, people are like, Oh, you're on TV, but you haven't got millions and millions of followers, and it's like that's not what I do it for. I do it to give others hope. And you don't need to have millions and millions of followers to be successful. As long as you've got a good engaged community, then you're successful. You could have 9,000 followers, you're you could get every single person could interact with your video, you're gonna be more successful than someone who's got 13 million followers who hardly gets any of that engagement. The numbers mean nothing.

SPEAKER_01 28:13

Yeah, and I I obviously I've been one of those like PRs who's obviously works with influences and talent in the past. You know, you'd get this fancy pants deck of like, oh, I've got 1.8 million followers, and then how many people watched your like last video, for example? It'll be like 32. Yeah. Like you say, it's it's about that authenticity that if people really fall in love with who you are, what you stand for, what you put out, they're gonna keep humming back again and again and again. And it's like, like I said, I tune in every single day to now harvesting, and I'll update my mum and I'll be like, oh my god, Rocky's feeling better, and she's like, Who? And I'm like, Rocky the dog, he's getting better. It's day three, and I'll tune in every day. I haven't missed a day, but it's it's like you say, that that real, real life that you put out, and people will engage with it, and it it doesn't matter about the followers. And I think, like I said, it's just a testament to who you are as a person because I think it's very easy to get lost in that source of like so now I'm like a little influence, and and it's it's even worse in real life when you're at the events and they're there, like, do you do you not know who I am?

SPEAKER_00 29:20

And um or the first question they ask you is how many followers have you got? And it's just like, hi, I'm Claire. There we go.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

Have we lost our manners? Obviously, now as you you said you um were offered that speaking gig, and they and you said, Oh, I'll do it for free. I'd love to go on to our next segment, Coin Confessions. What was that first point where you started making money from content where you thought, oh, okay, I think my relationship with this from a financial perspective probably needs to change and I might need to approach it a little bit differently.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

It's really hard to pin down a point because I I still do a hell of a lot for free, especially when it comes to charities, or if it is something I'm really passionate about, and you know, and that is educating the world, unfortunately. But I did get um a brand deal, my very first big brand deal. Once I got that, I was like, I might not get anything like this again. And I remember my my husband saying, What are you gonna do with the money? And I was like, Well, I'll save it. And he said, No, I want you to buy something that you can keep forever, because if this does all end tomorrow, you'll always look at that thing and think, Oh, that's because of that. And um, I'd I'd always wanted this this bag, and it was it was a couple of hundred pounds, and I'd never spend that much money on myself. And he was like, Buy it, just buy it, and you can always look at it, and every time you do, you'll think, Remember that time that you did that thing?

SPEAKER_01 30:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

So I did buy it, and now we laugh about it because he's like, You thought it was all gonna end, and it and it didn't, and then because it didn't end, and more deals started coming in, and and you're you're earning more than what you were earning, you're earning more in a month than what you were earning in in a year when you're employed by by Virgin. You're just a bit like, okay, so this is gonna be very different. But obviously, for so long I didn't work, and it was all on my husband to earn, and he was between us, we've got three children, um, and it was all on him. So it's like it's nice now that he doesn't have that kind of burden that he's the sole earner. So it's like, okay, all the money I make just stays in my business account, and that's that's our retirement fund. We don't even look at that as if to say that that's our money. We forget about it because that's for when we're we retire, and that's kind of like a good mentality for me to have because if I go in and check the balance, I'll be like, Oh, should we go to New York this week?

SPEAKER_01 31:40

Remember that other bag that I said that I liked. They do it in red now, so no, I totally get it. I actually love that piece of advice that you that he gave you. I think that's the most beautiful advice because it is like that reminder that we sometimes need to be like, look what I achieved. Like, and it is right. That just that stayed with me. I will pass that on to someone else. What would you say is your um biggest mistake with money, whether that be you know through the content creation or just from life, what would you say has been your biggest learning?

SPEAKER_00 32:10

I think when I was younger, I was very flash with the cash. I was earning good money as a post eight. I was still living at home. This was before I fell pregnant. You know, I'd lay on my mobile phone in my bed, phoning Calvin Klein on Bond Street, ordering stuff. And my family still laugh about it now. They're like, you wouldn't even step foot in, you know, a primer because I I was so I just created a monster of myself. Like, oh, I can afford this lifestyle, I'm gonna live it and I'm gonna be an arsehole about it. And then once I fell pregnant and um like the money wasn't coming in as quickly as it was because I could no longer be a postie, and you kind of realize actually all that material stuff doesn't matter. What matters is seeing my baby girl laugh and having fun days out with her. And very early on, I'd say from about the age of sort of 22, 23, I learned actually money is better spent on building memories than building a collection of bags or shoes or something like that. It's definitely more prominent now for me because on my bad days, where you know, I I have these days I call them the I don't want to be blind days, where I sort of wallow in self-pity for 24 hours. I have some incredible memories that actually bring smiles to my face, and I'm like, I am actually really lucky I got to do that. I'm really grateful I got to do that. I'm so happy I did that, and it's all little memories of life. I think that's so true, and I think we can also, especially younger generation, can be so caught up in the flash lifestyle, but I need people to know they have money, yeah, and all these stupid trends on social media that you you feel you've got to have the same coat as everybody else, or this or that, whether you can afford it or not, even to the extent of when supermarkets bring out a new chocolate bar and it's like eight pounds for a chocolate bar. Like, seriously, are we paying eight pounds for a chocolate bar here? And they're doing it just to make content, and you're just like, the world has gone crazy when you're spending eight pounds on a chocolate bar.

SPEAKER_01 34:11

Honestly, I always say this, and I'm like, people have gone nutty as a fruitcake. Like the people who I admire who have good morals, good values, good virtues, and have money, it's not because they're just spending their money on, like you say, an eight-pound chocolate bar. They've got my I always say I've got money because I don't throw my money down the toilet.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

Like, yeah, I need to like it wouldn't work and come back, it's not there guaranteed. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's nice to have little treats, and someone might say, Well, I'd rather have an eight-pound chocolate bar than a 400-pound handbag, and and you know, each to their own, but we're just we're creating a culture where it's almost like, well, everyone now because I've seen everyone else do it online, I've got to go and do it. And I think what makes me sad is that we still have people struggling so much out there, and they can't do that. And I was, you know, I I split up with my daughter's dad when she was three, and I was on my own for a number of years, and I was struggling. He didn't pay any child support. I had a mortgage, and it was just me and her. And I remember one year she asked for a Nintendo DS for Christmas and she didn't get one, and she'd gone back to school after the holidays, and she came home and she was like, I don't think Father Christmas likes me. Everyone else got a Nintendo DS and I didn't, and it absolutely broke my heart. And my family, just incredible as they are, all chipped in and we got her a DS. And it's just very sad that people feel the need to have to live up to these expectations when they can't afford it. Now, when she looks back at it, she's like, you know, if I had known how poor we were, I would never have said that. And I was like, but you were she was like six, she wouldn't have known. Yeah. But as she got older, she did understand that money was short and we couldn't afford to do a lot of things. And she never really asked for it. And she actually said to me the other day, she's oh, I remember on our poor weekends, we would just go into New Lut, Mum, and you'd take loads of photos of me, she'd try on different outfits, and we'd do like a little fashion show because that was a way of entertaining her for free because I didn't have money to take her to a cinema.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

I'd love to go on to our Two Lives and a Truth segment. And this is all born out of the idea that I think sometimes we'll look at more senior, more experienced people, look at their careers and whatever their advice is and go, that must be Bible, I have to do it. Has anyone given you any advice that you've gone absolute bullshit, shouldn't pay attention to that?

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Whether you learn the hard way or in the open. So creating content, I was basically told don't create fashion content, you're too old. Because you can't see, you're not very stylish, and you're the wrong shape. And I listened to it and I didn't create fashion content. And then I actually posted something about fashion a while ago and it did really well. And this is really random, but adds to this story. So I don't have a bum. And yesterday I bought a bum on Amazon and it arrived. And I showed it on my stories, and the amount of DMs I've had from people can't wait to see you try this on with some outfits. I'm intrigued. I don't have a bum. Lots of things like that. And I'm like, why did I listen to that person for so long? And that wasn't the only thing they told me. They told me so much not to do, also told me that numbers matter, and you know that they they are the sort of person who would sell their own family to become something, whereas I'm not. So a lot of the time I didn't really take on that kind of advice. In fact, none of the time I really did, apart from I didn't post the content that I should have that I wanted to post. I post the content that you want to post, and because it's almost like, well, it's the content you also want to watch, so do it. And I wish I hadn't have listened to them.

SPEAKER_01 37:41

This could this conversation's really given me a kip out of my ass to put my big girl panties on and actually put myself out there. Yeah, literally. And what what um has been a good piece of advice, you know, whether that was teacher, family, friend that you've kind of carried through and gone, you know what? Everyone needs to know that.

SPEAKER_00 37:58

I've been given so much good advice, but I think the one that sticks out the most is just don't worry what everyone else thinks. Because now I'm at an age and I'm like, I understand now what people mean when they say that. It's always an older person that says it to a younger person, and I was that younger person. I was like, don't worry what everyone felt. No one really cares about what you're doing. Like, you know, I I don't have many photos of me and my daughter because I was I was morbidly obese, I hated the way I looked, and I just thought, oh no, I don't I don't want pictures of myself because I was so embarrassed by what other people would say when they saw those photos, and that's such a huge regret of mine now because you know, for example, I'm doing a a big um sort of interview with with a big media company, and they want pictures of me and my daughter as she was growing up, and I'm like, Oh, I don't have any because I was so embarrassed. And when she went to university, I very sadly had a mental breakdown over it, and I would just troll through pictures of us both just looking at them, and then it get to a point I'm like, oh, I don't have any more because I was too embarrassed, and it's like no one is actually caring what you think, and I can vouch for that now because I walk around with a white cane, nobody is taking notice of anyone by the amount of people that still walk into me or trip over my white cane or shout at me, look where you're going. I promise no one is taking notice of you.

SPEAKER_01 39:22

Also, you can tell those people I said to fuck off because that stuff really pisses me off. So don't you worry, if we're ever walking down the street, I will happily gob shite back at them because you've got my back, I love it. Oh, that stuff really, really grates on me. If anything, to the point where I've I've put myself in some situations where it's like, oh, this is gonna go really, really left.

SPEAKER_00 39:41

My my best friend is exactly the same. My best friend is exactly the same. Look where your garbage leak got bloody say.

SPEAKER_01 39:48

It really costs you nothing to be mindful of the world around you and be considerate. Because guess what? Life might come at you hard one day in in whatever iteration that might be, and you would hope that someone have a little bit of consideration for you in whatever way you might need it. So, yeah, don't you worry, girl. If you want, you can just I'll record for you a really erratic audio that you could just play out on a park horn and it would just be me screaming at the little bastards. Do you know what? You stay tuned for my content because I will be putting it out. Mark my words, I'm gonna hold myself to this to this um to this interview, and I will I will lose that feeling.

SPEAKER_00 40:24

It's it's a real thing, isn't it? Like I get it all the time. I'm quite shy, I'm quite shy in person, and people are like, but you present on live TV. I'm like, it's I can't even explain it. I mean, it probably helps that I can't see the camera crew there and everybody else in the studio. That probably helps massively. But even recording on your phone, you do feel like a bit of a knob at first, being like, hi guys, it's like you know, until you find your comfortable place. I still today I've I've been out with my friend who she's been recording in a shop, she does like um hacks, and I'm like, Are you not embarrassed to be filming? She's like, Oh, I don't care. But I because I say to her, God, whenever I start filming in a shop, you can guarantee you get the lingerers, they're so nice. And they're like, What are they filming for? What are they doing? And it really annoys me because my husband will be like, Oh, we've we've got a lingerie, we've got a stair bear, we've got something like that. And I'm like, I can't film now until they've gone. Because I get so embarrassed still, I am so shy. And people think it's such a contradiction. Exactly. And I'm I'm just like, I I don't even know, I can't even put it into words, like how I can be that shy, but then I can stand on a stage and talk to a thousand people. But I feel the only thing that I can say from that is because I'm so passionate about what I do that that it just goes away. It just goes away and you don't think about it. And then afterwards, when they're they tell you how many people tuned into that segment or how many people arrived to your talk, you're just like, Don't want to know, tomorrow no, thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 41:50

Thank you. It's so funny. I always use the line of like, I'm a very extrovert person, but I don't like people looking at me. So like someone will look at me for too long. I'm like, why are you looking at me? And in my day-to-day life, I actually don't really give a shit about, and I've never really given a shit about what people have to say or think, or when they look at me. And I've made a right arse of myself in public many, many, many a times. I'm a self-dubbed retired party girl.

SPEAKER_00 42:13

See, I need to retire. I've got worse as I've got older, like literally in a bush with a packet of ham and a shoemus in. That's my life. People are like, are you blind drunk? And I'm like, I actually am.

SPEAKER_01 42:27

Guys literally just gave me a flashback of I probably shouldn't say this, but I don't care. I was I was off my tits, and I remember I peed on a mattress in public. And how I can now be embarrassed to put out content around building a creative career. And you've peed on a mattress. Honestly. Um now, in the spirit of giving some good advice, we've got our final segment, what's the 411? And we have three anonymous questions from young women who are uh sending us in their career problems. So, our first one is from a 17-year-old in Cornwall who says, I know putting yourself out there is a big part of building a career nowadays, but it honestly just scares me. How do you get over that fear of creating content and how do you figure out what people actually want from you without overthinking it too much?

SPEAKER_00 43:10

Like I said earlier, I think the kind of content is like what do you enjoy watching? Put out something that you enjoy watching because you'll enjoy creating that. And then if you enjoy it, then the fear shouldn't be there. Like I do radio presenting and sometimes I'm hungover or I'm tired and I I sound flat and my producer will be like, Smiley while you say it, and I'm like, hi. And it is, it's it's it's a case of right, you almost have to psych yourself up for it. But a good thing would be to like to put a Teddy or something in the room and pretend you're talking to that as you're filming your content because otherwise it can sound really fake. Like you get people that are like, Hi guys, and it's like, would you really speak to somebody like that? And then you'd be like, All right, how are you doing? You put on these different voices. I'm guilty of it. I do it all the time, and I notice it so much in Other people. I'm like, that's not how you spoke when we met in person, but that's how you speak online. And it is so different. But it's also hard to break. Like when we were younger and we had telephones in our home, not mobile phones, like you'd answer the phone with your telephone voice. Hello, Clint.

SPEAKER_01 44:16

And I would always be like, Are we a fucking hotel? I was like, Why are you exactly?

SPEAKER_00 44:22

But you have a telephone voice, yeah. And now people have a social media voice. So yeah, I would say create the kind of content that you enjoy watching as a start because you'll soon find your way, you'll soon find what hits and what doesn't, but stick with it because your first video is never gonna, unless you're really lucky, it's not gonna go viral. And I think people give up after a few, oh, it didn't do well, it didn't do well. You've got to keep on at it. It took me months. I I started posting in the March, and it by the October, the videos were going viral.

SPEAKER_01 44:51

I think that's great advice about the teddy because that's one thing that I've struggled. I'm just staring at myself and I feel like a bit of a twat. Yeah, there's no one to talk to. And I'm like, hi, and that's that's na me. Like that is so on my brand as a person that I'm like, I feel like a bit of a twat, so I'm gonna try, I'm gonna try the teddy. Our next question is uh from a 29-year-old from Manchester. She says, I feel a bit stuck in my career right now, but I can't tell if it means I need to make a move or just push through it. How do you know when it's actually time to switch things up?

SPEAKER_00 45:20

I think in that situation, push through it, and then if that doesn't change, then you know it is time to change your career. I think that's also a really sort of pivotal age, isn't it? You're you're not young anymore, but you're also not old. Um, you're at an age where people start to take you seriously, and you can really sort of carve out a decent career path for yourself just because of that age. But yeah, I would say push through it, and if that doesn't work, then you know it's giving you your answer already.

SPEAKER_01 45:50

Definitely. Our final question is from a 32-year-old from Leeds. She says, My platform's starting to grow quite quickly after a lot of work, and I'm really conscious about staying true to myself and not just saying yes to anything. How do you decide which brand partnerships to take on? And how do you avoid feeling like you're selling yourself out, even though I need to pay my bills?

SPEAKER_00 46:09

That's a difficult one because at the end of the day, we've all got rent, mortgage, bills to pay, and it's hard because in this line of work you could get a very well-paid job in January, but then you might not book anything until June. And although, yes, that was a substantial amount of money, by June it's gonna have all gone. So it is hard. But like I said earlier, I only work with brands who I have a connection with that that's whether they have become accessible and I want to shout about it. And you know, I shout about it regardless. But if they want to pay me, then that's even better. If they are trying to become accessible, um, you know, you know, even if it's just a small design change on their packaging, I'll support them. Or if it's a brand that I truly love and have spoken about in natural organic content, you know, for example, old El Paso, they're not accessible, they're not anything to do with the disabled community, but I have always loved their fajita kits. I find them easy. I would talk about them naturally in like, oh, I'm making dinner tonight, I'm just gonna whip up some of these. If they then came to me and said, Oh, we'd love to work with you, to me, I wouldn't say no, because I think it will actually I love you, and I use you all the time, and I have done, and it wouldn't look odd to my community that I'm doing that. I think if if you've grown quite quickly, your community probably isn't going to know what aligns with you, so you might get away with it for a little bit, but if you've got like OGs, you've got to remember your OGs are gonna be your your loyal, loyal people who are always gonna tune into your content. You don't want to piss them off by doing something like, Oh, I've always used this when two months ago you've perhaps slagged them off, or you've like, oh, I've always used this, and that's my biggest thing is you see people go, oh, I love this face cream, it's the best, and then thinking, hang on a minute, two months ago you were saying you wanted a really simple skin tear routine, so you've just got this night and day cream, and now you're completely different brand. And I'm just like, no, I'm sorry, but you've lost me as you've lost my trust because you've you've just contradicted what you've said. It is a very hard line because at the end of the day our bills need paying. But I truly believe that your gut instinct will tell you whether it's right or not.

SPEAKER_01 48:25

But never sleep on your gut because it will give you the answer to the person.

SPEAKER_00 48:30

Exactly. But also what you've got to remember is the you might take that well-paid brand deal and it doesn't morally sit right with you. You've then lost that trust of your audience. You've potentially then just lost your job because no one's gonna tune in. So you've got to weigh it up that way.

SPEAKER_01 48:47

It's that trade-off of like down the line, something even bigger could come because that audience is still there and it's still growing, and that trust has never disappeared.

SPEAKER_00 48:55

Exactly. And if a brand really wants to work with you, they will work with you. So you could think, okay, well, I won't do a paid collaboration with them, but I'll start introducing their products naturally. And then the following month or the month after, you could approach them and say, Okay, yes, now's the time. And then it's not gonna look so odd.

SPEAKER_01 49:14

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's that's when the strategic element comes in. It's like, maybe let me actually test out your products to see if I like it. And I might actually fall in love with it, but also be aware that you might turn around and go, That was shit, and it made me flare up, and it's just not my hype.

SPEAKER_00 49:28

And that is a huge part of me. Like at the moment, I am um trying a collagen powder, um, and I'm like, Well, I'm not gonna promote it unless I can notice a difference, and I'm having sort of weekly catch-ups with them because they said after 90 days, and they're like, Oh, how's it gone? I'm like, Yeah, actually, I'm finding good. Oh, are you ready to post? I'm like, no, I'm giving it the 90 days, thank you very much. And I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna sell myself short because it's not something I've really spoken about. I'm in perimenopause, so it's things I am starting to talk about. And actually, when I did say it on my stories, a lot of people like, I would be interested to hear what one you're trying. And I mean, I'm very blessed. I've got, I was gonna say I've got good jeans, but I haven't because of my eyes. But skin-wise, I've got good jeans. Um, and so I I do look a bit younger than what I am, and you know, that's that's my genetics, not just a collagen powder, and I think people get sold into it too easily. I could easily go online and go, look what my collagen powder's done. It's not, it's my genetics that have done that.

SPEAKER_01 50:25

That's why I always say I'm like, oh, shout out my mum and my nan, because I I did like my mum is 70 and she has like literally one forehead wrinkle. Oh no, my mum's the same, but the the like you people could put it down to like she's lit, I think she's actually only been like an Olay Regenerate like cream girl. And when I say my mum creams religiously, like she has creamed religiously her whole life, day and night without fail. Like she's literally like a slippery little eel all of the time. If you look at her hands, my mum literally has the hands of like a 40-year-old in the same year. Yeah, because she wants the creams all the time, and it's literally a cream, it's called Louberidum, and it is the most like basic cream that people use in Mexico.

SPEAKER_00 51:10

It's crazy, isn't it? Mum's was the uh Nivea cream, it's in a big blue tub with white writing, and that'd be all on her chest, on her net, everywhere, and that smell still to this day. I'm like, I can smell my mum, and I'm like, oh no, it's my cream because I've used it because she used it, I now use it, and I mean I love Nivea as a brand because they are also accessible. But yeah, it's just like, well, actually, she didn't spend hundreds and thousands. You know, I'm very fortunate I get gifted a lot of potions and lotions and can't use them all, so I give them to my family, and she's like, Oh no, no, no. If it's not Nivea, I'm not interested.

SPEAKER_01 51:46

Oh bless. If anything, what I've taken from this conversation is just like be you, be proud, and just put your put your loves and passions out in the to the world. And you really have given me the little kick up my ass that I needed to put your big girl panties on to do, yeah and just put it out. So, Claire, what's the worst that's gonna happen? Like, thank you so much because I I really do think, like I said, it's a big testament to you to still have your morals, have your virtues, and have a passion and a love for just doing good shit in the world. And I think those are the things that we need to celebrate in what sometimes feels like a very dark and neggy world. You know, we need more Claire's. So thank you so much for joining us and for sharing the story.

SPEAKER_00 52:26

Oh, thank you for having me. Yay! Thank you, Claire. Thank you.