Leadership & celebrating successes!

Welcome to the 18th Interdisciplinary Thinking!

I wanted to use this newsletter to make things more accessible. I want to highlight some incredible people to share their stories to elevate social mobility. 

This is a personal blog of sorts which I want to explore more themes including neurodiversity, at work and inclusion and other interesting things.

I'm speaking to a new friend, Irina Petrova, an award-winning photographer and artist who is based in Russia. I absolutely adore her work (as a fellow sci-fi fan!) and am really inspired.

Fun Things:

Nesta has launched a new platform to showcase the potential of impact investment in the creative economy to drive social and environmental change.

A great flipbook to help you reflect and set intentions for 2021.

TechCrunch spoke to Monzo founder Tom Blomfield about his departure from the bank for good and how he has struggled during the pandemic.

Inside Design on design-thinking approved ways to tell your team you’re grateful for them.

A Change of Brand is a podcast telling the world's most loved rebrand stories.

Courier Media examines if distractions actually boost productivity.

A set of bright pink seesaws that bridged the US-Mexico border have been crowned as the overall winner of the Beazley Design of the Year Awards.

Museum of London is going to be the new home of the Donald Trump baby blimp.

Do not put a pancake on a cat's face. Just don't.

Krispie treats but… taken to a whole other level.

A racoon herding goats.

Spotlight: Reflecting on being a leader, celebrating your wins, why adversary is important & the launch of my new business!

The power of leadership and the impact it can have

Why being a leader is more than just yourself

One of the things I've been thinking a lot about in the past month is leadership. By this, I mean the impact, influence and responsibility that comes with such a role. You've probably heard me writing about this in previous segments, but I've had my fair share of bad managers. But I wanted to take a moment to reflect, and offer some insights into how to better leaders.

In my opinion, one of the primary reasons why leaders fail is when they act that everything is just about themselves. Being a leader means it is not solely about you anymore. You have an extra responsibility for everyone else.

In all honesty, a leader's actions matter more than their position in question. This is where the narrative around ambition gets quite interesting.

People who want to progress in leadership or management can often be quite zealous. I do question where such energy is applied. Focusing on obtaining power and retraining it is a toxic goal for anyone. I think you'd end up never satisfied as you'd always be at odds with it.

Instead, I truly believe we need to focus on the ambition for excellence. There is incredible power in raising the bar, setting an example and ultimately owning your space.

Celebrating your wins

Taking stock of what you've accomplished

Last week I celebrated something pretty epic. I hit one of my goals for 2021 within three weeks. I'm humbled to say I hit 20k followers on Linkedin.

A year and a half ago I co-founded Growth & Grace Collective with Mikaela Rice, to champion diversity + growth. Seven months ago I started CDI, a LinkedIn newsletter seeking to make interdisciplinary thinking more accessible!

Four months ago I started a PhD at UCL/UCL SSEES focusing on soft power in Mexico, South Korea and Georgia. Three months ago I spoke at the United Nations on digital exclusion.

Last month Elinor Honigstein and I were shortlisted for Apolitical's 'Global Public Service Team of the Year' for championing equality (voting still open!).

Last week I launched Gosling & Co. a consultancy focused around challenging the perceptions around self-promotion, unconscious biases + imposter syndrome. Next month I'll launch my online course with Clustered on personal branding.

Along the way, I've picked up a few awards, including being named 27th in 100 Women Future Leaders 2020.

Actively taking stock of my accomplishments wasn't comfortable at first. However, when you slow down and reflect on how far you've come, it can be incredibly humbling.

This Week: An Interview with Irina Petrova, an award-winning photographer and artist.

This week I'm super excited to be joined by a new friend, Irina Petrova who is currently based in Russia.

Irina is an internationally published and award-winning photographer and artist. She specialises in wildlife micro-photography and science fiction inspired installations. Under this lens, she seeks to organically integrate living and artificial entities.

One thing I really love about her work is that she only uses retro manual focus lenses. Find out more about her wonderful work below and how she became a photographer!

Within your career, you've won many awards for your photography. What made you choose to become a photographer?

I'd never thought to become a photographer in my life. When I was a little girl, I dreamt about being an artist or an astronaut like Valentina Tereshkova or Judith Resnik, but sometimes it is not you who choose the calling, but the calling chooses you. I had a blog about insects, I was writing about them as if they were humans with their own life, behaviours, and characters. I made parallels between them and superheroes because I thought, they were incredibly fascinating creatures, I always have had a great passion for them, the passion I could share with the world letting people see them from my point of view.

In 2014 I got my first DSLM camera for my blog, it did not love from the first sight, it even wasn’t from the second. I took photos for my blog, some boring selfies as well and that was it, but then I discovered artistic conceptual photography and an amazing world of microphotography, that changed my life forever.

I didn't become an astronaut, but I have become a micronaut "traveling" in microcosmos instead of cosmos and an artist, who shows and shares her perception of the world.

A common theme in your work is exploring the unknown, what are you inspired by?

I'm inspired by the existing world and life itself. I think it is the best inspiration. I'm very glad that I can show natural wonders invisible to human eyes.

Also, I'm a huge fan of sci-fi, so it's definitely affected me a lot. I like to think about the possible future like in my project " The X-Files. Ecological Disaster in an Industrial Wonderland". This project is designed to draw attention to the problems of the human influence on the environment, such as changing the genome of living organisms in order to obtain certain benefits for humanity, the effect of radiation on the growth of animals and plants, climate change issues and environmental pollution. I used 1:87 scale models to recreate the above situations. I'd like to demonstrate what could happen to our Earth in the future, and what kind of legacy we could leave to our descendants.  

What are some of the biggest challenges you've faced as a photographer? What has been your biggest win?

Being a woman in a male-dominated industry is very hard, especially in such a genre as microphotography, because of expectations of a woman becoming a wedding photographer or a photographer, who takes photos of cute cats and beautiful flowers till the rest of her life. There is nothing wrong with taking that kind of shots, there is an incredible amount of women, who make real art from wedding, flowers, and cats, but I just want a woman to have a choice in what kind of subjects she can photograph without amazement or criticism of the selection of the theme of her photos. Sometimes I have to fight with that opinion even among women.

I suppose, my biggest win has not been anything material but winning in a struggle with myself. I destroyed my inner bounds holding me for years from creating freely without bothering of how others think of me.

What are your top three tips for others hoping to get into this field?

First of all, don't be afraid to create freely and be yourself, even if you think, that no one understands or needs what you make, just do it for yourself.

One more tip is the best equipment is what you already have. None of the most expensive and modern cameras will make anyone a good photographer.

Finally, be passionate and honest in what you do. I guess, it is the most important thing and the only way to go.

Why "interdisciplinary thinking"?

Because I fully believe that building expertise, learning from others and bringing together different industries is a positive thing. We often do not go outside our own industries. I've also had six-career changes and relish in the transferrable skills I've picked up along the way. Join me in building unique expertise on all things culture, diplomacy and innovation!

This month I launched my new service-based business, Gosling & Co. It is all about challenging the perceptions around self-promotion for women and underrepresented groups via workshops, toolkits + more!

I am the co-founder of the Growth & Grace Collective (G&G), a global network seeking to connect, inspire and empower people in all stages of their lives to grow wholesomely. We change the narrative around professional development through masterclasses, a supportive online community, life skill workshops and more.

I am a UK Civil Servant, an Award-Winning Entrepreneur, Public Speaker & International Strategy/Culture/Leadership Consultant. I am currently studying a PhD in global branding for countries (soft power) and the transmission of ideas. I am a serial multi-hyphenate seeking to bridge the gap between culture, diplomacy and innovation with my bi-weekly LinkedIn segment (Interdisciplinary Thinking) where I built a following of over 18k in 7 months.

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Thanks for reading—see you in two weeks!