Understanding your career path when you’re ‘Right-Brained’

I have consistently talked about the traditional western education system as being geared towards those who are left-brained, meaning they are far more likely to function logically, analytically, and objectively.  

First things first, the differences between right and left-brained folk are relatively straight forward; if you’re a lefty you’re a linear thinker; working in sequence, super comfortable with numerical based information, fan of a good fact. However, if you’re like me, you’re a right-brained creative who thinks visually, thrives off any form of imagination and operates on holistic intuition. 

For me, as a right-brained thinker, the academic side of school was a bit of a struggle. The social side of school was brilliant; I was consistently surrounded by budding brains and found numerous ways to distract myself with out-of-the-box thinking, but the actual learning part of things never really clicked – especially in the mathematics department(!). Nowadays, my job means I spend the majority of my time balls deep in numbers between wrap reports, finance reports and influencer sales data – and I am completely comfortable with it all because I know how to make it all work for my brain type. Imagine what I could be doing though, if I hadn’t merely scraped that C in Math GCSE. I wish I’d understood my own brain better whilst I was at school, or at least wish my teachers had understood the way I functioned more coherently so they could have adjusted their teaching accordingly – because I definitely wasn’t the only one who zoned out when they saw E = MC2. I strongly believe that if we know more about the way our students’ brains work, the better we can nurture their potential into more lucrative and valuable careers, because now that I know my own brain, I function better than I ever have before.

As an easily inspired right-brainer, I love a good motivational quote, so taking things back to my school days, let’s kick things off with some moving magic.

“A GOOD TEACHER CAN INSPIRE HOPE, IGNITE THE IMAGINATION, AND INSTILL A LOVE OF LEARNING.”
– Brad Henry

Just to double down on the tactile inspo, I thought I’d add in some visual elements, so if you haven’t all see the absolute tear jerker of a video featuring Ian Wright on his relationship with his teacher, watch it immediately… maybe wish some tissues at hand. 

When I first watched these videos, I immediately thought I have two standout teachers in my life; Siobhan Phillips my Art teacher for sixth form and Sarah Lewington, my university lecturer. Call me a teacher’s pet but I now consider both of these exceptional women friends too, because of the lasting and nurturing effect they’ve had on my life. 

Let’s start with Siobhan (or is it still Mrs Phillips to me?); she was the first person who took the time to explain to me the different ways in which my brain operates and whilst my dream of being a fashion designer was nowhere within reach, the reason I thrived in art class was because I could think visually and creatively – the exact assets that a role within marketing requires. Siobhan invested her time in allowing me to understand how to get the most out of a brief, how to tackle it strategically and how to use that creative logic some 13 years later, every single day.  

It was then Sarah Lewington, whilst I was studying Fashion Marketing, who taught me how to pull it all together and how to use my speed (there’s a running joke within the team that I have Bernard’s Watch) to my benefit. Despite the wiring of my right brain making me the stereotype performer, I actually HATED public speaking, I would speak with an American accent and spoke so fast I could have gone head to head with Eminem in a rap battle. When I graduated from Uni, Sarah got me into lecturing – I had a student loan to pay off so ￡30 an hour to lecture felt like a great way to get me out of that rut. Looking back, if I was Sarah, there’s no way I would ever have asked me back. It was a poor show, but she persevered and invited me back a month later, gave me feedback and helped me figure out my selling style, as well as how to talk about what I do (it’s worth bearing in mind that ‘what I did’ was very far from what it is now, because social media didn’t even exist back then!).

“by 2020 millennials are expected to make up the largest portion of 
the working population.”

Now that we know schooling is where we should be implementing brain training, lets look at the next generation. According to Business of Fashion’s 2018 report, “by 2020 millennials are expected to make up the largest portion of the working population.” These are the people who want to be YouTubers and bloggers when they grow up, not nurses or astronauts; this is the generation of right brainers who finally have the job opportunities lefties have had for years, and that’s mostly thanks to the internet. These millennials have grown up with access: access to social platforms, access to creative, courses, access to global community all at a thumbs touch. It’s really no surprise that platforms like Instagram are so prominent within millennial lives, since people – whether left or right-brained – process visual content 50 times faster than text. The problem is that we’re only just getting to grips with careers surrounding the internet, and yet the educational system is still so far behind and only geared towards left-brained folks. The solution? Help kids understand their own minds better, so that when they get into this manic working world, at least they’ll know themselves. 

According to Amel Karboul there are still “330 million people failing to learn in schools globally,” – and that’s just the people lucky enough to actually be in school, let alone the rest of the world. Yet, the big difference between schools now and schools way back when, is obviously the internet. With the whole world at our fingertips, we no longer need to blame bad teachers, or a bad boss, because we can access all the information ourselves. If we want to learn, if we want to be developed – there’s content for every single imaginable field online, access to previously inaccessible people via LinkedIn and the abundant ability to arm ourselves with every tool for success. In fact, millennials make up 38% of LinkedIn’s 500-million user base – so if you want to harness the up-and-coming abilities of your peer group and make some moves. 

So yes, of course I think the internet is great but one of my grudges with the educational system and it’s left-brained approach is that ultimately we are at our most creative as a child, and yet we are forced to sit in rows and write sums on white paper. When we are young, our imagination is limitless and we’re not afraid to be wrong. That is the crux of working within marketing today, it’s everchanging and what you know today, won’t always be relevant tomorrow – and adults are terrified of that, because we’ve been conditioned to think failure is embarrassing, when in fact it’s the opposite because it only means you’re getting closer to winning. The schooling system, with it’s purely left-brained approach, stigmatises mistakes and yet the mistakes you make within marketing are the ones that give you the most insight and data into your customer base and what they want. It’s this stigmatising that breaks down the trust between student and teacher. 

There are so many students out there today who own their own businesses, whether that’s as an influencer working with brands or the founder of a start-up, they probably got there because of the internet, using it to teach themselves how to code or how to run paid campaigns. Whilst a lot of people complain about the lack of contact hours around university courses nowadays, why not see that free time as an opportunity? There are some incredibly talented students who are side husting their way through Uni or school, using the access on the internet that’s out there – it’s like a real-life MBA. 

If I was graduating today, I’d be focusing my “brand” around voice; I’d call myself a Voice Expert, A Voice Manager – whatever the title you want to create for yourself, it’s about recognising your talents, not letting society squash them, spotting a trend and then teaching yourself as you go. It’s all about building your brand, showing people what you do, how you do it and why you’re different. The world has never been more ready to celebrate difference, because this is the future, Alexa is your best mate, and it’s time for right-brainers to shine.