So, here I am ladies and gentlemen, yes it’s me, Jacqui Menard: the face, brains and beauty behind the up and coming copywriting brand, Frankly Speaking!
<insert applause here>
Side note, you are just moments away from reading a shameless self promotion!
Now, if you’re visiting Frankly Speaking for the fist time, welcome. If you’ve been here before, welcome back and if you’re not sure why you’re here, well, stick around and find out how this whole shin dig came about!
I’m a writer, but, I like to think of myself as a ‘closet’ creative who’s FINALLY on the ‘up and up.’ I liken my life to that of a butterfly, cheesy I know, with one wing still inside her cocoon while the other’s already flapping in the wind anxiously awaiting take off.
In the early days of my career, I started off as a marketer and a journalist but put it all on the ‘back burner’ when the stress of it all started to affect my health. So, as a fall back I became a full time teacher! Boo! Yes boys and girls, sometimes we have to pay the bills!
At the beginning of this year and after years of teaching hyper active children, I found I was already exhausted at the thought of depending on what I do for money, I wasn’t happy. So, in an attempt to escape ‘reality,’ in which I’d perceived mine to be an absolute mess, I found myself fantasising about the many other things I could do to make a living: cook, painter, dog walker, scientist?! I felt lost, hopeless and completely out of options until a phone call with my mom changed the course of my life.
Now, I’m going to be honest with you, like most people my age sometimes I HATE getting advice from my mom because I know deep down, she’s always right!
#LOVE YOU MOM!
If memory serves me, our conversation that day went a bit like this:
‘You’re not happy.’
Damn right I thought.
Tears were streaming down my face at this point as I laid sprawled out across my bedroom floor.
‘I’ve never seen you like this before, this isn’t life,’ she said.
What is life these days anyway? I thought to myself as I rubbed my red and runny eyes on the back of my hand.
‘Hey, have you heard of Marie Forelo?’
Marie Forleo?
My mom then explained Marie’s truly inspiring backstory and as the cherry on top, she shared with me Marie’s most trusted words to live by,
Everything is figureoutable.
Ok, sure. And as much as I REALLY wanted to be right and I REALLY wanted to dispute this new and crazy idea by this Marie lady, the more I said it to myself in that moment, the more something about it that rang true for me.
Everything is figureoutable, everything is figureaboutable.
We then spent the remainder of our conversation talking about Marie, her philosophies, her successes and triumphs and and of course, B-School.
There could be something to this, I thought to myself as I listened to my mom preach about Marie’s upcoming business course for entrepreneurs, BSchool. I wondered,
Could this potentially be a game changer for me if I signed up?
So being the person that I am, I did my homework. I read her website and social media accounts inside out, I watched her MarieTV episodes regularly and I even read reviews on BSchool in hopes that I could find some ‘cracks’ in it all. However, after countless hours on the internet trolling for negative press, I have to say I felt completely humbled and grateful that I’d come across such a person who in many ways, at one point in her life, felt the exact same way I was feeling until she hardened the bleep up and did something about it.
Oh and did I mention that along the way she became besties with Oprah?
Yaas GIRL!
So there you have it, the early beginnings of Frankly Speaking. I have to say I felt so relieved that day because yeah, I may not be where I think I should be but I realised that’s okay because this is normal. Yeah, I may not have the kids, the four figure salary or the summer vacation home, but what I do have, and have always had is tenacity. So, coming across Marie and seeing what she’s done reignited what was always there, a passion and drive to live my best life doing what I love, writing!
