Photo Credits: Volodymyr Hryshchenko from Unsplash
This series is all about diverse entrepreneurship, but Jelly Social has a different and broader definition of diversity, one that highlights the uniqueness of individuals. To us, there are two forms of diversity to us: inherit diversity (age, gender, race) and acquired diversity (education, knowledge, skills, experience, values). Using inherited and acquired diversity can help us to realize all the different ways we are diverse. This week, we are talking to expert Fazeena Haniff on her journey as a diverse entrepreneur!
What makes Fazeena Diverse?
As a diverse entrepreneur, shed some light on yourself, the work you’re doing and maybe some of the things that make you diverse!
I am a 38-year-old woman born in Canada of Indo-Guyanese Heritage. I’ve lived in a Multicultural environment all my life basically from Toronto and into Brampton where I currently live. I am University-educated with a BA in Economics and Communications, as well as Corporate Communications. I‘ve travelled to several countries and learned of different cultures in the Caribbean and in Asia and South America.
At my business “Conscious Communicator,” I am a Communications coach and consultant. For me as a Communications coach, I’ve got a long background in Communications having been trained in it through a career in Corporate Communications and PR. I left that in 2015 and started my own business and its focus has become about helping people to understand that communication is so much more than words. We live in a day and age where we have instant easy access to the most eloquent and sophisticated words and even though we put them together, we still have trouble with communication. My work is about really helping people understand how deep communication goes because of our diversity, identity, where we’ve come from, the patterns we learned from our culture and society, the limiting beliefs we have about how we can use our voices and whether we’re allowed to use our voice. These layers of communication are important because I’m working with entrepreneurs and professionals to help them hone and develop their communication and leadership skills, which allows us to go way beyond the word aspect of communication through diving into these pieces.
Obstacles on her Journey
Thinking back on your journey to becoming the person that you are today, what would you say was the biggest obstacle to overcome? Could be a professional obstacle, a personal obstacle, a mental obstacle, an emotional obstacle.
The biggest obstacle was honestly believing in myself, my abilities, and my own gifts. Being brought up in an environment where you must meet other people’s expectations, whether it was family, school, or in work, can make a person easily lost in recognizing their own sovereignty and authority and ability through following someone else’s blueprint of how things need to get done. It was about learning to own that stuff, like the work that I was doing in my 9 to 5 and finally getting to the place where I realize “I’m not getting the fulfillment I want out of this space” and leaving to start the journey as an entrepreneur. You won’t know until you undertake that journey of what it means to be an entrepreneur. You will have to face yourself; the insecurities that you have, your own bad habits and patterns and be able to reinvent all of those so it can support you in becoming the kind of entrepreneur and success story that you want to be. It really was myself; being able to recognize where I had shortfalls and weaknesses that I needed to work on and then also believing in myself and the work that I’m here to do.
Tools to Effectively Communicate
When it comes to communicating effectively, are there any helpful tools, techniques, or resources that you think might be helpful for that?
I’m going to hone on using my voice because, and I don’t say that because I’m a communication coach, but it’s honestly been one of the biggest learnings for me. Whether it was meetings, networking groups, presentations or in a sales calls, one of the biggest things that has really helped me is the NLP (Neuro-linguistic programming) training that I undertook a couple years ago which helped me recognize that a lot of what was holding me back in terms of using my voice in an authoritative and leader-driven way was unconscious stuff that was running in the background. I don’t know if you know about this, but like there’s the conscious mind in the unconscious mind; we are composed of the conscious mind which is 5% to 10% of who we are while the unconscious mind is 90% to 95%. When I understood that what was in my way was things outside of my awareness and I learned the tools through NLP training, that had a massive impact on my ability to really get out there and use my voice and present in a confident and articulate way. I use these tools all the time with my clients and they’re getting those results as well, so it’s really knowing where to look even when you don’t know where to look.
Fazeena's Advice: Pain Becomes Purpose
As if you were to have a conversation with your younger self, what type of advice would you give your younger self?
Oh man. It always sounds so cliche but there’s a reason for it all. Every experience and every turn that your life takes has a purpose to it and it’s happening for you to prepare you into becoming the person that you are supposed to be and starting the work that you’re supposed to be doing. I could totally get into so many times in my life where that would have been relevant for me to have known, particularly really difficult times in my life, and it was in those difficult times in my life where pain became purpose for me. Every puzzle piece has a place in that bigger picture, so I need to trust it and know that I’m being guided to the path I am meant to take. I know it sounds cliche, but it really has been that kind of journey for me.
Leadership Tips
I know that, of course, you’ve demonstrated a ton of expertise in communication. Taking things from that perspective, we’d love for you to drop your top tip on what you can teach others about breaking through their own communication challenges.
Number one, there’s nothing wrong with you. One of the biggest problems with many of us is that when we face a challenge with something and if we can’t figure it out, we think there’s something wrong with us and I am never going to figure this out. Number one, there is nothing wrong with you. Communication has been taught to us in such a simplified manner that we haven’t been exposed to the real depths of what it has been all about. In knowing that, know that there are many more layers to what it is that you are experiencing and that there are many more tools and resources available to help you break through whatever that challenge is you have with communication to become that communicator you want to be.
Speaker's Specifics
Fazeena Haniff is a Leadership Communication Coach, Speaker and Workshop Facilitator in the GTA. She recognizes that communication problems are often disempowerment problems dressed up as communication problems, and goes beyond traditional strategies and tactics to create her own unique blueprint for communication. Learn more about what she offers by visiting her website.
Don’t forget to connect with her on LinkedIn and follow her on Instagram to stay up to date with what she is doing!
