Jackie Carroll, owner of Jackie Carroll Coaching, gives Fiona Alston a masterclass in finding your personal brand and stepping into it today.
Ever since spending time with Jackie Carroll on a tech conference trip in Sofia, Bulgaria, she has always struck me as a ‘putting your best foot forward’ person. Back then, she was pitching a start-up in the VR space, something to enhance people’s mindfulness and confidence through meditation and visualisation. I was just starting my second career as a journalist, and she had a huge positive impact on my confidence on that trip – the energy she brought to me then, she now shares with the world through her work as a coach. Now, we can all get a piece of that Carroll magic!
As she says herself, she’s had a very non-linear career. She started out in film, then moved into the world of tech startups, where she founded the VR business – unfortunately, it didn’t succeed. She ended up in a corporate environment before she trained as a coach and now has her own coaching business, Jackie Carroll Coaching.
“I have lived the highs and lows – I’ve lost a business, I’ve struggled in my personal life and I’ve felt completely stuck in my career. Through building my mindset and confidence, I was able to reinvent myself, and now that’s the work I do with ambitious women. I help them reset their confidence, step into their power, and create the career in life they were meant for,” Carroll tells me.
“I have always had a massive love for personal development and loving life. I lost my mom when I was 19 and she really inspired me to just be the best version of me that I could possibly be,” she says.
Carroll says that she finds that a lot of the women in business she deals with have confidence issues and struggle with imposter syndrome.
“Even though they might be very successful on paper, they hide behind what’s in their own head. And one of the practical habits to check this is auditing their confidence leaks – noticing where self-doubt shows up most, because it might not be in everything you do, but it might be in small pockets,” she explains. “It’s almost like the silent voice – you don’t actually realise it’s there, until it shows up in a particular way.”
Being able to self-assess these situations and make the changes is something Carroll encourages women to do regularly with the ‘catch it, check it, change it’ tool, or the ‘three Cs’.
“I absolutely love this because it’s incredibly powerful – it’s like a skill. The catch it model is all the thoughts that are coming into your mind right now, or what is happening in your environment. Is it serving you? Does this thought serve you or empower you? And if the answer is no, how do we reframe that so that it does?” she says.
“Because you might not be able to control what is going on in the outside world but what you can control is how you respond to things and how you mentally process something – it’s either going to serve you or it doesn’t.”
“We want to make sure that you get into a space where what you are thinking, and how you are responding, serves you, and it empowers you,” she adds.
Carroll says that ‘the action’ is understanding what your self-image is. Similar to dressing for success, you are ‘stepping into your future self-image’. You need to identify what your personal brand is. “Your personal brand is not only what others see in you and how you show up in the world, like on LinkedIn or social media but really how you show up for yourself and your self-image,” she explains. “It’s dressing for success internally as well as externally.”
For example, would you like to be seen as a thought leader in a particular space? That involves not only showing up on LinkedIn and in social media but you need to be that person already – act, behave, react or respond, rather than react to certain things. If you were in a situation, what would that thought leader say, be or do?
This might sound a little overwhelming if you do indeed lack confidence or have some self-doubts, Carroll has provided some very handy tips to help get you to where you need to be so you can ‘show up for yourself’.
Audit your confidence leaks – notice where self-doubt shows up most for you, that’s where you would use the three C’s.
Create your personal brand – whether that’s getting onto LinkedIn or speaking on panels at events, understand who that person is you want to be and then step into that person.
Network with intention – joining communities, like the IMAGE Business Club. Who are the people that you want to surround yourself with?
Future-proof your skills – on the business side, lean into AI or your digital skills, or communication tools.
Reclaim your mornings – whether that is meditation, reflection or visualisation, just ground yourself before you let the world in. This helps you be more intentional with everything that you do.
Practice courageous conversations – know what your boundaries are, and make sure that people know what your boundaries are. And never, ever break your boundaries for anything, in your family life, your personal life, and work life, so that you can have balance.
Leverage mentorship – be mentored and mentor others. One of the most important things, especially if you are saying, ‘How can I be the best version of me that I can possibly be?’ is to get somebody to mentor you. Who’s going to help you do that? And who can you help by mentoring them?
Embrace visibility – don’t wait to be ready. Share your voice now. We always think we have to wait to be perfect. Just do it, don’t wait to be perfect; there’s never such a thing as perfection. Who you are now is already perfect.
Check your alignment quarterly – does your work reflect your values or are you in misalignment? When people feel unfulfilled and they’re not living with purpose, it is where their values don’t align with what they’re doing.
Celebrate your wins loudly – we often underplay our achievements. You are really good at something and the world needs to know that. Don’t ever underplay what you have done in the world.
“The future I feel belongs to women who know their value, who lead with confidence and step into their power. When women fully back themselves in their careers, leadership and vision, they don’t just transform their own lives, but they raise the bar for business and leadership in Ireland and in the world,” Carroll adds.
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