Age: 32
Occupation: Co-Owner, Marketing Director
of Four Words & Content Creator
A trip down career history lane…
Take us through your career history; where you started to where you are now.
I’ve had quite a random career path! I studied Law and Accounting at Otago, and so I began my ‘professional’ career as a lawyer down in Wellington. I realised very early that it wasn’t for me and left the industry just shy of 2 years.
I moved up to Auckland, moved into a couple roles from HR through to Consulting, and eventually transitioned into a General Manager role for an events start up. That was my last 9-5 job before making the decision to work full time on Four Words (my engagement ring business).
Throughout this, and since law, I had the energy to unlock my creativity and also tap into my entrepreneurial side. Fashion and personal style has always been the main channel for my creativity. I’ve always had an innate connection to fashion, so I started posting fashion content. This is where my love for content started and I began building a skillset around social media, content and content marketing. I also launched a personal styling business within the first 6 months of leaving law. This business did not do well haha. But it was my first taste of owning and building something.
It wasn’t until a couple years later when my now husband was looking to propose. He wanted to do so with a lab grown diamond. He was super early to lab diamonds and was struggling to find a jeweller in NZ who knew about them and was willing to work with them.
After our engagement, we looked at the search hits for lab grown diamonds in New Zealand - it was actually popping off. The fact no one was specialising in them at the time was a huge, “Whoa, there could be something here”. We also recognised that content and commerce was merging, and saw that no one else in the jewellery industry was leveraging this. The fine jewellery industry can be kind of mystical and pretentious. So, we decided to make it not like that, and now we’re here!
Building a business, going through a handful of career changes and everything else that life throws at you - what is something you’ve learnt along the way that has helped you to navigate your way through it all?
I have a long-ish answer to this one, but this is one of the only things I’ve read / heard of that has really stuck and had a huge impact on my life!
There's this framework called the Emotional Cycle of Change, and when I learned about it, it totally changed how I perceive challenging situations. The main bit from this is: Conflict and despair is expected and when it happens, you should welcome it.
The idea is, whenever you go through voluntary change, there are 5 stages; Uninformed Optimism, Informed Pessimism, The Valley of Despair, Informed Optimism, and Success & Fulfilment. Uninformed Optimism is when you start something new, and everything is exciting and you’re so optimistic that everything will go to plan and be wonderful. You’ll then be greeted with Informed Pessimism, typically when you hit your first roadblock. You realise the path may not be as simple as you had thought.
Inevitably you arrive at the Valley of Despair, and this is the stage that really stuck out to me. It’s where most people quit, and is often referred to as rock bottom. In the Valley of Despair, everything sucks. Your situation feels too hard, and it feels like everything is working against you and not for you. If you push through, you’ll eventually reach Informed Optimism and Success & Fulfilment, which is where all the good stuff is.
Knowing that the Valley is inevitable, and knowing that it’s simply part of the journey, has helped me SO much. I embrace it and welcome it, as I know that if I just keep going I’ll manufacture a way out of it and I’ll be better off for it. This always resonates whenever I share this with someone, so I hope it’s able to help anyone reading who might currently be in the Valley!
Finding confidence and growing up as a woman of colour in New Zealand…
The first thing that made me watch your content is the confidence you have speaking to the camera and your fearlessness in being seen. Where does this confidence come from?
I genuinely owe any confidence I have to fashion and personal style. I used to struggle a lot with body image, and developing a personal style and using clothing as a canvas for creativity, really pulled me out of it. Finding a source of confidence through clothes, made me appreciate the body wearing the clothes. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of looking in the mirror and thinking ‘this outfit is f***** hot’. It’s powerful, and this flows into everything else.
I’m also just a huge believer in faking it till you make it. In situations where I feel uncomfortable or vulnerable, acting more confident than I feel and being a bit shameless always works haha.
Growing up in NZ as a Kiwi Asian, it was only around the age of 19 when I started to consider myself as beautiful. As a South Asian, did you experience something similar growing up in NZ?
I totally feel you - as a kid, I thought white girls were just always prettier by default. I specifically recall a moment when I was young, maybe 9 or 10, where all I wanted was to be a ‘pretty blonde girl’. And I feel kind of ashamed to even admit that, because I’m now so proud of who I am and the colour of my skin. It was just a different time, and diversity in beauty wasn’t as celebrated as it is now. Funnily enough, feeling proud and comfortable in my skin started around the same time as when I really developed my sense of personal style!
If you were talking to your younger self…
Something you would tell yourself at the ages of 25, 27,and 29.
Ok so at 25, I would tell myself that sticking it out in a job you hate is not worth it. Don’t fall for the sunk cost fallacy, and just leave. Life is going to get so good, and none of that is going to be possible if you stay.
At 27 - Do the risky thing you want to do. You only get a few swings! And if you’re going to fail, that’s perfectly fine, just fail fast and move on.
At 29 - Be excited for your 30s!
A memorable piece of advice you have received?
Don’t take advice from people who aren’t where you want to be.
And last but not least, favourite Buttermilk accessory?
So obsessed with the Betty clip! Such a slick and cute accessory for a half-up half-down look.
