If you’re one of the millions of followers who watch​ Patricia Bright on YouTube, you’ll know her incredible story...

It’s a story which has inspired millennial women all over the world to hustle with heart (Bright wrote an entire book on the topic – add Heart & Hustle to your reading list). Born in South London, Bright's parents migrated to London from Nigeria. She started her career at Merrill Lynch before moving into the world of content creation. She ran her side hustle for six years before taking the plunge and becoming an entrepreneur. It took her six years to hit 1 million followers on YouTube, and she was the first black, British YouTuber to hit this number. A year later, she had another million and is now one of Britain's biggest social media successes. Recently, Bright launched The Break, an online channel that shares resources on everything from how to create an effective budget and financial routine to how to plan your financial future.

Our co-founder Anna Jones recently hosted a virtual event with Bright and if you missed it, here’s a snapshot of what we learnt from this unstoppable force...

Patricia Bright

I started on the internship program at Merrill Lynch…

A friend of a friend introduced me to the recruiter there, who then invited me to a ‘Women in Technology and Finance’ dinner where I met lots of heads of departments. My friend had prepped me on how to stand out at the dinner and so off the back of that, I got the internship. Because I had been at this dinner and I had networked, I had a slightly deeper relationship than some of the other interns. I was able to secure a role straight after university. I knew nothing about investment banking when I got into it. It was the community and my friend who really made it happen for me. I really do appreciate that dinner for making everything happen.

I came really prepared to the dinner…

I came with a book of questions and in all honesty, I didn’t really know what I was talking about at the time. I asked questions like, "How do you think regulation is going to impact the financial services based on the last fiscal quarter?". I came out with these really big, informed questions and they looked at me like, "What's going on?" Because quite a lot of the other people there had just come to have dinner and chill, but I remember asking quite specific questions. I also just tried to be myself. 

What was really interesting, is that I failed one of the tests. You had to do a mathematical exam to be able to even get on the program. They gave me another chance to do the test again. I think that was because I built that network and they liked me. I passed it the second time around, which meant I was able to get the offer.

I'd always made little videos online, very much in private and no one knew about them...

I didn't tell anyone at work about doing it, but I loved doing it at the weekends. I would work my job during the day and in the evenings and on weekends, I would edit and shoot videos. It started to build up and I started to earn some money from it. My profile was also growing. I moved on from Merrill Lynch and worked at Bank of Tokyo, then Deloitte as a consultant for financial markets. 

I did an Excel spreadsheet and I calculated my earnings over a 10-year plan. I could see that the potential growth as a creator would outweigh my salary opportunities within financial services in the role that I was in, if it was to grow. So when I did the math, I was like, "Actually I could make this work." I'm very risk-averse. I don't just leave a job. I couldn't do that but the numbers on paper looked like it could be a choice. I did leave my job after I found I couldn't balance working my job and doing the side hustle of a creator career. I was taking days off to go and shoot with brands. I was still doubling the work and not having holidays.

I worked for six years while being a content creator…

I didn't leave any of my careers until I was literally six years into it. It's just because I was a very nervous person. I could have left earlier, but I liked my job. I liked the career trajectory I was on, but this was really pulling me more.

It's fine to quit your current role if you have a plan…

At the time when I quit my job, I didn't have any kids. My mortgage was super affordable and my numbers added up, so I didn't have that much stress. It’s good to have a bit of a security blanket. Three weeks after I left my job, I was so uncomfortable that I went and got a part-time job in the creator industry for an MCN with someone who I'd networked with. I worked there three days a week, so I could have the other two days to myself and build my career. I did that for another four months because I just wasn't comfortable with just working for myself at the time. It's good to have a backup plan and don't feel embarrassed if you have to go back to work for a little season just to cover yourself.

My first piece of advice for building an audience is consistency…

Stick with the plan for at least four months of regularly posting. It took me seven years to get to 1 million followers from inception and then it took me one year to get to another million followers. I find that a lot of people give up and they think, “this isn't working.” You have to stick with the strategy for a long time to see what works. It's really important to use the analytical data that you have from lots of the platforms. So for instance, watch time is a really important factor on YouTube. So looking at that watch time, looking at where people drop off content, is a really important piece of information to feed into the creation of new content. Analytics and consistency is my main piece of advice.

While I was running my own business as a content creator, I started to earn, but I wasn't paying my taxes…

I wasn't preparing my documentation effectively and I got into trouble with HMRC. Then I got obsessed with making sure that I was on top of my accounting, my finances, my pensions, and my investments after being burned. I realised there were a lot of people who didn't have the foundations when it came to numbers and education when it comes to personal finances.

I worked in the world of finance. I have a degree in accounting. Yet when it came to running my own business, I was not prepared when it came to financial statements and what I actually needed to do. Through The Break, I wanted to provide that insight, be really transparent about how I break down my salary, how I break down my income, how I invest, how I have passive income and just share the knowledge that I've built up on my own personal journey.

We don't talk about money because we've been socialised that it's bad to talk about numbers…

Men talk about their money all the time. They negotiate their salaries more. They get paid more. It's because they're a more vocal. One of the reasons why I started The Break was because there was a female influencer, who shared her monthly earnings with me. I was blown away. I'd never heard this number in my life. I didn't even know it was possible! I was earning 5% of what she was earning yet I didn't know I was undercharging. I didn't know what my value was because no one had had this conversation with me – it transformed my life. She gave me a figure that was a target - it's really important to talk about the numbers.

Sometimes we can't see that our expenses may be running away with us…

It’s all about having a super candid look: "This can go or this doesn't serve me at this point in time in my life." Beaware of what those numbers are. The next part of the equation is, can I increase my income? Think about ways that you can do that in a way that is healthy.

It's not always about chasing more money because you can lose your peace in the process, but thinking about, "Okay, what are my options? What skill sets can I upscale? How can I generate more income without necessarily using more of my time?". There are so many options right now. I talk about affiliate linking, which was a way that I optimise my income without having to do very much. It's also about not putting that money just into the bank. It's about investing that money in a way that's tax efficient. Money can make more money.

When I was saving for my first property, I lived with my mum…

I lived at home for a long time. I was even married and we lived in my mum's house for the first eight months of our marriage because we were trying to save for a deposit. I was working at the bank and my salary was decent and my expenses were really low. Then I also made additional income with my side hustle of being a content creator. So that allowed me to get a bigger deposit to put down on my first home, but I scrimped and saved.

In the world we're moving into, creativity is going to be a premium skill…

I think that really honing into that is a really important thing to do. Particularly, if you can focus on ways that you can add major value and charge a really high rate for what it is that you do creatively. There are animators who are literally making hundreds of thousands on YouTube, just showing their amazing art or being commissioned to do work. You just have to be super wise and strategic about the way you approach earning. You also have to be super entrepreneurial. You can't just sit back and hope that someone sees your work and is willing to pay for it. You have to really, really put yourself out there and charge accordingly. 

When it comes to social media I do not believe in willpower, so I use products and plug-ins, such as Freedom…

I block other people's content for a set period of time. I block me going on to YouTube. I block me going on to Instagram for eight hours at a time, as if not, I'll keep scrolling. All of these platforms are created for us to be addicted to them. No one is beyond being addicted. There's a great book called, Make Time, which literally, is from people who developed YouTube and Google, who are telling you that they try to make these platforms super sticky, so you can't not be addicted. Read that book and it really will help you work out how to block your time, how to focus on building your goals and then how to set time aside to consume content.