In 2013, Heidi Nazarudin started her blog The Ambitionista to showcase how ambitious, intelligent, hard-working professional women can still be stylish (and fabulous). And it seems people applaud her approach, with Heidi currently sitting on over 600K followers across Instagram and Twitter.
Featured and mentioned in a number of top media outlets including Marie Claire, US, Vanity Fair, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, CBS, BBC News, and Fox News – Heidi has carved out a name for herself in the publishing world. But it wasn’t a straight line to the top. When starting out, there was a very important lesson to be learnt – and that is: Find your own voice.
“I started to look at myself and ask ‘what are my strengths and what are my weaknesses?’” – Heidi Nazarudin
“My first two blogs actually failed because I was simply trying to be an LA fashion blogger; but there are millions of girls like that, and they’re 22, and they’re skinny, and they always wear bikinis on the beach. That’s great, but I’m never going to be able to compete with that, so I started to look at myself and ask ‘what are my strengths and what are my weaknesses?’” Heidi explains at a recent Secrets of Successful Women Entrepreneurs event.
“Number one: Always benchmark yourself after the best in your field. Second, have measurable goals, and have action plans toward the goals. And third: know your field inside out. I’ve seen girls who, when they say, ‘I want to be a fashion blogger,’ I name a few top fashion designers that just walked off the runway in Paris, and they don’t know them. It’s alarming. You have to know your goal, no matter what it is. Once you know the playing field, then you can strategise.”
Main image: @theambitionista
