32: Not a Role Model with Nicky Merrick, Founder Pink Giraffe

Shownotes: Nicky Merrick my guest on this episode of The Elephant in the Room podcast is the owner of a small business Pink Giraffe, a podcast host, blogger and a speaker. She is also a disability advocate and wheelchair warrior (I quote from her LI bio) creating awareness about how small businesses can be disability inclusive. Since she started the business, Pink Giraffe has pivoted a number of times to adapt to her own changing physical needs but also business requirements. What is obvious though is that she is an astute business owner who has been ahead of the curve during the pandemic when she moved her business online selling digital content to other dance costume makers around the world. Listen to Nicky speak about Pink Giraffe, MS and how it has shaped both her personal and business life, adapting during the pandemic and what drives her everyday. And her strong feelings on being viewed as a role model. If you want to know more listen here👇🏾 Transcript of the conversation: 👉🏾 My background is probably a little bit outside of mainstream. We now know that I have multiple sclerosis, but I've actually been ill since I was about 13, but we didn't know and I wasn't diagnosed until when I was 30.So I never actually finished school. I was too ill, I never sat an exam. I didn't do any of that. I never even attended school in the final year. I don't think I did a full week of school since being 12. So I had no formal entry requirements when it came to trying to get a job or applying for university or anything like that, but it didn't hold me back. I still went on and I had success. I had some great jobs, jobs that I enjoyed and that I did well in, and after travelling in Australia for a year, a lot of peoples are like, so are you going to settle down now, Nicky, are you going to, you know, just buy a place to live. 👉🏾 And I panicked and I thought, gosh, what am I going to do? I need to buy myself some more time. I was 25 and I thought, I know I'll go to university, that will buy me three more years where I can be independent and free and not have to worry about grownup stuff. And so I applied to University college Chester and they accepted my application based on merit and an application letter. Which was amazing because, I didn't have any formal entry qualifications, but being a mature student, I think they were able to just take me on merit. And I did a degree in journalism, which was amazing. And I learned so much, even though I didn't want to be a journalist I still learnt a lot, that I've been able to use, particularly in my business life. And in my final year, I was in the middle of my dissertation when I met my husband, who already had three children. My plan to have three years of independence and freedom resulted in me having three step kids by the time I graduated, which was obviously not part of the plan, but I would not change it for the world. I absolutely loved my family. 👉🏾 After graduating, I took a job with a travel company, but with meeting my husband, I then moved in with him and was travelling between Chester, where I lived, my partner was living in Merseyside, my jobs was in Manchester. It was all a bit too much, so I changed jobs to somewhere more local to where I was living when I moved in with my now husband. I worked at a bank and it wasn't very exciting and it didn't fulfil me. It was just an obvious step to take because it was, pretty well paid and it was local, I was on the graduate scheme, it was nearby. But they needed to get rid of some staff and they let me go sort of last one in first one out kind of policy. And I was left a bit, "Oh, what do I do now?". 👉🏾 And Chunky who's now my husband, he was self-employed working in the music industry and he said, why don't you start a business? There's so many things that you could do. So I did a bit of marketing, which I'd obviously learned as part of my university degree. And I set up

Om Podcasten

The Elephant in the Room Podcast is a curated safe space to have uncomfortable conversations about the pervasive inequalities in society and our workplaces. The idea of the podcast was born from my sense of conflict about identity, self and the concept of privilege and fuelled by my own need to understand how my overlapping identities and experiences had impacted and would continue to impact my life chances. Two years ago I decided to ‘opt out’ to find my own purpose and focus on passion projects including learning about the systemic biases that are endemic in business and society. The Podcast is my very own listening project, a step towards being more intentional in my learning. The Elephant in the Room Podcast is for people who want to be a part of the change, for those who want to step up & speak out, for those who want to learn more about biases, barriers and best practice, for business leaders and for individuals, anyone who is interested in a fairer, more inclusive and compassionate society and workplace. Each week I will interview inspiring speakers from across the world on issues that are taboo and deserve to be mainstream including(but not limited to) systemic and institutionalised racism, discrimination based on further eight protected characteristics, poverty, mental health, climate change. The podcast will also talk about cognitive inclusion, culture, purpose, ethics and the importance of empathy, cultural intelligence and how conversations on identity and disadvantage would be incomplete without considering intersectionality. With the podcast I hope to share stories of people with lived experiences, stories that may have never been told, stories that galvanise us to take action for change and keep the conversations alive by raising the decibel on issues of inequity, inequality in our search for a fairer and more inclusive world.