This post is edited from the transcript of a video on my YouTube Channel. Watch the video here.
Hi, I’m Bianca Johnson and I am passionate about online empowerment. I wanted to write this introduction to really let you know what empowerment means to me and how I see that in my life and in my work, and how I do that in my life in general. For me, empowerment is the ability to help others gain power, knowledge or experience in order to help them feel comfortable in a situation where they currently feel that they lack power.
So for me, that has looked very different throughout my career. I have done so many jobs, in so many industries because I am what Emilie Wapnick referred to in her Ted Talk, as a multipotentialite. I do a bunch of different jobs, I get really focused, I learn a lot, and then I take what I’ve learned into my next position. I have a long, varied and wide history.
I studied drama in high school. I attended the National School for the Arts, which used to be called the Johannesburg School of Art, Ballet, Drama and Music. As the name suggests, the school offers art, ballet, drama and music. I was immersed in the world of creatives. It wasn’t quite as flashy and fun as Fame (the TV series), but it pretty much was that. We still had all our regular lessons – like English, Math and Science. It was an amazing opportunity for me to be surrounded by the culture of creativity and collaboration.
In our Matric year (final year of school aka Grade 12), I did an aptitude test, and scored really high for translation. I had absolutely no idea what that meant at the time. Although I am good at picking up languages and I tend to pick up and understand accents very easily, I had no idea what this translation aptitude was until much later in my life. After high school I went on to university where I did a degree in psychology and applied language studies. It wasn’t a languages course, but rather a linguistics course. I was learning about how to apply language in different situations, how kids learn languages, how adults learn languages, why it’s different and so much more. And again, something I dove all the way into. I have always loved words. This was something that was really fascinating to me, but then I felt like I had everything I needed to know about that. Not knowing what I wanted to do with my degree or life, off I went and I started travelling.
My first job internationally was as an au pair. This was an opportunity for me to empower myself through travelling internationally on my own, but also an opportunity for me to empower the mom that I was working for. She taught me an incredible lesson about parenthood, which I will never forget. That was that she was a better mom when she was working. This meant that she was in a position where she could pay for someone to be with her children in the times that they really needed someone at home with them. To love them and be with them. So that she could be a better mom on the weekends and the evenings. She was a better person when she was working, and she was a better mom when she felt like herself.
That has been a huge lesson for me because it’s something that I’ve embraced now that I have my own children. I love my job. I enjoy working. I relish having time away from my children so that when I’m with my children, I’m a better person. I can be a better mom. I can love on them in a better way. It’s not necessarily about providing loads of stuff or for financial gain (although that would make everything easier). It’s about fulfilling myself, and therefore, if I am feeling fulfilled, I am able to give them the love that they need.
Learning to put my needs first was an amazing lesson for me, but it also meant that she was able to do the things that made her feel good, that put her in her zone of genius and in her power. I was able to take things off her plate and do the things with her kids during the day so that she could be a better mom on the weekends and evenings.
From there, I went over to the UK and I did a whole bunch of odd jobs and, again, service industry jobs, trying to help people save money. I know, it doesn’t sound like a fun job or a very empowering job, but it was a way for me to learn a new industry. I sold gas and electricity door to door. Literally knocking door to door in London in the rain, every day. And, it’s not the greatest job I’ll admit, but I learned a lot of skills:
I learned selling skills, I learned perseverance skills, and I learned how to build a team there. And so it was a valuable experience, and I’ve taken a lot of that knowledge and brought it with me into my career. I then travelled for another 4 years. I worked in hotels in South Africa. I went to Taiwan and taught English as a second language. I lived and worked in Australia for a short period of time as well.
On returning to South Africa, I decided that I was going to become a travel agent, mostly because I saw an ad in the paper and I met the requirements. I thought, okay, let’s give this a go. So I joined Flight Centre.
I ended up working for them for a total of 10 years, in a few separate stints. And there, again, for me, it was about leaning into empowerment. I absolutely loved working there. I loved learning the language of travel and all the technical knowledge. I thrived on how varied and interesting the work was. I was passionate about learning everything I could about the products we sold, the different options I could offer, and the relationships I was building in the industry.
My passion has always been in gathering knowledge. I will admit I was not a fantastic salesperson, but I was really good at helping others understand the systems and processes. And so that became my focus when I was there. I went into stores that were struggling or that had a lot of new consultants, and I would help improve the store’s performance. I did this by utilising the personalities, building up the people who were there, and implementing systems that got the store on an upward trajectory.
Although I wasn’t a fantastic salesperson, I was the person who was enthusiastically going to tell my clients all of the resources for getting free or affordable alternatives for tours or experiences. Which obviously is not the hallmark of a salesperson. However, this meant that I had incredibly solid relationships with my clients. I have clients who still to this day, if I run into them, talk about when I worked with them, booking their holidays, and the impact I had on them.
I’m a fantastic relationship builder, and it’s something that I’m really, really proud of. I’m a really good connector. I keep all of the things in my brain so that I can connect people to other people. After one of the times I left Flight Centre, my mom actually got a phone call at the house. One of my clients thought that the office was lying when they said that I’d gone overseas and had phoned every person with my maiden surname, who was in the phone book, (this was before Google was the answer for everything) trying to find out where I’d gone. My mom concurred that I was actually overseas again.
That’s the sort of relationships that I’ve built with clients in the past.
After I got married, we started trying to have children. It was a little bit more complicated than I had hoped. I decided to step back from working in order to focus on my physical and mental health. I took an entire year off.
Luckily, my husband and I were in a position where his job was paying sufficiently, and I could take that year off and really just focus on what it was that I wanted to do.
That was when I started my first company, well, first business. I wouldn’t call it a company because I never actually sold anything. I learned a lot about branding. I discovered the ins and outs of starting a business from scratch. I learned a lot about marketing. I did a lot of things wrong, and learned from that too. But also I learned about following my passion. I’m a foodie at heart. I love making interesting and complicated recipes and trying different cuisines. And this little business came out of that. A lot of people said to me, it was a fantastic business concept. It was just about 10 years too early.
After a few months that concept sort of folded, and I got a job as a professional concierge. You could phone me to do your shopping, or to meet the handyman at your house, or have your curtains laundered. I even had clients who had me swap or return things that they had purchased over the weekend, but they weren’t the right size or colour.
Again, I was in the position of empowering people to stay in their zone of genius. Providing them with the opportunity to know that they had a reliable person who could step in on their behalf and get things sorted out.
I also did a lot of paperwork and a lot of standing in queues, but that was not the fun and empowering part of my job at all. This was another role where I built up relationships. Even with the person at Home Affairs who I saw on a weekly basis – we had a relationship going. Which meant that when I had my daughter and I needed to go and register her, it’s such a smooth, easy process because I already had this relationship. It took a lot of the stress out of that situation.
The business I was working for changed hands, and I chose to step away from working again. This time it was only for a few months while I had my daughter. Soon after her arrival, I started my new business, WAHM Workspace. That business has been running since 2017. We are a tech virtual assistance agency, and we empower creatives to stay in this zone of genius in the online space.
I’m passionate about working with the kinds of people that I’ve always identified with. There’s that saying from Steve Jobs about heres to the weirdos, and that’s totally my vibe.
Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes … the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo.
Those are the people that I just love to be around. I love the people that think in music and hear in colour. I get that whole vibe of being a creative and I thrive in those spaces. And although I don’t always feel as creative as the people that I hang out with, I revel the vibe. I love how they feel about life. I understand how disconcerting and overwhelming the online space can be for people like that because there is so much outside of their zone of genius.
My superpower, as it turns out with that translation, is that I’m phenomenally good at explaining difficult concepts to people in a way that makes it accessible to them. That is just my superpower. I can translate geeky stuff into creative speak, I can translate creative speak for geeks. You can just ask my husband who is a geek.
I’m really good at helping people understand a concept that may be a little bit difficult for them at first. And interestingly I’m really good at understanding accents so I can understand what someone might be trying to say in broken English and help someone who is listening to them actually understand the words that they’re trying to get across.
I am now bringing all of these aspects of who I am and what I do into the world. I’m passionate about empowerment. I want to help make the world an easier, more comfortable place for as many people as possible in this online space.
Whether that is through coaching, through technical assistance, through speaking, through helping others see that it’s not a scary place. It’s my home. I’ve lived online for far longer than many people. I’m an early adopter. I had online banking when there was only one independent bank in South Africa that was doing it. I met my husband through online dating before the advent of Tinder.
I just want to welcome as many people into my space as possible and help you feel comfortable here in whatever way I can. I want to welcome you into my home with open, loving arms.
So if you’re struggling to feel at home in the online space, and you’re looking to feel more empowered, book an Empower Hour with me, and let’s help you feel more at home.
