We recently connected with Sinéad Hawkins and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Sinéad thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One of our favorite things to brainstorm about with friends who’ve built something entrepreneurial is what they would do differently if they were to start over today. Surely, there are things you’ve learned that would allow you to do it over faster, more efficiently. We’d love to hear how you would go about setting things up if you were starting over today, knowing everything that you already know.

Breaking into media is incredible difficult. Especially as a young new college graduate. From High school, I knew I wanted to be a journalist so my vision was clear but the orchestration definitely wasn’t. I spent a lot of time on unpaid Internships after graduating trying to find a way into the industry. The key to success for me was writing freelance articles for different publications. I wish, I had built stronger relationships with people who understood the industry more – that way I could have spent less time trying to break into the field.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am journalist and a media professional from Baltimore, Maryland.l. I got my first glimpse of media in middle school from media based program. This sparked my passion and interest in creating content. From there I went to a trade – based highschool where I cultivated skills and learned the basics of different positions in news and in communications.

After graduation I attended community college were I wrote for the college news paper. I transitioned into a four year university (Morgan state University) where I majored in journalism and held different internships and wrote as a reporter and section editor from the newspaper.

After graduation, finding employment was excruciating difficult. I kept doing Internships and volunteering to work in companies along with working ” side hustles.” After being published a several publications.Finally, I landed my first role a with a local news station in Maryland.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

One lesson, I had to unlearn in my life was constantly trying move at a extremely rapid pace to be successful. I did everything with a full speed ahead mindset. I grew up feeling a lot of pressure to be successful from the world around me. I felt that I had to go to college to do all the right things and never make mistakes.

And after I graduated from college, I realized that becoming successful really is a journey, and it’s not something that happens overnight. And it’s not something that can happen within a year, sometimes It takes time to learn how to deal with your field. It takes time to learn how to do things right. And that it extremely important to enjoy the process and have fun along the way. The little moments you enjoy are important too. Sometimes, we are growing into who we need to be without even realizing it.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

I think something that non-creatives may struggle in understanding creative, is that for us, sometimes it’s a little more difficult to get into our Fields. Sometimes creatives will be the ones who are, waitressing, working in retail or working fast food, and doing their passion independently part time. For a lot of people in creative fields, doors don’t open easily.

So, trying to navigate how to get into those spaces, it’s a little bit more difficult for us. And sometimes it may look like we’re floundering. Sometimes it may look like we are working weekends and not enjoying our free time.

The process can take a bit longer for us. And many people pick jobs because they need to pay their bills and they need functional in their lives. Creatives typically pick jobs because they have a passion, and they know that they would not be happy without pursuing that passion. The passion is the drive that keeps them going to fulfill the dream at hand. It’s an up hill climb but they refuse to throw in the towel.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://brandnewprogress.com/
• Instagram: sineadrosepoliticaljournalist
• Linkedin: Sinead Hawkins
• Twitter: @SineadRHawkins1.

Image Credits

Sinead Hawkins