Putting yourself out there is daunting in any context, but it’s especially scary in a professional setting. If anyone knows this, it’s Farah Allen, founder/CEO of The Labz, and a member of our 2022 New C-Suite class. (What’s the New C-Suite, you ask? Each year, Cosmo and digitalundivided honor a group of women of color founders who are changing the way the corner office looks, feels, and operates.)
Back in her early days as a founder, Farah had to build her company—The Labz is a platform for building socially engaging interactive websites and metaverse experiences—and her personal brand from the ground up, and today, right here, she’s getting into it. By that I mean… She’s giving us the lowdown on how to cope with the big career failures and hype yourself up in corporate spaces, and she’s doling out helpful one-liners to send when you’re making the first (LinkedIn) move.
What’s the first thing that you do when you wake up in the morning?
The first thing I do is just go into appreciation mode. I say thank you. Thank you to God, thank you for waking up. All the thank yous. I like to have gratitude moments in the morning.
Wow, that is much healthier than opening up your inbox first thing. Sounds like you’re maintaining a healthy work-life balance these days?
Yes! With all the things that I have going on, I definitely went deeper into thinking about how to control my sense of time, and how time affects your mood when you think you’re running out of it. I’ve gone deep into mindfulness, manifestation, and the law of attraction. Those principles teach you a lot about appreciation. You don’t have to overwork for things to be accomplished. I have more now than I ever had in the past when I was working even harder for it.
What’s the top career advancement tool you would recommend to young professionals?
Reading and following people who have a lot of confidence, and who are where you want to be mentally. Your mental state is the most important thing, you need to feed into yourself and the path ahead of you. You can only do that if you hear stories from people who are going through it or have gone through it.
I really like LinkedIn because you can ask. Whether it’s just, “Hey, I see what you’re doing, I love what you’re doing. Can I have a moment of your time so that I can learn from you” or “Hey, these are business opportunities for you.” LinkedIn is the place, digitally, to go.
Workplace culture has gone through a ton of change in the last few years, what with the pandemic, the corporate reckoning on racial inequality, the great resignation, quiet quitting, and more. What’s another change you’d like to see in workplace culture?
I’d like to see employers help their employees to love what they do, and show them the impact of their work. Of course, that’s dependent on the employee, and if they want to be there, but I find that it feels really great to work towards something. People who are in an organization that values their input and their impact want to stay longer. Employers can do a better job of getting people connected to what they’re doing. Every product and every service helps someone!
“You don’t have to overwork for things to be accomplished.”
What’s the best piece of career advice you’ve ever received?
The best one came from an investor that someone introduced me to early in my career. At that point, I was in “ask” mode. Like, “Hey, help me with raising money!” He comes on the phone, very assertive, very “Silicon Valley.” He says, “Right now you’re pushing a rock up a very steep hill, and it’s going to be a lot of work for you to do that, so put yourself out there. Write some articles. Put yourself on social and out there in the world. Make yourself look like the person you are telling me you are, so that the rock rolls down for you. So that when I come on a call with you, I already know something about you, and I’m influenced already. That’s how the world works.”
I was very shy. I didn’t do social, I didn’t write anything, I wanted to just make money and be a CEO in the corner somewhere. I fearfully did what he said, and folks started to come to me! [You don’t] have to be Kim K, but you have to have some kind of authority in this digital space.
What about the worst advice?
The worst advice was the idea that I had to change who I was completely to be in this space, that I had to be the Silicon Valley persona with the tough exterior. The archetype was the hard turtleneck-wearing copycat Mark Zuckerbergs. I felt like, if this is what I have to be, then I don’t want to be it, because that’s not me. So I started to attract people who weren’t like that, but who were very powerful while being very much themselves. I’ll never forget seeing Arlan Hamilton speak at an event in her sneakers and in her hoodie. She was on stage, just being herself.
When it comes to getting people to invest money in your business idea, do you have any advice to offer?
You have to have the confidence to lead a company. That’s what makes investors attracted to you. When you’re not showing those leadership skills, it’s harder to attract people who are investing money. Female founders, demographically and statistically, are underdogs, so I would also say look towards people who historically have invested in people that look like you. Then narrow it down even further. Do they invest in what you offer? At the end of the day, you can’t afford to continuously talk to people who would never invest in you or your product. And ultimately, it is about you knowing your business back and forth, even if you haven’t launched it yet. Investors have to have the confidence that you, not them, know what to do.
On a retrospective note, what’s been your scariest career hurdle and what did you learn once you made it to the other side?
One of the scariest things was failing and failing in a big way. High-achieving people tend to think that mistakes will kill their momentum. The reality is that mistakes are just the beginning of your journey. Growth is needed, and it’s not a horrible thing to have happened to you, even though it might feel that way in the moment.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Annabel Iwegbue is an assistant editor at Cosmopolitan who covers lifestyle, fashion, and astrology. Before joining Cosmo, she covered pop culture and entertainment for Harper’s Bazaar, The Knockturnal, and Black Film. You can check out some of Annabel’s work here and also find her on Instagram and Twitter.
