A British Lady in Mexico City

Nadine Heir is head of content at Aument. This is just one layer of the many layers that make up Nadine's mindset. Perhaps the intentional awareness she was given in her upbringing is the common thread in her story, but cats also play a role in building her current mindset. It was an honor to speak with Nadine, and not least because of her pleasant manner of conversation.

Nadine is somebody who’s authentic and genuine above all, I'm an honest person and I'm kind on the inside. So I project that onto the outside as best I can. So my main objectives in life are to be somebody who's there for others and who is willing to help with in whatever capacity is required in the situation.

Nadine certainly doesn’t answer this question with defining herself by her achievements, but with her general intentions. She aspires to be versatile and patient. Nadine would love to say these things about herself, but she recognizes that this is a process and that she is not at 100% yet. Nadine feels it is important to be honest about where she is at this stage in life.  

What Nadine does as an activity start with her non-profit activity Write Wiser, where she gives a platform to people that like to write but don’t always have the opportunity to write in their own name. The essence is that Nadine writes and writes a lot. For herself, for others, for the company she works. 

So this fits perfectly with the work Nadine does at Aument.  Aument helps e-commerce entrepreneurs analyze data and plan marketing campaigns. There too, Nadine uses her love for writing and communicating by creating content, and setting up all kinds of projects and partnerships that help support and spread the message.

This also implies that Nadine is involved in things that are less her expertise at the moment such as social media and press relations. Nadine characterizes her activity as constantly learning new things because that is what she does most of the time in practice.

Nadine works on a team where everyone is an engineer or at least with a tech background. As such, she is constantly being taught difficult and complicated things. Her mission is to understand the essentials and translate them into a story that can be understood by the average person. Learning is at the heart of her profession.

Intentional Conscience is a Big Thing

From an early age, Nadine was taught that social conscience is important. That expresses itself in little things like holding the door open for someone, but also being aware of why we vote for someone or what companies we buy from.

Nadine values intentionality quite highly. She indicates that the life that she imagined on in her youth became true. Nadine would travel and move to other countries, which eventually happened. Afterwards, she would like to do some more traveling in Latin America, but in recent years she has been mostly devoted to working. Having cats was also part of Nadine's plans, which she now has, and will play an important role in building her mindset. 

These dreams also come with a cost. Some past hobbies that Nadine loved to do, such as mountain biking and swimming, are just harder in Mexico where she now lives. In the UK, her native country, swimming pools and country side are everywhere. Now she rides a road bike, which was almost unimaginable in her youth.

For Nadine consistency and financial stability are an important aspiration. The world is unstable at the moment, but the awareness about financial stability comes from the journey she and her family made. She is well aware of the fact that she has a much better life compared to her grandparents. The progress that is made in two generations is remarkable, which makes stability even more important. Working in marketing which is a very competitive environment, increases that desire to find financial stability.

The desire for financial stability remains a desire without action. Nadine educates herself in finance and investments. From her working-class background, that in itself is not an obvious one.  She follows some influencers who focus on teaching women how to handle financial matters and thereby create independence and stability. Here comes back the awareness and action necessary to systematically turn desire into reality. 

What strikes me is that Nadine has already turned her desire into passion and fascination for the subject. If you don't know everything there is to know about something, how can you realize your desires? But Nadine goes further. Diversification is a core concept for her to achieve stability. You can do that financially, but also by diversifying your relationships and friendships. The more diverse relationships you have, the more likely it is that someone will be able to support you in the face of a problem or setback. 

This is so financially, but also emotionally. The stronger the net of people you can fall back on, the more emotional stability there is that you can access. You can fall back on them, but you can also celebrate the wins together. Part of this conscious behavior on Nadine's part is because Nadine is aware that she is living in a strange city, where she cannot fall back on her childhood friends. Moreover, Nadine also looks like a foreigner by Mexican standards. This is a disadvantage because she is in Mexico to stay, but because of her different appearance than the average Mexican, she soon has to signal that she is not an expat who will leave after a short time.

A final element Nadine points out is that all the actions and external things she does are also accompanied in a conscious way with internal work. Nadine keeps a journal. One of the questions that work for her is: what are the things you do today that a year ago felt difficult or even impossible. There is a lot to do around gratitude and such, but consciously changing yourself and thinking about that, while the environment remains the same, is definitely part of her modus operandi.

Teachings from a cat in the house

When asked what decision made an impact in her life, the surprising answer is taking a second cat. Two cats together, especially if one has been in the house for a while, is usually not a good idea. But living with two cats together has taught Nadine a lot about life in general. 

Cats have very individual personalities. One cat is very open, and the other lives like a hermit and hides all the time. All species have their own personalities. But what cats also teach you is not to take life too seriously. Cats don't do much other than play and sleep. Their whole life seems to consist of pleasure. The question is how to live and retire like a cat.

The ability to find analogies in the little things in life to the things in life that are important is a consequence of being a writer, according to Nadine. It takes a lot of practice and especially a lot of reading what others write. On the other hand, it is also crucial to learn from the little things in life because we are shaped by what we experience and how we absorb these events.

The flipside of Covid

When Nadine's mother was seriously ill in 2017 and 2018, it was difficult for her to be present with her much herself. She would have had to let her job in Mexico go, because at that time, working remotely was not yet the norm. 

This event shaped Nadine into an enthusiastic supporter of distance working. Today, Nadine works almost entirely from home. Her colleagues are scattered in different cities across the Americas. In Mexico where she lives she is the only one in her company. 

Although it is helpful to be in the same time zone, Nadine says working from home has huge advantages. One of the consequences of the Covid crisis is that working from home is now much more accepted. Nadine would have been able to support her mother much more during that difficult period. Today it would no longer be a problem to work from the UK for six months. Nadine now regrets that she couldn't have been more present during that difficult period for her mother.

That is also what Nadine so appreciates about her current situation. Working from home obviously has many practical advantages, such as avoiding traffic jams, but it also allows Nadine to arrange her life so that she can best combine her personal life with work. Another advantage is that working from home allows people to create a work environment that is completely adapted to their own personality and biorhythms. 

Nadien clearly loves her cats, but being with her cats also makes her less anxious and thus more effective at work. If you've had a bad night, it's easier to get up later without worrying about the commute. 

There are certainly people who get as much energy from social contact in person, but Nadine points out that even very extroverted examples, such as her own sister, no longer go to the office every day. It just has far more benefits for many to tailor their own situation to be most effective in it. Not losing energy because there are constantly people around you is probably the biggest benefit of the democratization of working from home. This is certainly true according to Nadine if you do work that requires a lot of concentration and/or creativity.

Intrinsic energy of Nadine

We end the conversation by asking what Nadine likes about her current job. The impact she has helps, but what drives her is just being able to be continuously creative. Fortunately, she also has a mandate from her employers to do so.

What I really enjoy about my day to day is that I can come up with these crazy ideas and say, I think we should do a chicken video. I think we should do a video with chickens running and like you're chasing them. And the boss goes: Okay, do you have any other ideas? And I'm like, No, no, no.

Nadine realizes that the impact of content is almost impossible to measure. What motivates her more than the impact is the mandate she receives to implement her ideas. In content, you only get assurance of the quality of an idea when you test it. Nadine admits she has written a lot that was not the best quality. That's part of it. The mindset in content is to practice, try and test. 

On the other hand, Nadine hates it when she thinks people are only doing the bare minimum for their jobs. Sometimes others tell her not to care as much about her job and the company. Nadine is uncertain how to do that. According to her, the minimalist attitude kills a company and has a big impact on the people you work with. Especially in a start-up, in which Nadine works, where there are no surplus resources, such an attitude is disastrous. It is good to take care of your business and how you commit to your business.