We’ve been fans of Emily Gale’s work ever since we first heard of her Motivational Monday sessions. Her knowledge and kind approach helped many during the lockdown. We wanted to hear from her, first hand, about MM and her experience.

Valeria had a chat with Emily and now we bring her to you.

1) What inspired you to set up Motivational Mondays?

When you are freelance it can be hard to continually push yourself and Mondays can be the toughest day to motivate yourself if you don’t have a job as it can feel like everyone else is shooting out the door to get to work after the weekend.

When the pandemic hit I knew it would be even tougher for freelancers struggling to find work in a very uncertain world. I wanted to make sure that they felt cared for. I also thought it was important for them to know good things can come from tough times.

In the MM sessions, I was helping advise or guide people to think longer term rather than the knee jerk immediate reaction of ‘Help there’s no work in sight’. Guiding people on the best ways to network whilst in lockdown, improving their CVs, pitching themselves to new companies, how to get up the ladder, how to switch genres, how to move sideways, thinking about how they could pick up additional skills without paying to do expensive courses. I love guiding people and helping them to work out the best ways of developing themselves and give them a turbo boost to propel them forward in their careers.

Also, as time went on during lockdown and work picked up for some freelancers I was helping guide them on how to work with senior people when you have never met them which happened to many of the freelancers who were working remotely.

2) Could you tell us a bit about what your job entails?

For the past 12.5 years, I worked at one of the largest independent production companies in the UK where I was responsible for identifying and recruiting the best freelance talent in the industry. I worked alongside the senior teams to find staff and freelancers to work in both Development and Production. It’s like fitting pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together, but it’s with people. So it’s meeting people and thinking about where they fit within the jigsaw puzzle or another way of looking at it is like being a matchmaker, matching people to the programmes.

It might be an adventure documentary that needs an entire team or a senior development executive for an Entertainment label or creating and launching new initiatives to bring more diverse talent into the company.

I also set up and introduced speed dating events after work for freelancers to come and meet the senior teams. I worked with staff to help them find mentors and mentees who they could develop as well as being a mentor to many staff and freelancers whether helping with a CV, a job interview, a promotion.

I established new ties for the company with charities, social enterprises, schools, universities, and industry bodies so that we could create a talent pipeline and help those that don’t have connections in the industry to get a foot in the door.

3) As a freelancer, I often struggle with finding the right motivation and structure. Now that so many are working from home, do you have any advice for staying focused?

You are not alone, I think everyone finds it challenging. The first thing I would suggest is planning ahead so on the weekend write up a plan for the following week, don’t make a massive list or you will feel overwhelmed.

Be realistic, set yourself 5 tasks you are going to do that week. Some may be smaller and others may take you longer to do. If possible when you wake up on Monday morning before you get going on the tasks for the week you need to do two things, the first is exercise as that’s key to get you motivated. I promise it will be a game-changer!

Ideally, exercise outside but if it has to be inside then make sure you play some really uplifting music. The second is to build in something fun that you can do during the week to look forward to, it doesn’t have to be expensive or take a lot of time, it could be meeting a friend for a walk or coffee.

Create a structure to your week and if you really want to stay focused put your phone out of sight for a fixed period of time each day.

4) How does lack of motivation relate to procrastination? And do you have tips for overcoming them?

Ah yes, procrastination is the thief of time! Delay, delay it’s so much easier. I think you have to set yourself time frames just like you would if you were in an office so I’ll do an hour and then take a break for a coffee or I’ll do 2 hours and then call a friend for a quick 15-minute check-in chat or put the washing machine on!

It’s setting up frameworks that work for you, there’s no one size fits all. Little tips that help me are keeping my phone out of sight, having a work notepad and a home notepad so it doesn’t become a mixed list of 25 things merging work and home with the nit cream, cat food getting mixed up with the CV tweaking or updating your LinkedIN.

5) What advice do you have for any freelancers who are currently trying to find work during these difficult times?

Firstly, if you can’t find work and are concerned that by taking another job which is not industry-related that it will stand against you, then banish the thought. The reality is we all need to work and everyone will understand that if there isn’t enough work in the TV and Film industry you are going to have to find alternative work to pay the bills etc. Just keep up with all your contacts and don’t just disappear, people want to hear from you and if you stay on their radar you will be the first person they think of when they do have work.

6) How have you found going from a staff role to being freelance. Do you have any advice for anyone thinking of taking a similar step?

I think it helped that I have worked in both freelance and staff roles throughout my career so I knew what to expect and how it feels not to have the security blanket of a staff job.

I think you need to take time to think and not make a snap decision. Make sure you’re in a position (ideally) where you have saved a little as a financial cushion in case you don’t get work immediately. I would also suggest putting a strategy in place and start to put your feelers out in the freelance world in plenty of time before you leave your job so that you know what the possibilities are and to broaden your network/contacts in anticipation of going freelance.

7) Will you be doing more MM sessions in the future?

Yes, I offer companies turbo boost sessions for staff or if a group of freelancers wants to come together then I offer bespoke sessions ‘How To Turbo Boost My Career’ ‘How To Build A Great Network’, How To Secure A Promotion’ or ‘How To Negotiate My Rate’. Sharing a session makes it good value for money and we can cover a lot of topics over an hour plus you have the chance to network with your peers.

8) What is Emily's group? And how does one join it?

Emily’s Group is a social networking group for women who love sharing recommendations. I founded it in 2006 when I moved back from New York. We have 1,400 members and are growing. If you would like to find out more or want to subscribe to our newsletter then email me at emily@emilysgroup.com and let me know you came via Cinemamas.

If you’d like to enquire about Motivational Mondays, you can get in touch with Emily on emilygmedia@gmail.com.

Emily started her Television career working for BBC News in Plymouth. She then secured a job as a runner on the BBC1 Consumer series Watchdog, working her way up to become a staff director and producer. During Emily’s time at Watchdog, she worked on many investigative cases and developed a reputation for unearthing great stories that made the headlines.

After a long stint on the series and its' spin-off shows Emily was offered the chance to work on Blue Peter for CBBC. She stayed on at CBBC going on to series produce and direct the popular consumer show Short Change which was BAFTA nominated when she was producing it.

Emily was also responsible for series producing ’The MakeShift’ which was the first Children’s Entertainment show commissioned and made by CBBC's Factual Department.

At the BBC Emily also produced and directed on live shows including Children In Need and X Change and worked in BBC Live Events directing and live editing on the OB teams.

After working for both BBC Factual and CBBC, Emily moved to New York to make reality shows for the BBC, TLC, Warner Bros, and Bravo. Whilst living in Manhattan she developed a freelance career writing about her surreal encounters bringing up a baby in the city which were published in The Daily Telegraph.

On Emily’s return to London five years later she moved into talent management, becoming Fremantle’s Head of Talent in 2012 where she was responsible for hiring production talent to work across some of the best-known brands on British Television.

At Fremantle, Emily worked tirelessly creating new initiatives to bring more diverse talent into the company, she mentored many freelancers and staff and has one of the most sought after contacts book in the industry. She also developed ties with charities and social enterprises including Mama Youth, Leonard Cheshire, RTS Futures, and BAFTA Guru. Emily recently left Fremantle to launch her own business.

Emily sits on the Ravensbourne Media Advisory Board and the ScreenSkills Select Committee. In her spare time, she runs a social networking group for 1,400 women called emily’s group which she founded in 2006.