How to contact Serena Williams in 6 days
A guide to going for what you want and taking action to achieve it during COVID-19 a global health pandemic.
This blog is a 6 day personal challenge! Where I’ll ask you to help me contact Serena Williams and I’ll let you know how I am taking action to make that happen for myself.
How you can help!
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Introduction
I have written the motivational self-help book, called “Be Your No. 1 Cheerleader”. The book encourages women to slay their imposter syndrome, grow in confidence and become their own cheerleader. The book uses the entrepreneurial journey to demonstrate how as women we can learn to back ourselves in any context.
I am self-publishing my book. I noticed that on books released by major publishing houses they adopt a process of getting positive endorsements for the book. I thought I would adopt that same process. Why not? So top of my list is Serena Williams, a professional athlete, successful black woman and someone that I personally think is really doing a lot to go beyond her sport and to make a wider impact.
Serena Williams, American Tennis Player, 23 Grand Slam Titles, Mother, Entrepreneur and Role Model
Sunday - 19th July
I searched Linkedin for a profile to follow - none found - Does anyone know if she has one? Please do comment!
I Googled “how to contact famous people” for inspiration and ideas. Here’s some of the better articles I found:
https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-best-way-to-approach-a-famous-person - Some good advice on what to do if you were to meet a famous person face to face.
https://www.themuse.com/advice/my-cold-email-received-a-response-from-arianna-huffington-heres-how-i-did-it - Some good advice on cold emailing. famous people.
Set up an Out of Office - Telling people about this challenge! This is because we get so many emails. Emails are a helpful way to tell people what you’re up too! Try setting up a newsletter or an out-of-office to tell people about something that you have coming up!
Day 1: 20th July
Who’s in Serena’s Team?
Today I wanted to more about the people that Serena surrounds herself with. The first thing to do was to find out who was her agent. See if there were any contact details available? No surprises that there were not! Also find out more about Jill. Jill is totally Sasha Fierce and really protective of Serena as indeed I would be if I was her agent. So total respect!
Jill Smoller: Serena William’s Agent
Jill Smoller was an awesome tennis player herself and has worked with worked with Dennis Rodman and Pete Sampras.
Next I did more research into Serena’s current interests and ventures. She loves Tacos and has started her own Venture Capitalist Firm. Her right hand woman is Alison Rapaport.
Current Activities: Serena Ventures
Serna Ventures was founded to give opportunity to African America’s, Women, Latino’s and represented groups who are changing the world with their services and products. I totally respect that being the same as Serena herself! Snap! Lol!
How did Alison come to be part of Serena Ventures?
Tacos and a very detailed pitch with a 50 page appendix on potential investments!
Find out more about Serena Williams.
I found this article shared by Alison insightful in finding out more about Serena Ventures.
Some top secret behind the scenes networking
In the interests of protecting confidentially, I’ve been doing some networking that I can’t share for privacy reasons.
Let’s see what day 2 brings.
Day 1 FREE Confidence Challenge:
What action have you taken towards your identified challenge for this week?
Identified your goal
Write some ideas on how to tackle it
Who to ask for help and support
I can’t wait to hear what you have identified as your goal for this week!
Day 2: 21st July
Today I have spent more time into looking and what Serena is during COVID-19 and finding out what causes she is supporting. It was reported about a week ago that Serena will be donating 100% proceeds of her Unstoppable Jewellery collection to fund a relief fund for small Black Owned Businesses. Williams said, “I wore a circular necklace the last time I won all four Grand Slams in a row, and so she wants to share that luck around!
More details in these articles:
Harpers Bazar Article on Serena’s Jewellery
Pop Sugar on Serena’s Jewellery
Create a Pitch Video for Serena Ventures
I’ve decided to create a short pitch video as if I were to pitch to Serena Ventures. Watch for the release of that video tomorrow.
Some top secret behind the scenes networking
In the interests of protecting confidentially, I’ve been doing some networking that I can’t share for privacy reasons.
Day 2 FREE Confidence Challenge:
What action have you taken towards your identified challenge for this week?
Have you done some research?
Have you made a plan?
Have you asked for help and support?
Have you asked someone to keep you accountable?
I can’t wait to hear what you have identified as your goal for this week!
Day 3: 22nd July
Today I spent most of the day preparing and researching for my pitch. Including the very important task of what to wear! I know Serena has a keen eye for fashion and jewellery.
I wanted to support Serena’s jewellery line by purchasing the “Unstoppable necklace” which she is donating 100% of net proceeds to the Opportunity’s Fund for Small Business Relief Fund. Unfortunately they are not shipping to the UK at the moment. So I donated what it would have cost to buy a necklace directly to the fund.
Here’s my Pitch Video to Serena Ventures:
Some top secret behind the scenes networking
In the interests of protecting confidentially, I’ve been doing some networking that I can’t share for privacy reasons.
Day 3 FREE Confidence Challenge:
What action have you taken towards your identified challenge for this week?
Have you tracked your progress?
Have you praised yourself for the actions you’ve taken so far?
Have you looked at doing it differently?
Have you asked your community for help?
I can’t wait to hear what you have identified as your goal for this week!
Day 4: 23rd July
Today, I spent most of the day getting my email ready to send to Serena Ventures. It was a long and detailed email which made “the ask” for her to endorse my book but also the offer. What could Ekua Cant offer a multi-millionaire? Well herself! Serena Williams has said that she wants to offer mentorship to young founders as part of Serena Ventures, neither she nor her partner have the time to do this. I offered to do this for her and to become an ambassador for Serena Ventures.
Some top secret behind the scenes networking
In the interests of protecting confidentially, I’ve been doing some networking that I can’t share for privacy reasons.
Day 4 FREE Confidence Challenge:
What action have you taken towards your identified challenge for this week?
What progress have you made in the past 4 days?
What more is there to do?
Will you need to some activities next week?
Have you acknowledge how far you come since you started the challenge?
I can’t wait to hear what you have identified as your goal for this week!
Day 5: 24th July
Today is the final day of my challenge. I’m going to do some final research on what’s happening with Serena “in the news”, because I need to be ready should my opportunity to talk to her team arise!
Here’s what’s new with Serena:
The whole family have invested in a Ladies Football Team.
Natalie Portman is also investing along with Serena and her family in the Ladies Football Team.
What did I learn? Was I successful?
I came up with this challenge as inspiration for myself, but also to motivate YOU to see what can you can achieve when you put your mind to it! This challenge was actually a call to arms for YOU to recognise that taking action, even imperfect action can really propel you forward in making your dreams come true. Obviously it was quick time-scale for my personal challenge. It it is something that now I have started, I am going to follow it to it’s logical conclusion for me personally.
What did I learn?
I learnt that just by telling people this is what I was doing people started to cheer! Some connections even offered specific advice and secret squirrel contacts. This only happened because I put my out-of-office on and told everyone that I emailed me, this is what I was doing! You get so many emails, so it is something worth experimenting with having a more exciting out-of-office message. I also learnt that by dreaming “BIG” I was also giving YOU permission to do so. What I mean by this is sometimes we need encouragement to go beyond our own current limitations in “our own thinking”. Plus it also helps us to learn to adopt a “growth mindset”. Finally I learnt that my “growth mindset” was healthy and resilient! Which is great news!
What are the results?
The result that I had the confidence to pitch to Serena Williams my motivational self-help book, “Be your No. 1 Cheerleader”. That to me is winning whatever the actual outcome!
Watch this space for the response from Serena Ventures!
Day 5 FREE Confidence Challenge:
We’re now at the point where I’d like you to review what you’ve done in the past 5-6 days.
What did you find easy?
What did you find more challenging and how did you overcome it?
What would you do differently next time?
If you asked for help, how did that help your progress?
What were your results? What did you learn?
I hope that you found that when we focus our minds, are open to opportunity and use a growth mindset we can achieve so much more!