Fictionary co-founder and CEO Kristina Stanley has worked in a wide variety of different jobs, from manager of broadband planning at Nortel to the director of employee, safety, and guest services for an Eastern British Columbia ski resort, to author of mystery novels.
But one of Stanley’s most difficult jobs was figuring out how to edit her own manuscripts while writing The Stone Mountain Mystery Series. As she told BetaKit in an interview, “it’s really, really difficult to edit a book from a story level. You’ve got thousands and thousands of elements that you have to keep track of and make them work together.”
“We’re trying to help the average person who doesn’t have an ‘in’ in the publishing industry get a really good book out there, get an agent, or get a publisher.”
-Kristina Stanley, Fictionary
Initially, Stanley tackled this problem using a combination of Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and graphs. But she soon realized that other authors likely faced the exact same issue, and set out to build a better way by combining her tech and writing background.
Today, Stanley’s software startup Fictionary aims to offer an alternative. Amid a wide field of solutions that help writers and editors with specific parts of the process, like spelling, grammar, style, structure, and publishing, Fictionary hones in on perhaps the most important and challenging part: producing a good story.
Fuelled by $1.8 million CAD in seed funding, Fictionary aims to help writers and editors around the world produce quality stories more quickly and affordably. With this capital, the Inverary, Ontario startup, based just north of Kingston, plans to move into non-fiction and start selling to other publishers and agencies to expand its community of users.
The startup’s all-equity round, which closed in September, was co-led by StandUp Ventures and BDC Capital’s Thrive Venture Fund, with support from The51 and a group of angels that includes Women’s Equity Lab general partner Sally Morris. For newly launched Thrive, Fictionary marks the fund’s third investment to date, after investing in Acerta and Private AI.
Stanley founded Fictionary in 2016 alongside her husband, Mathew (COO), who also previously worked at Nortel and has a background in tech, and her brother, Michael Conn, Fictionary’s former CTO, who has since left the company.
Initially, Fictionary focused solely on writers, before expanding to meet demand for a similar offering from editors. Today, Fictionary offers three subscription software products for writers and editors that range in price from $19 to $49 monthly, sells online courses, and provides a community for writers and editors to connect.
Fictionary’s software helps writers visualize their story arc by analyzing key story elements with artificial intelligence (AI) and gauging how their manuscript compares to fundamental storytelling components.
“We’re trying to help the average person who doesn’t have an ‘in’ in the publishing industry get a really good book out there, get an agent, or get a publisher,” said Stanley.
On the editor side of the equation, the company claims its offering enables editors to provide better, deeper story edits in less time, increasing the quality and profitability of editors’ services.
The writing and editing software space features a ton of players, from Grammarly to Scrivener, Novel Factory, and Canada’s Wattpad. According to Stanley, Fictionary is unique within the sectors in terms of its focus on storytelling elements and its use of AI. “We’re it right now as far as, there’s an automated way to do this, and have software for it,” said Stanley.
“While there are other platforms endeavoring to address this gap in the market, there doesn’t appear to be a single player who is able to look at the writing and editing process in a comprehensive and meaningful way, which puts Fictionary at a sizeable advantage to lead the charge and expand into new markets and segments,” Michelle Scarborough, managing partner of BDC Capital’s Thrive Venture Fund, told BetaKit.
RELATED: StandUp Ventures reveals second fund dedicated to women-led startups with $30 million first close
Fictionary previously secured $100,000 in grant funding from Creative BC and raised $245,000 in pre-seed funding in 2019 from a group of angels that included Shopify co-founder Scott Lake, Stephanie Andrew of Women’s Equity Lab, and FirstEditing founder and CEO JoEllen Taylor.
According to Stanley, following that pre-seed round, Fictionary reached breakeven cash flow and had to decide whether to keep going on its current track or set its sights higher.
Following some discussions with StandUp Ventures, Fictionary decided to embark on a new chapter and raise more venture capital to tackle the opportunity it sees in this space amid the rise of self-publishing. “We have a great product, we’ve got product-market fit, we’ve got a market, so let’s just go for it,” said Stanley.
“The love for the product Fictionary users articulate so regularly is rare, and indicative of the power and impact the tool brings to its customers,” said StandUp Ventures senior associate Lucas Perlman, who is joining Fictionary’s board as part of the round. “The self-publishing world has exploded, and we believe Fictionary is poised to become a de-facto part of the story writing toolkit for writers and editors around the globe.”
RELATED: Wattpad’s new leader is focused on creator value
For her part, Scarborough said the Thrive Venture Fund sees “a sizeable opportunity [for Fictionary] in the fast-growing creator economy space—a market with many dimensions—within writing and editing, screenwriting, non-fiction, and beyond.”
To date, Fictionary has focused entirely on fiction but Stanley said the startup’s roadmap includes moving into non-fiction, where the CEO sees plenty of potential to apply its tech to helping people tell their own life stories. Fictionary also sees an opportunity to help agencies and publishers clear the slush pile of submitted manuscripts.
As it looks to build out its own community of writers and editors, Fictionary follows in the footsteps of Wattpad, which parlayed its vibrant self-publishing community of writers and readers—and the content produced by them—into a $754 million CAD acquisition last year.
After discussions with StandUp, Fictionary decided to embark on a new chapter.
“Wattpad is very inspirational for us,” said Stanley. “They are different in the sense that people write their stories in the community, where we help writers take those stories and turn them into powerful stories readers love. Their community is a great lead-in to Fictionary for writers needing to edit their stories.”
As the startup charts its growth strategy amid an uncertain economic environment, Stanley is confident that Fictionary is well-positioned to grow during this period, noting that people tend to write more when they are stressed. Back when COVID-19 first hit and everyone was cooped up, the CEO said people begin writing more, and demand for Fictionary rose. Heading into what could be a deep downturn, Stanley believes Fictionary is in a good spot given that it offers a tool to help people do their passion without spending a lot of money.
What Perlman finds most exciting is the appreciation Fictionary’s customers have for the startup’s product, noting that writers “pour countless hours into their stories and writing books is an emotional and very personal thing to take on.”
“Fictionary has removed a major hurdle that stopped these creators from bringing their stories into the world,” Perlman told BetaKit. “The impact of that really comes through when you speak to their customers and see feedback from their community.”
Feature image courtesy Fictionary.
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Technically, mechanical engineering is the application of the principles and problem-solving techniques of engineering from design to manufacturing to the marketplace for any object. Mechanical engineers analyze their work using the principles of motion, energy, and force—ensuring that designs function safely, efficiently, and reliably, all at a competitive cost.
Mechanical engineers make a difference. That's because mechanical engineering careers center on creating technologies to meet human needs. Virtually every product or service in modern life has probably been touched in some way by a mechanical engineer to help humankind.
This includes solving today's problems and creating future solutions in health care, energy, transportation, world hunger, space exploration, climate change, and more.
Being ingrained in many challenges and innovations across many fields means a mechanical engineering education is versatile. To meet this broad demand, mechanical engineers may design a component, a machine, a system, or a process. This ranges from the macro to the micro, from the largest systems like cars and satellites to the smallest components like sensors and switches. Anything that needs to be manufactured—indeed, anything with moving parts—needs the expertise of a mechanical engineer. Become a mechanical engineer.
What do mechanical engineers do?
Mechanical engineering combines creativity, knowledge and analytical tools to complete the difficult task of shaping an idea into reality.
This transformation happens at the personal scale, affecting human lives on a level we can reach out and touch like robotic prostheses. It happens on the local scale, affecting people in community-level spaces, like with agile interconnected microgrids. And it happens on bigger scales, like with advanced power systems, through engineering that operates nationwide or across the globe.
Mechanical engineers have an enormous range of opportunity and their education mirrors this breadth of subjects. Students concentrate on one area while strengthening analytical and problem-solving skills applicable to any engineering situation.
Disciplines within mechanical engineering include but are not limited to:
- Acoustics
- Aerospace
- Automation
- Automotive
- Autonomous Systems
- Biotechnology
- Composites
- Computer Aided Design (CAD)
- Control Systems
- Cyber security
- Design
- Energy
- Ergonomics
- Human health
- Manufacturing and additive manufacturing
- Mechanics
- Nanotechnology
- Production planning
- Robotics
- Structural analysis
Technology itself has also shaped how mechanical engineers work and the suite of tools has grown quite powerful in recent decades. Computer-aided engineering (CAE) is an umbrella term that covers everything from typical CAD techniques to computer-aided manufacturing to computer-aided engineering, involving finite element analysis (FEA) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD). These tools and others have further broadened the horizons of mechanical engineering.
What careers are there in mechanical engineering?
Society depends on mechanical engineering. The need for this expertise is great in so many fields, and as such, there is no real limit for the freshly minted mechanical engineer. Jobs are always in demand, particularly in the automotive, aerospace, electronics, biotechnology, and energy industries.
Here are a handful of mechanical engineering fields.
In statics, research focuses on how forces are transmitted to and throughout a structure. Once a system is in motion, mechanical engineers look at dynamics, or what velocities, accelerations and resulting forces come into play. Kinematics then examines how a mechanism behaves as it moves through its range of motion.
Materials science delves into determining the best materials for different applications. A part of that is materials strength—testing support loads, stiffness, brittleness and other properties—which is essential for many construction, automobile, and medical materials.
How energy gets converted into useful power is the heart of thermodynamics, as well as determining what energy is lost in the process. One specific kind of energy, heat transfer, is crucial in many applications and requires gathering and analyzing temperature data and distributions.
Fluid mechanics, which also has a variety of applications, looks at many properties including pressure drops from fluid flow and aerodynamic drag forces.
Manufacturing is an important step in mechanical engineering. Within the field, researchers investigate the best processes to make manufacturing more efficient. Laboratory methods focus on improving how to measure both thermal and mechanical engineering products and processes. Likewise, machine design develops equipment-scale processes while electrical engineering focuses on circuitry. All this equipment produces vibrations, another field of mechanical engineering, in which researchers study how to predict and control vibrations.
Engineering economics makes mechanical designs relevant and usable in the real world by estimating manufacturing and life cycle costs of materials, designs, and other engineered products.
What skills do mechanical engineers need?
The essence of engineering is problem solving. With this at its core, mechanical engineering also requires applied creativity—a hands on understanding of the work involved—along with strong interpersonal skills like networking, leadership, and conflict management. Creating a product is only part of the equation; knowing how to work with people, ideas, data, and economics fully makes a mechanical engineer.
What tasks do mechanical engineers do?
Careers in mechanical engineering call for a variety of tasks.
- Conceptual design
- Analysis
- Presentations and report writing
- Multidisciplinary teamwork
- Concurrent engineering
- Benchmarking the competition
- Project management
- Prototyping
- Testing
- Measurements
- Data Interpretation
- Developmental design
- Research
- Analysis (FEA and CFD)
- Working with suppliers
- Sales
- Consulting
- Customer service
How much do mechanical engineers earn?
Like careers in many other engineering fields, mechanical engineers are well paid. Compared to other fields, mechanical engineers earn well above average throughout each stage of their careers. According to the United States Department of Labor, the mean salary for a mechanical engineer is $97,000, with the top ten percent earning close to $136,210.
| Mechanical Engineering Salaries | Median Entry-Level Salary1 | Mean Annual Salary2 | Top 10 Percent3 |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Mechanical Engineering |
$64,682 | $97,000 | $136,210 |
| More salaries and sources. | |||
The future of mechanical engineering
Breakthroughs in materials and analytical tools have opened new frontiers for mechanical engineers. Nanotechnology, biotechnology, composites, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), and acoustical engineering have all expanded the mechanical engineering toolbox.
Nanotechnology allows for the engineering of materials on the smallest of scales. With the ability to design and manufacture down to the elemental level, the possibilities for objects grows immensely. Composites are another area where the manipulation of materials allows for new manufacturing opportunities. By combining materials with different characteristics in innovative ways, the best of each material can be employed and new solutions found. CFD gives mechanical engineers the opportunity to study complex fluid flows analyzed with algorithms. This allows for the modeling of situations that would previously have been impossible. Acoustical engineering examines vibration and sound, providing the opportunity to reduce noise in devices and increase efficiency in everything from biotechnology to architecture.
Mechanical Engineering at Michigan Tech
We are committed to our mission of hands-on education of our students, by world-class faculty, through innovative teaching, mentoring, and knowledge creation.
Our Bachelor of Science Degree
The bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering at Michigan Tech offers undergraduate students many unique, hands-on learning opportunities:
Undergraduate Research Opportunities
Undergraduate research opportunities are plentiful. Our department offers undergraduate students numerous opportunities in research, hands-on experience, and real-world client work. Research projects often require help from students for running simulations, taking data, analyzing results, etc. These opportunities may even be paid, depending on the availability of funds on the particular project. Take advantage of over 50,000 square feet of labs and computer centers, in the 13-story R. L. Smith Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics Building.
Real-World Experience
Get ready to contribute on the job from day one. Our students benefit from hands-on experiences ranging from our senior capstone design program to our enterprise teams to internships/co-ops. As a mechanical engineer, you can make a difference in the world by using the latest technologies to help solve today's grand challenges.
ABET Accreditation
Our undergraduate mechanical engineering program is ABET Accredited. ABET accreditation is a significant achievement. We have worked hard to ensure that our program meets the quality standards set by the profession. And, because it requires comprehensive, periodic evaluations, ABET accreditation demonstrates our continuing commitment to the quality of our program—both now and in the future.
Prepare for Graduate Study
Our undergraduate program in mechanical engineering prepares you for advanced study in the field. Earn your MS and/or PhD degrees in mechanical engineering, engineering mechanics, or a related field either at Michigan Tech or at another university.
Architectural & Facilities Engineering is the detailed study of how to make, revamp, and operate buildings. Facilities engineering, is similar and has the same four basic curriculum areas, but focuses on making existing buildings better. If you are interested in designing and constructing new or revamped buildings, this is the minor for you.
The Architectural & Facilities Engineering (AFE) minor at Clarkson University is housed within the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), but is open to all majors. Majors in Civil, Mechanical, Environmental, and Electrical Engineering, and Engineering & Management will pair best with the AFE minor.
The AFE minor builds on the success of the Clarkson Construction Engineering Management program (CEM) and its numerous impressive and national award-winning accomplishments. Industry leading firms are looking to find their top talent at Clarkson, including those with a minor in Architectural & Facilities Engineering.
Architectural & Facilities Engineering Opportunities
At Clarkson, we like to get hands on. So, in addition to curricular opportunities, students in the Architectural & Facilities Engineering minor are able to take part in a range of co-curricular and extra-curricular activities that round out the total experience, including:
- Meet the Pro
- Local Field Trips
- MEGA Project Field Trips
- Greenbuild Scholarships
- C3G Projects
- Blueprint Bootcamp
- AutoCAD Seminar
- Construction Engineering Management SPEED Team
- Internships & Co-Ops
- OSHA 10-hour Certification
- Clarkson Construction Club/AGC Student Chapter
- Kiewit Women in Construction
Architectural & Facilities Engineering Curriculum & Core Requirements
The minor in architectural and facilities engineering is a total of 27 credit hours, plus students must have an architectural and facilities engineering focus for their capstone experience in their major (CE490/491, ME446, EE412, EM456, or equivalent).
The curriculum has been designed to deliver students a well-rounded understanding of architectural and facilities engineering.
All courses are 3 credits unless noted.
Students must complete the following courses:
Civil and Environmental Engineering:
- CE305 Construction Planning and Management
- CE408 Building Information Modeling/Integrated Project Delivery
- CE409 Fundamentals of Building Systems
- CE448 Introduction to Architectural Engineering
Data Science/Mathematics:
- DS241 Intro to Data Science
- or MA330 Advanced Engineering Math
- or STAT383 Probability and Statistics
- or STAT389 Probability and Statistics with Multivariate Analysis
Architectural & Facilities Engineering Core Electives
Students must complete two of the following courses:
- CE407 Intro to Scheduling and Estimating
- CE410/510 Sustainable Infrastructure and Building
- CE411 Construction Materials Engineering
- CE415/515 Foundations and Retaining Structures
- CE441 Reinforced Concrete Design OR CE442 Steel Design
- ME310 Thermodynamic systems Engineering
- ME411 Intro to Heat Transfer
- ME444 Computer Aided Engineering
- EE221 Linear Circuits
- EE331 Energy Conversion
- EE333 Power System Engineering
- EE/ME450 Control Systems
- EHS330 Safety Analysis
- ES238 Intro to Energy Systems
- EV305 Sustainability and the Environment
Architectural & Facilities Engineering Electives
Management/Law Elective:
Students must complete one of the following courses:
- EM/OM380 Project Management
- FN361 Financial Management
- OS286 Organizational Behavior I
- LW270 Law and Society I
Art Elective:
Students must complete one course in art history, architectural history, art appreciation, applied art, or related study (3 credits).
KINGSTON, Jamaica — A banking executive and her domestic helper were today both found not guilty of forgery charges in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court.
Charges were brought after the estranged husband of the banker made a report to the Fraud Squad that his signature was forged on a health insurance policy for their child.
A report was also made that the helper had colluded with the bank executive through her handling of the real document.
During the trial, however, lawyers for the bank executive, Peter Champagnie KC, and Samoi Campbell, suggested to the husband under cross-examination that he was motivated by spite and malice.
He admitted that there was an ongoing custody battle between himself and their client in the Family Court.
In finding both the banking executive and the helper not guilty, the court noted that there would have been no motive for the husband’s signature to be forged as the health policy was fully financed by the banking executive.
The helper, who was also represented by Champagnie and Campbell, had asserted that she had witnessed the husband signing the policy documents before delivering them to the banking executive.
The name of the banking executive is being withheld owing to the fact that a child of the marriage was at the centre of the complaint with the insurance policy.
Leadership is more than being the boss. It’s asking the right questions, working as part of the team, and creating a framework for success that inspires and mobilizes those around you.
At Northwestern Engineering, we provide students with the resources needed to prepare personally and professionally for the person they want to be, and we offer a unique assessment tool that helps students understand how their teamwork and leadership abilities can be improved.
Building Leaders:The Center for Leadership provides tools and coaching to help determine a student’s leadership strengths and weaknesses and explore ways for growth.
Empowering Students:Through a suite of classes, activities, and seminars, our Office of Personal Development helps students become lifelong learners and take ownership of their personal growth.
Cultivating Mindfulness:Emotional Intelligence 101 helps students master their attention in order to manage stress and Improve focus, self-awareness, and empathy for others.
Allowing the Unexpected:Engineering Improv teaches skills such as focus and collaboration while encouraging students to explore available opportunities and engage in new experiences.
Center for Leadership
The Center for Leadership offers opportunities for all students to Improve their skills through an environment that nurtures experimentation and innovation. Northwestern is one of only a few academic institutions that boasts a University-wide research center dedicated to the study of leadership and dissemination of the latest and best practices.
Office of Personal Development
Our Office of Personal Development empowers students to take ownership of their learning and personal growth. The office helps students develop the skills to be lifelong adaptive learners by fostering five core competencies:
- Awareness: Leveraging intellectual curiosity and the confidence to question as you create your personal, professional, and civic identity
- Optimization: Identifying tensions among competing resources and desired outcomes, and applying resources to accomplish goals
- Fidelity: Loyalty to a consistent level of quality and integrity based on internal motivations, rather than external demands or rewards
- Resilience: Persevering in the face of challenging situations
- Self-Reliance: Confidently applying knowledge of yourself and your abilities in the service of your values and goals
Education
Innovative Tools: The Leadership Portal
The Center for Leadership's Portal offers students the opportunity to learn about their leadership and teamwork abilities through two innovative tools: the 360° Leadership Assessment and the Teamwork Assessment.
The 360° Assessment is an evaluation that collects insights from professors, classmates, and others to help determine a student’s leadership strengths and weaknesses. In a subsequent coaching session, participants meet with program leaders to discuss the findings and explore pathways for growth. Grounded in principles of “authentic leadership,” programs like these teach students to develop their individual leadership style based on their own talents, rather than emulate a maverick CEO who’s perceived as today’s great leader.
Built from best industry practices and our proprietary research, the Teamwork Assessment identifies typical teamwork problems at the individual and group levels and provides a process for solving them.
Innovative Course: Engineering Improv
Engineering Improv: The Art of Allowing introduces Northwestern Engineering teaches undergraduates to use improvisational techniques, including developing sensory awareness, attention and focus, collaboration, trust and support, storytelling skills, and commitment to character. The course helps undergraduate students develop accurate self-awareness by creating an environment that encourages them to explore available opportunities and engage in new experiences.
Innovative Course: Emotional Intelligence 101
Emotional Intelligence 101: Managing Yourself, Maximizing Your Potential gives Northwestern students the tools they need to master their attention. By doing so, they manage stress and Improve focus, self-awareness, and empathy for others. Based on the Bar-On Model of Emotional Intelligence, the course is divided into five topics: stress management, self-perception, self-expression, interpersonal relationships, and decision-making.
Ovechkin tallied an assist in Friday's 5-1 win over the Lightning.
This could have been a much bigger night for Ovechkin, who saw a whopping 11:25 of ice time on the power play. The Capitals went 0-for-6 on the man advantage, but a relentless 5-on-5 attack led to the lopsided score in their favor. Ovechkin's next chance to power up will be Sunday in another clash against the Bolts, this time on the road.
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If you have super-helper syndrome, you have a compulsion to help other people – so much so that you can fail to look after your own needs.
It’s more common than you might think, and it’s a trait you might observe in yourself or others; those people that can’t stop themselves helping.
But why are some people so driven to help? Is it a learned behaviour, or something in their DNA?
That’s something psychologists Jess Baker and Rod Vincent explore in their book, The Super-Helper Syndrome – A Survival Guide For Compassionate People.
‘Some super-helpers are in the helping professions but many of them aren’t,’ say Jess and Rod. ‘They can range from lawyers and accountants to the self-employed, mums, teachers, nurses, therapists and social workers.
‘What they have in common is that they are 360-degree helpers, helping in all aspects of their lives.
‘People who are susceptible to the super-helper syndrome are all around us. They are the problem-solvers, the mediators, the fixers who can’t resist any opportunity to help. There is usually one in every family. The friend that always helps in a crisis or lends an ear. They are reliable.’
Ahead, the pair break down four possible causes of being a super-helper.
Different levels of empathy
For some super-helpers, it’s in their genes.
‘There is scientific evidence that helping can have a genetic component,’ say Jess and Rod. ‘Researchers have found that empathy is determined to some extent by our genes and have pinpointed the genes involved in this.’
Childhood messages
Jess and Rod tell Metro.co.uk: ‘Some children (especially girls) are taught that they must help other people in order to be a good person.
‘If this socialisation is strong enough it can lead them to adopt what we call the Good Person Belief, one of the irrational beliefs that drive compulsive helping.’
An example of the Good Person Belief
Picture a little girl who finds one of her classmates crying in the playground with a grazed knee. She takes her to the school nurse who tells her she’s a really good girl.
After dinner, as she dashes off to play with her brothers, her mother calls her back, ‘Be a good girl and help me clear the plates.’
Later, she’s praised for memorizing her younger sister a story at bedtime.
Next morning, she is told off because she hasn’t made a birthday card for grandma. You get the picture!
A support worker who responded to the psychologists’ questionnaires listed this reason for her super-helping tendencies, explaining: ‘I got noticed when I was a good girl. Praise made me feel like I was good enough.
‘I can see where my people-pleasing comes from. Thirty-seven years of autopilot is hard to break.’
‘It’s hardly surprising when children begin to internalise their parents’ and teachers’ messages,’ Jess and Rod note. ‘They see themselves as good when they help; they criticise themselves when they don’t. They feed off the praise and rewards. They live in fear of these being taken away. They are on the way to becoming a compulsive helper.
‘Over time, the Good Person Belief becomes part of their operating system. Helping becomes habitual.’
Another childhood message that can create super-helper syndrome is one around suffering.
Jess and Rod say: ‘Other children are socialised by childhood messages that highlight the suffering around them or they grow up with role-models who attempt to alleviate that suffering.
‘While it is understandable to want to do what we can to alleviate the suffering of others, when this is taken to extremes it can lead them to adopt another of the irrational beliefs, a sense of personal responsibility to help everyone you meet.
‘Everyone else’s problem becomes your problem if you hold the Help Everyone Belief.’
Examples of the Help Everyone Belief
One woman had an alcoholic father. He had stopped drinking as soon as she was born. He became heavily involved in setting up an alcoholics’ support group. He would disappear on errands of mercy in the middle of the night. When she was old enough he would take her on missions to ‘go and see the poorly man’. Her deep connection with her father and these formative memories were still with her more than forty years later.
When he was little it was agonising watching the news with his mother. She’d huff at every report of famine and disaster around the world, scolding the politicians on the television. She was active in many causes. She traipsed door to door for Christian Aid, distributing and collecting donation envelopes. Every Sunday she stood at the back of the cold church in her Clothkits coat, behind a trestle table heaped with bags of Traidcraft coffee. The message he most vividly recalled was whenever her children were impatient for mealtimes. If he, or any of his brothers said, ‘I’m starving,’ she reproached them. ‘Don’t say that. There are children starving in Africa.’ Her four sons went on to be a nurse, a teacher, a social worker and a psychologist.
Trauma
‘Some people metamorphose into helpers as a result of childhood pain,’ say Jess and Rod.
‘When we asked people why they became a helper, they often referenced their childhood. Many had experienced early deprivation or hardship. Some grew up with volatile or abusive parents.
‘Childhood trauma doesn’t necessarily make people into helpers. It sculpts them in many forms. But it does shape compulsive helpers out of some of them.
‘They move on from their trauma to become the problem-solver, the fixer, the go-to rescuer in the family. They move on from trauma to a career as an expert helper.
‘One example of this from our research was a dentist who described her mother as very hot and cold. She said it was the cold bits she remembered.
‘She told us how she needed love but would get nothing from her mother and how that rejection has impacted her own awareness of others. “I don’t want to upset anyone; I want to do right by them and help people.”‘
Circumstances
Some people are made to become helpers by circumstance, as someone else is dependent on them.
‘They may or may not be a natural helper but the circumstances they find themselves in or the responsibilities they face mean that they have little choice,’ Jess and Rod note.
‘Examples that readily come to mind are looking after a child with Down’s syndrome, a grandfather who has had a stroke, a partner injured in a car accident.
‘There are an estimated 6.5 million unpaid carers in the UK alone. Dependent relationships can also occur in the workplace. They are found across all occupations, where someone believes their patients, customers or the rest of the team couldn’t survive without them.’
What to do if you have super-helper syndrome
If you’re relating to this, don’t panic – there are ways to tackle the super-helper mindset and look after yourself.
We’ve shared some self-help for super-helpers here, and Jess and Rod’s book provides practical guidance.
‘For anyone who is helping to the point where they are finding it difficult to look after their own needs, the book provides solutions,’ they say. ‘It shows how to counter any irrational beliefs you might be holding. It shows that however difficult your circumstances when you are looking after a dependent, you deserve to have your own needs met too.
‘The book provides activities for the reader to profile and analyse their own helping relationships. It offers support for people who want to adopt a Healthy Helper Mindset, including meeting their own needs, building assertiveness and setting helping boundaries.
‘It guides the reader towards countering self-criticism with mindful self-compassion. It’s only by doing these things that compassionate people can be most effective at helping others.’
Jess Baker & Rod Vincent are Chartered Psychologists and authors of The Super-Helper Syndrome – A Survival Guide for Compassionate People on sale now in hardback (£18.99) and ebook published by Flint Books.
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Following her Twitter rant about her now former helper, social media influencer Faith Nketsi-Njilo apologised to her helper for putting her on blast on her social media platform.
In a series of tweets, Faith Nketsi, shared that her 50-year-old helper saw her previous tweets about her and subsequently resigned as she will not take the “disrespect and humiliation” of being put on blast on social media.
Faith’s helper claimed that “she’s worked for a lot of people and they’ve never had a problem with her or tweeted about her”. The Have Faith reality star further apologised to her helper’s friends and family who might have seen her Twitter rant.
Last week, Faith went on to say the newly hired helper has been complaining about being sick and not knowing how to make tea or coffee; and that whenever she asks “uAunty” [the helper] for assistance she is rather reluctant to do so.
ALSO READ: ‘Feeling uncomfortable in my own home’ – Faith’s lack of faith in her helpers
‘We live to learn’
“Not once did I think she was going to see these tweets, I mean she’s 50 and she said she had no idea of who I was but that’s no excuse. I take full accountability for expressing myself on social media instead of communicating with her. There, I was wrong. We live to learn,” Nketsi-Njilo wrote.
uAunty previously had a dispute with her mother, Linky Mamogale Modise, when she was asked to help take Sky’s things upstairs, Faith added. The two patched things up but the helper found it hard to do the same with Faith.
Though her helper said she spoke to “umnikazi we Khaya” (the owner of the house), referring to Faith’s husband, Nzuzo Njilo, and agreed to have a meeting “when he gets back from work” the meeting didn’t materialize.
Following her resignation, Faith said she sent her [helper] money to go home and also offered transportation, however, her family member was already waiting at their residence to pick her up.
NOW READ: Faith Nketsi’s heartfelt message to husband, Nzuzo Njilo
Hakanpaa posted an assist, four shots on goal and three hits in Saturday's 6-2 win over the Oilers.
Hakanpaa has a goal and an assist over the last two games, though that's an unusual burst of offense for the physical defenseman. He's at three points, 40 hits, 15 blocked shots, 19 PIM, 18 shots on net and a plus-4 rating in 12 contests overall. Hakanpaa may see top-four minutes, but he's not a factor on the power play and shouldn't be counted on for offense.
