Storytelling is a crucial part of human life. We use stories for education, politics, entertainment, and for many other aspects. However, the most important purpose of it all is to make us better people, and we do it by learning from the experiences of others. This is how we have been able to build this strong and powerful civilization that we live in today.
Nikki Clarke also came to such an understanding in the year 2008, when she understood the power of storytelling. With the power of words and stories at her hands, she established a platform where people from all walks of life share stories from their heart and achieve growth collectively.
An Adaptive Personality
Nikki was born in Jamaica and moved to Montreal, Quebec, Canada when she was only three years old. At a young age, this transition meant growing-up in a French-Canadian neighborhood and quickly adapting to the new culture and language. It was there Nikki grasped the power to be adaptive and flexible.
Her parents encouraged her from the age of five to take part in community-driven activities. Her active participation, including volunteering in school and church activities, further solidified Nikki’s passion for forming connections.
She excelled in school with such a forward-driven approach and remembers taking on leadership roles in early school life. “I excelled in school and my teachers would often put me in leadership roles like the class monitor. I remember as a Girl Guide I was a pack leader. My parents taught me that I had to work hard, be strong, and show excellence in everything I did,” recalls Nikki.
Advancing With Passion
Nikki’s passion for connections led her to set three milestones in three consecutive years.
In 2006, she established Bead 4 health, wherein she designed handcrafted organic jewelry for men and women. The year 2007 marked her joining the team of Ethnic Umbrella, Canada’s most diverse community newspaper as a columnist and public relations manager. Later, Nikki founded the internet tv/radio show AND THE BEAT GOES ON in 2008, and in the same year she started her Publicity/Public Relations Company, Nikki Clarke Inc. And four years later, The Nikki Clarke Show was launched.
Today, the show has become a platform for people of all walks of life to share what makes them human, consequently building relationships within the community.
The Nikki Clarke Show
With the show on the air, Nikki has been helping people heal from the power of storytelling. She has provided people with a platform where they can share their stories without any judgement. Consequently, when people share their true selves, they experience a cathartic release of their emotions. Here’s how Nikki explains it, “I dared my guests to remove their masks and to share from their authentic selves on a safe, non-judgemental platform. The storyteller gets healed by disclosing how they overcome their challenges and the audience gets healed in knowing that they were not in isolation if they were experiencing a similar challenge.”
This approach is further echoed in the tagline of the show ‘Transforming Lives, One Story at a Time.’ The Nikki Clarke Show which started as an online hobby for the dynamic leader, today stands tall with distribution on five cable TV channels in Canada and on Radio out of New York City.
Overcoming Challenges
Today, Nikki wears many hats in the production of her show to keep performing at the topmost level. She works with her team to book and coach guests for the interviews. She is also involved with writing and producing the show alongside overseeing the video production to ensure stellar and professional interviews. However, the same wasn’t true when she started the show.
The journey of her show has been of trials and triumph. The past five years were very challenging for Nikki and the team in building up the show and securing the funding to sustain it. Another thing that became very clear to Nikki in the entertainment business is that video production only accounts for 5% glamour, and the rest 95% accounts for hard work and sacrifice. She explains, “I am really happy I didn’t give up. I realized that there were so many destinies tied to me through the show.”
Nikki talks about not giving up on the show as she describes fear as the biggest roadblock of her life. Once she was able to overcome fear, she took on the challenges and risks to move out of her comfort zone. She saw a whole new world beyond her fears. And once the talk show started to gain momentum, she never looked back. She also learned from her mistakes, forgave herself, and kept moving forward.
And now in its 13th year, The Nikki Clarke Show is loved by the masses, it has won multiple awards, and is growing exponentially in terms of viewership and scale.
Nikki has tapped the potential in human emotions and storytelling to showcase the guests’ unique qualities with the right production. She elaborates, “I take the time to coach them and build up their confidence in front of the audience. I also work with my video team to ensure the production quality is excellent and the content is credible and captivating.”
Keeping up with ‘Connection’
The need for feeling a connection with the community, with the world, led Nikki to establish a global platform. And to this day, she hasn’t let go of her passion. She gets up early in the morning, says her prayers, steps out, goes to the office, and plans her day. She connects with people by responding to calls and emails and by creating creative content. After her business commitments, Nikki carves out time in the evening for herself, recharging through exercising, reading, listening to music, and spending time with her family and close friends.
A Bright Future
As Nikki loves to plan her days, she sets her intentions every day for success and joy in life. She looks forward to meeting new guests and transforming lives with truer, heartful life experiences.
For the future, Nikki hopes to record more shows in different cities around the world. While she has recorded her shows in Montreal, New York City, Toronto and Jamaica, she would love to add European cities, South America, Asia, and Africa to the list in the forthcoming years.
