Jess Suter 2013-05-25T17:07:30-04:00 Jess Suter http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=jess-suter Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Jess Suter Good old fashioned elbow grease. The Result Is Positive tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.3200320 2013-05-02T09:08:09-04:00 2013-05-03T10:46:58-04:00 Jess Suter http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jess-suter/
...A week later I find myself collapsed on the bathroom floor. Thinking that I need to get a hold of myself but the sickness gets the better of me and I vomit stomach blood into the toilet basin. I can feel my throat burn and the taste of rust in my mouth as I continue to vomit anything that is remaining in my body. I have no energy and I know I need to get up and try to go on, but I can't. I try to lift myself up by grabbing hold of the toilet and the sink, but my feet keep buckling.

It is my partner's birthday. I manage to get myself out of bed. I want to show him the presents I ordered him online that I was never able to wrap. I struggle through the hallway leading from the bedroom to the living room. The smell of paint stings my nostrils and I find myself detouring to the bathroom again. I made it just in time. The ginger biscuits, crackers and water containing a dehydration pack came straight up. My head feels light and dizzy but I keep going determined to feel "well" for his birthday. After all we have two reasons to celebrate.

I lay on the sofa in my most nausea-free position, but even that was too much today. I text my mum to ask if I could get a lift to hers as I knew he wouldn't celebrate his birthday tonight if he knew I was feeling this sick.

She sees me and I can see shock in her eyes. She hasn't seen me for a week. She asked me about what the Doctor said. They told me this was normal, that most women experience this. The fact the second lot of pills weren't working was a bad sign. So without further questions we went straight to the hospital.

Within 15 minutes I was tested and put straight on IV fluids. I had a scan and everything was OK with her. It was me. I was in danger.

I was 6 weeks pregnant, 1 ½ stone lighter within a week, vomiting blood, and severely dehydrated and malnourished. I had Hyperemesis Gravidarum. I was told my hormone levels were that of a multiple pregnancy. My baby was fine then, but the journey had only just begun.

During my pregnancy I was put on a project that specialises in my condition. I was frequently monitored to make sure my little girl was OK and was given Cyclizine. It didn't stop me from vomiting, but it did take the edge off my nausea. Through the months I battled with the illness and tried to work from home, but in the end it just got too much. My bucket was my friend. I wasn't able to have any human contact. No hug. No hand holding. Not even capable of a conversation without it making me vomit.

But I managed to get waves of relief. Whenever I had my 5 days in hospital on the drip I would feel fantastic, but as soon as I was drip-free I would be bedridden again after a day. Luckily during my pregnancy I had a whole 6 weeks where I had the strength to walk and go about daily life, but things went downhill again and rather rapidly.

This is all behind me now. I have a beautiful baby girl who is almost 3 months old and I have forgotten what it felt like to be so ill. I can walk, eat, laugh, hug and best of all enjoy the greatest gift I have ever received my wonderful daughter.

If you or someone you know has/is experiencing Hyperemesis Gravidarum please visit www.helpher.org they have some great survival strategies.]]> Why We Should Have Good News For You tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1477553 2012-05-10T00:00:01-04:00 2012-07-09T05:12:04-04:00 Jess Suter http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jess-suter/
It is estimated that approximately 450 million people worldwide have a mental health problem. When separating causes and volumes into groups, I decided to pick one, one that many people will relate to... the influence of the media, the current battles with advertising, airbrushing and common thoughts of "doom and gloom."

They always say that people come into your life for a reason, and things happen for a reason. Did I start my own agency to help promote people for money... no. I started it to help promote people who can help other people. Many of which help tackle the mighty daemon of negativity, they help fight depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, low self-worth, and promote compassion, self-compassion, confidence and abundance. One lady in particular that I am proud to be friends with is Paula McCormack, from The Adaptive Academy, she knows a lot about the effects of the media and has kindly agreed to share her knowledge with you. Here is what she had to say about the subject:

It is said that we are exposed to over 3500 adverts a day through radio, television, newspapers and streaming through our laptops, notebooks and smart phones we absorb 25,000 negative messages per day. We trust our media to tell us what we need to know in order to inform us of what is happening in the world, so we can make decisions about our own daily lives. In Britain More than 39 million prescriptions for anti-depressants were written in 2009 and we wonder why! With the bombardment of media and information overload our brains just can't handle the levels of negativity or the complexity of possessing so much information.

Our self-conscious mind is the seat of our cognitive thinking, personal identity and free will. As such we have to use filters to take in information as we cannot be consciously aware of all the senses in any given moment and its reaction to the environment it finds itself in with all the information that is coming at us.

Therefore it is up to our unconscious which is determining our lives 95 percent of the time. And what this means is that our destiny is in the control of all the recorded programmes that have been derived from instincts and the perceptions acquired in our life experiences. In other words, for the most part we are operating from the basis of everything that we have learned along the journey of life, everything that has subliminally been embedded, unprocessed by the self-conscious, which is why we act sometimes out of what we perceive to be our character, or hear something coming out of our mouth that we didn't know we knew!

Like it or not, all 25,000 negative messages are getting through and unconsciously impacting our decisions, our choices, our lives and our general way of being.

Our media teaches us immensely. Every day we are exposed to massive amounts of media, branding, and illusions of what can make us happy. We buy more and more in the vain hope it will provide happiness, health, stress relief, the answer to our prayers. It will make us look younger, better looking, slimmer, trendier, more intelligent. It will win us friends, that promotion, that holiday that promises to fulfil our fantasy. We don't buy a product or service, we buy the promise of what it will give us. Today we look for the overnight solution, the quick wins or a quick fix.

The media influences our lives immeasurably. Every morning we can put the news on and hear of all the hell that's happening, the doom and gloom of another recession, another cutback, more jobs lost, more people killed. Every night before we go to bed we hear more bad news. It's inevitable that whatever is happening will eventually effect us so we passively wait for it to hit or we take some actions to protect what we have worked so hard for.

We are an effect of our media so choosing what we watch and listen to, or observe on our travels may be a good place to start.


The impact of bad news is certainly something we should all consider, and bringing out the good news is something we must work towards. I hope to see that more news outlets will bring in a good news section like The HuffPost. Until next time, goodbye.]]> Ethics in a Modern World tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1265418 2012-02-09T10:40:58-05:00 2012-04-10T05:12:01-04:00 Jess Suter http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jess-suter/
Being a woman of ethics I am intrigued to find out more about the real state of UK businesses. What is the public's outlook on business ethics, what are business' outlook on ethics and what could they do to make a positive change?

Ethical has many different meanings to many different people. In this case I am talking about treating potential and existing clients as individual members of the public that could use different brands products/services to create a positive effect in their lives.

During my investigations I came across some very eye-opening and interesting statistics released last year. According to recent figures from 'Trajectory' and '23red' based on a survey of 1,000 people across the UK, 74% of those questioned want to know more about the ethical behaviour of a company before buying.

I also discovered that The Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) reported in 2011 that 92% of FTSE 100 companies provide no metrics on ethics in their annual report.

So what does this mean? To me, it is clear that companies should be taking a closer look at their overall ethics and how this affects their relationships with clients.

The How...

We are in the social media age where people are transforming into social consumers. They talk, discuss, recommend and complain about brands throughout social media platforms to one another. Each new comment creates its own unique domino effect that can increase or decrease a brands image before you can even say "Brand Reputation!" It's a similar story offline too. The average consumer mentions specific brands over 90 times per week in conversations with friends, family, and co-workers. (Keller Fay, WOMMA, 2010)

Businesses should be taking these statistics seriously and need to ask themselves the following:

  • Who IS my customer NOW?

  • What do they desire today?

  • How is my company reflected in the public eye?

  • What ethics can we improve on?

  • What could be lacking in our strategies?

  • How could we interact with our customers to let them know that we appreciate their loyalty to our brand?


I always say that in business, development should not be seen as a 'numbers game', but more as a 'people game'. It is people that businesses desire to reach, so why waste time and money on extravagances when all people need at the bottom line is to be appreciated and receive a good service, human to human. Forming relationships is the most important thing in business and in order to bond you must take that bit of time to talk, identify, and communicate with your people.

Perhaps most importantly, businesses need to remember that the public will eventually see through spin, 'greenwashing' and the like. If the change is not for genuine reasons, it will do the business more harm than good, and rightly so.
]]> Could the Closure of Wikileaks Spark a Revolution in Journalism? tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1034444 2011-10-27T19:00:00-04:00 2011-12-27T05:12:02-05:00 Jess Suter http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jess-suter/
During my career as a PR I have spoken to hundreds of journalists, and I have the utmost respect for them. Unfortunately the idea that 'bad news', ie death, scandal and terror, sells papers is still rife, much to the despair of many of these journalists, a lot of whom have had to allow editorial policy to override their morals and principles through fear of losing their jobs.
If the financial blockades are not lifted and Wikileaks really is forced to close, it would undeniably be a huge blow to free speech, whatever you think of the organisation or Julian Assange personally.

This brings me to my question. Could the closure of Wikileaks spark a revolution in journalism?
For this I would like to refer back to an interview I saw courtesy of TED which was filmed in July 2010. When Chris Anderson asked Julian Assange, "Wikileaks in the last few years has released more classified documents than the rest of the world's media combined, can that possibly be true?" Assange answered back with, "Yeah can it possibly be true - it is a worry isn't it, that the rest of the world's media is doing such a bad job that a little group of activists are able to release more of that type of information than the rest of the world press combined?"

Now as a person in the media I would like to say that Assange's statement was a little on the strong side and slightly harsh, considering I have met over the years a lot of absolutely wonderful journalists, with good hearts, but his main point is true.

It is clear that influence from the government and large corporations can get in the way somewhat when the truth is concerned. At the end of the day, journalists working for any organisation are severely limited in what they can write, bound by their employers' ideals as well the quality of information supplied to them.

This is where a little revolution can take place. With more and more journalists becoming freelance, and with it being easier to create publications like online magazines, newspapers and blogs, there has never been a better time for a change. Journalists now have the ability to escape the restrictions of corporate media and really connect with the public.

So could the closure of Wikileaks end up generating a new type of journalist? One that has the freedom to release the other half of the story, one that has the freedom to speak the whole truth and nothing but the truth? I certainly hope so, and believe that we are seeing it already. Slowly but surely more journalists are getting the courage to speak their mind and report on the things that matter to them and the public.

I will be fully behind them, and I bet the public will too.]]>