10 Life Changing Principles I Learnt From My Mentor

00:00:00:16 - 00:00:20:41

Speaker 1

Hey Team! in this weekly reminder I want to talk to you about all the lessons I learnt working at my last job. And this one's a special one for me. I actually made myself and my bosses a book to remember all of these learnings that I gained over the years working with them. So I want to share those learnings with you guys today.

00:00:20:42 - 00:00:43:10

Speaker 1

I'm just going to go in any order, but the one that I really remember and that sticks out to me. It's called Swim with the Dolphins. This was actually like a business value that we all created together. We had to like really serious ones. And then this was like the one that we left right to the end. And we wanted to say we want to just have fun, but we didn't want to just say, Let's just have fun.

00:00:43:11 - 00:01:03:12

Speaker 1

So Mark and Dom told me a story about when they were overseas and they just said, You know what? We don't feel like working anymore. We've done enough today. We're going to go to the beach and have a swim. And it turned out on that swim that they got this beautiful viewing of these dolphins playing. And they said it was like a once in a lifetime experience.

00:01:03:12 - 00:01:29:02

Speaker 1

And if they stayed working, they would have missed that. They shared that story to inspire us to take that space away and to just have fun in our personal life, too. I think enjoying time when you're not at work is really important. To help you be more productive at work. So something that I personally take from that learning is to on my days off, to go and nourish my soul, my family and my friends.

00:01:29:02 - 00:01:49:46

Speaker 1

And I feel like I did that a lot when I was working full time hours. I really made the most of the time outside of my work hours to make sure I was doing things that really made me feel good. Second thing I learned from my boss is make your money work for you. This was something that I'm forever grateful that Mark shared with me.

00:01:50:05 - 00:02:11:00

Speaker 1

And he not only taught me about it, he showed me. He showed me how to invest money and make it work even while you're asleep. It's not as easy as you think. You can't just have a lot of money and then invest it into property. You have lots of choices of what property, where to buy. So you need to do the research yourself.

00:02:11:11 - 00:02:31:37

Speaker 1

And you can't just listen to what people are telling you. You need to dig in and be an expert in that area before you go and invest your hard earned money into that space. I also learned that it's important to invest in a variety of spaces, not just one. So things like land and crypto and stocks and businesses.

00:02:31:47 - 00:02:51:07

Speaker 1

There's so many different things you can invest in if you just invest in one. It's actually still very risky. So yeah, I'm very grateful for that, that learning. The next learning is follow the data. This one I still implement even to this day. I think it's so important just to follow the numbers, because the numbers are the truth.

00:02:51:07 - 00:03:22:02

Speaker 1

They're not emotional. They're not a guess. It is what it is. If the numbers say something that's what you have to face. It's a reality. It's really important when you have a business to review the numbers, your dashboard, all the moving parts of your business. It's important to review this regularly. If you own a business, it is your responsibility as the owner to make sure that you can steer the ship in the right direction and if you don't know where the numbers on the dashboard are pointing, then you're going to go to the wrong destination.

00:03:22:04 - 00:03:46:08

Speaker 1

Don't know what rule I'm up to, but the next rule is have exceptional standards. Now, this rule is not to be confused with perfectionism. This is just talking about setting the bar really high and not settling for anything less. When I was working for Mark, this was a little bit testing at times and frustrating too. You know, Mark would constantly give me a project back until it was exactly how he wanted it.

00:03:46:08 - 00:04:03:40

Speaker 1

And sometimes that took up to 12, 20 revisions. Taught me a lot about being patient, but it also taught me more about having a quality that you really want to achieve and not letting anyone get in the way of that.

00:04:03:42 - 00:04:32:06

Speaker 1

So what does having exceptional standards actually look like? It means executing and then refining, executing and then refining over and over and over again until it is exactly the way that you want it to be. Setting the bar high is something that not everyone is up for the challenge. Luckily, I was up for this challenge and I've taken a lot away with this lesson and I hope that I can bring into the work that I do here with TANDA so we can constantly deliver high quality work to you guys.

00:04:32:07 - 00:04:52:32

Speaker 1

The next thing I learned from my bosses is to do the work you love with the people you love. This one is really, really important to me because family is such a big part of my value system and I work with my best friend, my lover, and it's difficult at times. And they really you know, they really didn't hide from that.

00:04:52:32 - 00:05:11:36

Speaker 1

They showed all of the highs and lows of working with the person you love. The thing is, though, it is a challenge, but it's so worth it when you get to achieve something with the person that you love most. There is no feeling that comes close. And to see those two achieving their dreams together is really inspirational for me to watch.

00:05:12:00 - 00:05:37:31

Speaker 1

And I hope me and Alessia can get to that point. One day to something else I learned that was really valuable about working with family, friends, or your partner is working with each other's strengths, being able to communicate with each other in a work setting is different to how you communicate with each other, maybe in a personal setting, but both spaces deserve that respect and constant communication because at the end of the day, you're both working towards the same thing.

00:05:37:49 - 00:06:03:04

Speaker 1

So you need to talk it out. You need to get over your differences and you need to work together as a team. The main things to remember here is at the end of the day, the friendship or family relationship or partnership should always take priority. And if you feel like that relation ship is starting to fade, then you should probably break away from the business relationship because at the end of the day, it's not worth losing that person in your life.

00:06:03:18 - 00:06:25:07

Speaker 1

For business or success. The next thing I learned is “new level, new devil”. This is something that pops up every time I start feeling good, start feeling comfortable, Things are flowing. I know what I'm doing not long after. I have to challenge myself to get to another level, and therefore I have to face a new devil. The devil is just a metaphor for a new challenge.

00:06:25:20 - 00:06:47:27

Speaker 1

Every time we level up, there's going to be a new challenge. So get comfortable when times are good. And when you're stepping up for that new challenge, you're going to be ready for it to get to that next stage that you're looking for. The challenge really never ends. Another thing I'm really grateful to have learned is, yes, mastering your business is cool, but mastering your mind and body is actually really, really cool.

00:06:47:41 - 00:07:14:11

Speaker 1

And my boss was really great at doing this. He spent a lot of time learning about his mind, his body, soul, and exploring different ways that made him feel good. So he taught me a lot about meditation, float tanks. He actually introduced me to float tanks and does a lot of reading on just new ways to help with digestion and energy and just crazy stuff that it's our everyday life.

00:07:14:20 - 00:07:39:49

Speaker 1

But most humans just go through life just being robotic. He was really dedicated to optimizing his life and making sure that he felt good day to day. Something that I learned just by watching him is that prioritizing health, energy and wellbeing is essential to anyone who wants to live a full life. My key takeaway from this one is to always be curious and to always explore what feels right and what doesn't.

00:07:40:11 - 00:08:03:48

Speaker 1

Sometimes things can work for other people and they don't work for yourself, so just constantly try things out and then see what works for you. Next thing I learned from both of my bosses is that leaders listen. Creating a safe place for your team is so important to encouraging innovation within a business, but not just innovation. It also encourages a space and nourishes a space for fulfillment, purpose and progress.

00:08:03:49 - 00:08:23:35

Speaker 1

I really admire this about my bosses, but they were always open to listening to ideas from not just me but everyone in the business. And sometimes they had a lot more knowledge- not sometimes, a lot of the time they had a lot more knowledge on a topic than us, but they still came in with an open mind and wanted to hear our opinions on things.

00:08:23:36 - 00:08:45:30

Speaker 1

That can be really difficult when you're an expert in something to listen to someone who has no real idea what they're talking about can be difficult. But that's something that my bosses did really well, and I think they were able to take what benefited the business from our opinions and then leave behind those things that weren't really backed with much knowledge or expertise.

00:08:46:05 - 00:09:06:02

Speaker 1

And they knew how to pick and choose what information was right. It really made me feel heard and valued when I worked there. I always knew that I could talk to my bosses about anything, whether it's personal or business, and they would listen to me and they would take me seriously. So I really hope to bring that value into TeamTANDA.

00:09:06:02 - 00:09:33:07

Speaker 1

This same learning taught me a lot about feedback. I personally had a lot of feedback given to me and had to give feedback when working with Mark and Dom, and it was always challenging because I had so much love for these people. I never wanted to say that they could be doing better in something, but it wasn't until my bosses told me how important it is to their growth and to the businesses growth that we all have an honest conversation about where we can improve.

00:09:33:10 - 00:09:53:14

Speaker 1

Since then, I always have valued feedback. I think the way it's delivered is really important, but more so the person who's receiving the feedback needs to remember that this isn't a personal attack. It's literally to help the business or help you grow as a person. And now this is one of the ways that I communicate with everyone in my team.

00:09:53:15 - 00:10:26:09

Speaker 1

Like I said, it can be difficult at times, but these two made taking feedback look really easy and I really admire them for that. Ooh I like this one. The next thing I learned is speak to the lion, not the sheep. This one came very early in my career with Mark. I was working as a personal assistant with him and a lot of the time I had to get on the phone to companies and there were issues like, for example, he was charged too much for something or he wanted to upgrade his membership or downgrade his membership on something.

00:10:27:00 - 00:10:48:48

Speaker 1

And a lot of the time the people you get on the phone to, when you first get to that customer service line, it's people that can't solve your problem or they don't have the authority to be able to execute things and get them done while you're on the phone. Mark used to teach me that you need to always speak to the person, the lion, who can make things happen right now.

00:10:48:48 - 00:11:07:31

Speaker 1

I learned this the hard way. I feel like I spent many, many hours on the phone to people telling me that, “Oh, that can't be done”. “Sorry, we can't refund you”. “I can't do that”. “That's not possible”. And then as soon as I handed the phone over to Mark, put us on to different people and suddenly they were able to do all these things.

00:11:07:32 - 00:11:28:34

Speaker 1

After I've watched this play out so many times, I realized that my people pleasing tendencies were actually getting in the way of getting things done, being firm when it was the right time did not mean being rude. It was just a way to get things done. I actually made another weekly reminder on this topic, so I'll put it in the related posts.

00:11:28:34 - 00:11:49:17

Speaker 1

But sometimes you’ve got to step into your masculine energy to get things done. The main thing I learned from this is to never take no for an answer. And I'm so grateful that I learned this so early working with Mark because I've used it in my life countless times since. I love this rule. I'll show you the photo for this one, but this one is called Turn Your Vision Board into Reality.

00:11:49:17 - 00:12:09:24

Speaker 1

It always starts with the dream. That photo right there is a real shot of Mark on vacation. And it looks like a picture that you would have on your vision board. I remember the first year I started working with Mark. The first thing we did to get to know each other was do vision boards together. And he wanted to see like, What am I working towards?

00:12:09:36 - 00:12:28:08

Speaker 1

And he wanted me to see what else he's working towards. Because a human is more than just their work. They are more than just the 40 hours a week that they go to their job. So I was very grateful that he took the time to learn about the things that I was working towards, and he actually helped me get to those places too.

00:12:28:13 - 00:12:53:45

Speaker 1

We both had ambitious things on our dream board, but seeing him and his partner Dom tick off a lot of those things was really inspiring for me. And I've got my dream board right behind me and I already know I'm going to tick off all of those things because I just have that genuine belief in myself and thanks to being supported by people who believe in me too, I feel like they've got my back and they don't look at my dream board and laugh.

00:12:54:03 - 00:13:13:20

Speaker 1

They look at the dream board and say, “I know you're going to do it”. Something else I learned through this is that people are going to doubt you along the way to achieving your dreams, but you can really achieve anything you put your mind to. You just have to enjoy the process because the destination is fun, but the process is actually where you spend most of your time.

00:13:13:34 - 00:13:30:25

Speaker 1

And that was something that took me a little while to learn, but I'm glad that I finally got there because now every day feels good. I'm not just waiting for that time that I get the keys to my Tesla. I love working towards it, and that was something that only came probably, I would say a year ago now.

00:13:30:25 - 00:13:52:32

Speaker 1

So if you're feeling like, you know, that's the right thing, but you don't feel it within you, don't worry, you'll get there. And that's it! I know this is a long one, but this was a really valuable one for me, and I actually wanted to keep record of this somewhere, not just in the book, but in a video too, because all of these lessons I learned can be applied to any business or any situation in life.

00:13:52:46 - 00:14:07:22

Speaker 1

To just make things easier. I hope that you guys got a lot from this weekly reminder. I'd love if you could comment below the point or the rule or the learning that you got the most out of and we can talk about it more in the comments. Thanks Team! Bye!