Latest / Masterminds Podcast / Four Kids. Two Companies. One Unstoppable Woman: Mary Anane Awuku | Masterminds Podcast EP58

Transcript

Four Kids. Two Companies. One Unstoppable Woman: Mary Anane Awuku | Masterminds Podcast EP58 · Masterminds Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_02: You're just turning 40.
0:01
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
0:02
SPEAKER_02: And you've been running your business for 15 years.
0:05
SPEAKER_01: Who are you when nobody is watching you?
0:08
SPEAKER_02: So, what was growing up like a young man?
0:12
SPEAKER_01: I think when you're passionate about something, regardless of the pain, you would endure it and make sure you achieve what you really set your mind to achieve.
0:21
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
0:21
SPEAKER_01: And it comes from within.
0:23
SPEAKER_03: Wow.
0:23
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot you can do if you learn to build systems.
0:27
SPEAKER_01: Whilst in the bank and running my business, my business was struggling.
0:31
SPEAKER_01: So I had to make that sacrifice to leave the salary or the comfortable space.
0:36
SPEAKER_01: To have some, apart from what I studied working with my mother from age nine on the street selling, Zenet Bank also shaped me.
0:45
SPEAKER_01: What kind of things were you selling?
0:46
SPEAKER_01: Everything you can think of because the capital was in much.
0:51
SPEAKER_02: Before we jump into the conversation, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for supporting and deciding to watch this episode.
1:00
SPEAKER_02: But now I have a favor: subscribe to the channel.
1:03
SPEAKER_02: Subscribing to the channel helps me and the entire masterminds team to continue bringing you wonderful conversations and episodes that bring you closer to being the mastermind you deserve to be.
1:15
SPEAKER_02: So join the community.
1:25
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Masterminds podcast.
1:28
SPEAKER_02: As always, your awesome guide on this amazing journey to sharpening your most powerful tool, your mind.
1:35
SPEAKER_02: You know, over here, we like to talk to people who have been able to use their abilities, especially the one up here, to create an amazing life for them.
1:44
SPEAKER_02: And hopefully their stories can help transform your life into what you've been dreaming about.
1:50
SPEAKER_02: Today I'm talking to a superwoman.
1:52
SPEAKER_02: You know, just from the conversation we're having right now, from what she's achieved like in her businesses, to what she's achieving in her personal life, to how she looks so amazing at this age, this young age.
2:06
SPEAKER_02: Four children.
2:08
SPEAKER_02: How?
2:08
SPEAKER_02: Four children, and you look like this, and you've been running two businesses for over 15 years.
2:14
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
2:15
SPEAKER_02: Please help me welcome Mary Awku.
2:19
SPEAKER_02: How are you doing?
2:20
SPEAKER_03: I'm well, doing very well.
2:22
SPEAKER_02: You know, your profile was impressive before meeting you.
2:25
SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
2:25
SPEAKER_02: But meeting you and talking to you, I'm even more impressed.
2:29
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
2:29
SPEAKER_02: Before I even dive into my questions, now I want to know how are you juggling all this at the same time?
2:34
SPEAKER_01: I think when you're passionate about something, regardless of the pain, you would endure it and make sure you achieve what you really set your mind to achieve.
2:42
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
2:43
SPEAKER_01: And it comes from within.
2:45
SPEAKER_01: I always say that you don't wait for somebody to tell you what to do if you really know what you're about.
2:49
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
2:50
SPEAKER_01: So that has been my drive.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: I know what I want to have, what I want to achieve.
2:54
SPEAKER_01: I set my mind to it, and I keep going.
2:57
SPEAKER_02: Congratulations, you're doing an amazing job.
2:59
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
3:00
SPEAKER_02: Okay, let's get into it.
3:01
SPEAKER_02: I always like to start by trying to understand the kind of mindset you had as a kid, what happened to you when you were growing up to help you develop the mindset to make you succeed the way that you have.
3:14
SPEAKER_02: So, what was growing up like for Mary, for young Mary?
3:18
SPEAKER_01: Not too um comfortable, but I've grown to understand that behind the uncomfortable situation is where the success lies.
3:28
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
3:29
SPEAKER_01: You know, if you want to be comfortable, you will not really achieve much.
3:33
SPEAKER_01: But the pain, you know, growing in a house where the father was basically the main breadwinner.
3:39
SPEAKER_01: And so all the children had to devise strategies to support him, including my uneducated mother, who was selling.
3:48
SPEAKER_01: So the small, small selling after school in the neighborhood was what actually built that entrepreneurial skills that I'm using today.
3:57
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
3:58
SPEAKER_01: So life wasn't comfortable, but now what kind of things were you selling?
4:02
SPEAKER_01: Everything you can think of because the capital wasn't much.
4:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
4:06
SPEAKER_01: So small money that is given my mother to sort of cater for the house.
4:11
SPEAKER_01: And what I saw in her was how she could multiply anything you give her, funds.
4:17
SPEAKER_01: So if you're giving her a hundred CDs, she has to be able to create 200 CDs out of it.
4:23
SPEAKER_01: And so she would buy cassava, it could be plantain, it could be fruits.
4:27
SPEAKER_01: So I'll go to Agwig Blueshi actually and go and buy fruits, low cost, and come and sell them and multiply that fund.
4:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
4:35
SPEAKER_01: And that is how bit by bit we all learned how to trade.
4:40
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
4:40
SPEAKER_02: So that's how come we started very young because very young.
4:43
SPEAKER_02: You mentioned you're you're just turning 40.
4:45
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
4:46
SPEAKER_02: And you've been running your business for 15 years.
4:49
SPEAKER_02: Let's talk before you started running your business.
4:52
SPEAKER_01: You mentioned you worked at Zenith Bank.
4:53
SPEAKER_01: I worked at Zenith Bank.
4:55
SPEAKER_01: What was that like?
4:56
SPEAKER_01: I was at a customer service unit where we're trained how to relate with people, how to create a very pleasant environment for customers.
5:05
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
5:05
SPEAKER_01: You know, to work with speed because you're when you're working with the Nigerians, no excuses.
5:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
5:10
SPEAKER_01: You move with speed, you have to be able to meet your targets and all that.
5:14
SPEAKER_01: So, apart from what I studied working with my mother from age nine on the street selling, Zenith Bank also shaped me.
5:24
SPEAKER_01: And I think that wherever we find ourselves, whoever we are working for, whatever organization, we need to tap into it.
5:31
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot we learn around us every day.
5:34
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
5:34
SPEAKER_01: If you put your mind to it, you see that somebody or something is teaching you a lesson that you can live with for the rest of your life.
5:42
SPEAKER_01: It can either have a positive impact on you or a negative impact.
5:45
SPEAKER_01: So we should be selective who we want to roll with, where we want to find ourselves, because it leaves a lasting impression and impact on you.
5:54
SPEAKER_02: Very, very nice.
6:02
SPEAKER_02: Very relaxing.
6:03
SPEAKER_02: How are you able to switch from that to starting your own business?
6:07
SPEAKER_01: It's finding your purpose.
6:10
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
6:10
SPEAKER_01: And for me, I think I got very comfortable with working in the bank and I haven't really liked comfort.
6:19
SPEAKER_01: It's quite weird, but any space where I realize it's becoming too normal or too comfortable, I try to create something more difficult for myself.
6:31
SPEAKER_02: You look for a problem for myself.
6:32
SPEAKER_01: I look for problems for myself.
6:34
SPEAKER_01: And uh looking at how I grew up, where, as I said, nine years you're on the streets at that young age, and you would go out, you sell, you have to clear whatever you have on your tree before you come back.
6:47
SPEAKER_01: So that was very challenging.
6:48
SPEAKER_01: You know, doing my undergrad, no funds coming from home, you have to figure yourself out.
6:54
SPEAKER_01: I paid my fees for four years.
6:57
SPEAKER_01: That is difficult.
6:58
SPEAKER_01: So when you go and sit in an office where you open accounts, you're dealing with customers, you get salary, it got boring after a while.
7:06
SPEAKER_01: And then I challenged myself again to start something for myself.
7:10
SPEAKER_01: And the cleaning idea came because I love to work.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: I did a lot of house jobs.
7:15
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so I don't know whether that is where the best of the cleaning idea came from.
7:20
SPEAKER_01: But I started with that, and now we have multiple businesses out of that passion to do something.
7:26
SPEAKER_01: You have multiple businesses, created several jobs, and so how did you start?
7:32
SPEAKER_02: Did you start as like a side hustle while you were working, or did you just go straight and say, I'm doing this and stuff?
7:39
SPEAKER_01: Other side hustles while in the bank.
7:42
SPEAKER_01: I started a co-store business at Miles.
7:44
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I had a career business as well.
7:46
SPEAKER_05: Nice.
7:47
SPEAKER_01: But one thing I I learned is combining working full-time for someone with your own idea, it's there's always a conflict.
7:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you can't do both right, yeah.
8:00
SPEAKER_01: One will suffer.
8:01
SPEAKER_02: Gets to a point you have to choose.
8:02
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
8:03
SPEAKER_01: So I had to choose because while I was in the bank and running my business, my business was struggling.
8:09
SPEAKER_01: So I had to make that sacrifice to leave the salary or the comfortable space to hustle.
8:15
SPEAKER_01: And here we are today.
8:16
SPEAKER_01: It's paid off.
8:17
SPEAKER_01: I've never regretted that decision to start my own thing.
8:20
SPEAKER_01: And even though it was challenging from the beginning, because nothing good will come easy at all.
8:25
SPEAKER_01: Today it's paid off, and I haven't regretted that.
8:27
SPEAKER_02: I like that you're saying that.
8:28
SPEAKER_02: So many people think that good things just happen.
8:30
SPEAKER_02: You know, someone is watching you and looking at you being successful and thinking, oh yeah, it was luck, you know.
8:36
SPEAKER_02: Anybody can do that.
8:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
8:38
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so you went from the cleaning company and seven years later, yeah, brain hill.
8:45
SPEAKER_01: Brain Hill.
8:46
SPEAKER_02: How did that come about?
8:48
SPEAKER_01: Brain Hill was an idea that I wrote down during my MBA program.
8:53
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
8:53
SPEAKER_01: Um, somewhere in 2011.
8:56
SPEAKER_01: And I started the school 2018.
8:58
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
8:59
SPEAKER_01: So it took about seven years for me to bring into practice an academic project work.
9:05
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
9:06
SPEAKER_01: So I was to come up with an idea that uh would support people.
9:11
SPEAKER_01: So I looked into education, and at that time there wasn't any school that was running the kind of idea that I came up with while I was in school, and this was a school that is purposely for working class.
9:25
SPEAKER_01: So, of course, a school is supposed to provide educational benefit to children, develop them.
9:32
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I was looking at schools that would look at working hours of parents.
9:39
SPEAKER_01: And most schools would start around 7 a.m.
9:42
SPEAKER_01: And most of them still do, even today.
9:45
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
9:45
SPEAKER_01: And would close around 3 p.m.
9:47
SPEAKER_01: And you would have to pick up your child by four, latest by five.
9:51
SPEAKER_01: But if you are closing from work as a parent at 5, who would pick up your child for you?
9:57
SPEAKER_01: So I came up with a system that would work from 6 a.m.
10:01
SPEAKER_01: Because people are rushing out of their residential areas into their work spaces, and because of traffic, yeah, they would need a school that would take their children early.
10:11
SPEAKER_01: So that's what gave birth to Brain Hill, which is gave birth to 6 a.m.
10:16
SPEAKER_01: to 8 p.m.
10:17
SPEAKER_01: and still is the school.
10:18
SPEAKER_01: Wow, 6 a.m.
10:19
SPEAKER_01: 6 a.m.
10:20
SPEAKER_01: to 8 p.m.
10:20
SPEAKER_01: You're not joking when you say you look for trouble for your so the spaces that are uncomfortable because you know, handling these kids for that long hours is full of risk.
10:31
SPEAKER_02: How do you manage that?
10:32
SPEAKER_02: Do you have like a double shift system?
10:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that is uh the uniqueness and the and the hidden strategy to how we do our things.
10:41
SPEAKER_01: Okay, but staff are very comfortable.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: We ensure that nobody works beyond the eight hours, okay.
10:47
SPEAKER_01: And even if you do, we have a way of taking care of you such that you don't even feel the pain.
10:53
SPEAKER_01: And it has worked for us for the past eight years.
10:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:56
SPEAKER_02: That's really good.
10:57
SPEAKER_02: You know, I I feel sometimes a lot of business owners don't think about the needs of their customers.
11:04
SPEAKER_02: So the fact that you actually looked at when parents leave to when they are returning home is very admirable.
11:10
SPEAKER_02: I always wondered because you have a regular job.
11:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, your boss's not going to allow you to leave the house at the workplace at three to go pick up your child.
11:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
11:19
SPEAKER_01: So that's that's the competitive advantage that's any business you're running.
11:24
SPEAKER_01: If you're doing exactly what everybody does, yeah, how would a customer identify you and choose you?
11:30
SPEAKER_01: What's unique about something should be unique about your service, yeah, and that is what will bring the attraction.
11:35
SPEAKER_02: You studied both psychology and then organizational psychology.
11:39
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
11:39
SPEAKER_02: Didn't the combination of those two has shaped the way you came up with these business ideas?
11:45
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
11:45
SPEAKER_01: So I have an MBA in entrepreneurial management, okay, and then I have an MFO in industrial psychology.
11:51
SPEAKER_01: Nice.
11:51
SPEAKER_01: So it's like understanding the science behind business, basically.
11:54
SPEAKER_01: So you're not just going into business to do what everybody does, yeah, but you're understanding how people think, how people behave.
12:02
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
12:02
SPEAKER_01: So from your customers to your employees to whoever is a stakeholder in the business you're doing, you need to look beyond the surface to be able to decode certain things to help you to build certain strategies around them, you know.
12:17
SPEAKER_01: So it's you are you are ahead of them in your thinking, and that's the industrial psychology bit of what I studied.
12:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:24
SPEAKER_02: I noticed one thing when you were talking, you kept mentioning a word I really like purpose.
12:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:29
SPEAKER_02: Purpose.
12:30
SPEAKER_02: How much do you believe in purpose?
12:33
SPEAKER_01: It's everything that defines you, everything that would direct you on what path to take.
12:40
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
12:41
SPEAKER_01: So what people might not really do, which is very bad, is sit down and reflect on yourself, even when it comes to your self-development.
12:51
SPEAKER_01: Who are you and how far do you want to go?
12:53
SPEAKER_01: Where do you want to go?
12:55
SPEAKER_01: When it comes to your business, what is the purpose of your business?
12:59
SPEAKER_01: As I talked about, what makes you unique as a business?
13:03
SPEAKER_01: So purpose is very key.
13:06
SPEAKER_02: So is that what led you to start motivational speaking and the like?
13:10
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I felt with all that I had experienced, you know, we we mostly would think about what we would gain, what you're taking from the world.
13:23
SPEAKER_01: Whether material or how you feel, is always what we take.
13:29
SPEAKER_01: But it should get to a time in your life where you'd also give back to people.
13:34
SPEAKER_01: And I feel that I have reached that stage in life where all the experiences that I have gathered over the years, from family, from religious uh places I have been, because I'm very religious.
13:48
SPEAKER_01: And from the work that I do, right, from working with the bank and doing my own thing, we gather so much that we need to begin to give back to society.
14:00
SPEAKER_01: And that's for me, I feel is my main purpose.
14:03
SPEAKER_01: And so when I look back, and like I said, it wasn't easy, but now I have come to appreciate it because it is serving a purpose in the lives of those who are struggling today.
14:15
SPEAKER_01: And so I have different things I do to support the youth, to support people in business, to support women.
14:23
SPEAKER_01: And I feel there's a lot of satisfaction in doing that.
14:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
14:27
SPEAKER_01: You know, giving somebody hope for where they are in the future that they can also acquire for themselves.
14:34
SPEAKER_02: One of the most difficult things to do in financial planning is saving and investing towards a big goal.
14:40
SPEAKER_02: Now, let me tell you my secret that I used to overcome this challenge.
14:43
SPEAKER_02: I started to do small top-ups consistently on Achieve by Petra to save and invest towards my bigger financial goal.
14:53
SPEAKER_02: For instance, when I decided to come and shoot masterminds in South Africa, I decided to top up daily, weekly, anything that I could until I raised enough to afford my tickets, my hotel, everything to bring this podcast to you from South Africa.
15:10
SPEAKER_02: So if you're like me and you want to overcome this challenge of saving and investing towards a big goal, use Achieve by Petra.
15:18
SPEAKER_02: The link is in the description.
15:20
SPEAKER_02: The fact that you are impacting somebody's life.
15:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
15:23
SPEAKER_02: You know, I always say every time I'm out there and somebody tells me how a particular episode or story I shared or a story I guess shared has changed their lives, it makes me feel I'm contributing to mankind.
15:37
SPEAKER_02: Okay, but I read that Facility Pro is now a multinational.
15:41
SPEAKER_02: Please talk to me about that.
15:43
SPEAKER_02: Most people aren't able to take their business even out of their neighborhood.
15:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
15:48
SPEAKER_02: How have you been able to do that?
15:50
SPEAKER_01: It's all about the uncomfortable situations I find myself in all the time.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: Looking for problems.
15:55
SPEAKER_01: Looking for problems.
15:58
SPEAKER_01: So Facility Pro, after about 10 years of being in Ghana, decided to uh move to Togo.
16:08
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
16:08
SPEAKER_01: As the closest country to Ghana.
16:13
SPEAKER_01: And I did a market survey of that space to understand how they do their cleaning, fumigation, landscaping, and that is what we do best in in Ghana.
16:26
SPEAKER_01: So going there, I noticed that they had some challenges.
16:29
SPEAKER_01: Um the market is not as big as Ghana because a country of about 8 million uh population.
16:36
SPEAKER_01: So I went in there to start it.
16:39
SPEAKER_01: And even though there is a language barrier, for me it's exciting when I see a problem.
16:44
SPEAKER_02: I was going to ask how you overcame that language barrier.
16:48
SPEAKER_01: So I do speak a bit of French.
16:49
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
16:50
SPEAKER_01: I did French in senior high school, and I did a lot of self-learning, and I still do.
16:57
SPEAKER_02: Speak some French, speak some French, shock my people.
17:00
SPEAKER_02: The only French I remember is the usual commercial.
17:05
SPEAKER_01: So uh Venice.
17:14
SPEAKER_02: Let me pretend I understood everything she just said.
17:17
SPEAKER_02: I had a little boo boo boo boo boo boo boo boo.
17:20
SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
17:21
SPEAKER_02: Okay, and then with brain hill too, but then it's been what eight years of operations, and now you have three campuses, about to do a fourth one.
17:30
SPEAKER_02: Wow, wow, you really are a superwoman.
17:34
SPEAKER_02: Like I am super impressed, you know.
17:37
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
17:38
SPEAKER_02: Running multiple companies, multiple branches of your companies, and then still managing for how old are your four kids?
17:46
SPEAKER_01: The first is 11.
17:48
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and the last is three.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: So 11, 9, 7, 3.
17:52
SPEAKER_02: Wow, that's a lot of trouble.
17:54
SPEAKER_01: So you are looking for trouble.
17:55
SPEAKER_01: I want trouble.
17:56
SPEAKER_02: Now you have plenty.
17:58
SPEAKER_02: Does that motivate you?
18:00
SPEAKER_02: Do you do you feel that um overcoming challenges keeps driving you?
18:05
SPEAKER_01: It excites me, it makes me feel alive.
18:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I like that adrenaline rush when you have to do something, and you panic naturally.
18:14
SPEAKER_01: The body would give you some panic, but going beyond that, the excitement behind the panic moments is very, very nice.
18:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I wish people would try it all the time.
18:26
SPEAKER_02: Have you ever met a situation that you felt, okay, this is too challenging?
18:31
SPEAKER_02: I can't.
18:32
SPEAKER_01: I can't, no, I won't say that.
18:34
SPEAKER_01: Okay, but it's too challenging, yes.
18:37
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know whether it's just me, but I I think quite a lot of people who have achieved so much also get excited with the challenge.
18:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and as I say, we always say high risk, high reward, right?
18:48
SPEAKER_01: Yep, and so yes, it will be a calculated risk because, as I said, I have studied the science behind a lot of things I do in dealing with people, and so you would have to sit down and really decide and calculate how you would overcome that challenge, yeah, so that you don't just take a risk and lose money or resources, whatever it is, whether your time or anything.
19:13
SPEAKER_01: So it becomes a calculated risk, a calculated risk, and then when you're able to break it, you would enjoy it.
19:19
SPEAKER_02: So, from all the things that you've done, like from corporate space to running multiple businesses to your kids to different countries, one theme that I hear throughout is leadership.
19:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so what are your thoughts on the right way to be a leader?
19:40
SPEAKER_01: Leadership is something that um if we are able to understand it well, you realize it is basically service.
19:48
SPEAKER_01: Leadership is service, like that.
19:50
SPEAKER_01: And there are moments in the lives of uh a leader that you would have to take bold decisions that might not be too popular but necessary.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: And so, as a leader, you need to look at the bigger picture.
20:06
SPEAKER_01: In my companies, I always tell people that I would take decisions for the business survival, not for an individual's benefit, not even for my benefit.
20:17
SPEAKER_01: So a leader should look at decisions that would sustain the business, sustain your family, sustain whoever you are leading, yeah, and not just for people's uh admiration or what what would excite people.
20:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you don't have to necessarily be a popular leader, but a leader has that leads with purpose that leads people with purpose, purpose is back again, yeah, and I like that.
20:42
SPEAKER_02: So that means you always have to look out for people's interests, that's it, and not just their wants.
20:46
SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
20:47
SPEAKER_02: A lot of leaders fall to either side too much, they either try to please the people they are leading too much, or they try to be so strict and not caring, thinking that's the way to lead.
21:00
SPEAKER_02: That's it.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: You will crush.
21:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you crush when you put interest first, when you're with and especially the interest of the many, exactly, and not just the few, exactly, not just for you, not just for an individual, but the greater good.
21:13
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
21:14
SPEAKER_02: But did you face any challenges, especially being a female leader?
21:19
SPEAKER_02: Did you face any challenges where people underestimated you because they felt, you know, a woman can't do this, a woman can't do that?
21:25
SPEAKER_01: I still do.
21:26
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so it's not really about the past.
21:29
SPEAKER_01: I still do, but sometimes you go to places until you speak, you might not really appreciate, you know.
21:36
SPEAKER_01: I quite remember a situation where my company, the facility management company, won a contract with an organization.
21:44
SPEAKER_01: And you know, when you go into our into our profile and what we've done, the clients we have, you'll be very convinced.
21:50
SPEAKER_01: So all my procurement team and then my operations team, general manager, they went through to win this contract.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: Contract.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: So I was supposed to go and sign some documentation with the client.
22:04
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: So when I got in the office of the director, a female by surprise.
22:10
SPEAKER_01: And she was like, oh, hey, by you, what clinic can you do?
22:15
SPEAKER_01: What clinic can you do?
22:17
SPEAKER_01: Miss Ms.
22:18
SPEAKER_01: Ghana or something.
22:19
SPEAKER_01: And you see, you don't underestimate people based on looks.
22:23
SPEAKER_01: And that's mostly what people do.
22:26
SPEAKER_01: And if you're a woman, sometimes they might feel your kids might not give you the time to do it.
22:31
SPEAKER_01: And so people might prevent a woman from being in certain leadership positions.
22:36
SPEAKER_01: Recently, I've noticed that a lot of uh financial institutions and the telcos are working with women leaders more.
22:44
SPEAKER_01: You have a lot of CEOs who are now women.
22:53
SPEAKER_01: It's starting to show.
22:54
SPEAKER_02: I think the bias is starting to reduce.
22:56
SPEAKER_02: So people are watching closer.
22:58
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
22:58
SPEAKER_01: And I think women move with a lot of passion and drive, are more resilient to take certain challenges, even than men.
23:07
SPEAKER_02: True.
23:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
23:09
SPEAKER_02: And I think also because of women's empathy, it makes a lot of women lead, like how you're talking about caring about people's interests.
23:18
SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
23:18
SPEAKER_02: You know, I always say that men are result-oriented, women are process-oriented.
23:23
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes result-oriented is good, it gets you where you want to go, but process-oriented is what builds systems.
23:30
SPEAKER_02: And when you're trying to scale, it's all about building systems.
23:34
SPEAKER_02: People are starting to see the benefit.
23:36
SPEAKER_02: I always say when you have the combination of the two, when you have those who are result-oriented plus those who are process-oriented, then you build a real system that gets you there the right way.
23:48
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
23:49
SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
23:50
SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
23:51
SPEAKER_02: Okay, but one thing I've heard you talk about is personal responsibility.
23:56
SPEAKER_02: You know, taking away even leadership, leading yourself.
24:00
SPEAKER_02: What type of mindset do you think people need to have to be able to own that personal responsibility?
24:07
SPEAKER_01: You need to be able to challenge yourself.
24:10
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
24:11
SPEAKER_01: You know, um, if you want to be more responsible as a leader, do you open up yourself for even assessment?
24:21
SPEAKER_01: And for me as a leader, there are moments where I allow my managers to even assess me.
24:27
SPEAKER_01: Are you a right leader?
24:29
SPEAKER_01: Are you doing things right?
24:30
SPEAKER_01: Do you seek the opinions of others?
24:33
SPEAKER_01: Or it's always about you and what you want to do.
24:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
24:36
SPEAKER_01: It's about the self.
24:37
SPEAKER_01: And if you're not careful, ego will set in.
24:40
SPEAKER_01: If it's all about you, you, you.
24:42
SPEAKER_01: You know, you have to be able to understand where you're going and look at the bigger picture to be able to achieve more, even as a leader.
24:50
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
24:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
24:51
SPEAKER_02: So that that means more of like introspection, more of figuring out what you're doing right, yeah, what you're doing wrong.
24:58
SPEAKER_02: You know, I I keep preaching that the victim mindset is too much these days.
25:03
SPEAKER_02: Everybody wants to blame the other party instead of looking at okay, what can I do?
25:08
SPEAKER_02: What did I do wrong?
25:10
SPEAKER_02: Like, okay, I had this big fight with my manager or fight with an employee.
25:14
SPEAKER_02: What did I do to contribute to it and how can I prevent it from happening the next time?
25:20
SPEAKER_01: I I I remember in uh my training, helping people with business uh strategies and all, yeah, there are moments where you realize that people think or the CEOs or entrepreneurs will think it's always about the employees, but sometimes you, the leader, could be at fault.
25:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so you need to be able to check that because people react based on how they feel around you, yeah.
25:45
SPEAKER_01: And so you need to be able to check that as a leader.
25:48
SPEAKER_02: I'm actually even silly enough to think it's always the leader's fault.
25:51
SPEAKER_02: And what I mean by that is even if it's in the employees, you chose the employees.
25:56
SPEAKER_02: And we've seen leaders who can even choose the wrong employees but train them to become better.
26:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I say for when you're running a company and you want it to be a well-oiled machine, it's one of two things.
26:10
SPEAKER_02: Either you have money to hire the best and only the best, which means you have to work hard enough to earn that money, or you build a training system to anybody who comes in your business, you can train them to be better.
26:24
SPEAKER_02: Let's talk about Yes She Can Foundation.
26:27
SPEAKER_02: Please explain what's yes she can.
26:29
SPEAKER_02: And why not yes she can?
26:31
SPEAKER_02: Me too, I can.
26:33
SPEAKER_02: I've got that question that who empowers the boys boys' lives matter everyday woman empowerment.
26:42
SPEAKER_01: But what you're doing is also empowering both gender.
26:46
SPEAKER_01: I think we should um yes, she can has come to support women, okay, and for me, I feel I understand the female perspective more because of what I have gone through.
26:58
SPEAKER_01: Okay, you know, from a challenging situation, what are the options?
27:02
SPEAKER_01: What can I do as a young lady uh from a poor home?
27:07
SPEAKER_01: How do I survive?
27:09
SPEAKER_01: Uh, as a mother, how do I survive?
27:12
SPEAKER_01: As you were asking, how do you juggle it as a as a as a mother, yeah, still educating yourself?
27:18
SPEAKER_01: So I understand it from a woman's perspective more, and that is why I brought the Yeshikan Foundation to let people know that regardless of where you're from, you can always get to where you want to go.
27:32
SPEAKER_01: And have used this foundation to speak on various platforms from senior high schools to tertiary institutions to give people hope for the future, where I share not just my story, but I create a platform for other accomplished women to also speak to these young women in different ways from marriage to education to even finding their purpose and even religion, identifying that we need a supreme being to take us there.
28:06
SPEAKER_01: So a program that we do in the senior high school is called Yes, She Can Worship.
28:10
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
28:11
SPEAKER_01: So it comes in the form of a worship program where we bring in artists to create that atmosphere of worship for God to speak to them.
28:21
SPEAKER_01: Because I got the calling at a very young age in senior high school.
28:26
SPEAKER_01: When you say the calling, that is the thing.
28:28
SPEAKER_02: Which call the missed call, one or the you know.
28:33
SPEAKER_01: So I I sort of saw today where I would be speaking to people and empowering people.
28:41
SPEAKER_03: Nice.
28:41
SPEAKER_01: So you can imagine how someone from a poor home who was even struggling to pay fees, seeing herself empowering people.
28:50
SPEAKER_01: How?
28:51
SPEAKER_01: So that is why we shouldn't uh blame God for any situation we find ourselves in.
28:58
SPEAKER_01: It could be a moment to prepare you for a bigger picture someday.
29:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so he says in every situation we should give him thanks because there is a purpose for what you are going through.
29:12
SPEAKER_02: I think so many people are just not understanding the fact that the suffering and the pain is a part of the journey.
29:20
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
29:21
SPEAKER_02: You know, trying to wish it away, praying it doesn't come.
29:25
SPEAKER_02: That actually takes away your destiny, it takes away what you could become.
29:31
SPEAKER_02: There's nothing good I've achieved in this life that didn't come with a lot of pain, you know, even as I'm shooting masterminds right now, that comes with a lot of stress and a lot of pain.
29:42
SPEAKER_02: So I've actually come to sort of expect it that if I'm not going through pain and doing something, it's probably not going to work.
29:49
SPEAKER_01: You see, so you're just like me.
29:50
SPEAKER_01: You don't like comfort.
29:52
SPEAKER_02: I know, I like trouble.
29:53
SPEAKER_02: You know, I I feel guilty when I'm resting.
29:58
SPEAKER_02: Mind there's a bit of a curse, you know.
30:00
SPEAKER_02: If I'm resting, I can say I'm taking a day off, I'm tired, I'm going to rest.
30:05
SPEAKER_02: Two hours in the day, I'm like, I'm finding something to do.
30:10
SPEAKER_01: I think that's the mindset of a lot of successful people.
30:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we like to move, we like to keep pushing the wheel, and it's out of that that we transform lives because if I had relaxed in the bank, all the jobs created today, yeah.
30:26
SPEAKER_01: I always say, where would they have been?
30:28
SPEAKER_05: Exactly.
30:28
SPEAKER_01: You know, parents that really needed the 6 a.m.
30:31
SPEAKER_01: to 8 p.m.
30:32
SPEAKER_01: Who would have served them?
30:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we just need to move when the ideas come.
30:38
SPEAKER_01: Let's not give excuses, let's not choose comforts over success.
30:43
SPEAKER_01: Let's just keep moving.
30:44
SPEAKER_02: Because if you really think about it, as far as we know, we are only here once.
30:47
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
30:48
SPEAKER_02: So while I'm here, I might as well make the most of it.
30:52
SPEAKER_02: You know, I don't want any second of my life to be wasted.
30:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I have to live hard, work hard, enjoy hard, like make sure I am taking advantage of God's graces that He gave me.
31:05
SPEAKER_02: Or other than why was I given it?
31:08
SPEAKER_02: And I like the personal responsibility you're taking that if you hadn't done this, who is going to do it?
31:14
SPEAKER_04: That's it.
31:14
SPEAKER_02: You know, people sit at home, they get an idea, and they're like, oh, someone else will do it.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: Who do it?
31:21
SPEAKER_02: Who will do it?
31:22
SPEAKER_02: You know, every great person who achieved big things dared to do it.
31:28
SPEAKER_02: They had the audacity to start to start.
31:31
SPEAKER_02: So what what's the difference between you and that person?
31:34
SPEAKER_02: The only difference is you aren't starting, or you started and you gave up because there was pain.
31:40
SPEAKER_02: You know, somebody is watching you sitting there looking so good and talking in such a relaxed manner about your multiple businesses, and they don't know the pain.
31:50
SPEAKER_01: They're suffering.
31:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
31:51
SPEAKER_01: There are moments where we cry, you know, we see that things are not really happening the way we want it to happen.
31:57
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
31:58
SPEAKER_01: You go into the room, we cry, we come back, we clean all the tears, and then we put ourselves back together.
32:03
SPEAKER_01: It's very normal, you know.
32:05
SPEAKER_01: So, whatever pain that I feel someone is going through, no complaints because we've all been there.
32:11
SPEAKER_01: And there are moments where bigger challenges would even take us back there.
32:15
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
32:15
SPEAKER_01: No, it never stops.
32:17
SPEAKER_02: That's not your last pain.
32:19
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
32:19
SPEAKER_02: You'll keep it's like life keeps increasing the pain when your threshold goes higher, then the pain too will go higher as well.
32:27
SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
32:28
SPEAKER_02: But I'm still baffled that you've been able to combine all these different roles.
32:34
SPEAKER_02: Like, tell me what's your system?
32:36
SPEAKER_02: Okay, let's be asked.
32:38
SPEAKER_02: What's a usual day like in the life of Mary?
32:41
SPEAKER_01: When I'm out of bed, I start with the spiritual and then physical.
32:44
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
32:45
SPEAKER_01: Because it is a physical body that you need strong to be able to achieve all the things that you set your mind to achieve.
32:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so you cannot be an unhealthy body and expect to do all the things we do.
32:57
SPEAKER_01: So we need to check what we eat and when we eat what we eat, and then how fit we are, you know, physically.
33:06
SPEAKER_01: And then I start my day with my kids around five.
33:09
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
33:10
SPEAKER_01: Get them out of bed, prepare them for school.
33:13
SPEAKER_01: Either they go with me or they move with the driver, depending on what I have to do at home.
33:18
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
33:19
SPEAKER_01: And then it continues like that.
33:21
SPEAKER_01: Bedtime is around 9 p.m.
33:23
SPEAKER_01: Because I need to start my day at 3.
33:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
33:28
SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
33:29
SPEAKER_02: That's that is the most complex I have ever had.
33:33
SPEAKER_02: You know, I feel so proud when I do my 5 a.m.
33:36
SPEAKER_02: routine.
33:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
33:37
SPEAKER_02: And now I've met a 3 a.m.
33:39
SPEAKER_02: routine.
33:40
SPEAKER_02: Hey, I'm sleeping at 90.
33:42
SPEAKER_02: I can't.
33:43
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
33:44
SPEAKER_01: So you sleep late.
33:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
33:45
SPEAKER_01: If you sleep late, then it's fine.
33:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
33:47
SPEAKER_01: So, like I said, we cannot cheat nature.
33:49
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
33:50
SPEAKER_01: The physical body is what is the tool through which we find our purpose.
33:54
SPEAKER_01: We move to do what we have to do.
33:56
SPEAKER_01: So we can't cheat nature.
33:58
SPEAKER_01: Sleep well.
33:59
SPEAKER_01: Eat well.
34:00
SPEAKER_01: Because you need a combination of the two.
34:03
SPEAKER_01: You know, yeah.
34:04
SPEAKER_02: I I really have to know.
34:08
SPEAKER_02: Managing so many different businesses, back to managing kids and everything as well.
34:13
SPEAKER_02: The only way you could have done this, aside being superwoman, is you must have amazing systems in place to run things.
34:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
34:21
SPEAKER_02: Talk to me about that.
34:22
SPEAKER_01: It's it's like you're saying, you need good structures, and most leaders that don't know how to delegate can't achieve more.
34:30
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
34:31
SPEAKER_01: Because you end up doing everything by yourself, everything revolves around you.
34:35
SPEAKER_01: And you cannot grow as a business or even as a person with that.
34:40
SPEAKER_01: So at home, I have a help that supports with the children.
34:45
SPEAKER_01: So not to neglect your responsibility.
34:47
SPEAKER_01: You still need to find a way around it.
34:50
SPEAKER_01: But imagine if you have to be home to do the cooking, be home to do the cleaning, be home to do the washing.
34:56
SPEAKER_01: There's very little you can do.
34:57
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
34:58
SPEAKER_01: So it's about that.
35:00
SPEAKER_01: It's a full-time job.
35:01
SPEAKER_01: So you need to learn to delegate.
35:04
SPEAKER_01: And I know a lot of women feel it is their role, and so they have to sit at home to do it.
35:10
SPEAKER_01: It limits your purpose, it limits how far you can go.
35:14
SPEAKER_01: I do that in combination with my education.
35:17
SPEAKER_01: I still school, like I said.
35:19
SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
35:19
SPEAKER_01: Done two masters currently doing a PhD.
35:22
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
35:22
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot you can do if you learn to build systems.
35:26
SPEAKER_01: So within your organizations, I have a CEO who manages the three campuses.
35:32
SPEAKER_01: I have managers in key positions like HR, like you have uh procurement managers, compliance managers.
35:41
SPEAKER_01: There are different key positions that you need to fill.
35:44
SPEAKER_01: And these positions come as the business grows.
35:49
SPEAKER_01: So it is not advisable to have too many people in the organization right from the beginning.
35:55
SPEAKER_01: You need to grow the business yourself.
35:56
SPEAKER_01: And as the demand comes, you fill in those key positions.
36:00
SPEAKER_01: They are not just coming to support you, but just to also add value.
36:05
SPEAKER_01: Because it's not every area you might be good at as a leader.
36:09
SPEAKER_01: You might be good strategically, you might not be good financially.
36:13
SPEAKER_01: So you need to have the people to help you in those areas.
36:17
SPEAKER_01: And for me, that has helped.
36:18
SPEAKER_01: If a business revolves around you and everything, you have to take the decision, then you're not a good leader.
36:24
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
36:24
SPEAKER_01: You know, you need to have systems in place so that even in your absence, whether in life or maybe physically there at that time, the business should still be able to move.
36:35
SPEAKER_02: You know, you know, this thing hit me hard some years ago when I watched Vuzi talk about it.
36:40
SPEAKER_02: And then I even interviewed him and he explained it even further.
36:43
SPEAKER_02: When he said, if you cannot vanish for three months from your business, then you are not an entrepreneur, you're self-employed.
36:51
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
36:52
SPEAKER_01: But you're doing everything yourself.
36:54
SPEAKER_02: And that's why a lot of businesses aren't able to have generational growth.
36:59
SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
37:00
SPEAKER_02: Because it's the owner and CEO who's able to handle everything.
37:05
SPEAKER_02: So the moment they leave, it all crumbles to the ground.
37:09
SPEAKER_02: Please give me some tips.
37:10
SPEAKER_02: Rana, you're going to help me too.
37:11
SPEAKER_02: Give me some tips on how to create the systems.
37:15
SPEAKER_02: Because one of the biggest problems is delegating when people can mess it up.
37:21
SPEAKER_02: You know, I know a lot of business owners who start on the okay, I'm going to delegate.
37:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
37:26
SPEAKER_02: Then they start giving tasks to people, they mess it up, and they're like, nah, let me just do it myself.
37:32
SPEAKER_02: Give me some tips for how to build a well-oiled machine of a system.
37:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
37:37
SPEAKER_01: It starts from getting the people to understand the vision of your organization.
37:42
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
37:43
SPEAKER_01: You train them, they will get it.
37:45
SPEAKER_01: You know, it started from you.
37:46
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes they kind of possess it.
37:49
SPEAKER_01: This is my business and I know where I'm going.
37:52
SPEAKER_01: Sit with them.
37:53
SPEAKER_01: If you have even hired one manager, sit with that manager, let them know where you want to send your organization.
38:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
38:00
SPEAKER_01: It starts from explaining yourself and then observe them to do it.
38:05
SPEAKER_01: If you hire a manager and you are interfering, they would sit back and allow you to do your thing.
38:12
SPEAKER_01: So sit back, give them the opportunity, give them the benefit of the doubt.
38:16
SPEAKER_01: Observe where their mistakes, you do the corrections.
38:19
SPEAKER_01: So you are you have that willingness to let go.
38:23
SPEAKER_01: But if all the time you are interfering, someone is supposed to report to the manager before it gets to you, and then you are jumping, going down the manager, it doesn't really help.
38:34
SPEAKER_01: So as you learn to deal with one manager, you realize that any new person that you add to the managerial team begins to work the way you want them to work.
38:44
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
38:44
SPEAKER_01: Every organization has a culture, and mostly the culture is built from the founder, how you do your things.
38:52
SPEAKER_01: So people come in and they begin to learn.
38:55
SPEAKER_01: That is why I was saying that if the organization is not doing well, it's not always about the strategy, it's not always about the money, it's not always about the idea.
39:03
SPEAKER_01: It could be about you, the person leading the organization.
39:06
SPEAKER_01: So you need to be able to check yourself.
39:09
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes put your own self under assessment to see maybe as someone who holds on to things, someone who doesn't take feedback well.
39:18
SPEAKER_01: People like that cannot build structures because it's always about what you think is right.
39:23
SPEAKER_01: But if you open up and you allow others, other people's views to count, you realize that they would die for the organization because you are not just self-centered, you're also giving them the opportunity to grow.
39:35
SPEAKER_01: And there are some employees that are even better leaders than the founders.
39:40
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes your purpose is just to birth the idea, yeah, and others will run with it.
39:45
SPEAKER_01: Just let them understand where you're going, yeah, and they would move with it for you, you know.
39:50
SPEAKER_01: So it's actually not a complicated thing, just allowing yourself to go and believing that they can.
39:56
SPEAKER_01: You know, sometimes the fear of they crushing the business is too much in us that we don't give people the chance to prove to us that they can.
40:06
SPEAKER_02: And a lot of people can.
40:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, a lot of people may not have the ideas or the ability to come up with ideas like the founder did, but they have the ability to execute even better than the founder did.
40:18
SPEAKER_02: You know, um, so many businesses that have lasted through generations, they weren't scaled up by the founder.
40:26
SPEAKER_02: You know, the founder just had a very good, unique idea.
40:29
SPEAKER_01: And others run with it.
40:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
40:32
SPEAKER_02: Because you know, always scaling is a skill, it's a completely different skill.
40:37
SPEAKER_02: Um, starting a business is a different skill from managing a business, which is also very different from scaling a business.
40:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I understand why you're doing master classes now.
40:48
SPEAKER_02: Tell me, tell me about the masterclass.
40:50
SPEAKER_01: So, entrepreneurship psychology, uh, masterclass uh is something I started to help people to understand, as I said, the science behind business.
41:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it's not just something on the surface, but the people and psychology, as we know, is the understanding of people's behavior.
41:10
SPEAKER_01: So all the people around you, all stakeholders from your customers, your people are the employees, are human beings.
41:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so why do they behave the way they do?
41:21
SPEAKER_01: And it could be their environment where they grew up in, family, social norms around them, it could be their biology, their genes, their brain chemistry has an impact on how they behave.
41:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so you don't go and get frustrated about somebody's behavior.
41:39
SPEAKER_01: But if you can understand that this person grew up in this area, and so that is why they are doing things the way they do.
41:45
SPEAKER_01: You, the leader, shouldn't get frustrated, just calm down, understand it from that perspective, and see how you can pull them closer and understand to be able to change them gradually.
41:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but sometimes we set a certain standard, so if you are not behaving, just be like this.
42:02
SPEAKER_01: This is how I work, and so work the way the same way I work.
42:05
SPEAKER_01: But sometimes it's a gradual process.
42:07
SPEAKER_01: Probably they've been in an organization where things are very lenient, the leader was very lazy fair, yeah, but you want things a bit rapid.
42:15
SPEAKER_01: So you need to gradually get them to change or unlearn what they have brought into your organization.
42:22
SPEAKER_01: So the masterclass opens people's minds to some of these thinking for them to know why people do things the way they do, and strategies, the uniqueness as we talked about, what is your competitive advantage?
42:36
SPEAKER_01: You don't just get up with an idea, you see that someone's restaurant is going well, and so you start your own.
42:41
SPEAKER_01: You to have done my own, you to you've done your own without anything unique about it.
42:45
SPEAKER_01: So that is what we do to train people, especially young entrepreneurs.
42:49
SPEAKER_01: You started your idea, you don't have a mentor, but at least there is a masterclass, you can come and learn.
42:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so just as you're doing with the masterminds, they sit, they watch, and they learn a lot.
43:00
SPEAKER_01: And I noticed that it's difficult to have somebody hold your hand throughout your business, or at least for the first five years where it's actually very hectic and a bit confusing.
43:11
SPEAKER_01: It's difficult to have someone hold your hand because all entrepreneurs are busy.
43:15
SPEAKER_01: So it's not actually deliberate that nobody wants to help.
43:18
SPEAKER_01: But opportunities like this where you can watch and learn, you can come and join people to study, form networks, and share ideas and experiences, it's a good platform to grow people.
43:30
SPEAKER_02: I like that.
43:31
SPEAKER_02: I'll come and watch your masterclass.
43:33
SPEAKER_02: Well, I will call it masterminds at the master class.
43:36
SPEAKER_04: At the master class, okay.
43:39
SPEAKER_02: But now I really need to know this though.
43:42
SPEAKER_02: How are you balancing ambition between all your success at work and then your success at home?
43:51
SPEAKER_02: When when do you feel it's enough?
43:54
SPEAKER_02: Maybe let me concentrate on home.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: Are necessary, I don't really know how to weigh it.
44:05
SPEAKER_01: You know, family is very important, yeah.
44:08
SPEAKER_01: But the business is also livelihood for multiple families.
44:13
SPEAKER_01: So, from how I see it, I wouldn't really put one my family first because let's say you have employed about a thousand people, yeah, multiply that by their spouses and their children, so you just need to have a good balance, yeah.
44:27
SPEAKER_01: It shouldn't be so confusing.
44:29
SPEAKER_01: Have a good balance, be at the family space and give them your time when you have to, when you have the office, you don't confuse that with I have to leave regardless and go and take care of my family.
44:43
SPEAKER_01: You need to have a good balance.
44:44
SPEAKER_01: That is why I say if you have the right structures in place in both areas, at home, the office, you'd realize that none is being overshadowing the other because you still can't do it all by yourself anyway.
44:58
SPEAKER_01: If you want to achieve so much, it cannot be all about you that if you are not at home, the family is crushing.
45:06
SPEAKER_01: If you are not in the office, so just have the right balance in place and see both of them thrive perfectly.
45:14
SPEAKER_02: You have a very interesting mindset because I keep hearing when you are talking so much personal responsibility, because I throw a question to you, and your answer is always about what you can do to improve yourself to fix the situation, you know.
45:30
SPEAKER_02: Whereas most people will blame the situation.
45:33
SPEAKER_02: Like if somebody has to choose between their ambition and home, they would normally just look at, yeah, but you know, we have to put family.
45:40
SPEAKER_02: But yours is I have to build a better system to accommodate for both.
45:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's real leadership.
45:47
SPEAKER_02: What what do you think, though, are the costs of leadership?
45:51
SPEAKER_02: What are the costs that most people aren't able to bear, which is why they either never get to leadership or they can't hold on to leadership?
46:02
SPEAKER_01: I think when you put yourself first as a leader, you you don't if you put yourself first, it'll crush.
46:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, people watch a lot.
46:12
SPEAKER_01: Your followers would watch.
46:14
SPEAKER_01: Is it yourself or it's about us?
46:18
SPEAKER_01: So people sabotage organizations or businesses or others based on how you behave.
46:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so as leaders, you should know that the eyes watching us is more than the eyes we are using to watch them, yeah.
46:34
SPEAKER_01: And so every move you make will be judged by the people that are serving you, and so be careful not to lose it all.
46:44
SPEAKER_02: So leadership means service, like you said, yeah, and service means sacrifice, yeah, yeah.
46:51
SPEAKER_02: So the biggest cost of leadership becomes sacrificing for those you are leading for.
46:56
SPEAKER_02: I don't think most leaders know that.
46:58
SPEAKER_02: I think most people think leadership means others sacrificing for you.
47:03
SPEAKER_01: No, yeah, and you're in the wrong space.
47:08
SPEAKER_02: Okay, um thing I've learned from the most in my life has always been mistakes.
47:16
SPEAKER_02: You know, I say when I do something right, I feel it didn't teach me as much as when I do something wrong.
47:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so what mistakes do you think you've made along the way that have helped build your mindset?
47:30
SPEAKER_01: This is what I always struggle to answer because I'm so calculative that I I try to avoid mistakes or not to even make it get bigger.
47:40
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
47:40
SPEAKER_01: Um, maybe from the business angle, as I said, uh I was combining working full-time job with starting my own thing.
47:50
SPEAKER_01: Okay, but would I call it a mistake or a lesson?
47:54
SPEAKER_01: A lesson, a lesson, you know.
47:56
SPEAKER_01: So it's about mindset again.
47:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, how you think, how do you see things?
48:00
SPEAKER_01: Do you see this as a mistake or as a lesson?
48:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so all those things about my life has made me who I am today.
48:10
SPEAKER_01: So I won't see it as a mistake, but as part of the journey, we are all blessed and we are all promised so many beautiful things by our creator.
48:23
SPEAKER_01: But what he didn't tell us is how you were getting there.
48:27
SPEAKER_01: So it depends on how you see the journey.
48:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, if you see it as a mistake, then it's you, but if you see it as part of the preparation for the blessings, yeah, then it's how you see it.
48:40
SPEAKER_02: So if you have to walk to work every day, you can either see it as exercise or as suffering.
48:46
SPEAKER_01: Perfect.
48:47
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes people get down at Shiashi into the boundary road where the school is, yeah, and then they come in an Uber.
48:53
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, why don't you use it as your morning exercise?
48:56
SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
48:56
SPEAKER_01: Because you got out of bed, washed down, and you are here.
48:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're going to sit down for eight hours or nine hours.
49:02
SPEAKER_01: No exercise.
49:03
SPEAKER_01: You finish up into a car, you're gone back.
49:05
SPEAKER_01: When you tell them to walk, you can't say, ah, madam, I will sweat.
49:10
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes it's how you see things.
49:12
SPEAKER_02: We like comfort too.
49:14
SPEAKER_02: Ah, I keep feeling that most of humanity's problems have come from us looking for comfort.
49:22
SPEAKER_02: You know, we've we've we keep developing technology to make us more and more comfortable, and then that comfort brings us more problems.
49:30
SPEAKER_02: I give you a really thing about it.
49:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, why do we need to pay gym membership to exercise?
49:34
SPEAKER_02: When the way life was structured, we should have been exercising every day.
49:38
SPEAKER_04: Every day.
49:39
SPEAKER_02: We keep trying to run away from pain.
49:41
SPEAKER_02: Um, my my sadness for the new generation.
49:45
SPEAKER_02: Oh my god, I'm now that old guy who feels sad for the new generation.
49:49
SPEAKER_02: When did this happen?
49:51
SPEAKER_02: My sadness for the new generation is it's it's not being taught enough how pain and suffering is the most important part of the journey.
50:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so the new generation is always trying to find ways to avoid pain the pain.
50:08
SPEAKER_02: I always say it's very simple to succeed, but it's not easy.
50:13
SPEAKER_02: If you want to be a mature man, you go to the gym, simple.
50:17
SPEAKER_02: If you want to be rich, you save and invest, simple.
50:21
SPEAKER_02: If you want your business to do well, you focus on it every single day, simple.
50:26
SPEAKER_02: But all these things I said are not easy.
50:29
SPEAKER_02: So people have to be willing to sacrifice, to go through the pain, have a mindset of it doesn't matter how difficult the situation is, I will get there.
50:41
SPEAKER_02: That's it's as easy as ABC.
50:44
SPEAKER_02: Don't come for me, don't insult me, you guys.
50:49
SPEAKER_02: Like if you had to strip down leadership to one principle, one principle that you think is key for success, what would that be?
50:57
SPEAKER_01: Key for success, one integrity.
51:00
SPEAKER_01: And as I said, people, the eyes that watch you are more than what you can see.
51:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so on any platform you find yourself as a leader, it can even be at home as a mother where your kids are watching you, you are their leader.
51:18
SPEAKER_01: You need to be able to build integrity and let them understand who you are and pick something positive from your life.
51:27
SPEAKER_01: So I have deliberately trained my kids to be very independent, okay.
51:32
SPEAKER_01: You know, because life can throw any challenge at them at any time, doesn't matter how comfortable they are now, anything can happen tomorrow.
51:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so you need to be able to train others that are watching you, and integrity for me is key.
51:46
SPEAKER_02: So, what do you define as integrity?
51:50
SPEAKER_01: The trust.
51:52
SPEAKER_01: Who are you when nobody is watching you?
51:55
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
51:56
SPEAKER_01: Can they trust you?
51:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, can they believe in you?
52:01
SPEAKER_01: That is it.
52:02
SPEAKER_02: I like that.
52:04
SPEAKER_02: Very honestly, really understand why you are where you are, is because of who you are.
52:10
SPEAKER_02: I really appreciate that.
52:11
SPEAKER_02: Do one thing for me.
52:12
SPEAKER_02: I want you to look in that camera and imagine you could stretch your hand and drop one mindset into the mind of the person watching you to take them closer to being a mastermind.
52:24
SPEAKER_02: What would that mindset?
52:27
SPEAKER_00: What I would say is don't put yourself first, identify your purpose, regardless of the pain you will go through.
52:38
SPEAKER_01: Just do it because it's your purpose.
52:40
SPEAKER_01: We won't be here forever, but you need to leave a legacy for your children, for your organization, for anybody watching you, leave an impact, leave a mark in the lives of people.
52:54
SPEAKER_01: It's the smiles that we put on the faces of people that actually matter.
52:58
SPEAKER_01: It's not just what you benefit as an individual, but the multiple lives that we can transform if you're able to identify your purpose.
53:08
SPEAKER_02: Thank you, thank you, thank you so much.
53:11
SPEAKER_02: I really enjoyed this conversation.
53:13
SPEAKER_02: And once again, even if you don't know it, you are a superwoman, okay?
53:18
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
53:19
SPEAKER_02: Keep going with the same courage, the same strength, and keep impacting so many lives.
53:24
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
53:24
SPEAKER_02: I hope you watching have come one step closer to be the mastermind I know you were meant to be.
53:34
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for watching this episode.
53:35
SPEAKER_02: Now, the Mastermind's dream is about building a community of people who have the right mindset and are ready to take their success into their own hands.
53:45
SPEAKER_02: So do me this wonderful favor, subscribe and share with anybody out there who you believe you want to see have the right mindset to succeed so that together we can all become the masterminds we deserve to be.