Hi there and welcome back to Resilient Entrepreneurs. In this episode, we're thrilled to bring you a mashup of some of the most inspiring stories and lessons we've heard from the 11 incredible entrepreneurs we've featured so far in Season Two. You'll hear from celebrity makeup artist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Christina Flach from the US, who is also an NBC TV's on a beauty expert. She shared how she overcame deep grief, and started a charity out of that life changing experience. And she was really candid about how she's so much more successful than she has reimagined.
And there's award winning entrepreneur Claire McDevitt who talks about what's important to look for in a business partnership, she wouldn't know she overcame a partnership breakup and still trusted yourself to do it again. Now she's in a partnership that's working really well. We also heard from Australian Elite Power Athletes Natasha Price and Adam Sheppard, who started a business to make disability visible so that more places are more physically accessible, and obvious. Jamien Frazer, a professional writer, speaker and coach, previously a church pastor, also from Australia, who shared pure gold on how to overcome insecurity. He's made that his life's work. His full episode is rich with mind shifts, wanting to be listened to over and over.
Yeah, and there's so much more these entrepreneurs have shown us what it truly means to be resilient. Join us as we revisit their stories, or their insights and uncover their secrets to success. Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting out, you won't want to miss this episode. So let's jump in!
Episode 1: Christina Flach
Glance at Christina Flach’s LinkedIn profile and you'll quickly see what a successful go getter she is. She's the President and CEO of Pretty Girl Makeup, a company she founded. She’s a celebrity makeup artist, entrepreneur and philanthropist and an on-air beauty expert featured on NBC TV. Her Instagram account with close to 20,000 followers is @christinaflachmakeup. She's working on a new cosmetics line for men and women and what we love about Christina is that she believes in the importance of inner beauty, wellness, nutrition, and manifestation. It's not all about the gloss and glamour, although that's always a nice touch.
Christina joins us on Resilient Entrepreneurs to share what makes her resilient and trust us, she's had some tough things to work through in life.
What's the best thing to do at the start of your journey?
I would say the best thing and most important thing is, being an entrepreneur, you have to really love what you do because it is going to take so much more time, so much more effort, so much more money than you can even imagine, so you really have to enjoy the process. Because if you don't love it, and want to wake up every day and can't wait to do it, it's going to fail, because it's exhausting and sometimes very frustrating. Tyler has a great saying that, ‘it's really hard to be exceptional because if anyone knew how hard it is, no one would do anything’. So it's actually better that you don't know, I know that there's a lot of people in the world that are in corporate jobs or in jobs that they just don't love and they want to make a change. And so what I urge people to do is, work after work, get a part time job doing what it is that really brings you joy and fills your heart on the weekends, and not quit your job because I didn't do that. I am very grateful that I have Pretty Girl Makeup, that is my company that I started. So days that I'm not on set, I'm doing interviews and I'm in and I work on my company, so for me a perfect fit, both my careers actually help each other. It differentiates me as a makeup artist that I have my own line and it helps my line that I'm still a working makeup artist. So I'm very grateful for that.
I love both aspects of my job. It's exhausting being a makeup artist because you wake up early and it's a long day so that's why on days that I don't have a shoot, I can be a normal person, I can go work out, go to yoga class, I can do stuff and be in my office or work in my home. So I have created the life that I want and I love how it is.
Episode 2: Reyna Drake
Reyna Drake joins us today. She's a fantasy fiction author, a leadership coach, and a Business Development Strategist and she teaches a concept of dynamic growth. It's her passion and she sees it as the single most powerful force available to us, each of us as individuals, personally and professionally as entrepreneurs.
Her business is Lead and Thrive and she challenges us to reimagine success. In this episode, we're going to hear how ineffective leadership is what holds back a lot of businesses and we're going to tap into what makes Reyna resilient.
Maybe this is an opportunity for people to take stock and think that they might do something differently this year, and that something different could well be an internal shift in, how do we perceive the world? How do we process and what happens to us and happens for us?
Correct. I think especially for entrepreneurs and new business owners, or people who are thinking of going into business, one thing one must really appreciate from the get-go is that you are going to face challenges. It is part and parcel of running a business, you cannot avoid this, no matter how smart, no matter how strategic you are, no matter how many resources you have at your disposal. What changes is what kind of issues or concerns you have to deal with. But the fact that you have to deal with challenges does not change. So if you go into business taking this into account and accepting this fact, when you do come face to face with these challenges, you know that it's not the end, it's just what.. it's the nature of business. So it can help you continue where you would otherwise have clocked out and say I can't do this.
Episode 3: Claire McDevitt
Award-winning entrepreneur Claire McDevitt. Claire co-founded Fit to Fly in response to the Bermuda Health Council's need for more certified antigen test providers on the island. Claire's primary business Healthcare Solutions is growing and thriving. She started Healthcare Solutions in 2019, focusing on medical organisational management and staffing solutions.
Claire, do you have any tips for people who are thinking about going into partnership because we always espouse the benefits of being in a partnership because we're very lucky to be in a very good one, we just complement each other well. Was there anything from that experience that you took that you might be able to help others choose well?
I think it's, you both have to believe that you're doing it for the right reasons, we were friends. And it's both of you sitting down and knowing that you're doing it for the right reasons, right? If you're doing it because I want to, I want to make a positive impact on the community versus someone who wants to just make as much money as possible, right? They’re the things that you would have to discuss and go okay, where does that lie, because some of those business decisions may not be, you might not be able to make a good business decision together because if I'm financially driven versus purposeful driven, they're not going to mirror each other. Like that's just an example of making sure you sit down and go, Why are we in business together? Why do we want to be in business and being best friends is not always the right, the first thing that should be said. And it's making sure that your mission for being in it together is the same. Definitely understanding what the vision of your partnership and that you're both doing the same thing and then putting in some clear guidelines of what's acceptable and what's not acceptable. If I work long hours but I'm flexible and it suits me but your partner might only want to work 9-5 Monday to Friday and have every holiday off. These are the different things that you have to consider.
Episode 4: Natasha & Adam
Natasha Price and Adam Sheppard are the brains behind and founders of InvincAble. InvincAble is an organisation that exists to empower all people to discover passion and purpose, to embrace challenges, to adapt and overcome obstacles. Here's what makes their work even more meaningful. They create positive and impactful change for people living with disability by helping to make disability visible.
Why were you called to create this business InvincAble. And what.. how did you get to where you are today?
We're trying to show everyone out there that just because you have a disability doesn't mean you're different to anyone else. We want to build a life where everybody is empowered to go out and chase the life that they want, regardless of what their ability is. And at the same time, go out and motivate people to be happy, to be joyous and to embrace their challenges and adapt and overcome.
I really like the way you position it, choose your motivation. Like we're all motivated by something, by different things. How do you find that motivation?
Stoke that Why with fire. You want to.. you want to give passion to it, not just have a Why, not just have a reason, but kind of keep stoking it (keep it going), keep that fire burning so that you have that reason to get up every day, you have that reason to keep chasing your dreams and the only way you can do that is by figuring it out and knowing exactly what it is, hone in on it and then use that as the fire in your belly to keep you going.
Absolutely. We talk a lot about using your intrinsic motivators. So you know stuff that you're really really passionate about, the stuff that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up in life to pull you, to move you forward and everyone ends up in those funks. And like you said, it's using those things to help pull you up and keep you on the track .
Episode 5: Colin Rego
Colin Rego, the founder and CEO of Bermuda’s fastest-growing technology-driven company - the Sargasso Group. Since its inception in January of 2019 as a restaurant delivery company, the brand has rather quickly grown into what is now a household name. Colin tells us the group is in aggressive growth mode and in strong financial health, despite the challenging global economic climate.
So you say at the heart of Sargasso is its commitment to deliver a community impact through innovation and technology, focusing on the virtues of diversity, inclusivity and spirituality. Why is community impact so important to you?
So sustainability is key and many, business is often transactional and quantified but I think where people are missing the mark, and we're seeing a shift in today's era is people. And if people are the essence of our community and a company is a group of people with one objective, then if we focus on the people, the most important resources are the human resources and driving impact through their lives and their ecosystem, which is the community, then it becomes a much more sustainable situation.
Business and people and that's really how we succeed as entrepreneurs. But we're called Resilient Entrepreneurs for a reason on this podcast and we invited you on because we recognise there's been a lot of opportunities to build resilience in your life. What would you say is the one thing that stands out for you that's really helped you build resilience?
Resilience and adversity, I feel like they are very synonymous. Surfing is about training, being prepared and getting up on time. You're waiting for the right wave, front to paddle out to the wave, get up on the board, ride that wave as long as you can, and most times you don't get the wave, just kind of like life, it's constant but if you want to grow, you're constantly being put in uncomfortable positions. And it's that uncomfort, that constant desire to be broken, the constant desire to want to grow and evolve, that for me is what resilience is about, it’s embracing adversity to make us stronger.
So adversity enables us to be resilient, embracing adversity allows us to be resilient and to keep on pushing through. And if it's easy, you're not trying hard enough, if you're not failing, you're not trying at all.
Episode 6: Krystle Divertie
Krystle Divertie is the Organisational Queen, she approaches systems and processes with passion. She loves lists and she's outrageously organised. She might convince you as a small business owner that systems are part of your entire life, not just your business. Now, when I think of systems, I think of processes. But Krystle might flip that around today, she says no matter what stage of your business you're in, smart systems can help you focus more on progress and less on process.
Having systems in place in your life impacts the systems in your business or the growth of your business. How do those two correlate?
A lot of people don't realise how many systems you actually have in your personal life. We have a system for how we pack the dishwasher, how we do washing with our clothes, you separate the colours or you put all the big stuff together. We even.. we’re taught systems as a child because you go across the road and you're taught to look left and look right and look left again or if you're on the other side of the world the opposite way, until you are clear to then proceed with the next step, which is crossing the road. So many people just don't realise how much our lives are actually systemised whether we like it or not, in some instances and I think business is just the next step, when you're in business of implementing systems into your life. And it's even equally so, it kind of does a full 360 because then, when you have kids, you're then starting to train systems and processes in and people always say to me, oh my God, you've got Standard Operating Procedures in your laundry for your kids on how to blah, blah, blah, hmm, yep.
That’s brilliant! Creating the systems can make the difference. I love it. I love it. What would you say is one of the most important concepts for success?
Be the dumbest person in the room really, to seek out people that are at that next level of business so that you can surround yourselves with people who can guide you and you can ask those questions that the people at your level or below are not going to know the answers because they're not there yet. They haven't had that experience and they don't have that skill set and knowledge, and equally to ask questions, to not respond but to listen and learn. And I think that is equal no matter who you're talking to, whether it's clients or staff, peers, mentors, your family because the minute we're starting to ask to respond, we're not actually listening. And therefore, we as a person, whatever role that looks like, is not, you're not learning and growing. So if you're not learning and growing, are you succeeding?
Episode 7: Tracy Baker-Lawrence
Tracy, you’re a relationship and personality psychologist.
You teach and use Enneagram as a tool to help people through difficult situations. How would you apply this to business?
It's used in organisations all over the world and I've used it a bit in organisations here, my great passion is personal relationships. But I think in terms of resilience, I think it's about the capacity to.. well, a lot of everything comes back to being able to be present but to be able to be self aware, and be self compassionate, and to be able to self regulate, I think those three things are really powerful and I think if we can do that, then we'll be resilient.
And for me, that's what resilience is. Can you handle it? There's a lot of traffic and you're running late, can you handle it? Can you handle it? Can you be okay? And I think if we have self awareness and we know why the ego’s driving us, we can have a little chat to it and say, “Thank you very much but that's not very helpful right now.” And you can bring self compassion and you can regulate your nervous system, for me, that’s resilient.
And so then maybe bringing that into organisations, I think it's still about, Can we be all more self aware? Because we do, there's so much reactivity in the world which distresses me to see that, so much automatic reactivity and people struggling to even understand what's going on in them, let alone to understand that, let alone to then make sense of it, and then be able to regulate it.
Episode 8: Jaemin Frazer
Jaemin Fraser, a professional writer, speaker and coach.
Thanks so much for having me. It's a real treat to be here.
Yeah. Great. Can we jump right into the conversation at the deep end? Is that alright with you?
That's my favourite place to start.
Jaemin, has there been a time in your life that you can recall and don't mind sharing - that was a pivotal moment of you recognising your insecurity?
The distinction around solving insecurity, my conviction is that, not only can you solve insecurity, you must, and it's possible to be completely free from insecurity at your current level of growth, and to show up with no hindrance. But if you do that and when you do that, you will take new territory and explore new horizons and step into a bigger space to play in and therefore, you will step in new uncertainty and then bang your head on the limit of your narrative around, I can be this good, but not that good. I can go this far, but not that far. I can work with these people, but not those people, I can earn this money but not that money. So there are times where I reached the limit of what my story has enabled me to do, frequently, and then break through that and then experience a period of great freedom and presence.
It was going well but you wanted to do better, you wanted to do more, you wanted to reach further.
That’s exactly how it was. I just thought, yeah, this is the next step. The next evolution in me being me and doing good work in the world, this is a natural step. Not everyone thought that, in fact, there was probably no one in my world who thought that was the good next step for me to take, but I knew that it was right for me. So that also increased the insecurity, the fact that I'd lost all my cheer squad. And now I had to look internally for resources around whether I'm doing the right thing or not. So another key component of why the insecurity really showed up.
So Jaemin, Unhindered, what is your definition of that? What do you mean by that? And what is the holy grail of unhindered if we were to achieve self actualisation?
Yeah, I love the idea that it's the ability to be at your best where it matters most. I think we all have got magic inside of us and people often have experiences of that magic showing up, but not necessarily at the moments that matter. There's opportunities that pass people by that, ‘I'm just not ready’, or ‘I'm on the backfoot’, or ‘I'm nervous’, or ‘I feel like an imposter’, or ‘I don't know, I’m just not ready’, whereas to be unhindered is to have nothing to prove and nothing to defend. It's just to be able to show up, I'm here and I know who I am and I'm able to contribute out of the overflow of who I am. So I love thinking about it as there's no handbrake, there's no internal resistance, you have full permission from yourself to be you.
Episode 9: Donte Hunt
We welcome Donte Hunt to Resilient Entrepreneurs and we can't wait to see where this conversation goes. Donte is an example of following your passion, of doing what you love, loving what you do. Hi Donte!
Hello, Vicki and Laura.
So Donte, tell us what you love most about being an entrepreneur?
What do I love most? Great question! You know what, I truly believe that entrepreneurs are in the artists’ space, we like to create, at least that's what I like to do, I like to create. And it's something special about creating, you have the latitude to do almost whatever you want. You're in the pilot seat, if you will. The ultimate satisfaction is sometimes, I say sometimes, sitting back and looking at what you've created and it just feels absolutely awesome. The reason why I say sometimes is because we get so stuck in as entrepreneurs, right? And so we've never, we've never arrived. And so, sometimes we cannot just see all of what we've accomplished, because we're always looking for more and more and more. Have I done enough X, Y and Z? So I guess first and foremost it's about being a creator, naturally. We talked about this earlier, you get the sense of freedom. It's give and take but you control the direction of the business and it's up to you. That can be scary but sometimes it can be, many times it can be awesome. It all depends on how you prepare yourself when you get into a role of an entrepreneur and leaving a company.
Maybe we could talk a bit about what the difference is between a passion project and a business. Because a passion project, maybe you're not the CEO, CFO, you're really just doing what you love, but is it really a business? You're making money out of it? I feel like it's a mindset thing. But what's your view on it?
Look if you're doing a passion project.. what is a passion project? To be honest, if it's something that, if you break even you don't care and even if you take a little loss, the benefit is maybe giving back to humanity, something like that, well that's fine. If you are looking to be in the green, and grow and upscale and be what I believe entrepreneurs are, then yes you're gonna have to get out of your comfort zone and learn some stuff that maybe you don't want to.
That is the nature of the beast or the beauty.
Episode 11: Antonia Holder
Antonia and Lloyd Holder, we've worked with you over a period of time watching the development from an idea to a beautiful product that is now on the shelves in the market.
And we know that the process between ideation to development to delivery of an actual product is a long, tedious journey.
My name is Antonia Holder and I am the founder and creator of Kids Digital Wellness.
Our daughter going through the COVID period is when it really hit us, watching her posture on the device; she had a little Kindle Fire at the time and it was at that point that it just became top of mind for us to figure out a way to help her with her posture. And then, for Lloyd and I to be aligned with our vision of how we wanted to improve our kids, our daughter's life while using her technology. And so that is how DigiRoo was born.
So a question that we like to ask guests on Resilient Entrepreneurs is whether you ever considered quitting, whether it ever felt like it was just too hard? And what got you past that point?
So there are times that we ran into various hurdles around the design phase, there's so many little nuances, so many things, scenarios that I could never have even thought of or imagined, that come into play when you're designing a product. And I remember reaching a place where I was like, this is too much. What are we really doing here? I remember feeling a bit overwhelmed with it and thinking, for the effort, is this going to be worth our time? And this is one thing I would say to any entrepreneurs listening, they should already know, everything has a price, everything comes at a cost. And sometimes it isn't financial but a lot of times it is, it might just be, you have to pay to get somebody to sanity check that idea or to proofread that article or whatever, something that's been written. So it's just so many pieces of it that require another contribution, another maybe financial contribution, and all of those little bits add up. And sometimes you may not be in a position where the money is readily available. And so you have to do almost like a cost benefit analysis. Okay, do we have enough? Does this make sense? Do we pause? Do we quit? Do we pivot? So that is something that comes to mind.
Yeah. I have not felt like quitting. But I have acknowledged that it's been extremely difficult. There's been periods of extreme difficulty and I feel like each time we've gotten over those periods, those hurdles, those challenges, I'm reignited, I’m fueled up again, God has put someone in our space or place, he has given us the break with a period of, I wouldn't call it rest but I would call it smooth for a short while, where we could just continue to push on and grow, to take the next best step before we reached the next hurdle that we had to get over.
Episode 12: Pat Phillip-Fairn
Welcome to Pat Phillip-Fairn, she's the founder and CEO of Objective Consulting Limited is a company that provides strategic planning, content development, project management and executive communications coaching services.
This lady is a powerhouse. This lady is the one who you feel like just has Teflon, like thick Teflon, so it doesn't matter what else is falling around.. falling down around her, she's just sailing through picking up pieces, putting it all together with a big smile and a bow on top. I mean that is Pat Phillip-Fairn to work with, it's such a joy, and you’d never imagined that Pat would ever have a moment or a setback.
Yeah, I think failure is an opportunity, right? If you don't fail, if you don't have setbacks, you don't grow. So for me, that kind of thing is really a growth opportunity. I've said to my son in his life always, don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid of not getting it right. There is nobody in the world who gets 100% of everything, 100% right all the time. And if you do fail, take a lesson from it. What is this? What am I supposed to learn from this? And how am I supposed to grow from it? That's my perspective on failure. What is this teaching me? And how will I grow? So don't be afraid to fail. Don't be afraid of setbacks. Just use them to learn. Learn more about yourself, learn more about the service that you're offering if you need to make some adjustments, or learn more about your clients, there's an opportunity for growth in failure. You shouldn't be afraid to fail. Failing up, right.
Failing up and failing forward.
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Thanks for joining us on Resilient Entrepreneurs. We love supporting entrepreneurs, especially with mindset, marketing and motivation which is why we’ve built an incredible community of business founders who meet weekly in the Level-Up League. If you'd like to know more about it, look us up at www.twofouronebranding.com
