Michael: Hello and welcome to the HaBO Village podcast. I'm Michael Redman.
Kathryn: And I'm Kathryn Redman.
Michael: And today we have a special guest Tracy Wilson. Tracy, welcome to the show.
Tracy: Thanks very much for having me, I'm so pleased to be here.
Michael: We are excited. You might notice she has an accent. She's not exactly from around these parts.
Kathryn: Tell us where-
Tracy: Don't hold that against me.
Kathryn: Well-
Michael: It actually gets you extra points probably.
Kathryn: It makes you delightful to listen to, they say. Tell us a little bit about where you're from Tracy. So give us that first, where are you?
Tracy: Well, right now I am sitting on the beautiful gold coast of Australia, but I'm originally from New Zealand. Small town girl, came from New Zealand. I grew up in a small country town and moved to Australia about, I think about 16 years ago now. So now I live in the big smoke of the gold coast of Australia. Love it.
Michael: Big smoke, is it smoking and smoggy?
Tracy: It's not as beautiful, but [crosstalk 00:00:59]. It's this horrible place to live.
Kathryn: Yeah. [crosstalk 00:01:04]. Don't visit.
Michael: Absolutely. Well today, as we talk about Passion and Provision companies, we ran into Tracy and had a great conversation with her a while back and went, she's got to be on the show, because she shares our values. She's excited about business and helping other businesses. She does a lot of stuff and we're going to uncover that as we go. She's an author, she's a consultant, she's a radio show host or podcast host. How do you articulate? Because when we were with you, you ran it a radio show, on and off.
Tracy: Well, I run it like a live show. I do a live streaming show that then I turn into a podcast, I've got a whole process and we can go down that path too, so I can teach some people a few things about that, if you'd like.
Michael: That's fine. Okay. So let's start with your journey. You started out in going into business. How did you get into business? Because you're a teenage mom, had three kids. You got just this interesting windy path. Just give us a brief on how the story went, so we have a high level.
Tracy: Okay. I've got her an interesting winding path. You could put it that way. I look back at my teenage years. So lucky for me now, I am still with my husband who I met many, many years ago. I think we were about 13 or 14 years old, and we were very young when we had our first child. And I can remember being at school and being this, almost been written off as, you'll be a teen mom, you guys won't be together. You ruined your life. You'll be nothing more than a solo mother on a benefit. That was what the society and what the teachers had planned for me way back then.
Michael: How thoughtful.
Tracy: But little did they know, I was rather stubborn and probably a little, although I was a very shy young girl, I also was very determined. So a lot of people wouldn't necessarily have seen that on the outside and just go along and mind my own business, but had this, some way deep inside this resilience to go, you know what, if that's what you think I'm going to be, I'm going to prove you wrong, you watch. And that's been my motto, I think for forever. So I knew that at that time I had a choice to make and the choice was, I could have been a teenage mum collecting a benefit from a government forever if I so wish to, and probably could have survived and been okay. But I knew that that wasn't a life that I certainly wanted for myself nor for my children or for my child at that time. So I knew that I had to go back to school.
Tracy: So at that time I was one of the first I suppose teenagers with a baby that would actually go back and finish their high school education, let alone go on and do some further education. So anyway, I did that and whilst I was there, lucky for me before I had had my first child, my mother said to me, as soon as I turned 15 years old, you need to get a job. And she had already started ringing around and had got me these interviews at various different places. And I went to a restaurant and I got a job at this restaurant, at 15, 16 years old, ended up being the person who would train all the new people that would come in.
Michael: Oh, wow.
Tracy: So I learned really early on how to deal with the public, I looked around, looked at how they ran their family business. I became an integral part of that. Then whilst I was there obviously felt pregnant, had to go back to school. But anyway, between the two of those, I used to take my son to daycare, go to school and then jump on my bike and have to go to work after I'd been to school, to be able to earn some extra money, to be able to buy diapers as you call them or nappies and all the other things that a baby requires. And at this time my now husband was still away. He was at boarding school. So he continued his education at boarding school and did really well there. And he ended up being the dux of that school at the time.
Kathryn: Being the what?
Tracy: They are called the dux. It's like hit academic student.
Kathryn: Got it.
Tracy: I think is what you would call it, academics and sporting and kind of-
Kathryn: You called it the dux?
Tracy: We call it the dux, D-U-X.
Kathryn: Right. Got it. Okay. New word for the day, the dux.
Tracy: Well, there you go. So he was the dux of the school. He was still away at high school, and then he went on to university, which is the equivalent of college in America. Whilst he was doing that, obviously I'm juggling a child at this time, a job.
Michael: Were you guys communicating at this time?
Tracy: Oh yeah, totally, totally. So I would go up there regularly. Let's just call it so far advanced that, we were like a married couple, but just doing these strange childlike things like having to go to school. It was, at the time very normal for us. You just go, that's life, just get on with it and make sure that you do all the things that you need to do and have a clear vision of what you want to create and just step by step, one foot in front of the other, make it happen. I was lucky enough that after, I was going back to high school and I realized that I no longer fitted in there. Which didn't fit in with the teachers, because at this time, you had a baby, you're a teenage mom, but something happens, all of a sudden, your whole mindset, your whole philosophy, your entire life is changed.
Tracy: So you go back to high school, you don't fit in with these kids anymore. They're doing completely different things. They're going out and partying. You're at home changing nappies. [crosstalk 00:06:34]. You're washing, all of that stuff. I had my own place that I lived in. I didn't live with my parents any longer. Mum went out and said, well, you've made your bed, you got to lie in it. Now you've got to fend for yourself. We found you a flat, you're moving out here and here's your stuff. And thankfully, my parents were extremely supportive, but they made me do these things. They made me get out there and start fending for myself, which I'm very grateful for.
Tracy: So anyway, I realized I didn't fit in at the school any longer. And I'm like, well, I don't think I fit here. I need to do something else, which then led me down the path of doing some further education. So I went to the equivalent of, I don't know what you guys would call it in America about we called it our Polytechnic in New Zealand, and we call it TAFE in Australia. Now, whilst I was there, it was my first week, and the tutor said to me, we've got work experience coming up, would you like to do it? And I'm like, "Yeah, I'll do it." Lucky for me I was placed at a bank. I was placed there for, I was supposed to go there for two weeks. The concept was you were to go around all the different roles and sit with these people and watch and hopefully you'll learn something.
Tracy: And while I was there, they were completely understaffed, super busy and there wasn't really anybody to take me under their wing or teach me. I can remember sitting at the desk behind the customer counter with queues of customers. I felt they were looking at me like, what's that girl doing? She should get up here and actually serve us. So I thought I'll do that. I'll just watch what the person next to me does. What do they do? What are they saying? How do they do it? So I just jumped up and got up to the counter and said, excuse me, next please. And the customer started coming over and they asked for whatever it was that they wanted, which at the time was, can I have my checkbook please? It wasn't that difficult. They had their bank account number written on the top of the checkbook. They were in a big drawer. So I watched the person next to me. They told me what their name was, what their account number was. I found the book, got them to sign the form and handed it over.
Tracy: Anyway, this went on for, I just continued to watch what other people were doing and just thought I'd just do it. Nobody stopped me. So it must be okay. Well, the following week, the bank manager said to me, "I'm really sorry. I know you're supposed to be learning from different people, but we are so short staffed and you've been so great down there. Would you mind staying and just helping out on that customer service counter for the next two weeks?" I said, sure thing. No problem. So I did that. At that time, the bank then, they were going through a big restructure, which meant that a lot of their jobs were being spilled and people had to reapply for their jobs. And luckily enough for me at that time they had spilled a lot of jobs, but it also meant that there were some roles that became available. So of course the bank manager, they said, who would be suitable for this role? And my name was mentioned by several staff, on several occasions. So the bank manager rang me and offered me a job.
Tracy: So that was the, how I started in the corporate world. And there was a bit of time in between, and I'd actually got another job with another organization. Anyway, cut a long story short, I eventually said yes to the bait manager and went in and worked there. And that was when I was 16 years old. And by the time I was 17, I had my next son. And I think we had Nico who's our youngest, by the time I was 20. By the time I was 21, I had a job and three young boys under the age of five, which was a lot of fun.
Michael: Wow.
Kathryn: That is a lot.
Michael: And your boys, if I remember a picture, they're strapping lads.
Tracy: They are big boys.
Michael: They are big boys.
Tracy: They are big boys. They are all fantastic. I'm very proud and very lucky to have them. That's turned out right from a couple of teenagers. We've done okay.
Michael: What was the hardest part for you and your husband and then it's that journey over the next three or four years?
Tracy: Look, I think, at that time it was communication. We didn't know any different. A lot of people ask me that, how have you guys stayed together for such a long time? What were the challenges that you faced? I'm going to say naivety was almost a bit of a blessing, because you didn't know any better. So you just, what I did know, was that, hey, this is a life that I want to create. I had a great family around me. I was very lucky that I had a lot of support. I come from a very big family, so not just my mum and dad and John's parents, but grandparents and aunts and uncles. I just come from a culture and a family unit that gathers around and make sure that everybody's okay. So very, very lucky in that sense.
Tracy: Communication has probably been the biggest thing, is us just staying on the same page. And I won't say that it hasn't come at times where you venture off and you start to, you're hitting in one direction and your husband's hitting in another direction, but communication will always help to bring you back on to that same page. And I think that's what we did really well. And we were always on the same page with parenting the boys.
Michael: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Kathryn: That's good.
Michael: Well, and one of the things that I'm thinking about as I'm listening to that story, that independence and that willingness to just jump in, it's almost like there were plenty of seeds, even though you were shy at some of the way you described, although the rest of the story didn't sound like you were shy at all.
Kathryn: Not even a bit, no.
Michael: But there was an entrepreneurial seed in there. Wasn't there?
Tracy: Oh God, yes. My earliest memories of this whole entrepreneurial gift in our life, is me hanging with my cousins on the weekend and jumping on the trampoline at my cousins place. And then neighbor had this massive big plum tree. We used to jump on the trampoline and pick the plums from the tray and we would go, we got to sell these. So we would bag them all up and take a little cart down onto the corner of the street and sell these for 20 cents a bag or something like that. But that was my earliest memories of, we can take something, because we wanted lollies, we would turn those plums into sweets and lollies that we could buy from the shop. So we would sell the plums to get the money, to then go and buy a bag of lollies or a bag of chippies as we call them. But that's my earliest memories of entrepreneurship and then slowly but surely lots of different things that I've done over the years without really knowing that that's what it was, that I had this entrepreneurial bug inside of me, has led me to where I am today.
Michael: How long were you at the bank?
Tracy: I spent almost 20 years at the bank. And funnily enough, I had two stints at leaving, again because it was something more, I wanted to start my own thing. So I attempted to leave once and I went and worked with another lady for a period of time, until I realized that her business, working for somebody else to help them grow their business, wasn't the right thing to do. So I quickly scurried back to the bank and they picked me up and put me in another bank manager role. Lucky for me because that move, A, gave me a bit more of a taste of what it was like to go out on your own and see what a business owner struggles with. But I could go back to the comfort of the bank at that time.
Tracy: And then when I went back to the comfort of the bank, that gave me a different perspective on things and a different way of dealing with business customers as my customers inside of a corporate organization. So I started to look at things a little bit differently and then started to bring in a lot of the entrepreneurial things that I had yearned for to my role in the corporate field, a bunch of entrepreneurs with things in there, which got me noticed, which then got me a lot more promotion. So I ended up being promoted to one of the largest branches in New Zealand. And then from there I was moved or transferred from New Zealand to Australia. That's what actually [crosstalk 00:15:07] that's what moved me to Australia. That's how I got here.
Tracy: So I won't go into the story with that, but there was a bit of a store of funny steer into petty story that went with that. But anyway, I ended up here in Australia to head up one of the branches here that wasn't doing so well, managed to get that back on track. And in fact it outperformed any of the other branches in the region, which then gave me some more notoriety, which then meant that I was tapped on the shoulder to become a regional manager of Fun of Queensland here in Australia. So I went up there, did that for a number of years as a sales and marketing manager up in that Fun of Queensland area. So that got me a regional managers role. And then I decided, you know what, now that I'm here in Australia, I've been here for another five years, it's time for me to do my own thing. And I left again and went to work with somebody else. A bit of history repeating itself, I should have learned the first time. Right?
Kathryn: Sometimes the third time is the charm, they say.
Tracy: Three kids later. I did figure that out after three times. So you might have something there. Left the bank and went and worked for somebody else for a period of time. And that's what opened me up into this whole coaching consulting world.
Kathryn: Wow. So how long did you work with this other person before you then launched your own thing?
Tracy: I'm going to put an inverted comma, working. I'm going to call it more volunteering. I basically took some money that I got from the bank when I left and I worked for her for free for about a year. So I did almost like an internship. I was prepared to do that because I wanted to see how does this world work. I then got a taste of affiliate marketing, online programs, online coaching, so on and so forth. And then there came a point where, I said to her, you need to do something about this business. You've got a choice now to make, either you really invest in this or you give it to somebody else who is prepared to take this forward. And she decided that she wanted to sell it. So I helped to package that up and make it desirable for somebody else to purchase, which it was purchased by somebody else. That person then asked me to go and do some consulting and work for them for a while, until the point where I went, you know what, I've got to put the money where my mouth is and either be happy working for somebody else, which I was not, or do your own thing.
Michael: And there was the big step, the big leap.
Tracy: There was the moment where I went, you know what, I'll start my own thing.
Michael: What was the first thing you sold?
Tracy: It was actually coaching, because a lot of clients that I had been working with actually wanted to follow me, they wanted for me to continue to coach them and doing my own thing.
Michael: Wow. Okay.
Tracy: What was interesting at that time was, I can remember actually it was over a Christmas period and I was in this period of contemplation. What do I do? And I picked up the book, the Napoleon Hill book, Think and Grow Rich. I started reading that and that gave me a bit of inspiration. I started thinking about, okay, if I'm going to go out, I'm going to do something on my own, it needs to be something different. What is it that business owners really need? And I knew that at that time it was actually more than coaching. It was more than the type of coaching that I had seen and that I had been exposed to. So I started really looking at, my background, what were my skills, what was the knowledge that I had, and started researching why do businesses fail? And that's how my business name came about.
Tracy: So Business Beyond 5 actually was because I realized that there were five key reasons that businesses failed. And I built the business around that. I said, well, if I can help people get Business Beyond 5, which was overcoming the five key reasons that businesses fail. And if I could get them to five years in business, so I was predominantly working with startups. If I could get them to their fifth year, I knew that they had more chance of being successful, if I could get them over that hump of the five years. Because the reality is that of businesses that start today in four years time, 51% of them will no longer be around. So that statistic is huge. And that means that a lot of people's dreams are being squashed in the process.
Kathryn: Yup. You are singing our song.
Michael: We did like her for a reason.
Kathryn: We did like her for a reason.
Michael: For multiple reasons.
Kathryn: Okay. Because the audience is going okay, what are the five reasons? Tell us these five reasons.
Michael: Let's wait till the end.
Tracy: I won't be that mean. I will tell you what the five reasons are. So 61% of businesses actually fail because they have poor management. 35% of them fail because got a lack of financial knowledge. 37% of businesses fail because of lack of cashflow and inside of all of these there's a whole lot of other sub reasons. But these are the main reasons. 37% of them fail because of poor marketing and then 49% of them fail because they have a poorly designed business model or they have no business plan. Right? So those five and I know that you guys like, Oh my God, this is the stuff we do.
Michael: It always comes across to people better when somebody else says it. [crosstalk 00:20:40]
Kathryn: Like, yes, yes, all of those things. That's fun.
Tracy: Yup. So when I realized that, I knew that when I created my coaching and consulting business, that it couldn't just be coaching, nor could it just be consulting. I had to some way find a way to be able to combine the two together and offer more services. So I actually started down the path of doing the business coaching, doing marketing, which has led me down the path of creating multiple businesses today. And then the third component was actually helping people write their business plans for all sorts of reasons, mostly for raising capital or going to the bank and actually asking for funding, because I would have been that nasty person on the other end of the line or used to be, that would say, no, I'm sorry, your loan has been declined. And it's been declined for all of these reasons.
Tracy: So I wanted to teach people how they could get their loan approved. What were the things that the banks were actually looking for? How could you position yourself so that a business plan and you, would prepare to front up to the bank manager and have a well structured out well articulated business plan that had weight to it, but could also speak that. Because it's no good just having somebody else create your business plan, then they ask you questions and you've got no clue, they will see through that. So you want to make sure that you're actually, really well versed in what's in that plan.
Michael: No, that's really good. When it comes to our experience to small businesses in America, especially in their first five years, banks are one of the least likely places to give you money. You might be able to get yourself a line of credit for 20,000 or something like that, but you're not going to get much money. Is it similar in Australia that way?
Tracy: It definitely is. And that's I suppose where the marketing and the bootstrapping comes in, and just really thinking about, what can I do, so that I don't have to go and get a loan. A little bit different if you've got some assets behind you and personally, and you've got something to back it up, then a bank might be more willing to extend some finance to you, but if you don't, you're probably not going to get it there. So you need to think very, you want to make sure that you've got a bit of money behind you to get yourself started. And if you don't, you need to be creative. It's possible that you'd want to be creative in being able to get yourself off the ground.
Kathryn: We always tell people that you can only get a loan from a bank, if you can prove you don't actually need one.
Tracy: It's a little crazy really, isn't it?
Kathryn: But it is kind of true.
Michael: So talk about a business plan for a moment. I love business plans. I've always had this weird fascination with business plans. It's really nerdy, but there are good business plans, there are bad business plans. At the root of it, what do you think the power is of a good business plan and having that?
Tracy: I think more so than anything, it should be, it's almost the thing that helps keep you on track. If you can sit down and you can write your business plan, putting the vision and the ideas that you've got onto paper, it actually does do something to bring that to life. And it will act as your North star, a place that you can continue to come back to and help to keep you on track. Once you've got that information in there, it enables you then to say no to the things that are not in alignment with where you want to go, it will cut out a whole lot of distraction for you, give you some clarity, some focus and some direction. Above anything else, you should have it for that reason. And that reason only. So regardless of whether you need to do it because you need to get funding or finance from someone or you need it for an investor, you do it for yourself. Get that for you and allow... I've shared it with my team. This is what we as a team are trying to achieve. And in fact, I've shared it with my husband, that process right there, was a turning point for he and I when I started out in business.
Michael: How so? Elaborate.
Tracy: Okay. I think back to when I was first starting out in this entrepreneurial journey that, so go back to the time, read Napoleon Hill, come up with this brilliant idea. This is what I was going to do, create Business Beyond 5, and I'm out there doing it. Right. But as you know with entrepreneurship, you don't get a regular paycheck, right? So you don't always see the fruits of your labor right upfront. You have to work hard to then, money will come, but it comes down the track. So sometimes when that is the case, you have a spouse or somebody else that you are, I'm going to say accountable to, you've got people that you are responsible for. And at times I would feel he thought I was dabbling. He thought it was a hobby, right?
Tracy: So the only way, I can remember this vividly, because I set up one night and it was because I was ticked off. I thought baggy, I'm going to write my business plan. And I set up and I'm writing this plan. Anyway, he gets home because he worked night shift. He got home at 3:00 AM in the morning and I was up, I think I just got into bed and I actually had that plan with me in bed, weird, right? I had printed it and I had it with me and I'm reading through it. He came in and I said, here, read this.
Kathryn: Before you go to sleep. You've got this, off you go.
Tracy: It's three o'clock in the morning. I've got to read it? Yes. Read it now. So anyway, he read it then, and he was like, "Oh my God, I did not know this. I did not realize that that's what you're thinking. Wow. This is way bigger than I ever thought you were thinking about." And from that moment onwards, he was more committed to the cause, more committed to what I was doing. It was no longer a hobby. It was, this is what I mean by bringing it to life. It was real, it was written down. It was real. And if I go back into that now I did actually a few years back. I've been in business now for about seven years, but three or four years ago, I found that original business plan, I opened it and I read, I was like, Oh my God, all the things that I said that I was going to do and actually happened. And the weirdest thing, they were even down to the dates.
Michael: Interesting.
Tracy: It was very interesting.
Michael: So do you remember Brian Tracy or do you know who Brian Tracy is?
Tracy: Yes, yes.
Michael: My dad and I had a very strange relationship and part of it was business oriented and at 16 I got my first set of Brian Tracy cassette tapes. It's like, here, this'll be good for you. And I ate them up. I think I wore them out playing them in my car. And so recently, I don't know, maybe 10 years ago, I was listening to Brian Tracy something like.
Kathryn: Recently.
Michael: I think it was about 10 years ago. So, but that feels more recent than when I was 16.
Kathryn: Well, okay. In the context.
Michael: Anyway, Brian Tracy was talking about the power of business plans also, and this factoid stuck in my head enough that we've seen it to be true. You just talked about it. He said that when they did several studies of companies that would do a business plan when they started versus those that didn't. And the only thing that they did is they wrote the business plan out and then they just stuck it in a desk drawer and didn't look at it and then pulled it out several years later. The ones that actually just went through the exercise, like you were describing, of planning it out and thinking about it and talking about it. The exercise itself set so many things into motion and it helped bring so much more clarity like you were describing, that more of those companies that were alive and successful, that just did the exercise and then ignored it than who'd said we don't need a business plan. That that's a waste of time. It's useless, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Michael: And that's always stuck with me, is that one of those powers of just like, man, if it's going to be that successful, then we've got to start paying attention to it. I've got so many notebooks filled with-
Kathryn: And we've seen it in our consulting, right?
Michael: Oh my goodness.
Kathryn: If you're working with a client and you're consulting and you have conversation, that's all great, but it isn't real for them until it's on paper, until they can see it.[crosstalk 00:28:58].
Michael: It would be this huge plan. It was great. And they're like, yes, yes, yes. And then they go, well, what am I going to get? And you're like, well, I just gave it to you. And we realized that the check they wanted to write to us, they were unhappy writing it before we wrote it down. And as soon as we wrote it down on a piece of paper, even though we'd walked them through it and told them about it and they loved it, they didn't have anything. It wasn't real to them. And I was personally clueless to that concept because it was so real to me in my head. I didn't understand. But I learned through Brian Tracy, and through that experience, Kathryn just described, we learned the power of that at an immense level.
Tracy: Absolutely. There is definitely something about it. It gives it an energy and it's like you're sitting in intention. You've put it almost, I'm going to say in stone, but you've written it down. It is definitely intended that you were going to do that. And I don't know, you're a little bit [inaudible 00:29:54] like me. There is an energy with that, it happens. I've seen it. It's happened to me over and over and over again, whether it be a vision board, whether it be just writing down what I intend to do, it's in my journal. It's the business plan, just that process of writing something down, it expedites the process, expedites your pathway to success for sure.
Kathryn: There's something powerful about getting something, again, just saying it differently. It's even true just in personal growth, right? If you can get it out of your head and on paper, if you can journal or do whatever it is, there's something about putting it on paper, writing it, using a different modality, besides just thinking that makes it more tangible, more real and can provide incredible breakthrough, because suddenly you can see, that's actually what I'm thinking. Well, either that's brilliant or that's stupid. I shouldn't be thinking that, right? On paper that's ridiculous. [crosstalk 00:30:57]. I could play with it in my head all I want, but the minute you put it down on paper, it's either amazing or it's like, no, let's not do that.
Tracy: I've written hundreds of business plans for people and that, that you're just explaining there, even when I'm writing them for others, the fact that you write it down, they might say, hey, I've got this great idea and I want to do it, blah, blah, like this. And then you put it into the plan and you go, Whoa, that model is just not going to work. That just makes no sense at all. And now here's why. So you've got the written piece of the business plan, then you've got the financials, then you've got the ability to look at both of those. And that helps you to tell a story.
Kathryn: Yeah, for sure.
Tracy: It can either have a happy ending or-
Kathryn: Not so happy.
Tracy: ... very sad.
Michael: It's interesting. One of the things that I think about is a lot of times, at least in America, our bankers, aren't exactly seen as entrepreneurial people. And they don't go into banking because they want to be entrepreneurial. They like the numbers, they like the steadiness and what they can expect in that whole process. So I just think it's just so interesting to go and to be able to come into the consulting and the entrepreneurialism with all that experience in banking, because that's, we've seen it over and over again and we talk about it, the finance side of any entrepreneurial venture, it's amazing how many people are weak there. I would say the majority of people who go into starting a new company, they know how to balance their checkbook maybe. And they may have even done okay in their last company, but they don't understand books and balance sheets and income statements, and even how to read them or process them.
Tracy: Exactly.
Michael: I would imagine, I don't even know if there's a question there, I'm just thinking, this is so interesting, as you work with your clients, that must be a huge value to them, because you're able to take those kinds of concepts and help boil it down for them and make it more simple.
Tracy: Well, now I can. Yeah. But if I'm completely honest with you, I look back at my time in the bank, and you think that somebody is employed in a banking role because they like numbers. They actually don't employ people who like numbers. They don't. And I certainly didn't when I was employing people. We would ask those questions, if you're going to be a teller, of course, you need to know how to add up. You need to know how to add. You need to know how to count money, that's a given. But as far as reading balance sheets or understanding a set of financials-
Michael: You don't have to know any of that?
Tracy: No, you don't have to know any of that?
Kathryn: Definitely not to be a teller.
Michael: Well, I guess so.
Tracy: I did get exposure to that. And I was lucky enough that I was actually part of the financial education sector. There were certain people within the banking organization that you could put your hand up and you could be part of the financial education. So I actually taught a lot of the staff, I was involved in the education piece. So I got exposure to it. You don't get exposure to that. If you're a teller, you'd have no clue how to read a balance sheet and account. Your job is to sell. Your job is to connect with people. Your job is to give great customer service. So that is what they recruit for. And you will find, there are a sprinkle of entrepreneurial people in the banking industry. Most of them, if they're anything like me, felt square pegs in round holes, because your brain is just not wired to be institutionalized like you are indoctrinated to be.
Kathryn: That makes sense.
Michael: Okay. Let's take a left turn. You're releasing a book.
Kathryn: You're releasing a book, and it's called The She Myth.
Michael: We have a new love for people who write books and a new respect for people who write books.
Kathryn: We have a deep understanding and respect for the challenge of writing a book and the amazement of completing it. So, first of all, congratulations.
Michael: Absolutely.
Tracy: Thank you.
Michael: So tell us about the book, what's it about?
Tracy: Okay. Well, The She Myth. As you guys know, I am a mother of three. So for me writing a book about The She Myth, it sounds like I'm going to be writing a book that's very feminist. In part it is, but I'm very much about equality. So this book, again, like I did with Business Beyond 5, we start research and we start to understand, what's really going on in the world of business. When you stop playing in this business world, you start to see that the representation of women are few and far between. Kathryn being here now, is pretty unusual. Most podcasters, most entrepreneurs, most people in business, they're mean. Funnily enough, 88% of businesses are actually owned by women, right? So we are actually very well represented, but we are not represented in leadership roles heavily and we're not represented in what you would consider being very successful, because most woman, 88% of those women who are in business, generate less than $100,000 in revenue a year.
Tracy: So when I started looking at all of these numbers, my coauthor, Vickie Helm, and I, when we started looking at this, it was like, well, why is that? Why is this actually happening? And we started to realize that there were certain, what we call she myths. These are fundamental things that have been happening years, on year, on year, on year, long time in history that have conditioned woman to be in secondary roles. We are primed that way. It sounds a bit scary and it doesn't sound right. We see in Michael's face, he's pulling a funny face, but it's true. So when we started looking at that, it's like, well, that doesn't feel right to us. That shouldn't be right.
Tracy: I even know when the entrepreneurial space and particularly in marketing, I'm looking around at a lot of my peers, the ones that are doing really well, the ones that get a lot of ear time, most of them are mean, very few women. So if you are a woman who is doing very well and you are earning over $100,000 a year, I applaud you, because you are in the minority. So the process, so inside of our book, we uncover the she myths. We allow women to understand what these she myths are. I won't go into detail about what they are, but the book is coming out soon. And I'll tell you where you can get it in, jump on the waiting list so that you can get a copy of it, but we'll help you. And that's, it is for men and women, because I think it's important that men read this too, because they need to read it so that they can help their daughters.
Tracy: They can help their granddaughters understand this and enable them to avoid these she myths, so that we can start to change society. We can start to change the world, one woman at a time. I think now, the number of women that are in business right now, if we could get more of them to be earning more money, women, they want to help others. We just have that mothering nature. So if we can do that and we can help others to improve their situation, then we are going to improve the world. We are going to improve society. We're going to improve communities and improve the opportunities for young girls and the future. So we covered them in the book.
Michael: Wow. Sounds powerful.
Kathryn: Yeah. It does. I'm excited.
Tracy: There's a lot of really good detail in there, but then it also goes on to understand what the she myths are. Then it helps you to realize what your inner genius is and what your strengths are, so that you play to those. So that you can start to stand up, we call it, the take a stand method. So it's take a stand on what it is that you want to do. So, push your shoulders back, stand up, be confident. How do we create that, in yourself, not trying to try to get it from an external source or create it for yourself and then create the process of, we call it, the three pillars, which is to stand up, stand firm and stand out. And if you can do all of those three things, you will have the recipe to enable you to be a very successful woman in business.
Kathryn: All right.
Michael: There you go. You should apply that.
Kathryn: I already stand out, because I'm married to you.
Michael: You stand out on your own, you don't need [crosstalk 00:39:22].
Tracy: You stand out on her own. She absolutely does.
Michael: I walk out of the room and you're still standing out.
Tracy: So I'm excited for the book to come out.
Michael: Absolutely.
Tracy: It's currently with our publisher and it will be out in about middle to the end of November. So if people want to jump on and you're interested in getting a copy of the book, then I will send you guys a link very shortly. It's just being finalized now, where they can go and there'll be able to jump on the waiting list and we'll make sure that we send them information about the book being released. And they'll have a very special code that they'll be able to get it at a reduced price.
Michael: That will be great.
Kathryn: We'll put that in the show notes and make sure that-
Michael: That'll be fantastic.
Kathryn: Yeah, that's great. That's super, super great.
Michael: All right. Give me one of the myths.
Tracy: In terms of, one of the myths. Do you think about, I'm just going to talk about my story, right?
Michael: All right.
Tracy: So one of the myths is, so you're a teenage mum, so therefore you're not going to make anything of yourself. Your life is over, your destined to be a teenage mother and receiving a benefit. That is a myth. It is totally untrue. Why is it untrue? Because I've lived it and it was not my story. And that is not the story that I live today. So to anybody, any other teenage mother out there that is being told that, I'm going to call BS on that and say, that is not true. You do not need to accept that label. You have an opportunity to do something different, go and do it.
Kathryn: Okay. I'm going to ask a follow up question. Is there another myth that you're willing to give up, that is more less specific to a situation and more general to what you would say is in bread in women?
Tracy: Yup. Okay. So another one would be, that women are not very good leaders. Why? Because they're bossy, they're emotional, right? So these are all the things that people think are true, that are not true. Women make great leaders, they have great empathy. They often look out for their teams. So they can be very, very good leaders, but it's these labels, these stereotypes, these she myths that we put on women. And women they don't have time, they need to be at home with their children, is another one. I've had many, many, many women tell me, again because we were exploring the she myth stories, that they're very successful in their careers, but they'd go to work. One was a nurse. She said, I went to work and my husband was also working at the same hospital as me.
Tracy: But we decided for our family that I would be the person who would go to work. I would be the bread winner. My husband would stay home. The senior management in her hospital at the time, pulled her aside and said, why are you doing that? What are you doing? He's more valuable to us then you are. And she said, well, actually, I'm more valuable to our family than he is at the moment, because we've made a decision that my job earns more money than he does and that's what we need right now. So I'm sorry. But I'm just as valuable as he is. So there's a lot of these societal myths that are just inbred into everything that we do when we think. And sometimes we don't even think that it's a myth, that we're causing this great divide in terms of where women are and where men are. And even though women have just as many, if not more certificates, more educated, they still end up in jobs that are not senior, that are secondary roles, that are being paid at a lower rate than men. And that just doesn't seem fair to me.
Michael: There you go.
Kathryn: There you go. I remember when Jenna was young and interacting with this particular woman, happened to be in my church, and she did one of those backhanded compliments. That was actually the insult. Right? So it was, I just don't understand how you manage to work and take care of your child. It's amazing. But it wasn't a compliment. It was a backhanded reprimanded. I'll never forget that. I was like, wow, yeah, shut up.
Tracy: Exactly. I remember one time a boss actually saying to me, I've just been given a promotion and what did he say? I said something like, he was giving me feedback about me. And he said, "You are far too assertive." And I was like, Oh really? And I said to him, really? Am I really assertive? And he said, "Yes." I said, Oh great. I said, that's fantastic, because for years prior, I'd always been told that I was too, no one used the words, meek and mild. I needed to be more assertive. So if I'm more assertive and if you think I'm assertive now, that's fantastic. I've done it. I've managed to tick that off my list. He was not happy with me, because it was not his intention. He was trying to tell me to settle down, back off. You can't have too many opinions.
Kathryn: I was not affirming you.
Tracy: But it didn't work. I said, thanks very much. I appreciate that feedback. I'm glad I've made that.
Kathryn: That's awesome. Good.
Michael: Tracy, thank you so much. We're like, wow. This is a good long conversation.
Kathryn: Yeah.
Tracy: Well, we knew this, right? Because last time we spoke, we could go for hours. I kid you not, we could do a whole weekend, but anyway.
Kathryn: I think we could.
Michael: I think we should do that with wine and food and not the listeners paying attention.
Tracy: Yeah, in some awesome islands somewhere [crosstalk 00:45:07]. Well, that can be arranged, you can come, anytime you like.
Michael: As soon as COVID is over, we're going to get back on a plane again, a few planes. Well, I want to say thank you. Thank you for making the time today. Thank you for sharing your story. Thanks for being vulnerable. And there's implied stuff today that I'm listening to, but it is that idea of, I think the big theme today is, no matter what happens in your life, it doesn't need to dictate the rest of your life.
Tracy: Right. Absolutely.
Michael: And sometimes good things happen and bad things happen. And that just is the way life is, what are you going to do with it? How are you going to frame the way you're looking at the rest of the world? And then how are you going to go after it? You can have a lot of things. What's interesting is, in the midst of that whole story, you've still got a happy, healthy marriage. You got three boys. Are some of those boys married or the picture I saw online, just girlfriends?
Tracy: Well, they are all, I would say girlfriends, fiances, but yes, they have children. There also grandchildren.
Michael: So you've got the whole package.
Kathryn: Grand babies.
Michael: You've been able to do that. Run the company.
Kathryn: Amazing.
Michael: Well, you get to do that in your head and you seem you're delighted and happy with everything you're doing, helping people and allows you to still be critical to the core values of family and the big family you came from.
Tracy: Absolutely. That's so important. I think, those values of family are never far from anything that I do. That's very important, that's why I do what I do, is to help other people, but it's also to be a great role model for my family and to help them.
Michael: I like that. I like that a lot.
Kathryn: So good.
Michael: For those of you listening today that sings really close to the Passion and Provision message that we have. It's one of the reasons we like Tracy so much and we enjoy the conversation, is because we realize you can pursue those things. You can pursue a healthy company, a healthy business, help others. And I liked the way you said it, be a healthy role model for your family and take care of your family at the same time. And there are ways to do that. And then there are ways that you could go about trying to do that, that will sabotage it. We want you to be able to have both things and we want you to be wise about it. So She Myth is coming out soon. You'll have a link on our show notes page, Half a Bubble Out with our book, Fulfilled, with Passion and Provision.
Kathryn: Do you want me to do that part?
Michael: Please do that part.
Kathryn: The book Fulfilled, which is the Passion and Provision strategy for creating a business with profit, purpose and legacy.
Michael: And it turns out I'm a coauthor of that book. I just can't remember the title.
Kathryn: Every once in a while, it all goes away.
Michael: So we're going to land for today. Thank you for joining us on the HaBO Village podcast. I'm Michael Redman.
Kathryn: And Kathryn Redman.
Michael: Thank you very much and have a great week. Bye-bye.
Kathryn: Bye. Bye.
