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Welcome to this weekend's Mentor Moment. Today, I'm joined by Charlene and
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Neve, the founders of Bella and Joe. Success is not about revenue, awards, and
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the next big milestone. For Charlene and Neve, it's about freedom. It's about
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building a business that lets you be present for your kids, it's true to who you
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are, and create something meaningful from the West of Ireland that now is a
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global reach. I love this story, and I love this podcast because it symbolizes
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everything that the entrepreneurial experiment is about. It's about reminding
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people that there's no one way to build a business, and the best way is your
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way. So for us, freedom is really, really important to both of us, and you get
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to do that. You get to do the school drop-offs and the school pickups you get
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to go to the Nativity plays, etc. So there are trade-offs that you have to
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make. That's success for us though, as well. But I think as well of
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key Charlene's point and just as it's come off naturally, like if you're
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talking to people about what success or legacy is for them, for me, we've
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already created a legacy because we've created something from nothing in the
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West of Ireland. That's now sold to over 50 countries worldwide. You know, we've
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won best new brand in the UK, like 69 million people. And for our kids, for our
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community, we're really passionate about faster and that spirit and that pop
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process of entrepreneurship. I mean, if you can think that you can actually do
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it, it might take you five years, it might take you ten years, it might take
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you ten months. But if you want to do it, the only thing that's holding you
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back is yourself. I love that. There's so much there, I want to unpack because
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you've kind of summed up what I think the modern entrepreneur is. I was actually
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writing about this yesterday, trying to bring all these lessons from the
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pod together, like and that's to me, the modern entrepreneur, someone who can
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define success for themselves. It's not just money. It's not just this
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monetary thing because I've had so many people on the pod and they've had
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like
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inverted brackets. If you're watching, you'll see me doing that. But if you're
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listening on Spotify, like, success, it would be the big exit. And I'll talk to
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them and they're absolutely miserable. They are a stone called miserable because
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they've never thought about what is a dumb chasing. They're either running away
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from something or running towards what they think will be the answer. Very few
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people have sat in those chairs and said, well, we knew success was this for us.
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And it wasn't the money for the products. It was this. And even the fact you
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said, like, it's about fostering that spirit of entrepreneurship. Like, that's so
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huge. Like, I say it on the pod all the time, you've to see it to be it. That's why
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I love doing it and having so many people on the pod from all different
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backgrounds and locations. Because especially in Ireland, like you, someone
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will be listening to this that knows both of you. You know what? I actually never
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knew that story. That's amazing. I live in wherever, by now, or Slago, or Nina,
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wherever it is and kind of go, yeah, you know what? I think the modern world is
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founders like you who go, we can be location independent. We can have a great
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family balance. We can have a life and be successful and do it all in varying
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levels. You know, things will go up and down, but defining success. Like, it's
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not how many intelligent people don't do it. They just let success be
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forced to depend them as the number of fund rates.
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What are the external? Yeah, the external because it's so beneficial sitting in
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the room. We've done different entrepreneurship programs, which have been
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incredible, personally and for the business. And when you're in a room with
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other people, you get swept away sometimes in the, oh my god, that's what we
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need to be chasing. And there's so many times we've gone, hold on a second, stop.
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That's not who we are. That's not why we started. And our definition of success
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can be a word, the ones who define it, we get to choose. And that's the
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benefit. And that's available to everybody. But so few people sit there and tell
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me that they kind
of are in a prison of their own making. They've really
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successful businesses and almost the business overtakes them. They're a victim
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of their own success because they make it so successful that they can get out.
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It's mad. And I think this like to be fair, that does happen at certain, like,
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it can happen at certain times. And there's definitely been times where we've
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been like, oh my god, this is just, there's so much going on. But you do, you
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have to, you have to pause and step back and go, why did I start in the first
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place? I think entrepreneurs are unique in that there's something in them that
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they have to birth. And it's like you're always, as you said, you're always
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running towards the finish line. So part of the journey and part of the growth
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and that emotion intelligence that we've come through our journey has been
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taken that pause, that mindful breadth and going and reassess them all the
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time. But like, is this where I want to be in my life? Is this what I envisioned?
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Because I mean, we didn't have a master plan. You know, we were creating one
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product and we created the next product and we're like, okay, this is kind of
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cool. And then suddenly became this big mass of business and this huge brand.
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And that's incredible. But with that comes varying degrees of pros and
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cons and yeah, like it's an incredible journey to get to be on. But we choose
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every day to be here. That's amazing. I talked to young entrepreneurs
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that are like, I just want to make a dent in the world. Gary, you know, it's
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what I'm like, oh, that sounds exhausting. That sounds exhausting. I let you
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be like, how about how about you just create something beautiful for yourself?
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Yeah. And then for a second person. And then maybe two people and three and
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four just build something up. There's this fake Silicon Valley mindset of
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entrepreneurship or global billions of blah, blah, blah. Cool. If you want to go
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for that. But that's the one percent of the one percent percent. It's the rest of
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the 90, the eight, nine percent of us. They're just how she's trying to
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graft and build a beautiful life for ourselves.
And just be honest about it.
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So it's class. It's so refreshing. So I talk about the business body, the brain.
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And why I bring that in is that I was sick of talking to people who just
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talked about, yeah, this was the end of the money. And then we started again on
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Monday. I was like, holy shit. See, did all that work? You made the big sale
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enough money for 10 lifetimes. And you just got back on the addiction.
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Oh, wow. It's not. It's, it's wild because they never have the
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conversation that you've had of like, what is it though? What's true success?
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But I think in the modern world, like there's not a negative to the minute
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the world is a bit crazy. But like the tools are there. The mindsets are
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there. They kind of, the world is shifting towards what you're building.
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I think anyway, that's one of my big beliefs is that it's shifting to a location
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independent future whereby you can build in Balna or Nina or Colve or wherever it
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is. You don't have to be in the cities.
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Somewhere warm. No.
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Well, Malaga would be my.
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It's only a matter of course, looks good. It is on the agenda.
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Don't worry.
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Yeah, I think you need a HQ in. Absolutely.
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Malaga. That would be my European audience.
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We've already talked about it. It's like, yeah, hadn't done anything about it.
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But what about it? I know Rissie swims because I actually bumped into it.
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I randomly come up. He's like, oh, I love the pod, man.
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Like, I've got a good thanks very much. He's like, oh, we work here two days
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a week and we work in Malaga three days a week. I was like, I was going to
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Malaga in a few weeks time. I was like, well, I'm Malaga and he goes, cause
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it's cool. Yeah. I was like, oh, man, you're my new hero.
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It's more. I knew hero. He goes, we're on hold is there.
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And we walk past an office with a tolet sign and they were like, that'd be cool.
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And that he's like, well, not much it is. I mean, just rang off.
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I love that. I like yourself. Same towel. He's going to say, I've done that
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more than once. Yeah. And he was like, oh, I wonder.
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And he rang up and he goes, that's pretty affordable, actually.
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And then he's did it. I'm the head of HQ there and HQ here.
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Amazing. But that's the future, I think. If you wanted to be.
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Yeah. If you want to be. We're going to have HQ Malaga by then,
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nine o'clock tonight. No problem. I will. I will do the official opening.
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Thank you for doing. Yes, Gary.
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I'll wait. I'll wait.
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If you enjoyed that, we're sharpening a knee, go back and listen to the full episode.
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It's episode four, one, seven. If you enjoyed these mentor moments, hit subscribe.
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I'll see you back here in a couple of days.