Janine Allis visited Mediaweek to talk about new episodes of the podcast Superwomen We Ain’t this week. We had a few highlights yesterday, here’s some more of her thoughts on business and success.
Allis told Mediaweek the premise of the podcast is to react to some of the information out there about business.
“Quite often you can pick up a book and it lists 10 points, and if you follow that then all is fine.
“But it’s harder to get the true life version of what it’s truly like to own a business. It is not necessarily all happy days and smooth sailing. We wanted to give people a more realistic view of what it is like being in business and doing business.”
Allis and her co-host Margie Hartley seem to thrive in the informal setting of their podcast studio, speaking frankly and drawing on their experiences.
“That’s what we wanted,” said Allis. “We wanted the podcast to be really honest.
“The title came from my reaction when people come up to me, telling me how inspirational I have been. I am honoured when they say that, but then they tend to be surprised when they find me down-to-earth and very approachable.
“We wanted to take away the myth that successful people or people who have gone on a journey are super special. Or super women or super men.
“We wanted to tell people we are ordinary people who have worked hard, been in the right place at the right time and made good decisions and some bad decisions, which ended up being good decisions to get to the place where we are.
“When people say to me, ‘How do you manage your family and business,’ the honest answer is I do it poorly. It is not easy. It is not easy when you have four kids, a husband and a business and three dogs and all the things that come with that.
“It is not that we are special, or certainly not super people, we just do what we can…and that’s what we wanted to get through on the podcast.
“We are people who get it right sometimes and get it wrong other times.”
“Don’t believe your own bullshit,” is something that Allis said in the podcast about communication.
“Life is it’s own humbler. As soon as you start to think you might be better than what you are, or as soon as you think you have everything under control, life will teach you that you haven’t.”
“Life is a very big humbler. When you think you can pick people to employ them, and then you pick an absolute disaster, you realise you might not be really great at it.
“Then you get to a point where it is not about bad or good, it is about putting systems in place to find out if they are bad or good.
“What’s great about being over 50 is that you are more comfortable in your own skin and it’s ok to be flawed.
“In actual fact the best people are flawed and are ok with that.”
Allis is often asked about how she stays motivated and how that might be applied for others.
“In an office the other day someone said to me, ‘Janine, how do we motivate this team. We are going through a bit of a lull.’
“You can’t change people, people have to motivate themselves. We are human, and some days we are more motivated than other days.
“I am the mother of four children and some days I don’t want to be a mother. Some days I don’t want to be in business. We all have our ups and downs.
“Some days you feel energetic and your brain is clear and the words come beautifully. Other days everything is a struggle.”
As to how she manages her time, Allis told Mediaweek, “My life is run by my diary. I try and not go into the office on Mondays and Fridays and use those days to set up and set down the week. I do some public speaking, not a lot.
“I work on Boost Juice and Retail Zoo and there is always plenty to do.
“I am also an investor in a number of businesses I work with including Be Fit Foods, which is a great business. Every day is different, and I really like that variety.
“I try and do yoga every day and try and keep fit. Then plan spikes through the year, which might be some travel.”
Our favourite podcast title in this series: No point making money if you’re dead.
Allis: “People can spend $5,000 or more a year on their car, but don’t spend anything on themselves. I find that staggering. I am part of senior business groups. I was there on day and looked around the room, which included some of the wealthiest and most successful business people you could come across.
“Most of them were drinking too much and half of them were overweight. They finally had financial freedom, but they are not going to live long enough or have a quality of life to let them enjoy it.
“You have to find balance.”
Retirement? That’s not going to happen, according to Allis.
“Personally I couldn’t think of anything worse. I get great joy out of working and problem solving, creating and growing. There will never be a time where I retire. What is retirement?
“Even for guys, there is only so much golf you can play.
“Sometimes people really struggle with retirement because they loose their purpose.”