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Lifestyle, Leadership, Remote Work & Ireland | Q&A with MaryPat Kavanagh

We all know being an entrepreneur entails hard work. However, we don't know that behind the success stories are failures and adversities they have to experience to eventually succeed. The lifestyle we adopt and the skills we develop all determine if we will actually make it. Now more than ever, we have to reflect and learn about how to become the best version of ourselves.

In today's episode, entrepreneur and marketing expert MaryPat Kavanagh shares her insights on what the entrepreneurial lifestyle truly entails. She talks about developing essential skills, as well as the value of leadership, to become successful. MaryPat also discusses how she copes during the pandemic and how to establish productivity even when working remotely.

This episode is for everyone who wants to learn about leadership, entrepreneurship, and productivity despite the ongoing crisis.

Tune in to this podcast to learn more about success and your journey to it!

3 Reasons to Listen:

Discover the meaning of success and the obstacles and learnings to expect in your journey.
Learn about the entrepreneurial lifestyle and the type of leader we all need.
What are the important qualities of being productive while doing remote work, and how can we adapt to the new normal?

Resources

Strategic Results Marketing

About MaryPat

MaryPat Kavanagh is a speaker, business coach, and chief marketing strategist. She has extensive experience in small business and marketing and has owned restaurants, retail businesses, and consulting practices. She is the founder and owner of Strategic Results Marketing, a marketing agency specializing in strategizing and planning for both online and offline marketing for entrepreneurs.

To know more about Marypat and her work, you can visit her website. You may also reach her through LinkedIn.

Episode Highlights

[01:59] Getting to Know MaryPat

MaryPat’s mission has been to be like how a moon reflects light from the sun onto the pathway.
For the past 25 years, her goal has been to empower her four daughters to create a positive impact.
This led to a deeper mission of empowering younger generations about leadership and leveraging their skills to significantly impact society.
Her world is a reflection of you and your greatest gifts, and helping reflect that back into a specific, clear, tangible plan or pathway so that you can have a greater impact.
Providing information the next-generation leaders can leverage has been a big part of her.

[06:37] Defining Success

Success is always a personal thing, just like our fingerprints.
You don’t become successful and then stop. It is not about the destination.
There are many stories and talks about what success is, but there is no clear-cut definition because it’s something personal.
For MaryPat, success is about the freedom to be where you want, whenever and however you want.

“Success for me is freedom to choose to be where I want, when I want, how I want.” - Click Here to Tweet This

[08:51] Her Irish Roots

She is now in Ireland, and her father is Irish.
She believes she became an entrepreneur by accident.
Once she knew what to do, other people started advocating for her.
Her children had a hard time living in Ireland at first, but they eventually adjusted.
Listen to the full episode to hear MaryPat’s story about her personal history, heritage, and early life anecdotes.

[21:22] The Entrepreneurial Lifestyle

“I need to celebrate where I'm at every single day, and it matters. All of those little steps are usually not little steps.” - Click Here to Tweet This

She never expected to become an entrepreneur, but she married someone with an entrepreneurial spirit and vision.
What fires her up is different from what motivates other people.
We sometimes forget that it's important to celebrate the small things every day because of how driven we are.
She conducts a weekly sharing of celebration with her team.
Her one-page business plan consists of your mission, market, message, value, strategies, and goals.

“How you're going to celebrate right now—what does that look like? Because I think we're so driven that we forget to stop and do that, and we don't realize how important it is.” - Click Here to Tweet This

[26:48] Remote Work

You should have the right type of technology. This includes your hardware, software, and connection.
Create and surround yourself with a good, dedicated environment that works for you.
Setting up business systems to document processes and be organized is crucial for any team.
Emotional intelligence and a positive attitude are essential to prevent anxiety from bleeding into your work.
In terms of self-management, having a daily structure that works for you is important to allow yourself breaks and give yourself a routine.

[35:42] MaryPat’s Struggles With the Pandemic

Even if she sounds like the expert, she still struggles with shutting off her work.
In the past, she also found herself drinking alcohol and could potentially begin to slide into unproductivity.
MaryPat also has trouble with setting boundaries.
There really isn’t any expertise as we are experiencing our current situation for the first time.
Tune in to the podcast to find out her stories about Ireland during the pandemic.

[41:08] Everyone Is Falling Apart

She recounts how her daughter’s bosses have stopped acting like leaders and are also struggling.
They have been spinning their entire teams and wasting a lot of energy.
Even bosses are still human. Don’t forget to be kind.

[44:59] Obstacles to the Entrepreneur Journey

Being an entrepreneur bouncing around isn't easy. People have always asked her when she would finally get a job.
Everyone convinced her that being employed would give her peace of mind and a stable income.
Being in the field with no traditional corporate experience made her essentially unemployable. She also didn’t enjoy social services even if she needed it.

[47:21] The Cool Things She Enjoys

Being both an American and a European citizen at the same time enabled her to vacation on a dime.
Parenting her children and sharing their gifts with the world is something that she feels she would always be proud of.

[49:46] Skills for the New Normal

For the young generation who did not grow up in the street, they need to have the ability to be resilient amidst challenges.
We have not given our children the ability to fail, which is such an important skill to develop, especially in times such as now.
It is important to fail fast and fail forward. Ask yourself how many times you can fail and learn something new from it.
Unfortunately, everyone desires to be always comfortable, instead of actually seeking discomfort to grow.
Listen to the story of how her new teammate improved and overcame anxiety in the full episode!

[59:58] Leadership

We need confidence, courage, and agility to lead other people who don’t have direction.
To lead, you need to inspire and have a vision that would push others forward.
With the fast-changing pace of technology, you have to be able to adapt and not just manage the coming changes.
We all have to learn what is important to us.

“I can tell you that what we need in the very near future, like today, is agility and we need confidence. We need leaders who can go forward and bring a team forward when they don't know where they're going or what's on the other side because we don't have a choice anymore.” - Click Here to Tweet This

[01:08:10] The Ideal Client

Her ideal client is a business owner running a small business with about 30 to 100 employees, and who doesn’t have a marketing department yet.
MaryPat looks for business owners who want to create a legacy and have some sort of exit strategy.
She looks for someone with a work-life balance.

[01:11:34] Seek, Go, Create

MaryPat feels strongly for the word, “Go.”
She believes in just going for it and figuring out things along the way.
Even if you don’t have the experience, you’ll just learn it along the way and have an amazing journey.

“We haven't given our children as much experience on how to fail, and I think that failing is arguably the most important skill you can have.” - Click Here to Tweet This

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To growing and becoming all we are created to be,

Tim