Wild Business: Unleashing Your Entrepreneurial Spirit

Angeline shares her entrepreneurial journey from corporate security to becoming a "business archangel," supporting leaders and teams with passion and empathy while navigating the challenges of business ownership.

Angeline Gillings

• Tel: +1 305 972 7751
• Website: www.ampgbusiness.com
• Email: angeline.gillings@gmail.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelinegillings
• YouTube: https://youtube.com/angelinegillings

• Transitioning from corporate comfort zone to entrepreneurship during COVID 
• The importance of planning your business while still employed
• Pivoting from supporting solopreneurs to working with leaders and teams
• Using a bottom-up approach to identify leadership issues by understanding team dynamics
• Developing patience as business relationships often take 1-2 years to mature
• Finding your authentic approach as a coach or consultant
• Understanding yourself first before starting a business
• Accepting that everyone's entrepreneurial journey is different
• Avoiding comparison with other business owners, especially for women entrepreneurs

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Chapters

• 0:00 Tales from the Wild Introduction
• 0:36 Transitioning from Corporate to Entrepreneur
• 5:12 Supporting Leaders and Teams
• 10:45 Business Journey Lessons
• 16:26 Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
• 20:00 Every Entrepreneur's Journey is Unique

Transcript

Voiceover: 0:03

Tales from the wild, stories from the heart. A journey into the mind and soul of fired up business professionals, where they share their vision for the future and hear from a different non-profit organization every month as they create awareness of their goals and their needs. Dive into a world of untamed passion as we join our host, Shireen Botha, for this month's episode of Friends from Wild Places.

Shireen Botha: 0:36

Angeline, what was the events leading up to you deciding to start your own business? When did the penny drop for you? When you were like, no wait, I actually want to go out on my own.

Angeline Gillings: 0:51

All right. So the thought was I'll be honest, I like security in terms of my finances. So I loved corporate or structured business 95 1995 because I knew what I was getting when payday comes, I can plan for that. So it was scary for me when there was that urge to go out on my own and to support the community in in the ways that I was thinking, and obviously the financial flow would be different and so that was a scary part for me. Um, what is this going to be like? Um, can I handle this? So that was, I would say, the big thing for me to overcome, and I'm still trying to overcome it. By the way, I'm still because when you're in your own business there is no straight line of of your what you're incoming, there's the peaks and valleys. So I, I was, as I told my story before, I think I was led, spiritually led, to go and serve, to serve, and the serving means making an impact while making an income. And I was. I was fully, I have been fully committed to that now.

Shireen Botha: 2:24

Love that fully. I have been fully committed to that. Now love that. Did you just go cold turkey and leave your old job and start the new business, or did you start doing this like your own business on the sideline for a while to get it up and going? Or were you in a place or a position to actually go cold turkey and start your own business and have the finances to be able to keep yourself going until your business started making some, some income?

Angeline Gillings: 2:53

right.

Angeline Gillings: 2:54

So, um, that's a that's a very good question, because one of the things that I would have done better is actually started to plan for what I was going to do after corporate rather than corporate.

Angeline Gillings: 3:09

So I left corporate in the middle of COVID, and that was because there's a point at which retirement is defined for that company, and so I knew when that was coming, and it just so happened that when that was aligned with when COVID came. So it took me a year, over a year, to really decide, first of all just figuring out COVID and life initially, and then what to do, and life initially and then what to do. So, looking back, for me, taking COVID out, I should have made that decision, started that thought process while I was fully employed and I started to put myself out there, understand what the business world was like, getting out there on my own, and I didn't do that. So that was a lesson for me, and a lesson that I would tell you know, do you define the problem you want to solve, who do you want to serve, how do you want to serve, what are your timeframes, etc. I was learning in the process, which was not the right way, yeah.

Tanya Scotece: 4:44

And Jalene. So how did you transition from your corporate into your business and what is your market or niche now with your clients? How can our listeners either maybe support you personally and maybe there's a need out there that they would like to hire you, or is there an area that we could help you get into? So what is your space and what is your mission with your company right now?

Angeline Gillings: 5:12

Right. So I started off that I wanted to support business leaders. So I had many years of working in corporate and I wanted to share my experience with those who were building their businesses and I wanted to support small businesses. Interestingly, as I started to speak to clans, potential clans and clans in small businesses, a lot of them were solopreneurs and basically not having a team. And I realized then, because I'm learning as I'm going, I realized that there was a missing gap for me in that I wanted, while I'm supporting this solopreneur, I miss that whole team. Where's that team? To fire up this business. And with that I transitioned from solopreneurs to working with leaders, with teams, and so the leaders don't necessarily have to be the head of the company. They can be a department, a department head, it can be within a church, environment, organization, et cetera. So, along the way that I pivoted to focusing on leaders and their teams and specifically what problems we're looking at where there are challenges with disengagement within the team, the leader, and something that also guided me in speaking to the uh, probably the ceos, the leaders they typically will not acknowledge that they have a problem with themselves, that they are the problem. They are the last to tell you that they're going to and, and. So even with that lesson that learning I realized that if I start with the team and understand what their challenges are in terms of their work environment, their engagement, their productivity, what are their hopes and dreams, why are they doing this job, doing this job Once I get to understand the team dynamics, the individuals within the team, what starts to come out is the leadership issues and where those leadership issues come. Then we make a note and obviously we have a discussion with leadership that these are the issues within the team, but here are some points that we need to look at from the leadership standpoint. So I have started to do that because when you're talking to the leader, they're like oh no, we're fine, everything is good, I have a great team and we're working well, and I find when I start from the team, you get more of that insight.

Angeline Gillings: 8:11

So it's about the business success. We're going to identify what are the challenge areas that are really the major challenge in defining or getting the success that they are looking for, what are those and look at. So we have what we call a growth scan that actually defines what is the goal. What are we looking for what are those challenges that we're seeing? And then we deep dive. Let's say three challenges. Then we deep dive into each of those as to what are the possible challenges. That's making this not work for the bigger goal. And as we go deeper and deeper we get to see it could be training, it could be lack of communication, proper communication. And once we identify those, then we can zero in on what those specific challenges are.

Angeline Gillings: 9:14

And we can't approach everything. We look at what is the biggest impact, biggest negative impact on the output. And if you have a team that is disengaged, then you know you're starting from a rocky place. So again, what is a team energy? Why are they working together? Do we have the right people? Do they understand what they want to do? And so I'm there to help to pull first, to pull out the issues, the challenges, what we see first likely to be missing targets. That's what we're going to see first, what's causing that. And then we support them to improve and in the process, we want the leaders and the team members to be engaged but also happy coming to work, doing the work wow, amazing, amazing yeah, I love it.

Shireen Botha: 10:18

You know, angeline, talking more about your journey as a new business owner and entrepreneur, what would you say would be one of the biggest lessons that you've learned? You did mention something earlier on about something that you could do better, but what is another lesson that you've learned during this journey?

Angeline Gillings: 10:39

But what is another lesson that you've learned during this journey? Well, I would say, starting off, I smile, because if I was to say what one of the areas that I've had to work on whether in business, just personally is patience. I'm not very patient and um, so, getting into the business, this has been a real test for me because it requires patience. It's not going to happen overnight and um, it's so that for me was like okay, if you, if I have my ducks in a row, I know who I'm targeting and I have a plan, I have a strategy to reach them. What I have learned is the people who I've spoken to and who come back it's probably a year, two years afterwards they, you get back and they say oh, you know, you, we spoke, and now I want to see. So there is that span.

Tanya Scotece: 11:46

It's not an immediate winner, and so patience, patience, patience, um, just be ready for, um, the long haul awesome and jillian, and do you do virtual um work, like remote work, or is it all in person or a combination?

Angeline Gillings: 12:04

Combination. So I do virtual. Um, I work out of, I'm in the U S and even outside of the U S I I do. So I do virtual and in fact it started out mostly with virtual until just recently I started to do conferences with colleges. So emerging leaders know, so not just leaders who are on the job with the teams, but another angle to what I'm doing relates to emerging leaders. So college students typically, who I'm speaking with at first level would be the leaders, the college leaders, and then from there it extends to the bigger group in terms of workshop. So it's very important for us to look at both the emerging and those who are leaders already and any opportunity, whether on virtual, whether on zoom, virtual or in person, I can make it work effectively.

Tanya Scotece: 13:18

Yeah, awesome, awesome. And I have one other question for you. If you had to say like so right now, you know you, we see on LinkedIn and you know different Instagram as far as people helping people, and you know coaches or business strategists or you know the different buzzwords that are out there. How would you define your services different from anybody else? Like, what makes your service unique? And obviously it has Angeline attached to it, but how, how can you describe to our listeners what is it that makes your set of this strategy different or better or more enhanced in your words?

Angeline Gillings: 14:00

Right. So I can't answer that without saying that I'm the core. It's what I bring to the table, it's how we connect and I accept. I accept that you know as good as I may think my energy is positive, how positive my energy is, my passion is through the roof, et cetera. We have the persons who are aligned with us. There are persons who are not keen on that. They don't necessarily want the kind of energy that I have, so I believe there are people for each coach. But what I bring to the table is apart from my knowledge and my experience from a personal standpoint, is really passion and empathy. So when I refer to myself as a business archangel and, by the way, someone actually gave me that name because of working with them I speak about my wings, and my wings have come from the quote that we spoke about Wings soar. It's my wings of empathy and passion that helps, that supports upliftment of those who I serve.

Tanya Scotece: 15:23

Awesome, awesome. Thank you so much.

Shireen Botha: 15:25

Yeah, angeline, you know it's so important for our listeners, no matter where they are on their journey, even if they it's just a small little idea in the back of their brains that they're starting to entertain more, or they're at the stage where they've made the leap and they've started their business and they're in the thick of things and they need some motivation, or they're well established small business that they're doing well, or they're just hitting a little bit of a down and they need some, again, encouragement. My question to you would be what would be the piece of advice you would give someone who would like to start their own business? So, moving back to that bunch of people that are fiddling with the idea in the back of their brains they haven't quite made the leap of faith. What would your advice be for them?

Angeline Gillings: 16:26

First I would say sit with yourself, literally sit with yourself. Understand who you are, what makes you tick. And I say with yourself because, um, eventually, yes, you need to share with others to help, to give you feedback, but you have to understand your heart. Um, what do you want to do? What makes you tick, what makes you want to come out of bed and run to do something, what makes you, at the end of the day, get home and say, oh, my gosh, this feels good? So it's about first knowing yourself in that moment, because at another space in time, it could be totally different.

Angeline Gillings: 17:17

Because how I felt after, after business um, corporate, uh, it's not how I felt 30 years before. I was excited, I wanted to be in corporate. So there's a, there's a time and a space for you to sit and understand where you are now, what you are looking for in that moment. A big part of my decision was I wanted flexible time, be able to spend more time with my family, family. So things like that define what you're looking for what sort of income, what's your financial situation? How are you going to support yourself?

Angeline Gillings: 18:10

What all need to understand, where you know where do we want to be financially. And that's important because that's going to also guide what you do and how you do. So I would say the first thing is really understand you, where you are, what drives you, what really lights you up, and then, once you start to have clarity on that, then you share with others who can know you can bounce ideas off and they can tell you. You know, you tell you things about yourself that you say I noticed you didn't even mention this, but, um, we see this in you and that can spark something also. So that's the, I would say that's the first step.

Shireen Botha: 19:00

Then find your, your group, your tribe, share with them to help you to define, help to mold exactly what that next step is I like that yes beautiful and you know, um, even if you are at that point where you're ticking with the idea that you want to go on your own and and do something that you've always wanted to do, um, it's never. You know, once you take that first step of faith, it's not okay. Now it's going to be easy from here on out. I can assure you that there's still going to be good days and there's still going to be bad days, and you've just got to keep pushing through.

Shireen Botha: 19:48

As a business owner, don't expect to arrive once you start your business, or your clients just come rolling in and you're just going to be automatically successful. Every person's journey is different. As a business owner, go in there with all the passion in the world to start something new and to do something that you love, and keep pushing. And if you're not seeing all the clients you've desired coming in immediately, that's fine. You keep on pushing and you keep on doing it. Um, it will come. It will come've just got to keep going. It's not linear being a business owner. It's not linear. You're not going to just continue to be more and more successful.

Voiceover: 20:40

Some people are, I'm not saying that that's not possible.

Shireen Botha: 20:43

Some people are instantly successful. We just had a fantastic guest on our show, clayton. Fantastic guest on our show, clayton. He's running eight different businesses, hey, tanya. So he's just got it. His favorite part about being a business owner is sales, which I absolutely don't enjoy. My worst part about being a business owner but not for Clay's like he loves it. He absolutely loves it. He's successful at what he does. He's got eight businesses. I mean it's it's.

Shireen Botha: 21:22

What I'm saying is everyone's journey is different. Yours is unique to you. So if you don't compare your road to other business owners and entrepreneurs, they're going to be different. You're going to do your own thing and it's going to be all you. So just remember that. Just remember that. I think I'm specifically. I mean, I'm sure the men business owners and entrepreneurs have similar issues of um the imposter syndrome, but I I do want to. I find women tend to compare themselves a whole lot more, uh, so don't do that, ladies, please. Don't fall in the trap of comparing yourself to other women business owners and entrepreneurs. This is your journey. You do it the way you want to do it, exactly. Yeah, so that's all I wanted to say about that. Sorry about that. We went on a little bit of a good point, good point.

Shireen Botha: 22:25

Tune in next week for part three of friends from wild places

Voiceover: 22:30

you've been listening to friends from Wild Places with Shireen Botha.

Voiceover: 22:35

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast from the links to catch every episode and unleash your passion.