Shivani Gupta

Welcome to grow your business podcast very excited to have Elia Donati on today, I'm going to tell you a little bit about him. And we're going to dive into this very interesting person. And for those of you that are watching it on YouTube, you'll see that he's sitting in a beautiful place with great surroundings. And when you see him drinking out of a wineglass, he tells me, it's just water and lemon. As of I got my favorite drink there. He's just giving us a visual of that. And so let me tell you a little bit about Elia, he's been in the business of elevating, experiencing, and socializing with friends and family, in the 20 years of experience that he's been doing that they have served 1000s of customers. And essentially what they do is host the best intimate and private parties, either in your home, or in the accommodation that you've perhaps bought. And by by doing that, they help you deepen your relationships with people you love, and create memories. I love that why when I read that Elia so welcome to the podcast. So excited to have you on today.

Elia Donati

Oh, thank you very much for the beautiful introduction. And I'm very, very, very happy to being interviewed by you. It's an immense pleasure.

Shivani Gupta 

Oh, that's so great. And so tell us 20 years of doing this business, obviously, in that lots of happened in terms of what you've had to face around challenges and adversity. And I guess those things transform you into who you are today. So tell us a little bit about your top two or three things so that we've got a better understanding of you.

 Elia Donati

Yeah, so absolutely. I would say when I think about that, the first thing that comes to my mind is mindset. And I think it aligns very well with what you do as well. And it aligns very well with what I'm doing right now. Right today. So I'm in this beautiful location, in the middle of nowhere, chosen on purpose, because I felt like I've had to do a lot of work. And this past few weeks, and I just needed a recharge, I needed to be my element. So to get to the point is you need to look after your mind your mindset, because that's what makes you get up in the morning and look after yourself and go through your, your day like you like you design it. Yeah, so that's very important. And that's been quite a journey. It's, it's made out of many parts, starting with trying to wake up a little bit earlier, and trying to keep that up every day, trying to train every day. And also, you got to find what works for you. For me, martial art works very well because I got distracted, I gotta think about, you know, it's too hard or things like that. And, for example, after that, I meditate as well. And one thing as well, that I do is I do it before the shower, because why because it allows my body to cool down normally and expel all the stuff that wants to get rid of, and so on. And there's other aspects of my day. But the point is looking after my, my mind, so I have to I had to come to this beautiful green place because it's my element, I just feel relaxed, I feel like I can reconnect. There was a big one. And, and definitely dealing with something called, I believe it's called the imposter syndrome. When you start doing something that comes from your heart, you might sometimes feel like you're imposter and all these things and sometimes you don't even recognize that. And definitely, it helps a lot to do some training. And, and, you know, just work on that because at the end of the day, all you're doing is what you love with your own twist. And that's it also on the social media, you know, what am I gonna post today just or even being here at your podcast throwing, you know, to make it amazing. Actually, I just think I just have to be me But, and, and tell you what I think and what I did. So these couple of things were probably the best things I, I've implemented going through business and these aspects of my life. Yeah.

Shivani Gupta 

That's amazing. Elia, thank you for that. And I love the fact that you said, you know, you take time out, because when we look at chefs and running your own businesses, sometimes we just don't stop. And so the fact that not only do us talk about stopping, but as we are recording this podcast, you are taking some of that time out, to be able to reconnect with yourself and reconnect with nature. And what's around you is a, you know, is a fantastic, you know, and a real life living example of that. And so over 20 years of doing this work, so many challenges come your way. So many challenges come around growth around people around customers, like all the business challenges, but also personal challenges. I'm always curious, Elia, is there a way that you go about dealing with her? Do you have a way or a process or a system or a philosophy? How do you go about dealing with challenges? How do you prepare yourself to work through that?

Elia Donati

Yeah, so this one comes from probably the most amazing, amazing book I've ever read in my life. And in a, it's called, who not here, and basically gives you the idea that automatically when we are in front of a challenge, we think, how am I going to fix this now? What am I going to do, but if you switch, and you start thinking, Who can help me with this, it changes, it changes the game, it changes everything, because there's always someone that can help you with something, because also, it could be something that you, you have no idea of like, you asked me about cooking, we can stay on this call for hours, but you asked me about how to run a run a successful Facebook campaign. I don't know login to Facebook and follow the prompts. That's all I know. So that's, that's easy. You know, that's one little challenge, just you need to find someone that, you know, I spent the same amount of time I've spent cooking steaks and food, but doing the ads and can do it for you. So well. And, and, and this with everything else, we staff, there's always someone that that can help you. And this works in reverse as well. Because the interesting thing is you have to find your who that can help you with something but you also need to be a hole for somebody else. And that's where it comes in the real deep why of being a personal chef and in doing what I do. And I do in so many forms, very different forms not just the personal chef, but the core point the real reason is because he reminds me of the time when I was sitting at the table with my family and you know enjoying this beautiful vibe, the smell of the food stored on a table sitting down and being together sharing things asking questions and eating well looking after that part of you and you know some people need a whole for that need somebody to cook well for them they might not be able to do it as well they might not have time to do that and but they want to look after their part of their life and their family. So I'm happy to be that hole for these other people. This is the I think my best mechanism to coping with challenges but mental mentally sometimes challenges really throw you off. And you need something more in a personal sphere. So a really good partner that is aligned with you. In the values without you are wired and are really good circle of friends and influence. because they are influencing your life. So those things are really, really important because you get to speak to other people, you get to this back and forth continuous back and forth of information. And this is why we're different from animal, maybe maybe they talk or maybe they don't. But we definitely able to share so much more information between us. So, yeah, definitely, that helps. A lot, awfully. This was while you were after with your question. Yeah, absolutely.

Shivani Gupta

Absolutely. I love when, when we have guests on, and, you know, people just share the parts of themselves on the podcast, where like, that's what it's really about. And when you look at the future, earlier, like, what are the future aspirations? Whether it's one year, three year 10 years? What are some of the future aspirations where you want to take the business and your life? And what are some of the things that you're looking forward to from a future aspirations perspective?

Elia Donati

Yeah, absolutely. So from your family, from my family, I am, I got a lot of loves the all the love I could imagine, and from my partner as well, and, and I keep on getting it. But we never were, reach, or very, very wealthy, and probably there's a part of me that, you know, wants to, you know, buy a nice car or something like that. And that's surely something that I like to do, but in a more or you call it different manner. What I want to take it is a deeper level, that's what I'm trying to say is I just want to be able to help people that are around me, so which will be definitely my future family, and also my present one, because it gave me a lot of love and everything, but they, they didn't get a chance to come to Australia like I did, and live in this beautiful country, and I see them struggling, still, you know, they're not getting any younger, and, you know, just want to give something back and being able to support and make sure we all share something nice and which doesn't have to be a yacht, or with there's nothing wrong with that. But I'm not saying you know, there has to be that even just the fact that I can pay for them to come to see me once again, every year, instead of waiting to three years to see them or things like that, you know, being more together or being able to be there more often these sorts of things. And, and yeah, definitely make the most out of the fact that the lifestyle that you cannot see in this country. It's I think it's very high. It's very beautiful. You've got a lot of potential.

Shivani Gupta 

Yeah, that's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. Elia, Some people love philosophies or, you know, there's lots of leadership's for Britain. Are there any philosophies or leadership principles you like to run? The way you live? And what you do?

Elia Donati

Yeah, so I, I've always felt like I was a bit of a bit of a leader. And this thought has changed greatly throughout the years. And in lately, I've been, I think probably nailing it a little bit more and attains was when I realized people don't, don't just do what you say because they do it because it's aligned with so many things with doing the right things with what's right by you. And by then, and by the business. And, and so, I, I just I just really, I feel like I'm a leader when people without asking they say one one of my employees said once I'm very proud of working with you, I didn't even ask anything or a feedback or any or anything about then I asked her to specify and she said, Yeah, I feel like you know, you, you listen to me, you you know you you help me when there's a challenge. Also my personal life. And you don't make me feel like you are I am a number in your company, I just have to wake up to do things for you. Because I'm getting paid, you know, is not the right word is is not transitional. There's a bit more to it. And that also, I guess, goes a long way with, you know, keeping your stuff and very healthy work environment. That's for sure.

Shivani Gupta

Thank you, Elia. And, you know, when you're cooking, and you're preparing things for other people, you have your own rituals in terms of how you prepare different types of food and how you serve that and what experiences you want people to have. What about in your own life? Like, what do you do for your own wellness? What rituals do you have for your own wellness for your own mental health? See that that's such a big issue for us running and growing our businesses is also to look after ourselves. And I know that obviously, you're in this beautiful surrounding for now I can see that you're doing some things for your well being. But what are some of the riches that you have? Whether you do them daily, weekly, yearly, tell us about them?

Elia Donati

Yeah, so like it or not, we've got different spheres that we need to take care of in our life. Not gonna go through all of them. But we got to have fun, we got to be wealthy, and you define what wealthy is for you, we've got to be well, and so on. So you gotta look after all these paths. Love is another one, for example, you got to look after them, because it's like a wheel. And if there's a missing part of the wheel sort of, doesn't rotate properly. And so, to look after that, my suggestion is to start very simple from one thing, getting one thing right and build on it, I always make. When I explain this to people to my employees, I always say, a Formula One for America. Sorry, I'm a bit biased, but it wasn't built. Like the one you saw last year in the circuit. Like that 50 100 years ago, was built, and then was tweaked and changed or tweaked and changed and made better and better and better one year from the other. Maybe they just changed five screws, you never know. And this is what it is just start with something small, simple, like wake up a little bit earlier, and get active. Something like that. But if you ask me, I get up. For me, my sweet spot is around six 630. And then I need to get active, I do some light gym activity. And then I come back like I said earlier, I I do my quick 1015 minutes meditation while my body goes back to normal temperature, then I have a shower and I'm so ready for work and super ready activated and everything. And then I do my work around me they I train again, martial arts. And that is so important for your mind. It's I didn't know at the beginning, but it just keeps you straight because I do Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. And one of the best quotes they have is you never lose. You either win, or you learn, which is I think it sums up everything. And it's amazing. Sometimes you go there and you're super pumped and you get destroyed. Sometimes you go there like today. And, and you got really good results. And at the end you feel awesome. And sometimes you don't get much. But you know what you showed up? You went, you did it. And you know if you didn't stay home, lazing around, and that gives me a way to recharge again. And another very important thing of my day is lunch needs to be very light for me. And I find again for myself, carbs don't work very well. And for lunch and so I consume a lot of vegetables, little meat, vegetables and gears that lets me go straight to work. I don't need to wait. I don't need to have a little nap or anything. I'm able to go back to work and focus again. Also lemons in the Cypress when it comes to Cyprus like acidic apples like the green ones and oranges on this Cypress fruits. You blend them together and yeah Have a boost shot, that helps you as well. And then I work up until I need to depending on the day, if I have Adina to get to work a little bit less hours, and then I go and do my dinners, otherwise, I work until late afternoon. But then when I stop, I stop. Because one thing you learned, I learned about meditating is being present in the moment. So if you decide you stop, you stop. So if I'm Laura, my partner and my partner watching Netflix, or I don't know, just chatting, and I don't want to be on my phone, I don't want to be someone else, you know, if you've got something that I need to fix, I gotta fix it so that I can be there. And I think that's very important. Very, very important to just be present and just enjoy the fact you're able to see and talk with somebody and, and just that simple as it gets.

Shivani Gupta  

I love the fact that you've like, it's almost like you've done all these trials and errors and come up with a list of you know, this doesn't suit me, this suits me really well, this Yes. And you've kind of worked out your own bio hacks in terms of what works for you, which is great for the listeners, you know, particularly I think, as business owners and entrepreneurs, we are constantly trying to grow our business, but sometimes not spend our time doing what we want to do. And I believe that you've got something for us today, how what's the best way for people to access your offer today? And also, what's the best way to people to find you if they want to book you for events? And different? So tell us about how to what's the best places to find you which platforms? How we do that and tell us a bit about the offer?

Elia Donati

Yeah, so we've made our special offer, because we want to, to celebrate the fact that I was finally able to be here with you also talking about being present, you know, it's such a pleasure. And so we put it on our link in a in a Instagram video. You click on there, and there's inside, there's another link called us, ask Shivani you can put your details in there. And we will take care of everything else. If it's work related, if it's something about cheffing if you have any questions about what I say it or want to go deeper one asked me how I did it, or why or anything else. Just even a DM on Instagram, I'm very happy to you know, have a chat and, and help anyone with the process. Through Instagram has got everything in there. There's the website link, we've got 300 Plus amazing people who helped us build amazing reviews on Google. So we've got that as well. And obviously we've got LinkedIn Tik Tok and so many other things. And yeah, so we help people in many ways, the most, the most out there is the personal chef. thing. So that means that we do a party for you for your birthday or something and we come in and we do everything from the groceries to serving you to giving you an experience those two coming around the table explaining about the ingredients why we get those why and how. And, and, and then cleaning up at the end as well. We can do a bar we can we have entertainment options as well. We also help families cook on a weekly basis. So we're more present less fancy less party. And, and that's also an amazing way because you get again, you get to help people. I get to be a who for somebody who needs help, you know, cooking for their family and their loved ones. And yes, we've got so many ways and you can see them all on our website or ask for any information you want.

Shivani Gupta

That's fantastic. We'll also put that in the notes, Elia. It has been such a pleasure having you on today. I hope you really enjoy stay back for a couple of minutes. We'll have a chat. But so wonderful to have you on today. Enjoy the rest of your little mini retreat and some time to yourself and really, really enjoyed chatting to you and really look forward to at some point coming and tasting some of your beautiful food. Thank you for being One today