Shivani Gupta (00:16)

I'm Shivani Gupta, and welcome to the Ask Shivani podcast. I believe that one of the best presents that you can give yourself is time to be able to sit down and ask yourself some questions. I believe that the quality of the question that you ask yourself will determine the quality of your life.

Hello everybody and welcome to the Ask Shivani podcast. I'm really lucky, I have got Jo Blowfield, who meets us today, all the way from New Zealand, which also happens to be in lockdown. I had the privilege of meeting Jo through a common mastermind that we're both a part of, we'll talk about that a bit later. But let me tell you a little bit about Jo first. So, Jo has run a bunch of things. She's got a bunch of experience that is also going to help you as you listen to her. But also, if you did want to follow her later on, she has been the host of the business Power Hour. She is the owner of the Marketing Company or TMC, Director of Sales mastery company. She's also started a new business called Business and Sequins and also got her own podcast. So many things that I'm hoping that she's going to share with us about now that she is really spending a lot of time educating women in business around health and wealth. Welcome, Jo.

Jo Blowfield (01:38)

Thank you so much! Thank you so much for having me.

Ask Shivani (01:41)

I'm so excited that you are here. Jo, tell us firstly, a little bit about your journey, both around personal and business. And I guess what have been some of your major turn. So, tell us about good, bad and the ugly, you know, often things that are not big to other people, but they were really big transformational moments for you in your life.

Jo Blowfield (2:01)

Yeah, sure! I'm really excited to be able to share with your listeners. So as Shivani said, my name is Jo Blowfield. I am a wife and I've got two children, two beautiful girls. I grew up in a small town called New Plymouth or Taranaki in New Zealand. And I grew up on a street called Adventure Street, which to me was just the most amazing name for a street. But it was a street that was in one of the poorest suburbs in New Plymouth so I grew up in between two gangs. So, my street was right in the middle of those two gangs. I went to one of the poor schools in New Plymouth, right through until standard four. And then, I had a best friend - Kelly Parker, who decided that - her parents moved to the other side of town. And so, she changed schools. So, I begged my parents to change schools for me. So, they let me go, I don't know how they have managed to afford it. But I changed schools. And when I changed schools that just it put me onto another path in life. So, when I changed schools, that was one of the - it was a private girls school. And in that school that had a lot of people who owned businesses.

So, a lot of kids that had come from privilege, which I didn't come from. So, I just got to see a different way of life at that school. And then when I was 16, I decided to leave school because I had a terrible time and teacher who wasn't the nicest to me. So, I decided to leave school. And my parents said that I could leave school if I went straight into full time job. One thing was my parents is that my parents have I've come from a poor family, my parents lived from paycheck to paycheck. But one of the things that they had, which was one of the biggest values was work hard. They were hard workers. So, they installed that and to all of my brothers and myself, I've got four brothers. And I got a full-time job. And it was working at a fish and chip shop, which you know, for a new family had just come in from China, they couldn't speak English, I couldn't speak Chinese. So, it was really meeting in the middle and figuring out and I was able to help them with a few things in their business. But then I also decided that I wanted to kind of steep happen to another job. And I got a job with a family who owned a small music store. And it was a family run business with a mother and a husband, a son and daughter. And I got to see how small business ran. And I went from making cups of teas, cleaning the shop to managing the music stores. And I absolutely loved it. And to me, I just got this really deep insight and how to run a business, how it can work if you're working together as a team, and how you can grow your business.

And yeah, I moved over to Australia. I got married to my lovely husband who's English and we go started a great life in Sydney. And then we went and we saw Robert Kiyosaki in live in Australia. And it really changed and pivoted a lot of my thought process in my life and it really grounded me and made me think I want to own a business.

So, my husband and I, we hunted high and low for a business we looked at, we wanted to be in the hospitality industry. So, we looked at businesses that were just holes on the wall, making coffee, turning over a great profit to businesses that had 20 staff making no profit. And so, we looked at all of the businesses, we looked at it, and then we decided that what before we did anything, though, we would go, we'd take a break, and we'd do a bit of traveling. So, we did the traveling, my husband got headhunted over to Switzerland, by a big startup and to the IT company. So, we went and did that. And then we found out that I am pregnant, which changes everything you think your life is going one way. And then you find out that you're pregnant. And so, you we reassessed. So, we decided, my when I told my husband that I was pregnant, he was in Switzerland at the time, I was back in Australia, getting our house ready to be sold. And he just said to me, there's no other place that I want to bring up children other than New Zealand, he did work out, I'm coming home, we're moving back to New Zealand.

And so that is exactly what we did. We packed up, we sold up, and we moved back to New Zealand, back to Adventure Street, actually, we bought the house opposite my parents. So back on my favorite street, and I was four months into having a baby and I looked at my husband and I said to him, I think I'm a little bit bored, I think I'd like to start a business. And then that is when my business life started. So 17 years ago, now, we started our business, the marketing company. And it started off with built on things that I roughly knew. So, we started off doing things like call center, we did credit control, you name it, we did it all. And I don't know who would let a woman with a four-month-old baby start a business, but my husband thought it was a great idea. So off we went. And yeah, that business has just gotten what it’s been through the GFC. It's been through its ups and downs, and that businesses are predominantly a marketing business. And then about five years ago, we started the sales mastery company as well. So that we had sales training, that's where my passion, my husband's passion really lies. And both of those businesses have just weathered COVID, which has been a whole other big tune. And yeah, and then just recently, I've looked at starting a business in sequins. So, there's been kind of through that whole time, there have been lots of highs, lots of lows. But I look at it now. And I think 17 years later, and I'm still standing.

Ask Shivani  (07:33)

That's incredible Jo. That's such a great story. My favorite part was starting off on adventure Street and ending back up on Adventure Street. Isn't it funny how many times in business, we do this full circle? And then we and then we come around to it. So, in 17 years in business, raising a family moving countries, all of the different things that you've spoken about, you're faced with heaps of challenges, and obviously recently, and I  know we were speaking at that conference, where we were speaking about, you know, conference, COVID, and how much impact it had on so many of our businesses. So, when challenges come your way, whether they're personal whether they're business, do you have a way that you deal with them? Do you have a process? Some people journal, some people go silent? Some people use a process? What's your approach? When challenges come your way? Do you have like a tried and tested method that you that you put into practice?

Jo Blowfield (08:24)

Yeah, I've been thinking about this recently. And you know, when people are given challenges, it's usually comes down to that, you know, fight or flight response. And I've realized that mine is different, definitely fight. And so, whenever I'm up against anything like that, I've got one of those crazy brains that can think big picture, but can also think my neatly down into detail. So, when I've got my back up against, whenever it's been my backup against it, I can see what we do want to achieve. And then all of a sudden, my brain just kind of processes that and goes, this is what you need to do in order to get out of it. And so, I'm also wanting my husband and I, we've realized that we love goals.

So, first thing that we do whenever we're in any challenges like that is look at what we're wanting, and then look at how we're going to get there. One of the biggest things my husband and I is that very early on, we got married, we decided that we had a couple of things that were nonnegotiable for us, which was divorce wasn't an option, never an option for us. If we made each other happy, then our children will therefore always be happy. And thirdly was that we would always be each other's favorite. And so, we've realized that whenever we're in trouble if we're in it together, and we're a united team, then we can do anything that we want and we can achieve anything. And so yeah, we do we sit down, we write out what the problem is. We look at it, we break it down, and then we just put down short little goals so that we're constantly achieving through the process. And we didn't use to celebrate those goals, but now we've realized how important it is to celebrate these goals no matter how small they are. And then we just not look at knocking off sort of that big goal but in small steps.

Ask Shivani  (10:08)

That's amazing. I love that, also love the fact that he said “we're each other's favorite.”

Jo Blowfield (10:12)

Yes, we are. Do you know what? It's funny because our children, our 12-year-old in particular will come up to me and she'll always go, who's your favorite? Who's your favorite and my favorite, and it's always your dad is my favorite. And he will, my husband always say your mom is my favorite. So, they keep on trying to get him there as the favorite kid or anything like that. But we've just always said, if we are right, as a couple before, our girls will always be happy. And so yeah, that's one of the things but it's so funny all the time. Yeah, my 12-year-old, just roll her eyes at me and go, yeah, I know, dad's your favorite.

Ask Shivani (10:48)

And I think it's great for them to know going saying, you know, you will grow up and leave eventually. But you know, our partner stays. That's, that's great. You've just talked about your philosophy there are around, you know, being the favorite, the way that you attack problems. Are there other leadership philosophies, or books or quotes, like, they're the things that you really try and live by, that are really important to you at a core level, in terms of who you are, you know, on a nerd setting the religious places, but you know, I come from a culture about karma. And that karma is really important and illiquid by as well as if you don't do the right thing. So do you have philosophies or quotes or books or other things that you got, I really try and live by that, or they are really inspiring to me in terms of how I go about life and navigating life.

Jo Blowfield (11:32)

I, well, my husband and I, we are Christians. So, you know, we do, we do meditate, and we also pray as well. But we, my husband and I are on the philosophy, our number one goal in life is to give, to give as much as we possibly can, whether it's monetary, or whether it's time, or you know, advice, or just even lifting other people out, but it's just our biggest goal in life.

And it's so I hope business is based around what we can do in the business in order to have profits be able to give, and that to us is a huge motivator. And so, you know, with being Christian, I just loved I love the values of it. And I love, you know, being in a group of I think the positivity that I get from being in mine and the groups that I'm involved in. And so yeah, I would say we do live on abundance as well. abundance mentality, we really think that there's enough in the world for everyone. So, you know, there's no need to fight. There's enough in the world for everyone. So yeah, those are kind of the main philosophies that my husband and I love by many years ago. Before we were, before we were Christians, we found we found the book The Secret. So, you know, we used a lot of that ethos out of that book as well. But yeah, it's just more about abundance, and just knowing that, whatever we're needing it will be provided. Yeah, that's us.

Ask Shivani (13:04)

Yeah. And it can be really practical to Canada Abundance, I was listening to somebody the other day that was talking about, it's not this wishy-washy theme, it's kind of knowing that there'll be enough and taking the stress out of your life on a day-to-day basis when you know that there's enough rather than worrying about the little stuff.

Jo Blowfield (13:26)

I think that COVID as well, for us anyway, has really made us live, you know, more within our means. And more just, you know, looking at more time together, and just those meaningful things in life rather than, you know, the material things. So yeah, I just, I think that you know, for some of us, we are in really trying times, but some of us were also living in special times, where, you know, we get to spend that special time with our family, and we just hit I don't know. I think I feel like I've had a deeper connection with my kids and my husband, that would melt with being in lockdown, because they can't go anywhere.

Ask Shivani (14:03)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And some of its forced, and some of it's this natural way of, you know, kind of the way we were meant to be. And so, tell me and tell our listeners Jo a bit about your future aspirations. I know you've obviously started this new business a month or so ago around sequence. Tell us more about that. Tell us about other future aspirations. Again, whether they are business or they might be personal aspirations and goals that you have, where you go, yeah, over the next three 5 - 10 years. These are some of the things I want to be doing.

Jo Blowfield (14:33)

Yeah, I mean, we've got so many, I just spoke to my husband this morning about and actually because usually every year one of our big goals would be to travel, we would you know, at the end of the year, we would do some big overseas travel. And we would work really hard through the year knowing that we were going to get to this travel. And without that travel, we've just been kind of going - What do we do? Well, you know, there's no reason for us to really push so hard because we don't have that big goal. So, I just spoke to my husband this morning and just said - look, we need to pick another goal because we run really well with goals. And so, we're just at the moment just deciding what our kind of 12-month goal will be, so that we can decide on that.

But one of the big, the big things that I've got going on, as you mentioned, is business and sequins. So, you know, when we were rather, at the retreat in June, I birth this idea that I would like to stand by myself and do my own business, because my husband and I've worked together now for 16 years, I was in our business, the marketing company for a year. And then he came in and joined me full time. So, we've worked together for 17 years, and I kind of pushed him out to the front of the business. And I sat at the back doing all of the planning and everything else at the back. And now with business and sequins, it's time for me to kind of stand out the front and be the face of the business. And so, you know, I'm just doing all of my goals around that. But all of my aspirations for that business and sequins, which we've got the podcast, we've got the membership as well. It's all about, you know, being a tribe or a community for women, we look after business, health and wealth. And because those are three pillars that I wish I'd had people around me or a group that I could go to where I knew that I could pull information on those things, those are three things that I wish I'd nailed through my business life a bit more. And so, I'm hoping to be there for other women, I've realized that I'm a really good cheerleader. And so, I'd love to cheer on women and cross that business, health and wealth.

And so, yeah, I've got that coming out. So, my goal for that I've got a pretty big, we've got three tiers of goals for that business, we've got the year, you know, we've done it the year where we've achieved it. And then the third is, yeah, we've nailed it. And it's all that those goals are all based around giving. It's all based around how much we can give, and how much of an impact we can make in the world and how much we can give to families and things like that, who are struggling and needing help. So yeah, yeah, our aspirations at the moment are just to keep growing our businesses as much as we can, because we know the effects that it can have, if it's on fire. And if it's going, you know, if it's going in the positive direction, not just for us, but for other people, I think we gave you know, one of our big drivers that we do as a big Christmas box every year. So, the Christmas box goes out to families in need and feeds something like a family of five for seven days. And so, we used to give big gift hampers, but now we've changed that and we give these gift boxes out to families. And I think last year, we managed to do something like 300 gift boxes. And I think my husband this year is wanting to go for anywhere between kind of 300 - 500 gift boxes. So those are kind of our short-term goals, I think our big term goals as my way of wanting to get to the Rugby World Cup and a couple years, which I don't think that is going to happen. And my husband said that he wants to go to Brisbane for the Sydney Olympics. But I don't know if that's going to happen for the Brisbane Olympics. But I don't know if that's going to happen either. But yeah, we're just in the process at the moment of yeah, really looking at our goals, especially around the whole travel and they're not being any.

Ask Shivani (18:20)

Yeah. It's interesting, isn't it? That was one of the ways that we kind of rewarded ourselves as well as a family. And obviously last year, we canceled our big trip that was two years in the making. And this year, nothing's happening. And at this stage next year, we'll wait and say in terms of what happens in 2022. Joe, what about wellness, so your own wellness, you're running businesses, you have a family, you've got three girls, you've now got multiple businesses, you're starting up a new business, COVID’s here some of the revenues not as high. So, what are some of the things that you do to maintain your own wellness, whether it be mentally, physically, emotionally? How often do you do it? Do you have daily things, do you have weekly? Do you have an annual thing? What are some of the things that you do to manage your own wellbeing and wellness?

Jo Blowfield (19:06)

Yeah, you know, it's funny, because yes, was about 15 years in business and then finally realized that my own health was one of the things that I had neglected through all of my business life because, you know, we've also had a daughter who is currently 17 but she was, I got we got her to international and she was New Zealand, one of New Zealand's top ballerinas. So, she also won lots of multiple competitions overseas as well. So, during my time in business, I've also we've also got her to world stage. And even at the time, we had a 10-year-old who also competed on the world stage as well. And so, you know, I put my husband I put my family first I put their ambitions and I didn't really look at myself in my house and putting myself first. One of the things as women that I think women suffer with a lot and we don't really do much about is brain fog. I lived for About 15 years and just a cloud of brain fog. And about a year and a half ago that brain fog, I, my husband found me on the floor of our bedroom. I was crying and upset. And he said, you know what's going on? And I just realized, yeah, at that time, our daughter whose dream was to be a ballerina had gone over to Houston was living in Houston. So, I no longer had that goal. And I had to do a lot of asking of myself of who am I without having all of these motivators in my life who am I. And I also realized that I was living in this brain fog.

So, I actually looked for some products I have on the side, too, I actually own a health business too, on the side. So, I started that, and COVID, which just takes over and it's got a really great team. So that's a global team in there. And I just started really looking at health. But the main thing that I've looked at is something called NRF Two, which helps with brain fog and oxidative stress. So, the minute I started removing the oxidative stress out of my life, and the brain fog out of my life, you know, my life has really started taking a turn. And my husband and I, we pray, and we meditate. So, we pray daily, and we meditate daily as well. And I also about, what about four months ago, I joined the gym with a trainer. So, two times a week, I broke in the trainer. And the reason I have booked on the train is because if I don't have a trainer, I will not go. But I know that she's the awaiting me and she kicks my band just saying, you know how you can my inner critic has tried so many times to avoid going to the gym. But yeah, I've gone to the gym. And yeah, I'm just I think being self-aware. I'm a lot more self-aware now than I ever have ever been. And my husband and I were reading quite a lot of books at the moment about aging well. Because, I we want to age well. And we've got a lot, you know, we've still got, I still got 47 years to kind of fix that up. But it's, I'm trying to make the next one. I'm hoping the next 60 is better. So yeah, just reading a lot of books, on the NRF two pathway and that oxidative stress, and praying, meditating. And I listened to music, music is just an answer to my soul as well. I think music makes me so happy. 

Ask Shivani (22:20)

It is such a great list. I loved how you when – yup, we do this daily, we do this, we do this. I love that that is you know, fabulous. And I can't believe you started another business and all of that as well. And so, Jo with some of the work that you're doing, and you know people that are finding this interesting and want to follow you, what platforms do they find you on, how do they contact you, tell us more about that.

Jo Blowfield (22:46)

Well, you can find me on Instagram. So, I am @ joanneblowfield on Instagram. You can also find me on my website as well, which is https://www.joblowfield.com/ and you can find the podcast on there too with https://www.joblowfield.com/podcast1 it’s got all of our podcasts on this too. I'm also on LinkedIn as well, which is Jo Blowfield on LinkedIn. But yeah, I would love to connect and I've got Instagram for me is still new. So, I'm still trying to figure that platform out. But if you send me a message, I'll send you one back.

Ask Shivani (23:23)

Jo, it's been so delightful to have you, thank you for sharing, thank you for your energy. Like I can feel that all the way from New Zealand on this particular call as we're recording, so excited that you continue to transform and try out different things. And I love the three pillars which I'd like to have conversation with you further about. So, thank you for being on here today.

Jo Blowfield (23:45)

I love that. Thank you so much for having me.

Shivani Gupta (23:55)

I'm Shivani Gupta. And you've been listening to the Ask Shivani podcast where I'd like to ask some questions. Thank you so much for listening. Please follow Ask Shivani on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. And if you haven't done so, please go to the Apple podcasts and subscribe rate and review this podcast. It would mean a lot. Thank you.