The Business of Life with Dr King
Dr Ariel Rosita King brings on a variety of International guests from various countries, cultures, organisations, and businesses to talk about turning
problem into possibilities! Let's turn our challenges in opportunities together!
The Business of Life with Dr King
Litsa Barberoglou (Australia): Brand Stories Unwrapped
Are you ready to discover the transformative power of storytelling in entrepreneurship? Join us for an inspiring and insightful conversation with brand consultant Litsa Barberoglou, who specialises in empowering young entrepreneurs to craft their narratives. With her years of experience, Litsa offers a unique perspective on the journey of starting a business, highlighting the importance of understanding your brand’s purpose, values, and differentiation strategy.
As we delve into Litsa’s fascinating dual role as a mentor and business consultant, she shares uplifting stories of young women who have turned their challenges into opportunities. Throughout the episode, the significance of resilience, creativity, and mentorship unfolds like a narrative full of possibilities, inspiring listeners to embrace their identities and journeys.
Discover how Litsa Barberoglou dedication to passing on knowledge shapes the future of aspiring entrepreneurs and offers insights on overcoming self-doubt and the hurdles young minds face today. Moreover, learn about the emotional and psychosocial aspects that young businesses navigate, especially in a multicultural landscape, as they build their unique stories and paths to success.
Listeners are encouraged to engage with their own entrepreneurial stories, reflect on their journeys, and appreciate the connections formed through mentorship. This episode challenges the notion of linear success in entrepreneurship, inviting you to foster relationships that can help illuminate your way forward in business.
Dive into this engaging dialogue, share your thoughts, and get ready to be inspired! Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review to help others discover the wisdom shared here.
Music, lyrics, guitar and singing by Dr Ariel Rosita King
Teach me to live one day at a time
with courage love and a sense of pride.
Giving me the ability to love and accept myself
so I can go and give it to someone else.
Teach me to live one day at a time.....
The Business of Life
Dr Ariella (Ariel) Rosita King
Original Song, "Teach Me to Live one Day At A Time"
written, guitar and vocals by Dr. Ariel Rosita King
Dr King Solutions (USA Office)
1629 K St, NW #300,
Washington, DC 20006, USA,
+1-202-827-9762
DrKingSolutons@gmail.com
DrKingSolutions.com
Hi and welcome to another. Okay, we're going to start again. Hi and welcome to another podcast of the Business of Life. Today we have a very special guest with us and her name is Ms Litsa Barber-Glue. Thank you so much, would you please. Thank you so much for being here.
Litsa Barberoglou:It's a pleasure.
Dr Ariel King:Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you, could you please tell us a little bit about yourself and about the work that you do?
Litsa Barberoglou:Sure, what I love to do is to help people with their brand stories in particular, and I'm quite passionate about it because I think it's uh, fundamental.
Litsa Barberoglou:So, when people are starting their businesses, if you're not clear about what your purpose is and what your values are and why you're different to your competitors, then really you're starting on the back foot.
Litsa Barberoglou:So I spent a number of years in the corporate world and then decided, uh, in a state of burnout, that it would be a great idea to buy a small business, and that wasn't a very good decision, but it did show me how difficult being particularly a small business person can be, where you are playing multiple roles you're the sales person, you're the accountant, you're the marketing person, you're the person running production and I realized how hard that world is for entrepreneurs. So I did that for a number of years and then decided I would take some time out and reflect on what I really wanted to do with the rest of my life, and so I decided that in all the years that I had worked particularly in the corporate world, the thing that I, all the years that I had worked particularly in the corporate world, the thing that I loved the most, was the creative aspects of defining a brand story, and so that's what I've been doing since 2016.
Dr Ariel King:That's absolutely fantastic. I love that, and you've created a company called Brandvine. Can you tell us more about that?
Litsa Barberoglou:And I don't know if I pronounced it properly and more about where it is and who you serve all over the world. So Brandvine is a company that I started in 2016, and it's really, fundamentally, it's an organisation that coaches and does consulting work, depending on the size of the client. So for some clients, coaching is a much better option. When they're smaller, they need more hand-holding, and so I get to work one-on-one with people, which I actually really love because you get to know them so intimately, and when you get that intimacy, people share their deepest, most life-changing stories with you. So it's a privilege to be trusted with that information and I take them through a six-part process.
Litsa Barberoglou:So we talk about brand purpose and values and the brand name and I consider those to be fundamental to the brand almost cast in stone. And then we talk about the brand voice, the differentiation strategy and the positioning. So when they come out of that, they have a compass for their business, for their brand, and I encourage them to use it in every aspect of their business that their brand is effective. So, from recruiting your staff, they should be aligned with your values and your purpose. If they aren't, then chances are it's not a great fit for you. When you're building, obviously, when you're building your marketing. Everything needs to be consistent, because when we are consistent, we build trust and we build loyalty, and I work with clients virtually from all around the world.
Dr Ariel King:Thank you so much and I know that before this we talked and you have a passion for young people and entrepreneurship Would you like to tell us more about that?
Litsa Barberoglou:I suppose it's part of what I'd like to think of my legacy. I've had 40 or so years of experience in both corporate and small business and I realised I was mentoring some young entrepreneurs last year and I realised that if we can take the knowledge that we have older people for want of a better description and share that knowledge with young, up-and-coming entrepreneurs, then we can help smooth their entrepreneurial path and for me, that's doing them a real service and it's actually adding value in terms of the knowledge that we have. Rather than taking it with us to the grave. We, if we can use it to help other people, um then I think that's really it's. I know it's very rewarding me and, based on the feedback that I've had from a couple of entrepreneurs that are young entrepreneurs that I've mentored, they see things of great value and things that to me, are simple and maybe obvious from their perspective, they find it enlightening their perspective.
Dr Ariel King:they find it enlightening that really makes a lot of sense that those who have come before you are able to give you insights that maybe that you don't know. Can you tell us two of your favourite stories about young entrepreneurs that you've mentored and where they started and where they are now and where you project they'll be going in the future?
Litsa Barberoglou:Oh my gosh.
Litsa Barberoglou:I have two wonderful stories I mentored. One's actually a mentorship and the other one's a sponsorship. One young lady who I mentored is from South Sudan. Her family fled from South Sudan when she was very young. So she grew up in Australia and very intelligent, well-spoken, confident and wanted to do good. So her business idea was about doing good in the space of inclusion and diversity, which is fantastic.
Litsa Barberoglou:But we started off with her suggesting that maybe she would sell her services for $500 for a session and we went through a long process of just asking questions. So have you thought about how long it will take you to develop the program? How long it will take you to travel to and from, how long it will take you to liaise with the client to make sure that you're delivering what they need, actually delivering the program? So, to cut a long story short, we went from a program that she was going to sell for $500 to a starting price of $3,500. So that gave her. It wasn't just about the money. It was about valuing her services and her skills and the change that she could make in the organisations that she was working with. So she's gone on to be selected for several leadership positions within her community and also outside of the community, but of women of colour. So that makes me really excited To be able to instill confidence into a young person. It's very, very exciting.
Litsa Barberoglou:And the other one was a young woman who I actually sponsored as part of the entrepreneurship program and she was from Afghanistan and her father had four daughters and could see how the country was moving from a political perspective and didn't feel that that was appropriate for his family. So they fled Afghanistan and went to Pakistan, eventually came to Australia, and this young woman, who's 20 years old, decided that she wanted to help her friends back in Afghanistan. So her concept was that everybody had a sewing machine in their home and obviously women were much more restricted in terms of where they could and couldn't go, and so she designed ethnically appropriate clothing, sent the designs to Afghanistan, had them made by her friends and sold them around the world, which to me is a phenomenal achievement. And she said you know, these women can now earn a living and be financially independent. So they're both to me they're both amazing stories of resilience, of struggle, but also being open-minded and thinking outside the dot and being prepared to look for advice and knowledge in spaces that maybe they didn't have it.
Dr Ariel King:I love those two stories and may I ask for many of us, especially some young people, it sounds like it was an easy road, that there were no hiccups and that there were no difficulties, but also it sounds like it was from okay, I have this idea, I'm going to implement it, I'm going to make money and everything's great. Can you maybe share with our listeners some of the challenges, how they were able to get over those challenges and also time periods, because I think many young people and many of us think that we can start with an idea and implement it and have it show some kind of fruit or some kind of success within months at the longest.
Litsa Barberoglou:No, it's never a lineal journey, and the young lady who came from afghanistan actually was. They were living in a refugee camp for many years. Um, these, these young people, these young women, um, literally left war-torn countries with very little.
Litsa Barberoglou:They had nothing, and even to this day, I think, whilst we like to think that Australia is a very multicultural country. My parents were migrants and I grew up with a very long name and dark, curly hair and dark skin and in an area which was very Anglo-Saxon. So it wasn't particularly pleasant. It wasn't bad. My family certainly didn't live in refugee camps or have difficult journeys. But I think one of the biggest things that they overcame and it does take a number of years is to find their place in the world, because they're not.
Litsa Barberoglou:They are the latest wave of migrants in Australia, or amongst the latest wave, and unfortunately we do have a tendency not to be all embracing from the beginning. It takes us a number of decades before we become familiar and comfortable with people of other ethnicities. So for these young women, it's about finding the inner courage and the inner resilience to overcome those racist attitudes, to believe in themselves, to believe that they are worthy of a place on a stage a place on a stage. So I think it's very much a journey of moving forward and finding obstacles along the way, but having enough courage to seek out support and learning and experiences from other people.
Dr Ariel King:I can actually see how this is your legacy. It's amazing because I think what you've also done is you yourself, as someone who has worked in corporate and have decided that you wanted to do something else, started your own business as an entrepreneur, which, once again, is another journey. So you start again almost from the beginning, even though you have some experience and now also doing mentoring and mentoring young people so they can do the same. I can see the legacy there. What I'm wondering is that with this, with this entrepreneurship, I think that your mentoring also was a way for young people to understand who they are and, as you said, where they fit in the world. So a lot of what you did is it possible that a lot of what you did was show them a mirror of who they are and what their possibilities was were, and then after that, they were able to look at what they had to give and then to implement that.
Litsa Barberoglou:Well, it's interesting. I hadn't thought about it in the context of it being a mirror, but quite possibly You've really made me think now. It's very interesting. I hadn't thought of it in that context, but quite possibly I think if they had had and there were a number of mentors, and out of the mentors I think all but one were ethnic background, not English or white, Anglo-Saxon and maybe for those, for the young people, and not just young women, young men as well they found people who had done what they were trying to do and they could see that. You know, they say, if you can't see it, you can't be it. So maybe that was part of it. I actually hadn't thought about it in that context. Really interesting, Thank you.
Dr Ariel King:My pleasure, I guess. My other question is are you thinking about writing a book about these experiences, which would not only be helpful for other young people but also would help to not necessarily just document but understand that there really is a process, and part of that process is getting to know who you are and where you fit in the world, and then with that, then comes the business, rather than the business comes first and then you try to figure out who you are that's another amazing thought.
Litsa Barberoglou:Uh, I, to be honest, I had actually put the idea of writing a book aside. I didn't think that it was something that I wanted to do, because I didn't believe that I had something that I really that was a value to share. Um, but it is an interesting thought. It's potentially maybe, now that you've suggested it, maybe I would.
Dr Ariel King:Thank you. You know, what's amazing to me is that you're such an accomplished person and you're giving so much of yourself and your experiences because you want to see other people succeed and humble and not realizing exactly what you've brought to the world. Which is also amazing to me because just those two stories other 10 or 15 stories, I'm sure of it makes a difference for those that are coming along and think that they want to do something and to figure out who they are and how do they want to contribute and, even more importantly, how do they want to contribute under their own self-esteem, under their own intellectual processes, their own creativity. It would seem to me that these stories and, as you were saying, brand new as part of stories, these stories make a big, big difference for other young people that maybe you can't get to and mentor.
Litsa Barberoglou:That's true, and I think one of the reasons that I'm drawn to mentoring is because I didn't have a mentor Either.
Litsa Barberoglou:My parents were wonderful people, they loved us dearly, they encouraged us to get an education, but they didn't have any experience in the business world and they didn't have a network or connections in the business world. So when I first started working, I was really, you know, left to my own devices, and to say I was heat strong would be an understatement. So I made a lot of what I like to call career-limiting moves, and that's where I think a mentor would have made a very big difference in my career, in the way I approached things, the way I approached things, the way I approached certain situations, because I was a little hot-headed. So I think having a mentor, whether it's one person or a number of different people over the course of your life, is a very valuable thing to have. And if I can do that for particularly young people, so they're at a point where you can have a big impact on their life trajectory, then I think that is a very worthwhile thing to be doing.
Dr Ariel King:Absolutely, but that's exactly what you're doing. That's amazing. So in the corporate world, as a young woman, you didn't have mentorship to help you to navigate the corporate world, which is a whole nother. Literally, it's like learning how to navigate out of space. There's a whole lingual, there's a whole, there are behaviors, there are signals and, as you know, it's just a whole lingual. There's a whole, there are behaviors there, there are signals and and, as you know, it's just a whole nother space.
Dr Ariel King:Um, so you weren't get. You didn't get that, and I understand that you were passionate. I mean hot-headed, depending on whether you're male or female would be either passionate or hot-headed. Um, stubborn would be either tenacious or stubborn. So I hear that many of the things that you were saying I'm thinking good for you. You were stubborn, good for you. You know you were hotheaded or you were tenacious, you were passionate, bravo. So I think that the way that you've been able to even navigate your world in the corporate world before you left, as a result of those positive qualities, you were able to stay within the corporate world for that long and to gain the success that you have. So I would just like to help to reframe for you, in my opinion that bravo for you for being passionate and for being tenacious.
Litsa Barberoglou:Definitely passionate and tenacious. I think the other thing that made it easy to be passionate and tenacious was that I was whatever I did, I did with integrity, so it wasn't about being right, it was about doing the right thing in my opinion, and that made it very easy to stand up for what I believed in, to stand my ground, to argue my case, and I think, again, it's one of those things that I remember going to a young entrepreneur's dinner and being asked to share your lessons, and what I got up and spoke about was the fact that it didn't matter what I had done. I could always go to bed and sleep at night because I had always stayed true to my values. And there was a deathly silence in the room and I went well, I've just brought down the tone of the evening and he said no, no, no, it's actually something really powerful that we're trying to process. So, again, you know, something that seems very obvious to me is not, was not considered obvious to them.
Dr Ariel King:That's amazing and that's probably part of what your. Your parents didn't have business contacts or business experience, but what they had was their values, and I think that one of them that they imparted to you was integrity. The other one was tenacity, passion to work hard, to, if not rely on yourself, at least go back to yourself and say what can you do better. So I think that, although those aren't quote unquote business um, necessarily business ideas, what I love about is that they could be applied anywhere and everywhere in the world um, you're right.
Litsa Barberoglou:They did instill some amazing values in us and we were always encouraged, particularly by my mother, to study. It was not an option that we would not go to university, and I think that came from her, her life experience. She missed out on the opportunity for an education, so she was adamant that we would get an education, but also that we would be financially independent, that we should never rely on anybody else for our financial wellbeing, and not that, you know, we needed to be super wealthy or billionaires or anything like that, but we should always be able to rely on ourselves to put a roof over our head and food on our table.
Dr Ariel King:Love it, that self-reliance, very much. Yes, may I ask, um, now that I think of it, the fact that your parents uh migrated to australia and some of the young people that you work with now are those that are also trying to find their place somewhere? Um, do you think there might be a thread through this, this idea of what your parents uh did it and imparted to you, and then where you are and how you're passing it along to the next generation?
Litsa Barberoglou:oh, absolutely, absolutely. I think. If for me, having gone through that experience uh, once you've lived it, you understand the consequences of it. So you understand that you don't necessarily fit into everybody else's world and the world is much more. Australia is much more diverse now than it was when I was, when I first started in the corporate world, but we still face the same issues. It's interesting that if I see somebody from an Asian background with an Australian accent, I immediately go oh, they're one of us. They might look different but they don't sound different. And yes, they might have a different culture, but I love their food and it's so. We're all celebrating you, learning you here. But when you see people who are of a different culture, who don't have that, it's interesting. For me, voice is really a marker they're new to the country and my immediate desire is to help.
Dr Ariel King:Love that. May I ask what do you have planned or what do you foresee in the future for developing, or I the future for developing, or I shouldn't say developing, but adding to your legacy of mentoring young people who are in entrepreneurship. What do you see in the future?
Litsa Barberoglou:Well, I'd like to. I have to say that mentorship gives me is enormously rewarding for me personally. I get a huge buzz out of watching these young entrepreneurs take flight, so I get as much out of it as I give. I think I would like to do more of that. In a world where I could do whatever I wanted, I would just do mentoring. Actually, that's not true. I still love what I do, but I would just do mentoring. Actually, that's not true. I still love what I do, but I would do more mentoring. And I think in the longer term there would be some sort of I'm going to say financial way of putting that into place so that there is an ongoing opportunity for young mentors to go through these programs. I really love that.
Dr Ariel King:I really love that. Thank you so much for being with us today, and are there any final thoughts you'd like to leave for our listeners?
Litsa Barberoglou:I think I've gotten as much out of this conversation as I've shared. Thank you so much.
Dr Ariel King:I want to thank you for taking us on a journey of not just entrepreneurship but young people getting to know who they are, and I want to thank you also for being that lighthouse, that beacon of light that allows young people to make their way through difficult times, especially when they are not necessarily in the country that they were born in. I want to just thank you, and I also want to thank your family and your parents for you, because you've made it possible for other young people. Thank you so much for being with us. Thank you, thank you so much to our listeners. And remember if I'm not for myself, who will be for me? If I'm only for myself, what am be for me? If I'm only for myself, what am I? If not now, then when? That's by hello, and I say if not me, then who? Thank you.