The 3 important lessons my mom taught me.

Today is Mother’s day, and this post is dedicated to my mom.
I am the lady that I am because of her.

1. People always remember the way you make them feel.

My mom is the queen of eternal sunshine. She has never been the academic sort and never had the chance to get a tertiary education, much less a university degree. But what she did was worked so hard at being the best at what she did – making people feel great. Her natural charisma helped her connect with people like I’ve seen no other has ever done.

My mom taught me that no matter what you do, or how good or poor of a job you do – people will always remember how you make them feel.

Whether it is to the roadside cleaner, or the old aunty selling tissue paper packs at the coffee shop. Whether it is to her high flying CEO, or people that have been unkind to her – she always treats people with a sense of respect and warmth.

People may forget your face, and your name.
But people don’t forget how you make them feel.

2. Chaos will bleed to your state of mind.

My mom (dearest sweet mom) has mild OCD with cleaning and organisation. I’m a creative kid and I love nothing more than celebrating my “organised chaos”.

It’s industrial chic I tell her. I’m pretty sure I didn’t get dinner that night.

Jokes aside – people often think that neatness is but a virtue that you could either do or or do without. If you’re neat, hooray for you. If you’re not, mess isn’t going to kill you. And people are right. The mess won’t kill you, but it will certainly slow you down.

As someone who’s currently managing a portfolio of brands spanning a broad variety of industries, I’ve no time to spare rummaging through my computer for a report named document9384.doc. I’ve no time to search for a signed invoice under stacks of files. When clients call me, I need to have immediate access to data, to files, to numbers, to information.

Work aside, let’s talk about those who are still in school. When I was still a student, I was notorious for my love of post its, highlighting and indexing. I’m a sucker for being organised that at the end of my 4 years in college, people were bidding to buy over my textbooks and notes.

Being organised takes effort, no doubt. But what it affords you is a clarity of mind, mental sharpness and laser focus on your tasks at hand.

3. You don’t always have to be perfect.

My ambition came from a childhood of bullying and obesity where I had to learn to fight for what I want. I was often called ugly and fat. People don’t believe me when I say this, but people used to laugh at me even when I was in university.

Since I wasn’t pretty enough, I pushed myself to do well academically. I threw myself in business case competitions, and tried to accomplish as much as I could in arenas where looks didn’t matter.

But then things took a sharp turn when I started developing panic attacks. I almost skipped my A levels because I was afraid I couldn’t get straight A’s. On those nights, my mom would stay in bed with me after making me a hot drink, she’d be holding me tight, telling me that my health and sense of peace means more to her than the grade on my report or test.

Perfectionism is a driver, but it could potentially be a disease.

My mom taught me that sometimes, it’s okay to put yourself before your goals. That even if you’ve set out to nail down 5 businesses for the month, but you’re burnt out before you get your 4th – it’s perfectly okay to settle for 3.

It’s not about being lazy, or about being complacent.

It’s that at the end of the day, success wouldn’t make sense if you’re not healthy and happy on the inside.

It’s up to you to realise when the hustle starts being a hazard, and when that happens, I hope you find the courage to be okay with the status quo (at least whilst you breathe and recharge).

Thank you for loving me mom, and being the beautiful angel watching over me wherever I am.

Happy mother’s day to you, and all the beautiful mothers out there.