BORN AT DAWN FOCUS: LINZI BOYD

April 06, 2017

BORN AT DAWN FOCUS: LINZI BOYD

Our #BORNATDAWNFOCUS this week is on Linzi Boyd, award winning author of “Brand Famous” and Founder of the The BoB Group and M-idas - which focuses on helping Business Owners, CEO's and Celebrities to build famous brands. 

A serial Entrepreneur, her career started with owning a fashion store in Leeds. She then went on to launch a sneakers brand called Stride. After they were worn by celebrities such as the Beastie Boys and Robbie Williams and a pair was displayed in the Design Museum the company was prompted snapped up by Caterpillar who bought it off her when she was just 25.

After then, she became a TV Presenter for a few years, working on programmes for both BBC Three and Channel 4. Linzi set up her third company Surgery Group which provides strategic direction for fashion brands and advises many well-known labels. Today, she now works in the enterprise market taking business owners on a journey to grow, fund and exit their businesses. Here she created BoB School which runs bi-annually in the UK, Canada and Australia.

She took some time out of her busy schedule to talk to us about her life...

Describe yourself in 3 words: 

Fun. Fast. Funky. (my business partner in Canada describes me like this all the time, and says that the BoB School mirrors this energy)

 What makes you happy? 

  • Being true to who I am and what I want to achieve - no matter how many times people tell me it’s not possible or I can’t - I can, and I do!
  • Not compromising time. Time with my kids, me time, or time working - making sure I have a balance as much as possible. When this is out of balance, so am I.
  • Being by the sea or up a mountain on ski’s (or a snowboard)
  • Laughing from my belly (literally crying with laughter)
  • Banter - Love it for the brain 
  • Being able to dream big and believe that it will happen
  • My kids, every moment of every day they are my shining light

Who and what inspires you?

  •  The sunrise and sunset
  • Breathing in the first day of sunshine
  • Taking time out and being without any expectations
  • My kids inspire me to-do and to-be
  • People that do selfless acts of kindness
  • People that give without wanting back
  • A book called ‘The Sixth Sacred Thing’ - everyone should read it if you want to get a picture of what could be coming next with the world

How do you personally define success?

By being able to shift industries - being able to make a difference to real issues in the world, and what’s happening in health, education, manufacturing and so on. Leaving the world in a better place for our kids and grand-kids. 

You are obviously very busy, how do you cope and manage to juggle it all?

Some days we nail it, and think this is a breeze and then another day comes in and the whole world feels like its falling apart! Honoring the fact that I juggle many balls, and lots get dropped along the way and that is OK. Having great people around me. My husband, business partner and work colleagues that understand that family comes first (which is the culture that we have chosen to build the business from). Having men around to work with that also have small children and also like to gossip about dropping balls and missing calls.

What’s the best piece of advice you have ever been given?

‘Be Do Have’ not ‘Have Do Be’ When you Be in your space of today, then you Do and you Have. Not 'one day' when you Have, you will Do and then Be. Always try and hold on to that one, however hard it can be.

What’s been your biggest lesson?

When you’re at your absolute lowest and desperately want to blame everyone else for what they have done to you, remember that it is only a lesson that is needed in your life and take ownership for what your part was in creating the lesson. This way you can always ‘flip the coin’ and see the benefits that it has provided in your life, and the future learning it can bring to your next phase.




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