WS524: What It Takes to Build the Dream Team with Tatiana Mersiadis

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:00] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Real Estate Syndication Show. Whether you are a seasoned investor or building a new real estate business, this is the show for you. Whitney Sewell talks to top experts in the business. Our goal is to help you master real estate syndication.

And now your host, Whitney Sewell.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:00:24.1] WS: This is your daily Real Estate Syndication show. I’m your host Whitney Sewell. Today, our guest is Tatiana Mersiadis. Thanks for being on the show, Tatiana.

[0:00:33.4] TM: Thank you so much. I’m honored.

[0:00:35.8] WS: I’m honored, we’re honored to have you here and I’ve gotten to know Tatiana a little bit and she has helped us in numerous ways. But just amazing expert in numerous ways that all entrepreneurs should learn a lot form her today on the show.

But a little about her, she’s an accomplished teacher and also, a professional trainer and sales executive with over 30 years of experience. Passionate about making a difference in people’s lives, today, she is CEO and cofounder of the LY2NK foundation, which acts as an intermediary for organizations, investors, mentors and leaders who want to grow capital investment on behalf of a special cause.  Such as the construction of schools, educational programs, nutrition and food development programs, land purchase and development and numerous other causes.

Tatiana, thank you again, very grateful for your time and just you being willing to share your expertise. But give the listeners a little more about who you are, maybe where you’re located as well and let’s jump in to your super power?

[0:01:36.8] TM: I live in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia Canada and I’ve been here for over 30 years. I’m originally from Montreal, Quebec and before that, Geneva Switzerland. A lot of European background and Middle Eastern background in me which is why I’m pretty passionate about everything I do because the cultures are very passionate. I was an educator for 35 years in the high school system and I have three different degrees.

It was my passion for ever so long until about 14 years ago, when I felt that I reached the ceiling, right? Of where I was at. And suddenly, I woke up one summer, feeling uninspired and needing to go a different route in my life.

[0:02:21.7] WS: Wow, I think a lot of us could relate to that, you’re in that grind and you said you were passionate about it but finally, it’s like, you know, you just hit that ceiling and you realize there’s no place else for me to go. What else can I strive for and you know, what did you pursue after that and then kind of get us to where you’re at now?

[0:02:40.5] TM: Well, it was a sunny summer day and I looked up to god and go, I can’t do this anymore, there’s got to be more to life.” And I kid you not, the universe answered 15 minutes later. It’s unbelievable when you set your mind in what happens, you know? It’s kind of like, voodoo but it actually really works.

I was then introduced that day, that afternoon to somebody in the financial planning industry and I met a young fellow and I love talking with people. I quickly found out by me questioning him, that he teaches how money works and that immediately caught my attention and I said, “I need to know what you do.”

From then on, for five years, I studied financial planning, thinking that was my route out because teachers do really well in that field. But, the goal of that in the end ended up teaching me the foundations of money that is extremely important. So, I studied it for five years and I came to realize that that wasn’t my passion, because honestly, it was dealing with the masses.

Bless their souls and everything but my whole point was to get out of dealing with the masses, you know? In education, I was dealing with the masses all the time. The employee mindset, the scarcity mindset, it just didn’t work for me. I wanted to work in the world of abundance mentality and I realized that I had always been a natural born entrepreneur but I just didn’t realize it at the time.

That is definitely what I’ve become today. But I don’t like working alone, I like working in teams. It’s so exciting to work in teams because everybody brings their skillset, you just have to make sure that you vet the people very carefully that become on your teams, become part of your tribe. And as long as they have the same mindset, the same values, the same aspirations, it’s incredible what you can produce together as a team.

[0:04:32.7] WS: Nice. It is – I mean, your team is so important, I can’t stress it enough. I mean, just says, I’ve had even just different personal assistance or executive assistance, I mean, it’s amazing even as I’ve progressed to more qualified ones we’ll say, the more things that happen in our business, you know, the better I learn to work with them as well and you know, all those things as we’ve improved but team is so important. I’d love to dive in to that proper vetting that you talked about. I know you’re an expert around just building teams and just enrolling people and using them and I’d love to hear just maybe just get us started a little bit on your vetting process.

[0:05:12.1] TM: Well, first, I want to qualify the word expert. I don’t believe I’m an expert, I don’t like to throw those words around lightly. But I definitely am good at what I do.

[0:05:21.2] WS: You’re humble.

[0:05:22.6] TM: Yeah, definitely. I really – you know, if you think about it, after teaching for 35 years, you could imagine, I used to have 200 students every two days over 35 years. And also working with so many different staff members, so many different administrators, et cetera, I would say, I have a Master’s in personalities, you know?

Being able to read a room and read people and know where their strengths and weaknesses are quite quickly, you don’t have a choice but to learn how to be that as a teacher. You have to be able to cater to the weakest link in the room and the strongest link in the room.

How do you keep the weakest interested and engaged while not boring the strongest people in the room? That alone is extremely difficult. I was a natural at classroom management. Just a natural. I’d have students walking in and I knew exactly what was going on from them, from day one. I don’t know, I was just born with this skillset.

And then I got to perfect it over the years and so, I’m really good at picking out people’s strengths and weaknesses and empowering them to work in their strengths and teaching them to delegate their weaknesses. Because not everybody can be good at everything, that’s ridiculous.

How on a team do you bring everybody together that they feel moved and inspired to work in their values and then feel supported for the weaknesses? That’s how you build morale. And I don’t believe in a higher count teams. No, there’s no boss on the teams, it’s all a platform of idea meritocracy and everybody being on the same scale and nobody bossing anybody around. That doesn’t empower anybody at all.

You know, when I’m on a team, if the majority of the team has better solutions and ideas than me, I’m the first on to sit back and go, “Got it, we’re going with this idea.” You have to be extremely humble.

[0:07:15.9] WS: That’s why you have a team, right? Pulling something from everybody?

[0:07:19.4] TM: Yeah, but a lot of people believe that teams are more an ego, “I got like 20 people I manage and I’m their boss and they answer to me.” That’s the scarcity mentality, it’s not an abundance mentality. I really worked on my mindset for 14 years intensely and I still do it every week. I have coaching calls, I’m pushing myself out of my comfort zone, every single week, to see how can I grow as an individual and my relationships in my career, in my professional relationships? Every single week, I do that.

The minute you stop doing that, you get stale and stagnant. You know, being a leader, to me, is having the courage to hold up the mirror and to look. Because very few people have the courage to do that and they would just rather, you know, pat their own egos and point the finger and make it everybody else’s problem, not their problem. The minute you stop to point the finger out to somebody, what happens pointing back to you, three more fingers towards you.

I mean, I am a classic case of learning this.

[0:08:24.0] WS: You mentioned like picking out people’s strengths and weaknesses and it’s important. And I’ve tried to find my own and there’s just certain things I’m not good at and I want to find people that are much better than me at doing those things or things that I’m just not passionate about. Maybe I could do it but I just –

[0:08:40.1] TM: Yeah, it doesn’t tickle your fancy.

[0:08:41.6] WS: That’s right. I’ll find somebody that loves that, you know, it’s been great. It’s not easy though, how do you find or help determine that strength and weakness and say at an employee or you know, somebody on your team?

[0:08:55.7] TM: Well, the biggest thing I want to say is that your relationships should not be transactional. You have to work on relations and being relational and building relationship equity.

Number one, actually sitting down and really getting to know somebody, that’s completely different than just asking for their bullets on the resume. That’s not the same thing. And so, that alone is a skill, you can’t just from one day to the other, think that you can actually get related to somebody just because you say you want to get related. And so, that’s why you have to work on developing your own skillset when it comes to mindset training.

Because everything starts here and the biggest problem about team building or career or aspirations or anything in life, the biggest thing that’s going to take you down is your mind, right? You have to learn to be aware of what’s going on in your mind, go through the obstacles, learn about yourself first, right? Only to then be able to learn about somebody else.

If you’re not willing to do training and development on yourself, you’re pretty much you know, going up a mountain without any gear, you’re not going to get anywhere and you’re going to hit obstacles and before you know it, you’ll be tunneling down the mountain.

It really all starts with yourself first. Very few people have the time to – not the time but they do have the time but they don’t say they have the time. Put your money where your mouth is.

[0:10:22.8] WS: There’s a difference, right?

[0:10:24.0] TM: Yeah, put your money where your mouth is. Spend the money to train and develop yourself. There are tons of courses out there that help with that and when I started, it was extremely confronting, the hardest thing I’ve ever done but the best thing I’ve ever done. I would not be here without a shadow of a doubt, had I not worked on my mind first and on myself first.

You know, you really have to deal with your own baggage first, before you can go and start evaluating other people. Because it’s impossible. You got to go take care of that, clean up your own house, deal with your own house to then bring and have the skillset to bring compassion when you get into someone’s house and realize that there’s a big mess over here, right?

How do you empower somebody? Because once you do so much training and development on yourself, you get really good at picking out what’s really going on for the people. Also, you know, I did do this for 35 years. Body language, facial expressions, what they say, what they don’t say, I know exactly what’s going on for people, they don’t even need to tell me because I have so much experience and people skills, right?

The mindset training and the training and development taught me how to engage with people through a compassion understanding and give them the space to be who they are, the way they are now.

[0:11:47.4] WS: Love it. I couldn’t agree more just about mindset. I know it was a massive shift for me, or like military or boot camp and spending a year overseas and coming home going to police academy, all those things like really changed my mindset about lots of things, you know? Just helping me to push, giving me more drive and pushing through difficult things and all that.

But then, you know, switching more to entrepreneurial route, then I just dove in more on mindset and when I started more self-improvement, I mean, I just can’t agree with you more. Once I started doing more self-improvement, I just started seeing lots of things change.

[0:12:19.6] TM: Exactly. You got to speak first with yourself before you think you’re going to actually empower anybody else so that’s number one thing. You don’t wait to get to a certain place, as long as you’re committed to start, you know? It happens together. You build yourself up and you build your team up because what you learn when you’re trying to develop yourself, you’re obviously going to teach by osmosis to the people that are around you. If you care about them.

[0:12:45.0] WS: What were a couple of things that helped you to start down the mindset shift, you know, change or just you know, when you switch to the entrepreneurial route, like “Wait a minute, I’ve been born to be an entrepreneur all this time.”

You know, but then it’s like, “Okay, I’ve got to start teaching myself, changing my mindset.” What were a couple of things you did to help the listener also, you know, begin to make those changes?

[0:13:06.1] TM: Well, the biggest thing for me was thinking that nothing could change in my life. That was my biggest thing. I was so adamant about going, “You don’t understand, it works for everybody else but in my life, nothing’s going to change.” For me, I was the poster child of nothing’s going to change. The fact that everything changed for me is unbelievable so I don’t think that honestly, there is anybody more stuck than me, quite frankly.

If I can get unstuck, anybody can get unstuck, right? First and foremost, that’s number one. To run towards my fear instead of running away from my fear.

[0:13:46.2] WS: Yeah.

[0:13:46.8] TM: You know, that takes courage. And to not necessarily know all the answers, but to move a little bit, baby steps at a time. Whether it comes to building your business or whether it comes to moving forward in your training and development, as long as you move forward like in business, just one little step at a time every day as minute as it is, it is still moving forward. And before we knew it those increments become bigger, bigger and bigger. So that is number one, face my fear, do something about it instead of complaining. Because the biggest mistake is if you keep doing something over and over again and you expecting something to change that is the definition of crazy to me.

So, I ended up personally thinking I finally hit my rock bottom and I wanted to do something about it. I was done. So, it was really non-negotiable. It was either do something about it or just give up. And you know my mindset towards me was like, “Okay, this has been going a lot on for long enough. I’ve got to do something about it.” So that’s what I did.

The other thing that changed everything to me was the difference between the scarcity mindset and an abundant mindset.  You know I used to say, “I don’t have money to do this. Now I say, “How am I going to make the money to do this?”

Like that alone – One just defeats you the other one excites you, right? So, in anything, I don’t even allow myself to use the word try. “I am going to try to do this.” no, no, no, “I am going to do this.” And even though you’re scared throughout you still say it throughout till you convince your soul it’s real and the next thing you know it happens, you know?  It just is so that is number two.

And number three, what was the third one that was really important? Oh, it’s extremely also important to get your money right in everything. You know integrity for me is huge and people in regards to integrity are so easy to break their own word and their own integrity and it’s accepted. Now, it doesn’t mean that you cannot be allowed to break the integrity. The more you’re up to big things in the world, the more you’re going to break the integrity because things are going to happen but that’s okay.

So, there is a difference, right? So, it’s important to for example clean up your integrity and re-commit to what you want to do and get that started again but to really pay attention to integrity and what that means and your word and how important your word is in everything.

So that’s another huge part, so those three things really made a big difference in my life.

[0:16:15.0] WS: Nice, I can’t agree with you more just starting with ourselves and our integrity and our mindset. It is just so important that we start with our self before we start with trying to improve a team, right?

And so now okay, we’ve done that. We are on that track, help us to – when do I need a team? When should I think, “Okay, I should really hire some people” or give us a few steps in just vetting that person to make sure it is a right fit?

[0:16:37.4] TM: Well, honestly, the time you need to start building a team is when you are spending too much time in non-generating income activities. Because there is a difference between being busy and being productive and creating cash flow, right? So, a lot of people are busy all day. I see it all the time but they are not producing any cash flow and they are spending more time doing all of these things that don’t produce any cash. So that is when you need to be hiring a team, right?

[0:17:04.3] WS: Seem so simple.

[0:17:06.2] TM: It is, yeah exactly, right? But at the same time, what happens when you say that you don’t have the money to hire somebody when you’re a startup, right? So, for example, there was this lady who approached me the other month and she wanted to get coached but she couldn’t afford the monthly installment for the coaching.

So, instead I bartered with her. I said, “Great, you’re really good at this, I am really good at that. I’ll coach you on this, you coach me on that.”

And it’s been an incredible relationship since the beginning now and now we’re starting a partnership in business together because we have gotten so related.

Also, another way, I started my own foundation, right? How do I get people to help me out? People have been volunteering their time. Why would they volunteer their time? Because I have built relationship equity with people. So, it really all boils down to relationship equity.

And also making sure that there is a fair exchange of value between both because you cannot be a go-getter in life. You have to be a go-giver. The minute you become a go-giver first in the way that you view people, in the way that you view relationships, not what’s in it for me, what is in it for them, you know how can I help them? The next thing you know people want to join your team. Because they see some great value.

[0:18:29.6] WS: Awesome, well before we run out of time or have to jump to just a few final questions, I’d love for you to talk about just like the executing and results with the team and tracking things like that?

[0:18:40.3] TM: Well, you need systems definitely and if you don’t know how to create systems and accountability and KPI’s and all of that well then you got to go find somebody who knows how to do all of that stuff And all you have to do is ask for help. Because when you ask for help, most people acts of service is really important to them. So, go and find the people that are smarter than you and XYZ and go ask for help. Make sure that you have the proper tools to be able to –

Because whatever is not measured then it cannot be tracked, right? So, some people don’t like technology, some people don’t like to put together what they need. Well then go get what you need for people who have already done it in the past and start using it and start tracking it that way.

So, for example, every week during my foundation calls there is sections that we all fill out ahead of time. So, we start off to create a positive for example just to give you a heads up on what I do there. We each talk about our personal booms for the week and our business booms for the week and then we talk about our year goal, our six-month goal, our 30-day goal and our seven-day goal. After that we talk about all the action steps, were they filled out? Were they accomplished? If they weren’t accomplished were you on track, yes because of what? Were you off track? Yes, I was off track because of XYZ.”

And so, then the team helps you solve those problems. And then once everyone goes through that, everybody then has a section where we go in ahead of time and we write down, “I had a problem with this, this is the problem, this is why it’s the problem, I need a solution.” And the team works together to work out those solutions and then we create new action plan for next week, boom, done.

[0:20:22.9] WS: How long does a call like that normally lasts?

[0:20:25.2] TM: 90 minutes.

[0:20:26.0] WS: Okay. What kind of software or what are you using to track all of that?

[0:20:30.0] TM:  The document that I created, I can easily share that with you if you want and you can easily send it to people. It’s very powerful and it keeps everybody on task, very organized and it is fun.

[0:20:42.1] WS: That would be great, I would be happy to put it in the shownotes so listeners can connect and see that as well.

[0:20:46.8] TM: Yeah, absolutely, I’d love to share as simple as that. It is extremely powerful and an hour and a half, it gets you going and it also tells you how much time you are supposed to spend in each section.

[0:20:56.0] WS: Wow, okay. Well I look forward to seeing that. I know the listeners do as well. But just a few final questions Tatiana before we run out of time, you know what is way that you’ve recently improve your business that we could apply to ours?

[0:21:06.7] TM: Honestly it is really a question of a combination of everything I have just spoken about. And I think it’s the question of really make sure that you measure your actionable steps on a weekly basis and you really become intimate with your numbers in your company because it is incredible you know? It is really important to have monthly financial meetings for your company or even for your personal life.

So really it boils down to one thing, organization. You know most people try to do things and they are not organized at all, if you come here and my filing cabinets are alphabetized, my accountant asks me for anything, boom it is right here. You know my financial planner needs this, boom it’s right here. my team member needs this it is right here. So, my emails are organized, my computer is organized, my files are organized, you really need to be organized. That is the beauty of it that is going to move you.

[0:21:59.6] WS: I love that, yeah I was going to say I am going to send my five and six year old over to your house for a while so you can teach them more organizational skills. But ultimately, I need to come and sit there as well to learn too. But what is the one thing that’s contributed to your success?

[0:22:11.5] TM: Training and development. You know and I have training and developing myself since the age of 20 and every decade when a student is ready the teacher appears. So, every decade, a different human being appear in my life to push me out of my comfort zone even more. So that’s number one.

Number two, it’s really important that you pay attention who are your five people that you’re spending the time with, who are these people? If you are going to hang around five broke people guess what? You are going to be broke too right? So, the people I hang out with have three commonalities. Number one results and that doesn’t mean that they have to be rich, okay? Because results could mean ambitious and they execute and they are getting towards something in life, right? So, results. Integrity is number two and being heart-centered is number three. Those are the only type of people that are allowed in my tribe.

There is many people who want to enter our tribe that have tons of money, have zero integrity and zero heart and the doors close shut, locked and throw away the key.

[0:23:12.1] WS: Love that and I appreciate you going into that. That’s incredible. So you know last thing I always ask how people like to give back and I know like it is such a big part of what you do and you are so generous and I’d love for you to share a little bit about the foundation or about any other way you give back could be great.

[0:23:27.6] TM: Well yeah, I only started this foundation in April and it is incredible the momentum. I partner up with very well vetted causes and the first cause that I partnered up with is called Kids for Africa Supports Academy in Uganda and there are well-vetted foundations that already exist and I am building a high school for them quite frankly.

[0:23:50.2] WS: I just think it’s incredible. It is just amazing like go ahead talk.

[0:23:54.0] TM: Building a high school and a long-term goal over five years will be to build a 30-acre sustainable community. So that means parents will be involved, teachers will be involved, students will be involved that is going to be the regular curriculum of Uganda, which is not the same as North America. We are also going to teach sustainability and entrepreneurship because this is a pilot project, we want to go and you know teach them how to sustain themselves. Then we can walk away and go do exactly the same thing in another country.

So, my foundation has already raised over $40,000 for this cause. We have purchased four acres of land, we are doing another capital raise for phase two, everything from fencing to the well water to the surveying to phase two, which is the capital raise of $85,000 and the next 90-days our goal is to raise a 100K for this project.

And the other extremely important thing is that I am organizing a volunteer program to bring social entrepreneurs which means successful entrepreneurs who are interested in making a difference in the world. Because that is what I love about wealthy entrepreneurs, when they get to a place of super success, they are out then ready to want to give back, right? A bit like a guy won’t get married until he is comfortable in his career because he wants to provide. So, it is the same thing.

So, I have many, many people who I have built relationship equity with and they want to come with me to Uganda. And given that I was a teacher for 35 years, it is easy to take my skillset and transfer it over to this because there is so many commonalities and they want to make a difference and so I am building a whole curriculum around that to go spend 11, 12 days in Uganda in October 2020 and do it over and over and over again and raise funds and move this cause forward.

[0:25:43.5] WS: Where can listeners learn more about the foundation?

[0:25:46.1] TM: There is a website that exists but I am revamping it to make it like a 10 diamond but it does exists. It is www.ly2nk.com, you can easily go there, you’ll be seeing it. It will be revamped. There is a donate button in there and for any information of anything you can email me at [email protected].

[0:26:09.2] WS: Nice, I was going to say any other way to get in touch with you or learn more about you.

[0:26:12.5] TM: Yes, absolutely and I can send them a summary. I can actually give you a summary of the foundation that you could put as part of this call too. So, everybody can get a very good understanding of the foundation.

[0:26:23.1] WS: That would be great. Tatiana, thank you so much for your time. I can’t thank you enough, those teams and giving back is such a big part of entrepreneurship I feel like and you’re really good at both of those. So, thank you again.

[0:26:34.7] TM: Thank you. I’ve had a wonderful time. Thank you so much.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[0:26:37.3] WS: Don’t go yet, thank you for listening to today’s episode. I would love it if you would go to iTunes right now and leave a rating and written review. I want to hear your feedback. It makes a big difference in getting the podcast out there. You can also go to the Real Estate Syndication Show on Facebook so you can connect with me and we can also receive feedback and your questions there that you want me to answer on the show.

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[OUTRO]

[0:27:18.5] ANNOUNCER: Thank you for listening to The Real Estate Syndication Show, brought to you by Life Bridge Capital. Life Bridge Capital works with investors nationwide to invest in real estate while also donating 50% of its profits to assist parents who are committing to adoption. Life Bridge Capital, making a difference one investor and one child at a time. Connect online at www.LifeBridgeCapital.com for free material and videos to further your success.

[END]