We are delighted and very excited to share with you Tammy Barton -
Founder & Director of MyBudget, thank you so much!
A true leader at a class of her own. Owner of multiple awards (International Business Times Top 100 Women of Influence, International Business Times / Financial Review, Start Up Daily No 1. Top Female Entrepreneur under 40, Smart Company Australia’s Top 30 Female Entrepreneur, Ernst and Young's Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist, Australian Government Business Innovation Award - the list goes on!)..
Tammy shares with us her insights, thoughts and tips on what made her the person she is today...
We welcome Tammy to the suitsorshirts.com community:
1) What does a typical work day look like?
I wake around 6:30 and exercise most days. I’ll either go to a KX Pilates class or workout in my home gym. Some days, I do school drop-off, but most days my husband gets the kids to school so that I can be at the MyBudget office by 8:30. I have a daily executive meeting each morning, usually followed by various operational meetings, meetings with my business partners or my leadership team. When I’m not travelling, I aim to be home by 6:30 or seven o’clock for dinner with my family and I’m normally asleep by 10.
2) What started your passion into starting a business?
I was working at a debt collection agency and witnessing firsthand the effects that financial stress has on people’s lives and, with nowhere to send these people for help, I decided to help them myself. I started meeting with people at my kitchen table and showing them how to put a budget together. They would give me their pay cheque and I would pay their bills for them and give them back the money they’d budgeted for living expenses. For a lot of those people, it was the first time in their lives that their finances were finally under control. And word spread from there. For me, the greatest satisfaction was seeing the stress drop away and people start to smile and be happy again.
3) Running a business,whilst ensuring quality family time and ME time, what things do you do to balance it all out?
I’m conscious that work takes up a lot of my time, so when I do have time with my kids and husband, I focus on making it quality time where I switch off from email and work calls. We always take a family holiday together for two to three weeks at a time, usually once a year but sometimes twice, generally during the school holidays. Most years we go to Bali and next year we’re also going to the United States.
On the weekends, I enjoy entertaining friends and family at home or we love going out to dinner, trying new restaurants or wineries or going back to our old favourites. (We’re spoiled for choice in South Australia!) We have a tradition of walking down to the local surf club every few weeks for a relaxed Sunday family lunch. The food and drink is affordable and we all sit back, listen to live music and enjoy the view over Glenelg beach.
Another thing I find re-energizing is learning, which for me is reading books and listening to podcasts. When my mind is being fed, I feel much more in balance.I guess it’s all about nurturing growth. And, speaking of nurturing, I love agood massage. When we go to Bali, I budget for numerous foot massages!
4) As a Woman in Leadership and in Business, how important does a positive mindset play?
Having a positive mindset is absolutely essential, not just for being successful in business, but for living a rewarding and satisfying life. Business—and life—will present you with one hurdle after the other, but with a positive mindset, you see them as speed bumps instead of deal-breakers. When I encounter an obstacle, I know there’s something to learn and improve from.
Because of that attitude, I don’t stress about things that are outside of my control. I focus on the factors I can control—in other words, my response to the situation. I look at what I can improve, accept, change or innovate. It’s an attitude that you have to develop to succeed in business because you need to be a good fire fighter, which is just another way to say problem solver. I can guarantee that there willbe daily fires (problems) and they’ll be destructive if you let them burn.
After a long day of fire-fighting, it’s easy to get negative, but that’s where another piece of positivity comes into play: gratitude. I practice gratitude for everything I have in my life, which not only keeps things in perspective but, I hope, ensures that I remain empathetic to others.
5) What would be your message for the women of today? Those who just finished their HSC, UNI, or who just started their own business?
I would say: You may not know exactly what you want to do with your life but, at the core of everyone’s being, I believe there’s an impulse to make a difference in the world. So, stay true to who you are and the things you love doing. Avoid following others for the sake of it. Instead, be authentic in living your life, your purpose, your passions and values and interests. It will, of course, be easy to find yourself distracted by the “shiny” things. You can resist distraction by remaining centred and by always coming back to the questions “what am I good at?”, “what do I like doing?”, “What contribution would I like to make?” Remember what Henry Ford once said: “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right”. Keep that in mind when the voice of self-doubt chatters in your head, which it invariably will. Eemember, it’s just a voice. There’s far more power in action, so keep taking steps, even little ones, towards your goals. As long as you keep taking steps in the right direction, you’ll get there!
6) What are your thoughts of the suitsorshirts.com movement?
I think the Suits Or Shirts movement is great! I admire any initiative that helps or inspires others to live their best lives. As well as providing a support network, I love the fact that you share real stories from real people. That’s also what we do at MyBudget. We share our client stories to show other people that no matter how stressful their finances might feel right now, there’s always a way out and, if others can do it, you can too.
Thank you so much again Tammy!!
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