069: True Innovation Will Occur When You Get Out of Your Comfort Zone with Portfolio Entrepreneur Tania de Jong

#00:00:39-2# Neil : Hello, its Neil Ball here, thank you so much for joining me today on The Entrepreneur Way. The Entrepreneur Way is about the entrepreneur’s journey, the vision, the mind-set, the commitment, the sacrifice, failures and successes; I am so excited to bring you our special guest today, Tania de Jong. But before I introduce you to her, I have a quote for you for from Bruce Norman, ‘If you choose the wrong questions, and you proceed, you still get a result, but its not interesting.’ The Entrepreneur Way asks the questions, so we all get the insight, inspiration and ideas to apply in our businesses. Tania, welcome to the show, are you ready to share your version of The Entrepreneur Way with us?

#00:01:27-1# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : Definitely Neil.

#00:01:28-4# Neil : Thank you for coming on the show Tania. Tania de Jong AM is an acclaimed australian soprano, award winning social entrepreneur, creative innovation catalyst, an inclusionist, global speaker and spiritual journey woman. She founded Creative Universe, Creativity Australia, Music Theatre Australia, Pou Pourri and the Song Room, and works with diverse communities through Creativity Australia’s with one voice choir inclusion social programmes. Tania speaks around the world at conferences and special events on Entrepreneurship, Creativity, Disruption, Innovation, Social Inclusion and Leadership and delivers innovation capability workshops for organisations and teams. Tania also performs internationally as a soloist with her group Pou Pourri, releasing 7 cd’s. She is founder and executive producer of Creative Innovation Global. Tania’s Ted Talk, How singing together changes the brain, has sparked international interest. In 2015 Tania released her solo cd Heaven on Earth. She has recently founded a co-working space called Dimension Five in Melbourne to drive social innovation and collaboration. Tania’s mission is to change the world, one voice at a time. Tania, can you provide us with some more insight in to your business and personal life to allow us to get to know more about what you do, and who you are?

#00:03:04-4# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : Yeh sure, so my background, I am a soprano, yes I do sing and social entrepreneur. I am passionate about creativity and innovation. So all this started over 25 years ago, with my group, Pou Pourri, which is a singing group which has performed all over the world in 40 countries, released 7 cd’s. I then set up an events and entertainment company called MTA Entertainment and Events, and I should say, all these companies still exist so I am actually what’s called, apparently I only just found out this definition, a portfolio entrepreneur as opposed to a serial entrepreneur. So I am a portfolio entrepreneur because a lot of the enterprises I started are still in my portfolio. So then after MTA events and entertainment, which books incredible performers and groups, for events and conferences and concerts and councils and others all over the world. I then set up my first charity, which is called the Song Room, which has reached hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged children and schools with art programmes which have enabled them to improve their self-esteem and educational outcomes among many other wonderful successes.

#00:04:33-7# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : Then in 2008 I set up my second charity, Creativity Australia which I am sure we are going to talk about during this interview but which brings together people like you and I, more fortunate people, doctors, lawyers, teachers, ceo’s, students, with people that are less fortunate, migrants, job seekers, people with depression and disabilities, in what I called the With One Voice Choirs. And through the choirs, people experienced the neuro science of singing and connect to one another, to help one another through very innovative wish list programme. So we help people to connect whatever they need in life and its a wonderful social inclusion and wellbeing programme. I then set up Creative Innovation Global, which is a global world class innovation conference which is focused on managing the challenges of disruption. And helping people to prepare and re-invent their future for themselves but especially for their organisations, and we have had many great successes with that conference. In addition to that, I do a lot of keynote speaking on topics like entrepreneurship, leadership, innovation, diversity, social inclusion, creativity and creative thinking and many other things. And also work with top teams from both large businesses, government departments and also work with quite a lot with emerging entrepreneurs. And then my latest venture is a new co-working space which I have just set up in partnership with global nesdic company called dimension data and we set up this new co-working space which is going to be launching very shortly called Dimension Five. And that’s designed to be collaborative, incubator, hard big accelerator where people can have what I like to call positive human collisions, which we will discuss during the interview.

#00:06:33-1# Neil : Mmm hmm wow. That’s a portfolio isn’t it?

#00:06:35-4# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : Yeh I sing for my supper, you know the rest of the time, I sing, so I also do a lot of singing, and earn my living singing all over the world as well as speaking.

#00:06:49-5# Neil : Wow what a portfolio that is.

#00:06:52-0# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : Oh and I just released my first cd called Heaven on Earth.

#00:06:56-6# Neil : How on earth do you have enough time to do all of that, that’s amazing?

#00:07:00-0# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : I have insomnia.

#00:07:02-9# Neil : Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

#00:07:04-5# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : So I don’t sleep very often and yeh, I am highly productive in my waking hours. Ha ha.

#00:07:12-7# Neil : And what do you enjoy most about what you do?

#00:07:15-6# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : I do think the diversity of what I do is fascinating, I connect with some very, very interesting intelligent people. I suppose what I really enjoy most is actually singing, I love singing, its wonderful, the neuro science of singing means that when you sing and particularly when you sing with other people, you release endorphins, through the right temporal lobe of your brain, that make you feel smarter, healthier, happier, more creative, and your neural pathway is literally connecting you in different ways, so when you are singing, you are increasing your neural plasticity, you are improving your memory, language and concentration. And you are connecting with people in different ways. So singing is like a super wonder drug, so that’s what I enjoy the absolute most of what I do.

#00:08:04-2# Neil : And what is it that drives you Tania?

#00:08:07-6# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : I suppose what drives me is a desire to make a difference. You know I feel like I have been given enormous amount of talents. And I also thought have an enormous sense of gratitude because I don’t really take anything for granted, my grandparents both sides of the family were very lucky to survive the holocaust, my parents are holocaust survivors, and you know my grandfather was a very famous sculptor in Vienna and then in Asia and then in Australia. And my grandmother invented the first foldable umbrella. And their escape from Europe was nothing short of miraculous, and the same with my father’s side, you know his escape, his family’s escape from the jaws of the Nazis in Holland, was also incredible. Most parts of both my mother’s and father’s family perished in the holocaust and so I guess that’s what drives me, its like you know, we are only here for a short time, so let’s live life to the fullest. And it is like heaven on earth, its a great gift to be alive.

# #00:09:23-3# Neil : And is that what drives you to do all your charity work and what that you do?

#00:09:26-6# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : Yeh that would certainly be a big driver for me because you know I do a lot of work with migrants and people whose voices have been silenced in some way or another. And when my parents and grandparents came to Australia and so on, they had lost everything they had been building their whole life, so really relate to people who have that story and actually more and more people are migrants. You know there is many more and more refugees in the world today than ever before. Wanderers you know, people who are looking for somewhere that they can call home, and of course I believe home is where the heart is. So you have got to just find that sense of meaning and purpose and then I guess you can create a home and a family around you and a lot of the charity work that I do with our one voice choirs, for many of the people in those choirs, our weekly choir sessions are like their home, their haven, a refuge, a place where you know they may not have a family whose with them, or they may have lost members of their family and they may be very lonely and isolated and I think that probably the greatest challenge of our era is loneliness, and the depression that accompanies that so yeh I am very passionate about that.

#00:10:48-3# Neil : Could you give us some kind of example of the type of work that has been with the charity that you support?

#00:10:52-4# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : Yeh so with Creativity Australia which is my second charity with the with one voice programme, we bring together diverse people so rather than just bring together just disadvantaged people and putting them in a choir together, through a wish list programme, people can make wishes to one another and the wishes are read out each week at the choirs and it might be that someone needs help with a resume getting a job, finding a friend, learning how to use the internet or learning how to speak English or finding someone to walk to the station with them or whatever it happens to be, and as the wishes get read out, instantaneously, people start to put up their hands and start making other people’s wishes come true. So for example, just recently, there is a lady who’s sister was massacred in front of her eyes in Cameroon and she made a wish to get a job and we helped her get her first job in Australia, she had been discriminated against for a long time, because when people come to a new land, they often is a lot of discrimination, so we helped her, we recently helped a girl with cerebral palsy, who had been looking for a job for 6 years. And she had got a job, one of our board members helped her with her resume, she then got a job but then she lost it within 6-8 weeks, because you know most people do not actually take enough time to understand people with disability or you know, who have a disadvantage.

#00:12:18-2# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : But so then she came back to choir and she was incredibly upset and she made another wish to find another job, and that night there happened to be someone that I had invited along who was looking for someone, and this girl thought that she was going to be offered a voluntary role, and to her great rapture she was offered a paying role, and now she has held that job for over a year. Which is the longest that this girl, who I think is 29 has ever held a job in her life, and she loves going to work, her boss loves her, and it just goes to show the enormous value of you know when you come together and people can connect in this way, they find networks that they would never have imagined possible, and mostly disadvantaged people who are in a particular part of the community don’t get to break out of their box. So this is about breaking out of the box, giving people a chance to walk across the bridge to another part of the world and its also a chance of the people who live in the more fortunate part of our society to walk across that bridge, sit next to people who are very disadvantaged and think ‘well I could be that person.’ So I could be the person with cerebral palsy, I could be the lady who came from Cameroon who’s sister was massacred and who’s now bringing up her own two children, her sister’s child.

#00:13:43-8# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : We could all swap places at any moment, with someone less fortunate and once you start to realise that, this most incredible sense of ‘I’m so lucky for everything that I have’ and interestingly enough, with a lot of the disadvantaged people that we work with as well, once their wishes are granted, they then start to grant the wishes of those that are even less fortunate than them. So it becomes like this circle of reciprocity that occurs on a weekly basis, its magical, its transformational like in emails you know every few days from people whose lives are literally being transformed.

#00:14:19-3# Neil : And how much do you think your ability to do what you do has been affected by being an entrepreneur? In terms of helping these people?

#00:14:28-9# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : I think everything has been about being an entrepreneur, if I wasn’t an entrepreneur, I would never believe that something was possible to begin with because all of the enterprises that I have created, I think seven or eight now, and probably more actually because I also had childhood, I was an entrepreneur from 5 years old. I can tell you about that later if you like, but you know I have always been a person that has not set any boundaries in terms of what is possible, you know. Like I think if you dream and just start it, I just believe in starting true, so I never really analyse anything too much. Ha ha, so basically what happens is I start something and then go ‘oh my god, I forgot how hard this was’ and you know if you are too far involved in something and you can’t go back and you have got another baby, I don’t have kids of my own but you know I have got like all these enterprises like my babies and I just start, I don’t see the barriers I guess. And I see a lot of other people who see a lot of barriers and obstacles before they will start even contemplate starting something.

#00:15:40-0# Neil : So you have got 7 or 8 things on the go here from what I counted up to now,

#00:15:45-0# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : Yeh

#00:15:45-0# Neil : How do you relax when you are not working in your business?

#00:15:45-0# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : Well you know, I actually do find singing really relaxing. So that’s a great joy and very meditative, you are very much in the moment. So I find that relaxing, you know I have got my dog sitting on my lap at the moment and taking my dog for walks is a great therapy and patting the dog. Swimming, yoga, going to the ocean, walking in nature, you know reading great novels, you know listening to beautiful music, those are the sort of things that I guess help me relax, I have a wonderful partner who tries to get me to switch off. As you know from interviewing entrepreneurs, we are pretty much on most of the time.

#00:16:31-4# Neil : Mmm hmmm and do you have any entrepreneurial role models?

#00:16:32-7# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : Oh you know I suppose there’s people like Richard Branson of course is an incredible visionary and you know, nothing has really stopped him and then I have also had the great fortune of spending time at Singularity University in Silicon Valley and so I have met entrepreneurs like Ray Coutts, and Peter Di Mandes who I have also had the great privilege of bringing to Australia to speak at the creative innovation conference which I tourage, and I have met some incredible entrepreneurs through the creative innovation conferences, well I guess you know they are people who just don’t see the barriers, who they are really changing the world and I love people like that. Its awesome.

#00:17:31-2# Neil : Tania, can we go back to the time before you were an entrepreneur, now you eluded that you have been an entrepreneur since the age of five, so I am not quite sure where we are going to go with this. What difficulties did you have to overcome when you started your business?

#00:17:47-6# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : So well, when I refer to the age of five, I used to do magic shows with my brother and we would charge up here an admission fee to attend our shows, and then when I was about 10 I started a gemstone tumbling business and I used to make shell jewellery and gemstone jewellery and I literally had a little shell shop/jewellery shop outside the front gate of my parents’ home in Glen Iris in Melbourne, and then I had a tennis coaching business. So I coached tennis to actually some of the wealthiest entrepreneurs, children in and around Melbourne and then I had a singing teaching school, and then of course I started to set up my group Pou Pourri and all of these other businesses that I mentioned earlier. I suppose the greatest difficulties that I had, was firstly I was told not to bother having singing lessons when I was 14 by one of my best girlfriends, and that absolutely put me off and if people watch my Ted Talk they can see a little more about that story but you know I really believe that I was not good enough and then when I was 23 another singing teacher actually told me that I would never make it past the chorus, and really throughout all of the businesses that I have set up, there has always been the doubters and detractors around me, you know it sometimes is my own mum. As much as I love her, she sometimes will say, ‘oh that’s never going to work’ but its also a lot of other people who say ‘oh you know this is starting at the wrong time’ or ‘its never going to work’ you know, people have tried that before.

#00:19:19-7# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : You know the usual sort of comments that you get whenever you are trying to start something new, and its almost like people who are snatching your dreams, they don’t mean to, they are actually trying to look after you because they think that you are really truly are not going to succeed at that. But you know, I guess my advice is if you really believe you can do something, just go out and do it and get a group. But I have always also got a group of people around me, with all my enterprises that have become like ambassadors or advisory panels, groups of people that I can call on to advise me to help pull me through difficult troughs you know, valleys and dark spots, and that also can help open doors and help me connect to the right network so that I can actually achieve what I am trying to achieve. But yeh, there have been heaps of difficulties, all along the way, I mean I could go through each of the businesses and tell you which one, but we do not have time for that, and lets focus on what makes it successful ha ha.

#00:20:21-0# Neil : So absolutely, so you have been a portfolio entrepreneur forever then?

#00:20:27-1# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : I guess so, I have got a big portfolio ha ha ha.

#00:20:33-0# Neil : Did you have any doubts that delayed you starting your business?

#00:20:35-5# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : No. I have never had any doubts about, I actually never wanted to work for anyone else. So, there was really no question that I was going to be an entrepreneur. Actually at one stage when I finished my law degree, I got offered articles at a law firm and I thought, oh I really you know great law firm and everything but really I always wanted to create things from scratch and work for myself.

#00:21:04-2# Neil : And what mistakes did you make that slowed your journey?

#00:21:05-6# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : You know, I think I have made so many mistakes, I suppose some of the greatest mistakes that I have made is not trusting other people enough to do what they are supposed to do, I think one of the traps of being an entrepreneur is that you try and do everything yourself, and you have to learn how to tolerate and encourage other people to work with you and be tolerant of their mistakes and just lead them along with you. But when you want to get things done quickly, you have got no money, its hard to employ other people as well, so perhaps I might of invested more money in getting more stuff, earlier on and that might you know maybe I would not have got so tired. On the other hand, managing staff is always tricky, I mean human beings, there is nothing stranger than human beings ha ha ha, and its always difficult to know who you are employing, what they have had in their own background in their life’s journey that’s going to make it more difficult for you to work with them and I think also, you know when you work with an entrepreneur, you have to understand entrepreneurs, and a lot of people that you can employ have worked in larger organisations, where there is a budget, there is a more defined structure. So working with an entrepreneur of its nature is a greater sense of urgency and often less structure and some people find that difficult to deal with so yeh I have probably made mistakes around sometimes selecting the wrong people to work with me, sometimes not enough people to work with me, plenty of mistakes around that sort of thing.

#00:23:09-9# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : And I guess you know, the other mistakes might be that, its not a mistake really but I really did not intend to have this many ventures going at once. Its not the plan, ha ha.

#00:23:22-0# Neil : Ha ha has it taken you until now to figure that out?

#00:23:25-8# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : No not really but when you have got something and its providing value to people, and people have, you know now I employ lots and lots of people. Its pretty hard to drop something, because I am actually quite attached to all the different organisations and they all have a lot to offer, and a lot of them have great people working in them and it like you know, what would I drop?

#00:23:52-7# Neil : Yeh

#00:23:52-7# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : And its all how would I re-allocate it? but you know I am looking at some different sort of structures for some of my current portfolio, because it is getting overwhelmingly enormous.

#00:24:07-9# Neil : What are some of things you did before you started your business? that would be helpful tips to some of the listeners who haven’t yet taken the first step on the entrepreneur way?

#0 #00:24:16-1# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : You know, I studied, I did a law degree which was very useful, so to learn the basics of law and contracts is extremely important, I wish that I done accounting, I was never interested in it, and I still don’t love figures, but I do recommend that people really learn how to understand finance. Understand basic contracts at least, you know learn how to hire the right people, and learn a lot about people, I spend a lot of time I think just learning how people tick, I am very interested in psychology and I have also done quite a lot of work on building my own intuitive skills. So that I can make better decisions, not only about the people I work with, but also just on the decisions that are going to make the business more successful.

#00:25:13-7# Neil : Tania what I would like to do now is just talk about the entrepreneurial journey a little bit with you, so do you think culture is important from the beginning in a business?

#00:25:21-1# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : Well yes I do, but it can be very difficult, because often entrepreneurs are on their own to begin with. So its like, you know you are working 24/7 and that’s not particularly for employees that are coming in, not all of them might want to do that, so you know yes it is important, but I think its pretty hard to get to often get the right culture at the beginning of a business unless you know you have a lot of capital, and that you can actually create a really good environment where people feel a greater sense of balance. Its also I think incredibly important too for people to feel like they can in some way have a sense of ownership in the business from as early on as possible, not necessarily having to own shares, but feeling like you are in charge of certain projects. You know, they will get a bonus or other incentive if they you know put some good deals on the table, or get some things over the line. Get some partners on board in different ways, so yeh, I do think its important, but I think its tricky, culture is the most difficult thing for any workplace.

#00:26:38-3# Neil : Mmm Hmm.

#00:26:38-3# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : Let alone entrepreneurial organisations and small start-ups, its incredibly difficult for large organisations to get their culture right.

#00:26:49-8# Neil : You have got 7 or 8 things going on at once, I am just intrigued to know how on earth do you manage all of that? what is the secret to being able to do that?

#00:27:00-6# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : Juggling, so being able to sort of switch so I can sort of focused on one project and then I can switch to another one pretty quickly and then immediately focus on that one, so being incredibly focused in the moment at the time that I am doing something but then being able to switch quickly, so I see a lot of people and I find this a challenge with even some of the younger stuff that our employees they get very focused on a task. And if I ask them to do something else, you know quickly, its like ‘oh no but I want to finish this task first’ and I say, ‘well you can go back to that, lets just do this one quickly.’ and so I think that, yeh just being able to have a number of different balls in the air at once is probably have managed to do that and I guess that is I am doing working hard and working long hours. And its just by being very focused in whatever it is at the moment, but I could swap projects, you know I am probably swapping projects in some cases, it might be every five minutes or so, sometimes, not always. Ha ha, I do also have concentrated periods where I am just focusing on one project for an hour or two or generally I would not focus on one particular project for a long period of time at once, I mean I will over a period of month, but it won’t be that I am just focused on one project for six months or something like that.

#00:28:33-5# Neil : So you must have some good people working for you who make that possible?

#00:28:35-4# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : Yeh. Absolutely I do, and in all the different businesses that I have set up, its absolutely been important to find the right people, you know for example with the entertainment and events company MTA. You know I really do not have a lot of day-to-day involvement in that business for example, the charity that I set up 17 years ago, The song room, I have no involvement in that anymore and you know, the CEO and the board of that organisation have been extremely effective in growing their organisation and so its great to see things that I have started flying along. And actually you know with my current charity, my goal also is to see it fly, without my day-to-day involvement.

#00:29:25-3# Neil : So I take it, really it comes down to people and time management to some extent.

#00:29:27-8# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : It does, but we have just recruited a CEO for the second charity, for Creativity Australia, but that takes time even if you have got a manual and a system it takes time, you have got to take CEO to all the meetings you go to and show them the ropes, and introduce them and its a big process.

#00:29:43-8# Neil : Yes.

#00:29:45-9# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : Because I think the businesses I have set up are not the traditional businesses, you know I have not set up an app or they are not simple charities either, they are solving complex social issues, so what we are doing is not always easy to put in one line. You know the elevator pitches are not always straightforward, so you have got to sort of show people what you are doing and once people experience for example the conference, or they experience coming to the with one voice programme, or they experience one of the key notes or whatever, then they become like fans and then you start to build, you know, more clients, more followers.

#00:30:25-5# Neil : Knowing what you know now, is there anything that if you had known it when you started out would have helped you to shortcut the learning curve?

#00:30:33-3# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : I am not really sure because I think that you, my feeling is you just have to go through the curve and I am one of these people that has to experience stuff to know it, and I am not really sure that it is that easy to shortcut things, now I have seen colleagues of mine, who have created multi-billion dollar extremely successful businesses, in much shorter time frame than I have. But they are not working in the social and creative space that I am, and I think that it depends what business you are in, so if you are in a more technology based business, then yeh you should absolutely read the stories of people who have been able to create those businesses very quickly. But I think in this kind of business, or the types of businesses and charities that I have set up, I am not convinced that there is a shorter way of doing it. With the song room, it took a good probably 7 years or so before it was really in a position to become more sustainable and I am finding the same thing with the current charity, we sort of had a tipping point now at about 7 years.

#00:31:52-7# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : So I think its tricky, with the businesses, the conference took off pretty quickly, the creative innovation conference even in the first year was incredibly successful. So I think I created a formula that just worked you know, and I suppose I did that from looking at other, you know I had been going to conferences singing at them, speaking at them, for probably 20 years by the time I set up that conference, so I knew what I wanted to do differently to begin with, so doing your homework is important. I mean seeing what else is in the market place and you know learning from those people’s experiences is very valuable.

#00:32:36-6# Neil : Mmm and how much does gut feeling influence your decisions in your business?

#00:32:40-1# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : Oh enormously. So I could pretty much completely rely on my intuition, and I do not make a lot of decisions based only on facts or some rational argument. I go with my heart, I have made mistakes but in general I really value my intuition and I also have some other people around me, that also assist me in making the right decisions. So yeh, huge.

#00:33:10-0# Neil : Is that, have you always been like that? Or is that something you have done through experience?

#00:33:17-2# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : I have pretty much always done that, yeh I go from the heart.

#00:33:22-1# Neil : Yeh, life is made of constant change, whether we like it or not. Many people say that the only constant in life is change. How do you try to keep up with change?

#00:33:33-6# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : I keep up with change by reading a lot. You know listening to a lot of podcasts like this one and watching videos and ted talks and all that type of thing. Last year I was fortunate enough to be invited to go to be part of the executive programme at singularity university, it will probably be one of the best ways of keeping up with change that I know of. So that’s the leading university in the world for learning about exponential technologies. So in 6 days there, I probably got three years of you know probably would have taken me three years or more, just to learn what I learned in those 6 days because I was just surrounded by people that were focused on incredible effects of technology and disruption on our world and I guess also the other way that I keep up with change is I actually curate one of the best innovation conferences in the world. And I bring each year to Australia, 8-10 of the leading innovators, entrepreneurs, thinkers in the world, and in talking to and listening to those people I have learned an enormous amount about what is going to be coming, you know coming over the next five years.

#00:34:57-8# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : And does not necessarily make me more capable of dealing with it, but I have got a pretty good idea of you know, what I think the world is going to look like, and I think you know its no surprise to anyone you know, we are experiencing the most massive disruption possible and its going to take an enormous amount to not only prepare for that but to manage and optimise you know, the opportunities that could come from that but also to deal with some of the risks around that.

#00:35:29-7# Neil : Yeh and what is your favourite book on entrepreneurialism, business, personal development, leadership or motivation, and can you tell us why you have chosen it?

#00:35:42-4# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : I love, there’s lots of books that I really like, but you know there are books like From good to great by Jim Collins, who really show you know, how you can completely step up to the next level. I love the art of possibility by Benjamin Zander, which uses an analogy of an orchestra and being in an orchestra to teach you about leading and following and being part of a team and so on. Great book, I might also send you some others when I think of some, to add to your list.

#00:36:17-7# Neil : Ok. That’s good, everyone, when you have a busy life, listening to audio books is a great way to expand your knowledge in the time when you may be doing other things, such as driving or when you are at the gym. We have a special offer for you of a free audio book of your choosing, to choose your free audio book, go to www.freeaudiobookoffer.com. As long as you have not already signed up then you will qualify. Tania, what I would like to do now with you is speculate a little bit about the future, and some possibilities. What one thing would you do with your businesses if you knew that you could not fail?

#0 #00:37:02-1# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : I think I would probably do concerts in all the major concert halls around the world, and just sing around the world to massive audiences and spread the message around, changing the world one voice at a time and you know how each person can find their meaning and purpose, and if we reach out to others that we can really create communities that care for one another and not have to deal with all the, you know the repression and the war and poverty and hunger and other issues that we are facing in our world.

#00:37:38-8# Neil : Could you put that question to your charities?

#00:37:44-4# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : You know I guess we would run our programme in communities all over the place, and you know but what holds us back all the time is we just don’t have the money to do this. So we have a lot of demand and a lot of need for our work in communities in Australia and all over the world. We have had inquiries for the with one voice programmes from literally all over the world, since my Ted talk. And what is holding pretty much everyone back from starting more with one voice programmes is just the costs around that, not that they are that large, but you know people have to fundraise to pay the conductors and you know, find venues. But usually they are donated and things, but yeh its funny how money is generally the obstacle for anyone doing or starting anything. Its not funny, its actually its the way it is I guess, yes.

#00:38:39-0# Neil : What skill if you were excellent at it would help you the most to double your business?

#00:38:47-2# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : I think just, I think probably getting more powerful influential people to really endorse and back what we do, you know getting even more well-known speakers to our conferences, getting incredible ambassadors for the with one voice programme and I know we forgot to mention we have this incredible global initiative called sing for good. Which is where two or more people sing together with a group, family, club, school. Video a song of their choice and then put it up on YouTube and get friends and networks to vote for their entry and donate to support disadvantaged people. So this is an online video campaign we started to change the world, and you know we would have like people like Lady Ga Ga, Kylie Minogue, Adele, big ambassadors for sing for good. That would help, that would really help. That would not only double our business, I think it would also massively increase the amount of people who would enter sing for good raise funds for it and it would massively increase the amount of people that could be helped through our programmes.

#00:40:12-6# Neil : In five years from now, if a well-known business publication was publishing an article on your business after talking to your customers and suppliers, what would you like it to say?

#00:40:24-1# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : That we really have helped lots and lots of people to number one, not be afraid of failure, number two, not give up on their dreams, number three, set up the companies and the organisations that they truly know can change the world and that we have enabled lots more people who are disadvantaged to feel a part of the community and make a contribution to our world.

#00:40:55-2# Neil : We are now at the part of the show where you share three golden nuggets with us, so Tania, what is your favourite quote and how have you applied it?

#00:41:01-5# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : My favourite quote is if I am not for myself, who will be for me? and if I am only for myself, what am I? and if not now, when? by Rabbi Hillel. How I have applied it, if I am not for myself, who will be for me? so that you have to actually make sure that you going really well, because otherwise you know, you can’t get enough supporters and you need to have people back you. If you are only for yourself, well you know what’s the point? so if you are not going to make a difference to other people of the community, why bother? and if not now, when? is all about doing it now, so of course as I said to you earlier, I have always made a point of you know if I have got an idea I have just start and I don’t wait. And the longer you wait, the more obstacles will be put in your way.

#00:42:00-2# Neil : Do you have any favourite online resources that you can share with us?

#00:42:04-9# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : I love LinkedIn. Absolutely fantastic, great way to connect to people, build your network, learn what people do. I think the Ted Talks of course are amazing. And of course The Entrepreneur Way is a fantastic resource, you heard of that one?

#00:42:21-9# Neil : Yeh I think I have yeh, come across it. Ha ha.

#00:42:25-6# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : ha ha

#00:42:28-5# Neil : Thank you, and what is your best advice to other entrepreneurs?

#00:42:36-6# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : My best advice to other entrepreneurs is do it now, don’t give up, be prepared to fail and fail fast and then try again. Connect with people who are really diverse from you in what I call positive human collisions, so connect with people on a regular basis that are different from you, that do not have the same education, background, you know, don’t wear the same clothes as you, connect with people from different generations, different cultures, different faiths, different beliefs, get out of your comfort zone, and that’s where true innovation will occur. You know if you are going to set up an enterprise and you are going to do something that’s going to create a lot of value then make sure that you build in components of it that can really give back to the community because we have a lot of social problems, a lot of people who are disadvantaged and been left behind and with the increase in technology there is going to be more and more people who will find it hard to get work and will be left behind. And so as the privilege of being an entrepreneur is that you can actually change the world, so change the world.

#00:43:46-9# Neil : Everyone, if you did not manage to get a note of Tania’s favourite resource or her favourite book, you can find the links on Tania’s show notes page, just go to theentrepreneurway.com and search for Tania or Tania de Jong, in the search box. Tania, is there anything else you would like to add about your business?

#0 #00:44:04-2# Tania de Jong Founder of Tania de Jong ; Creative Universe ; Creativity Australia ; Dimension 5 ; Sing For Good ; Pot-Pourri ; Music Theatre Australia : Look, I just encourage people to definitely watch and share my Ted Talk How singing together changes the brain, its been viewed by nearly 30,000 people so far. And I would love to see it get up to hundreds of thousands of views or millions. And that’s all about just spreading the word, I encourage people to follow me on Twitter @TaniadeJong to check out our website CreativeUniverse.com.au to come to the creative innovation conference, to put in entries for sing for good. Which opens in August this year, and to just contact me if there is any ways that people would like to collaborate, ask for advice, yeh just feel free to contact me. And I am sure you will provide the website and so on.

#00:44:58-3# Neil : Yes I will put it in the show notes. Tania its been an honour having you on the show, you have really shared some great content and some information and advice with us and its just amazing all the things you are doing, so thank you for coming on the show and sharing everything with us.