Tina Tower talks about her path to financial independence and entrepreneurship. She discusses her business journey, how she views failure, and what she learned building her success.
Well, our next guest ran away from home as a troubled teen, bought her first property at 18, and launched her first business two years later.
Yeah. Now Tina Tower is sharing her story to help inspire others to live the life of their dreams. And we're thrilled to say she joins us now. Tina, good morning to you. So how did your upbringing help shape who you are now?
Look, it's something that I detail quite strongly in the book. My upbringing get gave me nothing but resilience. So I came from a home that was quite tumultuous. That left me with this really burning desire to want to grow up and make something of my life and have something a lot better.
Do you think it's possible to learn resilience, or is it something that just comes through experience?
Yeah, I mean, I think probably a combination of both. I mean, I know a lot of people that go through a lot of things in life. You know, there's no choice but to actually go through that and to learn from it and adapt from it and to do much better as you continue. And for me, with my story, I started my business when I was 20, so I've been doing business for the last 15 years. And through that, you have a lot of ups and downs and a lot of things that kind of throw you every which way, and you can't help but come out of the other side with great resilience to tackle anything.
Yeah, that's right. I mean, you started off studying business at university, then you went on to teaching. So what's your advice to people out there who are perhaps not sure that they're on the right path?
Well, I mean, great question. I do think that, you know, we can continue to experiment forever. I mean, I know as we come into the end of this year, and in particular the end of the decade, a lot of people can take pause and really question, are we living our life in line with the expectations that we had set? And for me, I finished uni, I went into business. I was told I wasn't cut out for that world, so I started inner teaching because, you know, I've got a happy, bubbly personality, so that made me perfectly suited for that. But then I started a business two years through, and then through the time, it's kind of morphed and formed over whatever I was doing with that. So I think for people, no matter what stage or what age you are in life, anytime is a good time to really reflect and take stock and wonder whether you should change direction to have more joy in your life.
Yeah, because I Mean, you took this tutoring centre that you started, you grew it to the point where you had 33 centres and sold it for millions of dollars in 20. What I find really interesting about your story is that you do talk about failures, and we see the likes of Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey, J.K. rowling, they all talk about their spectacular failures and how they would not have been successful had it not been for that. Do you agree?
Yeah, completely. I mean, let's be honest. We would all love to never fail. It never feels good when you make these grand, wonderful plans and you put yourself on the line and you try something and it doesn't work out. But what it does is it does multiple things. It lets you learn from that event and then get to a place where you want to be, but it also kind of lets you know that you can bounce back from something. So when I go to do something that I've never done before, like live tv, I can reflect back on everything that I've done up until this point and go, you know what? I did that, and I got through it, and that's okay. So it does give you a whole lot more grounding to kind of bounce to the next area.
Okay, well, let me assure you, you're nailing live tv. This is now. But you're also a big advocate for women and you strongly believe in financial independence. Don't.
Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, I had the hunger for that at a very young age. For me growing up, you know, if there was anything I wanted, I had to buy that myself and do that and pay my way through uni. And, you know, to me, financial independence means freedom. You know, there's a lot of people say money doesn't buy happiness, which is true if you don't have your health. But I've been both wealthy and poor, and I know which one is easier and more enjoyable for life. And so I do think everyone should be putting time and effort into really making sure that they're looking after their own finances and can grow that in the future.
All right, well, Tina, we think you are such an inspiration. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. You're amazing on live tv and your book tour kicks off along the east coast tomorrow. The book is called One Life and is out on December 2nd. And what I took out of that, DC is you and I are going to be very, very successful because we fail every day.
We do, actually. Failing is part of our remit here. And thank you for watching us fail this to have your company while we fail again. Hey, coming up, though, this is a really interesting conversation. Would you blend your last name with your partner?
