Here is an interview with founder@ and Mastermindset’s two founders Kim-Adele Platts and Nat Schooler.
Featuring Kim-Adele Platts and Nat Schooler, the founders at Mastermindset Ltd. We hear their story in their own words, their successes, their challenges and their insights.
“We can all doubt ourselves, waiting for the perfect time, but the reality is there is never a perfect time, there is only right now so trust yourself and go for it.”
– Kim-Adele Platts
Let’s start by getting to know you. Can you please tell us a little bit about you and what you do?
Hi I’m Nat Schooler and this is Kim-Adele and together we have co-founded MasterMindSet Ltd to help people to learn the mindset of the masters, share knowledge and fulfil their potential.
We are both passionate about self-development and about giving back. MasterMindSet offers a range of services from bespoke Leadership Coaching and Training to a new Elite Coaches Club, providing coaches with the community, skills, knowledge and support to grow their businesses and support more people.
In fact this year we also co-founded the first International Imposter Syndrome Awareness Day with our colleague Lisa Ventura, to provide free information, resources, and advice for people suffering from this all too familiar phenomenon.
A great introduction and start to this interview. Can you please tell us, how did you start, from what age, and what made you decide to change direction and start?
I started my career as a hairdresser before becoming a Board Director in the FTSE 500 where I continued to operate at the board level for the next 10+years.
I became a mum in my early forties, I knew some things would need to change however it wasn’t until my marriage broke down and I ended up in Acute Care with Pneumonia that I realised the platform was burning.
Being in hospital was the wake-up call I needed, I wanted to be there for my daughter, to be a good mum and to leave her a legacy to be proud of.
I left the hospital quit my job and started my own business, taking my 25+ years of Executive life, business transformation and coaching and honing it into a service to provide leaders and organisations with the knowledge and support to grow their businesses.
Two years on I trained to be a face whisperer and I met Nat by chance on a podcast. We immediately hit it off as we have similar values, beliefs and both wanted to help business owners, leaders and their people to thrive.
When I met Kim-Adele I was a renowned futuristic podcast host where I had the privilege of interviewing luminaries such as Stanley Tucci and Michael Tobin OBE to name a few. As we are similar ages we had a wealth of experience in business and a wide network.
As a result, we got talking about the challenges we saw facing leaders and business owners today, and how we could help. It was from these conversations that MasterMindSet was formed.
Choosing to become a founder seemed an easy step, our vision and purpose drove us to it although launching a new business in the middle of a pandemic is no mean feat and we have learnt plenty of lessons along the way.
Perhaps the most important is to have real clarity on what you are doing and why, trust us that really helps when the seas of business get stormy. It has been quite the journey so far and we are loving every minute of it.
Thank you for that insight. So can you tell us…What does your business do and where is your company based?
MasterMindSet – A New Leadership Foundation: Different by Design Delivering C-Suite: Skills, Strategies & Networks to Lead in the 2020s. Based out of the UK we support leaders and coaches globally to achieve their potential. The business is primarily covering three specific areas.
The first is a suite of Podcasts aimed at sharing the advice, tips, & stories garnered for our combined 50+ years of experience and introducing our audience to some amazing guests globally.
The second area is the Leadership foundation where we provide bespoke training and coaching aligned to the World Economic Forum skills matrix to equip leaders to lead effectively in 2021 and beyond. Our final pillar is the Elite Coaches Club, this is our most recent addition which we launched in response to the growing number of coaches wanting to establish a successful and sustainable business but feeling on their own.
Without the right community, advice and infrastructure to be the success, they know they can. Elite Coaches Club provides all this and more empowering coaches to grow a business they are proud of.
What’s the story behind your success? What led to your aha moment? how did you get to where you are now?
We have been extremely lucky over the years we have both had the honour of being supported by amazing people, who took us under their wing and mentored or sponsored us.
This led to us both having amazing opportunities and growing our business acumen, empowering us to have the skills to share with others wanting to achieve their potential.
Our Aha moments perhaps came at slightly different points but were driven in part by the same thing, a desire to make our daughters proud and leave a legacy that left things better than we found them.
Don’t get us wrong it hasn’t all been plain sailing, life does love to throw the odd plot twist in to keep you on your toes. That said we have been able to reach out to our network and seek advice, something we are now paying forward with people regularly reaching out to us for support, something we are delighted to support.
There is nothing like the feeling of seeing someone achieve their full potential and realising you had a part to play.
If you are thinking about founding your own business, our top tip is to get really clear, have absolute clarity on who you are supporting and why. This enables you to hold yourself to account and provides the blueprint for your brand.
Thank you for sharing that. What’s been your life’s biggest lesson so far?
One of the biggest challenges we have faced was getting our proposition and positioning right. Initially, we approached it from a position of having an answer, which was off the mark.
We needed to think about it from the customers perspective, what were their wants and needs, why were they important and how did we solve them. Once we aligned to this things became significantly easier.
Criticism is actually development wrapped in a different outfit. Instead of responding to what we make it mean we have to look at factually what is being said and what can I learn from it. Also, learn to take a step back, often we respond to how something made us feel rather than what happened this can lead to inadvertently destroying relationships. The song says don’t look back in anger – I would say don’t respond in anger I promise you will regret it.
If you were to go back in time, what piece of advice would you give to your younger self?
Trust your gut feeling, whether in people, decisions, next steps. Over the years, we have both ignored our gut when we thought someone or something was off-key, and in the end, our instincts proved right. My best advice to my younger self is to ask more questions; if unsure, seek to understand, gain clarity, and if you are still unsure, trust your gut, it’s usually right.https://www.youtube.com/embed/cxr_tyEp2Ps?feature=oembed
We’re nearly halfway through our interview so it’s a great time to ask how does your business run. What three tools make your business run better?
Great question, you start up your business and you don’t always realise that on day one as well as the idea, you are also marketing, IT, Sales and HR to name a few. We had to learn quickly to build the infrastructure to make our business work.
We are both closet tech geeks, so we love nothing more than a good app to help us streamline our processes which as Kim-Adele is LEAN qualified is a must.
One of our most used Apps is our scheduler – running five busy podcasts as well as two other channels the calendars can get out of hand very quickly. Having an online scheduling tool that enables you to get guests to share what they would like to discuss etc is invaluable.
We also love our social media scheduler, we write our own content but have numerous channels and the scheduler enables us to optimise our content to reach our audience.
Finally, as a global company, we couldn’t live without our video call, we use a variety of providers dependent on client and purpose. Finding one that works for you is invaluable.
What do you know now that you wished you had known before?
Criticism is actually development wrapped in a different outfit. Instead of responding to what we make it mean we have to look at factually what is being said and what can I learn from it.
Also, learn to take a step back, often we respond to how something made us feel rather than what happened this can lead to inadvertently destroying relationships. The song says don’t look back in anger – I would say don’t respond in anger I promise you will regret it.
What has been your greatest or proudest achievement or moment?
For me (Nat) it was launching a new podcast show with Michael Tobin OBE who opened his black book to me, and after that, it was finding a business partner that I trust and that gets me, I have had my share that didn’t work along the way.
Love it, how do I follow that, I guess for me it was becoming a mum, and being nominated for Woman of the Year, plus of course finding my amazing business partner.
What future life goals do you want to achieve and why?
We want to create an organisation that helps people around the world to achieve their goals. Whether that is to overcome their inner imposter, develop their coaching business or supercharge their leadership, helping people fulfil their potential is vital to us.
We both know from experience the impact of having the right support, coach, and advisor has on your success and we are proud to be able to provide this to others.
To finish our inspire questions…”We believe that sharing inspiring words can inspire others.” If there was one positive thing you would say to someone to inspire and empower them what would it be and why?
We can all doubt ourselves, waiting for the perfect time, but the reality is there is never a perfect time there is only right now so trust yourself and go for it.
I wrote this quote for my daughter but I wish I could have said it to myself and to anyone out there “Be kind, stay curious, dream big and believe because you are proof miracles happen” Kim-adele
“Thank you it has been great learning more about your founder story and Mastermindset Ltd”
Here is a link to the original interview: https://www.founderat.com/nat-schooler-and-kim-adele/