what has been a big mistake or a failure?

People were saying like, I want her dead, can somebody kill her please?

I want her dead or they said everything people say like what's the secret?

This summer I interviewed 58-year-old Janet who has started over 12 successful businesses.

Janet, for a lot of reasons, has figured life out, but at the same time is still someone who's trying to navigate it.

My husband passed away and months ago it still feels rather traumatic for me to even talk about.

We interviewed Janet and posted short snippets of her videos on Instagram and those videos have gone millions of views worldwide.

So today we are sharing the extended version of Janet's greatest life lessons and experiences that I guarantee will change the way you look at your life.

It feels better than I thought it would feel.

It's all where you are in life and um I thought at 58 I wouldn't be active.

I you know I didn't know what 58 was but I feel good, I feel happy, I feel like I have a lot of energy.

I I play tennis almost every day, I feel strong.

What would you say is a big change you made in your life that drastically improved the quality of it?

Well I you know I didn't live a typical life when I was 18 I moved to Italy on my own.

Um you know I just kind of LED my own life to my own rules and I had a lot of feedback that I should you know fit in society's rules never got a high school diploma, but then I went on to go to university, so I just did things in my way and sometimes I cared about what people said to me.

You know, you're not going to make everyone happy, so why bother?

And you have to be true to yourself. What do you do for a living? Uh, I own restaurants. 10 restaurants or 12, sorry, 12 restaurants in Toronto.

It's it's good when you lose count of how many businesses you have. Uh, 12 restaurants in Toronto and two restaurants in LA.

Amazing. So you're were talking about, you know, people want you to go down this conventional path. Did you ever end up doing that?

I mean, going to university was was pretty conventional and I I got the message from society because I was a high school dropout that I needed that.

And so I was figuring out kind of like, okay, society, parents, you want me to go to university, you know, I'm going to do this and I went later in life and I ended up being a straight A student and valedictorian, and then I went on to do my master's degree in business.

So I I I fell into to that, but I thought it was a little bit you know, of a joke that I had to do this, read some books, take a test, and now society is going to praise you.

Yeah, I thought like I figured out the biggest secret um on the planet to make people happy, you know, at the at the end of the day, do you really need university when you look at the Bill Gates of the world or, you know, maybe we don't, so we don't.

need to fall into what society has taught us. I finished university kind of around when I was 30 and, um, opened right into the restaurant business.

Wow, I'm passionate about restaurants and I travel all over the world to experience restaurants. I'm doing two of my passions: business and restaurants and food.

I feel very lucky. I mean, some people never discover what their passions are and generally, you know, it's been, it's been successful and I've been really happy doing it.

I think that's the greatest success if you're, if you're happy doing it.

What's your attitude towards risk? There's a lot of people who want to make changes in their life but the, so to speak, risk of doing that, risk of failure, of fear, perception from others.

How do you approach that? When I opened my first restaurant, um, when I was 30, uh, I had a lot of people, a lot of people have a lot of advice when you start off in something new and you haven't done it before.

Everyone's an expert. Yeah, unless it's coming from someone who has walked in your shoes or have done it, the experience, but people just randomly giving you advice when you, they don't, they don't trust that you know what you're doing.

Now, nobody can say anything to me. I'm, I'm 28 years in the business.

But for people starting off, a lot of people, you know, giving their opinions, but one opinion that I had pushed my way was, this is too risky and you're going to lose everything.

And what I had to say to everyone was, I have nothing. There's nothing here to lose. I had a bit of money that I rolled into this restaurant and I was like, it's not that much and if I lose it, I'm going to start over again when it depends on how, what do you have to lose?

What stage of your life are you at? I think there's times to take bigger risks, other times you, you know, you want to put the kids through college, maybe it's not time to start rolling some dice.

I think it's a stage of life and you have to, you have to ask that question to yourself, are you okay with risk?

How risk averse are you? It's such an individual journey, right? But in the beginning, when you start something, what do you have to lose? Nothing. Yeah, even to that point, I find that's a limiting way of thinking.

What do I have to lose being, meaning money, this or that? Well, okay, what do you have to lose by not taking that risk?

People often think what do I have to lose by taking the risk? What do you have to lose by not taking it?

That pressure that you now have inside your head, that dissatisfaction with yourself, all the regrets, all the what ifs?

That's a lot to bear. And a lot of the time we don't think about that. We think about what happens if I take the risk and it doesn't work, but what happens if you don't take it?

Life is going to be over like that. You cannot believe how fast time goes by.

People will not believe it. And it's like you're going to snap your fingers, your life is going to be over.

Live your best life and what, what, what your life is. I, I don't know what's going to make you happy and you may not know what's going to make you happy until you do your work.

Do your work, get clear, what do you want in this you know, fabulous life, that we get to make a choice every single day.

You better figure out your own life. No one, and no one's going to help you. No, you know, no one's out there going to serve you your life in a on a platter.

I think just like simplifying these things, I think we over complicate a lot of the the whole figuring my life out business.

I agree. And as if you can simplify it down to what do I do in the morning, what do I do during the day, in the afternoon, at night, that really gives you a lot of clarity.

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28 years in the business, kid you today, knowing everything you know, if you were to go back in time to your 30-year-old self, when you just got into this business and gave gave her advice to get where you are faster, what would that advice be?

I would say there's no need to go faster, build that foundation.

I think people move too quickly and I've seen a lot of people blow up because of that and lose everything.

I made sacrifices in my life. I moved back home. I left home when I was 18.

As a 30-year-old, I moved back into my parents' home to save money so I could save money and make bigger moves in life to then kind of have a bigger life later when you you you kind of want it.

Build strong foundations. I've seen too many people start expanding.

You expand too quickly and you don't have the resources. It's a recipe for a disaster. Can you understand when a business will do a restaurant business, will do well and when it won't?

Like, can you identify certain factors immediately when you walk into a restaurant? Sometimes I can.

Sometimes, you know, I will I have, you know, certain sayings like, never mistake a busy restaurant for a successful restaurant, meaning, are you making money?

I like doing this business. I also like making money. So I can walk into a small restaurant. I can see an army in the kitchen.

I can see high labor. I can see high food costs. I see a busy restaurant and people will say, they're killing it.

Look at them, they're so busy. And I will say, they will be they'll be done in one year. And I've been good. I've been good at picking out the restaurants that I I I kind of analyze it.

I walk in, I see locations, I see what they're doing. I'm good at calling how how long restaurants will will be around.

I think, but I'm fascinated to the way you're talking about everything.

You haven't mentioned once the food. Oh God, no. I know the food's obviously great. No, no, I know it's obviously great, but I feel like in terms of succeeding, and that's such an important life lesson or business lesson, it's often times not about like what you would think it is, right?

I go to a restaurant, I think food, but what actually makes me like this restaurant? One, where is it? Two, you know, who's the chef?

Three, the vibe, this and that. Like, yeah, you really focus on a lot of things beyond that. A restaurant is not just the food, not just the service.

And when you watch a movie, it's not going to be just like who, who's the director, who are the actors, it's going to be the lighting, like the costumes, the makeup.

So again, I equated it to a film, everything has to work for the vision of that, you know, every time I'm to a restaurant, I approach it like a movie.

How do you apply that generally speaking as a business advice?

It's not a one-size-fits-all situation in life, and that's why it's almost hard to say, do I have a formula?

I don't have a formula. There's, there's not a formula. Project by project, gut feeling too, or it's more planned out?

No, huge gut and opportunity, luck, right time, right place. I wouldn't be in the restaurant business had I not walked by in Yorkville, be our partner. Uh, you guys joking, we're serious.

Uh, let me think about it. Um, two weeks later, I'm in the restaurant business. Life happens and are you open for the opportunities?

And also, right, you know that you, you know, you work a lot with your gut, but your gut has to be clear, meaning do you know what you want?

I mean, sometimes you, you think you want things, but until you do your inner work and you get clear, uh, you're not going to know what's right.

for you some people might say like I I want to be a lawyer. I want to be a lawyer because their parents have told them that they get there and they're like this is not what I want.

Who are you living for? You sometimes you think that oh I just want I want money.

Oh you know, you know money is going to make me happy, things from the outside are going to make you happy and then once you get all the money in the world, that's when you realize that's not it.

You'll see a lot of billionaires give these talks.

People that don't have money, they're like they don't believe it. They're like if I had money, I know I'd be happy, but I know I know quite a few billionaires and they were chasing to be to be rich.

When they got rich, they're like I'm not happy. Then they went and they did their inner work and now they can enjoy their money, but it's not until I think you have to live an examined life.

I think that's the important thing. You have to do your inner work and we all have trauma to different degrees and until you deal with your own trauma, then get clear, so something speaks to your gut is actually true.

Yeah, so one thing I've learned is that as much as you can focus on being successful, being happy and being successful are parallel.

So as much as you can put effort into being good at what you do, you also need to put effort into being happy and living in the moment and enjoying life.

There are two different things. If you put all your eggs in one basket and focus on success, it doesn't mean that you focused at all on your happiness and they don't directly translate.

I I completely agree and I think there's a key to life and that's being present, you know, be present every moment of your life.

Everything's easier said than done and depending on, you know, your privileges.

Really, I feel very privileged. I was born in Canada and, uh, most people don't realize that they don't, and I think that if you, you know, you have to remind yourself of that.

A 58 Year Old Self-Made Millionaire Shares Her Best Life Advice

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That's why you'll always hear me say that "it's a mindset." 

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