To achieve greatness, you will have to craft a clear goal, exceed expectations, and contribute to others. Linda understands how to handle change because she has been successfully building her property business for 22 years. Her business success has been driven by her ambition to build a legacy that will be inherited by the next generation in her family, who are her why.
According to Jordan Peterson and other psychologists, intelligence correlates to openness. Therefore, Linda’s belief—the person who gains an advantage in resilience is the open-minded individual—is scientifically if not widely supported. Being a mother in Business, Linda makes it clear that there are no instructions or guidelines. Both children and adults teach one another. Nobody has any guarantees in life, and everything is subject to change. As a business owner you have to learn on the job and make decisions that affect your health, time, relationships and the like.
Linda’s husband Mac is a rock in her life that helps her professionally and personally. After her mother passed away, Linda adopted a new strategy for her life. This focus allowed her to create new experiences for her children—experiences she hadn’t previously had. Linda is in charge of designing her life today.
Linda lives a purpose driven life in which practicing the art of Taekwondo has played a major part. Its importance in Linda’s life is incomparable. The five Tenets of Taekwondo that are central to her lifestyle are:
Perseverance
Indomitable Spirit
Self-control
Integrity
Courtesy
Becoming a taekwondo martial artist gave me more benefits than I could imagine. Initially I just wanted to get out of the house and have “me” time, but taekwondo offered opportunities for me to become more disciplined, make new friends, get fit and even become a national silver medalist champion some years ago.
Self-care, taking responsibility, and being accountable are also major factors for Linda who is soaring to new heights. This has been a “journey and experience to inspire others” challenges in earlier years including shyness, a low self-esteem, lack of confidence and adolescent worries; Today Linda is degree educated from a school-leaver’s background, is helping women to go global and achieving her vision to inspire other mothers in business!
Self-love and self-belief which I have developed over time was nonexistent in my earlier years and I continue to work on these areas every day to be the best version of me. I am not perfect. I am work in continuous progress, but I use my journey and experience to inspire others.
In the last 22 years what has been your greatest career strength that you developed in your early career?
I have been in business for the past 22 years and have created, with my husband, a successful property business by creating affordable quality housing for people who can’t afford to buy their own homes. I love purchasing, investing, and developing property and use several different property investment strategies to help as many people as I can at the same time of creating wealth and building a legacy for my children.
For the first 10 years of my business, I worked in the corporate world at the same time and enjoyed an 18-year career in Human Resources Management working for a number of employers in the private and public sector in secretarial through to managerial and regional roles.
My greatest career strength in both disciplines would be to always know your outcome, and to go beyond other people’s expectations which is something my mother taught me in my early years. There are many challenges that women face in business but also when you are a woman of color those challenges can often be far greater. So, for me going above other people’s expectations is necessary to be recognised and acknowledged for the contribution I make to society.
It has always been important to me that no matter what I am doing or how hard things get to never give up and to be open rather than resilient to change and to know that when things don’t go the way I planned that there is a lesson within this that needs to be observed and taken on board.
Having a multi-million-pound property portfolio whilst being a successful mother of three and a Taekwondo Martial Artist, you have built a process that works professionally and at home. What is your decision-making process and is it the same at home and at work?
Unfortunately, being a mum in business does not come with a handbook or guidance notes. I have developed strategies to manage my home and business that have taken many years of creation, adjustment, and continuous review because nothing remains the same or is guaranteed. I am not perfect; I just do my very best with the resources I have available to me to be the best mum to my children. There is a myth that as your children get older being a parent becomes easier, this is not true, the challenges just become different, and our children teach us a lot and help us to grow!
One real benefit of having older children is that they can learn the business and help you out with business activities during the school holidays!
At home and in business I work on a Code of Honour each day which is a set of rules I have developed and that I live by and by working within this Code it helps me to make decisions from a place of transparency and integrity.
It has not been easy managing motherhood and business, and ‘me’ time. I have had to make many sacrifices in my time, health, and relationships along the way just like a lot of other mothers.
Having a coach is necessary for me, having someone to bounce ideas, help to make decisions, to call me out on uncompleted tasks, holding me accountable and reviewing my targets. My husband, Mac, is my professional coach. It was challenging in the beginning being in a marital relationship with my coach but after some time I got used to the idea and could see the benefits in my results.
Continuous self-development has been an integral part of my journey to realise that I am in charge of designing my life. Despite my time in business I have only seriously invested in my personal self-development in the last 12 years after my mum passed away and I realised that life was too short to live in fear or judgement of others and being a mother it is very important that I do not pass this fear to my children so in turn created opportunities and experiences for them to see and know that anything they put their mind to is possible with the right support and strategy.
Can you describe a setback in the early part of your business journey that you have faced but realised it was an advantage?
In my earlier property journey when one of my children was only two weeks old, we lost £20k in one day through a complex property purchase. This was due to lack of focus, juggling too many things at once and not allocating enough time to carry out due diligence. This was a challenging setback in our business but also a strain on our business and personal relationship.
The money was a substantial portion of our savings at that time. It included costs for family and home expenses whilst on maternity leave. I felt like a failure as a businesswoman for not identifying the pitfalls in the deal earlier. I felt like a failure as a mother for losing so much money at a critical and financially sensitive time for our family. I had put myself under a lot of “mum-guilt” and this pressure certainly was felt.
At the time I felt guilty for spending too much time on my business when I should have been focusing on my one-week-old baby. Hindsight highlights that I was working on creating a financial legacy for my children. To get over that guilt became tough but later I realised there is a big lesson that you do not overload yourself. Along with this substantial lesson, I learnt to say ‘yes’ to help. I learnt to complete due diligence on every deal before signing ANY contracts.
It also enabled my husband and me to revise professional capacities and the roles we held in our property business. We looked at our individual strengths through a wealth dynamics profile test to ensure we took on business roles that matched our skill set. That was a big turning point for our business and a lasting lesson learned.
How do you separate your feelings and emotions from the tough professional and personal decisions in life?
I always focus on the outcome. I ask myself the question: ‘what is the worst that can happen?’ There is a solution for everything. You only need to be open to finding it.
Feelings and emotions are part of all our lives. What sets you apart is how you handle it. I have a wobble, shout, scream, or even a cry (if required and generally in private) as with most people. I go with whatever emotion my body feels fits but the difference is I have trained my mind not to stay there.
I choose not to dwell in anything negative and don’t resonate with any negative energy from people or situations I may find myself in. I always look for the lesson and move on.
I worked a lot on my mindset after the death of my mum in 2010. I realised that life is too short. For about 3 years after my mother passed, I was an emotional wreck; I cried every day for 3 years, would get short tempered very quickly and did not have much patience. I was emotionally scattered.
I squared many personal development programmes and interventions down until I had trained my mind to stay calm and at peace. I learned to come to terms with my mother’s passing through personal development. A key lesson for me when making decisions is to realise that all human beings operate in different ways; everyone may have special or different expectations and standards and you ought not to take anything personally.
You may never know what other people are going through. I habitually allowed other peoples’ emotions to control my outcome when I realised that some people use this negatively because of their insecurities in ways that would not serve me.
If I am unable to reach the decision on my own, I ask for support. This is essential. My support circle is close-knit—a few select members of my family.
Why have you chosen a career path within Property and Global Woman Club Accra? How does your Why compliment your family and personal life?
Property is my №1 passion and has been for the past 22 years. Helping to provide affordable housing for those who cannot afford to buy their own homes certainly is excellent. It is an excellent wealth creation vehicle that’s not for the light-hearted. Running a successful property business requires many skills that I have crafted over my many years of experience. Running a successful property business requires many skills that I have crafted over my many years of experience: communication, teamwork, resilience, assertiveness, risk taking, attention to detail, listening skills, organisation skills and passion.
I love property: there are so many strategies available to implement; I can work from home; I can choose my own hours; I get to spend time with my family. I can grow in my personal ambitions plus continue to build a legacy simultaneously.
My family is my ‘Why.’ All I do is to live a fulfilled and meaningful life and to inspire my children to do the same whilst encouraging them to know that anything is possible with a positive mindset. As a family we use our wealth creation to create magic moments with memorable experiences.
Growing up from very humble beginnings and being an incredibly shy, people pleaser, worried about what others thought about what I said or how I came across led to many wasted years not living as my true self. As a mother I do not want my children to experience lack due to other people’s opinions.
My mission as a mother is to enable my children to explore as many opportunities as possible to find their true self and passion without fear of judgement, lack of confidence and to value, respect and love themselves. Being independent in whatever my children do to make a contribution to the world whilst being fulfilled and having fun is a priority.
Global Woman Club Accra is part of my contribution goals and vision to inspire women to be, do and have more. Women are powerful goddesses, and I am very proud of the Accra community and the diversity of women from around the Globe that it attracts.
I love being part of the Regional Directors team and helping to support Mirela’s vision. This is an honour to me. Global Woman Club (GWC) has given me the opportunity to become a true global leader whilst helping, supporting, and empowering many women along the way.
Which has proven the most valuable in your career: your education or your experience?
My experience for sure: education is great but there is nothing better than real life experience and learning from your successes and failures. There is no handbook and there are no guidance notes!
I left school with very little education and left with no English or Math qualifications. I later realised that this would not serve me well and went back into education at 18. I re-educated myself and later went on to obtain a degree in Human Resources Management.
What vision do you have for the future, global and personal?
My vision for the future is to continue my parents’ legacy to do far better than they did. My parents came to the UK from the Caribbean in the 1950s to create a better life for themselves with little education which was a very brave decision.
Through my parents I have been able to experience many new opportunities. So, it is my role to ensure that the generation I have created through my children do far better than I have. That they achieve this is for vision.
To continue to create several ‘firsts,’ i.e., pioneers in being the first member of my family to go to university, the first member of my family to have a business, and so on.
I love property and have some extremely exciting projects in place for this year. My vision is to continue to create wealth through property so that my family has an abundance of limitless life choices. They must be able to create their life on their own terms. My vision is to continue to attract an abundance of wealth creation opportunities.
My health is a huge goal for me and becoming vegan last year has been a game changer in my weight, dress size and energy levels. My vision for the future in terms of my health is to add more years to my life and more life in my years which I learned from Tony Robbins on Date with Destiny.
On a global scale I want to continue to empower more women around the globe speaking on large platforms like Global Woman with my story and experience by contributing, serving, inspiring women particularly of color in Africa. I love being the Global Woman Club Director, Accra Ghana but my big goal is to create opportunities for more African women to be part of the amazing Global Woman Club platform – giving them opportunities to connect with women around the world to grow their businesses internationally.
Love is important to me. Self-love for myself but also the gift of receiving and giving love is vital to me. Inspiring my children to love themselves first so that they can love others has been key in my parenting. Married in my loving, 22-year-marriage I never forget that the mistake most people make is once they’re married, that’s it. I am enhancing my marriage and investing in it: setting goals, having a code of honour, being present, reviewing/checking in—and repeating.
