From Assistant to CEO in 3 Years - Lulu Liang Interview
02/12/19 • 67 min
Lulu always had her life painted out for her, a product of tiger parents, she was going to be a Doctor. More specifically an optometrist. And failure wasn’t an option.
When a bad grade at school threw her a curveball, she swapped paths for pursuing a MBA instead. She worked as a business consultant for a brief moment and quickly realised this wasn’t her dream either.
After stumbling across Mimi’s Morning Routines video, Lulu was inspired.
Then she did what no one expected of her, she opted for a pay drop and applied to work with Alex and Mimi as a social media customer service assistant. This was a bold brave move!
Alex quickly saw potential in her and during a sit down meal, the principles and importance of prior preparation was proved. The spark in Lulu’s eyes was seen and she blew Alex and Mimi away with her ideas.
Lulu tells us how she had an ambitious 3 month goal of excelling beyond her role, from operational assistant to manager, then to CEO without real prior experience of what she was getting herself into. And how her starting job title only made her push harder.
She shares techniques about;
- Breaking the permission seeking role for an extreme ownership model.
- Obsessive book reading and how Jack Canfield’s Success Principles shaped her the most.
- Adding value is the main indicator of her success.
- Not playing the victim card.
- Always coming up with the solution by creating a motion of next steps.
- Being humble and not expecting that she deserves everything handed to her, allows her to grow.
- How having a curious mind and becoming an infinite learner keeps her in the game.
Her words of wisdom are beyond her age. We’ve loved chatting with her and learning how she’s developed processes that allowed Luxy to grow beyond our expectations, filling in the gaps we never knew that need filling. She’s an exceptional young woman.
Hope you enjoyed this week’s episode with Lulu, you can find out more about her and Luxy Hair here:
Find the inspirational books Lulu mentioned here:
- Success Principles - How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Jack Canfield
- Scaling Up - How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't by Verne Harnish
- Traction - Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman
Also the tools she likes use that gets her ahead:
Trello.com - Trello’s boards, lists, and cards enable you to organize and prioritize your projects in a fun, flexible and rewarding way.
Slack.com - Slack is a collaboration hub, where the right people and the right information come together, helping everyone get work done.
Zoom.us - The next generation enterprise phone system
Lulu always had her life painted out for her, a product of tiger parents, she was going to be a Doctor. More specifically an optometrist. And failure wasn’t an option.
When a bad grade at school threw her a curveball, she swapped paths for pursuing a MBA instead. She worked as a business consultant for a brief moment and quickly realised this wasn’t her dream either.
After stumbling across Mimi’s Morning Routines video, Lulu was inspired.
Then she did what no one expected of her, she opted for a pay drop and applied to work with Alex and Mimi as a social media customer service assistant. This was a bold brave move!
Alex quickly saw potential in her and during a sit down meal, the principles and importance of prior preparation was proved. The spark in Lulu’s eyes was seen and she blew Alex and Mimi away with her ideas.
Lulu tells us how she had an ambitious 3 month goal of excelling beyond her role, from operational assistant to manager, then to CEO without real prior experience of what she was getting herself into. And how her starting job title only made her push harder.
She shares techniques about;
- Breaking the permission seeking role for an extreme ownership model.
- Obsessive book reading and how Jack Canfield’s Success Principles shaped her the most.
- Adding value is the main indicator of her success.
- Not playing the victim card.
- Always coming up with the solution by creating a motion of next steps.
- Being humble and not expecting that she deserves everything handed to her, allows her to grow.
- How having a curious mind and becoming an infinite learner keeps her in the game.
Her words of wisdom are beyond her age. We’ve loved chatting with her and learning how she’s developed processes that allowed Luxy to grow beyond our expectations, filling in the gaps we never knew that need filling. She’s an exceptional young woman.
Hope you enjoyed this week’s episode with Lulu, you can find out more about her and Luxy Hair here:
Find the inspirational books Lulu mentioned here:
- Success Principles - How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Jack Canfield
- Scaling Up - How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't by Verne Harnish
- Traction - Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman
Also the tools she likes use that gets her ahead:
Trello.com - Trello’s boards, lists, and cards enable you to organize and prioritize your projects in a fun, flexible and rewarding way.
Slack.com - Slack is a collaboration hub, where the right people and the right information come together, helping everyone get work done.
Zoom.us - The next generation enterprise phone system
Previous Episode
How We Built, Scaled, and Sold Our Multi-Million Dollar Luxy Hair Business
It’s easy to paint a picture of someone living their dream life and imagine it must have come easy, on a plate.
In this GIANT MUST LISTEN episode we find out the TRUE JOURNEY of what it takes to build a multi-million dollar business and then hand it over to someone else.
Alex and Mimi takes us behind the scenes and share their humble beginnings, ups, downs and everything in between. This is the journey you’re going to hear;
- Meeting each other while working in a bank in Toronto, Canada.
- Living together at Alex’s mom’s house.
- Alex studying Business school at nights while working full-time at the bank
- Mimi working many jobs and helping her family.
- Mimi dropping out of College.
- Alex getting fired and Mimi quitting the bank.
- Building a credit score, using debt as an advantage.
- How a near wedding disaster brought them a market opportunity.
- Soaking up knowledge from working in other businesses.
- Hiring the right employees and management that make business easier.
- Living in other countries and becoming location independent.
- Making money in your sleep.
- How the 4 hour work week made sense... and when it didn’t.
- Passion, growth and a founding members departure.
- Depression, happiness and when realities start hitting.
- Moving to London and operating a company from across the ocean.
- Finally Living their dream life after persistence.
- Building your company into an asset.
- The decision to sell Luxy Hair.
All this and so much more.
Hope you enjoyed this week’s episode, you can find out more about Alex and Mimi here:
Produced by Jason Sanderson - Podcast Tech
Show notes @ https://www.ikonns.com/podcast/episode3
Next Episode
Are you a perfectionist? Episode-5
In this episode Alex and Mimi do a deep dive into perfectionism. When is it good... or bad to be aiming for PERFECT.
Mimi finds that perfectionism, at least for creative people like herself, can hold her back. Forcing her to shelve projects she’s worked on, but are not good enough (...in her own mind)!
Alex argues the opposite. That it’s that very same desire to do better that spurs genuine excellence. The need to push through those moments when you wish to give in, often lead to a much better quality outcome. Mimi agrees. She even feels she’s had to work twice as hard because she didn’t feel exceptional at times.
“People say why are you improving on things that already work - Well, i completely respect those that do, because they are the ones pushing boundaries” - Alex Ikonn
Mimi explores her own past and looks into how labels imprinted on young people have an effect later in life, with a need to live up to those superimposed titles. She shares one of her favourite books on the subject of Fixed Vs. Growth Mindset By Carol Dweck.
They then go deeper with a concept from a favourite book - Linchpin by Seth Godin.
Perfectionism is a very ‘Lizzard-Brain’ part of our evolutionary biology. It’s one of our innate survival techniques, it’s imperative we avoid being ostracised or thrown out of our social group that we depend on. It’s this very concept the holds back from sharing when we feel things aren’t perfect.
“Screw it - Ship it - At some point you need to just get it out there” - Mimi Ikonn
There’s always going to be a gap between your starting skills and where you will end up, if you just keep creating. When you’re young your work isn’t the best. As you mature you grow taste and your work gets better. Alex shares a great video on the subject by Ira Glass. Instead of asking ‘does the publisher agree with this’, ‘what will people say?’ Just live by your own standard and then get it out there. The more you can move on to the next thing, the more you can develop taste and learn as you go.
“I built so many crap websites before i built a good one” - Alex Ikonn
Mimi shares one more book for your reading list Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, where a few choice words of what to spread on your sandwich... and then eating it, will surely get you pushing through your moments of doubt when perfectionism strikes.
Hope you enjoyed this week’s episode with Alex & Mimi
Find the inspirational books mentioned in this episode here:
Mindset - The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck
Linchpin - Are You Indispensable? By Seth Godin
Big Magic - Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert
Video about ‘The Gap’ by Ira Glass
Produced by Jason Sanderson - Podcast Tech
Show notes @ https://www.ikonns.com/podcast/episode5
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