TOAST TO TEN
Thoughts from Andrea J. Shaw on 10 years of TTG Canada
When I was asked by our team to reflect on the last ten years of our business, I was taken by surprise at the range of emotion I felt. From gratitude to joy to sadness to pride, I feel privileged and fortunate to have journeyed these ten years with an amazing team.
From the early days of the business we had fun (and still are having fun, thank the Lord!). There were scary days and there were happy days. But from the beginning, we knew what was most important to get right: We believed it was critical to have a clear vision of who and what we wanted to be “when we grew up”.
We were excitedly opening our doors to the world as a new business, a newborn baby business. We needed to figure out what we wanted to look like, what we wanted to be as a toddler, a teenager, an adult. I’d say right now we are somewhere between a teenager and adulthood. We learned so much, but we always knew we needed to stick to our vision and, as importantly, we needed to be guided by our core values – and we still are to this day. We worked tirelessly on those values. They were proudly and decisively agreed upon in the kitchen of my home where our newly formed company was born.
We were very clear about what we wanted the values to be. They were about being truth tellers (being trusting and trusted), fire starters (igniting passion and purpose), bridge builders (integrating opportunities and partnerships), trailblazers (innovating courageously), game changers (elevating performance), difference makers (delivering excellence), and when I reflect back, there has not been a day in ten years that our values haven’t been mentioned, lived or experienced in our team. They are true to our core and continue to be the backbone of our business and the success we’ve enjoyed over the years.
I think what makes me most proud is to think of the people we have brought through our doors…. mostly young… definitely younger than me! These are people who hold our company values true to their heart and have been amazing to work with - each and every one of them! Yes, people have come and gone but what is really important to me is that when a person walks out our doors, we have contributed to making them a better person than when they walked in. And I do believe we’ve all grown stronger with each other.
Reflection also brings joy when I think of the amazing business “wins” we have achieved over the years. When we have a win, we have an expression: capital Y, capital E capital S exclamation mark! YES! We are proud when we win - and we have had lots of them - however we’ve also had some rainy dark days that were close to knocking us over… but never did. There is not a doubt in my mind that the passion, perseverance and true grit we have as a company, our determination to rise when faced with daunting road bumps along the way, is the reason we have overcome these challenges.
I believe success is a journey and not a destination. We have had success with both the good days and the bad because it’s the journey that I am so incredibly proud of.
The journey has been exciting, exhilarating, scary and frightening, but it has been a wonderful one: a pursuit of our passion with diligence and purpose. If you have that, I think there is a chance that success will find you and we’re incredibly proud of that.
