The Power of Trust, Values & Grit in Building a Business with Sarah Bundy

In this powerful episode of The Road to Seven Podcast, host Shelagh Cummins sits down with Sarah Bundy, the award-winning entrepreneur and co-founder of Athena Collective. Sarah shares her inspiring journey from her unexpected start in affiliate marketing to building and exiting a successful business. 

She offers insights on managing burnout, the mindset shifts that fueled her personal and professional transformation, and the core values driving her new venture. If you're looking for inspiration, actionable strategies, and a story of resilience and reinvention, this episode is a must-listen.

Key Takeaways:

• Sarah's accidental entry into affiliate marketing led to building a multimillion-dollar agency.
• Value-based hiring and how the DIGG philosophy (Delight, Innovate, Grow, Give Back) shaped her leadership approach.
• Burnout was a wake-up call that led to powerful mindset and business model shifts.
• The importance of trusting your intuition and building strong support networks.

Links

Connect with Sarah:

Email: sarah@athenacollective.co
LinkedIn: Sarah Bundy
Athena Collective: https://athenacollective.co

To work with me and make your next power move, visit:
https://theroadtoseven.com 

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Transcript

Shelagh Cummins (00:00.782)
So I was introduced to my guests today from a mutual acquaintance that we have. And you know, when you start hearing someone's name, all of a sudden you see it everywhere. Well, that whole idea of omnipresence happened with my guest today, Sarah. I was introduced to her and then she started showing up everywhere. And Sarah has an incredible story, which I know that you need to hear. And so Sarah, first off, thank you for joining us today.

Sarah Bundy (00:28.823)
you. I appreciate you having me. I just realized as well that I should probably update my tagline there because I am the host of the Four Female Founders podcast, but I'm also the founder and CEO of Athena Collective, which is probably where I should throw that tag, but it's okay.

Shelagh Cummins (00:45.77)
Awesome. Love it. I love it. And you know, I mean, I think that sort of kickstarts our conversation perfectly because you do wear many hats, but you're able to wear many hats because you made a really powerful exit. And before we get into that, Sarah, let's go right back to the beginning. What made you start your own company and like why affiliate marketing? Give us the goods.

Sarah Bundy (01:13.172)
Sure. So I got into the affiliate marketing space in 2004. I fell into it totally by accident when I was working at a company called Clearly, Clearly Contacts. Some people in the US might know it as Coastal Contacts. And I was overseeing the call center at the time. I had a few hundred reps that...

My job was to help them take immaculate care of clients and in that process learn what their pain points were, what their needs were, and then help our team figure out how to fix it really fast. So I loved it when they brought me on within three months, sales kind of exploded. had about a, it was already a multimillion dollar company in those three months, sales grew 26 % very quickly. So they said, you know what, Sarah, you're really good at this. We need you to take over our online sales team as well.

And I said, cool, how does that work? And they said, that's our affiliate program. There's just over a thousand of these affiliates in this program and we need you to help them learn how to elevate their sales as well. So I then took on the affiliate program at Clearly, this was in 2004. And I fell in love with it. I loved it so much. It was a combination of marketing and sales and customer service and data and creative and science and problem solving and all of these.

everything that I love. So did that for three years and then I quit my job, sold everything I owned and backpacked around the world for a year with my husband.

Shelagh Cummins (02:44.78)
What prompted you to do that, Sarah?

Sarah Bundy (02:47.225)
Well, we had gotten married and we had been working since we were 15 and my husband and I both had two, three jobs since we were 15. His family immigrated from South Africa, so they had to have a new start. I grew up in a family where my dad stayed at home and my mom worked.

and they didn't have a lot of extra cash to take care of anything extra. It was roof and food and that was it. So as a 15 year old, sometimes you want to wear clothes that aren't your brother's hand-me-downs that came from Value Village. So I was like, I'm to go buy my own stuff. I need to take care of me. And so did that at 18. We actually got kicked out of our house because we were renting and the Vancouver market exploded.

And that was the first time I realized that there's a big difference between renting and owning your house. And I was infuriated because my whole family life and every memory of my entire childhood for 18 years was just pulled out from under me in a second. So I sat down and I wrote a five-year financial plan for myself. And my goal was to buy a house by the time I was 23. So that happened. I entered the market, did all these things. And then

We burned out. So to answer your question, we got really burnt out already at 23 or 24 years old. And we said, you we want to have kids. And do we really want to have kids when we're already burnt out? Like we haven't really even had fun. We didn't have fun in our teens. We didn't have fun in our early 20s. We just grind it every day. And so we decided to quit our jobs, everything we owned and backpack around the world for the year. So that led to...

While we were backpacking around the world, one of the guys that I used to work with that clearly called me and he said, hey, when you come back, let's start a company together. And I said, thank you, but no, thank you. I'm not interested. Like I'm just going to enjoy this time and, you know, not thinking about work or entrepreneurship or business or where I'm going to get my next paycheck. And he said, okay, I'm not taking no for an answer, but I'll call you back in like two weeks. And I was like, yeah, good luck to you friend.

Sarah Bundy (04:55.629)
And anyway, he did, he called back and he's like, hey, so when you come back, let's start a company together. And I said, what kind of company would we even start? And he said, a marketing company, like this big agency, I'll do all the email, paid search, SEO, you do all the affiliate marketing, you're great at that. And I said, thank you, but no thank you. Like, I don't have any interest in being a business owner. Like, I'm gonna go back and get a job at a corporation, my resume's great, gonna do that. And then a third time he contacted me while I was traveling and he's like, look.

Like this is a great idea. And I kind of heard the universe saying to me, Sarah, do not say no, just look into it. And so I went and we were in South Africa at the time and I was sitting by the beach and I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna write a business plan. I'm gonna look into it. I'm gonna see if there's a potential for this. So I sat, wrote a business plan and I was like, holy cow, there's such a massive gap in the world of people who actually have my expertise. I can see why he wants to do this.

And so I said, okay, when we come back, let's give it a shot. And if it doesn't work, then I will just go back and get a job in a big corporation again. And it did work. It worked very well. And the challenge and the problem was I didn't know him well enough. And I picked the wrong partner. We were not value aligned whatsoever. And by the time I realized this, I was six months pregnant and because we'd decided to start our family.

six months pregnant and we both started fighting over the company. And I was working like 90 to 100 hour days and not sleeping and baby got distressed. My son Kai, he got distressed. And so I ended up in the emergency three times in the same week. And the doctor said to me, he looked me square in the eyes, Sheila. And he's like, you are gonna lose your business or your baby. So just pick one. And I was like, my gosh.

Shelagh Cummins (06:44.855)
Wow.

Sarah Bundy (06:47.125)
Like just like the ping of what that felt like. can't even describe it. Like choosing baby over your biz. Like that is not even a choice. So I was like, okay. So I, next day I said, look, take it for a dollar. I don't care. Like I walked away and started all inclusive marketing again from scratch. So here I am starting a new business at six months pregnant by myself from my bouncy ball in my living room. Like I'm having a baby in three months. I guess we'll just do like, no one's going to hire me at this point.

Shelagh Cummins (07:08.739)
Yeah.

Sarah Bundy (07:13.785)
So started a new company and it had done so well in the first 10 months that my husband actually quit his full-time job and joined me as my business partner. And then for the next 16 years, the two of us worked together until we exited in 2020 and he retired in December of 2023 and I retired in January of 2025.

Shelagh Cummins (07:33.826)
Wow.

Wow. Wow. So I actually want to go back to that time of starting six months pregnant. I actually have two questions about it. The first is, when you first launched it on your own, did you have a vision for it? Did you imagine, okay, I'm going to build this to sell, I want to scale this, or was it literally, I just need this to pay the bills? What was the vision when you started it?

Sarah Bundy (08:03.161)
Thank you for asking. I wanted to contribute to our family income and I wanted to be a present mom, which meant me working from home and taking care of my baby. And I wanted to take immaculate care of people. So I use the word immaculate on purpose because one of my life purposes I've realized from a very young age is to help as many people as I can before I die.

And sometimes that means being present for people, giving them a leg up, being an ear to listen to them, or just taking stress and pain off of their shoulders. So when I started AIM, I had this one client, he was the one guy who could come over from the last company, because he was not stuck in a contract. And I just wanted to take care of him so well that he felt the love and the solution and...

had a better life as a small business owner for his family and business, well, I could take care of mine. And so it seems like people like being immaculately taken care of. And they refer you a lot of business because they're like, I know someone who will take amazing care of you. And so we kind of grew naturally and very organically over the next few years to the point where we actually became one of Canada's top 100 fastest growing companies. We became a profit 500, a growth 500.

Shelagh Cummins (09:17.166)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Bundy (09:29.099)
I got listed as a top 40 under 40 in Vancouver. We won company of the year at 400,000 businesses in BC. A couple years later, we won the Global Excellence Award for setting the standard of excellence in affiliate program management worldwide. And we got to work with some of the most incredible brands all around the world from the Home Depots to the Oracles to some other brands I'm not allowed to say out loud for NDA purposes, but just picture, you you get this little.

Shelagh Cummins (09:49.998)
Sure.

Sarah Bundy (09:56.127)
young 28 year old mom about to have a baby not knowing what was going to happen, but just knowing that what her reason for being was. And that kind of turned into something really big.

Shelagh Cummins (10:07.48)
Well, and I think, you your motivation to start is one that I see so often among women. And it's that phase of life where you're like, I have a career, I'm really good at something, I could have a really high powered job, and I have this family and my values are that I want to actually be with my family. How can I bring the money from my skills and still be the primary caregiver?

And I think that's one of the places that really differentiates women's small business from other small business is they are grown to support a life and a lifestyle. And yet you've still defied the odds by going well over a million. You're in the, you know, I'm not sure how many get to the level that you are. We know that 2 % of women entrepreneurs are able to get past a million and you did it with small kids in tow.

Sarah Bundy (11:00.555)
Yeah, absolutely. We'll multiply that by a few X and that's as big as we got in the end when we were acquired. And I will say the only reason honestly that it worked is because of the people around me, especially my husband Ian, because he did share everything with me. Like he jumped in and he was ops and he was finance and he was technology and he was diaper changer and he was make Sarah lunch because she hasn't had a break in eight hours and hasn't eaten today.

Shelagh Cummins (11:05.643)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Bundy (11:29.195)
you need to have the right person or people with you to be able to do something like that. So I certainly can't take full credit, although as the face and the lead and the visionary, I was grateful and lucky to find the right people to move forward with.

Shelagh Cummins (11:44.108)
Yeah, and I mean the people power, the human capital in a business, I think is often the hardest piece to grow. And yet, you know, I think when you're coming at it from the place that you did of, want people around me, my mission is to take immaculate care of everyone around me. I think you put the two of those together and that's sort of a recipe for success.

16 years, like it wasn't smooth sailing. mean, you know, when you give the Coles note version, it sounds really fun. You know, I went from zero to many million and then I exited and there's, there's gotta be growing pains along the way. I'm sure you've had terrific people around you. But what were some of the toughest moments in sort of the growth years and the scale years and how did you push through them?

Sarah Bundy (12:35.573)
Yes, thank you for that very important question that I think a lot of people need to be aware of when they're in business and pain points are normal. They're not pleasant, they're not easy, but they should be expected and they are normal. So if there's someone listening and you are in one of those dips and you're struggling and you are exasperated or overwhelmed, we understand we have all been there. You know, that's why you get

the coaches and why you get the consultants and the people to help you through those times, the mentors and the people who can support you through that. But I would say that we've had challenges where we've hired people because they were inexpensive when we were bootstrapping and couldn't afford things. That caused a lot of problems because we hired based on what we could afford.

versus what our values were. And therefore we had high turnover in the early years trying to figure out how do we grow some, you know, if you're out there selling something in your value proposition, and then you're hiring people that are not aligned with that value proposition, because that's who you can afford, you're gonna have unhappy clients and no traction. You can't build a company around that. So we went through the learning phase of only hire based on your values.

And in our case, we had to define what those were in the very early days. And we decided that what we stood for was something that we called DIG, D-I-G-G. And that meant to delight, to innovate, to grow, and to give back. That's who we were in our DNA as founders. That's who we were as DNA as leaders. And unless we were hiring people who shared that same DNA,

we would have lot of hiccups and road bumps. So we changed all of our HR policies or hiring policies, our expectations around salaries, and we went and found the best people who are aligned with our dig philosophy motto and promise. So that was one learning. The other ones are as you scale and grow, especially when you have hockey stick growth, which we did experience at one point, actually a couple different points. So we had hockey stick growth and then kind of plateaued a bit and then hockey stick growth again. When you go through that type of extreme growth,

Sarah Bundy (14:50.661)
everything changes. The way you operate changes, the way you set up your structures change, the way you train people changes. So it's important for entrepreneurs and business leaders to know that if your goal is growth, which I imagine most people would like to do, then you need to almost have the foresight to say, when I hit, when I go from 1 million to 2 million, how I operate my business is actually going to be different.

And I need to know, I need to make sure that the tools that I have in place, the people that I have in place, the training that I have in place, the accountabilities I have in place are gonna hold that extra weight. They're gonna hold and elevate the company with you and not fumble in on itself. It's like the house of cards. If it's too top heavy, it's gone, right? So I think just having that awareness of, I'm growing, what is gonna be needed when I go from A to B?

And then when I get to be what's gonna be needed for me to get to see and doing the work to make sure it's as painless as possible. You're not losing clients. You're not losing your best people because you're not prepared for that one to 2 million, two to 4 million for an up kind of thing. So the biggest pain points we saw were around mistakes we made with hiring not based on value alignment in the beginning. And it got fixed once we start to change that.

And two is having the tools, systems, processes, and policies in place. So your team knows what to expect and how to behave when you go from A to B.

Shelagh Cummins (16:21.198)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think that's really important, but I'm really curious about that shift to doing a value based hiring, because in theory, it makes a ton of sense. And it would be great if we all could. But you also had said that you were hiring based on what your budget was, knowing that I call it hiring up when you hire up and hire people that are at the top of their game. It's a bigger price tag. How did you either find the funds or

create the funds or be able to integrate it into your budget to be able to hire up so that you're bringing in that higher caliber team member.

Sarah Bundy (17:00.889)
It's a great question and it's different depending on what you're trying to accomplish and how you're being funded. So in our case, we bootstrapped, we paid for everything because we didn't know any better. And I would also say that a lot of women, I'm learning more stats about this, a lot of women will bootstrap their businesses and put the loan of money on their house or like save for a bunch of time and then they put their life savings into hiring people or investing in a tool. Guys, you do not need to do that.

Shelagh Cummins (17:17.411)
Yes.

Sarah Bundy (17:29.751)
So just saying there are easier ways to do it. We did that, but we didn't know any better. So there's the answer of there are a lot of companies out there who will loan you money. There's banks to a loan you money. You can get business lines of credit through your bank. Talk to your bankers. Like it's actually very helpful. There are grants that you can get, which is free money guys. If you want some free money, check out grants. have a lovely client called granted. and their business, helps.

companies find grants that they can apply for, you know, and get some money to support the growth of their businesses. You can take a look for Stephanie Tseng, S-A-N-G, if you want to look her up, she's great. But when you're bootstrapping, it's just you, and in our case, my husband Ian and I, we did not take a salary. We took bare bones. Again, we came from a background of bare bones. What food do you put under the table? What roof do you keep over your head?

We had colleagues who paid themselves the most so they could enjoy the lifestyle. And then when they grew, they didn't have the money to actually pay the best staff because they got so used to their lifestyle and they bought the boat and they bought the house and they bought the vacations for their families. And now suddenly you can't take that away. So we went the route of we're okay having basics and any money that we earn, we're going to hire the best possible person we can instead of paying ourselves. Let's pay them.

And over time, I think we spent the first five or six years making like $30,000 a year each, which is like literally bare bones when you live in Vancouver and have babies. Everything else went into the business. And so we were able to get the best people over time. And then it kind of built up as revenue came in, we would reinvest that back into the company and to the point where, know, tipping point, you hit a certain volume and then it kind of goes from there.

Shelagh Cummins (19:21.848)
Well, that's exactly why I started a lending company is to lend that money to women. And I think it's one of the reasons we see women owned companies. They're starting thousands and thousands a day. They're contributing thousands into the economy, but there's also only 12 % that ever get up in over six figures. And I think it's largely because they're bootstrapping and not willing to find other capital.

to leverage their growth. And I think that's probably a podcast episode all on its own. It's, you know, when you look at the reasons why, unconscious bias, you know, they don't meet the algorithms in the banks. They don't know that it's possible to your point. I think we can go further faster when we work together. If you were to do it again, and you were to go back to that same place of having to invest instead of paying yourself, like reinvesting instead of paying yourself,

What would you have done differently? Where would you have gone for capital?

Sarah Bundy (20:21.655)
Well, you make a really great point. I'm glad you actually talked about private loans or just people that you can go to for that support. I would absolutely do that again. So I'm actually starting my third company right now. And yes, I'm putting in the time equity right now because we're trying to figure out what is going to stick, right? We have this vision. We want to help female entrepreneurs basically thrive.

Shelagh Cummins (20:30.52)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sarah Bundy (20:45.525)
We're creating this ecosystem and platform that aggregates the world's best resources for women in business. That's what we're calling Athena Collective. You can go to athenacollective.co for community. And we've got these resources. So if Sheila's able to lend money and you need money so that you can scale your business, we want to have Sheila and her contributions available to these ladies on this platform. If you need a bookkeeper, if you need a marketing person in your city or virtually.

we're consolidating all of these things because nobody has time to go find these things and everything is scattered everywhere. And a lot of it is really junky and garbagey. So how do we vet that for women so they can hit the ground running and be successful? So from a lending perspective or a financing perspective, now that I'm doing it again, I'm going to be leaning on grants, lines of credit, loans. Like I'm not gonna be paying for this myself this time around.

Shelagh Cummins (21:41.346)
Yeah.

Sarah Bundy (21:42.109)
We learned better to separate the corporate side of life and your own business life. And that actually protects you from a lot of risk as well because if something happens and God forbid you have to claim bankruptcy, that's not going to be attached to your mortgage. That's not attached to your assets, So I would say use the loans, use the grants, work with the bank or work with private lenders like Sheila.

Shelagh Cummins (22:10.432)
Yeah and I think that we also have to do our due diligence because a lot of the small business loans that are out there are actually personal loans disguised as a business loan and they are going against your credit rating and they are going against your house. They do need you to put up collateral and so I think to your point as the borrower you've got to do your own due diligence and really grill the people that you're looking to access capital from to make sure that you're getting the full picture.

because I've seen so many women who come to me and they're like, but I have this loan through, you know, insert bank name and it's pushed their credit ratings so far down that they, you know, they then can't access any other capital or they have trouble renewing their mortgage. And I think that's a real problem in our system. And it's one of the ones that we're working to sort of fix.

Sarah Bundy (22:58.805)
I appreciate so much that one of your purposes is to help women not get stuck in those really hard spots where they can't move forward because of money, because of...

Shelagh Cummins (23:04.995)
Yeah.

Shelagh Cummins (23:10.37)
What's funny, I never thought when I started this and I want to come back to your journey in a minute, but I never thought when I started this company that the biggest challenge would be to encourage women to take a loan and to take on debt, to invest in themselves and their company. And that is actually the piece that we're most resistant and the men who approached me for loans, I only lend to women, but the men who approach all they're like, I'm just looking for some capital to leverage so I can grow. Like it's not even a discussion. It's just an assumption.

Sarah Bundy (23:21.145)
Yeah.

Shelagh Cummins (23:39.81)
that you're going to leverage capital instead of take on debt.

Sarah Bundy (23:43.521)
Absolutely, and my husband's, his name's Ian, he was our CFO for 16 years. His whole background, he left his career in finance, in financial, he was in stock markets, he was in private equity, he was in all of the things. And to this day, he still says the fastest way to grow wealth is to use other people's money.

So guys, you don't need to be doing this out of your own pockets. It's okay to go into debt if you're using it to leverage growth and wealth. To your point, Sheila, I think one of the biggest challenges is awareness. Women just haven't had the opportunity historically to have access to the learning around financial acumen and financial literacy that men have for thousands of years. And that's okay. We're starting somewhere.

Shelagh Cummins (24:10.977)
is okay.

Sarah Bundy (24:34.453)
But it is the responsibility of women who are in business to take that on as an accountability and learn it. It is so important, so please do.

Shelagh Cummins (24:41.068)
I I agree. Yeah, absolutely. So throughout the 16 years, I'm sure there's some habits that you've developed or some mind shift, some mindset shifts that have been key to helping you sustain your success over time. You know, it's not like you sort of hit it big and you sold like you were on that hockey stick curve, once, but twice.

Sarah Bundy (25:08.289)
And we dipped a couple times in them.

Shelagh Cummins (25:09.538)
And of course it's going to dip. So what are some things that you did to, you know, make sure you could keep going in the mornings?

Sarah Bundy (25:16.779)
Yeah, thank you. Well, I'll answer this in twofold because the beginning of the question sounded a little bit about what did you change your mindset around? It helped you go from A to B. And I will answer that with I dropped the need or belief that I had to have all the answers because as women, we want to be able to do it ourselves. We take on this like pressure and weight of I can fix this. Like I'm to help you. Okay. I had that.

Shelagh Cummins (25:34.926)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Bundy (25:44.779)
mindset and also I was a very independent person for so long. I kind of had to do it on my own for a long time life on my own. Like there was a survival to it. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to just figure this out because I don't trust anybody else. And I had to get over that because if you as the leader are the smartest person in the room, then you actually got a big problem.

And when I changed and my ego, I had to put my ego aside and my fear aside of like, okay, I'm gonna have to trust people. That's when I said, okay, I know I'm hiring amazing people who are value aligned. And I know I'm hiring the best people I possibly can who are smart and they care. Let's work together, let's train together. Let's give them a vision of where we're going.

make sure they understand the purpose of why we're doing what we're doing, and then let me leave it with them, because they will do the right thing. They will fix this for us. And so I went and hired the smartest people I could possibly find, one of my goals being I wanted to be the least intelligent person in the room or the least experienced person. I wanted only smarter people in the room around me so that...

I didn't have to do everything myself. And that's actually one of the two hockey stick growths that we had was when I let my ego go and I learned I shouldn't have all the answers. My team will figure it out. I just need to hire the right people that I can trust to do the work and their value aligned and my job is to drive the ship. Everybody's going in this direction together. Here's why. Cool. Okay. You guys go and then you like regroup with them. So that was a major mind shift.

Shelagh Cummins (27:08.184)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Bundy (27:23.417)
change that helped us with exponential growth when I finally let go. So that was one. And then, um, I'd say the other one is that it was really important for me to start to take breaks because I'd been grinding for so long. Like I had mentioned at the beginning of this podcast, I had been working like two, three jobs since I was 15 years old and I would always be in the survival mode.

So it was just this constant hustle of go, go, go, go, go. And I burnt out a couple of times and that burnout as the leader of a business really impacted the business, impacted the team, impacted morale, impacted working relationships, impacted my ability to think strategically, impacted my family life. Like it impacted everything because I burned out. So for any women who are listening to this or people who are listening to this and you feel like your borderline burning out, that is a sign.

to like stop for a second, take a step back, identify what do I need to be doing and what do I not need to be doing? And how do I prioritize my own rest and my own wellbeing so that I can continue on, I can be the best leader, I can be the best mother, I can be the best spouse. And all of the things that you actually wanna do that make you happy and fulfilled. So that was a hard learning that I had to go through a couple of times too.

Shelagh Cummins (28:43.746)
Yeah.

Sarah Bundy (28:48.442)
And that was a mind shift, mindset shift to take care of myself was equally as important as taking care of other people.

Shelagh Cummins (28:56.182)
And you know, at the root of both of those, I think it's that key element of trust. know, trusting that if you step away, everything will be okay. And trusting others to take the lead on very integral and important parts of your business growth where I think, you know, trust is a lot like oxygen. Like if you have it, you don't think about it. But the minute you don't have it, it's all you can focus on.

How were you able to let go and build trust with those around you? Did you have a process? How did you do that? Because that's the hardest thing to do.

Sarah Bundy (29:32.127)
It is, yeah. I would say two things. surround yourself with people who you know have your back. People who you know genuinely care about you. People who know who you are on your worst days and still decide to stick around. And that could be, you know, a family member. That could be a spouse. That could be your business partner. That could be one person on your team. Whoever that person is.

Keep them very close to you because they are like oxygen and they will help you kind of get through as you process these challenging times and these challenging moments in your life. So surround yourself with people who've got your back. The other side of it is if you build a company that has no processes and systems, then you're leaving things up to chance. And there's a lot of messiness that can happen.

when you don't have defined processes, systems, expectations, and training, frankly, for your team. So yes, we hired around values of our dig philosophy, but we also spent a lot of time and effort building out here are the expectations and standards of our organization when this person is not there to answer questions. And I am not here because I'm at a conference and your direct.

and the client is asking for these things because this is a constant, you have to actually slow down and stop and analyze your business long enough to say, here's all the things that could go wrong. Here's the things that are, when they're going right, this is what it should look like. And in the cases that these things are going wrong, here's what to do. And if you don't have that documented or a system to support getting through those things without a human being, a specific human being being in that room, then you're leaving your company up to really bad risk.

Shelagh Cummins (31:21.634)
Yeah, true. From your mouth to our listeners ears. I love it. Let me ask you three more questions. I'm going to let you go. First thing is once one thing you do every single morning, no matter what.

Sarah Bundy (31:34.519)
I wake up every single day with gratitude. Gratitude. Thank you for this morning. Thank you for the sunshine. Thank you for letting me wake up. So I start my day with gratitude. I used to start my day like disgruntled, looking at my phone, got him tired. I gotta make lunches, like whatever. And that was kind of a miserable way to live. I was exhausting myself just by waking up in that mindset.

Shelagh Cummins (31:37.934)
Mm.

Sarah Bundy (32:02.305)
So I decided a few, couple years ago, a year ago, to just be like, thank you for letting me be here. And then I hugged my dog and I drank a cup of tea that my husband brings me in bed, because I'm very spoiled. So every morning I start my day with a cup of tea, snuggling my dog in gratitude. It's kind of amazing. I know I do live a very spoiled, luxurious life, just with that start to the day. So that's one of my consistence.

Shelagh Cummins (32:15.726)
You

Shelagh Cummins (32:27.054)
That's awesome. I love that. And I love that it's not with your phone. That's one thing I'm working on, but it's very difficult. But it's discipline and, you know, self-love is self-discipline, right?

Sarah Bundy (32:33.077)
it is.

But you know what, I will say yes, but I will also say yes, and I will say because we're gonna talk about practical application here. I wake up, I pick up my phone and I'm like, it's whatever time it is, and then I start looking at my phone and I'm like, ooh, let's see what the news says, or let's see how many people responded to my latest post, blah. And I catch myself, I'm like, no wait, I didn't do gratitude yet, and I put my phone back down and I'm like, thank you for today, thank you for letting me be here, hug my dog, have a coffee.

then I go back on my phone to be like, okay, I'm having my coffee, even if I'm just sitting in bed doing that, or on the couch or in the garden or whatever it is. But yes, even I am catching myself being like, nope, put it back down, do it properly.

Shelagh Cummins (33:16.366)
What is a mantra or a quote that you live by?

Sarah Bundy (33:22.775)
Well, the one that got me through all inclusive marketing was energy and persistence conquer all things. That was a Benjamin Franklin quote. And I still say it to myself on a regular, you know, I'm starting in my third company right now. I know energy and persistence will help us achieve what we need to. Yesterday, I ran a half marathon and I ran 21 kilometers without actually stopping to walk once because I believe that energy and persistence conquer all things.

Shelagh Cummins (33:50.808)
That's amazing. Yeah.

Sarah Bundy (33:51.105)
I think we are stronger than we think. I think not only as women, but as human beings, we have so much more grit in us than I think we really realize. So the mantra of energy and persistence, conquer all things, has really helped me a lot in my entire life.

Shelagh Cummins (34:07.732)
Yeah, think that everybody should have it written up on their wall so that they're staring at it every day. And then just to finish us off, Sarah, what's one thing that you're most excited about right now personally or professionally? What's next for you?

Sarah Bundy (34:13.246)
There you go.

Sarah Bundy (34:23.405)
So building Oda Athena Collective, which is my newest company, is my next passion project. I picture this global ecosystem and platform that really fuels and propels women forward in the world. And for me, this is not about only support women because women are better. This is about there is an opportunity.

where every human has the ability to thrive. And there's a massive still gap in the market and in industry and in the world of business where women still don't have access to your point with the right funding, with the right mentorship, with the right tools and resources, with the right allyships, with the right support network. So that's what we're building. And I'm so hopeful that even if

I'm hopeful that this becomes the leader, especially in the North American market, because there's some really amazing communities out there in the world. But I know this is where I have been able to thrive, and this is where I have a lot of resources and access to things. So if I can at least support women in business here first and then expand globally, that's my vision and goal. But if you think about it, what makes me happy and excited about that is when women are doing well in their work life and their business life.

then there is this ripple effect into families, there's a ripple effect into community. And can you imagine what the world would look like when women everywhere are actually thriving? Like it gives me goosebumps to think about. So that's why I'm doing what I'm doing because my story going from A to B, 16 years, a lot of strife, a lot of pain, burnout a couple of times, it shouldn't have to be that hard. It shouldn't have to take that long.

And so if I can help alleviate that for a lot of people out there, that's what I'm trying to do. And I'm excited about that.

Shelagh Cummins (36:19.246)
If you want to change a society, then you always go to the matriarch. I love it. Listen, I know that our listeners are going to want to connect with you, find you, follow you, learn more either about the athenacollective.co or other things. Where should they come and find you?

Sarah Bundy (36:22.457)
There you go.

Sarah Bundy (36:34.659)
Thank you, I appreciate it. They can email me at sarahatathenacollective.co, sarah with an H, and .co. Or you can find me on LinkedIn, sarahbundy. I'd love to have, you know, anybody reach out to me questions, like, I just like helping people, so please come find me.

Shelagh Cummins (36:53.528)
Love it, we will. We'll put all those down in the show notes so that you can find it very quickly and you can connect with Sarah if you need anything. Listen, thank you for your time today. What a terrific episode. I'm so excited for this one to go live.

Sarah Bundy (37:04.921)
Thank you, Sheila. Appreciate you and thanks to the listeners as well.

Shelagh Cummins (37:08.878)
it's a pleasure. We'll see you next time.