Mitch Wallis puts his heart on his sleeve about working with TDi
We were so grateful to Mitch from Heart On My Sleeve for sharing this video story of his experiences working with TDi. You can watch or read the transcript below.
Hey, my name is Mitch Wallace. I’m the founder and CEO of Heart On My Sleeve. It’s a mental health organization and our mission is to create a more authentic culture. We really want to bring realness back into the way we talk about mental health. It’s the shame and the guilt and the loneliness and the isolation that actually keeps us sick. Ever since I shared my story a few years ago, the movement went viral and has reached people all around the world. And it encouraged people to share their story in a way that I think hadn’t happened before. Over the last few years, our journey has grown into so many weird and wonderful parts that I never thought possible.
But we reached a fork in the road around six months ago, where we really started to question who we were, where we were heading and what our value was. We got put on to TDi as a means of really helping us shape not only our identity, but how we could create maximum impact for as many people as possible.
At the time, we were considering splitting into a social enterprise and restructuring our entire business. And so, staring down the barrel of some really strategic decisions, we thought, we need to find a partner that can take us through this ambiguity, and help deliver us into a position of strength.
I couldn’t recommend The Difference incubator more wholeheartedly. As someone who can help a for-purpose business, optimize for impact scale, and really figure out where they fit in their category so that they can help more people. TDi is what I would call a non-traditional consultant. And that’s really good because they’re solving non-traditional problems.
I guess when I first walked in, I was expecting lots of spreadsheets and numbers and P& Ls and all that was there, but in a different way. It felt different. It was such a human experience. I feel like the people I was working with wanted to get to know me as a person as much as they wanted to get to know the business. My goal and what I’ve wanted and craved this entire entrepreneur journey is feeling like I’m not alone in the sandpit anymore, I wanted someone to come over and sit down and want to cover themselves in the mud that I was playing in because it was so lonely. And every time I tried to work through a problem, even with people around me, and in my own business that were close, no one really had the time to be able to get into the detail, in the weeds, like TDi could. Not just in the spreadsheets, but also in my own mind.
And it was really nice to have some friends in the sandpit who you could also feel wanted to be there with you. I don’t think business has enough heart in it, and certainly not enough humanity. And we can base our vision solely in our head, which is actually only less than half of what I think truly calls us to serve.
TDi helped me figure out what I wanted as a person and as a founder. It helped me figure out what was right for the business and has really set us up in a position to have the most successful year possible, and years to come.
Since working with TDI, we’ve already landed within a month of finishing our project together our biggest deal that has set us on a whole new trajectory and course and has created the infrastructure around us that we need to thrive. I think any for purpose business that’s trying to go from startup to a mature organisation, or even mature organisations that are wishing to change their channel strategy, or hire new people or expand their product lines. Or actually, as I said at the start, just figure out who they are, TDI is absolutely the consulting service and trusted partner to do that with.
I want to say big thank you to Anna and Carlo, and everyone at the organisation who has supported me tirelessly and patiently, and through tasks and mountains that seem too big to climb. And when times where I just wanted to give up, they persevered and there’s not much you can really say that can articulate the gratitude for that. So TDi, thank you. I owe you one.