Motivational speaker, workplace performance expert and ultra-endurance athlete Mandy Gill wants to help you turn adversity into advantage
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Mandy Gill wants to help you turn “setbacks into comebacks.”
“I think that it’s really about getting comfortable with being uncomfortable,” said Gill, a former Vancouver radio DJ. “There’s nothing in my life that I’ve ever done or that I have really achieved without getting uncomfortable.
A Harvard Leadership Program graduate, Gill has worked with organizations like the U.S. navy, Adidas, Docusign, TD Bank and Manulife.
“I speak to them on everything from resilience to goal setting to corporate wellness,” said Gill.
“A strong beginning sets the tone for success,” said Gill. “Start your goal with a clear vision of how you want to finish and break your goals into actionable steps. Reverse engineer your vision and start climbing with clear intent and strategy.”
“Mostly people were coming and saying, ‘Mandy, can you talk to me about getting me on the right track? Getting me on the right track faster? How can I become more resilient every time I have a failure or that I feel uncomfortable?’ And that was really where I leaned into and where we are now, seven years later,” said Gill who began her empowerment and personal behaviour change motivational speaking career in 2018.
Gill’s message of learning from failure isn’t a new one, so it’s worth asking why we still need to be reminded that you can turn lemons into lemonade.
“Why does that have to be the stop, the hard stop? Why don’t people continue forward? That’s where I was like, I need to be able to provide people the steps and the processes, to be able to see how close they actually are and how much they’re capable of achieving.”
But Gill is quick to remind readers that results mean doing the work.
“The book is straight to the point, and it says right in it that they’re going to be things in this that you don’t want to hear. Because, oftentimes, we’re standing in our own way,” said Gill. “I say right off the bat; distractions are just an excuse to stay in your own way. We have seen, within the scope of working with all the clients (we work with on the Hooked on Healthy Habits app) that 82 per cent of people describe themselves as experts at creating distractions… So, when I look at that number, I think to myself, you know, we have to call out the elephant in the room. We have to recognize how can you make sure that distractions are not standing in your way? And if they are, how do we get around them? And how do we minimize them and so I talk often in the book about the word fail, which, to me, stands for first attempt in living.”
Gill’s goal is to make failure a key and accepted part of the conversation around success.
“The creator of Spanx, her dad used to say to her every night at the dinner table, how did you fail today? And it was something they celebrated,” said Gill.
The key to getting this message across for Gill is accessibility and readability.
“I thought to myself, this book needs to be super approachable. It needs to be able to be picked up and actionable, and it needs to be impactful, so that people can remember these little nuggets that are going to help steer them in the right direction,” said Gill.
While the traditional January resolution season is behind us, Gill is quick to point out that every day is a great day to start a reset process.
“I strongly feel like we can reset at any time,” said Gill. “I really just want people to remember not to put themselves into this box of it only being one period of time, because it’s at your fingertips at any point.”
Top 5 ways to succeed in 2025
We asked Mandy Gill to offer up some tips to help readers reach their goals in this coming year. Here are her top five tips.
1. Rip off the Band-Aid
Success begins with action. Stop waiting for perfect conditions and embrace the discomfort of starting. Bold moves break inertia and eliminate excuses. Your focus is unbreakable when you design your own path with intention.
2. First attempt in living (Fail)
Reframe failure as your greatest teacher. Every setback is a step forward when seen as an opportunity for growth. Evaluate what distracts you and minimize any noise that distracts you from your goal, all while committing to showing up for yourself.
3. Choose courage over comfort
Growth thrives outside your comfort zone. The best experiences come from leaning into challenges, not avoiding them. Prioritize courage to unlock potential.
4. Start how you want to finish
A strong beginning sets the tone for success. Start your goal with a clear vision of how you want to finish, and break your goals into actionable steps. Reverse engineer your vision, and start climbing with clear intent and strategy.
5. Detours become retours
Turn setbacks into comebacks by evaluating, celebrating progress, recalibrating, and crushing your next steps. Resilience is the key to transforming challenges into opportunities for greatness.