Silvana Landa founded her own business back in 2018, creating consciously made handbags with the highest quality raw materials, finished to perfection. Here, Silvana reflects on her story so far, the power of owning your morning, and keeping it simple.
My name is Silvana Landa McAdam, and I am an Argentine/Italian living in Ireland for the past 24 years. My husband and kids are Irish.
Work highlights prior to launching my own brand include launching brands in the L’Oréal Luxury division, working as brand manager Brown Thomas and department manager for Accessories, and Max Benjamin as the export manager.
I decided to launch my brand, LANDA, as I wanted to create a product that would give joy and confidence to women on a daily basis.
In terms of my weekday routine, I go to bed quite early, at about 9.30pm, as I get up at 6am. I usually watch a coaching video or read 15 minutes of a non-fiction book. I love planning my day early and feeling in control of my mornings and at peace before everyone else gets up.
Three days a week I go to a gym session at 7am. This helps me feel more focused and energetic. I’m usually back to walk my youngest to school, and on gym days, I have breakfast in the office. My breakfast is very continental, I squeeze a grapefruit, have a coffee and a piece of sourdough toast. I’m hungry again by 10am!
I have been working hard on having a proper morning routine, and where I fall short is on my breakfast habits. I don’t like cereal or eggs for breakfast but I feel this could be good for my health and nutrition.
I’m coming to two years of going to bed early and owning my mornings and it has made a huge difference to my life. I love having the time for myself before everyone else is up. Planning my day ahead makes me feel more confident and focused.
Working in line with energy levels
I’ve been working on my ‘perfect week’ schedule, which is based on working around my energy levels, as pockets of concentration are higher for me from 8-12am, for example. I get to the office at 8.30am as I walk my boy to school and don’t want to miss that.
I tackle emails first (which is a horrible habit). I’m slowly moving towards that perfect week, in which you don’t see your emails until later in the day and you focus on bigger areas. The next step is to hire an Executive Assistant that will manage my emails and calendar so that I can buy back my time to work on the big areas of growth.
I have an office close to home. I am there around three days a week and the rest of the time I work from home or in coffee shops. I find some coffee shops very inspirational, and love going to buzzy, successful places and absorbing that energy.
No two days are the same in my job. We are a small team and we are a highly dynamic company. Some days are divided between design, marketing and cool events, and other days bring boring stuff like admin and finance. We are a small team and have coffee to catch up outside the office a couple of times a month to check how we are doing and getting aligned.
I also travel a lot as we are very focused on exporting. I love this side of the business as I get so much inspiration from watching women and their habits (my target audience) around the world. In terms of the tasks that energise me the most, I love sales trips and brand events.
I love creating new products and finding opportunities for the brand to grow. I get such a kick out of these things. Anything but admin and finance!
I do find admin tasks and the finance area quite draining. I feel I am a creative soul, not only in the product side but also looking for bigger opportunities for the brand, this is where my magic lies. You can’t have me on spreadsheets for long. We have now installed new systems to manage this so that I am away from these areas as much as I can be. We are not there yet, but it’s getting better each time.
Highlights and healthy habits
My mum would tell you that I was born with a special life force and heaps of energy like no other. It’s funny, my mum and grandma (the Italian ones) were similar. I am never tired during the day, but hit the bed before 10pm and I’m gone in seconds. I’m not a night owl.
When on market visits, I could walk 30k steps without noticing, but would still go to bed early as my head is drained from absorbing everything that’s around me.
I find that when I don’t exercise, I could be low on energy. I have always been very active and that’s my way of being grounded. As a family we eat quite well too, which helps. We have vegetables, fish and all sorts of meat in moderation (except when the good weather comes and we have more barbecues than normal… I’m Argentinean after all!).
I drink a lot of water and we don’t drink alcohol during the week, but definitely enjoy some wine at the weekend. My biggest problem is 10.30am, when I crave a pastry with my second coffee of the morning. Haven’t cracked that one yet!
A real highlight of my week is when all the elements click. As in, we launch a new product, the press loves it and our customers crowd our website with sales. Bliss.
Another highlight is getting customer feedback. We love hearing from people, and our customer service area is one of the most important ones for us. Customers often comment on this. We reply to every email, comment or query and nothing is a problem. One time I stopped a DHL plane on the runaway as I wanted to get a parcel out!
Off-the-clock routines
Some days I go for a run or gym after work if I didn’t go that morning for some reason. I usually cook dinner for my family and sometimes I help my kids with homework or projects. I love to sit down with my husband and watch an hour of Netflix in the evening.
Once a week, I have a business coaching call at 7pm and that day it takes me ages to go to sleep as my head is buzzing with ideas.
In terms of skincare, in the morning I use an SPF or moisturiser cream. In the evening, I usually use serum, eye cream and moisturiser. I cleanse my skin in the shower and use body cream afterwards. I always use a face mask after a flight (I learned this during my L’Oreal years and love it).
I drink a lot of water and drink Mate, an Argentinean drink full of nutrients. It’s much better than coffee in terms of keeping you awake, but healthier. I consider sleeping well part of my beauty routine.
The gift of time, the all-important me time, is my most important self-care ritual. I lead a very busy life full of millions of things to do, and finding those spots for just me, to re-set and re-assess are crucial. I had to put them as part of my company’s KPIs so that I could carve the time and do it.
My ideal day off involves blue skies, sunshine, a walk and coffee by myself, and then a massage with my girl friends and brunch. I would then spend the afternoon playing board games with my children, and finish off the day with a date night with my handsome husband.
Keeping it simple
The biggest challenges you face in the day-to-day juggle of business and life has got to be time. I am working hard in creating that perfect week, where you work around your energy levels and are as productive as possible. As an entrepreneur, our heads go in so many directions and we always want to do everything, and do it right. I’m working towards saying no to things, and was surprised to realise that no one dies as a result!
For me, replenishing my energy and creativity means exercising (the sweaty kind) every day. This clears my head and changes my view and mindset. Also, taking time off things, stepping away to gain perspective… the gift of time again. Such an elusive thing!
I am practicing some daily non-negotiables given by my business coach: 45 minutes of sweat (gym, run, fast walks), then reading 15 minutes of non-fiction, connecting with my goals every day (I physically read them every day now) and then connecting with my job in a deeper way, be it with the team, customers, suppliers or audience. This is hard but I’m practicing.
And you know what? Keep it simple. We tend to overcomplicate things.
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