Name: Aimee Stanton
Position: Plumber turned Tiny House Builder/Presenter Speaker
Company: Tiny Stays/Aimee Adventures
What do you enjoy the most, working in the field of construction & development?
I love that you’re always learning in construction. The world is your oyster when it comes to learning new skills. Work practices are always changing, new tools and products come out – you are working with your hands – but obviously the number one thing I like is work breaks – just kidding, well actually I’m not kidding.
I’m a firm believer in figuring out what your passion is and turning it into profit. I always said (after I switched from beauty therapy to plumbing) that I was going to get an apprenticeship under my belt then go out and chase my dreams, and if all else fails I have something to fall back on. And that’s what I did – my dreams were helping people to explore all opportunities in life and do what they love. But I didn’t want to be one of those people who are “do what I say – not what I do”, so I sat down one night and wrote down all the things I had a passion for. This ranged from building, sustainability, travel, and adventure. This led me to create a business with my brother, building tiny houses and renting them out as short term off-grid accommodation.
Showing people they don’t have to live a mediocre life of working 9-5 in a job you hate is a huge passion of mine. I’m lucky I found out early on that life is meant to be fun with constant learning, growing, and adventure – so I made sure I tailored my career to meet those needs.
Where do you see your life in the next 5 years, what possibilities are ahead of you?
I’m the type of person who always has to be doing something. I am a firm believer in setting goals, but only work on a 12 months basis because I’m constantly growing and evolving.
Ben and I plan to keep building our business Tiny Stays and have another 10 Tiny houses out in beautiful locations around Australia.
I am also heading down the road to capitalise on my skills by getting more in the media for DIY TV presenting and reaching a broader range of audiences with my speaking. At the moment, I have been focusing my attention on creating an online course that shows everyday Aussies how to live a more fulfilling life, which is a basic skill lots of us forget – how to be the happiest and fullest version of ourselves.
If you could write a letter to a 13-year-old ‘you’ what would you say?
Hi Aimee,
Your life is going to be very different in 10-15 years. At the moment I know you hate school, you think you’re dumb… and you’re about to get expelled in a couple of years. But just enjoy the ride because everything that happens to you is for a reason. I know you struggle at school, but don’t ever think failure is bad. Every time you fail at something it is bringing you a step closer to your dream life.
Love your older and better looking self,
Aimee
That’s something I want to point out to any women looking at getting a job in construction. It’s not easy, you will mess up, it may be difficult to get a job, you may cut something wrong, get looked at funny onsite, but keep your head high.
I applied for 120 plumbing jobs before I got one and then my first week on the job I fell through a roof, got my head stuck in a scaffold and crashed my car in a job site fence, but that made me even stronger and more resilient. Just enjoy the ride and don’t give up. Everyone was a first year apprentice once – sometimes just bosses or more experienced tradespeople forget that, but never stop asking questions and learning.
What are 3 skills you have had to develop to get to where you are presently?
- Communication: You could be the best plumber in the world, but it would get you nowhere if you don’t know how to talk to and meet the needs of your co-workers, clients, and anyone in general. Lots of women struggle on a job site surrounded by 472783837288 men, but if you connect with them, ask them questions about their lives, don’t take things too seriously, and have a laugh and a bit of banter, it can get you so much further in life.
- Dealing with failure: When you put yourself out there you are bound to fail…. like seriously I fail ALL THE TIME. If you don’t fail you’re not stepping out of your comfort zone enough. Failure was a hard one for me at the start, I was always questioning myself “why aren’t I good enough? Why can I do that? Why aren’t I getting anywhere?” but then I learned to love failure. Every time I fail now I think to myself “SWEET!!!!! at least I know that’s one way not to do it .” From this, I keep trying different ways and avenues to get there until I reach the end goal, so technically you don’t ever fail, you just keep trying different pathways until you get there.
- Enjoying stepping out of my comfort zone: As I mentioned before, if you don’t step out of your comfort zone you’re never going to grow. I had to learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. When I decided I was going to wake up at 3:30 am to be more productive, do you think I liked getting out of my nice toasty bed to sit in my office and do work? No, of course I didn’t! But what I learned is you can’t let your brain and negative thoughts take over your life. I learned a trick that I implement every day, which is don’t think just do (not the solution for every problem – but definitely is for all the procrastinators out there). The moment my alarm clock goes off in the morning, I jump up as fast as I can so my brain doesn’t have time to process the thoughts of “I’m going to press snooze” or “not today, it’s too cold outside.” Just get it done and it will always make you feel better in the long run.
