Think Like A Toodler

Could Listening to your inner child be the secret to making millions? One Father and businessman certainly think so..

- Peter Woolrich

PAUL LINDLEY HAS ALWAYS had a childish side to him, but never in his wildest dreams did he think it’d make him a multi-millionaire. Already a director of the children’s cable channel Nickelodeon with two youngsters of his own, his rise to the very top of the business world began in a tent in British Columbia.

The Lindley family was on a camping holiday in Canada when Ella, his baby daughter, refused to eat any of the food Paul spooned out of the glass jars he’d bought in the supermarket. Although at his wits’ end, the 37-year-old accountant didn’t blame her. If it tastes anything like it looks it must be so boring, he thought. And is it really as nutritious as we’re led to believe? An idea began to germinate in both his business and parenting brain.

In 2003 consumers were becoming increasingly aware of the need to eat more healthily and it was generally assumed that feeding our babies sterilised, pureed banana out of small bottles was good for them. Baby food had been presented in the same way since the 1940s because it was thought that mums liked being able to see the product—even though they all looked the same— and for decades none of the major brands saw the need to do anything differently. But Paul did.

“Basically, Ella had just had enough of the same old, same old and the only way I could get her to eat was to make a game out of it, making it more enjoyable both for me and her,” he says. “I’ve always had a childlike mind, asking why all the time, and it occurred to me that if the whole eating experience—as well as the food—could be more fun, engaging, and healthier too, children would be more likely to put the food in their mouths.”