Serial entrepreneur and Bronsan Racing's Neil Sands has built a career on challenging convention. In the latest instalment of TDN's Words to Live By series, he talks to TDN's Gary King about the mentors who shaped him, the advice to “ignore the begrudgers,” and why the next generation should embrace data, retain a beginner's mindset and never be afraid to ask: “Why not?”TDN: Outside of your family, who has been the most important mentor in your career, and why?Neil Sands: A guy called Matt Green, whom I met in Silicon Valley. He was an expert in enterprise transformation and probably one of the best salespeople I have ever met.Racing is full of excellent salespeople. I don't think there is anyone better at deal-making, as an industry, than horse traders and bloodstock agents. They just have it in their bones, as you know well.Matt was a great mentor of mine because, when he went to a party and somebody asked what he did, he would simply tell them he worked in construction. Particularly in Silicon Valley, he knew that otherwise he would get sucked into a long conversation about his career or some deal he had done.He was always very much of the opinion that you don't show all your cards all the time. He had a really humble way about him, and that is why he was such a great mentor to me. His attitude was: “You don't need to tell everybody everything.”TDN: What is the best piece of advice you've ever received, and who gave it to you?NS: That is a really easy one.My grandfather, Commandant Peter B. Sands. I know you don't want family, but this was the best piece of advice I ever received. He said: “Ignore the begrudgers.”He told me there would always be somebody begrudging you where you are, what you are doing or the change you are trying to make. He said, “There is nothing more useless than somebody else's opinion of you.”I think that is very good advice.He was very elderly when he gave it to me, and it was one of the last conversations I had with him. He was a man who lived life to the tune of his own song, really, and I thought it was a great piece of advice.There is always going to be a begrudger, so ignore the begrudgers. He said it less eloquently than that, but he was famous for the line.TDN: What advice would you give to a young person starting out in the Thoroughbred industry today?NS: At Halo, we are very lucky to interact with a lot of young people starting out in the Thoroughbred industry. The Godolphin Flying Start programme is a great example of that, but there are many others.These young people have grown up as digital natives. They have had a phone in their hands from a very young age, and with the advances in generative AI, Claude Code and machine learning, there is a great swell of people trying new things with data in the industry, which I think is brilliant.My first piece of advice would be to get comfortable with data. Start using the tools that are available to you, and don't be afraid to experiment and understand the industry in data-driven ways.The second is that the game is full of orthodoxies. You will hear all the time: “That's just how things are done around here.”From bloodstock and auctioneering to race preparation, there is a huge amount of innovation that the game needs. Young people bring that in spades because they approach things with a beginner's mind. The longer you can retain that beginner's mindset, the better off you will be in your career.I still very much have it in the Thoroughbred industry, and it has served us well. When we began developing new insurance products, we asked why you couldn't insure a horse for one race at a time, for a short journey from Dublin to Cheltenham, or only for the period when the risk genuinely existed.Unless you push the boundaries and ask, “Why can't it be done this way?”, the old adage that “this is just how things are done around here” will continue to hold.You will find people who are willing to innovate with you. If you seek them out and keep pushing the boundaries, you will find pioneers. Some of them are already very well established in their careers but are still innovating. The people at Markel, Guy Carpenter and Flock have been brilliant with us.Everywhere we have gone, we have encountered people who have been very patient with the beginner's mindset and the technologists that we are. Sometimes we come into the industry, look at something that has never been done before and simply ask: “Why not?”Young people need to keep that in mind because it is very easy to fall into the trap of continuing to do what the game has always done. If that continues, there may not be a game in two decades' time–or certainly not one that resembles the industry we know today.The post Neil Sands: ‘Don’t Be Afraid To Ask: Why Not?’ appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.