The Invisible Mentor

Archive for August, 2009

Two weeks ago I interviewed Roy Thomas, the shoe repair person I have been using for over 10 years. Roy is extremely successful at what he does, and has been in business for over 30 years. I firmly believe that we can learn from each other. Here are 20 lessons I distilled from the interview.

1. Always do what needs to be done
2. Be likable
3. Be understanding toward others
4. Take care of the customers: treat them with respect and provide quality work
5. Don’t take people or things at face value. Always delve deeper because there is always more going on
6. It’s about people and relationships
7. Be patient
8. Persevere
9. Think carefully about what you are doing
10. Know your business inside and out
11. Always listen
12. Each day take one step at a time
13. Know what you want out of life and go for it
14. Success is never about money
15. Always put your best foot forward and even if you stumble you will always be okay
16. Walk in a clear path that makes you feel free
17. Be forgiving
18. Do not dwell on the past. You may not be able to visualize the future but it is there and tomorrow will provide for itself
19. Be attuned to what is going on around you
20. Make both your personal and professional life work in harmony

Most Influential Book: Our God is Awesome, Tony Evans

This book talks about how people should live in this world.

Major Regret: “In 1965, I bought 18 lots of land in Montreal, Canada. I was burdened and overwhelmed by all the taxes that I had to pay so I decided to sell. If I was patient, and waited I would have earned more on my investment.”

When I asked Roy what excites him about life, he responded with this quote “Life is a mirror: if you frown at it, it frowns back; if you smile, it returns the greeting.” William Makepeace Thackery

During the past 10 years, many online learning tools and resources have cropped up to assist the self-learner at an affordable price: University Open Courseware, Wikipedia, You Tube Edu, iTunes U, eduFire, and Learn.com are a few of the educational resources that you can use to build your body of knowledge.

Wikipedia: Is a free encyclopedia created by users and is the world’s largest encyclopedia. Wikipedia is one of the first places to start research when trying to build a body of knowledge in any area.

You Tube Edu: You Tube worked with universities and colleges to create video and audio lectures by the best professors in the United States and made them available for free.

iTunes U: A mobile way of learning, iTunes U provides over 200,000 lectures, presentations, videos, readings, and podcasts from all over the world, for download. Some of the content has been created by the best professors in the United States. Many universities have a separate website for iTunes courseware download.

eduFire SuperPass: Is a response to the rapid rise in the cost of education. A paid subscription-based virtual classroom, eduFire offers live audio and video learning.

Learn.com: Offers courses to develop individual skills. It is also an on demand workplace development and productivity resource.

And, if you are someone who like a good speech, here are a few websites to delight you:

http://www.famousquotes.me.uk/speeches/presidential-speeches/index.htm

http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/previous.htm

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/top100speechesall.html

http://www.history.com/video.do?name=speeches

Using just a percentage of the online resources mentioned above will set you apart from your peers. Your self-learning journey will not be easy, but with focus, determination and passion to do what it takes to succeed, you will get that edge that is needed for a recession proof career.

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Photo Credits: Avil Beckford Orchid in Jamaica

Interview With Asha McLeod, Jazma Hair Salon

This interview first appeared in Ambeck Edge May 2005, but I still think that it is relevant today. There is always the question about whether or not you should train yourself or wait for you employer to train you. In  an economy that is tightening, one of the first budgets to be slashed is the training one, is this a sound decision? Please share your thoughts about this interview.

Challenge: Looking back over the years at the various problems and obstacles that come with owning a fast paced, successful hair salon, I have to say the most challenging of them all was dealing with my staff. What I found most challenging was that I was constantly doing all I could do to train them to be the best stylists they could be. This involved countless hours of professional training, personal and emotional support. The end result would always be that I would have trained and developed successful, confident stylists. So successful and confident that they would always believe they were capable of more than working for me, and would leave our salon, usually taking our clientele that they had built up as a result of working with us. It was very hard to deal with this, and it would happen over and over. It left me feeling hurt, and as a result I found I was bitter towards new staff as I viewed them inevitably doing the same thing as so many others had done in the past.

Resolution: Eventually I realized that I was creating the problem and I was making it worse by telling myself things that would add to the bitterness and resentment through my negative thinking. I finally realized that staff will leave no matter what I do. I changed my perspective and motivating factors for why I teach them. Instead of teaching them to be successful because it would be better for my business, I now train them believing I am helping them to become better people. I also train them not expecting gratitude in return, and knowing they will move on eventually.

Lessons Learned:

• Staff will always leave but that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t train them to do their jobs better
• I now do things without expecting something in return
• Resentment and negative thinking harms you and prevents you from being the best you can be

Formula For Success

Keep in mind that success is never a final destination, but a journey, and as long as you are committed to lifelong learning, and passionate about your work, success is inevitable. I measure my success not against others, but by my own progress in overcoming day-to-day challenges, continuously learning and growing from those experiences. I believe my passion, persistence and need to please my clients have largely been the foundation for the success I have enjoyed in my profession.

Do you believe that employers should invest in training employees? Why? Why not? How would you have handled the above challenge? Is this challenge a universal challenge? How can the resolutions be applied elsewhere?

Excerpt May 2005 Ambeck Edge

As was the case with all the posts so far in the series 10 People Who Would Have Been Great Bloggers, based on research, I attempted to get into the head of these great thinkers and project what I thought they would say. But this time, for Plato, I decided to stick to the research. I like Plato because he loved to ask good questions, and I am quite fascinated by his notion of Atlantis.  Though, I did not try to write in his voice, Plato would have been an excellent educational blogger, and he would ask us the tough questions forcing us to think. Here is a short 7-minute video about Plato and his life.

Plato – Encyclopedia channel

Mentor: Socrates

Protege: Aristotle

Written Works: The Apology (of Socrates), Crito, Laches, Lysis, Charmides, Euthyphro, Hippias Minor and Major, Meno, Euthydemus, Menexenus, Cratylus, Repuglic, Phaedrus, Syposium, Phaedo, Republic, Parmenides, Theatetus, Sophist,Statesmas,Timaeus,Critias,Philebus, and Laws

Platonics

1. Plato’s birth name was Aristocles and was given the nickname Platon because of his broad shoulders
2. Founder of the the philosophical school, Academy in Athens in 387 B.C - named after a legendary Greek called Academus - the first institution of higher learning in the Western world
3. The way in which Plato operated the Academy, his ideas on what constitutes an educated “man” greatly influenced educational theory
4. Plato served as tutor to the new king Dionysius II
5. Studied the doctrines of Cratylus, and the work of Pythagoras and Parmenides before he met Socrates
6. Writings mostly take the form of question and answer dialogues
7. Mastered the art of asking good questions
8. Well traveled, had a career in the military and politic,s and studied music and poetry when he was young
9. During his 12-year travel after Socrates’ death, Plato studied with the Pythagoreans in Italy, and then studied the philosophy of his contemporaries, geometry, geology, astronomy and religion

Plato was a diligent learner, and loved to dialogue, though he was shy. What can you learn from him? Would he make an ideal Invisible Mentor?

Further Reading

Plato Biography

Plato

Video Credit: Encyclopedia channel

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A few years ago while I was conducting interviews for my book Tales of People Who Get It, I asked a CEO what his favourite quotation was and why? His response:

“I like ‘If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you’ from the poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling because it teaches you not to panic and to stay in control when bad things happen. Don’t be impulsive and think that you have to do something. Sit in a room for a while and be quiet and let the world go by while you think about things.”

Reading the poem below is more poignant now than it was a few years ago. I have been taking Raja yoga classes, and the first three lessons are on The Art of Self Mastery, and the final five on The Ancient Study of Raja Yoga Meditation. I have taken two of the three classes on self mastery and I can feel a big difference. I am feeling calmer and more peaceful. The classes are to help me get peace of mind and much more. The big thing for me for taking the classes was to learn how to let go.

After the first class we were given a handout, Our Mighty Powers: The Most Effective Powers in our Lives for us to study the nine powers: Tolerance, Truth/Honesty, Co-operation, Humility, Accommodation, Discrimination, Love, Judgement and Withdraw. And the words and their meanings in Raja Meditation are different from their traditional English meanings. Each day I read the handout, which includes the meanings of the nine powers, and I see something that I did not see before. I feel a sense of calm wrap itself around me like a well used blanket. I am slowly letting go (Withdraw) of the things that hold me back, and the interesting thing is that I now truly understand what the other powers mean because I can feel them in my soul.

Now I truly understand what the CEO meant when he quoted an excerpt from “If.” Read the poem and just BE.

“If” By Rudyard Kipling (Poetry Reading)

Cannot view the video? Click here.

If by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you

Image via Wikipedia

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!

What do you feel right now? What does this poem mean to you? How easy is it for you to sit still for a while? What techniques do you use when you want to experience a sense of peace? Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Source for the poem If

Photo credit: Avil Beckford (Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada), Video Credit: “If” By Rudyard Kipling (Poetry Reading) Uploaded by SpokenVerse on Mar 4, 2009

Further Reading

All Things If