The Invisible Mentor

Archive for April, 2011

In case you missed it, here is what we talked about this week on The invisible Mentor Blog.

Mondays at the Salon

The most accomplished individuals spend their time reading books that make them think, and Shakespeare ranks high on their menu of books. Timeless books show the power of words and how leaders use words to influence.

What Shakespeare Brings to Business.

Booked on Tuesdays

We reviewed Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad which is a story about imperialism. The book shows the dangers of greed and what happens when you force your will on others.

Review: Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad.

Wisdom Wednesdays

We profiled the comic film actor Charlie Chaplin, whose art put a smile on the faces of many worldwide.

Charlie Chaplin, Cultural Icon – Helped the World Live through Some Dark Moments in History.

Perspective Thursdays and Workshop Fridays

From conducting interviews over the years, one of the things I have learned is that we can learn from the experiences of others. We featured Part One and Part Two of The Invisible Mentor interview with Mary Schnack an entrepreneur who has endured seven cancer surgeries. Resilience is a word I would use to describe Mary – when she falls down she picks herself up and that’s what makes her such a great public relations consultant. She is persistent and knows how to endure.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, 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.

Book link is affiliate link.

Interviewee Name: Mary Schnack

Company Name: Mary Schnack & Associates

Website: http://www.maryschnack.com

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Mary Schnack: I was born on a farm in Iowa, played basketball in school, and was a journalism major in college. I was a practicing journalist for eight years before I went into public relations. Now I have my own public relations consulting business. I’m based in the Washington DC area after living in Los Angeles and Arizona for almost 35 years. And I also travel around the world doing speaking engagements and communications training: Business communication training like PR, media training, crisis communications, and branding at conferences, and seminars that are particularly set up for a business audience or for women’s groups.

Avil Beckford: How do you integrate your personal and professional life?

Mary Schnack: I’m glad you use the word integrate because I really hate the word work-life balance because I do think it’s work-life integration. I work hard and I play hard. I think my biggest problem is I don’t give myself much downtime. I definitely schedule time for friends and I’m a big movie goer. I’m big at doing things outdoors, I love sports, watching them as well as participating, and I make sure I carve out time to do those things that I love to do.

Avil Beckford: What are five life lessons that you have learned so far?

Mary Schnack:

1. How important teamwork is. I totally depend on my friends for my life and value them tremendously.
2. Advocate, not to sit back and complain about what’s going, but to get out and advocate, whether it’s for yourself, or your child, for your community. Look at what needs to be done, be active and be involved.
3. Celebrate when things go well. Take the time to celebrate that things are going well, that you have a success today, that you impacted somebody’s life or whatever that might be.
4. Bounce back. Being a seven-time cancer survivor I can’t wallow in my grief, I need to bounce back and keep moving on. Sometimes the message I give myself is just to put one foot in front of the other. Simplify that message however you need to. Some days that message for me is what got me out of bed rather than pulling the sheet over my head.
5. Continue to learn. Be open to learning and to education and be open to differences.

Avil Beckford: When you have some down time, how do you spend it?

Mary Schnack: I go to a lot of movies. I really enjoy independent films and documentaries so I love going to the festivals. I like being outdoors. I think nature has a tremendous healing power and the good endorphins to just really lift your spirit. I love it, experiencing different cultures, so as much as I can when I travel, I will make sure that I really have a cultural experience. And then just being with friends and having great discussions, that’s a great deal of inspiration for me.

Avil Beckford: What process do you use to generate great ideas?

Mary Schnack: Brainstorming! Having that mentor, having that business coach, having a partner or a good friend and brainstorming. I think that’s where the best ideas come from.

Avil Beckford: What’s your favourite quotation and why?

Mary Schnack: My favorite quotation is from Madeline Albright which says basically, shame on women who don’t lift up other women. And I think that that’s so true, and then Katharine Graham who was the head of the Washington Post-Newsweek also had a quote that said to “Enjoy what you do, what more matters,” and I greatly feel that way that I have to look forward to each day and fortunately I have work. I created that work so I’m excited about what I’m doing.

Avil Beckford: How do you define success?

Mary Schnack: Inner peace and happiness, and for me a thriving child. I don’t think I could have inner peace and happiness if my child didn’t have the same, so you are at one with yourself, and you’re happy.

Avil Beckford: In your opinion what’s the formula for success?

Mary Schnack: Keep putting one foot in front of the other and looking for the all the positive things out there because no matter how negative things are, there are positive things going and just celebrating in that joy of what’s happening.

Avil Beckford: What are the steps you took to succeed in your field?

Mary Schnack: I was a good writer so I had a lot of the basics, and I was a creative thinker. I would say those are the two things that have helped the most with success.

Avil Beckford: What advice do you have for someone just starting out in your field?

Mary Schnack: They should have some good basic business skills. Not that they necessarily need to have all the skills, but whether it’s finance, writing or strategic planning, strategic thinking. They have to have some good basics as their foundation and then to go out and network and meet people, and talk and explore. I think those would be the most important things.

Avil Beckford: If trusted friends could introduce you to five people that you’ve always wanted to meet, who would you choose? And what would you say to them?

Mary Schnack:

• Hillary Clinton: I would ask her what she thinks the timeline might be for women’s growth in equality, for women to grow to an equal seat at the table, what other steps need to be taken, what are the most important step for us to take to do that.
• President Bill Clinton and President Obama: Your questions are great. I probably would ask them a lot of the questions that you’ve asked me.
• Winnie Mandela: It would be a tough choice between her and her former husband but I think that would be great. I think it’s taken a long time for her story to be told, and I’d like to know how she reacted when Nelson Mandela was put on such a high pedestal, which I really think he deserves, but in many ways she was left off of it, and how she felt about that, how she’s continued persevering over the years, how do you not care about what other people think but keep moving forward in the work that you’re doing.
• Wangari Maathai: She was the Nobel Peace Prize winner in Kenya several years ago, an environmentalist.  I would want to ask her what inspired her to get started, what she thinks are the most important things an individual can do to help the world and I would ask her how she sees the environmental issues serve the worldwide peace process.

Avil Beckford: Which one book had a profound impact on your life? What was it about this book that impacted you so deeply?

Mary Schnack: The Women’s Room by Marilyn French. It’s definitely a feminist icon book and I think I read that before I could truly call myself a feminist, and it really opened my eyes to how we needed to continue to advocate for women’s rights.

Avil Beckford: If you were stranded on a deserted island, what are five books that you would like to have with you and why? Summarize the book in two sentences.

Mary Schnack: I would like to have Nelson Mandela’s and Eleanor Roosevelt’s biographies. Those are two iconic figures in history and I have not read their biographies yet. I know those are books that I would like to read. I would like to take the latest book by John Irving. I love John Irving’s writing and have fallen out of step with keeping up with his books, so I’d like to do that. There’s a book out of England called Cross-Cultural Business Communication so to be quite honest I’d really like to take that book because that’s a book that I very much want to read. I found out about it through The International Alliance for Women. I would also take The Poisonwood Bible. It’s one of my all-time favorite books and I’ve only read it twice and I think I would like to read it a third and fourth time.

Avil Beckford: What one music CD and movie would you like to have with you (on the deserted island) and why?

Mary Schnack: The movie that I like watching over and over again is Out of Africa. I love that movie. I like the romance, I love the adventure and exploration, I love the human dynamics, I like the way she fought against the odds. I could watch that movie over and over forever. The music CD would probably be something by Bonnie Raitt. I really loved her music and still listen to it once in a while, but rather than picking somebody that’s a new artist I think I’d want to pick somebody that I know their music is going to endure with me.

If you cannot view Out of Africa YouTube Video please click here.

Avil Beckford: What excites you about life?

Mary Schnack: Meeting new people and experiencing new cultures, I just love that.

Avil Beckford: How do you nurture your soul?

Mary Schnack: By helping others, the women I work with around the world, and the communications trainings I do. I also started a business called Up from the Dust where I import items made by women in developing countries and bring it here to the United States to sell.

I was giving a communication training to women from Rwanda and Afghanistan and I happened to mention that I was a six-time cancer survivor and this woman from Afghanistan who is a doctor in the Kandahar area which is where heavy fighting is going says, “How do you go on?” I just looked at her, it was like how could this woman asked me how I go on, I wonder how she goes on with everything she faces on a daily basis. I just looked at her and said, “Because of people like you. You nurture my soul you are my inspiration. If you can do what you do then I can easily do what I do.”

Avil Beckford: If you had a personal genie and she gave you one wish, what would you wish for?

Mary Schnack: I would wish for financial stability because then I would have more money to donate to good causes. I would be able to look at doing more charity work, really being able to focus less on paying bills and doing what I want to do.

Avil Beckford: Complete the following, I am happy when…..

Mary Schnack: I am happy when I’m with friends.

One Action to Take After Digesting the Interview

Mary Schnack: I would really like them to look at how they can let their voices be heard, what is a topic or issue that is important for them, and how they can use the power and impact of their voices to change something whether it’s their own personal level of happiness, whether it’s something that’s happening in the community that isn’t right, whether it’s a worldly issue, but my goal is to help people let their voices be heard, and inspire them to do it.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, 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.

Interviewee Name: Mary Schnack

Company Name: Mary Schnack & Associates

Website: http://www.maryschnack.com

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Mary Schnack: I was born on a farm in Iowa, played basketball in school, and was a journalism major in college. I was a practicing journalist for eight years before I went into public relations. Now I have my own public relations consulting business. I’m based in the Washington DC area after living in Los Angeles and Arizona for almost 35 years. And I also travel around the world doing speaking engagements and communications training: Business communication training like PR, media training, crisis communications, and branding at conferences, and seminars that are particularly set up for a business audience or for women’s groups.

Avil Beckford: What’s a typical day like for you?

Mary Schnack: I love it that I don’t have a typical day and that keeps it really interesting. I generally work pretty long hours because I enjoy the work I do. I usually meet with somebody for one of the meals and write during the day. At night I might be going to a movie, having dinner with friends, and hopefully I’ll have some time to get exercise in. And the other thing I want to add to my day is I want to do some meditation.

Avil Beckford: How do you motivate yourself and stay motivated?

Mary Schnack: Oh that’s a great question. I think I motivate myself by doing for others. I get really excited when something happens for somebody else. It’s great when something happens for me too, but maybe a tool that I taught them, a communications tool had a positive effect, or somebody has grown their business, or somebody found a job, or a kid had his success in school. I like to hear about other people’s success and that maybe I was a bit of an inspiration for that.

Avil Beckford: If you had to start over from scratch, knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?

Mary Schnack: Well for one thing I hate to go back and look at things that way, I’d rather look forward at what I’m going to do and change moving forward. However that’s also a pretty easy answer for me. When I started my business, I would have had a business plan based on financials that would’ve been a roadmap as much as a marketing plan. I think I went more by marketing than by finances and what I’ve learned over the years is how much you have to manage your business by finances as well.

Avil Beckford: What’s the most important business or other discovery you’ve made in the past year?

Mary Schnack: I think the importance of inspiration, being inspired and inspiring others.  I went through my seventh cancer surgery this year and it really threw me into a depression. I guess it took seven times to get me down but what it took to get me out of that and like your earlier question what motivates me and really taking a look at that, so I think being inspired and being inspiring.

Avil Beckford: What’s one of the biggest advances in your industry over the past five years?

Mary Schnack: Without a doubt that would be social media. Social media has changed public relations and has changed outreach. And at first when it was happening, I thought, “Thank goodness I’m older and I don’t need to learn that.” Well wrong, but it’s been fun learning it, and it reminded me how much fun it is to learn new things and to incorporate the new ways of outreach. And now that’s one of the areas of specialty for my business.

Avil Beckford: What are the three threats to your business, your success, and how are you handling them?

Mary Schnack:

1. One big threat to my business is the recession and people having a lot less money to spend. The way that I’m handling that is by getting out there networking at an accelerated frantic speed. The more people I meet, the more people I touch, reconnect with, the better it is.
2. A second threat would be my seventh cancer surgery. It’s really hard to be getting a trajectory with your business and then be out of commission for one to two months and then emotionally what that does to your energy and your motivation, so that makes it hard. What I’ve done for that is like I said looking at inspiration, what inspires me to move forward.
3. The third thing would be the fact that I moved. I moved from the west coast to the east coast. You know a move is always difficult and costly, but I always look at this as the reason I moved is to be in a more vibrant business environment. That’s why I’m here and of course it is true there is hardly a place more vibrant than Washington DC. Sometimes you just have to keep reminding yourself why you have done the things that you have done and that’s what I think sometimes I’ve had to do with the move.

Avil Beckford: What’s unique about the service that you provide?

Mary Schnack: What is unique, are three things: One is that you have fun working with us, we don’t believe in real serious business. Of course business is serious, people want good customer service and to get their money’s worth, but you might as well have fun while you’re doing it. And number two is that I think we are very creative, we think out-of-the-box, even though that statement think outside-the-box is not creative, but we are very creative and we don’t look at the standard way of doing things and that’s why we were one of the early adopters of social media. The another thing is that we really believe in working as team, we don’t believe in working as a vacuum, and I believe team work is the basis of good business, so those are the three things I would say.

Avil Beckford: What do you observe most people in your field doing badly that you think you do well?

Mary Schnack: I don’t think they have great customer service for a long-term client. We want to be new and fresh every day, and so what if you’ve been our client for two years. We’re doing the things that have been successful and hopefully will remain successful, but we also want to look at what’s the new, fresh approach we can take as well.

Avil Beckford: Describe a major business or other challenge you had and how you resolved it. What kind of lessons did you learn in the process?

Mary Schnack: I needed to be flexible and I needed to look at the reality of my situation. I lived in a beautiful resort community Sedona, Arizona, and as wonderful as it was to live there, the reality was if I wanted to grow my business again it wasn’t going to happen from that location.  I couldn’t sit there and feel sorry for myself, I had to look at how I’m going to move on and create a good life for me elsewhere where I could also grow my business.

Avil Beckford: Tell me about your big break and who gave you.

Mary Schnack: I’d like to think I gave myself the big break by applying things I learned to present-day situations. I would say one of the biggest breaks I had was in starting my business in 1992. I had worked for eight years at two hospitals in Los Angeles, and we handled a lot of crises at these hospitals. Well we handled a lot of crises in that if there was a train crash at LAX the victims would come to our hospital. When there was the riots in Los Angeles in 1992 the most famous victim Reginald Denny the truck driver came to the hospital, plus 99 others the first night. We were one of the busiest hospitals, and I was able to take what I had learned in journalism and make it be very successful as far as outreach for the hospital in those crisis situations. So when I started my own business, I had this very strong reputation for the work I had done, and again it was to move ahead on the successes that I had had. What have you done, and acknowledging what your successes are, and how you can use those as a platform to keep moving up.

Avil Beckford: Describe one of your biggest failures. What lessons did you learn, and how did it contribute to a greater success?

Mary Schnack: I don’t think anything is a failure, I think everything is a lesson, and we can learn as much, if not more from the tough lessons as we can from the bigger ones. When the dotcom crash happened, overnight we lost $20,000 to $30,000 a month in revenues. Literally we lost that much within 30 days. You want to make sure that you never put too many eggs in one basket, that you can be spread out so if one type of business goes away, you have other types of businesses to back that up, and that you’re always looking at the next piece of business coming in. And you’re always looking at how to satisfy your current clients. Like I said before, do not take them for granted, and figure out how you can move on and continue to build business.

Avil Beckford: What has been your biggest disappointment in your life – and what are you doing to prevent its reoccurrence?

Mary Schnack: The hardest thing I’m going through in my life is cancer and having it return so often. I don’t think there’s anything I can to prevent its reoccurrence, but what I must do is keep up on my check-ups, keep up on my exercise and healthy eating, and my positive attitude and live as good a life as I can, but not be in denial, and to know there is a possibility that it will come back again and what I am doing about that.

Avil Beckford: What’s one of the toughest decisions you’ve had to make and how did it impact your life?

Mary Schnack: One of the toughest decisions was I had a business partner in Los Angeles and I had to decide whether to stay with the partnership or not. We knew we had a few years age difference so when my daughter was graduating from high school she was just getting engaged and ready to start a family. It was a very hard decision to break up the partnership, but our lifestyle goals were not the same any more. There are positive things about being in business alone, but on the other hand it was good having a partner to work with and to grow together.

Avil Beckford: What are three events that helped to shape your life?

Mary Schnack: One is definitely the cancer and I’d say two becoming an entrepreneur and three is my daughter.

Avil Beckford: What’s an accomplishment that you are proudest of?

Mary Schnack: Definitely my daughter! She is 28 years old now, and she has some learning and emotional disabilities but she is basically living independently, and that’s been a lot of work and a lot of direction, and a lot of heartache, but she is extremely happy and that’s definitely the thing that I’m proudest of that I raised her to be independent and not to lean on her disabilities as a crutch.

Avil Beckford: How did mentors influence your life?

Mary Schnack: Mentors influenced my life and continue to influence my life. I have two or three probably more different mentors that I work with all the time, and thank goodness I have those sounding boards, the people giving me advice. I would say they’ve had a great influence both in living my life personally and businesswise.

Avil Beckford: What’s one core message you received from your mentors?

Mary Schnack: I continue to receive messages from them. One of the first messages I received was to continue to learn, to continue to expand. With something like social media, you think, “I’m too old for that, I don’t want to deal with that.” We have to continue to learn, and continue to be educated, and grow as people, and grow as businesses, and it’s also a lot of fun.

Avil Beckford: An invisible mentor is a unique leader you can learn things from by observing them from afar, in the capacity of an Invisible Mentor, what is one piece of advice that you would give to readers?

Mary Schnack: My one piece of advice is to really look at your successes and let people know what they are, and that doesn’t mean sitting back and bragging about yourself. But it does mean sharing your wisdom, and having people understand why you are sharing that wisdom because you have that experience. When I do my speeches overseas, we also hear this in the United States, but when I do my speeches overseas even more so, “My culture doesn’t allow that, I could never do that.” And my response is “By you sharing your successes there might be a 10-year old girl out there that hears your story and says, ‘Wow, I can go after my dreams.’” And what a shame it is if you miss the chance to inspire that 10-year old girl.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, 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.

“I will be eternally grateful to Mack Sennettfor giving me my big break in the United States to appear in the silent keystone comedy series. After all, in one year I starred in 40 movies for him, but the speed of these productions hindered my ability to grow personally and develop my talents. Life is about evolving so I made a change, and now I’m glad I did.”

Note: This is me getting into Charlie Chaplin’s head and putting words into his mouth.

Name: Sir Charles Spenser Chaplin

Birth Date: April 1889 – December 1977

Job Functions: Comic Film Actor, Director, Writer and Composer

Fields: Film

Known For: Silent films, wearing a bowler hat, trademark moustache, and out-turned feet

Mentors: Chaplin developed his skill in comedy under Fred Karno. Over a period of three years, Chaplin also learned about acting and stagecraft from William Gillette and Harry Arthur Saintsbury while he played a streetwise kid in Sherlock Holmes.

I decided to profile Charlie Chaplin because he brought entertainment and pleasure to people when they needed it most during periods of history that were dark and turbulent  – World War I, the Great Depression, and the rise of Adolf Hitler. Charlie Chaplin was a cultural icon in the early 20^th Century. Chaplin was very accomplished. He starred in 80 films, was awarded an Oscar in 1973 and knighted in 1975 two years before his death.

Charlie Chaplin had a significant impact on the film industry – his art form transcended borders, cultures, ethnicities and races. Two months after he died, his remains were stolen and held for ransom. Fortunately, the kidnappers were found and they revealed where they had hidden Chaplin’s remains.

Four Big Ideas Worth Exploring

1. Do What you Know: Chaplain had a very difficult childhood. His parents were both artists but his father left when he was an infant. His mother suffered from a mental illness so she was in and out of hospitals. Chaplin and his brother spent time in an orphanage and even when his mother was around they were on public assistance. Chaplin adapted his personal experience into his art, and found comedy in tragedy. He knew what it was like to go to bed hungry. He knew what it felt like to wear tattered clothes that didn’t fit well. He could play these roles, or even write about them convincingly because he lived them.
2. Know What You’re Worth: Charlie Chaplain was an astute business man and he knew what he was worth. In the year he worked for Keystone Studios, Chaplin earned $150/week. He moved on to Essanay where he made $1250/week plus a $10,000 bonus. Next he made $10,000/week plus a $150,000 bonus at Mutual Film Corporation. He negotiated a $1 million contract with First National Exhibitors’ Circuit to make eight short films with creative autonomy. For many of his films, Chaplin owned them so he was able to later rescore and re-release them.
3. Keep Evolving: Chaplin’s income kept on increasing, but he kept on evolving as a person. He evaluated his work and made changes to make it better. He did not have much formal education but he learned from others, he observed what they were doing right and integrated that into his work. He also had the foresight to build his own studio and also partnered with Mark Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, D.W. Griffith to form their own distribution company United Artists to allow them to remain independent.
4. Perfectionism is a Myth: Charlie Chaplin didn’t have a lot of formal education, but he learned by doing and from those he worked with. Research uncovered suggests that there were limits to his expertise which was seen in some of his work, but that’s what made the man human. And it made him stand apart from most because he had the courage to create art. He had the courage to take action, and he worked hard at becoming better. Perfectionism is a myth, and if there is one thing we can learn from Chaplin, it is to take action and not become immobilized by the perfection trap. If you keep on working on your craft, you will become better at it, but you have to release your art to the world. Sometimes it will be welcomed and other times it will be rejected. But that’s what life is about, to keep on moving, to learn from failures and don’t take things personally. Chaplain became better because he practiced, practiced and practiced some more.

If you cannot view the Charlie Chaplin YouTube video click here.

Application

• Fall down seven times, get up eight.
• It doesn’t matter where you start out in life, it’s where you end up that counts.
• Use the tragedies and failures in your life as feedback and lessons learned.
• Take action and do not let fear cripple you.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, 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.

Interesting Links

Charlie Chaplin Archive

The Chaplin Museum

Official Chaplin Website

Sources Referenced:

Oxford Dictionary of National Biographies

American National Biography

Encyclopedia of World Biography

The Concise Dictionary of National Biography

The Cambridge Biographical Encyclopedia

Great Lives: A Century in Obituaries, The Times

Image Credit: Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia

As a rule, I do not review books I do not enjoy because there are so many books that I really like and would rather spend my time on. But here I am reviewing Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.

The book I’d intended to review, while reading it, I was feeling so drained that I put it down and got the brilliant idea to instead read Heart of Darkness because it is among the 501 books you must read. And it was also among the pile of books for me to read. It was there staring at me. I had no idea what it was about so I started reading.

I read it and didn’t enjoy. I found the depiction of blacks quite offensive. I’ve read other books that used the “N” word, and because of the era in which the book was written, I put that aside and really got into the story, but I struggled with this one. But if I am honest, I must say that the book is very descriptive and you can see that Conrad was pulling from his experiences.

So what made Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad different for me?

To be honest I have no idea, but it could be words such as savages that really got to me. Heart of Darkness was written in the late 19^th Century and was first published in 1902, so at that time that kind of language to depict blacks was still en vogue, but that doesn’t make it more palatable.

Now that I have gotten that off my chest, I will now set aside my personal feelings and review Heart of Darkness as objectively as I can.

The story is told through the eyes of the primary character Charlie Marlow, which is actually the author in disguise since Heart of Darkness is based on Conrad’s adventures while “captaining” a steamer on the Congo River, with some embellishments of course. Marlow is on a steamer and starts to relate one of his adventures to his companions. And this is how he tells the tale of Heart of Darkness.

For some time, Marlow had wanted to captain a boat, and through the connections of his aunt he got the opportunity to do so for a European trading company. When he gets to the area where his steamer was supposed to be anchored he finds it shipwrecked. He is saddened by that but spends the next months to get it ready for the trip.

He hears about Mr. Kurtz, the trading company’s most successful agent. It appears that Kurtz has disappeared, and there are many rumours floating around as to what became of him. He also learns that Kurtz is unwell so he sets off to find him. Marlow describes the hardships they endure in trying to find him. Even though Kurtz’s first appearance in the novel comes quite late, he is the other central character in the story.

Along the way to find Kurtz they are attacked by African natives and some of crew are killed. They eventually find the Station where Kurtz is, and his hut is surrounded by severed heads on stilts. Marlow hears about the most horrific tales of the way Kurtz treats the natives – he forces them to work for him and takes their ivory. Kurtz threatens to kill in a quest to acquire ivory.

Marlow gets a glimpse of the darkness of Kurtz’s soul. Kurtz has been transformed into a tyrant who has committed heinous acts in his quest for power, his quest to dominate others. You see the dangers of greed in Heart of Darkness.

Kurtz is quite ill when Marlow finds and takes him to safety on the steamer, but he dies on the return journey. Before he dies though, he gives some papers and letters to Marlow. On his deathbed in a feverish state Kurtz cries out, “The horror! The horror!” And as the story unfolds the reader realizes that the European trading company that Marlow now works for, operates under the pretext of spreading knowledge throughout Africa, but what they really care about is getting their hands on the ivory. All they care about is making a lot of money

When Marlow returns to civilization he visits Kurtz’s fiancé to give her some of the letters that he got from Kurtz. She wants to know about his final words, and to spare her feelings Marlow tells her that Kurtz called her name.

I think the darkness that Conrad is speaking about is the harsh treatment of African natives. He is talking about darkness of people’s soul, in their quests to dominate others. It’s a story about imperialism. What conditions have to exist for darkness to overcome each of us?

Heart of Darkness is often described as Conrad’s greatest work. While reading the book you sometimes feel as if you are reading a travelogue without the dates.

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