The Invisible Mentor

Archive for the ‘Interview’ Category

Invisible Mentor: Maggie Berry

Company Name: Women in Technology

Website: http://www.womenintechnology.co.uk/ 

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Maggie Berry: I run an organization called Women in Technology based inLondon and our strategic aim is to increase the number of women who are working and achieving in theUK’s technology profession.

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

Maggie Berry: I don’t really have a typical day per se as my role involves a range of different aspects from the overall strategy for the business, to getting hands on with the networking events and training courses that we run as well as spending time with our sponsors and making sure that we’re helping them to position themselves as an employer of choice for women working in IT. I’m also responsible for finding new companies that would like to work with us and I get involved with a lot of women’s business networking groups inLondon. So my days quite often involve speaking at an event – for example, I might talk to a student group to make them aware of the importance of networking from the start of their careers.

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

Maggie Berry: I have been involved with Women in Technology from the very beginning and I’m fully responsible for it. I’m really proud of what’s been built up over the years and of what we deliver to our members. So what keeps me motivated me is the services we provide and, especially, the networking events that we run for our members. We put a lot of effort into doing everything and making our activities good and it’s all worth it when you get positive emails coming back or calls saying, “This is brilliant, I loved it. It made me think differently about X, Y or Z.” That’s a big driver for me – the impact that we have on the women in our network.

I think my main other motivator is for myself as I want to achieve and I want the business that I run to do well and to be well-received in the market and so I put a lot of effort into that and that keeps me going.

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

Maggie Berry:  I’m fromScotland and went to university inEngland quite far away from home and if I could talk to my 17 year old self, I’d encourage her to study inScotland and build a life closer to my family. That’s one of the things I wish was different as I’m not as geographically close as I’d like to be them. I’m close to my family and I’m obviously in touch with them regularly but I wish I were closer to home. However, you don’t think the same about things at 17 as you would tweny years later!

And if I was looking at Women in Technology, I wish we’d employed people sooner. I did a lot of the ground work on my own and we’ve only really expanded the team in the last couple of years. For five years it was just myself and one other and I think we could have achieved so much more if we had invested in some extra staff a bit earlier.

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

Maggie Berry: One of the things that has become a bit more apparent to me in the last year or so is the importance of having a personal business network – a personal network of people who you can call upon. I’ve always had a big network of people but I didn’t ever reach out to them for help. I’d always try to solve problems on my own but when I have reached out when I really needed advice, the people in my network were willing to come forward and help to provide me with some brilliant advice. It is a two way street, I help people and they are happy to try and help me back in return.

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

Maggie Berry:

1. Part of our revenue is from helping companies to hire more technical women and in the downturn, that we’re going through at the moment, lots of firms are making redundancies, they’re not hiring. So we’re looking at different ways to work with those firms and support them in their gender diversity journey, even if that doesn’t involve jobs and recruitment.
2. I see other networks running women in IT ‘stuff’ and what I really like to do is to reach out and collaborate with them instead of there being lots of stand alone groups hosting smaller activities. I think it’s better if we all work together towards the same kind of goals because there isn’t lots of money in the space. We all want the same thing, which is seeing more women achieving and working together and collaborating is the way forward. Some groups are interested in that, and that’s great as working together is very important for me.
3. And as we look at how we grow and further develop the business grows, it’s important to make sure that we invest in having a bigger team giving us a further reach. We’re quite a small team which has delivered an awful lot without masses of resources and I know that people would like us to do more things, such as hosting more events in different cities. So we need to keep an eye on the team and make sure we’re working smart to make the most of all of our capabilities.

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

Maggie Berry: I think in theUK market our online job board, which is used by companies who would like to attract more job applications from women working in IT, is unique. Certainly there are lots of organizations out there running many styles of networking events but we specifically work with firms to help them raise their profile as an employer of choice. We’re looking at providing our network with the additional skills they need to be a well rounded technology professional who is going to achieve success in their career, whatever that success looks like for them. There are lots of fabulous networks out there for women but I think, if you are a technical woman in theUK, our network has a lot to offer you.

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?

Maggie Berry: I have been running Women in Technology since early 2005 and, before that, I wasn’t really in any roles that gave me any particular business challenges. The ongoing challenge for Women in Technology is that companies are interested in our services but they don’t necessarily always have the budget to invest the resources that are required. We are asked to do things for free and that’s quite difficult as we’ve invested a lot to put all our services together. I think in theUS firms are more accustomed to paying for diversity related activities and that needs to become more acceptable in theUK.

I know that the firms which engage with us get a lot of value from it but we also have a number of firms who just want to work with us for a short time and although we’re happy to work with them, it’s hard because gender diversity is big picture stuff and there needs to be a long term plan. It’s not something that can be sorted out in a few months. So we’ve learned to manage expectations and push back when firms make unrealistic demands about what we can deliver and how quickly they will see a change.

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

Maggie Berry: In terms of Women in Technology, the organization I worked for at the time is aLondon financial services recruitment firm called McGregor Boyall Associates and they always had a strong focus on diversity. Back in 2004 they undertook a piece of diversity research about IT recruitment in the City and one of the aspects that came out was the lack of women working in technology roles. My boss, Laurie Boyall, had bought the URL womenintechnology.co.uk and he gave me the project of building a website around it.

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

Maggie Berry:  We’ve not had any major failures with Women in Technology but you take knocks all the way through in running a business. You then have to look at each incident, ideally later after the heat of the moment is passed, and think, “How could I do that better next time?” Also over the years, as you deal with different clients, host networking events and things like that, we constantly ask for feedback and so much of what we’ve done, and how we’ve developed the business, has been done by acting upon the feedback we’ve received. That has helped us to keep on a positive path because we’ve done things that have been asked for and we constantly try to improve upon what we’re doing.

It could be something really simple. For example, someone once said to me that you need to have nibbles available at the beginning of an evening event because people are hungry after work and after sitting down for an hour-and-a-half, they’re going to leave straightaway and not stay to network as they have to go to find something to eat. Or another piece of feedback somebody shared with us is that where a venue is flat, the speakers need to be on chairs that are higher than the audience’s otherwise they’re not visible from the back of the room. So sometimes it’s just a simple logistical thing that you can easily change and even more complex changes are quite manageable if you give yourself enough time.

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

Maggie Berry: After I graduated, I went back toScotland and worked at home for a few years. I lived in quite a small town and I knew it wasn’t going to give me the breadth of career and life experience that I wanted. The only other place where I had friends was London so I made the decision to move here in 2000.

I was torn because I liked being close to family so it was quite hard to make that move but it’s been such a positive experience and now, when I consider it  I love London but I still wish I was closer to home in Scotland.

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

Maggie Berry:

1. The choice of where I went to university had an effect on my life as it meant that my friends were not from close to home. I went to a university that was in the south and as such a lot of my friends were fromLondonor the south east and so that’s where I gravitated to.
2. Taking the opportunity to work on Women in Technology when that project cropped up. At the time we had absolutely no idea what was going to happen and I know we would have been fairly gobsmacked if we could have glimpsed a few years into the future and seen what it had become as it wasn’t what we were setting out to do.

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

Maggie Berry:  I have to say Women in Technology as I live and breathe it and I’m really proud of what it has developed into. I love the network and the positive impact we’ve had on people’s lives and that we can help women find jobs and share networking opportunities. It’s a small business, but I’ve been involved in all aspects of it and I’m proud of that.

Avil Beckford: How did mentors influence your life?

Maggie Berry:  I’ve had a couple of different mentors over the last few years but I’ve never been involved in a formal mentoring scheme. My mentors are people who I’ve met through work and who I’ve thought are really great. I’ve been in a very fortunate position that they have been happy to share some of their expertise with me. I have a couple of mentors who are very senior women in business who I have met through my networking and they are always happy to offer advice, whether it’s something really practical, advice that I need about the team at work or general advice about life, happiness, marriage, all sorts of things. It’s really important to have mentors to help you in life and you don’t have to have just one, of them to only be women – it’s great to be able to call upon the expertise of many different people.

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

Maggie Berry: I would break that down into two areas – one is hands-on practical business advice about breaking down business problems – what is it, how can you move forward – it’s tangible business knowledge they can share with me that can help me with the situation that I am in. The other area is about self-confidence and self-belief and to have somebody who is able to give you really relevant advice from a dispassionate perspective.

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?

Maggie Berry:  Network and get involved! I’d say that to everybody. It’s one of the reasons I go out and talk to student groups to explain to them that networking isn’t just for senior people. It’s something they need to from the start of their career. You need a network of people around you so in good and bad times you have people to call on. For me, it’s the most powerful thing I’ve done and I can’t recommend it enough. It takes time though and you’ve got to find the networks and the groups and the activities that work for you, whether it’s geographical or it’s within an industry, or a women’s network. Get out there and you’ll get to meet people you wouldn’t come across in your day-to-day work and that’s just so important.

Maggie Berry: I run an organization called Women in Technology based inLondon and our strategic aim is to increase the number of women who are working and achieving in theUK’s technology profession.

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.

Related articles

• 2011 Interviews for Mentoring (theinvisiblementor.com)
• The Chief Mentoring Officer Interviews Annemie Ress, Senior HRD eBay & Global Engagement Lead at eBay (theinvisiblementor.com)
• The Chief Mentoring Officer Interviews Annemie Ress, Senior HRD eBay & Global Engagement Lead at eBay, Part Two (theinvisiblementor.com)

This is what we talked about on The Invisible Mentor Blog this week: The Flinch by Julien Smith, Wisdom of Life: Hannah Arendt, Philosopher, Writer and Refugee from Adolph Hitler, and Director, intercultures, Stefan Meister.

Adventures in Learning

The Invisible Mentor blog is an educational one, so with that in mind, I’m inviting my readers on an adventure in learning, which is taking place all of 2012. You do not have to read 200 books – I read a lot for my consulting business – but I would like you to read one book a week, so at the end of 2012, you would have read 52 books. It’s a couple of weeks into the new year, so you have to play a little bit of catch-up.

Adventures in Learning: Books to Read in 2012 

Booked for Mentoring

The Flinch is a great book for mentoring because it teaches us to step outside our comfort zone, and it assures us that we are not our mistakes. Because we have failed before, doesn’t mean we will not succeed. Failure is feedback, inventor Thomas Edison said, “If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.”

Booked for Mentoring: Review of The Flinch by Julien Smith 

Wisdom of Life Profile

A political theorist, Hannah Arendt’s most important and influential work was The Origins of Totalitarianism. In this seminal work, the first of its kind, Arendt emphasized the parallels between Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich, and Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union. In 1975, Arendt became the first woman, and the first U.S. citizen, to be awarded Denmark’s Sonning Prizefor contributions to European civilization.

Image via Wikipedia

Wisdom of Life: Hannah Arendt, Philosopher, Writer and Refugee from Adolph Hitler 

Interviews for Mentoring

This week we featured Stefan Meister, Director, intercultures. One of the biggest messages that Meister gave us is to always remain curious, open, excited, authentic and modest. Here are Part One and Part Two of Stefan Meister’s interview.

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.

Related articles

• Wisdom of Life: Hannah Arendt, Philosopher, Writer and Refugee from Adolph Hitler (theinvisiblementor.com)
• Interview With Invisible Mentor Stefan Meister, Director, intercultures, Part Two (theinvisiblementor.com)
• Interview With Invisible Mentor Stefan Meister, Director, intercultures (theinvisiblementor.com)

While interviewing this week’s invisible mentor Stefan Meister, I was reminded that ideas, concepts or interpretation of things vary across cultures. Stefan felt that some of the questions were too North American, though he answered them in a way that was comfortable for him. And that’s what I want, I want interviewees to interpret the questions based on their own context, because that’s when we’ll learn the most from them.

Key ideas from Stefan Meister’s Interview

• Be authentic to yourself and to others.
• Choose relationships over money.
• Be curious about life.
• Have down times and make space for ideas to come to you.

Interviewee Name: Stefan Meister, Director,

Company Name: intercultures

Website: http://www.intercultures.de/ 

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Stefan Meister: I’m an artistically inclined, sensitive person who operates in the field of training, coaching, consulting in the intercultural field. I’ve discovered my entrepreneurial spirit, and my competitive edge.

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

Stefan Meister: I think I’m lucky to professionally live what I’m also curious about in my personal life. There are certain principles like getting the most out of diversity, so I thrive in diverse environments. Making sense of complexity is a key theme in my life, and it also helps to unleash or unfold the full potential of people and corporations. It’s these aspects that professionally while I live them, touch me personally.

In addition to that, I’m very much interested in visual arts. My wife and I are art collectors, and my international travel allows me to visit many galleries, so I’m always refreshed in that aspect. 

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

Stefan Meister: With my wife, family and friends. I play sports, do yoga and art as I mentioned, and of course traveling.

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

Stefan Meister: It would be very hard to put a number because this again is an American concept. But a recent one is that you cannot hold on to something. Another lesson that I’m trying to learn at the moment is that we are mortal. I find that not an easy one.

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

Stefan Meister: For me it’s a little bit like when I’m writing poetry, I need to make space for them. And making the space could happen anywhere, it could be on a plane or a train, while walking, but I need to make space.

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

Stefan Meister: I don’t have a favourite quotation, but I have a lot of favourite poems, many favourite pictures, many of which are at our house. Even after many years they never stop touching me deeply.

Avil Beckford: How do you define success? And in your opinion what’s the formula for success?

Stefan Meister: You probably detected that I find success to be a very American concept. I would want to be more humble about it. I’m not saying that Americans cannot be humble. But success to me is very much linked to factors such as realizing the full potential of one’s self, and then in collaboration of others full potential of what we can be together. This is obviously something that I cannot measure in numbers, and I cannot measure it by myself.

Success in business is customer related – how deeply do I understand the needs of the customer, am I able to fulfill them while at the same time develop a sustainable relationship, not only with them, but with all the stakeholders involved. It sounds easy but sometimes it’s very hard.

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

Stefan Meister: The most important thing is to always remain curious, open, excited, authentic and modest. I think these are the most important things that contributed to my success. And these are steps that repeat themselves – they should constantly be present.

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

Stefan Meister: I would give the advice that helped me – to always remain curious, open, excited, authentic and modest.

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?

Stefan Meister: I thought about this question a lot and I was flabbergasted. But I have no such people and maybe because I’m happy with the ones that I have.

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

Stefan Meister: I’m an avid reader so it’s hard for me to name one book. There is one book in the early seventies I remember was like an electric shock to me, which was On the Road by Jack Kerouac. This was a novel that came out in 1958 and I read it in the early seventies when I was 11 or 12. It’s about the Beat Generation. It had a profound impact on my life for the excitement that it transported about being alive.

Jack Kerouac Reads from “On The Road”

If you cannot review this YouTube video, click here.

Avil Beckford: What excites you about life?

Stefan Meister: Lots of things – diversity, love, all the many facets of human passion and I think also what excites me about life is that it’s also sad, but it’s most likely the only one that we have.

Avil Beckford: How do you nurture your soul?

Stefan Meister: If possible, I spend time in nature. I dance, read and write poetry. I love the arts. Nurturing my soul is any sort of love. And of course friendship.

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

Stefan Meister: When I can help others to feel alive and fulfilled and I can simultaneously feel that in myself.

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.

Further Reading

The Invisible Mentor Interviews Sunniva Heggertveit Aoudia
The Invisible Mentor Interviews Sunniva Heggertveit Aoudia Part Two

Book links are affiliate link.

Video Credit: Uploaded by mojo4mojo on Sep 10, 2006

Interviewee Name: Stefan Meister, Director,

Company Name: intercultures

Website: http://www.intercultures.de/ 

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Stefan Meister: I’m an artistically inclined, sensitive person who operates in the field of training, coaching, consulting in the intercultural field. I’ve discovered my entrepreneurial spirit, and my competitive edge.

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

Stefan Meister: It is very diverse and completely depends on the objectives of the day. I have over 200 travel days each year, but at the same time, I work with a global team of about 100 experts, so there is usually some sort of consulting and training with the clients combined with a lot of virtual communication while I’m traveling. We also have a team at the back office that I need to develop.

I also have a private life so I communicate a lot privately as well. I write at least a poem a day and try to squeeze in some sporting activity.

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

Stefan Meister:  I only do what I believe in, and at a certain age you reach that stage. I also only do what I can support ethically. That really motivates me. I’m also motivated by building an organization that people really belong to and that’s very important for me.

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

Stefan Meister: I would marry earlier. I would have gotten into business earlier. I founded my company rather late, maybe 10 years ago. I would be more radical in my decision-making. I was also a heavy smoker until 12 years ago, so I would definitely have given up smoking earlier.

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

Stefan Meister: In the business field it would be that I co-developed a product. I was always a service provider, a trainer, consultant, and coach, so nothing materialized and we have developed two assessment tools in the last couple of years, which went online last year and to me, that was an absolutely wonderful feeling that I could co-develop world-class products. It was wonderful!

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

Stefan Meister:

1. The biggest challenge is myself. I need to find the right balance between work and play so I don’t burn out. Luckily I haven’t done that yet – sometimes I’m on the edge with what I do.
2. General dependency on the world economy – we depend on that as consultants.
3. There is fierce competition in our field, which customers don’t always distinguish degrees of quality. I find that a big challenge that quality isn’t easily distinguished.

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

Stefan Meister: We have the best crew of consultants in the field together, at least on the European level. We have a very deep commitment to quality in our processes, and this is something that consultants as well as customers feedback to us. We have a very holistic approach which means that we do not only look at training because if you look at training that’s what you try and do, but most of the trainers and consultants also have coaching skills and can switch between the interventions that are necessary for the clients. A deep employment of diversity as a guiding principle – I know for the US, that’s something that comes naturally – but for Europe, not necessarily in Berlin. In the office here we have five nationalities and we profit from that, and obviously diversity is not only national or ethnic diversity. We are able to develop and offer unique products.

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?

Stefan Meister: In business, everything is relative, luckily I have not lost a company yet. The biggest challenge for me was the death of my father when I was 11. What I learned from that is that you can, at least partially, change yourself if the context is challenging you. I found that moment of being responsible as the only man in the household. I was a rather shy human being, and that really changed my life.

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

Stefan Meister: When I read the questions, I had to smile because they are very much American questions, if I may say so. I couldn’t say that there was one big break. I think any person that wants to operate with me or us on a deep level, that for me is a big break – that trust that’s being placed through love or wanting to collaborate and work together and share – that’s the biggest break that I can have.

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

Stefan Meister:  For me, failure is a very American concept. Maybe it’s interesting for you that I give you this feedback, because failure to me means that there is success and there is failure. I don’t necessarily think in these categories, but I’m trying to juggle my way into the question. Probably one of my biggest failures was not to integrate very well on my first day in the US. When I was 16 or 17, I was in the corn deserts of Pennsylvania as a high school student. My neighbours were Amish. I lived in the US for three-and-a-half years but the first year as an exchange student was very tough for me, but what it did was planted in me the urge to explore intercultural dynamics at a deeper level, and it gave my life one of its major directions. It contributed to my life and the frustration that I had, was later channelled, and brought me into the intercultural field.

If I would have a first year outside of Germany, which was pure joy, I would not have pursued the issue as much as I did later on.

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

Stefan Meister:  More than once I have had to separate from close professional allies due to professional reasons and identity challenges. That to me is always a big challenge because I’m a little bit unprofessional in that I grow attached to people who I work with, then it is often hard to separate, and that’s usually a tough decision. The person that I like or even love I need to let that person go.

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

Stefan Meister:  Any sort of intercultural encounter shapes my life. I have lived 10 years outside my native Germany, and there have been many events that have helped to shape my life distinctly so I cannot distinguish that. And of course we return to the question of love, and any love, have hopefully changed my life. And the death of my father shaped my life.

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

Stefan Meister:  I have always managed to remain authentic, and I always remain caring even if it’s a challenging global business environment, I’m always a caring person and I would always prefer relationships over money.

Avil Beckford: How did mentors influence your life?

Stefan Meister:  There have been several mentors whether they knew it or not, and they have helped me to grow and advance in various ways.

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

Stefan Meister: One core message that I picked up from Robert Dilts is that the map is not the territory.

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?

Stefan Meister:  The simplest advice is to always be true to yourself and to others.

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.

Further Reading

The Invisible Mentor Interviews Sunniva Heggertveit Aoudia
The Invisible Mentor Interviews Sunniva Heggertveit Aoudia Part Two

Wisdom of Life: “Pick the right people to surround yourself with, it will set the bar, encourage and support you. However, if you choose the wrong people, they will bring you down a different path,” Invisible Mentor, Jeanne-Marie Robillard tells her 12-year old son.

Interviews for Mentoring: Key Lessons from Jeanne-Marie Robillard

• Be grateful for what you have in life and count your blessings.
• Prepare for your day the night before, to help to decrease stress the following day.
• Network, network, then network some more, and never let little things such as shyness or “introvertedness” stop you. (Note to self)
• Allow people to get to know the real you.
• People rarely remember what you said to them, but they remember how you made them feel.
• Give a new job sufficient time – at least two years – before you decide if the fit is right

Invisible Mentor: Jeanne-Marie Robillard, Senior Account Executive

Company Name: National Speakers Bureau/Global Speakers Agency

Website: http://www.nsb.com 

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Jeanne-Marie Robillard: I am currently a senior account executive, which is an agent to public personalities and celebrities for their speaking engagements. I’ve been doing that for 11 years. Prior to that, I was an agent to the performing arts community – groups like the National Ballet, Canadian Opera Company, to helping place them into seated environments for audiences to enjoy.

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

Jeanne-Marie Robillard: It’s not always easy, is it? It’s hard when people are passionate about their work and passionate about their family. I would say that I’m trying as best as I can to compartmentalize tasks, responsibilities, chores, commitments and obligations, so setting time aside to do specific tasks as opposed to running around doing too many things for too many people.

I try to put my phone away at home in the evenings and try not to look at it as often even when I’m tempted to. I log on to the computer and try to get an hour or two later in the evening. I get so much done preparing for the following day that I go into the next day feeling confident to start the day in a safe place if you will.

It’s a constant challenge, and it’s one of the top topics we get asked for speakers, is work-life balance and it will continue to be so as we improve technology.

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

Jeanne-Marie Robillard: Entertaining absolutely! I love entertaining. I love to have people over. I love to cook. I love to shop for food. I love everything around food, going to the market etc. Planning a dinner party and setting the table, and picking which guests will love each other, another form of connections. As you can see, I apply that everywhere, and yes that would be my favourite thing and I’d like to record those times in a book as well.

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

Jeanne-Marie Robillard: It’s a little bit of what I’ve already said.

1. Be honest.
2. Approach life with intent, purpose and meaning.
3. Even if you’re shy or introverted, try your very best to get out and about. Take someone with you if it’s hard. Having another person with you will be the best thing you ever did. They can brag about you, you can’t really brag about yourself because that comes off a little odd. They can pull you away from someone who may not be the person you need to speak to all night if you’re trying to network. They can also be a great support if you’re feeling a little nervous about the experience. So get out and meet as many people as you can. People do want to help each other – inherently it’s human nature. It’s like so many things in life, the more you do, the more you try, the more chances you have on landing on what’s more meaningful for you.

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

Jeanne-Marie Robillard: I believe we come to better decisions and better results when we do things in a group. Pulling a team together and brainstorming, sending a mass email out to those in your network who have a common experience with what you’re struggling with, reaching out for ideas and bringing those ideas together. I also use the Internet quite extensively and subscribe to many different chats and blogs.

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

Jeanne-Marie Robillard: That’s hard for me because I live a life that’s filled with quotations because of the people I represent. But if I had to choose one it would be, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel,” Maya Angelou, American Poet.

Avil Beckford: How do you define success? And in your opinion what’s the formula for success?

Jeanne-Marie Robillard: Success is when you’re truly happy doing what you’re doing. When you’re happy with your life, you’re proud of your life. Proud in a good way, that you’re contributing. Contributions to your community, your workplace, your family and your friends are essential to defining success. The formula for success is trying as many things as you can in life. It’s trial and error.

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

Jeanne-Marie Robillard:

1. Asking a lot of questions to the right people, that means asking questions to a lot of people until you figure out the right people.
2. Taking chances.
3. Staying in a job and seeing it through for at least a good two-year period. I think that’s very important that full cycles be lived. A calendar year is a full cycle, rarely do we start in January so you are landing in the middle somewhere in that second year, so give it the time it deserves, unless it’s clearly for some interpersonal reasons. Give it the time it deserves and give yourself the chance you deserve.

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

Jeanne-Marie Robillard: I would give the same advice to someone just starting out. I would say, ask around, you can make an educated decision, but once you’ve made that commitment to something, commit to it and give it your best shot. And it also looks a lot better on a resume quite frankly.

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?

Jeanne-Marie Robillard:

1. Maya Angelou
2. Oprah Winfrey
3. Nelson Mandela
4. Madam Michaëlle Jean (I represent her and have met her a handful of times but would love to get to know her better)

They are truly good people making a difference in the world, and I would tell them “Thanks!” I would thank them for their great contributions to bettering the world.

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

Jeanne-Marie Robillard:  One of our current speaker on the roster is Izzeldin Abuelaish who wrote I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor’s Journey. It’s a bestseller and an unbelievable book that I highly recommend to anybody and everybody.

Avil Beckford: You are one of the 10 finalists on the reality show, So, How Would You Spend Your Time? Each finalist is placed on separate deserted islands for two years. You have a basic hut on the island and all the tools for survival; you just have to be imaginative and inventive when using them. You are allowed to take five books, one movie and one music CD, and whatever else you take has to fit in one suitcase and a travel on case. What would you take with you and how would you spend the two years? T he prize is worth your while and at this stage in the game there really aren’t any losers among the 10 finalists, since each are guaranteed at least $2 million?

Jeanne-Marie Robillard:

Five Books

1. I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor’s Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity
   
2. The Five People You Meet in Heaven
3. Maybe I’d like to learn more about the Bible.
4. Ulysses
5. Jane Eyre

One Movie and Music CD

Big Night for Big Night movie and Big Night: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack.

Big Night – Trailer

If you cannot view the movie trailer for Big Night click here.

How I Will Spend Two Years

I would spend the two years learning, reading all the classics if I could. I would like to learn more about classic literature, religion, and learn to meditate.

Avil Beckford: What excites you about life?

Jeanne-Marie Robillard: People, I love that everybody has a story. My current husband is an architect, and he laughs when I say that I love looking at office towers or high-rise office buildings, or condos. I think, “All those stories in there, that’s so cool.” So people for sure.

Avil Beckford: How do you nurture your soul?

Jeanne-Marie Robillard: By surrounding myself with positive people, and finding the time to be alone to refuel when I need that time. I go to bed quite early by most people’s standard. I try to head to bed by 9:30 pm on weeknights, and I read. So that’s how I nurture my soul.

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

Jeanne-Marie Robillard: To help the disadvantaged, to make less suffering in this world.

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

Jeanne-Marie Robillard: I’m helping others.

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.

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Video Credit: Uploaded by MahatmaCartman on Dec 2, 2010