The Invisible Mentor

Archive for the ‘Interview’ Category

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.

Other articles you may enjoy

• The Chief Mentoring Officer Interviews Annemie Ress, Senior HRD eBay & Global Engagement Lead at eBay, Part Two (theinvisiblementor.com)
• Chief Mentoring Officer Interviews: Do Big Breaks, Mentoring, and Hard Work Equate to Success? Part Two (theinvisiblementor.com)
• Adventures in Learning: DIY Mentoring Program, Episode Two (theinvisiblementor.com)
• The Chief Mentoring Officer Interviews Annemie Ress, Senior HRD eBay & Global Engagement Lead at eBay (theinvisiblementor.com)

Book links are affiliate links.
Video Credit: Uploaded by MahatmaCartman on Dec 2, 2010

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 of Canada, Canadian Opera Company, to helping place them into seated environments for audiences to enjoy.

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

Jeanne-Marie Robillard: It would be to make a lot of calls, touch base with clients, follow-up on proposals, keep speakers abreast of developments, and continue our marketing initiatives for the people who we are representing.

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

Jeanne-Marie Robillard:  I’m pretty lucky because I work with speakers who are inspirational and motivational so I’m surrounded by positive thinkers all day, every day. I’m very blessed.

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

Jeanne-Marie Robillard:  I would come back to being blessed. I have no regrets with my career path. I started first in the Arts working through the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and Art Gallery of Ontario. I did some consulting for the museums, all of that was very important, though I always struggled financially. I would say having gotten into sales, I call it the meritocracy – the more you work, the more integrity you bring to your work, the better compensated you are. Maybe I would have done that a little earlier getting into the private sector.

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

Jeanne-Marie Robillard: I would say that I have gained more confidence in my own public speaking. It’s funny that I represent speakers and performers and I have been nervous for so many years to get up and introduce them, and tell audiences about them. I would read from a script and now I have more confidence in just going for it. It goes much better. If I had changed that sooner, I wouldn’t have been as nervous.

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

Jeanne-Marie Robillard:

1. Since I work mostly with the corporate sector placing speakers for public appearances, endorsements and sponsorships, the crash of 08/09 was a hard one that we are still recovering from. Many cutbacks occurred, lived through a time of austerity. Canada wasn’t affected the same way, but it reacted the same way as the US. We’re still seeing ourselves climb out of that. Our clients saw speakers as perhaps a luxury, and having not booked them for a year or two realized that speakers were an absolute necessity. Professional speakers bring all kinds of wonderful energy, insight and a fresh perspective to organizations, so now we’re seeing the recovery. That would be the biggest threat.
2. Another threat within the industry I work in is that there are many new agencies – individuals who are branching off and doing this from their homes, or from smaller offices, so there is more competition out there.
3. The third threat is the Internet of course which continues to be a competitor because people feel that they can contact the speakers directly, and they can, though it means being directed back and it makes the process so much longer and more complicated.

It’s all fixable but it changes the landscape a little bit.

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

Jeanne-Marie Robillard: I like to say I do not sell a product, but I sell an experience. People won’t remember exactly what you say, but they will remember how they feel. I’m pretty lucky, and I would say that what I love most about what I do is I get to brag about people all day long. Can’t ask for better than that!

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?

Jeanne-Marie Robillard: The most recent was going through a separation and divorce, almost six years ago. Though I was very hurt, it was not my choice, but four months later I realized I had gone through a process where forgiveness rose to the top. Though that may sound corny to some, it honestly changed my life when I realized I had forgiven. My ex and I are best of friends – we were as of that year – and we have a son and we parent together, he lives nearby, we email constantly, and speak every other day. My health improved during that time. My health stopped breaking down, my job got better, and I’m not kidding, it happened that quickly. Forgiveness is powerful!

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

Jeanne-Marie Robillard: I’ve had a lot of opportunities. I can’t tell you that there is a single big break, but I would say that every time someone offers you an opportunity it’s so important to talk that through. It doesn’t mean to seize it immediately and jump all over it, but it does mean to talk it through. Find out what it’s about, investigate, explore it and see if it lands where you need it to land. Every single job opportunity, and I have loved every one of my jobs, has been through a break. I have been so lucky. I have had six different positions in the course of a 30-year career.

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

Jeanne-Marie Robillard:  It was when I was a professional failure. We all have our personal failures on a day-to-day basis. However, on a professional level, when I did consulting for museums with one other person, the woman who owned the company, she recruited me from the Ontario Arts Council.  It was an exciting opportunity, but I realized that I worked better as part of a team. She was traveling so much to Europe mostly, and I was keeping the Toronto office intact alone. I think I failed on many levels – failed myself, failed her and my clients in that I need the energy of others to stay inspired and motivated. So working in a team is what I learned out of that. I need that.

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

Jeanne-Marie Robillard:  I was adopted as an infant into a fabulous family, another blessing in my life. I was only 10 days old so I was very little. I always knew I was adopted, and when I finished university I decided to meet my biological mother. It was a big decision and it impacted my life in every positive way possible. I learned all kinds of lessons and I was able to add a whole new arm to a family of friends. I’m very lucky and I would say that was a tough decision.

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

Jeanne-Marie Robillard:

1. What I just talked about, landing in the family I landed in to parents who think they couldn’t have children adopted me and two years later adopted my sister. She was equally tiny when we adopted her. And mom and dad we already pregnant with my brother, they had nine months between the two of them. They had three children under the age of three. I have the most wonderful family. It has provided me with opportunities on every level, socio-economic, unconditional love and support, and encouragement. I won the lottery early in life.
2. Having certain people around you. I tell my son who is 12 to pick the right people to surround yourself with, it will set the bar for you and encourage you and support you. However, if you choose the wrong people they will bring you down a different path, and it’s just so true.
3. I would also say that one of the largest events that shaped my life was first year of university when I had a summer job as a tour guide on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. I met Pierre Elliot Trudeau. I walked across the room at a party, he was standing alone, he was the Prime Minister of Canada at the time. I walked across and introduced myself, and as a result, we had a friendship where we skied, had dinner and he invited me as a guest to parties at 24 Sussex Drive. It was a friendship that was quite exciting for about a year-and-a-half until it went in the media that I was a girlfriend which was not the case. But we never spoke after that. That experience shaped my life to learn to move through your fear to something that attracts you. Trust your gut. When you feel like there is an opportunity in front of you, take it. The worst that could happen is often not that really bad. What would have been the worst? that he didn’t say too much, “nice to meet you, see ya.”
4. I also think that having my son has shaped my life in a very positive way. I learned how to increase my empathy level and responsibility.

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

Jeanne-Marie Robillard:  It’s an ongoing accomplishment and it’s that of helping people. I really enjoy helping people further their careers and/or their personal lives in some ways when they are struggling, and it’s usually through helping people make connections with other people who know exactly what to do. I’m a very good connector, that’s what I do in my work as well. I do it for friends who are looking for love in their lives, I’m a good matchmaker. And I do it for those trying to improve their lives and meet professionals who can help them.

Avil Beckford: How did mentors influence your life?

Jeanne-Marie Robillard:  They taught me to stick to certain standards, to set certain standards, certain expectations of yourself so others know what you are about. There is a confidence for others in that. Mentors are also important in a continued, consistent kind of environment, so I was very fortunate to have those kinds of people as well. They are people who are dependable and there, present and engaged. So I have learned to do that in reverse for those who I have mentored.

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

Jeanne-Marie Robillard: I would say to have integrity. Integrity is key to every part of your life. Do it with intent, do it with meaning and do it with purpose. I would say that’s how I live my life as best as I can.

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?

Jeanne-Marie Robillard:  I would say it’s what I just said before, be true, do everything with intent, meaning and integrity and it will fall in the right places.

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

• 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)

Big Breaks + Mentoring + Hard Work = Success? 

I am reading Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers: The Story of Success and it got me thinking about interviews that I have conducted, so I decided to explore an idea. I still haven’t gotten further than a third of the book so far, but when you ask most people about Outliers, they’ll mention 10,000 hours to become an expert at a craft. But from what I have read so far, hard work doesn’t equal success, you also need opportunities and talent.

I have taken five of The Invisible Mentor interviews that I have published on the blog, and extracted the responses to big breaks, mentor influence, and steps to success. Today, I’m focusing on five men, yesterday were five women. As you read the responses, what ideas and thoughts come to mind? Are there ways you can create your own opportunities if you haven’t had your big break as yet?

Name:  Michael Hewitt-Gleeson

Big Break:  One big break was from a famous man in America, Professor George Gallup who started the Gallup Poll and invented market research. He is the fellow who discovered the statistical sample. If you measure a population you can get their point of view and of course that is difficult and expensive to do. If you measure a statistical random sample of 1,200 people, you get the same point of view as if you measured the population. And of course it’s possible to measure a sample and get a small deviation plus or minus. The Gallup Poll has predicted the outcome of every US Presidential Elections since the mid 1930s.

At a time when we needed some help and advice in getting The School of Thinking going, in breaking through the education system, someone of that stature as Professor George Gallup lent his name to it, and he said that what we were doing was possibly one of the greatest things in the world. He in a sense became my mentor, the supervisor for my PhD. He wrote the foreword for one of my books. He was a very nice and encouraging gentleman. He was in his 80s at the time, and I was a much younger man and he extended a hand. I was very gracious with his hospitality and would visit him at his farm up at Princeton. Looking back, this was a huge break and very practical one, and I’m very grateful because it led to a cover story on Readers Digest in 1993. It was an international edition with over 70 million readers which put the school of Thinking on the map. At that time, it was like being on Oprah today.

Mentor Influence: There are people who come along, and sometimes they encourage you, or tell you what you do not want to hear. So one category are people who are wiser, often older and in a different circumstance, who are able to give you good advice, direction or point things out if you are willing to listen. Professor George Gallup and Edward de Bono were great mentors for me. Edward de Bono was my tutor for my PhD, he had one student, me. I am the only one in the world who has a PhD in lateral Thinking, and Edward de Bono and George Gallup were my examiners. They were two extraordinary individuals who spent a lot of time with me, and I have built a whole career around that.

Steps to Success:  I make sure that I do something that I enjoy doing. And I do them every day. In other words, from the point of view of virtuosity, it takes a long while, you cannot just pick up a book or video on something and become an expert. Some people think you can, but you can’t. It may take 10 years, and you can do 10 years if you love what you are doing so it’s a combination of loving what you are doing, and doing it every day. Enjoy success as you go and do the 10,000 hours it requires to achieve virtuosity, and then enjoy that kind of success as well.

Name:  Steve Kayser

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

Steve Kayser: Just one? I have had big breaks all my life. Every day. Every month. Every year.

Tom Nies gave me my latest big break. He asked me to run PR for Cincom Systems North America. When I told him I didn’t know anything about PR he said, “Read this book – you’ll be fine.” The book he gave me was “The Death of Advertising & The Rise of PR,” by Al Ries. I read it. Then called Al Ries. Explained my situation and asked his advice and also asked him to contribute to a fledgling online E-Zine I was developing called Expert Access. He did become a contributor and we went from 5,000 subscribers to 25,000 in about 1 month because of it. Al Ries (and his daughter Laura Riesnow) have done several interviews and articles with me … And,  Al Ries was also one of the first guests we had on Expert Access Radio — http://radio.cincom.com.

One of the lessons I took from that — People at the top value great thinking. They pass it on. If you take advantage of their thinking (in this instance Al Ries’ book) it can change everything for you. But you have to teach yourself – learn yourself. No handholding allowed.

It’s the biggest thing I would look for in new employees or partners now. Are they autodidacts? Can they teach themselves new things – continuously?

Mentor Influence:  Wow – where to start. See above. Some of those guys were. But I also read 3 to 5 books a week and find great mentoring there.

Steps to Success:  Stumbled. Staggered. Fell.  Those are kinda the steps.

No failures = no success

To succeed you have to fail at some time. No way around that I think.

Since I’ve literally reinvented myself 5 times during my life and am in the process of doing it again – I can only say what steps seem to be common in all of those endeavors:

A Joie de vivre  – a joy for living & loving life, learning, re-learning. I need to throw a quote in here.

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

Name:  John Kremer

Big Break:  Probably the thing that had the biggest impact for me is that Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen loved my book and recommended it to everybody. I was successful before but I sold a ton of books based on their recommendation. They took my book 1001 Ways to Market Your Book and basically put it up on a wall and did the things that they wanted to do. The Rule of Five is one of the strategies that they took from my book, which says that you should do at least five things every day to market your book, any book that you still love and want to have sold and that helps you to be successful marketing your book.

Mentor Influence:  I haven’t had any real mentors who sat with me that much, but I’ve had many mentors through books. I have been mentored by people who I have read like Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers and people like Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen through their books, and also by marketing people like Jay Conrad Levinson.

Steps to Success: The main thing that I did was study and learn and keep observing what other people were doing that was working and follow what I noted when I watched people. I have a lot of people that I learned from and not just the gurus but my customers who tell me what works and doesn’t work for them. Much of what I know about book marketing comes from people sharing with me what works for them, and all I do is essentially pass on that information.

Name:  Kevin Popović

Big Break:  There is a gentleman named Bob Friday, and he had a company called TGIF Productions that did video and event production. While I was a struggling entrepreneur, and trying to figure out where I was going to fit in this communications business, I had to take a part-time job in retail. Every so often Bob would come in to the store and buy something new for his office, and he’d share a story and I would chime in about what I thought about his story. We started communicating back and forth.

I ended up offering to help him with these projects on the side to gain experience, and after four or five months of this he started paying me to freelance and after six months of that he brought me on in a full-time position as assistant producer. For four years I traveled all over the country learning about video and event production and how to deal with clients.

I saw how he ran his business and I also saw what I did not like about how he ran his business. So I attribute one of my big breaks to Bob Friday, and thank him for the opportunities he provided and the lessons that he taught me. Many of which are things that I knew that I did not want to do. My father taught me a long time ago to learn from my mistakes and I’ve tried to apply that to everybody I’ve worked with. As much as I have learned from them about what to do, I’ve also learned what not to do.

Mentor Influence: I’ve had a couple of mentors. My father has been a good mentor to me as a professor of marketing. My grandmother has been a mentor to me. She sold shoes for 30 years. Michael Bosworth, sales legend and author of Solutions Selling, Customer Centric Selling and Story Leaders has been a mentor to me in the way that I approach sales and how I present myself, or professional opportunities.

Steps to Success:  I’ve always tried to keep moving forward, lateral at worst, never backwards.

Name:  Andrew Warner

Big Break:  There were lots of big breaks, but here is one. I went to downtown New York, not too far from my office to talk to a customer of mine. On my way out of there, I heard this guy say, “I’m sorry guys I have to run, I don’t have the time. I have to go and look at an apartment uptown. I can’t help you guys today, maybe tomorrow.” So I recognized the guy and said, “Mike, I’ve got a car downstairs, my brother and I will give you a ride up to your apartment and you can get there on time.”

So we’re driving up to the apartment and the whole time I’m thinking, “I should be at my desk, I should be working, what am I doing, just kind of hanging out, what’s wrong with me here, I’ve got to be more efficient,” but I’m enjoying the conversation so I continue, and Mike and I are having a great conversation with my brother, and it’s terrific. I pull over and let Mike out in front of his place and he says, “Thank you! By the way I know that you’re trying to build up your business Andrew we have this customer called Life Minders, they have been buying lots of advertising from us, if you email or contact them and mention my name they’ll buy from you. Alright, goodbye!”

He leaves and I’m sitting there stunned, the guy just handed me a customer, one of his best customers he just introduced me to. That would never have happened if I was just sitting at my desk. It would never have happened if I didn’t get to know him, if I didn’t have this conversation. I called up that Life Minders, and they ended up buying from me. The very first cheque to me was for over $300,000. I looked at it with my brother. We had never seen that much money in the business. I don’t think either of us has seen that big a cheque ever in our lives. It turned around our whole business. We were deep in debt at the time. We could barely pay the bills at the time. That cheque turned things around.

The next cheque from them was for I think $1 million, the next one was for $2 million in advertising and it turned around our business. And what I learned from that was to just go out and have conversations with people and get to know them and really learn from them. That kind of information would never have been on a blog, would never just be on the internet somewhere, and would never have been advertised. I had to get to know Mike to get that kind of information.

Mentor Influence:  I didn’t have enough of them unfortunately and I wish that I had more along the way. I know that there were times when I couldn’t see that having four or five big clients was dangerous for my business. I had them, I was doing well, I turned away other customers because I couldn’t fit them all in. That was a big mistake, then a few of them went out of business, and if three of them went out of business, 60 percent of my revenue was shot.

If I had a mentor, he would have looked at it and said, “Look Andrew, I know you are doing well but you’d be better off with less money but securing your future by locking in multiple sponsors,” or they would have said, “Andrew, you should diversify away from this business and have other product lines,” and I just didn’t have that. That was a big mistake.

Steps to Success: Showing up every day. Even when I started out as an entrepreneur earlier on, my friends who didn’t have jobs, or happen to have a day off would ask me to go and hang out, and I remember saying, “I’m working, why are you even asking,” and they’d say, “Because you’re not really working, you’re working for yourself, you don’t have a boss. There is no reason for you to show up today, you can show up tomorrow. You can always make up for it the next day. Or do work on the weekends or in the evenings.” And if you start doing that you never really catch up. But if you show up for every single day, and you think about your job as a mission then you do grow every day. And everyone around you starts to respect what you’re doing, as you respect it yourself.

From what you have read today and yesterday, do Big Breaks + Mentoring + Hard Work = Success?

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? 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

Michael Hewitt-Gleeson Interview (Part I), (Part II)

Steve Kayser Interview (Part I), (Part II)

John Kremer Interview (Part I), (Part II)

Kevin Popović Interview (Part I), (Part II)

Andrew Warner Interview (Part I), (Part II) (Part III), (Part IV)

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