The Invisible Mentor

Archive for the ‘Lessons’ Category

Interviewee Name: Paulette Ensign

Company Name: TipsBooklets.com

Website: http://www.tipsbooklets.com, http://www.CollectionOfExperts.com

Paulette Ensign – Your Invisible Mentor & Workshop Leader

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Paulette Ensign: Fourteen years ago I got smart and made a cross-country move from Northeast America where I had lived all my life to sunny San Diego and I did it without missing a beat in my business because of the flexibility of Tips Booklet, which is what my business is all about. My cat and I got on a plane and I have never looked back. People have asked me why I moved to San Diego, and it’s simple, it doesn’t snow here (she laughs). I live a mile from the Pacific Ocean and I refer to that beach as my office annex. It’s one of the most beautiful experiences plus it does really allow me the kind of life that I want. I think it is important for anyone listening to or reading about our interview, to understand that’s what I promote. I promote people creating the life they want by taking their knowledge and putting it into information products and getting their message out worldwide and making good money from it.

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

Paulette Ensign: There is nothing typical about how my life is. The beauty of all of this is that there is no typical day. I am definitely someone who disciplines myself so I aim to be at my desk at 9:00 am each morning. However, if it happens that it’s quarter after, 9:30 or 10:00 am, or I need to do something in the morning, I also know that because my life being what it is I can do that.

Frequently my day includes checking emails, talking with people, sometimes doing a teleclass, responding to questions that people have or being able to go for a walk or buy my groceries on a Wednesday afternoon just because I can. I end the day somewhere in the 5:30, 6:30 range and then enjoy my evening either alone or socially with other people. In the course of the day I am interacting with people as well as doing a lot of quiet in-office stuff by myself.

I don’t know about you, but I find that if I’m sitting for too long, it goes all the way up to my brain, which then allows me to have an experience of stopping and being stale, so it’s necessary to keep in motion so that the ideas keep coming so I can serve people as well as I’m capable.

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

Paulette Ensign: Sometimes it’s an external motivation. Keeping my financial commitments really motivate me. Paying my bills motivates me and always has, but on the creative side, when I find that I’m getting stale, I do one of several things. I do something in the immediate moment like taking a break and going out, or taking an hour at the beach, or going for a walk, allow me to look at the situation through completely different filters. If I have found that I’m really at a stalemate, that my creativity has come to a grinding halt, the thing that I have consistently noticed over the years, no matter what career I have been in – this is my third career so far – is that I get ideas from other industries, other professions, other fields. For instance, if I’m reading a magazine such as Fast Company or Inc., I will notice a concept that seem to me that I can do something with it, like opening up a new market for my business or creating a new product, or coming at things from a different perspective, so I get motivation from other industries.

I’m also good at observing, identifying, tweaking and turning things a half turn, so I can be in a conversation with a colleague or friend or family, and hear a germ, a seed of an idea and pick it up and run with it. So those ranges of possibilities contribute to keeping me motivated. I don’t know that necessarily anybody is motivated 100 percent of the time. I’m a former musician and I remember knowing, being told and experiencing that the rests of silence in music are equally important as the sound. This bears itself out in business as well, taking those breaks are crucial and equally as important to moving forward.

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

Paulette Ensign: I would ask more people more questions, and that means that I would ask friends and colleagues how to do things. I would ask my clients more consistently about what matters to them, what’s important to them and in general I would ask more questions. I tend to be a more independent driven person by nature, and it has taken me a while to realize the real importance of, and the value of getting input from others. It doesn’t mean that I have to take their advice all the time, as much as to have it as raw material to ponder, to process, and then take what really works from that and apply it.

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

Paulette Ensign: It’s something that many people will think is an amazing grasp of the obvious and it follows on what I was just saying, that interacting with other people makes traveling the bricks of life a whole lot easier and more interesting. So if I find that I’m in my office too long, by myself without interacting, it’s not fun, it’s not interesting, it’s not creative so I think the most important thing is to have interaction with other people and it doesn’t need to be that they are in my own business, because as I mentioned, lots of great ideas come when I’m connecting with folks who are in other parts of life and may not even be in business at all. This is probably the biggest discovery I’ve made in this past year, and 2011 will be 20 years since I have been in the booklet business, so I want to impress on our readers and listeners that there is always more to learn.

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

Paulette Ensign: Knowing that my business is about tips booklets, and it has been the whole time about tips booklets. In the past five years one of the ways that I have broadened my business, has been to add on, and not substitute, another service that is a collaborative format of a tips booklet. And isn’t that interesting that I was talking just a few moments ago about the importance of interacting with other people, that this particular service that we are now doing called Collection of Experts has really been a big boon to a lot of people because there are some folks who don’t have the time or inclination to write their own booklet, and by grouping 14 people together and having fewer words for each person to come up with, and to have an immediate marketing team of 13 colleagues is what ends up happening in a collection of experts.

We’re accomplishing so many good things, with so little time and money involved and within the past five years we are finding that this offer is a boon to everybody and it has expanded the reach that each of the participants has. It has expanded their bottom line and it has been a fabulous way of connecting people to each other, and to folks who want what these people in the booklets have. That paired with the obvious expansion of the reach online has really opened up the world in a way that we haven’t experienced prior to the past handful of years. It is just hard to imagine that the thing that I get the biggest kick out of now is that with all of the focus online, one of the best ways to distinguish ourselves these days is to have printed booklets because there are fewer people doing direct mail and print. So I don’t want to get off track on your question, but it’s fun to see how old becomes new again.

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

Paulette Ensign: One of the biggest threats to my business is the solitude. If I stay by myself for too long, it just shuts things down and it spirals downwards. A couple of things that I have mentioned on how I handle that is to make formal contact with other people, whether it means getting together for lunch, or creating a Mastermind Group, or having other ways to connect with other people. The Collection of Experts also connects well with people

Another one of the threats to my business is the notion that people make assumptions about what they believe is possible. I have heard others say that there is so much ignorance to stamp out that it will take many lifetimes to do so. When I have people coming to me from a traditional publishing background with that set of beliefs about selling booklets one at a time only to the end user is both an opportunity and a threat and a challenge all wrapped up in one because it takes a lot to make sure folks understand and are willing and able to move forward in the direction of selling large quantities of copies to single buyers for instance.

The third threat is the issue of how much is given away for free. People will say to me, “With all of the free information that’s available online, is there till any merit to creating a tips booklet to sell?” Very soon I am going to present a teleclass about “10 Ways it Makes Total Sense to Give Away Your Booklet to Increase Your Bottom Line,” so I’m leaning into what people are perceiving to be a challenge and turning that around and showing what a great opportunity it is because of the notion of using booklets as a promotional tool really counteracts the concern that a lot of people have expressed to me about all the information being available for free. First of all it’s not so and there is always ways to do that.

I’d like to add another threat because we always like to give more than we promise. I think one of the biggest threats is that attitude that some folks have about what is not possible. When someone comes to me and say, “I can’t do this, I can’t do that,” I go, “Yeah you’re right, because the point of view you have is going to stop you in your tracks.” I like to focus on the positives so whenever I see something that looks like a threat, like people are talking about the economy, that’s an opportunity rather than something that’s going to be a barrier. That’s how I come to my business and that’s how I teach people as well.

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

Paulette Ensign: Talking to people about doing a publication that’s 3500 words instead of a book that can often be 35,000 words allows someone to be a published author, with much less time, money and effort to go into creating a product that they can sell and use as a marketing tool. If the requirement to have a book is paramount in your profession then at least that is something they have before the book is written. It may be that they write a series of booklets that they then combine in to a book.

I cannot begin to tell you how many people say, “This is so doable, and it’s approachable and there is no barrier to entry on it.” It is something that can be done very quickly, and can be done in a way that represents the person’s expertise and allows lots of good things to happen in their business. The issue about the size of the publication, of it being small, delivering very large returns on the investment of time and dollars, is the biggest unique element are about that.

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

Paulette Ensign: I think that the biggest thing – and rather than think about what someone is doing badly – I prefer to refrain your question into a more positive thing and that is that there are some folks who haven’t traveled the same journey, the same bricks that I have, and have a different perspective, where I am more inclined to encourage people to take what they’ve got and do it as best they can, in whatever timeframe they can. I see other folks have opinions and judgements that I do not think serve their clients very well. So it’s their personality, approach to doing business, I am not going to beat somebody up. I am going to say, “Let get this done” and if you are dabbling around and feeling badly about not having gotten something done yet, well I encourage you to get rid of that point of view and let’s see what we can do to move forward. So where there are other folks who see it with a different personality than mine, and certainly mine is a let’s-get-it-done strong point of view, I’m also not interested in making people feel badly for what they haven’t gotten done. That’s probably the biggest distinction.

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?

Paulette Ensign: One of the biggest challenges that I have ever had was very early on, and it was, I didn’t know the questions to ask. We have talked about what I would do differently when we started off. It would have been so much easier, and still is now, to ask people questions rather than think that I can figure it out all on my own. There are lots of people who have done bits and pieces of what I have done, it doesn’t mean that they have to travel the same path that I am on, however, when I bump into some kind of a challenge, somebody else has inevitably been there before me.

For instance, there were times when I have not known about the range of printing that can get done, or what the different components are about it, but now I know that I have my printer, graphic designer who know this stuff so I don’t need to know it myself. I just need to know where to get the answers from people who can speak in a language that I understand. That’s probably the biggest challenge that I’ve had all along at any different point along the way and I continue to remind myself to just keep asking questions.

Lessons Learned

Paulette Ensign: The lessons I have learned is to take a breath sometimes. I tend to move very quickly. Even though I have been living in San Diego for 14 years, I have not become a laid back California chick; I’m still a former New Yorker. And I will probably be for most of the rest of my life. However, what I have seen that has worked very well is that there are times when it is important to just get it done as well as I can and then make course corrections later. Then there are other times when it makes much more sense to take a breath, wait over night, wait a day-or-two, look at the same situation again, and then I can see more about it. Know when to hold them and when to fold them, as that song and situation goes. Knowing when it’s important to take action, which is my natural inclination, and good is better than not done at all, and when to hold off for just a little bit so that I can gather a little more information to move forward.

One of the things I see frequently with many people who come to me about booklets, is that a lot of them are not as action-oriented as I am. They are more information gatherers, and it hasn’t been unusual for me to have someone come back and say, “You know Paulette, 10 years ago I bought your information about how to promote my business with booklets and I’m finally getting around to writing a booklet now.” And I think to myself that I have to honour what their timeframe was and that whatever kept them from doing it may have also kept them from experiencing some great bonuses as a result of having gotten it done. So the timing factor is one of the biggest lessons that I have learned.

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

Paulette Ensign: It was early in the 1990s and the economy was different than it was before then, and my sales cycle had gotten longer and longer, and I really needed to shake it up a bit, and that’s how I ended up doing the booklet. In the very first year of doing Tips Booklets, I was marketing them by sending single copies to magazines as a way to promote the booklet and the business, and I would send a copy of the booklet to the magazine editor and ask them to excerpt from the booklet into their publication provided they would put full contact information so their readers could get a single copy. During that time, it was a definite way of coming out of a desert that I was in.

There was a 16-page business newsletter that I sent the booklet to, and that publication did not even excerpt from it, they just described the booklet in nine lines of copy, and I ended up selling 5,000 copies one at a time as a result of that mention. It catapulted my business in new directions. Somebody bought a single copy and liked it so well that they decided to use it as that year’s holiday greeting and send it out to their entire prospect and client list. They wanted to have their logo and contact information printed on the cover of the booklet, and wanted to know what it would cost. It was a very different approach from one I had had up until that moment. However, it became a very typical approach after that because what they were doing in that moment was they were paying to market me to 5,000 places that I would never have gotten to before because they wanted me to keep my contact information in the booklet, and add theirs.

Once I saw that happen I questioned how I could duplicate it, and it became a springboard for going into a direction that has become a mainstay of what I teach people about how to sell their booklets and other information products in very large quantities to companies and associations, to use their booklets as a promotional tool, rather than selling one copy of the booklet directly to the end user. I have never looked back and it has been an outstanding way to help people to get their message out there and increase their bottom line.

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

Paulette Ensign: I do not use the word failure very often because it’s kind of like when people say to me, “Don’t you think you wasted all that time in that marriage you were in that you ultimately were no longer in.” My belief and it’s consistently what I’ve said to you already, is that every experience has been a lesson as part and parcel of it. So the issue about what lessons have I learned is really what my focal point is because each element, each part of the journey, has had its own challenges and rewards and lessons in it.

One of the funnier things that happened, and included in this is what the costs of the journey has been, at a very basic level. When I was selling single copies of my booklets, I was getting three and five dollar cheques in the mail, and what I did not know, that I learned very fast was that I was being charged for every deposit. When that first bank statement came at the end of that month and I saw a bank fee that was well into $200, I said, “There must be some mistake,” and in fact what the mistake was, was my lack of awareness of what the terms were with the particular arrangement I had with that bank at that moment.

I learned that lesson very fast because it was an expensive one, and made some adjustments in what my banking was about and moved forward really fast and easily. Things like that, not only literally did I learn that lesson but also was a bigger learning about the notion of paying attention to what the dollars and cents were all about, paying attention to what was coming in and what was going out, and that each of them is equally as important because if I was only bringing in a lot of money and wasn’t paying attention to what my expenses were, as simplistic as that sounds, I can’t tell you how many people I have run into who are oblivious to all of that. I think that particular lesson was a big one that was pervasive in all of my life from that point forward.

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

Paulette Ensign: I am an idea person and I’m grateful for the continuing ideas. There might be times when something looks like it’s going to be a win and a big success in a new product, in a new direction that I’m going, and it falls flat on its face. What I have heard and lived and believe in completely is to fail often and fail early. And again fail is not a word I use often. However in this particular context, I think that it bears itself out that to continue to let the creativity live and breathe is going to bring back certain levels of success and forward motion and other times it’s going to be hitting a brick wall. As far as what I’m going to do to prevent it re-occurrence, probably nothing because I do believe that as long as I’m above ground, if I don’t fuel and fan that fire of creative ideas I’ll miss the good ones. There will be some that won’t go any place and I’ll miss the good ones and I’m not willing to do that.

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

Paulette Ensign: I think the decision about making the cross country move probably ranks way up there as far as a big decision, and it is something that came from pain like so many things in life. I was feeling like it was time for me to leave the East Coast and I wasn’t quite sure what that was going to look like because I have always lived on the East Coast. I had been hoping that by traveling around doing speaking engagements that I have done for quite a few years now that some place would jump out at me with my name on it, and in fact it hadn’t. At one point I finally decided that it was time to do this and what was that going to look like. I thought to myself, “Alright, since I can have whatever I want, what would that look like?” and I thought, “Beach, warmth and an enlightened community.”

I couldn’t think of any place that was really jumping out at me on the East Coast that sounded like that and I wanted to stay in the United States, and I wasn’t crazy about some of the other parts of California. I was coming to a conference the year when all of this was coming to a head, and I’d been to San Diego before, however never with the filters of living here. I tagged a trip on to the beginning of that trip to the conference, and I came here in the first weekend of March, on Friday, and on Sunday I walked on the beach, and June 29^th that year I moved.

People kept saying to me that that was such a big risk, and you know aren’t you apprehensive about what you’ve done, and my steady answer to that has been, “If it turns out that it doesn’t turn out well, I can always move someplace else.” I think that is also representative of so much else in my life, that’s the only thing that I can speak to, is that with the decisions that I’ve made, some of them have turned out great, some of them have turned out better than I could have imagined and some of them have turned out not so great. There is always a new wave coming in and it doesn’t matter how much I’ve messed up the last one. That’s the perspective that I like to share with people and that I view in my life as well.

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

Paulette Ensign: I mentioned that this is my third career so far. The first one, and in general, these three careers, and certainly lots of other things too, each one has shaped my life in certain ways. My first career was I taught stringed instruments: viola, cello and base, in public elementary schools. As my only credentialed background, I have two degrees in music education, and I was a violinist from the age of eight until 38. I taught stringed instruments for quite a long time and I loved it. I loved the kids and I loved the teaching of something brand new. It was the adults that I had a challenge with. After quite a bit of time I decided to leave that and became a professional organizer and consultant going into people’s homes and businesses helping them organize their paper, time and space.

I was very fortunate to be in that industry very early on where I could contribute a lot of time and talent to the development of that industry. My organizing business started a couple of years before the National Association of Professional Organizers was founded.

I am not one of the founders, though I came in very early and was the founding president of the New York Chapter and that was a wonderful experience. In 1991, as I mentioned, when the economy was all different, than it had been, someone had shown me a copy of another tips booklet and I thought I could do one on organizing your business and life, and that opened up a journey that I could never in a million years have mapped out. It has been incredible and it has been worldwide. I’ve had the good fortune to be able to speak in person in countries other than the United States. I have been to Europe several times to speak there, and I do teleclasses all around the world, and have made lots of other connections with people worldwide.

Each one of these three careers has been opportunities, learning, connections with people and experiences. Each and every one of them has shaped my life.

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

Paulette Ensign: I enjoy starting things, and I know that some other folks prefer to maintain things that someone else has started, but I enjoy starting things. I’m a natural trailblazer and it’s not without its challenges because there are more situations than not where starting things require a lot of educating people. For instance, when I was teaching stringed instruments I did it differently. I did it my own way. Not only did I do group lessons and small ensembles of orchestras, I also brought in a full classroom experience, a general experience of teaching an entire third grade by class how to play the violin.

When I was a professional organizer it was very early in that whole industry and people would think labour organizing or ultimately they would think only closet organizing, neither of which was the case. And then with booklets, people kept thinking about using other words, which I don’t want to reinforce at the moment because they are not the word booklet. There are other kinds of publications, and again it’s a question of educating.

I think that the accomplishment that I’m proudest of is that I have taken the three extra brain cells that I have been blessed with and put them to good use teaching other people how to take what they have and make the most of it. Whether I was teaching children how to play an instrument, or whether I was teaching people how to organize their life so it would work better for them, or now teaching people how to take their knowledge and put it into products that can spread the word and make money for them, in each of these ways, I feel very good about influencing people’s live so it makes better experiences for them.

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.

This is a follow-up to yesterday’s post about gratitude. We have already looked at Acres of Diamonds by Russell Conwell, but I thought it worth repeating, especially at this time of the year.

Common Sense Ideas

1. Each of us is right in the middle of our own Acres of Diamonds, if only we would realize it and develop the ground we are standing on before charging off in search of greener pastures
2. Opportunity does not just come along – it is there all the time – we just have to see it
3. In life, when we go searching for “something,” we should know what that “something” looks, smells and tastes like so that we can recognize it when we find it
4. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side
5. Before we give up what we already have, make sure that what we’re getting is better than what we already have
6. Your family comes first, they are part of your support structure and will help you through the most difficult times

Russell Herman Conwell, a lawyer for about fifteen years until he became a clergyman, relates a story told to him by an Arab guide. The story intrigued Conwell so much, that he subsequently used the theme as a basis for his many speeches.

According to the story, as told by the guide, while Conwell was travelling down the Tigris and Euphrates rivers with a party of English travelers, there was a farmer, Ali Hafed, from ancient Persia now known as Iran. Ali Hafed was very wealthy. He owned a very large farm with orchards, grain-fields, and gardens.

One day, a Buddhist priest visited Ali Hafed. During the conversation, this wise priest from the East told Hafed about diamonds. He told Ali Hafed that if “he had one diamond the size of his thumb, he could purchase the county, and if he had a mine of diamonds he could place his children upon thrones through the influence of their great wealth.” Ali Hafed was mesmerized, and though Hafed’s situation hadn’t changed, he went to his bed that night feeling poor and discontented because of envy and greed.

Hafed decided that he wanted a diamond mine. The next day he rushed to see the priest and asked where he could find diamonds. He explained to the priest that he wanted to be immensely rich. Hafed sold his farm, collected the money, left his neighbour to take care of  his family, and went off in search of diamonds.

Hafed wandered around Palestine and Europe until he ran out of money. Donned in rags and feeling wretched, he now knew what it felt like to be truly poor. One day, he stood on the shore of a bay in Barcelona, Spain and threw himself in when a great tidal wave came rolling in, never to be seen again.

Meanwhile back at the farm, one day the new owner picked up an unusual rock about the size of an egg and placed it on his mantle. A few days later, the same old priest visited the farm and immediately realized that the unusual rock was indeed a diamond. The priest and the new owner rushed outside to the place where the owner found the unusual rock, and discovered the diamond mines of Golconda.

Ali Hafed had been standing on his own “Acres of Diamonds” until he sold his farm.

In Acres of Diamonds, Conwell relates countless stories of people who went in search of what they already had. For example, a farmer in Pennsylvania sold his farm for $833 and went to work for his cousin in Canada, collecting oil. Shortly after, the man who purchased the farm found oil worth millions of dollars.

Common Sense Ideas

1. Each of us is right in the middle of our own Acres of Diamonds, if only we would realize it and “mine” the ground we are standing on before charging off in search of greener pastures
2. Opportunity does not just come along – it is there all the time – we just have to see it
3. In life, when we go searching for “something,” we should know what that “something” looks, smells and tastes like so that we can recognize it when we find it
4. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side
5. Before we give up what we already have, make sure that what we’re getting is better than what we already have
6. Your family comes first, they are part of your support structure and will help you get through the most difficult times

Whenever I read Acres of Diamonds, for some reason I am reminded of the biblical Parable of the Prodigal Son. The Prodigal Son was much wiser than Ali Hafed because he at least had the common sense to return home and beg forgiveness.Your diamonds are not in far-away mountains or in distant seas; they are usually in your own back yard if you will take the time to look for them.

What are your feelings toward Ali Hafed? Do you sympathize with him? How might you apply this story to business? We always think that the grass is greener on the other side, but it is seldom that case. In what instances could the grass be greener on the other side? We all make mistakes in life, and we have the potential to learn from them if we leave arrogance outside, and simply reflect on the experience to learn the lessons.

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. I am ready to grow this blog, if you find The Invisible Mentor Blog useful and educational, please encourage your contacts to subscribe. 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.

Click on the links below for electronic complimentary copies of Acres of Diamonds by Russell Conwell. I recommend Acres of Diamonds because of its timeless moral.

http://emotional-literacy-education.com/classic-books-online-c/acrdi10.htm

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/rconwellacresofdiamonds.htm

Photo Credit: Flickr “Dreaming of Diamonds” by Bu via Apture

All book links are affiliate links.

Today, we present Part Two of Christina Ioannidis’ interview. Once again there is lots of useful information for you. Get a pen and notebook and pay special attention to her five life lessons and the steps she took to succeed in her career.

I have conducted hundreds of interviews over the years, and one of the things that I have discovered, is that the advice that interviewees give often transcends a particular job function and industry. So even though Christina is an international speaker, consultant and seasoned entrepreneur, her advice is also good for someone in a staff or management role. You can read more about Christina, her bio is at the end of the interview, and a link to her website is in the Tell me about yourself section. I present Christina Ioannidis.

Interviewee Name: Christina Ioannidis: 

Company Name:  Aquitude

Website: www.aquitude.com

Christina Ioannidis – Your Invisible Mentor

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Christina Ioannidis: I am a Greek-Venezuelan who lives in London. My passion in life is to support other people and inspire individuals to do what they are passionate about, and that’s what I do on a professional and daily basis. I am the founder and CEO of Aquitude.

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

Christina Ioannidis: Studies are showing, and it is my experience that you have to link your personal and professional life. You have to find the intersection between what you are passionate about, the skills that you have, and the market or the role on a professional basis to deliver those skills and bring in that passion. The intersection of those three areas is key.

As an example, in my life, I went to school, to university. I won all the awards that you could possibly win. I was top, top, top and I was going to be the next CEO of Proctor and Gamble. That was my ambition when I was 24. This is not an exaggeration because I was very ambitious. However, what I didn’t realize is that even though I was on a good career path I was desperately unhappy for a very long time and I thought it was because I was single and I didn’t have a boyfriend for five years. And I’m being honest about this because that was the kind of messaging that I gave myself that there was something wrong with me because I didn’t have a partner. I had everything else besides a partner, so I thought if I was unhappy, it must be that.

My redundancies came along and I started aqua, and I realized that it wasn’t because I didn’t have a partner why I was unhappy. I’d gone through life following a path that was expected of me, that I thought was right for me. The day that I started aqua, which I told you about was the day I met my future husband to be, everything changed for me. I lost a lot of weight, I cut my hair, everything about me shifted and I was the happiest and still am the happiest I have ever been. Despite all the upheavals in my life, I’m doing something which is creative. I realize that’s one of my strengths. I’m a very creative person. I am able to use my skills as an inspirer, someone who inspires people.

I love talking in public, I love training, which was what I was doing in the shop as well because I was responsible for getting the customers to sit down and design so I was using those skills. And I’m also using my natural communications skills because I am very external facing in everything I do. These were things that I was not doing before. That’s where the intersection comes in.

Identify what you are best at, what you love doing, which for me is the same thing. If you love doing something, you’re probably best at it, and they are probably your best skills so find a way to bring it into your career, into your job, and if your job doesn’t bring it to you, then do something to change it.

Avil Beckford: What’s a major regret that you’ve had in life?

Christina Ioannidis: I don’t have regrets.

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

1. Focus on what you love doing.
2. Build a network of people to help you through your challenges, whether it’s your Board of Directors, Power Minds Group. These are people who do not necessarily know you too well, but they know you enough to give you an objective view.
3. Use two ears and one mouth ratio, so listen
4. Seize the day. Don’t wait for tomorrow to do what you can do today. Last year I had a really bad accident. I could have died last year. Luckily I was injured but not terminally, so that made me realize how finite our life is. That made me realize that I’ve got to do what I want to do now, and be happy because I don’t know whether in 60 year’s time I’ll be around. Who cares if I have savings or not, because I’ll be lucky to live until I’m 90 years old or 100 years old.
5. Love people around you, share the love, and don’t be embittered. A lot of people walk around in their lives feeling negative, unhappy in their jobs, feeling helpless, and at the same time spreading negative vibes and negative energy. Negative energy only gets people to spew negativity toward you, so it becomes a vicious cycle. Be very aware of the energy you give to other people, because it’s only positive energy that pulls people your way, negative energy pushes them away.

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

Christina Ioannidis: My husband would say that I don’t have down time. But when I have down time, I enjoy going to the gym. I have a lot of energy so it helps me to exercise, do yoga and pilates. I like sitting on the sofa with my husband watching TV and not thinking about anything.

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

Christina Ioannidis:

I am a highly visual person so I use mind maps. I start drawing the issue I am thinking about and let my mind run wild. I write words that come into my head, and there is one technique that I use which is called “What if” so I would ask myself “what if you tried X or what if you tried Y” and let the mind map take over the sheet. I also spend a lot of time mulling over things, and it’s just relaxing thinking time, people watching, not so much to getting too involved, but making my brain simmer on what I’m trying to think about.

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

Christina Ioannidis: “Failure is the only opportunity to begin again more intelligently,” by Henry Ford.

Avil Beckford: How do you define success?

Christina Ioannidis: That’s a $10 billion question. I define success by knowing that I have achieved what I want to achieve. Success for me is about the creation of something. I have never associated it with money, that’s why with the failed business I remortgaged my flat. It’s about being happy with what I have achieved what I set out to do, and it has worked the way that I wanted it to.

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

If I had the formula for success I would be selling it in potions.

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

Christina Ioannidis: 

I think when I was in my corporate life I was very successful financially. When I left my corporate life I wasn’t as financially successful because I had a serious setback. However, I think overall I was more successful in my entrepreneurial life because I was able to create something, make it grow to a certain point. Now the steps would be:

• Always keep learning and be open to taking in information even if it’s about an industry, or a way of doing things, or purely about business. Have your radar screen open to what’s going on around you because things can shift from one day to the next. In September 2008 the world changed with the credit crunch and that was in 24 hours. There were warning signs but not many people picked them up.
• Be willing to adapt, as people we are set in our ways, and we do things the way we want to do them, but as entrepreneurial people know, you have to sometimes switch your strategy and positioning because the market may have shifted, or something may have happened externally to the business that will influence you. And this also comes down to the personal level to be flexible because nothing is set in stone.
• Be very clear with your communications with others, so that you don’t get disappointed if a relationship does not work. You have to safeguard yourself against that, and set expectations, agree how you are going to work together.
• Work with people who are different from you, bring in people who complement your skills set. A good example is myself and my co-author. She is a financier so she is highly organized person. I’m very creative and I’m very passionate. Put us together and we complement each other perfectly. It makes for a good collaborative working relationship, but had I not been aware of how different she is to me, we probably would have had so many arguments. But because I know what strengths she brings, she appreciates the strengths I bring, we work very well together, because we both come to it from a place of mutual respect.  When we set out to write the book together, to work together, we said this is the reason we are working together because we know we are complementary, and we say that every time we speak to anybody.

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

Christina Ioannidis:

1. Get yourself a mentor, someone who is respected in the field who could help guide you along the way. And, not just one, try and find as many people as possible that could offer advice. And it doesn’t have to be too formal; it can be on an informal basis.
2. Work really hard but be intelligent about it, so spend your time and energy on things that you want to work on and enjoy doing. But at the same time make sure that all the right people who need to know about your work know it. So that’s about promoting yourself a little bit while you are also performing.
3. Follow your passions and make sure you are always doing something that you really enjoy rather than getting caught up in the whole materialistic “I’m going to have a bigger salary,” because ultimately it comes to the point where it’s not about the salary, it what’s make your heart or gut rise up in flames of passion.

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?

Christina Ioannidis: 

1. Katharine Hepburn because she brings in femininity with a kind of androgynous look so I find her inspiring because she is a beautiful woman and at the same time emancipated for her time, and I like that.
2. I would bring my grandmother back to speak to her one last time.
3. Oprah Winfrey, I find her a very interesting woman.
4. Mahatma Gandhi
5. Indira Gandhi because she was also an interesting woman

I would ask a few questions and simply listen to them.

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

Christina Ioannidis:

I mentioned earlier the role my mother and grandmother played in my life, and there was one book Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang, and it’s a story about three generations of Chinese women. It’s a very thick book, but it’s extremely gripping. It talks about the power that each one of these women had to overcome the challenges of their generation. So that had a very big impact on my life because I completely reflect the story in the story of my grandmother, my mother and myself. I think it’s a book that you would enjoy.

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.

Christina Ioannidis:

You could go one of two ways, you can say I would like to have all my favourite books with me, or if I’m on a deserted island then I have the time to spare to learn something new. So I would take books that I haven’t had the opportunity to read because of life.

• I would take a photo album with pictures of all my family and loved ones. I’m highly visual so I need those pictures.
• I would take Wild Swans : Three Daughters of China because it’s important to keep reminding myself of the story.
• I would take three books that I haven’t read that I’d like to read: The Odyssey and The Iliad of Homer (Volume 3) by Homer; and I would also take a compendium of works by ancient Greek Philosophers to increase my knowledge on the basic fundamentals of philosophy, but also the ethos by which the ancient Greeks established that magnificent spirit of learning. And that by the way is not just male philosophers, there were also female Greek philosophers that I’d love to learn more about.

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

Christina Ioannidis:

Let’s start with film because that’s an easy one for me. I always loved and shared the same passion with my mother for the film Gone with the Wind (Two-Disc 70th Anniversary Edition). And I guess the reason why it’s important is it’s a woman’s story of survival against all odds. I just find it an absolutely beautiful film considering it was made in 1936. It has a lot of interesting parallels to modern day women. I’m challenged with the CD because I would be torn between two. I would take a CD with Chopin’s Nocturne (constitute 21 short pieces for solo piano) and I would also take Requiem in Full Score (Latin Edition). Both those works move me in very different ways.

Gone with the wind (trailer)

If you cannot view the YouTube video click here.

Chopin Nocturne Op.9 No.2 (Arthur Rubinstein)

If you cannot view the YouTube video click here.

Mozart – Requiem

If you cannot view the YouTube video click here.

Avil Beckford: What excites you about life?

Christina Ioannidis: Someone used a phrase called the beautiful texture of life. It’s the tapestry of life which excites me.

Avil Beckford: How do you nurture your soul?

Christina Ioannidis: Taking everything in, being open, being accepting, noticing details of what people are saying, being aware of now instead of thinking about tomorrow all the time.

Avil Beckford: If you had a personal genie and she gave you one wish, what would you wish for? Or, if I gave you a magic wand, what would you use it for?

Christina Ioannidis:Good health!

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

The sun is shining.

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.

About Christina Ioannidis:

Christina Ioannidis (www.christinaioannidis.com) is an international speaker, consultant and seasoned entrepreneur.

A Venezuelan – Greek, she is the founder and CEO of Aquitude (www.aquitude.com) , a leading Organizational, People and Market Development consultancy. Aquitude’s client list include FTSE 100 companies such as Shell, Barclays, Accenture, Mercer, Detica , PA Consulting, among others.

Christina is also sought-after speaker and she delivers interactive and engaging keynotes at conferences worldwide. She is a thought leader in the subjects of gender-savvy leadership and talent management, employee and customer engagement, effective product development and marketing, as well as innovation and intrapreneurship. She has been invited to comment on Sky News, The Sunday Times, The Observer, The Evening Standard, The Guardian, among others.

Christina is the author of “Your Loss: How to Win Back Your Female Talent” (www.yourlossbook.com).

Book links are affiliate links.

Video Credit: Gone With The Wind Movie Trailer Uploaded by beatricecorti on Mar 8, 2008, Chopin’s Nocturne in EbM Op.9 No.2 Uploaded by rmannion on Aug 27, 2007, Mozart Requiem Uploaded by madhammu on Mar 5, 2009.

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Each day I read other blogs to give me a diverse outlook on life. Many of these posts make me think  about things that are not necessarily top-of-mind for me. Some of these bloggers write posts that I wish I had written.

What about you, do you spend time each day getting to know what others think and do outside your sphere of influence? Here are seven blog posts that I would like you to read. Some are for information only, while some are meant to further knowledge. If you like them, why don’t you leave comments for the bloggers, I’m sure they would appreciate that.

Leadership & Loyalty by Mike Myatt, N2growth

What All Great Leaders Have In Common by Mike Myatt, N2growth

8 Great Mind Mapping Tools for Effective Brainstorming by Abhijeet Mukherjee, Dumb Little Man

How to Massively Increase Your Reading Comprehension by RJ Weiss, Dumb Little Man

Top 10 Click Getters from the Free Learning Monitor by Jeff Cobb, Mission to Learn

5 Free Online Writing Courses for Freelancers by Kristen Fischer, Freelance Switch

Why Your Blog is Not Going to Make you Rich (Or Pay the Bills), Guest Blog Post from Blog Tyrant, Problogger

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.

While I was reading How to Get Great Ideas by Estelle H. Ries (1961), it became evident that it was simply a new spin on the information by James Webb Young (Technique for Producing Great Ideas) and Graham Wallas (Creativity Model in Art of Thought, which is an extension of Hermann von Helmholtz‘s model) that we have covered on this blog, but generating great ideas is an important art so it’s worth repeating. To make this process relevant, think about the following or any other pressing need, and use the formula to see where it leads you:

• Process that needs improving at work
• Product does not work the way you’d like it to
• Past ideas that were ahead of their time that could work now
• Problems that keep recurring
• Or any pressing issue that you’re facing

Step One: Preparation

• Choose your topic of  interest from the list above
• Develop a set of decision criteria to judge the quality of the ideas

There are two types of information to gather:

Specific

1. Gather as much information as possible on the topic of interest
   1. Look for  case studies in your industry and unrelated industries
   2. Conduct research on the internet
   3. Conduct research using commercial databases, you can access many through your public library portal
   4. Research industries different from your own to determine if there are ideas you can transfer
   5. Interview subject matter experts
   6. Brainstorm with colleagues
   7. Conduct focus group interviews
2. Read all the information gathered and synthesize them
3. Write down the information on 3×5 index cards, one item per card
4. Classify the information by sections of the topic of interest

Read the post How to Analyze Information to evaluate the quality of the data you gathered.

General

1. This is an ongoing process throughout your life. Information from wide experience prepares your mind to see a particular subject matter in relation  to other things
2. Record any interesting information you come across in a scrapbook or other filing method that makes sense for you
3. Use your cell phone if you have one, or a camera to capture any interesting scenes that you see, both photos and videos and create a file on your computer in which to save them
4. Attend speeches, workshops, seminars and so on that are unrelated to your work just because they interest you, and take notes
5. Visit the websites How Stuff Works, AskNature.org and Ted.com often and read for a while
6. Go to your favorite bookstore and pick up magazines that are unrelated to your area
7. Go to magazine portals such as MagPortal.com and Magatopia and read about what’s happening in other industries and countries
8. Find incubator programs and innovation centers to learn about what new innovations are in the pipeline. There is a National Business Incubator Association. There is an association for practically anything
9. Discover what university research labs are working on
10. Re-read the answers to, “What process do you use to generate new ideas?” in the interviews conducted on this blog
11. Subject yourself to new experiences
12. Every so often, pull up the information and review them

Step 2: Working Over the Information in Your Mind

1. Look at the information you gathered from many different angles
2. Synthesize the information
3. Merge two facts and see how they fit together
4. Connect the information with what you already know (could be your general knowledge), nothing exists in a vacuum
5. As tentative or partial ideas come to you, no matter how crazy or incomplete, document them on the index card, one idea per card
6. Do not stop until you have at least one partial or incomplete idea
7. When everything is a jumble or it is pointless for you to do additional work, it is time for the next step

Step 3: Incubation

1. Turn over the problem to your subconscious mind
2. Take a break or work on an unrelated task or do something which stimulates the imagination and emotions

Step 4: Illumination - Eureka! I have It

1. When you least expect it, the idea comes to you (You have an aha moment)

Step 5: Verification/Implementation/Shaping & Developing the Idea

1. The idea will unlikely be ready to be implemented as is
2. Subject it to criticism – test it, then refine it
   1. Use the criteria you developed in Stage I to judge the quality of the solution
   2. Refine the idea if you have to
   3. Implement the idea
   4. Evaluate the idea
   5. If you find that the solution doesn’t work, go through the process again

How did the process work for you? Was it easy or difficult? What do you have to add to the conversation? What process do you use to generate ideas? 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.

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