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The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (1802 – 1870) is one of the best books that I have read, and if you love a good story filled with drama, then this is the book for you. I was very captivated and wanted to find out how the story ended. I was a bit disappointed with the ending, but you do not always get what you want. With any good book, there are many life lessons embedded in the story, as well as big ideas.

At over 500 pages, the Penguin, Signet Classic version of The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas is an abridged version, so the original must have been very long. While reading the book, I didn’t feel as if I missed anything. The book was first published in a serialized format from 1844-1845.

The Count Of Monte Cristo Theatrical Trailer HD

If you cannot view the YouTube movie trailer of The Count of Monte Cristo, please click here.

In the story, 19 year old Edmond Dantès, a sailor, has just returned from a voyage. Dantès has a very happy personality and is very grateful for life. After being away for a few months, he goes to visit his father and then on to see his beloved Mercedes. While on the voyage, Captain Leclère dies from brain fever, but before this happens, he givse Dantès two envelops to deliver. Though Dantes is quite young he captains the Pharaon to their final destination – Marseilles. Before he docks the ship, Dantès takes the time to deliver one of the letters.

Dantès and Mercédès are deeply in love and plan to get married. Monsieur Fernand Mondego is also in love with Mercédès and is jealous of Dantès. Monsieur Danglars, the purser of the Pharaon, is envious of Dantès because the owner of the Pharaon, M. Morrel makes him the new ship captain. During the bethrothal feast, Dantès is arrested for being a Bonapartist faction, but is not told anything about the charges.

During Dantès’ examination by M. de Villefort, the Deputy Procureur Du Roi, believes what he is hearing, but when he reads the second letter that Dantès is supposed to deliver, he is quite frightened and burns the letter, telling the young man not to ever tell anyone about the letter suggesting that the contents would harm him. The letter that Dantès is supposed to deliver is addressed to M. de Villefort’s father, who is a Bonapartist. If anyone sees the letter it would be damaging to  M. de Villefort’s career. Dantès is very naive and believes that he will be freed, but that wasn’t to be the case. He is imprisoned at the Château d’If for 14 years.

While in the prison dungeon, Dantès is quite distraught and thinks of ways to kill himself. He also thinks of ways to escape his prison, and tries to dig his way out. One day he hears a sound and realizes that there is another prisoner as well in the dungeon of the prison. He calls out to the prisoner, and after a short time they are able to meet each other face-to-face via a tunnel they dig.

The next part of the story is critical to the plot because it’s the point in Dantès’ life when he becomes awakened. His fellow inmate is a learned priest, Abbé Faria, who is also condemned to lifelong imprisonment. Abbé Faria also has an escape plan. Both can relate to each other because they are wrongfully accused. Abbé Faria asks Dantès to relate everything that happened to him prior to imprisonment and they would figure out what really happened. The important thing that Faria wants to know is who stood to gain the most from Dantès imprisonment – surprise, surprise, Fernand and Danglars.

The priest was regretful that he helped Dantès to figure out the people who did him wrong, because he loses his innocence and now wants revenge. Abbé Faria becomes a mentor to Dantès, and he is a worthy one. At the time, Dantès had been in prison four or five years. The priest commits to teaching Dantès all he knows during the next two years and they draw up a plan to do so. He teaches Dantès history, mathematics, physics and the three or four languages he knew. Dantès’ mind was like a sponge, “Dantès had a prodigious memory and a great facility for assimilation. The mathematical turn of his mind gave him aptitude for all kinds of calculation, while the sense of poetry that is in every sailor gave life to dryness of figures and severity of lines.

Abbé Faria and Dantès develop a true friendship, one of give and take, and they develop a great trust between each other. The priest however suffers from cataleptic fits and has one. He had the opportunity to tell Dantes what to do and the young man gives him the medicine and brings him back from the brink.

Abbé Faria discloses the whereabouts of a treasure that he will seek when he escapes from prison and offers Dantès half when they escape. These two men demonstrate patience while they execute their escape plan. Though Dantès wants revenge against those who did him wrong, there is much goodness within him, and even when freedom is close by, he decides to stay with the priest. The priest tells him when he dies, Dantès should execute the escape plan and all the treasure is his. When Abbé Faria has the third attack, it’s fatal.

When the gaolers do their daily check on the prisoners in the dungeon they realize that Abbé Faria is dead. The priest is placed in a death sack for burial. Dantès gets the idea to swap the priests body and lie in the death sack, so he makes the switch. He makes sure that he has an implement to dig himself out of the grave. Dantès does not realize that inmates have a watery grave because they are thrown into the sea. They weight him down so the body will sink when thrown into the sea, and fortunately for him he has a knife and uses it to free himself, and his ability as a strong swimmer saves him.

Dantès is picked up by pirates and has a prepared story about who he is. Even though he is free, he doesn’t seek the treasure immediately, instead he spends months working as a sailor for the pirates until the time is right, timing is always everything. The treasure is exactly where Abbé Faria figured out where it would be and it is vast. Dantès becomes the Count of Monte Cristo, and because so many years has elapsed since he was imprisoned, his features have changed, so his old “friends” are not able to recognize him. However, he is able to recognize all of them.

Abbé Faria trained and mentored Dantès well, so he knows what it is like to be patient, and one of the things that I admire about him is that he also uses some of the treasure to do good. The story really takes off from here as he investigates and learns how his father died and what became of his love, Mercédès. Fernand has married Mercédès and is now known as Count de Morcerf.

The story is actually quite gripping, and Dantès masterfully executes his plan of revenge against those who harmed him. Mercédès discovers that Dantès is the Count of Monte Cristo and appeals to him to spare her son’s life, when the two are supposed to fight a duel. He listens to her, which says that he has not lost all his compassion and goodness. The key players who had a hand in his imprisonment suffer terribly.

Maybe I expect too much, but I didn’t find the end of the story gratify, it feels unfinished to me.

Lessons from The Count of Monte Cristo

• Having mentors in life is so important.
• Money should not be hoarded but used to help others to do good.
• Revenge is never a good thing.
• Feed your mind and master the fundamental knowledge in your field.
• Be compassionate.
• Forgive, forgive, and forgive.

People who read The Invisible Mentor regularly know that I am trying to read the classics, and have been struggling because they move so slowly. The Count of Monte Cristo is gripping and has so much to offer, especially when you read actively. The book is not among the must read classic literature, but I highly recommend The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. If you want to to purchase The Count of Monte Cristo movie (Click the link. I recommend that you read the book, but I recognize that not everyone enjoys reading as much as I do).

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

• Interview With Invisible Mentor Sean MacDonald, Lawyer for the Wrongfully Convicted
• Interview With Invisible Mentor Sean MacDonald, Lawyer for Wrongfully Convicted Part Two
• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas – BBC Radio Drama
• Review: The Count of Monte Cristo
• Alexandre Dumas – The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged)
• The count of Monte Cristo Download from Gutenberg.org

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Video Credit: Uploaded by ShauntProductions on Apr 3, 2010

This is what we talked about on The Invisible Mentor Blog this week: Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwel, Black History Month – Madam C J Walker, Operated the Largest Black-Owned Business in the Early Twentieth Century, and Carol McManus, America’s LinkedIn Lady.

Adventures in Learning

I frequently talk about mentoring occurring in moments, and this was evident at mediabistro’s Socialize Toronto conference last Friday. Profound conversations can take place over seconds and minutes. By watching conference attendees you could tell by the look on their faces that it was worth their time to attend the conference.

Mentoring in Moments at Socialize Toronto 

Booked for Mentoring

I have been reading Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell for over two months, and it’s the first time I have ever taken so long to read a book that I actually enjoyed. I have read at least 20 other books during the two months, but I needed a lot of time to digest and process what I was reading in Outliers. When you hear about Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, the first thing that often comes to mind is that it takes 10,000 to master a subject. However the book is so much more than that.

Booked for Mentoring: Review – Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

Wisdom of Life Profile

This month is Black History Month and we will start off with Madam C J Walker, and follow up with other profiles of people who contributed to black history. Madam C J Walker took her $1.50 in savings and turned it into a $117,000 business in eight short years – the next year she was a featured speaker at the National Negro Business League Conference. It is worthy to note that Madam Walker was able to send her daughter to college from the money she made as a laundress.

Black History Month – Madam C J Walker, Operated the Largest Black-Owned Business in the Early Twentieth Century 

Interviews for Mentoring

This week we featured Carol McManus, America’s LinkedIn Lady. Some of the biggest messages from the interview are the importance of having sponsors, mentors, and being open to opportunities. Here are Part One and Part Two of Carol McManus’ interview.

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Book link is affiliate link.

I have been reading Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell for over two months, and it’s the first time I have ever taken so long to read a book that I actually enjoyed. I have read at least 20 other books during the two months, but I needed a lot of time to digest and process what I was reading in Outliers. When you hear about Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, the first thing that often comes to mind is that it takes 10,000 to master a subject. However the book is so much more than that.

According to Gladwell, “This book is about outliers, about men and women who do things that are out of the ordinary….People don’t rise from nothing. We do owe something to parentage and patronage. The people who stand before kings may look like they did all themselves. But in fact they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn to work hard and make sense of the world in ways others don’t.”

Cover of Outliers: The Story of Success

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell demonstrates to readers why some people succeed, while others fail even though both may put in 10,000 hours. Other elements are critical for success, it’s simply not only about putting in the hours and working hard. When I just started reading Outliers, I wrote the post Do Big Breaks, Mentoring, and Hard Work Equal to Success? to explore the idea. Gladwell says that to be successful, on top of hard work, you also have to get opportunities. For instance, Bill Gates worked hard writing computer programs, but he also had access to a computer which most people didn’t, which gave him an advantage, and then he also had the opportunity to use those programming skills.

Ingredients of Success

• Passion
• Talent
• Hard Work
• Opportunity
• Arbitrary Advantage

What’s this 10,000 hours that people are talking about?

Researchers have shown time and time again that to become excellent at mastering complex tasks requires 10,000 hours of hard practice. And the most successful people got the opportunity they needed to learn how to become an expert. For instance, The Beatles got numerous opportunities to play in clubs to accrue their 10,000 hours.  They recognized the opportunities and accepted them.

In addition, there were many transformative moments in history that helped to make millionaires, and timing was everything. For example, the industrial era in the United States, which was pre and post the American Civil War in the 1860s and 1870s, people like John D. Rockerfeller, Andrew Carnegie and Marshall Field were able to capitalize on that. Another transformative era was the personal computer revolution, which people Bill Gates and Bill Joy capitalized on.

Given all that has been mentioned, to be successful, work has to be satisfying because you’ll likely put in the necessary hours to gain expertise. There are three elements for satisfying work – autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward.

One thing that I had never thought much about, which the book gave prominence to is that “it matters where you’re from, not just in terms of where you grew up or where your parent grew up, but in terms of where your great-grandparents grew up and great-great-grandparents grew up…” It’s interesting that I have always been able to accept ambiguity, and I learned in Outliers that’s because of my Jamaican heritage.

A big takeaway from Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell is that, say for instance you are a surgeon, you have to understand what it really means to be a good surgeon, “when we understand how much culture and history and the world outside of the individual matter to professional success – then we don’t have to throw up our hands in despair…We have a way to make successes out of the unsuccessful.” And you can learn to remove cultural barriers that prevent you from being successful and living up to your true potential.

Five Great Ideas

1. Success is the result of “accumulative advantages.”
2. Success simple isn’t a function of individual merit, and the world in which we grew up in; and the rules we choose to write as a society does matter.
3. Success is a function of persistence, doggedness and willingness.
4. To become successful you have to master the art of standing up for yourself, and learn how to navigate systems and bureaucracies.
5. Power distance, which is concerned with attitudes toward hierarchy, specifically with how much a particular culture values and respects authority, plays a role in professional success.

I recommend world Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. However, to get the most from the book, you have to allocate the time to reflect and contemplate on what you are reading. 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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This is what we talked about on The Invisible Mentor Blog this week: Read This Before Our Next Meeting by Al Pittampalli, Wisdom of Life: Susan Brownell Anthony, Women’s Rights Activist and Abolitionist, and Maggie Berry, Women in Technology.

Adventures in Learning

For National Mentoring Month, consider creating your Personal Board of Mentors. Having one mentor is seldom ever enough these days, because no one person can assist you with all your mentoring needs. It is your responsibility to ensure that all your needs are taken care of.

Create Your Board of Mentors – January is National Mentoring Month 

Booked for Mentoring

While I was in my degree program at Haskayne School of Business, the University of Calgary, we had to watch a film, Meetings, Bloody Meetings, starring John Cleese, and that stuck with me. I was reminded of that film as I read, Read This Before Our Next Meeting by Al Pittampalli.

Booked for Mentoring – Book Review: Read This Before Our Next Meeting by Al Pittampalli 

Wisdom of Life Profile

Wisdom of Life: Susan Brownell Anthony was very outspoken and said what was on her mind, which made her an excellent reformer. While working as a teacher, she discovered that male teachers earned $10 a week while their female counterparts earned a measly $2.50. Anthony raised her objections and subsequently was fired. That did not dampen her spirits though. Over the years, Anthony voiced her objections about many issues such as slavery, women’s inability to manage their own money, and right to vote. It was the tireless work of Anthony and her colleagues that allowed women many rights that they now take for granted.

Wisdom of Life: Susan Brownell Anthony, Women’s Rights Activist and Abolitionist 

Interviews for Mentoring

This week we featured Maggie Berry, Women in Technology in London. One of the biggest messages form Berry is to network, network and network. Here are Part One and Part Two of Maggie Berry’s interview.

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 in my degree program at Haskayne School of Business, the University of Calgary, we had to watch a film, Meetings, Bloody Meetings, starring John Cleese, and that stuck with me. I was reminded of that film as I read, Read This Before Our Next Meetingby Al Pittampalli.

Image via Wikipedia

However, meetings are vital to ensure that critical decisions get made in organizations, and teams are working effectively on complex projects. Therefore, the word meeting should be reserved for decision-making.  There should be no meetings to dispense information; instead, the organization should create a culture where its people read memos. There should be no working meetings, however, teams that need to work together, should do exactly that. A meeting is not for conversations. And when you have a meeting, only those who really need to be there should attend.Read This Before Our Next Meeting is one of the books in Seth Godin’s Domino Project, that I received for free, and finally got around to reading it – sure glad I did. It can be read in an hour, and it’s a little book packed with a lot of punch because it gives you a lot to think about. And if you take it to heart, you will literally not look at meetings the same way again. The author suggests that we should redefine our definition of a meeting because there are too many meetings, and most of them are bad.

Although brainstorming is important to create many options for decision-making, you do not call a meeting for it. Instead, you have a brainstorming session where people free themselves to let their minds roam, leading to breakthrough thinking.

Pittampalli offers ten ground rules for brainstorming. I particularly like ground rule number seven – “Let’s have a clear focus. Make sure the brainstorm is free, but not a free-for-all. The ideas should be targeted in the direction of the problem at hand. Create a problem statement and make sure people are on task.” And I would add that to create a clear problem statement you have to know the difference between cause and effect to get to the root of the problem.

The thinking behind the book is that with fewer meetings, people have more uninterrupted blocks of time to do important work that will make a difference to the organization, causing a much bigger impact. More serious work is what propels an organization forward. For the modern meeting to work effectively, the author offers seven principles.

Seven Principles of the Modern Meeting

1. Supports a decision that has already been made
2. Moves fast and ends on schedule
3. Limits the number of attendees
4. Rejects the unprepared
5. Produces committed action plans
6. Refuses to be informational. Reading memos is mandatory
7. Works only alongside a culture of brainstorming

What the seven principles translate to, is that the decision-maker who calls the meeting has to actually make a decision before the meeting, but be ready to discuss it. If she needs input before the meeting, she calls the appropriate people and gets the information she needs. If she needs buy-in because her decision is controversial, she does that before the meeting takes place by way of one-to-one conversations. At the meeting, she is prepared for a discussion and ready to make changes if necessary, and for a final resolution.

Before the meeting she spends a considerable amount of time thinking about the agenda before creating it. And the agenda created includes what will be covered. Attendees must know before hand what is expected from them, and each meeting should conclude with committed action plans, where each attendee knows what the next steps are – what actions they need to take and when. If the agenda is well thought out, the meeting will move quickly and end on time. This will occur only if the people who really need to be there are present. And all attendees must prepare before the meeting, reading all the memos and related documents.

For those who are not prepared they are not allowed to participate, and could be asked to leave. Meetings start on time, even if all attendees are not present. The modern style of meeting forces people to take action and be accountable. People will have to find the balance between gathering information and making decisions. When people face deadlines, they make decisions faster, even the most difficult ones.

To make sure that the right people attend each meeting, each member should ask themselves four questions:

1. Will I be able to function if I read about it after it’s over?
2. If I’m given the decision we’re discussing in advance, can I give you my opinion in advance?
3. Will I add value without participating?
4. Am I attending symbolically, or as a way to demonstrate my power?

I really appreciated Read This Before Our Next Meeting by Al Pittampalli, and I recommend it because if more people practiced the modern way of meetings, it would revolutionize the way we approach our work and more would get done in less time.

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.