The Invisible Mentor

Posts Tagged ‘Dalai Lama’

Interviewee Name: Runa Magnusdottir, CEO & Founder

Company Name: Connected Women

Website: http://www.Connected-Women.com

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Runa Magnusdottir: I am an Icelandic woman, I’m an entrepreneur. I’ve owned companies, bought companies, started up companies, and sold companies throughout my adult life. Today I work doing things that I’m really passionate about and that is to coach business people mainly to help them discover their own passions in life and also help them on the personal branding and marketing side.

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

Runa Magnusdottir: I have one life and my personal and professional life are linked together. I’m very passionate about what I’m doing, and personally if I’m going to be authentic, if I’m going to be open, if I’m going to be working on the things that matter the most to me I can’t see how I’m going to divide my personal and professional life. It has to be together.

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

Runa Magnusdottir: Live, love and laugh.

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

Runa Magnusdottir: With my family. If not with my family it’s in the wilderness with my dog.

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

Runa Magnusdottir: I’m good at getting great ideas. My best ideas come to me when I’m traveling alone and I’m 30,000 feet up in the air, and there is no e-mail, no phone, and nobody talking to me. That’s where my best ideas come alive.

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

Runa Magnusdottir: “Whether you think you can or can’t it’s both right, you decide.”

Avil Beckford: How do you define success?

Runa Magnusdottir: I define success when you achieve the things you’re aiming for, and that you’re doing something that has a purpose for you. There has to be a purpose.

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

Runa Magnusdottir: Having a very clear vision, be passionate about the things that you’re doing and believe you can do it. Have fun and you have to love what you’re doing because there are going to always be obstacles in the way and having fun makes it easier. And to become successful you cannot do it alone, you have to have people around you, people who believe in you. And you have to have the mindset that you can do it and that links to the belief.

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

Runa Magnusdottir: The steps I took to succeed in my field was to do a lot of personal development, find out what was important to me. I think it’s important for everyone to find their purpose.

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

Runa Magnusdottir: Definitely to look at the things that really make them happy. So often you see people, and I quite understand why that happens, they go to school to learn something that they’re not particularly fascinated about, but someone around them say that they should be doing that because of whatever the reason is. At the end of the day, it is they who are going to be doing the job, not the one who told them to do it. So find out what makes you happy, what it is that I can do more of to keep me happy because you know when you’re around happy people who are content with themselves. It’s a joy to be around them.

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?

Runa Magnusdottir:

1. Let’s start with the cliché. I would really like to meet the Dalai Lama. That would be a fantastic opportunity to meet him because the whole history around him and the message he is giving the world is so unique. If I met him I would just sit there and listen to him.
2. I would really like to meet President Barack Obama.
3. I would love to meet Ellen Degeneres who I think is an amazing woman and the same goes for Meryl Streep. Both of them are so amazing because the images I have of them are independent women who do what they think is right and do it for from their heart. With Ellen, it’s the laughter that she gives, it’s such a gift.
4. The fifth person I’d like to meet is Jesus Christ. I would like to sit down and learn more, and there is probably so much missing from the story about Mary Magdalene and all the female powerhouse around Jesus at the time, I’d definitely want to meet him.

For President Obama, Ellen Degeneres and Meryl Streep I would invite them to come to Iceland.

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

Runa Magnusdottir: The Alchemist by Paulo Cuelho. The book was plain and easy and explained life in an easy and powerful way about how simple it really is. That was the message I took from it.

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.

Runa Magnusdottir: I would take the renowned books in the Icelandic Sagas (the history of Iceland from the Viking time) and finally have the opportunity to read, understand and be wowed like hundreds of thousands of people who have read them. I have never had the opportunity to do so and on a deserted island I would use that opportunity.

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

The Beatles- Hey Jude (Official Video)

If you cannot view the Beatles YouTube video, please click here.

Runa Magnusdottir: I would take a one of the Beatles’ CD because I love to sing the Beatles songs. When I’m reading the Icelandic Sagas it would be nice to hum the Beatles songs. The Beatles CD and Icelandic Sagas would be enough for me and I would make my own movies in my mind.

Avil Beckford: What excites you about life?

Runa Magnusdottir: Everything literally.

Avil Beckford: How do you nurture your soul?

Runa Magnusdottir: I nurture my soul by being excited about my life.

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

Runa Magnusdottir: More gendered opportunities in the world.

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

I make other people happy.

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Interviewee Name: Mireille Landry, President & Managing Director

Company Name: Solution ML Limited

Website: http://www.solutionml.ca

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

I was born in Quebec City, moved a couple of times – Montreal, New Brunswick, and Toronto. I married my high school sweetheart and we have one daughter who is 21 years old. I had 21 years of successful corporate leadership career and became a new entrepreneur last year.

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

Mireille Landry: I want it all. I expect it all. My family is extremely involved, more so today, in my professional life, whether they are advisers to me or I share ideas and thoughts with them. My daughter is for example my webmaster, so she contributes in my business in the way that she can. My husband is a superb supporter. I couldn’t do without him. Even more so now that I am a business owner I would say my personal and professional life are more integrated than it was before. I can’t say I was very good at that in the past, in the first part of my life.

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

Mireille Landry:

1. I truly believe that you can have it all. I know that’s counterintuitive to what a lot of people say. You can have it all but you just have to be able to prioritize.
2. Networking is really important and it is important to nurture and take care of your network over the years.
3. You have to define success. The way that each one of us defines success can be different. Measure your success against your definition of it, not against someone else’s definition of success.
4. Have fun and be passionate in everything that you do. When you show up, you show up at one hundred percent. So if you are at a family event you need to be there 200 percent, all of you have to be there. It’s the same when you are in a business setting.

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

Mireille Landry: I love to golf. I’m an avid reader. I try to walk with my dogs every day. Depending on how much down time I have, if it’s a lengthy down time I love to travel. I call my parents who are great advisors to me. It’s nice to catch up with them because they live far away.

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

Mireille Landry: I like to get in the hot tub, or go biking, or do something like that, and that usually gets my wheels turning. I never sit down to generate ideas. That doesn’t work for me. I almost have to write down what I am looking for, what’s the topic of the ideas, and then I need to let my mind loose and then ideas pop up. The hot tub one works really nicely.

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

Mireille Landry: I have many. I think the one I like the most I put it up on my website on the first page. “We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails,” and my husband and I both love that quote because it reminds us that we don’t control what happens to us, but we control how we react to it. And it’s just a different way of saying it. We are sailors, we love to sail so that works out really well for us.

Avil Beckford: How do you define success?

Mireille Landry: For me success is enjoying what I do, and being able to do what matters. What matters to me is being there for my 21 year old daughter, being there for family. Success from a professional standpoint is doing something that I adore, that I feel that I can contribute, but being able to balance effectively my time among all the different priorities. Life is too short not to enjoy what we are doing.

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

Mireille Landry: You need to set goals. You need to plan your goals from all areas of your life: professional, personal, spiritual, health, all these different slices of the pie. You plan what you want to accomplish but allow life to steer, and accept what is being put in front of you and try to open doors that instinctively you would not have gone through. Take a little bit of risk. You never know what may be on the other side of that door. So the planning is important because without planning you will get nowhere. But give some leeway in how you get there.

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

Mireille Landry: I always established goals – short-term, mid-term and long-term goals. I had visions and most of the time I would call it visions because they were visuals more than words. I worked hard and long and that life lesson of allowing life to steer sometimes and take a door that you wouldn’t usually take. It’s not something I did in the past, but it’s something that I’m doing now. Pick yourself up when you fail, and learn from that and keep going.

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

Mireille Landry: Find mentors, gender-balanced mentors, and it’s okay to have more than one mentor. It’s good to have different types of mentors. Read in your field, and try to contribute even if you’re just starting out. There are always ways to contribute to your field whether it’s by volunteering – events, activities. Be a continuous learner and be a good person and give back.

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?

Mireille Landry:

1. Martin Luther King: I would like him to tell me his dreams. I’ve read his book but I’d like for him to share with me his dream and how he felt about it today, and what he would do differently going forward.
2. Nelson Mandela: I would love to hear how he kept his spirit, and how he stayed motivated and grounded all those years.
3. Shania Twain: I would love to talk about her recipe for staying grounded. She seems to be very approachable and casual. She protected her personal life and I’d love to learn lessons from her.
4. Betty DeVita: She was a speaker at Women of Influence luncheon recently. She was at Citibank for the longest time and now she’s the president of MasterCard in Canada. I thought she was a very inspirational speaker, one of the best, if not the best that I have seen at the Women of Influence luncheon, and I’ve gone to many. I would love to tell her how great a speaker she was, and dig a little bit more into how she’s personally achieving balance in prioritization. Not everything has equal time, but she is juggling different priorities and I’d love to talk more about that.
5. Dalai Lama: I would try to gain pieces of wisdom from him, learn more on his philosophy on how to achieve peace of mind and how he does it, always being so serene.

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

Mireille Landry: If I picked only one book it would be The Dream, the Martin Luther King speech which inspired a nation.

Avil Beckford: If you were stranded on a deserted island, what are five books that you would like to have with you and why?

Mireille Landry:

1. I would like the have The Voyage of the Northern Magic: A Family Odyssey, which is a sailing book. It’s an inspirational story of a family who left everything they had and went traveling (husband and wife with their three children). I think it’s a wonderful and inspiring journey of a family living life together in a very different way.
2. I really enjoyed the series of books from Marcus Buckingham: First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently; Now, Discover your Strengths, he’s got a few, but I think I’d pick the first one, First, Break All the Rules.
3. I think I’d bring Igniting the Third Factor: Lessons from a Lifetime of Working with Olympic Athletes, Coaches and Business Leaders by Dr. Peter Jensen, which is about the core practices of exceptional leaders. He’s got so many great stories in there from the locker room because he was a coach for the Olympic hockey team. He’s got lots of athletes and business leaders stories.
4. Another book that transformed me which I really liked is The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander. It’s inspirational. It’s about transforming your personal and professional life so it challenges your assumptions. It gets you into a better mindset from where you are today. It’s certainly a worthwhile and inspiring read.
5. An Embarrassment of Mangoes: A Caribbean Interlude: It is a delicious chronicle of leaving the type-A lifestyle behind — and discovering the seductive secrets of life in the Caribbean. Who hasn’t fantasized about chucking the job, saying goodbye to the rat race, and escaping to some exotic destination in search of sun, sand, and a different way of life? Canadians Ann Vanderhoof and her husband, Steve did just that. In the mid 1990s, they were driven, forty-something professionals who were desperate for a break from their deadline-dominated, career-defined lives. So they quit their jobs, rented out their house, moved onto a 42-foot sailboat called Receta (“recipe,” in Spanish), and set sail for the Caribbean on a two-year voyage of culinary and cultural discovery.

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

Mireille Landry: The music CD would be a medley of jazz artists. I love the movie, The Notebook. It’s just such a beautiful love affair. It’s sad how it ends, but we will all end up like that. I just think it’s such a beautiful love story.

If you cannot view Louis Armstrong – Hello Dolly Live YouTube video click here.

Avil Beckford: What excites you about life?

Mireille Landry: Life itself! I think life is beautiful. Being able to contribute, being able to make a difference, and depending on the season, enjoying small things like trees coming alive again, excites me about life – the small things we take for granted. Our ability to be free here in Canada, freedom of speech, or our ability to be who we want and being able to dream, reach out and achieve those excites me.

Avil Beckford: How do you nurture your soul?

Mireille Landry: When I can I take time to travel with my best friend, my husband, and just enjoy each other’s  company. Also living simply, enjoying the simple things in life such as a walk in the woods.

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

Mireille Landry: I would wish for a lot of things. I would wish for having greater wisdom to make the right decisions in my life and to guide other people with that same wisdom.

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

Mireille Landry: I’m happy when I make a difference.

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.

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YouTube video credit truerhymer.

This is the second segment of the interview with Duke Redbird. I learn so much from these interviews, and I hope you do too, and I never know what I will take away. When Duke was asked about his one wish, he responded that he’d like to see what the world looks like in 100 years. And he would take the 25-volume set of Encyclopedia Britannica on a deserted island because that’s all he would need. Duke told a story about a core message from his mentors and I was touched by it, we are our brother’s keeper. We live in a me-me-me world, but that’s no excuse. What are your thoughts?

Tell me a little bit about yourself.

I am a First Nations Ojibwe Elder from Saugeen, a small reserve located in Ontario. I was born in 1939 so I’m 70 years old and will be 71 in March. I lived my entire life between the sacred and the profane, and I see the sacred as anything that has been created by the creator and nature, and the profane as anything that has been created by human beings. So when I am in the sacred I try not to profane it, and when I am in the profane, like I am today, I try to bring something sacred to it, so that’s my rule and prime directive.

What’s an accomplishment that you are proudest of?

I am very proud of my three wonderful children: a boy and two girls and grandchildren. They haven’t given me any trouble or worry. It’s a proud accomplishment to see how well they turned out.

How did mentors influence your life?

They influenced me in terms of encouraging me to understand that the pursuit of money and power as an end was unwise and that the best advice I got, often was follow your bliss. Use the talents that you were gifted with and the money will come.

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

Be wise. I remember I was on a reserve in Morley, Alberta and there was this man in his late seventies or early eighties sitting under a tree. I sat beside him and he said to me, “What do you think about white man’s insurance?” and I said that I had never thought about it because I have never had it. He said, “I have thought about it a lot because they came around to my house to sell me insurance and I didn’t buy it,” and I said, “why?” he said, “When I was a young  man, about your age, I would chop wood for the older folks. I am an old man now, when I need a pillow someone gives it to me, and if I tell them to chop wood, they chop wood for me. That’s Native insurance. White man’s insurance won’t do that for you.” And that was the conversation and it has lived with me ever since.

Which resources (books, movies, training etc.) did your mentors recommend to you?

They encouraged me to read non-fiction books.

As an Invisible Mentor, what is one piece of advice that you would give to readers?

Realize that what gets everyone up in the mornings is one of four motivations or a combination of them: money, power, self preservation and romance, which includes all the arts, and everything associated with the arts. These are the motivators, and put more emphasis on the self preservation and romance side, and less on the money and power side. You’ll be a happier person.

How do you integrate your personal and professional life?

I mentor and advise in my career, and I am also a broadcaster. I work in film and television. I write poetry, essays and give speeches. My personal and professional lives are one and the same.

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

The biggest was that I spent more time on activities that were not enhancing and rewarding than I should. This is especially important when you are young.

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

This is a tough question and I could write a book just to give it justice. But I would say don’t sweat the small stuff, the only thing we have is now, this moment, there is truth and relative truth, most people function on relative truth and few people have an idea about what is really truth. Another life lesson is that the opposite of birth is death and the opposite of life is eternity.

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

I watch television, read, go to clubs, engage people, take walks, and sit in cafes. I also like discovering the city and the environment, wherever it happens to be.

What process do you use to generate great ideas?

I guess the fact that there are no great ideas inspires me.

What’s your favourite quotation and why?

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It’s the golden rule and if everyone followed that we would have a better world to live in.

How do you define success?

Success is getting what you want, but happiness is wanting what you get.

In your opinion what’s the formula for success?

Success is when you get what you want.

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

Never burn bridges, treat everyone with respect, and follow the golden rule.

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

Be compassionate and have charity in your heart.

If trusted friends could introduce you to five people that you’ve always wanted to meet, who would you choose?

Dalai Lama, President Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela, and Eckhart Tolle

Which one book had a profound impact on your life?

The Bible

If you were stranded on a deserted island, what are five books that you would like to have with you and why?

Encyclopedia Brittanica, that’s all you need.

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

The one CD is anything by Jesse Winchester and the movie is The Godfather.

What excites you about life?

The fact that it exists at all.

How do you nurture your soul?

I write poetry.

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?

I would like to see what the world will look like in 100 years.

Complete the following, I am happy when…..

I get what I want and I want what I get.

What nuggets of wisdom have you gleaned from Duke’s interview? How might you apply his responses to your situation.

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