The Invisible Mentor

Posts Tagged ‘Great ideas’

Interviewee Name: Patty DeDominic

Company Name: DeDominic & Associates

Website: http://dedominic.com

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

I’m a businesswoman and an entrepreneur. Now I make my living as a professional coach and I guide high achieving professionals and organizations in making major transitions for themselves and their organizations.

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

It is a challenge. I have three sons and five grandchildren and I try to spend time with them, talk to them online, and in person. Our grandson lives with us right now, he’s a college sophomore and he’s on summer vacation so we have the opportunity to make some positive impacts in our grandson’s life and we love that. My three sons are grown now but I try to stay in touch with them. For a number of years until 2006 my oldest son worked with me in my company and it was really wonderful to watch him grow. He eventually became president of one of my companies. I loved working with him until we sold our organization in 2006.

It does take a lot to juggle personal relationships and family life. I think communication and sharing your dreams and sharing your values with a person in your life – in my case would that be my mate – takes work and effort.

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

1. Be the change you wish to see, and that was one of my wonderful Gandhi quote.
2. A Margaret Mead quote, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
3. The third one would be to follow your passions. Stay in your genius zone you will be more effective.
4. Don’t neglect your fitness because it’s important. Not carrying around an extra 50 pounds is going to make a difference in your energy level and your overall self-esteem, at least it did for me.
5. Always surround yourself with people who are extraordinary. I try to do that in the people I have as clients, employees, business colleagues and I look for people who are passionate, with high personal integrity, and high moral character, who want to do something that’s meaningful for themselves and for their communities. That kind of theme runs through my network, and I believe that my network and other people’s network is a very powerful tool to help you have a much better life. It makes living so wonderful to be able to share it with other extraordinary people who can help each other.

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

I love walking in the hills with my dogs and sometimes with my friends and clients. I love taking hikes. It’s a great way to stay fit and to enjoy sunshine and to think. For me it is better than a golf game.

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

I get great ideas from my friends. I read and I try to learn a lot from other successful people.

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

There are two. One is a beautiful quote by a Chinese philosopher, Lao-tzu, “The journey of a thousand miles must begin beneath one’s feet.” I realized that when I needed to make changes in my life I needed to start where I was. It doesn’t do any good to wish for a miracle to happen. It would be great to win the lottery, but I’m not going to hold my breath until that happens so I must start where I am. The other quote is one that I put in my own book, How I Lost It, “Every day I make time to enjoy the beauty of a fit lifestyle with friends, animals and nature.” And I love that quote because it’s mine and an affirmation for a good life.

Note from Avil: the older translation of the Lao-tzu quote, and the more accurate one is above, but the more popular one is, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

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

By being able to work and do the things you want to do with great people, and to be able to make a difference for yourself and others.

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

The formula for success includes thinking about what you want to accomplish, and believing that you can accomplish it, so it’s conceive, believe and receive and that’s getting help from other people. Receiving success is doing it and making it happen.

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

There were many: I had to study, I had mentors, I had to believe that I could do it, I had to experiment and practice, make mistakes and learn. So those are the steps, it’s conceive, believe, receive, and achieve. Being grateful is an important part of being successful. I think you must be grateful for the things you have that you have been given.

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

If you are starting out as an entrepreneur, I would say to surround yourself with extraordinary people, get crystal clear about what your goals and objectives are then work hard to accomplish it. It’s trial and error. It’s progress and not perfection, and always keep learning.

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?

1. Gandhi because I’d like to know more about how he visualized the world.
2. Margaret Thatcher because I always admired what she did for the world as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
3. I’d like to meet John Kennedy because I think he was a role model for a lot of people in many ways and his vision to put man on the moon was an extraordinary, brave, and bold accomplishment.
4. I would like to meet Jesus Christ and I would like to know if there is anything else I should be doing in my life, and see if he had any additional guidance for me. I try to talk to him frequently, but right now it’s sort of a one-way conversation.
5. I’d like to meet Lady Gaga. I think her audacity is just amazing and I think she and some other contemporary female recording artists are making business history and I would just love to learn a little bit more about what her business goals and strategies are.

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

Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. My father had me read it as a child and I learned a lot from it and I think my interpersonal skills and my ability to relate to other people were guided by Dale Carnegie’s philosophy about learning about other people, trying to help others with their objectives, and that’s how you get your own objectives met as well.

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.

1. Tina Fey’s Bossy Pants. It’s just a great book, I just finished reading it.
2. Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink: I really love what he has to say.
3. Dan Pink’s Free Agent Nation: It was a really interesting discussion about what’s changing in the job market today.
4. Two of my own books: How I Lost It (99pounds.com) and Make it Real (makeitrealsystems.com) which just came out. I would like to read those books, make them better, then when I get off the deserted island I’d like to share them with the world.

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

Midnight in Paris the new Woody Allen movie is just great and the music CD would be anything by Annie Lennox.

If you cannot view Midnight in Paris YouTube movies trailer please click here.

If you cannot view the Annie Lennox YouTube video please click here.

Avil Beckford: What excites you about life?

Every day! Being able to learn new things and interacting with great people.

Avil Beckford: How do you nurture your soul?

By surrounding myself with great people, reading, being with my animals and with people I love.

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

The end of wars.

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

I enjoy the beauty and a fit lifestyle with friends, animal and nature.

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.

I have taken the answers to specific questions from Kevin Shea’s, Carrie Katz’s and Lois Fallis’ interview and presented them so you can compare and contrast. I will do this today and tomorrow and next week I will present another Invisible Mentor interview. Think of the questions below while you are reading the blog post.

1. How does the information relate to your work and life?
2. What are five takeaways?
3. What qualities do you have that are similar to the interviewees?
4. How will those qualities aid your success?

Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Kevin Shea

I was born in Montreal, and my family moved to Los Angeles when I was nine months old, and I’d like to say it was because I was having difficulty with two languages. My parents moved back to Canada, to Toronto when I was about 10. I grew up in Toronto and was involved as an actor when I was a kid and was always connected to the broadcasting television business. I knew that was the business that I wanted to get into. I went to York University and studied history, I’m not sure why I did that. After university I started my career in the cable industry.

Many years later I am now running my own company SheaChez Communications, have been for the past five years. I get involved in various start-up companies where I assist them with CRTC licensing applications, which is a role I did with Sirius Satellite Radio. And I sit on a variety of different boards of private companies and I am chairman of what’s called the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

Carrie Katz

When I lived in Montreal I was always involved in community affairs. From when I was a child my mother would take me when she went from door-to-door under the heading of UJA requesting money for the poor. My mother has three children, and for some reason, I’m the one that that resonated with. So from a young child I was always involved in something in the community. As a young mother I started the Montreal Career Women’s Network in 1984. At the time, there weren’t any similar services of its kind. In Quebec it was more difficult to get it going because of the line between French Quebecois and the Anglophones, so that was a lot of work, but it was fantastic how we brought the two groups together. The Network is still operating today so I am very proud of that.

I also started a successful business with a friend called Origami Plus which operated for 19 years until it closed in 2009. Origami Plus was synonymous with people who were interested in paper. It was the first paper store that people could come in and do creative things, like make invitations, anything that had to do with paper.

I moved to Toronto and once again became involved in community work. For me, I think it’s my essence, it helps me to feel like I’m participating in the world.

Lois Fallis

We had quite a large family, and this was after the Second World War (World War II), and many people were having large families at that point. I was one of two children, and my brother was killed in the Second World War so I became an only child in a way. I had a great deal of music instruction in my life because my mom was an organist and choir leader, and I had singing and piano lessons from her. As I became older I developed that, and one of my major jobs in life was being a musician. I have six children, three boys and three girls.

Tell me about your big break and who gave you.

Kevin Shea

My big break came when Phil Lind at Rogers hired me to operate Cable Satellite Network way back when, and put me into Rogers a much bigger company than I was with in a leadership role. He remains both a close business associate and key mentor of mine. When I moved around in Rogers, Colin Watson who was my boss was an incredibly supportive and smart guy, so I would say it was a big break getting into Rogers at that time.

Carrie Katz

Bluma Appel gave me my biggest break, in being my mentor and offering me a position to work with her in 1976, The Year of the Woman. She was the Liaison of Women and Industry and I became her assistant. That was definitely a turning point in my life.

Lois Fallis

The big break is probably in the musical world. I decided that I wanted to do something different so I joined the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir led by conductor Elmer Iseler . By then I had done a lot of singing, and I was asked to be a part of a small professional group that Elmer had that was called the Festival Singers so I was with them for four or five years, then I went into teaching. I had an opportunity to teach Orff music in Toronto schools and I did that half time. I had some help come into the home at that point.

Note: Orff music is a type of music with xylophones and glockenspiels. It was started in Europe and then we brought it to Canada. Orff is named after Carl Orff and is sometimes called Music for Young Children.

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

Kevin Shea

1. Patience is huge
2. Work with great teams
3. Respect your work mates
4. Make change quickly

Carrie Katz

1. Family is the most important thing
2. Be kind to others
3. Listen when someone speaks
4. Like yourself
5. Have laughter in your life

Lois Fallis

1. Make it work, that is a phrase that we had in our family. If things weren’t going right you negotiated or talked it through. No one walked away not speaking to each other. I think that’s so important, you don’t walk away from the problem, you face it with whomever.

1. Take risks and do not worry about what other people think. Try to make decisions on your own, and do not have everybody try to tell you what to do.

1. Listening is very important and I wish I would have listened more and I would have loved to spend more time with friends. As I’ve said, I’m all over the place.

1. I have always been interested in the church, religion and spirituality and have taken many courses in that, and I have continued because it’s important and it is not necessarily any one religion, it’s what you believe in, and try to figure that out. It doesn’t matter how old you are, you are always questioning, and you should, because for each generation you change and you aren’t the same.

1. Tell people that you love and care for them, and don’t be afraid to do that. Don’t be afraid to phone somebody, and don’t wait for someone to say, “I haven’t heard from….” I always think that’s a two-way street. You should telephone people and you should be interested in them and don’t be afraid to show love and affection.

What process do you use to generate great ideas?

Kevin Shea

I don’t think that I have a specific process. Ideas come to me then I bounce them off people. I mean ideas can land at any time, it’s more what you are doing with your ideas opposed to having them. How can you move on them? I just joined the Idea Council for a major ad agency that I can’t name. Big ad agencies are struggling today and they are trying to figure out how to respond to the market. The ad agency has brought together five of us from completely different walks of life. We meet once a month for three hours with the entire management, and we are basically charged with coming up with ideas. Ideas in terms of new kinds of partnerships, things they should be looking at, these are the emerging technologies, how to win particular clients, and it’s kind of fun. We are given nothing in advance, they make a presentation as soon as we get there, and it creates a very interesting environment because the single purpose is to share ideas.

Carrie Katz

I have a friend in HR who I’ve been friends with for over 35 years. She conducted a series of test and the thing that keeps coming through is that I’m an idea person. I’m always idea generating about whatever, it could be about making dinner for friends. It’s part of my DNA, it’s an every day process for me.

I write down what I’d like to get across and bring in more than one idea at a time. I do this by email, then I come back and let’s say there were five ideas, I narrow it down to one, then start generating the concept.

Lois Fallis

I have written a couple of children’s song books and they were published and were great successes and are still out in the market. They are called Seasons and Themes, and A Glass Slipper, and I wrote all these songs myself, and it was partly because of teaching. I found that it was so easy as a teacher, the songs kept coming out of my head. I’d come out of the classroom, and I’d have so many wonderful ideas because I was where the children were, and I’d write songs about whatever, the spring, whatever they were doing I would write a song. I wrote a dinosaur song, and the songs came to me quite easily. I got ideas from being around the children. I always have ideas, if someone says something I would say why don’t you think about this, it just seems to flow.

What are five takeaways? What ideas can you adapt immediately? 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 side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

Below are some simple steps for brainstorming.

• Label a notebook “Ideas Book”
• Set aside 30 minutes three times each week
• At the top of the page in your “Ideas Book”, write the challenge or problem that you have
  to resolve
• Go into the Alpha state using the instructions below
• For 20 minutes, mass gather ideas on how to resolve the challenge
• When you’ve finished mass gathering ideas, read over each idea, considering each briefly
• You’ll see obvious faults with some of the ideas
• Rank each remaining idea on a scale of 1 to 5 and choose the best ideas
• Look at all of your best ideas to see if it’s logical to combine two or more to form a new idea
  that’s better
• Look at the ideas that you didn’t choose to see if you combined two or three of them if you
  could get an exceptional idea
• Implement your great ideas

Getting Into Alpha

1. Close you eyes
2. Take a few deep breaths, breathing deep into your lungs by flexing your diaphragm (you know
   that you are breathing deeply when your stomach pushes out when you are inhaling)
3. With your eyes still closed, look upwards at the point between your eyebrows
4. When you feel a slight pressure, start counting down slowly from ten to one. When you reach
   one, you are now in the alpha state

What are your favourite brainstorming techniques? 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 left side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

Photo Credit: Google via Apture

We are socialized to think and act a certain way. And, we often put self-imposed barriers around ourselves. To break free, let’s start making small changes, simple shifts in our mindset.

Take a few minutes to read and think about the Martin Luther King quote below.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

What’s your interpretation of the quote? Let your mind wander! There are no right or wrong answers, they are your thoughts, let them take you wherever.  Break those self-imposed chains to your thinking, and step beyond your boundaries. For once, think without borders.

Isn’t it freeing?

Let me share a piece of me with you. When I think of the Martin Luther King quote, I think that I am my brother’s keeper, and that my actions will impact others.

I also think that we are all connected, which leads my mind to the Butterfly Effect, a concept where a butterfly flapping its wings in one region, could trigger a tornado (or some other act) in another region.

My mind then roams to The Hundredth Monkey principle, where after a certain point, new information (or learned behaviour) introduced, ceases to be new and is in the collective consciousness.

Just for today, start with the Martin Luther King quote, and let your mind take you wherever. You never know what great ideas you’ll generate simply by giving yourself permission to think without borders.

What are your thoughts? Do you dare to think without borders?

Interesting articles by Zemanta

• Steven Spielberg Has a Dream About Martin Luther King Jr. (cinematical.com)
• April 4, 1968: Scenes From MLK’s Last Day (queerty.com)

Looking Upwards

“For everyone of us that succeeds, it’s because there’s somebody there to show you the way out” Oprah Winfrey

There are many ways that people show others the way, both directly and indirectly. And, many people have allowed others to stand on their shoulders, sometimes even without knowing, simply by teaching others what they know or by documenting their observations, thoughts, insights and discoveries for others to read.

A quick way for us to stand on the shoulders of giants is to examine what’s been done before by reading about and listening to the experiences and lives of those we value and respect. You never know what bright idea you could come across, or what problem could be solved now because the time is right and the technology now exists.

A review of several books on creativity, inventions, discoveries and great thinkers and scientists who have changed the world, books such as Discover Your Genius : How to Think Like History’s Ten Most Revolutionary Minds, Aha! 10 Ways to Free Your Creative Spirit and Find Your Great Ideas, The art of thought, The Art of Thinking, The 100 Greatest Inventions Of All Time, 100 Discoveries: The Greatest Breakthroughs in History, suggest that great thinkers have certain traits in common.

Leonardo da Vinci, Francis Bacon, Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Gutenberg, Copernicus, Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Marie Curie and Alexander Fleming, a few of the great thinkers who made discoveries, and/or created products that influenced/changed the world, had the unique knack to do many of the following:

• Reflect
• Open to experiment
• Keep record of research
• Steely determination: impossible was not an answer
• Open minded
• Childlike sense of play
• Curious
• Voracious reader
• Read/study broadly
• Observe, detect and collect facts
• Think independently
• Take breaks to reenergize
• Total absorption in subject
• Have imagination
• Have vision
• Didn’t reinvent the wheel – built on present and past knowledge
• Look at the limitations of old inventions and devise a solution
• Modify present technologies for other uses
• Make connections between two different things
• Combine theoretical knowledge with practical skills
• Pay attention to detail
• Give vital ideas the opportunity to take root and grow

How many of these traits do you have? And how many could you acquire with concerted effort? If you re-read yesterday’s blog post you will notice that some of the above traits are similar to some of the activities mentioned by survey respondents.

All of us are capable of generating our own great ideas. Read widely, reflect on life, travel to places that you’ve never been before, eat foods from different cultures, interact with nature, think about problems that need solving and work on ways to solve those problems. Immerse yourself in many activities and create new experiences for yourself. We can learn from the experiences of others, and we can use the words of others as Invisible Mentors to help us make progress in life. We can stand on the shoulders of giants!

What are your thoughts? How can you build on this concept?

Book links are affiliate links!

Related Post:

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants (Part I)

To Read or Not to Read, Now That’s the Question

The Secrets of Creative Problem Solving

Creative Problem Solving

How to Read to Problem Solve

Do You Have This Critical Workplace Skill?

Photo Credits: Avil Beckford