The Invisible Mentor

Posts Tagged ‘Helen Keller’

Cover of The Hunger Games

To make it easy for you in case you missed our posts this week, here is what we talked about on The invisible Mentor Blog.

Mondays at the Salon

When you think of ING DIRECT, you think of a bank without branches of tellers. But the firm offers a collaborative working space in downtown Toronto at the corner of Shuter and Yonge Street. The ING Direct Downtown Cafe is very open, orange in colour with free wireless internet service. The space offers high tech facilities for entrepreneurs to come together and share ideas.

Are Collaborative Workspaces The Wave of the Future?

Booked on Tuesdays

We reviewed The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Last year many people were raving about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy, this year they’ll be talking about Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games. I liked the sixteen-year-old protagonist  Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games a lot better than I liked  Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo even though I enjoyed the trilogy and have seen the movies. In the review, I picked out five big ideas that deliver potent lessons.

Review: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

Wisdom Wednesdays

In this profile, you’ll learn about Helen Keller, how she learned the alphabet and a lot more. At 19 months old she contracted an undiagnosed illness which was believed to be scarlet fever. It left her blind and deaf. Despite these challenges, Keller wrote several books, went on the lecture circuit and traveled to several countries. What might you accomplish in life if you viewed your challenges as opportunities in disguise?

Helen Keller – American Activist for the Visually and Hearing Impaired

Perspective Thursdays and Workshop Fridays

From conducting interviews over the years, one of the things I have learned is that we can learn from the experiences of others. Would you press charges against a friend who embezzled? This week’s interviewee Communications Director Kevin Popović did just that after he gave one of his best friend the opportunity to do the right thing. There are many nuggets of wisdom throughout Kevin’s interview. Here are Part One and Part Two of Kevin Popović’s interview.

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.

Book links are affiliate links.

Helen Keller was a fierce advocate for the visually and hearing impaired. She also embraced causes such as: anti-child labour legislation, birth control advocacy, anti-capital punishment legislation, and adopted a pro-suffrage stance. When Keller was about 19 months old she contracted an illness, possibly scarlet fever, which left her blind and deaf. To many these would be substantial barriers, but Keller lived a very accomplished life with the assistance of Anne Sullivan and Polly Thomson. During Keller’s life, she traveled to Great Britain, Germany, Yugoslavia, Jamaica, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Africa, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, France, Israel, Iceland and Scandinavia. She was welcomed by many governments.

Image via Wikipedia

Name: Helen Keller

Birth Date: June 1880 – June 1968

Job Functions: Writer and Activist

Known For: Advocated for the visually and hearing impaired

Mentor: Anne Sullivan

10 Things you May Not Know about Helen Keller

1. When Helen was almost seven years old, Anne Sullivan held one of the child’s hands in water, while she wrote W-A-T-E-R in the other hand. After a while Helen figured out that the thing that was flowing through her hand was W-A-T-E-R. Up to that point in Helen’s life she had been left without instruction and she often acted up.
2. Within three months Helen learned the alphabet and basic spelling using that innovative technique. And by the following year she learned to read Braille.
3. Helen Keller wrote articles about the need for work opportunities for the blind, which was published in Ladies Home Journal. The articles were serialized as The Story of My Life.
4. She was instrumental in establishing the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind.
5. Despite the shock and disapproval of her family, Keller wrote in support of equal rights for black Americans, and donated money to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
6. Her advocacy work for the blind and deaf was responsible for the inclusion of the blind as recipients of federal aid in the Social Security Act of 1935.
7. She became very good friends with President Franklin D. Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and she pressured the president to authorize funds for recorded books to be made by the Library of Congress.
8. During the war she visited many wounded soldiers at military hospitals.
9. With the aid of caregivers, she gave many presentations and wrote many books, which included The Story of My Life, The World I Live In, Optimism, Out of the Dark, My Religion and Midstream: My Later Life.
10. Because of her unique accomplishments, Mark Twain called her, “The greatest woman since Joan of Arc.” Twain and Keller corresponded for many years.

Helen Keller was both blind and deaf due to an illness, but that didn’t stop her, she accomplished much more that many people without disabilities. She didn’t succeed alone and she couldn’t succeed alone, but her teacher and mentor Anne Sullivan played a critical role in her success. Keller was also very resourceful. When royalties from her books were dwindling she would go on the lecture circuit. Her audience and readers preferred when she talked and wrote about herself, instead of politics.

What can we learn from Helen Keller?

We can accomplish more than we think we can, and no one ever succeeds alone. Work with others to create a greater good.

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.

Works Cited/Referenced

Dictionary of Women Worldwide

American National Biography

Women in World History

Sylvia Lafair – Your Invisible Mentor

Company:  (CEOinc) Creative Energy Options, Inc

Website: http://www.ceoptions.com/

How adventurous are you? Do you take time to have some serious fun? In Part Two of Sylvia Lafair’s interview, the theme of adventure continues. Her favourite quote is by Helen Keller, “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing… Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure” because it moves her. And her response to, “What excites you about life?” is, “The adventure of the not knowing.” How would your life improve, if you lived your life like an adventure? Sylvia isn’t just about having an adventure so read on…

Tell me a little bit about yourself.

I am a searcher and an adventurer, and have a PhD to prove that I search academically in clinical psychology. I became a family therapist who then morphed into an executive coach and conflict management expert in the business world. I’m married and have two grown daughters and a couple of grand kids. Life is good.

How do you integrate your personal and professional life?

I’m in a lucky place with integrating my personal and professional life. My husband’s first wife died from breast cancer. He began a search as to why he wasn’t able to help her heal, and it took him on a journey to look at health, wellbeing and relationships. When we met, he was in an interim place in his life, and I had gotten divorced and wasn’t ever going to do family therapy again because I couldn’t keep my family together. We found each other, and one of the things he said to me was, “You have such talent in what you’re doing, can’t you just redesign it? And so we began to work together, so integrating my life has been easy for me. We travel the world together, and we always make sure to take extra days before or after, to explore new territory and do exciting and interesting things. We share his kids and my kids together, and that works well. I am living what I believe, and that’s a joy for me.

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

It’s not having the skill to understand relationships earlier.

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

1. One really big one, and I think it’s coming around to all of us now, is that everything is connected and no one wins unless we all do, and that has become so core as I look at everything. I think that’s a critical lesson that we are all learning, especially as we are watching this beautiful planet going through such a difficult time.
2. I can do with very little, even though I enjoy lovely places, my beauty can come from sitting among the trees in nature. I’ve learned that I don’t need what I thought I used to need for life.
3. There is an incredible value in the workplace to create a culture of collaboration, that we can’t do it alone, that there is a lot of fun in working together. I have an incredible staff that I enjoy working with.
4. The hardest pattern to work with is the splitter, and that is someone who will talk out of both sides of their mouth. We had a splitter working with us, and as smart as I think I am, it was hard to detect, and in fact I teach that the splitter is the hardest one to detect in the workplace. I have a better way of looking at it now, because some people will never change. And, the workplace is not a rehab facility, and we really have to do our best. I think one of the things I used to do at work was to think that no matter what a person’s problems were, I could help resolve them. I was like the therapist in the workplace, and I have learned over time that that it is not so, work is not a rehab facility and you have to “un-hire” people if it’s not the right fit.

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

I take walks. I love to take walks in nature. We live in some beautiful places, the country place in the mountains in Pennsylvania, and our home in New Mexico. I can take long three to five mile walks and just appreciate the sun and the sky, and even the rain drops if they happen to show up while I’m walking.

What process do you use to generate great ideas?

I like to read books and I love to watch films. I will watch a film and all of a sudden something will come to me that I’d never thought of in that way before. If I am feeling stuck and stale in my thinking, I will get a magazine that it as opposite to who I am and my personality, and I’ll spend time with it. I’m not a motorcycle person but I’ll get motorcycle magazines, and I’m not particularly into the stock market but I’ll do some reading about that so it sort of juggles my brain a little bit, then all of a sudden I get that aha moment. So it’s really doing something that’s really different than I normally would do.

What’s your favourite quotation and why?

My favourite quote is “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing… Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure” by Helen Keller. This quote moves me.

How do you define success?

Success is continuous learning to live with an open heart.

In your opinion what’s the formula for success?

The formula for success is to know that we’re in it together, all of us, that everybody have come from somewhere and have their own stories, that if we listen and really appreciate each other, we can learn so much. We are here to help each other grow to the next level

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

Initially I got a PhD in Psychology and studied with some of the most amazing people, and then as I made the transition into the workplace, I found mentors who were really thinking differently. Willis Harman who was the President of the Institute of Noetic Science in Sausalito, California was really instrumental. He told me to take my talents into the workplace. He wrote some beautiful books, and I would call him up every so often and say I don’t know about this and he would say keep going. That was really important to me.

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

The field for me is consulting in the workplace, and the best advice I have is to take some classes in leadership psychology. It seems to be a new field that’s finding its place, study neural psychology because they give us the clues on why we have our buttons pushed, and also study about family relationships because what we do whether we want to or not, is bring the patterns from the original organization, the family, into the workplace, and they play out. Those of us who are working in this area who can begin to see that, can help people make very quick changes. Within three to six months you’ll see major changes in people, in teams and in organizations

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. I would like to sit at the feet of Mahatma Gandhi and say, “What was it like for you to stay true to yourself?”
2. I would like to sit at a dinner table with Steven Spielberg. I find the work he has done and the quality of his work important and powerful.
3. I’d like to sit with Thomas Jefferson and ask him about life during those times and how he was able to pull together what was going on his personal life and what was going on in this country, and how he saw the things that were happening in his life.
4. I would love to have been able to sit with Eleanor Roosevelt and find out what it was like for her, even though I have read the books and I understand, I would like another version of what it was like for her to be in a marriage that was so complex to a man who was so complex, and to be one of the first women’s libber before the term ever came to be. She stood for women to be able to stand on their own two feet and make a difference.
5. Another one would be Abraham Lincoln after I read Team of Rivals, and looking at the research that was there, the more I’d like to sit with him and talk about how he worked with the sadness that was in his life and that he saw around himself.

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

I read a book that I loved called Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins. The author is very unique, and I love language, and when words are put together in a sentence. The story takes place in New Orleans, but the essence is a tale about how things are connected, and how we are so much bigger and vital than the small beings we have been led to believe that we are, and that we are connected to a deeper source where magic can happen.

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. One of the key books that I’d like to have is Jitterbug Perfume because it’s a book I can read over and over.
2. Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.
3. An Anthology of  Shakespeare’s work (World of Shakespeare: The Complete Plays and Sonnets of William Shakespeare (38 Volume Library)). Shakespeare touches the core of what relationships and human essence is really about.
4. I would like to have the Bible and it really would be for me, something that I’ve never delved into in the depth of understanding the cultural, language and relationship part of it.
5. I’d like to have Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. It’s a big, thick book and the author did an amazing job. I must admit that I speed read the book.
6. I would like to add Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology by Gregory Bateson.

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

The music is from an interesting album that is called War Child by Pavarotti and Friends, and it was produced to raise money for the children who grew up living in war torn places, which sadly never seems to go away. In this he sings with Lionel Ritchie, and some of the best people on the planet singing all kinds of different songs. The song I love the most is called the “Magic of Love,” and is about the power of love in spite of whatever is happening in the world. It’s not huggy, kissy, cutesy love, it’s about the depth of agave love.

If you cannot view this YouTube video of “Magic of Love” click here

The movie is from a play on Broadway called Into the Woods by Steven Sondheim. It’s a story about fairy tales that you are familiar with, and how they all weave together, and it’s got a Shakespearian flavor to it, in terms of showing connections and how our lives will play out in spite of ourselves, and what happens when we learn to handle conflict and chaos with dignity.

Latest Trailer for Into the Woods

If you cannot view YouTube video please click here.

What excites you about life?

The adventure, not knowing what tomorrow will bring, and I just love the “I never thought of it that way before.” I love meeting people, and I love being in places when I can turn around and say, and who are you? It could be anyone, taxi cab driver, the person I’m sitting next to at dinner. It’s the adventure of the not knowing.

How do you nurture your soul?

I meditate and love to listen to beautiful meditation music. I will sit down and read some of the things Thicht Nhat Hahn (Vietnamese, Buddhist monk) writes. I find beautiful books to read or get a book of beautiful pictures. I sit and fill myself with beauty.

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 feel like I’m giving you the Miss America answer but it would be world peace. My wish is that we as a species begin to understand how the patterns of the past have locked us into behaviors that are no longer sustainable on this planet, and begin to see us helping each other more effectively with everything we need to do in terms of health and wellbeing.

Complete the following, I am happy when…..

I’m with people who want to 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.

All book links are affiliate links.

Video Credit: Latest Trailer for Into the Woods Uploaded by digitaltheatre on Mar 24, 2011, YouTube video of “Magic of Love” Uploaded by space2lovebird on Jul 29, 2009

Further Reading

Wisdom Wednesdays: Eleanor Roosevelt, American First Lady, International Diplomat, Writer and Philanthropist
Wisdom Wednesdays: Helen Keller – American Activist for the Visually and Hearing Impaired
Wisdom of Life: Abraham Lincoln, 16th President, Led America through the Civil War

Here is Part Two of Donna Whitney’s interview and I hope that you’ve had the time to digest Part One. I know that it’s a lot of content but it’s loaded with solid information that you can use. After I transcribed Donna’s interview, I realized that it was the first time that anyone had really mapped out their career path for all to see. The “Tell me a little bit about yourself” is very detailed and has a lot of depth. It was interesting to see how someone moved from one role to the next and sometimes the reasons for the decision. Instead of trying to summarize it and taking out germane information, I have included it at the end and called it Anatomy of  a Career. You get a glimpse of Donna the pioneer, who gets a sense that something is going to take off so she positions herself to take advantage of the the upcoming change. After you’ve read her interview, and especially the Anatomy of a Career you will feel as if you know her. And that’s what I am trying to do with the Invisible Mentor, I want you to get to know the interviewees, and learn from them.

How do you integrate your personal and professional life?

Every step of the way. Every single aspect of my professional life is my personal life, and every single aspect of my personal life is my professional life. I think leaders, their values and what they stand for, who they are from 5:00 pm to 9:00 am the next day matters. Who I am in my personal life ought to be the same, and my values ought to be consistent with my professional life.

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

I wouldn’t say that I’ve had many major regrets, but there are an awful lot of things that I regret. I would have loved my husband to be the only man that I ever dated. And, I think it would have been good if I hadn’t spent so much time on the music side, and invested a lot more time in technology sooner. I don’t know if I could call these regrets, but if I could then that would be it.

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

1. Speak less listen more
2. Be gracious, turn the other cheek
3. It’s okay to be last, there is no shame in being last
4. If you can be a light for someone be that light
5. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes

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

I love baking bread from scratch, not a bread machine. The stuff that takes 1 ½ weeks to make, I love doing that.

What process do you use to generate great ideas?

I don’t ever do it alone, I always include people.

What’s your favourite quotation and why?

“What if you believe that what you really believe is real, what difference would it make?” Dr. Del Tackett

How do you define success?

Being in adherence to the value system and the truth that you know and believe. It’s living your life in accordance with what you know to be true.

In your opinion what’s the formula for success?

Serving.

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

I took risks and I wasn’t afraid to say what I knew to be true, and I wasn’t afraid to give over the spotlight when appropriate.

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

Experiment, try different things, see where things go because it will never go the way you expect it to, and be true to yourself.

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. Jesus Christ and I would say thank you
2. Apostle Paul and I would want to be instructed by him. He was a profound writer and a huge hero of the faith, and I would love to hear and understand, and ask him to explain some of the things he said in the scriptures
3. John Calvin
4. Mother Teresa and I would love to listen and hear what she had to say
5. Helen Keller and I would not have much to say to her, I would just want to listen. Her wisdom and perspective on things would be profound

Which one book had a profound impact on your life? What was it about this book that impacted you so deeply? Did you have an emotional or intellectual attachment to this book? Why?

I would say that it’s the Bible because it’s a pretty impactful book.

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. The Bible
2. A book with a rubber dingy
3. The Iliad
4. War and Peace
5. A book by Ray Bradbury, something I haven’t read yet by him

Have you read any books that inspired you to start a business, service or invent “something”? If yes, which book?

The Bible changed my heart, there are certain parts that really moved me.

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

The movie would be The Gospel According to John and the music CD, I would take my iPod with stuff that I liked and stuff that I had never listened to.

What excites you about life?

The prospect of what comes after.

How do you nurture your soul?

Keep myself in proper perspective, that it’s not about me.

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?

That every wish that I wish would come true.

Complete the following, I am happy when…..

I’m serving.

Anatomy of a Career

When I was a little girl I wanted to be either a singer or a nun. I opted for the singing since that was easier to do than try to be perfect. I started singing when I was six or seven years old. I was a pretty rebellious kid and I was out of control. I started smoking when I was 11 years old and started going to bars when I was 12.

I started off my career in rock bands back in the 80s when I was 16 singing in bars. I found out quickly that being five feet three inches and 110 pounds, blond hair, blue eyes did not fit the profile of somebody who would be hugely successful with her talents alone. In that industry in the 80s was pretty nasty actually, the whole agent scene, bar scene was not a welcoming or supportive environment.

I met my first agent when I was 16 and taking vocal training. I walked into his office, and this was well before there were personal computers. In his office, he had this massive wooden desk with a telephone and a photocopy joke with a baby and a smelly diaper, which said, “Agents are like diapers, they’re always on your ass and usually full of shit.” Pardon my language, this was my introduction to the music industry, this was what the music scene was going to be like.

He had told me to bring in my demo tape, which I did, and I sat down and he put it into the tape player and walked out of the room. I sat there and listened to my own demo tape, when he came back into the room he sat down and looked to see if the tape was finished.

He said, “That was great”

I said, “Okay,”

“Let’s talk business. How short will you wear your skirt?”

I replied, “I’m16 years old, I’m selling my voice not my body.”

“You’re a smart girl, that’s a good answer. Have you thought about modeling?”

I’m five feet three inches, I’m not a model so I was taken aback, but I wasn’t stupid either so I said, “Well, I’m only going to model for the right bathing suit at the worst, you understand that, right?”

“Oh you’re such a smart girl, such a smart girl. Have you ever thought of doing European pictures, no one here will ever see them? $1,500 a picture.”

That’s a lot of money now, mind back in the 80s when I’m 16 years old, and my idea of full-time work is McDonald’s. I realized what he was saying so I thanked him for his time and got up and walked out of his office. I left music, and after that it was really hard for me. When you have no life experience and you’ve lived on the planet for only 16 years your own context of who you are is bound up on what little life experience you have, so walking away from music, for me was hugely tragic, because it was all I ever understood. I was never a really good student, so that whole experience really threw me for a loop and I decided then that I didn’t want to be what the pop culture would have me be. I didn’t want to be stupid, and I didn’t want to be a dumb girl, and I didn’t want to be a sex object.

That was all I ever wanted was to be in music, and all they ever wanted from me was to be something that I wasn’t. So when I quit music, my whole little world view was shaken, I mean it seems so silly now, because it was so many years ago but it was a really tragic event for me. A couple of years passed and I found myself moving away from the music side, and I found myself working behind the bar.

I bar tended for about eight years, and the bar life is entirely different when you are behind the bar than when you’re in front, and bar tending terrified me. It terrified me because I would see the same people coming in every weekend doing the same thing, beating themselves up, destroying their lives, and for some reason they seemed to think that this was appealing, and being a bar tender you learned to say the right things to earn tips. I never learned anybody’s name, I certainly learned what they drank and I probably still know what they drink to this very day. And bar tending convinced me to not drink. I completely avoided the night scene during the years when most people were discovering it.

Through the bar tending experience I also learned that I wanted to be more than that. So I started studying, pulled my grades up, and graduated with honours. After high school, I took a year off and saved some money, then went to university. I was in Winnipeg at the time, and went to University of Winnipeg, and then I went to Red River College, and I graduated with both a marketing and administration major.

Immediately after school, and while I was still bar tending, I got the sense that this Internet thing was going to take off, and I had no idea what it was about, and a girl friend of mine that came to the pub that I worked at was running a wild bird feed and specialty store so I offered to create a website when one of the first websites were coming out. It had one picture and took half an hour to download. I convinced her to hire me, so I started working at this wild bird feed and specialty shop designing websites and doing the newsletter, and that job launched my career.

As soon as I graduated, I ended up at Rogers Wireless in Winnipeg, and my job there was marketing collateral design, and it had everything to do with the fact that I had designed websites and the newsletter for this small wild bird feed and specialty shop. I did that as a term position while someone was on maternity leave. Also, while I was in college, I took advantage of a mentoring program, and had gotten to know a couple of business leaders in the Winnipeg market. And at the end of the maternity leave position at Rogers, I walked into one of those mentors, and at one of his workplaces he was running a multi-platform service provider called Tronica so they did Sun Microsystems, IBM, Mac. They were one of the few systems integration businesses back in Winnipeg so he took me on as a program manager, whatever that meant, and still to this day I don’t understand what the role was, but I think he saw that I was really ambitious and wanted to help me out so he gave me a job.

I worked there for about six months then Rogers took me back, so I left Tronica. I went into business and corporate so I was supporting major corporate clients such as the provincial government. I did that for about eight months then they stuck me back into the vortex that’s  marketing and I was doing event management, and I would probably still be doing event management to this day because I loved it.

My husband Clinton had always wanted to be a police officer. When I worked in the bar he was a bouncer and we had hooked up and been together for many years. He’d applied to the Winnipeg police at least eight times, and it’s an eight month process to find out that you hadn’t been accepted. He kept applying, and he kept on getting rejected. He decided that he would apply one last time, and this time he decided not to limit himself so he applied to Winnipeg, Calgary, Toronto and also applied to the RCMP. It was so close to it being the end of his dream, I’ll never forget it.

The AT&T Senior Opens where I was coordinating the Senior Opens for Rogers in Winnipeg, it was absolutely nuts. We couldn’t get anybody to drive people around. There were no limos available because of a premier’s convention so I had to go to Ford and get seven Chevy Blazers. I hired all my dad’s friends to drive all these people around because we couldn’t get any chauffeurs. I was short one chauffeur so I was driving people around. This was my job for the week and during the week, my husband Clinton got a call, and he heard that he was hired in Toronto.

So as I’m driving people around, I get word that my life in Winnipeg is now over and we had to move to Toronto. We got married on August 26, 2000 and he left for Toronto August 27^th. He moved early because he had to get sworn in, and he went to the OPC for four months. So for the first four months of my married life, I was apart from my husband. He was here in Toronto and I was in Winnipeg trying to wrap things up for my move to Toronto.

So we moved to Toronto, and Rogers offered me a job but it wasn’t ideal so I ended up moving to another company called Watts, which was in the fulfillment, logistics and distribution business. I knew nothing about fulfillment, logistics and distribution. Watts no longer exists, but while I was there I was doing program development and management, and my client was Rogers. I was at Watts for 18 months then someone from Rogers who had gotten to know me through that work, brought me back to Rogers in 2001.

I joined the business marketing team at One Mount Pleasant. I never really fit into the large corporate organization, and I still don’t fit in. It’s just that I love it here, they treat me good, and I don’t know why they keep me here. I didn’t fit into the corporate marketing niche and I ended up doing new product development stuff, and was really very comfortable with the unknown, the strange, the sort of gray area. They knew it was an interesting skill set but it didn’t really fit anywhere so I got promoted out of marketing into Office of the CTO (Chief Technology Officer), where I worked for David Robinson. So I moved from marketing to engineering.

In the office of the CTO which is an engineering division, I was in a newly created office so I had done Wi-Fi development, I had created the Canadian Hotspot Roaming Alliance with my counterparts from Bell, Telus and Fido which was separate at the time (Rogers now owns Fido) and we started working on a global commerce initiative as well, which was a lot of fun and exciting, but I came to realize very quickly that if Wi-Fi was going to make any sense at all there needed to be some sort of presence within cable because cable was the back of the Internet which would feed all the Internet connections, so I parachuted out of the Office of the CTO into cable marketing and proceeded to work on product management for Wi-Fi within cable marketing.

Being a square peg in a round hole I got motivated out of cable marketing and into sales so I figure I’ve got IT and Finance left, so I’ll probably cover all of Rogers before I am done here.

Now I run a sales engineering team within Rogers Cable selling things like voice and data services into personal properties, so by commercial I mean hotels, student residences, large sports and entertainment facilities. I’m allowed to play where consumer cable products won’t do the trick because they don’t want me competing against the large machines. And that’s sort of what I do now.

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