The Invisible Mentor

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“You want to align yourself with people who believe in you and can see things in you that you don’t see in yourself.” Carol McManus, America’s LinkedIn Lady

Invisible Mentor: Carol McManus, America’s LinkedIn Lady

Company Name: LinkedIn Lady

Website: http://www.linkedinlady.com, http://ywait4success.com/ 

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Carol McManus:  I’m an entrepreneur. I left the corporate world in 2007 to start a coaching, consulting and leadership development company. I built that company to six figures using social media. My business has moved over to social media expertise and I’m now known as America’s LinkedIn Lady.

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

Carol McManus: It’s easy especially now. I have always been a balanced person. I learned many years ago that you have to turn it off. Whatever you choose to do, whether it’s family or friends or personal activities, or the pets or the children, you have to separate that from business. In my case, there comes a certain point in the day, and it’s toward the end of the normal business day, sometimes it’s 5:30, sometimes it’s 6:30, or 7:00 pm, but when I turn off business, I’m done for the day and the rest of the evening is devoted to me and my husband. We don’t have children at home so it’s really about us, our time together. That’s my world and it doesn’t necessarily apply to other people.

My advice from my own integration, you want your business to support your personal life and your personal life to support your business. At the end of the day you have to set the rules on how you balance them because if you let either one get out of balance, the other one is going to suffer. 

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

Carol McManus: My down time is creative time for me. I have a couple of hobbies. I like to write so I often write. I love to read, but my physical creative activity is I love to do flower arranging with silk and artificial flowers and make different types of decorations. I find that very therapeutic so it doesn’t involve other people. It’s time for me to go into myself and be creative and do things which in my world brings beauty and satisfaction for me, but it has nothing to do with anything else that’s going on around me.

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

Carol McManus:

1. Always be true to yourself. I remember my daddy telling me when I was a little girl that at the end of the day, the only person you have to sleep with is yourself. What he meant by that is you always have to be responsible for yourself.
2. My father was very passionate about me being able to be independent, not that he didn’t wish for me to be married, and have children, and a wonderful life, and someone to share my life with, but because he grew up in the Depression he was passionate about wanting me to stand on my own two feet. That’s a second lesson I learned and it goes hand-in-hand with being true to yourself.
3. Don’t take yourself too seriously and always be able to laugh at yourself.
4. You have to have humour in your life. Without humour a life can be pretty dismal and boring, and it makes you a dismal and boring person to be around so find ways to bring laughter into your life. And if it doesn’t come naturally to you then seek people who are fun to be around and share that joy. Go buy a video of I love Lucy TV series, which will make you laugh.
5. We only have one life, and the richness, satisfaction and depth that you get from life – and we don’t know when that life is going to end, life is very precious and for some it ends far too soon, and for some who live healthy lives it goes on forever. You only have one life and you are the only one who can ultimately control that, so having goals and knowing what it is you want to accomplish and what you can give back to the world, what is your legacy going to be, and I don’t mean legacy etched on Mt Rushmore with the presidents’ profiles because for most of us it’s nothing nearly that dramatic. But for all of us, leave a legacy, even if it’s only with your own family, or your neighbours or the people you interact with. But being conscious of that, and taking ownership for what you leave behind is the other big life lesson for me. And it’s something that I try to work on a little bit every day.

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

Carol McManus: I will give two answers to that because it comes up in two forms. I come up with a lot of ideas just when I’m in my own head. That could be when I’m listening to music, taking a walk or driving in the car. I let my mind wander, go, and think creatively. When I’m doing some of these crafty things I find I’m also creative and come up with great ideas. But having said that, the development and the richness of those ideas, come to fruition when I bring people into the conversation. I love to brainstorm and debate with people. I want them to challenge me and take the seed of an idea and help me improve it because I know I can’t do it all by myself. I’m very much an open book, so it’s letting me be creative in my own head, and then testing the market, but really using other people’s attitudes and experiences and impressions so that you can improve on what you thought was a really good idea to begin with. It always gets better.

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

Carol McManus: It’s a quote from Henry Ford, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, either way you’re right.” I’m paraphrasing a little bit but it’s so absolutely, 1,000 percent true. If you think you can do something, you’re going to put yourself subconsciously on a path to make it happen. If you think you can’t do it, you’re going to subconsciously put yourself on a path that it will never happen. Based on everything you’ve heard so far, you always try to put yourself on a path that you really have to believe in it and the tools and resources will come into your life to help you let things become real. If on the other hand you think you can’t, guess what, that’s going to be the reality.

Avil Beckford: How do you define success? And in your opinion what’s the formula for success?

Carol McManus: I define success as happiness. I think success is whatever ultimately makes people happy. And it’s defined differently for different people. For me, it’s the joy of being able to sleep peaceably at nights, that I’m able to provide for myself and the family, that I’m getting personal and professional satisfaction out of what I’m doing, that I’m influencing and impacting other people’s lives, and that I’m having fun doing it. So it’s all packaged together, it’s not just monetary, or about specific accomplishments, and it’s not just about joy, it’s all of that wrapped together. And I think every person needs to define what that is for themselves, and I don’t think anyone can say, “This is the formula for success.” If there is a formula, you need to define the pieces of what success is for you.

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

Carol McManus: Because I have a training background, I have always been the best student. I’m a teacher’s dream if you will because throughout my entire adult life, long since I left the college classroom, I’ve always taken courses or programs or conferences to be around people, and I think that has contributed to my success. My field has changed, my specialty has changed, it’s gone from sales to operations to executive to entrepreneur or to coaching to consulting to social media, so my career has had many dimensions to it. But at each level, I think my success came because I was first and foremost a good student, and invested the time, effort and energy through reading, listening to others, observing or mentoring under others, how they did what they did, that I could become the best at it that I could.

And if I found that I was on a path that didn’t feel comfortable, it didn’t feel right, or it was taking me off track, then I would stop and take another direction.

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

Carol McManus: Invest in yourself and continue to learn whatever you are learning. But in today’s world, I’m going to add something else to that answer, is that you always want to keep your eyes and ears open to the possibilities. We’re in a very different world today than the world I grew up in. When I grew up, there was an expectation that you got an education, you chose a career, and that sort of became your life path. And I was fortunate in that, that was the direction my life took, and it was only at the later stage of my life that it took a new direction. And what I mean by that is social media because when I left the corporate world four years ago, if someone told me that I was going to be a social media expert, I would have laughed. It wasn’t on my radar screen, but the world we’re in today, we have to be nimble and flexible, times are changing, things are happening at a rapid rate, technology has dramatically changed. The speed at which things happen, the speed at which we communicate, I think anyone, regardless of age, if you’re starting out today you certainly want to be goal oriented, but at the same time you want to know that those goals are not etched in stone, that other doors and opportunities may open, and you want to be open to those possibilities. So don’t get too locked in, that you miss the acres of diamonds that are right under your feet.

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?

Carol McManus: I love this question because I could come up with 50 people that I’d love to meet.

1. Abraham Lincoln: He was not a popular man, he was not a popular president, but he had leadership qualities that were so critical, and a true turning point in this country’s history. I would love to sit and chat with him about what he thought were the solutions to the country’s problems at the time, what were the key decisions and how did he make those decisions to lead the country in a more positive direction.
2. Jack Welch: He is an extraordinary story, and there are many well-documented corporate executives in America, but Jack Welch because of his history of being able to do turnaround situations and to turn lemons into lemonades. I read his book, but beyond the heart and soul of what made him tick, and the kinds of things that kept him up at night that allowed him to accomplish what he accomplished.
3. Martha Stewart: I would love to sit and have a conversation with her. Martha is a lightening rod. I find as I talk with people, people either love her or hate her, but what you cannot deny about Martha Stewart is that she is an extraordinary self-made woman with self-made success. She is focused and very successful and continues to reinvent herself. She is a model for always seeing the next opportunity. Again, I want to know what makers her tick, how does she think, what kinds of people does she surround herself with, what are her tolerances and intolerances. The other thing I admire about her, and it may be because of the space that she’s in, but she seems to be someone who has this balance of what’s important to her in her personal life and what gives her joy, and her dog comes to mind. She is famous for her chow chow dogs, her home and farm, but at the same time, she is passionate about her business and what drives her business and her brand.
4. Lou Holtz: Because coaching is part of my repertoire, I heard Lou speak on multiple occasions. I’ve listened to his videos, he to me is the epitome of an inspirational coach and someone who in multiple challenges, not just Notre Dame but University of South Carolina and other places he was over his career, he has great quotes and great inspiration, and I would like to sit and talk to him about the lessons he had learned as a coach. I would actually ask him some of the questions that you asked me.
5. From a more introspective level and understanding beyond the surface and the obvious. I tend to be focused on the now, but I’m a reader and follower of Deepak Chopra’s teachings and if I could ever have an hour to sit and talk to him, to really understand at a deeper level how I can understand myself, and take myself to a deeper level, that would be joyous.

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

Carol McManus: That’s easy for me because the answer is the The Art of War by Sun Tzu. It’s not a new book by any stretch of the imagination. It’s been out there for a very long time. To me, the BI is the guiding light, the “bible” for business, life, for how to communicate , negotiate, strategize, for all of the things we are talking about, that are a part of my business  and personal repertoire – it’s all right there in that book and I’ve referred to it, reread it many times. I try to read it once a year.

Avil Beckford: You are one of the 10 finalists on the reality show, So, How Would You Spend Your Time? Each finalist is placed on separate deserted islands for two years. You have a basic hut on the island and all the tools for survival; you just have to be imaginative and inventive when using them. You are allowed to take five books, one movie and one music CD, and whatever else you take has to fit in one suitcase and a travel on case. What would you take with you and how would you spend the two years? T he prize is worth your while and at this stage in the game there really aren’t any losers among the 10 finalists, since each are guaranteed at least $2 million?

Carol McManus:

Two Years

Survival would be first and foremost because you have to have shelter and you have to feed yourself. For me personally, having a creative soul, I would write, write, write because I think if you have two years to spend with yourself everything that’s inside of you, and everything that you can imagine needs to come out and needs to be shared. That’s how I would spend the majority of my time when I wasn’t in survival mode.

Five Books

1. The Art of War, Sun Tzu
2. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Collins Business Essentials) – It’s a marvellous book because you have to have that expectation that you are in fact going to get off this island. That might take some negotiation and persuasion, skills that have served me well. It’s a book that I read regularly because as human beings that’s all we do is communicate and negotiate with people.
3. Animal Farm by George Orwell: There are lots of good lessons there on how to survive.
4. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman: Or something similar to that. It’s a compilation of poems. It’s very inspirational and I think if you were on a deserted island you would have those moments where you needed to reflect and see the joy and beauty in life.
5. Milton Berle’s Private Joke File: Over 10,000 of His Best Gags, Anecdotes, and One-Liners: It’s the greatest book ever. He is a renowned stand up comic.

Movie and Music CD

My all time favourite music CD is Tapestry-Legacy Edition (2-CD) by Carol King. I find all of the music she has written over the years, she didn’t sing, she wrote more than she actually sang, but that was such an influential, and remains an influential CD to me because there is so much inspiration and hidden messages in the music. I have listened to it over and over again and never get tired.

The movie is a tough one because there are so many to choose from. The one I choose would be the absolutely most outrageous, that would cause me to laugh and that would be Blazing Saddles (30th Anniversary Special Edition) because it is truly one of the most ridiculous movies ever made but every time I see it I never cease to laugh. I never cease to see new nuances and I think that’s something I would want to spend my time with.

Blazing Saddles – Movie Trailer

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

Carole King – Tapestry

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

Avil Beckford: What excites you about life?

Carol McManus: Life and people. I love being around people. If there is a challenge that I had, going from the corporate world to being a solopreneur, and commuting versus working out of a home office it was separation from every day having the interface with people. So I have crafted my business so that is part of my day now because I think the opportunities in life are endless. We don’t happily live in this world on a deserted island by ourselves and if you don’t take joy in the people who are around you and appreciate something about everybody regardless of who they are, where they came from, what they do, we are all a unique special person. I just love to talk to people, find out what’s of interest to them and it’s part of that expanded life – our universal life together. That’s what gives me joy and what I try to bring to the people around me.

Avil Beckford: How do you nurture your soul?

Carol McManus: Reflection and meditation. It’s supplemented by everything we talked about – the reading and the music and the creative outlets. The real nurturing comes from the downtime, the quiet time, the reflective time. It’s a learned skill that has served me well. I wish I had learned to meditate much earlier in life because it does really amazing things to center you and recharge your batteries so you can continue to move forward.

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

Carol McManus: Good health for me and mankind. And where that comes from, it starts from a very personal place as I watched my father’s declining health. I had my mother come live with us in her later years with her declining health, her sister also because my aunt didn’t have children. As a young child, I went through health issues with my grandparents on both sides of the family. As I get older and the bones start to creak, things start to go wrong, you realize that the joy of life and the ability to do the things you want to do is all grounded in good health. I do believe that all the health issues we’re facing today, whether it’s cancer, heart disease on one end of the spectrum and things that alarm me are autism and ADHD at the other end of the spectrum, I personally have a strong belief that a lot of this is environmentally influenced. If I had one wish for the genie, it would be to wave her magic wand or whatever she uses to give good health to everyone because once you have health then there are no boundaries to what we can do.

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

Carol McManus: I’m talking to people like you because you stimulate me and I’m absolutely being sincere about that. This has been a delightful experience and what I mean by that is that interaction with other really smart, savvy people, that stimulate me, that cause me not to not only give and share my thoughts, but forces me to go in, think about and test myself and my own boundaries.

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.

Video Credits: Blazing Saddles – Movie Trailer Uploaded by zuguidemovietrailers on Apr 15, 2010, Carole King – Tapestry Uploaded by raymaclean on Dec 29, 2008

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Cover of The Picture of Dorian Gray

This is what we talked about on The Invisible Mentor Blog this week: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, Henry Ford, American Automobile Pioneer and Industrialist and Alison Duke, Film Producer, Goldelox Productions.

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The Picture of Dorian Gray is Oscar Wilde’s only novel, and was first published in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazinein 1890. It appeared in book form the following year, and six additional chapters were added. The book is beautifully written, and filled with a lot of wit, but the more I read through the literary classics on my adventure in learning, the more depressed they are making me feel.
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Wisdom Wednesdays
Henry Ford did not invent the automobile but he made it possible for the masses to afford one, creating the “car culture.” Ford did this because he had a vision and he found a way to realize his vision. He streamlined the manufacturing process and introduced the continuously moving assembly line. Ford installed the first conveyor belt-based assembly line in his car factory in his Highland Park, Michigan plant.
Henry Ford, American Automobile Pioneer and Industrialist

Perspective Thursdays and Workshop Fridays

This week we featured Alison Duke, Film Producer, Goldelox Productions. Duke shared many nuggets of wisdom with us. She emphasized the importance of continuous learning and to keep up with the technology in your field so that you become the competition. Here are Part One and Part Two of Alison Duke’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 link is affiliate link

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.” Henry Ford

Henry Ford did not invent the automobile but he made it possible for the masses to afford one, creating the “car culture.” Ford did this because he had a vision and he found a way to realize his vision. He streamlined the manufacturing process and introduced the continuously moving assembly line. Ford installed the first conveyor belt-based assembly line in his car factory in his Highland Park, Michigan plant.

Image via Wikipedia

Name: Henry Ford

Birth Date: July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947

Job Functions: Car Manufacturer

Fields: Manufacturing and Transportation

Known For: The Model T and Streamlining the Assembly Line

Biography

Henry Ford was born in Dearborn, Michigan to a prosperous farmer. Ford’s mother was responsible for his early education. She taught him how to read and instilled in him the core values of responsibility, duty and self-reliance. The young lad had a fascination for machinery and would tinker with the farm machinery. In 1876 when he was 13 years old, he saw a coal-fired steam engine which fired up his imagination.

Three years later, in 1879, when he was 16 years old, Ford left the family farm and entered into an apprenticeship at James Flowers and Brothers Machine Shop in Detroit, where they made valves and fire hydrants. To supplement his income which was less than his room and board, Ford worked at nights repairing clocks and watches.

Less than a year later, Ford moved to the Detroit Drydock Company, a thriving local shipbuilder where he apprenticed in its engine shop. Ford kept abreast of what was occurring in the automobile industry and was particularly interested in what German engineer Karl Benz was doing with the new gasoline-powered internal combustion engine.

After his apprenticeship ended in 1882, Ford joined Westinghouse Engine Company repairing steam traction engines, wheeled engines used to move heavy loads or to provide power at various locations, on farms across southeastern Michigan. From time to time, Ford visited his father’s farm to help out. His father wanted him to become a farmer and gave him a 40-acre plot of land. Ford took the land but was determined to chart his own path. When he married Clara Bryant they lived on the plot of land for a while, but Ford built a little shed which he used as his own machine shop. To learn more about his trade, Ford often travelled around Detroit, conducting what is now known today as information interviews. He questioned the best engineers to get the answers he so desperately sought.

Ford left the farm life permanently in mid-1891 when he took a night-time position as an engineer at Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit. In 1895, he was promoted to chief engineer earning $100 a month. During his time at Edison Illuminating Company he met Thomas Alva Edison who became a lifelong friend.

In 1896, Ford produced a two-cylinder, four-cycle engine that generated four horsepower. He then mounted the engine on a chassis with four bicycle wheels and called his invention the Quadricycle. It was an instant success and people wanted one for themselves. Ford sold his machine for $200 and set out to build a more powerful one. Because of Ford’s constant tinkering with automobiles, Edison Illuminating gave him an ultimatum to choose between automobiles and his job. Ford chose automobiles. With help from investors, Ford established the Detroit Automobile Company, which was shortly changed to the Henry Ford Company.

Ford entered his car into races and he also spent a lot of time improving car designs and introducing new technologies which impacted the entire industry. In 1902, Ford left the Henry Ford Company which he had started to form another company, the Ford Motor Company in 1903. At this new company, Ford manufactured eight different models, and within five years the output was 100 cars a day.

A visionary, Ford was very strategic, and bought out many of his original investors, and ended up with a 58 percent stake in the company, which gave him more control of his company. He was also very dissatisfied with the daily output of cars and aspired to produce 1,000 cars each day. To do that, he decided to produce just one type of car, the Model T, a car suited for the masses. His stockholders were furious with him, but could do nothing because he held controlling interest in the firm.

In the fall of 1908, Ford rolled out his first Model T, which was loaded with many features, some of which were safety features like an encased engine. The price was $825, which at the time was quite expensive for the masses. Ford believed that with the introduction of assembly line technologies, over time he could reduce the price of the car because of efficiencies. For 20 years, Ford would manufacture only the Model T car.

From 1908 to 1909, Ford sold 11,000 cars, in 1910 he sold 19,000, and by 1914, he had captured nearly 50 percent of the US market selling 248,000 cars. Ford built a factory on 60 acres of land in Highland Park in Detroit. And by 1921, nearly 5.5 million Ford automobiles had been built.

In keeping with his vision to produce a car that the masses could easily afford, Ford introduced the continuous moving assembly line. He worked closely with his employees to figure out the correct pace that they could handle. The time to produce chassis went from a whopping six hours to 90 minutes, and with this time savings, by 1916, the one millionth Model T rolled off the assembly line and Ford was now producing 2,000 cars every day. The price of his cars dropped to $300, and he was able to corner 96 percent of the market for inexpensive cars.

Ford didn’t stop there with introducing changes. He introduced an eight-hour shift, which was below the industry standard, and had three eight-hour shifts each day at his factory. Because of labour problems, Ford introduced profit-sharing and a minimum wage of $5 a day for his workers, which was double the industry standard which ranged from $1.80 to $2.50 a day.

With the outbreak of World War I which Ford was against, he spoke up against it and used his resources to end it. He sailed on his “peace ship” to Europe to end the hostilities, but the media criticized him heavily for this. He made an unsuccessful bid for the US Senate as a democrat. He also bought the local newspaper, Dearborn Independent and pushed what was believed to be racist and isolationist views. In the 1920s he built an 1,100 acre factory and tried to introduce vertical integration but there were constant personality clashes with his workers. He became very dictatorial and ended up chasing away his very best executives.

The Ford Company started to slip and the Model Ts looked outdated alongside the more stylish cars produced by General Motors and Chrysler. This forced him to retire the Model T which he replaced with the Model A. Just when the company started to regain market share, the Great Depression arrived. World War II also tarnished Ford’s image, “[Ford] intimidated his workers through campaigns of espionage and subversion against labor unions. His fuzzy pro-Hitler remarks and turn to isolationism led many to label Ford a Nazi apologist.” Ford was adamantly against labour unions, and did everything in his power to undermine unionization.

Ford died in 1947 of a cerebral haemorrhage at age 83. What happened that would change someone so radically?

Henry Ford’s Steps to Success

• Ford’s mother taught him how to read and instilled in him the core values of responsibility, duty and self-reliance.
• Worked hard to realize his vision.
• For a long time, Ford was a leader in the automobile industry.
• Launched the era of the automobile and in doing so provided the tools necessary for the mass production of consumer goods.
• Associated with the creation of the assembly line, which allowed cars and other uniform products to be produced quickly and efficiently. Each worker was responsible for completing a single task.
• Production of the Model T automobile on an assembly line brought the low-priced automobile within reach of many middle-class Americans.
• Ford initially founded the Ford Foundation, one of the world’s largest philanthropic foundations, in 1936 to avoid estate taxes.

Why Henry Ford’s Contribution Matters

Henry Ford’s contribution matters because he revolutionized the automobile industry by producing inexpensive cars for the masses. He helped to change the way most people traveled.

Lessons from Henry Ford

• Don’t give up on your dreams.
• Keep on top of what is going in your industry.
• Do work that matters, not only to you, but also to humankind.
• Leave the world better than you found it.

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

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

Interviewee Name: Christina Ioannidis: 

Company Name:  Aquitude

Website: www.aquitude.com

Christina Ioannidis – Your Invisible Mentor

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Christina Ioannidis: I don’t have regrets.

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

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

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

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

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

Christina Ioannidis:

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

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

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

Avil Beckford: How do you define success?

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

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

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

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

Christina Ioannidis: 

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

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

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

Christina Ioannidis:

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

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

Christina Ioannidis: 

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

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

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

Christina Ioannidis:

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

Avil Beckford: If you were stranded on a deserted island, what are five books that you would like to have with you and why? Summarize the book in two sentences.

Christina Ioannidis:

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

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

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

Christina Ioannidis:

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

Gone with the wind (trailer)

If you cannot view the YouTube video click here.

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

If you cannot view the YouTube video click here.

Mozart – Requiem

If you cannot view the YouTube video click here.

Avil Beckford: What excites you about life?

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

Avil Beckford: How do you nurture your soul?

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

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

Christina Ioannidis:Good health!

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

The sun is shining.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

About Christina Ioannidis:

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

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

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

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

Book links are affiliate links.

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

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Last week we talked about how to use The Invisible Mentor interviews to get the most from them. Please refer to How to Use Interviews for Self-Improvement and Another Way to Use Interviews for Self Improvement. As I was writing those blog posts, it suddenly occurred to me that the interviews I present here are really workshops that you attend nearly every week, for your professional development.

Christina Ioannidis – Your Invisible Mentor

Henry Ford once said, “Failure is the only opportunity to begin again more intelligently.”

Christina’s first business aqua failed and she had to start over from scratch. I’m very impressed with Christina because she spoke openly and candidly about what she went through when her first business failed. As a society, especially in the West, we are socialized not to talk about failure, but the biggest lessons and learnings come from failure as you will see in the interview. At the end of Part One of the interview (or workshop) you’ll:

• Get incredible insights into a passionate woman who failed forward to success
• Learn about what can happen when you have too much stress in your life
• See a linchpin in action. Remember a few of the characteristics of a linchpin are to be ahead of the curve and anticipate the needs of your clients and customers before they do, and give it to them. Please see Review of Linchpin by Seth Godin
• Learn that you have to be clear and honest with people when you ask them to mentor you. The same thing applies when you contact someone in your networks. Please refer to Review of The Skinny on Networking by Jim Randel

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

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

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

Christina Ioannidis: I don’t really have a typical day. A typical day might look like, get up in the morning, go to the gym or run. Afterwards I have breakfast, then either I leave the house and go for meetings usually back-to-back, followed by my training courses, or I stay in the office and work around building or designing the courses that I deliver. In the evenings, practically 90 percent of the time I am networking or going out to networking events.

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

Christina Ioannidis: I think I motivate myself by thinking about how I’m going to break the market, or how I’m going to make something out of nothing. My motivation is knowing that I’ve started something completely new and that it’s going to be successful, so I motivate myself by having a goal and seeing whether or not I get there.

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

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

I started my life from scratch again when I lost my business. If I were to start again as a youngster in my career, what I would do very differently would be to not expect other people to recognize my achievements, but to always be positive about what I have done myself and tell others about it, and network like crazy. When I lost my jobs and my businesses, I naturally networked but I didn’t realize that I had to do it 10 times more than I had originally done it. If I were starting my professional life again or my companies again, I would probably have a little bit more cash in the bank. To start something it always takes a lot longer to make money out of it than one thinks.

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

Christina Ioannidis: Technology! For me, in the past year I’ve realized how important technology is for businesses. Even though I worked in technology 10 years ago I took it for granted how important it was to help people build connections. Social media and social networks have enabled people to get together via technology. The other product that we use, virtual conferencing is another piece of technology that is so powerful to bring people together. So for me, I think this has been the one single most powerful kind of enlightenment around how you can bring people globally together in one virtual physical space. And technology can do that.

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

Christina Ioannidis: The credit crunch. While the credit crunch has been a big crisis for everyone because everyone was affected in some way, the good thing is that it has brought questioning of everything, all the foundation of business. I actually think that this is going to help us advance faster to create better businesses even though we have taken a step back economically.

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

Christina Ioannidis: Self-doubt: I’m not a naturally doubtful person as you’ve probably gathered. I’m a high risk-taker, go crazy do kind of person. But my biggest risk would be falling prey to self-doubt, to start wondering if I can do things, which I have done in the past due to stress. Just before I lost my previous business, I suffered from depression quite badly because of stress. I don’t have any issues, but because of stress I was depressed, and what’s amazing is that I woke up one day and said, “Stop crying! You’re not going to achieve anything by crying. The only one who is going to get you out of the mess you’re in is yourself and that’s it.” My biggest threat would be if that happened again, which is not likely to.

To my business, as I’ve learned the biggest threat is doing stuff too quickly and spending too much money. My biggest mistake in a previous entrepreneurial endeavor was taking on too much financial risk. I don’t think that will happen again because I’m a little bit more intelligent now.

What’s unique about the service that you provide?

Christina Ioannidis: Precisely because it’s a service and it’s all about how you make people feel. The uniqueness is the delivery. I tend to deliver most of the content, and the associates that I have, are chosen on how good they are at making people feel positive about themselves. Whatever I do with either of my businesses, whether it’s consulting to a company, or coaching someone, they have to leave in a better condition than when they came in contact with us. The way the service is delivered, we are always making sure that our clients are happy and feel good about themselves.

The use of technology: We are always using cutting edge technology to deliver something that no one else has done.

Ideas: One thing I do quite naturally now is to always think about what could be a commercial proposition that would be beneficial for our customers. A lot of companies become complacent and they don’t do that. Once they have got a client, they just deliver the same-old, same-old. For me it’s always about being ahead of the curve and thinking ahead about what that client might need.

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

Christina Ioannidis: A lot of people in my field go in and talk using very big words, make big presentations, charge a lot of money, but ultimately the business doesn’t actually change, it’s fundamentally the same. The client has just paid them loads of money for a big presentation and long words. What we do, and what I like doing, is talking through the “crap” and saying it as it is, and being effective in that way. The way we work is about being realistic and always measuring what we do with concrete feedback and adapting the product or service to the strategy based on that feedback. A lot of companies don`t necessarily do that.

Avil Beckford: Describe a major business or other challenge you had and how you resolved it.

Christina Ioannidis: There is no bigger challenge than what I went through with aqua. (This will make an interesting story for you and your readers. The day I setup my first entrepreneurial venture, the exact date, was the date I met my future husband, so there was an omen there, and we got married this year, on exactly the same date by chance, so some things are meant to happen.)

When I setup aqua in 2003, I was venturing into something completely unknown to me, and I was following my heart, blindly following my heart. And, I wasn’t listening to anyone, and I thought anyone who had any criticisms to what I was offering, just didn’t understand me, and didn’t understand the business, so I pursued creating it, growing it, going crazy taking out a retail outlet in Mayfair, taking out the risk which I personally signed for. Anyone in business will tell you that’s a no-no. But I was also convinced that it was going to work, I didn’t see any stumbling blocks, I just went for it.

After we had been trading in the premises for a year I was consequently told that the business was trading insolvently. Basically I couldn’t afford to pay all the suppliers that I had, and I was forced to close it, and consequently lose the business. I started to realize the big mistakes that I made along the way.

My big mistake was that I was too confident and thought the people who weren’t understanding the service, and were criticizing me, simply didn’t understand what I was trying to do. But they were giving me hints of what I was doing wrong, but I refused to listen to them.

Avil Beckford: What lessons did you learn in the process?

Christina Ioannidis: Lesson number one: Listen, you have two ears and one mouth, and that’s for a reason. Try and read between the lines even if you do not like what people are telling you.

Lesson number two: Beware of very extreme risks because there are other implications that come with it. When your business is declared insolvent, the directors of the business are automatically – because that’s the way the rules are in the UK – investigated for fraud, which makes sense, and I understand it from the England Revenue perspective. But when you’ve just lost everything, and then you are investigated personally, all your bank statements for the past three years, and you have to say where monies came from and where they went, and you are so emotionally destroyed, let’s say it’s just very difficult to manage that. So be aware of the implications of what you are getting yourself into. This is one of the romances of entrepreneurship, people think it’s so romantic being the director of a business, but you have legal responsibilities. I could have gone to jail if I had been told that I was trading insolvently and carried on trading. I didn’t know that.

These have been my biggest failures and my biggest learnings.

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

Christina Ioannidis: I’ve worked very hard to get to where I’ve wanted to be, but I think my biggest break came from someone I met while I had my previous business. We met me at a networking event, and we really liked each other. She was another professional woman and was inspired by what I was doing. She entrusted me to do a program for women around impact and gravitas (about being feminine but also professional) in business. I did a course for her female staff and it was a life line for me because I still had that retail outlet at the time, and that was significant amount of money that helped the business for a long time. She gave me a major break! She became a stakeholder to the business and was always coming to events and supporting me in any way that she could – as a customer and client.

When I lost that business, she became the first client of acquitude, so she brought me into Accenture, the company she was working for, to do some training. She is one of the most important people on the planet to me because she gave me those breaks.

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

Christina Ioannidis: See answer above about losing my business.

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

Christina Ioannidis: My biggest disappointment in life has come from other people. I have fallen out a number of times with individuals in business because I’m the type of person who will take risks, and there is so much glamour associated with what I tend to get involved in, that other people love to come on board. However, when push comes to shove, if I’ve taken all the risks, it means that I’m also the one who is going to lose everything. In the past, what I’ve found is that, what a lot of people happen to do – and I’ve lost friends over this – is to come in and say they’ll do something. I pay them and then I don’t get what is expected, and this has been true on a number of occasions. My learning has been – and that’s why I do what I do now in terms of communications with other people, and helping them to build good relationships with their colleagues and teams – is to always make sure you have an agreement up front with your expectations and their expectations. And a lot of it has to do with personality type because we project our personalities on to other people, and we expect other people to behave as we would. Everyone does that so we need to understand them even more than we understand ourselves, so we know how they are thinking. I think that this is my biggest learning.

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

Christina Ioannidis: My toughest decision is what I am going through now, and it’s a personal decision. I find business decisions are easier to make than my personal ones. My toughest decision is where to live because my parents are live in Greece, I live in London, but I am married to an Australian man, so we have three very distinct geographies that we could be in but I don’t want to be too far from my parents because they are now at an elderly age. This is my hardest decision at the moment. I probably spend more time thinking about this than anything else.

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

Christina Ioannidis: My grandmother and in knowing her. My grandmother was the epitome of femininity and intelligence. She was a poor Venezuelan woman, absolutely beautiful who brought up magnificent daughters on her own. And that’s why I admired her! She did some things that most would not be able to do. And not only that, she was very advanced for her time. She grew up at the beginning of the 20^th century and did a lot of cutting edge things. Women were not liberated then, and even though her social environment was restricted, she did so much, and both of her daughters became internationally renowned in their fields. My mother became an international pianist, performing globally, and my aunt won the national award for microbiology for science in Venezuela. So both of them became eminencies in their fields, and they are women. That’s why I feel so much passion about supporting women, and I think it comes from her. She fed this to my mother who is my second biggest inspiration. My mother travelled the whole world in the sixties. At 16 she went to live in New York for five years in a row, then she went to Vienna and to Italy where she met a Greek man, my father. She lived in Greece and was practically the first Venezuelan living in Greece, so she was always living in very different environments, but adapting to them.

It was a momentous time when my grandmother passed away in 2003. And the way she passed away, I’m convinced it was her wish for me to start aqua. I’m convinced it was her wish that I would do jewelry because she passionately loved jewelry. I think that’s what got me into my entrepreneurial journey. Her death shocked me so much, that if my career was going straight, it bounced me to the right.

The name of my businesses aquitude (present) and aqua, which I lost is significant. My grandmother’s initials were AQ. If you ever saw the logo of the first company, the a and the q were very pronounced and the u and a were much smaller. I always keep a and q in my company names. Now it’s aquitude and I want people to have her attitude in life.

I couldn’t have done what I’m doing if I hadn’t been made redundant. The first I was made redundant, I managed better than I did the second time because Nortel Networks was a fabulous company to work for, they were very good. The person who made me redundant told me in very nice terms in a very nice way. I felt bad that the company was suffering, but I knew that I would find something else. But the second redundancy was bad because they treated us very badly. I left feeling bitter and I hated that, which was worse for me because I was in a bad state of mind.

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

Christina Ioannidis: I’m very proud of what I did with aqua. I still have people who were clients say to me, “You should do it again,” and my response, “Yes, but not with my money.” It was a beautiful shop and the service was great, the designers were fantastic. Yes there were a lot of challenges, but I am very proud of how I created that experience out of nothing.

Avil Beckford: How did mentors influence your life?

Christina Ioannidis: Big time. First of all, going back to your question about my biggest break, I didn’t know about mentors in the formal sense when I was starting my career. When I started my first job, I was in a very high profile international graduate program for a company called Allied Domecq Spirits. Only Mexicans or Spanish people know about this brand Domecq. Domecq was the biggest spirits company that came out of Mexico, and they had all the sherries in Spain as well. It was owned by a very prominent Latin family, and a British Distillery bought the business and it became Allied Domecq.

I worked for them in a fantastic graduate training program, where they spent millions of dollars on us. They took us on helicopter rides to Wales and to meetings in Hungary and just traveling the planet as graduates.

One of the stakeholders in the graduate program, who was a European president, asked to meet with everyone of the graduates, and I was the last one to meet with him because I was living in Spain at the time and I had to go to the UK to meet him. When I met him,  I asked if he would be my mentor. I was 25 at the time. This guy is at the top of the business, so it takes a little bit of guts, and I am that way. I was thinking that the worse thing that could happen is that he would say no. He was delighted, he smiled and said, “I’m so happy that you asked me, of course I would be delighted.”

He became my mentor, and we agreed that it was going to be an informal conversation, an email here and there, nothing too formal, no hours spent because the guy was busy. He was very instructive in me moving from Spain from sales, then financial and then move me into marketing in Greece. Now there is one thing that Greeks do beautifully, and that’s to have fun. I worked in Athens as a result of him proposing it.

This is a great example of what a mentor can do, and even though we think they won’t have the time, they make the time because they are people and they want to help people. They will help you if you are honest about what you want from them. I had told him I would like him to be there for me as a sounding board, and if there was anything interesting happening in the company that he thought I could embrace I would be happy to consider it. I was very keen.

He was a very important mentor, and ever since I have had my career, I have always had individuals, and they may not have known this, but they were actually my mentor without the formal M. They are the people who I would call up and say I’m doing this, what do you think? and most of the time I didn’t listen, and that’s why the first business didn’t quite work out. They’ve been there, and now I have a range of people who I call my Board of Directors, or my mentoring mesh of individuals, and each one plays an instructive role. I have been quite strategic in who I choose because I know they could be sponsors in those areas I’m interested in and likely to be critical to shape my advancement either for the business or for myself.

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

Christina Ioannidis: I tend to be someone who is very spontaneous. I am Greek-Venezuelan and I love life. A consistent message was the need to question a bit more, to analyze a bit more before acting. I’m the kind of person who will come up with a brilliant idea, I’m convinced it’s going to work, I go out and start working and I don’t stop talking to people about it without actually having dotted the “i’s” and cross the “t’s”. So if someone asked me a question that I didn’t know the answer to, obviously I haven’t thought things through, so that’s something that came out consistently. So now I’m a little bit more focused on how I put stuff on the table, or actually tell people about it.

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

Christina Ioannidis: Be strategic! Always think through what you want, and how you want others to help you, so they don’t become your crutch. A lot of people think that a mentor is a crutch, is someone they can call up twice a month and run all their problems and let them make a decision. A mentor is not that. A mentor is someone who will enlighten you with a perspective to your problem, but you ultimately have to be the person who makes the decision. And that’s why being strategic is important because if you think about what they can offer you in terms of advice, and it’s targeted, then they will definitely help you to make a better decision.

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About Christina Ioannidis:

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

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

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

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