The Invisible Mentor

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Today, we present the second part of Carolyn Barber’s interview. As I was reviewing Carolyn’s interview, and assuming the role of an objective bystander (Carolyn is a friend), relationships are important to her and she nurtures them. Do you appreciate and nurture the people in your life? You will also notice that wanting a partner to share her life with is a recurring theme. Do you value your significant other, or do you take them for granted? Take time today, to let them know how much you value and care for them, it’s important.

Her formula for success is “doing the best you can with what you have,” reminded me of Duke Redbird’s formula for success, “when you get what you want.” And my mind was transported to my blog post Who You Gonna Call When You Need a Backer because I talked about having the character MacGyver from the hit TV show of the same name on my team if I were in a tight corner because he was always able to work with whatever he had to find a very workable solution. How about for today, we worked with what we have instead of lamenting over what we do not have. Incidentally, Carolyn and Duke are around the same age. And the tagline for MacGyver is “His mind is the ultimate weapon.” Isn’t that a great tagline?

Tell me a little bit about yourself.

I am a 70-year old, single woman living in Riverdale, Toronto. I have a part-time business in nutritional counseling that I started when I was 62 after retiring early as a nutritionist in public health. My career is a fairly important to me and it takes up a couple of days of my life. I am quite involved with my church and it’s a big part of my life and friendships. And perhaps the main reason for me being at the church is the community that it offers to me aside from the spiritual aspect which would be secondary for me. My family of three kids and four grandchildren are also really important to me. I am also a very active person. My favourite outdoor activities are camping and canoeing together. I also like biking and hiking, and for indoors, my passion is cooking. I am quite interested in the art scene in Toronto: opera, theatre, and music of various sorts such as the Toronto Consort. I keep quite busy.

How do you integrate your personal and professional life?

When I find that my personal and professional lives are not integrated, I am not happy, so I go back to journaling and list making. And, I spend more time thinking about spiritual issues, meditating, and this helps me to get back on track. Being outdoors also helps me to have the will to get my head on straight.

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

A lack of a partner.

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

1. Be true to your feelings about things.
2. Pay attention to things that excite or madden you because they are important to who you are, and helps you to clearly see who you are.
3. Exercise is important. When I am fit and active, it gives me more confidence to go ahead and get organized in my life. Without fitness, I would have to completely revamp how I do things.
4. Create friendships, invest in them and honor them.

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

Because I live alone I tend to find activities which involve friends, might be around going to music concerts, talking, or eating.

What process do you use to generate great ideas?

Writing, journaling and networking with people in my field.

What’s your favourite quotation and why?

I don’t have one, I have never thought of it.

How do you define success?

Knowing that you feel passionate about something that you love and acting on that passion.

In your opinion what’s the formula for success?

Success is doing the best you can with what you have.

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

Get the proper credentials that are recognized by the people who care about them. Set goals, both personal and professional. I got a notebook and started writing and making lists, what I wanted, what I would try to do in a year, and they were fairly sketchy, but I achieved them. Pay attention to trends, I have always done that even in my work in public health, I would get interested in a new trend like environmental nutrition, and I spoke about it at a conference once. Another trend was multiculturalism and nutrition, and at one point I found Public Health Multicultural Nutrition Network, and we met and talked about foods from different cultures back when the Canadian Food Guide was all about Canadian food.  I am not sure why I latched on to those things, I am not sure what happened, I just thought because there weren’t many talking about it I could be at the forefront and be seen as a spokesperson, and that actually put me in good stead and helped me to move ahead. Also going into complementary nutrition was an odd thing to do but I sort of enjoy those trends, I don’t know why.

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

Pay attention to what you really enjoy in that field, try to get good at it, try to learn as much as you can about a certain segment and try to specialize to some degree. If you discover something that you find fascinating, explore it because that’s how you make contacts and that’s how you’re seen to be passionate, and this is where I think that you can sell yourself the best.

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. The first one is Adelle Davis who is in my field and wrote books back in the 60s on alternative nutrition. She was at the forefront of the alternative nutrition field. I would ask her what convinced her that this was the right way to go, and I would like to know about some of her success stories and ask her for advice on how I was proceeding in my career.
2. Henry David Thoreau who wrote the books on living in the wilderness and what you can learn from the experience. A lot of my deepest feelings came from being in the wilderness. I would ask him when did this urge to live on his own and explore his spirituality through living in the wilderness started. I am always interested in beginnings, the roots of things, the little things that happened that helped to shape you.
3. The third person is Jesus because I think that he would be so approachable. I want to know about his teenage years, what happened there, how he spent that time.
4. I would like to meet Pema Chödrön, an ordained Buddhist nun who has a centre in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia Canada. I like her books especially The Places That Scare You. I like her because her writing is about ordinary life, the simple things that happen in your life are important, and they are all worthy of thinking of, perhaps honoring more. I think the biggest lesson that I learned from her is honoring more the hard times you have, the black spots that you have because they teach you things.

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?

The Artist Way by Julia Cameron with its stepwise approach, and again it’s about honoring the childish side of yourself, to play, to have time that’s just for you, that’s not trying to be better, or doing your duties was a huge revelation for me when I saw how difficult that was to do.

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. I would take a book on Buddhism like one of the Pema Chödrön books that I can keep on going back to because every time that I read those kinds of books I see something completely different and think that I have never seen that page before even though I have read it many times so I find new meanings in it which applies to everyday life and a desert island very well.
2. I would probably take the Bible because I don’t know anything about it. I never read the bible because it doesn’t mean much to me.
3. I would probably take a mythology book. I don’t read mythology but something with a lot of stories would go on forever and you would find new meanings and how it could apply to you is important to culture moving on.
4. I have been to Africa on a safari, so I would probably want a book on African animals so that I could remember that they exist, all pictures of things that wouldn’t exist on that island.

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

I would probably take a CD of Sergei Rachmaninoff, classical music that has a lot of piano in it, it’s just beautiful.

I would take a recent movie Departures a fabulous movie.

What excites you about life?

One thing that I like about life is coincidences… they happen and seem mysterious… like when you meet someone that you are thinking of… and when something happens that dovetails with what you need. That excites me.

How do you nurture your soul?

I nurture my soul in the outdoors mostly, and I like being creative in my house, cooking and talking one-to-one with friends.

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

I would wish for a partner, whether it would be someone to live with, that I do not know, but someone that I felt that I could really share everything about myself.

Complete the following, I am happy when…..

I’m sharing experiences with someone who loves to be in an activity that I love.

What are five takeaways from Carolyn’s interview? In what ways can you apply Carolyn’s teachings to your life? In what ways are you similar to, and different from Carolyn?

Please keep the conversation flowing, click on the comment link below and leave a note for me. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the left side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

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For your research and writing needs, consider my firm Ambeck Enterprise for white papers, articles, fact sheets, anniversary booklets, you name it. Since I am the best kept secret you may not know this, but I have over 15 years research and writing experience. I KNOW content. And if you cannot figure out which books to read for professional development, I am your WOMAN. I can assist you with that too. Visit my sales page for resources such as The Invisible Mentor Toolkit to assist you in acquiring wisdom from a distance. For free white papers click here.

This is Part 2 of Paul’s interview. When reading this interview,  think about ways to apply his wisdom. What is the formula for success? For Paul, it is to figure out what you are passionate about and find a way to do it? The book that profoundly impact him is Brand You 50 by Tom Peters. This is unusual because most people are not impacted by business books. Which book has profoundly impacted you?

Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Paul Copcutt, a transported Brit, came to Canada in 1996 with the biotech company I was working with to follow a Canadian and convince her to marry me. Started my company Square Peg in 2004 as a recruitment company but always with the intention of doing something more involving personal branding because what I had been doing in a corporate career was personal branding there was just not the name for it.  Now that is all I do, personal branding for individuals, inside corporations and speaking on the topic.

How do you integrate your personal and professional life?

They are intertwined all the time because I work from home and in my work and speeches I use personal examples to communicate the message of personal branding.

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

Not having my mother around to see her grandchildren.

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

1. There is no such thing as a free lunch
2. The easiest route is sometimes the right one.
3. It does not have to be perfect. Learn from both mistakes and successes.
4. It’s okay to say no and sometimes you have to have tough conversations.
5. Sometimes it is personal, not just business, so be respectful of that.

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

With my family. Catching up on reading. Enjoying the outdoors.

What process do you use to generate great ideas?

Mind mapping. Also going to a favourite place and reflecting on what I am trying to do and thinking with an open mind, jotting down whatever comes in to it.

What’s your favourite quotation and why?

“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you will help them become what they are capable of becoming.” Johann Goethe

It sums up what I believe personal branding has the capability of doing for everyone.

How do you define success? –

Being rewarded for doing what you love to do and that lets you lead the life you want to live.

In your opinion what’s the formula for success? -

Find out what you are passionate about and figure out a way to live a life doing it.

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

1. Reach out to those I saw as successful in the field and ask for their advice.
2. Personal and professional development through reading, programs, training and sharing of ideas.
3. Collaboration.
4. Helping others.

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

Find a mentor and find the time to mentor someone 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?

With the way that the world is so connected now this is way more possible than most people appreciate or realize. I think you can do much of this yourself. So I would more likely choose people who are now gone.

1. My mother – what was I like as a toddler and see how comparable that was to my own experiences of my children growing up.
2. Winston Churchill – to understand what leadership meant to him and what made him persevere.
3. Mother Teresa – to appreciate sacrifice and for my own humility
4. Martin Luther King – to understand what drove him to do what he did.
5. Queen Elizabeth the First – how a woman was able to reign for so long

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?

Tom Peters – Brand You 50. This was one of the very first books on personal branding and started my journey. As soon as I read it I realized what he was talking about was what I had done in my career and explained a lot. It was probably more emotional because it spoke to my belief that you can do what you want to do if you put your mind and efforts to it.

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. Book of quotations – for daily insight and inspiration
2. Dictionary – to learn a new word everyday and find a context to use it
3. Suduko – because I like logical puzzles to keep my mind active
4. Encyclopedia of World Religions – to understand the basis of all human cultures
5. War and Peace (Vintage Classics) – because I never finished it for English Literature class.

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

Music – Mozarts 40^th – my Dad used to play classical music every Sunday lunch, his attempt at having us appreciate classical music.

Film – Kind Hearts & Coronets – black and white English comedy where Sir Alec Guinness plays eight different characters. Great plot, Guinness is a genius and the perfect comedic twist at the end.

What excites you about life?

At the moment I am just scratching the surface of what is possible with personal branding. So much more to do.

How do you nurture your soul?

I do not know if I do enough now to say I nurture it. Something I am working on.

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?

Make every country capable of being self sufficient in food.

Complete the following, I am happy when…..

My children continue to believe that anything is possible.

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

Keep the conversation flowing. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the left side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

For your research and writing needs, consider my firm Ambeck Enterprise for white papers, articles, fact sheets, anniversary booklets, you name it. Since I am the best kept secret you may not know this, but I have over 15 years research and writing experience. I KNOW content. And if you cannot figure out which books to read for professional development, I am your WOMAN, I can assist you with that too.

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

Tell me a little bit about yourself.

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

What’s an accomplishment that you are proudest of?

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

How did mentors influence your life?

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

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

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

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

They encouraged me to read non-fiction books.

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

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

How do you integrate your personal and professional life?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What process do you use to generate great ideas?

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

What’s your favourite quotation and why?

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

How do you define success?

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

In your opinion what’s the formula for success?

Success is when you get what you want.

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

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

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

Be compassionate and have charity in your heart.

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

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

Which one book had a profound impact on your life?

The Bible

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

Encyclopedia Brittanica, that’s all you need.

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

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

What excites you about life?

The fact that it exists at all.

How do you nurture your soul?

I write poetry.

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

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

Complete the following, I am happy when…..

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

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

Keep the conversation flowing. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the left side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

For your research and writing needs, consider my firm Ambeck Enterprise for white papers, articles, fact sheets, anniversary booklets, you name it. Since I am the best kept secret you may not know this, but I have over 15 years research and writing experience. I KNOW content. And if you cannot figure out which books to read for professional development, I am your WOMAN, I can assist you with that too.

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