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.

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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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“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: What’s a typical day like for you?

Carol McManus: I’m like most entrepreneurs, I don’t know if there is a typical day, but I do have a routine that I try to follow so I can stay on top of things. My day starts early and I try to deal with paper, emails and even the social media. I try to get all of those things out of the way so I can focus the rest of the day on existing business, networking and developing new businesses, and how that’s split up on any given day depends on the schedule and the calendar. At the end of the week I want to make sure that I’ve allocated enough time for each of those three things.

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

Carol McManus:  I motivate myself because I’m a goal-driven person, so my motivation is driven by my goals. I stay focused on what I’m trying to achieve, not just monetary goals, but what the income and achievement of those goals is going to do for my life and family. To stay motivated is to keep reminding yourself of why you get up everyday and go to work. My goal summary is on my bulleting board, right in front of my face, I look at it every day. When I achieve a goal I get great satisfaction of being able to cross it off the list, or change the number, or raise the bar a bit. I think it’s that visual reinforcement that keeps me motivated and plus I have my husband who is my biggest supporter and champion and also my nudge. What I mean by that he is also the person who motivates me and if he thinks I’m straying or need a pep talk, then he is right there for me.

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

Carol McManus:  That’s a very hard question because I am not a person who lives with regret. The challenge as a coach, one of the things that I see with people, is that they invest a lot of time and energy trying to reset the clock and change things. And the fact of the matter is you can’t. I’ve had good experiences, bad experiences, challenging experiences, and extraordinary experiences, and all of those led to the totality of who I am now. The honest truth is that I’m not sure I would do anything differently because it wouldn’t have gotten me to where I am now – it would have led me on a different path.

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

Carol McManus: I think the most important discovery for me is the fact that in spite of what’s going on in the world, and that’s more economically driven, that statement, than anything else, we as individuals and business people can own and take control of it, and the people who are succeeding, and in fact thriving in this environment are the people who have the right attitude. I always thought I was a positive person and had a good attitude but I never really focused on how much that has served me. I think for me the discovery was how important that was and it caused me to reinforce the need to keep a positive attitude. And I’m not talking Pollyanna with rose-coloured glasses. I’m talking about knowing that in every opportunity there is possibility. If you focus on the possibility, you’re going to end up with a better solution than if you focus on the challenges and the obstacles.

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

1. I think a potential threat to any business is competition so I keep an eye on the competition, but I don’t focus on it. I think it’s more of a peripheral awareness of what other people are doing, how can I learn from that, how can I reposition my business to either respond to it or counter it. So that’s definitely number one.
2. I’d be foolish to say that the economy is not a potential threat because we are still in unstable times economically and there are simply things you cannot control. So a potential threat is if it spirals out of control then I would definitely have to retool and adjust.
3. I would potentially be the third threat to myself, and I think that’s true for all business people, is that if you take your eye off the ball, you take your eyes off the goals and become complacent, that can be the worst possible thing for your business. You always have to be checking yourself and reinvesting in yourself and recharging your own batteries so you’re always operating at an optimal level.

Avil Beckford: What’s unique about the service that you provide?

Carol McManus: There are a lot of people in the social media space, and there are two things that make me unique. Number One I’m a baby boomer so I’m not of the generation that grew up with electronic in the crib so to speak. They came into my business world and my life much later. It’s a learned skill for me and because it’s a learned skill I think I have a different perspective and appreciation of the technologies that are available to us today. The second piece going back to social media I think what makes me unique against my competitors is that I don’t consider myself to be a point and click approach to social media, I don’t worry about the technology and the tools and the mechanics. There are lots of people who do that better than I do. In fact, I outsource most of that for myself, what I focus on is my business experience. I focus on social media from a strategic standpoint, and when I sit with a client we talk about business goals and marketing message, ideal target client and then talk about how social media can serve that. I don’t recommend for example, that people jump in and start tweeting all day long because if there isn’t a real business objective, and a real direction as to where you want to go, it’s not going to serve your business. I think that’s a different approach than a lot of people in the social media space take.

Avil Beckford: Describe a major business or other challenge you had and how you resolved it. What kind of lessons did you learn in the process?

Carol McManus: My major challenge in life is to stay focused in the moment. I have been very blessed in my career to have new opportunities offered to me, and I can think of one specific example where I was more focused on something else that was going on, another opportunity, than focusing on the job that was in the moment. This is not only a reflection for myself but also advice for everyone, that whatever your current responsibilities are whether you’re working for yourself or you’re working for somebody else you want to focus on what your responsibility is and do that to your very best ability because it’s through that accomplishment that you will get noticed and promoted, advanced or have new opportunities open up for you. You can’t always be looking at the horizon and at the next shiny object that dangles itself in front of you. You really have to stay focused on the now – the present.

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

Carol McManus: My big break came from one of my mentors. I was with one company for 27 years, and again I had a very blessed career, which I’m very grateful for, but this person at an early time in my career really took me under his wings and gave me reflective feedback that I needed to help shape my career, was able to point out skills and possibilities that I didn’t necessarily see in myself, and then became my champion in the organization to open up that door to new opportunities. That was huge for me, so it’s definitely tied to a mentor. At the time he was not my direct line supervisor, but he became my direct line supervisor later on, but we were at different places in the organization but he took an interest in my career and then opened those doors so again, the side piece of advice there is you want to align yourself with people who believe in you and can see things in you that you don’t see in yourself and obviously help to open those doors.

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

Carol McManus:  One of my biggest failures, you’re only giving me one! I can think of many things that I started and for whatever reason didn’t get to the finish line. And again, there is a bigger lesson here, when I have failed, it was when I failed to follow-through. I am an idea person. I’m a strategist, so I do come up with a lot of cool ideas, some of which in retrospect I should have followed through on, so it’s a general answer to a question. But for the first 10 or 15 years of my career, it was a pattern where I would start something and not get it to the finish line, start something and not get it to the finish line. From that, I consider it to be a collective failure and the lesson is, and this is where goals come in, if you have clear goals and a vision, and you’re laser focused on what it’s going to take to get there, then you’re more likely to put yourself on a path to accomplish it, and take it all the way to the finish line.

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

Carol McManus:  That’s a personal answer and it’s walking away from my first marriage. It was at a time where there was an age difference between us and we were at different points in our lives, there was nothing horrible, no big custody battles, there was no fighting or bickering like a lot of people go through in a divorce. But it was simply a decision that if we continued on the path that we were on, it was going to end badly, so making that decision in a timely fashion, that this was not going to serve either of us, and walking away from it. It was a very tough decision, but for both of us the best decision that I ever made. Both of us went on to live very happy lives, and we both found new spouses and it ended up having a happy ending. I don’t care what the circumstances are, whether volatile or not volatile, ending a marriage that you made a commitment and went into thinking you were going to live with this person for the rest of your life is not an easy thing, or should be an easy thing to walk away from.

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

Carol McManus:

1. Where I went to college and what I studied because I went to America University and studied political science which gave me an opportunity throughout college to work on Capitol Hill. It shaped my perspective about the country and politics in general, but it gave me a greater appreciation of not just the fundamentals of democracy, but honestly and truly, how to get things done, and it was a great foundation for my business experience.
2. Around that same time, I had the opportunity to go to Woodstock in New York back when the real Woodstock happened, and while I was not of the hippie generation, it was a fluke that I was even there it shaped my life because it was the antithesis of the environment that I had been living in on Capitol Hill with the free form and the music – a total different appreciation for seeing the world on a bigger platform and everything that was tied to it, not just the event Woodstock, but everything that was tied to the movement in the sixties having to do with social consciousness and the protest about the war, really gave me a life path to be able to separate what’s important and what’s really important or what you think is important versus what is important.
3. The third would be to sell a small boutique company I had back in the seventies and go into a bigger environment, working in a corporate environment. It was a big departure for me because I grew up in an entrepreneurial family. My early career was very much as an entrepreneur and going into the corporate world totally changed me and shaped my perspective on how I did and saw things, helped me to develop my leadership skills, helped me to see things through various different lenses – through the human resources lens, the financial lens. Now that I have come full circle back to being an entrepreneur again, there is absolutely no question that, that experience makes me a better business person, a better service provider, a better strategist, all of those skills have served me very well.

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

Carol McManus:  The accomplishment I am proudest of is my most recent venture of claiming that title of America’s LinkedIn Lady. It’s the first time in my adult career, and in my life really, that I have had true personal brand identity, something that I feel I won, that I’m comfortable in, that I feel competent in and that has given me a personal brand. When you spend 27 years in a corporate environment, the identity is not about you, but the company and what’s good for the company. I was very comfortable with that, and it wasn’t that I wasn’t recognized or didn’t have name recognition within the organization, I did. But a very different thing happened when I went out on my own. When people meet me and say, “Oh, you’re America’s LinkedIn Lady.” I have been to events and have people say to me that they came to the event because they heard about me and wanted to hear what I had to say. That is not only flattering but it’s also daunting because it puts a big responsibility on your shoulder. It is definitely something I’m proud of, and it’s something I didn’t plan and aspire to, but the fact that it has happened, I can really enjoy it now.

Avil Beckford: How did mentors influence your life?

Carol McManus:  I worked for a company that was owned by an even larger company, a male dominated company, and I was young coming up the corporate ladder, and I had a female mentor who was one of the only women who held senior positions in the company. I sought her out in terms of guiding me about how you compete, get noticed and recognized as a professional when you’re in a male-dominated company. Her advice to this day has served me well. There were several legs to it but basically it was be true to yourself first and foremost, be who you are – don’t try to be overly feminine and don’t try to be overly masculine, just focus on the job at hand and do it to the best of your ability. Unfortunately at the time, because this goes back a few years, women have come a long way, which I’m happy about, and in my small way I was a contributor to move it along this path. But at the time, women had to be better than men at what they did. So if men operated at a 100 percent, we needed to operate at 110 or 120 percent, and do it without malice or feeling guilty, or bitter that people aren’t recognizing you or you’re not getting paid. You just do it and that advice and the guidance she gave me is what opened more doors for me and helped to shape my career because I didn’t try to play the game that other women played in the workplace.

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

Carol McManus: The one core message was not to take yourself so damn seriously. And I say that with a big smile on my face because it’s advice that we can all take. Another way to phrase that is don’t believe your own press. What I mean by that is not to be cynical or sceptical about people, you should be proud of your successes, but I think when people let their ego get in the way, when you do get compliments, when you do get awards, when you get promotions, it’s very easy to slip into that pattern in thinking you’re great and have all the answers. None of us do and you can’t operate in the world today, in a family, a business unit, in a company, in a church or any other organization without the support of other people. I have had more than one person share that advice with me, which helped to keep me focused and keep each others focused. You are one person making a contribution and it’s always part of a bigger picture.

Avil Beckford: An invisible mentor is a unique leader you can learn things from by observing them from afar, in the capacity of an Invisible Mentor, what is one piece of advice that you would give to readers?

Carol McManus:  Always act as though someone is watching. In other words, whatever you’re doing, pretend that you’re on stage and there is an audience in front of you, even surrounding you, who is not necessarily judging, just observing what’s going on. So if you’re always doing your best, being your best, putting your best foot forward, magical things will happen. You don’t have to go out and campaign for them, you don’t have to politic for them, you don’t have to beg for them, and you don’t have to demand them. They will happen, because when people notice you, when you’re at your best is when good things happen.

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.

Related articles

• Interview With Invisible Mentor Stefan Meister, Director, intercultures (theinvisiblementor.com)
• Interview With Invisible Mentor Stefan Meister, Director, intercultures, Part Two (theinvisiblementor.com)
• Interviews for Mentoring: Invisible Mentor, Maggie Berry, Women in Technology (theinvisiblementor.com)
• Interview With Invisible Mentor Jeanne-Marie Robillard, Senior Account Executive, National Speakers Bureau (theinvisiblementor.com)
• Mentor Yourself: Interview With Maggie Berry, Women in Technology Part II (theinvisiblementor.com)
• The Invisible Mentor Interviews Chris Kulbaba, Career and Employment Counsellor, Resume Writer, Facilitator, Public Speaker & LinkedIn Entrepreneur
• The Invisible Mentor Interviews Chris Kulbaba, Career and Employment Counsellor, Resume Writer, Facilitator, Public Speaker & LinkedIn Entrepreneur Part Two

This is a series of posts on how to create your own personalized mentoring program. In the first instalment, we looked at how to determine your mentoring needs, and in the second we looked at a variety of mentoring models and asked you to make note of the ones that would work in your situation. To create your personalized mentoring program, you have to understand your needs and know what your options are before you can move forward.

In this the final instalment we will help you to pull things together. This may sound surprising to you, but two major reasons why mentoring programs fail are improper fit between mentors and protégés and the upfront work was not done initially.

So what does that really mean?

Refer back to Adventures in Learning: DIY Mentoring Program, Episode One, where we had a needs assessment to understand what your mentoring needs are. Look at the ideal mentors that you chose, do their values align with yours? If you entered into a mentoring relationship with any of them, would it get you closer to fulfilling your life mission and goals? Every action you take should lead you to where you want to end up in life. Think about that for a few seconds.

In Adventures in Learning: DIY Mentoring Program, Episode Two, if you decided that any of the mentoring programs which involved groups such as peer-mentoring and mentoring circle would work for your situation, it’s important that the leader of the group has excellent facilitation skills. Every effective group when first started, went through developmental stages before the group members ultimately gel. Sufficient time has to be allotted for group members to get to know each other. Years ago before I have the experience I now have, when I led/chaired a meeting, I was very aware of time and quickly got down to business without giving the group members enough time for check in. Today, I would never operate that way, because when people get to know each other, it builds trust and the likelihood for cliques forming is reduced.

Now that we have gotten over those two major hurdles, the other big issue is how to contact people. Before you contact anyone, asking them if they would mentor you, or be a part of a mentoring circle or even a peer-to-peer group, spend some time getting to know them first before you start a conversation. Read their status updates on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. On their LinkedIn profile, try to find a point of interest that you have in common with them. Did you attend the same university, share a past employer, are both members of the same LinkedIn Group, support the same non-profit? If we take the time to conduct a little upfront research you’ll be amazed by how much you have in common with others. Comment on their updates, and start the conversation to build a relationship.

After you have gathered your intelligence, and started to build a relationship, raise the topic of mentoring. Because they know you, they are more likely to respond to you in a positive manner. Always be honest with your requests and let people know exactly what you are asking of them. Give them an out, so they can graciously turn you down if they do not believe the right fit is there. The more time you take in selecting potential ideal mentors, the more likely you would have made a good choice. Adventures in Learning: DIY Mentoring Program, Episode One is a critical stage.

For senior level executives, when contacting them, I have had a lot of luck using email, or sending a letter by snail mail or courier. To be really successful in creating your personalized mentoring program, it’s essential that you build and nurture your networks. When you have a wide and deep network, you have more options from which to get people for your mentoring groups. When you interact with people in your networks, you will discover whose values align with yours.

When I started the series, I mentioned that I was thinking of writing a DIY Mentoring Program for the Amazon Kindle. I have written Episode One and Episode Two and have uploaded them. I have added more information, and the Mentoring Needs Assessment is more in-depth. Writing the blog posts have helped me to clarify what I wanted to say, and set the tone for the content. I will be writing the last instalment for the Kindle in the next few days.

You have the capacity to create your own customized mentoring program, but you have to know what your needs are, the options that are open to you, and start building relationships with the people who can get you where you want to go before you consider contacting them.

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.

Reference Material

Adventures: DIY Mentoring Program, Episode One

Adventures: DIY Mentoring Program, Episode Two

Get the Mentoring Equation Right, Whitney Johnson

Lessons from Successful Networkers, Bill Barnett

In the recent mentoring survey by the social network LinkedIn, a large percent of women reported that the reason they didn’t have a mentor was because no one had asked them. This is the first in a series that will assist you in taking control of your career by creating your own personal mentoring program. Instead of waiting to be asked if you would like to be mentored, you will learn how to take the initiative in finding appropriate mentors for yourself.

It may seem weird to you that there is such a thing as a do-it-yourself mentoring program. We have been conditioned to think of mentoring in a certain way, in a traditional way, where someone, usually at a senior level, advises and guides another person at a more junior level. Before you create a mentoring program for yourself, first you have to understand what mentoring is, as well as determine what your true needs are, so that you seek appropriate mentors and tap into relevant networks.

The Story behind Mentoring

In Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey, when Odysseus, the Greek King of Ithaca left to fight in the 10-year Trojan War, he left his old friend Mentor in charge of his household and young son Telemachus. The real Mentor is not mentioned that much in the story; however, the immortal Goddess Athena, disguises herself as Mentor and encourages Telemachus to stand up to the men who were courting his mother Penelope.

Athena also encourages Telemachus to go abroad to seek word about what has happened to his father, who had now been away for almost 20 years. Additionally, Athena acts as a mentor to Odysseus as he goes through the many trials during his return journey to his palace in Ithaca after the war.

In more recent times, Freddie Laker mentored Sir Richard Branson, Roger Corman mentored Martin Scorcese and Ron Howard, Michelle Robinson mentored Barack Obama and former Xerox CEO Anne M. Mulcahy mentored Ursula Burns to take over the reins. (For some interesting mentor-protégé pairings click here for an extensive list on Peer Resources).

Definition of Mentoring

The modern usage of mentor – trusted friend, counsellor or teacher – first appeared in François Fénelon’s Les Aventures de Telemaque in 1699, Wikipedia (2009).  Dictionary.com has a similar definition for a mentor, “Wise and trusted counsellor or teacher, an influential senior sponsor or supporter.”  And Wikipedia notes that “Mentors provide their expertise to less-experienced individuals to help them advance their careers, enhance their education.”

However, the concept of mentoring has been evolving over the past few years, and it’s no longer a traditional one-to-one or relationship. Mentoring is conversations, interactions, support and other networks and our relationships with others. Mentoring can occur in moments (profound conversation you have with others, or the interviews I conduct with others), over a period of time (mentoring for a specific period of time) or even over a lifetime (parents are often great mentors). Once you embrace the broader meaning of mentoring and mentors, it’s much easier for you to create a mentoring program that’s just right for you.

In addition to the above, there is also a new kind of mentoring – invisible mentoring. An invisible mentor is a “unique leader you can learn things from by observing them from a distance.” You may call these people role models, but they are also your invisible mentors. The invisible mentor concept may be unfamiliar to you, but in Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, which was first published in 1937, the author writes about what he calls “invisible counsellors”.  According to Hill, “I followed the habit of reshaping my own character by trying to imitate the nine men whose lives and life works had been most impressive to me… Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Paine, Thomas Edison, Charles Darwin, Abraham Lincoln, Luther Burbank, Napoleon Bonaparte, Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie… I studied the records of their lives with painstaking care.”

Step One in Creating your Mentoring Program

Before you get down to the nitty-gritty of creating your mentoring program, you first have to understand yourself and your needs, the why behind wanting a mentor. Here is your first action to take.

Mini Mentoring Needs Analysis

1. What are your vision, mission and purpose in life?
2. In the next three years, where would you like to be in your personal and professional life? Please frame your responses in the form of personal and professional goals for each of the five life areas – Economic/Financial, Social, Health/Fitness, Business/Career and Personal. Have no more than 10 goals and assign timelines to them for what you want to accomplish in the first, second and third year.
3. Think about your professional goals, what gaps exist between where you are now, to where you would like to be in the next three years?
4. What actions do you have to take to fill those gaps?
5. What knowledge do you have to acquire to fill those gaps?
6. Who are the experts that you can learn from, and what are their areas of expertise?
7. Of the experts that you identified, which ones do you respect and are respected by others?
8. If trusted friends could introduce you to five people who would be ideal mentors for you, would you choose? Would your ideal mentors be similar to the experts you identified above?
9. The five ideal mentors that you choose in the above question, what qualities and traits do they possess, which accounted for you choosing them?
10. Who are some people within your organizations, and other networks who have the same goals as you do? (These people could be potential members for mentoring groups that you create).
11. At the end of a mentoring relationship, what would success for you look like?

In the next episode of the DIY Mentoring Program, we’ll delve further into the process.

I am thinking of creating a digital product that fleshes out the DIY Mentoring Program. 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.

Related articles

• Adventures in Learning: DIY Mentoring Program, Episode Three (theinvisiblementor.com)
• Adventures in Learning: DIY Mentoring Program, Episode Two (theinvisiblementor.com)

I finally got around to reading my complimentary copy of Zarrella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness: The Science, Design, and Engineering of Contagious Ideas by Dan Zarrella, which is a manifesto from Seth Godin’s Domino Project. The manifesto is a short read but it is packed with a lot of punch.

We’ve all seen videos, blog posts and ideas that spread like wildfire over the internet.

But what makes them spreadable? Is it because they are good?

Not necessarily, says Dan Zarrella, since some of those videos, blog posts and ideas aren’t good. They spread because they have contagiousness factors.  They spread because they are able to reproduce themselves. “In his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins coined the word “meme” to mean a “unit of cultural inheritance.” His point was ideas evolve like genes do, and their success is based on their ability to spread, not on their benefit to provide to their hosts,” says Zarrella.

What I liked about the manifesto is that it’s researched-based and the author loves to tests things. Before an idea is spread, there are three criteria that must be met first:

1. Exposure: People have to be exposed to your content, so that means that they have to subscribe to your blog, be on your email list, or follow you on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook. To win at this you have to increase the number of people who subscribe to you blog, are on your email lists, and who connect or follow you on the various social networks.
2. Attention: They have to be aware of the content that you want to spread, so they have to read you blog post, open your email or read you status update. To win at this, you have to write better headlines/subject lines for your blog posts and emails, as well as more engaging status updates.
3. Motivation: They have to be motivated to share your content. Always have a call to action so people know what they are supposed to do next.

And the key to the above is really to experiment to determine what works and what doesn’t work so well.

Zarrella takes each criteria, and delves into them in their own chapter and gives deeper insight into exactly what he means. For instance, we are often told that if we have a small engaged list, our idea will spread, but the science doesn’t really support that. Yes, there are times we’ll get lucky, but for an idea to spread, it’s better if it’s exposed to a larger audience because not everyone will read it, and of those who read about your idea, even less will be motivated to share it.

In addition, certain words such as official, founder, speaker, expert and so on give us authority and increases our exposure. Another interesting piece of information is that people prefer information from you that’s positive because they are bombarded with so much negative information every day. And when you write, they want to hear your voice, your unique take, they want you to be authentic, but they do not want to hear about you. It’s what’s in it for them.

To grab attention you have to cut through all the clutter, but to do so, you have to say something new in a way that is familiar, or say something old in a new way, and one of the examples Zarrella gave was new adaptations of Romeo and Juliet. Another way is to personalize your message, or even broadcast your message at counterintuitive times such as on the weekends. Email messages that were sent between 5 and 6 am had the highest click through rates.

Certain types of information are more spreadable than others:

1. People have to be eager for the information.
2. Have to know what information people already have and what they lack.
3. Have to have an understanding of what moves them – their hopes, fears, hostilities.
4. Have an understanding of how they deal with their hopes, fears, hostilities, and so on.

Some of the reasons people are motivated to spread your ideas include: Personal relevance, humour, usefulness, shared common interest and so on. And the easier it is to read and understand your idea, the more spreadable it becomes.

3 Great Ideas

1. Talk as yourself, not about yourself.
2. Add to the conversation with interesting content.
3. Scarce knowledge is power

I recommend Zarrella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness: The Science, Design, and Engineering of Contagious Ideas by Dan Zarrella because it has tips that you can readily implement to test for yourself.

Other Resources

 How to Write Magnetic Headlines, Copyblogger.com

How to Write Headlines That Work, Copyblogger.com

102 Proven Social Media Headline Formulas, Chris Garrett

Idea Starters: 52 Headline Archetypes to Get Your Creative Juices Flowing

How to Spread Your Ideas, Leo Babauta

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

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