The Invisible Mentor

Posts Tagged ‘success definition’

Interviewee Name: Mike DeSousa

Website: http://www.mikedesousa.ca

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Mike DeSousa:  I am a Career Social Media specialist who helps recruiters & employers find superior employee talent FAST using Social Media.  As well, I am a Public Speaker who trains Non-Profit Agency staff on how to market their job-seeking clients, helping them to find work FAST.

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

Mike DeSousa: My work is based on the personal aspects of my life; I see them as both revolving around helping others. I consider myself the same person in my personal life and in the other aspects.  I actually seek to integrate them together, which my wife doesn’t appreciate — she looks at work as something she does outside of her personal life, and believes in keeping them separate.

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

Mike DeSousa:

1. Work your buns off
2. Give yourself a lofty, challenging goal — don’t set the bar too low
3. Out-strategize others
4. Ask more of yourself & set tight deadlines
5. Tie in your daily activities towards your long-term goals & reward yourself each time you complete  a tiny step

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

Mike DeSousa: Reading, learning, surfing the net, working on my passion (“Public Speaking”). No ‘downtime’ for this guy. Sometimes watch some movies, though I’d rather do something active than escape to the “mind candy of TV”.

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

Mike DeSousa: I make connections between different areas that I read; stream-of-consciousness thinking. Forced Morphological Connections — generating categories of aspects of different things & recombining them into something new.

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

Mike DeSousa:

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”

It reminds me of our decision-making process for life “decisionism,” and reminds me of the life decisions that I’ve reached… Being a contrarian, I also choose to take the path that “was grassy and wanted wear”. Given that Robert Frost also suffered with depressions, it feels that both him and his words speak to me.  Personally, I rhyme like Dr. Seuss!

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

Mike DeSousa: My definition of success is making a difference in others’ lives, reaching your personal goals, making the world a better place, and working towards the flexibility to make your own choices through financial independence.  The formula for success? No one has the same formula — each one has to find their own personal formula based on their strengths, needs, interests, etc.  My personal formula entails hard work, strategic thinking, creating value for others, having an unquentionable thirst for knowledge, discipline, pursuing your passion, and following your strengths.

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

Mike DeSousa: I used an existing media (Social Media) and apply it into a new arena.  I researched and ‘power-learned’ this new area, developed innovative workshops, my Brand, started presenting at Conferences, building relationships, and helping others. I’d find opportunities found me in proportion to the amount that I helped others and took a sincere interest in them, giving without expecting something in return, listening to others with my Heart/Brain/Gut/Soul, identified areas of value & gaps for them, offering them solutions, and tieing in my Value Proposition to their needs while focusing on the benefits for them.

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

Mike DeSousa: Identify exactly what you want that is “play” and fun that also pays the bills (your end goal), help others achieve theirs, wake up early to work towards your goal, tie in your daily goals to your end goal, become an expert through reading/watching YouTube videos/doing, market yourself, and have fun. Do what you love that also pays the bills or that can help you pay the bills.

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?

Mike DeSousa:

1. Jesus Christ:  I’d say “teach me”
2. Alexander The Great:  “What was your secret to getting men to follow you?”
3. Winston Churchill:  “What led to your greatness as a speech-writer and orator?”
4. My (recently deceased) Dad: Tell me your life story and that of our family
5. Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Pierre Trudeau, or Brian Mulroney: What were your secrets to winning in politics?

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

Mike DeSousa: Either of the following three…

1. The Bible (no one single story — the impact of cumulative parables, interlinked for a common message of Love
2. The Little Prince, for its simplicity and many parables, that takes on new meaning with each life event that you experience
3. The Art of War, on winning, outworking, and out-strategizing everyone.

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?

Mike DeSousa:

Five Books:

1. One of Winston Churchill’s
2. Compendium of Marvel Super Heroes origins in English & Spanish
3. Learning Mandarin/Cantonese
4. Learn Yoga & Chinese
5. Some comedy book

• Movie: The Shawshank Redemption
• Music CD: With my MacBook & iPhone with satellite capabilities & iTune, I’d download unlimited music selections
• One Suitcase: Sunlight-powered satellite MacBook tripped out with a lot of software titles to learn, laptop with extended battery life, mosquito net, mosquito-free clothes, solar-powered iPhone with satellite wifi connectivity, soccer ball, weather-appropriate clothes
• Travel on case: Soap, Razor, nail clipper, nail file, pen, anti-mosquito device

For the two years  I’d spend the time learning (languages, tai chi/yoga, history), playing soccer, dancing, listening to music, playing music (forgot to mention a harmonica & a flute), Skyping/Google Circling Friends, contacting Invisible Mentors, journaling, developing a portfolio of products & services, reading comic books, becoming an expert on investments… I would be doing what I love to do, rather than pandering to the audience of viewers; one must remain authentic.  “To thy self be true”.

Avil Beckford: What excites you about life?

Mike DeSousa: Being of service to others.  It makes me so happy to know that I have helped to “unstick” someone from a state of complacency or a limiting belief, and that I have given them hope, taught them new knowledge, and motivated them to develop new skills and use one of my ideas to propel themself forward in life.

Avil Beckford: How do you nurture your soul?

Mike DeSousa: I learn, help people, speak professionally, listen to music, think, feel, swim….

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

Mike DeSousa: 1,000,000 more wishes, of course!

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

Mike DeSousa: I use my strengths to help others discover and act upon their talents and strengths.

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.

Interviewee Name: Rona Maynard

Website: http://www.ronamaynard.com

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Rona Maynard: I’m a storyteller and the common thread in everything that I do, whether I’m giving a speech, writing an article or blog post, or leading a memoir workshop, is pulling meaning out of experience – my experience or someone else’s. We are all looking for meaning, I provide that.

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

Rona Maynard: When I was at Chatelaine magazine I published an issue on life balance, which is a concept I no longer believe in. I’m much more concerned about harmony – the two aspects of my life enriching each other. I find that when I’m loving my work, my personal life is richer and more rewarding. And when I’m loving my personal life, I feel more relaxed and empowered about my work. So the two really flow together, I do not separate them at all.

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

Rona Maynard:

1. Success is about knowing and embracing your greatest gifts. Your past successes always point the way to your future ones, so if you don’t know what comes next, look back at what you’ve already achieved, chances are there’s a clue in there. This is why I think life gets easier as you grow older because you just have more successes to look back on. When you’re young you are so untried.
2. Love the problems that come with a job or project. We are all trained to love the moments when everything is going well, but if you’re in the right place at the right time, you will also be able to throw your arms around the challenge and give them your all because those challenges are the best focus for your efforts right now. At Chatelaine I was actually happiest when I hadn’t yet mastered the challenges that I eventually did master. I love the thorniness of the problems. I loved coming to work every day thinking “how am I going to figure this out?” I was like the person who buys a fixer-upper house and gets a little bit bored after it’s already fixed up and has to be put on the market.
3. Know when it’s time to move on because if your enthusiasm is gone you’re no longer the person for this gig and sooner or later it’s going to show. That’s why I left my last corporate job when I did. It wasn’t easy, but I didn’t want people murmuring, “Oh she’s lost her touch.”
4. Give yourself a break. Take praise when it is offered. That is often very hard for women. Women are often trying to downplay their successes and give credit for it to other people. I have sat at so many awards dinner and watch women step up to the podium and thank 30 people. The men never do this. Own your successes when they come to you.

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

Rona Maynard: I love to go to movies and theater, I love books, and I love having wide-ranging conversations with friends that start up one place and end up somewhere completely different.

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

Rona Maynard: I don’t have a formal process I just keep my mind open. I’m always looking and listening for things that strike me as interesting. I daydream a lot, I believe in something I call power daydreaming. If you daydream about something a great deal, chances are it’s your subconscious trying to tell you something, so instead of pushing it away, listen to that daydream. It’s not a time waster.

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

Rona Maynard: This is from Richard Feynman and Nobel Prize winner, now dead, and it’s from a collection of his letters. “Any talent, any occupation that delights you, do it to the hilt, don’t ask why or what difficulties you may get into.” I was quoting that just the other day in my memoir workshop because it applies to anything – sports, writing or cooking you name it, or raising kids for that matter. When you become a parent you don’t know what’s going to go wrong with the child. That child may turn out to have autism, that child may have a serious physical illness, you don’t know, but you got to love it.

Avil Beckford: How do you define success?

Rona Maynard: Using your best talents to the fullest extent possible.

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

Rona Maynard: Know your own powers, honour them, use them and be prepared for them to take it down some unlikely roads. Believe me I never thought that I would be giving writing workshops. When you’re bored, move on. Challenge yourself relentlessly, get comfortable living in a state where you’re always solving problems. Success is not about wrapping up things and wrapping a bow around them. There is a lot of struggle around success and when there is nothing to grapple with anymore, that’s not success that’s coasting.

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

Rona Maynard: What I’ve said previously about success, that’s what I used to attain success in my field and that’s what I’ll continue to use. And that’s what I would also recommend to people who are just starting out because people are schooled by teachers and parents to believe that if they are having a problem something must be wrong with them, they’re slipping up somewhere. Well, not necessarily, hard things are hard, and if you aim high you’re going to struggle. To try something new is going to feel uncomfortable at the beginning, there will be questions that you cannot answer, but leadership is not about having the answers, it’s about asking the right questions.

I guess that’s another important thing that I learned. When I was promoted to my first leadership position as editor of Chatelaine magazine, I did think that I should have all the answers, but then I came to realize that no one has all of the answers because nobody has ever stood in this place, with this brand at this juncture in history, I’m the first one. My success is going to be about figuring it out, and you do that by asking questions.

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?

Rona Maynard: I don’t know if I really want to meet these people. I think that I would rather eavesdrop on them. I’d rather be invisible and observe them. They would be my invisible mentors.

1. Definitely Queen Elizabeth I, arguably the most powerful woman who ever lived.
2. Bob Dylan because he’s on a never-ending quest and he doesn’t fear failure.
3. Shakespeare for sure, and in my opinion he really did write all those works and I want to know who would possibly be such a fountain of energy, creativity and originality.
4. Martha Graham because she was the Picasso of modern dance. She reinvented dance and she has a phenomenal capacity to pull great work out of other people even when she could not afford to pay them very much, and that speaks volumes. She’s certainly a role model of mine.
5. I’m going to pick Caravaggio whose painting I discovered on a trip to Rome recently. He was a Renaissance painter who broke the rules, told great stories through paint as no one ever had before. He was a violent person and had a bad character but he produced great art.

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

Rona Maynard: Oh there were so many, but the first was absolutely the The Diary of a Young Girl because this book told me that someone like me could change the world. I was a teenager when I read it.

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.

Rona Maynard:

1. Well The Diary of a Young Girl for sure.
2. The Complete Works of Shakespeare and I think that would keep me busy forever. I keep vowing to go back to Shakespeare because his work does really contain the world, but I haven’t returned to them since University and while I’m on a deserted island I would.
3. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, that’s a Canadian novel from the 90s that beautifully encapsulates the power people have to draw strength from each other in unimaginable, horrific conditions. This book turns a cliché like the strength of the human spirit to blazing reality.
4. Any collection of stories by Alice Munro, I do not care which one.  Too Much Happiness: Stories
5. The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm

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

If you cannot view the Bob Dylan YouTube video please click here.

If you cannot view the Incendies YouTube movie trailer, please click here.

Rona Maynard: There is a newish Canadian movie which came out last year called Incendies. It’s a profound and brilliant film about secrets in a family and about forgiveness. I’ll pick any of Bob Dylan’s compilation from any period.

Avil Beckford: What excites you about life?

Rona Maynard: Serendipity!

Avil Beckford: How do you nurture your soul?

Rona Maynard: By seeking out the company of people who believe they are entitled to happiness. That’s what’s going to Verity is about for me. And also by seeking out the thoughts of people who have drawn meaning from their experiences which is what films, books, music and art are about.

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

Rona Maynard: I wish that everybody I care about could be alive and well for as long as I am alive.

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

Rona Maynard: I know I’m going to have a wonderful meal and a fine bottle of wine shared with someone close to me.

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.

Interviewee Name: Traci Wells

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Traci Wells: Professionally I worked at Rogers for 15 years and was responsible for the management and development curriculum, which I loved. In the last two years, I’ve had a pretty massive life changing event which led me to make some changes in my professional and personal life. I suffered from a sudden cardiac arrest, my heart basically stopped and I was without a heart beat for almost four minutes. I was saved that day because of an AED (Automated External Defibrillator). The interesting thing about this event is there were no signs or symptoms. I had no problems with my health, or with my heart. Even after the event, I’m very fortunate there is no damage to my heart. I was in the hospital for 10 days and they tested everything they could. I’m one of those cases where they basically told me we’ll never know why it happened.

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

Traci Wells: The next job I get is going to have to fit into my life versus my life fitting into the job. I have a whole different perspective on the person that I’m working with. I don’t think I’d be as patient with a bad leader as I used to be. I always try to help and mentor and coach, but sometimes people just don’t change. I think I stayed with a lot of bad leaders out of fear. I haven’t talked much about fear and I’d say that’s been one of my biggest learnings is that fear is so debilitating, and in reality once you face that fear it’s never as bad as you thought it would be.

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

Traci Wells:

1. The lesson with fear is that we create the fear to be much bigger than what it is in reality. When you face it, it’s not as bad as you thought it was.
2. Life can be gone in an instant, you have to make the most of it. It sounds so cliché but it goes back to the “don’t wait.” Don’t wait to live the life that you’re meant to.
3. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. I was a self-sufficient, independent, can-do-it-all myself kind of person and I realized that I don’t have to do with all myself, and it isn’t a sign of weakness to ask for help. I’ve learned this over the last few years that if you ask people to describe me they would say that I have no problem being vulnerable, and as a result of that, I build extremely tight relationships with people because when you’re willing to show your flaws and make mistakes people see you as a real person. So don’t be afraid to make mistakes.
4. Some of us do not value our health until there is a reason to look at it. I did not value my health until there was a risk to it and as I sit here at 42, if I was doing what I’ve been doing for the past year I probably would not have had a cardiac arrest. Even though the doctors cannot tell me why it happened, you have to look at the way you have been living your life and when people look at the list of things that’s important to them, what they value most, they always put family first. I say you have to put your health first or else you won’t be there for your family if your health isn’t strong.

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

Traci Wells: I love volunteering now even though that may not be down time in some people’s eyes. Giving back, whether it be to the Heart and Stroke Foundation because of my experience, or something in my community that I believe in. There is a great quote that I love for, it basically is “Service is the rent we pay for our time on this Earth,” and I get as much out of that as the people that I’m giving it to so that’s a big one.

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

Traci Wells: A few, sometimes the process is as simple as turning on my computer, putting some music on and looking at the view of the Don Valley and just giving myself some time to think. That’s a process. I don’t think we give ourselves enough time to think, so I make time for that. I have some great people in my life and we feed off each other for great ideas. I had a friend here yesterday, we are working on a cool new Internet idea, and for him and I, the great ideas just come from taking one idea and expanding on it and by the end we get to this really great place. Collaboration is a really important step

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

Traci Wells: I really like “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has,” by Margaret Mead, but I am in a service mode so let’s go with “Service is the rent we pay for our time on this Earth.”

Avil Beckford: How do you define success?

Traci Wells: Success is individual and personal. Success and what is valuable to me may be very different from what matters to you. I define success as being proud of the work that I’m doing, knowing that I’m making a contribution.

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

Traci Wells: The formula for success definitely has to be giving yourself enough worth as you give to others. I’m the kind of person who would do anything for everyone, and that’s a lovely quality, but it went to the point where I never did anything for myself. I want people to recognize that they are as important as the people that they’re doing the work for. Think about the mother who puts her children first, and that’s great, I don’t have children but I can understand why you would do that, but I don’t think we think about ourselves enough, especially as women.

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

Traci Wells: I took some risks definitely. I went back to school as many times as I could because I think continuous learning especially in my field is a requirement. Learning and development can be a very typical process, what made me successful was going outside of the normal process and said, “we know that some of those things work, but what if you tried this?” Maybe it goes back to taking risks and not being afraid to try something different.

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

Traci Wells: Based on my perspective now, starting out, if you’re right out of university jumping into the new job you’re thinking you have to be here today 24/7 to make an impact, and what I realized is it’s not how much time you spend doing something, it’s definitely the quality and the impact. Make sure that you develop a structure for yourself that doesn’t create your career that’s your only focus, even if that’s for only 10 years. There can be balance all the way through.

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?

Traci Wells: I used to ask this question in class, that’s a great icebreaker for people, and before I met my father, I would say my father.

1. I would want to meet Martin Luther King and I would say thank you for having the courage to make change.
2. And I’d like to meet Oprah Winfrey and say something very similar. But she also helped me to see my value, so I’d say, “Thank you for making me see my own value and potential.”
3. I’ve always had this fascination with Janis Joplin, and I think what I would ask her is why she didn’t value her life enough.
4. I like to meet Gandhi and I’d ask him how he maintained his strength in living his life at the time.
5. I love to meet the Dalai Lama and let him share his learnings with me around fear and courage because he has an awful lot of courage and I’m curious about how he deals with the fear.

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

Traci Wells: This is funny! Do you know The Princess Bride? They actually made a movie about it. But the book was a read to me when I was in public school, and my teacher was a huge fan of the book and every day I would look forward to hearing the next chapter. And why it was so powerful, as a young child, I wasn’t someone who lived in fantasy. I was an adult much sooner than I should have been, and as a result, I couldn’t see fantasy, I didn’t enjoy it. And the Princess Bride took me to a whole different place of fantasy and after I read that book I started writing myself. It’s not a business book or anything like that but allowed me to see fantasy, and that it can be fun, and a place to be creative in.

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.

Traci Wells:

1. The Princess Bride for what I just said.
2. She’s Come Undone and the reason why I like that one is it was the first book that spoke to how I really felt about life and did not apologize for it.
3. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People fundamentally changed the way I look at life. That book allowed me to meet my father, it opened my mind enough to want to find out who he was.
4. Good to Great from a business perspective, and it was the first time I felt at least in my business environment, that people understood the value of focusing on the people, and not just on the process. I thought that was a revolutionary business book.

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

Traci Wells: I love music so that’s really tough, but I have to say Bruce Springsteen because there’s something motivating in his music like the underdog can win, and it would help me to get off that deserted island. As for the movie it would have to be a The Way We Were because it’s my favourite movie of all time and I can watch it over and over again without getting bored of it.

If you cannot view this Bruce Springsteen YouTube video click here.

If you cannot view The Way We Were YouTube video please click here.

Avil Beckford: What excites you about life?

Traci Wells: Everything right now. The potential, the opportunities, the fact that I still have life, it excites me. I never considered death before this experience, and I wouldn’t say that it’s an area that I focus on now, but because of that life and death experience, life means a wondrous thing to me now. I have a whole new value for time.

Avil Beckford: How do you nurture your soul?

Traci Wells: Providing service helps with that, wonderful friends and family, and music.

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

Traci Wells: I’d wish that everybody could be educated. And I don’t mean higher learning education, but education that can solve all of our world’s problems. So I would actually ask the genie to give everyone some learning, some education that they can expand their worlds.

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

Traci Wells: I’m happy when I’m making a contribution.

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.

Interviewee Name: Kamel Hothi, Director

Company Name: Lloyds Banking Group

Website: http://www.lloydsbankinggroup.com

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Kamel Hothi: I’ve been working for 32 years in the banking world. I’m a Director at Lloyds Banking Group. I’m married, I have two children and I live in a very strict Indian traditional family.

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

Kamel Hothi: The way that I integrate work and life, is that the things I learn at home I bring to work.  I do a lot of cultural training, I’ve trained over 500 executives, which I’m hoping that those nuances of explaining what the culture is, how to do a handshake, the name, the eye contact, all of those things will help them improve their business relationships with the community. And what I’m doing at work is networking with the community, going out to a number of events. And for the last couple of years, my husband has accompanied me to a number of these events and my children come along so they can have an insight into what I do. The first time I invited my husband to a black-tie event with 700 people, mostly men, I knew my husband was very uncomfortable but now he’s part of that and he enjoys coming with me and supports me as well.

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

Kamel Hothi: That I didn’t go to university. I wasn’t able to go at that time, but I wish I had. I knew having an education would have helped me to fast-track up the career ladder faster than I have so it’s always a feeling of weakness in my chink of armour. I’m doing that with my kids and I’m pushing them forward – one is graduated and the other is going through it now.

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

Kamel Hothi:

1. Believe in yourself.
2. Always think of the bigger picture.
3. Seek to get a balance and do not get hung up on your career but to also look at your personal life. Yes there’ll be times you focus on your career and not the home life, but I do believe that they need to go hand-in-hand.
4. Count to 10. If you have an email or something that’s impacted you, sleep on it, do not fire back a response immediately, you always think differently in the morning when something has upset you.
5. Make sure that you review the task at hand, plan everything as much as you can, and leave room for flexibility.

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

Kamel Hothi: The reason why I’m smiling is that I have so little down time. The thing I’ve given up for my career is downtime, but we tend to get downtime when we go away on holidays. I love reading and if I can I do like painting, but it’s very, very rare. The easiest form of downtime is gardening during the weekends. I love it and do it as much as I can.

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

Kamel Hothi: I love teams especially new people, I love asking them what their first impressions are for things. No matter what the grade of the individual I think ideas generated first time to capture them when their minds are not clogged at all with the work routines. That’s what I try to do.

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

Kamel Hothi: Treat people like you would like to be treated. It’s something that I’ve always tried to live with. It’s what my mother used to say. To me that’s humanity, everybody likes to be treated fairly, everyone likes to be loved and everyone likes to be treated with respect. That’s how I want to be treated and if I can do that to others hopefully it will come back. People do return how you treat them.

Avil Beckford: How do you define success?

Kamel Hothi: Success for me is very much about being a parent, my children are happy, they are established and have made their own mark in feeling that they’ve achieved something, that would be success at home. And at work, I would say that it’s to leave my legacy with an organization of this size, I’ve changed their thinking, and helped them to achieve something that they wouldn’t have otherwise.

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

Kamel Hothi: Determination and having that burning desire, that there is no other option but to succeed, and just chipping away at it. You will come across loads of barriers and hassles and people trying to get in your way, but it’s believing in yourself and constantly chipping away at it.

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

Kamel Hothi: For me, it was really understanding the psyche of what’s in it for me. That’s very cynical, selfish thinking, but that’s how people tend to live in the corporate world. It’s using that thinking and putting it into my strategy. When we were building the Asian strategy it was very much what’s in it for them, what’s the business case, what would they achieve, would they pay attention? So once you can show them what the case looks like and get their juices flowing then it’s mapping that out and how it can be realized. That’s what I would say is what I have done in my field.

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

Kamel Hothi: As soon as you get in, think about what is your next goal. Yes you might have landed in a new role, you want to do well in it and you want to understand it, but always have with you next steps. So once you know where your next step is, you know what you have to achieve in this particular role in order to get to the next one. It’s constantly looking at the next step, how to get there, and the people you need to network with to make that happen.

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?

Kamel Hothi:

1. I’d love to meet Gandhi, his way of influencing people, bringing cultures together and doing it so peacefully, I’d say his wisdom would be so powerful.
2. I’d love to go and see Mandela to understand how he coped in prison all those years and still have the courage and strength to come back peacefully and to continue where he left off.
3. I’d love to meet Mr. Ratan Carter in India, the executive for the Carter Group. From what I’ve heard he’s a great entrepreneur, but also his thinking, his wisdom in the way he is steering the company, I really admire him and certainly where he had to take the organization forward is something unique that I have not seen before.
4. If the opportunity arose, I’d love to meet Indra Nooyi, CEO of Pepsico. I’ve heard her speak but did not get the opportunity to meet her face-to-face. When I heard her speak and how she has taken over that company, an Asian woman is absolutely fabulous. I’d love to spend more time with her, listen to her, find out what has driven her to get to where she is, and how she could help other women.
5. I’d love to meet my mom again, and just be able to have a conversation with her and have her views, feelings and what she would say about me, my children and what I’ve achieved so far.

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

Kamel Hothi: I think for the context of this interview, I love the The One Minute Manager. It’s a simple book, but the messages in there are still valid and a great reminder on the basic foundation of management. I dip in and out every now and again to remind myself of the seven rules of management and I think it’s a great book to have on a side table.

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

Kamel Hothi:

• I love fiction books because I like to escape from the world that we are in sometimes. I think this is a great way to be engrossed and cleanse your mind. Any good thriller books would be great, so I do enjoy them.
• I do like talking about philosophy and deep thinking and The Rising of a Thousand Stars [Note from Avil: I think she meant A Thousand Splendid Suns] is about two women in the Taliban, which was so emotional. It was a culture that I didn’t know anything about and I read that book, and I would love to read it again because it brings home the friendship between two women in such a difficult situation.
• I also do tend to like healing books to heal yourself. You are constantly going as a woman and it’s important to find time to focus on yourself, see what’s going on, and what makes you tick. I like to analyze myself and see how I can be a better person.

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

Kamel Hothi: I like Kishore Kumar, he’s an Indian singer. I love his traditional Bollywood songs, they are very romantic and slow but the words are absolutely amazing and they cut you to the core and there is usually one song that brings back some sort of memory in my life, so I’d love to take his music with me. I love the new Gladiator movie that came out. I love history so that brings history back to life again. It’s about the struggle about this one man and making his mark and standing up for what’s right. Romance is spread right through it.

If you cannot view Kishore Kumar Romantic Songs YouTube video.

If you cannot view Gladiator trailer YouTube video.

Avil Beckford: What excites you about life?

Kamel Hothi: My children, I love spending time with them. I love watching them grow, seeing how they have turned out. I love enjoying some of the stuff that they do. Last year, they took me quad biking (a quad bike is an all terrain vehicle – ATV) in the jungle in Mexico. I just enjoy life with my children.

Avil Beckford: How do you nurture your soul?

Again, talking to my children, that is very much listening to them and being there for them So when they have problems or difficulties or questions, the fact that they come to me, that in itself reassures me that I still play a part in their lives, and that they still see me as someone that they still need. I also ensure that my husband is still there and that our relationship is still healthy. After 28 years, touch wood, we still get on really well, and he still wants me so that’s really important.

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

Without being a cliché, it would be helping the people in the Middle East to communicate better and if there is a way to make that happen. I’m really worried about the future of the world and what’s happening there, and it has an impact on myself, but on my children’s future. That worries me and I wish I had some way of supporting that.

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

Running in the field with my children.

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

Book links are affiliate links.

Video Credit: Uploaded by UltraHindi on Nov 29, 2010, Uploaded by JosPeters on Oct 15, 2006

Related articles

• Chief Mentoring Officer Interviews: Does Big Breaks, Mentoring, and Hard Work Equal to Success? (theinvisiblementor.com)
• Interview With Invisible Mentor Jeanne-Marie Robillard, Senior Account Executive, National Speakers Bureau, Part Two (theinvisiblementor.com)
• Interview With Invisible Mentor Jeanne-Marie Robillard, Senior Account Executive, National Speakers Bureau (theinvisiblementor.com)
• The Chief Mentoring Officer Interviews Annemie Ress, Senior HRD eBay & Global Engagement Lead at eBay (theinvisiblementor.com)
• The Chief Mentoring Officer Interviews Annemie Ress, Senior HRD eBay & Global Engagement Lead at eBay, Part Two (theinvisiblementor.com)

Interviewee Name: Sean Ward

Company Name: SeanWard.net

Website: http://www.seanward.net/

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Sean Ward: I’m an artist and an entertainer from Toronto, Canada and I’m doing stuff that I always dreamed and swore that I was going to be doing and I just have a lot of fun. I’m trying to make and retain products both in print and stuff to watch that I hope people can watch and enjoy so it gives them a tickle and gets them thinking about certain ideas that are going to lead to joy and a better world.

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

Sean Ward: I’m the wrong person to ask that because I don’t do a good job maintaining that work-life balance at all. I think that phrase is a handy one for people who somewhere along the line got caught in that trap, that what you do for money is somehow separate from that person who is doing it and that you can keep your life separate. Everything that we do during the day shapes us and turns us into who we are, who we’re going to be and I think a lot of people have this attitude that they can resist this force and they can’t. I think that a lot of people take comfort in the idea that they can resist that force and lead them to a place of feeling that they can get around to it later, the whole business of improving yourself and trying to shape the world.

My personal and professional life are so entwined and so the same thing that they are pre-integrated. Even if I’m going to sit down and watch a TV show or watch a movie or something, the selection of what I’m going to watch when I’m relaxing is something that I need to watch for work for one reason or another. It’s research, or giving me stuff that I can use in my work so I’m always on the clock until something else distracts me for a while.

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

Sean Ward: I try not to mess around with the word or the concept of regret, but I guess the only thing I could say to get close to a regret would be not getting started earlier. That applies both to the very beginning of my career when I was out working jobs that had nothing to do with anything that I wanted to do with my career. Then I had that realization that time was going by and I needed to start putting work into fulfilling all these promises that I was making to myself while I was growing up.

I wish I had started that process earlier and also the process of getting up and going again after I had that tumble that I described. In either case not getting started earlier would be the major regret.

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

Sean Ward:

1. Always present an attractive package to the outside world. That is to say, take an interest in fashion, take an interest in getting to be a people person. I realized a long time ago this whole notion of first impressions are very powerful and the fact that something that counts for so much is under our control so easily is very invigorating and inspiring to me. So always dress sharp.
2. Don’t be late for anything because when you’re late people make assumptions about what that means about you even though you try to tell yourself that it doesn’t.
3. None of the things going around us actually matters in the grand scheme of things so what we are here to do is to have fun and make stuff whether literally or figuratively will somehow make the world a better place. So put a value on what we are doing here.
4. No one is going to take as much interest in what you’re doing as you’re going to have to and that goes for everybody. Partners are great when you need them but at the end of the day, you’ve got to be your own best partner.
5. Nobody is watching as closely as you think they are. Everybody is too interested in what you are doing so do what you want to do and fail in a spectacular fashion because no one is paying attention and nobody cares.

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

Sean Ward: Music is a big thing for me so listening to music on my iPod when I’m taking my dog for a walk or chilling out and catching up on some of my TV programs.

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

Sean Ward: It’s all about me having classic spiral bound notebooks. The 400 page ones, I have to have one of those close by because writing stuff down and drawing diagrams around stuff is how I think and I often notice a really big improvement in the quality of the ideas that I’m having, and how easily they come since getting another book. I have a trunk in my mother’s attic with 15 volumes of these notebooks that I have been keeping over the years. But late last year and early into this year moving around the way that I was doing, I didn’t have one of these notebooks on the go so now that I’ve got another one I’m noticing a really big improvement right away on the quality of the ideas that I’m having and how speedily they come. So the process is to get out the 400-page notebook and start writing down and doodling.

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

Sean Ward: “If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music then in that respect you can call me that. I believe in what I do and I’ll say it” by John Lennon. At the time the quotation was slipped to me, I was having a really difficult time with people misunderstanding and mischaracterizing me and what I was doing and as coming from ego, as being very self-centered, as being egotistical I think people were catching my hard sell in the very showy way that I was selling myself and selling what I was doing and without knowing much about it. It was easy to write me off as being that way. The people who actually got into the work realized that I was only shouting as loud as I was because I was that excited to get the word out about these things that I thought I had discovered and that I thought I knew and was trying to share in the work. That quote got slipped to me by a girl who buys my books regularly. I wrote the quote with a marker on a t-shirt, and wore it a lot of the days when I was selling at the corner. It helped me stay positive and hopeful and still having fun in the face of people not wanting to buy a book, not wanting to stop and talk whatever, calling me names on the Internet.

Avil Beckford: How do you define success?

Sean Ward: How I define success changed recently. I would have said before that money doesn’t matter, passion is what matters. Living grandiose and making art is what’s important. But I’m also seeing now that there are other world events that are of concern that have to be taken more seriously than I had taken them in the past so I would say that now, success is the sum total of how the work you are doing is affecting people and what they are getting out of it. So if you take stock of audience reaction to the work that you’ve done and the feedback is indicating to you that people are getting from it what you want them to get from it then that’s successful, on whatever scale and it’s just a matter of blowing it up to take it to greater heights so you don’t have to take the rinse and repeat philosophy. If you’ve got something that you’re putting out on offer to get three people to check it out and you find that one person who is into it, success is what happens when you make a point to go out there and find the other people like that one in three who will be into it, and not get bogged down that the two out of three didn’t care for it.

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

Sean Ward: Start right away, stay busy, and let your work speak for itself and maintain faith. It’s time plus effort is what equals your reward.

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

Sean Ward:

• The first step is the hardest which is making the decision to get going and take it ultra seriously because a lot of times people put it off and when they do get into it they dabble so it’s really important for me to take the first step of taking things very seriously and saying, “This is what I’m going to do, no matter what.” This isn’t what I’m going to do ONE day, it’s what I’m doing TODAY. That was the first big step that I took.
• In a lot of ways in my darker moments I feel down about my compulsions, and the ways that I’m weird and the things that keep me feeling that I’m separate from my fellow man. There was never a point where I felt I should stop drawing comics and stop making videos and go try be a banker or whatever, I’m not cut out for that. I’m the kind of person where I get thinking about something, or get it in mind to do something and then I just have to do it, and it doesn’t matter what challenges are in the way, or how difficult my life around it is going to be to get it done.

I just got to do it and that’s always the way for me to get things done. That’s really the steps that I have taken, have been to get moving number one. Number two was to find good mentors who could arm me with both information and inspiration. So to find people who have that success attitude to surround yourself with, and finally to be out where people who can learn from, and try to work that into your art somehow.

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

Sean Ward: The big trick is to get down and do it. We can spend forever learning how to do it, and learning about the technical side of it, whatever it is, but there is no substitute for getting down to work on it, so that is the advice that I always have for young artists, anybody whoever, going back to the beginning of my career, anybody who treated me with that respect, looking at what I do with that reverence, that they are asking me, as if I’m an authority, what advice I would have for them. Well the first question is, “What are you doing right now?” You get people who want to be a movie director, but they are learning all they can about lighting or whatever, people who want to be a comic book artist they’ve got a part-time job at a record shop. The advice is to get moving, get out of your own way.

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?

Sean Ward:

1. Charlie Chaplin: As big a Beatles fan as I am, the way that I see it, Charlie Chaplin invented the template for the art that he did in the business even more to a greater degree than the Beatles did. With that in mind, Charlie Chaplin would be the number one person that I’d want to meet because he did it. What I’d say to him, “This is how I see your career trajectory and what fascinates me about it Mr. Chaplin is how if all this would have taken place today going from the short subject films that don’t have a plot really all the way up to multi-reel pictures and on into feature films it’s fascinating how you career trajectory, if it happened today would have played out the same way.” If Charlie Chaplin hadn’t happened in the early 20^th Century, it would fly the exact same way on the Internet and his career would have been the same. So to find out what his secret was to that is what I’d say to him.
2. Paul McCartney: Even though John Lennon gets the props as the creative genius, the true A-Artist of the Beatles, Paul McCartney was the one who understood that it’s not just about making work that shakes things up or is radical, there is a consideration to be made for what the audience will be receptive to. So it’s actually Paul’s tempering influence on John was a big part of why the Beatles were able to be as huge as they were. If it was left up to John he would have been content to try and piss off everybody that he could everywhere he went so I would try to say something to Paul to get the secret of how he was able to have such a keen eye and ear of what was going to be a hit and how to package it.
3. Hugh Hefner: Another one of our great 20^th Century success stories. He created an empire.
4. Jesus Christ: What we attribute to be his ideas and concepts played and continues to play such a huge and defining role in our lives and in the culture. It’s unarguable as to who is the number one force that has shaped the culture that we live in as much as we try to reject and resist the crap that Christianity had piled on top of it. The message itself is timeless, what the Guy was about, revealed itself to be the truth again, again and again. Whatever form it shows up in, whether we want to attribute it to another person or another prophet, it’s the same idea expressing itself again and again. That’s just the Guy who expressed it for this part of the world and this culture.
5. Walt Disney: He was an artist who designed a business and an industry from scratch out of nothing, but his own sweat and ideas

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

Sean Ward: I had a book recommended to me again by a girl who was buying comic books from me on the street back when that was what I was doing. She hit me to that book called Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, and I’ve always been, especially in my adult years, the kind of person who is always watching for coincidences, and believing that mysterious forces are putting sign posts along the way for us and putting things in places where we’re going to need them later, and that these mysterious forces are responsible for a lot of what we can easily dismiss as coincidence. I would say that sometimes it’s easier living if I would let things go and chock it up to coincidences but I’m so apt to wonder the meaning of this, that and the next thing. I can literally drive myself crazy with it.

But when this book came on to my radar, I had never heard about it, never seen it in a bookstore, nothing. That same day, I went into the Beatlemania Shoppe, a store that sold everything that you can think of with Beatles on it, and I was using the back room of the store as the place where I stashed my little podium and all the gear I use for selling comics on the street. So the guy who ran the store, Peter Maniaci who I told you about earlier, his accountant Ron maintained an office also in the backroom in the store.

There was a big stack of books, old beat up paperbacks, on top of Ron’s filing cabinet that were never there before so I said, “Hey Ron, what’s up with the books?” And he said, “Oh I’m trying to get rid of them. I’m going to take them to a used bookstore and try to sell them.” So I started going through the books and he had a copy of Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill in this pile of books. Never heard of this book before, never knew it existed and all of a sudden the same day that this girl recommended it to me making it sound good, here it is in this pile of books in Ron’s office.

So I said, “Hey do you mind if I take this one before you get rid of the pile?” And he said, “Sure take it.” And I took it and that copy of the book is now so beat up, so dog-eared because I’ve read it so many times. I have bought it as a gift for so many different people for so many different occasions. And the reason why it stands out, and the reason why it’s the one that I single out was because it gave form to so many things that I felt like I knew already in terms of knowledge that I came into this world with but it hadn’t yet found a way or encountered a way to communicate things. It sort of made me feel that a lot of the ways that I was living my life were destined and preordained on high and here is this book that’s like helping me get in touch with these things that were already living very deep inside of me. I’m probably talking really esoteric and strange but this is where I go with these things.

Think and Grow Rich  laid out a blueprint and instruction manual for conducting oneself in the world and it’s helped me. And even though I have gone to other books and got interested in other authors who writes these kinds of things, other approaches to that kind of material, it always ends up going back to that book as the one that is the most right, and the one that is most accurate, and the one that is least filled with the author’s personal bias.

After reading this book, getting along in the world was a lot easier after that.

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

Sean Ward:

1. Think and Grow Rich because it’s not just about how to be successful at a business venture, it a blueprint for how to monitor your head and keep it screwed on from day-to-day living in the world.
2. Fantastic Four / Iron Man: Big in Japan (Fantastic Four (Marvel Paperback)) is a graphic novel from a few years ago, which was released from Marvel Comics. On the surface it’s about Ironman and Fantastic Four having to deal with an invasion in Japan kind of like Godzilla style monsters, but what’s lurking behind that is a really astute, entertaining and enlightening deconstruction of both comics as a medium but also art itself. For something masquerading as junk food pop entertainment to be so thick and charged with this really esoteric and insightful stuff was nothing short of a revelation to check that book out.
3. The One Minute Millionaire: The Enlightened Way to Wealth because it’s one of those books that teaches you how to live, how to think, and how to conduct yourself day today in the world.
4. The Bible but not just the Bible it would have to be a particular translation of the Bible that I enjoy. It’s a modern day translation and they have done a good job without losing the deeper meaning. And it was that translation of the Bible coming into my possession that got me really excited about those concepts, those characters and that kind of thing.
5. Charlie Chaplin My Autobiography by Charles Chaplin and that’s before even any of those books Think and Grow Rich type of books came into my head, when I was a teenager I found a beat up copy of the hardcover of Charlie Chaplin’s autobiography in a used bookstore, and bought and devoured it. Thinking back on it now, and knowing who I was at the time I had that book, I’m kind of surprised that I read the whole thing because it was a big, heavy, thick book about this world that I had no connection to in the late 1800s and early 20^th Century. The guy’s story was so inspiring, there is so much to his family history that rang through with me that I could relate to, and then the whole thing of learning how huge his success was and getting those details of how he made it happen was very eye opening, was very inspirational and I was very sad to report that I no longer own that book.

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

Sean Ward: For my CD I will take the Beatles One because it has the hits and if you’re going to have nothing else to listen to, why not listen to the best music ever recorded. For the movie I would have to take 2001 A Space Odyssey.

Avil Beckford: What excites you about life?

Sean Ward: The trajectory that we are on, the point in history that we’re at, this kind of feeling that we’re the underdog in a movie and rooting for us to succeed in the face of these challenges that we’re facing. That’s what excites me about life, the louder it gets, the more colourful, the more pumped full of stimuli we are, the more interesting that story gets. I just feel in so many ways really deeply, passionately lucky to be alive right now, to be born and be here for this show, I love it. It excites me to be here when so much is moving and changing so fast.

Avil Beckford: How do you nurture your soul?

Sean Ward: I do that in a few ways. Number one is to do work that is an outlet for these kinds of things that I think about and that I feel and to try and do right by my work, and to try and do right by my soul and keep them as tied together as I can. I place a very high value on my alone time, being an artist, an entrepreneur I spend so much time alone I think it would be interesting to see some kind of study on the amount of time on average people spend by themselves because most people they go to work someplace where there are other people there, and they go home and most people have a family, so they’ve got a spouse, they’ve got kids, or they still live with their parents, that’s probably the norm so for someone to spend so much time alone as I do, probably they’d be a little bit crazy and the reason why I feel like I don’t relate well to my fellowmen. But at the same time I wouldn’t trade it for anything because it allows me to keep certain parts of the inside of me quiet, and focused and listening. So I try to nurture my soul by not being caught up in the world of man, to be in it but not of it as they say. I try very hard to perpetuate love and acceptance that the great literature espouses.

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

Sean Ward: I would wish for some kind of property or compound like a place where my family could go and be and not ever have to worry about paying rent or mortgage, or having any responsibility. I’ve had this picture developed over the last few years of trying to set my family up and being able to know that they are just not taken care of and looked after, but to know that they are happy and having fun and know that they have resources available to them to improve themselves and stimulate their soul, their imagination. My one wish is to know that that’s there for them.

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

Sean Ward: I’m happy when I’ve just released a new product in the world. That’s probably the greatest feeling. That high that comes after releasing work and before you’ve had the chance to start taking it apart seeing what you can do better next time, that’s a beautiful moment and there is no substitute for it. And that comes into the importance of getting down to work and cultivating your talents as quickly as possible as you can because you want to get to that feeling as quickly as you can.

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.

Related articles

• Interview With Invisible Mentor Jeanne-Marie Robillard, Senior Account Executive, National Speakers Bureau, Part Two (theinvisiblementor.com)
• The Chief Mentoring Officer Interviews Annemie Ress, Senior HRD eBay & Global Engagement Lead at eBay (theinvisiblementor.com)
• The Chief Mentoring Officer Interviews Annemie Ress, Senior HRD eBay & Global Engagement Lead at eBay, Part Two (theinvisiblementor.com)
• Interview With Invisible Mentor Jeanne-Marie Robillard, Senior Account Executive, National Speakers Bureau (theinvisiblementor.com)
• Chief Mentoring Officer Interviews: Do Big Breaks, Mentoring, and Hard Work Equate to Success? Part Two (theinvisiblementor.com)
• Wisdom Wednesdays: Charlie Chaplin, Cultural Icon – Helped the World Live through Some Dark Moments in History