The Invisible Mentor

Posts Tagged ‘William Shakespeare’

In case you missed it, here is what we talked about this week on The invisible Mentor Blog.

Mondays at the Salon

The most accomplished individuals spend their time reading books that make them think, and Shakespeare ranks high on their menu of books. Timeless books show the power of words and how leaders use words to influence.

What Shakespeare Brings to Business.

Booked on Tuesdays

We reviewed Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad which is a story about imperialism. The book shows the dangers of greed and what happens when you force your will on others.

Review: Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad.

Wisdom Wednesdays

We profiled the comic film actor Charlie Chaplin, whose art put a smile on the faces of many worldwide.

Charlie Chaplin, Cultural Icon – Helped the World Live through Some Dark Moments in History.

Perspective Thursdays and Workshop Fridays

From conducting interviews over the years, one of the things I have learned is that we can learn from the experiences of others. We featured Part One and Part Two of The Invisible Mentor interview with Mary Schnack an entrepreneur who has endured seven cancer surgeries. Resilience is a word I would use to describe Mary – when she falls down she picks herself up and that’s what makes her such a great public relations consultant. She is persistent and knows how to endure.

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

Book link is affiliate link.

Image via Wikipedia

Isn’t that a great title? That’s the name of a workshop I recently attended which was offered by the Ivey School of Business – part of their idea forum series. I have read and heard it said many times that the most accomplished individuals, like CEOs, read books other that business books. They read books that make them think – philosophy, poetry, poems, religion and so on. And attending “What Shakespeare (poetry, art, literature, music) Brings to Business” opened up my thinking, and I now understand why CEOs prefer to hire people with an arts degree over those with business degrees.

“The exploration of creative works allows us to break free from decisions based on logic and data, decisions always limited by things we can’t see. Art, literature, poetry open up a sensitivity to the emergent, things that just pop up out of the nowhere of complexity…. Poetry, art, literature recognize that the whole is more than the sum of its part. This awareness is central to decision-making in business, and to maintaining a leader’s creativity.” Ivey School of Business

The session leader used Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar to bring the workshop to life. He focused on the scene where Brutus has just killed Julius Caesar, and he and Antony are debating the need for Caesar’s death in front of the angry Roman mob. We were asked to pay attention to which of the two was a more powerful and convincing speaker. Antony was, and he set the stage by laying the body of Caesar for all to see before he started talking. A picture was certainly worth a thousand words and he played on people’s emotion.

Both Brutus and Antony used flattery, deceit and manipulation to influence the Romans. When you want to influence people, all you have are words, and Brutus and Antony clearly understood that. The angry mob was paying attention to the “noise” and not what was being said. They were so caught up with the “noise,” of what both Brutus and Antony were saying that they were not questioning what was actually being said to them.

Looking at Julius Caesar in the context of gleaning business lessons was very instructive for me and at the end of “What Shakespeare Brings to Business,” this is what I learned:

• What Shakespeare Brings to Business gives us the ability to see the complexity.
• People around us everyday use the power of words to flatter, deceive and manipulate us. They also use words to deceive themselves.
• Leaders get so caught up in listening to the “noise” that they fail to question what’s being said.
• We are victims of rhetoric. We feel good when we align ourselves with the person spouting the rhetoric.
• Life falls apart but we can bring it back together.

The workshop leader also briefly talked about comedy and what it can teach us. The example he gave was a fool walking down the street and keeps on falling, but each time he falls he rises again. What lesson could we possible learn from that example? The fool is teaching us resilience. Things fall apart every day in business and life, but if we are resilient, we can bring it back together again.

The next time you listen to a charismatic leader, focus on what is being said, and question it.

How can you use this information? 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.

Your Invisible Mentor: Jacoline Loewen, Partner 

Company: Loewen & Partners

Website: http://www.loewenpartners.com

Many years ago, Jacoline Loewen went to see a psychic. The psychic heard her accent and assumed that she was from Australia, so she went on and on about Australia. None of her predictions were accurate. Jacoline wondered why she wasted her $50, which was a lot of money at the time. She asked herself, “What would make you breathless?” and developed a life plan of five-year increments for 25 years. Though her plans appeared bigger than life at the time, she has achieved all of them and more. Diane Danielson suggests that you go for the grande.

What makes you breathless? If you decided to go for the grande, what would that look like? While reading Part Two of Jacoline Loewen’s interview, think about what you can learn from her, and in what ways are you similar to her.

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Jacoline Loewen: I work with Loewen & Partners which is a family business. I love to work but I also love to be a mother, I’m married as well, and I think I have done a pretty good job of combining all those things. I’ve tried to have it all and I would say because I am a high energy get-it-done person, you would think that I’m a corporate person, but my husband and children say that’s not the case.

Avil Beckford: How did mentors influence your life?

Jacoline Loewen: I was very fortunate I had my father as my first mentor. I didn’t know that I was a “girl” because he took me to work with him all the time and loved discussing business with me. My mother was another mentor, she started her first business at age 53 and then ended up selling it 15 years later. She is my coach and I still phone her up, especially if I’ve had a really bad day, and she’ll get be back up on the horse. My father-in-law Chuck has been a tremendous mentor to me as well. He took me under his wing and showed me how he has done business so it gave me confidence to know how much success he’s had, how he has done it. I’m doing it the same way because in business you have to put so much out before you get the fruits of your reward for all you effort.

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

Jacoline Loewen: It’s the phoenix from the ashes. If you want to succeed you have to have tenacity, get punched in the face, and get up again. You have to get out into the fight, and finance is a very vicious place, it’s a very tough business. I’ve been in consulting and that’s a lot easier than finance. I would say that you have to keep going, and if you’re doing your own business you have to commit to it for 10 years. You are just not going to make it if you don’t realize that that’s the timeframe that you have to commit to.

Avil Beckford: Which books, training resources did your mentors refer to you?

Jacoline Loewen: It’s interesting because my father was very much into training courses, and he developed all the first safety training in mining and got me very involved in that. I learned action learning at that point, so not just reading a book. So if you read a book, share it and get up and make a speech about it. Give a 10-minute talk at your meeting. Obviously the book In Search of Excellence had a huge impact on me, and another book Intrapreneurship had an impact on me as well. These books were in the early eighties, then Rosabeth Moss Kanter had a book called The Change Agent which impacted me as well. My father-in-law, Chuck Loewen made me do an MBA, and I didn’t know what it was, and at the time I thought, “Why?” No one I knew had done it and I was in consulting at that point. I didn’t want to apply because I was afraid that I wouldn’t get in. I always had this mountain of not wanting to try things because I was too afraid.

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

Jacoline Loewen: I spoke to this coach who coaches the top CEOs of the Top 10 companies listed on the stock exchange. I asked him, “What on earth can you teach these men? How do you mentor them?” and he said, “You have to know yourself.” And he told me about this book, As a Man Thinketh, that you can download from the internet, and I said, “Why? Obviously these guys know themselves.” And he said, “No, you have to make your personal life parallel with your work-life. Who you are at work is who you are at home.” Personal issues impact the way you are at work so he works a lot on their personal lives.

I would also tell your readers to listen to podcasts because they are so mobile and motivating, and they teach you so much. If you go on to iTunes Podcasts Higher Learning, all these universities offer courses. Stanford has entrepreneurs talking, you have the top guys from Google talking, and you can spend an hour listening to how these guys started their careers and their jobs and learn what happened to them.

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

Jacoline Loewen: I’m lucky because I work in a family business so I can bring my sons into my office and they have worked for me. I pay them and they understand my work environment. I’ve always shared a lot with my sons even when they were tiny. I would talk to them about the fact that I was unhappy going to work because I wanted to spend time with them, and it was a big issue for me. I would share that with them and kids understand.

We socialize a lot with our clients now. My husband is what you call a “bear hugger,” and he bear hugs our clients and draws them into our social life. It’s actually great, we enjoy their company and we’ve become very good friends. I think the social aspect of having Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn is interesting because I have been wrestling with whethere or not I’m going to make my Facebook part of my business life. This is what people are moving toward. I’ve always hidden behind my brand, my name. I have this sexist attitude about how women will be valued and I’ve always used my initials for my books. I’m at the crossroads where I’ll probably open my Facebook and make it one with my Tweets and LinkedIn.

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

Jacoline Loewen: I tend to not step forward when I’m offered opportunities. People see me as a leader more than I see myself and then I don’t push for things enough. I’m nice, I’m a good girl.

For a major regret, I don’t know if I have any major regrets. I try to design what I’m doing so that I don’t have regrets. For example when I decided to stay home with my kids for a couple of years, I ended up doing my business anyway and I asked myself, “At 50 will you regret stepping off this corporate job.” I had an amazing corporate job that I had been at for five years, and to leave it was huge at the time. At 50 I would know that I made that decision on purpose. So I’m not sure that I have any regrets.

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

Jacoline Loewen: 

1. Things work out in the end so just keep going. I’ve had some terrible times in business, the one I talked about losing that client that I thought I was going to get. That was such a major financial commitment that I thought I had. Pick yourself up. Get on the horse, get on the phone calling, and get moving again as fast as you can. Astonishingly, within two weeks after we lost that client we got the best client we’ve ever had, and he is our number one client. But I had to force myself. I remember going out to see that client and feeling, “Oh what’s the point? This is a waste of time. It’s not going to happen,” and bang it happened.
2. Be yourself! I get so worried thinking that people will notice this, that or the other, or I didn’t do this and people will notice. People don’t care, and most people don’t notice a thing.
3. As an immigrant, get over it.
4. As a woman, get over it.
5. And the main thing I’ve learned is to relax and have more fun at work. I’ve always been so serious and tense. And I learned it’s okay to have fun. We took our clients out for World Cup Soccer to a local bar and had all these finance guys come out for it. I’m much more formal, but at these events, it’s where the real business happens.

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

Jacoline Loewen: I like to paint. I like to read. I like to go to the movies and I like going out to dinner with my kids. I spend a lot of time talking with my children.

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

Jacoline Loewen: I read a lot of the best minds. I read Harvard Business Review and I ask people what books they are reading. The internet is amazing because of all the blogs you can read. I have a notebook at hand and I write all the time, and then I go back and look at what I’ve been writing and get my ideas from that. That’s how I write books.

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

Jacoline Loewen: “A few people in a room make the greatest changes in the world” by Margaret Meade. This quote shows you the power of strategy, the power of getting a few people together and making a big plan of what you’re going to do then getting everyone behind that plan and doing it.

Avil Beckford: How do you define success?

Jacoline Loewen: It’s what makes you happy. When I started my MBA, the first exercise we did was a values exercise. It was about what was important in your life. They did a whole week of that, getting you to understand yourself and your priorities. At the time I had a professor who was a Birkenstock kind of guy, he was into “Don’t be an A-type, relax.” I’m not a B-Type, I’m an A-Type. I’m someone who likes to be super busy all the time, that’s just how I am. So I define success not by how others define it.

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

Jacoline Loewen: You really have to know your values. If you can sit down and write your Top Five values and keep those in mind, and plan your week keeping in mind those values. For example, I have my mother in town and my parents are seldom in the same city at the same time as I am. She is getting older so I make the time and carve it into my diary. Tuesday evenings she is at my home and I come home early from work and make dinner for the family. Even if someone comes to town like Russell Crowe for a date I would have to say no these are my values, these are my priorities.

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

Jacoline Loewen: You really have to plan it. When I was 25 I went to a psychic and I remember paying $50 which was a lot of money back then. She heard my accent and thought I was Australian, and she went on and on about Australia. I have never been to Australia and none of what she said was accurate and I wondered why I paid $50. I said to myself, “What would make you breathless?” and I planned 25 years of 5-year increments and it’s amazing how much of what I planned I achieved and went beyond. I still have that book. And yet at the time I thought there was no way I could achieve any of these things.

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

Jacoline Loewen: If you are starting out in private equity get a really good financial background. Get a CFA, Certified Financial Analyst certification, I recommend it. Work in a big company where you can get a high volume of deals. Go to New York or London, England if you can.

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?

Jacoline Loewen: 

1. Don Tapscott: I love his business ability, his ability to market his books and he is obviously a kind person as well. I would say to him, “Don could you spend an hour with me and show me how I can take my books, and where I am right now, and leverage them the way you have?”
2. Margaret Thatcher: She came into power at the time when many people were emigrating from the UK. There were rolling blackouts, the unions had all the power in Britain, there were no jobs, and she changed all of that. I would like to spend an hour with her and find out how she managed her fear. She was from an entrepreneurial background, her father was in the grocery business.
3. Queen Elizabeth I: I would ask her why she didn’t marry Walter Raleigh
4. William Shakespeare: I love to write and I would ask him if he really wrote all those plays, how did he write and when and where he would write and what inspired him.
5. Kathryn Bigelow: She directed The Hurt Locker and was the first women to win the Academy Award for Best Director. I’d love her to spend an hour with me talking about her career in the movie business.

The Hurt Locker – Official Trailer [HD]

If you cannot view the YouTube video please click here.

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

Jacoline Loewen: That would definitely be In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies by Tom Peters.

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.

Jacoline Loewen: If I’m on a deserted island I’d have a lot to read. I would definitely go for volume.

• I’d have the Bible not that I’m religious but because I have never read the whole thing and it’s dense so it would take a lot of time to read it
• The entire set of Encyclopedia Britannica
• Get some Booker Prize novels that I haven’t read – The Gathering is something that I’ve wanted to read
• Anything by Gary Hamel who I love
• And of course Michael Porter’s Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance, Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors

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

Jacoline Loewen: I would have Diana Ross’ Greatest Hits. I just love her, her songs have a profound sadness to them but she is always getting over her sadness. She is always making bold statements and going for what she wants. She always energizes me. The movie would have to be Gladiator. I love his energy and bravery.

Diana Ross- Do You Know Where You’re Going To – Live 2011

If you cannot view this YouTube video please click here.

Gladiator Trailer HD

If you cannot view this YouTube video please click here.

Avil Beckford: Have you read any books which inspired you to start a business or introduce a service?

Jacoline Loewen: Actually yes. You know who is great, believe it or not, is Martha Stewart. She wrote a book, The Martha Rules when she was in prison, that’s a great book and if you are in business, that’s a really great book to read and get ideas from.

Avil Beckford: What excites you about life?

Jacoline Loewen: My family excites me about life: my sons, husband and mother. My father has passed away now.

Avil Beckford: How do you nurture your soul?

Jacoline Loewen: Spending time with my family.

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

Jacoline Loewen: Besides money, fame, power, beauty (she laughs) or the ability to eat chocolate as much as I wanted, I would wish for – going beyond my family – to have my family business become a legacy business. In other words, I would love to grow my business to pass it on to another generation of business owners.

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

Jacoline Loewen: I am happy when I am motivating and exciting others.

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 Credits: The Hurt Locker – Official Trailer [HD] Uploaded by trailers on Jun 12, 2009; Diana Ross- Do You Know Where You’re Going To – Live 2011 Uploaded by goldmosh on Sep 22, 2011; Gladiator Trailer HD Uploaded by FilmTrailersChannel on Aug 22, 2009

Related articles

• Jacoline Loewen on the three steps to create value (moneymagnetbook.blogspot.com)
• Should I hire a broker or investment banker to help me sell my company? (moneymagnetbook.blogspot.com)
• Jacoline Loewen on 3 Rules for every Start Up – BNN The Pitch (moneymagnetbook.blogspot.com)

Interview With Jim Love, Partner, Performance Advantage

This interview was first published in the November 2006issue of my newsletter Ambeck Edge, but learning from the mistakes of thers is important so that we do not have to make those same mistakes.

Avil Beckford: Describe a business challenge you had and how you resolved it?

Jim Love: The key challenge for me was to grow the business beyond just me, and an idea. This is a huge challenge for entrepreneurs.

Resolution: I made many mistakes. One mistake was panicking and saying that I had to bring other people into the business. I didn’t handle this process as well as I could have, and one classic example was bringing in salespeople who couldn’t or didn’t sell. I expanded too rapidly and hired people who I shouldn’t have. I did all the right things to resolve the challenge, but I didn’t do them well. The renaming of the company from True North to Performance Advantage reflected a crisis point that we hit and I had to fix that. Now I have expanded much more cautiously with much more deliberateness. I have two partners in the business and we have a selection of consultants. We were more rigorous in the selection process.

A key thing, which helped me, was to take my own advice, the advice that I give to my clients. I did a plan and looked at some of the metrics in my business. I looked at where we wanted to go and that took me a long time to complete, which gave me a newfound respect for why some companies do not want to do strategic planning. In the planning I looked at what types of people and revenue we wanted to attract, and how they fit together. Now I know what I want, and I am aware of what offers to take and which to leave on the table.

AB: What lessons did you learn in the process?

JL: Lessons Learned:

1. It’s important to understand how your business runs at every level – from the strategic to the operational
2. Know what you’re passionate about, know what you can do that can beat the world, and know what metrics drive your business. The better I got at doing this, the better I became at solving crises and not just the challenge I talked about
3. Business success is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent discipline. You have to work in pursuit of your goal
4. You have to plan for strategic success and follow the plan. Stop worrying about the attributes that you don’t have and start exploiting the things that you do well, recognizing the places where you don’t want to go
5. Be able to be true to your moral compass

AB: In your opinion, what is the formula for success?

JL: “To thine own self be true” by William Shakespeare sums up the formula for success. To me, it is to know who you are, what you want, what you are passionate about, take the time to plan for it and celebrate milestones along the way, and NEVER deviate from your moral compass.

Excerpt November 2006 Ambeck Edge

While I was writing an article about the importance of reading, Building Intellectual Power One Book at a Time, I wanted the perfect quote to sum up what I felt, and I found the perfect one by Francis Bacon, author, philosopher and the father of inductive reasoning.

“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention” says Francis Bacon.

A Video of Creative Quotations from Francis Bacon

(CreativeQuotations.com)

From the quotes in the video, which one is your favourite, and why?

Note: As is the case with all the posts so far in the series 10 People Who Would Have Been Great Bloggers, based on research, I attempt to get into the head of these great thinkers and project what I think they would say. And, most importantly, I have fun with what I discover. I find the theory that Bacon was Shakespeare to be quite fascinating.

Baconisms

1. You may not know this, but I am the originator of the phrase “Knowledge is power.” I am so delighted that the phrase is so widespread
2. Reading gives me pleasure and gardening is one of life’s simple pleasures
3. Have planned procedures to investigate everything
4. I believe in practical knowledge so it is important to restructure traditional learning methods
5. Though I revered Aristotle, I hated his philosophy, what the heck is Aristotelianism anyway?
6. My life is the classic case of a Greek tragedy, read my next point and you will know why
7. Be weary of power and do not let it go to your head, operate with integrity, I know what I am talking about. I was on the fast track and lost my way, I was charged and arrested for bribery. Though the king later pardoned me, I was banished from public life
8. If you make a mistake, own up to it, and learn from it
9. Good can come from adversity: After I was charged and arrested, I focused on my writing
10. Am I, or Am I Not William Shakespeare? Now That’s the Question!

Sources:

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626)
Biographies: Francis Bacon “The Secretary of Nature (1561 – 1626)
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Francis Bacon

Of Francis Bacon by Max Patrick

Photo credit: Wikipedia

Interesting Information

Bacon is Shakespeare Slideshow
Baconian Theory

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