The Invisible Mentor Interviews Rona Maynard, Part Two

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.