The Invisible Mentor Interviews Mike DeSousa

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: What’s a typical day like for you?

Mike DeSousa: Waking up at 6am, work at 7am reviewing daily goals set the night before, create presentations, researching clients online/phone networking, sourcing opportunities, setting up appointments, cleaning up paperwork, invoicing clients/following up on  building an online presence & my community, and learning new Social Media.

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

Mike DeSousa:  I focus on attainable short-term & long-term goals that move me towards my desire outcomes that I list on my Vision Board. Also I LOVE learning about new resources (Social Media & other), acting on new opportunities, and CREATING innovative opportunities & successes. Speaking to me puts me in the Zone, especially when my audience appreciates both the knowledge that I impart and my entertainment value (“edu-tainment”).  About 5-10 people approach me after one of my presentations, which tells me that I'm adding value to their lives and helping them out, as a “Social-preneur”. I love helping others, using my gifts — this is what makes me happy and I strive for in my legacy: being of service to others and making an empowering impact in their lives that moves them forward toward their committed goals. Conversely, I dislike working with people who state their goals, though are not committed to do the prep, work to reach them, and expect these goals to magically appear.

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

Mike DeSousa:  Take entrepreneurial courses, found business mentors, apprenticed under great people, start my own part-time business earlier, set compelling goals with deadlines, act on my gut instinct — I saw the value in the web in the early 90s, before it was mainstream, and my lack of action to follow my gut instinct cost me huge financial opportunities.  Never waste time crying over spilt milk: there are always other opportunities — look, observe, read, ask questions, study…don't wait for them to find you: find them and create them.

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

Mike DeSousa: That I can do and achieve great things NOW (vs. in the future) and that I need to leverage the power of volunteers and interns to help me get there.  Setting aggressive goals and finding ways to achieve them are critical.

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

Mike DeSousa: 1. Not acting fast enough 2. Self-limiting beliefs 3. Not working on priorities & getting caught up with trivia.  I resolve these three threats by:

1. Waking up earlier to get more work done
2. Giving myself positive self-talk, and
3. Focusing on 1-3 long-term, capacity-building priorities each day (am getting time management software to help me with this last one).

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

Mike DeSousa:

1. The creative way that I combine many different sources & the way that I show people how to apply this (vs. theoretical knowledge)
2. Innovative workshops on the latest programs, before most people have heard about them (early adopter)
3. Imparting wisdom while entertaining/motivating my audience & challenging them to take one action step right after the seminar

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

Mike DeSousa: Failing swimming classes as a kid and watching other kids get their swim badges was a pivotal moment and great learning experience for me.  It resolved me to work harder, set goals, persist, get help, have patience with myself, and persevere in front of a challenge.  To this day, when I am faced with a challenge, I draw upon this experience to remind myself of the habits that caused me to climb out of a valley of a “learning experience”, into a successful mountain peak.  Failing a few swimming lessons as a kid was the best thing that ever happened to me, because it allowed me to react positively to it and gave me a great background that I use to this very day. Incidentally, the determination that I gained from these early “learning experiences” propelled me to eventually train/teach swimming instructors and lifeguards, rank in the finals of one Provincial Lifeguard Competition in Spinal rescues, and complete an Olympic Distance & IronGuard triathlon.

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

Mike DeSousa: My Best Friends kept on pestering me to act on my Public Speaking gifts, and I finally listened to them when I realized that other speakers who were less polished and knowledgeable than me were making a great living because they were marketing better.  My Best Friends take credit for my “Big Break” with helping me to ‘reprogram' my self-limiting beliefs, reminding me of my strengths, and encouraging me to take action.

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

Mike DeSousa: One of my biggest failures was entering a depression (which I didn't recognize or know what a “depression” or its symptoms were, so it remained undiagnosed) and consequently failing first year university.  I took an inventory of all the lessons that I learned that year, knowing that I would eventually return. When I did return, I took out my “lesson sheet” and created an action plan that fuelled my work ethic, goal-setting, and discipline, and propelled me to the top of my class.

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

Mike DeSousa:  One of the toughest decisions I've had to make was to face the fact that I “quit” in a couple of key pivotal moments in my life, when I promised myself that I would never do this.  With reflection and journaling, I discovered that sometimes, there is nothing wrong with “quitting”, as long as you learn something, grow from it, re-frame your experiences, strive to be a better person, help others, develop patience, compassion, kindness, and understanding for both yourself and for others.  I developed new meaning from this to learn the “assumptions” that informed my “quitting”:

1. Avoid comparing myself to others in certain ways (rather than to myself and seeking to focus on my own “Personal Bests”)
2. Not finding and communicating with a mentor who could explain to me how my self-limiting beliefs were holding me back.
3. Not willing to admit/refusing to admit my weaknesses to myself or to others

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

Mike DeSousa:

1. Moving to Toronto as a teenager, and having to re-start my life in a new environment, having to make new Friends from scratch, and emerging successful from a tough transition
2. Going into Leadership Aquatics, which developed my teaching skills, speaking skills, and supervisory skills
3. Going back to school (university) as a mature student, which opened up new opportunities to me, helped get self-limiting beliefs and the monkey off my back, increase my awareness of undiagnosed depression in my life (which I got help for, keeping me healthy and stable for the past 4 years) and propelled my career in a new direction.

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

Mike DeSousa: Winning a 1,200m high-school wide running race as a 15 year-old. I had just had a growth spurt after being a pudgy kid, and I resolved to become more athletic.  I had a great cross-country fall running season, and a good track training season.  I trained in track and got some advice from our gym teacher (“stick with the race leaders from the beginning”).  At the starting line, I tripped and fell. I picked myself up and started jogging, when all of a sudden I felt a roar inside me “NO!!!” (Don't give up), and knew that I would give it my all, and that I would rather fail this way than to just throw in the towel. I caught the race leader on the 1st lap, and stayed with him for the whole race, despite feeling like I was going to die.  Each time someone cheered for him, it strengthened my resolve and I pretended that they were cheering for me.  I breezed past him in the final 300m.

Avil Beckford: How did mentors influence your life?

Mike DeSousa:  I've learned many great things and unique lessons from different mentors.

1. As a youngster, I would read the (kids version) biographies of Great People (e.g. Louis Pasteur, Madame Curie, Benjamin Franklin, etc.), fables and stories, and Marvel Comic Books, all of which made me feel that there was World-Class Greatness and a Hero inside of me awaiting to emerge — in what area I didn't know, though I knew it in my gut and Soul that I “had it, whatever this area of greatness was.”
2. Peter Fujiwara, my most important mentor and high-school teacher taught me to strive for Excellence in all aspects of one's life, to seek balance, and to believe that you could do anything and not to listen to the “experts” or take self-limiting advice from “mentors.”
3. Mr. Dixon, another mentor high-school teacher taught me the value of hard work (“Brains without hard work is wasted talent, Mike.”).
4. Alexander the Great taught me to be strategic. A common lesson each of these taught me was to wake up early and outwork others.

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

Mike DeSousa: Outwork, out-strategize, and be of service to others.

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

Mike DeSousa:  Pick an invisible mentor from one of the “Greats” of all time and an existing one who resonates with your personality, your needs, and/or your direction.  Read everything you can and learn from each. Picture them talking to you, giving you advice.  Contact the “existing/living” mentor!

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