The Invisible Mentor

Posts Tagged ‘Albert Einstein’

Interviewee Name: Tracy Matthewman

Company Name: Tracy Matthewman, Network Marketing Sweetie

Website: http://www.TracyMatthewman.com, http://networkmarketingsweetie.com

 Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Tracy Matthewman: I come from a corporate IT background, so I worked in IT for 15 years. After I had my daughter I had an opportunity to stay home and work for myself so I jumped at the chance. I started off doing web and graphic design and within a year or so I quickly moved into the internet marketing realm. Marketing has always been a love of mine, and the fact that it was mixed with internet and technology was right up my alley, so that’s what I’ve been doing ever since.

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

Tracy Matthewman: I brand myself so my website is TracyMatthewman.com which is my name. You go on that site and you basically see a picture of me at the top and in the content I create, every thing that I do, I am basically just myself. I make videos and when I write I don’t worry about whether it’s perfectly grammatically done. Obviously I try to make it sound proper so people can understand it, and I pay attention to spelling errors, but when I write or go on video I talk as if I am talking to someone one-on-one.

As an example, I did a video on a tip that keeps my blogging regular, and my daughter was in my office with me when I was making the video. She was very quiet, over the other side sitting in a chair. Toward the end of the video she came and sat in my lap and I could have stopped the video and started again, but it’s really about me and part of me is that I have a daughter and I work from home, so I allowed that part of the video to continue. I continued to speak, I gave her a hug and she was in the video. It was bringing my personal life into my business to some degree. People know I’m a real person and they get to know and relate to me better. 

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

Tracy Matthewman: My down time is on the weekends, Thursday and Friday nights. Weekends in the summer, most of the time we spend at our cottage, so I’m in the woods by the lake. I’m living in this little house that doesn’t have all the luxuries of a traditional house, so I am living more in nature, so that’s one thing I do in my down time. I read a lot of business books, which doesn’t seem like downtime but for me it is because I love learning, so if I’m learning something, I’m really happy.

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

Tracy Matthewman:

1. To be present. This is a hard one because we are always busy. My brain is always on overdrive, so when I’m talking to somebody, when I’m doing something, I’m trying to train myself to be in the present moment. So right now I’m in this interview, I’m focusing on my words, and I’m focusing on your words. I’m being present in this interview trying to give everything I can. When I’m talking to friends, I really listen to them. I pay attention and try to give as much good feedback or energy back into that conversation as possible.
2. Having balance is one I mentioned before, spending equal amounts of time in all areas.
3. Setting goals that aren’t too big. I have struggled with this one. I set a goal that’s huge because Donald Trumps says to think big. Thinking big is great but when you set a goal that’s so big and you don’t accomplish it, and you do it again and again you get really discouraged. So I’ve started to set smaller goals that are achievable but still a reach for me, but not so big that when I don’t get it I become disappointed because after a few times you start to think of yourself as a complete failure. So it’s important to set smaller goals whether they are weekly monthly or even yearly. If you are only making $50,000 and you want to make a million dollars by the end of the year, that’s probably going to be a stretch. Set realistic goals with a certain amount of reach that will make you stretch a little bit.
4. Choosing to be happy which I mentioned already. When you’re feeling miserable, one of the tips I heard from someone is to look up to the sky, or if you are not near to a window, look to the ceiling of your room and smile as big as you can. A big, huge smile on your face and just stare at the ceiling for five or 10 seconds and that will help you to instantly feel better. Choose to be happy instead of waiting to be happy is important.
5. Saying no to things that are just going to distract you. Pick one or two things to focus on, and this is in terms of business, anything else that comes up you have to say no to, so you focus on the one or two goals and get them to where you want them to be. Learning to say no is a huge life lesson for people to learn.

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

Tracy Matthewman: One thing I do is communicate with my audience quite a bit, and I also ask them questions. I can do surveys or I can just look at their feedback. I always encourage comments on my blog, and so with that I get ideas. I also look at trends that are happening in the market place, and I listen to what other people are saying, and what other people are doing, and I look for trends in those types of activities.

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

Tracy Matthewman: “Be the change you want to see in the world” by Gandhi. This is ultimately my favourite quote because there are so many things in the world that I wish I could change, and the first step to changing them is by changing my own actions.

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

Tracy Matthewman: Success to me is the three areas that I previously said. In the wealth area, you have to be happy with the amount of wealth you have in your life. It’s not the first thing or the priority. In this country that we live in, this area of the world, if you don’t have a lot of money you may struggle, and a lot of money is relative. But if you do not have a lot of money, you’re unable to help other people as well. One thing I truly believe in is that if you have the capacity to make more money to help more people, I feel it’s the obligation of the individuals who have the capacity to do that – to put out into the world what they can, to get back so they can help people who may not have the opportunities that you or I or other people listening may have.

We have a lot of capabilities and just sitting back and watching those talents go to waste, you’re not helping anybody, and you’re not helping yourself, or the planet. Health is also a big thing because if you have all the wealth in the world and your health is terrible, what kind of life is that? But if you have your health and no money, that’s not much fun either. The last one is happiness and that’s where other aspects come in like balance, less stress, being emotionally and mentally stable, being spiritual and giving back, all those other things that are more for the soul. I think those are the three main things we should focus on in balancing our lives and when we do that our lives will be filled with abundance.

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

Tracy Matthewman: Ongoing learning and doing. I’m a doer and usually when I go to any training program, or buy a new training program, I’m drooling at the mouth to start learning it and then when I’m done, and usually before I am done, when I’m going through chapters and modules I usually implement things right away. The step is to first learn how to do something and then implement it right away. If and when you fail, learn from your failures and implement again. That’s the only way you’re going to get better.

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

Tracy Matthewman: Find something you love doing and figure out a way to make an income from it. And incorporating that with giving back to the world, we should be helping people or helping the planet. If I look at my own story, I love marketing and I love technology, and I’m a logical thinker. I come from a programming background, to take that element of my natural talent, combine it with marketing which is something that I really love, and combine that into a business that helps people. It doesn’t matter what your love is, somebody is out there being successful doing it, so it’s just a matter of figuring out what that is and how to do it.

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?

Tracy Matthewman:

• Albert Einstein because he was one of those people who was looked at by society as a little bit crazy, yet he turned out to be brilliant and changed the course of humanity.
• There are some other people who again when they first came out with ideas they were often looked at as out of the norm of society and those are the types of people who create revolutions and transformations on the planet. I would say something to those types of people and it would be, “Thank you for being you! Thank you for being unique because your uniqueness changed the world.”

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

Tracy Matthewman: There has been a lot just looking at my library right now. One book which had an impact on me is UnMarketing: Stop Marketing, Start Engaging by Scott Stratten. That was an excellent book and I realize that today’s marketing arena is so much more personal. It’s not the advertising it’s more based around a relationship experience or a personal touch. That book brought that home for me.

Another book I read a long time ago is The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams & Reaching Your Destiny. That book started me on the personal development road and it made me think differently because before that time in my life I was brought up as an average thinking person who didn’t have any sort of personal thoughts going on in her head. I led a fairly normal life. My parents weren’t necessarily all that encouraging of me to do whatever I wanted to do in life. It’s was “why don’t you become a secretary?” There was nothing really inspiring in my life. That book completely changed the way I think and the way my life was responding to my thoughts.

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? 

Note from Avil: I have changed this question a lot, so Tracy’s response is to one of the many iterations of the question.

Tracy Matthewman: I would make a little hut, have camp fires every night, eat coconuts and bananas, make friends with the monkeys, braid my hair, soak up the sun, walk barefoot on the sand, make or build something that took a long time because if I’m going to be there for two years I need something to keep me going for a while so I don’t get bored – something intricate and detailed.

Avil Beckford: What excites you about life?

Tracy Matthewman: What excites me is change. I love change and one of the things that I definitely want to do before 2014 is to move to another country. I have set that date for myself. To me, that’s a big change, and it excites me. For some people, those types of change are way too scary. So I love change and I love new things, and obviously those are closely related.

Avil Beckford: How do you nurture your soul?

Tracy Matthewman: Recently with meditation and reading books that help me to get to know myself better, and also taking part in activities that are helping my personal mission in life. I mentioned my favourite quote, “Being the change you want to see in the world,” so I nurture my soul by being that change.

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

Tracy Matthewman: I would use it to change the dream of the Western world because the Western world right now is into consumption, and we feel like we have to have all this stuff, and because of that huge demand for stuff, it’s actually destroying our planet. And if I could change one thing it would me that dream that everybody have this idea in marketing that tell us we have to have all these things. So if we could change that dream of consumption to something that would help the planet, that would be great.

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

Tracy Matthewman: At the cottage in the hammock looking at my daughter barefoot playing in the sand.

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

Image via Wikipedia

This is what we talked about on The Invisible Mentor Blog this week: Review of The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks, Charles Lindbergh, First Person to Fly Solo from New York to Paris and Interview with Mike DeSousa.

Mondays at the Salon

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” is a quote that’s attributed to both Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin. It means you have to do things differently to get different results.

Do Something You’ve Never Done Before

Booked on Tuesdays

This week we reviewed The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks which shows us how to start performing at our peak. In the book, we learn how to tap into our true genius, instead of taking hops we take big leaps.

Review: The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks

Wisdom Wednesdays

Charles Lindbergh was the first person to fly solo from New York to Paris. He won $25,000 for his efforts. We can learn so much from Lindbergh by the way he prepared for his solo flight –  he paid attention to the details. And that’s possibly why he succeeded where so many had failed before.

Charles Lindbergh, First Person to Fly Solo Across the Atlantic

Perspective Thursdays and Workshop Fridays

This week we featured Mike DeSousa, public speaker and career coach. Imagine reading about the greats such as Marie Curie, Alexander the Great and Benjamin Franklin from when you were a child, what would your body of knowledge look like today? Here are Part One and Part Two of Mike DeSousa’s interview.

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.

Related articles

• Lindbergh’s historic flight, and what led to it (boston.com)

Cover via Amazon

The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level by Gay Hendricks is the best personal development book I’ve read in a long time. The book gave me a new way to look at my capabilities. There are four main zones that anyone of us operates in: Incompetence, Competence, Excellence and Genius. But we should strive to operate in our Zone of Genius all the time.

Four Main Zones

Zone of Incompetence: You are bogged down doing tasks that you are not good at, that others can do much better. The solution is to avoid doing them altogether.

Zone of Competence: You are competent at doing the activities but others can do them equally well. Delegate and let others do those tasks and free up your time to do the things that make you unique.

Zone of Excellence: You perform activities extremely well and make a great living, but you are capable of much more. You are quite comfortable and may be tempted to take it easy. But there is only one place that you will truly thrive and that’s in the next zone.

Zone of Genius: This is the zone where you liberate your true genius and it puts you on the ultimate path of living a successful and satisfied life.

According to Hendricks, with an investment of 10 minutes every day you can end up spending 70 percent or more of your time operating from your Zone of Genius. The reason that most of us never reach our Zone of Genius lies in the Upper Limit Problem, which is actually four hidden barriers based on fear and false beliefs. When you identify and remove the fear and false beliefs you are ready to rewrite your life story and invent a new life based on your true genius.

Four Hidden Barriers

Hidden Barrier One: Feeling Fundamentally Flawed – You feel that something is wrong with you. Perhaps you have feelings of undeservedness and unworthiness so you think it’s impossible for you to live a successful and fulfilled life. In the past, every time you experienced success, these thoughts infiltrated your mind and somehow you sabotaged yourself. Now when you experience success and the thoughts of being flawed or unworthy come into your mind creating cognitive dissonance, acknowledge the thought and recognize that you are facing an Upper Limit Problem. It’s decision time, you can go back to how things were or you can let go of the limiting belief and move to a higher level.

Hidden Barrier Two: Disloyalty and Abandonment – You refuse to expand and embrace true success because you feel that if you do, you will have to leave your friends and family behind and you do not want to be alone. One way to find out if you are facing this hidden barrier is to ask yourself two questions: 1) “Did I break the family’s spoken or unspoken rule to get to where I am?” and 2) “Even though I am successful, did I fail to meet the expectations my parents had for me?” If you answered yes to either of the two questions, you are facing Hidden Barrier Two. Look at the pattern in your life, do you experience success then punish yourself by putting the brakes on things? The best way to move beyond this Upper Limit Problem is through communication. Speak openly with your family and friends, most likely things will work out.

Hidden Barrier Three: Believing That More Success Brings a Bigger Burden – If you have feelings that somehow you are a burden to others, those feeling will immobilize you and prevent you from rising to your true potential. Whenever these feelings of guilt are triggered, recognize that it’s because of the Upper Limit Problem and realize that you have nothing to be guilty of so release the guilt.

Hidden Barrier Four: The Crime of Outshining – You believe that if you become too successful you will make others look bad. It appears that Hidden Barrier Four is prevalent among gifted and talented children, and often continue to play out in their adult lives. Gifted children are often blamed for taking the spotlight off other family members. Look back to when you have experienced successful breakthroughs, were you gripped by fear? Were you afraid of outshining someone from your past? Did you feel that that person deserved the success more than you did? Be honest when answering these questions. Now is a great time to read Marianne Williamson’s poem “Our Deepest Fear.”

Our Deepest Fear, by Marianne Williamson

From A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

You may be wondering how you will identify your Upper Limit Problem so that you may breakthrough to your Zone of Genius, and that’s an excellent question. The reason why I loved The Big Leap is that it walks you through the Upper Limit Problem, shows you how to spot the Upper Limit Problem in your life and how to live in your Genius Zone. The book provides many examples so you can get a sound understanding of the issues. While I was reading The Big Leap I was able to figure out what my hidden barriers were and you will be able to do that as well.

To accomplishing more in life, Hendricks dealt with the issue of time. Most of us believe that we do not have enough time to do everything. The author suggests that instead of viewing time in the Newtonian manner, we should instead view it in an Einstein manner, which is that we control our time. According to Hendricks, “You’re where time comes from.” At first I couldn’t wrap my head around that statement, but after I read the examples I understood what he meant by that. Essentially it means that you have enough time to do the things that are most important to you and to work on them. To do this, you have to take full control of your life.

Four Great Quotes from The Big Leap

1. “In the face of so much evidence that life hurts and is fraught with adversity on all fronts, having a willingness to feel good and have life go well all the time is genuinely a radical act.
2. The seductive comforts of success can lull us into accepting the status quo.
3. Discovering your Zone of Genius is your life’s Big Leap. Everything up until now has been about hops, not leaps. Hopping, though it seems safe, is actually hazardous to your health. If you confine yourself to hops, you run the risk of rusting from the inside out.
4. Fritz Perls, MD, psychiatrist and founder of Gestalt therapy said, “Fear is excitement without the breath.” This intriguing statement means that the very same mechanisms that produce excitement, also produce fear, and fear can be transformed into excitement by fully breathing into it.”

Four Genius Questions

1. What do I most love to do?
2. What work do I do that doesn’t seem like work?
3. In my work, what produces the highest ratio of abundance and satisfaction to the amount of time spent?
4. What is my unique ability?

I recommend The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Levell by Gay Hendricks for those who want to realize their full potential. The book gives practical tips for us to use. To get the most from the book you have to do the exercises so you can discover the issues to rectify them. The Upper Limit Problem often manifests in the form of illnesses, you make yourself sick so that you do not have to do something that you fear.

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.

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Attributed to both Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin

To soar and make the big leap, you have to step outside of your comfort zone from time-to-time. What is something that you’ve always wanted to do, but believed that you didn’t have the time to invest? What subjects would you like to learn more about but haven’t gotten around to taking action?

What would happen to your level of creativity if you invested 15 minutes each day on the following websites?

• How Stuff Works
• AskNature.org
• Qwiki.com

I have been spending time on Invitation to World Literature watching short documentaries on some classic literature. I have watched and enjoyed the documentaries on The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Odyssey and look forward to enjoying more. I am investing the time to build up my general knowledge to generate more creative ideas. I’m doing something that I’ve never done before and that’s reading the classics, how about you?

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.

“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”  Albert Einstein

Sometimes information only exists in a person’s head, so an interview is a way to extract it so that others may learn from the interviewee. An interview is a data gathering technique, and interviews are great teaching tools, especially when the interviewee is knowledgeable and wise. But it’s important to understand the knowledge hierarchy: data—information—knowledge—wisdom. When you move from data to wisdom, you further your level of understanding. And that’s what you’d like to happen for you when you read or listen to an interview.

It is said that the knowledge hierarchy can be traced back to the T.S. Eliot’s (1888-1965) poem The Rock (1934).

“…The endless cycle of idea and action,

Endless invention, endless experiment,

Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;

Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;

Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.

All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,

All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,

But nearness to death no nearer to GOD.

Where is the Life we have lost in living?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries

Bring us farther from GOD and nearer to the Dust.”

To explain the differences among each element of the knowledge hierarchy, I found a website which does so simply and clearly.

“According to Russell Ackoff, a systems theorist and professor of organizational change, the content of the human mind can be classified into five categories:

 

1. Data: symbols
2. Information: data that are processed to be useful; provides answers to “who”, “what”, “where”, and “when” questions
3. Knowledge: application of data and information; answers “how” questions
4. Understanding: appreciation of “why”
5. Wisdom: evaluated understanding.

 

Ackoff indicates that the first four categories relate to the past; they deal with what has been or what is known. Only the fifth category, wisdom, deals with the future because it incorporates vision and design. With wisdom, people can create the future rather than just grasp the present and past. But achieving wisdom isn’t easy; people must move successively through the other categories.” Source: Data, Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom by Gene Bellinger, Durval Castro, Anthony Mills.

This means that data is the most basic level of the knowledge hierarchy. Information adds context, knowledge is more about how to use the information that you now have, and wisdom is more about when to use the information.

Interviews often fall into the information and knowledge levels of the knowledge hierarchy. To get to the levels of understanding and wisdom requires work on the part of the reader and listener. You have to synthesize the incoming information. This is critical if you are using the interview as a learning tool.

How to Synthesize Interviews

To synthesize the information gleaned from interviews does not have to be a difficult process if you follow the simple process below.

I Saw/Heard This + I Know This = Insights.

Whenever each of us take in new information, it’s important to scan out mental data bank to identify what we already know about the subject matter and build on that knowledge.

Implication for the Invisible Mentor Interviews

As you may know already, the Invisible Mentor interviews are in-depth, and are spread over two days. To use them as learning tools, and get the most from them: Ask yourself,

1. What is the interviewee really saying?
2. What do I know that supports what the interviewee is saying?
3. What is surprising about what the interviewee is saying?
4. How can I use this information?
5. How can what I’m learning make a difference in my work and life?
6. Why is the information important (or not important)?
7. If what the interviewee is saying is true and beneficial to me, then what?
8. What action can I take as a result of what I saw or heard? And why is it important for me to take action?
9. Now that I have listened to the interview, have I changed in any way? If yes, how? Is that good or bad? Why?

Answering the above questions moves you up to a higher level in the knowledge hierarchy. You further your level of understanding about something, and gain insight in the process. The questions in The Invisible Mentor Interviews force interviewees to be thoughtful with their responses, which is hugely beneficial to the reader and listener. To take it one step further requires that you interact with what you are reading and hearing.

So when using interviews as a way to learn, use the process described above to make the most of your limited time. You will become more knowledgeable than those who do not understand the knowledge hierarchy. KNOWLEDGE IS NOT POWER, it’s what you do with it that really matters.

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.

Some Interviews Worth Paying Attention To

Seth Godin: The New Face of Publishing

Estée Lauder’s William Lauder: ‘The Consumer Still Wants and Needs to Be Touched’

Why Self-Employed Consultants Fail

Interview with Paul Allen