The Invisible Mentor

Posts Tagged ‘Mentors’

These are some of the people I interviewed this year to act as your mentors. In case you missed any of the interviews, when you get the opportunity, take a moment to read them. While you are reading the interviews, think of what you have in common with the interviewees, and ask yourself, what can I learn from them that I can use in my work and life? You can also find these interviews and more on the Mentors page of the blog

1. Mind your Qs please! She was the first female CEO of a steel company in Canada (Part I) (Part II)
2. She left a successful search consulting business to become a human excellence coach (Part I), (Part II)
3. The life coach who is also an artist (Part I), (Part II)
4. Someone who knows what leadership is about (Part I), (Part II)
5. The “hip accountant” (Part I), (Part II)
6. The entrepreneur’s friend (Part I), (Part II)
7. Head of PR for a technology firm, a writer, and very witty (Part I), (Part II)
8. The social justice film producer (Part I), (Part II)
9. A mentor directed her path to success (Part I), (Part II)
10. Someone who is a career and employment counsellor and a LinkedIn Heavyweight (Part I), (Part II)
11. A leadership and career coach, and a very straight shooter (Part I), (Part II)
12. An internet marketer and social media trainer (Part I), (Part II)
13. Someone who is a relationship builder (Part I), (Part II)
14. An IT executive who sang at her own wedding (Part I), (Part II)
15. Someone who is into food safety (Part I), (Part II)
16. She is an Assistant Deputy Minister (Part I), (Part II)
17. As a youngster he read biographies (children’s) of “great people” which taught him the importance of reading and learning from the experiences of others (Part I), (Part II)
18. The founder of Athena International (Part I), (Part II)
19. A successful business owner who attended 17 schools in three countries while growing up (Part I), (Part II)
20. Founder of Connected Women (Part I), (Part II)
21. Someone who was a former editor of Chatelaine Magazine (Part I), (Part II)
22. She started in the library and ended up in the executive suite (Part I), (Part II)
23. She launched the International Women’s Festival, and also operated a very successful business which she sold (Part I), (Part II)
24. Someone who died for four minutes (Part I), (Part II)
25. Someone who used to hide under the table from bill collectors, now she is a success story (Part I), (Part II)
26. When she first became a leader, she was referred to as Godzilla, but a mentor helped to smooth off the rough edges, now she is a remarkable leader (Part I), (Part II)
27. His best friend was embezzling so he gave him the opportunity to do the right thing (Part I), (Part II)
28. A busy senior level banking executive who escapes from it all through fiction (Part I), (Part II)
29. Someone who is a CFO of a restaurant chain (Part I), (Part II)
30. Someone who is a marketing and communications consultant (Part I), (Part II)
31. Someone knows what it means to fall down seven times get up eight (Part I), (Part II)
32. Someone who is an entertainer and comic artist (Part I), (Part II)
33. Someone who is a goldsmith and jewelry designer (Part I), (Part II)
34. An entrepreneur who blends health and technology (Part I), (Part II)
35. The medical doctor (Part I), (Part II)
36. The serial entrepreneur with mild superpowers (Part I), (Part II)
37. Serial entrepreneur and expert interviewer (Part I), (Part II) (Part III), (Part IV)
38. Founder of First Fridays (Part I), (Part II)
39. Someone who does cross-culture consulting (Part I), (Part II)
40. This senior executive made a tough decision that no parent should ever have to make (Part I), (Part II)
41. The reinvention guy (Part I), (Part II)

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: Kevin Popović, Communications Director

Company Name: Ideahaus

Website: http://www.ideahaus.com

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Kevin Popović: My job has evolved. I call myself a communications director so I help my clients direct all their communications – marketing, strategy, corporate identity and branding, advertising, design issues, public relations and quite a lot of social media these days. Quite simply, I help my clients figure out what to say and how to say it to their target markets.

Avil Beckford: What’s a typical day like for you?

Kevin Popović: If I had two days in a row that were the same I would be so surprised. Some days I work out of my beach studio in Delmar here in San Diego. Some days I’m at a comic convention interviewing different people in the comic, television and movie business. Some days I may be in New York working with a CEO client. Other days I may be in Hollywood at a celebrity awards gifts suite, some days I am in our Pittsburgh studio. Sunday I’ll be on stage at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. So my typical day is an adventure – every day is an adventure, and it’s a new adventure.

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

Kevin Popović: I look at the pile of bills that I have to pay this month. The challenge as an entrepreneur is that there is no one telling you what time you have to be at work, and there is no one telling you what has to get done today, and if your intent is being self-employed and an entrepreneur, that is one of the first things that you have to overcome is being able to motivate yourself and stay motivated.

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

Kevin Popović: Not a damn thing! And I say that in all sincerity. I had a path earlier in my career to go and work for somebody or to not go and work for somebody, and I worked for some people, and then I decided that that wasn’t for me. But the things that I got involved in throughout my life have all been different types of communications, whether it was video production or event production, or design, or advertising, or website development, all of those things that I have done have gotten me to where I am today and I’m very happy where I am today.

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

Kevin Popović: I’m realizing the opportunity in social media, and I have been involved in social media for six years. And every week I learn something new, but it has been over the last year that clients are realizing success as we are doing some very innovative things, realizing how many people are connecting and what that means. That’s my greatest observation.

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

Kevin Popović:

1. The economy which I can do nothing about.
2. My competitors which I can do nothing about.
3. Me and my company which I can do everything about. So that’s where I’m focusing on, me, my company, and my team.

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

Kevin Popović: Me! I do not mean that in an arrogant way. But every ship has a captain, someone who tells you to steer left, steer right, watch out for that iceberg. I’m the captain of our ship Ideahaus, and there are lots of different ships and lots of good captains. But what’s different about us is me.

Avil Beckford: What do you observe most people in your field doing badly that you think you do well?

Kevin Popović: I think most people do what’s expected. I think most people don’t pay attention to the compulsories  because they are expected, and there isn’t a lot of innovation. I think we do innovation very well.

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?

Kevin Popović: One of our clients is a retailer of pop culture apparel and that includes t-shirts, hoodies, belt buckles, patches, hats and things like Superman t-shirts. The challenge is that you can get Superman t-shirts anywhere, so why get it from my guy?

We focused on making it a priority for people to understand why you got it from our client, and we focused on their branding, and we focused on listening, and communicating back with the customers, and we came to what you call an understanding, a quid pro quo with our customers. They can pay attention to us, if we give them something to pay attention to, so we developed an online show that provide subject matter that we are both interested in, for instance superheroes. We give them entertainment, 5-minute daily shows about superheroes, or movies, television, or the things they are interested in, and in return they watch their show, and our commercials are placed within that show, and they buy t-shirts. That’s how we took a client with a commodity product, turn them into a premium, and developed a communications channel with his target audience.

I learned that you have to have an objective understanding of who you are in the marketplace, and where you fit in. I think we helped our client do that. I think this is something that is hard for businesses to do, and I think it’s hard for communications professionals to do that with their clients. But when we both do that, I think it’s when we are able to make much more informed and effective decisions.

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

Kevin Popović: There is a gentleman named Bob Friday, and he had a company called TGIF Productions that did video and event production. While I was a struggling entrepreneur, and trying to figure out where I was going to fit in this communications business, I had to take a part-time job in retail. Every so often Bob would come in to the store and buy something new for his office, and he’d share a story and I would chime in about what I thought about his story. We started communicating back and forth.

I ended up offering to help him with these projects on the side to gain experience, and after four or five months of this he started paying me to freelance and after six months of that he brought me on in a full-time position as assistant producer. For four years I traveled all over the country learning about video and event production and how to deal with clients.

I saw how he ran his business and I also saw what I did not like about how he ran his business. So I attribute one of my big breaks to Bob Friday, and thank him for the opportunities he provided and the lessons that he taught me. Many of which are things that I knew that I did not want to do. My father taught me a long time ago to learn from my mistakes and I’ve tried to apply that to everybody I’ve worked with. As much as I have learned from them about what to do, I’ve also learned what not to do.

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

evin Popović: One of my biggest failures was a very early entrepreneurial effort I had called Fairytales Productions. We were going to do event marketing for skateboard manufacturers. On the west coast we were going to do events on the east coast where they didn’t have that great of a presence. I put together a very large contest, and Wendy’s was going to be a sponsor and give us $5,000 toward the promotion. Everything got booked and three days beforehand, I find out that Wendy’s has changed their mind, they are not going to give me $5,000 in money, they are going to give me $5,000 in sandwich coupons. Vendors did not want to be paid in sandwich coupons. So it was a disaster and I ended up closing the company, and what I learned is to get everything in writing no matter who the relationship is with.

Avil Beckford: What has been your biggest disappointment in your life – and what are you doing to prevent its reoccurrence?

Kevin Popović: I don’t think there is a biggest, there is a bunch of little ones and I think you learn from each one. You get your hands slapped, or your fingers burnt and you pay attention and try not to do what you did to get your hands slapped or to burn your fingers. Eyes wide open going into situations and no excuses coming out of them. You make constant decisions and you have to live with the consequences.

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

Kevin Popović: I worked with one of my best friends to start a business. I learned that this best friend had embezzled money from the company, and I gave him the chance to fix what he had broken. He didn’t take me up on the opportunity so I had him arrested and pressed charges. It reminded me that there is a difference between personal relationships and business relationships, and that when you mix the two, and you will, each has their own responsibilities. That’s what I learned.

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

Kevin Popović:

1. Getting beat up at the age of 15 for shooting my mouth off to somebody I had no business shooting my mouth off to. This taught me to watch what you say to people and who you say it to.
2. The birth of my two daughters.

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

Kevin Popović: Ideahaus! My company is my proudest professional accomplishment and it continues to be a source of adventure, personal inspiration and a platform to explore and help others.

Avil Beckford: How did mentors influence your life?

Kevin Popović: I’ve had a couple of mentors. My father has been a good mentor to me as a professor of marketing. My grandmother has been a mentor to me. She sold shoes for 30 years. Michael Bosworth, sales legend and author of Solutions Selling, Customer Centric Selling and Story Leaders has been a mentor to me in the way that I approach sales and how I present myself, or professional opportunities.

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

Kevin Popović: Know what you are doing before you go into it.

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?

Kevin Popović: Don’t believe your own bullshit. I select that word purposely. I find that a lot of entrepreneurs, and a lot of young people, particularly when they have some raw skills, and some raw talent, think very highly of themselves, and you need to have confidence, and then with some initial success and one or two people telling you that you did a great job, many of these people get inflated egos and start believing these things and let it distract them from learning and being better, and creating better opportunities. That’s what I think they should pay attention to.

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: What’s a typical day like for you?

Kamel Hothi: Very, very busy. To be honest, there is no me-time. I tend to leave the house at about 6:30 to get into the office in London (UK). It’s about an hour and a half’s drive. I look after three remits – the Asian market, as well as the world’s internal infrastructure between us and corporate banking, and I also support the procurement for supply to the Group so we work on those, then tend to go home around 7:30, 8:00 pm. I arrive home at about 9 pm and head straight to the kitchen, and see what needs to be done. I get to bed around 12:00 am and I’m back again in the morning.

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

Kamel Hothi: I think that’s a difficult one. One goes through the peaks and troughs of life and I divide my life very much at work and home and I suppose at work I like to be very structured. I need to know exactly what I have to achieve at the end of the year, what success looks like for me, and see if I can carve that down into bite-sized chunks and monitor and track that. I’m a bit of a control freak, so as long as I know what I need to achieve that keeps me motivated because I know I’m achieving the bits that I need to do.

And at home, it’s making sure that the family gets attention, that they are on track. I’ve got two children so I ensure I’m giving them my time and that’s important to me so I try to do that on the weekend as much as I can, trying to find a couple of hours to make sure that I stay in touch with them. And if I know about their life that keeps me motivated that they are doing the right thing.

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

Kamel Hothi: Coming from a very different culture, we came from India to the UK without speaking a word of English and being brought up in a very traditional household where the females didn’t really have a career. So I was very fortunate to get into banking and convinced my parents to allow me to continue. But I had other aspirations and I wanted to go to university and I wanted to do further studying but I was very nervous about approaching those subjects with my parents because it’s such a complete no-no area. Now looking back, I wish I had the confidence to address these issues and have a conversation with them, partly to reassure them that I wasn’t going to rock the traditional boat, it was just that I had these burning ambitions that maybe my other siblings didn’t have. But certainly better communication with the family I think would have been much better for me when I was younger.

I feel I’ve still got so much more to give and I’m at a crossroads in my career now after 32 years in banking. I love educating people. I love mentoring and I’m certain that’s the route going forward in the future. I’d like to get involved with some charity. So I like bringing people together, and I work better in collaboration with businesses and business units, that’s where my skill is really, so I don’t work very well in silos. I think that’s where I want to go and develop further in my next stage of life.

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

Kamel Hothi: I suppose in banking I would say it’s IT (Information Technology). It has completely changed the way that we work, whether it’s from emailing to the online banking system, that’s certainly made the pace so much faster and much hungrier and somewhat easier to communicate. It also has some negative downfalls because when people are on holidays the Blackberry is constantly on, you’re always in touch, it’s a good thing but also a bad thing that the pace of change is so fast that you have to constantly be on the run. So I would say that IT is the biggest change in our industry.

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

Kamel Hothi:

1. For banking I would say it’s what’s happened in the financial world. The world is shrinking so an impact in America or Asia will have a huge impact on our business so that’s something that’s even more crucial as we speak now.
2. Regulation is getting really tight and very difficult to operate in the areas that we do.
3. And now with times changing with acquisitions and mergers, I’ve gone through three in my lifetime in a huge organization. You never know what’s on the horizon with Asia growing so fast. Some of it is exciting but certainly it impacts the business and the branding and therefore lots of changes are happening.

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

Kamel Hothi: What I’m really good at is building strategies, so it’s really understanding what the business case is for a particular strategy, what are the barriers, how can these be overcome, finding and implementing the solution. That’s what makes me unique and that what I bring to the forefront. And that’s what I’m known for. I was the architect behind the Asian strategy for Lloyds Bank and I’m really proud of the legacy that I’ll hopefully leave behind.

Avil Beckford: What do you observe most people in your field doing badly that you think you do well?

Kamel Hothi: It is really two things. Working in a huge organization you do find that divisions tend to work in silos, and it’s very much about them and their particular business, whereas our customers only obviously see the whole brand. It’s ensuring that these divisions are working together, I would say that’s what I’m very good at. I tend to work with the whole group and think of the whole group as a whole and I totally empathize with the customer, and our customers are at the forefront of everything that I try to do.

This also leads to the second thing in that sometimes I get frustrated with my colleagues with the follow-through — when you are networking, making sure that the commitments that you’ve made, that they are followed through right to completion, and it’s the speed of follow through. I’m proud of myself to make sure that my credentials say that I’ll get back as quickly as I can once I’ve met all the promises that I’ve made.

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?

Kamel Hothi: I come from a very Jekyll and Hyde lifestyle, that I live at home in a very traditional culture to the corporate world that I operate in, in the daytime job. That is the biggest challenge, balancing those two different worlds and keeping both of them content and the people that are my key stakeholders both at work and at home, and that they are aware of what I do and are appreciative of what I try to deliver.

It is a totally different world, from one end I’m standing and having a board meeting with a room full of men, and then going home and being the daughter-in-law in a very different household where it’s still a quite sexist environment, but it’s the culture I was brought up with. I would say that my biggest challenge is constantly battling with the differences and helping both of them move slowly forward into the world.

One of the things that’s helping me and helping others around me to understand the cultural differences and if I look at myself earlier, at my first 15 years in banking, it was hugely challenging. I felt I was really delivering the results, I felt I worked hard but just couldn’t understand why my colleagues were either promoted above me or quicker, and it wasn’t until later in life that I realized that it was really those first impressions and things and the subconscious behaviours you bring to work.

As I’ve said before, I come from a very traditional background where it is seen as keep your voice very feminine, behave very feminine and you don’t challenge back and shouldn’t be assertive, and you respect your elders. And so subconsciously you bring those behaviours into work and although I was working hard and producing 200 percent of my results, but because I was so respectful, and my voice was quite timid, my manager translated that to being, she is not hungry, she is not assertive enough to be a leader and therefore why move her, she is doing the results for me and not giving me a hard time. I won’t promote her.

So it’s really understanding what is in fact the opposite, and a number of times when I was early in my career would result in me becoming bitter and rather than challenging back, would either move divisions or find another role. Now I coach other ethnic minorities across the organization to help them understand their own differences, and then once you’ve understood what the differences are then you can make an informed choice, but I also educate line managers, mainstream managers that they may have a burning star amongst their employees, who may not be shining in their eyes as they see them but actually once you give them the empowerment, give them the go ahead, they could be one of their biggest talent pool amongst their employees.

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

Kamel Hothi: I would say my biggest break was from my line manager going back three lines ago, a gentleman by the name of Arif Mushtaq. He was parachuted in from another company into Lloyds Bank. I encountered him when I was setting up the effort for the Ethnic Minority Network, and he was the one who sponsored the event. It was great to meet Arif. When we started discussing the event and he heard some of my views and ideas he really encouraged me to take a risk. He had faith, he saw something in me that I suppose other people didn’t see and so that encouraged me to take a risk from the position. Yes I could have lost my job. He gave me a blank sheet of paper and said he would support me, and to be honest, that empowerment was the best gift I have ever had. It increased my confidence and since then I have never looked back, so I’m really grateful to Arif.

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

Kamel Hothi: Going on the personal front, both at work and at home in the early stages of my career was having the courage to stand up for myself. I knew that I had a burning ambition in my stomach and didn’t really know how to articulate it. That actually took me several years to get the strength to talk about it or to demonstrate that I wanted to do this, which wouldn’t rock the boat at home. But also at work, there were a number of promotions that I allowed to pass me by without questioning and challenging the lines, why they made the decisions. I had no information on their outcomes, so I would say that my biggest failure in the beginning is not talking up and giving myself the confidence to do that so that’s certainly something I’ve learned over the years and I’ve learned something about myself . And I learnt that when I’m contributing I’m adding value to the organization that I’m working for so that’s given me the confidence to be much more confident in what I do. And I found that therefore the people around me accepted what I do, and certainly at home my family where they were uncomfortable in the past now see it as something they are really proud of.

Avil Beckford: What has been your biggest disappointment in your life – and what are you doing to prevent its reoccurrence?

Kamel Hothi: One of my biggest disappointments is that my parents passed away many years ago, so they haven’t witnessed the change in myself and seen the achievements over the last decade that I have done both at work and at home, so that’s always going to be something that you can’t really undo. However, that also helped me to understand that every day is so precious, for me it’s making sure that my children are part of my journey, and they are certainly involved in my career. They encourage me, I encourage them. We talk a lot, I seek their advice on what I’m doing, the next steps I should be taking, so they actually feel they’re the ones that’s been supporting me so they are part of the whole equation.

So for me, my children are very important and we stick together and I want to be a part of their future. We talk a lot, we talk about their future, it’s something in the Indian community that’s not done often. Coming from a first generation where my father was very dominating, discussions that were open were very rare. That’s something we’ve hopefully undone in our family and that we’ve given our children the empowerment to say what they need to say but at the same time we are guarding them and steering them to what’s best for them as well.

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

Kamel Hothi: I think it’s taking the new role in corporate banking. The previous role I had to this one was very comfortable, and one that I was very familiar with. I had been working in that division for a number of years. I got a lot of kudos and people knew who I was and in coming into a division that I had never worked in before, hardly knew any of the executives there, it was a huge jump and starting from scratch again and having to prove myself. It was a tough decision, do I want an easier life or a tough life and I took the tough path but it was a challenge I was prepared to take because I could see the opportunity in that division to help them understand the market that I was being asked to come and help and support them in. That’s where I started the architecture of the Asian strategy and was delighted that it got embedded because it could have easily been thrown out. They accepted it and to this day they are still supporting it.

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

Kamel Hothi:

1. I got married at the age of 19 and it was an arranged marriage, which completely changed my life. I was the youngest of six children from a very protective family and all of a sudden parachuted into a very tough environment at the tender age of 19, and in our culture you are married into the extended family, you do not marry an individual.
2. The second was having my children. Balancing work, life, home and children was a huge, difficult task but at the same time it was one of the most rewarding things.
3. The third was coming into corporate banking. I love the role, I love the division, and it has empowered me and opened so many opportunities. Networking in the Asian community, I have met so many special individuals through my daytime job. I wouldn’t be here today if I hadn’t made that particular decision.

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

Kamel Hothi: I would say that it’s writing the Asian strategy for Lloyds Group. It’s wonderful to educate a huge organization like ours to help them understand the Asian market, how to reach out to them, what products we need to develop, the cultural differences, and how to communicate with them, and now we’ve seen leaders in our field in the UK and to know that I was the architect behind that, and am now seen as an ambassador for the company, having attended hundreds of events each year. But at the same time, the reason I’m so proud is I think the community has done so much for the UK, achieved so much, many coming here with no money, working without speaking a word of English then they are now running multimillion pound companies and it’s wonderful through the work I do, through the events that I sponsor to be able to give them a platform to showcase these entrepreneurs who have done so much, and added so much to the UK.

Avil Beckford: How did mentors influence your life?

Kamel Hothi: I have had a number of mentors I would say, and some were good and some were bad. Most were not what you call formal mentors in the beginning, but certainly people who you admire who you see can add value in different ways. My mother was a huge mentor to me, she helped me to shape my personal life, helped me to focus on the core things to look at, how to overcome when things are not quite going right. And at work, Arif Mushraq was a huge mentor to me, he helped me, and he understood what other people thought were weaknesses, were strengths and he had a real influence on my career.

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

Kamel Hothi: Believe in yourself and listen to your gut feelings. More people believed in me than I believed in myself. They could see that there was something there, the decisions I made through my career, were very well thought out and balanced. Believe in myself is the message that has come out over and over again.

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?

Kamel Hothi: Really understand yourself. We can all get on this conveyor belt of pushing for a career, but step off the conveyor belt for a minute and assess where you want to get to. Where do you see yourself in five year’s time? And how do you get there and carve your path both at home and work. I do believe they go hand-in-hand because one can’t do without the other. So have two paths, one for work and one for home, and see them together. Do they match up? Is one conflicting with the other? Life will change accordingly but if you have some visible path to guide you then you can divide that into small chunks on how you are going to get there.

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: David Gray

Company Name: DSG Associates

Website: http://www.davidgraycoach.com

Avil Beckford:  What’s a typical day like for you?

David Gray: A typical week-day starts around 7:30 am with a breakfast of home-made muesli.  I very seldom miss breakfast.  While I eat, I respond to emails. Then it’s off to meet my clients.  When possible, I grab a quick lunch.  Then in the afternoon the consultation process continues with my clients.  In addition to my own practice www.davidgraycoach.com I work on large firms’ Career and Coaching delivery contracts, so there is seldom a dull moment.  By 7 PM I am usually home and enjoy spending a couple of hours with my wife, Anne, sharing a laugh while we cook and eat dinner and then settle in for a couple hours of reading or TV.  By 11 pm I am back at the computer responding to emails.  By 1 pm I am generally in bed.

Saturdays and Sundays are catch-up days.  I might see one or two clients on a Saturday, but for the most part I enjoy doing domestic chores (yes, I am that rare male who actually enjoys doing cooking, laundry etc., as I find it very relaxing.)  For exercise I swim at the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre at Spadina & Bloor where I am a member.  I try to fit some yoga in at the Yoga Sanctuary at College and Yonge, and I do a stretching and Pilates routine at home that Dr Darlene at Balance Fitness at Yonge & St Clair designed for me.

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

David Gray: Motivation is easy as my philosophy is simple:  We are each here for a very short time and each have gifts and burdens differing.  I intend to live my life to the fullest possible extent with as few regrets and complaints as possible.  I am always amazed to see people with long faces and sullen expressions.  Do they think this life is a dress rehearsal?

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

David Gray: I would go my own way earlier on, rather than try to satisfy family and social expectations and win parental, sibling and societal approval.

Avil Beckford:  What’s the most important discovery you’ve made in the past year?

David Gray: The most important discovery I’ve made in the past year concerns the innate plasticity of the brain and the implications indicated by that reality.

Neuralplasticity refers to emerging scientific proof that the human brain is structured along the lines of a flexible and adaptive ecosystem whereby if one part of the brain is damaged or malformed, then other areas of the brain can be ‘programmed’ by repetitive thought or ‘patterning’ physical movements to gradually create new synapsistic links between the area of the body’s nervous system that is sending the chemical or electric impulse to the brain and that part of the brain that is taking over the original function from the damaged section of brain.

This understanding of brain capability and activity is in contrast to the previous scientific model which conceived of the brain as being along the lines of a rigid, unchangeable mechanistic apparatus.

Interestingly, this revolution in scientific understanding of brain function mirrors the radical transformation in physics from a Newtonian model of matter as existing within the framework of a universe that functions much like a gigantic clockworks, to a post-Einsteinian model of a universe where matter at a sub-atomic level can seemingly exist in two places at one time, where molecular matter can defy the laws of Einsteinian macro physics and, among other improbable feats, be in two places at once and even penetrate supposedly impenetrable physical barriers.  In essence, the current revolution in understanding the brain is little more than a variation on our understanding of universal physics principles at a sub-atomic level.  In some ways then, although literally ‘mind-blowing’ in a sense, it is not particularly surprising that our Newtonian model of the brain, perfected during the 19th century, is now, belatedly giving way to a more accurate, post-modern concept which is more in tune with our understanding as to how the external universe functions.

For access to primary sources, please refer to the following secondary source: http://www.normandoidge.com/

Avil Beckford:  What are the three greatest threats to your business success?

David Gray: Fear, procrastination and indecision.  I focus very consciously and creatively on potential available solutions to whatever current challenge I am facing in order to banish those threats.

Avil Beckford:  What do you observe most people in your field doing badly that you think you do well?

David Gray: I tend to think way outside the existing structures and definitions concerning how to help people break-through to new levels of consciousness in both their business and personal ways of dealing with challenges.

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

David Gray: My biggest business challenge was probably embedded in the realization that I was no longer interested in corporate life and not particularly entrepreneurial.  So, I set out to learn how to run my own business doing what I loved doing, which was working with individuals, one-to-one, to energize and inspire them with useful insights.

Although like anyone else, I have had numerous challenges in my business career, the most fundamental consisted of trying to move at the age of 47 from working within a corporate structure for 28 years either as a paid employee or as a commissioned salesperson, to working as an entrepreneur, something I had not done since I was 16 – 19 years of age when I co-founded and co-owned what started with one lawn-mower and a few tools in the back of an eight year-old car, and quickly became one of the largest landscape build/maintenance firms in Toronto.  As a teenager, I had been “Mr Inside” – the Operations guy, so even then I had not really been the entrepreneurial brains behind the enterprise.

Additionally, although I had tremendous experience in large and small organizations, in sales, marketing, line management and business consulting, I had never once worked in an HR capacity.  And my ambition at 47 years of age came to focus on working with individuals in what was in essence an HR oriented function as a coach and consultant.  It took me several months of badgering to convince a London UK based firm to allow me to operate as an unpaid Associate whereby I was given an office and administrative support on the basis that I would “eat only what I killed myself.”  It took another three months to land my first client.  Eventually, I was billing more than anyone else in the office.  However, as interesting an achievement as that was, I found myself back at square one two years later when my wife and I decided to return to Canada.  Ironically, although a Torontonian by birth, I had no credibility in terms of credentials (no coaching certification) or track-record in Canada, no understanding of the corporate HR services market in Toronto and no connections.  I tried to get hired corporately but to no avail.  So, I started my own practice and depended largely on word-of-mouth to attract new clients.  The challenges consisted primarily of generating sufficient client work to make an income, and secondarily of quickly convincing clients that I knew what I was doing despite the lack of an HR background or pertinent credentials.

The resolution of the challenge was simple and elegant:  Provide one half hour of free consultation by phone.  Then bill strictly by the hour on the basis that the client would never be on the hook for more than one hour of consulting advice at a time.  In other words, I HAD to deliver or else I would be in effect ‘fired.’  The major lesson I re-learned was one I had first learned as a teen-age.  When people are paying with their own hard cash, as opposed to soft corporate dollars, they are extremely demanding and expect fast, effective results.  It is essential to very quickly establish trust, dispense with the niceties of a more structured approach, and demonstrate an ability to understand both the individual and that person’s perceived challenges (which might in fact be very different from my perception as to their primary challenges) and then get right to the heart of how to generate solutions to those challenges.  In other words, I operated more like a surgeon in a battle field medic unit with limited access to back-up and technological resources or in an ER room of an inner-city hospital rather than in the more gentrified manner of a corporate HR practitioner or surgeon in a suburban hospital setting with access to all the best equipment and resources.

As a result, now that I am working within a more structured environment once again, in a quasi-corporate capacity as an Associate, I am able to combine the best of the corporate world (access to tremendous technological and human resources) with the best of the lean and mean entrepreneurial mind-set which demands and conditions one to think outside the box and quickly develop innovative approaches in real-time to client’s real-life challenges on an individual rather than a corporate cookie-cutter, traditional HR perspective, basis.

As arrogant as this might sound, I firmly believe that in addition to the essential traits of empathy, technical expertise and good listening skills essential to anyone who aspires to be a ‘consultant’ in any capacity, the combination of my many different life and business experiences within many different business (sales, marketing, manufacturing, telecomm, business & technology consulting) within diverse geographical contexts (Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Alberta, London, Edinburgh and Glasgow UK) is part of my secret to success as one who would aspire to advise people concerning business challenges.  Who would you rather have as a business, leadership and career advisor – someone with multiple coaching and related designations who has spent twenty five years in Toronto in various HR capacities, or someone with a wide and deep variety of business and life experience in multiple locations, an MBA majoring in Strategy, minoring in Operations with a thesis focused on Leadership and Empowerment, with a mind-set and world-view which is coming from a relatively unorthodox perspective?

Avil Beckford:  What lessons did you learn in the process?

David Gray:

1. I learned to follow my dreams regardless of what obstacles were in the way
2. To remain optimistic and persevere no matter what other people thought or said about what I was doing
3. One is never too old to reinvent oneself
4. Challenges and pursuing a dream reinvigorates one at any age
5. It’s a wonderful life
6. To never, ever be complacent or accept limitations without first trying very hard and for a very long time to overcome them
7. The more you accomplish, the more that other doors of opportunity open for you
8. The biggest obstacles any of us face generally reside within our own world and self view rather than out in the external environment.

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

David Gray: My big break was convincing my wife to marry me.  That relationship has been the foundation for all of my business success.

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

David Gray: My biggest failure was in not recognizing or having confidence in my own potential as a young adult.  As a result, I worked at manual labour and other mundane jobs while other fellow were going to graduate school.  Eventually, I wrote the LSAT (pre-law exam), scored in the 93rd percentile and realized I was actually quite bright. That gave me the confidence to do an MBA, go into Business & Technology consulting and then enter the Leadership and Career Coaching fields.

Avil Beckford:  What has been your biggest disappointment in your life – and what are you doing to prevent its reoccurrence?

David Gray: Not having children.  My antidote is to live my own life to the full.

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

David Gray: The toughest decision I have had to make was to walk away from a friendship of many years that had turned sour.  To this day I feel the loss, but despite my best efforts there was no way I could discover to turn the situation around.

Avil Beckford:  How did mentors influence your life?

David Gray: Mentors have influenced my life more by their actions and their own ways of conducting themselves rather than by any specific mentoring per se.

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

David Gray: Establish trust by being principled and doing what you say you will do.

About David Gray

David has advised executive clients based in Canada, the UK, Europe and Asia. In addition to his own consulting practice, David serves as President of the Board, Toronto Chapter of the Association of Career Professionals International (ACP International), and is a member of the Strategic Leadership Forum (GTA).

Prior to working as a career and strategic leadership consultant, David held management positions in Canada and the UK in business & technology consulting, and started up and managed two Divisions in Canada for a blue chip, global financial services organization.

David’s quiet, incisive, highly personalized approach has inspired many executives and entrepreneurs who are in process of redefining strategic paradigms to realize growth opportunities on both a business and personal level.

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Interviewee Name: John Klotz, President

Company Name: Northwood Mortgage Life Insurance Corporation

Website: http://www.northwoodmortgage.com

John Klotz – Your Invisible Mentor

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

I’m an insurance and investment advisor and have been in the industry for close to 20 years. I own my own brokerage.

Avil Beckford: What has been your biggest disappointment in your life – and what are you doing to prevent its reoccurrence?

Earlier on in my life, I wanted to go to medical school or something like that, but it wasn’t in the cards for me. I learned about myself in that process that what I really wanted to be if you think about what a physician is, a physician is a trusted advisor regarding your health. It’s someone you go to about your health and generally what he says is supposed to be in your best interest and you should follow the advice. I think if I was to apply that to my life, I would say, as an advisor what you want to do is position yourself as that trusted advisor. So when you want into a doctor’s office they have diplomas on the wall saying basically that finished medical school that they are board certified, and are professional at what they are doing. If you walked into my office you’d see 20 plaques on my wall that would say the same thing.

So I guess a failure for me would be that I didn’t pursue something like that. I found something else and sort of took what I liked about that area and applied it to the profession I’m in now. And I would hope that if people are looking for a financial advisor that they’d want someone who is educated, who’s got designations and carries himself as a professional.

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

I was a Senior Vice President at a downtown firm and was doing extremely well there. I made a decision to leave and form a partnership with Northwood Mortgage to set up their insurance company. It was a big decision because I was doing very well, earning a very comfortable living, and a lot of my expenses were being taken care of. But I knew that in my heart of heart that I wanted to run a brokerage. I wanted to be my own entity. I could stay there and continue to do well, or I could take a chance.

I actually went to my son who at the time was six and I said, “Jeremy, dad has a good job and he is doing really well and he likes the work, however he’ll never be the owner. But he can stay and be very happy or he can take a risk and go out and form his own company, but it might mean that for a while the presents I get you might not be as nice as you were getting before.” And this little six year old kid looks me in the eye and says, “Dad take a risk, go for it.”

I didn’t want to look back on my life and go, “I was scared,” because they have interviewed older people asked them, “What’s your one regret?” and their regret is that they didn’t take enough risks. And here was my shot, and by the way, it hasn’t been total smooth sailing. But now at least I have a lot of answers that I wouldn’t have had, had I stayed put.

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

I’m not sure I can answer that but I can say three things that changed my life. I come from a family of professionals. My grandfather was a doctor, my father was a surgeon, my eldest brother is a surgeon, and my two siblings are lawyers. I’m surrounded by people who work really hard. We’re a family that dedicated themselves to being the best, and that sort of moulded me, and I knew that I’d want to be in that circle as well.

I would say my family moulded me not to settle for things, to go for the gusto, and my father had a huge impact on me. My dad died about two years ago at the age of 83, but he worked as surgeon until he was about 81. His health really deteriorated and he really should have left a little earlier. But what I admired about him was that he just loved his work. He loved the interaction and it really killed him to retire.

So I have a real different view of retirement planning than most people. For other people it’s about acquiring a certain number of dollars in the bank and then saying, “Screw off” to everybody. To me retirement planning is not that at all, it is basically finding something that you love, pursuing it, maybe refining it during retirement by not doing as much of it or having more holiday time, but still sticking with your passion.

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

• There are a few of them. One of them was I started a speaking series, Toronto Talks 10 years ago, and I put on an event every month. I’ve never really done a ton of public speaking, but I’ve always wanted to run a speaking series and I remember the first week we got the speaker and we threw out a bunch of emails about it. Fifty people were going to show up and I was going to emcee the thing. I remember being really nervous that first night. I practiced in front of a mirror and went over and over how I was going to present the speaker and what I was going to do. So that was 10 years ago and we hosted about 120 sessions, so I’m really proud that I was able to build something – a speaking series that a lot of people know about. And that’s been a really great thing.

• I’m proud of basically taking a risk and setting up this brokerage here at Northwood Life which took a lot of guts, and I’m still building it and there is still a lot or work to do.

• I’m most proud of my kids, I have two young children and I have a very solid marriage and I’m really proud of that when I see everyone around me divorcing and splitting up. I’ve got the most solid marriage and I have two amazing kids, and I would put this at the top of everything.

Avil Beckford: How did mentors influence your life?

I’ve always had mentor. One of the mentors I have now is my partner Art Appleberg, who has basically taken Northwood Mortgage the brokerage he started 20 years ago and grew it into a 200 person sales force. We’ve set up a model on the insurance side that is similar to but not identical to the mortgage brokerage business. But I’m trying to follow – Art is full of all this wisdom – how to build a brokerage. He has done it on the brokerage side and I’m doing it on the insurance and investment side. He is a great mentor so it’s always good to go in and tell him what’s working and what’s not. The thing about mentors is that it’s not all about glory. You also have to talk about what’s not working. That’s been really great for me.

I’ve had other mentors along the way. At my last employment the owner and I were very tight and I always talked to him about how I would do things. Mentors have always helped me.

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

Never say die, constantly improve, and that whole kaizen that the Japanese constantly look for better ways to do things. Always keep your eyes open, always act professionally like I told you about that “Good Loser” letter. That’s professional, if a client says, “I don’t want you as my adviser,” instead of being snotty, respond with a “Good Loser” letter. I never send angry emails, ever. I’ve received them, but I never send them because that’s on record forever.

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?

There are different readers, so let’s say I’m thinking about someone who is going into a career. One of the things that I did is that I wrote down a list of the things that I wanted in a career. And I knew when I entered this business that I wanted something with an education path; that was important to me. And I knew that I wanted something where there was no limit to your upside potential. And I knew that I wanted something where I could grow old with my clients so it wasn’t always a new sale every week it was about building relationships. And I didn’t want things like territories, but I wanted to be able to move all over the place. And I wanted something with real scope.

I wrote that 20 years ago, I created that list, I wanted an education path, I wanted a career with no limit on the ceiling, I wanted open territories and I wanted the opportunity to be a professional, to really embrace something. So what I would say to people listening to this is if you are looking at some sort of career, whatever, I would say know what you want because if you know what you want you will pursue it.

One of the failures I had is a job that didn’t work out, they let me go. I was selling office equipment and I didn’t enjoy it. So 20 years ago, I wrote down what I wanted in a new career, so I would say know what you want, write it down and set a plan.

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

A lot of marketing that you do in insurance can be personal. A lot of people join golf clubs to meet people. We ski every weekend. I really try at times to keep my business and personal life separate. I let everyone who I’m friends with know what I’m doing but I try not to be in their face. There are people in my field who can be in your face and that has always bothered me. I definitely try to keep my kids away from the business. I don’t want them to see me as this prospecting animal. You can work all the time in this business, it’s interesting, the people are interesting, and the clients are interesting. My challenge is that I need to turn it off when I go home, and that’s the question I’d like to address. When I go home, I’m there for my kids and my family. We go skiing, I’m there for them and I try and turn it off.

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

I don’t have any. My life is evolving, I’m proud of it and I’m able to keep my family in a certain lifestyle, I feel professionally fulfilled, I own my own business and I’m good. I don’t have those big regrets.

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

1. I need to work with people I like, and that’s a great lesson. I’d rather take a lousy opportunity with great people than a great opportunity with lousy people because if you are with great people you’ll synergize, you’ll figure it out, you’ll go forward and you’ll have great fun.
2. Stick-to-it-tiveness  - I’ve been doing this for 20 years and what I’m finding as I get older and mature, instead of being cast to the side I’m getting better and better at it and getting more established.
3. Find something that you love.
4. You can’t judge something right away, you have to give it a year till you can even think about judging it. I wasn’t sure I would love this business, but I wrote down what I wanted and I gave it a year and within two weeks, by the way, of being in the insurance and investment industry I loved it and knew that this was exactly what I wanted to do.
5. Set long term goals and give things a chance.

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

We are a family of skiers, we like to ski. I’m dedicated to my two kids and that’s my downtime and it’s really important for me that they grow up well balanced, respectful and educated and I’ll do anything for them. Unfortunately sometimes I need a little bit more downtime that just for me, so I try to keep physically fit and try to read a lot. I’m constantly taking courses for improvement so that’s kind of my downtime.

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

Sometimes just setting time aside to think about them. Great ideas require downtime. It requires just sitting in your office or a beach. I find when I go away on holidays sometimes my best ideas come then.

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

Just do it – Nike

Avil Beckford: How do you define success?

I think there are many levels of success. There is this thing called “top of the table” in the business where you are “top of the table” and they say there is no point to be on the top of the table if there is no one there to sit with you. I thought that was great so it’s not just about financial success. I think you need to have family success, and you need to be around people you care about.

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

I think it’s finding something that you are truly passionate about and creating a plan.

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.