Issue 2, 2011
emergen
activating emerging leaders
THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF EMERGEN - WWW.EMERGEN.COM.AU
emergen emag IN THIS ISSUE 4
Alicia’s Update
5
Blogging Etiquette
6
How do you view your work?
8
Breaking Bad Habits
10 The Laws of Networking 11 A Young Entrepreneur’s Journey 12 Meet Adam Culligan 14 Small, Broken Beginnings 16 How Mentally Tough are you? 18 Meet Fay D’Souza 20 Emergen Contributors
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“ But does anything take more
courage - is anything more challenging and sometimes frightening - than to live by our own mind, judgement and values? Is not self-esteem a summons to the hero within us?
�
Nathaniel  Branden
EDITOR’S NOTE
alicia’s update Welcome
to the second issue of the Emergen e-‐mag. Emergen is a collaborative community, activating emerging leaders through providing connections, inspiration and promotion. Over the last couple of months, we have seen the launch of many new initiatives including the Blogging for a Cause projects highlighting International Women’s Day and National Volunteer Week as well as the monthly competitions focusing on topics such as inspiring community leaders, time management and resume writing. Well done to Janine and Ally for organising these initiatives! This e-‐mag is here to promote some of the amazing contributions of members on the Emergen website. All the articles written in this e-‐mag have been blog posts on the online community. We have such a talented bunch of bloggers and we would like to share them with you.
Alicia Curtis
PS -‐ If you like this e-‐mag, please share it with your friends and colleagues.
Alicia Curtis is one of Australia’s most experienced mentors of emerging leaders. She empowers young employees, entrepreneurs and social innovators through her engaging workshop programs. She also releases an annual report on the challenges and aspirations of young leaders in the workplace. Alicia founded Emergen as an online space to activate the leadership potential of young professionals. www.aliciacurtis.com
Stay in touch with Alicia
Become a Member of Emergen
Issue 2 : 4
Email Alicia
Join the Emergen Facebook Page
Follow Alicia on Twitter
SHORT FEATURE
Blogging Etiquette I've been blogging for about 10 months -‐ how the time 8lies! I think back to when I started and I had no clue whatsoever. I thought blogging was as simple as stringing some words together and clicking 'publish'. Little did I know that there is such a thing as 'blogging etiquette'.
Top Tips for Bloggers ✓ ✓ ✓
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Proofread your post before publishing -‐ not once but twice (at least)! Check your spelling, grammar and punctuation; Check your formatting, especially when pasting contents from somewhere else: line spacing, font type and size, letter spacing, etc, can go array; Reconsider the length of your sentences, and the post: at times so much more can be said using less words; Watch your language; Don’t copy someone else’s content -‐ acknowledge your sources; Think about your subject matter and the relevance to the forum; Show some TLC -‐ Tweet, Like and Comment other bloggers posts! Remember that your posts AND comments contribute to your personal brand; Be respectful to other bloggers and commenters;
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Remain truthful to yourself and your integrity; Engage your readers; If you are going to ‘have a rant’ about something, try breathing before publishing your post by saving and revisiting it when you have cooled down -‐ it’s amazing what a difference it makes.
Remember that blogging is a journey on which we all learn from each other. Janine Ripper www.reflectionsfromaredhead.com
Emerging Leaders are encouraged to add their blogs to www.emergen.com.au
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FEATURE
How do you view your work? Do you have a job, career or a calling? I find it interes2ng to read on facebook and twi8er how people talk about their work -‐ some seem to have a good day everyday and feel energised by their work, while others can’t wait to get home each day! With a little investigating about what made people happy at work, I came across a study by Wrzesniewski, McCauley, Rozin and Schwartz that found three common ways that people saw their work. It was either a:
Job: not a positive part of your life, something that gained 8inancial rewards only and not enjoyment or ful8illment.
Career: where there was not only 8inancial gain but also some career advancement within their organisation too. or
Calling: where people are motivated to work not only for the 8inancial or career advancement gain but they viewed their work as ful8illing and socially useful to the world. Which one 8its you right now? Do you think your line of work is a calling?
FEATURE You would think that some jobs may be more in line with being a calling than others. For example, surely being a teacher or an international aid worker would always be a calling compared to being a factory worker or a cleaner! But apparently not. The researchers found there would be all three dispositions in most industries. So how can that be? How could someone view a job as a cleaner as a calling?
Well therein lies the secret, it all depends on how we view things. In a similar study, Wrzeniewski and Dutton interviewed a range of hospital cleaners, some who saw their work as a calling compared to others who saw it as a job. So what was the difference?
The employees who saw their work as a calling did the following things: -‐ broadened their formal job boundaries to include addi=onal tasks such as interac=ng with pa=ents, bringing flowers to brighten the day of staff or showing visitors around. -‐ =med their work to be the most efficient. -‐ saw the bigger picture of the work they were doing eg helping pa=ents get beDer.
The study went on to describe other examples in a whole range of industries including hairdressing, engineering, nursing, information technology and hospitality, demonstrating no matter what our industry, how we view our work will have a strong effect on our work satisfaction. It’s similar to the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who in his book Flow, explores how people reach 8low (an optimal state of experience) in their work by working on goal directed activities that challenge our skills and expertise. Work is such a big part of our lives and despite whatever circumstances we have to deal with at work, we as individuals can reframe our view of work to create meaning and possibly live a happier life as a result. So this is my challenge to you…. if you’re seeing your work as more of a job than a career or calling, how can you change your disposition? Alicia Cur2s Emergen Founder www.aliciacur2s.com
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FEATURE
The Art of Breaking Bad Habits You know you should stop chewing your nails, that you don’t get much done when you log onto Facebook and that ea2ng fish and chips from the greasy deli is a really bad idea….but you s2ll do these things anyway. People usually persist with bad habits because they get some personal satisfaction or reward from engaging in the behaviour. Let’s face it, bad habits are hard to break. Forming new, healthier habits can be even harder. According to Dr Nora Volkow the human brain is hard wired to give greater value to an immediate reward as opposed to something that is delayed. You have a choice: Eat the chocolate now or have a carrot instead? For most of us, simply knowing that eating the carrot is going to eventually result in weight loss and feeling healthier usually won’t be enough to sway us. What we want is the immediate reward of sugary, delicious chocolate. And the reason for this can be found in the neurotransmitter dopamine. Dopamine is linked to pleasurable experiences and our perception of positive experiences. So every time you eat a piece of chocolate or a delicious slice of pizza this pleasure sensing chemical is released in the brain. This dopamine hit acts like a reward to us and reinforces the activity and neural connection in the brain. It is for this reason that we often engage in behaviours in an automatic way without much conscious thought or effort.
The good news is that every day people are successful in changing their behaviour, whether it be foregoing a packet of cigarettes, running on the treadmill or cutting back on junk food. Change is possible. But how can you effectively break a bad habit? Here are some suggestions from the experts.
Make the behaviour impossible Researcher Wander Jager believes that the best way to change a habit is to make it impossible. She states “..closing the shopping centre of a town for car trafVic can break the habit of shopping by car, and changing the menu of a canteen may break the unhealthy lunching habit”. I saw this technique used on a group of people suffering from type 1 and 2 diabetes in the documentary, “Simply Raw”. Six individuals were selected to undergo an experiment to see if they could be off their medication and insulin by cutting out fast food and adopting a completely raw food diet over the period of 30 days. To achieve this, they were sent to a retreat in the middle of the Arizona desert (far away from shops and fast food outlets) and served only raw vegan foods. The thing about this strategy is it doesn’t always work and can sometimes backVire. In the documentary it was interesting to observe one participant became strongly resistant and rebelled against the approach by hitchhiking across the Mexican border to get alcohol and buy Mexican food.
Change and control your environment The next best and probably the most practical thing you can do to break a bad habit is to change your environment so that the bad habit is less likely to be automatically performed. The question to ask is – What is it in my environment that is triggering the behaviour (i.e. bad habit)? For example, if you’re trying to lose weight it doesn’t make sense to have chocolates in your home or ofVice at work. You see, humans have a certain amount of will power that they have to expend throughout the day. In our low moments, particularly when we are tired and/or stressed or it is later in the day, our ability to regulate our behaviour and emotions signiVicantly decreases.
FEATURE behaviour in the form of an if-then plan leads to automatic action initiation…[the action] does not require conscious intent once the critical situation is encountered”. So let’s say your desired behaviour is to eat more vegetables. This behaviour could be linked to one of several things – particular meal times (e.g. dinner and morning tea), when at a restaurant browsing the menu or if a hunger pang hits.
And it’s in those moments when our will power reserves are running low or on empty that we are most likely to give into the temptation and reach for a chocolate. Therefore, you want to eliminate anything in your environment that will set you back. Have your environment work for you by creating healthy habit back up plans. For instance, if you’re trying to eat healthier foods, have some chopped up vegetables and freshly washed fruit on standby for those low moments when a junk food craving hits. You want to eliminate any chance of going down the path of engaging in the bad habit by making your environment work for you.
An example of an if-‐then plan could be as follows – “If it is morning tea, then I will eat a carrot”. I know, it sounds incredibly simple and straightforward, but the act of committing to this takes the need for any conscious thought and effort out of the equation. The behaviour does indeed become automatic.
Final Thoughts Bad habits can be hard to break, but there are clear and effective strategies to help you adopt healthier behaviours. By making the habit impossible to engage in, changing your environment and establishing a regular routine through ‘if-‐then’ plans, it is possible to rewire your brain for the better. Have you managed to break a bad habit?
Jane Genovese www.learningfundamentals.com.au
Establish a regular rou2ne This involves getting clear on what it is that you want to do and then doing it over and over and over at a set time or place. Easier said than done, right? Well, yes and no. Peter Gollwitzer is an expert on how to make actions automatic and a regular part of one’s routine. His research shows that to make a particular behaviour automatic you must start by selecting the desired behaviour that you want to adopt (e.g. eating more vegetables and doing more physical exercise) and then link this to a speciVic situation such as a particular time, place or feeling. He states “The mental act of linking a speci8ic situation to an intended
If you liked this ar=cle, perhaps you also enjoy the following ar=cles:
Life Rituals Training Your Mind New Years Resolu=ons vs Goals Crea=ng Habits with the Impi Strategy
The Laws of Networking “Networking is about what you can give, not what you can get.” That statement may sound strange when we encourage people to network to 8ind new business. If we focus solely on what we can gain from networking, we are not being authentic networkers. Everyone networks, it just depends on whether they do it well or not. The way we approach networking will impact the way our peers, members (or prospective members) see us. If we are authentic networkers, and people like and trust us, they will refer us into their network. In order to be an authentic networker we must: 1. Give without expecting to get something back. This is the basic principle of helping others without expecting anything in return by, providing them with a piece of information or assistance that will aid them in achieving their goal/s. Think about what you have to offer. Perhaps you can help others in terms of mentoring, putting them in touch with reputable suppliers, working on community projects together, sharing latest ideas on hot topics etc.
2. Understand the principle of reciprocation. What you give out will come back to you (what goes around, comes around). There is an unwritten law that if someone does something for you, you are in debt to them and you feel compelled to repay. Ivan Misner says; “Master networkers give without remembering and receive without forgetting.”
TOP TEN TIPS FOR EFFECTIVE NETWORKING 1. 2. 3.
Be clear about why you want to network Think about what you can offer people Remember that networking is an acquired art 4. Think about the different ways you can network 5. Write down your recent contacts (last 12 months) 6. Now write down who you would like to connect with 7. Think about the best ways to connect up 8. Accept that you may not be successful immediately 9. Have a plan 10. Start now! Rachel Seymour www.xsell.net.au
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SHORT FEATURE
A Young Entrepreneur’s Journey So not too long ago I launched my LOL 24 Seven project and things have not turned out like how I would like them to be. During the planning process of this project, I envisioned it to grow much faster than expected and here are the lessons I have learnt…
2.Web design I have learnt how to make a basic wordpress website and can do very basic logo design on photoshop. Skills I never thought that I'd be able to learn but was forced too during this whole process.
3. Importance of marketing Now I know the importance of marketing a product that is not particularly unique to the market. Although I still believe that most of the marketing lies in the quality and uniqueness of the product itself, for products that are competing with other brands that offer similar products, marketing is VERY important.
1. Market saturation There are thousands if not millions of sites out there who are offering similar content to my site and have better I.T infrastructures and networks which will help them retain and gain more viewers.
2. Content development The content we had were not of a standard where someone who say "omg I love this site and I'm going to keep on coming back for more." Also the people working on content with me have other commitments and could not produce content as fast as I would like. Investing money to pay content developers so that content can be produced more regularly needs to be considered.
3. Marketing plan For the funny t shirt site Funny Tee Shop we had very minimal marketing (only google ads and link back from LOL 24 Seven) and have not had a single customer yet.
4. Working environment I spent a couple of weeks stuck in my room trying to Vigure out ways to improve the site and promote trafVic. I have pretty much isolated myself from the outside world most of the day, not the best way to get new ideas and motivation to develop content. The upsides to all of this are...
4. Not much loss One of the great things about this project is that is does not require too much capital, if I decide to scrape this project now I have only lost about $350 or less which is not much considering that I pay $800+ for one unit in University and the lessons I have learnt are way more valuable. Now what? I'll be going back to the drawing board to see what myself and my business partner wants to pursue with this project. We will be considering whether we want to continue this as a project or Vind a way to turn it into a business. Currently there is not cashVlow coming in from it (we can't sell and audience when we don't really have one). I've picked up a part time sales gig to help pump some cash into my bank account so I have some money to live and also invest in different projects down the line. Its also good to help me keep in touch with the external environment.
1. Kick up the ass These hurdles and lessons have forced me to do even more research and help myself understand the market a bit more. It also helped me see what I need to invest more time and money on and what I should be less concerned about too.
Take the lessons I have learnt to move on to the next step, keep on failing until I Vinally succeed. Aaron Koo Emergen Entrepreneur’s Representative www.akooxp.com
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INTERVIEW
Identify, develop and create
Meet Adam Culligan Adam is a NSW Emergen member who leads a fairly ac2ve and proac2ve lifestyle, being involved in crea2ng leaders in ice hockey interna2onally and unigrad; a leading graduate jobs guide for universi2es.
Tell me about yourself? As a young athlete I always had a passion for sharing my skills. As a Canadian, ice hockey is the sport that took my fancy and has in return given me experiences I hadn’t thought of. So much so that I had been planning all along to take engineering in university up until the last minute. I was 8illing out my application having worked so hard to achieve the grades and courses for acceptance and my father sat me down and asked….“Are you sure? If you
could make a great living doing anything you wanted to, what would it be?” I replied, "with teaching and leading." The rest is kind of history! From teaching ice hockey in Australia, Japan, and the United States to ocean kayaking in Western Canada and Mexico. I have had the experience to teach and lead young and old and I have loved every minute of it. Most recently I was the Athletic Director for a preparatory Ice Hockey Academy in Banff, Alberta, Canada. Here I worked with 15-‐20 year olds grooming them as athletes and future leaders heading for collegiate athletics. This was the most rewarding experience to date. I now reside in Manly, NSW and get to pursue my passion of public speaking and leading tomorrow’s youth through my role with Unimail, a graduate attraction strategies 8irm based in Sydney. We produce a leading graduate jobs guide (unigrad), a leading job Issue 2 : 12
search website (unigrad.com.au which has so much more than just jobs) and also specialize in employer branding. I am the national University Liaison and as such travel the country preaching work ready skills and self-‐ development on behalf of universities, careers of8ices and student societies all with a view to building the unigrad brand on campus.
What is the project you are most passionate about right at the moment? I am completing a tour of all the university careers fairs across the country. I am personally attending 27 fairs and am organizing our company’s attendance at a total of 37. At the same time, I am managing the displays and materials for 40 clients who are also attending career fairs. As part of my role as University Liaison is to communicate with universities on a consistent basis, I am most quali8ied within our organization to manage this project. All the while, I am working with student societies and careers of8ices to deliver
INTERVIEW speaking engagements on getting the career of their dreams. As this project will conclude at the end of the April, my next major project, which I am very excited about, is developing a strategy for the delivery of Work Integrated Learning (WIL) that will see career skills education get dove-‐ tailed with the delivery of regular curriculum materials in Universities. In my spare time I am also putting together a small network of public speakers to meet every few months to share ideas, deliver new presentations and basically work with others in the same space to develop their skills as public speakers. I am doing this in partnership with a colleague by the name of Josh Mackenzie, another brilliant youth leadership speaker.
What's your favourite book and why? I would love to say something inspiring or informative like the Outliers or Eat, Pray, Love but my favorite book to date has been the Da Vinci Code. I love puzzles and mysteries and I am fascinated by organized religion, especially in a conspiratorial fashion! I generally try to read escapist 8iction rather than the former so that book ticked all the boxes for me.
What are your special hobbies and interests? I spend a great deal of time on my bikes. I ride and race mountain bikes and commute from Manly to Sydney CBD on my road bike daily. I also surf occasionally and golf as much as I can. I play ice hockey in the AIHL (Australian Ice Hockey League) for the Sydney Ice Dogs competing nationally, though it might be dif8icult to continue this year due to competing interstate travel schedules between work and hockey.
What are your aspiraQons over the next 1-‐5 years? My main goal over the next 8ive years is to solidify myself as a go to public speaker in the arena of youth leadership and career skill building. It is something that I work on consistently and truly enjoy the most Fortunately I work for a fantastic organization that promotes the pursuit of this goal and is working with me to get there. My role within this organization sees me speak very often to the groups I want to speak to so I will continue to promote myself. As mentioned above, I am also developing a strategy for the delivery of Work Integrated Learning (WIL) that I believe will be invaluable once recognized by professors and the academic community as a whole. I look forward to being a part of this movement. Based on your learning experience so far,
what one piece of advice would you give to other Emergen members and why? As I alluded to in my 8irst answer, the best advice I can give is to identify what it truly is you would like to get paid to do. We spend a
lot of time working and it is a shame more people don’t love their jobs. I’m not saying we should all quit our jobs and go rent mopeds to people in the south of France, but if you are in a role that is the polar opposite of your goals and dreams, get out. If you are in a role that, under great circumspection, could deliver you what you want but hasn't yet, take charge of that situation. Approach your superiors and make known your personal aspirations. Aspiring people are often inspiring people and who doesn’t want more people like that in their workspace? Identify, develop and then create the situation you want. Linde Le Emergen Featured Members Editor www.genyadvantage.com.au Issue 2 : 13
SHORT FEATURE
Small, Broken Beginnings "The end of a thing is be:er than the beginning." Years ago, I took a job that quite honestly didn't look like much. It had a small salary attached to huge responsibility. I knew instinctively though that this was the right job for me. Either that or the fact that no other job offers were on the table! I choose to believe the former. By no means, was anything glamorous. I dealt with small mindsets that were easily threatened by new ideas. Right now, I am thinking of my parents, whose small beginnings meant that in the early years of their marriage would negotiate small salaries, and the marital challenges that come with it. How often does one hear of relationships that start out so wrong even though those two people knew that they were meant to be with each other. What do you do when your personality gets in the way of a good thing or your humanity (who you are) gets in the way of accomplishing your dreams. Small, broken beginnings are not a curse. If anything, it is the beginning of a strong foundation wrapped up in adversity, either deserved or undeserved. Ever heard of the phrase, "What doesn't kill you can only make you stronger?"...True indeed. Indeed, small beginnings are not glamorous. In hindsight, that small glamorous job gave me enough rounded experience to deal with a much bigger
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role, a few years later. I learnt how to deal with personalities that were vastly different and understand that personality differences should never be taken personal at any cost. That attitude would just kill opportunity. All my friends now use that line in their interviews whenever they get asked that question about how to deal with personality differences in a team. Feel free to use it too. Navigating small beginnings is a test of willpower, strength and humility. Are you will to be inconvenienced at present in order to be prepared for Life's grandeur later on. Jim Carrey carried around a $1 million cheque that he wrote to himself for years before he began to get serious roles. Everyone who truly has longevity in their careers or lives will always need to go through seasons that prepare them to handle grandeur. How else is character developed unless you are exposed to the opposite of say, patience. By no means do small beginnings stay small. Have you noticed how seasons change. Life does too. The good turns into the better and the bad turns into the good. Happiness is, as always, a state of mind and never based on circumstances.
Bridgett Leslie wordsofhopeunlimited.blogspot.com
emergen
activating emerging leaders
Are you on Emergen yet? Emergen is a collaborative community activating emerging leaders.
www.emergen.com.au Issue 1 : 15
FEATURE
How mentally tough are you? Do you allow a nega2ve comment to get you down? Do you achieve the goals you set out for yourself? Do you see the posi2ves in a situa2on or do you automa2cally see the nega2ve? All of these relate to our mental strength. As young leaders, it’s integral that we focus on building our mental strength as much as our other leadership skills. Mental strength is vital in achieving our goals and reaching our best performance.
The Five Elements of a Strong Mindset 1. Intentions Set your intentions for the day, month or year. What do you want to achieve? What would you like to happen? Your intentions will guide your everyday actions and behaviour. It’s your compass to steer you in the right direction. If you have an important meeting coming up, spend some time thinking about what your intentions are and be clear.
2. Confidence Do you have a strong self belief? Or is your lack of con8idence holding you back from what you should be achieving? In my years of leadership development of young people, I know that con8idence is built through action, small consistent steps towards who you want to be and what you want to achieve. What is the next
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challenge for you to develop yourself and your con8idence?
3. Optimism Do you see the positive things in your life and appreciate them? And do you reframe the negatives? We can so easily start to see the negatives in our life and work. Instead, optimism allows us to practice focusing on the positives in our life and work and gain the bene8its of doing that. What 8ilter do you see life through? This includes people too. I have a rule to think the best of people rather than the worst. A colleague may be 10 minutes late for meeting and you could automatically start thinking “I’m obviously not that important for them”, “they don’t want to hear what I have to say” or “why do I bother?”. All this negativity when they could be honestly be running late. How quick does your mind jump to the negative thought? And can you become aware of this and 8lip it into a more positive one?
4. Focus How well can you focus your thoughts and attention on what you want? Focus is about commitment, consistency and control. Commitment -‐ being committed to focusing on your intentions. Do allow yourself to get distracted with what others say about you? Or do you stay committed to your own intentions?
FEATURE
Consistency -‐ being consistent in our thoughts and actions. Are you aware of your self talk and thoughts on a daily basis? Do your actions represent what is most important to you and do you act on your intentions on a consistent basis? Control -‐ focusing our attention on what we can control. I love the Serenity Prayer which is “please grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and to have the wisdom to know the difference”.
Pink in his book Drive, asserts that motivation is about three elements -‐ autonomy, mastery and purpose. 1. Autonomy means your ability to choose. Choose your goals and how you’re going to achieve them. 2. There is nothing more motivating then seeing yourself progress, this is mastery. 3. Use your purpose and intentions to motivate you to act. If your purpose doesn’t motivate you, then maybe you need to rede8ine it until it does. So how do you improve your mental strength?
5. Motivation Motivation is the energy towards our goals. How do you maintain your motivation? Dan
Alicia Cur2s Emergen Founder www.aliciacur2s.com
INTERVIEW Meet the Inspiring...
Fay D’ S ou za
There may be a few of you who are thinking about, in the process of -‐ or running your own business ventures. Fay is very passionate about her work and seeks to engage businesses to be able to use video and 8ilm as a medium for marketing. Fay, like many of us also enjoys the 8iner things in life such as good food, dancing, singing, music and of course great company. It certainly takes a lot of will and courage to jump into the deep end to start up a new business, please read on to learn more about Fay's journey and what words of wisdom she has to share. Tell me about yourself About myself as a person... I'll start from about 6 years ago...My exciting journey to Australia began as an international student. Coming from the suburbs of Malad, in Mumbai (India) I had the chance of a lifetime when I embarked on a journey to Perth in 2005. I decided to take on the media degree at Notre Dame University and completed a four year term where I graduated with Honours. I was advised to also add business knowledge to that mix, so I majored in Marketing and Public Relations. I am SO thankful that I have parents who are uber encouraging and supportive of me. Without their help, I would never have been here. I realised then that I love cameras and capturing life! My interest lies in storytelling, be it in the form of still photos or moving pictures. I specialised in screen production at NDU and absolutely enjoyed every moment learning about all the possibilities in terms of using media in everyday life and also for business. The degree covered everything from journalism to drama production to theories of communication. Issue 2 : 18
My honours thesis revolved around the process of creating and developing media for business use. I worked with Scitech -‐ a science organisation making science fun for kids, and co-‐produced 'career videos' that showcased different science careers in a fun and interesting manner. It was a great experience as I got the chance to really think about the variables involved when it comes to producing media for clients. For me, video is so powerful and pertinent to our society because it helps us connect, learn and get inspired like never before. I got to meet all these creative people in Perth and was mentored by Damien Blythe -‐ a true professional and someone who has a mountain of 8ilm knowledge and experience. A business can gain much from use of video in their strategy and my aim is to both educate and deliver video to business whereby they are able to use it and pro8it from it as well. I love working in teams and for me, 8ilm production and working with a talented crew is an absolute pleasure. I hope to work with business, entrepreneurs, social causes and also create opportunities for 8ilm students. What is the project you are most passionate about right at the moment? My production company -‐ Titanium9 Productions is in development at the moment and I have begun to meet with people and share my ideas. Alicia Curtis met with me recently and she was so encouraging about it! This year I hope to gain a foothold into what it takes to get a production company up and running. My main aim is to get out there and 8ind out who wants to be involved in creative productions and which businesses would be keen to bene8it from
INTERVIEW I think it's one of my favourite books because all my life, I had looked up to him as 'Father of the Nation'. But in reading his writings, I realised that a was an ordinary man, but the things that made him 'great' was his great commitment, great belief in his ideas of freedom and his great patience -‐ these are things that I strive to reach myself... and the man is great inspiration in that regard! What are your special hobbies and interests?
video productions! At the moment I'm working on my website and also have joined a couple of networking groups to gauge interest and speak to people about the biz. What's your favourite book and why? One of my favourite books is 'My Experiments with Truth' by M.K Gandhi. His accounts of his daily encounters, and the development of his philosophy 'Satyagraha', a term he coined himself. It literally means his involvement in bringing India to freedom was absolutely revolutionary and he inspired people like Martin Luther as well. The book takes us on a journey from his early days as a lawyer, to his humiliating cast-‐out from a train because of his skin colour. It has de8ining moments -‐ those moments which took him from being just another coloured man, to someone who really believed that all men had equal rights. Gandhi was a simple, humble man. The book has his writings, but it was through his humility that his gumption shone through.
Reading would top that list. I also enjoy meeting new people and having a good conversation over a meal. I love walking! Long walks on the beach are my absolute favourite and I live near South Beach in Fremantle, so I consider myself really lucky to have that. Singing is one of my passions; I enjoy it very much and have always been part of choirs all my life. At the moment, I'm part of the choir at a monastery in Leederville. I also love dancing! I could do this for hours on end! And 8inally, I love playing the electronic keyboards, but I secretly wish I could be a piano player! That's probably one of my deep passions. Listening to the greats -‐ Beethoven, Bach, Mozart... just absolutely fabulous. I 8ind it amazing that pieces composed so long ago are just as enjoyable and relevant to the musician even today. Based on your learning experience so far, what one piece of advice would you give to other Emergen members and why? We can dream all we want, but it's the effort and sincere determination along with a 8irm belief in your dream and passion that will get you results! Get out there and make things happen. Linde Le Emergen Featured Members Editor www.genyadvantage.com.au
CONTRIBUTORS
Emergen Contributors Alicia Curtis Emergen Founder and E-Mag Editor www.aliciacurtis.com
Jane Genovese www.learningfundamentals.com.au
Linda Le www.genyadvantage.com.au
Rachel Seymour www.xsell.net.au
Bridgett Leslie
Aaron Koo www.akooxp
Janine Ripper
wordsofhopeunlimited.blogspot.com
www.reflectionsfromaredhead.comÂ
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