Executive Mastermind

My Mentors Rogues Gallery:

This Mentors Rogues Gallery page is a testimonial to some amazing people who have contributed greatly to my knowledge and understanding of the area I specialise in – that of Soft Skills Training.

“To be the best, you need to train with the best!”

The people below in my Mentors Rogues Gallery are those to whom I am most indebted to who, at some time in my life, as a mentor or coach contributed a significant piece of the jigsaw puzzle that has now become the full complement of my life and underlying skills I have developed to be a specialist Soft Skills trainer and coach.

The Early Years:

I first came to Brisbane from rural areas in 1987 and immersed myself in the library of the Australian Institute of Management at Spring Hill, where I discovered two rather amazing people, Og Mandino and E James Rohn, on cassette and video.

I had the great fortune to experience Og Mandino on stage in 1987 at the Boondall Entertainment Centre. He sat quietly and 17,000 people listened, apparently not breathing for over an hour as he dazzled us with his magic.  I left there and purchased his books, including “The Greatest Salesman in the World”, becoming a student immediately.  He didn’t know then that the techniques he was recommending would 3 decades later be proved in the new era of Neuro-science to be the fundamental way that our minds learn and grow.  I used his techniques for my own personal development and reinvention, and further developed them within my Soft Skills Training in later years.

Jim Rohn was the next incredible mentor in my life.  I

devoured his audio cassettes for two years until in 1990, he came to Brisbane and I enrolled in his weekend Leadership Program.  An incredible weekend where I began my friendship with the great man.  From then on, whenever he came to Queensland from the USA, I made sure I was in the audience and looked him up after his presentation.  I enjoyed many conversations with him and his influence in my life until his passing was immense.

My foundations for Accelerated Learning and Soft Skills Training.

The weekend after my meeting with Jim Rohn, I attended the Money and You seminar in Brisbane, where Blair Singer was the presenter.  This incredible and life-changing seminar is still running,

being reinvented now with DC Cordova, but in those days, DC Cordova and Robert Kiyosaki were the team behind it and Blair Singer was the presenter for this weekend.  This was my first experience of Accelerated Learning and I was hooked!  I worked with Blair over the next decade, attending and assisting on 6 more Money and You seminars, followed by Creating Wealth with Robert Kiyosaki, another powerful mentor for many people.  I also attended Blair’s Weekend Retreat in Sydney and again, enjoyed quality one-on-one time with him.  Blair has been the most powerful influence in my presentation style of Accelerated Learning, although I did attend other Accelerated Learning and Powerful Presentations workshops with a number of top trainers.

John Burley was a Rich Dad Advisor for Robert Kiyosaki, and we

worked together when he presented in Brisbane a number of times for Pow Wow Events.  John’s focus is in creating wealth and his seminars reflect his work and his writing.

 

His book sold all over the world and I asked him for permission to work with just one of the programs in it, the Debt Reduction Program, in my

own seminars and workshops.  He was delighted, and since then, when I have delivered a workshop with a financial focus, or coached a client in financial matters, I have used this simple and effective strategy.  John is typical of my mentors, in that he was incredibly generous with his time and resources and only too happy to have his work spread globally.

 

 

Accelerated Learning became my focus and with that in mind, I

attended a number of trainings with Stephanie Burns, to gain the finesse in specific areas of this amazing knowledge imparting technique.

Stephanie is a very experienced teacher and used her background experience as well as studies into advanced and experiential learning techniques to evolve teaching and training to a whole new level.

Stephanie was brought to us through Pow Wow Events also, specifically for those who wanted to advance their training skills.  I took advantage of it and made extra time to learn one-on-one with her.  She authored a number of books and the most powerful and relevant is pictured here.  It is a virtual “how to” of advanced training techniques which I was privileged to learn from her in person.

 

 

The Emotional Tone Scale – a breakthrough!

The Emotional Tone Scale and my understanding of Sub-Personalities has been at the centre of learning how to impart knowledge, manage

conflict, unite teams and inspire leaders.  The seeds for this were planted in my years of working with Michael Domeyko Rowland.

Michael came to my attention around 1995 and for the next decade, after my initial weekend workshop with him, I was his stage and floor manager for every Queensland event, including meditation seminars, Voice Dialogue and Mindfulness Workshops and Retreats.

Michael’s work with Hal and Sidra Stone on Voice Dialogue and the discovery of sub-personalities had a profound effect on the way I came to understand learning principles and strategies.  The Emotional Tone Scale was my evolution of this training, in learning through my work with Michael, how to move people on the Emotional Tone Scale to achieve massive emotional and educational paradigm shifts.

Christo Powers is another of the major influences in the way I have worked and evolved my business over the years.  Christo was a guest presenter at an early Money And You workshop and

presented his MPower Model of asking powerful questions.  That presentation stayed with me through all my years in business and became a cornerstone for the diagnostic and corporate rescue work I did, and for the counselling and coaching work over the next two decades.  I spoke with Christo recently and he has now tweaked his model to improve the ability of facilitators to go right to the heart of problem solving, finding the real causes at source, and empowering clients with solutions they uncover for themselves.  This work is the cornerstone of the Innovation Incubator program – it would not have evolved without this incredible technique of getting to the heart of issues as quickly as possible.

Very early on, I worked with Pow Wow Events on two weekend retreats at Jupiters Casino at the Gold Coast.  Amongst the presenters was this powerful couple – Grant and Lisa Kenny.

Although they have gone their separate ways since then, each is still true to the principles they spoke of on the weekends I worked with them.

They are both entrepreneurial and champion sports stars and athletes in their own right.

Another wonderful person whom I met almost 3 decades ago is Catherine DeVrye. We have remained in contact over the years and I value her connection on Linked-In and follow her posts, and her rise through the ranks of Corporate Australia where she practices her magic from people on the factory floor to the boardrooms of major corporations.

 

Tribute to all the Mentors Rogues Gallery people not named here!

There have been many more influential people in my life who could certainly be listed in my Mentors Rogues Gallery, in the area of Soft Skills Training and my knowledge and understanding in this area.  However, we are now all seeing the new field of Neuro-Science validate the work and teachings of these incredible people. I feel blessed and privileged to have been at one time, students to them or had them as my mentors.  Now, Neuro-Science is validating my own work as a result of their incredible studies and research into the workings of the human mind and how people learn.