Finding Your Path

You've got to be in it to win it and you've got to be in it to affect change. Herman is joined by a leader, member of the social-economic task force and chair of independent education, Stephanie Boyce. Together they discuss how to achieve your goals whilst remaining your authentic self, why you need to use failure as a lesson and how to utilise the law of attraction. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• You're not limited by your backstory. You're not limited by what you've gone through. You are only limited by what you believe in your ability to achieve. 

• It’s important to remain your authentic self throughout your journey and not conform to fit in. 

• You’ve got to be in it to win it and you've got to be in it to affect change. To succeed you need to understand your areas of influence and that you’re impacting change is clear, that you’re pragmatic it's clear that you're proactive in achieving your goals. 

• Do not look at failure with a negative connotation to it. Subscribe to the law of attraction and to positive thinking because often in life it’s mind over matter and your attitude will determine your outcome because if you can believe it, you can achieve it. 

• A lot of times the difficulties or the challenges you face are mental and they're emotional. You need to break free from the past and your limiting beliefs because there’s nothing wrong with where you came from. 

• When we achieve, there are usually celebrators and there are detractors. There will always be naysayers, there'll be people who will celebrate you and there will be people who won't celebrate you. It’s part of the walk of life.

BEST MOMENTS 

“I'm driven by purpose and I absolutely believe in what I do. That's the driver, that is what keeps me going even when I'm tired.”

“We have all faced discrimination in our lives but we may not have recognized it.”

“I am standing on the shoulders of giants. I'm standing on the shoulders of all those who have gone before me.”

ABOUT THE HOST

Herman is the visionary behind ECNM’s mentoring vision and services with over 20 years of mentoring experience across the community, music, and the education sectors. Through his mentoring work, Herman has won multiple awards and he is passionate about making mentoring high quality and accessible for all young people.

Herman leads on business strategy, the development of strategic partnerships and pioneering new mentoring initiatives and innovations. Besides leading ECNM, Herman is a father of three daughters, enjoys watching Formula One, loves cooking for his family and is even known to write a rap or two.

CONTACT DETAILS
https://www.everychildneedsamentor.com/about-us/

ABOUT THE GUEST

Stephanie Boyce is a leader, commissioner and trustee. She's a member of the social-economic task force. She's a director, a chair of the independent education appeal panel, as well as being the president of the law society for England and Wales.

Do you ask yourself powerful questions or just the easy ones? Join Herman in this episode with Simon Alexander Ong, a coach, speaker and author, as they discuss purpose, the difference between success and fulfillment and how you become who you truly are.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Many of us are exhausted. But not because we are doing too much but actually because we are doing too little of the things that matter to us and that we enjoy.

• The financial crisis of 2008 was a catalyst for Simon to utlise and monetise his interest and skill of talking and helping other people.

• Growing up, Simon felt he had to achieve via traditional routes. His aspirations were based on other people’s ideals and values, not on what he desired in himself. But he wasn’t even aware of this until he was much older.

• If you shift your perspective and mindset, you can recognise that you have much more control over your life than you think. You can start by taking control over your own thoughts and gaining and understanding of what made you who you are.

• Success and fulfilment isn’t the same. You may look successful to others but this doesn’t mean you are fulfilled. Purpose is knowing why you are doing something and having clarity about what is important and what matters to you.

• Failure is an event not a person. You have to detach yourself when you make mistakes, they don’t define you as a person. You instead need to seek the lesson in every experience.

• When you evaluate the most successful people and leaders in the world, they aren’t usually the smartest but they know how to have the energy to sustain success.

BEST MOMENTS

“When we all live better stories, not only does that contribute to a powerful legacy but also to a more meaningful life”

“Reality is simply living in the freedom of your thinking, your thoughts are like a colours on a pallet, you are the one holding the brush”

“It’s so important to change your relationship with your past”

“You don’t have to be an entrepreneur to demonstrate entrepreneurial skills”

ABOUT THE HOST

Herman is the visionary behind ECNM’s mentoring vision and services with over 20 years of mentoring experience across the community, music, and the education sectors. Through his mentoring work, Herman has won multiple awards and he is passionate about making mentoring high quality and accessible for all young people.

Herman leads on business strategy, the development of strategic partnerships and pioneering new mentoring initiatives and innovations. Besides leading ECNM, Herman is a father of three daughters, enjoys watching Formula One, loves cooking for his family and is even known to write a rap or two.

Herman is joined by Eric D. Collins, prolific serial investor, CEO, author , TV presenter and tech expert. He has rubbed shoulders with the Obama’s having previously served on Barack Obama's Small Business Administration's Council on Underserved Communities. He  co-founded Impact X Capital, a venture capital fund designed to aid entrepreneurs across Europe particularly people from underrepresented communities, with a particular focus on people of colour and women. In 2021 he began presenting Channel 4’s reality show The Money Maker., in which he offers his expertise to struggling small businesses.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Eric would describe himself as a Southern American, which informs his personality on ideas of politeness and politics, a middle child and an introvert.
• Eric has been writing his latest book “We Don’t Need Permission”. The book is a manifesto to encourage black people to build businesses that make money to a large extent and then employ lots of other black people to then supplement financially all the other empowerment tools available.
• The effect of the Church and its long reaching remit and influence to improve the lives of its members and the greater community inspired Eric’s engagement with contribution and enrichment of the world around him. It fosters community engagement and the importance of collective action.
• Your life partner can make or break your ability to take risks, invest and work by supporting you in your decisions. If you have someone with who is excited about outward possibilities then your journey will be enhanced and enriched.

BEST MOMENTS

“Thank you for that introduction it is always interesting to hear someone describe you. You can also say that I am a terrible but avid tennis player.” – Eric

“What we need to do is we need to actually create businesses that are the scale of Google and Uber. That will then make the world a very different place because we’ll have so much more resources and more influence over the agenda of the world beyond ourselves.” – Eric

“What has been the main thing that has really fuelled your passion to create justice, to make the playing field level?” – Herman

“We actually believe that we have a lot of gifts and that we need to be doing something worthwhile with those gifts.” - Eric

ABOUT THE HOST

Herman is the visionary behind ECNM’s mentoring vision and services with over 20 years of mentoring experience across the community, music, and the education sectors. Through his mentoring work, Herman has won multiple awards and he is passionate about making mentoring high quality and accessible for all young people.

Herman leads on business strategy, the development of strategic partnerships and pioneering new mentoring initiatives and innovations. Besides leading ECNM, Herman is a father of three daughters, enjoys watching Formula One, loves cooking for his family and is even known to write a rap or two.

CONTACT DETAILS
https://www.everychildneedsamentor.com/about-us/

Herman is joined by Daniel Alexander, a multi-award-winning filmmaker, cinematographer, editor, and writer who has worked with BBC, BFI, ITV, Sony, MTV, Apple, Channel 4 and more. Daniel shares his extraordinary journey. Explaining how wanting to help young people led to him discovering that he could tell stories that inspired using the moving image and the career he has today.

Daniel is passionate about what he does and works tirelessly to ensure that more people can access the industry and get their voices heard. Especially those who would normally be effectively locked out because of the way things traditionally worked.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• We all tend to define ourselves by our careers, the truth is your identity is about who you are, not what you do.
• Collaboration is a powerful way to learn, explore your talent and possibly inspire others at the same time.
• Representation is vital, especially for young people, it opens their eyes to the fact that something is possible for them too.
• Not having the resources others have forces you to think differently and find a way to still achieve fantastic results despite the obstacles. It builds resilience.
• Often, the closer you get to what you are trying to achieve, the harder it gets. You can start to self-consciously procrastinate and self-sabotage.

BEST MOMENTS 

“I´m trying to find out who is the best version of me.”
“Representation allows you to dream a dream that you may not even dare to dream without it.”
“Sometimes it's in a struggle, it's in the fire that you develop your true character. And you know, the difference between riding life at 60% or riding life 100%.”
“Every day I am battling with imposter syndrome.” 

ABOUT THE HOST

Herman is the visionary behind ECNM's mentoring vision and services with over 20 years of mentoring experience across the community, music, and the education sectors. Through his mentoring work, Herman has won multiple awards and he is passionate about making mentoring high quality and accessible for all young people.

Herman leads on business strategy, the development of strategic partnerships and pioneering new mentoring initiatives and innovations. Besides leading ECNM, Herman is a father of three daughters, enjoys watching Formula One, loves cooking for his family and is even known to write a rap or two.

In this episode, Herman is joined by the Vice President of IBM Cloud, Andrew Diaper. Join an insightful discussion as Andrew shares his journey and how his idea of success has changed over time. Learn how to take control of your life, why it's important to reflect and change and how to allow your talent to flourish.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• We are all talented in so many different areas, but sometimes we don't allow our talent to flourish because it's a skill outside of work.

• Society brainwashes us to believe we all have to earn more, be more successful and be recognised and you can often lose yourself. In reality, you need to take a step back and realise you're successful and that your idea of success can change over time.

• Most people probably never realised that they could be who they already were on the inside. You have to manifest what you desire in life.

• If you want to take yourself, your career and your personal development to the next level you have to be aspirations, tenacious, dedicated and committed with your whole self. You need to have that fire in your belly.

• In order to reflect and grow you need to take control and be accountable and understand when to own up to making a mistake and learn from it.

• Once you build up a network of people with skills in all areas and on different levels you need to keep the connection because you've done the hardwork.

• If you want to be happy, successful, driven and motivated, you need to embrace positively endurance.

BEST MOMENTS

“The hardest challenge I had was having the courage inside to make some really big changes.”

“Growth is more about your team, It's more about helping others.”

“I want to be challenged and I want to learn new skills, but that is difficult and many people don't want to seek out new challenges.”

“Sometimes you need to recalibrate. step back and reevaluate what makes you happy.”

“Learn to be a bit more humble and considered.”

ABOUT THE HOST

Herman is the visionary behind ECNM's mentoring vision and services with over 20 years of mentoring experience across the community, music, and the education sectors. Through his mentoring work, Herman has won multiple awards and he is passionate about making mentoring high quality and accessible for all young people.

Herman leads on business strategy, the development of strategic partnerships and pioneering new mentoring initiatives and innovations. Besides leading ECNM, Herman is a father of three daughters, enjoys watching Formula One, loves cooking for his family and is even known to write a rap or two.

CONTACT DETAILS
https://www.everychildneedsamentor.com/about-us/

ABOUT THE GUEST

Andrew Diaper is the Vice President of IBM Cloud EMEA and leads the sales and business development strategy, focus and activity for IBM's Cloud growth and strategic engagements with the Financial Services and Regulated industries within EMEA region.