Abundance Interview: Mary-Ellen Drummond

Tuesday, October 28, 2008, by Leigh Anne & Sherra

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We have a winner! Congratulations to mom23boys!! We want to thank everyone for entering and especially for some of the wonderful comments many of you left. We love reading them!

We know you’ll enjoy your one hour session with Mary-Ellen!

Please email us your contact information so Mary-Ellen can get in touch with you!

If you missed out on this Giveaway or you didn’t win this time be sure and check back often!! There is another giveaway right around the corner…

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We will be interviewing women who inspire us, encourage us and renew our spirits. Women from diverse backgrounds…women just like you…women very different from you…women who share and teach so we can all learn something new. Their words may be just what you need to read today…

Sherra says…

Mary-Ellen Drummond was at the top of my list when Leigh Anne and I started discussing successful women we wanted to interview and introduce you to. I had the distinct honor of spending a weekend with Mary-Ellen in Atlanta just over a decade ago. Her presentations and books have inspired me. She is an amazing teacher who has such a gift for helping other people shine. The abundance of things she taught me are lessons I continue to use in my own presentations and my life. Be sure to read to the very end as Mary-Ellen has graciously donated a coaching session and it is a fabulous opportunity for anyone!

Mary-Ellen Drummond has a variety of titles … professional speaker, author, seminar leader, and executive coach. She’s best known for inspiring audiences and leaders to excellence and action. In addition to earning more than 75 awards for speaking, training, sales, and leadership, Mary-Ellen also earned the “Sales Representative of the Year” award for a Fortune 500 Company, was named “Speaker of the Year” by the San Diego Chapter of Meeting Professionals International, and served as president of the San Diego Chapter of the National Speakers Association. Her clients include universities, nonprofits, and corporations, as well as individuals. Her programs are referred to as: “dynamic,” “fast-paced,” and “filled with practical ideas, specific information, and inspiration!”

Mary-Ellen and her husband live in North San Diego County and their daughter Erica is currently earning her teaching credential at Cal Poly, in San Luis Obispo, CA.

First, a few personal fun facts and questions…

Favorite color:

I love being surrounded by the colors of nature whether I’m enjoying the San Diego coast, the heights of Sierras, or the red rock canyons of Sedona. I once heard someone say, “Nature is simply God’s wardrobe.” How perfect.

Favorite food you associate with Fall:

Without a doubt, my favorite-fall-food is pumpkin pie, especially if it’s from Thyme in the Ranch, the wonderful bakery and café in the village of Rancho Santa Fe, CA, my home town. You’ll have to visit!

Pet Peeve?

Apathy is definitely my pet peeve! I recently saw a bumper sticker proclaiming: “Apathy is on the rise, but no one seems to care.” I know that we can’t make people care if they don’t choose to because it’s definitely an inside job. And, as a coach, I know that it’s virtually impossible for me to help anyone who doesn’t care. But, when people really do care, they can achieve more than they ever thought possible.

What is something that no one knows about you? (that you want to tell the whole internet world)

No one would know that I still recall the unfair actions of my 9th grade teacher when he gave detention slips to every student on “my half” of the classroom because “someone was talking.” It was my first, and last, detention. (You can tell that I was a wild child!) I remember feeling like an unjustly accused criminal and I protested my innocence. The teacher didn’t listen, but my mom and dad did. That silly situation simply demonstrates my long held beliefs in the importance of fairness, justice and doing the right thing. We can always learn something from unintended lessons, so thanks, Mr. Smith.

One word that describes you:

Happy!

What’s your motto or mantra:

Do what’s right; do the best you can; and bring out the best in yourself and others.

What are the top three things that are most important to you — the things you love to do and you are passionate about?

My top 3 areas of focus:
1- Appreciating every day of my life with family and friends
2- Doing the work that I love and helping my clients
3- Traveling, walking, and lifelong learning.

Word of the Month ~ Abundance

Give us your definition of abundance:

To me, I define “abundance” as more than enough and more than I thought possible. I don’t think about money first, or second or third, because I’ve found that financial rewards seem to come as a result of:

a positive but practical and realistically optimistic attitude;
a love of lifelong learning;
a willingness to be a risk-taker;
doing work and activities that I’m passionate about;
giving more than people expect;
and spending time with people I care about while hopefully making a difference.

Can you remember a time when the “pass it on” or “pay it forward” abundance mentality changed your life or someone else’s?

Just as I was as a child, my daughter was very shy. I didn’t want to pass it on. I recall many times when other parents of preschoolers would say to her “Hello, Erica!” That prompted her to hang on to me and hide her face against my leg. As she clung to me, I would always say to the other parent, “No, she’s not shy. She’s very friendly.” I didn’t want to reinforce the negative message about being shy, so, when she was just three years old, I started encouraging Erica to be the first to say “Hi!” to others. We made it a game and I challenged her to be the first to say “Hello” to at least five people each day. And I’d praise her when she did. Eventually, she became more and more comfortable and when someone in her kindergarten class said that she was shy, she responded, “No, I’m not shy. I’m very friendly.”

When Erica was 18 a nd about to leave for college, she and I took a walk together and she told me that the “Hi-5 Game” was one of the best lessons she had ever learned and she knew that she would have no trouble making new friends at school.

Sometimes, small, positive lessons and “self-talk” can make a huge difference in our lives by providing an abundance of comfort and confidence. It made me feel good too.

Do you need more or less of these things in your life?

Chocolate - I try to eat less chocolate, but I do know that “stress isn’t so hard to take if it’s chocolate-covered.”

Caffeine – I’m a tea-drinker because I believe that “behind every successful woman is a substantial amount of caffeine.” I enjoy tea breaks three times a day and my favorite is The Republic of Tea’s Ginger Peach.

Time - Who doesn’t want more time? Time is what life is made of… and how we choose to spend our time determines how we spend our lives.

Shoes – I’ll take another pair of hiking shoes, or Mephisto sandals, over a pair of Jimmy Choo slingbacks any day. (I love the look of high heels, and wear them for business presentations, but they sure do take a toll, don’t they.)

Girlfriends - We can never have too many friends, and I know that, as a Japanese proverb states: “There is no better mirror than an old friend.” When my daughter Erica was 12, she told me, in her own words: “Meeting a new friend is like finding a shell at the beach … you have to listen to what’s inside.” I was amazed at how wise, profound, and true her words were. We do need to keep on listening and learning from our friends … and our children. (By the way, that quotation was the inspiration for Erica’s book, Quotes for Kids.)

Money – Lately, money has been the topic of almost every conversation I’ve had with friends and acquaintances. Understandably, people are fearful and nervous about finances or the state of their 401k’s. We all need to be especially smart about developing our knowledge, talents, and skills so that we’re continually creating our own success and securing our financial future. By doing so we won’t have to be in the late Henny Youngman’s state of mind when he said, “I’ve got all the money I’ll ever need if I die by four o’clock.”

Pampering – I read that when women see their doctors, their #1 complaint is, “I’m tired.” No doubt it’s because women are working harder and longer hours than ever before. Unfortunately, women always seem to put themselves last, so obviously that’s why we need more pampering.

I think it’s important to know when to say “no” because doing so can be the ultimate self-pampering, especially when we’re saying “no” to being what we don’t want to be, or “no” to a career that we’re not passionate about, or “no” to spending time with toxic people who drain us.

For me, after saying “no”, I say “yes” to personal pampering by taking a long walk in the hills near my home while my iPod inspires me with upbeat, energizing music. I walk every day (3-5 miles) and whenever I’m traveling, for work or pleasure, I seek out awe-inspiring “walking places” such as the Torrey Pines State Reserve in La Jolla, or the Kapalua area of Maui, or Acadia National Park near Bar Harbor, Maine. Ahhhh. It’s renewing and it’s nature at its best.

As a professional speaker, do you have a message that you share with your audience that ties into abundant living?

Though I use lots of humor in my presentations, I know that, for me, it’s not enough to make an audience laugh, or cry, or just feel energized. I want people to be abundantly inspired to do something more with their skills, talents, and lives so that they’re making a difference. Each time I work with a client or audience, I want to give them more than expected in several ways.

I want to let people know that we’re more alike than different … we all have fears, insecurities, and desires for achievement. People who don’t have some fear probably need some. For example, fear makes us prepare instead of winging it. Fear, as Kevin Costner said, is just “another way of knowing you care.”
I want people to realize that in order to succeed, we have to know what we want and be able to clearly say it. Most people can’t do this in a meaningful way until they are asked a series of questions and really think about it. As it’s often said, most people spend more time planning their vacations than their lives.
I strive to give valuable, useable, and very specific information so that people see exactly how they can make changes, or reinforce positives from the way they, for example, speak, listen, connect, present themselves, build relationships, or inspire others.
And, I want to help my audiences to go away inspired to take action on what they’ve learned or decided to do. Because, it’s never enough for us to just think, or dream, or wish, or hope … we have to do it in order to make it happen. That’s the way to create an abundance of success.

As motivational speaker Zig Ziglar famously said, “You can get everything you want in life, if you just help enough other people get what they want.”

Share a life lesson learned about abundance, something, perhaps that you know now that you didn’t know when you were 18?

In 1990, I decided to leave a successful career with a large corporation in order to start my own business. It was a downright scary thing to do … to give up a good salary, bonuses, expense account, company car, travel, etc. I’m sure that many people thought I was crazy, in fact, some told me I was! But, after months of internal dialogue, and while reading the book Do What You Love, The Money Will Follow, I told my husband John, “I’m thinking about changing my career and doing something to help people to overcome their fears of public speaking.” Without hesitation, he said, “You should do it!”

I had learned to overcome my own fears after being evaluated for my leadership potential. My evaluator had told me: You need to “get over your fear if you ever want to succeed as a leader.” Well, that advice was invaluable and it changed my life.

My former employer had also encouraged me to look into Toastmasters International, “the world’s largest, non-profit, educational organization for better speaking thinking, listening and leadership.” It was there that I learned how to turn my fear of public speaking into excitement. I also discovered that I wasn’t alone. (Public speaking is the #1 fear of most people.) The Toastmasters club I founded in Del Mar, CA developed a wonderful reputation and soon had a waiting list of future members. It was a place where I was able to develop my leadership skills by encouraging, coaching, and inspiring others to do what they feared … speak in front of audiences and enjoy it! All of this led to my own participation in the Humorous Speech Competitions, Evaluation Contests, and the International Speech Competitions, and, by doing so, I began getting more and more requests to speak.

So, by facing my own greatest fear, it led to a fulltime career as a professional keynote speaker, seminar leader and executive coach. And, I’ve enjoyed the journey more than I ever thought possible because it allowed me to rediscover myself along with discovering a new line of work. I am able do what I love and, fortunately, the money did follow. I believe that abundance will come to us when we’re doing the right thing and when we find the work we are meant to do. It happened to me.

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Giveaway: One hour of coaching via phone … you choose the topic: communication, team building, sales, customer service, leadership skills, or presentation development. I’ll also include an autographed copy of Fearless and Flawless Public Speaking.

Value: Could be priceless!

Enter to win by leaving a comment and tell us what area you’d like to be coached in. Comments must be posted by midnight PST on EDIT ~~Thursday, October 30th~~ Friday, October 31st and we’ll pick a random winner on Saturday, November 1st.

For more information, please check out Mary-Ellen’s website.

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Giveaway Guidelines

Anyone in the U.S. with a valid email and a name is eligible.
Sherra says you can use a code name if you want to.
One entry per person, please.
Emails are never published nor is your identity revealed if you choose to use a code name.

P.S. Don’t forgot to check out all the great giveaways – there is a huge list and you can enter to win at the Bloggy Giveaway Carnival