The Postillion with Michael Phillips
Profiles in Innovation from Around the World
Bottom Line (Why you will want to read this Article)
- Learn insights on creating a social network
- Insights on Women’s’ networking
- Inspirational life story of a fellow entrepreneur
- Learn about two interesting and soon to be published books, "The Power of Passion: Winning Women Reveal Their Success Secrets", and "How to Use the Pieces of a Broken Heart: Recipes for Rebirth".
This month’s Postillion features author, editor, educator, and Internet entrepreneur, Ann Barczay Sloan. I can also add actress to the list since I have discovered Ann has performed her own one woman play for the great enjoyment of Pacific Northwest audiences. To sum Ann up in a sound bite, she has “a passion for passion” that she has been true to for her entire life.
Ann, herself, has conducted many interviews as an accomplished writer for TNNW. Knowing this, the Postillion, sent out my Watergate style “plumbers” to abscond with the personal list of questions Ann has subjected her own interviewees to in the past. It is with mischievous joy that I now turn the tables on Ann and have her answer her own questions. (sounds of devious laughter)
The Postillion: First of all, how would you briefly describe what you do? (e.g., your “elevator pitch”).
Ann Barczay Sloan: I do two things: One, I am a transformational author whose passion is to produce creative works that serve to awaken, entertain, empower and enlighten people worldwide.
Two, I am called “The Connectrix” because I have a passion for connecting hearts and minds, individuals and communities, and for being a purveyor of information on profitable opportunities and progressive paradigms.
The Postillion: What makes you / your company unique? In other words, what is the so-called Unique Value Proposition (UVP) of your product or service?
Ann Barczay Sloan: My company – i.e., the forthcoming publishing association in which I am a partner – is very much in the formative stages. I can only speak of my own role at this time. I may say, what distinguishes my contribution to our creative enterprise is my own unique international-minded, cosmopolitan, artistic, intellectual, and spiritual perspective. My multi-faceted outlook has been born out of my eventful and challenging life history, some key years of which were spent in the turmoil of WWII Europe and its aftermath. I may say that few people in my milieu have had exposure to this dimension of experience.
The Postillion: What is your mission, the primary goal of what you do: i.e., your work, profession, etcetera?
Ann Barczay Sloan: As you can imagine, the work of refining my mission and vision statements is very much in process at this time. I am presently in the midst of a major personal shift. That is, I am making an important transition from regarding myself as an Author, Editor, Educator, “Solopreneur”, and so on – to becoming part of a much bigger circle, greater sphere of influence. For starters, this means TNNW and its emerging enterprises, one of which is our brand new publishing partnership. I will now also be part of the circle of 17 women who star in my forthcoming book: The Power of Passion: Winning Women Reveal Their Success Secrets – plus their various tribes, some of which are extensive and on an international level. Alliances with these groups remain to be developed to full power over the coming months. What exciting opportunities I / we have to look forward to!
In the context of “Mission” and/or “Goal”, I am intent (as are countless other well-intentioned men and women) on “making a difference in the world”. I put this phrase into quotes because it seems a cliché ─ though at a deep level of course it is the Truth. Also, I want to amend this phrase to “making a positive difference”, because unquestionably, individuals such as Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot have made their own “difference” in the world as well.
I would like to share two powerful insights that just now came to me:
(A) I feel a very special mission to connect with, to be a resource and a blessing for individuals who feel lonely and alone and unsupported. Out of my own life experience, I feel a close kinship with women who keep on struggling in confusion and alone, and feel they must bravely uphold as much of their world as they possibly can – yet are sadly lacking support for themselves in return. Some of this lack shows up because actually so many of us have serious issues with asking for, trusting and accepting support – but this is a huge separate topic in itself, to be dealt with elsewhere.
Another way of viewing the essence of my mission: I want to be of service by helping to heal that painful (though illusory) sense of disconnection and separation so often prevalent in our lives. (Sounds like a job for SuperConnectrix, yes?)
(B) At a macro level I might say:
My mission is to help eradicate spiritual as well as material poverty in this world.
What I call “poverty of spirit” is a huge topic in itself: much has been written about it and much more needs to happen to address and heal this issue. In my view, I might summarize it as an erosion, a shrinkage, a starvation of heart and soul, an anorexia that keeps out beauty and love and deep meaning and satisfaction and joy.
Another way of looking at this mission of mine: I would like to be of service by healing that painful yet illusory sense of separation so often pervasive in our lives. For myself, ideally I would like to live – and empower others to live – in the space of knowing that instead of being alone, in Truth we are All One.
Yes, I realize I am “going metaphysical” here – but no apologies.
The Postillion: What are your passions in life?
Ann Barczay Sloan: In essence, my passion is expanding creativity, connectedness and consciousness.
Ann Barczay Sloan: In essence, my passion is expanding creativity, connectedness and consciousness.
Another way of expanding on this topic, my passion is passion. What does that mean? In essence, that means I deeply treasure (in myself and in others) a depth of caring: i.e., care-full-ness; precision; intensity, courage, dedication, commitment.
I have a passion for what has been called the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. I would add two more eternal verities (though they are probably subsumed within the first three): Compassion and Joy. And Joy of course includes Laughter: yes, capital L Laughter.
For example, one of my greatest pleasures is putting on my performance art shows – crazy costumes, audacious stories, farcical songs and all – and seeing my audience get into the drama, and abandon themselves to the laughs.
The Postillion: Please describe briefly how you got started in all this work, and how you arrived where you are currently.
Ann Barczay Sloan: Briefly? Ha! What a challenge! And what a path of twists and turns it has been!
For starters, I can honestly say I’ve always wanted to be a writer and thought of myself as a writer, even as a child growing up in my native Hungary. I wrote my first poem at age five; I created my first little story book (complete with illustrations and stitched-together pages) at age ten. And all of this is based on my passionate love of books from the very start. I grew up speaking and reading Hungarian and German simultaneously (folk and fairy tales to this day are a big pleasure for me.
After the war, during our refugee years in Germany, I attended a French-language school and thus learned French very well. In every school I attended, classes based on reading and writing were always my favorites.
After my family and I arrived in the U.S., it was the same. I learned English quickly. I always wrote stuff (I’m especially fond of satire), but also worked on various arts projects. As a teen living in Detroit, Michigan, I took voice lessons, and was part of a Hungarian folk dance group. (Oh yeah, I also had four years of Latin in high school.)
I had decided that after high school I would attend Wayne State University and major in art. But as soon as I heard of the brand new Communications / Broadcasting department just opened at the University of Detroit, I totally knew that’s what I wanted to do. In addition to my Bachelor of Philosophy degree I was earning (oh yeah, and four years of Spanish) it was so much fun to work at the University’s TV station after school!
My dream (after I graduated from U. of D.) was to go to New York and get into the glamorous worlds of publishing and/or TV. But again, my plans drastically changed; I ended up in Pasadena, California instead: the next town over from Hollywood. Why? The young man I’d met at U. of D. had taken off for California. I missed him terribly, so I took the long trip out there. Compared to Detroit, this was all so sunny and lush-green and beautiful, even a bit exotic ─ I felt like I’d arrived in Paradise!
We married the following year, and I entered graduate school at Cal State University, L.A. to start work on my Master’s Degree. Yes, my plan was to become an English Professor – from the outside, that lifestyle seemed so appealing to me!
I was not “working” in those days – much too busy bringing four children into the world in rapid succession plus working on my M.A. part time (that took me seven years all told.) However, a couple of years later, my brief entry into Academia (teaching freshman English part time) quickly met with disappointment. I loved talking with and inspiring students ─ and hated the organizational politics (not to mention all those papers to grade.)
Several years of struggle and one divorce later, for a couple of years I successfully taught at a local Community College some personal growth / mind-development classes I’d designed myself ─ that was great! Years later, I’d run into former students who told me my classes had shown them a whole new life.
After some more financial struggle as those classes petered out for lack of funding, I “by chance” found myself a new, better-paid career as a Technical Writer, writing and editing software user manuals. I was proud of myself for how well I learned this skill, given I had no tech background whatsoever: every single thing I learned about computers I learned on various jobs. (Some might laugh on hearing that when I got into that world, the operating system in use was DOS!)
Right after 9/11, the IT job market took a big hit. I was fortunate to find a few interesting clients for my editorial services (mostly via CEO Space) ─ but this income source proved to be insufficient ─ so my personal finances eventually took a big hit too. A few more years of money/career struggle ensued ─ yet all the while I felt, I knew there had to be something else, something bigger and better in the realms of writing and editing out there for me: a new opportunity wherein I could express much more of my creative talents.
This pretty much brings me to the time in 2007 I was invited by Adam J. Kovitz, Chairman of TNNWC, (via my CEO Space contacts) to serve as what was then called the “Women’s Networking Editor” for The National Networker. This involved writing a monthly column, which was a lot of fun as I got to interview women I knew who were doing (in my estimation) interesting and inspiring things with their business enterprises. I continue to be happy because the extensive new exposure being a Featured Columnist for The National Networker has provided me.
Then, when Douglas Castle came on board at TNNWC, I suddenly had a quantum leap breakthrough. Though we’ve never yet met in person, he and I discovered that our minds seem to harmonize in an amazing way. Douglas invited me to send him sample pages of my book, How to Use the Pieces of a Broken Heart: Recipes for Rebirth, and as soon as he read them, he declared: “We have to publish this!”
You can imagine I was thrilled to hear this after my years of waiting, given that the text of my book has been finished since 2002 (though we still need a number of illustrations.) Then another breakthrough, months later: I suggested to Douglas we might collect some of my women’s articles and publish them as a book. He found this idea exciting, so between the two of us we crafted the title The Power of Passion: Winning Women Reveal Their Success Secrets and also came up with a terrific name for the associated web site-to-be: TheWinningWomensVortex. So now this book is slated to be published first, ahead of my …Broken Heart … book.
And now here we are ─ we’ve arrived in present day!
The Postillion: Which of your projects are you currently most excited, most passionate about?
Ann Barczay Sloan: Clearly, it is my forthcoming book: The Power of Passion: Winning Women Reveal Their Secrets of Success – along with, of course, the other ancillary projects such as the web site, Forums in the planning stage, and so forth.
I am proud and happy to say this book will be published by TNNWC. As mentioned earlier, a new publishing partnership is being formed between Adam J. Kovitz, Douglas Castle and myself as Author in the larger role and context of “The Connectrix”! Hence the name of the partnership: Connectrix Publishing Associates.
Ann Barczay Sloan: The Connectrix moniker originally popped into my mind as far back as 2004, as even back then I was always deriving pleasure from (and getting happy feedback for) connecting up people, organizations, opportunities. “She” is my brand now, and I am daily exploring the scope and definition of what The Connectrix is and does, and what that might mean – not only in the context of my publishing project but for my life (i.e., my life purpose, life mission). Of course, it is an ever-evolving role – and quite probably (beyond the external role as in what I will be ”do-ing”), I realize it is actually a state of “be-ing”.
The Postillion: How much of your work is focused specifically toward women?
Ann Barczay Sloan: My current work ─ this above-mentioned “Power of Passion” book, which we fondly call the “Winning Women” book ─ is focused on women, simply because it is comprised of a selection of 17 articles I’ve written and published in the Networker blog. (There were a lot of articles to choose from: two and a half years’ worth!) To reiterate, these articles consist of interviews I’ve done with a number of interesting, dynamic and dedicated women whom I personally selected, because I knew them and found myself admiring their work. The women I did not know and found interesting from afar, I simply contacted ─ and almost without exception they accepted my invitation to be interviewed.
The Postillion: Whom / what does your network currently include? How far does your network extend?
Ann Barczay Sloan: We’re just at the beginning with this publishing project. I’ve built my own personal list over the years, but it’s been on a very informal basis, and still needs to be aggregated. We will of course have the extensive, ever-expanding, TNNWC list (including international subscribers) at our command. The extra-exciting fact is that each of the seventeen women whose interviews we’ve included in our book has her own list – in some cases, quite sizeable. So we will get to see how this all works out – that is, in what way(s) we may have access to these ladies’ lists.
The Postillion: What has been the best about building a network: Positive experiences? Benefits, expected and unexpected?
Ann Barczay Sloan: First of all, I love networking – period. It’s instinctive with me (perhaps because I was so often lonely in childhood and teen years?) I really got into it in my college years, though “network” as verb probably did not exist at that time. I’m very sociable (though I have a very introverted side as well). I enjoy meeting interesting people – especially ones from unusual areas of life, from other countries near and far. And beyond just meeting people, I love to introduce and re-introduce, connect and combine and re-combine them to foster new synergistic possibilities. I feel that making connections is an art form, in a certain sense…
The last few years – especially since the time I started writing the Women’s Networking column for TNNWC – I’ve found it especially gratifying that numerous people I’d connected with in my past years in Southern California organizations (including but by no means limited to CEO Space) have turned up in my life once again. I can see I’ve gained new benefits out of our earlier association in ways I could not have anticipated at that time. It feels like being on a higher turn of my life spiral, as it were…
Yes; it’s been a pleasure to see how much “relationship capital” (to use Adam J. Kovitz’s very apt phrase) I have accumulated over the years simply because it came naturally to me. I clearly see how true it is that building relationships is a major key to success!
The Postillion: What challenges (if any) have you found in your networking experiences? Any unexpected events? Any benefits emerging from challenges in the long run?
Ann Barczay Sloan: Challenges in networking? What’s most frustrating to me is simply the lack of time to maintain communications with people: old connections or new. I personally find that even e-mails take a long time! I admit I have trouble keeping my letters brief, but on the other hand one can’t build much of a strong relationship via 20-word e-mails or 140-character tweets. Perhaps my extensive studies of literature are a handicap in this regard: I recall with nostalgia those lengthy beautifully written letters we used to study at University: epistles crafted by famous artists, writers, musicians, philosophers and statesmen. Those were the days!…
The Postillion: Bottom line – What do you feel is really working well for you / your company?
Ann Barczay Sloan: We’re just at the beginning of the beginning of this publishing company. However, as for my self I have many years of experience teaching adult education, leading groups and workshops, dealing with private editing clients (….used to call myself a “Book Midwife”), and so forth. In fact, I feel that my business experiences in general, added to my extensive experiences in the worlds of education, publishing, IT consulting (technical publications), as well as the experience of meeting countless people of various sorts in various different places and countries have prepared me for what is to come next.
All that being said, of course I realize that life and learning are full of surprises, so I can’t say I know for certain what is to come next in this grand entrepreneurial adventure!
The Postillion: What’s the achievement, the accomplishment you’re most proud of at this time?
Ann Barczay Sloan: Frankly, most of the time I don’t think of my “accomplishments” because they feel totally “normal” to me. However, from an outside point of view they may sound impressive (even to me) because I clearly know the challenges I had to overcome to attain all that.
My proudest achievements include:
• My four adult children: my sons, Sean and Stephen, and my daughters, Andrea and Joyanne. I am immensely proud of their skills and talents – and above all, deeply moved by seeing what strong aware loving men and women of integrity they have become. They are clever, courageous, resourceful, funny – and best of all they live their lives according to solid values. And between the four of them they have brought eight gorgeous and super-smart offspring – my grandchildren ─ into the world!
• Persevering through years of varied challenges to finally earn my Master’s Degree, and a California Community College Teaching Credential as well.
• Learning to become a skilled Technical Writer: a profession that involves much more complexity than just “writing”. I am proud I had the courage to forge into the unknown with no prior training and eventually did very well!
• Envisioning and writing my book, How to Use the Pieces of a Broken Heart: Recipes for Rebirth. It was this manuscript – actually only a 20-page selection out of 50 pages total – that powerfully brought me to the attention of Douglas Castle shortly after he joined the TNNWC. Of course, it helps that I already have close to 30 laudatory reader endorsements I’ve gathered over the years: some from well-known individuals in the personal growth field, including Chicken Soup books co-creator Mark Victor Hansen.
• Underneath all, having the perseverance, courage and sheer fiery will to forge forward in life, even through some devastating challenges and reversals. Several times I have had to re-invent myself: create a brand-new life for myself, often in brand-new locations. In fact sometimes it feels as if I’ve condensed and lived several lifetimes in this one…
Ann Barczay Sloan: First I would like to say that I’m feeling grateful for this opportunity to answer your questions. (They sounded vaguely familiar……hummmmm) I have not shared personal facts about myself at such length since I can’t remember when ─ perhaps never!
I suddenly realize this little exercise has somehow served to un-block my personal “authentic voice” of mine that I will need to tap into soon, when I’ll be blogging for the “Winning Women” book and web site project. This definitely feels like a new breakthrough for me. I feel happy about that!
I just ran across this passage minutes ago: well-known, frequently quoted words attributed to Maryanne Williamson:
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure."
Why did this statement strike me so much? Because I now realize it describes my inner state a large part of my life. The question is: Why do I fear my own power? Why are countless men and women frightened to explore and express their own power and magnificence?
This article is not the right place to find that answer. Yet here and now is the time for each of us to go forth in full passion and courage, to step firmly into that world of vast power and potential that has always been our birthright.
Ann can be contacted at: annbsloan@gmail.com
Michael Phillips, A.K.A. The Postillion, is the Chief Innovation Officer (cIo) for TNNWC Group. He lives and works in Tampa Florida, and has over 36 years of experience in leading innovative development and trends within the information technology and business communities. Comments and suggestions for future Postillion topics are welcome and can be emailed to michael@thenationalnetworker.com.
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