Speaker Interview: Zelana Montminy

Dr. Zelana Montminy, Psy.D., has a unique fusion of expertise in the areas of psychology, health, and the media. Zelana is currently on-air hosting, writing and producing health and lifestyle content on the PopSugar Network for FitSugar TV, a magazine show designed to help people live happy and healthy lifestyles. One of the top 5 online entertainment sites for women, the PopSugar Network has over 20 million monthly unique visitors and 140 million monthly page views with video content reaching well over 11 million unique monthly plays. In Zelana’s psychology training, she gained a broad spectrum of research and clinical experience at institutions including UCLA, UCSD, and several others in Europe while living and studying abroad. Zelana holds a Master’s and Doctorate in clinical psychology with a specialization in health from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology in Los Angeles. Recently I had the chance to catch up with Zelana, who also happens to be a YPO Spouse, see what she had to say about her YPO-WPO experience below.

YPO-WPO: How did you get involved with speaking to YPO-WPO?

         Zelana: I was asked to speak at the Denver GLC on a topic I had recently presented at UCLA… and the rest is history, as they say!

YPO-WPO: What YPO-WPO event impacted you the most and why?

         Zelana: GLC Miami, 2009 – Jai Pausch Last Lecture Spouse Event. It was my first GLC and I didn’t know anyone else in the room at the time.   Jai’s life story showcased the scope of the human spirit and was the perfect catalyst for understanding YPO. There were several heart wrenching moments during Jai’s talk, and during one, I felt a hand touch my forearm.  The person next to me was reaching out and I didn’t even know her name yet.  I glanced around the room of hundreds of spouses and quickly realized the power of this special community.  It was an impactful moment when I understood the true potency–and reverberation–of the YPO experience.

YPO-WPO: What take-home value do members in the YPO-WPO audience walk away with after your session?

         Zelana:  After my session on health and wellness, the audience will hopefully understand the connection between food choices and emotion, recognize and use the tenets of positive psychology to their advantage, and find out how to make healthier choices to positively transform their lives.  Audience members will learn simple tools to boost mood and discover the scientific support and latest research in the genre.   Given my multi-media experience in this field, where requested, I am also excited to dive into the cutting edge world of producing high quality original online video and navigating the new social media landscape.

YPO-WPO: What specifically is it about your message that’s relevant to the YPO-WPO audience?  What sets you apart?

         Zelana:   Health is a highly relevant topic to anyone, of all ages and professions. For the YPO-WPO audience, it is particularly relevant given the stressors of being high-level entrepreneurs, chief executives and the families of such individuals.  As a YPO spouse and active participant for several years now, I appreciate the challenges of finding balance and staying healthy.  My background as a doctor in psychology with a specialization in health, coupled with experience in the media, allows me to provide a unique perspective.   On-air reporting, writing and producing health content for a televised magazine show puts me at the forefront of emerging research and trends while a broad spectrum of research and clinical experience provides a foundation of expertise.  My doctoral research exploring the relationship between happiness, optimism and healthful eating is one of the first studies to examine such vital connections and is part of a groundbreaking scientific movement.   I’m passionate about this field and believe that understanding the impact of food on mood and behavior can greatly increase overall life satisfaction.

YPO-WPO: How has working with YPO-WPO impacted your presentation or personal life? What personal value has speaking with YPO-WPO provided you with?

          Zelana:  My husband is a founding member of our chapter so we rolled up our sleeves and dove right in from the very beginning.  I was Spouse Forum Officer, then Spouse Officer and now I’m on the Board of the Pacific Region as Spouse Forum Officer.  Being intrinsically involved in such an extraordinary organization has been invaluable on both a personal and also professional level.   Working with YPO-WPO has given me an impressive audience and introduced me to individuals who are incredibly bright and inquisitive, whose thirst for knowledge and desire to grow is incomparable.  They motivate me to continually sharpen my expertise and inspire me in all facets of my life.

For more information please visit our Speaker Database.

An Interview with Christine Comaford

New York Times bestselling author Christine Comaford is a specialist in Corporate Strategy, Inflection Point Navigation and Effective Implementation, Execution and Behavioral Alignment among top executives, teams and emerging leaders. Her Coaching, Consulting and Strategies have guided over 153 businesses to tens of millions of dollars in new value and revenue. Recently I had the chance to catch up with Christine, read on to see what she had to say.

 

YPO-WPO: How did you get involved with speaking to YPO-WPO?

            Christine: I received a call from a YPO member asking me to speak at G2: Gathering of Giants. I received a standing ovation. Everyone just kept clapping! Finally the program chair got everyone to sit down. That was in 2010, and I was invited to speak again in 2011. Again the crowd went wild!

YPO-WPO: What YPO-WPO event impacted you the most and why?

Christine: I am new to YPO, my experiences were G2, and meeting YPO members at EO events. I speak for many CEO organizations, and am now reducing the number of engagements with other groups to have more time for YPO. My experience of YPO members has been remarkable—they are deeply committed, emotionally engaged, and highly results-oriented. My favorite combination.

YPO-WPO: What take-home value do members in the YPO-WPO audience walk away with after your session?

Christine: I am known for helping companies move through any transition faster, more effectively and with optimal results. In my programs executives learn how to influence any outcome they desire by applying the latest techniques in human behavior modification.

The consistent feedback I receive from executives is that their perspective changed entirely and they learned practical techniques to:

• Diagnose and cure any leadership challenge
• Diagnose and cure any cultural challenge
• Profoundly raise your ability to influence any outcome, be it in your personal or professional life
• Gain great clarity on how your attention, presence and intention (or lack of) impacts your company and team

• Cause an increase in intrinsic motivation of yourself and team to catapult accountability to levels previously considered impossible

• How to quickly shift “energetic posturing” as a leader to discover other powerful avenues of relatedness to our colleagues, direct reports and team members overall

• Key components to designing a sustainable interaction, be it with a company and/or individual

Once you know these practical neuroscience techniques you are able to challenge your frameworks of reality and thinking. I start by helping you define your personal framework, then move through the logical levels of change, and gradually apply tools to understand what’s behind your beliefs and identity and shift them to enable you to get what you want, when you want in your life and business.

All of what I teach applies to managing oneself and others to optimal and often unheard of performance levels. These techniques are tremendously helpful in managing one’s Board of Directors and key stakeholders too.

To profoundly influence both outcomes and behavior today’s leaders must learn to disappear. Not to disappear physically, but to disappear into the sales prospect, recipient of a marketing message, client, or team member using neuroscience techniques. Disappearing is the only way to ensure profound rapport, which leads to influencing outcomes for the betterment of both parties.

YPO-WPO: What specifically is it about your message that’s relevant to the YPO-WPO audience?  What sets you apart?

Christine: I’ve had the great good fortune to work with some of the top leaders, CEOs and executives in America for the past 28 years. I’ve also studied human behavior modification for 35 years. Combine the leading edge of business strategy plus human behavior modification and the results are nothing short of remarkable.

I’ve not come across someone with a background like mine, but that would be fun! I’ve been an in-the-trenches operational CEO of 5 companies that I either sold or took public, have invested in over 200 companies (including Google, Zip Realty, and 6 that were sold to Cisco) as a venture capitalist, have served on 36 Boards of Directors or Advisors, consulted to or trained  700 of the Fortune 1000 and coached 2 Presidents and 4 Billionaires. I was a Buddhist monk for 7 years too.

I understand high performance people.

YPO members are high performance people. This means you do things others don’t, possibly even can’t do. It also means you stretch into areas of discomfort on a regular basis. That’s how you roll. That’s who you are. YPO members want the latest, greatest tools. You want the tools the other folks don’t even know about. That’s what you’ll learn in my programs.

The tools I teach work at the level of your subconscious mind, which is where 98% of your behaviors come from. These tools help you shift your most challenging emotions, since 90% of our reactions are emotional, and our emotions respond 400x faster than our intellect.

YPO-WPO: How has working with YPO-WPO impacted your presentation or personal life? What personal value has speaking with YPO-WPO provided you with?

Christine: There’s nothing like spending time with your tribe, with the people who play the game of business and life at the level you do. That’s what I love about YPO members—they are all in.  They live with a level of passion that most people don’t. Working with YPO members is invigorating, inspiring and fun.

For more information on Christine visit the Speaker Database.

Speaker Showcase Global Conference Call: Mastering a 2500 Year old Memory System For Today’s Business Success

Please join us on Tuesday June 14th at 10 am EST for our first Speaker Showcase Global Conference Call with memory expert Ron White, from the 2010 Speaker Showcase in Barcelona. Ron will provides a fast paced call with great tips for remembering names, the science of remembering key points from any book or class, how to get older without losing your mind.  Please Register Here.

 

Ron White is without question the nation’s #1 Memory Expert and is one of the tops in the world. He is a two time national memory champion winning the USA Memory Championship in 2009 and 2010. He holds the record for the fastest to memorize a a deck of shuffled cards in only 1 minute and 27 seconds. Ron’s desire is not that you see him as the person with the best trained memory but that he teaches YOU to have the best trained memory! Ron White has given his talk all over the world in countries including Singapore, Spain, Australia, Thailand, Malaysia, Canada, The Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Belgium and even Nebraska. He has appeared on Good Morning America, Martha Stewart Show, FOX and Friends, the CBS Evening News, CBS Early Show, FOX, NBC and newspapers across the country from the New York post to the Dallas Morning News. This fall Ron will appear on the History Channel in a show Stan Lee’s Super Humans as the memory guy. He has been the guest on over 200 radio programs and is the author of over a dozen CD albums and books. In every talk Ron shares that he is no different from anyone and everyone can learn how to improve their memory. Ron joined the US Navy as a reservist after September 11th and completed a tour in Afghanistan during 2007.

 

Sailing with GEL corp.

Last week I had the opportunity to participate in a leadership event with Group Experiential Learning, or GEL for short. GEL is based out of the San Francisco area and uses sailing as a leadership and teamwork exercise.

The day started out at pier 4 in the Charlestown Navy yard where we were given a brief training on shore.  We participated in a few icebreakers, were given some basic sailing terms and met the team we would be sailing with for the rest of the day.  An hour later we secured our belongings, boarded our boats and were off for the day!

We spent the first hour on the water testing out the different tasks on the boat, for this event you have four people sailing (one person steering, one person working the mainsail, one person working the jib and one person as the strategist communicating with the other boats).  We worked our way through the buoys that were to be our course for the day and determined which tasks we would each take.  I wasn’t entirely comfortable manning the sails so I took over as the strategist.  For the rest of our time on the water we were given different tasks to complete each time we went through the course, ultimately working as one big team with the three other boats on the water.  It was an incredible experience being thrown into a group of strangers and learning  to work together in minutes, there’s no room for an ego on the sailboat and you have to be able to point out your own strengths and weaknesses in order for your team to succeed.  After a few hours out on the water we made our way back to the dock to debrief and headed home!

If you are looking for an exciting chapter or corporate event I would definitely recommend GEL.  They do leadership as well as racing events so whether you’re looking for an energizing team-building activity or a fun competitive day on the water, they can suit your needs.  For more information check out their website below or contact me at abuchholz@ypowpo.org.

http://www.gelcorp.com/