N°5 JCI Toronto: Meet your Mentor
Alexander Michael Gittens is an acclaimed author, speaker and strategist. He has created billions of dollars worth of solutions for over 400 businesses in every corner of the globe. He has received many awards for leadership and dedication to the community, including an exclusive Citizenship Award from the Federal Government of Canada and a Leadership Award from The Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation.
Tell us a little bit about you?
Professionally, I’m a business strategist who provides thought leadership around greatness and legacy, two things that have fascinated me throughout my life.
What was your dream as a child? What did you want to be when you were a child?
Well, my dream as a child was to have a little brother. I thought about it all the time. I come from a family of mostly women. I figured that if I had a little brother, we’d be best friends and do all sorts of things together. So this was literally my dream as a child. Professionally, I think I wasn’t sure. I told people I wanted to be a doctor, but I was super into music, super into sports, but I guess I wasn’t really sure. I was just hoping I would figure it out one day.
In which University did you go?
I went to four universities:
● The University of Windsor Undergrad in Finance and Economics.
● Wayne State University in Detroit, MBA in Finance.
● The University of the West of England, Bristol Business School, Doctoral coursework in ‘Ways of Knowing’ and Research Methodologies.’
● Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, Scotland, Ph.D. literature review.
Why did you choose these fields?
I started off in HR. I wasn’t sure what to choose because I was being prepared to go to U of T for a music/business program. Finally, I decided that I didn’t want to study music academically. I went into business without being sure what discipline to choose. So I started with HR. Eventually, because I was weaker at the number side of things, I decided to go into finance. It seemed like the program that would give me the strongest business foundation.
How was your life as a student? And the beginning of your work life?
Oh my gosh, as a student I was super shy. I had a small group of friends, but I didn’t even go to Frosh week. I didn’t join any groups. I definitely didn’t go to any conferences or anything like that.
I was still pretty shy when I was a student. The beginning of my work life grafted in with my education because I started my first businesses when I was still a student. I was trying out online businesses and all sorts of things. Growing up I had a paper route, I worked in fast food, I shovelled snow and mowed lawns, I worked in retail… A bit of everything. In university I was working at CIBC as a summer student. I left that position to start my own business.
What are the values that brought you to “The Path of legacy” and become an international mentor?
It wasn’t my values, it was my failures.
I had defined my life by money, and by status, and by getting higher education. I cut a whole bunch of corners in my personal values and ended up in legal hot water. I ended up in financial ruin. When I was at the bottom, I had to ask myself: “What kind of person do I want to be? What kind of life do I want to live?”. The path of legacy was a realization that I was in such a big hole, that I wouldn’t be able to get out of it all that quickly. So I had to think about the journey rather than the destination.
It was fortuitous because it actually led me to all of the things that I now base my life on. So, becoming an international mentor wasn’t an intentional decision. It was part of the process of unlearning lessons and learning new lessons — that I didn’t even think existed — and then realizing I’ve got to pass this knowledge on. I have to tell people about how wrong I was. And about the better opportunities I learned by making bad choices. And then better ones. And then great ones.
Why have you been interested in contributing to the JCI project?
It’s everything. I believe in passionate, driven young entrepreneurs using their time and energy to build community and better communities. That’s something I champion personally. That’s something we support as a team. Being a part of organizations that have those same values and that founding ethos, will always be something that’s very important to me.
What would you share with the students about building a Mentorship program, like all those that you’ve created?
When it comes to building a mentorship program, it comes down to how you define yourself as a mentee. Do you want to become like your mentor? Or do you want to become the best you and want to learn lessons that can help you from someone who’s been down a similar path before? Rather than just looking for someone who has the professional accolades that you want, perhaps finding someone who comes from a similar background as you, or someone who’s faced challenges that you’re likely to go through, may prove more valuable. At the end of the day, it’s going to be about your hard work, your sacrifice and your resiliency, and then taking chances and picking yourself back up. So, finding someone who’s had challenges and comes from a place that you can relate with may turn out to be a better catalyst than just chasing a specific job title.
What are the values you would like to share with students to help them prepare for their work-live?
In my work life, there’s something that I thought was true that turned out to be false, that is: “the perfect path is going to reveal itself to me”. I thought that things happen in straight lines — -that I’m going to go directly from A to B. It turns out, nothing in my life happened in straight lines. There were zigs and zags, major setbacks and lessons. I thought I had it right, only to have to learn things all over again.
Here’s the biggest thing, when you prepare for your life and your work life, what you do is less important than how you do it.
If you are infusing your values into everything you do and giving it your all, then you’re going to learn so much more than if you just choose something that you think sounds great and do it halfheartedly. When you decide to take a job or a position, give that your all. Do the extra work. Put in the extra effort. Learn everything you can learn. It’s more important to get in the habit of giving your all than it is to try and perfectly chart where your life is going to go.
Some more practical job-seeking advice, try to choose positions that give you a lot of options. The future is uncertain. You don’t want to get too specific too soon if you can avoid it. But much more important, is giving your all in everything you do. That creed will take you where you want to go, even if you choose the wrong position.
To conclude, could you create or share with us a Quotes that define your values, visions and missions you are pursuing in favour of the Toronto community and its students?
Yes. Certainly. We have so many of them. There’s an essay I wrote called ‘Mask of Money; Myth of Meaning,’ and there’s a quote in there that means a lot to me. It’s achieving greatness:
“Greatness is above doing your best. It’s about giving your all.”
When I talk about “your all”, I’m talking about your talents, your passions, your values, your mistakes, your hopes, your dreams… Bring them into everything that you do. If you’re doing just your best, how do you know that the thing that you’re doing your best at is the best thing to do? So, it’s much better to bring your all into everything you do. And even if it isn’t the perfect choice, when you give “your all,” you’re guaranteed to get the best result, even if it means that you may have to take a few steps backwards before you go forward.
Thank you very much, Alexander, for your sharing, for your time and for your tips, I’ve learned a lot from this interview thanks to your experience and expertise. Your life story is a wonderful lesson and will bring so much to our Students’ Community and all of us.
