Helping people to transform and realise their potential, Mindi Caselden, Ireland Together

Interesting interview with Mindi Caselden, who has been helping to launch and promote Ireland Together

What is your own background briefly?

I’ve been helping people transform and realise their potential my whole career; I’ve worked as a public school teacher in the US, a software trainer in SMEs but also big MNCs like Amazon, curriculum developer, and clinical research digital research transformation manager. In 2017, I took another leap and founded Caselden Consulting with my partner in life so we could focus on what we both loved: helping others realise their potential, developing leaders, and building high performance teams.

In some ways, it’s been a “career buffet” in terms of experience, sectors, and even physical setup. I’ve worked in classrooms, offices, and remotely from home for over a decade now. It’s been good practice for adapting to what’s going on now.

Does it seem like a logical background to what you do now?

Absolutely – the skills and strategies needed to keep 30+ students engaged 6 hours a day are definitely applicable when training and managing adults.  To be fair, everything I’ve done since working as a teacher are things teachers must do daily – we really don’t give teachers the credit or appreciation they deserve.

Building curriculums, assessments, defining efficient procedures, engaging and aligning teams, shifting perspectives and mindsets, inspiring others to reach higher – these are all things teachers do daily.

Very rarely is this done through lecturing; it’s achieved through creating the right environment that is supportive and conducive to experimenting, learning new skills, failing and regrouping for the next attempt, and celebrating success.  Each success is the building block to the next success.

I’ve always been energised by helping others learn, realise their potential, and achieve success. It’s what drives me! I see what we’re doing with Ireland Together as another example of the transformational work that has been a hallmark of my career.

How was the last 12 months? What were your big wins?

This last year has been very good – exciting and empowering. I became an Irish citizen last spring and voted for the first time here; after living here since 2008, finally my voice is being counted!  I’ve grown the coaching side of my business which is what I really love doing, and have been fortunate enough to meet incredible people doing inspiring things.

What would you have done differently?

Submitted my citizenship application years ago so I formalised that bond and connection I’ve felt to this country and the people in it. I should also have started properly networking years ago and overcome my desire to sleep past 5:30am. I’ve met amazing people over the past year who have been very supportive, introduced me to other incredible people and organisations, and brought me into Ireland Together.

1 min pitch for what you are doing now?

Ireland Together is a non-profit, volunteer-based, free membership business support community. We are focused on connecting people and enabling them to collaborate to find innovative solutions to their problems in order for their business to be successful.  It’s about the power of people collectively bringing their diversity of thought and experience together to solve problems and innovate new ways of doing business across the island.

Ireland Together asked their members and advisors: what are the current challenges in Irish businesses?

Here, we list the stats and #TopTips for overcoming the issues workers are facing today https://t.co/mPej2YEOs8

— Ireland Together (@Ire_Together) April 29, 2020

Why did you get involved with this project?

My purpose in life is to help others unleash their potential, and Ireland Together is all about helping others, so this is a perfect fit.  As a teenager, I was a lifeguard and trained to take control during a crisis. So when the country closed down, my immediate response was to find a way to help. Myself and the other co-founders shared the same vision for Ireland Together, I saw ways in which I could help, and so I jumped right in.

Why do you think it is such a powerful idea?

It’s hard enough to change when you choose to change, but it’s much more difficult to change when it is thrust upon us. Many businesses have been forced to pivot their business models and embrace new ways of doing things in a very short time period. This is very stressful and scary – when we make quick decisions, we worry we are overlooking key issues. Having support from a community all facing the same crisis is comforting and can make the transformation purposeful and holistic – leaving nothing overlooked.

It's our first #CChat! Be a part of the conversation with @jeffc and myself around #Adaptability, #Resilience, and #ResettingForTheNewNormal.

What are your questions or strategies? How can we help each other as we move forward into a different world? https://t.co/ll7s92x0zz

— Mindi Caselden (@MindiCaselden) April 29, 2020

How can people find out more about you personally & your work?

You can follow me or the organisations I’m working with through any of the following channels:

Mindi Caselden

LinkedIn: /mcaselden

Twitter: @MindiCaselden

Caselden Consulting

LinkedIn: /caselden-consulting

Twitter: @CaseldenConsult

Website: CaseldenConsulting.com

Ireland Together

LinkedIn: /IrelandTogether

Twitter: @Ire_Together

Website: IrelandTogether.ie

Who and where do you get inspiration from?

Nature, travel, music and mostly, talking with people.  Also, my partner, Jeff, and my cats are pretty admirable. 🙂

Anything else you’d like to add / we should have asked?

The power of people is incredible – it’s strength in numbers.  We will get through this and we will flourish by working together.

More about Irish Tech News and Business Showcase here

FYI the ROI for you is => Irish Tech News now gets over 1.5 million monthly views, and up to 900k monthly unique visitors, from over 160 countries. We have over 860,000 relevant followers on Twitter on our various accounts & were recently described as Ireland’s leading online tech news site and Ireland’s answer to TechCrunch, so we can offer you a good audience!

Since introducing desktop notifications a short time ago, which notify readers directly in their browser of new articles being published, over 30,000 people have now signed up to receive them ensuring they are instantly kept up to date on all our latest content. Desktop notifications offer a unique method of serving content directly to verified readers and bypass the issue of content getting lost in people’s crowded news feeds.

Drop us a line if you want to be featured, guest post, suggest a possible interview, or just let us know what you would like to see more of in our future articles. We’re always open to new and interesting suggestions for informative and different articles. Contact us, by email, twitter or whatever social media works for you and hopefully we can share your story too and reach our global audience.

Irish Tech News

If you would like to have your company featured in the Irish Tech News Business Showcase, get in contact with us at [email protected] or on Twitter: @SimonCocking