Interview with Pamela Perkins

Interview by Mariela Gonzalez and Elisha McLemore, students at UEI College:

Q. What do you do in the world?

A: I am the CEO and founder of Human Communication Institute, which basically means I handle the day to day operations of the business, working with clients, setting up programs for clients, focusing on consultants that I have working with me, taking our curriculum forward with our particular brand of consulting services. I also handle the fiscal issues of  the corporation and work in tandem with other members, handling such things as marketing, public relations, accounting and those other area of business that have to be handled from a CEO perspective.

Q.  How long have you been doing your current work?

A. I’ve been in the field of human communication for about 25 years. The Human Communication institute has been open for 5 years.

Q. How did you get to where you are today? In other words what key steps did you take to get to where you are today?

A. Primarily I would say, the key to getting where I am today is to focus on a specific purpose in life, or plan for my life and keep that paramount in my vision for moving forward. So I think first and foremost you have to have a particular focus, purpose and keep your attention on that. So I think that is the major thing that I’ve done. Secondarily, of course, I put under myself a foundation that will allow me to complete that goal. Such as education,  networking, business plan development, and all those other thing that have to go under the foundation of that castle you are trying to build.  But definitely, that can not happen if don’t have a goal. If you don’t have a dream, if you don’t have a purpose that you are willing to persevere for….so I would say those 2 things.

Q. Would you consider your current work your passion?

A. Yes.

Q. What is your definition of success?

A. No I don’t believe…well it just depends on what your definition of success is. If your definition of success is monetary gain: no. There’s lots of people that are monetarily successful that are not passionate about what they’re doing; they’re just making money because they’re passionate about the money. Now my definition of success is not necessarily; is definitely not tied to monetary gain. So in order to…do I feel that I need to be passionate about what I’m doing in order to be successful? Yes, but I, again I don’t necessarily have the same definition of success that everybody else does.

Q. Thank you. Do you have a “Noble Cause” or something that keeps you motivated everyday? If so, what?

A. I think my daily motivation is to discover more about myself and the walls I need to break down in order to bring my dreams in fruition. So I’m daily motivated to discover how I can be better person, how I can achieve my dreams and goals, by making sure that I’m the type of person that I want to be so…your question was, tell me what your question was again. (Interviewer repeats question) Yeah, I think my “noble Cause” is trying to achieve my goals and my dreams so I can other permission to do the same thing.

Q. Ms Pamela, what are the biggest obstacles you have faced in your life and how did you overcome them?

A. I think self-doubt, cynicism, things that sometimes happen along the way in the social cultural environment that we live in. As an African-American woman growing up in the south, and growing up during the civil rights movement and having to deal with obstacles of color and racism and sometimes sexism and how sometimes these thing will leave lasting marks on you if you are not careful, they will definitely thwart your own ability to achieve your goals. So the major obstacle has been, basically, my own inability to sometimes keep moving forward, keep dreaming and not allowing the pessimistic viewpoints and shortcomings of other people to get in my way.

Q. I totally agree with you on that, but how do you, I mean, what do you tell yourself to get beyond that? Because sometimes I can be…I’m African-American and trying to see myself beyond my culture, more of being a spirit, not being defined by my culture or my background, I mean, what do you do to keep yourself upbeat.

Well, you know, this is one of the reasons why I have such a great passion around the HCI because I firmly believe that our communication, our thoughts, our words, our emotions, which is the way we communicate with ourselves and others, are the primary source of how we create in life. So, basically, I think the only way myself and others, whoever they are; whatever station they happen to be in life…is that you have to constantly keep check on your self-talk, your thoughts, your words, your emotions and you have to really go through a rigorous process of transforming yourself daily in terms of the way you’re thinking and the way that you’re speaking around your dreams; your thoughts, your desires and  so for me the consistent struggle is making sure I am always monitoring my thoughts, always reflecting on my thoughts, always adjusting my words so that I do not speak in to existence what I do not want to live. You constantly have the naysayers around you, you constantly have the historical issues around you, you have all this stuff around you that has become a part of who you see yourself to be until you create a new picture. And the only way you can create a new picture, is by drawing a new canvas, and the way that you do that is through your thoughts, your words and your deeds. First comes the thought and then the thought becomes the word and then the word becomes a thing. I often say that if you don’t know who you are and whose you are, there are thousands of people lined up to tell you who you are not. And if you keep listening to those discordant voices, you will become who they say you are. So it’s a constant battle and you say spiritually?  Yes, I agree with that. It’s a constant battle of whose words will control your life.

Q. Are there critical steps to success that you think that every woman should take?

I think that first and foremost, we need to make sure we are not defined by are gender. Have a goal or a dream. Make sure that dream is part of a passion and not just a way, a means to an end, you know like, getting the most toys kind of thing. And then of course, acquire the education and whatever is you need to put under yourself to make sure that you really are representing yourself as you say you are. For me integrity is really important, and my craft; building my craft…continuing to be student of my craft is very important. So again defining yourself as an individual not necessarily as a person of your color or your gender, making sure you have a specific goal and making sure that goal is in line with your passion and purpose, and then making sure that you put under you that foundation to see that through because you are competing with everybody in the world, in terms of bringing your dream to fruition. But most importantly, you are competing against yourself.

Q. What is your advice to women starting out in business who want to achieve their dreams?

A.  Get an education and don’t waste a lot of time trying to figure out what you want to do. Go for something that is in your spirit and makes you feel really good and you know you have an aptitude for and then go out and get the education or skills that you need to back that up. Focus and choose something. So many people are so good at this and good at this so they become the jack of all trades but the master of none. And at some point that little voice in your mind or your Spirit needs to say “will you just choose something please and go for it?” I think a lot of times, and especially with women because we are so extremely talented and diverse, it is hard to pinpoint exactly what we want to do. For me, I really had to make some decisions around a variety of things that I love to do or did very well. But where I am going to put my life work in? Where can I find the best opportunity to serve? For me the Human Communication Institute was it. So make a choice and know the universe will honor that choice and be very passionate and preserve through the process of what you’ll have to go through to get there.

Q. I would like to go back to what you said about education and skill, when is there a point when you’re preparing too much? I mean, is there a point when you say “I have enough education” or do you start where you’re at and get the education as you’re starting your business?

A.  I think that has a lot to do with opportunity. What opportunities are in front of you right now? What is the best thing to do right now? Do have some kind of internship, apprenticeship, or something someone is offering you? Or does your Dad own the business? Or, you know, something you can get into immediately and then add the education to that? If not, then you need to go for the skills base first. See what I’m saying. It really depends on what opportunities are available to you. Not all of us have silver spoons, not all of us have incredible networking families and communities. As a matter of fact, for most women and people of color, they don’t have that. So you have to start at the very beginning and that is again; what is that you want? And place those skills underneath you that will give you some level of clout with others, so they can say “Oh, that lady over there, she does that”. That’s how you found me because of (unintelligible). You wouldn’t even known me if (unintelligible) hadn’t heard about my work, approached me about my work and then, boom! Here you are. And for me it’s been a journey in developing a level of credibility where my work speaks before me

Q. Is it possible that you can tell me more about your institute and what you teach?

A.  The Human Communication Institute specializes in helping people develop effective communication skills for their personal, social, and professional success. We immediately distinguish for individuals the difference between talking and communicating, as we do the difference between hearing and listening. Once people understand for instance that the deaf listen; they don’t hear. That the mute communicate; they don’t talk. Then we start to understand difference between the biological functions of hearing and talking versus communicating and listening. What we do is we have a model called the communications staircase model. Anybody can visit that model on my website hci-global.com or my book The Art and Science of Communication. Both talk about the Communication Staircase model which in a nutshell says that communication is an inside out process. It takes you through the 7 ways of communication we use everyday. For instance, the interpersonal environment between two people or the small group environment, or the intrapersonal where you communicate with yourself or your non-verbal communication. The staircase takes you through step 1 to 7 and shows you the connectedness between all your communication experiences. We have a saying that “you take you where ever you go.” When you show up, you bring all your intrapersonal stuff that is inside of you so your other relationships depend on the health of that. The ability to discern the messages that are coming to you at a rapid rate everyday. So you can learn how to communicate effectively in each of those settings. Now you can work with something that will help you personally, socially and professionally that will truly improve the quality of your life. So that’s our basic model and what we do. We do it for individuals, we do it, mainly for corporate and organizations trying to improve their communication climate. But we’re still building, trying to help people to know that this is something that is extremely useful to their bottom line. Lot of times people will ask me “what do you do?” or they’ll read my card and say “Human Communications? Oh, that sounds interesting. What is it?” And then I have to try find a way to rephrase Human Communication. It’s really something that we kind of lost. We’ve kind of lost that “in the beginning, there was the word. I’ve made it a mission to reconnect us to that on a global level.

Q. Have you used goal setting and was it helpful?

A.  Yes to a certain extent. I think for most people, they’ll tell you that entrepreneurs, individuals in general, that life is kind of a hit or miss kind of thing. The 5 year journey of my business has been extremely enlightening on a personal level, spiritual level, and professional level.  I have set goals, I have redefined goals, and I’ve thrown out goals, got new goals. So it’s a process. So, yes, I have used goal setting.

Q. Do you believe in and use the Law of Attraction? If so, how?

A.  I actually have a program called “The Law of Deliberate Action”, which is a take on the Law of Attraction. I was in a film called Pass it On. It basically was another film about the law of attraction and kind of patterned after The Secret. But this time they brought to several professionals in their fields, and asked them how did you apply the Law of Attraction? Exactly what did you do? So the movie, Pass it on attempted to answer that and I think it did a very good job. So very much so I believe in the law of attraction in terms of a woman thinketh, so is she.

Q. Do you believe in collaboration with other women? Do you think women are more in competition with each other or in collaboration? Why?

A.  I do work with other women. I do believe in collaborating with other women. I have a philosophy of “coopetition”. This is basically collaboration and competition put together. So I actually teach a philosophy of coopetition and when I work individuals that do what I do, I try to take that philosophy of coopetition with me. So, if I see there’s something that I can’t handle or I need support in handling, or something I just don’t do,  I’m definitely not going to let that opportunity pass without passing it to someone; if I can find someone who can do it. So, I am a firm believer of coopetition or collaboration, as you put it. A firm believer in that and I feel that as women we don’t often do it enough, especially as women of color, we really don’t do it enough.

Q. I’m thinking of writing a book about that. Do you think there’s a reason why women are so in competition with each other?

A. Well I think part of it is because we have adopted a very masculine model of work place environment. I think we have adopted a very masculine model of success, which is pure competition, adrenaline, aggressiveness, assertiveness. I believe that the culture of work has not opened it’s door wide enough for a different type of model that is coopetitive, that is nurturing, so that women that have hereto foregone into the competitive environment, the competitive work environment because they have adopted the models that exist within it and they don’t try to work outside of it. Also, because there numbers tend to smaller in decision making areas then it makes it difficult for them to bring in the change that needs to happen for us to work more in coopetitive way.

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