Nina: Ask yourself, what am I passionate about? Once you uncover it, then ask yourself, what am I going to do about it and how am I going to do it? And that’s when your journey begins.

Welcome to the Heard & Empowered podcast presented by the National Industries for the Blind. You’re not just a listener here, you’re a catalyst for change. Whether you’re blind, visually impaired or an ally, this is your ultimate resource for building a fulfilling career and an enriching life. We’re on a mission to shift perceptions, open hearts and minds, and unlock unparalleled job opportunities for the BVI community. Ready to be heard and empowered? Let’s welcome our host, Dr. Hoby Wedler.

Hoby: Greetings and welcome back to the Heard & Empowered podcast. I’m so happy to have you all here. First of all, thank you for spreading the love, for telling your friends about the podcast, and for listening every week, subscribing and, of course, giving us those five-star reviews if you think we so deserve. Thank you so much to our listener base.

Today, I have a very special treat for all of you because I’m speaking with someone who is super accomplished and has done a lot of great work. I’m talking to the amazing Nina Bektic. Nina, welcome to the podcast.

Nina: Thank you very much. Thank you for having me.

Hoby: Well, it’s an honor to have you here. You have such a great story to tell that is so inspiring and really relates back to why we do what we do with this podcast, why NIB does what they do, and how we can empower people just to grow and be the best blind people we can possibly be.

So I’d really like to get a sense of the person behind the mission. And so we know a little bit about Nina, who you are, what your roots are, and sort of how you came to be involved with the NIB family of agencies or NIB themselves. So, Nina, if you don’t mind just sharing with us a little bit about your past, a little bit about who you are, and maybe your childhood and your journey to blindness and that sort of thing before we get into the main part of the interview, which is your work.

Nina: Absolutely. So I am originally from Sarajevo, Bosnia. My childhood was unfortunately marked by destruction, the multiple wars, and conflicts in former Yugoslavia. So at age seven, I had to flee my home for the first time due to the war. And then again, by age 14, I was again facing another war, in between living as a refugee for all those years. And in that process, by age 13 I lost a large portion of my vision due to a brain tumor that caused optic atrophy.

So childhood was amongst very loving mom and grandma and family; however, marked by a lot of destruction and death, and very sad moments in the history not just of my childhood but of a very big portion of European countries that were involved in it.

Hoby: It’s interesting how, you know, if we’re surrounded by loving, wonderful people who are close to us, sometimes those struggles are real hardships, but they make us grow in other ways.

Nina: Absolutely, and they define what we want to turn our life into. So for me, it was, okay, all I’ve seen is destruction the entire childhood. So I said, you know what? When I grow up – It’s kind of funny saying it now. When I grow up, I want to be part of building. All I’ve seen is destruction, so I want to turn it around. I want to be part of building something that’s important. And I think that was a big defining moment for me.

Hoby: And how old were you when you came to the United States?

Nina: The first time I came to the US, I was only 14. And I came for a life-saving surgery in the middle of the war. Then we had to leave because my treatment was over. And I ended up in Greece with a full scholarship from the American Ambassador Burns at the time, and was able to attend an American private school in Athens, Greece.

Hoby: And that was high school, mainly.

Nina: Yes, that was high school. And I used that opportunity to try to shine. Being the only visually impaired, legally blind person in the entire high school, I still managed to not just graduate with a high school diploma, but an international baccalaureate, which granted me an entire year of college credits, as well as the US President’s Educational Award.

Hoby: Oh my gosh, congratulations. And then you officially came to the United States for college?

Nina: Yes, in 2003, on a full scholarship.

Hoby: Wow. And where did you go to school in the US?

Nina: Bard College, upstate New York.

Hoby: Nice, a beautiful place, yeah. Wow! So you went to college, had a very supportive family, went to high school in Athens, Greece and just really flourished, it sounds like, graduating in 2003 and coming to college in the United States. It must have been a wonderful experience. What happened when you got out of college when you graduated?

Nina: That’s when the reality of the workforce and the employment dynamics kicked in. That’s when you realize that, so what if the US President recognized you? So what if you did great in college? So what if you’re capable? The initial entry into the workforce is very difficult because you really don’t have any experience to back you up in terms of work experience.

I tried to use my being the trustee leader scholar, but at the end of the day, you’re still legally blind and employers are like, that might be a little bit more work than what they’re willing to put into you in terms of investing into you as an employee.

Hoby: So just so sad.

Nina: They see more barriers than the benefits of it. Absolutely.

Hoby: And did you apply? Had you applied to many sort of mainstream jobs?

Nina: Absolutely. Lots of applications, lots of interviews, lots of ignorant questions during interviews.

Hoby: I’ve had all the same too, it’s terrible. And it’s one of these things, Nina, where we work hard, and we do so well, and we do so much. I’m a very driven person, as I can certainly see you are, and I learned that even earning a PhD in organic chemistry did not necessarily afford me the respect that I felt like I deserved in the workplace, in the general workplace.

And it got me, it didn’t force me to do anything. It very excitingly got me to a place where I could, after applying for many jobs and getting rejected, where I said I’m going to build my own business where nobody’s judging me and it’s just me and my very trusted childhood friend and business partner. And we’re just going to do this together. And we’re going to go out and get contract work. But it wasn’t having to prove oneself to an HR department, which is the thing that I think proves to be so challenging.

Nina: No, absolutely. And if it wasn’t for NIB’s network of agencies and their contracts, like I had to enter as a switchboard operator into the workforce.

Hoby: So tell me – Let’s back up a little bit. Tell me how you found out about NIB and all of their agencies. So you mentioned previously, before we started recording, you were selling knives, right, house to house?

Nina: That’s the last job that was offered to me, to sell knives. And that was the point at which I was like, all right, something is really wrong with this system. Then my late husband, who passed away back in 2010 due to cancer, was a veteran.

Hoby: I’m sorry to hear that.

Nina: He worked at the VA, Montrose VA, and he approached the associate director of the facility and said, “Hey, my wife, she is talented, she has a degree, she’s like the smartest, she’s proactive, she has all of these accomplishments. She can’t get a job. What can we do?” And I was like, you did what? Like you approached the associate director? What? Are you serious?

So the next day, I got a call from Ken Fernald from Association for Vision Rehabilitation Employment, who said, “Hi, I got a call from the director of the Montrose VA saying that we need to interview you.” And a couple of days later, I had an interview, and I was hired.

Hoby: Wow!

Nina: So it was kind of like it was meant to be. It’s just such an interesting story. It was pretty amazing.

Hoby: Oh my gosh. And what was Ken’s position back then?

Nina: At that time he was the vice president and currently he is the CEO of AVRE.

Hoby: And tell us what AVRE stands for.

Nina: Sure, it’s Association for Vision Rehabilitation and Employment, and they’re located out of Binghamton, but they do have service contracts not just in the Binghamton area, but also in Westchester.

Hoby: And they’re one of many NIB non-profit supported agencies out of Binghamton, New York. Thank you for explaining that in that digression. Well, that’s so exciting. So you had an in, the right person was spoken to. That person, that associate director called Ken and Ken called you and said, “Let’s do this.”

Nina: Correct.

Hoby: Wow! Let’s talk a little bit about your trajectory and your journey. One of the things that I find incredibly special about the non-profit agencies supported by NIB is the amount of upward mobility and the amount of growth opportunities that are afforded, both within the agency and they also, from what I’ve heard and seen, give you the permission to grow your own career, to grow personally outside the agency.

So I want to hear your trajectory. And you have a great story because you grew within the agency and eventually left the agency, but you also grew personally during that time in parallel. So, I’d love to start with the agency and then talk about your personal growth.

Nina: Absolutely. So on the first day, when I sat at my switchboard station in Montrose VA, I said to myself, “I will be the best switchboard operator there ever has been.” And I couldn’t even tell certain people that that’s the job I’m doing because people kind of look down on it. But I said to myself, “You know what? I’m serving veterans. I’m going to make the best experience possible for them. I’m going to make this agency shine. And if I can prove myself here, I can go anywhere, right from here.”

So I embraced that job with my entire passion. Yes, I answered calls, you know, “Operator number three, how may I help you?” Yes, that seemed like it was the extent of it. But then there was the emergency response, making sure the codes get called right, making sure that the right service is provided to the people that gave the opportunity for us to actually have a job. So that was pretty amazing.

Hoby: And honestly, in that regard, we’re not able to serve as active members of the military, but we’re able to assist the military in the work that they do.

Nina: Yes, and it’s so powerful. It’s saying, “Thank you for your service.” “How can I assist you?” “What is it that I can do?” They’re frustrated. They can’t get through. They’re having these issues. They can’t get resolved on the first call. So being a front line person allowed for me to see something that from my training and my background was a system as opposed to just answering the calls. Because when you’re a front-line staff, you see everything. You filter through things. I’m like, wow! Maybe they could change a process so these people don’t have to go through this. Maybe they could change this.

So taking over 3,000 calls a day, you’re realizing and you’re gaining so much information about what can be done better. So, of course, my project management and process improvement mind was just like a sponge taking it all in.

Hoby: Flourishing, yes, exactly.

Nina: I’m like, oh my God, we could do this. We could do this. And I kept writing my notes and improvement ideas, but I’m like, who’s going to hear me? I’m just an operator. You know what I mean?

Hoby: Just an operator. I get that, but you did not let the just affect you.

Nina: No.

Hoby: You stepped up and brought your A game.

Nina: Yes. Yes, I did. I did. So we ended up gaining a contract in the Bronx, AVRE did.

And I was promoted to be a supervisor and was able to not just work with Castle Point and Montrose VA, but also manage the 24-hour large Bronx switchboard operation emergency response as well.

Hoby: Oh my gosh! And it seems like you were partially responsible, or maybe wholly responsible, for earning that contract with the Bronx.

Nina: For maintaining it, yes.

Hoby: Yes.

Nina: We almost got pink slipped at one point, but we saved it.

Hoby: Oh my gosh.

Nina: And it was a moment where I’m like, okay, first we’re going to fix what’s happening within our area. But I’m like, in the back of my mind I’m still like, I have a laundry list of improvement projects to make veterans’ lives better. I’m like, we’re going to find a way to do this. Now we’re in a larger facility, we’re going to figure this out.

And the opportunity came when that specific facility was like one of the worst facilities in the nation in terms of access to telephone care for veterans, including like average speed of answer being really, really outside of the parameters. Abandonment, call abandonment rate being really bad. And us volunteering to run a three-month pilot to show a better process for this, in which case we ended up reducing the average speed of answer from like 140 something seconds down to four seconds.

Hoby: Wow!

Nina: And being able to reduce the call abandonment rate from 4.8% down to 0.8% within the three month period.

Hoby: And 0.8 is, if you don’t know about call centers, listeners, 0.8% call abandonment is incredibly low. And that answer time adjustment is crazy.

Nina: Yes, yes, yes.

Hoby: And you were able to accomplish that, how?

Nina: Well, we looked at the process. We used the process improvement methodology, looked at the current state, mapped it out, and figured out the defects within the process because there were numerous points of failure. And then we categorized them using different charting methods, including Pareto charts, and figuring out where we get the biggest bang for our buck.

So we went to attack the biggest problems first, and then the next one, the next one and so on. So we adjusted the process and piloted the new process without the defects that existed there before. So literally we had to use process improvement engineering, which is my background, to be able to say, okay, we can do this. These veterans don’t have to drive into their hospital to make an appointment, for God’s sake. Like, seriously?

Hoby: Oh my gosh.

Nina: So yeah, it was so exciting.

Hoby: It’s so exciting. And just I get goosebumps even listening to it because it is so incredible to hear how something that you did is where you could totally apply your college education to make this change. And the message here, I’m just trying to find the exact way that I want to put this, but I think the message here to anyone listening, to anyone thinking about wherever you are on the desire level to go get work, whether you’re currently gainfully employed or whatever the case may be, what you exhibited here and continue to exhibit, and it’s the reason you have so much incredible accomplishment in your career and still are adding to it today, and I’m sure will long in the future, is because you are tenacious.

You saw an opportunity where you could improve the lives of the folks that you serve. And you said, I know how to do this. And you did it. Nina, where do –

Nina: So I call it the three A’s.

Hoby: Three A’s. Tell me the three A’s.

Nina: Three A’s. So in our training institute, PM Excellence and Foresight Industries, we call it the three A’s. It’s awareness, agility, and adaptability. So you have to have full awareness, and that includes self-awareness, which is critical, and awareness of everything that goes on and how the process flows.

The second one is agility. You can’t sleep on problems. You actually have to be proactive, right? You have to have the agility necessary to be ahead of the game. And the third one, the third A is adaptability. You have to be willing to adapt. Whether it’s adapting yourself by your approach, whether it is adapting yourself by doing more training and having the new skills set that’s necessary, because we live in the constant time of change and nothing stays still. If we stay still, we can’t accomplish success.

So awareness, adaptability, and agility. Those are the three things that are key to accessibility to high-level careers and your goals.

Hoby: I so agree. And one thing that is powerful for our community, for the blind and visually impaired community, is that I think to be a successful blind person, to be a successful person, but to be a successful blind person, you have to adopt the three A’s. You have to be adaptable. Well, first, you have to be aware of what you can do and what opportunities are out there. You have to be agile, and you have to be able to adapt.

I love that. I love those three A’s. Nina, did you learn these in school, or were you born with them?

Nina: Oh, this model is something that I created as part of my company and as part of our Pathways to Success Mentorship Program, because we had to find ways to break this whole pathway to success into something simple and straightforward. There’s so much, we can make success so complicated, and that’s why it looks so scary.

Hoby: Yes we can.

Nina: But it’s not that complicated, it’s a clear pathway. And you don’t have to see, to see the success pathway, and that’s the important part.

Hoby: Oh my gosh. Yes, amen to that. Let’s go back a step, like this desire, this tenacity, this drive, and I feel like you and I share this, the three A’s is a brilliant way to encapsulate it, but we share all these things of being aware, being agile, and being willing to adapt, being adaptable.

So I gained them from my parents and from the work ethic that my parents taught me. They just said, look, there’s no substitute for hard work. You’re totally blind, you need to work just as hard as everybody else. And, by the way, you’re going to have to work harder, and everything’s going to take longer.

Where did you get that tenacity? What part of your life brought that to you? Was it growing up in former Yugoslavia during the war? Was it just going to high school and flourishing and getting the presidential award? What part of your life gave you that desire to say, to heck with it, I’m just going to do this?

Nina: The desire started from the tough childhood in a war-torn place, being a refugee, wondering if your location is going to be the next one that’s going to get bombed, like just pure survival. That’s where desire comes from, right?

But the willingness, you can have desire all you want, but the willingness to act on that desire and to say, “You know what? I’m going to do this,” comes from overcoming fears during high school, during college, being alone in the States and being the only legally blind person in the entire high school, in the entire college, losing my husband, having a two-year-old child, being by myself, my entire family being in Europe. There’re so many challenges.

And you can either choose to say, “You know what? I’m going to make it happen,” and stick to it, because giving up is not an option and shouldn’t be an option. Because I’ve been blessed to survive two wars, to survive several brain surgeries, to have the opportunity to attend a high school and get full scholarship through high school and college. I have the opportunity to have a job, right?

So how do you turn around and you say, “You know what? I’m not going to do anything about this…” You can’t.

Hoby: Exactly.

Nina: Because there’s a point at which you have to say, “I am going to give back, and I’m going to give it in multitudes.”

Hoby: I love it. This is where I feel too, I could not give up now. There’s just no way. You can’t do it. And giving back is such a wonderful thing and it’s something that you and I both do so much of because it’s important to us, and it’s important to see other people, to see the next generation take off and fly.

Let’s go on. So you were managing the contract in the Bronx and making sure the 24-hour emergency service was working as it should. And you were so excited to decrease wait call answer times and decrease that abandonment rate. And you did it over three months. You accomplished it, which is so exciting. So, what’s next after this feat?

Nina: That created the intrigue to see who is this blind person behind this stuff? Who are these people that are doing this, where all our sighted staff couldn’t accomplish it? So the director’s office was the one that said, all right, what is going on here? So we caught their attention. They’re like, wow! They are not only excelling in this switchboard and emergency dispatching, but they’re making major improvements in our facility that’s now in the first quintile from being in the fifth quintile.

So it got their attention, and as my AVRE Ken would say, Nina got snatched up. And I took a few people with me as well. But it opened more opportunities for other blind individuals to get hired for contracts while other individuals were hired to actually be federal government employees and to continue the legacy of success in terms of the call center needs of the government as well.

Hoby: My gosh. So how long were you with AVRE before you got snatched up by the federal government?

Nina: 2008 until 2013.

Hoby: That is incredible. That is totally incredible.

Nina: And in 2011 I went to New Orleans for the NIB conference and that was the moment that, you know, sometimes you work hard, you work hard and sometimes you question, I don’t know if that happens to you, you question if you’re doing the right thing.

Hoby: All the time. That’s the power of success. It’s always saying, am I really doing this right?

Nina: Yes, the process check. The success check, right?

Hoby: Yeah, you got to do it.

Nina: But then NIB gave me the National Career Achievement, Milton J. Samuelson National Career Achievement Award in New Orleans. It was one of those extra pushes. You weren’t going to give up, you’re doing a great job, but you’re like, wow! Somebody sees it. It’s actually working. So moments like that, when recognition happens, and that goes for all employers. In all of my clients’ companies, I always tell them, don’t forget employer recognition because that’s that extra push that people need to feel empowered.

They might know they’re working hard, but the moment of acknowledgment is not where complacency is going to happen. That’s where people work harder because they’re like, wow! Wait, this is working. Somebody does notice it. So NIB successfully – AVRE recognized me at their level, and then NIB selected me as a national recipient for that year. So that just gave more fuel. I was like, all right, let’s do this.

Hoby: The rocket boosters fired up. Congratulations on that amazing achievement.

Nina: Thank you.

Hoby: I was at the NIB conference this past October in Washington, D.C. And being with all the employees of the year, first of all, each and every one of them, and hearing about their accomplishments was incredible. And then just seeing the winners of the two major achievement awards rise to the top was such an amazing thing. And just, you know what it did, Nina, for me, it made me want to do better in my work. It made everyone there want to strive for more because, my gosh, if these people can do it, we can do it too.

Nina: Absolutely.

Hoby: After you won the Milton J. Samuelson National Achievement Award in 2011, you worked with AVRE for another two years and then went to the federal government. Winning that award, what did that push you to do professionally at that point?

Nina: It felt like the new door opened. And behind that door, it was an unlimited number of things that could be done. And I just had to organize all the information, figure out what is the next step, what is the plan, how are we going to get there? How is that going to, number one, secure the AVRE’s contract and make it stronger and make us shine, and two, make a true difference for the veterans who we were serving?

Hoby: Yes.

Nina: Those were the two driving factors that we were like, excellent. We know exactly what needs to be done. And we’re going to just go ahead and strategically use all of our knowledge, all of our expertise, and let’s just get it done.

Hoby: Wow! And when you say all of our knowledge, you mean all of your knowledge, right?

Nina: Yes.

Hoby: Just to push through. I just want to make sure; you are doing this pretty single-handedly and just jumping off there and just saying, let’s do it. You have this innate way of being super organized. I can tell you need to have everything in order and then you make your move. Is that right?

Nina: It’s important, yes.

Hoby: I agree.

Nina: It’s important because a lot of times actions get taken prematurely.

Hoby: I agree.

Nina: And then we don’t end up making the right decisions. So what I mean by that is that we have to assess exactly the process from all its ends, from all of its stakeholders, from all of the technical elements. Every single element has to be assessed. And we really have to have a good understanding of what the root causes of problems are, because you see so many people in organizations just pouring money and resources and people’s effort into doing actions that are not addressing the root causes of problems.

And then people get discouraged because they’ve put so much work into something that didn’t work. Why? Because they’re not addressing the root cause and they haven’t really taken a look at everything. So there has to be a strategic approach to everything we do.

Hoby: I so agree. I so agree. So you aligned everything and you made your move. And that’s essentially when you were snatched up by the federal government and worked in contract management for the Veterans Office, right, for like 10 years.

Nina: I was in charge of the system redesign office, which was part of the director’s office and quality management department. So I had the world’s most amazing position, the most amazing job. Imagine being able to lead any project to improve Veteran experience and the processes within the healthcare system.

Imagine being able to teach a large number of the VA employees on how to improve things. And then the only thing that’s more rewarding than you leading success projects, is you coaching and mentoring others on improving those processes. At which point you individually can maybe do 15 to 20 improvement projects a year successfully, meaning full system-wide.

If you train 20, and I’ve trained hundreds of them, even nationally later on, if you train just 20 people, now these 20 people can do maybe four projects every year. So now you’re multiplying the amount of improvement that can occur by transferring knowledge and guiding people, and empowering people that can create positive change. There’s nothing better than that.

Hoby: I love this.

Nina: And that’s how I ended up teaching on a national level, and the Bronx had to share me with the national VA to go and do teaching and project coaching as a national master transformational coach in the last few years of my career there.

Hoby: So you got this position by working hard, of course. And really, I’m sure there were systems and processes that you looked at, even ones that you changed a few years before and said, no, we can improve this even more. Is that right?

Nina: Absolutely. The only way you can really sustain improvement is to approach it from a perspective of continuous improvement. You’re reducing the biggest defects, the biggest contributing factors to the defect. You’re locking those processes in, so those defects won’t come back, and then you move on to the next contributing factor. And you keep on improving it until you have as streamlined a process as possible that yields the best outcomes for the end user, whether it’s a veteran or whether it’s an employee.

Because it’s not just the veterans that we help. We help employees end up being happier in their space because their processes work better. They’re not having these inefficiencies that otherwise are frustrating and even create turnover. So, it’s so empowering just to see other people learn how to do it.

Hoby: And rewarding. And the people that you were training on a national stage were people in your equivalent position at the Bronx before?

Nina: No, I taught people like myself that are in my position, but I also taught nurses, surgeons, anesthesiologists, pretty much everybody.

Hoby: Cooks, I’m sure everyone. Yes.

Nina: Everybody, literally. So it was an organization-wide effort to make sure that every single department should have at least one or two people that have the knowledge, the working knowledge and the dedicated, protected time to do process improvement, because we can only do so much. We can only put so much of a dent if you just have dedicated people that are running around improving other people’s processes.

Hoby: Right, exactly.

Nina: Empowerment comes when the people within the process have the tools, the skills, and the support necessary to improve their processes because no one else can know what’s going on within their process better than they do. And no one else will have more buy-in and more incentive to make it better.

Hoby: And how did this training work? Did people receive a process improvement certificate or any sort of certification?

Nina: Yes.

Hoby: Or they took classes and they brought it back into their department?

Nina: So we taught them project management. We taught Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt, Lean Six Sigma Green Belt and Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. So those were different levels. At the lowest level, which is the yellow belt, they were still able to lead projects with more support, more coaching, more assistance from project champions, including myself as a system redesign staff. Then at the green belt level, they were able not just to lead their projects, but help in coaching and supporting the yellow belts.

And then with the black belts, people that arrived at the black belt level, these were our leaders. People that supported improvements, supported other belts. And actually, when I retired myself, one of my students whom I taught and I coached ended up coming into my position now.

Hoby: Oh my gosh!

Nina: So that cycle of transferring knowledge and seeing that person do amazing things is even more amazing than everything that you’ve done yourself.

Hoby: Yes, I agree. It’s so much fun to see people shine, and flourish, and pay it forward with our own careers so that we can see that the next group is shining just like we did. And we can empower them to work as hard as we worked and to take our style and our philosophy to the next level.

And you know what’s crazy, Nina? With people who I’ve mentored to take roles that I’ve had, I look back in a year, three years, five years, and I say, I never would have thought to do that. You are doing such an amazing job at this. You’re thinking of things that I never would have thought of. Have you seen some of that?

Nina: Yes.

Hoby: It’s amazing.

Nina: Once they feel comfortable, and once they know they’re supported, then they feel more comfortable to explore other things, to bring their value to it. It’s one thing to repeat what your predecessor does, what your teacher does, what your mentor does. It’s the ultimate level of development when you see them bring their own self into it. And that’s when you know that, as a mentor, you succeeded and that your mentee is supported and is thriving.

Hoby: That’s amazing. And that’s exactly, exactly the power of mentorship, folks.

Just to circle back on something not as exciting as your story, but Six Sigma, what is that for our listeners?

Nina: So Lean Six Sigma is a process improvement methodology, a philosophy, a way of doing things, a way of thinking that focuses on continuous improvement, on reducing defects and waste within the processes, to make processes more efficient, to make improvements that will change the experience and the outcomes for the end user or the customer.

Hoby: Wow! And such a powerful tool, such a powerful skill to have. So during this trajectory from 2008 to 2023 of your career with the military, you also went on to achieve so many personal goals in your education, and not only in your teaching nationally for the military, but also teaching personally, correct?

Nina: Correct. I have been teaching at City University of New York for 10 years now. And that has been a very important part of my growth journey personally because each new cohort of students, not only graduates, is able to obtain certifications and get supported by myself and my company, but they also teach us so much.

Hoby: The students do.

Nina: Yes, because when people truly understand something that they’re learning, their examples, their projects, their feedback, the things that they give us are an important part of our ability to stay aware, to stay agile, and stay adaptive. Why? Because times are changing. We have new generations. They have new perspectives. They bring a new, young vibe to everything. And we must stay aware of that because that’s the new life. That’s the new way of thinking.

Hoby: New technology.

Nina: So when we empower them – Absolutely, you should see the things that they have done. They’re like, oh, professor, why don’t we do this, this, and this? And I’m like, all right, let’s see what you can do. And they get so excited when you give them a chance to show what they’ve learned. And that is so fantastic.

So I was actually really honored to be given the position of director with the American Academy of Project Management last year.

Hoby: Oh my gosh, congratulations.

Nina: Thank you. So it has been a wonderful journey. American Academy of Project Management has been very supportive to all our programs, and they’ve given us the support necessary to have our students not only fully trained, but then certified with globally accredited programs so that when they’re entering the workplace, they have more things to back them up. Things that can give them the leverage point, the strength, things they can reference, the letters behind their names.

Because a lot of employers don’t necessarily see people for who they are, they see the piece of paper before they allow you to see you for who you are. So that has also been an important part of our mission, strengthening our mentees and our students so that they actually have a stronger background, not just in terms of knowledge and skills, but also certification credentials that are accredited as well.

Hoby: That’s amazing. And it gives people so much opportunity. So do people graduate from City University with a degree in project management? Or who are the students that you’re teaching generally? What majors are they?

Nina: They come across different majors, including IT. We have our electrical local 3 cohort. So they come from different backgrounds, including the work we’ve done with the New York City Jobs CEO Council with students coming from all backgrounds. So they definitely come from different backgrounds because project management applies to all industries.

Hoby: Yes, it does.

Nina: And that’s the beauty of it. Having those critical management skills is what’s going to strengthen their ability to thrive in any environment, regardless of the industry they’re in. So some of them graduate with an IT degree. Some of them graduate with a degree in economics. It really depends on their trajectory.

Hoby: You could graduate from a culinary arts program with project management skills.

Nina: Absolutely, and you’ll be able to implement your management skills when it comes to running a restaurant or whatever it is that you’re trying to endeavor. As well as helping you in terms of a lot of students end up building their own businesses.

Hoby: I love it, and becoming entrepreneurs.

Nina: And we help them with that as well. Absolutely.

Hoby: What you’ve arrived at is such a fundamental skill for so many people. What are you doing now that you’ve retired from the federal government?

Nina: So as I retired from the federal government, and as my ability to be in front of a screen is now limited, I continue to teach and I consult. I mentor and I guide students and companies to create processes that are better, that reduce a lot of the waste within the process, the reduction of overhead costs, and increase return on their investments.

For the individuals that we’re coaching, we’re helping them with their career development and making sure that they get interview skills. Making sure that they have a customized plan on what certifications they’re going to get so that they can get to where they want to get. So general education like bachelor’s and master’s, that’s all great. But I really truly believe that when you’re ready to become an expert in a specific niche, you have to invest in yourself and gain the specialized knowledge necessary to be the person that everybody’s going to say, yes, that’s the guru in that area.

Hoby: Yes.

Nina: So it’s okay, it’s amazing that we’re getting all the education including bachelor’s, master’s, all of our degrees, they’re important. But what sets successful people apart is their continuing focus on learning, growing, and becoming that expert.

Hoby: Amen to that. That is so true and so incredibly important. Are some of the mentees that you currently have blind?

Nina: Yes, some of them are. And we do have an exciting new discussion that we’re having with NIB talent management system.

Hoby: Oh my gosh.

Nina: Where my company is going to be providing three scholarships per semester for NIB members to join our trainings and Pathways to Success Mentorship. So it’s really exciting.

Hoby: Oh my gosh.

Nina: It’s going to be finally officially, and I’m just ecstatic because just imagine someone like me 10 years ago, 15 years ago.

Hoby: Yes, how much that would have helped you.

Nina: Yes, so I’m just ecstatic and I just can’t wait for our discussion to come to a final decision so we can officially launch the scholarship program.

Hoby: I’ll tell you what, once it’s official, I really want to have you back on the podcast to talk about not only the scholarship program, but what your company does so that we can inspire folks to join you in your endeavors and what you’re doing.

Nina: That would be wonderful. I’ll always gladly share the experiences that we have.

Hoby: I can’t wait to do that. And our time is running a little bit short, but I do have a couple more questions. And they’re a little bit open-ended, so please take them however you want.

You have done an amazing job at providing these amazing nuggets of advice, like the three A’s that we talked about. Like the fact that you need to find, you need to become the guru in whatever field you’re in. But my question for you is broader than that here as we sort of think about closing our discussion for the day, which is, what do you think is the ticket to someone saying, hey, I have been sheltered, maybe I’m new to blindness. I need to get out there and stop sitting around. I need to go start doing things. Nina has inspired me. Others have inspired me. What is the Nina advice? What is the ticket to going from where you are now to that next big step?

Nina: The ticket, I would say that the most important moment is the moment that you are talking to yourself, it’s just you, nobody else around you, and you have that crucial conversation with yourself. Where do I see myself in five years? Where do I see myself in 10 years? What could I truly do?

But you can’t do it just by saying that. You actually have to say, what am I passionate about? Because the passion that you have for something, and everybody must have the passion, but most of the time, it’s the fear of the unknown, it’s the fear of failure that tries to suffocate that passion.

So if you’re willing to sit down with yourself and have that crucial conversation in which you’re going to ask yourself, what am I passionate about? Once you uncover it, then ask yourself, what am I going to do about it? And how am I going to do it? And that’s when your journey begins. Because if you keep on suffocating your passion and your dream by allowing fears in, by allowing self-doubt, by saying to yourself it’s just too many barriers, why bother? Those are the suffocating factors that will shred your ticket to the future any day. And we need to get rid of the shredder to success. We need the pathways to success.

Hoby: Oh my gosh! We need to not shred, I love that approach. And that’s what happened for me. I saw myself earning a PhD and I had to just say, okay, I’m passionate about the science that I’m studying. Now I’m doing something totally different. But it’s just like you’re saying, you build, you decide where you want to be, and then you take the baby steps to get there, rather than continuing to suffocate and put yourself down.

Nina: And it’s going to be scary.

Hoby: Oh, it will.

Nina: And there are going to be tough times. There have been times where I was considered the guru of system redesign. Everybody nationally was coming to me for advice. And there were times when I would still sit in my office and have a moment to cry. Have a moment to allow myself to say, okay, this is not easy. And it’s okay that it’s not easy, but what am I going to do about it?

So we’re still going to be human, we’re not super humans, we’re going to have moments of weakness, we’re going to have tough times. But guess what? If you do it, you take a moment and you say, okay, you’re done, Nina. You’re done with this whole drama. Okay, move on. What’s your next step?

Hoby: I love it.

Nina: So you have to do it that way, unfortunately.

Hoby: You must. No, you must do it that way. And how do you keep your attitude so positive and your energy up? What motivates you every day? There are few people who are as positive and as happy and as driven as you.

Nina: Every morning I wake up, and I’m still here, which life many times could have ended for me through wars and surgeries and other things. I think about my mom, my grandma, my children, and all the people whose lives I’m touching at any given point in time. And if you have been given the gift to touch other people’s lives in a positive way, you must stay positive because that is your calling. That’s your calling.

Hoby: It’s just like we were talking about before. Oh my gosh, this is a beautiful, beautiful discussion. And I am so just, thank you so much. I’m so honored that I had the chance to speak with you today. And I just want to say the remarks and the inspiration you’ve given our community, but not only our community, selfishly me too, is immense. So thank you very much.

I know that you’re a very busy person, but I know as well that people are going to be inspired by you. And if it’s okay, I would love to ask if I can put your email address in the show notes.

Nina: Absolutely.

Hoby: Nina, thank you so much for joining us on the show. I can’t wait till the next conversation we have.

Nina: Thank you for the opportunity, it has been wonderful. And I hope that it makes even the tiniest difference in at least one person’s life, because we change people’s lives one day at a time and one person at a time. And I hope that something sticks and that something makes a minor change to at least create the necessary movement in the perception, because perception is where the beginning of success begins.

Hoby: Couldn’t have said it better. Thank you, Nina.

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