Interview with Kal Edwards

Grandmother’s Wise Recipes For Success: Time Tested Wisdom For Directing Your Work and Personal Life
Kal Edwards
Trafford Publishing (2006)
ISBN 1412080541
Reviewed by Debra Gaynor for Reader Views (8/06)

Reader Views is happy to welcome Kal Edwards, author of the new book “Grandmother's Wise Recipes for Success: Time Tested Wisdom for Directing Your Work and Personal Life.”  Kal is being interviewed by Juanita Watson, Assistant Editor for Reader Views.

Juanita:  Thanks for talking with us today Kal.  Would you please tell us what your new book “Grandmother's Wise Recipes for Success: Time Tested Wisdom for Directing Your Work and Personal Life” is all about?

Kal: Juanita, it is a pleasure to talk with you.  “Grandmother’s Wise Recipes for Success” is a handbook of wisdom for everyday situations.   It is a compilation of old-time wise sayings that still have useful application whether at home, the office, in business, at school, or during retirement.  Grandmother’s messages provide the motivation and a plan for managing your life more successfully.

Juanita: What inspired you to actually put pen to paper and write your book?

Kal: In this busy, often impersonal electronic age, I realized a growing need for people of all ages to re-connect with good old-fashioned common-sense wisdom.  Many of us are so busy multi-tasking that we have forgotten how to simply stop and listen to what the past has to tell us. These insights can make us more effective in our lives and in our relationships. Times may be changing, yet a Grandmother’s wisdom is timeless.

Juanita:  Did you know your Grandmother was such a smart lady?

Kal:  Yes, and I was reminded of this when I discovered her cookbook in an old family trunk.  Written in the margins were words of wisdom that she referred to when she baked in her kitchen. The kitchen was and still is the center for family discussion.  So what better place to re-discover wisdom? This is not a cookbook, but rather a thought provoking series of “recipes” for daily success.

Juanita:  What type of life situations will the advice in “Grandmother's Wise Recipes for Success” help with?

Kal: How many of us really know how to listen well, or design our life work successfully? Do we know how to plan for change? Lead others effortlessly? Handle daily problems with less stress? Interact with customers efficiently?   Many of these challenges have been answered through old-time wisdom that can be applied today.  For example, Grandmother’s sayings such as “Cream always rises to the top” gives readers a lesson in leadership. Or, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained” is sage advice for planned risks and rewards. “Everything old can be new again” gives a plan to deal with change in each season of our lives.

Juanita:  I understand that each “recipe for success” comes with its own Personal Renewal Planner.  Would you tell us more about this added feature?

Kal:  This has proven popular with readers, because the book becomes a personal planner for success.  Following each “wisdom recipe” readers can provide self checks on how to apply grandmother’s wisdom to their daily living.

Juanita: With the world changing as much as it does, why do you think the wisdom passed down by your Grandmother, and now you, is so timeless?

Kal:  Wisdom is timeless because it is food for thought.  I’ve been told that readers have used Grandmother’s sayings for family discussions and problem solving.

Juanita:  How will the wisdom you share in your book “Grandmother's Wise Recipes for Success” help readers create success in their life?

Kal:  My book offers wisdom that readers can immediately use for effective decision making, increasing listening and leadership skills, building more influential working relationships, planning goals with timelines for achievement, making a difference in your work, and planning for retirement renewal.

Juanita:  Kal, how many recipes are in “Grandmother's Wise Recipes for Success,” and would you give us some examples of the “recipes”?

Kal: There are thirty powerful “recipes” for success. For instance, Grandmother tells us to “Listen before you speak”.  This suggests people will always remember the person who shows interest by listening.  She believed listening was the most exacting communication skill because it was mentally challenging.  She also reminds us that skilled communicators spend at least fifty per cent of their time listening.  I then upgraded these ideas for today’s application.  Readers use the Personal Renewal Planner to improve their own listening skills.

Juanita: What do you feel would be the most important “recipe for success” that your Grandmother passed on to you? Why?

Kal: I think the “recipe” that directs one “to always give the extra ten per cent” is a potent one.  In any transaction that you do with either customers, co-workers, or loved ones, you have to provide an extra effort (the extra “ten percent”) to ensure a lasting success.  The results will be that customers will return, co-workers will become more productive, and personal relationships will regenerate themselves.  Or as Grandmother states, extra effort can really be the “magic ingredient!” 

Juanita:  The wisdom coming from your Grandmother is full of love and understanding.  Why do you think wisdom coming from a grandmother is so relatable, and something we may listen to more than other sources?

Kal: Grandmothers traditionally have had the time and the life experience that our parents have not, so they have very often become a receptacle for practical wisdom. There is hardly a culture known that has not honored grandmothers.

Juanita: Kal, who should read your book?  Who is your reading audience?
 
Kal: The book is designed for anyone who needs to become more successful, no matter what stage of life they are in.  It’s a wonderful opportunity to re-discover these time tested strategies that can ensure a quality life.  The book has also become effective for group discussions and business training, since it addresses courtesy issues, communications issues, and time-management issues, among others.  It is full of old wisdom made new.  Or, as one reader wrote me, “Grandmother’s simple sayings are really big solutions.”

Juanita:  What do you want readers to ultimately understand by reading “Grandmother’s Wise Recipes for Success”?

Kal: That by reading this little volume you can discover your own “recipe” for success.  And once you have the “ingredients” you can enjoy a much more successful life, personally and well as professionally.

Juanita:  Kal, aside from authoring your first book, what type of work do you do?

Kal: Well, I’m a career psychologist by training and was in private practice for many years.  Then as I evolved, my interests evolved, and in the last few years I’ve become interested in what I call retirement “renewal.”  It seems to me there is a growing need to assist others in finding a new direction for their latent talents that can “renew” their retirement years.  When people retire, they don’t retire from life, and so I have created seminars to assist with this transition, and “Grandmother’s Wise Recipes for Success” often forms the basis for these seminars.  I reside in Napa, California, where the growing of our famous grapes is a reminder that people often need assistance with their growth as well.

Juanita:  How can readers find out more about you and your endeavors?

Kal:  Just visit Grandmother’s Wise Recipes for Success” website: trafford.com/05-3052 And for guest speaking or seminar information, I can be contacted by e-mail at: kal1@pacbell.net  Thank you again, Juanita and to your readers for their interest in “Grandmother’s Wise Recipes for Success.”  And as Grandmother would say as she served her delicious apple pie, “May you also enjoy each slice of life!” 

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