Written By Mel Kennah – Executive Director, Youth Impact and Leadership Development Coach with LMI Canada
As I reflect on Tony Hebert, what strikes me is his rich, melodic voice, infectious enthusiasm, and exceptional ability to sell an idea. He always has a smile on his lips and is a gifted storyteller. Reading “Finding My Power of Want,” I felt like Tony sat beside me. His engaging personality, sense of humour, and point-making through storytelling were woven throughout the fabric of his autobiography.
Tony describes himself as a “free-range kid” in his early years. This freedom in his youth helped him cultivate his lifelong approach to risk-taking, exploring new horizons, being a full participant, and never a bystander. He always recognizes and pursues opportunities, saying, “the more I risked, the more I felt alive.” Throughout his life, Tony approaches things not from a sense of scarcity but abundance, and his relationships are rich. He always leaves things (businesses, employees, friends, community causes) in better shape than he found.
Tony is committed to working on himself as hard as he works on his business; these two things are the same for him. As a salesperson, he realized early on that retail was not for him. He wanted to make the order, not just take it, and he wanted to navigate his destiny and help others find what they wanted. In addition, Tony has a genuine interest in creating endless win-win challenges and exchanges. By working in sales as an employee and later as an entrepreneur, Tony wanted his efforts to determine his financial value and impact, self-planning and especially his remuneration.
Tony credits the many individuals who helped, supported, mentored, and coached him. His autobiography contains acknowledgments and illustrations of how others have enriched his life and inspired him to become a better version of himself. Despite the interdependence of our lives, Tony believes that we are all self-made because of our choices. He playfully refers in his book to the “luck” he has experienced many times, starting from the day he was born. But Tony also recognizes that you must make your luck and not depend on others to create it for you. His “luck” was ultimately created through his preparedness, creativity, optimism, perseverance, accountability, and desire to maximize every relationship, business opportunity, or contribution to creating a better future for himself and his community.
Tony’s life story includes adventure, challenge, contribution, humour, and grit. As he shares his experience, passion, life lessons, gratitude, and epiphanies, Tony shows that finding your power of want in life and sharing it with others is the best definition of success.
Through this motivating, insightful, and entertaining autobiography, individuals and organizations will gain guidance and grit for their constituents to push out the front edges of their success.
I sincerely hope you enjoy “Finding My Power of Want” as much as I did.
