ILLUMINATION Writers
Interview with Bill Abbate
Featuring creative writers of ILLUMINATION
Purpose of the Story
In this story, I share with you an interview that I conducted with Bill Abbate, a prolific writer specializing in leadership topics on ILLUMINATION. I am connected with Bill on LinkedIn. I genuinely enjoy Bill’s insightful content on leadership development and coaching.
Bill accepted my invitation to join ILLUMINATION and contributed to our publication from the beginning. I am addicted to Bill’s inspiring stories as I always learn something new and gain new perspectives from Bill’s stories.
I am also grateful that Bill accepted my offer kindly to participate in this interview.
My questions are in bold. Bill’s responses are under each question.
Tell us a bit about your background.
Much of my youth was spent living in Asia and Europe. As an adult, I worked mostly for US divisions of German and British-owned companies and traveled the world extensively. During the later part of my career I did turnarounds and startups while dabbling a good bit in acquisitions.
I retired from corporate life in 2013 and went to Duquesne University to become a certified coach, focusing on executive and leadership coaching. I built a thriving practice until April 24th, 2016 when I suffered several consecutive widow maker heart attacks, and nearly died. Considering I was in the peak of health, regularly doing 10k runs, marathons, and sprint triathlons, the health issue was completely unexpected. After spending 55 days in cardiac and pulmonary intensive care, I decided to close my business and fully retire.
Since retiring I have written and published a book, Uncommon Sense, started blogging and publishing articles on various platforms.
Why do you write on Medium?
I find writing somewhat therapeutic, and Medium has been a great platform to write on. After the unexpected health issue, I mentioned, it took me more than a year to recover due to its severity.
For an extended period, I felt as though I was in a continuous fog. As someone who has always pushed himself to excel physically, I believed I could push the fog out my head by working on something that would tax my thinking. That led me to finish my first book, which subsequently led me to blog and publish articles. All of this led me to discover Medium. By the way, it took nearly two years before the fog finally lifted! Today I feel as mentally sharp as I ever have!
The main reason I write on Medium is because I enjoy it immensely and see it as another platform to promote my writing in general, and my book occasionally. So far it’s been a great experience! I love to read the works of so many great writers and appreciate the advice and input I get from others!
What are your values as a writer?
My values come primarily from my Christian faith. I value serving leadership and have always enjoyed helping people through mentoring and coaching. Nothing in the world thrills me more than seeing the effect on someone’s life when I work with them.
To see positive life-change in others is not just satisfying but has been an extremely worthwhile and fulfilling pursuit in my life. Another value I hold dearly is to practice the golden rule of “doing unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
However, I have found it is often best to start by “doing unto others the way they wish to be done unto” until their values align with my own, at which point the golden rule reigns supreme.
What are the top three books affecting your life?
Maximized manhood by Ed Cole. This book helped me as a young Christian to mature in a way no other book has.
The Path of Least Resistance by Robert Fritz. When I first read Fritz’s book it impacted me profoundly, and I believe it was a major factor in building my career and my life in general. Some years back I had the tremendous pleasure to take a course on creating led by Robert and his wonderful wife Rosalind at their beautiful home and facilities in Vermont.
To live again by Catherine Marshall. After my first wife’s death from cancer at the young age of 52, this book brought great healing into my life at a time when I was hurting badly. Losing my childhood sweetheart after 32 years of marriage was difficult, and this book helped more than I can express in words.
What are your hobbies?
My more recent hobby is writing, although for many years I loved running, biking, and swimming in various races and sprint triathlon events.
I took up guitar when I was very young, played in a small band when I was in my teens, and continue to play today whenever I can.
How do you connect with your readers?
I use the normal channels such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to make and strengthen connections. On a more personal level, I believe I connect with readers through life experience, bringing a great deal of practical insight and experience to those who want to enhance their life and career.
Why did you join ILLUMINATION and how do you find it so far?
I recall seeing something from the good Doctor (Dr Mehmet Yildiz) right after I joined Medium as a paid subscriber. He was starting a brand-new publication called ILLUMINATION.
I applied to write for it and was accepted right away. Since then I have attempted to write an article daily and have done so for the most part. I hope to keep up the pace as long as I can.
I enjoy seeing my articles published in such a fast-growing publication. My highest number of reads on an article in one day was when ILLUMINATION featured my article on
Who are the top ten writers you follow on ILLUMINATION?
I would list a lot more than ten if I could, so this will be difficult, as I am certain to miss some of my favorites, but here goes: Kevin Buddaeus, Paul Myers MBA, Stephen Dalton, Dr Jeff Livingston, Jack Krier, Randy Shingler, René Junge, Brian E. Wish, PhD, Kathryn A. LeRoy, Ph.D., Trista Ainsworth.
What are the top 10 article tags that you use?
Here are the 10 article tags I use most often: Leadership, Leadership Coaching, Coaching, Leadership Development, Self-Improvement, Self-development, Inspiration, Motivation, Life, Life Lessons
What are your top five stories that you want to share with your audience and why?
My introduction in Illumination will help people understand who I am.
This story is about a difficult time in my life, losing my wife to cancer, and how, even after such a tragedy, one can have hope.
A leadership model I developed some years ago that is still extremely relevant today.
This story was well-read and helped people move from success to significance in their life, an important part of the work I do in helping others through coaching.
I chose this story because it is one of my more popular and appeared to help many people.
What are the success factors for you as a writer on Medium?
The most important thing to my personal success on Medium is that I can help others see in a new way and move toward creating a better life for them and their family.
Hearing from someone how an article has helped them makes it all worthwhile to me. Fortunately, I regularly receive comments on how helpful an article is to someone, which always makes my day, week, month, and more!
That metric alone is how I measure my success on Medium.
What do you recommend to the new writers on ILLUMINATION?
Write from your heart while at the same time working on what is going into your heart. As scripture says, “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” Write because you enjoy it and never let it become burdensome.
You will also enhance your ability to learn and gain new perspectives by reading the ever-flowing stream of great work written by the many Illumination writers.
What are your plans as a writer?
I hope to continue writing to keep my mind sharp, feed my deep desire to continue learning, and help as many people as I can through my writing.
Thank you for your valuable time Bill. I learn a lot from your leadership content and look forward to reading more stories from your insightful pen. You are an inspiration to our writers and readers on ILLUMINATION.
You can connect with Bill on LinkedIn and follow on Twitter.
You can check the editor profile of Bill Abbate featured by ILLUMINATION in this story.
If you are a writer on ILLUMINATION and would like to be interviewed, please send a request via this link with the title of “Interview Request”.
You may also check other interviews I conducted with inspiring writers of ILLUMINATION recently. These stories can provide a great opportunity to learn more about our creative writers and connect with them.
You might check more interviews in the attached collection.
You can find inspiring profiles of ILLUMINATION writers in this story.
Meet Editors of ILLUMINATION Integrated Publications on Medium
We will add more editor profiles soon. You may also bookmark this collection managed by ILLUMINATION-Curator so that you don’t miss it when we add new profiles. Collection of Editor Bios: Meet Editors of Illumination Integrated Publications.
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