CARMEN’S DEATH
Carmen Towles passed away in July of 2020. I found out on July 25th from a client. I believe she passed away on the 24th, but I see other conflicting reports on Notary Rotary saying it happened two weeks before that. The last time I talked to Carmen was on June 29th when she was released from the hospital. She was able to talk but wasn’t making logical sense. She couldn’t remember if she had a gall stone or a kidney stone. I think you would remember that.

Carmen died of Pancreatic cancer, but had a gall bladder infection too. She never told me about the cancer, perhaps because she didn’t want me to worry. I think it would have been better if she had told me so I could plan ahead.

OUR HISTORY TOGETHER
In any case, Carmen and I worked together for 17 years since 2003. I remember the first time I met her at the entrance to our complex. I was selling her a course book. She was very talkative, inquisitive, and sharp. She kept calling me to ask questions and became very knowledgeable as a signing agent. Carmen claimed she took the NNA course, but that it did not make her feel confident enough to go out and do real signing work. After she mastered our 123notary course, she felt she got a practical road map of what to do and how to handle situations. As time went on, I begged her to work for me. She initially didn’t want to. It took a few years to get her to work full time. After she got used to it, signings slowed down, and she became hooked on 123. She did the new sales and renewals and was very possessive about the work.

CARMEN AS A MENTOR
Carmen was an excellent mentor to many of our Notaries. She taught them the twists and turns of what can happen at signings and with the various companies who hire Notaries. She kept many out of trouble and inspired all. She had real charisma, pizzazz, combined with a deep and pragmatic knowledge of Notary law and signing competency. Nobody else combined her flamboyance and knowledge. None of the other Notary companies have anyone even half as good as she was.

CARMEN’S INPUT
Carmen helped me put together a new over the phone test content as well as a new course which is on the blog and free — Notary Public 101. We wanted to emphasize what gets Notaries in trouble, so they can stay out of trouble. The other courses taught information which was about loan documents which is fine, but you don’t normally get in trouble for not understanding the documents, you get in trouble for notary mistakes or mishandling situations.

OUR LOSS
The Notaries are very sad that Carmen is gone. There will never be another Carmen. I am sad that I never got to say goodbye. I didn’t think she would pass away so fast. I thought she had another year where she would function at half speed. But, I can communicate easily with spirits, so I have had a few simple dialogues with Carmen.

JEREMY: How are things in the brighter world?
CARMEN: I’m getting a lot of rest.

JEREMY: What will I do without you?
CARMEN: Oh, don’t worry about it.

JEREMY: Do you have to wear face masks up there?
CARMEN: Ha ha…. no!!!

LIFE WITHOUT CARMEN
So, now I have to do all of Carmen’s work. I call all of the renewal people. It wouldn’t take that long except that the higher level people like to chat. Many of our higher level people have been with us for years, in some cases up to 20 years, and they have stories from long back. The bigger issue is not having to do her work. I am missing the new calls because I am not prepared to answer the phone all the time. I am not sure how I will hire someone new who will be acceptable and who will last.

And third, I miss Carmen because she is like a family member to me. She understood me well, and had very sensible advice for me about all of my issues. I didn’t necessarily agree with all of her advice, but most of it was good. I am very sad, lonely and don’t know what to expect of the future. The future doesn’t look very bright now, but you never know. I am going to try out several new ladies who seem promising.

With all of the bad vibes in the atmosphere due to the Covid19 issue, riots, and political upheaval, it seemed like the devil made his rounds to disrupt many cities, many lives, many political issues, etc. First there were Covid19 shutdowns which took away our rights. 80% of what I could do outside of the house was shut down or disappeared. Then the devil came to my neighborhood with the riots. A month later my site went down for a week. Actually that was done by angels for my protection, but felt like the devil was somehow involved. And then my site went back up, Carmen became incapacitated and then died shortly after. So much grief in just five months. No wonder I feel more depressed than I have felt in years.

Carmen was always there, usually answered the phone, only went on one quick vacation that I knew about which was a cruise in Mexico. But, she kept her phone with her so she was accessible. She even did phone duty while she was on Jury Duty. She was always there, and now she will never be there again.

I will have my psychic contact Carmen in the brighter world to see if she has anything she wants to tell the Notaries. My ability for spirit communication is okay for very quick questions and answers but not good enough for conversations. So, we will leave this up to Walter who is an expert.

Incoming phone communication to 123notary is basically almost impossible now. I answer some of my incoming calls. but, I really can’t get more than 10%. If you want to reach me fast, just use the email form on 123epayment.com. I am very slow by info@123notary.com, so if you are in a hurry, 123epayment.com is a little faster.

So for now, that is all I can say.

Many Notaries ask me how to find a Notary mentor. I used to know people who did teaching and mentoring. But, they are all getting so old. I don’t know who to recommend. There are several issues here.

ISSUES WITH MENTORS

1. If you get a mentor who is near where you live, you represent competition for them. Even if they are the best in the world and you are brand new, you will eventually get better and take some market share from them.

2. If you get a mentor who is far, then how will you ever be able to meet with them?

3. Ideally, you want a mentor who is about an hour away so you are not in direct competition with them.

4. When I call people who are being mentored, whenever I ask about their skill set, they immediately tell me all about what their mentor knows and how great their mentor is. That is all very wonderful if I am going to hire their mentor, but not if I am going to hire the new Notary. Answer questions about you based on you. If you know nothing, be up front about that otherwise you would be a very slippery person who knows nothing vs. an honest straight forward person who knows nothing. People who hire notaries can see through all of this type of BS and none of us have patience for it or like it. Real answers to real questions please.

HOW TO FIND A MENTOR

NNA used to publish a list of mentors. I don’t know if they still know people who do this.

You can call the most experienced notaries on 123notary and see if any of them will help you. You could call local ones, or people far away with high placed listings.

The NNA claims that social media is a good place to find a Notary mentor. Facebook groups, forums, etc. I tend to agree with that idea. However, people who are busy and successful don’t always show their face on social media because they are too busy working so that they can keep being successful. Meanwhile, people who are not at all successful often spend all of their time on social media, sometimes bashing other people who spend their lives being productive (especially in the notary world.) Carmen and I are very familiar with that type of social media user.

Carol Ray knows many people in the business and might be able to help. She runs Notary2Pro which is an agency that trains Notaries.

Asking leaders of notary organizations (other than myself) might be a great idea. I know people who teach or used to teach, but I don’t know if they are mentors. I just emailed a few to ask if they do it or know anyone who does it. But, the various leaders of Notary organizations might know all sorts of people doing all sorts of things and there are many organizations out there.

HOW TO SCRUTINIZE A MENTOR

Not all people are experts at all things and not all experts are available or helpful. So, how do you find a good mentor? You could find someone 1000 miles away who is good at answering questions. But, that doesn’t help when you want to shadow someone. On a brighter note, if someone doesn’t want you shadowing them, they have to tell you to your face as you can’t “shadow ban” someone who is with you in person. You should ideally either have a company who can micromanage you and walk you through your first several signings, or find a local mentor you can tag along with for three to ten signings.

The mentor should know:
1. Local notary laws
2. Signing agent procedure
3. How to handle situations
4. How to explain the documents, initialing, the right to rescind, document recording, and basics about title, escrow, and lending.

Since you presumably don’t know anything about signing work or situations, you can see if that person knows how to be a good notary at a minimum. But, you won’t know if they are a good signing agent since you don’t know what to ask them to verify that information. You can ask questions about various notary signing topics and see how thorough or intelligent the answers are. However if you are at the stage where you are ready for a mentor, YOU need to be an expert at your state notary law yourself. If you are going to use your stamp even once, you could end up in big trouble if you do something wrong — so know your stuff!

It would be a little like me hiring someone to be a rocket scientist — I wouldn’t know what to ask them since I know nothing about rocket science.

IF YOU ARE A MENTOR
If you actually are a mentor and are willing to deal with new people and their insecurities, you can respond to this blog post! Additionally, if you know where to find a mentor, shares your comments as well.