[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Three, Episode #1- Travis Maus & Ryan Berkeley

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Three, Episode #1 – Travis Maus and Ryan Berkeley, Entrepreneurs, Cutting Edge Financial Planners, Trailblazers for Your Money

[powerpress]

People often remark that money makes people act funny. And not in the “haha,” Heath Ledger Joker way either. We talked about charging people for art last season in our ninth episode conversation with Nicholas Jackson, and we talked about charging people because art is valuable.

But what about managing money?

Nobody gets excited when you are talking about managing money.

As a matter of fact, eyes roll into the back of heads and people gradually slump down in chairs until their heads are the merest slivers above a table.

Then there’s the common situation where two adults hang out at the kitchen table talking about family budgeting every month…or they don’t

And then there’s the fact that there isn’t much education in school around the topic of money, money management of financial matters. And no, studying macroeconomics doesn’t count…

Case in point: My son was asking me about credit card use during the summer. He was on the cusp of turning 18 and wanted to know about credit scores, building a financial background and what the penalties and pitfalls would be with taking on more than he could handle.

After a 30-minute period where I laid out everything that I know about the wide world of credit creation, money management and fiscal sanity, he flopped onto the ottoman, held the cat in his hands, and asked:

Why don’t they teach us this stuff in school?

Why indeed…

In the kick-off to our third season of The Earbud_U Podcast, we talked with Ryan Berkeley and Travis Maus, partners and co-founders of SEED Planning Group, based in Binghamton, NY.

They are no-nonsense when it comes to managing your money, but they were plenty animated when it came to discussing why you should seed your financial strategies and goals with them, for both the long-term viability of your financial health, and for the long-term viability of the financial services industry.

So take a listen to Travis and Ryan, and take a little knowledge from our talk.

Check out all the ways below that you can connect with Travis and Ryan and S.E.E.D!

S.E.E.D Planning Group website: http://www.seedpg.com/

S.E.E.D Planning Group on Twitter: https://twitter.com/seedgroup

S.E.E.D Planning Group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SEED-Financial-Strategies-288049794685377/

S.E.E.D Planning Group on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seed-planning-group-62410167

Travis Maus on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/travis-maus-15aa2429

Ryan Berkeley on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanberkeley

[Podcast] The Death of F2F Communication

Our personal assistants have names like Cloe, Clara, Julie, Luka and Amy.

Our devices have names like Alexa, Siri and Cortana.

We are getting the future we were promised, though not evenly distributed (as has been pointed out in the past), and not in the same areas simultaneously. Soon, HAL 9000 will be in our homes, not in a deep space vehicle.

We have FitBits, Jawbones, and Apple and Android Watches. We are slowly getting augmented reality, virtual reality and even electric, automated self-driving cars.

Voice data, movement data, and biometric data collection technologies lie at the “bleeding edge” of future machine-to-human communication technologies. We do not have laws or regulations to deal with the consequences of having these devices; which are always on, always recording, always collecting and always reporting to someone—somewhere.

We have given up our privacy for convenience, and whether or not you believe this is a Faustian bargain, the deal is in the process of being struck even as you are alive and watching it happen. And the people of the future will not lament the loss of face-to-face communication, any more than present generations lament the passing of the horse and buggy.

How should conflict professionals respond to the death of face-to-face communication and the rise of machine-to-human communication?

Get involved in the collection of data, the organizations that collect it, and even on the boards of organizations that make decisions and regulations about the use of it—peace builders have an obligation to no longer sit on the sidelines, hoping that none of this will happen. Getting involved in all parts of the process, from creation ot decision making, is the new obligation for peace builders.
Build businesses that act as intermediaries (mediators, if you will) between Alexa, Siri and whatever is next and the people who will seek to control what those devices reveal about people’s private lives—private conflict communications are about to go public. And peace builders have seen the devastating effects of such publicity on relationships, reputation and understanding through the first level of all of this—social media.
Prepare to address the stress that will be magnified through people curating their lives, tailoring their responses to what “should” be said, rather than what will actually be “true”—with the death of privacy through all of your devices in your house either recording you, tracking you, suggesting items to you, or even interacting with you, the line between what is truly felt, and what you actually say, will become even narrower. Peace builders should prepare through training to address this cognitive dissonance, because it will only take a few generations before more masking of previously transparent communication will occur.

As man and machine begin to merge at the first level with communication, peace builders should be engaging with the process proactively and aggressively, rather than waiting and being caught by surprise.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Two, Episode #9 – Pattie Porter

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Two, Episode #9 – Pattie Porter, Conflict Coach, Podcast Host, Entrepreneur, The Hardest Working Mediator in Texas

[powerpress]

Fear, avoidance, escalation and getting out of our own way…

In a conflict there are two primary movers: Fear and Power.

Fear moves a conflict forward, or backward, or to the side, through resistance, panic, aggressiveness, and avoidance.

Power moves a conflict forward, or backward, or to the side, through domination, aggressiveness, passive-aggressiveness, and outright confrontation.

Power over is sometimes confused with motivation and empowerment, especially by abrasive leaders.

In many organizations, departments, teams, committees and even individuals, make decisions about changes and innovations because of their perceptions about both fear and power.

Such perceptions (and misperceptions) within different organizations, sometimes leads to a lack of genuine leadership, work being done badly (or not at all), and innovation being stymied.

Unfortunately, as long as people are around to create hierarchical chains of command, fear and power will be the two prime movers of conflict.

Our guest for our show today, Pattie Porter, President of the Texas Association of Mediators and host of the Texas Conflict Coach Radio Show on the Blog Talk Radio network, faces these issues head-on. She works almost exclusively to address cultural clashes, abrasive supervisors and help HR departments in all types of organizations from NASA to higher education organizations.

The key thing to understand is that the party who uses fear and power as a primary mover in a conflict, is looking for a preprogrammed, evolutionary response from the other party: When a different response is provided, then the balance of fear and power shifts, from the instigator to the respondent.

This is the dance of conflict, driven by fear and power, and when the balance is successfully tipped—or shifted—the game changes.

Pattie knows about the game changing and she is tilling the field of that change in order to engage with conflict competency as a skill for leaders and a skill set for everyone.

Ironically enough, Pattie bookends the second season of Earbud_U and closes off our first interview that we did with Neil Denny, way back in Episode #1.

Check out all the ways below that you can connect with Pattie!

Pattie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patriciaporter

Pattie on Twitter: https://twitter.com/txconflictcoach

Pattie on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TexasConflictCoach

Conflict Connections: http://www.conflictconnections.com/

Pattie on Podcasting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKip9iYd__s

Pattie’s Professional Profile: http://www.mediate.com/people/personprofile.cfm?auid=603

Pattie’s Interview with Dave Hilton: http://www.conflictengagementspecialists.com/blog/conflict-coaching-with-pattie-porter-texas-conflict-coach/

Pattie on The Culture of Empathy Series: http://cultureofempathy.com/References/Experts/Pattie-Porter.htm

Pattie’s Podcast, The Texas Conflict Coach Radio Show: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/texas-conflict-coach

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Two, Episode #8 – Nicholas Jackson

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Two, Episode #8 – Nicholas Jackson, Children’s Book Illustrator, Artist, Graphic Designer, Man of Faith, Entrepreneur, Thinker & Thought Leader

[powerpress]

Let’s talk honestly about the unmentionables.

When I was a child—and then as I transitioned into adolescence—I was warned by my parents to never talk about the three following subjects in “polite” company:

Sex
Religion
Politics

But, as the top of the world has blown off with the presence of social media and with everybody revealing everything from reality shows to magazine covers, no one—at least no celebrity anyway—seems to have time to follow this admonition.

It has almost become de riguer in our culture, and some on both the political right and the political left would claim that we are at the end of Western culture. Because the masses and the audiences seem to favor showing off rather than putting the work into becoming a person of substance.

Substance, some would say, is the appeal of showing up, being committed and consistent—but not if you’re wrong about something. Then, we don’t want commitment and consistency. And you better apologize quickly for being wrong before it gets out to Twitter and social media that you were wrong.

Others would argue that style is more important than substance.

But, for my money, style comes after hard work and is a by product of substance. And my guest today, Nicholas Jackson, is putting the work in and moving slowly and surely towards realizing his own, unique vision.

With substance, clarity and even a style that’s all his own.

Now, on unmentionables.

Look, we’re gonna talk about money on the podcast today.

Making money. Spending money. But most importantly, charging clients’ money.

One of the things that I have said to people in the past is that this work that I do—the corporate training, the consulting and coaching,—is not done for free. This isn’t the March of Dimes (apologies to them, they’re a great organization), and while it may seem that money—as well as sex—is something that the American public—and the marketers relating stories to the American public, seem to be something we can never shut up about, we often still sensationalize “money talk.”

Or maybe we don’t. I don’t know. Nick and I will hash it out in this hour and half long talk.

Check out all the places below that you can connect to Nick as he makes money, doing highly valuable, substantive and meaningful work that matters:

Nicholas Jackson Illustration: http://www.nicholasjackson.net/

Nicholas Jackson on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nicholasjacksonartdesign/

Nicholas Jackson on Twitter: https://twitter.com/nickjjackson

Hire Nicholas Jackson here: http://www.hireanillustrator.com/i/author/nicholas-jackson/

Read his Interview w/Freelance Fuse here: http://freelancefuse.net/2010/08/nicholas-jackson-how-his-drawing-allows-for-his-freelancing-lifestyle/

[Advice] On Distributing a Podcast

The issue with creating podcast content is the same issue that is apparent with all content creation: distribution is at the core of getting listener attention.

Just creating content is not enough—as is endlessly pointed out in blogs, essays and articles—there has to be a system created to make sure that the content gets from where it is, to the audience who needs to consume it.

Podcast content—or any other type of audio content—must have a distribution ecosystem arranged beforehand in order to be successful. In the case of The Earbud_U Podcast, our distribution system is as follows:

ITunes, Stitcher, The Blubrry Store, Player.FM and Google Play Music Store: These platforms are not places we built, but they act as locations for the audience to listen to the podcast, or subscribe.

The Earbud_U Podcast Page, RSS Feed, email list: These are platforms that are owned, rather than rented from other owners as the platforms above are, and as they are owned, they are the platforms that require the most attention from both the creator and the audience to grow.

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google +, Instagram: These platforms are really for the marketing of the audio content, rather than acting as the location where content is located (similar to ITunes or Stitcher), or acting as the location where further “upselling” can happen (similar to The Earbud_U Podcast page). The content has to be marketed and driving the audience toward the content is the purpose of these social media networks.

Throughout any distribution system, is the possibility of feedback from the audience to the creator. Many podcast creators and producers have lamented the fact that there is little feedback available from the audience in regards to their content creation efforts (other than through downloads); though audience ratings on ITunes, and tracking page visits through Google Analytics, is a good start.

There are many issues with distributing podcast content. And with 250,000 podcasts, the distribution game is the one to be focused on after the content creation process is over.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Two, Episode #7 – Elizabeth Clemants

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Two, Episode #7 – Elizabeth Clemants, Conflict Entrepreneur, Trainer, Mediator, Shaman, Listener, “Ruckus Maker”

[powerpress]

Lately, I’ve been obsessed with leadership and how competency in conflict engagement overlaps with all of the things that we don’t teach our leaders, managers and supervisors to do.

A role that I believe more professionals in the peace building fields should be involved in is that of “ruckus maker.”

This is not a role that many peace builders are necessarily prepared for academically, but it is a role that “fits” certain conflict contexts. Many peace builders pride themselves on getting intractable conflicts resolved, on guiding parties in conflict toward goals that they thought were unattainable, and even in engaging in transformative work with people.

Yep. Transformative work.

What if, though, the entire field of peace building, myself included, were ultimately looking in exactly the wrong direction, while looking to transform people, systems and processes toward the direction of peace?

And what if we’ve been staring in one direction for so long that it now looks like the right direction?

A couple of episodes ago, we talked with Donya Zimmerman, and this interview with Elizabeth Clemants feels a little bit the same (sort of like a pair of transformative bookends) but also very different.

Transformative change is happening in the field of peace building. That change is happening out here in the hinterlands, in the grassroots, and away from the major academic programs and not via the well-worn routes that many peace builders have taken to success in the past. This change is happening in those areas that the field thought were rock solid and sacrosanct, but that are now being upended through the work of people like myself, Dave Hilton, Neil Denny and Elizabeth Clemants.

One of the areas where we’re making the most ruckus is the career trajectory and economic security areas, because, sometimes, it isn’t all about peace building.

Sometimes it’s about providing for your family, building a business that works, day-in-and-day-out, creating a reputation as a thought leader—and yes, even a “ruckus maker.”

Also, it’s about being able to sleep at night, knowing that you have done the best that you can to transform, not only the world, but also the people who want to go out and change the world after they grow a little older.

Check out all the places below, that you can connect to Elizabeth as she’s doing transformative work:

Small Business Arbitration Center of New York Website: http://www.sbacnyc.com/

Elizabeth Clemants’s Website: http://www.elizabethclemants.com/

Planning Change: http://www.planningchange.com/

The Planning Change Blog: http://www.planningchange.com/blog/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/planningchange

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PlanningChangeInc?fref=ts

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/elizabeth-clemants/3/2ab/261

Earbud_U Season Two, Episode #6 – Ben Giordano

Earbud_U, Season Two, Episode #6 – Ben Giordano, Owner- Freshy Sites, Web Developer, Entrepreneur, All Around Good Guy!

Sometimes…some days…podcasting just doesn’t work.

A guest isn’t prepared, the audio doesn’t work, or the host is not prepared.

Sometimes, no matter how prepared the host, the audio, the equipment and the guest are, everything goes right, but there still isn’t enough there!

Our guest today is Ben Giordano, of FreshySites, a local website building business, based in Binghamton, NY but expanding exponentially up and down the East Coast.

Look, I’ll be honest, the interview with Ben was fraught with problems “from the git-go”…as Kramer would have said back in the day.

I managed to get together with Ben after a year of chasing each other and when it was finally go time, the audio equipment failed, the computer (almost) failed, the Internet failed and the signal dropped in the call…everything failed except for us talking.

Which, of course, does no good for the host or the listener and does even less good for the guest.

And, I’m not throwing anybody under the bus here, other than myself…

Anyway, this is the shortest interview to date that I’ve ever had.

It was also the most stressful to date, again, not because of anything that Ben and I did, but because the audio/Internet gods decided to slam down the ban hammer that day.

What are you gonna do…

But, we managed to pull it out and redeem it by the end, and the audio gods left enough over for us to have an interview.

Connect with Ben (and FreshySites) via all the ways you can below, and have him build a website for you:

Ben on twitter: https://twitter.com/bengiordano

FreshySites on Twitter: https://twitter.com/FreshySites

Ben on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bengiordano

FreshySites on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreshySites/

The FreshySites website: http://freshysites.com/

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Two, Episode #5 – Donya Zimmerman

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Two, Episode #5 – Donya Zimmerman, Former Lawyer, Business Development Consultant, Mediator, Entrepreneur, Community Engager

[powerpress]

Sometimes, you wind up with a problem you didn’t expect, because you weren’t paying attention to the right thing at the right time.

Instead, you were so focused on the wrong thing (thinking that it was the right thing to be focused on at the time) that you totally missed the problem staring you in the face.

Then, when the problem rears its ugly head (as problems often do), you are—well—blindsided—by what happens to you.

This happens to people, neighborhoods, societies, and cultures. And as of the summer of 2015, (and leading into more recent incidents in the fall) well, the only thing that we know for sure, is that blindsiding is happening more and more in our American culture.

Our guest today knows all about being blindsided by not paying attention.

Donya Zimmerman, former lawyer and current business consultant and mediator, ran her own law firm for a little while. But like many entrepreneurs, she became so focused on one area, that she completely neglected focusing on another area.

She is a native of Baltimore, Maryland, born and raised in the hardest of hard places. Donya is honest about her mistakes, her missteps, and her blindness in a way that is humorous, refreshing and—quite frankly—courageous.

Look, courage is more lacking than genius is in our fraying culture.

We laud the entrepreneur who cocks and crows about cashing out at a high valuation, or the one who makes his or her next round of seed funding, but we celebrate less failures and disappointments. We also celebrate less the culture that grinds the courage out of people and pulls them back into the bucket of mediocrity and accepting the status quo.

Donya’s trying to do better. She’s trying to avoid being blindsided again. And, much like her city, her state and her country, what she needs most is not our approbation, condemnation or our slings and arrows.

What she—and many others who try, fail and try again—needs is our grace, our forgiveness and our open hand of hope and help.

Connect with Donya via all the ways below:

Donya Zimmerman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dzbusconsultantandmediator

Family & Community Mediation and Business Consulting blog: https://dzimmerman36.wordpress.com/about/

Powerful Biz Woman on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PowerfulBizWoman

Family & Community Mediation and Business Consulting website: http://conflictresolutionandconsulting.com/

Family & Community Mediation and Business Consulting on Twitter: https://twitter.com/FACMBC

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Two, Episode #4a (Special Edition) – Dianne Crampton

Earbud_U, Season Two, Episode #4 (a) (Special Edition) – Dianne Crampton, Consultant, Organizational Development Entrepreneur, TIGER for Success in Organizations

Consulting and training is hard, but not for the reasons that you would think.

I have sat in a lot of situations with people in organizations who have power in those organizations, and when viewed from the outside, those situations look like interviews.

I’ve actually had my wife correct me on this distinction with a difference before she got distracted by my quote-unquote cute butt.

The hard part of consulting and training is determining what the client needs, even though what they say they want is not always what they need. The other hard part is a corollary to that: developing a product for other people who are part of your business network who may not be able to afford your services.

Our special guest for our show today, Dianne Crampton, has discovered the solution to this.

Dianne lives and works in Oregon, so maybe it’s something in the start-up air that’s wafting up from San Francisco and other points south, but she’s managed to do some hard work and gotten some attention for her work.

The other part of developing a consulting product is funding the development of that product, and that’s where the Indiegogo part of this all starts.

Dianne will talk about all of this in our podcast today.

So, support the show, go to Dianne’s Indiegogo page (link here–> https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/improved-360-team-behavior-work-culture-survey/x/8706859#/) and donate a few bucks to help a consultant productize a service that matters. There is a $5 reward for each funding lead, so go check out all the details!

Trust us, leadership is as important to resolving conflict as practical skills are.

Connect with Dianne in all the ways you can, below:

Dianne Crampton on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diannecrampton

The TIGERS Success Website: http://corevalues.com/

The TIGERS Success Blog: http://corevalues.com/blog/

The TIGERS Among US Website: http://www.tigersamongus.com/

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/TeamBuildingSuccess/timeline/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Diannecrampton

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Two, Episode #4 – Yvette Durazo

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Two, Episode #4 – Yvette Durazo, Conflict Engagement Practitioner, Teacher, Ontological Bi-Lingual Coach, Onion Peeler, Fence Destroyer

[powerpress]

Time zones are tricky things to navigate.

First, we’ve gotta do the math in our heads, and figure out how far back or forward a person (or organization) is either behind us, or ahead of us.

Then, we’ve got to write that information down and not forget it. And then we’ve gotta be sure to follow up on the day that we are supposed to talk, interact or do business.

It’s hard enough getting the guy down the street to show up for a meeting, but when we are working with a person or company in another time zone, the barrier of a few hours of difference—the lines and boundaries separating us—can seem insurmountable.

Our guest today is Yvette Durazo and she lives in another time zone. She is also bilingual and she coaches, and asks questions in two languages.

We talked about lines and boundaries on this episode of Earbud_U and we forget that lines are powerful. They demarcate. They separate. They serve to—as my mother would say—fences that make good neighbors.

But, our world is in the process of changing, right?

Boundaries and lines, time zones and fences don’t matter much anymore when I can reach out and Skype with another person half a world away.

Or, maybe they do.

Maybe lines and demarcation matter now more than ever.

Maybe there is comfort in separating and being alone. The rise of mindfulness practices, meditation for executives and the idea traversing it’s way around Twitter of building tiny houses, are testament to the fact that human beings are feeling rushed, crowded, jostled and overwhelmed.

Yvette lives in San Diego and whenever I visit New York City (or think about traveling or living in a large metropolitan area); I often flash back to the crowded, dirty settings of films like Soylent Green or BladeRunner.

Have we come much further than those dystopian future fantasies would suggest?

I don’t know. But maybe Yvette does.

Connect with Yvette in all the ways that you can below:

Google + Profile: https://plus.google.com/+YvetteDurazo/posts

Blog: http://www.unitiveconsulting.com/#!blog/cp6k

Website: http://www.unitiveconsulting.com/

Other Ways to Hear Yvette’s Voice:

Conflict Engagement Specialists Show: http://www.conflictengagementspecialists.com/blog/bilingual-workplace-mediation-and-coaching-with-yvette-durazo-unitive-consulting-conflict-management-mediation-and-coaching/
Impact for Coaches: http://impactforcoaches.org/coaches/yvette-durazo/
Sales Leadership Alliance: http://www.salesleadershipsd.com/contact-us/meet-our-members/yvette-durazo/
UC San Diego Profile: http://crg-stemm.ucsd.edu/affiliates/industry/durazo.html

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/conflictmanagment

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/yvette-durazo-ma-acc/4/564/b07