[Opinion] 3 Routes to Get on The Cover of Fast Company

In our entrepreneurial journey we have found that there are only three kinds of entrepreneurs:

Those that have money
Those that have no money
Those that have more guts than money.

If you are in the third category, and you self-identify as a member of a minority group in this country, and you don’t see anyone who looks like you gracing the covers of Fast Company or Inc., then you owe it to yourself to try building something that you own yourself.

Look, an entrepreneur is a person who sees and established model, builds a better model, hustles tirelessly to break the old model with the new model, and then, once the new model is built up, moves onto break another model.

In the high tech start-up world, this is cleverly called “disrupting.”

And if the “traditional” minority success model you’re breaking involves acting/singing/ dancing/sports or any of the “traditional” models to minority success, then breaking that model might be the greatest social entrepreneurship ever.

After all, we started (and we continue) with more guts than money.

-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/

[Opinion] Google’s Glass Problem is Your Problem Too

There’s currently no compelling reason for us to buy Google Glass.

There’s also no compelling reason (beyond the SEO game) for us to be involved in Google+.

There’s no compelling reason because the guys out at Mountain View haven’t given us one, other than the fact that they currently own all of Internet search worth talking about.

But, as the attention of the world shifts to mobile phone use, apps matter more than search, and Google will have one less compelling reason for us to be involved with them.

The utility of search, mobile, and even wearables is based upon the idea of resolving a need or a want that the customer has and then making the solution so attractive that we can’t help but use it.

However, as the web has matured, Google hasn’t and the utility of wearables really comes down to third party data gathering about users’ behaviors, antics and actions.

The much more compelling reason for us to buy Google Glass—or any other wearable—will be answered, not by Google, or Yahoo, or even Facebook, but by Big Data advocates and privacy hawks.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Opinion] The Idolatry of Selfie

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the selfie is on the rise.

So is being famous just for being famous.

And there are parents out there that are using their children to promote fashions, lifestyles and conscious ways of being.

All of this may just be fancy marketing, attention seeking behavior, or merely a sign of the times.

Much has been said and written about the rise of narcissism in the overall culture, and we won’t add to that here, except to say this:

The most pernicious conflicts that can occur are the ones that people have with themselves. And the rise of narcissism can be directly related to three things:

Idolatry of self
Idolatry of others
Idolatry of fame and celebrity culture

Once understanding occurs around those three areas, then we can maybe become a little wiser in how often we retweet that Ellen DeGeneres selfie.

Or the one attached to this post.

-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: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

[Advice] Ethical One-Way Streets

The European High Court handed down their opinion dubbed the “right to be forgotten.”

What’s missing in all of the subsequent debate occurring around issue of privacy versus censorship, is the very real issue about a lack of organizational (read “Googles’”) ethical dealing.

“Organizations are seeking honest, fair, reliable, benevolent partners who will commit themselves to the relationship and prove trustworthy. In other words, they seek ethical partners.”

Organizations seek ethical

partners
employees
vendors
customers
clients
and audiences

who will deal fairly—and transparently—in the public commons space of the pro-social spheres that we have created.

However, when asked to engage in the same trustworthy behavior, (read “providing individuals the benefit of the doubt, forgiveness and grace about their messy histories”) they balk.

And then organizations wonder why individuals—who only build real, lasting relationships based on genuine trust, collaboration, ethical dealing and just plain enjoyment of each others’ company—balk at having their every move monitored, recorded and then used against them later.

Doesn’t sound like the thinking that leads to the behavior that will sow the seeds of peace to us.

-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: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

The Duke

At the SOHO Small Business Show in Syracuse, NY, we had to begin the mediation process with John Wayne.

It did not begin as well as we hoped it would…

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA

Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant

Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)

Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com

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

Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

HSCT’s website: http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com

The Value of the Trades

One of the most heart lifting aspects of the collaborative economy is the rapidly developing practice of a professional barter system.

This means a system where I exchange my skills, talents and resources (other than financial) for your skills, talents and resources (other than financial).

Now let’s not get this confused with

Internships
Apprenticeships
Other forms of low-wage labor

Professional barter exists when a graphic designer with more skills than exposure trades services with a budding app developer with more understanding of market exposure than skills at visual design.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA

Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant

Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)

Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com

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

Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

HSCT’s website: http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com

[Advice] The Right Brain-Left Brain Rap War

In a conflict or confrontation, it turns out that the right brain doesn’t know what the left brain is doing.

The right brain, which controls creativity and negative emotions, reacts in a conflict to protect the rest of the brain by shifting to quick action and focusing on the conflict at hand.

The left brain, which controls rationality and solution storing for problems, reacts in conflict by shutting up, sitting down and taking notes for further review later.

Adrenal glands release cortisol during stress and epinephrine (commonly known as adrenaline) during difficulty.

These glandular chemicals, along with norepinephrine, allow us to create new memories in concert with the sympathetic nervous system.

The left brain records the memories while the right brain battles it out. Kind of sounds like the way wars are fought, as the generals sit at the rear while the front rank charges.

How do you respond to someone in this state?

Disengage—don’t use logic with the person. It won’t work.
Listen and be empathetic—but don’t “buy-in” to everything that the other person is experiencing.
Then focus on the rational piece—but don’t expect much help initially. The other person is still lit up.

Now, because the other person is still operating in right brain mode, they will make judgments about you, your behavior, your responses to them and the situation. And if you do the wrong thing, or confront them, those judgments become hard to break later on.

[Thanks to Bill Eddy and others] for giving me the ideas for this blog post.

-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: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

Wisdom in the Machine

When the astronaut Dave powers down the rebellious HAL 9000 computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and more recently in the 2013 film, Her, starring Joaquin Phoenix, we determine through pop culture, what machine “death” looks–and feels–like.

The fact of murder comes from the fact of life and ideas and philosophies that we have as individual humans–and collective societies–about what traits constitute life.

In the case of a machine, we here at HSCT take the position that a machine cannot overcome the limitations of its creator.

Life is defined, not only by self-sustaining processes (we were asked while writing this post, if it would be murder to power down a machine created by another machine) but also by wisdom that is attained through life experience.

The crux of wisdom lies at the intersection of common sense, insight and understanding.

HAL 9000 may have had one, or even two, of those things—such as insight and understanding—but “he” (see how we anthropomorphized an inanimate object there) lacked the third trait in spades: common sense.

Just like Skynet in Terminator or the machines and computer programming networks of The Matrix, HAL 9000 was unable to negotiate in good faith with his creator.

“He” made an “all or nothing” decision about Dave’s presence, Dave’s mission and Dave’s motives and then took extreme action.

The same way that the machines did in The Matrix and Terminator.

The ability to negotiate with others in good faith, and to honor those agreements, is a human trait based in knowledge, experience, common sense and insight, not just a happy byproduct of a conscious mind.

And until machines have the ability to negotiate with, not only their environments in the rudest sense of the term, but also with their creators, we should feel free to power them up—or down—at our will.

After all, our Creator does the same thing.

Right?

-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: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

Get Out of Your Head

Get some outside your own head help.

When you are writing anything, it is easy to get cloistered and wrapped up in your own head.

And while you may have had this idea for an e-book for years and have been noodling away at it on napkins at restaurants for the last five years, if no one else looks at it, then it may not be worth its weight in gigabytes.

This is a critical step in the writing process for both fiction and nonfiction writers.

Part of the freedom and glory of blogging is that there are no editors or authorities to filter your voice.

But in a dynamic selling environment, where you will be giving away an e-book consisting of your best ideas, you want to put your best foot forward and an editor will help you do that.

As usual, a professional beats an amateur, but sometimes, crowd editing (like crowd funding) can serve as an awesome way to let others in on what you are doing, as well as tap into the vast resource of the internet

known as the collective mind.

Is it scary?

Yeah.

But so is never adding to the world in a positive way.

Getting an editor—whether it be the crowd or a former disgruntled journalist—can be a scary, expensive proposition.

But not as scary as the long-term effects of choosing not to communicate effectively.

Here at HSCT, we can help you explore the how to communicate effectively safely and thoroughly.

Sign upfor the March 26^th HSCT Seminar, Choices in Communication, held at The Studios of Bree Elyse Imaging for only $89.99!

Click on the link http://bitly.com/18LX7HC to register!

We would love to see you there!

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA

Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant

Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)

Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com

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

Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

HSCT’s website: http://hsconsultingandtrain.wix.com/hsct

[Opinion] Trapped on the LIE

Imagine if when people were in conflict, they were transformed by changing their minds and approaches to conflicts, rather than conforming to “the way things have always worked?” (Romans 12:2). Applying principles expounded by the Gallup Organization, people can be transformed, but many prefer to conform to patterns and behaviors that stem from three areas:

Lies that they tell themselves about the nature and type of conflicts in which they are involved,
Attitudes that have been “wired” into them through past experiences, traumas, stresses and difficulties,
Insecurities that they have that bind them to their traditional attitudes and thought processes

Now, we shouldn’t be deceived (and I’m not the first one to point this out) but whatever we create in a conflict from whatever basis we create it, we are going to get back in return (Galatians 6:7).

So, shouldn’t we be acting from our best selves, based on our strengths and what we’re really good at, to respond to conflicts in our lives, rather than reacting based upon lies, insecurities and falsehoods?

[Thanks to Pastors Dawn & Joe Coudriet for pointing these ones out to me]

-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/