Podcasts about as jennifer

Jennifer Segarra is on the #RWYK #Podcast to celebrate her wonderful #PictureBook El Lechon Choncho and to celebrate the beautiful island of Puerto Rico. Jennifer tells us this story was inspired by memories of visiting her abuela and playing with her adorable pig Choncho. As Jennifer tells us Choncho is as big as a truck and he is sweet, smart, brave, and practically the funniest pig you could ever meet! Click here to visit Jennifer's website - https://authorjennifersegarra.com/ Click here to visit our website - www.readingwithyourkids.com

Business and mindset coach for coaches, Jennifer Trask, is enthusiastic about helping entrepreneurs live joyous lives. She is an award-winning coach and has spent over a decade helping business owners build mindsets that move them forward. In this episode, Jennifer walks us through her entrepreneurial journey and the breakthroughs she had along the way. We talk about training yourself to see joyful moments in your day, the myth of job security, why being joyous does not mean ignoring the “bad” emotions, and what we can do if we are feeling stuck in our current situations.  We spend most of our waking hours working, so why would we not want to enjoy what we do? As Jennifer highlights, being joyful is a choice, and if we commit and re-commit to feeling it day in and day out, our business and personal lives will flourish.Show Notes and Transcript:  https://loveyourenthusiasm.com/maintain-joy-day-to-day-jennifer-trask/

Supply chain strategies are the anchor of any business organization today. Whether it is multi-faceted or on a smaller scale it has the ability to impact the flow of capital. As one element fails a wave rushes over the remaining operations, causing a ripple effect, impacting the entire network. Overhaul has an innovative approach that ties visibility to risk management. With this hardware-agnostic software, you can proactively protect and optimize your supply chain. Jennifer Anderson-Alonzi is the VP of marketing and, although new to the company, she is passionate and ready to formalize the growth engine. Not only has she offered us insights into the advantages of this solution but into marketing strategies as a whole. As marketers look to perfect brand visibility she notes the need to leverage the psychology of a buyer’s decision in order to offer an intelligent experience.  As there are emotional triggers for each purchasing decision marketers have the opportunity to leverage these insights and influence the buyer’s decisions. Jennifer has walked into a business with ever-growing momentum and an exemplary reputation that she is ready to verticalize the marketing focus. As Jennifer leverages the psychology and emotional insights of her buyer’s journey she is anchoring the growth engine while Overhaul anchors your supply chain.

From YouTube channels to get-rich playbooks, whole industries are devoted to the subject of building wealth. But few books present a clear and honest view of what it’s like to have a lot of money. Today we welcome author Jennifer Risher onto the show to share her insights on living with wealth. Early in the episode, we explore how Jennifer and her husband ‘hit the lottery twice’ by being given stock options for both Microsoft and Amazon before they went public. Jennifer then shares details about the key premise of her book: people with wealth never talk about their money. Informed by her experience of having sudden wealth, we discuss why gaining wealth doesn’t significantly change people despite it leading to feelings of isolation. After talking about how wealthy people rarely feel that they have enough, we unpack the many benefits that come from talking about your wealth. As Jennifer explains, using examples from her life, communicating your feelings about money is a solution to many relationship issues that arise from having wealth. Linked to this, we dive into how you can raise balanced children whose outlooks aren’t spoiled by affluence. Later, we touch on the role of giving, Jennifer's top advice for newly wealthy people, and how Jennifer views work now that it’s optional for her. We wrap up our conversation by hearing about how the wealthy make a positive impact on society. In this episode, we dispel many myths about being rich. Tune in for more on why we need to be talking about wealth.   Key Points From This Episode: Details about author Jennifer Risher, today’s guest. [0:00:17] Jennifer shares why she wrote her book and the problems that it addresses. [0:02:43] Exploring the question: how much does wealth change you? [0:06:55] What wealth has given to Jennifer and what it hasn’t. [0:09:10] Jennifer describes the feelings that came with suddenly becoming wealthy. [0:10:14] The process informing Jennifer’s decision that she had ‘enough.’ [0:13:41] Hear Jennifer’s advice for couples who have different definitions of ‘enough.’ [0:16:49] How few wealthy people don’t feel that they have sufficient wealth. [0:19:03] The important role that financial advisors play aligning wealth with people’s values. [0:20:13] How Jennifer’s book is opening up the conversation on wealth. [0:23:09] Challenges around raising children in a state of affluence. [0:25:36] Why modelling virtuous behaviour is key in raising balanced children. [0:28:40] What Jennifer learned from speaking to other wealthy couples. [0:30:23] How having wealth can impact your relationships. [0:34:06] Overcoming the taboo of talking about money. [0:38:52] Ways to view work when working is optional for you. [0:42:28] Jennifer unpacks her biggest lessons on giving. [0:44:00] Jennifer shares her advice for newly wealthy people. [0:50:35] What the wealthy can do to improve society. [0:51:59] Hear how Jennifer defines success for herself. [0:53:34]

Can you change the world? Guess what - you can! This week's guest Jennifer Burden had an idea about the power and diversity of motherhood and now, ten years later, the World Moms Network represents a growing family of moms from 30 countries who rally behind important causes like reducing poverty, providing safe drinking water, supplying vaccinations, and providing relief to victims of human trafficking. As Jennifer says, "We like to handle the tough issues," and this is exactly what she and her moms have done. Hear this inspiring story about the power of hope and perseverance and learn about the amazing people and experiences that have made up Jen's journey to date.

As Jennifer learned more about her family she recognized the threads in her life that connect her to her ancestors.In this episode Jennifer shares:What it was like to connect with her grandfather as she retraced some of his steps during WWIIWhat happened when she dropped by the home of extended family she didn’t know in GermanyHow understanding her past helps her consider her influence on future generations About Jennifer:Jennifer Keniston's genealogy hobby turned serious in 2018 when she enrolled in the Genealogical Principles course offered through Boston University. She completed BU's Genealogical Research certificate in 2019 and started Origin Story Genealogy. She recently launched an Etsy shop by the same name that offers printable PDF research tools for genealogists and family historians. Prior to her dive into her family history, Jennifer studied fine art and photography in London, where many of her projects centered on identity and place. Jennifer believes that genealogy is not only an exploration into our past, it's an exploration into ourselves.Connect with Jennifer:Website: originstorygenealogy.home.blogInstagram: @originstorygenealogyEtsy: originstorygenealogy Episode Sponsor: Episode sponsored by Heather Murphy's signature 1:1 service, Resilience in Your Roots. Stories in Our Roots is 6 Months Old!Fill out this feedback survey and receive my gift, “27 Lessons Learned Through Stories in Our Roots,” a PDF highlighting the many ways my guests have been impacted by researching and learning about their ancestors.

In this episode listen to Jennifer being interviewed by Dr. Jen Haley on the Radiance Revealed Podcast!In this episode, I was invited to discuss the world of epigenetics. Find out what exactly epigenetics are, how they work, and how you can influence them for a healthy and happier you. You no longer have to be a slave to your genetics - tune in to find out how! Jennifer received her degree in Molecular Biology from the University of Pittsburgh and went into Transplant Research at the Thomas E. Starzl Transplant Institute soon thereafter. After performing many experiments on immune cell modulation and contributing to several scientific papers, she transitioned to working in the industry. Here, she was introduced to how research discoveries are taken to the public with the help of pharmaceutical companies. It was then when Jennifer realized that she had a passion for writing and teaching. Since then she has been involved in creating training materials for new drug therapies and working directly for drug companies for over 17 years. In 2016, Jennifer decided to expand her knowledge base and become a freelance medical writer. She now routinely writes launch training for therapies ranging from:acne to Alzheimer’s gene therapy for a variety of diseasesmany types of cancer treatmentsas well as medical devices such as breast implants, dermal skin substitutes, and diagnostic processes for measuring gene expression, to name just a few!As Jennifer’s knowledge base began to increase, she was surprised by the amount of basic knowledge never taught to the general public that would help people to not only better understand the nature of potential conditions, but to also help avoid them. Plus, she learned a lot of cool things about how amazing the human body is and thought it might be fun to share them in bite-size bits through a podcast called Autobiology Bits. Autobiology is the science of studying yourself as a living organism. It’s also a great way to show how everyone works a little differently from each other. No two people “work” exactly the same way when it comes to biology – not even TWINS! Jennifer’s aim is to explain those differences and why it matters to your everyday existence in the most fun and entertaining way possible.KEY POINTS / MAIN TAKEAWAYS:What exactly is epigenetics and why is it such a game-changer? Misconceptions of epigenetics. The different influences on epigenetic changes. How your ancestry is linked to your epigenetics. Ways to support good methylation. Recommended formulations of Vitamin C. Signs of poor methylation. Magnesium: The role it plays in the body and the recommended intake. Is it too late to change your epigenetics? Methylation tests: How often should you take them? QUOTABLES:“We thought, way back in the 90s, that if we could understand all the genes in the body, that we would totally understand how to eradicate disease and fix everybody's problems. But what we learned was that it's just a blueprint; it can be changed.” “You could be given good genes and put them to waste or you could be given bad genes and make the most out of it. And 85 to 90% of what you do determines what genes are switched on and what genes are switched off.” Follow Autobiology Bits on Instagram https://autobiology.net/instagramFollow Dr. Jen Haley on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drjenhaleyVisit her website at http://www.drjenhaley.comBook a consultation with Dr. Haley here: https://dermoncall.net/jhaley

We all want to become better, more effective leaders. At the same time, we want to work with our colleagues to pursue a higher calling. So how can we do both at the same time? In this episode of Connection Loop, Dubb Creative Director Shannon Leonard and Jennifer Spor speak about leading up from a place of mission, vision, and purpose. Some of the insights and takeaways from this episode include the following: Self-awareness is a huge factor in helping you pursue your mission and achieve your purpose. Not only that, but you need to have the willingness to see that there is another way to achieve your goals. This can be difficult, but the good news is that we are eternal students. By embracing this role and never settling, you can get much closer to your vision and purpose. One of the best places to start achieving your vision and purpose is to start assessing your emotions. As Jennifer says, our emotions can be a fantastic GPS in our lives. They can help guide us toward the steps or actions that we must take to fulfill that purpose. Don’t try to silence those emotions as you are on the road to self-discovery. Progress can be measured by how you are feeling. If you are starting to feel better or more in alignment with yourself, you are likely on the right track. Jennifer also recommends that we prioritize integrity for ourselves. By keeping promises to yourself, you can become more confident as you are pursuing your mission or vision. There is a major difference between traditional leadership and conscious leadership. Traditional leadership really evolved around making strategic decisions, but not so much about the well-being of people. Conscious leadership prioritizes the well-being of both customers and internal customers (our team members and ourselves). Leading up is about leading forward. The old paradigms of leadership don’t work. Instead, we need to lead forward by being more empathetic, putting our teams first, and pursuing our overarching missions. This is an outstanding episode for people that want to become better leaders or get much closer to their mission or vision. Whether you are a new hire at your company or a manager at your organization, make sure that you have a pen and paper for this episode. Jennifer Spor is a conscious leadership coach. Some of her specialties are executive coaching, transformational coaching, spiritual coaching and mentoring, and conscious leadership development and training. Along with her work as a conscious leadership coach, Jennifer is the host of the Awake & On Purpose podcast. Ultimately, Jennifer supports conscious women leaders who want to activate change in the world through having their own purpose-driven businesses. Want to learn more from Jennifer about leading up from a place of mission, vision, and purpose? The story continues at dubb.com. Learn more about Dubb at https://dubb.it/up5c --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/connection-loop-dubb/message

This week Tiffany sits down to talk all things Binge Eating Disorder (BED) with Jennifer Rollin. Jennifer Rollin works regularly as a therapist for clients with BED and brings A LOT of expertise to this conversation. Also, the two talk about stigma surrounding mental health support for therapists in the field. This is a great episode if you or someone you know is struggling with bingeing in any form. There is no restrictions on who suffers from binge eating and deserves help. As Jennifer says, "if you're bingeing, you're sick enough." More About Jennifer: Jennifer Rollin is an eating disorder therapist and founder of The Eating Disorder Center. She has been interviewed speaking about eating disorders on ABC, NBC, PBS, and NBC. She has been named as one of the top eating disorder experts in the country. You can find Jennifer on Instagram at @jennifer_rollin and at https://www.theeatingdisordercenter.com/. © 2020. All Rights Reserved Tiffany Roe, LLC. The Therapy Thoughts Podcast is for general informational purposes only. Not intended to diagnose or treat any condition, illness, or disease. Not intended to be financial, legal, medical or therapeutic advice. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/therapythoughts/support

Jennifer Farber Dulos was a woman to be envied. Educated and attractive, she came from a wealthy New York City family, lived in beautiful Connecticut mansions, married a handsome educated man, and had five healthy children. After 13 years of marriage to her Greek-American husband, Fotis Dulos, he became aggressive and unfaithful. He told Jennifer that he had fallen out of love with her, but he didn’t want to move out of the family home. Instead, he wanted to move his new lover and her daughter in with them. Not surprisingly, Jennifer was not on board with this plan. She moved out under the cover of the night, taking the children with her. Join us at the quiet end as we discuss the disappearance of Jennifer Dulos. When Jennifer vanished, she and Fotis were still deeply entrenched in a lengthy and intense divorce battle. As Jennifer tried to move forward and focus on her children, Fotis was realizing that he could lose custody of his children and go bankrupt. Although he denied having any involvement in his estranged wife’s disappearance, a trail of evidence revealed dark and sinister secrets.

OTOJA ABIT, is a film maker and actor, best known for his award-winning debut short, Jitters in which he wrote, directed, produced, and starred in. Otoja expands on the theme of his short Jitters with his first-of-its-kind urban-leaning holiday film A New York Christmas Wedding that touches on some of the themes involving the LGBTQIA community and religion. MarVista Entertainment has entered the film festival circuit with runs at the American Black Film Festival, Urbanworld Film Festival, Martha’s Vineyard African among many others.A New York Christmas Story follows the life of Jennifer Ortiz (Nia Fairweather) as her Christmas wedding to handsome, successful fiancé, David (Otoja Abit) approaches. Feeling overwhelmed by a dinner with her soon to be in-laws, Jennifer goes out for a jog to clear her mind. While on her run, she meets an angel Azrael who gives her the chance to experience another version of her life with everything she truly wants. In her alternate life, Jennifer sees the way her life could have been if she had only had the courage to listen to her heart and pursued the feelings for her childhood best friend, Gabrielle Vernaci (Adrina DeMeo). As Jennifer begins to embrace this alternate reality, Azrael reminds her she only has a limited amount of time to decide which life she wants to live. Torn between the safe life she is currently living and the life of her dreams, Jennifer learns to take a risk and follow her heart.Otoja’s past credits include HBO’s The Night of, NBC’s Blackish, Marvel’s Netflix The Defenders, directed by SJ Clarkson, and acting opposite Krysten Ritter; co-creator, producer, and star of the New York Television Festival’s Official Selection, Harlem Knights.(Write up by Coeur Communications)You can follow Otoja on social media below:Twitter:@OhAbitInstagram:@OhAbitFacebook: @Otoja.AbitSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/hellblazerbiz)

One of the wedding clients for next spring has called with concerns over security at Brookfield. Ruth thinks she’s allayed the woman’s doubts, but no sooner has she said this than Eddie calls to say there’s a suspicious van hanging around Marney’s field. David arrives but misses them; the van’s driven off. Eddie curses the nighthawkers – he fears they won’t give up easily. He suggests he might pose as one of them to gain their trust – but to do that he’ll need the detector David found dumped in the hedge… Eddie also suggests that once they’ve caught the wrongdoers, he could be given the rights to the area. Ruth’s more than sceptical, but David feels it’s a case of better the devil you know. Chris fears Alice’s sickness has returned as he remarks on her being missing from the bed last night. Alice insists she was just outside looking at the stars. She presents him with an outfit for the baby which trumpets his awesomeness. As Jennifer arrives at the door, both agree they want to put her off today. But as Jennifer opens up about Siobhan’s CD, Alice is happy to listen. Jennifer confesses it’s helped her see Siobhan in a new light – as a mother speaking to her son. She can no longer hate the woman who gave them Ruairi and spoke so lovingly to him. Alice is moved, and she and her mother share a tender moment. Later Alice is horrified to discover she’s bleeding.

We are Spiritual beings having a physical experience!    If you’re like host, Laura Prisc, you’ve wondered, and maybe even asked, what your purpose is in being here – on the planet, living this life. Much of Laura’s life has been lived in search of the answers to those and other big questions. So, it’s no surprise that when she and guest, Jennifer Urezzio, met, they hit it off and jumped right into this conversation.    When Jennifer began asking those questions, she received deep insight into her work, which is helping others tune into themselves, recognize their personal Soul Language, and use that knowing to frame how they show up in their lives and work.    “This makes Soul tangible, in yourself and in your business,” she explains. “It allows us to put words to that thing we know deep within…” it’s what’s true about and within us… and it’s speaking to each of us all day, every day, if only we’d tune in and listen!   Soul Language helps us understand our mission in life – what we’ll be known for here, and our ‘soulful personality,’ how we show up and use our unique gifts with others.    As Jennifer aligned more and more with her inner voice, what she calls Divine Voice, she was able to clearly articulate the concepts of Soul Language and how it works in life and in business. She went on to (literally) write the book and develop a program to expand this knowing and way of living with others. Today, there are a number of certified Soul Language practitioners helping others connect more deeply with themselves.  One way to do this is to create a daily sacred practice that works… When we feel separate from our higher power, that separation shows up in our lives as lack, pain, and suffering. Participating in a daily sacred practice that fits who you are will allow you to create in a more powerful way, feel more at peace, and know that you are safe no matter what challenge may appear in your experience. As a spiritual renegade, your sacred practice needs to be flexible. This conversation will have you asking some of those big questions, if you aren’t already engaged in that exploration. And if you’re ready to discover and align with your Soul Language, Jennifer is ready to help!    Jennifer’s Bio Jennifer Urezzio is the founder of Soul Language – a paradigm that puts tangibility to Soul so a conscious connection can be established to enable crystal clear decisions for success. Jennifer is also a master intuitive and the author of two best-selling books. Currently, she has trained over 30 practitioners worldwide in Soul Language. At this time there are over 5,000 individuals all over the world connecting to their Soul Languages.   Jennifer has worked with and supported hundreds of successful, highly creative individuals with resolving blocks in their creative process so that new opportunities can be received and created.   Her clients consistently relate how Jennifer provides an environment where they feel safe to open up and be vulnerable. She helps them regain their strength and express their big purpose and mission. Jennifer has even been described as “liquid nitrogen” because she has the ability to see the core of possibilities within each individual’s energy field. She is a master at asking the soul-searching questions that allow individuals to understand and perceive new pathways of success and greatness in their lives.   In just one session, clients report that new possibilities open up for them which allows them to express their creativity, stardom, and greatness in whole new ways to the world. Many of Jennifer’s client reviews can be found at: https://bit.ly/2Ec2MOd.    Connect with Jennifer:  https://www.facebook.com/jenniferurezzio https://www.facebook.com/SoulLanguage/ https://www.instagram.com/soullanguagefounder/ https://twitter.com/SoulLanguage https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferurezzio/ http://www.youtube.com/c/JenniferUrezzio www.soullanguage.us By Phone: 862-368-5877   FREE GIFT: https://www.soullanguage.us/sacredpractice/

“In the beginning, the vision was something for the community, and truly nothing more than that. That's what held us together. We wanted to bring the community together.”-          Jennifer TouchetThe power of your ‘why’In episode 21 I discussed owning your value and the key elements to unlocking authenticity and personal power. This week we take a deep dive into the first element, “Know what you stand for,” as embodied by my guest, Jennifer Touchet.Holding true to the vision and the “why” of the community was indispensable during her bid to establish a nature center in the urban neighborhood of Oak Cliff in Dallas.While some wanted to erect a high-end, gated community on that beloved spot of land, much of the neighborhood knew and loved it for the nature and recreation it provided. What followed was a years-long project requiring passion and persistence. Enjoy learning some key pointers from our conversation.[3:12] ...BeBe spoke so passionately and it was clear that she had a bigger vision for who should benefit from ... this jewel that was in our community. So afterwards, I connected with her and ... asked her if she wanted to work together to try and bring the community voice to what's really going to happen. And she wanted to...Be Empowered by Your Beliefs [9:32] “One of my core beliefs is that local communities that are closest to problems are also closest to solutions…”“I firmly believe that the community can come up with what's best for itself. I kind of believe that in general, that the communities that live and work in play where they are, that are closest to things know also how to make it better.”Know the Stakeholder Environment“If you want to get anything done, you have to look at all the different factors that will affect your ability as a person or as a group to get that done.”Know When to Relent and Know When to Relax Knowing your stand is important. But there often comes a time when compromise needs to occur.  Originally Twelve Hills was 20 acres of land. To achieve their purpose, they had to scale back and negotiate. As Jennifer said, “To win doesn’t mean winner take all.”[16:08] “We had to go back and change our plan, and negotiate with our city government, the school district developers to come up with a different vision. Twelve Hills today is just over five acres…But there were some people that felt like we gave up too much. But at that point, it felt like it was going to be if we fought for all, we were going to get nothing.”Resources mentioned in this episode:Jennifer Touchet’s Visionary Leadership & Creating A Win-Win-Winhttps://rise-leaders.com/jennifer-touchet-visionary-leadership/A Guide For Owning Your Value:https://mailchi.mp/d37649fa5f04/own-your-valueA downloadable worksheet for defining and voicing your valueTo learn more about Twelve Hills please visit:https://twelvehills.org/To connect to Jennifer please visit:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-touchet-0437571/To discuss executive coaching, leadership development program design, and workshop facilitation, please visit:https://rise-leaders.com/contact-info/I specialize in helping leaders and organizations thrive.  Reach out if there’s a way I can support you.

This week on the "What's your story podcast", we have a guest with lots of energy who helps business owners who want a guaranteed ROI on their marketing efforts. As Jennifer explains, sometimes business owners spend money on marketing campaigns that don't result in a proper return on investment. She states she believes you should always get an ROI on your marketing dollars. "My clients earn 4, 5, and even 6 figures each year from my referrals. And they only pay me when someone becomes a client." Jennifer is also an event producer, an industry that has had a real hit with the Covid19 pandemic. Jennifer talks with us on how she helps businesses realize and reinvent themselves during the crisis. She is able to strategize and drive business success, making businesses flourish. A great listen for a business leader looking for ways to get through the pandemic. Jennifer can be contacted at JenniferBeale.com .

What would you do if you knew your content wasn’t reaching 20% of your audience? In today’s episode, we talk with Deaf writer and disability rights activist Jennifer Brown. As Jennifer explains, most disabled people come into activism through necessity, not desire. She and many others have spent their lives fighting for accessibility to things that many of us take for granted. Things like education. Healthcare. Entertainment.  And digital content. The adult disabled community accounts for over 20% of the population. That is over 1 in 5 people who rely on things like captions and screen readers just to live their lives. Is your content accessible? Or are you missing out on touchpoints with a large part of your audience? If we want to #DoBetterDigital, then we have to create content that our ENTIRE audience can access. That could be the blind woman. The deaf man. The mom watching your live video while her baby sleeps. The student learning English by reading captions.  Accessibility isn’t about being “PC.” Accessibility is about being better.  Being a better digital marketer. Being a better business owner. Being a better human.  In today’s episode, Jennifer tells us exactly what we need to do to #DoBetterDigital. And if you think you just can’t afford to create accessible content? Jennifer has an answer for that too.  Listen now. In episode 37 of Small Stage, Big Impact we discuss: [6:37] Jennifer’s biggest wish in terms of accessibility and activism [8:43] The number one thing people can do to help create a more accessible society [11:19] How businesses are hurting their bottom line by not being more accessible [13:17] Some simple first steps every business can take to become more accessible to their audience [14:48] Why you should pay special attention to alt text for images to make it truly useful [18:35] How hashtags are a stumbling block for accessibility - and a simple fix! [21:20] How the cost of ADA-compliance is the cost of doing business, just like compliance with any other law. [26:10] The best way to make podcasts accessible for the deaf community [39:27] How accessibility and equity are intersectional and cover multiple types of experience  Resources mentioned by Jennifer and Renia in the episode: Follow Jennifer on Twitter and Instagram Find out more about Jennifer and her work in Disability Justice View the “WAP” ASL cover signed by a Black Deaf woman on Twitter Read more about the controversy surrounding the viral music interpreter issue Learn more about the Dear Grown Ass Women community Don’t miss an episode of season 4 of Small Stage, Big Impact

On this episode of UAB Green and Told, we welcome Dr. Jennifer Breland, Assistant Vice President of Alumni and the Executive Director of the National Alumni Society at UAB. Right now, the NAS is going through a major change. As Jennifer will share, From Here On IN, a dues based membership is out, allowing the organization to better serve all alumni.

Sean Howard is all of the things! He’s a talented speaker, podcaster, writer, brand marketer, and he’s the co-founder of Fable and Folly, a network of kick ass audio fiction podcasts, some of which he’s acted in and produced. Which is...   [If your podcast app isn’t showing the featured art for this episode above visit https://rebekahnemethy.com/artink15 to check it out.   Castbox and Podcast Addict are both apps I recommend that do show episode specific art.]   Links from the Show at a Glance:   Artist: Sean Howard Title of Art: Disconnected Artist’s Website: seanhoward.ca Instagram: @passitalong   Discover audio fiction podcasts on Sean’s network: fableandfolly.com   Sean Howard’s Levitation photographs   Art Ink Submission Guidelines: rebekahnemethy.com/artinksubs     Art Ink Podcast Transcript:   [Intro:]   Hello again, my friends! It’s been awhile since I’ve last spoken to you, and I hope you didn’t think I’d gone and pod-faded on you!   Believe it or not, I haven’t taken any breaks from this show. I’ve written at least a little bit, almost daily since the last episode came out. In my head, I was sure I was writing a short story, but it didn’t want to end, I just kept writing and writing, and watching the word count grow and grow.   One day I impulsively took a break to Google the definition of a short story, because I wasn’t so sure that this writing still fit into that category anymore. By the time I’d done the search it was already well over 10,000 words, which falls into the realm of a novelette. Anyone else out there new to this literary term? Apparently that is what you call a story that’s too long to be a short story but too short to be considered a novella.   I got excited at that point because I was sure that I was almost done, and as my creativity accountability partner Amy will attest, week after week it was my goal to finish this story. I was convinced that by the time I was done writing I’d get to introduce you to my finished novelette. Yet here I am, another 10,000+ words later, and I’m quite sure this story is destined to be a full-length novel… eventually anyway. For now, I’m calling it a novella and I’m recording it for you, because you’ve waited long enough!   Today’s artist is who I’m going to blame for all of this, Sean Howard, it’s totally all your fault for creating something that inspired me so much! I was instantly triggered when I saw your work, and it sent me down a rabbit hole that was hard for me to escape.   Sean Howard is all of the things! He’s a talented speaker, podcaster, writer, brand marketer, and he’s the co-founder of Fable and Folly, a network of kick ass audio fiction podcasts, some of which he’s acted in and produced. Which is awesome for you, my listeners, because while you’re waiting around for me to put out an episode, you could be discovering a world of new podcasts over at fableandfolly.com!   As if all that talent isn’t enough to squeeze into one human, Sean is also an amazing photographer. There’s something about his Levitation series of photographs that haunt me, in a good way, and I have to say it was not easy to select just one of these photos to write about. The saying a photo is worth a thousand words doesn’t do Sean’s art any justice… and, as I’ve already shared with you, it’s provided me with thousands and thousands of words.   When you get a second, my friends, make sure you take a look at the cover art for this episode to see the haunting photograph that Sean created. For those of you who can’t look just yet, let me attempt to paint the picture with words.     [Art Description:]   A girl in a spaghetti-strap, teal dress hugs her knees to her chest in front of a brown brick wall. She faces left, and we see a profile of her, eyes closed tight, pink and red highlighted dreadlocks pointing wildly in every direction.   Floating around the girl, surrounding her at shoulder height, are five floating devices: a tablet and several smart phones. Sean titled this piece Disconnected, and I could think of no better title for the story that his creation helped bring to life.   Enjoy…   [Story:]   Jennifer was hearing phantom ring tones. Despite the fact that she’d intentionally left her phone at home, her arm still instinctively reached out at least halfway to the empty dashboard mount before she realized there was no phone to be heard.   This was the third time she’d reached out to a non-existent phone. It was as if the fucking thing was a part of her body recently amputated.   It’s not that Jennifer didn’t want to bring her phone with her, but it’d be immediately confiscated as soon as she arrived at the center anyway, and so she’d figured it’d be better to leave it home; she didn’t want to worry about strangers invading her privacy… not that she had anything to hide.   There it was again; the distinct sound of her Instagram notification. Jennifer wondered if she was telepathically connected to the damned thing, as her arm automatically rose once again. She jerked it back toward her body, and huffed. If her other hand weren’t already occupied on the wheel she would’ve smacked herself.   Wouldn’t that be ironic, thought Jennifer, if I caused another accident distracted by a phantom phone? At least this time there’d be no evidence to incriminate her. She winced as the memory flashed through her mind, placed both hands firmly on the wheel, and squeezed until her knuckles were white and her concentration was on the road.   She panicked a bit when she saw the sign for exit 34; had she passed her exit?!   She glanced down at her odometer and sighed with relief as she remembered that A: she still had 30 miles to go and B: the exit numbers were counting down, not up.   Jennifer had known that driving to an unknown area without a GPS to guide her would be a challenge, but she’d done it as a teenager, back in the MapQuest days, when she’d had to print out directions on paper. Directions that didn’t magically rearrange themselves if she drove off course, she reminded herself, and then winced as horns blared in her memory. She remembered crossing three lanes of traffic in order to avoid missing an exit on her road trip to Maryland more than a decade ago. Jennifer sighed and reminded herself to be careful and alert.   The absolute worst part of this trip, however, was the silence. Usually she had an audiobook or podcast running when she drove. Occasionally she’d put upbeat music on when she was feeling down; by the time she finished belting out a couple of songs, she always felt much better. Jennifer was sure she’d be giving herself some music therapy by now… she’d tried the radio, but there was nothing to sing along to, the crackling quality was lacking, and there were more commercials than songs.   Jennifer’s circular thoughts filled the silence instead: she was broke, she was now jobless, she’d just maxed out her credit cards on this mandatory detox, and she couldn’t start fixing any of those problems until a month from now. A month from now!!!   It wasn’t like she was addicted to heroin… no one would have to hold her dreads while she puked her way back to sobriety for fuck’s sake.   The Insta notification chimed in her mind again, and Jennifer was reaching out before she could stop herself. She sighed loudly, put her hand back on the wheel, and rolled her eyes at the fact that some unknown force was calling her bluff. Maybe I am addicted to my phone, she thought.   Still, that didn’t justify the $6,000 it cost to go through this program. $6,000 down the drain… down the future drain, Jennifer corrected herself, sighing.   Jennifer felt pretty proud when she pulled into the parking lot a couple of hours later. She hadn’t gotten lost at all. Though it’s hard to get lost when you’re in the middle of nowhere and the turn offs are sparse.   The place was huge, and very modern looking; quite the opposite of what Jennifer had imagined it would be. The entire front of the building was covered in mirrored glass. In its center rose a pyramid shaped peak that stretched well above the rest of the structure; this was covered in the only glass that wasn’t mirrored. It looked more like a shortened, more angular version of a NYC office building than a rehab center. But what did a digital detox building typically look like? Jennifer knew of no others to compare it to.   Stepping inside was like putting sunglasses on, it dimmed the outside sunshine, but not enough to make you feel like you were indoors. Faint, lyricless, music played in the background, along with what sounded like a babbling brook. Jennifer noticed a waterfall that was built into one of the walls to her left. Floor cushions that looked like low love seats and couches were scattered across the floor in front of it.   Aside from the glass, everything seemed to be made out of natural elements. The floor was made of some kind of polished stone, with glimmers of an almost holographic iridescence where the light caught it. Sculpture creatures made of dried out driftwood and metal were scattered about the lobby. A crane with it’s wings spread and a fish in its mouth here, a puppy posed in a play bow over there, and what looked like a koala bear climbing a bamboo stalk in one corner.   “Welcome,” said a voice from the wall opposite the waterfall. Jennifer turned to it.   “Hi, I’m a bit early- I was afraid I’d get lost without the GPS on my phone.”   “Oh that’s no problem, let’s get you settled into your room.”   Even though Jennifer had told her she’d left her phone at home, the girl asked to go through her bags, which felt a bit demeaning. But apparently, many guests tried to sneak in digital contraband: tablets, iPods, old smartphones people claimed were no longer connected and thought should be allowed. The website had been clear about what was and wasn’t allowed – basically anything with a screen was banned.   Satisfied that Jennifer hadn’t hidden an iPod in her underwear, the girl moved on. She handed her a thick information packet, told her that orientation would be at 6 in the Oak Room, and walked her to her room.   With four hours to kill before orientation, Jennifer dropped to the bed and started leafing through the papers. She grew bored about halfway through the second page and studied the room around her. $6,000 and there wasn’t even a TV in her room. How was she going to make it through a month without Netflix?   Jennifer glanced at the clock on her nightstand, saw that only 5 minutes had passed since she’d stepped into the room, let out a lengthy sigh, and threw herself face down into a pile of pillows.   What was she going to do for the next 3 hours and 55 minutes? The panic started to tighten her throat; what if there was an emergency and she needed to call a friend? Then she started to breathe deeply as she remembered that she’d been through this scenario before and had planned accordingly.   She opened her suitcase to find all of her solutions. On top of everything was a practically blank notebook, the first page filled with her go to contacts and their numbers… when was the last time she’d manually dialed a number?   One side of Jennifer’s suitcase was stuffed with clothing and toiletries, and the other half was packed with a pile of books and art supplies. Jennifer was a doer; doing nothing was the ultimate depressant for her – and so, in a way, her suitcase was filled with anti-depressants.   Jennifer pushed her art journal and pencils aside to reveal a pile of novels. She grabbed a Carol Goodman book, The Lake of Dead Languages, and settled into the love seat to read… she couldn’t remember the last time she’d sat down to read a physical book. She “read” books all the time, but audiobooks were her medium of choice – that way she could multitask, “reading” while she walked, cleaned, cooked, and even while she was doodling sometimes. When she was caught up with everything else.   It’d been at least a decade since she’d given her total and complete attention to a book. Pinching the thickness of the pages in both hands, Jennifer had a nostalgic sense of beginnings; just the sliver of the paperback cover and the first few pages pinched between her fingers… the excitement of so many pages ahead. She remembered that giddiness every time she’d gotten a new Goosebumps book as a child.   Jennifer got lost in the book… until a loud knock startled her back into reality.   The girl who’d checked her in was standing at the door with a serene smile. “They’re waiting for you downstairs,” she said, and on a quick glance over her shoulder, Jennifer saw that it was 6:15.   As she approached the Oak Room door it didn’t take her long to figure out the origin of it’s name. Through the massive, triangular-shaped glass wall that stretched up at least four stories was the leafy top of a giant oak tree awash in golden light. The tree had to be at least 100 years old, judging from the thick trunk. Walking into the large room was like stepping outside. There was even grass on the floor… er… ground.   Though the base of the pyramid shaped room was as big as a high school gym, for some reason all of the chairs and their mostly silent occupants were all squished together in the center of the room… aaaannnd it didn’t look like there were any empty seats left.   Jennifer stopped behind the last row of chairs and mouthed the word “sorry” to the woman facing the group, before she bared her teeth, raised her eyebrows, and winced. She crossed her legs and stood with her hands clasped in the front pocket of her hoodie, avoiding eye contact with several people who glanced back at her.   “Oh good, I didn’t want to start until everyone had arrived,” said the woman in a sickly happy high-pitched tone. She wore a form fitting teal tank top and black leggings on her petite frame, and her blonde hair was twisted into a high 2-tier bun. She waved her hand rapidly saying, “there’s an empty seat up here,” and then she pointed to the front row.   Ugh, that’ll teach me to be late, Jennifer thought as she sped to get out of the spotlight, but once she was sitting down, she was grateful to have the chair. No one likes being the odd one out.   The gratitude only lasted a minute though, because although the tiny teenage girl to her left had unnecessarily scooted over when Jennifer sat down, the man on her right hadn’t budged his man spread knee until she’d wedged her own leg between his and the seat. Even then, he’d only moved an inch, keeping his knee hovering over her personal chair space.   The girl crossed her closest leg over the other, covering the rip in her jeans with a manicured hand. The black nail polish was in stark contrast to her pale skin, and the fine sprinkling of silver glitter in it did little to lessen it.   Jennifer scooted over a bit towards her, but was unable to escape the manspreader’s hovering knee.   “Ok, welcome, for those of you who don’t know,” she looked at Jennifer, “I’m Chris, and this is orientation, but it will also double as our first meditation session, so don’t anyone disappear.” she laughed at herself.   You’d actually have to disappear to escape this room without notice, Jennifer thought, as it was at least a 30-foot trek back to the door. Jennifer hadn’t seen another exit, but she hadn’t had enough time to gawk yet. She wanted to ogle the sunset lit view out the full glass wall she’d only had a chance to glance at upon entry, or up at the strange pyramid peaked ceiling, but there’d be no unrude way to look around this close to Chris… stupid front row seat. Another reason Jennifer liked to arrive to things like this early.   “I know that some of you are here of your own free will, but most of you have been given a court order for one reason or another, and to you I say don’t underestimate the power of your addiction. Yes, you are here to be rehabilitated… digital habits are just as toxic as chemical addictions. And for that reason we take our jobs here very seriously…”   Jennifer tuned Chris out as she squeaked on about rules and consequences… and then suddenly everyone was getting up and moving their chairs. She followed the manspreader’s lead, trailing behind him with her own chair. Everyone put their folded chairs into a number of wooden chests up against the far wall. Then they turned to either side to pull rolled yoga mats from matching wooden cubbies.   She picked a purple one and hustled to find a clear spot at the back of the room. As Jennifer walked through the crowd she noticed that nearly everyone here was a kid. Some might be in their 20s, but most looked they were still in high school. Aside from Chris, Jennifer guessed she was the oldest one here. Apparently 36 was a bit old to have a digital addiction.   Luckily, Jennifer was still flexible enough to cross her legs, unlike the manspreader who was struggling on his mat in front of her as she settled down. He managed to cross his ankles, but his knees wouldn’t go down further than chest level. As he continued to fight with his knees, pushing them down, only to have them bounce back up again, Jennifer felt a giggle rising up in her throat and attempted to stop it. She pressed her lips together and clamped a hand over her face, but this only forced the giggle through her nose AND through her lips in what, all together, ended up sounding like a squeaky face fart.   Jennifer suddenly felt eyes on her, and she let her face go lax and casually glanced around the room. Well if anyone was looking at her, they weren’t now; so she examined the young people, mostly girls – she noticed, around her, feeling proud that she could still twist herself into such a position.   “Make yourself comfortable and close your eyes,” Chris started, and Jennifer did so as a soothing chime resonated for several long seconds.   There was shuffling in front of her and Jennifer opened one eye to see that the manspreader had risen and was making his way to the wall, presumably to find a comfortable position on no less than three chairs. He turned around to face the room and looked directly at her as he unfolded, and then lowered himself onto a chair.   Jennifer closed her eye quickly, feeling the heat rise up into her cheeks. He’d definitely caught her staring. And she was probably glaring at him too, unintentionally, of course. She had one of those faces – what had her friend called it? Something bitch face… oh yeah, resting bitch face. She could only imagine what resting bitch face looked like with a one-eyed glare. Probably not very friendly.   Chris’s words brought her back to the present. “Focus on your breath. Pay attention to how your body feels as you breathe in… and out.”   Am I breathing normally? Jennifer wondered. She thought she noticed her heart rate going down as she slowed her breaths.   “It’s completely normal to have thoughts enter into our meditation, hear them and let them go… observe your thoughts, and as soon as you recognize them, remind yourself to come back to your breathing, focus on your inhale… and follow it through your body as you exhale… and repeat.”   Chris was silent for a few seconds.   Jennifer exhaled and wondered how long this meditation was going to last. She should definitely post an Instagram photo of this; no one would ever believe she’d sat still for longer than 5 minutes. How long had it been anyway? She should ask once they were finished so that she could have an accurate number to add to her caption… and then Jennifer realized an Instagram photo was not going to happen. She mentally smacked her palm against her forehead.   “Let your thoughts move on,” Chris suddenly reminded her, “and come back to your breath.”   Okay… Jennifer thought, breathe in, breath out… oh my god, my foot is totally asleep. How much longer are we going to sit here? She opened an eye again and glanced around without moving her head. No one else seemed uncomfortable, and she didn’t want to disrupt the silence by shuffling around.   She switched eyes and looked towards the wall. The manspreader wasn’t even trying. He was slouched against the wall, one hand on his crotch, knees spread to the max, and when her eyes finally traveled up his body, she saw that his eyes were open, a bored expression on his face. He was looking at Chris, whose own eyes were closed as she continued to breathe deeply.   Jennifer glanced back at the manspreader, but this time he was aiming his intense gaze directly at her. She automatically snapped her eye shut and winced; she’d been caught staring at him twice now. Oh. My. God. Stop looking at this guy. He probably thinks I’m a creepy cougar, Jennifer thought, but she quickly corrected herself. I’m too young to be a cougar.   “Now we’re going to do something that may be a bit uncomfortable,” Chris said, and there was a mysterious edge to her voice. “Think of an embarrassing moment… something from your childhood maybe… something that not many people in your life now would know about.”   Jennifer was immediately transported to a college classroom. She’d gotten high, maybe a little higher than she should’ve gotten, right before class. Usually it was the audience type of learning experience versus the participation kind… Jennifer took care to categorize her classes this way to make sure she didn’t get caught in a weed driven social anxiety attack, but Professor Brinkley must’ve been experimenting that day. He’d decided to have his students take turns reading aloud… only one paragraph at a time, but the text was dense with unfamiliar four and five syllable words that Jennifer had no idea how to pronounce.   As the student in front of her started to read, Jennifer quickly read ahead, trying to prepare herself for her turn. She’d internally sighed with relief when she was finished, but then the girl in front of her had gone on… she was reading the paragraph Jennifer was supposed to read. She had become frozen with shock, and suddenly it was her turn, and she was totally unprepared.   Jennifer had stumbled through the text, gripping both sides of the desk to stop her hands from shaking. She’d sounded out at least three unknown words as if she were a second-grader, then she proceeded to butcher even the parts of the English language she did know.   Jennifer couldn’t look up in the silence that followed. No one laughed or snickered… it was an uncomfortable, pitying silence, which was confirmed with the professor’s elongated, “ooookaaay.”   The heartbeat in her ears hadn’t relented its pounding until three students later.   She’d often wondered what her classmates had thought of her that day. Jennifer would be perfectly fine with the truth: she’d gotten stupidly high… but she feared it was more likely that they thought stupid was her default setting.   “Now, it’s time to forgive yourself.” Chris’s voice intruded into the memory, “step into your past as the present version of you, older, more experienced, and bring love to the child you used to be. Give that child a hug, tell them it’s ok, tell them you forgive them, tell them that you love them. See the expression on their face when they experience this forgiveness and love. Ok, it’s now time to come back to the present moment.”   Jennifer opened her eyes slowly, and unfolded her twisted legs even slower. She’d definitely need to sit there for a few minutes to let the blood flow reach her foot; to make sure the pins and needles had run their course before she tried to walk. Jennifer pretended to stretch as everyone around her began to rise, and intentionally avoided looking up, terrified of somehow being pulled back into the manspreader’s gaze again.   Chris directed everyone to the dining hall and a soft chatter filled the air and faded away behind Jennifer as the crowd left the room.   “Not as easy as it looks, is it?” A deep voice asked, and a hand reached down to her. It was the manspreader standing over her. Looking past his hand into his face, Jennifer noticed that, though he was dressed like a teenager in a white hoodie and jeans, he was a lot older than she’d realized. Maybe even older than her.   Jennifer took his hand and let him pull her to her feet, which still felt a little tingly. He held onto her hand at the end of the gesture combining it into a handshake and said, “Matt.”   “Jennifer,” she said with a tight smile.   “You a workaholic?” he asked.   “No… I don’t think so…” Jennifer said, “why?”   “Oh… I just assumed… wait. You’re not here on a court order are you?” He asked and amusement shone in his hazel gaze.   “Yeah, actually, I am.” Jennifer said shortly. And with that she turned her back to him and marched toward the dining hall.   When she smelled the tomato-sauce-drenched main course, she grabbed an apple and a banana and made her way back to the double doors, intending to eat and read back in her room. But manspreader, Matt, stepped in front of her, blocking the way.   “You want to join me for dinner?” he asked, an empty tray in one hand.   “I was actually going to go eat in my room,” Jennifer said, a hint of irritation in her voice. What was with this guy? Her earlier embarrassment around him was quickly being replaced with annoyance at his boldness.   “Ok, well, I just wanted to apologize if I offended you before… it wasn’t intentional.”   “Ok.” She said. But he was still blocking her way out. Should she walk around him?   “Sorry.” He said.   “It’s fine.” But it wasn’t fine, Jennifer thought, it was none of his business.   And then he finally stepped away, saying, “Ok, I guess I’ll see you later.”   But Jennifer didn’t answer him as she hurried out the door and back to the comfort of her room.   She read her book until her eyes were so heavy she got stuck in a loop, reading the same paragraph again and again in between bouts of wakefulness, until she finally gave up.   The next thing she knew she was sitting straight up in bed, heart thudding, her skin tacky with sweat. She’d had a nightmare, she realized… thank god it was just that. Jennifer had woken up just before she’d hit someone, someone else, she thought as she recalled the dream woman’s fear-twisted face through the rain-smeared windshield. She’d had a yellow umbrella and it had cast her skin in a shade of jaundice.   Jennifer didn’t see it happen, but the sense of speed and lack of control as she’d dropped the phone, gripped the wheel and punched the brake pedal to the floor… it made her almost certain that the hit had to be fatal.   Was this the Universe trying to warn her? Trying to make her take her “crime” more seriously? Not cool, Universe, not cool.   She let herself fall back into the pillow, which was now damp and cold and not at all comforting. The EHH, EHH, EHH of the alarm clock jarred her upright again, and once she could finally figure out how to shut the archaic thing up, Jennifer let out a long sigh. She thought of how, if she’d had her phone, she’d be woken up gently as a harp played, slowly increasing in volume as it went. She groaned as she got up; there wasn’t much time to get ready before her 1-on-1 with Chris.   Jennifer brushed her teeth furiously with one hand as she pulled socks off with the other, hopping a couple times to keep from losing her balance. The contrast of blonde on black automatically drew her gaze away from her brown eyes, and she sighed through her nose so as to avoid spewing toothpaste everywhere. She couldn’t even afford to buy a cheap bottle of dye, not unless she wanted to add to her already Everest high mountain of debt, and the pink had long since faded from her short dreadlocks.   Jennifer hadn’t taken a single selfie since… she’d thought about going with black and white photos, tried every filter there was, but nothing looked right alongside the colorful art in her feed; too off-brand.   Luckily, she didn’t have the time to dwell on it. She rinsed, spit, turned away from her reflection and its reminder of all her problems, and got in the shower.   Fifteen minutes later, Jennifer passed into Chris’s office with her clothes clinging to her still damp skin, but at least she wasn’t late, she affirmed to herself as she glanced at the clock. It was 7:29, one minute to spare.   Office was a formal word for the comfy, brightly colored room. There was no desk, no file cabinets, and it was as if a box of markers had thrown up on the walls. The glossy white walls were floor to ceiling dry erase boards, and they were almost completely covered in writing and drawings. Here and there were rectangular patches of black chalkboard paint, which were equally scribbled upon in pale pastels. An L-shaped couch, a love seat, and a few chairs were arranged in a circle that surrounded a bunch of beanbag chairs on the floor. The room looked more suited to a teenage hangout than an office. Jennifer took a seat on a vibrantly green, velvety soft sofa.   “How are you settling in Jennifer?” Chris asked from her seat on a hot pink chair; hers was equally velvety looking. Her hands were laid one atop the other in her lap.   “Well, my wake up wasn’t fun, but aside from that… fine.” Jennifer knew that no digital devices were allowed on the premises, but she’d thought for sure that an exception would be made for the people who ran this place. But even if not, shouldn’t Chris at least have a notebook, a folder to reference… something?   “Yes, you had quite the nightmare, didn’t you?”   “No,” Jennifer said, her gaze scanning above Chris’s head to a long, twisting, Chinese-style dragon drawn in red, “it wasn’t the nightmare I was talking about, it was the alarm cl—wait,” she interrupted herself, her eyes darting back to Chris, “How did you know about my nightmare? Are there hidden cameras in my room?”   “No, there are no cameras in your room,” said Chris, “along with being immoral, that would also be illegal.”   “Then… how did you know about my nightmare?”   “The same way I know about the manspreader.” Chris smiled broadly and raised her eyebrows expectantly.   “Who?” Jennifer began to mentally retrace the past 24 hours, but she couldn’t remember saying that aloud to anyone. Had she secretly been hypnotized during the meditation, caught muttering her inside jokes aloud?   “Hypnotism is something we can do here,” Chris responded, unprompted, “but I assure you, you have not been hypnotized.”   Chris paused for a moment, as if to let that sink in. Jennifer was stunned into silence.   “I hope you’ll forgive my intrusion,” Chris continued, “unfortunately, it’s the only way I’ve found to get through to most people… do you know why you’re here Jennifer?”   “Because it was this or lose my license.”   “Yes… that’s true. You’ve got three counts of texting and driving on your record… but I’m not asking you about your crime Jennifer, I’m asking if you know what you’ve come here to learn. Any idea?”   “How to promise I won’t do it again?… and mean it, since you apparently can read my mind.”   “Let’s go about this a different way. What have you experienced since you last had your phone?”   “I’ve felt… lost. Like something’s missing. Like I’m missing something.” Jennifer paused, but Chris nodded for her to continue. “I feel out of the loop. Disconnected.”   “Yes! You feel disconnected, and rightfully so. You know, smartphones have only been around for the past couple of decades, and in that time we’ve somehow conditioned ourselves to be completely reliant on them for our connection to everything.”   Jennifer couldn’t dispute that. The past day had been a challenge to say the least. She nodded.   Chris went on, “but what if I told you that you could be trained to connect to others, to this world, to this Universe, in ways that you could never imagine… in ways that would make your phone seem subpar?”   “What, you want to teach me how to read minds?” Jennifer asked doubtfully.   “You already know how to connect to others, you’ve had at least one big hit since you’ve been here.”   “What do you mean?”   “That wasn’t just a nightmare, Jennifer, it was a memory… someone else’s memory.”   Jennifer thought back to her dream. It was a bit fuzzier now, but she could still recall most of it: the phone in her hand, white screen blazing in the dimly lit interior, though the words she’d read were totally lost now, and the yellow-skinned woman with wide eyes. But wait… Jennifer went back to the phone in her hand… had it been her hand? Had it been her car? It was hard to tell. It’d been dark.   “Whose memory?”   “Well that wouldn’t be very fun, now would it?” Chris said with a smirk. “You’re here for a month, you’ll have plenty of time to figure it out.”   Jennifer headed to the dining hall after that. She walked through the food line in a daze, trying to remember the details of her nightmare. Could it really be a memory? Jennifer would’ve found that hard to believe before her strange encounter with Chris, but she also would’ve thrown mindreading into the same box; passing it off as just another sci-fi element, along with teleportation and time travel. There was no doubt, though. Unless Jennifer was truly losing it, there was no other explanation for Chris knowing about her dream… or the fact that she had internally nicknamed the manspreader.   Speak of the spreader himself, as Jennifer was exiting the line he was waving her over to his table. Her impulse was to pretend she hadn’t seen him and return to her room like she had last night, but she had so many questions about this place now, and maybe some of these other digi detoxees could answer them. At least this time he wasn’t alone, the ripped jeans girl who’d sat on the other side of her in the Oak room was at the table too.   Jennifer took a deep breath and headed toward them. “Hey,” she said with a forced smile she hoped didn’t look it. “Matt right?” she started, looking at the manspreader, but she didn’t wait for him to answer before she shifted her gaze to the girl, “I didn’t get your name.”   “Karen,” the girl said, extending her hand. Her long, almost black, hair was shiny, sleek, and straight. With her bangs, the way it hung was like a three-sided picture frame around her face, all hard edges and contrast.   “Jennifer.” She shook the girl’s hand over the table, and noticed that the black nail polish from yesterday had been replaced with fire engine red.   “We were just talking about Karen’s 1-on-1,” Matt said, “did you have yours yet?”   “Yeah, just before I came here,” Jennifer said, “wasn’t exactly what I’d expected.”   “Me neither, but the idea that we’ve somehow stumbled upon a school for psychic development makes it so much more interesting. Don’t you think?” Karen asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “I mean if going through this detox is mandatory, we may as well get something useful out of it. I’m actually excited now.”   “I mean it’d be cool, I’m not debating that… but do you think it’s even possible?” Matt countered. “I’m not entirely convinced.”   “I wasn’t either, at first,” Karen said, “but Chris knew things… she knew things I’ve never told anyone.”   “Like what?” Matt asked, a smirk on his face.   “Chris knowing is bad enough, I’m sure as hell not telling you.” Karen said looking at him like she had a bad taste in her mouth. After a pause she started again, “But, I will say that I think that whole embarrassing moment thing she made us do during the meditation was a way for her to get material.”   “Material?” Jennifer said.   “Yeah, you know, to prove this shit to us.” Karen explained.   “Well that’s not gonna work on me,” Matt replied, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest, “I couldn’t think of anything embarrassing. I was barely able to focus on meditating in the first place.”   “Well you’ll see,” Karen said assuredly, “when you go to your 1-on-1.”   Matt only shrugged and switched his gaze. “What about you, Jennifer?” he asked.   “I guess I’m still trying to absorb all of this.” She paused to eat a spoonful of bland oatmeal. She’d piled brown sugar on top and mixed it in, but barely tasted it. “My inner skeptic is still trying to convince me there’s a reasonable explanation for what just happened; but she’s having trouble finding one.”   “Yeah,” Matt agreed, “like maybe our friends and family are in on some elaborate practical joke?”   “But there’s no way,” Jennifer was shaking her head. “Chris was reading the thoughts in my head as I was thinking them.”   “Yeah, she did the same thing to me.” Karen said. “Look, I’m not saying I’m entirely convinced we’ll be able to do this mind reading thing anytime soon. But I have no doubt that Chris has some crazy skills… makes total sense now why we have to be here for so long… but yeah, I’m willing to give it a go. Think of what we could do.”   “Yeah…” Matt’s smirk returned, wider than ever, “Well I guess only time will tell.”   They were all quiet for awhile as they finished eating.   “Hey we still have an hour until the next group meeting,” Matt said. “Who’s up for a walk?”   “I’m down,” said Karen quickly, “the weather’s supposed to be gorgeous today.”   Matt and Karen both looked at Jennifer expectantly. “Ok, you’ve convinced me,” she said on a sigh.   “Well don’t let us twist your arm,” Matt said, but he smiled.   “No, I could use the fresh air, and who knows, this could be the last of the nice weather, we should definitely take advantage of it.”   ***   Matt was much taller than Karen and Jennifer, and he stopped several times to let them catch up to him before he found their pace. It was still a bit chilly out, but the sun on their backs was comfortably warm, and grew warmer as it rose.   “So, Karen,” Matt began, “you said earlier that this is mandatory for you…” he glanced at her before continuing, “care to indulge our curiosity.”   Karen shrugged. “Sure, I’ve got nothing to hide. It’s kinda stupid actually. Long story short, I got my three strikes and here I am. But it’s impossible not to text and drive when most of your “driving,” she used air quotes, “is actually idling in dead stopped traffic, ya know? Plus, I can’t do my job without my phone, I’m an Uber driver… so in reality, I never actually texted anyone. My dash mount broke and I had an unlucky week with cops, what can I say? What about you?”   So apparently Karen was older than she looked too, because Jennifer was pretty sure you had to be at least 21 to be an Uber driver.   “I checked myself in voluntarily,” Matt said, “but not until after I had a wake up call.” He paused for two or three paces, then continued on a bit reluctantly. “I’m kind of a workaholic. I was driving out to dinner after a late night at work, it was raining, pouring actually, and I was waiting for an important email. My phone went off, and it was just so automatic the way I grabbed for it… anyway, I took one hand off the wheel at the same time I hit a stretch of deep water. I dropped the phone as soon as I started hydroplaning, but it happened so fast, and before I had both hands on the wheel again I’d already done a 180 and was flying off the road. The next thing I knew I’d slammed sideways into a tree.”   “Wow,” Jennifer stopped walking, “were you hurt?”   “Not at all, but I can’t stop myself from wondering what could’ve happened if there was another car nearby… what if I’d hurt someone else? Killed someone? And all because of a stupid email? I’d never be able to forgive myself.”   “Well, you didn’t,” Karen gave Matt a friendly pat on the back, “and you’re here to make sure it doesn’t happen again, right? So don’t worry about it.”   Matt nodded and they started walking again. The path they’d taken looped around a large pond, and they were nearly back to where they’d started again.   “I worry about the same thing,” Jennifer broke the silence. She hadn’t planned on airing out her own skid marks, but Matt’s unexpected vulnerability made Jennifer feel like she owed it to him to be honest herself. “Though… I have to admit I don’t think it has anything to do with needing to digitally detox.” Jennifer started, she was about to bring up the nightmare since that was the main instigator of her recent fears, but she quickly decided against it. If that nightmare was a memory like Chris said, it most likely belonged to someone here, and who was she to tell someone else’s story. Plus, it had an uncomfortable number of similarities to Matt’s story. Could that be a coincidence? Was her dream off? Was he hiding part of the story?   “I actually did hit someone.” Jennifer admitted, and Matt and Karen both stopped simultaneously to turn toward her. “He was fine,” she quickly continued, a bit defensively, “but the fact is, it would’ve happened whether I had my phone with me or not.” Jennifer could probably squeeze between the two of them and keep walking, and that was what she wanted to do most, but she also didn’t want it to look like she was hiding anything either, so she stopped too.   “I was pulling out of this gas station. It’s on a busy road, so you can’t make a left there, but there’s a yield sign to go right. Sometimes you get lucky and catch a gap in traffic when the light down the road changes, but most of the time you have to sit there and wait.” Jennifer paused here as if her audience needed time to paint the scene in their heads. “So I was waiting and waiting, and my phone went off; it was a text from my friend checking on my ETA, so I tapped the screen to read it. Then I told Siri to text her back that I was on my way. I looked to the left and saw there was finally a gap I could cut into, I hit the gas as the last car was passing in front of me, but as I turned my head to face forward there was something in front of me, and I slammed on my brakes to stop from hitting it. But it was too late. My car jerked forward a couple of feet and stopped, and suddenly there was a man in front of me sprawled in the road.   “I tried to help him, but he got up all on his own before I could make it to him. He was furious, waving his arms at me, screaming that he saw me looking down at my phone. He called the police. And sure enough, they believed him as soon as they saw the time on my last text matched the time he’d reported the accident. It didn’t help that I already had a couple of texting and driving tickets on my record.   “What pisses me off the most though is that I was trying to do better! I got one of those stupid mounts so I could be ‘hands free’ and I hadn’t typed out a single text since my last ticket. And I wasn’t even driving!!!” Jennifer took a moment to breathe away her fury.   “Plus,” she continued in a much calmer voice, “I’ve turned out of that parking lot so many times. I never look right. There’s not even a shoulder on that road. It’s not the kind of road you should be out taking a stroll on. So I’m sure I would’ve hit him anyway.”   Karen was suddenly laughing, “So,” she started, but she was cracking up and couldn’t spit out the words. “So,” she said again once she could get control over herself, “you mean to tell me that guy saw you NOT look at him and decided to walk in front of your car anyway?” Again, laughter burst out of her, and Matt and Jennifer couldn’t help but be infected by it, letting out a few of their own chuckles.   “Yeah,” Jennifer said starting to catch a bit of Karen’s contagious laughter, “probably not his brightest moment.”   “That guy wouldn’t last two seconds in the city.” Karen said with a shake of her head.   Matt was chuckling a bit now too, though Jennifer could tell he was trying not to. “We are such assholes for laughing about this.”   “Why?” Karen said, “It’s not like he died… of anything other than embarrassment, maybe.”   “Ya know, that’s probably so true,” Jennifer said, “I never said it at the time, but I thought he was totally overreacting. I mean, if he had the energy to jump up and wave his arms around at me the way he was…” Jennifer was laughing again. “I’ve seen toddlers with less energetic temper tantrums.”   The laughter and the rest of their walk wound down as the trio reached the end of the trail. The paved pathway spread out into a parking lot before them.   “Just in time,” Matt said, glancing at his watch, “we have 10 minutes until our next group meeting.”   “Perfect,” said Karen, “I’m gonna grab something from my car quick, and run it over to my room.” She veered to the left towards a bright red Mazda RX8 and opened the passenger side door.   Something about the car was familiar to Jennifer, but with the only eye-catching paint job in a lot full of neutral blacks, whites, and silvers, she assumed she must’ve noticed it when she pulled in yesterday.   “You can use that for Uber?” Matt asked. “I thought all of their cars needed to have four doors.”   “Well, technically it has four doors,” Karen said as she reached in behind the seat and pulled open a surprise back door. “But you’re right, this is my personal car, and not at all Uber-approved, which is good, because if anyone threw up in this car, I’d be pissed.” She grabbed a small storage container out of the back seat and gently bumped both doors closed with her hip.   As Karen got closer Jennifer recognized the case’s colorful contents. “That’s a lot of nail polish!”   “Yeah, well, we’ve got a lot of time to kill,” Karen shot back, glancing at Jennifer’s nails as she did, “oooooohhhwww, you’ve got some blank canvases for me.” She raised her eyebrows in question.   “If you really want to,” Jennifer agreed half-heartedly, “I mean, there’s not much there—”   “Oh please, help a girl out,” Karen pleaded, “I’m doing my own daily, and it doesn’t take up nearly as much time as I need it to.”   “Ok,” Jennifer chuckled. Internally she wondered how she was going to keep from poisoning herself the next time she unconsciously bit her nails.   “You think we scared the big guy off?” Karen asked, and Jennifer noticed that Matt had somehow gotten ahead of them. He was already pulling open the glass doors some 50 feet ahead of them.   “Maybe… but he doesn’t seem like the type to scare easily,” Jennifer replied.   “I’m sure I could fix that with one ride.” Karen winked.   “I hope you’re talking about a ride in your car.”   “Of course! What kind of girl do you think I am?” As Karen made her way across the wide open lobby toward her room, she giggled in a way that made Jennifer wonder.   A few minutes later they’d joined the rest of the group in the Oak Room and were once again preparing themselves for another guided meditation.   When Matt tried to slink back to his comfort zone against the wall, Chris followed him. She gently pulled him to his feet, lifted the chair he’d been sitting on, and folded it. She looked up at him, paused. Matt had a shit-eating grin on his face. They were too far away to hear, but in a flash Matt’s forehead furrowed in shocked confusion, holding his mouth open like the shit had fallen right out. Chris turned around, bringing the chair closer to the group. She had a serene smile on her lips, but her eyes wore a cockier expression, like they were screaming “HA! Gotcha!”   “Does anyone want to go get something warmer to wear?” she addressed the group as she pulled a sweatshirt on over her tank and returned to her mat. “Once the sun’s gone it’ll get pretty chilly in here.”   A few people looked upward to the endlessly blue sky that shone through the clear panes above, but nobody moved from their seats.   The pyramid shaped room was basically a green house and Jennifer was grateful for the toasty temperature. Although it was comfortable outside while Jennifer was walking, once she’d slowed down in the parking lot, any hint of a breeze had bit into her skin.   “Anyone?” Chris tried again, but still no one budged from their seats. “Ok, then let’s begin, shall we?” She gave her tiny bell a tap and a familiar chiming vibrated through the large space for several seconds.   Chris led the group to focus on their breathing as she did before, and after a few minutes of that she guided them into full relaxation. “Notice how the top of your head feels, relax your scalp. Feel any tension in your face… and let it go. Let the skin on your forehead go slack, relax your cheeks, your jaw…” and she went on to bring attention to every bit of Jennifer’s tense body. Odd how you didn’t even realize your jaw was clenched until someone told you to unclench it, Jennifer thought. By the time Chris had reached her toes, Jennifer was so relaxed she felt like her skin had melted off; but in a good way.   “Focus on the sounds seeping into your ears,” Chris said softly, “let the noise gradually get louder, until you start to recognize it…”   The orangey glow that’d shown through Jennifer’s closed eyelids gradually faded to black. At the same time the staticky sound of nothing grew louder until she knew what it was. Rain. Jennifer opened her eyes to confirm it. The blue above had been replaced by a dark gray and it was pouring.   Only Chris still had her eyes closed, everyone else was looking up in wonder. Jennifer hugged herself and rubbed her arms as the temperature quickly dropped.   Without opening her eyes, Chris said, “I warned you that it would get chilly.” Then, after a pause, “Well I guess we’re done meditating for now,” she said and finally opened her eyes to look at everyone in front of her.   The group broke for lunch and afterwards, Chris divided them up. Most everyone had taken the opportunity to bundle themselves up before returning to the chilly, gray Oak Room, but it turned out that only half of them would be needing the extra clothing.   As Chris directed them all to form two neat lines, Jennifer felt like she was back in elementary school about to march out to recess. She was at the back of the line, Karen stood in front of her, and Matt towered in the next spot. But that’s where the nostalgia ended, as Chris instructed the group to turn sideways to face the opposing line. There just so happened to be an even amount of people in the room, and Chris told them all to pair off with the person directly in front of them.   Jennifer was mildly disappointed, as she seemed to already be losing her recently found companionship with this forced partnering. She walked toward the blonde girl across from her and offered a weak half smile. Jennifer was trying to be warm, but she had a feeling her face was suggesting more of a well-I-guess-I-don’t-have-a-say-in-this look. It was the same kind of smile one of two team leaders in a high school gym class might give you when it’s his turn to pick and you’re the last one standing.   “Hi,” Jennifer tried to warm up her smile as she extended a hand to the girl, “I’m Jennifer.” The girl reminded her of Baby Spice, minus the slutty attire and pigtails.   “Emma,” she said quietly.   No way, Jennifer thought, wasn’t that Baby Spice’s real name? She wished for the instant gratification of a quick Google, and she wondered if she’d ever stop wanting to Google and Instagram things every hour on the hour.   The brief introduction was all they had time for, though, because Chris was already separating them again. Those who were from Emma’s line were directed to make themselves comfortable beneath the oak tree, while Jennifer, Karen, Matt, and the rest of their group followed Chris back to her teen hangout of an office.   When they walked in the room seemed brighter than it had been earlier, and at a second glance, Jennifer realized it was because the shiny, white walls had been wiped clean.   “Take a seat for now,” Chris said as she spread her arms out and stepped to the side.   “We’re going to do a mini-meditation.” She continued as Jennifer planted herself beside Karen on the velvety green couch. “By now, your partners have been given their own instructions… to send you a message. Your job is to receive that message.”   A few people were exchanging skeptically raised eyebrows, one guy rolled his eyes shaking his head slowly back and forth, someone nearby shrugged their shoulders at him and returned their attention to Chris, who was making her way to an empty beanbag chair towards the room’s center. She practically fell into it on one arm, stretched herself out like a cat, and crossed her ankles.   “Before we begin, I just want you all to know that you can feel free to get up at any time. These messages can be fleeting, and as soon as you sense something, I encourage you to note it on the walls.”   Everyone started looking around the room, a couple with confused looks on their faces. “They’re dry erase boards,” Chris clarified before anyone could ask, “you’ll find markers scattered around, take your pick. Any words, images, shapes, feelings, sounds… anything that comes to you, make sure to record it on the wall. This is a way to communicate more than it’s a test of your artistic capabilities… so please don’t hold back. We welcome chicken scratch and stick figures.”   Chris paused as she looked around the room with a smirk on her face, and Jennifer wondered if she might be waiting for her audience to laugh. “Any questions?” she finally asked.   Jennifer had a few: Are you serious right now? How do you expect us to do that exactly? Is this for real, or have I somehow found myself in an American accented episode of Black Mirror?, but they all came out sounding incredulous in her mind, so she remained silent.   When no one uttered a word, Chris went on, “Close your eyes and clear your mind by focusing on your breath, like we’ve been doing, and once you’re relaxed, bring your attention to your partner. Imagine them sitting in the grass beneath the Oak tree, you’re standing in front of them, you look down at your hands and notice that they’re semi-transparent; you’re in the Oak Room in spirit.” Chris quickened her pace, “now merge into your partner, become one with them, feel what they’re feeling, hear what they’re hearing…”   Despite the energy in Chris’s voice, it seemed to be getting more distant in Jennifer’s ears, and suddenly she heard another voice… it was slightly familiar, but she couldn’t place it. “Imagine them in your mind’s eye, whisper your message, whisper your message, whisper your message…” but now that voice was fading away too, and Jennifer was sitting down on top Emma, falling into her body—   A red umbrella, it’s handle up in the air, flashed into Jennifer’s mind, and though she saw no hand holding it steady, it was balanced perfectly like a non-spinning top. And before she even knew what she was doing, Jennifer found herself at the board drawing what she’d seen. When she was done, she was embarrassed to see several sets of eyes staring at her curiously. She quickly made her way back to the couch, noting on the way that nobody else had drawn a thing… Jennifer’s upside-down umbrella was the only image that graced the walls.   “Very good,” Chris mouthed to her, and then out loud, “I’m going to give you 5 more minutes to focus on the message your partners are sending you, and then I’m going to ask you all to doodle your findings on the board… whether or not you think you’ve received anything.”   Someone sighed loudly, frustrated. Jennifer let out her own sigh; though hers was one of relief.   As everyone else focused with furrowed brows, Jennifer reimagined the experience she’d just had. It was a strange thing to admit, but this vivid umbrella had felt like it’d come from outside of her. She’d always had a vivid imagination, could create and see things in her mind’s eye… but she couldn’t trace this ‘vision’ – for lack of a better term – back through any stream of consciousness that’d come from her own thoughts. It was like a unicorn darting out from a herd of elephants.   “Ok,” Chris called out, “time’s up. Whether you think you have answers or not, go on, grab some markers and head to a clean space on the wall.”   A chorus of sighs and groans sounded as everyone stood and trudged over to the boards.   “You haven’t failed yet, so don’t make assumptions,” Chris said, “just write or draw the first thing that pops into your head. This is your first attempt at something you’ve probably never done before, and just like with any other skill, some of you will find your strengths in different areas. We’re all like radios, and you’ll find that you tune into certain stations more easily than others. Right now we’re just experimenting with the dial to see what we can pick up on.”   Karen had a blue marker and was rapidly scribbling a manifesto in tiny letters. Jennifer couldn’t read any of it from her spot on the couch. Next to Karen, Matt was adding pigtails to one of the 5 stick figures he’d drawn. A few others were adding their own embellishments to the wall, but more than half of the class stood stationary in front of a blank space.   “Don’t think about it,” Chris said to those paralyzed people, and she snapped her fingers as she went on, “first thing you think right now, put it on the board. We’re just playing a game here. There’s no penalty for a wrong answer. The only way you can fail here is if you don’t try.” That finally got the few remaining stragglers to add their own hasty additions in an effort to return to their seats quickly.   “Good job everyone.” Chris made eye contact with each and every person in the room before she finally dismissed them to lunch. Apparently they’d be going over their work once they’d reassembled later that afternoon. Jennifer looked forward to that with a mixed sense of excitement and dread, like she was just cresting the peak of the tallest point on a rollercoaster, waiting for the inevitable drop.   Karen looped her arm around Jennifer’s and leaned into her, “if we hurry up and eat we’ll have enough time to do our nails before the next meet,” she whispered conspiratorially.   ***   “So what was all that you were writing on the board?” Jennifer asked as she stretched her arm out to Karen.   Karen applied a mauve polish to Jennifer’s pointer finger in three quick, neat strokes and moved on to her middle finger. Without looking up she said, “The lyrics to a song that was running through my head.”   “What song?”   “Let it Go.”   “From Frozen?”   “Yup.” She was already done painting the nails on Jennifer’s right hand, and reached out for her left.   “Do you think that has anything to do with your partner’s ‘message?’ ”   “I dunno.” Then after a pause and another couple of painted fingernails, “but I guess we’ll find out,” Karen said finishing off on Jennifer’s pinky and finally looking up. She shrugged. “The real question is,” she said as she rummaged through her box of polish and pulled out a trio of bottles, one after the other, and laid them out on the bedspread in between them, “Red Red Wine, Lotus, or Garnet Star?”   Jennifer hunched over and squinted at them, the hues were nearly indiscernible in the dim indoor light. “What’s wrong with the color you have on now?” she asked as she picked them up and twisted to get a better look beneath the lampshaded light.   “Uh, they’re chipped,” Karen said, in a way that implied Jennifer was a bit thick, and thrust her ring finger towards her to prove it.   Again, Jennifer found herself in a game of find the difference searching Karen’s pristine nail for a defect. Finally she noticed a minuscule amount of missing polish on one corner of her squarely shaped nails. “Ahh,” Jennifer said, returning her gaze to the trio of dark purpley reddish colors in her hand. “This may seem like a dumb question, but, why not just paint over the chip? Or just redo that one nail?”   “I mean I might in a pinch, if I had somewhere to be,” Karen snorted, “but what else do we have to do?”   Jennifer nodded and handed her the color labeled “Lotus.” All three colors were too dark in Jennifer’s opinion, but that one was a shade brighter than the others.   As Karen silently began scrubbing at her nails with a cotton ball, Jennifer blew on her own nails, contemplating whether or not she should pursue the topic further. Karen seemed completely uninterested in the strange exercise they’d just performed, as if they’d just come out of a math class where they were learning obvious facts like two plus two equals four, and it was all mundane enough to be forgotten. But Jennifer had experienced something profound; something unexplainable. She’d had an out of body experience. She’d had a vivid vision! Like she was straight out of the pages of some supernatural thriller, playing the role of the reluctant psychic being drawn into a murder mystery. Even though the validity of what she’d seen had yet to be officially confirmed, Jennifer held a strange certainty that it would be.   [Conclusion:]   Don’t worry, my friends, there’s much more to come. If you’re listening to this in the week that it goes live, you can expect Part 2 of Disconnected next week. If you’re listening to this from the future, it’s you’re lucky day, and you can dive into Part 2 right now!   Thank you to Sean Howard for inspiring me with your art and for your generosity in sharing it with us as this podcast’s cover art. Please, please, please, check that out when you get a minute, and visit Sean over at fableandfolly.com to discover new fiction podcasts. I’d recommend you check the show notes to find a link to the rest of Sean’s Levitation series, too, I promise you won’t be sorry!   Much love goes to my Patrons Jennifer, Matt, Karen, and Chris whose continued support for this show is much appreciated. Words seem a dim representation for my gratitude, but I hope you all know that it’s there in a big way.   I have a bit more to share about the kind people my characters were named after at the end of Part 2, but for now, it’s time for me to get crackin’ so I don’t leave ya’ll hangin’ for too long.   I’ll be bok, I hope you’ll hear me there!

We are in full swing of Mercury retrograde. Mercury retrograde reenters Aquarius on Wednesday, March 4, and then we go through the shadow period from March 9 through Monday, March 30th, twisting and turning in one long time loop. You may see delays, rescheduling, reversals and cancellations. Slowing down and having patience with yourself and others will go a long way to moving through this energy. Review…redo…recycle and reflect….those are the key words. All of this cosmic force energy I talk about on my Energy Focus for the week, which you can always catch live on Sunday nights or the replays on my website. Download my free guide to help you set up your own Spiritual Practice. In today's episode, I am continuing this series on  Reiki, a Universal Life Force Energy. My guest, Jennifer Askew Dunbar shares with us how Reiki began in her house, with herself and her children, and found its way into her kitchen, and how Reiki has guided her to the work she is now doing with her company, Harvest Moon. Jennifer now helps people that are sick. She uses food as their Medicine, along with her Reiki Master training to tune them into their body for healing and mindfulness.  Through her company, Harvest Moon, she is currently offering vegan, alkaline weekly meal delivery.  Her future goal and dream is to expand this program to include more of a pantry subscription service with cooked food, raw veggies from local Farmers, and herbs that support cellular health. She offers consultations with Reiki, educational classes about food prep in person and soon online teachings with educational videos and recipe ebooks. Sign up for her email to order at Harvestmoon.love . She can be found on social media @harvestmoonvegan. Having a daily spiritual practice can help you to stay on track and embrace changes in your life. Having control of your vibration and your energy will help you to become aware of your connection with everyone and be in the flow of life. As Jennifer said, “The more calm you are, the things around you will become calmer and calmer.” As she began to notice, her life began to flow with Reiki. Her passion for Mother Earth and nourishing others began to unfold for her work. Her motto, eat to live not live to eat, combined with Reiki guides her to help others. Reiki is so much more than a body treatment! It is a way of living that offers peace and calm to your daily existence. Experience it today! To your Spirit! Terri PS…Schedule a Virtual Coffee and let's chat about how Reiki can help you! Join Terri's Facebook Group  Follow Terri on Instagram Find her on LinkedIn  

Jennifer Garvey Berger is the CEO of Cultivating Leadership, and the author of two books, Changing on the Job: Developing leaders for a complex world and her most recent book, Unlocking Leadership Mindtraps: How to Thrive in Complexity. Jennifer shares the common Mindtraps all leaders unknowingly succumb to.   News! We made the Top 30 Leadership Podcasts You Must Follow in 2020!   Key Takeaways [4:15] There are five leadership mindtraps that hold us back: We are trapped by the ways we believe we’re right. We are trapped by the simple story we tell ourselves about people, events, and places. We are trapped by our desire to be in a tribe, to agree with the people in our tribe. We are trapped by our need to control events. We are trapped by our own egos. [12:25] As Jennifer works with more and more leaders, she has started to realize that it’s not what you know, it’s all about how you’re being. [14:00] Our parents have trouble with the simplest of technologies, does that mean we, as we grow older, will have the same problems? Is this a mindset thing or are we always going to hit some sort of technological threshold? Jennifer is curious to see what the answers to these questions will be as we age and grow. [18:05] Across our lifespan, we have gotten education wrong in so many ways. [20:40] Beyond roleplaying and trying out new roles in a safe setting, people can expand and change their behavior through having real conversations in “the wild.” It's scary but it can be very transformative. [24:05] The reality is, we as people love simplicity. In chaotic or complex environments, we are often drawn to the simplest of solutions. However, in such a fast-paced environment, these simple solutions are actually dangerous. We need to take a step back and reimagine leadership. [27:30] We fall into these leadership mindtraps because we are so overwhelmed by the complexity around us. We have to intentionally evolve ourselves so we break the pattern. [32:35] Sometimes you need to go slow to go fast. Doing stuff for the sake of doing it is just not productive or helpful. Slowing down is a discipline very few people can consciously do. [36:40] Pay close attention to how we make sense of the world. Do you always get easily frustrated by x reason? Take a step back and uncover the why behind it. Take time to make sense of it. Once you do, you will be much more productive. [42:15] Jennifer wants you to think about who you are trying to be seen as. What descriptions would you like other people to use when describing you? What descriptions would you hate to be used when describing you? And are those words, those descriptions, helping you or getting in your way?   Quotable Quotes “We look for a hero and a villain and we make up our minds on an incredibly small amount of evidence.” “We don’t go looking for complexity.” We’ve never lived in a world that has challenged humans so much when it comes to handling complexity. “We don’t know the difference between informational learning, which is from a book, or transformational learning, which is am I changing and growing over time.” “We need to reimagine leadership and we need to do that by noticing some of these simple solutions and simple answers are actually dangerous.”   Connect with Jennifer: Website Twitter: @jgberger and @leadershipgrows Facebook YouTube Unlocking Leadership Mindtraps: How to Thrive in Complexity, by Jennifer Garvey Berger    Resources Mentioned TLP Episode: “Looking Forward to Wicked Problems” TLP Episode: “A Maestro’s Secret for a High Performing Team”   The Leadership Podcast is Sponsored by:     Cultivate Grit. Amplify Action. The Self-Reliant Leadership® Manifesto reveals the Three Pillars of a Self-Reliant Leader, which encompass the character attributes, interpersonal skills, and levers required to lead today’s workforce. Get your free copy HERE.     Free downloads of Quick Reference Guides on Delegation, Time Management, Sales, and more.    ~~~~~ ~~~~~ Strategic Partners   The Leadership Podcast is proud to announce a new initiative with thoughtLEADERS to provide very short podcasts called Chalk Talks. They’re bitesize hacks on common (but challenging) leadership issues. Interested in learning more?  You can only access the Chalk Talks by subscribing to our mailing list at The Leadership Podcast.   Beyond the Uniform offers over 300 free episodes to help military Veterans succeed in their civilian career. This includes overviews of potential career paths, deep dives on necessary skills to succeed, and reviews of other free services that support the military Veteran community. You can find more info at BeyondTheUniform.org.

Last week we declared that the 2010s were a banner decade for community radio. As Jennifer notes, though college radio had a tough start to the last decade, with the loss of prominent stations like KUSF, KTRU and WRVU, the service seriously bounced back, aided by factors like the low-power FM boom, internet radio, HD […] The post Podcast #228 – College Radio’s Biggest Decade appeared first on Radio Survivor.

We're rolling full-speed into the new year! Today, we sit with Jennifer Court to get inspired! Jennifer's hard work and determination have rewarded her with real results (and she'd become a source of inspiration for those around her and online with her)! As Jennifer says: "If you're happy on the inside, then you'll be happy on the outside". Also, Dan wheezes. -Jennifer Court FaceBook -Jennifer Court Instagram-#flufftofit -Burn Boot Camp-Apopka -Stop Starting Over-a must read for 2020 -Isaac Floyd-meal prep chef -Create better habits and reach your goals -10 ways to help others -Taking a break from alcohol-interesting read  

And at the end of the day it felt like these are the people I spent 50 hours a week with. I was in the office seven something every morning always wanting to do my best for the people I worked with. And at the end of the day I left and only heard from one person ever again. And these were my friends for years. The people I spent the majority of my life with   INTRO   Today’s episode is sponsored by FullStack PEO.  You are a small company, an entrepreneur that has just hired your first staff and you have big plans for 2020.  Let FullStack take care of your benefits so you can take care of growing your company.   On Handle with Care, in some interviews, we get to hear about companies that care well:  the manager that comes with a hug and encouragement, the employees that struggle but come out better on the other side.  This is not one of those stories.    My guest is Jennifer Merrell. Jennifer is a hard driving achiever who gets sick.  Her illness is prolonged, mysterious.  She gets sicker and sicker.  There are misunderstandings and deeply painful misses before the sad collapse.   But before we get into that story, a little more about Jennifer.  Jennifer loves to climb and to hike, particularly down in Clifty Falls, where she would travel each year with her boys.     Jennifer Merrell Outside of work I spend a lot of time I try to work out so I'm also a certified pilates instructor so I try to substitute teach pilates where I can.   Life is busy, helping to chauffer her 16 year old between track and orchestra   Jennifer Merrell Yes. I feel like I drive for work every day whether I'm on the road going to one of our members locations or I'm driving downtown to our main office and then I come home and I drive some more.   When she is not driving, Jennifer works at Techpoint.    Jennifer Merrell Techpoint’s role is to accelerate the growth of technology as an industry sector in the state of Indiana. I manage our university members and about 17 corporate mid-sized tech and tech enabled companies. And our role is basically to connect them to one another to do business or to collaborate to share best practices to connect   – Liesel Mertes So what we wanted to discuss today was within that professional journey whether at Tech point or previous to it you had some disruptions with your health that led to some major detours and kind of unexpected twists and turns in the path. Tell me a little bit about some of the disruptions that your health had and how it affected your professional development.   - Jennifer Merrell Sure. I've had it in reality probably three major health disruptions. One in my thirties read horrible stomach pains and all kinds of problems with that for several years.   Those pains continued and found a culmination in a dramatic, life-threatening encounter with a crab lobster roll in Omaha.  Jennifer went into anaphylactic shock on the street and was later diagnosed with a profound gluten allergy.  Jennifer then went on to have female bleeding problems, which led to a tremendous loss of blood.    Her life and work are affected for a couple of years.  Jennifer can’t go to the gym or sit through long meetings without having an embarrassing problem.  It is uncomfortable to talk about to male coworkers and managers and is emotionally and physically stressful.  Finally, she has a hysterectomy   - Jennifer Merrell Now I'm in a leadership position and fast forward three four years and things are going pretty swimmingly along.   - Jennifer Merrell But I started you know if we look backwards I probably was very sick for many many many years and maybe these things contributed maybe they didn't. The doctor says they don't but I'm like I don't know. There's a lot of things in there. And if you talk to my therapist she'll tell me that's all stress related.   At the close of 2017, she starts to feel suddenly weak, out of breath.  She loses weight all at once and her hair starts to fall out.  Dark circles appear under her eyes.   - Jennifer Merrell I had hit my leg with my car door in the parking lot at Kroger actually and made like a little slice and it just had not gotten better it was still real dark. It wasn't a scab anymore. It is real dark and weird.   My knuckles were really dark to the point that one of my friends said What is wrong with your hand. And it's like I don't know maybe it's always been that way. So this strange thing with strange things happening.   -  Liesel Mertes Give us a little bit of a context. You mentioned stress as a contributing factor. What did your pace of life look like?   -  Jennifer Merrell Hard and fast hard and fast. So I probably I was in a relationship that wasn't probably very healthy for me but probably not necessarily recognizing that at the time I was working a lot because I really wanted to perform I was a high achiever in and in our culture we tend to equate high achieving with working a lot right.   - Jennifer Merrell Are you busy. Yeah. Are you busy. I'm busy and busy and busy and we tend to reward or think there's importance attached to being very very busy. I wanted to achieve.   - Jennifer Merrell I wanted to make more money I wanted to have more title I was running two kids around still and I was trying to be supermom. I wanted to be at all their events I wanted to volunteer I was a teen mom for the soccer team and doing travel soccer and my other son was in Boy Scouts and I wanted to go on a few camp out every year and help volunteer at all the meetings and trying to put it all in. So I would say like on a Tuesday I would go to work.   - Jennifer Merrell I would pick up my younger son. Actually this is this is the sad part. I would go to work and I had a high school girl I paid to take my younger son to soccer. I would go to the soccer field and I would watch practice. I would pick him up I would pick up a sandwich on the way and have him eat and change his clothes into his boys got uniform pick up my older son take them both the Boy Scouts I would go run two or three miles while they were at Boy Scouts then come back pick him up now it's nine 15 nine thirty go home help them with homework clean up the house catch up on any work go to bed.   Her fingers and toes are turning blue and, at this point, she is down to 100 pounds.  She goes to the doctor, who thinks that this could be manifestations of depression after her break-up.   – Jennifer Merrell I said well I'm sad about that breakup and I said I know I'll get over that and I'm not depressed because I know these are all symptoms of depression.  So she put me on antidepressants and the first one made me want to kill myself literally I called her I said I want to kill myself every day this is not OK.   The mystery continues; Jennifer cycles through three different anti-depressants and is going to physical therapy for the strange spasms in her legs.    - Jennifer Merrell So I am now missing a tremendous amount of work I'm at a doctor's office every two weeks I'm in physical therapy twice a week and I'm seeing a mental therapist every two weeks.   – Liesel Mertes And how did that communication go with your workplace? What were you sure. Were you saying I'm depressed. I just needed to. How much are you letting them in or not?   - Jennifer Merrell Not a whole lot. They definitely knew something was going on and I was definitely articulating that. I'm tired I'm weak. And by now I'm shutting off my light at lunch time and I'm taking a nap on the sofa in my office. Because everybody's lunch because I'm exact I cannot stay awake.   - Jennifer Merrell I can't focus so my work product is definitely suffering but I'm trying so hard. I mean it was it was so mentally anguishing how how hard I was trying to do well you know trying to still succeed in the box by which we define success in the box by which people were used to me achieving.   - Liesel Mertes So yeah. How did it feel to be tried so hard but to still feel like you were not producing the way.   - Jennifer Merrell It was horrible. That made me cry.   - Jennifer Merrell It was horrible it felt like I was failing at life where I had always succeeded at life. I was used to being the star performer right and I was failing and I was doing everything I could not to the pressure was mounting. I was too tired to attend my son's track meets.   It was really it was really horrible. I really and I really did feel like I was dying but I'm gonna beat this right because I I when I beat things I overcome them whatever the problem is I solve it but yet I'm seeing all of these medical care providers and no solution is coming.   Jennifer had planned to take her boys to Paris for spring break.  It was a trip she had promised to her now-senior-in-high-school son when he was in 8 grade.  She had saved and planned and, despite her deteriorating health, she felt like she could not miss the trip.    She pukes all the way up to Chicago, trying to multitask on the road.  She is tired over those first days, but soldiering on.    – Jennifer Merrell We start walking down the Champ de Elysees and I go wow I don't feel very good. And we sit down on a bench and I vomit literally all over my shoes which began a very very rapid decline. So after that I struggled for us to get to the train. My kids were sort of holding me up. What do I do now? I'm in France and I've got two kids with me and I've got to survive.   She ends the trip in a wheelchair and, when Jennifer arrives Stateside, she has set up an appointment with a new doctor.    – Jennifer Merrell Two days later I was in Dr. Tara Land’s office with community health systems and she looked at me and she goes, “What's going on?”.   - Jennifer Merrell And I said I am dying something inside me is killing me. And she looked at me and the first thing she said is I believe you. And she started looking along over she was I believe you and I need you to go to the emergency room right now.   Maybe it was a stomach bug?  She gets treated and goes home after some days in the hospital.  Jennifer goes back to work and returns for more blood work.    – Jennifer Merrell She the nurse called me. You're gonna love this. She says we need to go the emergency room right now and we're looking your blood work and I said I don't have time I've missed too much work. It was evident to me that there was a general unhappiness for quite a while in my office with maybe my work product but probably my lack of being there and how sick I was.   But she deos go back to the hospital.  Her blood pressure is troublesome and her heart is struggling.  There are biopsies and chest x-rays.    - Jennifer Merrell They ran tests all night. The next morning I really thought when I went to bed that night I was not getting up. I said goodbye to my kids. I had seen my mother. I had not seen my dad but I was so out of it my brain was completely gone but the next morning they gave me the shot and it was like a computer turned on.   The shot that Jennifer got was of cortisol.  Because the doctor’s had diagnosed her with Addison’s Disease.   [00:47:48.130] Most people have heard of it just because JFK had it that was it revealed after his death. But it's a very rare disease where basically your brain sends way too many wrong signals to your adrenal glands   Addison’s Disease is an immune reaction that can be triggered.    – Jennifer Merrell And what it does is it destroys your adrenal gland the outside of your adrenal glad which makes the cortisol. Some people damages it. Mine was so far it's destroyed so don't make any cortisol on my own at all. And people you know they see commercials cortisol makes you fat. No no cortisol controls your blood pressure regulates your kidneys regulate your metabolism allows you to balance your salt and your water in your body. So I can't maintain any of that on my own or I will die. And it's called in Addison’s crisis and it can be triggered by stress mentally physically emotionally.   - Liesel Mertes And what is the treatment. You mentioned getting an injection.   - Jennifer Merrell So they injected me with cortisol straight up cortisol. So now the good part is to maintain this to stay alive is pretty easy and cheap.   - Liesel Mertes Did you see, immediately start to feel improvement?   - Jennifer Merrell It took a while. And actually the doctor and this is this is the next interesting part she said you need to take four or five months off of life.   - Jennifer Merrell And accordingly she goes no working no working out. She goes I want you to lay around and we should be lazy because what your body has been through probably for years you know it's basically everything was failing in my body. I mean it was a full body failure inside outside everything. So I felt very, very weak for quite a while. It was almost like learning to walk again. I had to just walk to the mailbox first then I walk down the street. It took a long time. This is all weird things that still happen.   - Jennifer Merrell So it's been a year and a half. But she said take four or five months off. Right. So the next thing I did was go to work because you know that's what you do.   - Liesel Mertes Why did you go to work?   - Jennifer Merrell Because I felt like I would lose my job if I didn't. So that leads to your single mom. You have had all of this unexplained stuff. You've taken a trip you've needed to take time off. What was the implicit workplace norms or culture that you felt you needed to live into. You can't miss work. You just can't. You but has to be in that seat.   - Liesel Mertes How was that said to you explicitly or, or how did you come to internalize that we can't have you out of the office this much another person in leadership actually.   -  Jennifer Merrell Guys what was it that person said to me because it was really stuck with me for a long time. I can't believe I'm going blank right now. It was said.   - Jennifer Merrell Oh I actually had somebody tell me to get my shit together, like verbatim. You need to get your shit together. We also had somebody say I also had somebody come to me and say you know we all have things that happen to us in life. I have a thyroid problem. So you just need to get over it. And it was like not at all the same situation.   - Liesel Mertes Yeah in real time so like you're hearing this how, how do you feel and what you saying that I'm hearing this a few days out of the hospital?   - Jennifer Merrell So I actually I went back to work like he did. I was allowed to work some of the time in the office some time at the office and I did that for about three weeks and then I really felt like this is this is it's clearly becoming a problem. There were people that were actually being sort of angry to me. I was also told that they're trying to build a business here we don't have time for this. Yeah we're trying to run a business. We don't have time for this.   - Liesel Mertes And what did people's anger, how were you perceiving that? Was it spoken?   – Jennifer Merrell Yeah it was spoken. It was spoken. Yeah. Well first of all not being able to produce any cortisol for likely several months leaves you only producing adrenaline which is what creates fight or flight. So the only physiological reaction my body allowed was fight or flight. So there legitimately I probably was being reactionary. I probably was being defensive at times. So there is a fault of mine in there. Now I do have a legitimate reason. I actually did not have the hormones that allow you to handle things appropriately at all.   - Jennifer Merrell It was a burden to the rest of the company for me to be out. That was what was said. It's a burden to the rest of the company for you to be out   - Liesel Mertes Did you feel like there was a foundation of organizational trust that you could call back on or even prior to this what sort of an environment that felt safe or unsafe was present.   - Jennifer Merrell Well that particular culture was definitely not one of trust. And then then there was there was an ongoing joke within the organization for several years after I started several years that well I'm going on vacation this week. Every time I go on vacation they fire the person in that seat prior to me. Nobody had really been in that seat more than a couple years. So there was always sort of this feeling that it was temporary in the eyes of upper management.   – Liesel Mertes Anyways when I hear there's that organizationally there was a particular culture that was in existence that corruption and disruptive life event did come. It did not make you feel like you were operating from a place of safety or support in general in general in general.   -  Jennifer Merrell And then as I got sicker and lost the ability to be anything but fearful I think that that initial experience coming in and that cultural that awareness of that cultural peace in there I think was amplified. Mm hmm. And yes. Yeah. So I do not I have. And reality was I had already missed a lot of work and I was not performing at my best. How how how does an employer accommodate that in a small business? I'm sure it was a burden. I don't have the right answer.   - Liesel Mertes So you mentioned anecdotally but just in a mental level what are some of the biggest ways that you feel like you were missed in your work environment or in your support community as a whole. There you go. This was just really painful.   - Jennifer Merrell I was extremely loyal extremely loyal and that sort of thought process for me now is gone. I will probably not quite feel that way again about an employer because of that experience because I felt like at the end of the road even though they did make some accommodations for me for sure I felt like at the end of the day somebody who has worked that hard and been that loyal I just felt like some of the things said to me about you know getting your act together and you know you being gone is a burden to this company. Things like that are very hurtful to somebody who's really giving it their heart and who already feels like out of control.   - Liesel Mertes So were there things that other your workplace or people in your community did that were really helpful and beneficial that you were like this was a this stands out as something that was really meaningful and there was silence.   - Jennifer Merrell You know I think I think the biggest helpful now you know I actually there's a lot of things like I think about like you know we would have a client have a baby or be sick and we would send them card and everybody would sign it. And I was there literally on my deathbed. No I heard from them as have they figured it out yet. When do you think you way back. Nobody sent a card…   -  Liesel Mertes That sounds disappointing.   - Jennifer Merrell This sounds you know I had some friends by myself. It's really sad. Well I think what it was was an epiphany. That you are an employee if you're in a company that thinks of you as more than that. That's awesome. Congratulations. I think that's gonna be a rarity because at the end of the day you were there to produce something for them and when you can no longer produce it they will question your value and as an employee that feels like they're questioning your worth as a person. Now maybe I lost my worth as an employee. That's you know I get that you know they're they're trying to work. Dollars and cents.   This is a business. I get it. But to actually be told I've got a business to run. Don't have time for this. Is very heartbreaking when you think you know what. I've got a family to run. I've got kids to feed. I don't have time to be sick. And that's kind of how I treated that illness is I have time to be sick. My family doesn't have time. My employer sure as heck doesn't have time now. Could they have done better. Yeah. Could I have done it better. Yeah. An earlier diagnosis the right doctor. A million puzzle pieces that have to fall into the right order.   – Liesel Mertes I hear you the pain of that and and the shadow that that experience can create. As to how you want to engage or not engage in our actions towards each other have powerful effects especially in this moment of crisis.   – Jennifer Merrell Yeah I felt like the people I worked with were my friends. And at the end of the day it felt like these are the people I spent 50 hours a week with. I was in the office seven something every morning always wanting to do my best for the people I worked with. And at the end of the day I left and only heard from one person ever again. And these were my friends for years. The people I spent the majority of my life with more than my family more than my personal friends.   I spent them with my work peers. And at the end of the day and maybe it's because they didn't understand what was happening with me. They didn't know how to handle it. But felt like you weren't cared about as a person. You have now lost your worth. And especially when you are that tied to your job and care that much about and do a good job and care that much about the success of the company when you are no longer able to do it at the the way they expect to ahead or was used to even if it's gonna be temporary. To find out that that's all that mattered to them. Think really was disheartening because to be honest with you I've worked several places and that's the only place that I left and felt like I was rejected by a group of friends when you felt like you were trying so hard to do everything you could. I was trying to do everything well even though I knew I wasn't. And I was trying to get better at the same time. Ultimately I needed to take that time off but I truly felt my job was in jeopardy.   I think that here's, here's the answer. I think that if that employer would have been able to say to me I know you have to take this time off and I'm going to make you take this time off and we're gonna figure out some way that you can still pay your mortgage and feed your children during this time. I hear that and I feel like if my employer maybe maybe would have sat down and said let's brainstorm some options. I don't want you to be afraid to throw anything out there you know I know you're coming from a place of fear right now. I know you're scared but I also know you've been here a really long time you've done a great job and I know you can't do that right now.   – Jennifer Merrell The reality is when a life crisis comes along that your employer is unfamiliar with whether it's a rare disease or just something they've just not had any experience with. It's scary for them to I had that empathy but your employer has to realize it's terrifying for the employee   -  Liesel Mertes And they're in a position of they're in a position of power. It's an imbalance of power.   -  Jennifer Merrell It's an imbalance of power and that just drives fear.   - Liesel Mertes It does to you have you in fact. Yeah. Those were lots of words of insight you have any additional words of insight that you would say to a younger version of yourself or that you would say to someone who is maybe going through something similar Wow.   - Jennifer Merrell I think. To be honest with you I'd say cover your own ass. They'd be my experience as an employee as you figure out how to cover your own ass because I didn't and I didn't because I felt like I wanted to be completely honest and upfront about everything but who I wasn't honest and upfront with was myself I wasn't honest about how sick I was to myself and I wasn't honest about needing to take that time off in order to get better to myself. You that's that, that would be my advice then to an employee.   -  Liesel Mertes Is there anything else that you did not get a chance to say that you would like to add?   - Jennifer Merrell Well I mean I don't I don't want to say anything bad about a previous employer at all because there's so much more good than bad. So many more good things than bad. As I stated there's issues on my side and the other side and I don't think that that's unique to any one company. I think that this happens many, many places and I think it's really a couple things. I think it's lack of knowledge lack of trust lack of communication and lack of empathy. I think that employers they have got to produce and make money and revenue to pay bills. This is this is a fact right. These, these wheels all have to turn and every employee has a wheel they're turning.   - Jennifer Merrell And when one is down it messes up the system. That's a reality. But somewhere in there there has to be a space for empathy because we are not just worker robots numbers on a page. Line items on your balance sheet. These are people and at the end of the day we all die and that money is gone. The company may come and go. Products come and go services come and go.   - Jennifer Merrell At the end of the day when people are stealing you're talking about you. Do you want them to talk about how much money you made? How much impact you made to the economy? How big your house was or do you want to talk about how much you cared about the people around you?   MUSICAL TRANSITION   Here are three takeaways that emerge from Jennifer’s story. Is the right answer, in Jennifer’s words, “to cover your ass” as an employee?I hope not.  Yet, her response makes sense, based on her experiences within a company culture.  Which comes to my first take-away.  Your culture matters!  What kind of a culture have you created?  Culture has to be purposefully shaped during times of stability so you have something to offer in times of disruption.  If not, your employees will be exist in a sort defensive crouch, perpetually covering their collective asses because they don’t believe you have their back.  And your business will never ultimately thrive when your employees don’t believe you have their best interests in mind.  FMLA can be hard.It is difficult for an employee to have the resources to take six months off of work while still paying expenses.  Some companies have a philanthropic outreach that exists for these situations.  What sort of resources, if any, do you have in place to help employees as they face the prospect of being off of work for an extended amount of time? Disruptive life events are messy.As Jennifer acknowledged, there were mistakes the company made, there were mistakes that she made.  Both the company and Jennifer were facing tremendous uncertainty as a result of her illness.  But, the company exists as the more powerful partner.  And this means that they way the choose to treat someone, regardless of outcome, has an outsized influence.  Whether you decide to keep someone or let them go, do you make sure that they are being treated with respect and care?    I close with a thanks to our sponsor, FullStack PEO, where they care about people and are proficient with benefits and to Handle with Care Consulting, where we train your managers to give support when it matters most.   OUTRO  

Jennifer Fernjack is an inspiration and brain tumor survivor who joins the show to share her story on the process of getting diagnosed, waiting, getting treatment, and how God has seen her through these challenging times. Stay tuned to learn how you can use emotional grit to strengthen yourself in everyday life too!  Introduction to Jennifer Fernjack (1:15) Jennifer is from northern Minnesota, raised with a mindset of rather than complaining about things, to just get through it. For over 25 years she has been in the financial business industry where she originally started out working in branch offices, but now travels to many offices teaching employees new and important skills. Medical Diagnosis (3:45) In the spring of 2016, Jennifer was diagnosed with a brain tumor. After receiving the results, Jennifer wondered if she would go blind, if she would ever get married again, and even if she would eventually die. As Jennifer realized this situation would have to be faced, she decided to make the most of it by writing a list on the positives of having a brain tumor. By creating a positive list, she knew it would naturally release feel good chemicals in the brain to help get through this difficult time. Processing Emotions (7:20) Processing worry and all the treatments coming up was a journey for Jennifer especially when she had a diagnosis in May, but wouldn’t have surgery until August. Sometimes she would lay in bed consumed by a sea of doubt, but in those times she was intentional to switch her mindset into seeing the blessings through it all. Count Your Blessings (9:20) Jennifer shares on the importance of having healthcare. Having access to technology and healthcare in the United States is such a blessing!  In the Waiting (10:30) Sometimes the waiting is the hardest part of a diagnosis. The Medical Journey (10:45)  Carrie asks Jennifer to elaborate on her process in the waiting, during, and after recovery.  Reframing (12:35) Reframing is a psychological word meaning it’s not always the stimulus that determines a reaction but rather how you perceive a certain situation will make the biggest difference. Choosing Gratitude (14:30) The night before surgery, Jennifer and her family had a big conversation on logistics of burial, will, and wishes if she were to not make it through this surgery. That night she took a shower and decided to listen to upbeat music because it helped produce the "feel good" chemicals in her body. Music was something that helped her before and during the recovery of surgery.  The Surgery (16:30) Jennifer’s surgery took about 6 hours and the brain tumor they found was about the size of a golf ball. After surgery, she would need to do radiation treatment for about 5 to 6 weeks.  Radiation Treatment (17:45) During one of Jennifer’s radiation treatments, she decided to listen to Rapper’s Delight song. The person working radiation treatment made a funny joke before they turned on the music quoting “today we have a little radiation for the ladies” and this brought a new joy and laughter to Jennifer in that time.  Random Acts of Kindness (19:25) To encourage and help someone as they are going through challenging times can bring fulfillment in so many ways. Random acts of kindness is one way to help distract people from difficult seasons and to help switch a worrying perspective into a grateful one instead.  New Perspective (20:20) Instead of worrying about what could of happened to Jennifer through this trial, her family decided to be grateful for the surgery and how far she had come. Perspective is the key!   A Changed Life (21:00) Jennifer shares how she has become a better person because of this brain tumor experience. She is more grateful for the simple things, looks at everyday as a gift, thinks relationships are of most importance, and realizes the best things in life are free.  Stitched Together (22:45) God will take the broken pieces of our lives and help stitch them back together.  The Power in Positivity (24:15) Even though we can't control the quantity of our lives, we can still control the quality of our lives. Not only does a positive attitude impact the person choosing to be positive, but it also impacts people all around.   Be Encouraged (25:00) No matter who you are, what your life is, and what your circumstances are, remember that the best things in life are free.  CONNECT with Carrie Robaina by clicking here. CONNECT with Jennifer Fernjack by clicking here  FAITH SHOP Grab your cool She Walks In Truth gear at our new Faith Shop! RATE & REVIEW  Rate and review She Walks In Truth on iTunes by clicking here. JOIN THE AFTER PARTY Connect with Carrie and other sister friends who listen to the show by joining the after party in our She Walks In Truth private group on Facebook by clicking here. In the group we chat about the episodes and support one another on this journey called life! ASK CARRIE AND KAILEY We've added a new quarterly feature of episodes on “Ask Carrie and Kailey” to serve you better! Together, we're going to help answer questions you may have about faith and “get to know you” questions about us as well. Do you have a question for us? Make sure to send us an email at kailey@carrierobaina.com

We tend to think of consciousness and the waking world in black and white terms. One minute you’re awake, and the next you’re asleep. But what if there was something in-between? A zone between consciousness and unconsciousness. A place where you can get a pure, unfiltered look at your subconscious, where you can think freely and unencumbered by the issues of the waking world.    Jennifer Dumpert, author and dream researcher, is here to help you understand this in-between space, a space she writes about in her book titled, “Liminal Dreaming: Exploring Consciousness at the Edges of Sleep.” Liminal dreaming provides a great opportunity to bring back important lessons from your subconscious mind. It also offers a chance for us to tap into our pure, unfiltered creative potential. Not to be confused with lucid dreaming, liminal dreaming is a much simpler skill to learn and master. As Jennifer points out, not everyone can control a lucid dream, but everyone is a natural at liminal dreaming. In today’s episode, Jennifer breaks down the basics of Liminal Dreaming. She discusses how to begin experimenting with liminal dreaming to enhance your life and wellbeing and how the art of liminal dreaming has impacted her own life. Don’t forget, we just announced our newest partnership with b8ta! B8ta.com gives you access to some of the most innovative and cutting edge consumer tech products. This week, we will be giving away the Chilipad, a water cooled & heated mattress pad that allows you to control temperature for optimal sleep. Enter the giveaway for a chance to win! Quotes: 2:47-  “There is a continuity of consciousness between awake and asleep. You can really stretch it out. You can be 80% awake and 20% dreaming or the opposite.” 3:07- “Waking and sleeping is not binary. We often think of it as on or off, one or zero.” 8:58- “My hope is that people will go into this state [hynagogia] and actually do things with it.” 13:23- “The creative process is the point, not the end point. Creativity is the way you that you  take what you learn from the subconscious into the waking world.” 29:47- “I really want to democratize the visionary experience.” 49:31- “Liminal dreaming is kind of like surfing the edge of conscious and unconscious. It’s learning to surf the space where your both dreaming and awake at the same time and kind of surf down the middle of them.” Mission Daily and all of our podcasts are created with love by our team at Mission.org We own and operate a network of podcasts, and brand story studio designed to accelerate learning. Our clients include companies like Salesforce, Twilio, and Katerra who work with us because we produce results. To learn more and get our case studies, check out Mission.org/Studios. If you’re tired of media and news that promotes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and want an antidote, you’ll want to subscribe to our daily newsletter at Mission.org. When you do, you’ll receive a mission-driven newsletter every morning that will help you start your day off right!

On this week’s episode of the Black Lightning Podcast, Britney Monae, Clement Bryant, and Nate Milton get together to review the 14th episode of Black Lightning Season 2 titled "The Book of Secrets: Chapter Four: Original Sin." As Jennifer begins to shape her superhero identity, Jefferson is confronted by Lala in a big bad way. While all of this is going on, Anissa continues to seek for Grace. In addition to that, the gang read listener feedback about "Original Sin." That and more on this week’s episode of the Black Lightning Podcast and in case you missed it: the show has been renewed for Season 3! Don’t forget that DC TV Podcasts has launched its own TeePublic store featuring amazing gear-up with your favorite DC TV heroes. Check out the store here which helps support the whole network! "BLACK LIGHTNING “The Book of Secrets: Chapter Four: Original Sin” — (9:00-10:00 p.m. ET) (TV-14, LV) (HDTV) TROUBLE – Looking for answers, a worried Anissa (Nafessa Williams) sets out to find Grace (guest star Chantal Thuy). Cress Williams, China Anne McClain, Christine Adams, Damon Gupton, Marvin Jones III, Jordan Calloway and James Remar also star. Oz Scott directed the episode written by Pat Charles & Keli Goff (#214). Original airdate 3/4/2019." Official Website: BlackLightningPodcast.com Subscribe: Apple Podcasts – Stitcher Radio – YouTube – DC TV Podcasts – Google Play – iHeartRadio Social Media: Facebook – @BL_Podcast – Instagram Contact Us: BlackLightningPodcast@gmail.com Support: TeePublic Store

Jennifer Palmieri has been one of the party’s most influential operatives for the last decade. Most recently, she was communications director and a senior adviser to Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign, and came to that job after serving as White House communications director under President Obama for two years.As Jennifer told me during our conversation, Clinton’s loss to Trump was like “the universe exploded.” As part of the soul-searching process in the wake of that loss, Palmieri has been spending more time in the South since the 2016 election, to visit with and meet people who see the world differently, and to reconnect with old friends who are politically conservative.Palmieri explores her own sense of loss and disorientation after the election. But she also tells the story of how her grief was compounded by the loss of her older sister a few months after the election from early onset Alzheimer’s at age 58.Palmieri connects her own pain to the pain of other Americans whose lived had been upended in recent years, namely Trump voters, and says the 2020 election will be a test of whether Americans can come to live at peace with those who see the world in radically different ways.Outro: “Exception to the Rule” by Phoebe Bridgers & Conor Oberst (Better Oblivion Community Center) Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thelonggame. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On this week’s episode of the Black Lightning Podcast, Britney Monae, Clement Bryant, and Nate Milton get together to review the 13th episode of Black Lightning Season 2 titled "The Book of Secrets: Chapter Three: Pillar of Fire." As Jennifer seeks to get revenge on Tobias, Anissa runs into trouble with Grace and Jefferson has a big career decision to make. In addition to that, the gang read listener feedback about "Pillar of Fire." That and more on this week’s episode of the Black Lightning Podcast and in case you missed it: the show has been renewed for Season 3! Don’t forget that DC TV Podcasts has launched its own TeePublic store featuring amazing gear-up with your favorite DC TV heroes. Check out the store here which helps support the whole network! BLACK LIGHTNING “The Book of Secrets: Chapter Three: Pillar of Fire” — (9:00-10:00 p.m. ET) (TV-14, LV) (HDTV) ROBERT TOWNSEND DIRECTS – Lynn (Christine Adams) works on two of the pod kids in a segregated safe room. Meanwhile, Jennifer (China Anne McClain) plots revenge and Jefferson (Cress Williams) receives some interesting news. Lastly, Anissa (Nafessa Williams) makes a shocking discovery.  Marvin Jones III and James Remar also star. Robert Townsend directed the episode written by Lamont Magee (#213). Original airdate 2/11/2019. Official Website: BlackLightningPodcast.com Subscribe: Apple Podcasts – Stitcher Radio – YouTube – DC TV Podcasts – Google Play – iHeartRadio Social Media: Facebook – @BL_Podcast – Instagram Contact Us: BlackLightningPodcast@gmail.com Support: TeePublic Store

Ready to join? http://kevinkauffman.exprealty.careers/ Learn more! We have webinars twice a month that are free and totally discreet. Get all your questions answered at http://kevinandfred.com/truth/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Helping as many people as possible to build their wealth through growing their business and passive income and investment opportunities is one of Jennifer Morgan White's biggest passions! So when she saw so many top producing real estate agents and teams switching to eXp Realty, she wanted to learn more. After all, accomplished people want to be in the company of other accomplished people, right? As Jennifer learned more about what eXp Realty has to offer, she was dazzled by the idea of how many people she could help! Helping your friends become rich, she says, is just the coolest thing. She's not quitting the real estate business - she's just growing it! And wants to help more people grow their businesses, too. eXp Realty is the best brokerage to help you grow your business. Learn more in this interview with Kevin & Aaron! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Kevin & Fred are the creators of Group 46:10 Network, Short Sale Power Hour, kevinandfred.com, and youtube.com/kevinandfredtv. Check them out at http://www.kevinandfred.com or on Facebook, Instagram, & their regular Youtube Channel. They also spearheaded the profit share giveaway challenge, recognized by Inman - check it out here: https://www.inman.com/2018/07/20/former-kw-agents-answer-gary-kellers-profit-sharing-challenge/

Today, we sit down with Jennifer Nelson of Humble Pie Flower Farm in Wisconsin as she shares her farm story and her journey to growing flowers. Hear how various experiences led her to the land and farming and the importance of having time and place to explore. As Jennifer says, “I used to work to live—jobs that gave paychecks. Now I am so grateful that my work—my farm—is my life and I am really grateful for that.“ Jennifer and her husband co-own Humble Pie Flower Farm in Plum City, Wisconsin. She also is as an Organic Specialist with MOSES. She loves a bright, beautiful sunflower, being outside with her young son, and growing, cooking, and eating good food.

Interview with: Jennifer DiMotta Founder of DiMotta Consulting Bio: For over 20 years, Jennifer DiMotta, founder of DiMotta Consulting LLC, has lead successful aggressive growth strategies for several direct to consumer brands and retailers with a proven and highly sought after method coined “The DiMotta Method” (TDM). The DiMotta Method has been proven in a variety of industries and company sizes to foster and sustain triple-digit profit growth. In her fast-growing consulting firm, Jennifer educates her clients on how to employ The DiMotta Method in their organization. TDM is about an unrelenting alignment of (1) building a financial foundation (structure) (2) designing expert-driven strategies and (3) empowering top talent. After a highly successful career, Jennifer desires going beyond her current clientele and reach as many businesses as possible. Jennifer believes the eCommerce landscape is at a critical impasse and must forward-focus on diversification beyond the eCommerce giants (ie Amazon, Walmart). The imbalanced economy online drives the DiMotta Consulting firm to passionately expand their reach in the education of The DiMotta Method and empower direct to consumer brands to power up their growth strategy. While The DiMotta Method brims with novel ideas on aggressively growing e-commerce and digital marketing success, its core is a straightforward, strategic-planning approach that ensures business, financial and cultural strength. It includes innovative approaches on how to improve the links between the P&L, Business Vision and Top Talent, and can be applied to any phase of business growth. The Strength component of The DiMotta Method is particularly special to Jennifer as she has personally mentored and coached several women, particularly those who struggle with confidence and courage in the workplace. As Jennifer recognized the lack of confidence in women as well as a lack of resources to develop, she developed a coaching method she calls Six Steps to Coach Yourself To Leadership Excellence where she helps women take ownership of their career development and has proven her methods on herself as well as her executive clients. Jennifer presents her Six Steps to Coaching Yourself to Leadership Excellence at several conferences and was awarded the 2014 Colorado’s “Most Powerful/Influential Woman” Award and “Top 100 Women to Watch” by Brand Innovators. Jennifer also mentors women at The Wharton School in Pennsylvania and gives time to other women seeking mentorship from other universities. She also currently takes on clients looking for guidance and coaching in their careers. Links: DiMotta Consulting DiMotta Consulting Twitter DiMotta Consulting LinkedIn Sponsored by: Spark Shipping – Dropshipping Automation 

The daughter of Vietnamese refugees, Jennifer Pan faced a life of micro-management by her Dad and Mum, notable "tiger parents". As Jennifer struggled for more freedom, her parents clamped down more and more. After a decade of deception was uncovered, things suddenly took a turn for the unthinkable...   Be sure to follow Angie @TheAngieChu on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and subscribe for new episodes every Tuesday!

A fun and helpful podcast episode is in store for you this week as we look at Five Top Must-Visit RV Places that you have never heard of. As Jennifer and I have traveled the country this summer, we’ve been asking RVers to give us a report on their absolute favorite places. We expected them to be the standard bucketlist destinations, like Alaska, or Yellowstone or the Maritimes. Instead, they were much more obscure, places not in the major RV guidebooks, places unique and very appealing. You’ll hear them all coming up in a few minutes in our interview of the week segment. Also this week, lots of RV news you need to know, a very handy clean up tip from Jennifer, the best on the road apps in our traveling technology segment and much more. Click the player below to Listen Now or scroll down through the show note details. When you see a time code hyperlink, you can click it to jump directly to that segment of the podcast. [spp-player] Show Notes for Episode #198 June 27, 2018 of Roadtreking - The RV Podcast: WHAT MIKE AND JENNIFER ARE UP TO THIS WEEK [spp-timestamp time="2:31"] Mike and Jennifer at Glacier National Park last week MIKE Well here it is the 4th of July Holiday is almost here and June has sped right by! JENNIFER It sure has. We just pulled into our driveway for a brief stop at our sticks and bricks home in Michigan after being on the road pretty much the entire month. In all we covered 4,384.7 miles from the time we left the driveway until last night when we pulled back in. We traveled through nine states making our way to Montana and Glacier National Park, where we just finished an awesome Roadtreking gathering attended by more than 130 people from all across North America MIKE There’s a post on the roadtreking.com travel blog with a full report and lots of photos from the gathering. And we’ll also have a video on it…. Just as soon as I have time to edit it. We came back with 9 videos in the can ready to be edited. But since each one takes about 20 hours to complete, I have my work cut out for me. JENNIFER As we reported last week, we did great going out and keeping to our “330 Rule” of driving no more than 330 miles in a single day, or stopping by 3:30 pm local time so we can still be refreshed and not too tired from the road. That gives us lots of time to explore… and shoot those videos! Coming back…. Well, let’s just say it was hammer time, pedal to the metal all the way, though we did stop by 3:30 one time. MIKE Except it was 3:30 AM! That was Sunday night. We stopped on the way back in the Wisconsin Dells and did our regular 9 PM Sunday night You Tube Live report on our RV Lifestyle Channel. But then we made the tactical decision that because we didn’t want to drive through Monday morning traffic in Chicago – which even during no rush hour time is horrific – we would drive through the night and avoid the traffic jams. JENNIFER But there was still lots of traffic… even at 1 in the morning. We debated taking the ferry across Lake Michigan. They have ferry service from a couple places in Wisconsin. But we couldn’t justify spending $400 to get us and the RV across. So we drive around, spent what was left of the night in a rest area just inside the Michigan border, and then made our way home. MIKE So we’re back in our sticks and bricks house. There’s lots of laundry to do and some house and yard chores but we take off in just a few days for our next Roadtreking gathering, this one to Bryson City, North Carolina on the edge of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. We’ll be camped on the Natahala River there, a beautiful white water river and we will have calm river float tours, raging rapid runs in a raft for those willing to brave it, zip line rides and, of course, lots of good socializing. JENNIFER And we still have openings. We’ll put a link on the shownotes for this episode where you can get details and sign up.

Jennifer Youpa, a shareholder in Littler’s Dallas office, and Kevin O’Neill, Senior Director of Littler’s Learning Group, discuss the importance of harassment complaint investigations in the #MeToo climate. As Jennifer and Kevin explain, investigatory responses can no longer be “one size fits all,” especially with the possibility of the viral disclosure of allegations or incidents through social media. In this podcast, Jennifer and Kevin reveal strategies and trends they have seen as they conduct training for employers on sexual harassment and related issues. They address the need for employers to plan various investigatory protocols well ahead of any complaints and how organizations can assess whether an external investigator may be beneficial.

Jennifer gets a LOT of questions from many different types of people. Chief among those questions is how she got to where she is in her career. People want to know how she’s managed to make such an impact through her entrepreneurship and her speaking career, so Jennifer has dedicated an episode to the answers of those questions and more. The real reason that Jennifer got to where she is now is because of the others who made an impact on her over the years. She starts at the beginning: how her early life was shaped by growing up in a literal log cabin. From there she ended up in a career that wasn’t quite HR – back then it was called Personnel. Jennifer shares the story of her first job out of college. Her manager told her where her office was, let her know there was a pile of books there, and that she’d have to figure out the Personnel department alone because he had no idea what it was. Jennifer was overjoyed at the prospect. When Jennifer decided to be a stay-at-home mom, her 2-year-old son quickly let her know that it wasn’t a good idea. He ASKED to go to daycare, and Jennifer recalls how it felt to be fired by her own son. She also shares the interesting opportunity at a Japanese automotive company that came her way a few months later. Jennifer decided she wanted to be a speaker and consultant but gave herself an arbitrary limit of having at least 20 years in her professional career first. In the meantime, she joined an old, broken company to help turn it around. It was after she accepted the job that she learned she would most likely be replacing herself if she did well. Long story short, it did go well and Jennifer found herself out of a job. She took several months off and started, after 18 years, seriously considering entrepreneurship and speaking, so she hired a coach. The first thing he had her do was write a marketing plan for herself. From that point on, his advice shaped Jennifer’s future, including the ‘remedial’ networking plan for introverts. As Jennifer began to test the waters of entrepreneurship, her new network pointed out some of the flaws in her plans. These issues were the kind that would sink new businesses before they start, including not knowing what she was selling. They told her to learn it, so she ended up going into executive recruiting at the very place where she began building her network. In early 2016, Jennifer took what she learned and finally made the step into entrepreneurship and speaking. It happened organically. She was an early LinkedIn adopter and was asked by the executives she knew to speak on how to build a network using the platform. It wasn’t easy, though. For the first year, Jennifer struggled despite the help and support of her peers. It was when Mike Sipple, Jr., gave her a book called Just Do Something, and it changed everything from page 1. At least, it removed the mental block that Jennifer had that was preventing her from succeeding. Jennifer is a person of faith, so it was exactly what she needed to take the next step personally and professionally. While Jennifer still struggled a bit, she began making real progress, and she wraps up with the lessons she learned. What was it that finally made everything click? What were the steps she took once that happened? And how has it turned out for her? And how YOU can take when Jennifer learned and apply it to your own story? People/Resources/Links Mentioned: Centennial, Inc. Mike Lynch - President - Mike Lynch Career Consulting Mike Sipple, Sr. - CEO of Centennial, Inc. Mike Sipple Jr. - President of Centennial, Inc. Bonita Martin - Sr. HR Business Partner at Harmon Sharlyn Lauby - Author & Publisher at HR Bartender Robin Schooling - VP Human Resources at Hollywood Casino Baton Rouge Book: "Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach To Finding God's Will" by Kevin DeYoung  SCORE - Free small business advice Freshbooks.com  Give us a hand getting the word out: Do you want to spend your personal and professional time making a lasting impact on others? Do you want to be the kind of leader people love? Subscribe today and we will bring you new ways to change the world every single week.

What an amazing conversation with powerhouse sales expert, Jennifer Diepstraten. Jennifer took her expertise and experience in sales and started her own coaching business where she helps entrepreneurs grow and improve their personal businesses. Have you ever thought about charging more money for your services? What stops you? As Jennifer shared, most of her clients start to internally question their personal value, they worry no one will pay the higher price, and they ultimately fear the amount of business they will lose if they raise their rates. In reality, WE are the ones who are uncomfortable with the higher price, not the clients. Some people will not be able to afford us, but the reality is, that’s already true of our current rate. It is the confidence we have in ourselves, our expertise, and our value that needs to change because once we do that, the right clients will come and they WILL pay. There is so much that goes into selling ourselves, our product, and our business. Real estate is personal and selling something personal always makes the sale aspect more difficult. If you try to help everyone that can’t afford you, it will no longer be a business, it’ll be a hobby. You have to not only have the confidence to ask for the rate you deserve, but know how to properly communicate that price with prospective clients. Changing our mindsets and being confident in who we are and what we bring to the table as professionals in our field will allow our businesses to grow in the best way possible. Find out how you can take your confidence and sales to the next level from the sales Rockstar herself!   Show Features Here are some of the key takeaways from this episode. Two Key Components of Making a Sale How to Improve Your Own Value The Importance of Communication in Sales Why Confidence Leads to Success

On this episode of Queer Money, we talk with co-founder and CEO of Policy Genius, Jennifer Fitzgerald. Jennifer shares with us her insights about the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as it stands today, what everyone should know during open enrollment and her insights as to where the ACA may go under the new presidential administration. As Jennifer shares, research shows consumers spend more time choosing a phone plan than choosing their healthcare plan. Listen to this informative Queer Money to help choose the best healthcare plan for you.

As Jennifer is wending her way towards a long overdue trip to Disneyland (California), Sergia & Stephanie join Lisa in the TDC studios to further discuss Paris.   Apologies for the funky Skype connection!   www.thosedarncats.net

Get ready to massively increase your vocabulary skills in today’s episode! As Jennifer and Dan talk about their schooldays, they naturally use multiple phrasal verbs, idioms, and English expressions that you can learn to sound more like a native speaker. You will learn how to talk about your past school experiences, different subjects, and common activities that happened in the US and the UK

Tracker In the ninth episode of the season “Tracker” we meet a new runner named Kiryk played by Mike Dopud. Dr Keller is going to visit a world where the local village is in need of some basic treatment, Rodney decides to tag along and to his annoyance so does Ronon. As Jennifer examines a native woman the boys [...] The post Gatecast 299 SGA Tracker appeared first on Gatecast.

Jennifer Canvasser. Photo courtesy of Jennifer Canvasser. Episode 7 features Jennifer Canvasser, Founder of the NEC Society, and Dr. Samir Gadepalli, NEC Society scientific advisory council member. In 2014, Jennifer founded the NEC Society, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting fragile infants, after losing her son, Micah, to Necrotizing Enterocolitis. During the episode, Jennifer and Samir share the findings from the NEC Society’s survey aimed at characterizing parent perceptions of the practices and events related to their child’s development of NEC. They discuss: The design and development of the NEC Society’s online, international survey—research specifically focused on parents and their perspectives on NEC, The survey’s five areas of interest: education, awareness, support of human milk, information provided and information providers, and parental empowerment in the NICU, The survey findings including the demographics of the participants and their babies—all of whom were diagnosed with NEC, The importance of raising awareness about NEC in the general public, The NEC Society’s partnership with the Best for Babes Foundation® and the Miracle MilkTM Stroll, and The NEC Society’s recently announced conference, Necrotizing Enterocolitis Symposium: A Transdisciplinary Approach to Improved NEC Outcomes, in partnership with the University of California at Davis, and set for 2017. Copyright © 2015 The Morgan Leary Vaughan Fund, Inc. This episode was produced in part by the TeacherCast Educational Broadcasting Network. [powerpress] STEPHANIE VAUGHAN, HOST: Welcome to Episode 7 of Speaking of NEC—a free, audio podcast series about Necrotizing Enterocolitis. Produced by The Morgan Leary Vaughan Fund, and funded by The Petit Family Foundation, Speaking of NEC is a series of one-on-one conversations with relevant NEC experts—neonatologists, clinicians and researchers—that highlights current prevention, diagnosis, and treatment strategies for NEC, and the search for a cure. For more information about this podcast series or The Morgan Leary Vaughan Fund, visit our website at morgansfund.org. Hello, my name is Stephanie Vaughan. Welcome to the show. I’m the Co-founder and President of The Morgan Leary Vaughan Fund. Today, my guests will be Jennifer Canvasser, Founder of the NEC Society—whose mission is reducing the incidence of Necrotizing Enterocolitis through education, outreach, research, and advocacy, and the NEC Society scientific advisory council member Dr. Samir Gadepalli. During our conversation, they will discuss in varying degrees: The design and development of the NEC Society’s parent survey—research specifically focused on parents and their perspectives on NEC, The survey’s five areas of interest: education, awareness, support of human milk, information provided and information providers, and parental empowerment in the NICU, The survey findings including the demographics of the participants and their babies—all of whom were diagnosed with NEC, The importance of raising awareness about NEC in the general public, The NEC Society’s partnership with the Best for Babes Foundation® and the Miracle MilkTM Stroll, and Plans for their upcoming conference Necrotizing Enterocolitis Symposium: A Transdisciplinary Approach to Improved NEC Outcomes in partnership with the University of California at Davis. With that in mind, let me introduce my guests today. Hi, Jennifer and Samir. Thank you for joining me. How are you guys? JENNIFER CANVASSER, GUEST: Great. Thank you. SAMIR GADEPALLI, GUEST: Great. Thank you. STEPHANIE, HOST: So let me have Jennifer take a few minutes and introduce herself. She’s got a very compelling story with her son Micah, and has done some wonderful work based on a tragic situation with Micah, so let me have you share your story. JENNIFER, GUEST: So, my name is Jennifer Canvasser, and in January of 2014, I founded the NEC Society. It’s a nonprofit dedicated to the prevention of Necrotizing Enterocolitis in fragile infants. And, it was because my son Micah passed away from complications related to Necrotizing Enterocolitis when he was 11 months old. And so really, the organization is dedicated to reducing the incidence of this devastating disease and making progress to bring families, clinicians, and researchers together to collaborate and make improvements on protecting babies and families. STEPHANIE, HOST: Excellent. Thank you. And Samir, can you talk a little bit about your experience with NEC from the surgical perspective, and how you came to know Jennifer and get involved? SAMIR, GUEST: Yes. So, I’m Samir. I’m one of the pediatric surgeons at Mott Hospital (C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital). I actually had the privilege of taking care of Jenn and her kids, and that’s how I met them. In fact, her husband Noah rotated on our service when he was an intern, and so I got to know the whole family in different aspects. For me, my experience with NEC really is related to the fact that as a pediatric surgeon it’s one of the things that you see a lot of, and it’s a very devastating disease and somewhat frustrating because outcomes are fairly miserable and you just wish there was a better way of handling this. There really hasn’t been a huge difference in‚—depending on who you ask‚—30 or 50 years. And so as a junior faculty member, one of the areas I had primary interest in was in Necrotizing Enterocolitis, and ways to approach it in a different way, because whatever we’d been trying for 30 or 50 years definitely hasn’t worked. I shouldn’t say that. I would say there’s been some progress, but the reality is it’s not as much as you would like it to be. And so, one of the opportunities that came up was when Jenn called me one day and said, “Hey listen, I was interested in starting a society focusing on NEC, empowering and educating families.” I said, “This is fantastic. This is exactly what I was looking for.” And so both of us kind of talked over the phone, and I sent her various ideas that I was thinking about and ways that I was hoping to approach it, different than it’s been approached before in terms of collaboration, and empowerment, and bringing different ideas together. And so, both of us talked about ways that we can get other people involved, not just clinicians but also researchers, parents. And she did all the legwork in terms of the NEC Society, and getting all these various members across the country on board who are all experts and are invested in solving the problem of NEC. And so, both of us wanted to try to invigorate the group and get them to start focusing on ways to work together and collaborate, so one of the things that we realized is one of our opportunities was to try to get a survey going and also to‚—how do you get a bunch of researchers to work together is research. That was a chance for us to motivate people in our group, and to start thinking of ways to approach the disease that hadn’t been done before. STEPHANIE, HOST: That’s great. So, can you talk to me a little bit about how the survey was actually designed, and maybe the major components or question topics? SAMIR, GUEST: Sure. What we did was we wanted to survey all the family members because we had access to over 200 parents across not just this country, but internationally, who all had an experience with NEC, various different types of approaches, different experiences and outcomes. We wanted to survey both demographics and see what kind of population we had, and also look at what their experience in the NICU was in terms of what kind of education they were provided, how much empowerment they had in decisions, who provided the education, what did they know about it beforehand, what kind of awareness existed, and so forth. And then we wanted to see if there was something that we could learn from and we can focus on in the future for our society to work on. I created a design, but then I showed it to Jenn to see if this is something, one, that’s easy to take and feasible and can be done within a few minutes and wouldn’t be inconvenient; it wouldn’t create any sort of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) for families who’ve been through a very traumatic experience. But also, we wanted to make sure we highlighted areas that we thought the families could access, and so there were quite a few open-ended questions within it. We didn’t want it to be cumbersome but it get enough data that we could use. Sheila Gephart (PhD, RN, from the University of Arizona College of Nursing) is someone who has a lot of experience using qualitative data and looking at Necrotizing Enterocolitis, and she played a valuable role in terms of the information we were trying to collect. Dr. (Jae) Kim, from (The University of ) California, was also very useful because he has a ton of experience treating patients with Necrotizing Enterocolitis. Between the four of us‚—Jenn, myself, and those two‚—we created the survey. We went over it with our scientific advisory council to make sure that everyone was in agreement with the type of questions we asked. Then we just sent out the survey via email, and our response rate was amazing. Pretty much everyone who got the‚— they were invested in it, and that’s one of the reasons why they decided to join NEC, I think, the NEC Society, was because they wanted to make a difference and let their voice be heard. STEPHANIE, HOST: Right. JENNIFER, GUEST: I think it was really empowering for the families who had been through these traumatic experiences that Samir is talking about to be able to have their voice heard, like he just said. They found it very empowering to share their experience with the hope of helping future families. STEPHANIE, HOST: Right. Right. So can you talk to us about what you found in the study specifically? SAMIR, GUEST: Sure. I think in order to really understand the study you have to start out with the demographics of the population. I think Jenn has the numbers right in front of her. I was trying to bring it up on my computer. But basically, it’s highly educated, mostly Caucasian, but college graduates who were part of this society, so they were online, and they had an interest and investment. They already had a lot of education and background. When you look at the study, you kind of think, okay, so here’s a population that has a lot of exposure and experience in life and should probably know a lot about NEC. This is a disease that affects a lot of premature infants. But then when you look at the data, when we went through it, it was kind of like pretty sad in terms of what it showed in our different healthcare systems. It wasn’t just us, as in United States, or us in Michigan or us in anywhere. It was internationally. It shows you how not-so-good we are at educating families and empowering families. Jenn, you want to comment? JENNIFER, GUEST: Yeah, I just want to add something else that’s very interesting is that nearly 90% of the children of these parents who responded were born after 2010, and so this is a very recent occurrence. STEPHANIE, HOST: Right. JENNIFER, GUEST: So and so this wasn’t 15 to 20 years ago. This is happening now—in NICUs now. So I think it’s important to note that. STEPHANIE, HOST: And do you want to talk to any of the specific measurements that you saw, or any topics that were maybe better than others, or ones that specifically need more improvement? SAMIR, GUEST: We focused on five primary areas that we thought were important for us to hit. One of them was education. One of them was awareness. One of them was support that was provided in terms of using human milk or breast milk. One of them was regarding who provided information and what information they were given. And one was related to empowerment within their NICU experience. We found that they were predominantly‚—the kids were mostly 28 weeks gestational age, and 90% of them were less than 1800 grams (3 pounds 15.5 ounces). The majority were treated in a pediatric unit within an adult hospital, 55% of them, but about 25% of them were at a free-standing children’s hospital. And then the geographic distribution was pretty diverse, from all regions of the United States. About 12% of them were international. Many were treated at multiple centers, transferring to a higher level once NEC was diagnosed. They were diagnosed at median age of 31 weeks, so about 3 weeks of age. And the survival rate was about 64%, and about 71% had surgery. And of those survivors, about 44% of them had short bowel syndrome. Of those who passed away, about 60% of them were in the first month of life. So, it’s kind of a heterogeneous group, but pretty much the major outcomes that you would expect with NEC were seen. STEPHANIE, HOST: Okay. SAMIR, GUEST: About 15% of them worked in the medical field, and so when we looked we said, okay, so they may know a lot about the disease, but we found out that about 40% of the parents were informed only after the baby was diagnosed with Necrotizing Enterocolitis. And 23% of them felt that no information was actually provided about NEC. So, most of them were not satisfied in the amount of information that was provided. Only about a third of them thought they were pretty satisfied. These are much smaller numbers than we had hoped for. In support for breast milk, there was a huge variability. About 84% of the parents met with a lactation consultant after the baby was born, and about 60% on the first day. However, about 10% of them were never offered an opportunity to meet with a lactation consultant, and only 5% of the patients met with a peer counselor for lactation support. So, I think there were some areas that we did okay, but there were a lot of areas that we can work on. STEPHANIE, HOST: Um-hmm. SAMIR, GUEST: About three-fifths of the babies received donated milk, but many of them didn’t even know about the existence or weren’t even told about it. About 30% of them felt they felt pressured to give their baby formula. The surprising thing is more than half of the parents, about 54%, felt that their child’s Necrotizing Enterocolitis was preventable. And many of them, of those who developed short bowel syndrome, felt this way. STEPHANIE, HOST: Oh, wow. SAMIR, GUEST: About 56% of the parents suspected that something was wrong prior to the diagnosis of NEC, and all of them notified the medical staff except for one of them, but in less than half of the instances was anything ever done. And you have to realize, this is broad. It’s not like we picked on one institution or one region of the country… STEPHANIE, HOST: Right. SAMIR, GUEST: …or we picked on a population that was not well educated or had poor socioeconomic status. This is after 2010, and this is a population that’s well educated, that has access to Internet and is willing to provide feedback, and is an empowered community. STEPHANIE, HOST: Right. SAMIR, GUEST: This doesn’t even reflect the population of NEC. STEPHANIE, HOST: What would you want to say to the parents that are listening, questions that they should be asking, and things that they should be looking for when they’re in the NICU? JENNIFER, GUEST: Right. We actually have, if you just Google, “10 Things All Parents of Preemies Need to Know.” When we developed this, we really had NEC in mind, but you can generalize it to any fragile infant, or any hospitalized child, for that matter. But specifically for babies that are at risk for NEC, this “10 Things All Parents of Preemies Need to Know” is very helpful, and it talks about asking questions and being involved in the care team, the importance of an exclusive human milk diet. We often hear a lot of families say, “Well, my baby did get breast milk,” but the breast milk is often fortified with formula, and we know that formula does increase the risk of NEC. So just making sure that they’re involved, and their voice is being heard, and they’re developing a primary care team. There’s some things that I hope people will check out, again, “10 Things All Parents of Preemies Need to Know.” Those are kind of the biggest things, and one of the other goals that we have for the NEC Society is to raise awareness for families who are not in the NICU right now, because even in my own personal experience there are many families who aren’t in the NICU now, but they’re going to end up in the NICU five years from now, or whatever it might be, or they have friends that are. Necrotizing Enterocolitis is one of the leading causes of overall infant mortality in the United States. It kills about 500 infants each year, but practically no one knows what NEC is until it happens to them. STEPHANIE, HOST: Right. JENNIFER, GUEST: And we’re really hoping that we can work to change that and raise awareness just in the general public, because I think when you raise that awareness in the general public there’s more at stake and more people are invested in making a change and protecting these babies and can put more resources and finances and more energy into preventing this disease and reducing the outcomes. STEPHANIE, HOST: Right. Yeah, we couldn’t agree more. And I think you guys have taken a wonderful avenue. Ours is probably the flip side in looking at how we can help advance research through funding and that area. I’ve been on your website and have been following you, and I think you guys are doing wonderful things. JENNIFER, GUEST: Thank you. And same to you. STEPHANIE, HOST: Oh, thank you. Anything that you would like to share about other things that you are doing, or other points study related or not, please feel free. JENNIFER, GUEST: Do you want to mention anything else about the survey and the research, Samir, before we get into other topics? SAMIR, GUEST: In terms of the survey, we presented at different forums not for recognition per se as much as just awareness and creating that there is a need here, that partnering with parents and partnering with decision makers is not commonplace in medicine in general, but yet this is an area where we think it’s super key to do, because I think that access to donor milk or access to human milk is a priority in a lot of these babies, and there’s probably a lack of awareness overall. And improving quality in our NICUs is going to be through better communication and teamwork with families, early education engagement of families rather than just waiting until a disease happens, because I think a lot of parents don’t quite realize how much power they do have, and how much control they do have over the outcome of their child. JENNIFER, GUEST: We are hoping that we can eventually get this published and share more of the results and the information and just get this information out there and use it to help better the practices in other hospitals for other families. So we’re not done, basically, with the work. We’re hoping to continue the momentum and continue to use what we have learned to improve practices. And then, the other thing I wanted to mention is over the past couple of years, we have partnered with and organization that’s fantastic. It’s called the Best for Babes Foundation. They have dedicated what’s called a “Miracle Milk Stroll” to raising awareness about the life-saving power of human milk for fragile infants. Studies have shown that an exclusive human milk diet for fragile babies can reduce the incidence of NEC by nearly 80%, yet many, many NICUs aren’t providing donor milk, and many institutions are not telling families how important it is to provide human milk. And so families are in a very difficult situation when you’re having a premature baby, and if you’re too overwhelmed to pump or you’re at a different hospital than your baby and you can’t get them your own milk, how important donor milk can be. Basically, we’ve partnered with the Miracle Milk Stroll with the Best for Babes Foundation to, one, raise awareness just through the general public, and it’s really been amazing to see the media coverage of this event, because it’s become international with hundreds and hundreds of locations all around the country and even internationally who together stroll in honor of these babies and raising awareness about the life-saving power of human milk. So one is to raise awareness in the general public. It’s also to increase human milk donations to milk banks. Because again, these babies need donor milk if their mothers aren’t able to provide it. And then, it’s also a fundraiser. So, it’s raising funds to help, again, protect these babies and making sure that they are getting access to the life-saving milk that they definitely need. So that’s one thing that we’re really honored, and so proud, and excited to be able to do, so we’ll be doing that again. It’s in the spring, kind of around May of each year, so we’ll be doing that again next year. It’s called the Miracle Milk Stroll with the Best for Babes Foundation. Another project that we have just started working on is the first conference on Necrotizing Enterocolitis in the United States. We just received an award from PCORI to host this conference. It will be in the spring of 2017 in conjunction with UC Davis in northern California. And it’s going to be a collaboration, again, between families, clinicians, researchers, and others who are dedicated to reducing this disease, and it’s going to be focused on prevention and just improving outcomes, so we’re really excited about that. And, Samir, please feel free to add anything you might want to about the conference. SAMIR, GUEST: Sure. Stephanie, consider yourself invited. STEPHANIE, HOST: Thank you. Yes, congratulations. SAMIR, GUEST: I think it’s an exciting first step because I think just getting people together to talk, and share all their ideas, and collaborate is going to be a huge step in the right direction. And this is our chance to put everyone on the same forum, on the same table, and just say, “You know what, these conversations need to happen.” JENNIFER, GUEST: Right. SAMIR, GUEST: I think a lot of the issue right now is the funders are on one page, researchers are on one page, clinicians are on one page, and the families are nowhere on the table. I think this is kind of a loss at how our system works right now. And this is our opportunity to bring everybody together and talk about the different ideas and what they’re working on and say, “Hey, this has hope. This has potential. We should start focusing on this as a group and have larger clinical trials.” This is what they did with cancer 80 years ago. This is what we should be doing with all other diseases, and yet NEC is not even on the map. And so, finally, we have a chance now, and PCORI has given us a chance to fund us to make this symposium happen. We’re planning on doing it in 2017 in northern California, like Jenn mentioned, and our hope is to get all different parties together‚—researchers, clinicians, anyone invested in NEC‚—to talk about the various issues, whether it’s related to prevention, management, outcomes, way to improve those. I think it will be a great chance. JENNIFER, GUEST: And I was just going to clarify really quick, PCORI stands for‚—and I want to make sure I’m saying it right‚—Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, for people who are not familiar with PCORI awards. STEPHANIE, HOST: Well, congratulations again. I can’t imagine the work that went into trying to get that grant, and I think it’s a wonderful thing. And we will definitely be there, and support in any way that we can. JENNIFER, GUEST: I think that it’s just important to know that people like your organization and our organization exist, and we are trying to improve things for families and for babies, and that there is hope that things are hopefully going to be improving, and that there is a lot of room for improvement. I think that’s one key for hospitals and clinicians and NICUs, what have you, to understand is that there is a lot of room for improvement. STEPHANIE, HOST: Right. JENNIFER, GUEST: And I think that’s one thing that this survey really opened our eyes to. Parents have been saying, “I didn’t feel empowered. I feel like my baby’s NEC was preventable,” and now we have this information that really shows that, yes, there’s a lot of room for improvement, and we have these organizations out there that are working on doing just that. STEPHANIE, HOST: Right. Right. And I was amazed when we first started, at finding how many researchers and doctors have dedicated their careers to this disease. JENNIFER, GUEST: Right. STEPHANIE, HOST: And unfortunately, no one outside of that tiny community knows about it, or knew about it. JENNIFER, GUEST: Right. STEPHANIE, HOST: So just like you said, getting everyone in the same place at the same time, I think will be a phenomenal step forward. For more information about the NEC Society visit: necsociety.org. A direct link can also be found in this episode’s show notes: http://necsociety.org/ In closing, I’d like to share a few thoughts about today’s conversation with Jennifer and Samir. As the parent of a surgical NEC survivor, two things struck me about the findings of the NEC Society’s parent survey. First, the findings of this survey are extremely relevant because the parents’ perspectives are so very timely. As Jennifer pointed out, survey participants were parents of babies born in 2010 or later. So, these parent perspectives reflect current NICU practices as they relate to NEC. The fact that “54% the parents felt that their child’s Necrotizing Enterocolitis was preventable” is not only heart wrenching but also, in my opinion, wholly unacceptable. The second critical point that Jennifer made is that NEC prevention needs to start with the general public: before a baby who’s at risk for developing NEC is born, before they and their parents enter the NICU. We need to create an awareness of NEC among this next generation of parents. We need to create opportunities for education about NEC before they find themselves in the position of being the parents of a baby who’s at risk for developing NEC. I recently met a new mother of twins who were born at 34 weeks. She delivered her babies at a prestigious children’s hospital, and they spent two weeks in the hospital’s nationally ranked NICU. And, she never had heard of NEC. We’re fast approaching the tipping point. In the U.S., NEC is the second leading cause of death in premature infants, and the 10th leading cause of infant death overall. (Sources: UC Davis Health System and CDC/NCHS). We need to create an awareness about NEC through which we can educate and empower parents, and advance research for a cure. Show your support for our smallest and most fragile babies, those who have the greatest risk for developing NEC. Show your support for continued research in NEC. And join our effort to raise awareness about, and funds for research in NEC by making a donation to Morgan’s Fund at morgansfund.org/donate. If you’ve had a personal experience with NEC and would like to share your story, or have a question or topic that you’d like to hear addressed on our show, e-mail us at feedback@morgansfund.org. We’d love to hear from you! Additional resources: NEC Society. Perspectives from parents of infants impacted by NEC: NEC communication in the NICU. Poster presented at: Vermont Oxford Network Annual Quality Congress. 2014 Nov 1-2; Chicago, IL. About Jennifer Canvasser: Jennifer Canvasser has served on the Ecology Center’s children’s health, first food and environmental health campaigns since 2010. She completed UCSF’s Reach the Decision Makers Fellowship program in 2011, with a focus on reform of our national chemicals law. In 2014, Jennifer founded the NEC Society, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting fragile infants, after losing her son, Micah, to necrotizing enterocolitis. She is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post on parenting, health and food justice issues. Jennifer completed her undergraduate studies at U.C.L.A. and earned her Master’s in Social Work from the University of Southern California with a focus on community organizing. Copyright © 2015 The Morgan Leary Vaughan Fund, Inc. The opinions expressed in Speaking of NEC: Necrotizing Enterocolitis (the Podcast series) and by The Morgan Leary Vaughan Fund are published for educational and informational purposes only, and are not intended as a diagnosis, treatment or as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis and treatment. Please consult a local physician or other health care professional for your specific health care and/or medical needs or concerns. The Podcast series does not endorse or recommend any commercial products, medical treatments, pharmaceuticals, brand names, processes, or services, or the use of any trade, firm, or corporation name is for the information and education of the viewing public, and the mention of any of the above on the Site does not constitute an endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by The Morgan Leary Vaughan Fund.

Today’s conversation features Jennifer Miller - a mom with two perspectives to her addiction story. As a professional therapist, she works with young adults and their families dealing with the issue of addiction on a daily basis. As a mom, she witnessed the devastating effects of addiction through her 27 year old son’s opioid addiction battle. As more and more stories of children dying from addiction overdoses have been shared, Jennifer made a commitment to be more involved, engaged, and active. Her passion for this cause clearly resonates in our conversation.  Listeners to this podcast will learn from her story about her son. How he went from a wildly popular, accomplished, scholarly student to a young man struggling with his addiction. Plus, we discuss the impact that labeling people “addicts” has on their recovery, the perceptions it reinforces, and how we can change the addiction discussion simply by changing how we talk about it. As Jennifer declares there is a battle out there; but, it is not the battle we think we have been fighting.  “It’s not a war on Drugs, It’s a war on People.” To fight this battle we must all be engaged, educated, and supporting each other.  Reference Links: Redemption House (Facebook Page) Christian Counseling and Education Foundation (Website) Chasing the Scream (Book) Beyond Addiction (Book)

Last year, for the first time, I got involved in(1) a political campaign. A friend of mine decided to run for a position(2) on the local School Board. She is a busy mother of four, and running for that position would take a lot of time and energy, so a group of us decided to help her. The campaign was like many others; she had to get her name out(3) into the community, talk on the radio, go to public events, and attend lots of meetings. It just so happens that(4) those are the sort of things that she does anyway; she is a natural politician. Where I had to help was handing out information flyers on her, and waving banners on the street corners. For years, I have seen other people do that. They stand in small groups, near busy roads, and wave banners that say, "Vote John Brown for Council," or "Vote Judy Green for Mayor". These people generally face the traffic, show the banners, and wave. I could never imagine myself doing that(5). However, when I found out that my friend Jennifer wanted to run for the School District position, I was willing to do anything to help her. For years she has volunteered in schools, and has helped on the Parent Teacher Association, so she knows about our education system, and where it needs help. The School Board represents all of the schools in our area, about ten of them. They help to decide on spending, renovations, employment, and program(me)s of all sorts. As Jennifer is energetic, studious, determined, and personable, I knew that she would be a perfect addition to(6) the School Board, and would help to make positive changes. So, I found myself on the busy street corners, waving banners, smiling and waving, and saying, "Vote for Jennifer!" My kids even helped me. They got plenty of attention from the passing drivers. And guess what? Even though the person running against(7) Jennifer was well known in the community, and had huge banners, Jennifer won. The campaign was a success. I look forward to hearing about the changes in the School District, now that a new, dynamic person is on the board. 1. 'To get involved' - means to become part of a project, goal, or work. To do something to help. a. I want to get involved in the local community, to help solve some of its problems. b. She is very involved with a volunteer reading program. 2. 'To run for a position', the verb 'to run' is used when someone is in a political campaign of any kind. a. No woman has ever run for President yet in the U.S. b. My uncle is running for Mayor. 3. 'To get one's name out' means to inform the public about yourself, your name, and what you do or wish to do. It's like 'spreading the word' about yourself. a. Part of any campaign is getting your name out into the community. b. The business will increase as its name gets out. 4. 'It just so happens that' is the same as saying, 'it happens that', 'coincidentally', 'it's significant that'. It shows a connection between two things. a. My father makes shoes; it just so happens that he has huge feet, and finds it difficult to buy shoes. b. We need a large location for the party; it just so happens that the school gymnasium is available on that day. 5. 'I could never imagine myself (doing something)..' / 'I can't imagine myself (doing something)...' These phrases are interchangeable, but the first is also used when the action or event that you could not imagine, has taken place. a. I could never imagine myself singing on stage, but then I did it, and I wasn't too bad! (the event actually took place). b. I can't imagine myself as a politician. (the event hasn't taken place). 6. We talk about a person being 'a perfect addition to' a company, an organization, and even a family. a. When Julie marries Peter, she will be the perfect addition to the family. b. He's the perfect addition to the company; it will really benefit from his skills and experience. Join me on FACEBOOK at Anna Fromacupofenglish, and send your questions to my email at acupofenglish@hotmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you!   Need the app? You can find it in iTunes, called A Cup Of English. Click the link. // //   //    

Happy Holidays! Listen now to Jennifer Hawkins, author of The Gift Giver, as she shares her triumphant story of reclaiming her life after her husbands sudden death. As Jennifer pieces her life back together, she hears a voice, the spirit of her husband, who helps guide her on a transformational journey with magical synchronicities. Find our more about her and order her book at www.thegiftgiverbook.com **Original photo by Amy Melsa.

There is exactly one strong woman in the movie “The Godfather,” and she’s not Italian. (It’s “Kay Adams,” played by the least Italian-looking actress alive, Diane Keaton.) Such is the stereotype about Italian women, at least in the U.S. They are always in the background, sometimes cooking for la famiglia, sometimes counting rosary beads, sometimes simply missing (as in the case of “The Godfather” films). Alas, it’s all wrong. In her pathbreaking book Living the Revolution: Italian Women’s Resistance and Radicalism in New York City (University of North Carolina Press, 2010), Smith College historian Jennifer Guglielmo dives into the archives to show that before the First World War Italian women were at the forefront of radical, predominantly socialist politics in the New York City region. They organized parties and unions; protested and marched for fairness and against injustice; they struck and stood fast on the picket line; they wrote and published newspapers, flyers and books. And, in their daily lives, they tried as best they could to “live the Revolution.” As Jennifer points out, though, Italian women had to adapt. The ways they did so involved becoming both American and “white.” It’s a fascinating story remarkably well told. I urge you to read it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There is exactly one strong woman in the movie “The Godfather,” and she’s not Italian. (It’s “Kay Adams,” played by the least Italian-looking actress alive, Diane Keaton.) Such is the stereotype about Italian women, at least in the U.S. They are always in the background, sometimes cooking for la famiglia, sometimes counting rosary beads, sometimes simply missing (as in the case of “The Godfather” films). Alas, it’s all wrong. In her pathbreaking book Living the Revolution: Italian Women’s Resistance and Radicalism in New York City (University of North Carolina Press, 2010), Smith College historian Jennifer Guglielmo dives into the archives to show that before the First World War Italian women were at the forefront of radical, predominantly socialist politics in the New York City region. They organized parties and unions; protested and marched for fairness and against injustice; they struck and stood fast on the picket line; they wrote and published newspapers, flyers and books. And, in their daily lives, they tried as best they could to “live the Revolution.” As Jennifer points out, though, Italian women had to adapt. The ways they did so involved becoming both American and “white.” It’s a fascinating story remarkably well told. I urge you to read it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There is exactly one strong woman in the movie “The Godfather,” and she’s not Italian. (It’s “Kay Adams,” played by the least Italian-looking actress alive, Diane Keaton.) Such is the stereotype about Italian women, at least in the U.S. They are always in the background, sometimes cooking for la famiglia, sometimes counting rosary beads, sometimes simply missing (as in the case of “The Godfather” films). Alas, it’s all wrong. In her pathbreaking book Living the Revolution: Italian Women’s Resistance and Radicalism in New York City (University of North Carolina Press, 2010), Smith College historian Jennifer Guglielmo dives into the archives to show that before the First World War Italian women were at the forefront of radical, predominantly socialist politics in the New York City region. They organized parties and unions; protested and marched for fairness and against injustice; they struck and stood fast on the picket line; they wrote and published newspapers, flyers and books. And, in their daily lives, they tried as best they could to “live the Revolution.” As Jennifer points out, though, Italian women had to adapt. The ways they did so involved becoming both American and “white.” It’s a fascinating story remarkably well told. I urge you to read it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There is exactly one strong woman in the movie “The Godfather,” and she’s not Italian. (It’s “Kay Adams,” played by the least Italian-looking actress alive, Diane Keaton.) Such is the stereotype about Italian women, at least in the U.S. They are always in the background, sometimes cooking for la famiglia, sometimes counting rosary beads, sometimes simply missing (as in the case of “The Godfather” films). Alas, it’s all wrong. In her pathbreaking book Living the Revolution: Italian Women’s Resistance and Radicalism in New York City (University of North Carolina Press, 2010), Smith College historian Jennifer Guglielmo dives into the archives to show that before the First World War Italian women were at the forefront of radical, predominantly socialist politics in the New York City region. They organized parties and unions; protested and marched for fairness and against injustice; they struck and stood fast on the picket line; they wrote and published newspapers, flyers and books. And, in their daily lives, they tried as best they could to “live the Revolution.” As Jennifer points out, though, Italian women had to adapt. The ways they did so involved becoming both American and “white.” It’s a fascinating story remarkably well told. I urge you to read it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There is exactly one strong woman in the movie “The Godfather,” and she’s not Italian. (It’s “Kay Adams,” played by the least Italian-looking actress alive, Diane Keaton.) Such is the stereotype about Italian women, at least in the U.S. They are always in the background, sometimes cooking for la famiglia, sometimes counting rosary beads, sometimes simply missing (as in the case of “The Godfather” films). Alas, it’s all wrong. In her pathbreaking book Living the Revolution: Italian Women’s Resistance and Radicalism in New York City (University of North Carolina Press, 2010), Smith College historian Jennifer Guglielmo dives into the archives to show that before the First World War Italian women were at the forefront of radical, predominantly socialist politics in the New York City region. They organized parties and unions; protested and marched for fairness and against injustice; they struck and stood fast on the picket line; they wrote and published newspapers, flyers and books. And, in their daily lives, they tried as best they could to “live the Revolution.” As Jennifer points out, though, Italian women had to adapt. The ways they did so involved becoming both American and “white.” It’s a fascinating story remarkably well told. I urge you to read it.