Podcasts about Athabasca University

Stephanie O'Brien formed her company, Coach Client Connection, 13 years ago to help coaches and experts connect with the people who need their services. She grew up in Manitoba Canada. She says that as a child she had great difficulties in developing relationships with her fellow children. As she said during our conversation, she tended to be too clingy among other things.   She began writing at an early age and wrote her first full-length novel at the age of twelve. She has written 14 books, four of which she self-published. As she matured, she began connecting with writers online and found that she could create relationships with them. She then learned how to make others around her feel interesting and thus also began learning how to establish real relationships with others.   As she tells us, she also began meeting with coaches and others to improve herself and her self-esteem.   We talk quite a bit during this episode about coaching and how Stephanie has created a program to help coaches better interact with clients and others. She even gives us a free gift to help us learn how to choose and interact with coaches.     About the Guest:   Stephanie O'Brien, founder of Coach Client Connection, has been helping coaches and experts to connect with the people who need them since 2013.   Throughout her childhood, she struggled to make connections with others. As the kid who was always sending invitations to the other kids, and seldom being invited herself, she knows what it's like to feel invisible and unwanted.   She immersed herself in her writing, and completed her first full-length novel at the age of 12. She went on to write 14 novels, four of which she self-published as ebooks (she calls the rest “teenage practice”).   As she began to connect with other writers online, she gradually honed the art of building relationships by making the people around her feel interesting, wanted, and understood. She also sought healing through coaching and therapy, and experienced firsthand the transformations coaching can bring. This gave her a passion for helping coaches to share those transformations with more people, so those people can enjoy the same freedom, joy, and recovery from old wounds that she did.   Since then, Stephanie has spent over 10 years helping coaches to get noticed, connect with the people who need them, and turn their expertise into coaching programs that their clients can easily understand, implement, and turn into real results.   When serving clients, she draws on her decades of practice in writing fiction and nonfiction, her ability to see both the big picture and the little details, and her experience as a client of both great coaches and coaches who left her discouraged and disappointed. She also uses the relationship principles she discovered to help set coaches at ease, draw out more of their expertise than they even knew they had, and make the process of creating their programs easy and fun. Ways to connect with Stephanie:   https://www.coachclientconnection.com/ https://www.instagram.com/stephanieobriencoaching/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-obrien-program-design/ https://www.facebook.com/StephanieOBrienCoaching   Free Gift: https://www.coachclientconnection.com/How-to-Pick-a-Coaching-Topic-that-SELLS/   About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes:   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Well, hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset. We're going to try to be unstoppable today as much as much as we can. Our guest is Stephanie O'Brien. O'Brien, good Swedish name Stephanie. I couldn't resist. It's a it's pleasure to have you here, and it's a pleasure to have all of you listening. Stephanie has been involved in coaching and connecting coaches and clients for 13 years now, my gosh, a long time, and we're going to learn all about that. And I know that Stephanie's got a lot of words of wisdom to talk about. So without further ado, as it were, let's get into all of this. So Stephanie, welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're really glad you're here.   Stephanie O'Brien ** 02:03 Thank you so much. I really appreciate you having me here. I'm looking forward to this,   Michael Hingson ** 02:07 and as I told Stephanie earlier, the rule of the podcast is you got to have fun. So, you know, we do our best. But anyway, let's start out with kind of the early Stephanie, growing up and all that. And you know, just to learn a little bit about you if we can   Stephanie O'Brien ** 02:22 sure, a big part of the reason why later came to have a focus on helping coaches connect with people was because for me, connecting people was connecting with people was really difficult. When I was young, I'd be the kid who on Saturday morning, I'd get on the phone at a call each of my friends one by one, only to be told that they didn't want to hang out. And I was seldom the one who got a call in return. So I had a really hard time connecting with people. Admittedly, I could be a bit clingy and boring, so I have to recognize my own faults and where I had to grow from there, but at the time, I didn't really know how to fix that. So yeah, I had a hard time connecting with people. Eventually, I started connecting with people through writing. I was a pretty prolific novelist. I finished my first novel when I was 12 years old. Terrible novel. Mom told me, Steph, don't delete it. And I tell her, no, no, it's so bad I'll never want to see it again. Mother knew best. I shouldn't have deleted it. But I went on to write 14 novels, four of which were good enough by adult needs standards, to Self Publish. And while I was doing all this writing, I started connecting with other writers, talking with them about their stories. I got very good at building relationships and asking the right questions to keep the conversation going, but I just kind of learned how to connect with people through trial and error. Though I've been still worked with some mentors to get better at it still. So now I use that experience, the writing experience, the ability to phrase things in a way that's easy to understand and connect with that experience. With building relationships, I help coaches to connect with more of their ideal clients now.   Michael Hingson ** 03:49 So have you always been in Manitoba? Yeah,   Stephanie O'Brien ** 03:53 I've always lived in Manitoba. Sometimes vacations are traveled outside if it always lived here, oh   Michael Hingson ** 03:58 yeah, lot of snow in the winter, oh   Stephanie O'Brien ** 04:01 yeah, it's been less severe lately, like it's in the last few years, we've had more 30 degree days in summer, fewer 40 degree below days in winter. But it still can get pretty cold.   Michael Hingson ** 04:14 Isn't that crazy? Well, but, and of course, some people say there's no such thing as climate change. So what do you do?   Stephanie O'Brien ** 04:20 You put out the pictures of me trick or treating as a kid versus me at Halloween this year, like I went from trick or treating in blizzards to walking on grass in November one. There's a difference.   Michael Hingson ** 04:33 Well, so you you went to school? Did you go to university? Or any of that? I   Stephanie O'Brien ** 04:38 was actually homeschooled, and I went to Athabasca University online, but I didn't take a full formal university education. Instead, I learned. I took courses from various coaches and business owners to learn how to run an online business. Wow, Peter, if you're gonna do a secondary education, you may as well learn from someone who's doing what you want to do, and to teach you how to do it   Michael Hingson ** 04:57 well. And as long as that, we're. For you that that's a good thing to do.   Stephanie O'Brien ** 05:01 Yeah, you've got to choose your education based on what you're trying to learn and what you're trying to accomplish. I don't like the cookie cutter model, or you got to get a college education because, yeah, learn what's relevant.   Michael Hingson ** 05:13 Well, I think there's value in college and or university, absolutely. And I went, I went to to the university, and I think for me, probably it was the best thing to do, because back in well, in 68 to 76 when I was at the University of California at Irvine, there weren't a lot of alternatives other than college for getting access to material, accessible stuff wasn't there. In fact, majoring in physics, my books had to be transcribed into Braille and and that that was a challenge, because professors didn't always want to provide information about what books they were going to use until as late in the process as they could, just in case a new book came out. And that that didn't work for me, and so one of the things that I learned was how to work with professors, and when necessary, use higher authorities than professors at the university to get them to provide what needed to be done. So that was that was useful, but the material wasn't accessible without me making a major effort. So probably college was would have been, anyway, for me, the way to do it. But obviously what you did worked for you. And so, you know, I figure it's important to   Stephanie O'Brien ** 06:29 just go to figure out what you want to do with your life, figure out what information or courses you need on that, and then, you know, pick the source that is most appropriate to provide it. It's there's no one size fits all,   Michael Hingson ** 06:41 no, and I agree. What do you do with people who say I don't know what I want to do with my life?   Stephanie O'Brien ** 06:48 Those generally don't tend to be our target audience, but I can help them in a few ways. I can give them a few questions that they can answer. You know, they can look at what is something that they really love to talk about can't get enough of talking about so they could study this forever. Is it something that they could you know, an area where they can help get results for people. Let's say they are really into relationships. They're fascinated by human relationships. Can they help people to communicate better? Can they help people to find better, healthier partners? Can they help them to avoid common conflicts with other people? Or, you know, what's a problem that they've solved for themselves, that they've healed in their own life. You know, maybe they had a really rough cancer journey and found out, you know, what went wrong, what went right, what could have gone right more to make it easier for them. Now, I know one person who she got through breast cancer and now teaches other people how to navigate that journey a lot more smoothly than what she experienced. Yeah. So, yeah, I encourage people to, you know, look at their lives. Look at what you do for free, if you had the option, if money wasn't an object, what fascinate? See what you're passionate about, and just see, is there a way you can use that to make other people's lives better?   Michael Hingson ** 07:54 Well? And that makes a lot of sense. And we, we all should do a whole lot more introspection and analyze what we do and and even ask ourselves why we do it, because we we tend to just move ahead and do stuff and we don't think about it. And the other part of what happens as a result of that is that we try to control everything that we do, we don't think about what we're doing, and we're a lot more afraid than we should be, and then we need to be, if we would only take the time to really be introspective and learn what is it that really is going on? Why do I feel this way? And as you're pointing out, what can I do about it? But if we really take the time to analyze. Then we figure out somewhere along the line, you don't need to worry about what you can't control, just focus on the things that you can and your life is a whole lot better anyway. Oh yeah,   Stephanie O'Brien ** 08:54 yeah, at Holyoke, give me the strength to control, our strength to change what I can the grace to accept what I can't, and the wisdom to know the difference, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 09:02 well, and the reality is that one of the things that I talk about a lot is the mind's a muscle, and you need to develop it whoever you are, and the best way to do that is to think about what you do. I've learned that I'm not my own worst critic, I'm my own best teacher, and that's the way it should be. But I have to be open to learning and letting me and my inner voice teach. But if I do that, then I'm oftentimes, as I think back on it, very amazed at what I suddenly discovered that I didn't know before because I wouldn't take the time to think about it and study it.   Stephanie O'Brien ** 09:40 Yeah, we can get so busy, so caught up in our day to day lives, so ingrained in our routine. Sometimes it can be challenging to rattle ourselves out of that, and sometimes we need another set of eyes, or someone asking the right questions,   Michael Hingson ** 09:53 yeah, and then, and we need to take that time so. So for you. You, you studied, you worked with people. And so you what? Well, what kind of jobs did you have early in your your job world? Or did you always coach?   Stephanie O'Brien ** 10:12 Um, my first jobs, that was actually a waitress for a restaurant my mom owned, along with a couple other people. They were going to run the restaurant along with us. They were going to be the main ones owning the restaurant, and then they just kind of ditched us and left us with a restaurant we didn't know what to do with. So I was a waitress there for a bit before we sold the building and moved on. Then we tried owning rental properties for a bit, and honestly, no, never again. We were not cut out for that. It   Michael Hingson ** 10:34 was terrible, scary thing. Yeah,   Stephanie O'Brien ** 10:37 yeah, it's done. I can still lose like I'm fine with being responsible for me. I don't need theory to be responsible for me and all the tenants who call me during supper to mediate between their fights. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 10:50 this only so many hours in a day, and people need to take responsibility for themselves. So I hear you. So what did you do after that? That   Stephanie O'Brien ** 10:57 was after that that we started getting into coaching. You I'd been writing novels for pretty much as long as I could write, and I was going with mom. She was becoming a coach. She was studying under Mary Morrissey, so I went with her to learn how to use my fiction writing skills for business. And I started studying under Brendan Norman and then Ted McGrath. And yeah, they it was actually Brenda Norman who introduced me to the world of writing for marketing, and, you know, knowing how to focus on the results that people care about instead of the process that they don't really care about, how to phrase things in terms of the actual experiences that they long for, instead of just giving dry, vague descriptions issues kind of my gateway To the world of marketing.   Michael Hingson ** 11:37 So you you really, essentially came by the whole concept of coaching pretty naturally, by by just the the evolution of of what you did, which is pretty cool. How about your books, though, are, are any of them still available for people to get?   Stephanie O'Brien ** 11:56 Yeah, got four novels on my website. It's Stephanie O'Brien books.com where I host my novels, my short stories, my comics, my art, basically all my creative stuff that isn't coaching. And I've also got one non fiction book, one month program builder up on my website. I have written another one tell people with their marketing message, but that one needs to be updated. I'm planning to update and republish it eventually, but it just hasn't been   Michael Hingson ** 12:20 a top priority. So have you published all of your own books? Or have you worked at all with traditional   Stephanie O'Brien ** 12:26 publishers? It's all been self published. A lot of the traditional publishing route just seems like too much of a pain for them, still expecting me to do Mark most of the marketing. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 12:35 that's one of the things that has happened, is that publishers tend to not do nearly the marketing that they used to, which is, which is fine for those who really do know how to market, but there is also value in publishers doing a lot more to help than I think probably a lot of them do, but it's the way the world is going that we've we are so steeped in social media and everything now, people think that's the only way to market and it's not.   Stephanie O'Brien ** 13:06 Yeah. Anytime someone says their way is the only way, I immediately get suspicious, like they instantly lose credibility. There are so many different ways to market yourself and grow a business. The important thing is finding a way that works for you. Yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 13:21 And ultimately, one of the tests of whether it works for you is whether you see results or not. But, but true, it is still there is not just one way to market or sell for that matter,   Stephanie O'Brien ** 13:32 yeah, and if you're not having fun doing it, you know, it's kind of like your podcast, if you're not having fun doing it, especially because, yeah, I found that if I try and commit to a marketing method that I just really hate doing, I will struggle every day to get it done. I'll wind up procrastinating, I won't do it as consistently as I should, and I won't get results. So yeah, when you're choosing your marketing method, you gotta pick something that even if you're not totally ecstatic about it, you at least enjoy it enough that you can do it consistently   Michael Hingson ** 14:00 well, and you may discover later that you really do enjoy it, and that's that's part of it. We don't always necessarily know everything in our own minds the way we ought to. But if we, if we keep looking and we keep trying things and we find something, well, this is working. I'm not a great fan of it, but 10 years from now, you may discover that you learned a lot and you really love it.   Stephanie O'Brien ** 14:23 Yeah, you can always just experiment with it. You'll give it a 90 day shot it, don't. You don't want to just poke at it and then go, Oh, it didn't work instantly. But, you know, give it a be a good old college try. Give it a 90 day genuine try. And if you're really hating it, if it's not getting results, be willing to let it go. If it's getting results, if you're enjoying it, keep on going, working on refining it   Michael Hingson ** 14:42 well. And if you're getting results and you don't enjoy it, then it's probably worth exploring. Why don't you enjoy it? Yeah, that might be very telling also.   Stephanie O'Brien ** 14:53 And if it's something that can be outsourced, then you might want to look at outsourcing. Actually, it depends on the nature of what it is you.   Michael Hingson ** 15:00 Yeah, there is that. But if it's working that that, in of itself, is something right off the bat. Yeah, you   Stephanie O'Brien ** 15:06 don't want to ditch what's working unless you got something better to replace this.   Michael Hingson ** 15:10 That's that is always true. Well, so anyway, so you started studying, and eventually, when did you start your your business, and start coaching, seriously.   Stephanie O'Brien ** 15:24 Um, see, I kind of, I was kind of half probably coaching, partly writing for people, as early as 2013 that's where I got my start. And then just kind of gradually got more and more into coaching, as opposed to writing for people. So of course, even the other process of writing for people still involves a certain amount of coaching, because you have to help them understand, Okay, here's why I'm doing it this way. Here's what we need to communicate. Here's what you need to communicate as a follow up afterward. So there's a certain amount of coaching involved in that too, but it's been the last few years that I've shifted my focus more fully to helping people create their coaching programs, as opposed to, you know, writing marketing materials for the programs they already have. Now,   Michael Hingson ** 16:00 you've written a number of fiction books, right? Tell me about that that I'm still trying to figure out how to write a fiction book   Stephanie O'Brien ** 16:10 for me. Most of the time. It starts with me having a few ideas for scenes or relationships, etc, and then spending the rest of the time trying to justify their existence. Like here are a few really great scenes, and now I need to figure out all the other plot points that lead to this moment the books I've published so far. One of them is called cat girl roommate. It takes the concept of a cat girl, except that instead of being the stereotypical sexy cat girl, she's a cat girl who actually acts like a cat and thinks like a cat. I've owned cats pretty much as long as I can remember, so I just took a whole bunch of their ridiculous shenanigans, and put them into this one cat girl, like, how she'll, you know, the her roommate who's taking care of her, he'll make the same meal for both of them. But she doesn't want her. She wants his. It's the exact same thing, but she's sure that his is better. Such a cat thing to do another it's called a heroic lies. It's, um, kind of a dark twist on the superhero genre, where you've got this villain who keeps on kidnapping people, keeps on trying to fight the hero, except that there seems to be nothing in it for him. It kind of explores that whole Why is the villain putting so much into the fighting the hero instead of making his own life better with his own genius, and kind of puts dark twists on it? Oh, shoot. That's why.   Michael Hingson ** 17:20 Cute. Well, and speaking of cats, see who I have on the back of my desk chair here. Yeah,   Stephanie O'Brien ** 17:28 I noticed him moving around. But enough, I got one sitting in a chair right over there.   Michael Hingson ** 17:32 Well, stitch usually isn't in with me, but our house is being cleaned, and so her bed is is under attack, as far as she's concerned. So, so she came in here, which she usually does, and she'll just stay up on the chair. She's fine,   Stephanie O'Brien ** 17:48 yeah? My cat tape laundry day sometimes I finished, you know, laundering the sheets and making the bed. Okay, Brandy, your bed is ready.   Michael Hingson ** 17:56 Yeah? Well, stitch, stitch copes pretty well. And then there's my guide dog, Alamo, who's down on the floor. You can't see him, but he's he's down there and quite content. But stitch seems to be pretty well. She moves around a little bit, but she's planted herself on the back of the chair. And I didn't even think about it when I bought this desk chair to get something wide enough so that she could be on it, but it's worked out really well.   Stephanie O'Brien ** 18:23 And yeah, she seems very cozy and   Michael Hingson ** 18:25 content she is. And for those who don't know, stitch is my, my main coon rescue cat. We've had her now for 10 years, over 10 years. So since the bed is is being made and washed and all that. Then she's in here and she's fine. She'll get bored eventually,   Stephanie O'Brien ** 18:47 Hey, as long as she isn't wandering around screaming, as mine sometimes does.   Michael Hingson ** 18:50 Yeah, yeah, that's the big issue. Well, so you you got into this whole business of of coaching, and how did you start or working with her? How did you decide to start working with other coaches and coaching them in terms of dealing with clients and so on. While   Stephanie O'Brien ** 19:11 I was accompanying my mom to all these the training events, I just started falling in love with coaches and coaching. I saw all these amazing people who are trying to be their best selves, live their best lives, break free from their old patterns and beliefs and ways of being, instead of just being ruled by them their whole lives, and trying to help others to do the same. I just fell in love with it, of the idea of the ripple effect I could make by helping these people. I also became a client of some coaches, and I found it was really it really changed my life in a lot of ways, like helping me to overcome the emotional difficulties from that childhood I described, where people didn't want to be around me, where I couldn't make friends seeing the change it made in myself. I wanted to help more people to experience those transformations, and I wanted to help the amazing coaches who were making such a change to have more success and joy in their own lives, too. Yeah. But you know, as I was interacting with them, I found that I think they were in some ways, kind of too educated for their own good, because they say stuff like, I help you shift your paradigms. And I think I might have mentioned that earlier, but yeah, they they didn't realize that these things that had so much meaning for them wouldn't have the same meaning for someone who didn't have their training. So, you know, they here shift your paradigms, and they can instantly mentally connect it with a result, whereas the lay person here is that they can kind of speculate about the result that they don't immediately look up and say, Yes, that's the exact change I need in my life. But I was kind of the universal translator from Star Trek, helping them translate their coach speak jargon into layperson's terms and into the terms of here's what the people actually want.   Michael Hingson ** 20:42 If you were to define it, what would you say is the definition of a coach? What is a coach?   Stephanie O'Brien ** 20:50 I'd say it's somebody who that works. Doesn't just put a training program for someone to go through on their own pace. It actually works directly with the person. You're helping that person find the answers that they need, helping them to work through their own minds, their own circumstances, their own desires, and helps them ask the right questions is someone who helped them to figure out their own life or some specific aspect of their own life. They don't just give education. They also receive what the client has to say, and help the clients to work through it and understand it.   Michael Hingson ** 21:21 Yeah, I once heard a definition the difference between a coach and a therapist, mainly is that a therapist helps you find the answers, but the therapist knows the answers and can give you the answers, but a coach guide you, because you're the one who really has to discover the answers and figure out what it is that you need to deal with. So the coach will guide you and help you discover, but you have to be the one to do with the coach doesn't necessarily know nor provide the answers.   Stephanie O'Brien ** 21:56 Yeah, and when I'm working with coaches, that's definitely the case where you know they're the subject matter expert on whatever they're trying to teach on. I'm just the person who knows which questions to ask to draw out their expertise and help them to share it in a more effective way and to come up with it. Or you could draw it out of hiding in a more efficient way, instead of spending weeks trying to figure out what to say. Yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 22:19 So in general, what I you've talked about a little bit, but what are some of the challenges that you first saw in dealing with coaches when you first started?   Stephanie O'Brien ** 22:29 Well, there was the one I mentioned, where they didn't really know how to explain their services in a way that resonated with people. You know, they talked about the process they took them through, or the amount of content they were going to give them, or the amount of time they were going to spend with the person. Thing is, you're asking for a bunch of a person's time. That's not a selling point. That's a chore. You're you're going to spend five hours of your weekend on this. That's an anti selling point by helping if they one of those challenges then was, you know, not knowing what it is that their clients really want and addressing that. Another is time. Is a huge issue, I think, in the business world in general. So a lot of people struggle to find the time to create their coaching programs, or what time they have they don't use it officially, because they don't have a system for quickly and easily drawing out all that content and organizing it. Another is money. A lot of coaches are having trouble finding the right clients, connecting with them, conveying the value of their products and services to them, so that they actually go get those clients and get the money. So those I find, are three of the big challenges that coaches run into.   Michael Hingson ** 23:31 Yeah, I can say, having observed a lot about it, that a lot of people seriously undervalue or don't recognize the value that they bring, and so as a result, when they're creating courses or coaching or whatever, they undersell and don't charge what they're necessarily really worth. And there are reasons to avoid that and really charge what you're worth, but you also have to learn how to do that and learn how to figure that out. But people do tend to sell themselves short way too often.   Stephanie O'Brien ** 24:13 Yeah, when you're really immersed in your own expertise, can be so easy to start feeling like what you know is common knowledge, when in reality, it's stuff that a lot of people don't know. And even if they know some of the surface stuff, they don't know the same kind of depth as they don't know it in the same kind of depth as you do. Now, I've actually got exercises I take my clients through so they can kind of remind themselves of the depth of their own expertise and how much they know that their clients don't know. I'd be happy to share that if you want. Sure. Yeah. And for those of you who are listening, I hope you've got something to write this down and record this so I'm going to walk you through this exercise. Not only does it help you to really boost your confidence in your own expertise, it'll also help you come up with a ton of content for your coaching programs, your training programs, your content marketing, podcasts, newsletters, social media, posts. So, so yeah, definitely be ready to take notes on this. So your first step is to figure out what are the things that you can help people with. You know, just write it down in broad categories. Maybe you could say, I help them with marketing, with JVs, with getting referrals. So you put those broad categories, kind of break them down by the results. What are the results that you can help people get then pick one of those results. I like to use the example of a relationship coach who helps a single men to meet and marry the woman of their dreams. So the result is that this person has a loving marriage with the woman of his dreams, but right now he's single and lonely and doesn't know how to approach women. So then for step two, what you do is you'd write down the steps that you take your clients through, preferably in chronological order. I know not everyone can do chronological order, because some processes just don't happen in a specific timeline or a specific sequence, but if you can do it in chronological order, it's best to do so. So the steps that you'd write down say you're this coach you could write down, helping him to figure out what kind of woman he wants to meet, helping him to figure out where these types of women might hang out, how to approach her, how to have a conversation, how to get a first date, how to see if, how to conduct himself on that first date, and see if she's the kind of person he wants to keep dating. How to get a second date, if he wants and so forth. So once you've written down all these steps in chronological order, pick one of those steps and break it down further, this is where you really start to see the depth of the expertise that you have. So step one was figure out what kind of woman you want to meet. So you could ask questions like, what kinds of experiences do you want to have with your partner, and what kind of person would want to have those experiences with you? What kind of experiences do you not want to have, and what kind of person would give you those bad experiences? What kind of positive experiences have you had in the past that you want more of you if you need help to figure out what you want? Does Do you want a partner who wants to be a homemaker or a career woman or a business owner? Do you want a partner who wants to have kids with you, or who I'd rather stay childless? Does give them really specific questions that they can ask themselves to better understand you know what they wanted to better understand how they can go about this. And if you want to give them instructions for how to do something, make those instructions so specific that if an alien never even heard of your subject of expertise before were to read the instructions, the alien would know exactly how to do it. You don't feel like those software developers who go, okay, just click on this tab, this tab and this tab, okay, but how do I get to that tab in the first place? Don't assume that your clients know how to do the first few steps. Some of them will some of them won't. You don't want to leave that second category behind. And you can also look at what are the best practices they can use while doing this. What are some common mistakes? What are some examples you can give them of people actually doing this. And by doing going through this exercise, you can really get a clear view of just how much depth and detail you know about every single step in this entire process. And when you really break it down, every single step that goes into the process has so much nuance, so much detail, so many things that you could teach them, so many nuggets of wisdom you probably have that you might have even forgotten since it's become so second nature. I encourage you to do that exercise and remind yourself what an expert you are and come up with a huge amount of content at the same time.   Michael Hingson ** 28:22 Right? And then what happens? So   Stephanie O'Brien ** 28:27 what happens next? Of course, depends on what you're trying to accomplish. You know, if you once you've done this exercise, if you're trying to create a coaching program, you still need to figure out how you're going to deliver it, whether it's in group coaching calls one on one, a hybrid, or if you want to make a training program as opposed to a coaching program, you need to figure out how to price it, how what kind of posting software you want to use to deliver it. Those are some of the steps that come after. And of course, you need to figure out how to sell it, how to market it in a way that works for you   Michael Hingson ** 28:59 well. So coaches are human, like, like everyone else, at least, that's, that's the theory. And so you observed coaches having challenges. You've observed people not necessarily dealing with discovering the things that they should discover in order to be able to coach or to to progress. How do you find or how do they overcome those challenges? What do you do to help them overcome those challenges?   Stephanie O'Brien ** 29:31 It kind of depends what the situation is that's preventing them from progressing. So yeah, my first step would be, of course, to talk with them and figure out, Okay, what's stopping you from progressing? Is it that you feel you don't know enough to create a coaching program? In that case, let's see how we can draw out more information from you. Is it that you have too much information and you don't know which information to put in each offer because you don't want to try and shove it all in the same offer? It's just going to get cluttered, and people will feel it ripped off if they're paying for information they don't need. That might help them figure out if they. How many offers Do you want to make? What information goes into each offer if they're having trouble with time in my program, creation Made Easy. Course, the first thing I do with people is actually look at their schedule and figure out, okay, what are your priorities? What needs to be in your schedule, what can be paired out? Where can we make time to actually create your coaching program? So those are some examples of how I help people with some common challenges.   Michael Hingson ** 30:24 Do you find a lot of resistance people don't want to, or think they don't want to overcome the challenges because they don't really exist? Do you see a lot of that kind of challenge and that people just resist because they're really not thinking in as I put it, being introspective.   Stephanie O'Brien ** 30:44 I'd say one of the biggest challenges I find people run into that stops them from working with me is they want to do it on their own. And some people can do it on their own, but others wind up working on it for weeks on end. You say, Oh yeah, I'm working on figuring out this content. Then weeks later, I follow up, hey, how are you doing? I'm still working on it. We could have had it done in 60 to 90 minutes. Here, just one call with me, 60 to 90 minutes, and that could have been done. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 31:10 well, that's your expertise that brings that. And the result is that, again, people aren't thinking it through, and so the result is that they they continue to go in circles and not necessarily move to where they ought to be as quickly as they should. But at the same time, there's only so much you can do, because you can't force people to listen.   Stephanie O'Brien ** 31:39 Yeah, all I can do is, as with any business owner, work on getting better and better at communicating my value and helping people see why they're better off working with me.   Michael Hingson ** 31:47 Well, that's an interesting point. It's as much a learning experience for you, isn't it?   Stephanie O'Brien ** 31:55 Yeah, absolutely. Anytime you're finding that people aren't really responding here to your messaging, you need to look at your messaging or the way you're presenting it, and see, okay, Where can this be improved, and even if your messaging has been working, you know, things can shift to trends can shift. People can get overloaded on a certain amount of certain type of messaging. So you need to be prepared to adapt and to listen to people and see how their needs and their preferences are evolving.   Michael Hingson ** 32:19 Yeah, and I you, you bring up a really good point that I like a lot, and that is that things may be working. You may be doing something well, the question is, can you do it better? And I think that's a question that we should always be asking ourselves, can I even improve what I'm doing that takes humility to be able to ask that question. But it is still true. It's something that we should do, and that is really look at by doing this the best way I can. Can I improve it? And of course, that is something that you as a coach brings to it as well, because sometimes, if they consult with you, they can find out that you may approve of what they're doing, you may like what they're doing, but you can come up with other solutions that are even better. I love the whole idea of collaboration, and we don't. We don't see nearly as much of it as we should, and I think way too often, as you point out, people just want to do things on their own, but none of us are really an island.   Stephanie O'Brien ** 33:27 Yeah, I've had lots of mentors who helped me to get where I am, and I'm still learning from other people as I go, it   Michael Hingson ** 33:35 gets to be a real challenge. And again, you can't force people to do things that never is going to work. So you can't necessarily do that. And   Stephanie O'Brien ** 33:45 I hate that sales tactic where you try and force or bully someone into it, go run to the bathroom room and buy my stuff, or else you're going to be a failure in business forever. I am so over that, and if someone tries to pressure me into it, that tells me that they care more about their agenda than they care about me, and then they don't respect my boundaries in that point, their odds of making a sale pretty much hit the floor and start digging.   Michael Hingson ** 34:06 Yeah, you know, I learned a long time ago that people who really sell and do it well recognize that what they truly are are educators or counselors. You don't force people to do things. You need to really look at what a person needs and wants, and if you've got something to help them, then you you bring that into the conversation, but you don't, and you shouldn't force people. I've had so many situations where I sold a product and the product that I well, I should say I wanted to sell a product, but my product wouldn't necessarily do what the customer really needed. There were issues, whatever they are. So what am I to do? I could try to just continue to push our product on them, but I know that in the end, that's going to backfire. It's. Not going to work, people are then going to hate me or resent me, and they're never going to want to do business with me. So it's important to not push something that doesn't work. But I also took it a step further, more than once, which is to say, here's what will work, even though my company doesn't happen to have it, and when you really develop that level of trust by being honest with someone and pointing out this is what really works in the long run, that's going to earn you a whole lot more than you would have ever gotten any other way.   Stephanie O'Brien ** 35:34 Absolutely, it can make you more of a go to authority. I mean, people need something. They can come to you, even if it's not what you offer, you may not be the provider, but you know the provider, and it helps to foster good relationships with other business owners. If you have people that you know is trust and can refer to, I recently sought out a grant a person who's an expert in Grant. I've noticed her on a networking event, and I'm not really looking for a grant myself. Don't have much interest in grants at the moment, but I've had a few people for some reason, approach me and ask me, Hey, can you help me get a grant? No, not remotely. And you know, the first few times I had nobody I could even refer to, I tried to find some people who I could refer to, but couldn't really find anyone appropriate. So I finally find this one just, Oh, thank goodness you actually help people to find grants. Like these people wanted me to help them find a grant. Never mind, apply for it. Find one in first place, and I can't do that like I could learn, but I don't want to. But then here's this person who specifically teaches people how to do it, though, even though it wasn't my expertise or even something I needed, I sought her out just so I'd have that ability to refer people next time.   Michael Hingson ** 36:36 Well, that's pretty important to be able to do. I in my case, I'm thinking of a particular incident where we, I and a sales guy, one of my sales people, who had set up an appointment to go see a customer, and they wanted his manager to come, which was me, and we went. And I'm unusual anyway. I mean, how often do you see a blind sales guy coming in, holding a laptop projector and doing other things like that. And I actually did the presentation, and I also happened to be very technical, and so I asked a lot of questions, and learned that our product wasn't going to do what these people needed. But by the time we were done with the whole presentation, I said, and you can probably see our product won't do what you need, and here's why. But then I did, and that's the first time I really did it. I took the next step and said, but here's a company, and here's what product really will do exactly what you need, and here's why. The result of that was that two weeks later, we got a call from the same company saying we really took what you said to heart, and now we have another project. And because of everything you taught us, we know that what you have to offer is exactly what we need. Just tell us what it's going to cost, and we will order it today. We're not even going to put it on for bid, and that's what trust is all about,   37:59 absolutely,   Michael Hingson ** 38:01 and it's, and it's so exciting, but it's, it's unfortunate that all too often, people don't really look at the whole value of developing that trusting relationship, and that's got to be a volitional part of whatever you do in coaching, or anything that we do in business, or anything in our lives?   Stephanie O'Brien ** 38:21 Yeah, I've had too many people try and pitch me without first, building that trusted. And even if it's a free thing, like a free webinar, there's no such thing as free, yeah, even a free webinar still costs time that I won't get back. So it's like and see when COVID just comes crashing into my inbox. Pitch first that tells me they care a lot more about their agenda than they do about me, especially if it's something that's clearly in applicable, like, No, I am not going to join your group for single mothers. I've never had a kid. I mean, granted, I have this cat, and she is kind of a toddler, but I've never had the kind of kids you teach people to work with.   Michael Hingson ** 38:54 Yeah? So you've, you've never had kids yet.   Stephanie O'Brien ** 38:58 I'm not really planning to have already got cats.   Michael Hingson ** 39:00 Yeah? Have you gotten married? No, so you're not even in that but you've got cats. Well, that's fine. Now, when my when my wife and I got married, we decided that we were going to have kids. She was in a wheelchair her whole life, and she said that she was concerned it would have too much of a bad effect on our body. And what we decided to do, in addition to having dogs and cats, was to welcome nieces and nephews into the house, because we could kick them out at the end of the day, and that worked out   Stephanie O'Brien ** 39:31 really well, yeah, just hop them up on sugar and send them back. Yeah, that's what my grandparents did,   Michael Hingson ** 39:37 yeah. Well, worked for them, right? Yep, you seem to be surviving as a result. Well, I didn't die. Yeah, you're still you're still coaching. So that's pretty cool. Well, let me ask you this, if I can, if someone is thinking about being a coach or selling their expertise, how do they determine. Or how can you help them determine whether they're really qualified? Or how can they decide that they're qualified?   Stephanie O'Brien ** 40:07 I'd say the big thing is just to ask yourself, can I consistently get people results in this area? Now, obviously that depends on the other person actually doing the work to get the results. But do you know how people can get results in a specific area in a repeatable, reliable way. It could be anything from your relationships, improving your relationships, improving your health, improving your business, and it doesn't even have to be the whole journey. As long as you can help people take one significant step, you can help improve their lives, like even if you can't help a person go from single to married, if you can, say, Help married couples to stop having a specific type of argument. And for that matter, the more specific the problem you solve, the more people who have that problem. I want to see, oh, that's exactly what I need you. I don't need this generic relationship advice. I need relationship advice. I want this thing in particular, like, think about when you're, say, having a technical issue, and you want to say, let's say last night, I was looking for how to widen the navigation bar in a WordPress site, and I see all these results for you, how to improve your navigation bar, how to make a navigation bar, how to change a navigation bar. No, I just want it wider. The only result I'm interested in clicking on is how to make it wider. It's the same thing with your customers. You know, the more specific the result you can help them to get, the more the people looking for it are going to say that's exactly what I need. So don't assume that you're disqualified if you can't help them with their entire journey. Just focus on what is one big result that I can help people get. If you know how to get that, help them get that result, then you can help them to do that,   Michael Hingson ** 41:42 and it might also be that you do what you can do. But again, like you said about the lady who you've met who does grants, you can also get people in touch with other people who may be able to augment the successes or the results that you've already achieved, who may be able to do it better than you? So that you create essentially a teaming approach, even though each of you are working individually to help this individual? Yeah,   Stephanie O'Brien ** 42:10 absolutely. And you can do it kind of sequentially or concurrently. You could have someone be offer a guest module in your coaching course, if you say, you help people with nine steps out of 10, but it's one step in the middle. Isn't your expertise that you can have a guest expert come in and present in your course. Or if you help them with one step of the journey, but not the subsequent step, once they're done working with you, you can refer them to somebody else. Or if they're not ready to work with you, let's say you help people get on stages and present, but they that only really works and can be monetized if the person has something worth selling to sell. So if you meet someone who wants to get on stages but has nothing worth selling, though, you could refer them back to me, and I could get them ready for your services,   Michael Hingson ** 42:52 right? It's a process. And again, a lot of people don't think they're they're capable of selling. They they don't have the self worth, or don't think they have the self worth. And even the whole concept of this podcast, as I've said to many people, one of the main reasons that I love doing this is I get to show our audience members that they're more unstoppable than unstoppable than they think they are. And whenever I hear someone say, I learned this from this particular podcast, and it really showed me how I can be better than I thought I was. That doesn't get better than that. Oh yeah. And even   Stephanie O'Brien ** 43:35 if you're just starting out, just starting out, can actually be kind of a superpower, as I was mentioning earlier in this interview, people can get so ingrained in their own expertise, it can become so second nature. They forget what other people don't know, which can result in overly broad or vague explanations. Like I've seen some mindset coaches saying stuff like, notice what stories you're telling about the telling yourself about this situation, or notice what limiting beliefs you have well, if not, unless you're trained for that, you're not going to notice what the story or what's a limiting belief versus what's just a fact. You don't know how to tell the difference. So that's an example of how a coach who's really in their own expertise can totally forget that other people don't know how to do what they do. For someone who's just starting out and who remembers the very vividly what it's like not to know these things. It's less likely to make that mistake, more likely to be able to put themselves in the client's shoes, understand what the client does and does not know, and explain it in ways that a person who's new to this can understand. I thought to say a more seasoned coach can't do that, but there is that risk that they'll forget. So if you're just starting out, it can be just easier to relate to people who are also starting out and who are just a step behind you.   Michael Hingson ** 44:44 How do you teach people who are clearly experts in what they do, but who have forgotten that they weren't always experts in the people they're dealing with aren't experts? How do you teach them to go back and recognize. Recognize that and remember those things that they've clearly forgotten that would make them so much better, because they could then relate better to other people,   Stephanie O'Brien ** 45:08 mostly by asking questions. Do I kind of come at it from the standpoint as if I was their client? Okay, you just told me to do this, but how exactly do I do it? What are the exact steps I need to take, or what questions can you ask me to help me to figure this out. Now I basically act like I was there. We don't necessarily role play, but I do ask questions as if I was their client and didn't know how to do this thing.   Michael Hingson ** 45:30 Yeah. What do you do to help the person who's say, fairly new to coaching and doesn't think that they're good enough? And how do you teach them to recognize that really maybe they are or or maybe they'll discover that they're really not. But how do you how do you deal with that?   Stephanie O'Brien ** 45:50 Um, I take one of the things I do is I take them through that exercise I did earlier with you. Write out the list of steps you take. Break it down into sub steps. I often remind them how being new can be a superpower. I also invite them to look at the results they've gotten for themselves and other people in the past. Have you healed this issue in yourself? Have you helped yourself to lose weight? Have you helped yourself to raise your kids better? Have you helped yourself to improve your health? Or have you helped other people? Is this something that other people come to you for advice, and have those other people gotten results from working with you. Now, if you've never really gotten results for yourself or for other people, then you might want to make sure that you're able to actually get those results before try to teach people, because if you don't know how to get the result, then you're really not qualified to coach but if you can get the result, then you know how you got the result and can replicate that process with other people, then you are ready to coach people. You are ready to help them to do what you know how to do. One of   Michael Hingson ** 46:46 the things that I have always done when I hire new sales people, or even today, when I'm talking to people who are fairly new and something that they've decided to explore, take at least a year and be a student. You should always be a student, but especially for the first year, play the student card. Don't hesitate to ask questions. Don't hesitate even to ask your customer questions, because the more you ask, the more you'll learn. Because mostly people really want you to succeed, and they want to succeed, and you're bringing something to the party, you may need to figure out what it is, but if you start by being a student, then you're really at least half the way there to figuring it all out.   Stephanie O'Brien ** 47:35 Yeah, absolutely. And you know, having a podcast can be good for that. You can interview people and get there to share all this free information, and they get exposure. You get free information, you get content to share with your audience. It's a great way to open doors.   Michael Hingson ** 47:49 Well, it's true, and you know, in the it works both ways, because hopefully, for example, when I ask questions or we're talking about different subjects, hopefully you get something out of it too, and that's, that's what makes it really fair,   Speaker 1 ** 48:05 that's important to have win wins, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 48:08 well, so clearly, you know, we're dealing with a lot of different kinds of environments, and you're dealing With a lot of people. What about the person who doesn't think they have the expertise and so they're reluctant to charge more or charge what they should be charging? I think I probably know the answer to this, but I'm going to, you know, ask anyway, what do you how do you help those people recognize, let's assume, that they do have the expertise to expertise, but they don't think they do.   Stephanie O'Brien ** 48:44 One thing I can help them to do is look at the results they get and see just how valuable it is for their clients. So for example, let's say you help somebody to sleep better at night and have more energy. Obviously, there are health benefits for that. Here, you are less likely to have diseases. You're less likely to get into a car crash because you were groggy. You're probably going to have a better immune system the breakdown. I could break it down by the various categories of life. What are the benefits in their health, of course, in their relationships, if they have more energy, if they're less cranky, if they're in a better mood, they'll be more pleasant to be around people who want to be around them more they'll probably have better relationships with their kid, their friends, their spouse, their boss, their clients, their coworkers, and understand relationships that's healthy. And also look at time. How much time are they wasting on doing things slow, hard way because they're groggy and brain foggy and unable to work well? Yeah, I encourage you to look at every different area of your life that it the client's problem is affecting and that would be affected positively by the solution you give. I think this will help remind you just how valuable your solution really is. And if you're not completely sure that you can help people to get results, you know, look at the results you've gotten for yourself. Look at the results you've gotten for others. If you. Do have a good track record of getting results, then you know that's the site that you already have proof that you can if you don't have a history of getting results, then you need to work on developing your skill set learning systems that can get results consistently, or look at some other area of your life where you've already gotten results. But yeah, the important thing is that you need to be able to get results. And of course, you do have to also be realistic about okay, you can teach people how to get these results. You can also do things with them to help maximize the chances that they actually do the things you're teaching them and thus get results. But you do have to recognize that some people are going to choose not to do the things, and they will therefore not get the results. So as long as you know that if your system is followed and will get results, you've done your part, the rest is also on them.   Michael Hingson ** 50:47 Yeah, and a lot of times they may not get results, and who knows specifically why, but it's really important that they understand why they're not getting results. And maybe it is only, and I don't want to mitigate it, but it's only they don't have the confidence to ask, or they don't have the confidence to to reach out to help somebody get the results, which is also part of what they need to work on.   Stephanie O'Brien ** 51:14 Yeah, one thing coach that I like did, instead of just asking, do you hold He did ask, Do you have any questions? But if the people on he was coaching with didn't in his group called, didn't have any questions, he'd ask them to give an update. You know, what were you working on this week? What results were you trying to get? What results did you get? And this often resulted in him finding things to coach on that the person hadn't thought to ask. So, yeah, it's important to check in with your clients to see what kind of results they're getting, what kind of results they're not getting, and if they're not getting results, then explore that with them. You know, why are you not getting results? What did you do the action steps? Okay, if so, did you do them right? Did you do them wrong? If they didn't do the action steps, why not? And how can we adjust your schedule so that you actually can fit them in? What kind of resistance is there against doing these action steps, and how can we clear that resistance? That's really important to stay in touch with your clients and to get consistent updates on what milestones they are or are not hitting and why they are not are not hitting them, and be be prepared to address those underlying issues. Because often, while you're working on doing something, questions will come up that you didn't think you had earlier. You you discover nuances to it that you didn't know about, or you'll meet mental resistance that you didn't realize you were going to have.   Michael Hingson ** 52:29 Part of it, though, is also the art of asking questions and the art of asking the right questions. I, for example, really don't like to ask yes or no questions, closed ended questions, if you will, because you don't learn much that way. And so that was also one of the things that I did with the customer we mentioned earlier. I'll always ask open ended questions, because I really want to get not only the information that they they have that I feel is important for me to have, but I also get to know them a lot better. When I ask open ended questions and get them to really give me a detailed response, I'll learn a lot about them as well, and I think that's extremely important.   53:12 Now that makes total sense,   Michael Hingson ** 53:15 yeah, because it's it's so important to be able to ask tell me more about this. Or what is it that you find doesn't really work here? Or why do you like that? And really get questions that will make people think that also helps keep me alert when I when I keep thinking of questions. So it works both ways.   Stephanie O'Brien ** 53:43 Yeah, I'd say the ability to ask the right questions is one of the most important things for a coach.   Michael Hingson ** 53:47 Yeah, and if you don't necessarily know the right question, again, asking some open ended questions, and sometimes you might even want to say, what else is there that you want to tell me about this, or tell me more about this, so that you get people to offer information? And I've been in situations where I wasn't sure what to ask, but I can always ask something that will get people to offer more, that will help me think about, oh, I need to ask about this. Yeah.   Stephanie O'Brien ** 54:18 And you could kind of write a list of the pieces of information that you need to know about your clients you know, like, say, going back to that relationship coach, example, the piece of things that you need to know in order to help someone

Alberta is facing the prospect of its largest coordinated public-sector labour disruption in decades, with tens of thousands of workers poised to strike. Teachers, health-care professionals and government employees have voiced growing frustration with stalled negotiations — including 95 per cent of Alberta Teachers' Association members voting in favour of strike action. On this episode of West of Centre Short, host Rob Brown speaks with Jason Foster, a professor of human resources and labour relations at Athabasca University, about what's driving the unrest.Foster says many public-sector workers have endured nearly a decade of stagnant pay, followed by surging inflation and the emotional toll of the COVID-19 pandemic. Alberta's teachers were once the highest paid in Canada, but have since fallen behind their counterparts in other provinces. Class sizes are also a growing concern as the province's population continues to rise.What's different this time, Foster says, is that union members — not leadership — are driving the push for better deals. Workers are rejecting mediated agreements they see as inadequate and demanding more from the bargaining table.

For the second year in a row, the Edmonton Oilers will face off against the Florida Panthers for the Stanley Cup. Jespo and Johnny, who first worked together as the team's in-game host and DJ, set the table (2:00) for the Stanley Cup Final. 23:00 | It's Canadian Innovation Week! In partnership with Athabasca University, we learn about innovation in networking from James McInnes (Prompty), DNA genealogy and cold case files from Bradley Pierson (Trouvay), and micro business marketing from Dr. Raewyn Sleeman (Stratagease).  PROMPTY: https://www.prompty.ca/ TROUVAY: https://www.trouvay.ca/ STRATAGEASE: https://www.stratagease.com/ ATHABASCA UNIVERSITY: https://www.athabascau.ca/ 1:11:30 | Jespo and Johnny talk AI and national security, and get into the Real Talk Live Chat powered by Park Power.  SAVE on INTERNET, ELECTRICITY, and NATURAL GAS: https://parkpower.ca/realtalk/ 1:38:15 | 7th Pilot has a hot take on Jespo's proposed Alberta referendum Bitcoin bet, Alex is pissed at the province for pulling library books, Gerald has a message for ready-to-strike Canada Post workers, Rik calls out Citizens Against Virtually Everything (CAVEs), and Jenny wants YOU to join the resistance. It's The Flamethrower presented by our friends at the DQs of Northwest Edmonton and Sherwood Park!  FIRE UP YOUR FLAMETHROWER: talk@ryanjespersen.com  When you visit the DQs in Palisades, Namao, Newcastle, Westmount, and Baseline Road, be sure to tell 'em Real Talk sent you!  FOLLOW US ON TIKTOK, X, INSTAGRAM, and LINKEDIN: @realtalkrj & @ryanjespersen  JOIN US ON FACEBOOK: @ryanjespersen  REAL TALK MERCH: https://ryanjespersen.com/merch RECEIVE EXCLUSIVE PERKS - BECOME A REAL TALK PATRON: patreon.com/ryanjespersen THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING OUR SPONSORS! https://ryanjespersen.com/sponsors The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Relay Communications Group Inc. or any affiliates.

We're less than a week out from a hugely significant election. The Pope's just passed away. Alleged corruption plagues the Alberta government. The planet is on a road to ruin. But fear not...we've got inspiring takes on (nearly) all of it in this episode of Real Talk!  5:30 | Party All The Time host Vicky Mochama gives us her thoughts on Pope Francis' legacy and the significance of his death. We talk about a new Conservative ad campaign, diaspora voting, foreign policy positions, and key storylines with six days to go 'til Canada votes.  PARTY ALL THE TIME: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/party-all-the-time/id1803891407 24:15 | What prompted former deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk to file a conduct complaint with the Law Society aimed at Alberta's justice minister Mickey Amery and lawyer Matthew Lindsay? We ask him. 49:45 | Alberta researchers are advancing nature-based solutions to pressing environmental challenges facing prairie landscapes impacted by industry. Athabasca University's Dr. Srijak Bhatnagar and Lethbridge Polytechnic's Dr. Adriana Morrell explain how their collaboration could transform conservation efforts. READ MORE: https://www.athabascau.ca/news/research-and-innovation/science-and-environment/coalmine-grassland.html? TELL US WHAT YOU THINK: talk@ryanjespersen.com  REGISTER FOR THE REAL TALK GOLF CLASSIC: https://www.ryanjespersen.com/real-ta... FOLLOW US ON TIKTOK, X, INSTAGRAM, and LINKEDIN: @realtalkrj & @ryanjespersen  JOIN US ON FACEBOOK: @ryanjespersen  REAL TALK MERCH: https://ryanjespersen.com/merch RECEIVE EXCLUSIVE PERKS - BECOME A REAL TALK PATRON: patreon.com/ryanjespersen THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING OUR SPONSORS! https://ryanjespersen.com/sponsors The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Relay Communications Group Inc. or any affiliates.

Matt chats with Andrew Perrin (PhD, McMaster University) about all things Dead Sea Scrolls. Andrew has written a new book on the subject called Lost Words and Forgotten Worlds: Rediscovering the Dead Sea Scrolls. On this episode, Andrew talks about what the Scrolls are, what they contain, and why they are important. If you are serious student of the Bible, then you will find this conversation relevant and informative. Dr. Andrew Perrin's website: https://andrewperrin.com/Order his new book: Lost Words and Forgotten WorldsAbout: Andrew B. Perrin (PhD, McMaster University) is associate vice president of research at Athabasca University in Alberta, Canada. Previously, he was director of the Dead Sea Scrolls Institute at Trinity Western University and Canada research chair in religious identities of ancient Judaism. He is the author and editor of several books, including The Dynamics of Dream-Vision Revelation in the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls, and his research has been recognized with several academic awards.+++Support the The Bible (Unmuted) via Patreon: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/TheBibleUnmuted⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Read Matt's blog: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠matthewhalsted.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Don't forget to subscribe to The Bible (Unmuted)!

In this podcast, Lisa Mowers, AHS Provincial Practice Lead, dives into the question, "Does food impact mood?". She is joined by Dr. Elnaz Vaghef Mehrabani, a seasoned nutrition researcher who is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Calgary and is an instructor at Athabasca University and Mount Royal University. Some of the topics explored in this podcast: • What the evidence tells us right now about how food is impacting mood and mental well-being. • How nutrition impacts our mood at different stages of life, including prenatal and early childhood development. • Current research on the Mediterranean style diet and healthy eating aligning with Canada's food guide to help people with mental health concerns. • Practical tips for a person-centred approach when helping client use food to improve their mood.

Most folks agree politicians' families are off limits when it comes to public criticism. But not all folks. A right wing media outlet in Canada made its own news in the lead-up to the election campaign, dragging Prime Minister Mark Carney's kid Sasha into the spotlight. 6:10 | Journalist Justin Ling tells us why he's pushing back on the Carney attack. READ JUSTIN'S WORK: https://www.bugeyedandshameless.com/ TELL US WHAT YOU THINK: leave a comment here or email talk@ryanjespersen.com  38:00 | It's Neurodiversity Celebration Week! Tara Langan talks to us about ADHD, Autism, and the new Athabasca University course Neurodiversity in the Workplace.  CHECK OUT THE COURSE: https://powered.athabascau.ca/product?catalog=Neurodiversity-in-the-Workplace&__hstc=165944686.fbe769542343d2e1d51c9ac367ad2a69.1738942178704.1742406479742.1742567123629.24&__hssc=165944686.1.1742567123629&__hsfp=1888264866 1:28:00 | Jespo and Johnny debrief, featuring firsthand testimony on the Real Talk Live Chat powered by Park Power. Real Talkers Michael and Don have thoughts on our March 20 interview with former Conservative MP James Cumming. WATCH THE JAMES CUMMING INTERVIEW: https://rtrj.info/032025CPC SAVE MONEY ON INTERNET, ELECTRICITY, and NATURAL GAS: https://parkpower.ca/realtalk/ 1:46:00 | Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is threatening Ottawa with a "national unity crisis". Thoughts? 1:49:00 | Carolyn's hot in more ways than one, Gabe wonders if Albertans are "too stupid to know," Russ says Poilievre needs to free up his plane, RMc has the ballot box question, Gerald's got his tin foil hat on,  FIRE UP YOUR FLAMETHROWER: talk@ryanjespersen.com  When you visit the DQs in Palisades, Namao, Newcastle, Westmount, and Baseline Road, be sure to tell 'em Real Talk sent you!  KNOCK 50% OFF an annual subscription to Alberta Views with the promo code AVRJ: https://albertaviews.ca/ REGISTER FOR THE REAL TALK GOLF CLASSIC: https://www.ryanjespersen.com/real-ta... FOLLOW US ON TIKTOK, X, INSTAGRAM, and LINKEDIN: @realtalkrj & @ryanjespersen  JOIN US ON FACEBOOK: @ryanjespersen  REAL TALK MERCH: https://ryanjespersen.com/merch RECEIVE EXCLUSIVE PERKS - BECOME A REAL TALK PATRON: patreon.com/ryanjespersen THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING OUR SPONSORS! https://ryanjespersen.com/sponsors The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Relay Communications Group Inc. or any affiliates.

Send us a textChristopher Balkaran dives into Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker Program with Professor Jason Foster from Athabasca University. We explore the realities of migrant labor, the economic dependency on foreign workers, and the impact on Canadian workers. Is the program a necessary economic tool, or has it become a permanent fixture in our labor market? Join us for a deep dive into the policies, challenges, and future of Canada's labor force.

Boos rang down from the rafters of Rogers Place during the American anthem as the Oilers hosted the Anaheim Ducks. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says sorry not sorry. We've got an update (4:00) on day three of the trade war... 13:30 | Fresh off a trip to Washington, D.C., Sturgeon County Councillor Neal Comeau takes us behind the scenes of a diplomacy mission. Federation of Canadian Municipalities: https://www.fcm.ca/en 37:15 | Alberta lawyer Jeff Rath says he's talking to contacts within the Trump administration about the province joining the USA. Obviously, we've got thoughts.  TELL US WHAT YOU THINK: talk@ryanjespersen.com  43:15 | How much do you know about Black history in Alberta? Athabasca University writer in residence Bertrand Bickersteth talks cowboys, cattle brands, Black settlements, stereotypes, and more in one of our favourite interviews in a long time.  AU WRITER IN RESIDENCE: https://www.athabascau.ca/news/university-news/news-and-announcements/bertrand-bickersteth-named-athabasca-universitys-2024-25-writer-in-residence.html BERTRAND'S WORK: https://www.bertrandbickersteth.com/ 1:25:00 | Spring Break is a perfect time to visit Jasper! We feature five awesome Spring activities in this week's #MyJasper Memories presented by Tourism Jasper.  BOOK YOUR JASPER SPRING BREAK: https://www.jasper.travel/blog/5-keys-unforgettable-spring-break-jasper/ 1:30:30 | Donald Trump says the U.S. will get its hands on Greenland "one way or another". Meantime, markets are down across the board and there's already talk of tariffs being reversed.  REGISTER FOR THE REAL TALK GOLF CLASSIC on JUNE 19: https://www.ryanjespersen.com/real-ta... FOLLOW US ON TIKTOK, X, INSTAGRAM, and LINKEDIN: @realtalkrj & @ryanjespersen  JOIN US ON FACEBOOK: @ryanjespersen  REAL TALK MERCH: https://ryanjespersen.com/merch RECEIVE EXCLUSIVE PERKS - BECOME A REAL TALK PATRON: patreon.com/ryanjespersen THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING OUR SPONSORS! https://ryanjespersen.com/sponsors The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Relay Communications Group Inc. or any affiliates.

Stormy seas ahead, as Canada and the U.S. prepare to lock horns. We get three different takes (plus dozens in the Real Talk Live Chat powered by Park Power) on the implications of President Donald Trump's tariffs on Canada, and the Canadian counter-offensive announced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Don't miss Positive Reflections presented by Kuby Energy near the end of the episode, as we recap the Real Talk Pond Hockey Classic, where an incredible crew of players, sponsors, and volunteers came together in wild winter weather to raise $30,000 for charity!  4:50 | Is Canada the next Ukraine? Political commentator Tasha Kheiriddin gets into it.  TASHA'S SUBSTACK: https://tashakheiriddin.substack.com/p/is-canada-the-next-ukraine 33:00 | Former Harper cabinet minister and longtime diplomat Chris Alexander gives us his take on Trudeau's response to Trump's tariffs, and Canada's evolving role in Ukraine.  FOLLOW CHRIS ON X: https://x.com/calxandr 1:00:30 | Athabasca University political scientist Dr. Mark Crawford wonders what a one-month pause on tariffs in Mexico might mean for Canada.  CHECK OUT ATHABASCA UNIVERSITY: https://www.athabascau.ca/ 1:35:00 | WHAT A WEEKEND. $30,000 raised for charity in -25C temperatures at the Real Talk Pond Hockey Classic presented by Molson Canadian! Ryan and Johnny recap a wonderful day in St. Albert.  FOLLOW US ON TIKTOK, X, & INSTAGRAM: @realtalkrj & @ryanjespersen  JOIN US ON FACEBOOK & LINKEDIN: @ryanjespersen  REAL TALK MERCH: https://ryanjespersen.com/merch RECEIVE EXCLUSIVE PERKS - BECOME A REAL TALK PATRON: patreon.com/ryanjespersen THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING OUR SPONSORS! https://ryanjespersen.com/sponsors The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Relay Communications Group Inc. or any affiliates.

Tomas Romero is the co-founder of Romero Distilling Co. The largest rum producer in Canada making rum from scratch. Their product portfolio is comprised of international award-winning rums and pre-mixed cocktails. The rum is crafted in Calgary, AB with glacier fed water from the Canadian Rockies and Crosbys molasses. Tomas along with his Dad, Diego Romero, started Romero Distilling Co. in 2018. Prior to starting the distillery, Tomas worked in both Construction and Oil and Gas. He has a B.Sc. from the University of Calgary and an MBA from Athabasca University. With products currently sold in Canada, the US and Europe, he looks forward to expanding their product portfolio with unique cask expressions and growing the company's presence both domestically and abroad. Join Our Community of Canadian Entrepreneurs! Entrepreneurs are the driving force behind Canada's economy, and we're here to support them every step of the way. For exclusive insights, tips, and success stories from Canada's top business leaders, subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Want to stay ahead with the latest #entrepreneur podcasts, business strategies, and news? Don't miss out—subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter for updates delivered straight to your inbox! Join thousands of Canadian entrepreneurs who rely on us for the resources they need to succeed.

Today, I had the privilege of hosting Linda Bramble, a celebrated wine expert and educator with a story as rich as the finest vintage. From her Italian roots to her career as a sommelier and international wine judge, Linda shares the secrets of wine tasting, the power of memory, and the fascinating subjectivity of judging wines. Stay tuned until the end for a fun twist as Judith Lewis and I reveal today's quirky wine term. So, pour yourself a glass, sit back, and join us on this flavourful journey. Cheers!  In this episode you will be able to:  Cultural Perspectives: Explore the differences in wine consumption and appreciation between European and North American cultures. Wine Education: Learn how Linda transitioned from a leadership role to becoming a sommelier and wine judge, emphasizing the importance of formal education in wine tasting. Tasting Techniques: Gain insights into effective wine-tasting practices, including the significance of memory and sensory associations in developing tasting skills. Subjectivity in Judging: Understand the subjective nature of wine judging through Linda's experiences and anecdotes from various judging panels around the world. Wine and Food Pairing: Get inspired by Linda's favourite dish, frutti de mare, and the perfect wine pairing with Niagara's exceptional Chardonnays. Linda Bramble is a distinguished wine expert and educator whose passion for wine is deeply rooted in her Italian heritage. Growing up in a family where wine was an integral part of every meal, Linda's adventure into the world of wine began at her family table, where she learned to appreciate the culture, connection, and artistry behind a good pour. With a remarkable career spanning decades, Linda is a professor at Athabasca University and been associated with Brock University in Niagara, where she has shared her extensive knowledge of wine with students and enthusiasts. Her expertise has led her to become a respected sommelier and an international wine judge, where she has tasted and evaluated wines from regions including California, Chile, Italy, and Ontario. Linda is not only passionate about wine tasting but also about the power of tasting memory. She believes that wine tasting is a creative endeavour that engages all the senses and is influenced by personal experiences and associations. Her innovative approach to wine education emphasizes the importance of memory and differentiation, encouraging others to explore and enjoy wine in new ways. In addition to her teaching and judging, Linda is the author of "Niagara's Wine Visionaries," a labour of love that chronicles the history and evolution of the Niagara wine industry through the stories of its key players. Her dedication to preserving the rich history of wine in her region showcases her commitment to storytelling and education. Whether she is sharing her insights on wine tasting or discussing the nuances of wine judging, Linda Bramble continues to inspire wine lovers and novices alike to appreciate the complexities and joys of wine. Contact Linda Bramble here:  Email: lindabramble@gmail.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/linda.bramble.14

Henriette shares how being an introvert made immigrating from Holland at 35 with young children a bigger challenge than for most. She had language issues and job difficulties. Her family stepped away from religion, to the disapproval of her Holland family. She talks about how naive they were about Canada. The evolution of beliefs, personal growth and resilience. Her passion for cars. Her unique volunteer work helping new mothers care for twins and triplets. It is a unique and diverse conversation with many insights on an immigrant's view of Canada and belonging.Henriette BioI moved to Calgary from The Netherlands with my husband and 2 sons in 2002. I struggled to find a job, being strangely over-qualified yet under-educated as immigrants often are, doing all kinds of different things and even dabbling with entrepreneurship, which did not suit me at all. In 2017, I retired and started taking courses in Sociology and, later, Women's Gender studies at Athabasca University to learn about Canadian society and culture.  If I am not taking a course, I work as a volunteer with AHS to help out families with newborn twins or triplets in their homes.  I read lots of books, but also a Dutch newspaper, CBC.ca and Al Jazeera. My “motto” is: ”Explore everything, discard what is bad and integrate into your life what is good.” I am an avid traveller and Reiki Master. I love modern art. I make all important decisions using my intuition. I recently started painting after encouragement from my lovely and artistic daughters-in-law. Some words to describe me? Woman, thinker, feminist, student of and for life, introvert, reader, open-minded and fashionable.About Mark Laurie - Host.Mark has been transforming how women see themselves, enlarging their sense of sexy, and expanding their confidence in an exciting adventure that is transformational photography. http://innerspiritphotography.comhttps://www.instagram.com/innerspiritphotography/Sound Production by:Lee Ellis  - myofficemedia@gmail.com

Shauna Zenteno, dean of Athabasca University's faculty of science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jason Foster, an Athabasca University professor of human resources and labour relations Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this powerful episode, Indigenous Circle members Lexis Roy and Molly Salter open up about their experiences at Athabasca University, highlighting the importance of community and cultural connection. As we observe the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, Lexis and Molly share their thoughts on how we can collectively work towards a more inclusive future. Don't miss their book and movie recommendations that showcase Indigenous excellence and resilience. Starring: Indigenous Circle at AUSU Members Lexis Roy and Molly Salter, and Governance and Advocacy Coordinator Duncan Wojtaszek

Life can take us in many different directions, and what helps is how we can make use of the knowledge that we acquire when exploring these routes. For today's guest, Dr. Stacey Hatch followed her passion for psychology and working with people all the way from her near two-decade work experience in television to now running her own successful Canadian private practice!  In this podcast episode, we talk about her journey into counselling, how she managed to complete her studies while teaching and working, and advice on seeing clients directly out of your home. MEET STACEY Stacey is a clinician-educator-researcher. She is a registered psychotherapist and worked in primary mental healthcare at the Prince Edward Family Health Team for ten years, where she saw patients across the lifespan. She also served as the mental health lead and coordinator of the Mint Memory Clinic for seven years. She has a private practice in Prince Edward County where she sees clients in person and virtually. She provides psychotherapy within a trauma-informed approach in inclusive and equitable spaces. Dr. Hatch also holds adjunct professor positions at Athabasca University and Yorkville University and is a post-doctoral fellow at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.  Learn more about Stacey on her website and Psychology Today profile.  In this episode:  Stacey's career  Pursuing a private practice while researching and teaching  Balancing work commitments  Offering therapy from your home  Marketing tips  Dr. Hatch's private practice advice  Stacey's career  Stacey's successful therapy career that she's thriving in now started many years ago as a job in television!  Dr. Hatch's journey to her private practice today has been a roundabout route, but she took many of her lifelong inspirations and interests forward and brought her experience together to now do what she is passionate about.  After her years working in television, Stacey began doing volunteer work in her local hospice, and that's when the desire to work in therapy really clicked into place for her.  From launching the hospice with the board, Stacey started taking psychology classes and completed her Master's Degree in Counselling Psychology. Afterward, Dr. Hatch spent time working in a primary care clinic, and it's an experience that she recommends to every therapist and counsellor.  Pursuing a private practice while researching and teaching Even though some things ended up coming together serendipitously, many of the threads that wove Dr. Stacey Hatch's career up until now did support one another and were built into her career together.  Balancing work commitments  Slowly but surely, Dr. Hatch is finding her work/ life balance.  It may have taken some time, but she is discovering that the more she puts in systems and helpful routines or mindsets, the more that she can do without becoming overly stressed or pressured.  Stacey also offers virtual sessions, and she even takes clients for sessions in a home office room.  Offering therapy from your home  Marketing tips  Some of Dr. Hatch's most used marketing tools are;  A website that she loves and that showcases her Canadian private practice well  Uploading up-to-date blogs for new potential clients to read over  Connecting her website with her consultation platform to allow clients to book an initial consultation immediately  Maintains a Psychology Today profile and updates it regularly  Dr. Hatch's private practice advice Find out when you feel the brightest and work the best! Pace yourself, and work in the periods throughout the day when you are excited and open to working with them, rather than forcing yourself to work in periods when you struggle to do any work at all.  Connect with me: Instagram Website  Resources mentioned and useful links: Ep 136: Maureen Codispodi: Building an Accessible Virtual Private Practice with Reduced Rates | EP 136  Learn more about the tools and deals that I love and use for my Canadian private practice Sign up for my free e-course on How to Start an Online Canadian Private Practice Jane App (use code FEARLESS for one month free) Learn more about Stacey on her website and Psychology Today profile Rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, and TuneIn

AUSU President Chantel Groening and Executive Director Jodi Campbell had the joy of attending the 2024 Athabasca University convocation held in June and they share their experiences of watching hundreds of AU students graduate. Enjoy experiencing the AU convocation through their stories of seeing this milestone event first hand, including watching student families cheer them on to get their degree, and the hard work and dedication required to earn those credentials. Starring: AUSU President Chantel Groening and Executive Director Jodi Campbell

AUSU hosted our annual Pride celebration in June, with a presentation highlighting recent positive changes at Athabasca University by Dr. Alain May, Associate Vice President for Student and Faculty Relations followed up by a presentation on 2SLGBTQIA+ legal advocacy by AJ Adams at Egale Canada, a Canadian organization providing research, education, and awareness, and advocating for human rights and equality in Canada and around the world. The event was originally on June 13, 2024. Starring: Dr. Alain May and AJ Adams

Members of AUSU's Indigenous Circle along with Robyn Soulier-Ritchot, an Indigenous entrepreneur, take the time to discuss Indigenous History Month along with some tips and tricks for navigating Athabasca University as an Indigenous student. Starring: Amanda Leeman, Robyn Soulier-Ritchot, Neenah Brown, & Lexis Roy

Anybody who's ever been to Calgary knows there's no way the Stampede's getting cancelled, water shortage or not. We look at how that major water main break's been impacting communities (and neighbourly relations) in this episode (18:40). Ahead of that, we hear "the other side" of the story of the HMCS Margaret Brooke docking in Cuba alongside a Russian nuclear sub (5:23). Make sure you stick around to learn how industry is negatively affecting traditional Indigenous food sources, and what a team of Athabasca University researchers is doing about it in partnership with Bigstone Cree Nation (33:55).  5:23 | Real Talkers were fired up over Ryan and Charles Adler's riff on the Canadian warship in a Cuban harbour (June 17, 2024 episode). Ryan reads emails from Ken (a Navy veteran), RB, and the comms director for the Minister of National Defence.  TELL US WHAT YOU THINK: talk@ryanjespersen.com  18:40 | Will Calgary be ready to welcome the world to the Stampede? Ryan and Johnny touch on rumours of lawn watering and hot tub filling amid a major water shortage, and speculate over what might happen between now and the kickoff to The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth. 33:55 | Athabasca University researchers Dr. Janelle Baker and Dr. Srijak Bhatnagar are working with Bigstone Cree Nation to better understand the impact industry is having on traditional Indigenous food sources. They tell us how they're consulting with elders, and what they've learned thus far. READ MORE ABOUT THE STUDY: https://www.athabascau.ca/news/faculty/faculty-of-science-and-technology/study-will-bridge-traditional-indigenous-knowledge-western-science DR. JOSIE AUGER ON REAL TALK - MAY 9, 2023: https://rtrj.info/050923Auger FOLLOW US ON TIKTOK, TWITTER, & INSTAGRAM: @realtalkrj REAL TALK MERCH: https://ryanjespersen.com/merch RECEIVE EXCLUSIVE PERKS - BECOME A REAL TALK PATRON:   / ryanjespersen   THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING OUR SPONSORS! https://ryanjespersen.com/sponsors The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Relay Communications Group Inc. or any affiliates.

Under the Rachel Notley NDP government in Alberta in 2015, and in response to public outcry over excessive compensation and benefits for public sector senior executives, the Public Sector Compensation Transparency Act (PSCTA) was introduced. With the Act came “sunshine lists” which outlined the compensation of all public sector workers whose earnings exceeded a certain threshold. In a blogpost by the Parkland Institute, Jason Foster explains the act and lists were originally created in hopes that disclosing names, salaries, and benefits would “curb tendencies toward financial excess by senior executives.”  He continues: “Whether it has worked as intended is an open question. What is clear is that it is something of a blunt tool.” And this blunt tool may not be the best solution.  This week on rabble radio, rabble labour reporter Kiah Lucero joins Foster to discuss the design flaws and shortcomings of the Public Sector Compensation Transparency Act and sunshine lists in Alberta.  About our guests  Jason Foster is the director of Parkland Institute and an associate professor of human resources and labour relations at Athabasca University. He is the author of Gigs, Hustles, & Temps (2023) and Defying Expectations: The Case of UFCW Local 401 (2018), as well as co-author of Health and Safety in Canadian Workplaces (2016). His research interests include workplace injury, union renewal, labour and employment policy, and migrant workers in Canada. Foster is committed to sharing research to as broad an audience as possible, so that it might contribute to policy change and making people's lives better. If you like the show please consider subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcasts. And please, rate, review, share rabble radio with your friends — it takes two seconds to support independent media like rabble. Follow us on social media across channels @rabbleca. 

When you think of the state of Planet Earth, do you feel optimism or dread? We couldn't blame you for having a bit of a pit in your stomach, considering everything we see in the news. We humans are tough on our home planet. Is it possible to reverse the negative impacts we create, and preserve a healthy future for generations to come? In this special Earth Day episode of Real Talk, we hear about amazing research being done in Alberta that could address our plastic problem in particular (56:45), but also oil spills and other environmental catastrophes.  2:50 | But first...federal Jobs Minister Randy Boissonnault joins Ryan in studio ahead of his address to the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce. We talk about the Canadian Hydrogen Convention, carbon capture, and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith telling Ottawa to stay in its lane re: federal funding for housing, healthcare, and research. Plus, Ryan asks Randy about the rumour a car's been parked outside his house for the past week with "Axe the Tax" signs.  25:45 | Charles Adler tells us what he thinks the cops need to do about the protestor parked outside Minister Boissonnault's house. We talk about a protest outside Parliament over the weekend, where demonstrators chanted "October 7th, we're almost free...long live October 7th!" 56:45 | It's Earth Day! What're we going to do about our plastic problem? Microplastics are being discovered on Mount Everest, the deepest depths of the ocean, and in placentas. Athabasca University researcher Dr. Srijak Bhatnagar tells us how microbes could be a big part of the solution, and not just for plastic waste.  LEARN MORE: https://www.athabascau.ca/news/research/microbes-environment REAL TALK WORLD WATER DAY ROUND TABLE: rtrj.info/032124Water 1:42:20 | Our hearts are full after the Evening of Hope Gala. Ryan gives a special shout out to Real Talker AJ and everybody who's signed their organ donor card in this week's Positive Reflections presented by Kuby Renewable Energy.  GET A FREE SOLAR QUOTE TODAY: https://kubyenergy.ca/ SEND US YOUR POSITIVE REFLECTION: talk@ryanjespersen.com  FOLLOW US ON TIKTOK, TWITTER, & INSTAGRAM: @realtalkrj  REAL TALK MERCH: https://ryanjespersen.com/merch BECOME A REAL TALK PATRON: https://www.patreon.com/ryanjespersen THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING OUR SPONSORS! https://ryanjespersen.com/sponsors The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Relay Communications Group Inc. or any affiliates.

AUSU Councillors Blake Collett and Allie Wojtaszek offer some advice from seasoned veterans on how to find an invigilator for your exams, how to book the exam itself, and how to make sure the technical side of getting your exam setup doesn't affect the exam itself. Starring: AUSU Councillors Blake Collett and Allie Wojtaszek, and Executive Director Jodi Campbell

AUSU commemorated Black History Month with an event on February 8 intended to inspire, motivate, and engage students on engineering social justice, with speakers Dr. Veronica Fynn Bruey and Dr. Chika C. Daniels. Dr. Bruey is a multi-award-winning scholar, who has researched, taught, consulted, and presented at conferences in over 30 countries. Furthermore, as a war survivor and Indigenous Liberian migrant herself, she brings personal experience to her work in post-secondary education. Dr. Chika C. Daniels is an architectural design and experience researcher, educator, entrepreneur, and community advocate, teaching at two of Canada's most respected institutions: the University of Calgary and Athabasca University. Dr. Daniels' presentation will highlights the importance of commemorating Black History Month within post-secondary education. Starring: Dr. Veronica Fynn Bruey and Dr. Chika C. Daniels, AU professors

Gettin' Air with Jon Dron. Professor Jon Dron is the Associate Dean, Learning & Assessment in the Faculty of Science and Technology at Athabasca University and a British National Teaching Fellow. Dr. Dron joins the show to chat a little bit about how education works via his latest book: How Education Works: Teaching, Technology, and Technique.

This isn't your average Black History Month conversation! Drs. Chika C. Daniels and Veronica Fynn Bruey accepted our invitation to share their personal thoughts on Black History Month, and WOW do they ever deliver.  2:20 | Prepare to be informed, educated, challenged, and inspired by the dynamic duo from Athabasca University, who share their personal experiences as immigrants to Canada and Black women in academia and industry.  1:05:25 | Who would have thought 67% of Alberta NDP leadership candidates (to this point) would be campaigning against a consumer carbon tax? Is anybody surprised to see one of them capitalize on the awkward relationship between the provincial and federal New Democrat parties? Ryan recaps the first couple weeks of the race to replace Rachel Notley.  SUBSCRIBE TO THE DISCOURSE ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@UC1WjKtBGH6U0S6HDePuLjkw  1:16:50 | Garth's got a warning about "racism" accusations, Joe's sounding the drought alarm, Shannon's pissed at Air Canada, and Melanie has a message for Alberta's Premier. We fire up The Flamethrower presented by the Dairy Queens of Northwest Edmonton and Sherwood Park!  When you visit a DQ in Palisades, Namao, Newcastle, Westmount, or Baseline Road, tell 'em Real Talk sent you!  FIRE UP YOUR FLAMETHROWER: talk@ryanjespersen.com  FOLLOW US ON TIKTOK, TWITTER, & INSTAGRAM: @realtalkrj  REAL TALK MERCH: https://ryanjespersen.com/merch BECOME A REAL TALK PATRON: https://www.patreon.com/ryanjespersen  THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING OUR SPONSORS! https://ryanjespersen.com/sponsors The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Relay Communications Group Inc. or any affiliates.

Alberta is often seen as a land of the political eccentric. Is this all there is? Dr. Frits Pannekoek argues that there is a lot more! Dr. Pannekoek is a Professor of History at Athabasca University and previously he was Director of Historic Sites and Archives for Alberta for 25 years, the University librarian at the University of Calgary for 10 years, and President of Athabasca University from 2005 to 2014. He has written widely on Alberta history and heritage preservation. Starring: Dr. Fritz Pannekoek, Athabasca University History Professor

As Antonio D'Alfonso and I, Bob Sorrentino, traverse the intricate landscapes of Italian-Canadian identity, we invite you to join our heartfelt conversation. We share our own family stories of immigration, illuminating the unique cultural experiences that shape Italian Canadians. We journey through Montreal and Toronto, exploring the representation of different Italian regions, and delve into the often complex relationship between language and identity. Embarking on a deeper exploration, we question the very nature of Italian identity, a complex tapestry woven with threads of history, war, and contemporary perceptions of beauty. We discuss the challenges of a nation without a common language or religion, and share personal stories of self-discovery and cultural understanding. Join us as we challenge the traditional views of identity, and embrace the fluidity of Italian-Canadian and Italian-American experiences. In the final leg of our journey, we delve into the fascinating concept of an "Italic" identity, a cross-border cultural phenomenon that challenges traditional concepts of nationality and heritage. Despite the harsh realities of racism and intolerance, we remain hopeful for a future where these will be mere echoes of the past. Highlighting Antonio D'Alfonso's autobiographical writing, we uncover a lesser-known aspect of Canadian history and emphasize the importance of preserving diverse cultural identities. Settle in for a thought-provoking exploration of identity and culture in the modern world.Poet, novelist, essayist, translator, Antonio D'Alfonso has published more than 40 titles and has made three feature films. He is the founder of Guernica Editions which he managed for thirty-three years before passing it on to new owners in 2010. For his writings, he won the Trillium Award, the Bressani Award, and the New York Independent Film Award for his film, Bruco.He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. In 2016, he received a Honorary Doctorate from Athabasca University. https://antoniodalfonso.com/Antigone An adaptation of Sophocles' masterpiece Antigone by Antonio D'Alfonso's Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showPurchase my book "Farmers and Nobles" here or at Amazon.

Rejoining Fika with Vicky this week is Author M.J. Moores. She'll be introducing her White Raven Series with its first book, The Hollow Kiss. The Hollow Kiss will be out on December 11th, 2023, so we'll get a sneak peek into this new paranormal urban fantasy. We'll also be discussing editing, as M.J. has experience as both a freelance and small press editor. There's always a smile when M.J.'s in the house. M.J.'s Bio - Imagine procrastination and stubborn perseverance getting together and procreating – that would be what MJ faces when she looks in the mirror every day. Her stubborn mind-set has gotten her into trouble more often than she'd care to admit. Spunk and tenacity shine in MJ's eyes when you speak with her, and it carries in the excitement of her voice. Get her talking about writing and the world of publishing, next thing you know she's outlined the manuscript of your life and you can't wait to write it. Granted, the instant M.J. is required to do something she's not particular about, those procrastination tendencies creep in like assassins in the night. MJ's love of reading and writing at a young age drew her to adventure books of all genera. While she enjoys writing science-fiction, fantasy, and romantic suspense, her focus is more on the internal journey her characters take as they learn about themselves and face their darkest fears – this might take place on another planet, on a university campus, or in a magical realm; but there's always that touch of adventure to lend a dash of spice to her work. M.J. has a Batchelor of Education and Theatre Production Specialization from York University, and a Minor in Creative Writing from Athabasca University. She edited for several small Canadian Presses including Imajin Books, Wrongtree Press, and Love Knot Books as well as freelanced for many years. Currently, she is focusing on writing and aiding authors interested in the Indie Publishing journey. And here are M.J.'s links: Website: mjmoores.com (free prequel ebook starter library) Facebook & Twitter: @AuthorMJMoores Amazon Author Central: https://www.amazon.ca/MJ-Moores/e/B00NRU2VZ2

Rejoining Fika with Vicky this week is Author M.J. Moores. She'll be introducing her White Raven Series with its first book, The Hollow Kiss. The Hollow Kiss will be out on December 11th, 2023, so we'll get a sneak peek into this new paranormal urban fantasy. We'll also be discussing editing, as M.J. has experience as both a freelance and small press editor. There's always a smile when M.J.'s in the house. M.J.'s Bio - Imagine procrastination and stubborn perseverance getting together and procreating – that would be what MJ faces when she looks in the mirror every day. Her stubborn mind-set has gotten her into trouble more often than she'd care to admit. Spunk and tenacity shine in MJ's eyes when you speak with her, and it carries in the excitement of her voice. Get her talking about writing and the world of publishing, next thing you know she's outlined the manuscript of your life and you can't wait to write it. Granted, the instant M.J. is required to do something she's not particular about, those procrastination tendencies creep in like assassins in the night. MJ's love of reading and writing at a young age drew her to adventure books of all genera. While she enjoys writing science-fiction, fantasy, and romantic suspense, her focus is more on the internal journey her characters take as they learn about themselves and face their darkest fears – this might take place on another planet, on a university campus, or in a magical realm; but there's always that touch of adventure to lend a dash of spice to her work. M.J. has a Batchelor of Education and Theatre Production Specialization from York University, and a Minor in Creative Writing from Athabasca University. She edited for several small Canadian Presses including Imajin Books, Wrongtree Press, and Love Knot Books as well as freelanced for many years. Currently, she is focusing on writing and aiding authors interested in the Indie Publishing journey. And here are M.J.'s links: Website: mjmoores.com (free prequel ebook starter library) Facebook & Twitter: @AuthorMJMoores Amazon Author Central: https://www.amazon.ca/MJ-Moores/e/B00NRU2VZ2

In this episode, Karen and I talk about mentorship, relational practice, the importance of community and connection and her incredible journey in nursing that started through experiences as a patient. Karen is one of the most incredible people I know and I can't wait for you to learn more about her.  Karen Lane is a Registered Nurse and Clinical Nurse Instructor with nearly 20 years of experience as a healthcare provider, and many years of lived experience as a patient. She has worked almost exclusively in the area of mental health and addictions where she has provided care to diverse populations of individuals and families and worked within a range of multidisciplinary teams. Karen holds a Bachelor of Nursing and Master of Nursing from the University of Calgary where she studied the impact on family systems of a mental health diagnosis. More recently, Karen has been teaching as a clinical instructor with Athabasca University in their Nursing program within the Faculty of Health Disciplines. In her teaching, she is focused on relational practice in an online environment, and providing trauma-informed education. She volunteers as a mentor with the University of Calgary's NurseMentor program, and also as a member of the Nursing Advisory Committee for Woods homes. She is a wife, mother of a 6 year old daughter.   Listen in as we talk about: [1:55] The most significant experiences from Karen's journey in nursing [6:25] How being a patient influenced Karen's approach to being a nurse [10:50] What prompted her shift from clinical nursing to teaching and mentoring [15:55] Educating nurses on burnout [20:35] Using relational practice and trauma informed education with her students [22:40] The positive impact her approach has had on her students [34:55] The power that comes with sharing your story [40:15] Karen's favorite teacher [41:55] What Karen is most proud of    Connect with Karen: LinkedIn: Karen Lane https://www.linkedin.com/in/karenlanecalgary/   Connect with Tiana: Website: https://tianafech.com LinkedIn: Tiana Fech Instagram: @tianafech  Facebook: @tianafech  Book: Online Course Creation 101: A step-by-step guide to creating your first online course      HOW BEING A PATIENT INFLUENCED HER BEING A NURSE "The professions that attract those who are very heart-led give it their all; they invest all of themselves in it." Karen's personal experience as a patient has profoundly influenced her approach to working in the field of nursing. Having gone through her own health challenges, she has developed a deep sense of empathy and understanding for individuals struggling with their well-being. Her journey allowed her to appreciate the importance of vulnerability and the need for support during difficult times.  She recognizes that when individuals are unwell, they require not only medical care but also emotional and psychological support. Her perspective has led her to value holistic care, acknowledging that health issues can affect various aspects of life. Karen's privileged upbringing, with access to exceptional healthcare facilities, loving parents, supportive friends, and accommodating teachers, has made her acutely aware of the disparities in healthcare access. She understands that not everyone has the same advantages she had, and this realization has driven her to seek out and address gaps in care.  As a nurse, Karen is dedicated to providing compassionate and personalized care, taking into consideration the unique circumstances of each patient. Her commitment extends to working towards equitable healthcare access for all, ensuring that those without the same privileges she had are not left behind. In both the fields of nursing and teaching, Karen recognizes the importance of delving deeper into an individual's life, understanding the broader context of their well-being, and fostering an environment of curiosity and empathy in her practice.   EDUCATING NURSES ON BURNOUT In her role as an educator and mentor in the field...

In advance of September's Welcome Week by AUSU we sit down with the deans at Athabasca University to chat about the coming year and what tips they have for both new and returning students. We also discover what hidden talents your deans have outside of being accomplished academics and administrators. Starring: Dr. Steven Johnson, Dr. Manijeh Mannani, Dr. Lisa Watson, Dr. Shauna Zenteno, and AUSU Executive Director Jodi Campbel

The newest AUSU Councillors, Manmeet Kaur and Chantel Bradley, share their experiences at Athabasca University that led them to run for Students' Council and eventually to being elected as Vice Presidents at AUSU. Manmeet and Chantel speak about the benefits of getting involved, and provide some insight to what their academic path looks like while at AUSU, as well as after graduation - and how an Athabasca University education is a foundation for their success. Starring: AUSU VP External Manmeet Kaur, VP Finance and Administration Chantel Bradley, and Executive Director Jodi Campbell

Alberta's former Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw was unceremoniously dismissed from a new position in Indigenous health, prompting the resignation of the program's medical director Dr. Esther Tailfeathers. The move prompted more than a hundred doctors to sign an open letter demanding a response from Premier Danielle Smith.  2:35 | Dr. Neeja Bakshi is one of the physicians who signed the letter demanding an apology from Premier Smith and Alberta Health Services administrator Dr. John Cowell.She explains why she stuck her neck out, and what she hopes the action accomplishes.  24:20 | Rest in Peace, Dr. Sue. Ryan and Johnny celebrate the life and legacy of legendary broadcaster and sex educator Dr. Sue Johanson.  30:50 | Police investigating a stabbing spree at the University of Waterloo say they're treating the incident as a hate crime. Athabasca University's Dr. Alexa DeGagne and Dr. Kristin Rodier say the threat of violence is far too real in the Women's & Gender Studies space. Has anything changed since the horrific events of December 6, 1989 at École Polytechnique? How should Canadians respond?  (Note: The trans theorist/activist Dr. DeGagne mentioned in the interview is Alok Vaid-Menon.) CHECK OUT AU: https://www.athabascau.ca/ 1:16:30 | Frosty and Garry are upset at our Pride talk, while Lauren and Kat have a lot to say about the Titan sub disaster. Brace yourself for Trash Talk presented by Local Environmental Services!  KEEP IT LOCAL: https://localenvironmental.ca/ SEND US YOUR TRASH TALK: talk@ryanjespersen.com  THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING US BY SUPPORTING OUR SPONSORS! https://ryanjespersen.com/sponsors PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/ryanjespersen WEBSITE: https://ryanjespersen.com/ TWITTER: https://twitter.com/RealTalkRJ INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/RealTalkRJ/ TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@realtalkrj The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Relay Communications Group Inc. or any affiliates

Fika with Vicky's Guest this week in M.J. Moores. Imagine procrastination and stubborn perseverance getting together and procreating – that would be what MJ faces when she looks in the mirror every day. Her stubborn mind-set has gotten her into trouble more often than she'd care to admit. Spunk and tenacity shine in MJ's eyes when you speak with her, and it carries in the excitement of her voice. Get her talking about writing and the world of publishing, next thing you know she's outlined the manuscript of your life and you can't wait to write it. Granted, the instant M.J. is required to do something she's not particular about, those procrastination tendencies creep in like assassins in the night. MJ's love of reading and writing at a young age drew her to adventure books of all genera. While she enjoys writing science-fiction, fantasy, and romantic suspense, her focus is more on the internal journey her characters take as they learn about themselves and face their darkest fears – this might take place on another planet, on a university campus, or in a magical realm; but there's always that touch of adventure to lend a dash of spice to her work. M.J. has a Bachelor of Education and Theatre Production Specialization from York University, and a Minor in Creative Writing from Athabasca University. She edited for several small Canadian Presses including Imajin Books, Wrongtree Press, and Love Knot Books as well as freelanced for many years. Currently, she is focusing on writing and aiding authors interested in the Indie Publishing journey. Want to know about M.J., check out these links. Website: mjmoores.com (free prequel ebook starter library) Facebook & Twitter: @AuthorMJMoores Amazon Author Central: https://www.amazon.ca/MJ-Moores/e/B00NRU2VZ2

Fika with Vicky's Guest this week in M.J. Moores. Imagine procrastination and stubborn perseverance getting together and procreating – that would be what MJ faces when she looks in the mirror every day. Her stubborn mind-set has gotten her into trouble more often than she'd care to admit. Spunk and tenacity shine in MJ's eyes when you speak with her, and it carries in the excitement of her voice. Get her talking about writing and the world of publishing, next thing you know she's outlined the manuscript of your life and you can't wait to write it. Granted, the instant M.J. is required to do something she's not particular about, those procrastination tendencies creep in like assassins in the night. MJ's love of reading and writing at a young age drew her to adventure books of all genera. While she enjoys writing science-fiction, fantasy, and romantic suspense, her focus is more on the internal journey her characters take as they learn about themselves and face their darkest fears – this might take place on another planet, on a university campus, or in a magical realm; but there's always that touch of adventure to lend a dash of spice to her work. M.J. has a Bachelor of Education and Theatre Production Specialization from York University, and a Minor in Creative Writing from Athabasca University. She edited for several small Canadian Presses including Imajin Books, Wrongtree Press, and Love Knot Books as well as freelanced for many years. Currently, she is focusing on writing and aiding authors interested in the Indie Publishing journey. Want to know about M.J., check out these links. Website: mjmoores.com (free prequel ebook starter library) Facebook & Twitter: @AuthorMJMoores Amazon Author Central: https://www.amazon.ca/MJ-Moores/e/B00NRU2VZ2

Be Here Now under Maharajji's blanket as Baba Here Love and Marcus Rummery discuss The One, Terence McKenna, underground comics, Neem Karoli Baba, homosexuality, the gay agenda and more. It is all applied to our spiritual awakening. “Allen Ginsberg is a very close friend of mine, and for a long time, because Allen was being very much publicly gay in his writings and his writing at work, I questioned whether that was my role too. I saw along the way, because of my drug history, that I was identified by many people as being a “druggie.” I began to see that every one of these roles and labels was both a way of having a feeling of comfort in a group identity, while also being a defining concept in my own mind. I see people who have labels in their mind of who I am. I found it a little too complicated to have any labels at all.” - Ram Dass Marcus has been creative all of his life. Born to a journalist and scientist, and raised in a community adjacent to a nuclear research facility in rural Manitoba called Pinawa. Marcus' upbringing was one of dynamic creativity and radioactive inspiration. Marcus began performing stand-up comedy in 1996 in Ottawa. Then, less than a year later, he came third in Canada's Funniest New Comic contest. He has performed all across Canada and L.A., headlining in Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, toured the country twice, and been featured on XM Radio as well CBC Radio's Definitely Not the Opera and Madly Off in All Directions. In 2002 Marcus became certified to teach hot yoga, a then new practice involving vigorous exercise in an extreme environment where the heat is cranked to 40.6 Celsius and the humidity to 40%. For almost eleven years, ten times a week you could here his inspirational ranting all around Lotus Land until 2014 when he premiered Hot Prana. This new series that he calls the Crossfit of Yoga, was featured in his first teacher training in 2016. A disrupter in the space he later became the first yoga teacher to also sing and play guitar while instructing, a class he calls Cool Qi. Marcus completed his BA in psychology in 2005 and then two years later the Langara College digital documentary program, and in 2008 finished Big Medicine – The Techno-Shamanism of Frank Ogden. In 2017 he released his magnus opus film Bucket Chemistry, featuring a four-act psychedelic death and rebirth multimedia rock-show. In February 1995, after a life changing psilocybin experience, Marcus began the research that would lead to his interest in Frank's work when he started investigating psychoactive drugs - culminating in the publication of Shamanic Graffiti in 2016, with the second edition coming out this year. The first edition is featured at the Archives of Psychoactive Substances at Purdue University. In 2021 he began his master's degree in counseling at Athabasca University. Fronting the bands Evoke, All Possible Humans and In Defense of Tim Leary Marcus has operated as a vocalist since the beginning. Right now, he is working on his second book Shamanic Enneagram, recording and performing as well as teaching yoga, and continuing his studies in psychology. http://therummery.ca https://m.facebook.com/ShamanicGraffiti/?notif_id=1630281819980681¬if_t=page_user_activity&ref=notif https://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B0B94P5KV8&source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=pdp राम राम राम I AM THE ONE I AM SHIVA

The results are in: Danielle Smith and the UCP will form Alberta's next government. What can Albertans expect? What message does the election outcome send to the rest of Canada? What does the future look like for Rachel Notley and the NDP?  2:20 | And what does the NDP sweeping Edmonton mean for Alberta's capital city? Councillor Sarah Hamilton joins Ryan in studio.  15:30 | Will Danielle Smith's populist approach to campaigning continue into her first full term as premier? Calgary Sun scribe Rick Bell tells us what he's hearing.  42:50 | Was this the NDP's last decent shot at winning an election in Alberta? Does the party need a rebrand? We check in with Athabasca University political science professor Dr. Mark Crawford.  WEBSITE: https://ryanjespersen.com/ TWITTER: https://twitter.com/RealTalkRJ INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/RealTalkRJ/ TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@realtalkrj PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/ryanjespersen THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING OUR SPONSORS! https://ryanjespersen.com/sponsors The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Relay Communications Group Inc. or any affiliates.

Another day, another apology from Danielle Smith. The UCP leader is facing fire for comments in November of 2021 comparing vaccinated people with followers of Adolf Hitler. Even if her party weathers these storms and wins the election, what're the chances Danielle Smith stays on as leader?  3:40 | Talking about the Holocaust is personal for Charles Adler. The Emmy Award-winning broadcaster explains why, in assessing Danielle Smith's latest "optics issue". Plus, what's the key takeaway from Canada expelling Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei?  34:10 | Cultural values need to be central to research involving Indigenous people in Canada. Athabasca University associate professor Dr. Josie Auger joins Ryan in studio to explain how her kikapekiskwewin podcast came about, and why Indigenous knowledge is so important to shaping the future in all fields. CHECK OUT THE PODCAST: https://aufa.ca/member-news/2023/3/2/aufa-members-launch-indigenous-research-podcast-kikapekiskwewin LEARN MORE ABOUT DR. AUGER: https://news.athabascau.ca/research/au-researcher-studies-the-impact-of-sexual-violation-on-indigenous-women-2/ WEBSITE: https://ryanjespersen.com/ TWITTER: https://twitter.com/RealTalkRJ INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/RealTalkRJ/ TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@realtalkrj PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/ryanjespersen THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING OUR SPONSORS! https://ryanjespersen.com/sponsors The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Relay Communications Group Inc. or any affiliates.

Writer and game developer Arinn Dembo has been involved with game development for over 25 years. She has helped build a number of popular franchises in science fiction gaming including Homeworld and Sword of the Stars. She has also worked on two different Artificial Intelligence projects and has been interviewed for the AI Ethics course taught by Athabasca University. Dembo recently spoke with Wendy Sheridan about the expert systems that are in use for making artwork today -- how they work, their capabilities, limitations, biases, and the need for our laws and ethics to catch up with the current use of artificial intelligence that shows no signs of slowing down. Earlier, Robin Renée picks Wendy's brain about sound recording technology in The Geekscape. The Random Facts of the day involve an escaped cow and the fear of belly buttons. The News ranges from serious to silly: The Supreme Court case regarding user content on social platforms, Gonzales v Google, a Donald Trump lawsuit roundup, another Ohio train derailment, a snow plow naming contest, and a Tennessee whiskey fungus all make the cut. At the end of the show in the You Got Questions? We Got Answers! segment, Wendy and Robin respond to a question sent in by friend of the podcast, Tom Limoncelli. Things to do: Follow Arinn Dembo on Facebook and Twitter. Subscribe to The Dembo Jam - The digital notebook of Arinn Dembo Read Monsoon and Other Stories by Arinn Dembo.               Watch Fantastic Fungi: Fantastic Fungi on Netflix Support The Leftscape.   Sound engineering by Wendy Sheridan Show notes by Robin Renée Fake sponsor messages by Ariel Sheridan Web hosting by InMotion Remote recording by SquadCast

Amy is joined by academic and advocate Dr. Veronica Fynn Bruey to discuss her book, Patriarchy and Gender in Africa, and discuss the impacts of patriarchy on the African continent.Dr. Veronica Fynn Bruey is a multi-award winner and a passionate academic and advocate. Holding six academic degrees from four continents, she has researched, taught, consulted, and presented at conferences in over thirty countries. She's authored five books, several book chapters, and journal articles. She's the founder and editor in chief of the Journal of Internal Displacement, the co-lead of Law & Society's collaborative research network, she is the lead of Law & Society Association's international research collaborative, Disrupting Patriarchy and Masculinity in Africa, the founder of The Voice of West African Refugees in Ghana at the Buduburam refugee settlement in Ghana. She is also the Australian National University International Alumna of the Year in 2021, and the president of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration, and a co-chair of Africa Interest Group American Society Of International Law. Currently she is an Action Canada Fellow, from 2022 to 2023, and the director of The Flower School of Global Health Sciences and an assistant professor of legal studies at Athabasca University. Veronica is a born and bred indigenous Liberian War survivor.

My guest is Heather Buzila, who is past president and a current member of the national executive council of Editors Canada, the professional association for editors in Canada. She has been an editor for over 15 years and currently works for Athabasca University in Edmonton, Alberta, where she edits materials for online courses in humanities and the social sciences. Heather also has broad experience in editing both fiction and nonfiction, as well as web materials for many organizations. We talk about Editors Canada, the association, what its purpose is, what it does for editors, and other topics.

Hear the story behind AMSN's DEI Initiative and learn about the valuable resources available to you as Parker and Laura welcome AMSN and MSNCB CEO Terri Hinkley for the conclusion of our three-part series about AMSN's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusiveness (DEI) Initiative. SPECIAL GUEST       Terri Hinkley, EdD, MBA, BScN, RN, CAE has been the CEO of AMSN and MSNCB since 2017. Terri has 10 years of association management experience, coupled with over 32 years in acute care nursing in the healthcare setting. Terri received her RN from Centennial College, BScN from York University, an Executive MBA from Athabasca University, and an Ed.D. in the Executive Leadership (ELP) Human and Organizational Learning (HOL) Program at the George Washington University GUEST CO-HOST Laura Johnson, MSN, RN, CMSRN has been a nurse since 2008 with a background in Med/Surg and Oncology.  She has held many positions throughout my career including management and leadership.  Laura obtained her MSN in nursing education in 2018.  Since then, she has worked as a bedside educator with both experienced staff and nurse residency with specialties in end of life and mentorship.  She is currently working as an NPD practitioner for oncology and bone marrow transplant units.  CO-HOST Chelsea Parker RN, BSN, CMSRN was born and raised in Newport News, Virginia. She attended the University of Virginia and graduated in 2016 with a Bachelor's of Science in Nursing. Since then she has pursued geriatric and palliative care nursing and developed a love for general medicine, which is where her foundation for med-surg nursing was built. As a young nurse looking for ways to bridge engagement between generations of nurses, she is excited about what this podcast will mean for AMSN. 

✨What do you love about this week? Listen to this week's Overview by Nicole Garceau of Co-Creating Today and find out what this week will bring for you and your sign. Nicole Garceau's foundation approach in Astrology stems from The Academy of Astro△Psychology and Nadiya Shah's Synchronicity University. Following the principles and standards she sets for herself in her former athletic endeavors, being a multi-champion athlete, Nicole applies the same determination of excellence to the field of Astrology. She focuses her products and services towards accuracy of information and quality of product. Nicole Garceau is currently pursuing a masters in psychology at Athabasca University and furthering her studies by acquiring a PhD. Nicole has assisted Stormie Grace in her landmark YouTube Academy. She writes regularly and is the official Astrologer for the award winning magazine The Cartomancer. Check out Nicole's Social Media - Youtube Channel: Co-Creating Today https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxXgnnwUcsw431lhvMocwOw- Instagram: @cocreatingtoday - Facebook: Co-Creating Today Inc. Thank You for listening! *Nadiya

I wanted to have a conversation with today's guest just to get some parenting tips from him but then decided that it would be a great idea to do a whole podcast episode around that. I have been friends with Chris Lopez for nearly fifteen years, and I consider him to be one of the greatest examples of someone who can own a successful business, live a healthy lifestyle, and be an incredible parent! Chris runs KettlebellWorkouts.com and can also be found at ChrisLopez.io, and one of the main areas of interest that we talk about today is how Chris homeschooled his children before it was as common as it is today. We chat about why he went into entrepreneurship to begin with, the main principles of parenting and following through, and having integrity. We also talk about what some appropriate disciplinary methods might be when it comes to children misbehaving, and Chris shares his thoughts on phones, tablets, and social media. Chris also takes part in my series of rapid-fire questions, including what he loves most about his wife, who his favorite volleyball player is, what project he is most excited about right now, and so much more! I am so appreciative of Chris for his time and for his friendship, and I really hope that you enjoy this podcast episode that I did with him! If this was interesting or helpful to you and you haven't subscribed to the show already, please be sure to do so on your favorite podcast app! I would also really appreciate it if you would share the podcast with at least one other person you know who might also enjoy it and if you would leave me a five-star review!   Time Stamps 1:10 – Dan gives us some background information on today's guest, Chris Lopez. 4:44 – Chris dives deeper into his background and history. 7:10 – Chris goes into one of the reasons he started his own business. 9:41 – Hear why Chris pulled his kids out of traditional school and homeschooled them. 11:24 – Dan and Chris talk about the book Hold on to Your Kids. 12:23 – Chris defines peer orientation vs. adult orientation. 15:07 – Dan argues for the benefits of parental attachment. 16:59 – Are there differences in behavior between homeschooled kids and kids in school? 19:29 – Dan asserts that teens wanting to disconnect from family is abnormal. 20:42 – Chris offers his own definition of successful parenting. 22:25 – What are some other signs of successful parenting? 25:18 – Chris touches upon the importance of integrity in parenting. 27:08 – What are some appropriate consequences to enact when children misbehave? 29:55 – Chris reveals a potential negative consequence of not following through as a parent. 30:53 – What are the boundaries surrounding electronic devices that Chris puts in place? 33:20 – Chris and his family treat phones as tools, not as best friends. 35:00 – Chris reveals whether or not his kids have social media accounts. 37:51 – Chris describes his morning routine. 40:43 – Learn when Chris goes to bed. 43:45 – Chris describes what a homeschooling day looks like for his children. 46:26 – Chris and his wife being readers has modeled a love of reading for their kids. 49:09 – Learn about what a daily schedule looks like as a homeschooled student. 51:24 – Chris discusses learning blocks. 54:24 – Dan is curious how homeschooled students get into university. 57:17 – Hear about Athabasca University. 1:00:45 – Chris reiterates that you have to follow through as a parent. 1:02:33 – Did Chris deliberately set a positive example for his children? 1:05:36 – What is one thing that Chris loves about his wife? 1:06:48 – Chris reveals who his favorite volleyball player is. 1:08:15 – Chris credits Costa Rica's simplicity. 1:11:04 – ChrisLopez.io is the best place to go to find Chris online.   Resources Subscribe to the Podcast Follow Me on Instagram Follow Me on Twitter ChrisLopez.io KettlebellWorkouts.com Read Hold on to Your Kids Read Guerrilla Learning Listen to Done By Noon Podcast

Dr. Melissa Jay (she/her) is a cisgender, able-bodied, Nehiyaw (Cree) member of the Métis Nation of Alberta, registered psychologist, and assistant professor at Athabasca University. She uses her privilege to pave paths towards trauma-informed, socially just, anti-oppressive support by integrating ancient wisdom traditions and psychology. As the current Indigenous Director for the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association, she is grateful to walk alongside Indigenous kin, across Turtle Island. Melissa is also director of Canmore Counselling and Trauma-Informed Yoga Psychology School, dedicated to her own healing journey and lifelong studentship. She lives in Chuwapchipchiyan Kude Bi (Canmore, AB) with her spouse and rescue dog, Lulu. Website: https://www.canmorecounselling.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/canmorecounselling/ Listen to the full bonus episode by subscribing to our Substack for $5 a month. Follow us on social media Twitter: @ThoughtfulWRPod Instagram: @ThoughtfulWellnessRevolution If you enjoyed the podcast, please rate and review on Apple or Podchaser Theme song: Katy Pearson

In 1989, Stuart Holtby started Allstar Tech as a boutique IT consulting practice helping SMEs with networking microcomputers.  It wasn't until the mid 90's that he began to call Allstar Tech a Managed Service Provider.  By 2000, Allstar Tech grew to 35 employees with $4 million in revenue. In 2000, he recognized the need for fractional CIO services and launched a C-suite management advisory service.  The C-suite management advisory service provided interim, virtual, and fractional CIO consulting.  As a fractional CIO, he helped clients improve organizational performance and operational efficiency through the practical implementation of information technology.   During this period, he refined the C-suite advisory practice - focusing on making the GetInSync platform available to other like-minded MSPs.    He has a master's degree in Business Administration from Athabasca University.  When not keeping busy helping MSP build their business, you can find him on the tennis court trying to improve his play.  Thank you for supporting “MSP Radio” you can follow us on the Social Media Links Below:  

Douglas MacLeod is the Chair of the RAIC Centre for Architecture at Athabasca University, an online program that has quickly grown to be one of the largest and most innovative in the world. He is recognized as an expert in e-learning, regenerative design and virtual design. Based on his recently published book, The Architecture of Hope, MacLeod will explore the idea of cooperative communities where buildings produce more energy than they use; purify more water than they pollute; grow more food than they consume; and recycle more waste than they produce – all using technologies that already exist or that will be within our grasp in a few years. Even more important, the people of the community own and profit from all of these resources. In short, The Architecture of Hope depicts a way of living that is decentralized, re-localized, and regenerative. And imminently possible. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/out-of-the-blank-podcast/support

Host Jeff Crawford and Co Host Baba Here Love with first half the show with Ms. Anonymous and second half of the show with Marcus Rummery. This is the second anniversary of Giant Rock Podcast! We discuss Summer of 22 Pop Culture and other very interesting topics! Just Listen and Be Here Now Bio on Marcus -Marcus has been creative all of his life. Born to a journalist and scientist, and raised in a community adjacent to a nuclear research facility in rural Manitoba called Pinawa. Marcus' upbringing was one of dynamic creativity and radioactive inspiration.Marcus began performing stand-up comedy in 1996 in Ottawa. Then, less than a year later, he came third in Canada's Funniest New Comic contest. He has performed all across Canada and L.A., headlining in Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, toured the country twice, and been featured on XM Radio as well CBC Radio's Definitely Not the Opera and Madly Off in All Directions.In 2002 Marcus became certified to teach hot yoga, a then new practice involving vigorous exercise in an extreme environment where the heat is cranked to 40.6 Celsius and the humidity to 40%. For almost eleven years, ten times a week you could here his inspirational ranting all around Lotus Land until 2014 when he premiered Hot Prana. This new series that he calls the Crossfit of Yoga, was featured in his first teacher training in 2016. A disrupter in the space he later became the first yoga teacher to also sing and play guitar while instructing, a class he calls Cool Qi.Marcus completed his BA in psychology in 2005 and then two years later the Langara College digital documentary program, and in 2008 finished Big Medicine – The Techno-Shamanism of Frank Ogden. In 2017 he released his magnus opus film Bucket Chemistry, featuring a four-act psychedelic death and rebirth multimedia rock-show. In February 1995, after a life changing psilocybin experience, Marcus began the research that would lead to his interest in Frank's work when he started investigating psychoactive drugs - culminating in the publication of Shamanic Graffiti in 2016, with the second edition coming out this year. The first edition is featured at the Archives of Psychoactive Substances at Purdue University. In 2021 he began his master's degree in counseling at Athabasca University. Fronting the bands Evoke, All Possible Humans and In Defense of Tim Leary Marcus has operated as a vocalist since the beginning. Right now, he is working on his second book Shamanic Enneagram, recording and performing as well as teaching yoga, and continuing his studies in psychology.http://therummery.cahttps://m.facebook.com/ShamanicGraffiti/?notif_id=1630281819980681¬if_t=page_user_activity&ref=notifSupport the show