Podcasts about process as

It’s a common truth amongst pretty much everyone that what our life was just a few months ago is quite different today. For some, it may be extreme shifts, and for others a smaller adjustment. Either way, we are all in transition. However, change can also present opportunity! Listen along today to learn more about life as a full-time investor with our guest Drew Kniffin, and rather or not this might be the next big step you take in your career! Asset: Drew shares a variety of experiences in real estate investing, with everything from single family homes to multifamily. Process: As a full-time investor and syndicator, Drew’s days are full. Listen along to learn keys to effective time management when you’re leading a company, managing assets, directing a team, nurturing investors, and much more. Strategy: How did Drew manage to make that transition to full-time investing and what steps did he take to scale out enough to make it sustainable to replace a full-time W2? Listen along and learn how you can implement the same steps now to make the most of the changing times! Hungry to learn more about being a multifamily syndicator or a passive investor? Grow your knowledge here:  https://www.ellieperlman.com/training Drew’s Bio: Drew Kniffin has a corporate finance and real estate investing career that spans a decade, and is the President of Nighthawk Equity.  After finishing graduate school (JD/MBA), Drew was an investment banker providing valuation analysis and preparing small companies for refinance or sale events. From there Andrew worked at a Fortune 500 company, where he negotiated and implemented Joint Ventures in Asia, Central America, and South America.  Drew began his full-time real estate career in 2008, focusing on acquiring cash-flowing properties that maintain value throughout the economic cycle. In addition to being an investor, Drew has been featured on multiple podcasts and also coaches investors.  Today, Drew controls 1,500 units across the United States with a collective valuation in excess of $85 million.  Drew lives in Seattle, WA with his wife and four tax credits. How to Contact Drew: Website: www.nighthawkequity.com Email: drew@nighthawkequity.com

  Welcome back to the fertility series! This time around, I’m chatting with fertility physician Dr. Natalie Crawford from Aspire Fertility all about egg freezing. She is also the host of As A Woman Podcast, which is all about fertility, female empowerment, and leadership. Personally, I have spoken on the podcast about feeling that biological clock ticking and have been thinking about egg freezing a lot so I was really grateful to Dr. Natalie for sharing her wisdom with us— let’s dive in.   We answer questions like: When is a good time to freeze your eggs? Is freezing your eggs really a ‘fire insurance’ plan? Which is a more viable option:  IVF or Egg Freezing. How long does freezing your eggs take + how to plan for it. How much it costs (b/c umm…that’s a huge part of this process). And lots more…   Learning Your Body Dr. Natalie quickly realized how little women knew about their own bodies. “Every woman would say, ‘I wish I had known this earlier.’” Did you know 1 out of 8 women struggle with infertility— they just aren’t all sharing their stories. Most women ignore their infertility problems for a while because they feel a sense of failure, fear, and denial.   Understanding the Process As you age, your eggs decrease in both quality and quantity. Dr. Natalie explains the value of AMH testing—a very affordable + often covered by insurance test that tells you how what your egg count + health is like. There are diet + lifestyle changes you can make to keep your eggs as healthy as possible like decreasing red meat and processed food (more on that in the podcast). “This whole process is stressful— we can’t make it stress-less. But how can you feel better about it? By feeling really well informed.”   Resources Listen to Dr. Natalie’s podcast called As A Woman. Get more information from her site NatalieCrawfordMD.com. Keep up with her on Instagram and TikTok @NatalieCrawfordMD. Listen to the first episode in the Fertility Series here.   Did you know we have a Patreon page? Patreon is a platform that lets listeners financially support their favorite podcasts for as little as $5/mo. (That’s cheaper than a cup of NYC coffee y’all!) Head over to Patreon.com/therefinedcollective to see how you can support the podcast (and get some pretty awesome goodies as a thank you)! Another way you can support the podcast is by sharing with friends! Just copy this link and then paste into the group chat with your besties: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-refined-collective-podcast/id1348034641#episodeGuid=30c48f6a66bb4bfca88b0f6522037407   Single ladies— do you feel stuck, lonely, discouraged or frustrated by your dating life, or lack thereof? This is brought to you by my free guide called “6 Tips to Activate Your Dating Life with Intention and Clarity.” These resources propelled me from sitting on the couch to out on a date. Head over to Bit.ly/trwdating to check it out!

When we refer to an “Orff arrangement,” we typically mean that the song or rhyme uses barred instruments. However, that may not be all there is to making something “Orff.”What Makes it Orff?The Orff approach is a play-based process that centers around student choice and creativity. Simply using an “Orff instrument” may not necessarily mean that the students are using the instrument to expand their musical knowledge in a way that puts the learner’s needs first.How teachers apply this philosophy can look very different from classroom to classroom. However, there are a few things we can expect to see in an Orff-inspired approach:Mixed media: students speak, play instruments, sing, and move to express musicality.Musical Choice: The teacher gives an amount of control over the musical elements in a piece. For example, students might improvise or arrange a section, create movements, decide the musical form, or choose instrumentation.Collaboration: Though individuality is celebrated in the Orff philosophy, students also spend a lot of time working in small groups or making musical decisions as a large ensemble. Every voice is valued!Here’s an example of how the Orff approach can be used with the song, Bluebird Bluebird. All the resources for this arrangement (the score, worksheets, and visuals) are available as a free download. Getting Started:Previous Knowledge and Skills:Students will have the most success with this arrangement if they have the following concepts and skills already in place:Knowledge: steady beat, rhythm, rhythm vs beat, ta and ta-di, ta rest, half notes, sol and mi, la, do, and re.Skills: pitch matching, barred instrument techniques, auxiliary percussion techniques, improvisation, arranging, dictation, rhythmic and melodic readingIn my curriculum, this combination of knowledge and skills happens at the end of 2nd grade, or the beginning of 3rd grade. You can read more about my curriculum outline here, and get the templates for your own classroom in The Planning Binder.Musical Objective:The goal of the arrangement is for students to compose with the full pentatonic scale. This score has several musical elements happening at once. However, everything could be taken out except the song and glockenspiel, and the objective would still be accomplished.The Score:Here is the full score. You can get the score below, along with all the other resources for this arrangement! Breaking it Down:This song is made of a main melody, a harmonic outline, two ostinati, and student compositions.Process these parts however works best for your situation! If you’d like a starting point, I’ve included some ways my students have found success with these elements.Melody: The song and the game This is the version of the game I use: Students stand in a circle with their hands above their heads to form “windows.” One student is the bluebird. The bluebird flies in and out the student windows while the rest of the class sings the song. At each “take a little partner,” the bluebird taps the closest student on the shoulder. The three students follow behind the bluebird and the game begins again. Each repetition of the song, the head bluebird chooses three more students until the whole class is in the bluebird line.Harmony: Bass xylophoneSince students have knowledge about do as the “home” pitch, they are ready to play the bass xylophone part. Using the idea of “home” and “away,” students play the tonic and dominant pitches. This image of birds flying away and coming back home is helpful to reinforce the harmonic concepts. I would also have the class help me transfer it to standard notation after students have played the progression a few times. Process:As with any mallet part, it’s a good idea to consider starting the learning process with body percussion. Students can stomp for tonic and snap for dominant. We’ll use this same body percussion designation in the composition process too. It helps to spiral concepts through a variety of different uses!Ostinati: Alto xylophone and tubanoI tend to teach these parts aurally, and use the notation as a reference in later lessons. Choosing Instruments: The Orff Arrangement Sound Pyramid I chose alto xylophone instead of soprano because in the sound pyramid for this ensemble, we don’t need much more treble apart from the glockenspiel. By the same reasoning, the tubano sound will add more low frequencies to balance out the piece. Student-Created OstinatiStudents can also come up with their own ostinati based on the text! Most of the time each student comes up with some ideas, and then we share out as a class. When I notice a pattern that will work with the existing rhythms, I casually verbalize my decision of the pattern we’ll use (speaking the rhythmic syllables of the pattern, not the name of the student who created it).Composition: GlockenspielIn a nutshell, this glockenspiel part is the whole purpose of the arrangement. It is also the part of the process that really makes it “Orff!”I chose glockenspiel because the high pitched, ringing sound seems the most bird-like. I also like that the glockenspiel timbre and register cuts through the rest of the ensemble.Process:The composition involves a few more steps than the other elements. Here is how I prefer to approach this sequence: Step 1: As with most mallet parts, we begin with body percussion. With a partner, students create rhythmic compositions and arrange them for body percussion. All the rhythmic compositions will end the same way to add a more unifying structure.As they think about their body percussion assignments, they follow notation on the board. This is a simplified version of the bass part. Using it as a guide will ensure that their glockenspiel melodies work smoothly with the harmonic progression. The only requirement is that students play the first beat of each measure on the designated note (either “home” or “away”). This enforces the physical sensation of their rhythms and the harmonic progression, even if they don’t necessarily correspond to all the pitches they will use on barred instruments! Step 2: Students “place their rhythms” on barred instruments. I like to do this part individually, but it can also be done with a partner if you don’t have enough barred instruments. As students compose, they should play the instrument first, find a pattern they like, and THEN write it down so they can remember it later. I discourage students from writing letter names on the worksheet at random and then trying to figure out how to play their composition. That approach is sure to lead to awkward intervals that are difficult to play.Step 3: Editing. Any composer, writer, teacher, designer, engineer, or coder knows that great final products go through editing. In this case, students should make sure their final composition is easy to play, that it matches the harmonic outline on the worksheet, and that they like how it sounds.Putting it all together:This song is written in ternary form. However, it could easily be adapted to rondo form if you want to give more students the chance to share their compositions.The coda is very simple. It extends the rhythm of the last subphrase (Oh Johnny aren’t you tired), and brings back the opening subphrase (bluebird bluebird go through my window) along with the two ostinati.Closing tips: Every Orff-inspired teacher applies the Orff philosophy in different ways. That said, here are some tried-and-true tips for working with an Orff arrangement like this one. Start with singing. Start with the singing game.All students learn all the parts.Put instrumental parts on body percussion before instruments.Add new elements in slowly.Keep it fun! This is musically dense, but still a play-based process.

Often times we hail the triumphs and forget about the path which was taken to get there. We often forget to acknowledge the Process. Here’s a brief reminder to embrace it, own it and enjoy the heck out of it because that where the best stuff is found. The Process* As always, thank you for tuning into Conversations with Chance Mutuku*. Please don't forget to rate, comment and subscribe to our channel. For more info catch us via www.chancemutuku.com Or @chancemutuku on all social media platforms.

Jaime Jay returns to Today’s Business Leaders to talk about how things have changed in the past year, what he would do differently if he had it all to do over again, how Gabe’s influence has impacted his business and what the future holds. Maintaining Focus These days Jaime is fully focusing on his business, Bottleneck Virtual Assistants. Last time he visited the show, Jaime was in transition. He was in the process of letting go of one business in order to go full in on his new company, Bottleneck Virtual Assistants. While Jaime felt this was the right decision, it was still frightening to let go of the financial security that his initial business offered. Fine-Tuning the Process As he has set up his new business, Jaime has learned firsthand that getting the right processes in place makes the day-to-day operations so much easier. “Implementing all of these different things and getting the company set up correctly is a big deal. I’ve had plenty of time to fail and fall flat on my face and say sure, let’s just do this and worry about setting everything up later,” explains Jaime, “and that came back to bite me so hard.” With the advantage of hindsight, Jaime admits that had he taken the time to set up his first business correctly, then things would have run so much more smoothly. Team Effort Jaime believes that establishing and taking care of his team is pivotal to the success of his business. His team takes care of their clients, so the right team ensures clients are happy and receiving quality service which keeps the business strong. One of the best ways to take care of his team, Jaime feels, is to improve communication. Listening to feedback from team members and clients enables Jaime and his team to adjust their systems and processes to ensure everyone’s needs are addressed. Help Your Bottom Line Reach out to Jaime through email, Facebook, LinkedIn or check out his site to learn more about Bottleneck Virtual Assistants. Also, listen to find out how you can land a great deal by adding a virtual assistant to your team. You can also visit Business Marketing Engine, Gabe’s company, to find out more about the solutions available and learn more actionable advice.

Welcome to episode 211, this week’s episode is dedicated entirely to understanding LinkedIn ProFinder. I haven’t used ProFinder as it is currently only available to users in the United States so I found an experienced (and award winning) user who could tell us all about it. Let me introduce Marjorie Kavanagh What is LinkedIn ProFinder? ProFinder is LinkedIn’s own professional service marketplace’ where users can search for freelancers, small business owners or interim executives who can provide expertise in a variety of specialist disciplines. You can access ProFinder by going to the ‘More’ menu on LinkedIn desktop Freelancers can apply to be accepted as a ‘Pro’ in up to 10 of the 140 categories available in proFinder. These are broken down into 17 broad categories. Freelancers can apply to be accepted as a ‘Pro’ in up to 10 of the 140 categories available in proFinder. These are broken down into 17 broad categories. How to become a ‘Pro’ To be a successful applicant your main LinkedIn profile must satisfy five key requirements; A good, professional profile photo Experience and a headline that reflects the categories you are applying for A clear summary that explains what you do Strong recommendations appropriate to your application Have published several articles relevant to your specialism Once accepted, LinkedIn will create your ProFinder profile (you can’t amend this other then by changing your main LinkedIn profile). Here is Marjorie’s profile; You will then start to receive Request for Proposals (RFP). You are under no obligation to respond but you are advised to respond quickly as up to 5 ‘Pro’s will be sent the RFP and not all are sent at the same time. What does it cost? ProFinder is free for those who wish to appoint a Freelancer. As a Pro, you get your first 10 RFP’s for free (not assignments, just proposals) after that you will need to upgrade your LinkedIn account to a Business Premium Account (currently $60/month) The Process As someone looking for services you can simply search for specific categories or go to an individuals page (strangely there is no link in their main LinkedIn profile). If you click on the ‘Get free proposals’ link in Marjorie’s profile it takes me to the same predetermined questions for the category I have selected and that RFP will also be sent to 4 other people (despite starting this process from her profile!) If there are more than 5 suitable pro’s then the algorithm will select what it considers the best ones (presumably taking into account the number of recommendations). As a pro you will receive a notification by email and in your ProFinder Inbox - this is separate from your main LinkedIn inbox and there is no other way of knowing you have an RFP (this is very poor design in my opinion). There is currently not a mobile app for ProFinder. When responding to an RFP you have to provide a cost estimation or hourly rate and indicate whether you are happy to provide a free 15 minute consultation. Following this you have up to 1500 characters to present your credentials - LinkedIn’s advice is that short and concise works best. You can include links which could be a video introduction or an example of your work. LinkedIn do not require that a client indicate that they have appointed you so it is not currently possible for LinkedIn to assess how successful you have been with your RFP’s in addition your recommendations are from your main LinkedIn profile and not specifically related to your ProFinder work. Summary LinkedIn ProFinder offer a fantastic opportunity to wide range of small business owners and freelancers. There is no doubt that it is still a beta product and in just one conversation I can see several obvious improvements that could be made. ProFinder has been in existence for a couple of years now but there is currently no word from LinkedIn as to when it will be expanded beyond the US…if ever. If you are in the US, I strongly recommend you check it out to see if any of the categories fit with your business. It could be a great way to outsource certain specialist projects and if you provide such services, an untapped lead generator!

We are not sure that the topic of today’s episode qualifies as an “issue” in higher education, which is the name of our current series, but it is certainly something that will soak up a lot of the time of high school students who will be applying to college next fall and likely of their parents as well. The topic is The Common Application essay prompts.  Now, I feel as though we just finished discussing college application essays a few weeks ago back in Episode 106, “The Nightmare of the Supplemental College Application Essays.” And today we are back to everyone’s favorite application essay discussion: The Common App prompts for the main essay, or personal statement. I couldn’t have predicted that we would return to this topic so soon, but news is news. The Common App people have recently released the updated prompts for use in 2017-2018, and we wanted to bring this news to your attention as soon as we could. 1. The Process As it turns out, the Common App people asked for feedback about this year’s essay prompts from member colleges and individual users as they considered any changes for next fall’s/winter’s applications. The Common App website states that feedback was received from 108 member colleges (out of the “nearly 700 colleges” that accept the Common App, according to the website). Personally, I don’t think that is a great response rate, as we say in the evaluation business. Nonetheless, just over 100 colleges did let the Common App people know what they thought of the essay prompts, and my guess is that feedback came from someone in the admissions office that had a lot of experience looking at the essays written in response to those prompts. According to the website, 91 percent of those 108 member colleges agreed or strongly agreed that this year’s prompts were effective. In addition, feedback was received from over 5,000 individual users—59 percent were students (the largest category of respondents), followed by 23 percent school counselors and 11 percent teachers. According to the website, 90 percent of those individual users of all types agreed or strongly agreed that this year’s prompts were effective. Well, with that kind of endorsement, it hardly seems that changes needed to be made for next year. Nonetheless, some comments from those colleges and individual users did cause the Common App people to make a few changes--some quite minor, but actually some quite major. Let’s take a look now at how this year’s five essay prompts have become next year’s seven essay prompts. And, by the way, the word limit for next year’s essays will remain at this year’s 650 words. 2. The Two Unchanged Prompts Two of this year’s prompts--#1 and #4--will remain exactly the same for next year: Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story. Describe a problem you’ve solved or a problem you’d like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma--anything that is of personal importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution. This decision makes good sense to me as I think back over the many essays I read and edited with kids last fall. I think that both of these prompts produced relevant and interesting essays and that kids seemed to have a relatively easy time understanding what each of these prompts was asking for and writing to it in a straightforward fashion. For example, many students who came to the U.S. from another country or whose parents came to the U.S. from another country wrote reflective essays for prompt #1 about their background or their national or ethnic identity. For prompt #4, I read essays ranging from solving personal or family problems to solving widespread religious or political discrimination problems here and abroad, and I found many of these essays to be powerful and persuasive. So, I guess that, if any of the Common App people had asked me my opinion, I would have concurred that these two prompts had worked well for students. 3. The Three Edited Prompts The remaining three prompts from this year will be used again for next year--#2, #3, and #5--but in a slightly edited form (the italics show the editing): The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience? Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome? Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.  These edited versions seem perfectly fine and might perhaps help students focus their thoughts better. The editing also broadens each prompt a bit, thus making it easier for students to find something in it to react to. For example, prompt #2 had previously discussed only “failure” and has now been broadened to include obstacles, challenges, and setbacks. I applaud that change because I found that too many kids thought they had “failed” when no adult with any perspective on life would have ever looked at those situations the kids were in and called them “failures.” So, I think that the editing makes this prompt broader and less negative sounding (even though I am sure that the original prompt was not meant to be as negative as many kids took it). Again, if any of the Common App people had asked me my opinion, I would have agreed that these three prompts could benefit--though probably only slightly--from some broadening. 4. The Two New Prompts That brings us to the first of the two new prompts for next year’s essays: Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more? I think this is a fine prompt, and I can imagine a number of students who essentially wrote to this prompt last year, though in the guise of a different prompt. I think kids will find this one to be engaging and a natural fit. This prompt lends itself to the kid who gets lost in science research, in violin practice, in writing poems, in building LEGO models, and a hundred other things I can think of--and kids can, too. And that brings us to the final new prompt for next year’s essays: Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you’ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.  What? Are you kidding, I said as I read it for the first time. I asked myself why the Common App people thought they had to go here: Essentially, write anything you want or turn in something you’ve already written for some other reason. While freeing, I wondered if it might be just too freeing. 5. Some Final Thoughts Then, I read a piece online in The Huffington Post by Scott Anderson, Senior Director for Access and Education at The Common Application, entitled “The Common App Essay Prompts Are Changing. Here’s Why It Doesn’t Matter.” Here are some of Mr. Anderson’s remarks: The Common App essay prompts have one purpose: to help you introduce yourself to your colleges. (Yes, showcasing your writing ability is part of the equation, but that’s the role of the essay itself, not the prompts.) That’s why the instructions are at least as important as the prompts themselves. Here’s what they say: “What do you want the readers of your application to know about you apart from courses, grades, and test scores? Choose the option that best helps you answer that question and write an essay of no more than 650 words, using the prompt to inspire and structure your response.” In a sense, the entire essay exercise boils down to that one leading question: What do you want the readers of your application to know about you? This is not a trick question. The ball is fully in your court and always has been. What you write is entirely up to you. So write about yourself–about what you love, where you come from, what you aspire to, how you spend your time, what bugs you, what inspires you, who is important in your life. In other words: Write an essay on a topic of your choice. (quoted from the article) Interesting, I thought. Mr. Anderson goes on to say this: . . . If the prompts afford so much flexibility, what’s the point in resurrecting Topic of your choice? Simply put: you’re busy. Applying to college is no small undertaking, and for most of you, the essay--or essays, depending on where you apply--will be the most time consuming task. So use Topic of your choice to reduce your stress, not add to it. If you’ve already written something that you’re especially proud of, then share it. If a specific college uses an essay prompt that sings to you, then use it here. . . . But Topic of your choice doesn’t mean default choice. If the unfocused charge to simply “write anything” seems overwhelming, then let the prompts guide you when you’re ready to start writing. I guess it would be great for a student to be able to use a short essay he or she had written in an English class or a history class or a biology class--something that reflected his or her values, beliefs, or original ideas; something that spoke to what the student is and said it in an interesting or revealing way. I am not sure how many such essays exist; but, if they do, all the better for the student. Mr. Anderson concludes his article by suggesting that it is too early for high school juniors to start writing their essays. He believes that what they will likely write about “hasn’t even happened yet.” He thinks that kids should, however, start “thinking–about yourself, about what is important to you, about the interests and experiences and talents and relationships that reveal who you are” and about “what … you want the readers of your application to know about you,” just as the instructions say. With apologies to Mr. Anderson, my guess is that it is not too early to start writing and that anything so important to a high school student, anything that has so shaped his or her values and beliefs and interests and talents has likely already happened. Sure, something more could happen this spring or this summer, something that a student might rather write about, but my guess is that lots has already happened, especially when it comes to a student’s background or national, ethnic, racial, or gender identity. Families have already struggled or succeeded. Family members have already been lost or added. Talents and passions and values have already been born and nurtured. Academic interests have already been developed and encouraged. What we know for sure is that high school juniors these days have a lot to think about. And college essays are now one more thing. Ask your questions or share your feedback by... Leaving a comment on the show notes for this episode at http://usacollegechat.org/episode110 Calling us at (516) 900-6922 to record a question on our USACollegeChat voicemail if you want us to answer your question live on our podcast Connect with us through... Subscribing to our podcast on Google Play Music, iTunes, Stitcher, or TuneIn Liking us on Facebook or following us on Twitter Reviewing parent materials we have available at www.policystudies.org Inquiring about our consulting services if you need individualized help Reading Regina's blog, Parent Chat with Regina