Podcasts about so jen

In the latest episode of the Empowerography Podcast, my guest is Jen Gardiner. Canadian actress, Jen Gardiner was born on March 13, 1984 in Kitchener, Canada and grew up in Wellesley, Ontario, Canada. Jen is best known for her role as Modwenna in 'Martyrs - The Chronicles of The Blood'. Growing up she always had a love for the arts but dreamed of becoming a doctor. Equal parts science nerd, artist and athlete she spent her elementary school years playing sports (soccer being her favourite), participating in musicals such as 'Oliver Twist' and 'The Wizard of Oz and learning as much as she could about the field of medicine. In high school the majority of her courses were geared towards becoming a doctor but her love for the arts and sports continued. She became the yearbook photographer and was constantly involved with choirs and the band which performed through-out Canada and the United States. She also took media studies, was involved in drama club and of course every year continued to play on a soccer team. Fast forward to after high-school, Jen was in a Michael's craft-store with her Mom and saw an advertisement for cake-decorating classes. She started taking cake decorating classes as a hobby. Soon after her cakes were becoming so sought after it ended up turning into a career. She opened her first business at the age of 20 and from there built two successful businesses over the course of 15 years (one teaching online marketing from things she learned from her cake business and one for “done-for-you” cakes). Something still was missing though. So Jen started to pay heed to the same advice she gave her marketing clients that she coached, "What makes you come alive?" In this episode we discuss acting, changing paths, finding your passion, transformation, mindset shift and fear of judgement. Website - https://jengardiner.com/ IG - https://www.instagram.com/realjengardiner FB - https://www.facebook.com/realjengardiner Twitter - https://www.twitter.com/realjengardiner Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/c/jengardiner "It just so happened that I got pregnant early, so around 19" - 00:01:46 "When people are telling your something they're telling it from what they've learned" - 00:13:46 "I stopped referring to things as mistakes and failures" - 00:34:18 Empowerography would like to offer you a discount code to one of our exclusive partners, Quartz & Canary Jewelry & Wellness Co. Please use CODE EMPOWER15 to receive 15% off upon check out at www.quartzandcanary.com. Quartz & Canary is truly the place, where spirituality meets style.

CHRIS NEWBOLD: Hello, well-being friends and welcome to the Path to Well-Being in Law podcast, an initiative of the Institute for Well-Being in Law. I'm your cohost CHRIS:, Executive Vice President of ALPS Malpractice Insurance. And again, most of, I think, our listeners know what our goal is but let me reiterate that we love bringing on to the podcast thought leaders in the well-being space doing meaningful work to advance the profession and to in the process build and nurture a national network of well-being advocates intent on creating a culture shift within the profession. CHRIS: Let me introduce my cohost Bree Buchanan. Bree, how are you doing? And how has your summer been? BREE BUCHANAN: Hey Chris, it has been wonderful. I get to be here in Eugene, Oregon so it's just beautiful and getting to do a lot of fun things. I'm really blessed with that. And I just wanted to say, Chris, you're talking about thought leaders and as regards to our guest today, Jen really is, she's not only a thought leader in this space but she's also a teacher of future thought leaders. So we're really glad that we got Jen with us today. CHRIS: Yeah. We got a great guest today. And we are in the midst right now of spending a three-part miniseries within the podcast of really looking in terms of what's going on in the law schools. We know that they are training the next generation in our profession and we know that these issues are becoming much more acutely aware in the environment. We started off our law school series with Linda Sugin from Fordham Law School and we will be followed in our next podcast by Janet Stearns who comes to us from the Miami School of Law. CHRIS: But today's about Penn Law and introducing our, we're really excited to have Jennifer Leonard join us on the podcast. Bree, will you do the honors of introducing Jen. BREE: I'd be delighted. So Jen Leonard is Penn Law's, get this title, I love this, Chief Innovation Officer and Executive Director of the Future of the Profession Initiative. Jen's work at Penn Law focuses on developing a deep understanding of what legal professionals need to be successful in the face of constant transformation. Isn't that true? Working with a collaborative group of colleagues across the law school in the profession, Jen designs ways to educate new law students about changes in the profession and the skills they need to thrive in the future. BREE: Before assuming her current role, she served as Associate Dean for Professional Engagement and Director of the Center of Professionalism at Penn Law. And prior to that, she was Chief of Staff to the City Solicitor of Philadelphia and a Litigation Associate with a Center City law firm, and a Judicial Law Clerk. And then Jen went home when she went to work at Penn Law because she's a graduate from there in 2004 from the law school and Penn State University with high honors. Jen's also a frequent writer and speaker on the issues that include lawyer and law student well-being. So Jen, thank you for being here today and welcome. JENNIFER LEONARD: Wow. Thank you so much, Chris and Bree. I'm so excited to be here. And thank you for that lovely introduction. BREE: You bet. So Jen, one of the things we always ask our guests because it provides such interesting information and background and insight into the people that we have with us, tell us what brought you into the lawyer/law student well-being movement. The people that work in this space and really care about it, they have a passion for the work. And typically, there's something that's driving that. So tell us a little bit about that, what that means for you. JENNIFER: Yeah. First of all, I'm so excited that there is an actual movement now around attorney well-being and law student well-being. BREE: Right. JENNIFER: That's an exciting development and a recent development, which I think many law students don't fully understand because they have arrived at law school at a time when the movement is accelerating and is growing which is fantastic. JENNIFER: I have first-hand experience being a law student who really struggled with well-being issues including depression and anxiety and also some of the really common things that law students experience, imposter syndrome, not fully understanding that I wasn't expected to know how to be a skilled attorney on day one. Most attorneys, hopefully, if they've had a really great practice will retire still growing and still learning new things. And I did not understand as a very confused and disoriented OneL that I was just at the beginning of a journey and I felt very isolated and very sort of inept in the environment and that was stunning to me because I had spent my whole life just absolutely loving school from being four years old and pretending to be a teacher in my basement with my friends all the way through graduating from college, it was just the place I felt most alive and most comfortable. JENNIFER: And law school was a completely different experience. I felt very uncomfortable from day one. My involvement in the well-being movement, I would say, is sort of an accident that followed from that experience which followed me into practice and I certainly experienced many of the challenges that the research shows around depression and anxiety in private practice. When I moved over to government work, because of the constraints of resources, you're just sort of thrown into the fire and forced to grow on your own. And that was actually really helpful for me for building confidence and learning that I actually had the capacity to do amazing things if I really gave myself the time to develop and the opportunity to develop. JENNIFER: So when I came to the law school in 2013 and started counseling law students, it was sort of a revelation to me as I sat across from younger versions of myself that they were saying to me the exact same things that I was saying in my own head as a OneL. And that was the first time even 10 years after law school that it occurred to me that I was not the only person who had this experience. And I really wanted to prevent future generations of law students from making the mistake and thinking they weren't capable and not allowing themselves to live up to their potential and contribute to society in the profession. JENNIFER: So I started building some programming, co curricular programming at first, and then programming that eventually became woven into our formal curriculum after the National Task Force report came out. And so I was just thrilled to see the movement grow over time and now to have part in leading some of those initiatives at the law school. CHRIS: Jen, today we're going to talk about the work of you and your colleagues at Penn Law. Let's set the stage a little bit. Tell us about Penn Law, your location, size, focus, types of students, and give us a flavor for the type of law school that you work within. JENNIFER: Well, I have the great pleasure of working at a phenomenal law school. The University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School which is located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We draw students from all over the world, approximately 250 incoming first-year JDs every year from all over the country and 115 LLM students from around the world who contribute just such a diversity and complexity of perspectives to our experience that we really are a global leader in legal education. And I'm excited to work at Penn as a broader university because its founder Benjamin Franklin really focused on two elements of education that I think are critical to our success. JENNIFER: One is a real focus on interdisciplinarity and learning across different disciplines about how to solve problems and that is a lot of what my work entails, building connections with our colleagues in innovation spaces across Penn's campus. And the second element is really bringing a blend of high-minded intellectual research and academic efforts in translating that work into things that can really have impact in the real world. And so it's the perfect place to be developing innovative projects including some of our work in the well-being space and seeing how that work translates in our profession. BREE: So speaking of innovation, I just think that you have the coolest job title I've ever seen. Chief Innovation Officer and Executive Director of the Future of the Profession Initiative. Tell us about that. How did all that come about? And tell us about that initiative. JENNIFER: Oh, thank you. I love my job. I do get to have the coolest title. And I think if I were to make a long story short, I think it's that I chirped enough about all the changes I'd love to see in legal education and in the profession that somebody finally gave me the opportunity to focus just on that. And the longer story is that our dean was really interested in thinking about all the changes happening in the legal profession and how a leading law school really has both an obligation and an opportunity to respond to that change so that our students are entering the profession prepared with the skills they need to thrive and to also lead the profession into the next phase of its existence. JENNIFER: So I had the chance to work with colleagues across the law school and then through our advisory board of alumni all across the profession to iterate and refine the vision for what ultimately became the future of the profession initiative, which I now have the great honor and privilege of leading. CHRIS: Tell me about the scope of that initiative. I'm just curious what you're looking at and what you're hoping to poke and prod around into. JENNIFER: Sure. We have three different buckets of projects that we work on. And I'm part of a day-to-day team of three people, two of my colleagues Jim Sandman who is President Emeritus of Legal Services Corporation and now's our senior consultant and Miguel Willis who is the Executive Director of Access to Justice Tech Fellows which is now formally affiliated with FPI. And Jim, Miguel, and I and our colleagues work on developing new curricular and co curricular offerings that are responsive to the changing conditions in the legal profession. So Jim teaches courses on leadership in law, Miguel and our advisory board member Claudia Johnson teaches courses on law, technology, and access to justice, I teach courses on user center design for the better delivery of legal services. JENNIFER: And so we focus on teaching students about the skills that they need to respond to future conditions. We also focus on leading conversations across the profession of leaders who are doing really interesting things in legal. And those conversations take the form of a podcast, the Law 2030 podcast, a monthly newsletter where we bring in voices not only from the legal profession but from across Penn's campus, across other fields to help us navigate change, to teach us what they're doing in their respective environments that we can draw lessons from. And then finally, we're building out projects for impact, things that we can do from the unique position of being a research university that can have real-world impact. So Jim is working on a variety of projects related to regulatory reform, finding new ways to connect people with legal systems. Jim's focused also on court simplification and form simplification so that it's easier for individuals and small businesses to access the legal profession. JENNIFER: So we teach, we lead conversations and we do it all within the goal of transforming the way we deliver legal services to our clients. CHRIS: That sounds like pretty cool work. JENNIFER: It's so much fun- BREE: I know. JENNIFER: And really, really engaging and worthwhile and so lucky to do it. BREE: I just think you must be so excited to go to work every day. JENNIFER: Totally. CHRIS: Anyone who gets to put the word future in their job description, I think that's pretty fun to be able to look out at. JENNIFER: Oh, it's so fun. CHRIS: So Jen, you've been back now at Penn Law I think in a professional capacity for about eight years. Let's talk a little bit about what you're seeing in the law school environment. Share with our listeners some of the well-being issues you've seen coming out of the student body, issues that students are facing. And how have those issues affected their law school and, in many cases, their post law school experience? JENNIFER: Yeah. So I think, again, to draw from my own experience both as a law student who struggled with these issues and also as somebody who had the chance to counsel students in a career counseling capacity early on in my time at the law school, I would say the biggest thing that I saw and see among students is the idea of imposter syndrome. When you are in an environment where you're surrounded by really talented people who come from all different backgrounds, all different educational degrees, you look around and you think, "How can I be here with all of these smart people around me?" And then you have the opportunity to engage in Socratic dialogue with learned professors and legal scholars at the top of their fields. JENNIFER: And I found it to be, and in my experience talking with first-year law students, some of them also find it to be very overwhelming. And I think that helping them adopt a mindset, a learner's mindset, that you are here because you deserve to be here is a rigorous process for admission. And our admission's office doesn't make mistakes. You should be here. And you are here at the very beginning of what will be a very long journey where you will grow a significant amount over the course of your life. So expecting yourself to understand the complexities of law in the first couple months, I think, is unrealistic. And so helping students understand that all lawyers have been in their shoes, that the people around them who seem the most confident are frequently the ones who are struggling the most and sometimes that manifests as overconfidence or projection of overconfidence which can feed into that imposter syndrome. JENNIFER: And I think just helping students adopt a growth mindset that will allow them to, I don't like to use the word fail, I like to use the word learn, learn from missteps, learn from early misunderstandings of the law, learn even in their Socratic dialogue which was particularly challenging for me. I'm introverted by nature. And I viewed everything as a judgment on me and if I wasn't doing it perfectly, that meant I wasn't capable of doing it. And so supporting students in understanding that they are in a developmental process that is rigorous and at the end will benefit them tremendously if they can adopt that learner's mindset. BREE: I just love how you framed that and that must be so incredibly helpful for the students that you talk to. I definitely dealt with imposter syndrome. I know that a lot of people have but I didn't have the language for it. Do you talk to the students about, do you name it? Do you tell them what imposter syndrome is? JENNIFER: Yeah. I would say most students now coming in are familiar with it from their undergrad work or other graduate work, which is fantastic. As you know, Bree, there was no language when we were in law school for imposter syndrome. It didn't even exist. So we're already starting at a more advanced point. And also the concept of growth mindset is something that people are learning about at a younger and younger age. My kids are in daycare and kindergarten and are already learning about growth mindset. So in 20 years, we'll be admitting people to law school who either they don't need to learn learner's mindset and they don't need to learn the importance of growth mindset. We will be much more ahead of the game. JENNIFER: Now, I think we're in this exciting chapter where we're finally opening up the conversation and naming the issues as you're saying. And students are much more comfortable, I think, than our generation was at being open about the challenges, which is really, really not only helpful for advancing the conversation but helpful for your own mental health to be engaged with other people who are experiencing the same thing. CHRIS: Talk to us about some of the well-being initiatives that make you most proud. You've obviously put a lot of time and attention into creating a culture where people's issues are respected and there's vulnerability and empathy. Talk to us about what are some of the things that you are most proud of in terms of what it does and some of the things that you've been doing. JENNIFER: It's funny, Chris, because I will talk about the thing that we've done that I'm most proud of and on behalf of my colleagues because these are really collaborative efforts across the law school, not just from FPI. But also, what I'm most excited about for the future, but I would say that I'm most proud of our leadership at our school led by our dean really embracing the recommendations of the National Task Force report and developing the opportunity to come into all of our upper level professional responsibility courses which are the only courses that are required after the first year of law school. So it's the only course where we will reach every student before they graduate outside of what is a very challenging and jampacked first year curriculum and talk to the students about these issues and talk to them about what the task force revealed, the current state of the research, some of the potential causes for the challenges we see in the legal profession, why those challenges relate to the provision of legal services. JENNIFER: One thing that I've learned in doing this programming over the years to the great credit of the students is sometimes they don't want to focus as much on these issues just for their own benefit. And even though there are great benefits to doing that, what they really want to know is what does this have to do with being a lawyer? How does this impact my lawyering and my clients? And our solution to that was really to talk to them about exactly that. How does this impact the provision of service to your clients? How can you give the best legal counsel you're capable of if you're not well? How are the ways that we can elevate our well-being? And bringing in experts, I am not a mental health expert, I have the experience of being somebody who was challenged with these issues, but we bring in voices from the mental health community who are trained professionals to talk with the students about some of the challenges that professionals face. JENNIFER: And so I have been the most proud to work with my colleague John Hollway as well to deliver those lessons and guide those discussions in our professional responsibility courses. I'll also say that I was most excited, our dean offered the opportunity to all of the faculty who teach professional responsibility in the upper levels, this is not a mandate by any stretch of the imagination, it was just a chance for them to do it if they wanted. Every single professional responsibility faculty member welcomed us in, has repeatedly welcomed us to come back, and they were really excited to see the law school doing this. So that is what I would say I'm most proud of to date, and again, with my colleagues developing this. JENNIFER: What I'm most proud of in the future is moving into the next phase of that conversation and having a more unified discussion between law schools and legal employers and law firms so that we're not having one conversation at the law school level and helping students develop responsive coping behaviors to respond to stress that work in a law school environment but maybe don't work in practice to thinking about the environments and the systems within which we practice and seeing how we can transform those environments so that it's a shared responsibility between schools and employers and individual students and lawyers to really lift all boats and be sure that we can practice at the highest level. So that is the next phase of our work and we're actively thinking about how we can do that in the best possible way. CHRIS: Yeah. There's no doubt that the work that you are doing and, again, lots of folks in law schools are doing, if we prepare them for a profession that ultimately is very different than what we just did to create those senses of what practicing law's going to be like and if it's very different there's going to be a disconnect, as you mentioned. JENNIFER: Exactly. And we want to teach them skills that they're able to deploy over their entire career, not just skills that will work for the next year or two. How can we bring in more collaborative partners from practice so that we're bridging that gap, bridging that divide more? And how are we thinking about redeveloping systems so that people can have more balance in their life and really be healthier, happier lawyers who are better serving their clients? CHRIS: Yeah. JENNIFER: It's a huge task but one that- CHRIS: It is a huge task and maybe we can come back and touch on this coming back from the break. It feels like to be able to do that, you're going to have to bring those thought leaders in the legal environments into the law school though, almost have them go through their own reflection points about how they think about culture and how they value the attorneys within the firm from a well-being perspective. JENNIFER: And I think that's where we have the real ability to do that is our convening ability and we can do that and we can also bring in our colleagues from Penn Medicine and Penn Engineering. And what are their students and professionals experiencing? And then some of our psychology partners across campus to come in and talk about the complex interplay among professional satisfaction, finance, and some of these mental health conditions that elite professionals experience and how can we work together to come up with some new solutions to the problems. And I think that a law school is the perfect place to do that. CHRIS: Yeah. JENNIFER: And I would love to involve the students because I think that they would be really interested in having the conversation as well and having some agency and some involvement in driving that change. BREE: No doubt. CHRIS: Yeah. So let's take a quick break here because, again, I think we're getting into the meat and potatoes, so to speak, of what you're working to do and why it's going to be, I think, so important in terms of the future of our professionals. Let's take a short break. JENNIFER: Sounds great.   — Advertisement: Meet Vera, your firm's virtual ethics risk assessment guide developed by ALPS. Vera's purpose is to help you uncover risk management blind spots from client intake to calendaring to cyber security and more. Vera: I require only your honest input to my short series of questions. I will offer you a summary of recommendations to provide course corrections if needed and to keep your firm on the right path.   Generous and discreet, Vera is a free and anonymous risk management guide from ALPS to help firms like yours be their best. Visit Vera at https://www.alpsinsurance.com/vera. — BREE: So welcome back, everybody. And we have with us today Jen Leonard who is one of the, I'll say, one of the leading thought leaders around well-being for law students. She is joining us today from Penn Law. And continue in the conversation, Jenn, I think what I'd really like for us to talk about now is focus in on what advice you can give to our listeners out there who are with a law school who are thinking about how to implement some programs, maybe something you've mentioned, something that they have decided they want to pursue on their own. And one of the biggest things within a large school is to get buy in from leadership and I heard you say earlier on that you do have buy in from your top leadership. How did that happen with the administration? And how did you get buy in from the faculty? JENNIFER: So amazing question. Yes. I would say the biggest driver of our success is really the leadership of our dean who is very interested in these topics and interested in supporting our students in developing into the best attorneys they can be. And I can't overstate how much that matters. Our faculty, I would say, are similarly supportive and the culture at our school is, we joke that people talk about it as a collegial culture all the time, but it really is this Quaker-based culture of collegiality and collaboration. So I feel very, very fortunate and maybe uniquely situated as compared with some of your listeners who might be trying to build these programs at other schools. JENNIFER: But what I would say is even if you don't have those conditions, I would not be discouraged. What I would do is I would be strategic. If you want to start well-being initiatives at your own law school, I would say start small and find the people who will be the cheerleaders for you who have voices that people will listen to. One group of voices that are really compelling to faculty and administrators alike are students. So if you have students coming to you who are interested in these topics, and as I said, I think students coming into law school now are so much more well-versed in these issues from their undergrad and other experiences that the movement is growing even among students. So being able to channel those voices and respond to them as an administration is really important. If you can find a faculty member who is really interested or who has had experience with students in their classes who have been challenged around some of these issues and would like to help you build a program, that's fantastic. JENNIFER: But you can build co curricular offerings, I would say that's the best way to start is to offer programs, maybe a brown bag lunch from students at lunchtime, bring in some alumni who are interested in this. I find in my experience that alumni who are practicing law and who are experiencing the stresses of practicing law are really, really interested in reaching back and supporting new law students and they're also really well-respected among the student body. And it also doesn't cost a lot of money usually to bring in an alum to have lunch with students and especially now that we do so many things on Zoom, have some of your alumni Zoom in and talk about things they wish they'd known when they were law students and how they've grown over time. As I said, it doesn't have to be expensive. But if you start small and you're willing to learn and you're willing to get feedback from students on how to improve and iterate the programming over time, then you can start building from there. CHRIS: Jen, it feels like what you're also inferring, correct me if I'm misstating it, is that you are in your effort to nurture the culture within the law school itself, there certainly is a student centric approach to that and just trying to understand where they're at, why they're there, again, how we can assist them on the journey, not just from a law knowledge perspective but also the mental approach to preparing them to become a lawyer down the road? JENNIFER: That's absolutely right. And I love that you say a student centric approach. In our sort of general innovation programming outside of well-being, we're really focused on human centered design. So if you apply that lens to the law student experience, what are we as administrators providing to our students and what is that provision of education and experience like from their perspective? And the way to do that is to really have conversations with student groups, maybe you have a student group in your building that you don't even know about that is focused on well-being. We have a wellness committee of students who are interested in these topics, so meeting with them and learning about what they would find really helpful and building support from there, I would say. Bringing the student voice in is critical though. CHRIS: Yeah. And I know, again, I graduated from a law school class that had 75 students which is significantly less than your incoming classes. And it certainly feels like the faster that you create communities of students together or feeling that you can find people that you can relate to within the law school environment, the more that you got people that just feel more comfortable, avoid the imposter syndrome, and then hopefully we're preparing them for an opportunity to prosper as they go through the law school journey. JENNIFER: That's right. And I think also one other tip could be maybe if you feel that the environment's not receptive to well-being programming or you're having trouble gaining traction, there are programs that you can create that are not explicitly well-being programs but that have the corollary benefit of creating enhanced well-being in your institution. And those programs can be about team building and collaboration and legal practice skills and how those interpersonal impact skills are really being deployed in practice. And they have the benefit of building community among the students, as my colleague John talks about it. He talks about it like fluoride in the water, that you don't really know that it's there but in the end it has the impact of building a healthier environment around you. BREE: Let's talk about getting to the nitty gritty, which is the cost of some of these programs which could be another barrier for somebody to implement. What is, I guess, the fiscal impact of the programs that you put together? And do you have any suggestions for people about that? JENNIFER: I would say that most of the programming we have done costs virtually nothing to do aside from maybe the cost of providing lunch, if you're providing lunch to your students. Having alumni come in and do a panel discussion about some of these issues, if you're at a law school that's connected with a broader university that has a counseling and psychological services group where you can have trained mental health professionals come in and have a conversation with students will cost nothing. Even the professional responsibility module we built out costs nothing to do, other than the energy investment in building the program and engaging our professors and getting their buy in. It is a lot of sweat equity that you will put into these programs but the actual cost of running them is minimal, I would say. JENNIFER: So I would say no matter what your law school's budget is, not to be deterred around having these conversations of building a community that is supportive of them. CHRIS: Bree knows that one of the, I sit in a management role at an insurance company, so we're always data geeks about trying to figure out how do we measure success. And again, the well-being space is such an interesting one in terms of how do you know that you're, so to speak, advancing the ball? How do you feel like you're making an impact in terms of, again, preparing students for the practice of law? And as you think about your work on a day-to-day basis, are there certain metrics that you look at or is it a little bit more instinctual and you just know that you're making an impact but in small and significant ways? JENNIFER: Yeah. I would say our return on investment are the qualitative reports that we have from students and alumni versus more hard data. We've certainly used research from other places to guide our efforts so some of the research that Sheldon and [Krieger 00:34:20] have done about the shift from intrinsic motivation to extrinsic motivation in the first year we fold into our conversations with students. But in terms of measuring outcomes, I think professional skill development is notoriously difficult to measure impact around but I talk with alumni who are five or six years now who seem to me to be very healthy and happy and thriving and really happy with their law school experience because of the community, and it's not because of the well-being programs in particular, but because of the community that we've been able to cultivate here and the support that we provide to our students. JENNIFER: And we take a tremendous amount of feedback and we have been careful about measuring the feedback from students in the PR modules and finding ways to pivot and iterate and adjust to student feedback. And one of the pieces of feedback that I referenced earlier or the place where we want to move next is thinking about these systems. So students are curious about how our environment's adapting to the research that people in the profession are doing around some of these challenges and how can we be a part of that as well. So it's more qualitative admittedly than quantitative but it's certainly I can feel a shift. I know that it's a different environment from when I was a student there and I can only say from the students to whom I have said, "You are not alone in this," those of us in the building have experienced this that the look of relief and sometimes surprise is really significant feedback to me. BREE: Yeah. Jen, just before we wrap up I just have to acknowledge the time we're in and the context of this podcast which is coming up on a year and a half in the pandemic. So can you talk a little bit about the impact of that on your student body and what you guys at Penn Law have done to address that? JENNIFER: So what I can talk about, Bree, is how we adapted the module that we present to the students and the professional responsibility course. We adapted it pretty significantly over the last year and a half in response to all of the things that happened in 2020, the pandemic, the dislocation, the disconnection in our communities, the social uprising around racial injustice across the globe, the political polarization that we're all experiencing. It's been a lot to process and then to sit and talk with law students about their well-being, the conversation had to be different than the conversation we were having with them in December of 2019. BREE: Absolutely. JENNIFER: Some of the adjustments that we made were bringing in more voices from our counseling and psychological services offices, particularly counselors that are trained on racial identity coming in to talk with students about the experience of being historically under represented person or group in a majority institution at a time when we're going through everything that we're going through. So we brought in that element to our conversations. JENNIFER: We also brought in junior alumni who are in practice to share some of their experiences on the ground, which was a response to student feedback that they really wanted to hear from our recent graduates about specifically some of the things that they're dealing with in practice and how they're responding to them. We talked a lot about toxic positivity. So there have been articles about the idea that telling people they should be adopting positive mindsets in the face of everything that's happening is not helpful and that it's okay right now not to feel okay. And I would say that our approach really was much more student led this year. We really wanted to hear from students how they were responding to the stressful conditions, what had been helpful to them, what were their anxieties and concerns, and then having a trained mental health professional in the room with us to respond to that, and also some people who were dealing with the issues in practice. It was a much more team-oriented approach I think to having these conversations. And I hope it was a more supportive experience for the students and gave them the opportunity to process some of the things they were dealing with. CHRIS: Jen, I want to ask maybe one more question. I have to imagine that as you've visualized where a student starts and where a student walks across the podium and receives that diploma is a journey in the law school. When you look at that journey, are you visualizing what does first year look like, what does second year look like, what does third year look like from a wellness perspective and how you're trying to nurture that as a complement to the curriculum? JENNIFER: Yeah. I think as the programming has evolved, we have definitely adjusted the programming to be more developmentally appropriate depending on the level of experience of the student. So to your point, there are very specific times during the first year of law school that are different in nature than the stressors that our second and third-year students face. So thinking about how stressful it is about a month in advance of your first set of law school exams and how are we helping students feel supported there versus when they're getting close to practice and we're having more contextualized conversations about the rigors of practice itself and some of the stressors that they face in client representation. And that was how we evolved into having a more upper level approach that is also combined with our still ongoing and fantastic professionalism program that is offered in the first year which is co curricular. JENNIFER: So we have been thoughtful about adjusting depending on where the student is. I would say another hallmark of our dean's leadership and our current approach to legal education is really taking a lifelong view of the formation of a lawyer. So you referenced the podium which is a perfect visual, Chris, for thinking about where you are at that point and what is to come and how we as a law school can continue to be your partner. And we've done alumni programming on attorney well-being that is a more advanced version of the PR module that we do and the reception to that is different because, of course, our alumni are actually in practice and have different contexts than our students have. And we have even deeper conversations with them about what it's like to be in practice and what some of the well-being challenges are there. JENNIFER: So we are definitely taking a, no pun intended, a graduated approach to the way that we talk with students about well-being. And I would also say too, I wanted to go back to the question about tips for people developing these programs in their schools. I would say too if the sense is or if you anticipate pushback being that it's too warm and fuzzy or it's diluting the rigor of the program, something to that effect. What I would say is that when I think about the way that we're supporting students, it should be a really intense physical workout. You don't want somebody who's leading a really rigorous exercise session to go easy on you because at the end you're not going to feel like you grew at all. What you do want is a coach to help you work through the really tough parts which is where the transformation happens and I think the analogy works for lawyer formation. JENNIFER: There are really, really tough parts where as a student I didn't feel that supported and I felt very alone. And I think I probably did not push through and grow in the way that I could have had I had a bit more coaching and get more support and that's how I think about the service that we're providing by implementing well-being programming along the way. CHRIS: Yeah. And I think it's interesting that the firms that are likely hiring your students are also now talking a little bit more about the wellness components associated with, in the talent acquisition process. And I'm wondering whether you're doing something similar. You're a highly-respected law school, whether your commitment to this particular issue of well-being and wellness of the student body as part of the experience is also coming into play as you think about the recruitment and the admissions process. JENNIFER: I haven't actively thought about how it would be appealing to applicants to law school. I think as a school, again, our collegial nature is our hallmark and what we think makes us a very strong community where ideally people would want to come and learn. But I think you're right in the sense that increasingly students and aspiring professionals are looking to be in environments where they can grow and learn and be tested and challenged but also supported and develop really strong connections along the way and feel great about what they're doing. And so to the extent that that is a secondary benefit, that's fantastic. I think savvy legal employers are thinking about how to better support their attorneys so that they are not losing that talent. JENNIFER: I think one of the really undesirable outcomes of our failure to pay attention to these issues for so long is the hemorrhaging of enormous amounts of talent from the profession. BREE: Absolutely. JENNIFER: And imagine what we can accomplish together if we just adjusted and had deeper conversations and develop new solutions so that we keep all that brilliant talent working to support the health of society. BREE: Wow. CHRIS: What a great way to end the podcast. I think that's exactly right and indicative, Jen, of again why we see you and your experience at Penn Law as being so much a part of, again, realizing the potential of our profession and how important it is that we focus on these particular areas. Any closing comments, Jen, before we close it out? JENNIFER: Thank you so much for having me on. And again, I really just want to give credit to the entire Penn Law community, alumni, students, colleagues, faculty, staff, administration. This is a team effort and I have the honor of being a spokesperson today but it is far from a solo mission. CHRIS: Well Jen, we certainly are very thankful and grateful for all of your contributions and, again, I think there's a lot of takeaways in your experience at Penn Law that I think can really have ... If our goal ultimately is to engineer a culture shift in the profession, it starts with individuals like you and we thank you so much for your work and your leadership. BREE: We have much to learn. JENNIFER: Thank you so much. BREE: Yeah. JENNIFER: Thank you both so much for what you do to drive this conversation and lead thoughts and conversations like this. So grateful. CHRIS: Yeah. That was Jennifer Leonard of Penn Law School. And again, we'll be back in a couple weeks with Janet Stearns of the Miami School of Law as we continue and close out our law school focus. Thanks for joining us and we'll see you in a couple weeks.

Greetings Super friends! Welcome to Superman & Lois & Pals. I'm Henry Bernstein and alongside me is my favorite super pal, Professor Sam Brody. We're going to catch up on the last two episodes in a bit but first I wanted to revisit our discussion on the timeline of Superman & Lois. Sam I made a new virtual pal over the last two weeks. A new listener reached out and wrote some really kind words about our podcast. So, shout out to Jen Russell who hosts a podcast of her own about the NBC show Blacklist. So check out the Keen Minds Podcast. You can find it on Apple Podcasts and on twitter https://twitter.com/keen_minds?lang=en. So Jen and I have been talking a lot about Superman & Lois, which she loves and she wanted to help us with our understanding of the timeline. This is what she said:“The topic of Lois and Clark's ages, and I think it does actually work in this timeline, assuming Lois and Clark are about the same age. The Arrowverse Fandom page has Clark's birth year set in 1979, so that would put him 41-42 if this is based on current day. The twins are 14, so they would have been born in 2007, putting Clark in his late 20's when they were born. If Lois was also born in '79 and graduated college at 22 (and I could see her graduating early), that could put her as 6 years between graduation and the boys being born. You have to squint a little for it, but for TV it's closer than a lot of shows bother with.For Tyler being 33, I think they address that in the pilot when Lana says it's like he doesn't age. I think Clark is supposed to be early 40's, just looks young.”What do you think about that explanation Sam? I just want to give one more shout-out to her. She makes AMAZING Superman & Lois gifs on her tumblr which is takadasaiko.tumblr.com You can find us on twitter https://twitter.com/SupermanPalsPod

A couple months ago, we came across an article—probably the result of a Google alert—in which a woman running for city council in Menlo Park, CA mentioned Strong Towns in a discussion about the need for incremental housing development. We followed her story and were excited to learn that she won her election. Now we’re pleased to feature her on our latest episode of the Bottom-Up Revolution podcast. Jen Wolosin, like so many Strong Towns advocates, is someone who humbly observed where people in her city were struggling and then stepped up to try and change the situation. In her case, it was seeing how dangerous a nearby street was for kids trying to bike or walk to school.  It was a problem for her own children, but she also recognized how many other children were being impacted too—especially children who couldn’t get a ride from a parent instead. So Jen investigated. She contacted people, she showed up at meetings, she built a network of fellow advocates, and eventually she founded a group called “Parents for Safe Routes” to make local streets safer.  She went on to sit on several local committees and eventually, took that next step to run for city council, and won. We know you’ll learn a lot from Jen’s story of transforming from someone who saw a problem, to someone who was taking action, and eventually, to someone who would get to make city decisions as an elected official. She’s got tons of advice for you at the end, too, about how you can embark on a journey like hers. Additional Show Notes Jen Wolosin’s website Parents for Safe Routes website Chattanooga Civics podcast Strong Towns Action Lab 2021 Local-Motive Tour Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. Support this show and our many other resources for helping your town grow stronger by becoming a member today.

Did you know that businesses, no matter how big or small, experience similar obstacles as they move from idea to goals to finishing a project? In over 25 years of training, teaching and executive experience, Jen McFarland has discovered these common obstacles. Join WTR host Kevin Dumont and guest expert Jen McFarland in rooting out 5 common mistakes many business owners make and unearth how to solve them. Jen McFarlandWebsite https://www.womenconquerbiz.com/ (https://www.womenconquerbiz.com) LinkedIn URL https://www.linkedin.com/in/jensmcfarland/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jensmcfarland/) Facebook URL https://www.facebook.com/womenconquerbiz (https://www.facebook.com/womenconquerbiz) Twitter URL https://twitter.com/jensmcfarland (https://twitter.com/jensmcfarland) YouTube URL https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4gqaZ96ns7jJzMMYQP-r7Q/ (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4gqaZ96ns7jJzMMYQP-r7Q/) Instagram https://www.instagram.com/womenconquerbiz (Instagram) Notes:Kevin_Dumont: [00:00:00] Welcome to another discussion with Wealth Tactic Rebels, the podcast for people who see things differently. I'm your host, Kevin Dumont. I've been thinking differently in the wealth field for nearly 15 years today. I'm joined by a host. Jen McFarland. Jen, how are you today? Well, I appreciate you being here today and sharing your time and your knowledge with our wealth at the rebels. So Jen is an entrepreneur in business consultant and, she has a particular expertise in business and, kind of like the Wealth Tactic Rebel philosophy, where we believe that you have a lot more to be had by first avoiding losses, before you go chasing a rate of return, like it's the same thing in business, Someone like Jen who's had a lot of experience has seen a lot of mistakes that people commonly make when they're trying to run their business. And if you can first learn those ahead of time, but through someone like Jen and look out to avoid those, you know, you have a lot better shot at having a more successful business. So today's discussion is avoid these five common business mistakes. we're going to discuss those. It has to do with it mindset, willingness to poke holes in what you think is a success. and assessing risk and, time. And we also talked a little bit about, uh, with different ways that, that you can accomplish things. Before we get into that though, Wealth Tactic Rebls, if you would do as a favor after this episode on whatever your preferred listening platform is, please just go there, give us a rating review and a, you can drop us a line. You can do it there. You can do it on a Wealth Tactic Rebles Facebook page. let us know what you found inspiring about today's episode, what you think may have helped you or someone, you know, Jen let's, let's get into a little bit, but before we get too far, would you mind sharing a little bit with our listeners about a little bit about where you came from and what inspired you to do what you do today? Jen_McFarland: [00:01:48] Sure. Thank you, Kevin. And thanks again for having me on. so my name is, my name is Jen McFarland. Um, I have 25 years of teaching training and executive experience in leadership projects and marketing, and the way that I got really into. All of this was after college. I got really interested in the peace Corps. One of my best friends went to Bolivia. This was back when we were pen pals, cause they didn't have internet in Bolivia. And I just became really fascinated with it. Now the whole time that I was. Her pen pal. I was also working as a graphic designer and I was like, I want to do this. And I got married and my husband and I ultimately what to Kazakhstan and lived overseas for two years. And it just kind of took away like all of the creature comforts. and I realized how much I love projects and it also kind of changed my own mindset. So I came back, I had, you know, Went back and got a master's degree in leadership and management. I led a...

Speaker 1: I've learned that people will forget what you said. People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel, by Maya Angelou. I am Michelle Oates and I'm a Tri-Cities Influencer. Paul Casey: What specific behaviors must everyone on your team do every week to live out the vision and keep it alive? One of the only ways change happens in a company is if people change their behavior and align it to the vision. Speaker 3: Raising the water level of leadership in the Tri-Cities of Eastern Washington, it's the Tri-Cities Influencer Podcast. Welcome to the TCI Podcast where local leadership and self-leadership expert, Paul Casey, interviews local CEOs, entrepreneurs and non-profit executives, to hear how they lead themselves and their teams, so we can all benefit from their wisdom and experience. And here's your host, Paul Casey of Growing Forward Services, coaching and equipping individuals and teams to spark breakthrough success. Paul Casey: It's a great day to grow forward. Thanks for joining me for today's episode with Jennifer Cunnington. She is the home loan sales manager of STCU here in the Tri-Cities. And a fun fact about her, is I found a lady who likes fantasy football, but Jen, you better tell us more about that. Jennifer Cunnington: Yes, indeed Paul. Thanks for having me. Yeah. My family put together a league a few years back and I was the only girl. And so I thought that I had to do a ton of research in order to be good at it. Over the years I've rested on my own laurels a little bit, but they always tease me, because I do so much research. I haven't won yet, but I've come pretty close. Top five out of 10, I think is pretty good. So I'm still working on it. Paul Casey: Awesome. Well, we're going to dive in after checking in with our Tri-City Influencer sponsor, Mario Martinez, Northwestern Mutual. Mario, what types of services do you offer? Marion Martinez: Hey Paul, thank you for letting me be on here. We run bifurcated practices and then we focus in two areas of a financial plan. The first one is, we do protection pieces, which include life insurance, disability insurance, long-term care insurance, really the things that people should be focused on to protect their families, their businesses. And on the other side of our practices, we do investment services. And on the investment platforms, we do both the brokerage platform and we do the advisory level services. So, depending on what someone's looking for, as far as guidance on their investment strategies, we can curtail and build a strategy for them that makes sense. Paul Casey: Mario, how can people get in touch with you? Marion Martinez: The easiest way, you can reach out to me directly on my business cell phone is 509-591-5301. You can send me an email at mario.martinez@nm.com or you can reach out to us on our social media platforms. The easiest one being Mario Martinez - Northwestern Mutual on Facebook. Paul Casey: Thank you for your support of leadership development in the Tri-Cities. Well, welcome Jen. I was privileged to meet you through leadership Tri-Cities just a couple of years ago. It seems like it's been longer. And you were a shining star in your class. What number was that again? Jennifer Cunnington: Best class ever. Paul Casey: Yet again, best class ever. And we've done some work together, with some team building with your awesome team over there, STCU. I'm glad you could join us today. So start us off by telling us a little bit about your career highlights that led to what you're doing now and why do you love what you do? Jennifer Cunnington: Yeah. Well, I started in banking when I was in college and then just was introduced to the mortgage arena through that big financial institution. Then I went to work for a credit company who started acquiring banks, back in the day. And so, because I was the only one with a little bit of knowledge about something big that they were going to be involved in, they took advantage of that. And I rolled with it, learned a lot about things I had not a lot of knowledge about, but that helped me embark on this... Gosh, I won't say how many years, but have had just a really engaging time in this industry. Jennifer Cunnington: So, I had a lot of really wonderful mentors and as I went through different positions in finance, I decided that I wanted to be on the forefront of the origination part, because I wanted my clients to have the very best experience possible. So, I really wanted them to get to the closing table, feeling comfortable with paperwork, and there's a ton of it. And really understanding what their terms were and that it was all in their best interest. So, it's been a big ride over the years. I've gotten to do some really, really fun things and meet a lot of great people. And now we're here. Paul Casey: And why do you love what you do? Jennifer Cunnington: I love what I do, because really being able to assess needs and be a part of one of the biggest financial decisions in one's life, is huge. Really priding myself over the years of gaining that knowledge of all different programs and the nuances of the benefits. Being able to provide that to people and helping them get into the homes and realize a lot of their financial goals is huge. Paul Casey: It's great to know that why; it reminds me of the tire commercial that it says, "It's not about the tires, it's about the child that's riding in the car." So, I love that your why is very clear of helping people with that big financial decision of buying a home. So throughout that journey, you hit some obstacles to success as we all do. There's some speed bumps there. What's one of the biggest hurdles that you overcame in your career? Jennifer Cunnington: Oh gosh. I think just the cycles in the financial industry is huge. Back in 2008, I was just really getting going in my career and of course, too big to fail. And so our economy goes through so many changes and the mortgage industry was a big part of that back then, but I didn't know any better because I was relatively new. And so I didn't know about some of the things that people used to do. I just was able to adapt quite quickly and just move forward with new procedures and regulations. And so, taking that all into account, I really wasn't that phased. And so I was really one of the lucky ones. Jennifer Cunnington: A lot of my friends and colleagues in the industry, unfortunately shut up to work and doors were locked. All those folks that they were trying to help, they weren't able to do so, because the companies ran out of money. Lots of different changes, but I think just being able to weather a lot of these cyclical changes that we experience from time to time, whether it be political, economic, all those things, are just huge. So, that was a big one. Paul Casey: So, you've used the word adapt a couple of times already. Why is that such a valuable skill for a leader? Jennifer Cunnington: Oh, well we have to be flexible. There's one thing that's constant, which is change. And so really if we find ourselves being too regimented, or set in our ways, we won't be able to move forward when these changes occur. So you really do have to have the flexibility to learn new things. And especially salespeople, they're not really good at that. We like the ways that we have our day set up. And the technology that we get just good enough at, to get to the next step and maybe have somebody else help us with the next things after that. But really, you have to be flexible with people as well. You have to know how to communicate effectively with all different types of folks. There are folks that come in and think that they know everything, that you're just going to be their conduit. But really, hopefully at the end, we can help them realize that we do have a little bit of knowledge and if we can add to what they already know, or help along with something that they don't, it really is important. Paul Casey: And I heard a John Maxwell quote the other day, "Change is inevitable. Growth is optional." Jennifer Cunnington: Oh, definitely. Paul Casey: So leadership is difficult. What is your biggest ongoing challenge as a leader? What really stretches you, either in just in a hard way, or just in a really good way? Jennifer Cunnington: Yeah. Well, I think I was a pretty good producer and so I was tapped to become a leader and we all know that not all producers, or successful salespeople make good managers. Paul Casey: Right. Jennifer Cunnington: You could be a manager or you can be a leader. Over the years, I have really evolved myself because I’m pretty direct, an achiever, if you will. All of Enneagram 3. And so I was brought up in the business as being really quite autonomous, but you can't do that when you're in leadership. And so I think my biggest challenge has been really employee engagement. We've got so many folks that come to this business because they hear it's super easy, anybody can do it. People have the ability to be so exponentially successful, but not everybody can be good at it. Jennifer Cunnington: And so it takes a lot of effort and engagement. And so employee engagement really has been my challenge, all different personality types, aptitudes, styles of communicating, all those types of things, played big roles. And as leaders we're really have to find out a little bit more about each of our team members, to find out what makes them tick, to hopefully appeal to that, to give them maybe more resources or direct them to those resources, so that they can become better. And that helps everybody involved. So that's been a really big challenge. Paul Casey: Love employee engagement. And you said one of those ways is to fully get to know your team and what makes them tick, what maxes them out, what's their sweet spot for them. You got another employee engagement tip that you tend to employ? Jennifer Cunnington: Yeah. Well, we have been really fortunate to be able to take advantage of some team building. Paul, you were helping us as well, and it's true learning about each other. So, anybody can want to do this autonomously, but really I think when you surround yourself with a really wonderful team, it's great to know a little bit about a lot of things because the rest of us can fill in those gaps. But providing resources and like I said, directing people toward things that they might be interested in, what really might push their button, as you mentioned. But team building I think is big, because again, it takes a village to do what we do. We can't do it by ourselves. There's absolutely no way. Jennifer Cunnington: And so learning how to rely on each other, be truthful and open, and say, "Hey, I need some help." And then being open to that assistance and then also rewarding each other. A lot of our support staff, they don't always get the recognition that they deserve. And so it's really buying into that mindset of, it does take a village. And so it's really a holistic environment. And more and more, as time goes on, with all of the changes that we were alluding to earlier, you really do need a wonderful team and that's an expansive effort, not just your team that you see every day, but all those folks behind the scenes that are helping make your clients experience the best that it can be. Paul Casey: Fantastic. And you alluded to the Enneagram assessment, and maybe our listeners don't know what that is. It's probably the most ancient of the personality assessments. You could say, it's having a resurgence lately, through a gentleman named Ian Morgan Cron. And he wrote a book, The Road Back to You, which I would give as a recommend for you Tri-City Influencer listeners. And Jen is a three and I'm a three as well, which is the achiever one. And achievers, also one of these strengths finder strengths, which we got to do with your team. And if you take the CliftonStrengths Assessment, it will give you your five top strengths. And you read it, and you're just like, "Wow, that is so me." And everybody else nods their head and, "That is so you." Then you can place people in the right spot in an organization, or when you have a project to come up, you know where to place people. Jennifer Cunnington: Exactly. Paul Casey: Well, if you had a leadership philosophy, and you've probably already alluded to some of it already, what would you put front and center on a bulletin board in your office for all to see, what would those messages say? Jennifer Cunnington: Well, I think because I'm a little linear, the first one is, input equals output. One of my mentors, a long time ago told me that, and it's about engagement and commitment to the process. And so really I still believe that, we can do the minimum and we can get a little bit less back potentially. But if we just go a little bit above and beyond, imagine what the possibilities would be. So input equals output, but on the more emotional side, it's do what you love. Most of us have choices of what our profession is, and I would recommend that everybody really dig deeper, especially as we get a little older and we're really settling in and becoming experts in our fields. It's so good to recognize that, Hey, what I'm doing right now, I really like it. And to find out why, and to really take a deeper dive into looking into the why. Paul Casey: That maybe isn't like, Woo hoo. I love every aspect of it, to try to find out those areas of your job at 20%, that really does light you up and try to spend more time there. And it's like football, I can't do that either. Well, there's probably a hobby, or some other passion that you can light up outside of work that will carry over into work, because I find if one area of your life is humming, then it bleeds over into the rest of life. So I love that and love the input equals output. It reminds me of the saying, "You reap what you sow". So, you get what you give and put into it. Most influencers I know, have a bit of a visionary inside of them in order to take that next hill. Where do you take time to dream about the future? What does that look like? Jennifer Cunnington: I have sisters-in-law, that are just wonderful. And so one of them just signed me up for book of the month club. And so, it gives you some choices every month, all different genres, but I'm still getting back to now. Finding more time to read, taking some more time, especially what we've been through this year in 2020. Some of the solitude that we have been forced into in different ways, has given us a little bit more time to start reading about things that we love and then engaging back into professional books as well. You just mentioned a couple. There's some really great ones at the beginning of the year, took a look at that Brendon Burchard book, High Performance Habits, all those good things. But I think it's really important to... If you love to read, get into that. Jennifer Cunnington: Podcasts are awesome. So if you're in the car a lot, just taking the time to actually research them, download a couple, so that you have something a little bit more interesting to listen to, maybe than just constantly searching the radio stations. But really now, I think it's future planning. I do this with my team a lot and I'm always encouraging them to revamp business plans all the time, because the world isn't just changing around us, but the economy's changing, our industry landscape changes all the time. So being able to take a look at all of these factors and then put it into a plan. How can we back into it? Where do you want to be? Jennifer Cunnington: And so, I still love Pinterest. I'm getting a little bit bigger on Instagram. I know people are laughing, a lot of pictures of my new dog, but- Paul Casey: I've seen him. Jennifer Cunnington: ...I think he's adorable. So, but motivational quotes and stuff, tons of people have been sharing those. And you never know when that one post that you put out there in the universe that day, is going to make an impact on somebody else. And so I think that's huge too. Paul Casey: How far do you future forecast with your team as far as business planning? Do you go out one year? Do you go out more than that? Is it just quarterly? Jennifer Cunnington: Great question. We started with just one year, especially as we have a little bit newer folks getting into this full-time. And then mid year, of course, we keep mentioning this year, but we have to make some adjustments. And so, we've been taking a look at those more frequently, but our standard business plan, everybody I think can have a pie in the sky goal of five years. But you never know what life is going to hand you, say in June of any set years. So really, the focus is one year and then scaling into it on a monthly basis and then having connections, what we call connection meetings. Trying to still do that once a month at least, and find out just one-on-one where they're at, what other resources they might need, what challenges they're having specifically and how we can triage and solve those equations for them. But it's all meant to be able to provide them with a better experience for their clients as well. Paul Casey: Yes. And I'll kudos the audio books and the podcasts. And usually I have the Libby app for here, the Mid-Columbia Libraries going, I read the 4-Hour Workweek, on vacation last week. So I'm able to do that on the way there and back, got the audible. I usually get the free one with Prime, always using that credit, and then podcasts or so. Those little bursts of 30 minutes that you can stay current with things, or just get that inspirational burst. Well, before we head into our next question on Jen's typical morning routine, let's do a shout out to our sponsor, Mario Martinez, Northwestern Mutual. Mario, why should people work with a financial advisor? Marion Martinez: Hey, Paul, that's a great question. Really, I think there's two types of people who should be seeking out a financial professional. The one person is somebody who has very limited access to financial guidance. Maybe they're a younger professional, or somebody who just hasn't had an introduction to a financial professional yet. And the other type of person, is really someone who has a lot of different exposure to different professionals. They just haven't found the one person that they really trust to take guidance from. So there's really an over information in that sense. So those are really the two types of people that should be looking to be introduced to a financial professional. Paul Casey: Fantastic. So Mario, how can people get in touch with you? Marion Martinez: The easiest ways to reach out to me directly on my business cell phone, which is 509-591-5301. You can send an email to mario.martinez@nm.com or you can find us on our business Facebook page, which is Mario Martinez - Northwestern Mutual. Paul Casey: So Jen, what's your typical morning routine before work, maybe even once you arrive at work, if there's any rituals that you do to start your day strong? Jennifer Cunnington: Well, I love to exercise and in the beginning of the year, it was three times a week. We get up super early. My husband and I would take part in what we call, triad class, which changes, but it was a punch class. So it's essentially boxing with a small group of people. 5:00 AM. We get home about 6:15. Get ready. I love to make breakfast in the morning. I think that that's super important just to have a couple of minutes, not necessarily talk about work, but just to talk about where our days are going. Jennifer Cunnington: But those things have changed a little bit, now it's sometimes still more working out, maybe online, just became a beach body coach too. So yeah, putting that out into the universe. And a lot of my friends, they were just reaching out for some camaraderie. Everybody's going through the same thing and if I can just find a little bit more energy and I can help them too, then that's been super great, but we just got a new puppy I mentioned. And so boy, that's changed our routine a little bit. So. But still, I think exercise is key to finding some kind of an outlet for yourself, so that you can clear that path from the day before, to get ready for the day ahead. Paul Casey: Love that. Love that so much. Yeah. The gym just opened again, so happy to get that routine back. Because it was hard and I did some of the video workouts as well there. Can't keep up with them, but I gave it a try. Jennifer Cunnington: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Very good. Paul Casey: But it is really important that we move. We try to get moving, especially as we've been quarantined and it's been just difficult. How do you deal with the everyday grind of your work without burning out? So I heard, exercise. I've heard you listen to motivational things. What else? Jennifer Cunnington: Well, I love music, all different kinds. And so every chance I get... Haven't really been able to go to concerts, so getting online and watching just little titbits of concerts or YouTube. I really like, like I said, all different kinds of music, but EDM and cello music. So I find, if I especially put that on, as soon as I get home, I'm able to download a little bit from the day that just happened and do that. I've got a great tennis team. We still managed to play a really good tennis tournament a couple of weekends ago outside. Paul Casey: Wow. Jennifer Cunnington: And so really staying in touch with just all different kinds of people too. It takes a lot of effort when we're just trying to take care of ourselves sometimes, but really reaching out to at least one person a day that you want to keep in contact with. And it's not so much about you. It's about finding out, gee, what's new with them, what's going on in their life? And I don't like to really watch the news right now. That's a bummer, sometimes a little frustrating, but we can still make our worlds, even if we are living in our own sphere right now, as good as we can. And so, reaching out to people, exercise. Of course puppies again. Paul Casey: The pound doesn't keep too many animals these days. Jennifer Cunnington: No, but I think family is a big thing as well. I mentioned I'm super close with my family and I think that's a real blessing as well. So we've got our great friends, but if you've got great family, that's just an extension of your support system. Paul Casey: Yeah. I totally agree. We have to reach out to one person a day. A text only takes a few seconds to at least initiate, and I found, throughout the years, friends have really appreciated when I have initiated. I always appreciate when they do, because we're just in our worlds. And then someone has to put themselves in front of you to be able to focus. And I was like, "Oh yes. How are you?" And all of a sudden you're back in that place where you were before. So relational wellness is huge, especially in this land of COVID. And love music too, because that's a dopamine release that we get. Yeah, I tell Alexa to play electronic chill music as well. Jennifer Cunnington: Usually they sound great. Paul Casey: They do. They do. Good stuff. So you mentioned family, it's a big deal. So how do you prioritize family time, yet still be a high performer at work? Because sometimes one or the other has to give. And again, I know we're in the land of COVID right now, so maybe you can answer before and after COVID. Jennifer Cunnington: For sure. Well, I think before, that connection with your immediate family was there. We were able to have so much more flexibility to see each other and to really plan activities. Gosh, this year was going to be the year of vacations with friends and family. And so I got a ton of vouchers, I have no idea how I'm going to use them all, but really just having routines too. I mentioned tennis. We just have different groups of people, but family is a huge part. The balance too, was there a whole lot more, before summer. Now, I think we've become really more reactive. And so we're working on that, because I think we're having to reset now that we've gone through this season. We've just been so busy and I hate that word sometimes, because busy is just a- Paul Casey: Intentionally scheduled. Jennifer Cunnington: ...general word. Yeah. But just, I think that the volume of our electronic communication has increased. And so we went from maybe talking on the phone, or meeting in person and being able to knock out a whole lot of conversation and business that way, to now being so focused on Zoom meetings and Teams meetings and email. And I think that does force one to struggle a little bit with how they're prioritizing their day, because when everything is so scheduled within certain timeframes where you have to be seen online, it does hinder the ability to be super relational, as you mentioned. Paul Casey: That blurs the lines. Doesn't it? Jennifer Cunnington: Yeah. And so scheduling maybe from 7:00 or 7:30 to sometimes six o'clock at night, when other folks have already been online working and now you have to maybe meet needs of clients, but you really need to download a little bit and get back to your family and your safe place. That has been a struggle. And so right now I think we're going through a period of reset and just re-introducing ourselves out into the universe and if... The weather's changing. So we're forced to find other avenues where we can still get in touch with people and make sure we get all of our work done, but in a more efficient way now that we don't have so much coming at us. Paul Casey: Yeah. And they say due to Zoom fatigue, which is a real thing now. The wellness experts are saying we have to get eight hours of sleep, even if you could get by with six or seven before, you got to get eight, because it's a different kind of tired. Just stare at the screen all day. Jennifer Cunnington: Yeah. It's almost like from the neck up. Paul Casey: It is. Jennifer Cunnington: Because your brain is working overtime already. And then you're like, okay, well I've got 15 minutes for a quick break and then I got to get back on. And so you're never really able to take a breather. Paul Casey: Good for you for the 15 minute break. Because I find myself getting too back to back and if I can run across the room and do some stretching, or anything to move, even if I go to the furthest bathroom in my house in between, it's still movement. In between say, get out of that chair. Jennifer Cunnington: Yeah. Paul Casey: Well, influencers aren't know-it-alls, but they're learners. And I know you're a learner, Jen. So where do you go for the wisest advice? These can be, people here in the Tri-Cities, it could be authors and motivators, or industry professionals that you've never met, but they're your mentors from afar. Jennifer Cunnington: Yeah. So, I mentioned that I've had some wonderful mentors in my career and now I'm grateful to be able to call on my spheres. So we were just talking about electronic communication, being able to check in with folks and find out what they're going through. Is there a better way to do something for right now? That's huge. But I always go back to the lessons I've learned out of some of my favorite books. From a sales perspective, we've got Darren Hardy. The Compound Effect was one of the first books I ever read. Again, input equals output. Your efforts are important in order to meet your goals. Jennifer Cunnington: One of my favorite books too is called, The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand. And it's a really interesting study on sociology. Two people, seemingly on the same path, but the choices that they make, make all the difference. And so I love, love, love that book and really can use anecdotes from that book for a lot of different situations that we go through on a regular basis. We mentioned I love podcasts and I don't always do it well. I have time to download them first. So I'm always going, oh, I should listen to that one. Oh, darn it, I didn't get to it. But Brendon Burchard, we talked about him. Dave Harney. Todd Duncan, he's one of my industries gurus and he's written a ton of books, but gets back down to common sense. You start with the want to help people, and then you just apply yourself in the right direction to get the knowledge that you need in order to do so. Jennifer Cunnington: Tim Ferriss is a big one. You mentioned The 4-Hour Workweek. He keeps revamping that. He puts out a Friday email. He tells us about a book he's reading, he's got a podcast as well. And then his favorite quote. So again, I love quotes. I love learning new words, English minor- Paul Casey: Me too. Jennifer Cunnington: Great. Paul Casey: Love grammar. Jennifer Cunnington: So all those good things and also I like reality TV. I think that we could find a lot of cool things from some of these, especially industry reality TV shows. Some of the Million Dollar Listing and things like that. There's a guy named Ryan Serhant, I'm not being paid for that, but he had a show for a while called, Sell It Like Serhant. It's just about, again learn a little bit about what you're doing and how it affects people. And then eventually you learn how to help them the best that you can. Paul Casey: Well, Jen just gave a whole bunch of great resources. So they'll be in the show notes and you might want to hit the rewind button and jot some of those down. For my podcasts, I use Castbox to find other people's podcasts. And so then they're all lined up in the library, so you can click on them. So finally, what advice would you give to new leaders or anyone who wants to keep growing and gaining more influence? Jennifer Cunnington: Yeah. So I always say, my mentors' helped me define my goals. So those would then help you determine your path. I think anytime you get into a job, some people look at it as just that, a job, but you really need to define first what you want to accomplish and then how the heck are you going to get there? And so a lot of things that we've talked about today, are about applying yourself, getting that knowledge, because again, anybody can do jobs. But to be the best that you can be, you've really got to dig a little bit deeper and figure out some resources that are going to work for you. So that's one of my biggest pieces of advice and it's not always easy to do. Some days we just wake up and we might have really good mojo. By noon, it's gone. But then, we all hope that something great is going to happen near the end of the day, so we can go home with a smile on our face. Jennifer Cunnington: You can have goals, but you still need to have a path to achieve them. And it takes a lot of work to do business planning and figure out what system works for you. Then I would also recommend trying to figure out how to prioritize. I'm a list maker, I make too many lists, those who know me, I have 18 notebooks. Paul Casey: Good point for the list makers. Jennifer Cunnington: Oh my goodness. So I know that there's got to be a better way. There was a time when I was a lot more efficient. Again, I talked about reactivity right now, so it's just whatever path is going to be best for you, to be able to reach those goals and attain your dreams. Paul Casey: Define the goals to determine your path. So Tri-City Influencer listeners, good advice there. And then, like she's mentioned earlier, backing into that with the prioritization of your time, to literally get those done by putting them into your daily schedule, your weekly scheduling, your monthly schedule, to eventually get at that yearly goal. So Jen, how can our listeners best connect with you? Jennifer Cunnington: Absolutely. Well, online of course, my website is stcu.org and then you can look JenniferC or a phone number 509-598-7711. Our team is out and about in the universe as well. We've got a great community relations team that's always out there. We're extremely philanthropic. So we're definitely around the community and we'd love to connect with you. Paul Casey: Well, thank you again, Jen, for all you do to make the Tri-Cities a great place and keep leading well. Jennifer Cunnington: Thanks Paul. Paul Casey: Let me wrap up our podcast today with a leadership resource to recommend. A lot of people say, I need to be more assertive. Well, there's actually a website that you can assess how assertive you are. It's TheHRSpecialist.com. And if you go into TheHRSpecialist.com, you can look up these 18 questions to test your ability to be positively persuasive they say. So how assertive are you at TheHRSpecialist.com. And remember, you don't have to be aggressive, but we all can up our confidence a little bit more and be more assertive. Again, this is Paul Casey. I want to thank my guest, Jen Cunnington from STCU, for being here today on the Tri-City Influencer Podcast. And we want to thank our TCI sponsor and invite you to support them. We appreciate you making this possible so we can collaborate to inspire leaders in our community. Finally, one more leadership titbit for the road to help you make a difference in your circle of influence. It's from Bruce Lee, he said "A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer." Until next time KGF, keep growing forward. Speaker 3: Thank you to our listeners for tuning into today's show. Paul Casey is on a mission to add value to leaders by providing practical tools and strategies that reduce stress in their lives and on their teams, so that they can enjoy life and leadership and experience their key desired results. If you'd like more help from Paul in your leadership development, connect with him at growingforward@paulcasey.org, for a consultation that can help you move past your current challenges and create a strategy for growth in your life or your team forward. Paul would also like to help you restore your sanity to your crazy schedule and getting your priorities done everyday, by offering you his free Control My Calender Checklist. Go to www.takebackmycalender.com for that productivity tool, or open a text message to 72000 and type the word "growth". Paul Casey: Tri-Cities Influencer podcast is recorded at Fuse SPC by Bill Wagner of Safe Strategies

In today's ‘cancel culture', the stakes of making a mistake are very high, especially when it comes to topics of diversity, inclusion, & equity.   We can no longer avoid talking about, even if we feel uncomfortable or inept in this conversation.   Diversity is good for our businesses & lives because diversity creates INNOVATION.   So Jen invited DEI trainer Susan McCuistion to the podcast to teach her how to understand differences so we can communicate & work together - with more ease.  You'll walk away with a few tools to get thinking about how to mitigate bias between us - gender, race, sexuality, etc. etc. etc. so we can stop being polite & start to KNOW each other.  

Moving Away from Fear Toward an Authentic Life with Jen Pastiloff We should never forget who we are and what we want, even with adversity in our lives. Our purpose and identity are what keep us going. No matter what society tells us about how and who we should be, living an authentic life will bring satisfaction and happiness in our lives. It's time to reflect and ask ourselves if we are living the life we’ve always wanted. And if we find ourselves saying no, may we have the courage to start again and build the life we desire. In this episode, Jen Pastiloff talks to us about the importance of living a life congruent with our true selves and moving away from fear. Discussions on how to prevent ourselves from being paralyzed from fear are essential as we continue to live through a global pandemic and civil unrest. She also talks about how she's helping amplify the voices of the vulnerable sectors of society and why she doesn't believe that everything happens for a reason. If you want to hear tips on how to live an authentic life that’s congruent with who you are, listen to the full episode. Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: Discover why you need to live a life congruent with your authentic self. Learn helpful ways to move away from fear. Jen will share with us how she feels radically loved. Resources On Being Human: A Memoir of Waking Up, Living Real, and Listening Hard by Jennifer Pastiloff Create a daily meditation ritual in just seven days! Download BUILD YOUR DAILY MEDITATION RITUAL and other freebies at RadicallyLoved.com! FREE workbook! Apply the lessons you learn from this episode as you listen! Enter your email below and I’ll send it right away! Episode Highlights Living a Congruent Life Just like everybody else, Jen still struggles with living true to who she is. Living an authentic life gives you freedom. Just like how gossiping and complaining don't make you feel good and lower your vibration, not living a life congruent with your real self will not bring you happiness. Coping During the COVID-19 Pandemic Due to the pandemic's impacts, Jen had to cancel a lot of her schedule, which prevented her from earning. To cope with the stress, she chose to use her platform to raise money for people suffering from the ongoing health crisis and the Black Lives Matter movement. Doing online workshops also gives her hope during this challenging period. Moving Away from Fear Jen copes with her anxieties by moving her body. Find your people who will hold you accountable and remind you of who you really are. Fear starts to get louder when you're at home all day long. Due to the current state of the world, many people lack human connection, and it adds to the fear they're having. Jen finds the strength within her to jump on new things even though she feels afraid. Jen’s Main Anchor in Life Jen inherited her dad's sense of humor. Learning humor’s value and not taking herself too seriously helped her find balance in her life. Everything is temporary. So Jen encourages everyone to remain grateful for the things they have right now. Her ability to connect with people is also one thing that keeps her on the right path. Does Everything Happen for a Reason? Instead of saying everything happens for a reason, according to Jen, it's much better to find the meaning out of a situation. She doesn't agree that the suffering of other people is something preordained. The phrase “everything happens for a reason” is just a way for people to cope with the discomfort they feel about something. That said, Jen does not invalidate how the phrase provides comfort to religious people or people of faith. Using Her Platform for Social Justice Jen reminds everyone that it doesn't cost anything to be kind and help other people. Helping others feels organic to her. Jen is aware of her privilege as a white woman. So she makes sure she uses her platform to amplify the voices of the people who don't share the same privilege. 5 Powerful Quotes from This Episode [07:11] “All I ever want to be is free, and kind, and various other things, but free, ultimately, from the prison that most of us put ourselves in.” [08:18] “May I have the courage to be who I say I am.”  [22:27] “I know what I'm good at. I'm good at being in a room with 75 or a hundred people in person. But I don't know how this was gonna work. I'm afraid, and I'm doing it anyway.” [23:40] “If it becomes a lifetime of being afraid and not doing it, then you get kind of screwed.” [30:27] “I don't think everything happens for a reason at all. I think that's nonsense. I think that after something happens, we can make meaning out of it sometimes, or art, or find the gift in it.” About Jen Jen Pastiloff is a yoga and wellness teacher and author. Her sold-out workshops all over the world have helped thousands of women feel empowered and stronger. She also founded the online magazine The Manifest-Station. Her book On Being Human is a memoir on how she overcame her demons and lived a life full of happiness and beauty. If you want to connect with Jen, you may visit her Instagram or website.  Enjoy the Podcast? If you felt radically loved from listening to this podcast, subscribe and share it with the people you love! Love to give us 5 stars? If you do, we'd love a review from you. Help us reach more people and make them feel loved. Do you want to help people live a congruent life? A simple way is to share what you've learned today on social media. Don't forget to send us messages on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Thanks for listening!  To feeling radically loved, Rosie

Jen set out to provide a brief history into children's toys, but quick discovered what a foolish plan that had been. The wealth of information on any one toy is astounding! So Jen dug into one of the most foundational children's games - knucklebones. Listen in to learn about this game and where the name comes from. And in our listener story segment, "Your Parents Did What?!" we share some sweet, fascinating, and creepy tales from some of our favorite listeners.

Lisa & Jen wanted to review Peter Nygard’s appearances on the 1992 season of Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous. But overnight the video disappeared, along with his corporate website.So we take you through a 2008 Bahamas Weekly promotion featuring Nygard. So get on YouTube and let us guide you through the life and times of Peter Nygard.Sorry if the sound’s a bit scratchy. We wanted to get it out ASAP. So Jen had her first go at editing sound.Please support the podcast on Patreon. Benefits from $3-a-month.Follow The Prince and the Pervert:FacebookTwitter: @lisaltait @ohreallytrulyBlog: Epstein WikipodInstagram

Jen’s whole life changed when her daughter was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. She shares valuable advice on how to find joy and hope even with diagnosis. Jennifer’s Bio Jennifer Hepworth is a wonderful woman who was born in Southern California, but calls Gilbert, Arizona home. She currently lives in Davis County, Utah. She married her husband seven years ago and they have four awesome children. Jen spends her free time volunteering for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and sitting on the Intermountain’s Cystic Fibrosis Parent Advisory Council and working the women in her church organization. She also is a volunteer in her children’s classroom and in the PTO. She spends a lot of her time driving her children around to all of their activities. I met Jen a couple of years ago and she has been blessed and challenged with a daughter who has cystic fibrosis. I will be the first to admit that when her daughter was diagnosed, I didn’t really know what it was. And so I watched her go through those early years of diagnosis and figuring stuff out, and I was on inspired by her. What is Cystic Fibrosis? Cystic Fibrosis (abbreviated CF) is a genetic disease which affects most organs in your body, but primarily the respiratory and digestive systems. The genetic mutation causes the CFTR protein not to function correctly. So your salt doesn’t go the places it’s supposed to go. So people with CF end up with very sticky mucus which lines their lungs, intestines, stomach, and it wraps around their pancreas. If you are a healthy person, your mucus has the consistency of water. With CF, the mucus is more like peanut butter and so it’s very easy for bacteria to stick in there. So, if a person with CF gets a cold, that bacteria can overgrow and cause a lung infection and they can go into the hospital for two weeks. It’s usually 10 to 14 days for IV antibiotics after doses at home and trying to get it kicked at home. That hospital stays are often part of the treatment for people with CF. Jennifer’s Story Penny is Born Jen had been married for 8 months when she got pregnant with their first daughter. Jen had a really hard pregnancy and was on bed rest and had to stop working. So Jen and her husband John actually moved in with her in-laws who were wonderful and let them take over their basement. Finally Penny was born and they were in love with this darling baby. Penny kept doing this “snort” like she was trying to gasp for air and snort. Jen took the problem to her doctor, and they passed it off as Jen being a crazy first time mom. Penny was learning how to breathe correctly. Is Something Wrong? So, the third time she had Penny in, they told Jen they needed to talk to her about something. They then told Jen that Penny’s newborn screening had flagged for cystic fibrosis. This was shock to Jen. The only thing she knew about cystic fibrosis was that John’s cousin passed away from it when she was 14 years-old. So, all Jen knew was that CF was life limiting. The doctor’s office told her they had an appointment for her the next day at Primary Children’s Hospital, to do a sweat test. So, they went and had to wrap Penny’s arm they put gauze and then make her sweat. And three weeks old babies don’t really sweat. So she held Penny and had a space blanket wrapped around her trying to get a little bit of sweat so they could see what her sweat chloride was. And while they were waiting, there was a genetic counselor who came to talk to them. She explained that if Penny got a mutation from John and a mutation from her that it was a one in four chance. Jen felt horrible when they told her this. She thought, “Cool. Great. Thanks. I did this to my baby.” In the hours between when the pediatrician told her this is a possibility and the results coming in, she had convinced herself it was just a...

GUEST BIO: Jen Bunk is a career coach for tech managers, helping them to upgrade their teams, careers, paychecks and lives. Jen is also the host of the People Stack podcast, where she interviews authors, coaches and leaders of tech companies from around the world. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s show is Jen Bunk. Her path into the world of IT was a long one. She started out working in the academic world. Today, she helps tech managers to upgrade their careers. She teaches them how to share what they are doing and the value that adds effectively. That is in a way that quickly leads to promotion, bigger paychecks and a better work-life balance. Her advice is tailored to fit in with the career objectives of each of the people she helps. Jen is the host of the People Stack podcast for which she interviews career coaches, authors and tech leaders, for around the globe. KEY TAKEAWAYS: (0.56) – So Jen, can I ask you to expand on that brief intro and tell us a little bit more about yourself? Jen starts by saying how cool it is for her to be interviewed rather than being the one doing the interviewing. She explains that she is a career coach for technical managers. That means that she helps engineering managers, IT managers, technical project and product managers and others. Occasionally, she will work with data analytics specialists or science team leaders too. She helps these people to upgrade their careers. To get a promotion, move fields get a raise and a lot more besides. Her aim is to help them to do this without having to work ridiculously long hours to achieve this. (2.46) – Do the people you work with have different career objectives? Jen says yes, everyone has a unique story. So, they have different goals and career paths that they want to follow. But, there is one thing that ties them all together. They all feel that they are stuck in their career. Usually, they have worked hard to try to progress, but not been able to do so. Others are doing OK, but are having to work ridiculous hours to achieve what they want or stay in their roles. Most of her clients are middle management. Typically, she is working with the people who directly lead the tech teams. (4.03) – Can you please share a unique career tip with the I.T. career audience? If you want to upgrade your career, it is not enough to be excellent, and strive to be the best and continually add value. That is only part of it. You need to evangelize that excellence; essentially you have to become good at self-promotion. Jen calls it self promotion on steroids. You need to let others know what you are doing and how it is benefiting the organization you work for. (5.13) - So, do you have any specific suggestions of how people should go about doing that themselves? Jen says that this type of self-promotion has to be done carefully. First, you have to get comfortable with the fact that you are going to have to promote yourself. Self-promotion is something that makes a lot of people squirm. What you need to do to get started depends on the circumstances you are in. If you are not doing any self-promoting you need to ask yourself why that is and work out how to get started. Whereas, if you are already doing it and it is not working you would need to take a different approach. Perhaps you would need to communicate more clearly or share what you are doing in other arenas. There is no one size fits all answer. (6.29) – Can you tell us about your worst career moment? And what you learned from that experience. Jen explains that in her former life, she was a college professor. About 10 years into her career, she applied for promotion and tenure. A move that is not uncommon, often, the two go hand in hand. The process of gaining tenure and getting promoted is a long one that typically takes about a year. It involves working with and being assessed by various departments at different levels. For example, working with the Dean of the College, as you go through each level you are assessed. This process starts at the department level. So, initially it is your colleagues, people you work with every day that consider your applications. Unfortunately, at this stage, the department committee told her they were happy to support her for tenure, but not for promotion. Naturally, Jen was shocked and angry. It was a real ‘what just happened to me moment?’ Getting through the meeting was a trial. She could not work out why her colleagues had made that decision. In the end, both the Dean and the provost supported and recommended her. So, ultimately she got tenure and promotion. It was not a great experience, but it was one that Jen learned from. Only then did she realize that the Dean knew what she was doing so could understand the value she was adding. But, importantly, the people she worked with every day did not. The result of that situation was nearly disastrous. (10.03) – Presumably you have taken what you learned from that experience and applied it to your coaching career. Jen says yes definitely. That is where her ‘evangelizing your excellence’ message came from. Her anger at her colleagues turned to understanding when she realized she had not made sure they knew what she was contributing. It was a hard lesson to learn, but a learning moment that means she can be very effective at stopping others from continuing to make a similar mistake. (11.20) – Phil asks Jen what their best career moment was. For Jen, that has been being able to grow her coaching business at an astonishing rate. After just 3 years in business, they reached the 6 figure turnover point. This was a huge achievement in an industry where most coaches typically turnover between $30,000 and $40,000 per annum. It is an achievement that shows what they are doing is effective. Her clients are getting amazing results. (12.20) – Phil says I assume you get some great career stories from the people you are working with. Jen agrees and explains that she is now sharing more of them. At first it felt a little weird, after all these are personal stories. But, she has found that when people are doing great they really want to share their experience with others. (13.00) – Can you tell us what excites you about the future of the IT industry and careers? The fact it is always changing is what excites Jen the most about the industry. The other day, her husband was talking to their nine-year-old son about what he wants to do when he is older. He ended up explaining that neither of the jobs his parents do now and love doing did not even exist when they were kids. Within the IT industry, new careers are constantly emerging. Phil agrees and reminds the audience that this ever-changing landscape means that there are always plenty of opportunities for progress. (14.25) – What drew you to a career in IT? Even in the 80s, Jen loved tech. Her brother got a computer for Christmas. Jen wanted to play on it all the time. So, now she works in the industry she feels like she has come home somehow. (15.12) – What is the best career advice you have ever received? That would be – take extreme ownership of your career. Make sure you are always in the driver’s seat. Phil agrees the days where the firm you worked for automatically helped you to learn more and progress your career are long gone. (15.42) – If you were to begin your IT career again, right now, what would you do? Interestingly, Jen would not do anything differently. She has enjoyed everything she has done, so would do it all again. (16.11) – What are you currently focusing on in your career? In terms of her own career, Jen is building a million dollar business. To do this she will be pulling in other entrepreneur friends. The foundations of this have already been laid with the formation of the Two Comma Club. So, she is switching from fulfilling day to day functions and taking on more of a CEO role. Being the person who sets the strategic vision and leading the way. But, she still plans to do some coaching. Jen wants to continue to have direct access to clients. Phil summarizes this as becoming the person who works on the business rather than in the business. (17.38) – What is the number one non-technical skill that has helped you the most in your IT career? Being a good writer has proved important. But, for Jen her most important non-technical skill has been good time management. It has enabled her to be as effective as possible. (17.45) – Phil asks Jen to share a final piece of career advice with the audience. If you want to progress your career, you have to take true ownership of it.  When it comes to our careers many of us act like we are the pawns in a game of chess rather than the player. All too often we sit there waiting for opportunities to come along. Instead we should be acting like the player and be the one who makes things happen. You can, and should, be the one to move the pieces around the board. A client once told her that he felt like he was wearing a pair of golden handcuffs. He was making a lot of money and a great position, but, he did not really like where he worked. Plus, he was working 60 hours a week.  So, Jen asked him – who put those golden handcuffs on? Of course, it was him, which was great news because it meant that he could take them off. Phil says that is a great analogy. All you need to do to take them off is to realize that you have the key. BEST MOMENTS: (4.17) JEN – "It's not enough to simply be excellent, and strive to be the best and continually add value.” (4.58) JEN – “Building the excellence and the evangelist excellence coming together is what leads to career upgrading."  (15.16) JEN – "Take extreme ownership, it's your career. It's no one else's. You're in the driver's seat." (18.19) JEN – "I like to make sure that every moment is used as effectively and efficiently as possible" (19.49) JEN – "It can be really hard to realize that I'm the one who put myself in this situation. But I can get myself out because I'm the player, not just a pawn." CONTACT JEN: Twitter: https://twitter.com/JBunky @JBunky LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenbunk/ Company Website: https://thepeoplestack.com Personal Website: https://jenbunk.com

When Jen Sargent met her future husband Pete Sargent, she had no idea he was in chronic pain. But six months into their relationship he couldn't keep it from her anymore. She had no experience with chronic conditions. So Jen began to work around the pain. She would try to think ahead and adjust the things they would do. And she kept a positive attitude. But years went by and the pain became a part of their relationship and it affected their marriage. It's hard for caregivers to continually separate their loved one's pain from what's happening. Jen decided to become empowered. She became an ardent advocate for Pete's health and found him new doctors, helped him create a "one pager" about his medical history, and actually went with him to doctors appointments. She is deeply embedded in Pete's healthcare as another set of eyes and ears. Together they turned the corner and Pete has been nearly pain-free for the last eight years. And they have two adorable kids to top off this happy story! Bring tissues when you listen.Listen to Pete Sargent's story, "Nearly Pain-Free By His Resilience and His Wife's Advocacy", on this podcast, too. Their stories truly make you want to hug someone.

Athletes spend their lives fighting for a spot in a field of 2,000 triathletes in the most grueling competition on Earth. Their prize? Thrashing through a 2.4 mile open-water swim in the Pacific, fighting trade winds and a convection oven of heat on a 112-mile bike and finishing with a marathon - a 26.2-mile run. Becoming an IRONMAN at the World Championships at Kona wasn't a dream of Jen Ator's. As Fitness Director at Women's Health and author of The Women's Health Fitness Fix, she was happy to fit runs through Manhattan and no-nonsense strength-training workouts into her busy days. That all changed when reps from Chocolate Milk called with an offer to make her an IRONMAN. And while she said it took her a few days to accept the branid's invitation - an invitation to compete in a race that allows athletes 17 hours to finish - she now counts it as the goal she's proudest of accomplishing. Alongside her on the journey to Kona that she details on this week's episode of #WeGotGoals was an all-star cast. Eight-time Olympic medalist in speed skating Apolo Ohno would train with her and both Ator of Ohno received guidance from world-class coach and seven-time IRONMAN World champion Paula Newby-Fraser (a woman who does not know the word quit). Like most audacious goals, it didn't come without brief periods of imposter syndrome. Three months before her trip to Kona, Ator recounts a night spent crying and questioning her own abilities as the minutes slipped away between her and her first half IRONMAN race - a 1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike and 13.1-mile run. "Kind of by a act of God or stroke of grace or something, my watch kind of malfunctioned after the swim in the transition to the bike," she recalled of the race. "All I could do was be in the moment and do it. And I kind of just plugged along and I worked the plan that me and my coach had figured it out and really paid attention to my effort." Ator blew her "self-deprecating goal" out of the water and turned her new confidence and attention to Kona - the true test of her training. Because Ator was among an elite group of invite-only participants at Kona, she wasn't required to qualify for the race like the majority of participants. The thought of that made her feel unworthy of the field of competition. "I had a talk with one of the pro Ironman athletes before and he said, 'look Jen, maybe at the beginning of this you didn't deserve to be here. Sure maybe at the very beginning. But now you've done everything that all these other athletes have done to get here,'" She said. "That kind of attitude kind of helped carry me through the rest of the day." Even, she recalled, in the lava fields known for their heat and for the clear path that's left for unexpected gusts of wind known to knock riders clear off of their bikes. The wind was everything she'd heard. Ator recalled riding her ultra-light road bike in what's known as the arrow position. As she leaned over her handle bars, she shook with the fear that she may too have her race cut short by a fall. Newby-fraser preparing Ator for that exact moment: "You're going to be tempted to sit up and sit back because that's the instinct that feels safer ... that is the time that you need to lean in and commit because the safest thing you can do, practically speaking, is lean over that front wheel." Listen to how Ator's run at Kona concluded and where this author, editor and IRONMAN is setting her sights next. And if you like what you hear, be sure to rate and review #WeGotGoals on iTunes and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. --- JAC:Welcome to #WeGotGoals, a podcast by aSweatLife.com on which we talked to high achievers about their goals. I'm Jeana Anderson Cohen; with me, I have Kristin Geil and Maggie Umberger. KG: Good morning Jeana. JAC: Good morning. MU: Good morning. Jeana,  you spoke with Jen Ator, who is the fitness director of Women's Health this week. JAC:I sure did. And what an inspiration Jen is. Throughout our talk I think I gasped, I had a smile across my face and I definitely cried. MU:Good summary. And she is also an Ironman Kona finisher which I didn't know what that was prior to hearing this interview. JAC: So what’s actually really interesting about this is the campaign that Jen was a part of with chocolate milk is actually something I worked on in my past life the year before she was on it. So in 2013 I was a part of that campaign working on chocolate milk. And I got to see sort of the journey that she went through and I just missed her by a year. So throughout her explanation of sort of what she went through and how she was trained by Paula Newby-Fraser and how she had these incredible teammates like Apolo Ohno I could identify with that journey so deeply because I'd seen it once before. But her sort of personal take on it was so interesting to hear, one because she had been an athlete before and two because she had this sort of wavering journey of self-doubt accomplishment and in believing in herself just as I feel anyone does. The first time they do anything. KG: While she was training with chocolate milk team she had some sort of realization that she mentioned during the podcast. Can you speak to that and describe what her big epiphany was? JAC:She realized that she was the thing standing in her way which was incredible to hear her say because I believe that was the moment I cried. So Jen realized at the end of her half Ironman which is a 1.2 mile swim of 56 mile bike ride and a thirteen point one mile run she realized that she blew her own projected time out of the water because she wasn't running with a watch and there was a malfunction with it in her actual swim. She saw that she actually could accomplish so much more than she was giving herself credit for when she just sort of let go and was in the moment as an athlete and trusted her training. MU: And her training really is pretty simple she talks about loving just straight strength and running amidst being the fitness director of Women's Health. JAC: Yes. So her preferred training normally is not Ironman training. Ironman training is really involved. Oftentimes athletes will have to do two disciplines in one day sometimes morning sometimes evening or sometimes they'll have to stack them in a brick workout. But she is generally a big fan of just down and dirty strength training program sort of similar to what you'll see on the pages of Women's Health and also in the pages of her new and second book Fitness Fix. They have a mix of a lot of different things but they'll always have the sort of tried and true, pick up some dumbbells and do this workout kind of routine. And that's her preference and it works for her. But when she was training for Ironman she was doing these long workouts these distance workouts. She was running more than five or six miles because she had to finish a day of fitness with a marathon. JACShe'd never run a marathon before doing Ironman Kona which is sort of nuts to think about but she did it. She got through it and she was able to hug her dad at the finish line. MU: We can't wait to hear your interview with Jen here. JAC:I’m Jeana Anderson Cohen and I'm here with Jen Ator, who is the fitness director at Women's Health. Jen, thank you for joining me. JA: Thank you so much for having me. JAC: So Jen you have a really cool job and we're so excited to have you but you're also an accomplished athlete and a writer and a published author. Can you tell me a little bit about how you spend your days? JA:Yeah you know the kind of beauty and madness of my job and my career is that no two days are ever the same in fact rarely are two days ever even remotely the same. As the fitness director here at Women's Health, I balance a lot of different responsibilities. First and foremost I'm responsible for the stories and the editing of the fitness content inside our magazine. So that involves a lot of working back and forth with writers getting stories approved. Coming up with the monthly lineups that I pitch to our editor in chief and writing a lot of the stories myself and kind of managing our internal team and all the goals and deadlines that we have here. I also work on our online content. I do a lot of our videos so there'll be days where I might take a two hour break in the middle of the day to change into some workout clothes and go record some videos for our social team and our online team. And then there's other days where I'm doing I do a lot of press and interviews with the different objectives and things that we're working on for the brand. So yesterday I was in Atlanta doing a bunch of press at the CNN headquarters there. So you know that's kind of one of the more glorious looking days where you know you're getting hair and makeup and you're running on and off set and trying to catch up frantically with your e-mails as you're in between everything. But a lot of the days are just plugging behind a desk and you know working very long hours. I always joke that there's rarely days where I don't have a second job, where I don't go home at the end of the night and and have another big chunk of assignments or things that I need to work on. So there's plenty of days where it's just kind of grinding through a very very big long to do list and then you know I get to mix in some opportunities to have some fun and go check out new brands and new workouts and talk to experts and just kind of experience a lot of the cool stuff happening inside the fitness scene. JAC:So before I asked you our two big questions I need to know what is your favorite workout right now? JA: You know I I probably buck the trend of most fitness centers. I'm not I'm I'm I'm a pretty traditionalist. I am not somebody who—you know I check out a lot of the new workouts. I love them for what they give to different people and I love them for first and foremost being vessels to bring more people into fitness. I'm somebody who's lived my life with sport and fitness as a huge centerpiece of it. So for me anything that brings more people into it I'm I'm so jazzed about but I think just with my schedule and you know the different fitness goals that I tend to be working towards I tend to be a pretty straightforward, a pretty basic fundamental—I like a good run good solo run, a good long swim by myself and some pretty basic strength training. Some simple circuits and pair dumbbells or resistance band and a good playlist and I'm good to go. JAC: Gets the job done. JA:It does. JAC:Yeah I get it the same way and this is not about me but I'm kind of the same way or I will a couple days a week opt to work out alone because it just clears your head. JA:Yeah and I think you know especially in the field that I’m in we have access to so much so it's such an amazing thing to be able to go check out the latest spin studio and you know go to the latest yoga class or the latest fusion class and sometimes it can get murky of, is this my job or am I doing this for my fitness? You know and so I kind of tend to keep the two pretty separate and my workouts are my workouts and like I said you know it gives me so much and I have my own goals and objectives of why I have my own why of why I workout. So for me that just tends to be easier to do in my own kind of bubble rather than going to all the different classes. But certainly like Tone House is a great one, that's always a lot of fun to go with a group. And Swerve is a cycling studio here in New York that I've really been liking so there's there's definitely ones that you know I always have a great time whenever I get an opportunity to check them out. But I tend to be a go at my own speed type person. JAC:I love it. Know who you are. So can you tell me about a big goal that you accomplished and how you got there. JA:Yeah probably the biggest goal I've accomplished is I completed the Ironman, the World Championship Ironman in Kona and that was back in 2014. And it was by far, the process of it was by far the most transformative thing I've ever done. And like I said I've been an athlete my whole life. I played D1 lacrosse I have fitness in my job title but this was really pushing it for me. I had never done any type of endurance efforts before and for anyone listening that that isn't familiar with Ironman. It's a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike and then a full marathon at the end just in case you felt like you hadn't done enough. And I had done one sprint triathlon. I had done maybe two half marathons prior to tearing my ACL and having ACL and meniscus reconstruction. So I had been approached by chocolate milk, who we had worked with a bunch with work stuff and they were putting together a program and wanted one female everyday athlete and then they had a male pro athlete who was Apolo Ohno the speed skater. And they said, hey, like we would love for you to join him and we want to kind of document the two of you trying to reach this big goal that neither of you have any experience to be able to do. And it took me probably three weeks to answer you know there was there was a lot of gut check soul searching because it was so far outside my comfort zone. It was something that I truly did not know if I could do. I had never clipped into a road bike before. I was terrified of swimming in the open water. I don't particularly love ocean swimming. So while I grew up a competitive swimmer I I was not experienced in open water swimming. And I never run a marathon before and at that point I was only running about three miles a few times a week. I was about 13 months postop so I had a lot of doubts. A lot of insecurity about doing it because not only was I going to try to do it I was going to try to do it in six months and I was also going to do it while sharing our experience with a large audience. And it was really intimidating. But you know I think at the end of the day it was an opportunity to do a arguably one of the most famed and historic and legendary races that I've watched you know year after year those NBC broadcast. I mean I watch them I cry to them it's always so moving. You know it is an opportunity to do something that I had so much respect and reverence for. And also it was an opportunity to really see what I was made of. And you know I realized at that point in my life, I admit I had built a career out of trying to encourage women and people to chase their big goals and I'd spent my career interviewing athletes and then you know putting those into stories that people could read and be inspired by. And yet I was kind of sitting on the sideline a little bit and I was intimidated by the challenge of it for myself. And so you know I decided just to say OK I'll do it. I'll try and I'll try my best. And you know win lose or draw, I’ll put everything I can into it and then began some of the hardest months of my life. Thankfully my workplace was very understanding it's not like I could just be out of work for half the day to go train. But they were more understanding if you know if I squeeze in a swim in the morning and come in with a little bit wet hair you know they they kind of gave me some passes here and there. But you know I really I they teamed us up with some coaching staff and some nutrition staff members that really to just day after day give us the tools to be able to go out and do this. Because I certainly would not have been able to do it on my own. So I had a one on one coach, I used this great app called Training Peaks which you can use for free and just kind of log your workouts. It allows you to kind of like set your plan for the week and then as you complete them it syncs with your watches and it'll show you if you were like green and did an amazing job in your workout or yellow and you know kind of got there or like red you didn't do it. But I also had a coach that would then can go in and I would leave notes for him. He was really big on—he wanted me to leave emotional notes as well as performance notes so not only you know how did it go, how did it feel, how was your knee, how was you know this and that but how did you feel. So it was really an interesting process of watching how much your emotional state you know being stressed from work or you know coming back on a red eye from a business trip and you know feeling really exhausted and run down or having a lot of anxiety over a workout that felt kind of you know too much for me at that time. It showed in the performance you know it reflected in the workouts that maybe went really well or didn't go so well and he really took all that into account and would adjust my schedule and my workouts based on not just my physical progress but you know my emotional things that were going on too and my logistical things that were going on and so yeah, I basically just really committed to the plan and had a lot of doubts had no idea how all the pieces were going to fit together. About three months in, we did a half Ironman. Apolo did Boise. Then three weeks later I did Muncie, Muncie, Indiana. I found myself doing a half Ironman which is 70.3 so half the distance of the full Ironman and I was super intimidated and even going into that I didn't think I was going to able to do it. You know I was crying the night before I. I was I was certain that I had not done enough work to be able to do this. And kind of by a act of God or stroke of grace or something my watch kind of malfunctioned after the swim in the transition to the bike. So I was getting nothing—I had no idea where I was at. I think it was recording the whole time but it was showing me weird screens. So I had no perception of what I was doing. All I could do was be in the moment and do it. And I kind of just plugged along and I worked the plan that me and my coach had figured it out and really paid attention to my effort. And I finished that had no idea about what my time was and I'll never forget the moment where you know I was I was with my dad and a couple of our other, you know, our team that was working on this project and they told me my time and it was easily like two hours faster than what I had projected for myself. Like. My really like self-deprecating goal just got blown out of the water. And I think that was probably the most eye opening moment. Obviously then three months later finishing the race in Kona was probably the most emotional moment—but that one in Muncie Indiana was was the most eye opening of wow. Like I can do so much more than I think I can. Like I I am the thing in my way. I really grabbed onto that moment and really let it kind of fully you know affect me because I was so blown away that the whole time I mean my whole support staff, everybody else thought I could do this. You know everybody else was like hey your training's going really well you're doing the work outs. But me as the individual as the self doubting individual was so certain that I hadn't done enough that I wasn't measuring up that I wasn't going to be able to do it. And then to exceed you know I hadn't even thought I would succeed. I definitely thought I was going to fail and then to not only succeed but to blow out any perception that I had of how I could do, it was really a turning point for me. And so from then I was able to kind of you know it didn't get mentally easier. There were plenty of really tough workouts and I did a lot of it on my own. And a lot of people said oh well you should join a running group here in the city or you should join a biking group here in the city because then you’ll have people to share these huge workouts with. And for me it was really important because I knew when I got to that Ironman I was going to be doing it alone. There wasn't going to be anybody running with me there wasn't going to be anybody biking with me. And I was going to spend that time possibly up to 17 hours of my life alone. And so for me it was important to spend those months practicing that. And for me that meant having to do the workouts by myself. And so you know there were a lot of really towards the peak of that training cycle. And I was probably doing lower mileage than other people in Ironman training plans because we were trying to be really cautious of my knee to not you know get injured and to do just enough that I needed to to complete the race because I wasn't trying to race the race. And so yeah I I remember I mean on a Friday I would do a 4-mile swim; on a  Saturday then I would wake up and do 110 miles on the bike and then get right off and run 7 to 9 miles. JAC:Wow. JA: And then the Sunday I would run 20 miles. So this was all so new to me and so so outside of what I'd ever done before. And so yeah there were a lot of very humbling moments during all that but I really you know after that half Ironman I was able to just say hey OK something's working I don't have to understand it but I'm going to respect what they're putting together for me and what they're telling me to do and I'm going to trust that I've got really smart people helping me do this and if I do what they tell me to do to my best to the best of my ability I'll be able to do this thing. And so yeah October rolled around race was here we went to Kona two weeks early to adjust to the heat and kind of get used to everything there and even still I really did not think I'd be able do it. It's just such a massive massive thing. And I remember the night before crying to my dad who was there with me. And I said What are you know what are they going to do? We had been recording these you know little videos that ran on YouTube and we did eight of them to kind of show the journey and I said, What are they going to do if I don't finish? What are they going to—everybody is going to see that? How are they going to make the last … you know I was so nervous about letting other people down are so nervous about the external perception of taking on something like that that was so big and you know. At the end of the day I woke up this morning and said—I still have the alarm on my phone the alarm notification on my phone because I never want to forget it but I just set up the alarm to say, Cherish this day. And I really felt like at the end of those six months I had already gone so far outside of what I thought I could do for myself that you know no matter what happened—I feel like a lot of times when we get into races and we you know are chasing the big goals we immediately are focusing on the negative of it. You know the performance or I want to reach this goal or I want to do this thing. I just said you know I've put in so much work like this has already been like the most transformative thing I've ever done in my life. I just want to go out and enjoy it and I don't want to waste this once in a lifetime opportunity that I'm being given on being caught up on the nerves or being caught up in the anxiety of what if I fail or anything like that. And so I went out and I had a very thought through mental game plan because for me the the performance side was a little bit more straightforward. You know it's basically just figuring out that yellow type of effort that that feels comfortable to sustain. And you know I kind of broke up the race in three parts. The swim, my mantra was I can and I just kept repeating I can do this I can do this I can do this. And for me that was a huge part of reaching a level of deservedness to be there. Because these are the best athletes in the country. These these people have worked some of them their lives to be there. And you know I kind of got a fast pass to be able to enter this race through this opportunity that I was given. And I took it so seriously but I also felt so undeserving because of all these other amazing athletes that were around me and you know I really had to I had a talk with one of the pro Ironman athletes before and he said look Jen, maybe at the beginning of this you didn't deserve to be here. Sure maybe at the very beginning. But now you've done everything that all these other athletes have done to get here. Like you've put in the work. So you have to kind of remember that that you've put in the work. So that kind of attitude kind of helped carry me through the rest of the day. During the bike I said I am doing this am doing this I am doing this I am doing this because I needed to be present. I needed to be focused on the mile I was and I needed to not be worried about the run that was coming up. I knew that I needed to be very very present because the bike to me was the way the most technical, the thing that I had to be the most you know concentrated on getting my nutrition at the right time getting my speed at the right time focusing on my pedal stroke all of those things. So, I am doing this. And then the run was, I will do this because you know I I knew it needed to be emotional for me. I knew I knew it was going to be emotional for me. And I remember talking to my dad at the very start of this and and we mapped out you know we broke down there's different cutoff points for this race. And you have 17 hours to complete it. So we had figured out OK well you know even if you if you make it through the bike cut off then you have eight hours to do the marathon. So technically you could walk it. You could walk it. You could walk an entire marathon. And that was kind of one of the questions that I had to answer myself before I said Yes. I said, am I willing to walk an entire marathon depending on whatever happens that day, because I've no idea. Would I be willing to walk for 26.2 miles? And I said yeah you know? To be able to walk on historic ground like that to be able to follow through on something that I’m going to set out to do. Yeah I would be willing to walk it even though I'd be a very long long part of a day. So thankfully I got there and I didn't have to walk. And I was able to to run the whole thing but I just kept saying, I will do this. And I I broke it down by thinking about one person every mile. Because you're also not allowed to use headphones so I'm a big music person when I run other races I listen to music and you couldn't have anything. So there's there's a lot of thinking that goes on during that day and you’ve gotta manage your your headspace more so than your you know physical space. And so I said you know I'm going to I'm in a force myself to only think about one person for every mile. And I dedicated a mile to each, to 26 people that had really been the reason that I was there. You know from from my doctor who gave me the green light and then you know help monitor everything that was going on and making sure my knee was solid. To Apolo being such a great team mate and supportive friend. To you know my best friend in high school who I played lacrosse with and she's always been an inspiration to me. You know, just different people that along the way and I get choked up even just thinking about it now. You know who have built me up and supported me and given me the confidence that I didn't have in order to do something like this because like I said I I did not believe I could do it. But they all did. And you know I think one of the greatest gifts you can give somebody is is your confidence in them and you know I'm kind of living proof of that. I know I have been the result of people giving me their confidence in me and that lifted me up enough to take on big goals and to chase things that seem intimidating and so that that run is probably one of the most memorable runs I've ever had. And you know I got I got back after and wrote a letter to each person and told them you know what I was thinking of, and what part of the race I was in and which mile I dedicated to them and it really just brought the whole thing full circle. And you know I got to cross that finish line 13 hours and 17 minutes after I started. JAC: Wow. JA: Yeah a very long day. I got to do that and I got to run to my dad and hug my dad who was standing at the finish line. But it was really such a beautiful race to remember that you know to be able to finish it remembering that I'm really here because of so many people and I got to share this with so many people. And for me that made it so much more meaningful than just if I had accomplished a singular goal on my own. So yeah that very long winded story is definitely my biggest goal that I've accomplished. JAC: Jen. What an incredible saga is the best way. It was like Odyssean. JA:It felt it, it felt it during the time. JAC:So I have so many questions. First and foremost I think it's so interesting that you sort of felt the weight of your decision to say yes to this throughout. Just hearing you talk about it at different points: What if I don't succeed? What if I don't succeed? And then just seeing yourself not only succeed finish crush it. You didn't walk a marathon you probably stopped a couple times if you had to eat something but like just hear you tell it, you killed it! Was there any point during the bike during the swim during the run when you didn't think you could do it? JA:Yes. There was one specific point in the race where I did not think I could do it. And I was approaching the climb to Hawi so the road to Hawi is kind of a signature point of the Ironman World Championship bike course. And it's about a 7 mile climb, just a steady low grade inline but steady for I believe about 7 miles. And then when you get there that's the turnaround point of the bike race and I'm climbing and it had been a really tough—again, I'm not a strong cyclist but I was climbing and you know it's really hard and there weren’t a ton of women in the race. There's probably about I think 635 the year I did it and total about 1200 age group guys. So lot of guys, not that many women. As I'm climbing this woman and all hot pink hot pink like helmet, hot pink tri suit, hot pink bike, hot pink shoes, everything. Starts climbing past me. And she's like oh, man the heat and wind are brutal today. I was like oh yeah. You could tell this woman had done this. She just looked so pro like she was like just jacked and so impressive and a slightly older woman and just looked like, OK, she's been here before and so I was like I'm glad to hear you say that because this is my first time. And she's like just keep going just keep pedaling. You're almost there. Thank you. Thank you. And she's like keep it up. Great job. And you know it was so nice because throughout the entire race whenever a woman passed you or you passed a woman there was there was a real solidarity and there was a very, everybody cheered for each other, everybody is support each other. It was really nice. So she passed me up she went you know that was it. And I get to the turnaround point. I'm coming back. And now you're going down a downhill and throughout the race you're kind of going through these lava fields and some of them have these kind of like big rocks that you're going through. So you're facing a lot of headwind but then you're also because of how these rocks are you get these sudden bursts of sidewinds that kind of come out of nowhere and you know our coach coaching staff and team had told us about this so they had said you know you're going to feel you could feel the gusts coming from the side. And it's it's a little bit shaky at times. I mean these bikes are super light. I feel like my bike weighed probably 12 pounds you know and you're coming downhill. And all of a sudden the the sidewinds are really starting to pick up and I'm looking down and I wasn't always super comfortable in that aero position where you’re leaned over the bars and you're really down low on your bike that that was intimidating to me to get used to, especially when going downhill. And one of our coaches was the legendary Paula Newby-Fraser. And she's the queen of Kona. And I remember her saying to me there are going to be times where you get scared and where that wind comes out of nowhere and hits you on the side and you feel shaken. And she's like, you're going to be tempted to sit up on your bike. You're going to be tempted to sit up, sit back because that's the instinct that feels safer and she's like that is the time that you need to lean in and commit because the safest thing you can do practically speaking is lean over that front wheel because these bikes are so light that if you're sitting up and sitting back that front wheel can get picked up a lot easier from these gusts up side wind. So I'd remembered that she said that to me I was trying to stay down,  was trying to stay down. And all of a sudden I look up and I see all these people in front of me are swerving around something and I can't tell what's going on but they're clearly like really moving around something. And as I get closer I see the all pink everything. And the woman was being carried off in a stretcher. JAC: Oh God. JA: And I mean I was shaking. I was tearing up. I had to actively be like, oh my gosh calm down calm down because it was the only moment where—I had passed the point of thinking, oh my gosh can I do this. Once I got through the swim I was like oh man, all right. We'll figure this out. We're going to we're going to get through this. It was the only point of the race where I thought maybe I won't be able to do this because there's somebody who is clearly more experienced than me clearly has done this before and she's not even able to finish because of freak—you know maybe she was reaching for her water or when when a gust of wind came in and wiped  her out. Or maybe—who knows? You know and anything like that could happen. And I I could just be I could be done. And again I found myself kind of sitting up and I was trying to get my composure and I heard Paula you know as I'm like shaking trying not to cry and trying to push through it and I just found myself saying commit commit

Money matters - it's a huge part of our life and business. Today we have Jen Turrell on the show to help us build systems so that dealing with our money is easy. PLUS it helps us do more with our money, ya know instead of just wondering where it sent. A little about Jen... As a financial personal trainer, Jen Turrell supports female entrepreneurs and self-employed women take control of their money, so it doesn’t control them. With 15 years of hard-earned entrepreneurial experience, Jen has owned/run businesses in industries as diverse as agriculture, music and special needs caregiving technology and finance. In 2010, her oldest daughter was diagnosed with autism. So Jen dove into the world of special needs finance headfirst and started running an early intervention program for first her older and then her younger daughter too once they were both diagnosed with autism. Jen is busy and driven, and she’s found a system that works: designing and automating cash flow systems for home and business. Jen’s passion and expertise help women end money-management struggles without needing a math degree. Her 6-week Financial Rehab and Personal Financial Physical programs grant women access to freedom and power, finding their authentic voices, by automating finances. Click here to get Jen's "5 Steps to Debt Reduction" tool. Resources Join the VIP Community Rock Star Guide to Periscope I Will Teach You to be Rich (affiliate link) Profit First (affiliate link)  Connect with Jen on her site  Connect with Me Get YOUR question on a future episode Email me at hello@thestaceyharris.com Tweet with me and include #HittheMic Be sure to leave your review on iTunes or Stitcher for a shoutout on a future show

Tweet 27:14 minutes (24.94 MB)I Have A Question#13June 30, 2014 Featured Question:So Jen, what should we know about service learning projects?Jen Presentations LinksUniversity of Saskatchewan Educational Technology & Design StudioPresentation Wiki (currently restricted)Designers for Learning   (request for services) Connect with us on..   Twitter:  @eduquestion    #ihaq   Google+:  EdTechTalk Google+ Community   Facebook: EduQuestion  EdTechTalkread more