Bishop E. Bernard Jordan – The Measure of Faith
New York Pastor E. Bernard Jordan measures his faith the same way we measure health, money, and career. He preaches that if it doesn’t get practiced — if it doesn’t get measured — it doesn’t get valued. His ultimate aim is for all people to know their value and recognize it as key to honoring others as they honor themselves. His participation at Influence Ecology taught him much about the business of an ever-expanding church and that ‘those who transact powerfully, thrive.’
In our Guru Talk, we listen in on a webinar classroom led by myself and Co-Founder Kirkland Tibbels, where we address the measurement of our Conditions of Life.
2017 Podcast Tools and Resources
June
Podcast Bonuses:
#33: Lisa Baptista – Your Role in a Transaction
New Zealand College of Chiropractic
#32: Bishop E. Bernard Jordan – The Measure of Faith
May
#31: Michael Dunn – Tripping on Analysis
#30: Ross Clennett – Confronting My Financial Aims
#29: John James and Lauren Cato Robertson – Becoming Specialized
Michael Dunn – Tripping on Analysis
Michael Dunn in Wellington, NZ, is highly regarded for advising governments across all areas of public finance and economics — he helps build forecasting models for government revenues. Superbly analytical in his thinking and personality, he has learned (and is still learning) to develop his ability to navigate the general environments where extreme analytic prowess may prove a social scarlet letter.
In our Guru Talk, we listen in on a webinar classroom led by Co-Founders John Patterson and Kirkland Tibbels, where we address how we sometimes think we’ll look weak if we ask for help.
Ross Clennett – Confronting My Financial Aims
Ross Clennett has applied accurate and objective thinking to his financial plans and his business model to produce a robust and satisfying life. He’s a high-performance recruitment coach in Melbourne, Australia, whose successful journey did not begin so well. However, you’ll hear how he overcame the naïveté of his trajectory, fired his biggest client, and took the right actions required to live a great life.
In our Guru Talk, we listen in on a webinar classroom co-led by myself and Co-Founder Kirkland Tibbels, where we address the opportunity of your specialized knowledge and the importance of knowing your aims.
John James and Lauren Cato Robertson – Becoming Specialized
John James and Lauren Cato Robertson are co-founders of the C-Section Recovery Center. They are massage therapists with a specialized practice that focuses on clients suffering from C-Section Recovery. Their assertion is that, in modern times, we often “interrupt the biological process” and don’t account for the impact of that interruption to our children — or our own bodies.
Through their study with Influence Ecology, they have discovered their own entitlement and conceit and have not only learned to specialize and accept help from others, but have also overcome their differences to develop a solid, powerful, and working partnership. In their words, they “both grew each other up.”
In our guru talk, we listen in on a webinar classroom led by Co-Founder Kirkland Tibbels on the topic of specialized knowledge and how this unique and uncommon knowledge is so much more than just another kind of focus.
Podcast Bonuses:
Joe McNerney – Yes, Being Critical is an Asset
Our featured interview is with an outstanding Chicago trial attorney who talks about his critical and analytical judgy-ness and how it has become a great asset. In this episode, Joe McNerney and Co-Founder John Patterson take the time to learn more about the Judge and Inventor personality and how personality, when understood, can help all of us transact more effectively. But Joe also cautions us all about the error of independence and self-sufficiency.
In our guru talk, we hear from Vice President Drew Knowles and Co-Founder Kirkland Tibbels as they lead a conversation about the need to be surrounded by a surplus of great help.
Dr. Kyra Gaunt – Unintended Consequences
Dr. Kyra Gaunt conducts research on the unintended consequences of social media, often offering expert testimony on the subject and helping protect our future employability and reputation online and off. With a focus on marginalized groups, she’s Professor of Ethnomusicology and Digital Media Studies at the University at Albany and one of the forty inaugural TED Fellows. She has much to say about the aimless consequence of our own naïveté. Having studied with Influence Ecology for four years, she shares about her own wide-eyed journey through the radical transparency movement to now offer important advice: not everything should be said, spoken, liked, or shared.
In our Guru Talk, listen in on a small portion of a Fundamentals of Transaction webinar classroom where we address our mantra: “You’re always transacting.” Vice President Drew Knowles and Co-Founder John Patterson give a talk about the blindness we have to our own transactional behavior — and how the actions we take (or don’t take) influence the identity we produce with others.
Paul Adams – Sound Financial Competence
Paul Adams, of Sound Financial Group, offers an approach uncommon to the financial planning industry. Rather than offer traditional sales-based planning, his team of financial professionals provides a tailored coaching and educational approach to helping clients define and reach elite financial goals. You’ll learn how he reinvented his business model after careful consideration of exactly how he’d like to work and with whom.
In addition to his specialized financial coaching, Paul is an accomplished speaker, conference panelist, and author. He has been interviewed by Forbes, Entrepreneur, and Inc. magazines to share his knowledge and passion for helping his clients.
In our Guru Talk, we hear Co-Founder Kirkland Tibbels address the aims we have for work, career, and money — and how most of us forget that money is simply a tool of exchange.
Brandon Hollembeak – Beware the Shortcut
Brandon Hollembeak warns of following the herd’s shortcuts. He’s a tech product manager who works with startups to help them drive data-driven decisions as they begin to become scalable. His competency for accurate thinking has helped him sift through the short-cut culture popular in the current marketplace. Having assisted in the success of two well-known startups, his journey can help us all sort through the complex, noisy, quick-fix narratives of our current popular media. In our guru talk, we listen in on the second session of a Fundamentals of Transaction Program Webinar classroom to hear a talk on the importance of accurate thinking and the satisfaction of your aims.
Kim Corbett – A Surplus of Help
Having more than doubled her income and moving her company’s market position from #57 to #1, Kim Corbett is an account executive who considers herself a turnaround agent, turning around the sales of failing or emerging companies. She’s a top performer with a proven track record for growing revenues and increasing an organization’s profitability. Always ambitious, she had previously struggled to get beyond her current income range — until studying with Influence Ecology. In this interview, you’ll learn what changed. In today’s guru talk, we’ll hear a segment of a recent Fundamentals of Transaction Program classroom webinar. Here, Vice President Drew Knowles and Co-Founder John Patterson discuss the subject of “Autonomy.” Traditionally thought of as a “condition of independence,” we reorient our students to think of Autonomy as a “Surplus of Help.”
A Panel Interview – Consequence and the Social Dynamic
A panel of advanced members shares how the immersive and practical environment of our global Annual Member Conference produces real, lasting, and consequential results.
This special feature is an exclusive interview with a panel of advanced members who just returned from our 2017 Annual Member Conference, our flagship global event held annually in some of the world’s best luxury resorts. We conducted this interview as a study in the immersive impact of learning and practicing in a social and consequential environment. While most conference participants suffer “death by PowerPoint,” the Influence Ecology conference is known for its ‘game’ — an entirely constructed strategic real-life situation that may last 2-3 days. It produces “real experience” and consequential conditions which maximize learning by doing. You’ll hear how each of these participants left the conference with a practical and emboldened experience of their ability and capacity to meet their aims.
Podcast Bonuses:
Pictured are “The Sharks” from the 2017 Annual Member Conference Game in Ojai. Teams pitched offers to the Sharks to learn and practice the principles of Transactional Competence. The photo features MAP 2 Members Marcus Bell, James Walls, Louisa (DaSilva) Dilivar, Angela Meharg, Brandon Hollembeak, and Joanna Burgraf.
Panel:
James Walls Product Marketing Director, Dimension Data APAC – Singapore
John James C-Section Recovery Center – Dallas
Nina Davis Communication – Innovation – Change Consultant at Stanford Hospital and Clinics – Stanford
Joe McNerney Principal, The McNerney Law Firm – Chicago
Dr. Khush Cooper – Money is an Exchange of Help
Her view of money changed (and she made much more of it) when she began to understand that money is an exchange of help, rather than a necessary evil. Dr. Khush Cooper holds a doctorate in social work and her journey is quite relevant to those in the non-profit sector or anyone who has ever struggled with making a living and wanting to do good. This episode guru talk is from a membership webinar on the subject of ‘indifference of the marketplace’. You’ll hear Co-Founder Kirkland Tibbels address the State of Mind of an Ambitious Adult. In her interview, Dr. Cooper refers to “passively waiting rather than ambitiously transacting,” and this talk underscores the difference between “most people” and those who act with Ambition.
Laura & David Senior Garcia – How to Coordinate 10K Super Bowl Volunteers
As the Personality Diversity Experts chosen to coordinate 10,000 volunteers for the 2017 Super Bowl, Equilibria siblings Laura and David Senior Garcia talk abouthow studying transactional competence has improved their company’s focus and helped bring conscious awareness to a diverse world. Their company works worldwide to help people embrace and leverage diversity to elevate personal, professional, and organizational performance. In today’s guru talk, Kirkland Tibbels and John Patterson address how a transactional approach helps people understand the fundamentals of coordinated action.
Podcast Bonuses:
The stress ball in the photo was placed there in a playful moment and captures their sibling spirit.
Laura Senior Garcia is Equilibria’s Global Operations Executive and a Senior Coach.
David Senior Garcia is Equilibria’s Advanced Error Reduction in Organizations (or AERO) Product Manager and performs as a Coach, leading some of Equilibria’s most advanced workshops around the world.
Joanna Burgraf – Worst Advice Ever: Follow Your Passion
Having endured an expensive journey to consider a career change, Joanna Burgraf found that to follow your passion was the worst piece of advice she’d ever gotten. Joanna is a Chicago-based senior lead for an award-winning creative services team managing ten brands at Enova International, a company using technology to develop innovative financial products. You’ll hear how this fashionable but naive empowerment slogan shifted her focus — from working on being a valued cooperative member of a larger team — to the self-engrossed, navel-gazing, isolating habit of finding one’s true “Self.”
After the break, we’ll hear a Guru Talk by Co-Founder Kirkland Tibbels. This talk originally aired earlier this year — and we can’t study it enough. Recorded in May of 2015, this webinar introduces three different orientations to action: Self-Action, Inter-Action, and Trans-Action. As we are the leading business education in trans-actional competence this segment is designed to illustrate the naivety and danger of Self-Action.
Podcast Bonuses:
Joanna Burgraf on LinkedIn
Note: Self-Action, Inter-Action, and Trans-Action are terms introduced in Transactionalism: An Historical and Interpretive Study (Influence Ecology. Phillips, Trevor J., 2015-11-22. Tibbels, Kirkland; Patterson, John, eds.) and in Knowing and the Known (Dewey, John; Bentley, Arthur Fisher. 1949-01-01. Beacon Press).
The Brothers Koren – We Weren’t Careful What We Wished For
They got everything they asked for: record deals, international notoriety, playing big arenas (touring with Coldplay, Pink, Bon Jovi, and Rod Stewart), but recording artists Isaac and Thorald Koren (The Kin) hadn’t quantified what to wish for or how to transact for it. Naively assuming their talent, passion, and fame would eventuate into their personal and financial satisfaction, they confronted a sea of indifference and inventoried their lessons to help others. They launched the Alchemy of Creative Expression (A.C.E.), developing a method to help the talented musician, artist, or executive unleash their unique voice and turn their talent into gold.
In our guru talk, we’ll hear Co-Founder Kirkland Tibbels address the importance of both knowing your aims — and transacting accordingly.
Podcast Bonuses:
Isaac Koren and Thorald Koren are originally from Australia and moved to the United States, living in New York. They’ve since relocated to Ojai, California.
Ana Athanasiu – The Asset / Liability Quotient
With a long personal experience about the asset and liability of personality traits that offer both extraordinary value and harsh lessons, Ana Athanasiu, who lives in the San Francisco Bay area of California, is an internet pioneer who had a vibrant career in telecommunications and software development. Best known for the work she did on teams at Sun Microsystems in the mid-eighties — they invented XML — adding speed and usability to internet browsers. Able to retire in 2002, she’s spent the last 14 years raising kids and supporting business executives, local non-profit endeavors, and sole-proprietorships toward market and financial solvency. She also co-manages her family’s real estate and stock speculation engagements. She is now studying Transactionalism with Influence Ecology and is working on advanced degrees in ethics and behavioral economics and data science. Our guru talk addresses the asset and liability aspect of Transactional Behavior — where our greatest assets, if not tended to, can also be our greatest liability.
Podcast Bonuses:
Ana Athanasiu Influence Ecology Profile page (members only)
Sean Gillespie – Can You Survive an Indifferent World?
Sean Gillespie is a successful artist who creates award-winning abstract sculptures from his one-man studio in Denver, Colorado. His work can be found in exclusive galleries, national juried shows, and in corporate installations across the United States. Influence Ecology’s members include business and creative professionals from all over the world; we educate not only executives and entrepreneurs but also artists, designers, musicians, writers, and filmmakers — and today perhaps we’ll tackle the question: How do you make a living as an artist? It might be common to assume that artists make terrible business people, yet the same can be true in many professions. In all cases, what is required is transactional competence: knowing how to construct a recurrent business offer that meets your individual aims for work, career, and money. You’ll hear Sean’s journey and, how a little a study — goes a long way. In today’s guru talk, we listen in on a Membership Webinar to hear Kirkland Tibbels explain the nature of indifference and how we might navigate an indifferent marketplace.
Peter Burgraf – Swept Away by a Powerful Current
Peter Burgraf is Vice President of Business Development at Q2 Business Capital in Chicago, Illinois. Peter, like many people in early life, was swept away by the idea, plugged in self-help books and traditional mantras, that “If you just work hard, everything will turn out fine.” He was young, had a ton of debt, and no way of getting out of it. He had some big goals and didn’t want to wait 25 years to move into a position that might provide the income he needed to support his family. He began to develop his transactional competence and now, at age 35, he has not only satisfied some rather lofty financial aims but is also newly married, a homeowner, and a father. Co-Founder Kirkland Tibbels talks about how we’re all sold on and swept away by unexamined ideas, platitudes, and beliefs that, ultimately, are never going to help us satisfy our ultimate aims.
Tim Guest – The Right People in the Right Roles
Tim Guest, Managing Director of Infinite Wealth, helps everyday Australians reach their financial goals. After having first retired at the age of 27 as a self-made multimillionaire, he is now an investor, entrepreneur, financial educator, and motivational speaker and author well known for leading seminars promoting financial literacy and education. Thousands of people each year attend his seminars, making him currently the most watched independent financial educator in Australia. His entrepreneurial journey includes some valuable lessons about the cost and complexity of rapid growth and how his study with Influence Ecology dramatically changed the way he operates his businesses. In our guru talk, we hear Co-Founder Kirkland Tibbels speak about “Personality and the Transactional Approach,” giving each of us new ways to work more efficiently with differing personalities.
Tamara Kleinberg – The Tension Between Optimism and Reality
Our featured interview with Tamara Kleinberg addresses the many struggles entrepreneurs face in navigating the two worlds of optimism and reality. You’ll hear why seductive goals, big plans, and quick wins are not how successful and ambitious professionals build a surplus of wealth, free time, and certainty. Tamara calls herself an ‘Innovation Enabler’ and is the founder of The Shuuk, an online testing ground for new products. She is a sought-after keynote speaker and author on innovation and entrepreneurship, has run multi-million dollar businesses, and has launched a few of her own. We’ll also listen in on a webinar where Co-Founder Kirkland Tibbels talks about what we call “State of Mind,” and in particular, how you and I evidence our State of Mind to other people when we are transacting. There are four States of Mind, and in this talk, Kirkland discusses the state we call “Naiveté.”
Podcast Bonuses:
Tamara Kleinberg on LinkedIn
Innovation Quotient Edge (IQE) – A 7-minute assessment that tells you your unique innovator profile so you can train your brain to be innovative on demand.
Marne Power – Measured Practice is Her Priority
Marne Power is deliberate at making measured practice a priority. An organizational learning and development specialist at the University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville, Virginia, Marne is also on the faculty of Influence Ecology, teaching people to take the proper and incremental actions to move mountains. Her primary role here is leading a 12-week program designed to put priorities into practice — to make these habits a natural part of our daily life. We’ll talk a bit about her journey, but today we’ll also ask her about the lessons learned by those she teaches and hear examples of how most results are quite achievable when you identify, commit to, and take the proper actions within a consequential environment. Co-Founder Kirkland Tibbels will speak on the nature of consequence and how it is often the missing component in most transactions.
Podcast Bonuses:
Marne Power on LinkedIn
University of Virginia School of Medicine
Throughout this and other episodes, you’ll hear our guests refer to “FOT,” which is an acronym for our Fundamentals of Transaction program.
Nathan Havey – I’m a Millennial. Is My Generation Entitled?
Nathan, the founder of Thrive Consulting, asserts that “business is the greatest organizer of human effort” and identifies as a millennial, audacious about positive change but eager to temper his conceit and entitlement. He says, “I was the classic entitled millennial, unwilling to put in the work to get competent, and falsely assuming I was naturally gifted beyond compare and impatient with those who couldn’t see my brilliance.” Nathan is a much sought-after presenter on conscious business and is an active member of the American Sustainable Business Council. He is an enthusiastic participant in the Conscious Capitalism movement and serves as chair of the board for Conscious Company Magazine. We’ll hear a talk by Co-Founder Kirkland Tibbels on the subject of conceit or entitlement and how it arises when you and I are simply naive to the reciprocation required in all of our transactions.
James Walls – How to Labor Less
James Walls, Product Marketing Director with Dimension Data in Singapore, explores the subject of labor and addresses how nowadays the ethic of ‘working long hours’ is no longer a badge of honor. In fact, the notion of doing more does not itself produce more income or more value. You’ll hear how James, who seems to have been weaned on labor, hard work, and intense pressure — began to find freedom, peace of mind, and satisfaction through the development of his transactional competence. Today’s Guru Talk by Co-Founder Kirkland Tibbels offers more on this subject. In this talk, you’ll hear Kirkland speak about what we call the biological Conditions of Life — and how, when these are threatened, we have a tough time satisfying other conditions.
Podcast Bonuses:
James Walls on LinkedIn
Dimension Data APAC in Singapore
Throughout this and other episodes, you’ll hear our guests refer to “FOT,” which is an acronym for our Fundamentals of Transaction program.
Transactionalism on Wikipedia
Joe & Joni Rocco – Don’t Compete on Price, Compete on Value
Joe & Joni Rocco, a husband/wife small business team from Denver, Colorado, demonstrate the benefits of being a specialist in a highly commoditized industry: they don’t compete on price, they compete by offering a variety of characteristics of value. From working weeknights and weekends, late-night bids, high-stress, and a fatherless family, they now enjoy a life that is quite the opposite. They came to understand one another’s Personality and Transactional Behavior and reduced an 80-hour work week to 40. Co-Founder Kirkland Tibbels talks on the Characteristics of Value that are considered and applied when constructing a business offer. In this talk, you’ll hear Kirkland state, “If you are worried about the direct competitor, you are worried about the wrong thing.” You’ll hear why this is — and how to go about constructing a valuable offer that first satisfies you.
Podcast Bonuses:
National Wood Flooring Association
“The Thirteen Steps” are referred to during the talk by Kirkland Tibbels. These are proprietary and are only available to our global Members.
Shonit Jagmohan – Respect Your Offer or No One Will
Shonit Jagmohan is an optometrist living in Melbourne, Australia. As a health and ambitious business professional, he offers an excellent case study in specialization, authority, and scarcity. A Fellow of the International Academy of Orthokeratology, he states, “I help fix your eyes while you sleep.” Being someone who is usually a ‘yes’ to everything, positive about everything turning out, and wanting to keep options open, he learned to decline — and that he can be known and revered for what he declines. Later, Vice President Drew Knowles leads a conversation based on a quote from Kirkland Tibbels — “If you don’t respect your own offers, no one else will” — a great lesson in the willingness to decline.
Louisa Da Silva – Beware the Ambitious Arsonist
Having immigrated to the United States from Brazil, Louisa Da Silva, owner of DS Cleaning and Maid Service, found that her stream of new ideas created ‘fires’ that her team had to extinguish. Previously overworked, stressed, and unhealthy, she’s now planned for and living a balanced and focused life. Also, Co-Founder Kirkland Tibbels discusses the naivety and danger of ‘Self-Action’, a very common and widespread orientation to activity in which the individual sees themselves as an overlord of things outside their control.
Podcast Bonuses:
Transactionalism: An Historical and Interpretive Study by Trevor J. Phillips
Sue Rhomberg – What Is Your Legacy?
Sue Rhomberg of Living Legacies not only works with people to capture their life’s story, she has the commitment to celebrate their life. Her work offers an uncommon perspective on what a legacy is — and (you’ll be surprised to discover) what a legacy isn’t. Co-Founder Kirkland Tibbels talks on the unavoidable Conditions of Life all human beings face (legacy being one of them) — and why there is a hierarchy to satisfying them. You’ll hear how so many people may be working on the wrong thing.
John Baigent – Starting Over at 57
As a property developer, John Baigent lost practically everything in the global financial crisis of 2007-2009, then recovered just in time to lose it all again in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, a quake that caused widespread damage in New Zealand’s second-largest urban area. He’s not only overcome what would sink most people — he also continues to thrive. Our ‘guru talk’ is with Co-Founders John Patterson and Kirkland Tibbels. In this talk, you’ll hear how most people just lack the ambition to live as they aspire to live . . . that they’ll wait for life to “turn out” and do not produce the situations, conditions, and environments they require to live a productive and satisfying life. John Baigent is not like “most people.”
Angela Meharg – Do What Counts
Having realized she could never work enough hours to meet her income goals, Angela Meharg, CEO of Datisfy speaks about how a simple solution can scale into a business that is truly rewarding. Datisfy was founded specifically and exclusively to offer a solution for business owners who use QuickBooks to build customized reports that QuickBooks can’t provide. Angela’s journey not only demonstrates how a consultancy becomes an expanding enterprise, but it also teaches us a great deal about how we have grown indifferent to the fundamentals of reciprocation. Co-Founder Kirkland Tibbels talks about having authentic gratitude for the opportunities we have to live as we aspire.
Dr. Gary Ward – Don’t Disregard Your Biology
Dr. Gary Ward has been a family physician and GP for 30 years. Gary and his wife Claire live in Perth, Western Australia. Gary talks about how we disregard our biology; that somehow in our conceit and entitlement, we have come to think that we are above it — that we sometimes forget that we are merely an organism in an environment. Co-Founder Kirkland Tibbels talks about our ancient brain and how we are programmed to respond to threats in the heat of some of life’s most important transactions.
Trisha Tyler – How to Increase Your Value
Working as a principle in a large health care enterprise, Trisha Tyler of Mercer Health & Benefits, talks about how to create value for the companies that you work for; when you become reliable for that value, you get to do what you love and increase your income accordingly. One of her passions is the value of our oceans and in her spare time, she works on shark and ocean conversation. We’ll also hear a talk by co-founder Kirkland Tibbles about why so much of what we are doing may not be valuable work. Recorded during a global conference, he’s joined on stage by Kiwi Vice President Drew Knowles in an example that may sound very familiar.
Marcus Bell – Most People Won’t Practice
Beginning piano at age two, Marcus Bell of Bellringer Productions, a music producer in Los Angeles, CA, explains how counter-intuitive it is to focus, and why so many people have a difficult time simply practicing. Also, we’ll bring you a taste of one of our most popular webinars by listening in on a ‘guru talk’ with Co-Founder Kirkland Tibbels. This webinar introduces the principle of ‘Personality and Transactional Behavior’ and describes how it impacts your ability to get what you need or want.
Troy Frost – Father’s Last Words: Get Wise
Troy’s father’s last words are a mantra he’s lived by. His business plan autobiography reads like a character who suffered not for being dull, but for being way too smart. He talks about the early days and answers the question: How do you make $30K a month in personal income? Also, Co-Founder Kirkland Tibbels outlines the fundamental background that underlies the specialized knowledge enjoyed by our members around the world. In it, you’ll start to hear for yourself why Troy Frost and so many others are thriving.
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