Jillian Formentin's journey to becoming the Australian Professional Engineer of the Year wasn’t just about mastering technical skills—it was about mastering her own narrative. Through intentional career decisions, embracing her strengths, and crafting a compelling story, Jillian has created a career that not only elevates her but inspires others.

Jillian’s journey to becoming an influential leader in the engineering community started long before she was awarded the prestigious title of Australian Professional Engineer of the Year. Growing up, Jillian was always seen as career-focused. However, it wasn’t until later in her career that she realized the importance of directing her trajectory in a purposeful way. She recalls the difficulty in answering the classic career question: "Where do you see yourself in 10 years?" For years, she couldn’t pinpoint a clear direction.

However, things began to change about 10 years ago when Jillian was consulting in the fields of safety, leadership, and team development. Though her consulting career was both fulfilling and lucrative, she yearned for more autonomy in her career decisions. It was then that she decided to take control of her professional narrative, diving into FOT (Fundamentals of Transaction) training in 2016.

As the Personality Diversity Experts chosen to coordinate 10,000 volunteers for the 2017 Super Bowl, Equilibria siblings Laura and David Senior Garcia talk about how 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 this episode's 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.

Equilibria

Helen Kearney is a sales recruiter for a global software company. Her life's journey and her career specialization allow us to examine the question that we all - at one time or another - find ourselves asking: what is my perfect job (or purpose or life's mission)?

As she explains, many people are exceptionally naive about their professional value. They may not understand their involvement in the larger transaction and the realities of their role in the marketplace. As such, she says, they often fail to consider or understand the needs of the employer and their concerns. Like any good marraige or satisfying position, a job is a reciprocal transaction.

Near the end of the episode, you'll also hear Helen's tips for your preparing your LinkedIn profile, resume, and job interview.

Podcast Bonuses:

Thrive

Code: 30 Days

Helen Kearney on LinkedIn

In this episode, Kristen Moeller, a literary agent, published author, three-time TEDx speaker, and passionate advocate for personal growth, joins John Patterson to explore the challenges and revelations of pursuing success and fulfillment. From her mountain home in Colorado, Kristen shares her journey of transitioning from hopeful and magical thinking to embracing the principles of accurate thinking.

This episode delves into the lessons Kristen learned through Influential U, including the importance of strategic thinking, confronting naivety, and recognizing the limitations of short-term enthusiasm as a long-term strategy. With transparency and humor, she reflects on the necessity of "growing up" and rethinking approaches to success, action, and fulfillment.

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. We'll also 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."

Podcast Bonuses:

Thrive

Code: 30DAYS

Kim Corbett on LinkedIn

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's closing segment 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.

Podcast Bonuses:

Thrive

Code: 30DAYS

Dr. Khush Cooper on LinkedIn

Khush Cooper & Associates

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."

In this episode's talk, 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:

Thrive

Code: 30DAYS

Joanna Burgraf on LinkedIn

Enova International

Transactionalism

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).

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. Influential U'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 this episode's 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.

Podcast Bonuses:

Thrive

Code: 30DAYS

Sean Gillespie on LinkedIn