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Stand Up: Comedy Connects Veterans to Beautiful Dreams and Meaningful Work

About this episode:

 “It was very interesting to come into a fully formed class that has a clear way of getting you from ‘you think that you are funny?’ to ‘how does that translate on stage for five minutes?’”

– US Army veteran and ASAP comedian Monica Daly

Typical hard-working Americans often do work that becomes devoid of meaning…and good humor. According to the Gallup Organization, 66 percent of the American workforce is not engaged at work: their jobs and management structures change often; work that they do becomes directionless; assignment objectives are vague, and; their workplaces turn toxic causing some people in them to suffer mental, emotional, and physical illness.

Consider that last impact. Can you imagine how difficult the quest for meaningful work must be for active military service members, veterans, military families, and caregivers?

That is why the Armed Services Arts Partnership or ASAP is such a game-changer. This nonprofit organization based in the Washington, DC area uses the arts—and in particular stand up comedy—to empower people to connect with beautiful dreams and meaningful work.

ASAP cultivates community and growth among veterans, service members, military families, and caregivers through the arts. But their real impact is in liberating people from fear, pain, and loss, to get them to a place of joy and empowerment. People who have benefitted from ASAP training and programming use their newfound creativity to confidently express themselves and their purpose, and find greater success and happiness in life and work. ASAP programming is available in the Washington DC metropolitan area as well as in Hampton Roads, Virginia.

To learn more, we sat down with executive director Brian Jenkins at ASAP’s headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia. We also meet with Monica Daly who, along with other veterans, performed a five-minute stand-up comedy set before a live audience at the Workhouse Arts Center in Lorton, Virginia.

During this episode, you will discover:

• Comedian and US Army veteran Dewayne White [starting at 0:01]
• What the Armed Services Arts Partnership is about [starting at 2:41]
• Comedian Monica Daly’s take on ASAP and the benefits that it provides her [starts at 7:22]
• Important research study insight that demonstrates ASAP’s benefits [starts at 15:22]
• What participants may expect during their stand-up comedy training program [starts at 18:22]
• Comedian and US Coast Guard member Noah Miller [starts at 22:28]
• Brian Jenkins’ earliest work dreams and his introduction to ASAP [starts at 23:37]
• Comedian and US Army veteran Claudia Arceo [starts at 29:28]
• Comedian and US Air Force veteran Vinny Lombardi [starts at 30:33]

About our guests:

Brian Jenkins received a Bachelor of Arts degree in religious studies from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. His life path, which aligned with community building and social responsibility, prepared him well to be the Executive Director of the Armed Services Arts Partnership. Brian lives in Northern Virginia.

Monica Daly grew up in the Washington, DC suburbs of Northern Virginia and is a US Army veteran. A member of the federal government workforce, she is settling into a new assignment based in Indianapolis, Indiana. Before agreeing to relocate to Indianapolis, Monica made sure that there were plenty of comedy clubs for her to play.

EPISODE DATE: November 8, 2019

Social media:

ASAP website

Facebook

Instagram

LinkedIn

Twitter

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 45:42 — 52.3MB)

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To B or Not to B: A Nature Lover Turns Businesses into Benefit-Driven Brands

About this episode:

“[They’ve got some stuff] that makes good headlines on sustainability, but it is not moving many at all on the speed of urgency.”

– Jen Boyton, regarding her decision to “break up” with Amazon.com

As a young child growing up in rustic New Hampshire, Jen Boynton discovered the joys of nature. Play for her and her siblings was dirty, lots of sticks and stones…and mud.

In 2007, she helped to launch and scale Triple Pundit which grew to become one of largest sources of news and information in the sustainability and social responsibility sectors.

Then in 2018, after exiting Triple Pundit, she founded BTargetedMarketing, a marketing services company based in San Diego that maximizes the localistic impacts of for-profit and non-profit brands and the people who work for them.

In this podcast episode, you will discover her:

• Early childhood work dreams [starts at 3:00]
• Unconventional schooling experience [starts at 5:44]
• Pivot into the business world [starts at 18:49]
• Business philosophy for BTargetedMarketing [starts at 23:54]
• Breakup with Amazon [starts at 30:04]

About our Guest

From early on, Jen Boynton’s life path aligned with nature and community. And family dinner table conversations revolved around current events and politics. Jen’s passion for the natural world and social responsibility continues to this day through her innovative business, BTargetedMarketing.

Jen received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Pitzer College and an MBA in Sustainable Management from the Presidio School of Management. She and her family live in San Diego, California.

EPISODE DATE: November 1, 2019

Published work:

Why I’m Breaking Up with Amazon

Social media:

Website

Twitter Page

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:24 — 33.6MB)

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Emotional Intelligence: How EQ Helps People to Succeed in Meaningful Work Part 2

About this episode:

“How often do you know people who take the time to actively pay attention to what they are feeling, identify the source of their feelings, and, take the time to think about how that affects other people?”

-Emotional Intelligence Expert Edythe Richards  

Most everyone knows what IQ means—it’s the intelligence quotient, a score derived from several standardized tests to measure a person’s intelligence. An average IQ score might be around 100, whereas the score of a genius-level person might exceed 150. But, few people in the world know what EQ means—that is the quotient of emotional intelligence, which measures our ability to be aware of, control, and express emotion, and, to handle interpersonal relationships judicially and empathically.

In this second part of a two-part podcast episode, we continue our conversation with Edythe Richards. She is the founder and executive coach at A Top Career and a subject-level expert on Emotional Intelligence. Edythe helps us dig into the practical applications of EQ, especially how we can use it to make our work and workplace experiences positive and meaningful.

Important discussion points:

• Do Millennials relate well to EQ involvements? [starts at 2:11]
• How does EQ relate to Meaningful Work? [starts at 7:40]
• Why is EQ critical for a career change? [starts at 13:57]
• What has the use of personal technology done to EQ? [starts at 20:51]
• Can EQ help workers who are on the Autism spectrum? [starts at 22:14]
• What is the future of EQ? [starts at 24:12]

About our guest: When she was a child, growing up on a farm in Delaware, Edythe Richards dreamed about being a singer. “It wasn’t just the music, or the pitch, or whatever was playing on the radio,” she recalls. “More than anything, for me being a singer was about performing in front of an audience. I loved making others feel good and bringing them joy.”

Richards never rode her childhood dreams of singing into a performing arts career. But, she leveraged her love of public speaking and passion for empowering others as a professional career counselor, a Master Practitioner in Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assessment, and, a subject-matter expert in the field of Emotional Intelligence.

Edythe Richards received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Delaware and a Masters of Arts degree in Counseling from Seton Hall University. Her nationally recognized career counseling consultancy, A Top Career, is headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia.

EPISODE DATE: October 25, 2019

Previous guest appearance:

Discovering Yourself: ‘Knowing Your Myers-Briggs Type’ Opens Gateways to Meaningful Work

Published work:

Myers-Briggs Myths and Misuse

Social media:

A Top Career Website

A Top Career Facebook Page

MBTI Question Corner Podcast

LinkedIn Page

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:09 — 42.5MB)

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Emotional Intelligence Part 1: How EQ Helps People to Succeed in Meaningful Work

About this episode:

“Every reveal, so to speak, is unique and everybody’s results are unique. So, before [they even get their] results back, I think it is really important to provide an understanding of what Emotional Intelligence is.”

-Emotional Intelligence Expert Edythe Richards  

Most everyone knows what IQ means—it’s the intelligence quotient, a score derived from several standardized tests to measure a person’s intelligence. An average IQ score might be around 100, whereas the score of a genius-level person might exceed 150. But, few people in the world know what EQ means—that is the quotient of emotional intelligence, which measures our ability to be aware of, control, and express emotion, and, to handle interpersonal relationships judicially and empathically.

In Emotional Intelligence part 1 of a two-part episode, we welcome back Edythe Richards. She is the founder and executive coach at A Top Career and a subject-level expert on Emotional Intelligence. Edythe helps us to take on emotional intelligence to learn what it is, why it is important, and how we can use it to make our work and workplace experiences positive and meaningful.

Important discussion points:

• What is EQ? [starts at 2:39]
• How does EQ differ from IQ? [starts at 5:57]
• Edythe reviews Dan’s EQ assessment [starts at 7:48]
• How do her clients turn the “shock” of revealed results into positive action? [starts at 24:59]

About our guest: When she was a child, growing up on a farm in Delaware, Edythe Richards dreamed about being a singer. “It wasn’t just the music, or the pitch, or whatever was playing on the radio,” she recalls. “More than anything, for me being a singer was about performing in front of an audience. I loved making others feel good and bringing them joy.”

Richards never rode her childhood dreams of singing into a performing arts career. But, she leveraged her love of public speaking and passion for empowering others as a professional career counselor, a Master Practitioner in Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assessment, and, a subject-matter expert in the field of Emotional Intelligence.

Edythe Richards received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Delaware and a Masters of Arts degree in Counseling from Seton Hall University. Her nationally recognized career counseling consultancy, A Top Career, is headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia.

EPISODE DATE: October 18, 2019

Previous guest appearance:

Discovering Yourself: ‘Knowing Your Myers-Briggs Type’ Opens Gateways to Meaningful Work

Published work:

Myers-Briggs Myths and Misuse

Social media:

A Top Career Website

A Top Career Facebook Page

MBTI Question Corner Podcast

LinkedIn Page

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:40 — 29.0MB)

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Give Piece a Chance Part 2: An Entrepreneur Disrupts Chicago’s Food Scene

About this episode:

“We didn’t have the luxury of a soft opening. So, we’re packed, it’s hard getting the product out of the kitchen, because we really don’t know how to do volume yet. And we’re learning how to do service. So, we’re pissing off people right and left and it took awhile to settle down. And fortunately, it did. But definitely it was a double-edged sword. And we were in the papers; we were in the media all of the time. [There were] cameras there!”

– Billy Jacobs, founder of Piece Pizzeria & Brewery

In this episode, we learn how one entrepreneur dared—not once, but twice—to disrupt the established food scene in a major American city.

In 1983, along with his three brothers, Billy Jacobs arrived in Chicago with a dream: to bring fresh New York style bagels to the city’s food scene. Their effort was a smashing success. After scaling Jacobs Brothers Bagels to 20 stores and hundreds of employees, they took a buy-out offer. Billy’s brothers went on to second-act careers while Billy started dreaming again, to turn his next big disruption into reality.

That’s when his idea to bring to Chicago the classic New Haven-style pizza of his youth took shape. Soon after, Billy opened Piece Pizzeria and Brewery in Chicago’s trendy Wicker Park neighborhood.

According to industry trade publication Pizza Today, Piece Pizzeria and Brewery is the highest-grossing single location pizzeria in the United States.

Joining us on Give Piece a Chance Part 2 is our lifelong friend Stu Katz who provided wise counsel when Billy established his restaurants.

In this second part of a two-part podcast episode, we discover how:

• Piece paired great pizza with award winning ales [starts at 2:08]
• The partnership with Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick happened [starts at 5:17]
• Piece Out became a successful delivery operation [starts at 11:09]
• Localism and community philanthropy through Pilot Light Chefs enmeshed into Piece’s business [starts at 16:06]
• Piece collaborated with Chicagoland food legend “Hot Doug” Sohn [starts at 19:50]
• Along with creative director Jim Furrh, Piece created provocative and highly effective branding, advertising, and marketing [starts at 21:46]
• Billy got back into the bagel business with brobagel [starts at 26:53]

About our guests:

Billy Jacobs received a Bachelor of Arts in History from Boston University. By his own admission, majoring in history was a wise study track, for a degree in business administration would probably have ruined his entrepreneurial dreams. The New Haven, Connecticut native is a lifelong Ultimate Frisbee player and an avid Chicago Cubs fan who attends almost all home games.

Stu Katz received a Bachelor of Science degree from the Park School of Communications at Ithaca College and a Masters of Arts in Corporate Communications from Seton Hall University. The New Haven, Connecticut native is also the founder and executive producer of Elm City Communications, a corporate communications services company headquartered in New Jersey.

EPISODE DATE: October 11, 2019

Social media:

Piece Website

Piece Instagram Feed

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:21 — 39.3MB)

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Give Piece a Chance Part 1: An Entrepreneur Disrupts Chicago’s Food Scene

About this episode:

“There were plenty of naysayers. Chicago is known for deep dish pizza. That is what Chicago is. And people were telling me [you can’t go] into Chicago with a New Haven-style pizza, because frankly, not many people know where New Haven is let alone what New Haven-style pizza is!”

– Billy Jacobs, founder of Piece Pizzeria & Brewery

In this episode, we learn how one entrepreneur dared—not once, but twice—to disrupt the established food scene in a major American city.

In 1983, along with his three brothers, Billy Jacobs arrived in Chicago with a dream: to bring fresh New York-style bagels to the city’s food scene. Their effort was a smashing success. After scaling Jacobs Brothers Bagels to 20 stores and hundreds of employees, they took a buy-out offer. Billy’s brothers went on to second-act careers while Billy started dreaming again, to turn his next big disruption into reality.

That’s when his idea to bring to Chicago the classic New Haven-style pizza of his youth took shape. Soon after, Billy opened Piece Pizzeria and Brewery in Chicago’s trendy Wicker Park neighborhood.

According to industry trade publication Pizza Today, Piece Pizzeria and Brewery is the highest-grossing single location pizzeria in the United States.

Joining us on this episode is our lifelong friend Stu Katz who provided wise counsel when Billy established his restaurants.

In Give Piece a Chance part 1, we discover:

• Billy’s early career dreams [starts at 3:23]
• The big moment that focused his entrepreneurial career [starts at 4:59]
• How and when the brothers introduced New York-style fresh bagels to Chicago [starts at 7:14]
• The big scale of Jacobs Brothers Bagels (and how Billy truly hated it) [starts at 15:55]
• Billy’s “What were you thinking?” moment when he pursued opening a New Haven-style pizzeria [starts at 18:50]
• Billy and Stu’s childhood memories of Sally’s Apizza in New Haven, the inspiration for Piece [starts at 23:35]
• Piece’s rewarding customer experience [starts at 26:48]

About our guests:

Billy Jacobs received a Bachelor of Arts in History from Boston University. By his own admission, majoring in history was a wise study track for a degree in business administration would probably have ruined his entrepreneurial dreams. The New Haven, Connecticut native is a lifelong Ultimate Frisbee player and an avid Chicago Cubs fan who attends almost all home games.

Stu Katz received a Bachelor of Science degree from the Park School of Communications at Ithaca College and a Masters of Arts in Corporate Communications from Seton Hall University. The New Haven, Connecticut native is also the founder and executive producer of Elm City Communications, a corporate communications services company headquartered in New Jersey.

EPISODE DATE: October 4, 2019

Social media:

Piece Website

Piece Instagram Feed

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 3:00 — 2.8MB)

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Beyond Dreams, we tackle the topic.

About the episode:

In the fall of 2018, we learned that, born from our beautiful childhood dreams, we can find success as adults doing meaningful work.

Through their own storytelling, our guests inspired us to seek out work and career opportunities that are profound, empower people, protect the planet, and fun-to-do.

But we also learned that dreams alone cannot lead to meaningful work. We must aid our dreams through exploration of work and entrepreneurial opportunities, a solid and well-thought-out strategy to pivot into a new role, and then bold action to make it all happen.

So why is this so important? Because, somewhere between childhood and our adult years, most of us abandon our dreams of doing meaningful work. Instead, we settle for meaningless work that covers expenses and offers some benefits…but renders us bored, miserable, angry, and longing to do better.

EPISODE DATE: December 14, 2018

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:23 — 30.2MB)

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Serving Those Who Serve: Finding Meaningful Work as a Police Chaplain

About this episode:

“My career has been one of twists and turns, but ultimately things connected to each other. And what I do now—to help people in need—is something that helps me feel whole.”

– Michael Shochet, Senior Cantor of Temple Rodef Shalom, Falls Church, Virginia; Chief Chaplain of Fairfax County, Virginia Police

Few can tell a personal career story as dramatic and ever-changing as Mike Shochet. He became one of the youngest TV reporters in Baltimore. But bothered by covering “if it bleeds, it leads” stories, he pivoted into law enforcement as a Baltimore City police officer where he hoped that he could help people more effectively.

Then Tom, his partner on patrol, got shot. Shochet used his own shirt to stanch the bleeding from Tom’s gunshot wound. Immediately, Shochet suffered PTSD, but his superiors told him to take a day off and get back on the job.

He couldn’t.

Shochet turned in his badge and eventually found his calling as a cantor in a large D.C. area synagogue and as lead chaplain for Virginia’s largest municipal police department.

After so many career “twists and turns” Mike Shochet had found the work of his dreams—meaningful work.

Now, he is serving those who serve as lead chaplain for the Fairfax County Virginia Police.

In this episode, Shochet:

• Explains what a police chaplain does [starts at 2:00]
• Describes the motivations that allow police officers to do such stressful work [starts at 7:30]
• Discusses the role of empathy in policing [starts at 19:30]

About our guest: Michael Shochet received a Bachelor of Science from Ithaca College’s Park School of Communications and a Masters in Sacred Music from Hebrew Union College. He is the Senior Cantor for Temple Rodef Shalom in Falls Church, Virginia and Chief Chaplain of the Fairfax County, Virginia Police Department. Shochet and his family live in Fairfax County, Virginia.

EPISODE DATE: December 7, 2018

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:22 — 41.6MB)

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Neurocentricity and recruitment align the corporate mission to meaningful work.

“We’re looking at a world of more empathetic buying, empathetic recruitment, empathetic reading, empathetic leadership. It is absolutely the way of the future. It is allowing anyone who is connected to a common cause to feel respected and safe in a way that will change the world.”

– Adrienne Shoch, Corporate Performance Expert and Founder of 5 to 1 Consulting

An unusual alignment of forces is taking hold in today’s workplace, one that merges the needs of hiring managers and the express wants and desires of professionals. The alignment is aided by what our guest, performance expert Adrienne Shoch, calls neurocentrity, the dynamics that encapsulate how we relate to the world and what allows us to thrive. The merger has ushered in a new era of empathetic recruitment.

In this episode, Shoch:

• Defines the concept of neurocentricity [starts at 1:25]
• Describes empathetic recruitment [starts at 6:55]
• Discusses the importance of workplace flexibility [starts at 22:24]
• Relays the importance of BREATHING [starts at 30:33]
• Describes a future built around workplace empathy [starts at 33:31]

About our guest: Adrienne Shoch is the founder of 5 to 1 Consulting. By employing holistic, performance-focused practices, Shoch helps clients to understand how the brain, body, and language influence workforce behavior and decision-making. What is more, she empowers company leaders to effectively apply “generated from within us” skills and behaviors to build trust, inspire, and lead team members to overcome highly stressful situations and complex business contexts.

Adrienne Shoch received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Towson University. She studied French at University of Paris – Sorbonne and Neuroleadership at the Neuroleadership Institute. She lives and works in Washington, D.C.

EPISODE DATE: November 30, 2018

Social media:

5 to 1 Consulting Website

Adrienne Shoch LinkedIn Page

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:26 — 33.7MB)

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A meaningful career: leading autonomous vehicle adoption In Urban America.

“The community has to trust developers of the cars, users of the cars, and they also have to see that these cars are going to take them to the places that they have had difficulty getting to.”

– Richard Ezike, Ph.D., Noted Subject-Matter Expert on Transportation Equity

Dr. Richard Ezike’s earliest childhood dreams of doing meaningful work were about building beautiful buildings and cityscapes. But after earning advanced degrees in science and advocating for the environment and our urban centers, his career pivoted in a completely unexpected direction.

Now, Dr. Ezike leads the charge for American Transportation Equity, to make the full range of mobility options—and, in particular, Autonomous Vehicles or AVs—as readily available for inner-city residents as they are for people in our more affluent suburbs. He believes that AVs will provide safer and more accessible mobility, and may greatly improve the lives of inner-city residents who otherwise are deprived of quality transportation.

During these key interview segments, Dr. Ezike:

• Defines the term “Autonomous Vehicle” [starts at 1:40]
• Offers his insight as to whether people of color will accept AVs as a transportation equity option [starts at 6:51]
• Addresses the national security and “hackability” concerns related to the development of AVs [starts at 10:55]

• Offers his thoughts on how, 30 years from now, AVs may revitalize historically poor and underserved communities such as Southeast Washington, D.C. [starts at 23:31]

About our guest: As a child growing up in Kingsport, Tennessee, Richard Ezike was “fascinated by the design of buildings.” On family trips, young Richard brought along his Kodak camera to capture images of the buildings that he admired most. He recalls: “I really wanted to be someone that was able to design the next major city in the country.”

In high school, Richard discovered a passion for scientific study; he thrived in AP Chemistry, and soon after, earned bachelors and doctoral degrees in Chemical Engineering. But it was years later, at a prized fellowship with the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, that he understood the importance of an equitable transportation system to a functioning system. That was when his childhood dream of creating great places to live merged with his passion for promoting science and economic, environment, and social parity.

Today, he is nationally recognized thought-leader in Transportation Equity.

Richard Ezike received a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from North Carolina State University and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Michigan. Currently, he is a New Mobility and Equity Fellow for the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, D.C. Dr. Ezike is a frequent events speaker and podcast guest in the areas of transportation equity, resource sustainability, social responsibility, STEAM learning, careerism, and the environment.

EPISODE DATE: November 23, 2018

Published work:

Transportation, Sustainability, and Equity and the Effect on the African-American Community, Published October 20, 2016

Transportation, Environment and Health: Inexorably Linked for Black People, Washington Informer, Published September 7, 2016

Can Transportation be a Bridge to Wealth for African Americans?, Published May 10, 2016

Social media:

Richard Ezike, Ph.D. Website

LinkedIn Page