S6 Ep. 273 Jonathan Borgwing - How Failure Leads Us Closer To Success

How Failure Leads Us Closer To Success.

This week’s episode is about Jon Borgwing, an Army veteran who shares that it is important to recognize opportunity and take advantage of it when it presents itself. Why? Because you can help people, create impact, and change the world.

 

This week’s episode was fascinating. We discussed how the use of AR, VR, and immersive technologies will be used to accelerate cognitive and educational learning opportunities.

 

Jon’s outlook on failure is positive and upbeat and truly one of the best ways to learn. Failure is based on science and in the world of science, what some see failure as negative it is acceptable and gets us closer to success. We need to embrace how failure can and will be one of our best ways to be a more open way to accelerating learning. Tune in to learn more about the role an instructional designer plays in everyday learning to make it experiential.

 

#iHeartRadio #ApplePodcasts #GooglePlay #Spotify #Stitcher #Podbean #YouTube #Employers4Change #E4C #internships #radio #podcast #innovation #employers #smallbusiness #business #FutureOfWork #ValenciaCollegeRadio

 

Episode Transcript

(00:10):
My name is Isabella Johnstonand I am the intern whisperer.
Our show is brought to you byEmployers 4 Change and our unconscious
bias tips are provided by builtin.
com.
We're going to talk about confirmationbias and what does that all mean?
We've been taught.
Touching base on there's 16types of biases that people
have, and we all have them.

(00:32):
So we need to realize that we have theseand that there are ways that we can
become more aware of what's going on.
So confirmation bias is theinclination to draw conclusions
about a situation or a person.
Based on personal desires, beliefs, andprejudices rather than on unbiased merit.
So what does all of that mean inhiring confirmation bias office

(00:55):
plays a detrimental role at the verybeginning of the process when people
are first reviewing a resume andthey form an initial opinion of the
candidate based on inconsequential.
Attributes like their name, wherethey're from, where they went to
school, how old they might be, allof these different pieces of data.

(01:17):
This opinion can follow you into theinterview process and consequently
steer questions to confirm theinitial opinion of that candidate.
So how can we avoid confirmation bias?
Well, there is a way while every interviewwill lend itself to a unique conversation
based on the individual's background.

(01:39):
It's important to ask standardizedskills based questions that provide each
candidate with a fair chance to stand out.
I cannot stress this enough becausehaving skills based questions draws on
the applicant's experience and backgroundas to how they may have solved a problem.
This will help prevent you and yourteam from asking too many off the

(02:03):
cuff questions that are different foreach person and can lead to some kind
of confirmation bias, and you canlose out on a really good candidate.
So welcome to the interim whisper.
Our show is all about thefuture of work and innovation.
Hi, my name is Isabella Johnston,the Intern Whisperer show is brought

(02:24):
to you by Employers 4 Change.
And I'm really am very excitedabout our guest this week.
It is somebody that Ihave met two years ago.
So hard to believe his name is Jonathan.
He gave me permissionto call him Jon Borger.
Borgwing, it's a tongue twister,Jon, he's the founder of VIG
Solutions with over 20 years ofexperience in instructional design.

(02:46):
And he is an army veteran.
Thank you for your service.
I know that's always an awkward thing.
He holds both an MS and an ED degree.
That means he's a doctorate folks.
And he is also highly skilled inthe Agile Addy Framework model.
And he's going to explain whatthat means to all of you guys.
So welcome to the show, Jon.

(03:07):
Thank you so much for having me.
Oh, so thrilled.
So let's talk about a little bitabout what all these other things are.
What is an ED degree?
ED Doctorate, an adoctorate of education.
And so that is sort of, as you lookat the, there's a lot of conversation
actually between the EDD and the PhD.
Mm-Hmm.
. And so, and oftentimes, actually,I think it was Harvard only

(03:30):
offered the EDD for the doctorateof education as an EDD format.
Traditionally, it's supposed tobe split between the EDD is more
practically focused, where thePhD is more, research focused.
And so when people often askthe question of, you know,
which one should they pursue?
And it usually comes down to,you know, practicality versus the

(03:50):
research heavy and research focus,but you're always contributing
something new to the field, of course.
But I, I had a tremendous programand I really enjoyed it at ASU.
So it was, it was a blast.
Hmm.
I always love hearing that.
And I had a discussion also,I remember with my chair as to
which way I wanted to go also.

(04:11):
And I said, well, I'drather be a researcher.
So I wanted to go the route of the PhD.
Absolutely.
So.
People don't always knowwhat the difference is.
They go, well, you're a doctorateand they think everybody is a PhD.
They usually haven't heard of an EDD.
Yeah.
It's, it's something I found that's like,obviously very secluded to education.
Right.

(04:31):
But it's, it's, it really gave me thetools cause we, so during my, my doctoral
dissertation, I use something calledaction research, which allowed me to
be iterative in my development of whatended up being the Agile Addy framework.
So it was very interesting thatI used an iterative process to
develop an iterative model as well.
So it was very cool.

(04:51):
So explain to our listeners also,what does the Agile Addy method mean?
Addy.
Yeah, that's awesome.
So Addy is the traditionalinstructional design method used to
build courses and stands for analysis.
design, develop, implement, and evaluate.
And there are different phases.

(05:11):
Traditionally, it's been a waterfallmethod, which means before you go from
analysis to, before you go to design,you have to finish your analysis.
And so, this sort of, I came up with thisbecause out of necessity of what I, what
happened in the military for me, where weactually found a lot of our soldiers were
not trained in the latest battle fieldsituation or an operational environment.

(05:36):
And so I actually went back tothe schoolhouse and started
figuring, trying to figure outhow we can solve this challenge.
And then we realized that in order togo from analysis to design, I believe
there were 42 signatures that neededto be signed or something like that.
And I was like, this is crazy.
There's no way that we can keep up withthe pace of change on the battlefield.
If it takes three years, four yearsto revise our, our training materials.

(05:59):
At that time, it was a rapid,development in that situation.
This was around 2000, 2007, 2008.
And then 2009, I wentback to the schoolhouse.
And, during that time, you know, Icame up with in a way that we could
potentially modify Addy to be more agile.
And there are a lot of differentmodels out there, such as the

(06:20):
success of approximation model,which uses some agile principles.
And as well as the Llama model, whichagain, uses an iterative approach.
But the difference with those isyou would really have to break the
process to implement and some of theagile fundamentals of Addy, or at
least modify it to the point where alot of these systems that have been

(06:42):
built, you know, the government spendsmillions of dollars into something
like Addy and builds informationsystems across its entire enterprise.
So.
Addy Agile, the agility framework canactually fit right on top of that, which
is sort of, which is nice because then youdon't have to build entirely new systems.
Right.
Yeah.
And I know we may be using some jargonthat's specific that is used in either

(07:04):
learning and development of adultlearners or in the education field.
So I may just periodically justsay, hey, explain that one also.
Please do, because in the militarywe use a lot of acronyms, and so I
am very, very guilty of doing that.
Yeah, yeah.
And most people, you know,they're not able to engage and
go, well, what does that mean?

(07:25):
So I'm their speaker, so to speak.
No, please.
Yes, absolutely.
So you'd spent this lifetime going toschool and being able to be a teacher.
I think there's nothing better thanbeing a teacher, but I also think
there's probably nothing betterthan first serving in the military
because it's not for everybody.
So, you know, it takes a lot of courageor some people may think that, you

(07:50):
know, you're just playing being stupid.
It kind of depends on who in yourfamily you're talking with, right?
Because they don't want to losethat person, but then there's also
the fact that it is a service andI think teaching and nursing not
to be confused with doctors, right?
Yes.
Yeah.

(08:10):
Not to be confused.
People that care for others is afield that's just really, people
don't realize how much, emotionaland mental and sometimes physical
energy it takes to be in those roles.
Oh yeah.
Nurses.
I've had the privilege of workingwith nurses, within our, within

(08:31):
our company during as we do courses.
And, they are, they are tremendous.
I love working with nurses.
They're, they're amazing.
They have all of theirstandards already laid out.
They know exactly what's and they're,they're incredibly knowledgeable
on all facets of medicine.
So it's my favorite group towork with, teachers as well.
Yeah.
I always felt like I got out easy causeyou know, teachers, you know, they have

(08:55):
the instructor student ratios are fairlyhigh now and you have to keep students
engaged during that entire process.
I had the benefit of having drillsergeants in the back of my classroom.
So if somebody fell asleep,you know, the drill sergeants
would have them do pushups.
We can't do that nowadays.
So I had it much easier than ourK through 12 teachers or even our
higher education teachers with that.

(09:16):
So I got off easy.
So I feel, I feel veryfortunate with that.
Yeah, very true.
Very true.
And when you're teaching to themasses, the same as in the military,
you have all different types oflearning abilities in the room.
You do.
It's hard to keep them engaged.
It is, it is.
Yeah, it was, it, it was a reallywonderful experience because I got

(09:36):
exposed to a lot of different types oflearners as well as constantly striving
to figure out how to keep them engaged,cause some of the content was very dry.
So if we think about like legaldetermination of, of different types
of, you know, as law of war, forexample, that is not something that
somebody gets very excited to go learn.

(09:57):
It's very important, but they don'tget very excited to learn that.
So how do you make thatengaging for your learners?
Right.
So yeah, that was, that wasone of the challenges or how do
you treat teach them software?
And, and that's alwaysvery, very difficult.
We were very, I was very luckyto have those experiences because
now when we have clients who have,for example, software that they're
trying to teach, we, we've done this.

(10:18):
I've done that before.
I've had to sit and, and watchstudents, you know, fall asleep.
And now I've, I've overcome that.
We have some strategies thatwe can deploy that really keeps
them engaged, which is great.
That is super.
So we move to this section aboutthe five words that would describe
you and why those five words.
So your first one was innovative.
Why innovative.

(10:39):
Yeah, so, I, when we think abouteducation right now, I've been
very, very fortunate with VIG.
We are working in virtualreality, augmented reality
and artificial intelligence.
And I think those are really thethree The areas of enterprise that are
really pushing the boundaries of howwe can be innovative in that space.

(11:02):
I think that education has been anarea that a lot of people have tackled.
And so, as these new technologiescome to bear, even blockchain.
right?
These new technologies that arecoming up web three, being able to
interact with them, being able to workwith them and operationalize them.
I really find a lot of passion in that.
So as soon as we find a way thatwe can, a new way to solve problems

(11:25):
or a new way to engage students,I've, I've gravitate toward that.
So I love to work in that space.
That, that's a good thing because Iknow you just mentioned web three.
And as we continue to move into thefuture of work, you know, there's like,
well, people go, well, what's web3?
What's web2?
Well, web2 is everything we havebeen using the way we did with

(11:46):
Google and all of these things.
Now there's different wayswe access information.
So what is web3?
How would you define it?
That's a, so we, when we, NFTs, right.
Non I'm going to messup non fungible tokens.
Yes, there we go.
I think, and especially with like,when we think about, Bitcoin, think

(12:08):
about the, the cryptocurrencies.
I think that's what people most associatewith some of those web3 technologies, but
I think there are, that's just the start.
And I think that there's a lot moredepth there, but it's also how you
interact with your environment with web3.
Like you can have an entirebuilding on a web3 contract.
And so, and there's, for example,Arcimoto's on web3 Arcimoto's are-

(12:33):
that's the company, Glenn cook, Arcimoto.
Who's the founder?
The, Oh, the founder and I don't,I don't remember the founder, but
I'll look it up while we're talking,but that's, yes, I'm with you.
It's amazing.
And their vehicles are, are awesome.
But the, I think they havean Arcimoto on the blockchain
now as well that you can buy.
Mark Thronemeier.

(12:54):
There we go.
Yep.
Yeah.
That was the name earlier.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Anyway, for our listeners,go look up Mark Frohnmayer.
He was a previous guest on the show.
Yeah.
Okay.
No, he's, yeah, they're, they're awesome.
The company is, is tremendous.
But they, yeah, they have, they havethese vehicles that are really, really
cool, but the fact that they can put themon blockchain to be sold is even cooler.

(13:17):
And if you think about what we dowith credit cards now and the fees
and the processing fees associatedwith that, Web3 really takes
that to a whole different level.
And there's all sorts of innovationhappening in those spaces,
especially with, you know, asthey look at computing power.
Yeah.
It's, it's a, it's a reallyexciting space to be in.
It is.
And what gets so frustrating, I think,to people is that when they hear

(13:37):
about The NFTs and cryptocurrencyand all of the things that are
around what the future of currencycan look like, but I can't touch it.
And they're used to touching dollar bills.
And so I guess the easiest way to helpthem understand that is, well, you have a
credit card and you, you can use it to gobuy things and it's based on leveraging

(14:00):
money that comes into your bank accountand you may never touch that money.
You're using a card to access it.
Yeah, it's, it's, it's very cool.
There's, there are all sorts of, and it'snot just in, in 3d, it's not just in 2d,
it really, it's starting to transcend.
You have like a wallet.

(14:20):
It's almost like you have your, on theiPhone, you have the Apple wallet, right?
It's exactly like that.
You have wallets that exist withinthe browser, within your, with your
phone, that you're able to take anduse on different chains of blockchains.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And access.
Whatever, however your money is,whether it's stocks or if it's

(14:41):
in an actual cash, or if it's anart or in those different areas.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think it's the whole blockchain,piece their gut, I think disrupted.
There was like, there was a, a goldrush of, as you saw values of different
coins increased substantially in priceand then it hit what they call the

(15:02):
crypto winter where things startedto go down again, it's going to, it's
going to go in hibernation for a littlebit, and then we'll see what happens.
Yeah.
It depends on what's goingon with our government also.
Well, your second word was grit.
I think that that goes really well withthe fact that you served in the military.
I forgot to ask you, how long were you.
serving?
Four years with a 15month deployment to Iraq.

(15:25):
Wow.
That's a long time to be 15months in another country.
And if you were married at thetime, that's really, really hard.
Yeah.
It, it's, it's, you know, therewere very, very bad days or were, if
you make friends that you'll havefor the rest of your life, and you
experience a lot of things together,yeah, but it was, yeah, we did 15

(15:49):
months, just south of Baghdad, maineffort, for a little bit of that time.
So, yeah.
Yeah, agile.
Well, that ties in with your profession.
We had innovative grit agile.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I didn't talk about.
Yeah.
So are we going back to grit?
I apologize.
Yeah, that's okay.
So, so I, so a lot of times whenI, when we think about challenges

(16:13):
that we face, you know, it's,you're, you're going to fail, right?
Failure is going to happen.
But I think What really helps meas I continue to move past that,
having that ability to move forward,even after you find difficulty,
in fact, I think it starts to getfun when things get difficult.
Right.
Cause that's when, you know, youknow, you keep on going and David

(16:34):
Goggins, I don't know if you'refamiliar with David Goggins.
I do not know this name.
So, he's great.
I'm going to look himup while you're talking.
Yeah, he's, he's phenomenal, buthe has that same mentality of grit
where once things get difficult,
then, then you really start pushingand that's, you know, if things
are difficult, if things are easy,then anyone can do it, right.
And when things get difficult,that's when the fun begins.

(16:54):
So you know, as an entrepreneur, weknow that, you know, things, you're
an entrepreneur yourself, you know,things get difficult and you have to
have that grit in order to be successfulin order to make it to the next level.
Oh, he's a, an author also.
Yeah.
And a Navy SEAL.
Yep.
He did the Navy SEAL selection,I believe two or three times.
He's got, he's got an incredible story.

(17:16):
I would, yeah.
Okay.
I like this quote.
You are in danger of living alife so comfortable and soft
that you will die without everrealizing your true potential.
That is a powerful statement.
Yeah.
He, I mean, I think his story is hewas, 300 pounds and he decided to do

(17:37):
the Navy SEALs and lost all that weight,went through selection three times.
I think he broke his foot atone point and continued to drive
forward or he had shin splints.
He had really bad shin splints.
That's what it was.
Wow.
Yeah.
He's a tremendous human being that wasreally pushes himself, but that push is so
important for success in so many things.
It absolutely is.

(17:57):
And then he also says life isunfair and bad things happen.
But if you see those events asopportunities to learn and grow,
absolutely good things happen.
I think he's the definition of grit.
Oh, gosh.
Yeah.
Based on this one thing.
So I'm, I'm definitely going toadd him over here to the notes.
Check out David Goggins.
Yes.

(18:17):
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
And I, I was surprised thatI was even spelling his name
correctly, G O G G I N S.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Yep.
Yeah.
Okay so you feel like we covered grit.
Oh yeah.
Absolutely.
Sorry.
I'm just going to make sure.
And then agile and we, we kind of coveredthat one when you're talking about
agile as it relates to, the Addy method.

(18:41):
Yeah, it was, it was reallyinteresting during my doctorate.
I went, we think aboutagile and business practices.
We think scrum, we think points,we think can't ban boards.
We think all of these things thatare just different systems put in
place in a different environment.
And when you go back and you lookat the Agile Manifesto, which is
the core document, which a bunchof software developers got together

(19:02):
and figure out to figure out thebest way to produce software code.
And you read that and it's not necessarilyalways in line with what we think of like
scrum and points and things like that.
And in fact, there's a great talkthat one of the original authors
gave about how Agile is dead.
Now I'll, I'll save everyonefrom listening, but he doesn't
actually think it's dead.
He just thinks that all of thesesystems that we're putting in place

(19:25):
are actually diluting the coremessages there that which is, you
know, and I'll let the readers readit because I'll recite it incorrectly.
I'm sure if I, have that, but it'sabout prioritization of how you are
aligning your processes accordingly.
So it's really, really awesome.
These sound like great books.
Were these the textbooksthat you got to read?

(19:45):
Because they sound amazing so far.
Oh, in my studies?
Yeah.
I was very fortunate.
So before going to ASU, I went to Uof A, University of Arizona, and I
had a class with I guess everyone elsedropped out and it was just me and
the professor and we went over all ofthe theories of instructional design.
That's where I got the bug.

(20:05):
One of the bugs.
But then during my dissertation, it wasreally, they allowed us to really find
the sources of truth that we neededto, to base our, our theories on.
And that was actually what I used asone of my theories for my dissertation.
Very, very interesting.
Yeah.
Who was your, chair?
I guess that one person was your chair.
Is that?

(20:25):
No, it wasn't him.
My chair was, Oh no.
It's okay.
It'll be kind of like that whole thing.
Yeah.
She was wonderful though.
I have nothing but great things to say.
It's okay.
It'll, and when it does just shout thename out, it's totally Erin Brofman fine.
Really?
Okay.
There we go.

(20:46):
Going, coming back, practical.
So, yes, and this is sometimescontrasting with innovation.
And so, we really, when we think aboutinnovation, we think about these,
these really great opportunities, butthe practical side needs to come into
effect on how you operationalize things.

(21:06):
And so a great example iswhen we take VR, right?
Virtual reality.
It's always been the shinything in the room for the Nat, I
would say for the last, three,four years at the very least.
and now AI is starting to take awaysome of that shine, but, a lot of
times that we'd go into, we look at thistechnology and it's very, very cool.
I mean, they have things where now theyhave like feedback on your hands, on as

(21:30):
you touch things and interact with things.
But the question is,what is the scalability?
What is the return on investment?
What does that ratio look like?
And I think, understanding thatadjustment, understanding what that looks
like is incredibly important , and that'swhere that practicality piece comes from
is, is looking not just at the innovation,but how do we operationalize it?
What is the impact to learners?

(21:50):
What is the return on investment?
That was interesting.
Just so our listeners know, somebodydecided to come into the room, you know,
but if you're on camera, you would haveseen them come in and they're going,
okay, that's, that's interesting.
Because we were mentioningaugmented reality.
What I think was interesting isthat, 1968 is when it was invented.

(22:11):
Isn't that amazing?
Who is that old, but you know, theinternet was invented, not the internet,
computers were back in the sixties.
Yep.
And so if you think about that's howold that is, is the same timeframe,
it makes me wonder what is beinginvented that we don't know about.

(22:33):
And when we get, like, 10 yearsin the future, we're going to
go, oh, but they were testing it.
And to your point, something wewere talking about also is the fact
that with, a, I will talk aboutthis in the 2nd, half of the show.
They could be doing all kinds ofwonderful things that we don't know
about because they're testing it.
Well, and that's where the operateoperationalization or what is the

(22:55):
practicality of things as it meansconsumer needs as it means business
needs as it means and what is thoseprice points the return on investment.
Right.
And that's not the onlything that, determines that.
I think it's also the return on effort.
So there may be a profit, but if ittakes, or whatever that metric is
that you're using for investment, butis it worth all the time and effort?

(23:17):
And we see that, I see that a lotwith, for example, virtual reality.
If I have to put on a headset andto take cognitive load to understand
the interface, how often am Iinteracting with that interface?
Do I have to learn a newinterface every time?
Do I have to put on anew headset every time?
And the return on effort startsto decrease, depending on how
you're deploying that innovation.

(23:38):
So a lot of this funding, our governmentwill pay, pay us as you know, people
in the, just the regular world ofbusiness, those give us grants to go
and study AR, VR, and all of that.
And we'll have game jams wherewe can go and say, okay, military
people, what are the problemsthat you would like us to solve?

(23:58):
And so that's the most.
I mean, that's an easy thing tounderstand and be able to fund
and say, well, we can't fund it.
And, you know, we can, but, you know,we're thinking like military or, you
know, government people, but what ifwe put it out there for the masses?
And so you can get SBIR fundingand, you know, phase one, two, and

(24:19):
they will give you a lot of money,but seems like a lot of money.
And we're testing the heck out of all ofthese things that are out there to see,
is it something that people would buy?
Yeah, absolutely.
Which is AR, VR, mixed reality,holograms, like pic stuff.
I think it's so cool what'shappening in that space.

(24:40):
Not to jump too much.
That's okay.
We can.
Okay.
Yeah, I mean, I think what's really coolis now we're looking at APIs for like web
AR and web VR, where the dissemination ofcontent can happen through just a website.
And that changes the game as faras distribution models, as far
as accessibility, because deviceaccessibility is, is an issue

(25:03):
potentially, you think about different,I mean, the Pico headset versus
the Quest headset, hologram versus.
Apple Vision Pro when that comes out,I'm sorry, not the whole, the HoloLens.
Thank you.
So.
There's a lot of differentecosystems, but I think web is
the unifying one between them.
It appears to be that way.

(25:24):
So...
Have you seen, I saw this and Ithink it was about, I would say
probably six to eight years ago.
Where, and it was in everythingcool seems to come out of Japan.
I think they had, instead of a hardcomputer, it would be three pins and
you put these three pins together andit creates a screen right above you.

(25:48):
So you make a, like a little triangle,like a teepee that radiates, an
image, a hologram, if you will, andthen that becomes your, your screen.
And then there was this little, likea keyboard, but you roll it out
and then you can type right on it.
But it's, it's notanything you really touch.
Everything was the sizeof a pair of glasses.

(26:12):
That's awesome.
And I, I believe it'sprobably really there.
We just don't havepossession of it yet, right?
It will be right.
The return of the, is it fine?
Is it commercially viable yet?
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
That's it's very cool.
I think we're seeing the starts ofstart of that with the Apple Vision Pro.
Yeah.
And I think why that device isdifferent from say, like the hollow

(26:33):
lens or say some of the Quest, Iknow Quest is getting there as well.
But the fact that it can immerse youor it can, you can still maintain
connection with your realityand where you're at right now.
I think having thatflexibility is important.
Yeah.
It's a lot like when you go and seescience fiction movies and they're
like swiping things in the air andit looks like a hologram essentially,

(26:57):
but like you can move stuff around.
It feels very, very interesting.
Very cool to watch.
You can go, is it, but yeah, it'shere, but it's not commercialized yet.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah, exactly.
And that's, I think we're getting there.
I think we'll definitely bethere for the very near future.
Oh yeah.
I would agree too.
Yeah.
So we covered all of those words.
Oh, except the last one,integrity and transparency.

(27:19):
So that's interesting thatyou paired them together.
Yeah, I think, so I try to betransparent in everything I do.
I think it's important.
It allows you to move quickly.
It allows everyone to be on the same page.
But also in the integrity to understandthat, you know, yeah, for example, I
have had discussions and made dealswith people so that it's just a

(27:41):
gentleman's word or, a human's word.
Thank you.
Yeah, I was looking for thecorrection on there .Thank you.
I appreciate that.
So, but yeah, just a, you know, just,taking somebody at their word and then
moving forward and being able to havethat integrity and transparency of where
you're at, has enabled all sorts ofthings, and having that, but it's very
important to me is, is keeping thatintegrity, keeping that transparency.

(28:05):
And that's what we practice with VIG,which one of our core fundamental, pieces
there, even with our clients, I thinksometimes there might be too transparency,
too much transparency because weshow them how the sausage is made.
So we scale it back basedon their preference.
But, but I think it's importantso that it keeps everyone
on the same page as well.
So you've mentioned VIG.
It's a nice segue towhere we're going next.

(28:26):
Where did that name comefrom for the, your company?
What does it stand for?
VIG.
So our listeners know.
Yeah.
So, so VIG is actually, so Agile inSwedish is Vig, and my sister came up
with it, cause she speaks Swedish.
My dad's from Sweden.
And so she came up with it, inthe car with her boyfriend.

(28:47):
They were, we're, they were alltrying to figure out what the name
of the company was going to be.
And I, and then they saidit and it just sort of.
Clicked but the team hasalso came up with that.
It's an acronym for VeryImportant Girls because we are
definitely in a women empoweredcompany or women powered company.
Cause, yeah, they're, they're,we're like, I think we have three

(29:08):
of us are hanging on, to keepup with, with the rest of them.
But, yeah, that's definitely where,where most of our employees are.
That's cool.
That's a good story there too.
So what does your company do?
We're an educational innovation company.
And so that's a little vague.
So just to get a little bit more specificis we do everything from, Virtual

(29:30):
reality development to which is, we'reable to do so at a lower cost than
than most individuals with a higherlevel of realism, which is great.
We do e learning face to face instruction.
But we like to ensure that there'sa high return on investment as
well as a high return on effortfor both our clients and learners.

(29:51):
We also, we have a trainingplatform called TrainingOS.
com and it uses AI to empowerteachers in the classroom as
well as instructional designers.
It uses generative AI to do things likecreate personalized learning plans,
to come up with course descriptions,to c reate, or it'll actually, if
you describe like a problem you'rehaving in the class, it'll help build

(30:14):
some solutions for you and that, sowe're very excited about that.
Yeah.
So you have, I know when I first metyou like in real life, and so hard to
believe that was just last week, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
You had said now, I, I think you werebeing very modest that you were not

(30:35):
a programmer and then it came out alittle bit later in our conversation
that you do know how to programthat you did study that too, but.
I went and I signed up for aBubble and it is not that simple.
I sat there and went, okay,yes, somebody believed in me.
So yes, I think I can do this.
And I, I was picking the answers andI went, I have no idea how to do this.

(30:58):
And it wasn't free.
And it said it was free.
There was a cost.
Yeah.
Bubble is great for, it's a low, Iwould say the low code, not a no code.
Yeah.
It's a low code platform that weactually, it's great for MV, minimally
viable products, MVPs to come out.
And, that's actually what we built,the first version of training.
Well, we're currently training OS on.

(31:20):
And training was originally cameabout as a algorithm that I'd built
because we saw a lot of transitioningK through 12 teachers into the
field of instructional design.
And, we saw a lot of them going through,I'll call them influencer bootcamps
in the instructional design community.
And they were leaving, expectingto have the same type of skillset

(31:40):
that somebody who had been in theindustry for several years, as well
as gone ahead, you know, masters,studies, they understand what theory.
And they do these, these bootcampsto some do a great job, but
they're just not there yet.
For example, aligning, whatis the right technology
intervention with learner outcome?
Some of those things get lost.
And so one of our hopes was, is wecould use training OS to help guide

(32:03):
them along the right path to helpempower them and make better decisions.
Instead during that, during Icreated this very big algorithm
and then chat GPT came out.
And consumerize through APIs, all ofthe AI technology, which is phenomenal,
but it, but it also made that algorithm,much shorter and it, we could, we saw a

(32:26):
unique opportunity because we were alreadybuilding training us at the time to
integrate a lot of those features into it.
And so now, AI is really runningtraining OS for our, for our clients.
And so we're very excited about that.
That is exciting.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So and I love the fact that you werebeing very modest about the number of

(32:46):
women that are in your company alsoso that I think it's really important.
I work out of a place where Iam the only woman known company.
So I, I would love to see, you know,walk into a room where I go, Oh,
look, there's all of these womenin this STEM and these tech fields
that it feels very lonely at times.
They're awesome.
I'm, I'm very, very fortunateto have a team to do that.

(33:07):
They're, they're tremendous, but yes,I am very frequently the only guy
in the room and that's great becauseYou know, we're doing great things.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I would say you are too.
Yeah.
Because that's going to be one way thatyour company will always stand out is
the fact that it is focused on that.
Is there anything else that you would likeour listeners to know about your company?

(33:28):
I, I, I'm very excitedabout the next few years.
We are moving into the field of, we'relooking at how you, consumerize,
we talked about consumerization.
We talk about practicality.
We talk about operationalization.
We are looking at technologyintervention as a way to increase

(33:49):
student outcomes, learner outcomes,workforce outcomes, rather than
just a, Hey, this is really cool.
Right?
So we, we try to use, we use,Kirkpatrick, yeah, evaluation methodology.
So we can actually show outcomesfrom the training, and so, yeah.
Training has often been seen as like anegative draw because do you have, for

(34:09):
example, how many times have you sat witha whole entire executive team at a table
and gone through like a day of training?
And then how much of thatis actually operationalized?
How much of that is actuallylike 20 percent if you're lucky.
Right.
And, and so we really like to flipthat model where if we're going to take
somebody's time away from the workforcewhere they're able to be productive, that
there is a, a high return on investmentfor that money they've taken away.

(34:33):
They're learning a job.
We are, we're, we'rechanging that dynamic.
And that's really what we focus on isas an educational innovation company,
using technology, using innovation tomake a high return on investment, as
well as a high return on effort forthat learner who's going to participate.
Cause I'm like the worst.
When I go into a training,I'm like, Oh man, let's see
what they're going to do now.
And I'm always, you know, you're alwaysthe worst student as a, as a trainer.

(34:55):
And so, So I, I bring that tobear even with our own courses.
So we're very, very, particular in howwe enter, do specific interventions.
Yeah.
I view learning is multidimensionaland there's so many facets of
how you can help people learn.
It's not just one way, but we knowone of the biggest ways is through,

(35:17):
mistakes, trial and error, right?
Yeah.
And hitting our head against the wall.
And I know that thisis a blended approach.
It's not going to be like a hard, wefinished part one, and then we're, we're
blending part one of the show with parttwo, so that it's a more blended approach.
But people, because of the complexityof just the human brain and, and their

(35:40):
personality type and how they learnand how they process information, it,
it's hard, it's hard to be able to makechange in people and I feel like it's,
it's part human and then it's partthe technology that we have available
to us because people get bored withthe same thing over and over again.

(36:02):
Oh, absolutely.
I mean, we think about PowerPoint.
I mean, in the army, we used to callthem PowerPoint Rangers because they
would have, they'd be so good at doingPowerPoint and that's, you know, that's
what some of the military relies onso heavily, but the classes would just
be PowerPoint after PowerPoint, afterPowerPoint, we have people falling asleep.
We had like, it's notinteractive at all at all.

(36:22):
And then, but.
That is now changed.
You know, the, the schoolhousesare doing fantastic work as
they've shifted these models.
And, I think keeping an interactiveenvironment is so important for
that, especially if you look atyour end state task, if you're
trying to teach a skill, let's getthem hands on as soon as possible.
Oh, totally agree.
Yeah.
We're going to take a breakto recognize cat five studios,

(36:44):
and we will be right back.
The Intern Whisperer is brought to youby Cat5 Studios who help you create games
and videos for your training and marketingneeds that are out of this world.
Visit Cat5 Studios for moreinformation to learn how Cat5
Studios can help your business.
Thank you.
Cat5 Studios.
And we're back to thesecond half of our show.
And just so our listeners know,this is not the typical show.

(37:06):
This is, it is really a,truly a blended approach.
And I'm, I'm loving this because I know wewere just talking about how education is.
Has to be experiential.
It has to be something that's handson where people are being able to.
That is how we accelerate learningand we accelerate it by working
together with other people.

(37:28):
Absolutely.
Yeah.
It's, it's so important, especiallyif we keep the end state in mind.
So when we think about, even if welook at like analysis, right, we want
somebody to be able to take somethingand come out with a judgment based
on that analysis that they have on.
on that.
Having them be interactive, havinginstead of just listening about criteria
and those types of things so important.

(37:49):
And we have, I think the field ofinstructional design has come along
so, so much, since it, since evenin the last five years that we have
so many people have great ideas.
I recently did a talk about AIwithin the classroom and there was
a teacher in the audience who hadall new, all of these resources that

(38:09):
I had never even heard of before.
And that's what I think the, as thecommunity evolves and the community gets
together, we're going to have better andbetter interventions for these things.
Have you ever gone to thefuture of education conference?
Have you?
I think I mentioned, okay.
I had been in education for 25years and you know, public secondary
education and then also higher ed andI went, how have I never heard of?

(38:32):
This organization, you have to go to thatbecause that is, they should be having
it in January here next year in 2024.
So one of the things that they did is theysaid, okay, everybody pull out your phone.
It was a keynote speaker, go to this app.
It was a Google app and then download.
It was, an augmented reality thing.

(38:52):
And then.
Type of tigers in there and there's tigersroaming all around the floor around us.
And it was like scary.
I'm glad they didn't say spiders, butyou know, it was, it was frightening,
but we also knew that it wasn't real.
Right.
Right.
And I've gone to so many really cooleducation and adult learning conferences

(39:14):
where there was another woman there.
She was a scientist and she was like,she had taken a corn starch into
her mouth and then blew it out andthen used a flame, whatever it is,
a flame, not a flamethrower, but youknow, a torch and there was all of
this, flames in the room and they hadto have special permission to do it.

(39:36):
It was incredible.
It was so, so fun.
That is what learning is too,because it makes impact and it has
an impression and it's not forgotten.
Absolutely.
And , when I was, I, my, I, atthis time, I, I thought I was not,
I was not going to do education.
I thought I was going to do likethe CIA, the DIA, all that stuff.

(39:57):
But they were, the UnitedStates Army Intelligence Center
of Excellence was trying to.
improve the educational standards there.
And that used Bloom's tax, not Bloom'staxonomy, excuse me, Gagne's nine
events of instruction, which is greatfor those, who are unfamiliar with it.
It's basically nine steps thatyou can go through in order to
use best practices for teaching.

(40:18):
And there's been some evolutionsince then, but the other thing that
introduced us to is ARC's model ofmotivation, which stands for attention.
relevancy, confidence and satisfaction.
Good job.
Yeah.
But it's, it's so cool because whatyou just said, right, grabbing their
attention, keeping students engagedthroughout has a huge impact on
the entire, ability to retain thatinformation and keeping them engaged.

(40:42):
So I think that's so important.
Yeah.
And it goes to something that, and again,I'm blending this, the, a favorite quote
that you had and Winston Churchill.
So you can cite either one orI can throw one out for you and
then you can just expand on it.
I love a man who grins when he fights.
I mean, I know I messed it up.
I got, no, you got it right.
I like a man who grins when he fights.

(41:04):
Yeah, that's, I'm sure David Gogginswould also love that quote, but I think
it goes down to, it goes back to the grit.
,you know, things that are tough areworth doing, you know, that's, that's
really where, you know, for example,you know, making VR operational
or, or, or viable for, the massesthat's, that's tough to do, right.

(41:24):
Or, or even having that idea of thatprice point, how do you get to that?
Right.
But.
it's worth doing.
Anything worth doing is,it's often hard to do.
Yes, it is.
Yes.
And so when things get tough, you know,when you hear, when you get pushback,
then, then things get exciting becausenow you're doing something that's hard.
That's going to be impactful oftentimes.
And the other one that he said wasnothing in life is so exhilarating

(41:47):
as to be shot at without result.
That's very deep.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, that's alittle more literal for me.
Okay.
But, it is very, very true is when, youknow, when people, not when people, but
when, you know, when you come up withthose challenges and, you're, you're

(42:08):
able to overcome them or when you have,you know, risks, for example, that you
face and that you are able to advert.
I mean, that's obviouslyvery exhilarating.
Yeah.
And for those who haven't shot at,they, they know what that feeling is.
But, but I think they're the, the riskis the biggest thing is, is, you know,
you with any innovation with pushing withthat grit, there does come risk as well.

(42:31):
And that while, you know, it can be alittle bit, a little bit scary, but at the
same time helps motivate you to continue.
Yeah.
The adrenaline rushes is the thing.
Absolutely.
And I think that that risk the feeling ofbeing shot at is not just always literal.
It can be being put on the spot orfeeling that somebody is trying to get

(42:53):
you with words or things like that.
So, you know, they can.
Shooting is not just a physical act.
It can also be something that'spsychological and emotional, right?
Yeah.
And it's, it's interesting.
Cause I, I'm no longer, I used to bevery, you know, if you're, if you're,
if you're coming after me, like,okay, let's, let's, you know, let's

(43:15):
have a conversation and a little moreconversational now it's, I've evolved
since then and much more, more laid back.
I think it's, that is agreat growth there as well.
Because it's not always personaland it's, you know, figuring out
what is, why somebody is takinga shot at you, if you will.
Yeah.
It's oftentimes very enlightening onnot, not you, but the other person.

(43:37):
Yeah.
There's a problem there.
Yeah.
So they're trying tocompensate if you will.
Yeah.
Oftentimes.
And usually it's out of fear.
I've seen a lot of that where, especiallyas you bring innovation into a setting.
And there's a lot of fear.
A great, great example.
This is actually, as we start talkingabout AI, I see a lot of fear around that.
And that's from teachers who think thatsomehow AI is going to replace them

(44:00):
and, and no, quite the opposite, 100%.
And that's always like we arebuilding AI to not replace anybody.
But to actually empower them inthe classroom here, we there's
schools here that are, studentstructures, student ratios, 40 to one.
How do you do that?
How does the teacher, how doyou manage that classroom?
I used to have to teach that.
It was very hard.

(44:21):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I recommend drill sergeants.
I'm just saying, yeah, and I was inthe projects when I was doing that.
So it was.
It was like that.
Yeah, it's, I mean, so using AI to dothings like create personalized lesson
plans or to help generate work betweencourt, between your one class and
the next class to help force multiplyyou, you as the teacher are still

(44:42):
empowered to make those judgments.
But to write out the words is maybe notsomething that you necessarily need to do.
You need to make sure theright words are there.
And so, that's our hope withAI is actually to empower those
teachers, make them, be, AI shouldbe a force multiplier for them.
So one teacher with AI canhopefully do, do more.

(45:02):
So it leads to the hardest lesson thatyou learned that changed your life.
And you, you actually, you said,almost exactly what we had talked about.
Failure is the beginning, butwe can all do hard things.
And so what you, that'sexactly what you're describing.
Yes.
Yeah.
I, and it's that growth mindset.
Right.
And I was, we are fortunate.

(45:22):
We had.
I was sitting in an audience whenI first got, introduced to growth
mindset versus fixed mindset.
We were talking to some people whowork with the special forces community
and, they talked about how people withfixed mindset who were doing so well
their entire life, but then they hitfailure the first time and they have
a real difficult time overcoming that.

(45:43):
People with growth mindset were able tobe more flexible in that environment.
And I think, failure is just the beginningbecause you learn a lot from failure,
learning from failure is science basedto, you know, it's how, like, how many
times do you have to fail in sciencebefore you get to the place where you go?
Okay.
It's 1, 261, but.

(46:04):
262.
We just now got a lightbulb or whatever it was.
Yeah, exactly.
And I mean, that's the entirescientific process, right?
And all the research is basedon is that failure, there's
a lot of value in failure.
Yeah.
But yet we're embarrassed by it at times.
Yeah.
Isn't that funny?
It's yeah.
And I think it's part of the journey.
You know, when, whenever wehave a setback, you know, it's.

(46:25):
I, I look at it as, okay,now it's time to get to work.
Like now we have a goal, right?
We pushed it to a point where we,we had an issue and now we have a
goal and now we can overcome that.
The ability to overcome the mindsetof what, how, and maybe the for
profit world, it failure is supposedto represent something bad, whereas

(46:47):
in research it's, it's somethingwonderful and it's celebrated.
Exactly.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Exactly.
So who in your life hashad the biggest impact?
Let's give her a shout out now.
My wonderful wife.
Yeah.
She's got a name.
Let's say it.
Cynthia Borving, the executivedirector of Rebuild Yourself Nonprofit.
Okay.

(47:08):
Yeah.
But actually VIG wouldnot be here without her.
So she had the idea originally tostart working as an instructional
designer, you know, and, and seeinghow, seeing what would happen.
And we got one client andthen we got two clients.
So then I got so many clients thatI couldn't do the work myself.
So the wonderful Michelle Hannahcame in to, to help me and she's got

(47:30):
a tremendous background in both Kthrough 12 and instructional design.
And we built sort of sort of buildingthe company more and more and more.
And now we have people like, AlexaTyler and, and all sorts of, fantastic
people in the company that are able tosupport all of our wonderful clients.
And yeah, educators are awesome.
Oh, they really are.
Yeah.

(47:51):
So as we look at 2030, what do youthink 2030 is going to look like?
So we talked about thisa little bit, right?
It's not that far away.
It is not probably five, five years.
Yeah.
Five years.
And so I think we're going tosee the, so we have the app AR
is the big thing for me, right?

(48:12):
I think the.
As we looked at space, or I shouldsay spatial computing, which gives
us a little more flexibility betweenVR, AR, and sort of our environments.
But I think that interaction isgoing to be really important.
We know that the Apple Vision Prois coming out later on this year.
It's going to be a phenomenaldevice at its price point.
It's a little bit expensive.
3, 500, I believe.

(48:32):
Wow.
Yeah.
So same as the HoloLens, right now, but.
Things are going to start to miniaturize.
If we look at like the first iPhonein comparison to where we're at
now, we know Meta is in the game.
We know Google's in the game.
We got Magic Leap, whichis another, I know them.
Pick.
I know those people personally.
Oh.
I will tell you, if you want anintroduction, let me know, because they

(48:55):
are revolutionizing how people can accessMagic Leap and just getting it out there.
They will let you test it out,help you to create lesson plans
so you can take it out to market.
That would be wonderful.
Yeah.
'cause yeah, they, I remember reading thatthey had the most realistic, interface
in their environment they were doing.

(49:16):
I know they had fundingfrom Google and they do.
Yeah.
And so, as we look at how all of these,environments are gonna converge onto one
another, I think 2030 is gonna look a lotmore into the augmented reality space.
Mm-Hmm.
And virtual reality.
But to be able to shift between those.
So I think we're looking at spatialcomputing being a real disruptor,

(49:36):
but then if you combine that with AI.
Because AI is going tobe very, very disruptive.
We know that it alreadyis being disruptive.
I think we had somebody, pass thebar, I think with, with a open AI.
Really?
Yeah.
And I know somebody passedlike a college, high college
course or something like that.
Yeah.
It's been crazy that what it can do.
And then, and this is justwhat's publicly released.

(49:58):
They have their training all thetime in advance and things like that.
So, if you mix AI in with AR, sothe ability to generate just in time
images, for example, inside of an AR,interface, there's a lot of really,
really cool things that can happen.
8th Wall has a demonstration of using,both DALI and chat GPT inside of 8th

(50:23):
Wall, which is an AR company that youcan, use to display on a, on a phone
using web AR and interface with those two.
It's really, really cool.
The, the type of things that you can do.
So I think in 2030, I think we'regonna see a lot more virtualization.
I think we're going to seea lot more interaction.
I think blockchain will probablycome back in a real big way,
and I think, we're going to seeAI be a very disruptive force.

(50:49):
I think those are really big things.
And if we look at it in education, Ithink we're really going to see that whole
environment transform, especially if welook at skilled workforce development.
If we look at, skill based assessmentsand things like that, I mean, we're
able to really transport people.
I hope so.
I really do.
We're going to make it happen.
Yeah, and we can do it the right waytoo, which leads into the ethics.

(51:13):
What are, what ethical dilemmasdo you see, with using AI?
I personally would like to createsomething in the central Florida area
where we're really, championing theconcept of how ethical AI should be used
and what are the checks and balancesthat we're doing to ensure I had read

(51:35):
last week that students had used chatGPT to create an essay and three people
had pretty much the same essay that wasturned in so they failed and not because
they were cheating off of each other, butbecause the AI did not, because of the
parameters that they were, the studentsgave it, it came out with the same thing.

(51:59):
So there is a place where understandingthe value of, having good research
skills is going to be very vitaland how to fact check what is coming
out of anything that's an AI tool.
Yeah, I think there's a lotof ethical considerations.
We've already seen it through howyou're training the AI bots themselves.

(52:21):
I mean, the internet is a crazy place.
There's a lot of things in there.
I mean, depending on what sourcesyou're using to train the bot is how
it's going to answer the question.
So it's, it's, I mean, it's only asgood as the training it gives, it
gets, The questions become thereare also lots of benefits for using
it and how do you weigh those?

(52:41):
Like, for example, you train a AI botwith medical records is, you know,
what is what is the outcomes to that?
How is that data being protected?
And then if you use AI to if you use, youknow, if a great example, I think it's a
mid journey possibly, but I'm not goingto call them out because I'm not positive.

(53:03):
But, yeah.
So a lot of these, image processingportions of AI are using other
people's artistic work in order to beable to generate new pieces of work.
And so those AI bots that arebeing trained are actually
using copyright material.
And so as it generates new items,it's almost stealing that work.

(53:26):
And so that's the that's a big debate.
And say that we had thestrikes here recently where,
scriptwriters didn't want.
Right.
To be able to be used AI.
So I think there's a lot of.
workforce ethical issues, butalso how we train those bots.
What about prejudicewithin the bots themselves?
Based upon a whole litany of things.

(53:48):
So, I think that there's a,there's a, it definitely needs to
be a lot of thoughtfulness aroundhow we use AI, for those things.
I know that I didn't cover this one andwe're getting kind of close to the end.
But I, I have a question that I'mgoing to ask now, so I don't forget.

(54:09):
Sure.
What is the perfectkind of client for you?
Ooh, any educational challenge.
I feel I love educational challenges.
Bigger, the better, more difficult,the better I say, bring it on.
You know, we, that's not to say that wedon't enjoy the, the customers who have
like, Hey, I want to, I want to take thisidea and I want to make it a course, or

(54:34):
I have challenges here in my workforce andwe want to, we want to, you know, increase
that, but I love to be let loose oneducational challenges to solve them and
to show, a huge impact in the company.
Or in the school or with thestudents, we recently helped a, a
charter school here in the Floridaarea, get a full new curriculum set.

(54:57):
We have, teachers beingtrained by our, our staff.
And so we're, our hopes there isto help turn that school around and
what a great impact for the kids.
Right.
And so that those are the type of thingsthat impact that high impact challenges
where it changes lives for the better.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's, I mean, I love, I love,as it probably come across

(55:18):
on this, I love tough stuff.
So yeah, I love really tougheducational challenges.
Yeah, I do too.
Many of the times, well, I'll save thatfor another conversation working with,
children that have been raised in hardneighborhoods that are underserved.
That's where you cansee the biggest growth.

(55:39):
They're also more, grateful thanI think some of the privileged that
may have grown up with computersin their home and everything.
So I feel like there's, a lot that can begained by serving different demographics.
Yeah, we're, we're very fortunatewhere we are linked in with

(55:59):
the Rotary here in Lake Nona.
And we're actually looking to,to give some of our training OS
licenses, some of those schools.
And so I would, you know, where Ithink we're looking at 10 through the
Rotary, but we'll, if, we probablywant to give to another 10 schools.
So, That's what that's what we'relooking for is to help change, change
those school environments so thatthose teachers can be empowered.

(56:22):
So here's an idea for you.
I've said this before to people is,if you have a list of potentially
some grants, that and a template,you can give the schools and say,
so here's a list of places that youcan apply for STEM or Steam money.
And here's a package of theinformation that they're looking for.
If you can make it super easy forthem to apply and then get the funding

(56:45):
then that's going to help you becauseyou just saved them so much time.
Oh, no, we're willing to give it to them.
I understand.
But you know, by being able to providethe grant, then they can use it for
measuring the outcome and then youbecome an in kind sponsor, so to speak
of the equipment, but it is a symbioticrelationship that can be absolutely

(57:06):
become a better client if you will.
Yeah.
No, absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Definitely not opposed to, tohaving paying customers on there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, but we do want to, and that'spart of our hope is to help empower
those teachers because we know howdifficult that job is, especially
with 40 kids in, in one teacher.
Like it is, it really is really tough.

(57:30):
Let's see.
So ethical dilemmas.
What do you think the ethicaldilemmas could be of using AI?
So, we talked a little bit about this,but it's, it's basically how it's
trained, making sure that you are notusing copyright material, especially
if you're using it, for commercialpurposes, I think there is, looking

(57:54):
for bias within the training materialsas well, and I know that Google, I know
that Microsoft, I know that Facebookare all looking at those things very,
very specifically in order to do that.
They're not perfect, but theyare trying to address the
problem, which is important.
And so that's one piece.
I think there are other ethicaldilemma is not using it.

(58:14):
For if we can train it to you onmedical records, for example, to save
lives, why are we not doing that?
And so it's breaking down some of thosebarriers, like HIPAA compliance and things
like that, which are very important.
And so we've got to find a way todo it efficiently and effectively.
Hmm.
Very true.
Very true.
So the best mentoring advice that youwould want to pass on to our listeners.

(58:38):
So I had the opportunity, My amazingwife, Cynthia, who's the executive
director of Rebuild Yourself, hasa, her non profit actually started
a mentorship program with kidswho are in junior and senior year.
So I actually took on two of, two,two mentees, this past weekend.
And, one of the things I noticed wasthat they were very, very hyper focused

(59:02):
on what their job was because they feltlike it was their source of identity.
And they felt like once they pickedit, that's what they were going to do.
And I think, the advice there is to, tolook at opportunities and take advantage
of them as they present themselves.
And so, you know, they're going to geta lot of offers and things like that,

(59:24):
but finding the right one, of course,is very important, but don't let your,
your fixed, the fixed mindset, right?
Don't, don't let that idea of, Hey, I'mgoing to be a police officer prevent you
from maybe taking an opportunity somewherethat could be really, really great.
Yeah.
And that's, that's what I've, Ipresented to them and, obviously being
a mentor, a lot of listening versusjust talking, but, that's some of the,

(59:48):
some of the advice that I've given them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You're not defined by just one thing.
Did you know there's researchthat shows that people will have
seven career paths in their life?
It makes a lot of sense.
It does.
Yeah.
Because I can look at mine andsay, my, my gift to my industry has
been education, but I've gone in somany different directions with it.

(01:00:10):
You can go into softwaredevelopment, education.
You can go into instructionaldesign, education.
You can go into game basedlearning, education, right?
So this person that wantsto be a police officer.
They could end up goinginto being a mediator.
They could end up being somebodythat is an advocate for children.
They could be, and a police officerdoesn't always wear the badge.

(01:00:33):
Right.
They can be more than that.
Yeah, I mean, these two individualsare tremendous and they want to be
entrepreneurs and they already havetheir ideas on what they want to do.
And, they're, they're ready to pitch.
And so, it's, it's very interestingto see that, but, also they give
them the flexibility because I see it.
On everybody, in that age group isthere they feel like that decision is

(01:00:56):
so important to make because it's goingto define their college, which will then
define and that's what they feel like.
Right?
Yeah.
They feel like that.
That delineation is alreadyset in path when actuality.
I mean, I had no, I still don't knowwhat I want to do when I get older.
Yeah.
Seven career paths.
Yeah.
Oh, by the way, I can give you a couple,I can give you a code and they could sign

(01:01:17):
up for SWIRL, which is Startup WeekendOrlando, and they can in 54 hours, see
if their idea actually could make money.
I will definitely pass.
And I, yeah, I'm going tosend you the code tonight.
Have them sign up becauseit is in two weeks.
Awesome.
Yeah.
They would love that.
And it's so, just so our listeners knowit's a Friday night, you pitch an idea

(01:01:42):
and you can form a team, people can beon that team, and then you spend all
day, Saturday, 8 to 10, Sunday, 8 to 7.
And you have to go out and do all kindsof customer discovery and make money.
And if you can't make money, thenthat means that may not have been a
good idea, but I've seen everybodycome back and they've made money.
That's cool.

(01:02:02):
That's very cool.
Yeah.
So you guys should go.
You and your wife should go for sure.
Yeah.
And then watch the lightbulbs come on in their heads.
Oh, it'll be awesome.
Yeah.
And you could be on their team that way.
That's the best mentoring thing.
Absolutely.
Well, how can our listeners contact you?
I'm on LinkedIn.
Okay.
That's probably the best way.

(01:02:23):
and then we also have our,I I'm on Facebook as well.
Mm-Hmm.
But, and obviously we have ourwebsites, training the website.
Yeah.
trainingos.com as well as, learnvig.com.
I'm gonna put both websites on here.
Yeah.
Every time I say VIG every-,big, big V as in Victor IG.

(01:02:45):
Yeah.
Very Important Girls.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There you go.
That's going to stick with alot of the women there for sure.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, thank you for sharing all ofthat information and I look forward
to getting together next time andfiguring out how we can collaborate.
I'm looking forward to it.
Yeah.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.

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