Have you ever met someone who took your breath away? You feel it in your chest and in your brain. And you know you have been impacted forever.

Have you ever experienced an idea that made a similar impact?

In this month’s Great Conversation we meet up with people and ideas that can change the way you look at your world. Behind the scenes are people who feed critical information about the transactions of value going on within markets. If they see things correctly, and you apply their insights, it can change your business forever. There are warriors who have become students of human behavior who can give us insights into how people think and act so that we can be smarter, safer, and more secure. There are people who see shifts in the market and somehow get to the starting line before the rest of us. There are people who experience loss of life but, somehow, learn something about the breath of life that can make all the difference in a world of noise and darkness. And then, the notion that we all struggle, but it is the very essence of struggle and how we receive it and learn from it that defines our future.

Welcome to The Great Conversations we have had this month. And as always, the future conversations will be defined by you. Send your thoughts to us and enjoy sitting in on an unscripted conversation with people of ideas.

The Gift of Struggle

Can “struggle” be our best chance at discovering who we are? We found an author who explores this with us in The Great Conversation.

Bobby Herrera is the author of The Gift of Struggle, a book about leadership and the life-changing lessons we learn through our struggles. He is also the co-founder and president of Populus Group. With a passion for building strong culture and communities through trust and storytelling, his leadership style is about empowerment, connections, and ensuring everyone has the opportunity to succeed.

 Bobby grew up in a big family with parents who immigrated to America without much. While this is not an uncommon story, the leadership style and company culture that it inspired is. The belief that everyone deserves the opportunity to succeed is at the core of Bobby’s philosophy in business and in life.

 Everyone has struggles and business leaders are no exception. Bobby’s passion is helping others understand how their individual struggles can help them connect with their communities and inspire others is what will transform their leadership style.

 Bobby is a proud Army veteran and currently lives in Portland, Oregon.

From Myth to Learning: The Art of the Cognerati

Since the time of the ancients, Arcadia has been the inspiration for poets, painters, and writers attracted to an idyllic time and place. Arcadia was and is that place. It is a real location (southern Greece) as well as a mythological one. It is where many of the myths were born. And myths are ideas. And ideas are real things. They can shape us, inspire us, and define us.

How this happens is through a culture of learning anchored by how we uniquely perceive, consume, understand, apply, and communicate information. This “central processing” technology is the foundation behind the word “cognition.” And you might say the humans who have collectively pursued the optimization and actualization of this skill are the “cognerati.”

Putting these two terms together becomes the genesis of a story of warriors translating their experiences and learnings into an applied practice of thinking that helps enhance the situational awareness and actionable response of executives in the risk, resilience, and security industry.

We speak with Greg Williams, founder and President, and Brian Marren, Senior VP of Operations of Arcadia Cognerati. They are both veteran Human Behavior Pattern Recognition & Analysis subject matter experts that have inspired and educated their clients through their classes and consulting around the world.

Understanding the Transactions of Value: Business Intelligence as a Service

We love finding people of passion who have connected their passion and calling in such a way that they influence executives and companies around the world.

Recently we connected with the President of Parks Associates, Elizabeth Parks, a second-generation business owner with a legacy of aggregating information about the residential and small business security market. Because of their compendium of knowledge, they provide unique perspectives on how the market is functioning and where it might be going; incredibly useful for the current ecosystem of companies as well as the new emerging entrepreneurs.

Our conversation explored how the unique identity of work and home has shifted and what that portends for the industry.

Elizabeth has a unique seat at the table. She oversees research topics and coverage areas for the company and directs the integrated strategic communications plan for Parks Associates, including advertising, public relations, and marketing. Elizabeth has also supported the growth of Parks Associates business and marketing services for twenty three years and is the key organizer for all of Parks Associates' events, including Parks Associates signature event CONNECTIONS™.

Virtual Guarding

With the rapid pace of change in technology, the need for the strategic integration of the technology to leverage the data it is aggregating and consuming, and, finally, the cost of labor vs. the return, new business models have emerged.

We explore one such company riding these changes. The CEO, Daniel Forest, shares his entrepreneurial background and nature and how it informed and infused his company.

Eyeforce Inc. is a remote video guarding company stationed in Houston, TX. They specialize in the remote guarding of outdoor critical infrastructures such as water treatment facilities, solar and wind farms, oil and gas pipeline, parking areas, construction sites, and many more.

The Breath of Life

Every week we work, we strive, we fear, and we love. If we are fortunate, we take time to listen to music. If we are even more fortunate, we find ourselves in a small, comfortable venue listening to live music.

It could be jazz, the blues, reggae, or rock and roll. It doesn’t matter. Because music, according to psychology experts, can reduce your stress level. And stress impacts our brain and memory. If it is jazz, the musician also stretches the brain by having to think critically and creatively through their technical knowledge of playing their instrument and the challenge of integrating what they are hearing from their fellow performers. The resulting “collaboration” is the performance we experience.

But what if the performer pauses mid-stream to take us on another journey that could be defined as “the breath of life.”

We meet up with a global-trotting world-class musician by the name of Levi Huffman who takes us on this journey of his that has touched so many of his followers.