Season 1 … a look in the rearview mirror

As we wrap up the first season of BCEN and Friends, Sean Stowers, Brigid Flood, Janie Schumaker, and Mark Eggers take the time to reflect back on this season’s guest and what each episode of this season brought about for each of them. This Retrospective episode points out the greatest takeaways that everyone brought to the table as a new and exciting guest.

First and foremost, BCEN and Friends is grateful to all of the special guests that have premiered this season.

In order of appearance, we begin with Chris Clews. He set the stage with the first ever episode and he taught us all how different aspects of 80s pop culture can relate to today, even during the times of the COVID pandemic. As Brigid points out in this season’s wrap up, teenagers today can relate to those in The Breakfast Club, but also everyone can relate the teenagers in the movie as we can’t always choose who we are surrounded by; yet we can all work together as team and move forward, regardless of the situation.

The next episode of BCEN and Friends features Kate Hixon. She is best known for her CRUSH model. Not only is she a woman, she also worked at NASA and is a highly regarded woman who has succeeded in her life, while she helps others through her model to succeed in their best way possible.

After Kate, we have Alex Draper. Alex hails from the U.K. and initially wanted to become a teacher, failed, then decided he would try his hand at leadership. In the process, he created the CARE model. Through his failures and triumphs, he learned an essential lesson which is there is a difference between managing and true leadership. Anyone can manage, but it takes true talent, hard work, and perseverance to lead.

In our fourth episode, we reflect on Jeff Patterson. Jeff promotes suicide awareness through Gaggle. Gaggle was once an email platform but has flipped the script entirely on finding mental health problems, risky behaviors, and self-harm by using a platform to monitor adolescent behavior. This life-changing platform detects patterns of possible self-destruction and allows the proper help to come to those in need which saves young lives.

Sean Kavanagh is the next guest we will reflect on. Sean is a true gift of inspiration who had an encounter with a bicycling accident in which he wasn’t certain if he would recover from. This accident became the point in time where his life drastically altered after recovery. His motto, “fall risk,” became prominent due to the bracelet he first saw after coming to. Essentially, a fall risk is when we fall in our lives, but we learn the most during this. Not to mention, we also work hard to recover. Without being a fall risk, we would not succeed.

Curt Steinhorst, the best-selling author of the book, Can I have your attention?, inspires us to have better work habits. How can we stay focused in a constantly connected world? The biggest takeaway we can all learn from Curt is multitasking does not always mean being productive in the workplace. In fact, it’s quite the opposite and proving to be a difficult task more each day.

The guest of our seventh episode believes you can never become too educated. Ken Dion, who dropped out of school and got his G.E.D., altered his choice by going back into school to receive multiple Masters’ degrees. He began as a nurse, started multiple companies, and never gave up on learning. He gives meaning to the phrase, “lifelong learner.”

Following Ken, we were introduced to Jonny Boucher. Boucher founded Hope for the Day, a nonprofit organization which inspires us to talk about our mental health. He went on to open Sip of the Day, a coffee company which allows people to drink coffee and open conversations relating to mental health which empowers awareness. Not only does he inspire us to open a conversation about mental health, he encourages which helps everyone to have hope.

Doug Harward is known for his company, Training Industry. It is the leading organization in training people across the spectrum to have professional training, no matter what their profession is. In addition to this, Doug is also a lifelong learner who believes we all want to be the best at what we do. Who doesn’t? Then, things change, so as professions, we have to train and adapt. His company empowers this and allows us to stay up on techniques of all sorts.

We end our first season of BCEN and Friends with Mike Mooney. Mike focuses on reputation and how we must maintain our reputation to continue our credentialing. As we all know, our reputation can prove to be essential in our professions and Mike’s company promotes a Reputation Shift to keep us all on the straight and narrow path of a positive profession. Our personal brand is interwoven with our reputation and Mike teaches us to make that essential with ourselves.

As we have come to the end of our season one of BCEN and Friends, we know that our next season will be even more so exciting because the bar has been set high and BCEN will not disappoint. Be tuned for our next season, as we will have even more exciting guests (yet to be announced). But, per Brigid’s request, if anyone may know how to get Dr. Fauci on for next season, please feel free to pass along a good word.

If you have a suggestion for an episode, please email us at BCEN@BCEN.org. Stay tuned for our next season.

CLICK HERE for a transcript of this Episode