Learning Life with Jon Tota

Trent Howell is the vice-president of marketing at eLearning Brothers and has over 25 years of experience in information technology and the training industry specifically. But he's not here to talk about that - Trent is here to talk board games!  Trent's family love board games so much they have a day of the week dedicated to playing them. They decided to turn their love of board games into a know...

Faith Jones is back with a new book and valuable insight into human rights and the intersection of morality and legality.  Faith's new five circle framework, called I Own Me, is a result of the first 22 years of her life spent within a religious cult called The Family. You own the rights to your own body. She encourages us to find the true power in owning yourself.  This framework applies to every...

Ryan Mason is a savvy entrepreneur and author who is making waves as one of Yahoo's top 12 entrepreneurs to watch in 2020. He's the founder and CEO of Luxe Brand, a leading luxury shoelace provider featured on Good Morning America, the NFL, and with over 30 athletes and celebrities. Ryan also founded and runs Bizbuzz Digital, an award-winning marketing automation software company. And he just auth...

Tom Frank is a lifelong culture engineer who works to help local and national companies create a better world for their employees - all by asking employees what they want!  Previously Frank co-founded the popular restaurant chain PF Chang's as part of the original development team and helped develop the foundation to grow into a global chain. For the past 15 years, Tom has served as the culture en...

Big Tech Companies are making money off of your personal data, why shouldn't you? Erik Rind is the founder and CEO of ImagineBC, where they're committed to helping individuals secure their personal data online and control when to share that information as well as their creative content and get paid for it. Think of Youtube but with the security of blockchain and more opportunities to profit from y...

As a musician-turned-learning-designer, Adam Larson brings his critical eye for entertainment to eLearning and instructional design at the Institute for Management Accountants (IMA). Striving to create engaging learning and events, Larson embraces chaos, learns from his mistakes, and keeps improving. You can catch Adam making moments for guests to tell their stories on the Count Me In Podcast and...

John Blackmon created an LMS and authoring tool before the world even knew what those were. Founder of LMS Trivantis and authoring tools Lectora and Cenario VR, Blackmon has spent his entire career focused on one principle: you shouldn't have to be a technologist to use technology. In this episode, John discusses how he started Trivantis, Lectora, and Cenario VR; the acquisition by eLearning Broth...

Christa Peters is a strategic learning and development director. She has worked with companies to scale their training programs and build a learning program and culture where one did not exist before. In this episode, Christa talks with Jon about what it’s like to build a training program from the ground up, convincing leadership that investing in e-learning is beneficial; the challenges of a full...

Your startup has a 50/50 chance of getting to 5 years… and the odds only get worse the longer you stay in business. Bill Flynn takes the guesswork out of growth. With more than 30 years of experience working for and advising hundreds of companies, Bill Flynn has had 5 successful outcomes, two IPOs, and seven acquisitions (including a 2008 turnaround!). He is the guy you want on your team while bui...

Dr. Christian Weibell is the creator of the Principles-Of-Learning Framework, laying out the seven principles on which all learning is based. Weibell sits down with Jon to talk Computer Science education before the dot com bubble, getting his PhD in Instructional Psychology, developing effective learning experiences, and creating good UX and UI for learning environments. Find out more at principle...

The Iron Cowboy is back! James Lawrence joins Jon Tota on the podcast to talk about the transition to remote work, bringing the same passion and energy to virtual conferences, and what determination and hard work look like. Since he's last been on the show, Lawrence has starred in TWO Amazon Prime Originals: Iron Cowboy | The Story of the 50-50-50 and World's Toughest Race: Eco-Challenge Fiji (adv...

What can you do with a passion for technology and a background in social science to make an impact on the world? Become a futurist! At least that’s what Trond Undheim did.    Futurism isn’t about predicting exactly, but about project long term potential outcomes and deciding what kind of future we want to optimize for. Futurism and futuristic thinking have a place in business, politics, government...

Shay Lynch is the founder of Future State with a mission to help Business Owners, Directors, Department Managers, and their teams solve their biggest problems so they can focus on what is important to them: their customers. Shay talks scaling your business without scaling your costs, systems thinking, helping businesses achieve their potential, and the power of remote operations. www.futurestate.i...

Kate DeGon is in the business of change. She is the founder of ChangeSync - a software that helps organizations of all sizes implement and track organizational change. Change can be intimidating if you don't have the right tools in your kit. Her inspiration for ChangeSync came from her work at Phoenix University. Trying to keep up with the constant organizational change without a thorough tool was...

John A. Dues is the director of the School Performance Institute, the learning and improvement arm of United Schools Network (USN), and the Chief Learning Officer of USN, a network of public charter schools in Columbus, Ohio. John is dedicated to closing the achievement gap in urban areas, and under his leadership, USN schools are some of the highest performing urban schools both across Ohio and n...

Ray Kung is the founder of Tech Learning Pros; they help global technology companies build out world-class technical learning systems. In this episode, Kung speaks about his career journey, technical learning patterns, and how to accelerate learning programs with engineering teams and other tech groups. https://www.raykung.me/ Connect with Ray on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raykung/

Eileen Pease is the president of Dynamic Learning Inc and  an expert on the 'brain at work.' Eileen teaches people how to lead and manage more effectively by understanding their brains and minds. Listen to learn the ways our brains deplete without us even realizing and the external factors that affect our mental state. Follow Eileen's updates at https://eileenpease.com/blog/ Follow her on Linkedin...

"Influence is the art of finding out what the other person wants, understanding what you want, and connecting the two." Owen Fitzpatrick is an influence expert. The author, speaker, and consultative trainer joined Jon Tota to discuss how we can achieve influence over ourselves and others to be successful. Listen to the full episode to learn the three main elements to influence, how you can make ea...

From the early days of instruction designing to modern-day parenting, Tyler Small talks about it all with host Jon Tota on this week's episode of Learning Life.    Get Tyler’s book, “The 5-Star Approach” Buy it here on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/5-Star-Approach-Parenting-Cooperation-Attitudes/dp/B087SCDKJM/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1595541686&sr=1-1 The book that inspired...

Welcome to Season 6! "What are you doing to invest in YOU?" This weeks guest is Robert Barber, Fortune 100 high performance executive coach and founder of ROYI, the Return on You Investment® Academy. Robert wants you to see yourself as the CEO of your life, and wants you to put your best effort into your personal and professional life. Catch Robert on Season 2 of The Social Movement: https://redkn...

Lawline CEO and entrepreneurial speaker David Schnurman has a new book, ‘The Fast Forward Mindset: How to Be MoreFearless & Focused to Accelerate Your Success.’ Schnurman sits down with Jon to talk online learning and COVID-19, and the inspiration for The Fast Forward Mindset. Want to learn more about David Schnurman? Find him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidschnurman/   Or on hi...

Founder and CEO of The Bowery Common and host of the Digital Irish Podcast, Patrick McAndrew comes on the show to talk growth mindset and change management. The Bowery Common is a professional development organization helping high-performing individuals to maximize their mental performance. Want to learn more about Patrick McAndrew? Reach out to him on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patr...

From an early age, Apple Crider has been an entrepreneur. Now, after a few business ventures, Crider is co-founder of Podblade, a service that edits podcast episodes for $20. In this episode, Jon Tota and Apple talk about how to leverage other people’s platforms and how to FOCUS (follow one course until successful).   Crider asks, ‘Why are you doing this? What is your purpose?’ www.podblade.com  ...

Alexander Salas is an award winning Learning Experience Designer, Chief Creative Officer at eLearningLaunch.com, and a US Navy Veteran. Alexander sits down with our host Jon Tota to talk about the basics of eLearning authoring, teaching the skills to create your own eLearning courses, and how allowing for failure can lead to better results. Alexander offers free video resources to learn from on Yo...

Matt Confer is the VP of Strategy & Business Development at Abilitie. He specializes in team-based training simulations. Working with clients like Coca-Cola, Marriott, and Nokia, he is also the lead facilitator at Abilitie and a public speaker. Today, he sits down with host Jon Tota to talk about competition, both live and virtual, as a driver for team engagement and process improvement.  Want...