Episode 336: Marnie Stockman & Nick Coniglio

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 0:10

Hello everybody and welcome to another great episode of my EdTech Life. Thank you so much for joining us on this wonderful day and wherever it is that you're joining us from around the world, we thank you for all of your support. We appreciate all the likes, the shares, the follows. Thank you so much for sharing our content and again I want to give a big shout out to our three sponsors that make these shows possible. Thank you so much to Book Creator, eduaid and Yellowdig. We appreciate you believing in our mission to bring amazing conversations into our education space so that way we all continue to grow and learn together.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 0:47

And I am really excited because we have a fantastic show. We have Nick Coniglio who's joining us, along with Marnie Stockman, and I am excited about today's show because today's show is going to be something that I was just talking to our amazing guests earlier that I was like this is something that I know I'm going to take a lot from, and that entrepreneurial spirit in me, too, is definitely going to take a lot from. So I would love to welcome to the show Marnie and Nick. Marnie, how are you doing this evening?

Marnie Stockman: 1:18

I'm good Thanks for having us and I'm excited that my friends at EduAid sponsor the show. That's excellent.

Nick Coniglio: 1:24

Yes, nick, how about yourself? I am almost perfect, almost perfect.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 1:28

I'm doing great, yes, excellent, and I do want to give a big shout out to Scott, who connected us. So big shout out to my brother, scott. Thank you so much for making this connection. But let's go ahead and dive in, because there's definitely a lot that I want you to share and amplify and talk about your amazing book. So we'll start off with a little bit of an introduction and context. So we'll start off with Nick. So, nick, can you give us a little brief introduction and what your context is within the education?

Nick Coniglio: 1:59

author space, absolutely Well, I'm guessing, a little bit outside the spectrum of your typical guest, but I started my career as a computer programmer, of all things, and from there I quickly found myself working for companies where I was employee number single digit and that happened to me four times where we you know as as employer number two, six, ten, what have you? The company grew, scaled, had tremendous growth and I found myself in leadership really for the last 25 or 30 years. The third company that I happened to join was a company called Performance Matters, which today is folded into the PowerSchool umbrella, and I was big. I was the driving force in engineering and customer support around an assessment platform and analytics platform geared towards K-12 schools. And that is where I ran into your other guest, marnie Stockman, and that's where our paths crossed. So that's where I'm at. I'm the author, co-author, of two books.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 3:17

Excellent and thank you so much. Nick and Marnie, how about yourself? Give us a little brief introduction, and I know one thing that I love is that we do have that connection as far as being former math teachers, so that's something that's great. But, marnie, tell us a little bit more about yourself.

Marnie Stockman: 3:30

Yes. So I started out as a high school math teacher, was assistant principal, was the district assessment coordinator, so all things data and I was working in a school system inside the assessment platform when the company hired me school system inside the assessment platform. When the company hired me and much to Nick's dismay, he got on a support call and saw my face on there and said, oh, we hired her, but he's gotten over that. So we worked in the same ed tech company. I ran customer success while he ran support, and we quickly found that we had the same core values in really wanting to help students and help our customers, which were school districts.

Marnie Stockman: 4:10

So in all of the acquisitions we found that we were getting a little culture clash with how we wanted to run things, and so he said we should go start a business of our own. So we did. We jumped outside of education for a few years, went and started an IT company and sold that so that we could jump back in and build something in the ed tech world. So we wrote Lead it Like Lasso and we wrote now the Business of you and, as you know, a little sneak peek into what we're building next. So that's how we got here.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 4:42

Excellent. Well, that is great, and what a way to connect. That is amazing and I love it, and so I know that this conversation is definitely going to be just wonderful and very full, or full of a lot of energy, for sure. But let's talk about your book. Like you said, the Business of you and this is such a very unique title and really it's just the book introduces the idea of running your life as a business. So can you explain a little bit about what that means and why we should think of ourselves as the CEO of our own life? So I want to start off with Marnie first.

Marnie Stockman: 5:18

Yeah. So you know a lot of people on the Internet will say that you should be the CEO of you, right, you should be the boss of yourself. So you hear that, and what a lot of folks, especially kids, high schoolers, college age students. What they're thinking is great, I'm the boss, right, and they're picturing the boss as someone who has everybody else doing other things for them. What they don't realize is when we're talking about the party of one, the business of you, you are in charge of your marketing, you are in charge of your selling, you are your head of your HR, you're the head of your finance, and so you are then a part of, you're in charge of all of that, and if you don't take charge of it, somebody else will. Right If you don't put your, if you're not charge of all of that, and if you don't take charge of it, somebody else will.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 6:11

Right, if you don't put your weight, if you're not paying attention to how you're telling your story, it's getting told without you. My gosh, you are so true on that. And, like you said right now, what I liked is that if you're not taking care of it, somebody else will. And oftentimes, you know, sometimes that can be the case without us really realizing how much control we let go in many times in certain roles. Nick, how about yourself? Tell us a little bit about what your view is of this, living your own life as you, being your CEO of you.

Nick Coniglio: 6:38

Yeah, I mean I think Marty nailed a lot of it. I did want to add that I think these days business can be seen as a four-letter word. It's cruel, it's cutthroat, but, like Marnie said, I think when people think about it, every successful person we have ever met, whether they admit it or not, they're running themselves like a business. They're setting the vision and the strategy. They're running themselves like a business, you know. They're setting the vision and the strategy. They're building skills and acquiring skills constantly. They're telling stories so people are engaged, and those all fit into. You know, whether it's the office of the CEO or the marketing department or learning development, they all fit into a department that is aligned to a business.

Nick Coniglio: 7:26

And I would be remiss if I didn't add you know, a big part of our target audience that we're going after are students and we have found with many of the students that we have mentored and spoken to that they're entering this world, whether it's straight out of high school or right out of college, with not a lot of knowledge about business departments, structures, organizational charts, and we kind of had a little bit of a goal to introduce them to that so they were comfortable understanding.

Nick Coniglio: 8:01

Okay, this is what a marketing department is responsible for. This is what research and development, or learning and development, or finance. So we do cover that in the book, but we also really apply what those departments mean in a personal journey or in your personal leadership experience. So we're excited to knock off a lot of birds with that one, where we feel like we've gotten a lot of good in terms of, hey, not only did I learn how to improve and set a path for myself, but I learned a little bit about what people might be talking about when I'm on these interviews that I've never heard before.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 8:42

Yeah, and I think that is such an important skill. As you know, for myself, my experience coming in into the world of business I had no idea, and that's because I went to school for marketing and so on. But once I got into the real world and into that field, I was like wow, these are some of the things that no one ever shared with me, because it was really just the theory. You know the books, you're going through those studies, but when you're in an office and you're working and you've got bosses, you've got metrics that you have to meet your KPIs, you've got all this other stuff, it's like wow, like what's wait? Wait a minute, what's going on here? Like I know the definition of that, but I didn't know the way that this really worked and this is the way that this works, and so on. And then now in my current role, with organizational charts and coming in from the classroom into our service center as the coordinator for digital learning, I'm like oh my gosh, like I had no idea how many people there were in the background doing all of these things from finance. You know, of course, you've got the superintendent side, you've got the curriculum side, you've got the special education side, and I mean that org chart is extensive and I think that what you hit on right there is something that is very important, that I know that of course, the finance, the math and all of that is very helpful. But I think navigating that space and, like you mentioned, having just a little bit of that knowledge of what it means in an interview when they're talking about, you know, a KPI or performance indicator and things of that sort, that can definitely help you know an interviewee go a long way.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 10:21

But now I want to talk about Sydney here, and we'll start off with you, nick. Now Sydney, her character. How did you come up with the idea, how did both you and Marlee come up with that idea of coming up with this character, sydney, to make her very relatable to not only myself but, I think, to many? As you know, she kind of felt very stuck and very unsure about next steps. So were the, was Sidney kind of an amalgamation of you know people that you knew through your own experiences as well? Tell me a little bit about Sidney.

Nick Coniglio: 10:58

Yeah, I think you nailed it. I think Sidney and we will be clear, she is a fictional character, but she the character herself, she represents real experiences both Marty and I have seen just countless times. I think we really intended to build her as kind of this composite characters. The readers can see themselves in her struggles. You know unsure of her direction. You know learning. You know as you her direction. You know learning, you know as you read the book. She's learning constantly, learning how to ask better questions and gradually finding, I guess, that clarity and you know the whole notion. We talk about the importance of storytelling and we really wanted this to be a story so people remember it. People remember stories so much, so much more than than lectures. And Sydney, I think, became the bridge between you know our ideas and, hopefully, the lived experiences of readers. That's the goal, at least.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 12:05

Love it, Marnie. How about yourself? Tell me a little bit about Sydney. Is there a little of you in Sydney character Maybe? What little bits of you are there, you know, kind of built in into Sydney?

Marnie Stockman: 12:19

So I think the bits of me at this point are the other side of Sydney, the one talking to Sydney, because we have mentored so many folks at our own kitchen, my own kitchen table, or, you know, over Zoom or in a classroom that I talk to a lot of students who have done all the right things, they've taken the right courses, they've gotten good grades, They've joined clubs, they've done all the things. They've sent out hundreds of applications but they weren't getting the job, they weren't standing out, and I've had a lot of the conversations with the Sidneys of the world of, okay, well, let's talk about you and what you like and who you are. So that was the perspective that I felt like I brought to it, because it's a different world now than when I was applying for my first job in the 1900s. So that's how. That's how we come to the table. I birthed a couple Sidneys.

Nick Coniglio: 13:16

I think what Marnie also should say, and I don't know why she's not saying it.

Nick Coniglio: 13:21

One of those people was was my son, connor, who at the time was maybe 19 or 20 years old, who had that GPA of you know. He was 4'3 in high school, he was 3'8 at the University of Georgia, he had a job in the career center, he was in a business fraternity, he was doing all the right things, but you know what? He was struggling to get an internship and stand out in the crowd. And you know, if you ask Marty and I, although we spoke to dozens and dozens and literally hundreds and Marty, through education, thousands of people, it's that one story that probably, you know, along with her children, you know, probably really was the tipping point for us to actually write this book and have Sydney become the character that she actually is.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 14:16

You know. Something that's very unique about this book, I think, personally, is just the way that you are using Sydney to you know we're going through this journey, but you're learning along the way and it's not just a book of like. Here are 10 chapters, just follow this and you're just, I guess, just talking to the person. But now it's that storytelling aspect and this is something that I absolutely love in education, that I always did in the classrooms and even now. It may not be maybe a glamorous job to many, but doing the district assessments, I mean just still being able to tell a story through that data when I have to present it to me, is something that's very important because I want to make sure that we capture everything. So I think that this is something very rather unique. That, as opposed to having a lot of the books that I have here where somebody's just telling me what to do chapter one, chapter two, follow this and so on but just to be able to relate and you're following this character and as the plot continues to move forward, it's like, oh, I went through that, or I've gone through that, or wait a minute, wait that might come up, and if that comes up now, I've got that little knowledge nugget that I can carry around with me and sprinkle it onto what I'm already doing great and just to continue to move forward and grow, and I think that's something that is wonderful that I love about this.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 15:35

Now let's start off with you, marnie. I want to kind of change a little bit here some of the themes and lessons that I kind of picked up on, and one of my main things that I love is just personal branding in the book and the importance of personal branding. So talk to us about you know some advice about personal branding that you share here through Sydney's story. That would be very useful not only to our youth but even us as adults in the education space. How important is personal branding to?

Marnie Stockman: 16:04

us. So it's interesting because you just talked about how you appreciate that this is a story and branding really more likely to be remembered than just facts 22 times. So when you're thinking about your own branding, you're looking at what everything that's out in front of you is telling about your story. So we mentioned at the beginning, you are your own chief marketing officer and if you don't put the right story out there, that story will be somewhere else right? So whatever you have on social media is telling a part of the story, but that's not all of the story.

Marnie Stockman: 16:55

One of the things we talk about is in your HR department. One of the pieces that's most important to set up and establish your branding is to really understand who you are, and what we find is that students really lack confidence in understanding themselves and that is what's holding them back from being able to tell their story. They don't understand truly what their values are in a way that they can express that. They don't know their strengths and their weaknesses, etc. And all of those things turn into your story that make all of your lived experiences make sense. So that's part of what we talk about in the book is helping figure out who you are and how you're putting that out there. Nick, what am I missing with the branding piece? Or did I catch most of what you were thinking I was going to say on that?

Nick Coniglio: 17:46

I could not have answered that any better, and I would never answer better than Marnie about personal branding, because that is truly a superpower of hers, not only with her own personal branding, but helping others establish their own personal brand as well establish their own personal brand as well.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 18:06

I think I want to highlight something that is here in the book, if you don't mind me sharing, but I know here. It says here your personal brand is the story you tell the world about who you are and what you offer, and if you don't craft that story intentionally, people will assume one for you, and I just kind of want to dig in a little bit deeper on that, Nick, on your side, just to add a little bit more. I mean, how has this that I read from the book? Is there something that you can remember from your 30 years experience in ed tech and working, you know, with companies? How important has this been? Or maybe an experience that you've had with personal branding and making sure that you control what the narrative is?

Nick Coniglio: 18:47

I'll talk about myself, my personal story first, and I will say that you know I mentioned at the outset that I was a programmer and I met all the stereotypes of the programmer, meaning that I sat in a closet, I drank Coca-Cola, as I was very introverted, I did not like to talk to people, but I was really good functionally at what I did and I ended up getting promoted, you know, a number of times when I was, when I was very, very young in my career and I didn't have any notion about a personal brand at all None, and I didn't want to because I didn't like, I wasn't comfortable talking to people and, at the end of the day, what?

Nick Coniglio: 19:35

what that really came across to most people that I was working with that ended up working under me in the leadership position was that I was more cocky, I was not a team player, right, I was very quiet, but that didn't mean necessarily that I wasn't a team player or that I was cocky.

Nick Coniglio: 19:55

And it took a while for me to realize. And that was like a spiral All of a sudden started, you know, getting out of control where you know I was. I felt like I need to know all the answers, and I, of course, didn't nobody knows all those answers, right but it just kept on feeding off of each other and it wasn't until I really started getting comfortable on who I was, which is the fact that I'm somebody who listens a lot and it takes me a while to process things and and respond, because I want to do so in a very thoughtful way and I felt like I had to put the time in to demonstrate that, and that's ultimately what I did, and eventually, over time, I believe that became my brand. That was who I was. I was a cautious conversationalist, but people began to know that I was thinking, because I would ask a ton of questions and I would listen to them. I was present with them.

Nick Coniglio: 20:53

So that's not the story Marnie wanted me to tell, but that is my personal story and I think, no matter what you're doing, we find it so much with young people these days. Even the things that you don't do are a story about you, or the things that you don't intend to put out there to create your brand. We see it all the time with social media. That is telling a story, whether you like it or not. You may think you're just having fun posting a picture out at the bar or doing something that you shouldn't be doing, but it's a story and you're building a brand, and I think that's really important for all the young people out there.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 21:36

Remember, Excellent, yeah, and those are all valid points and that is great. But I love what you share too, because it's a nice segue into the next question. But it's because I find that I'm you are very relatable in the sense that I am in a very similar train of thought. Like I'm an I'm I think I just over process, but I just love to process and it takes me a while. Just I just love to take it all in, be with my thoughts, and then be able to make sure that I give an answer that fits, you know, whatever the situation may be. But at the same time I do like to ask a lot of questions.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 22:57

But in this world where a lot of people are just sometimes looking for answers, you know we forget that asking the right questions would be something that's very critical, and I know that this is something also that you do talk about in the book the Business of you, which we will make sure we link in the show notes, but talking about Sydney, that she learns to ask the right questions and that that is more important than having all of the answers. So, marnie, tell me a little bit about that, and why is this skill so critical and how can it help our young adults, you know, maybe even high school students coming out and even just us as adults, you know? Tell me a little bit more about that.

Marnie Stockman: 23:37

Well. So one of the things we talk about is the need to have a group of advisors, right, your personal board of advisors, and Nick is one of mine, and I need to find people that are not like me, and so he has taught me the power of listening and asking better questions. It is truly a superpower. It is truly Nick's superpower. So, in the world of asking questions, I think people need to reflect. It's very easy today to Google fact answers as opposed to, you know, asking questions about who you are, about what value you bring to a company. That's the type of story that people want to hear. So, when it comes to asking questions, it's very powerful in understanding who you are, but also how you can connect with others. One of the things Sydney has asked is what value she brings.

Marnie Stockman: 24:34

If you're looking at how you're going to apply for a college or a company, if you're thinking of a college essay, for example, you want to think about what you bring to the party and what would the college want to know. Right, you need to ask yourself. Put yourself in the other person's shoes. As a teacher, I'm confident you thought what do the students really want? If you're just thinking, I need to communicate this information. That can make math a boring situation, but the great math teachers figure out how to figure out what the students really want, right, what's in it for them, and when they think about asking that question, then suddenly you can turn it around to make the class much more entertaining. So Nick is really the master question asker, but I have learned quite a bit from partnering with him.

Nick Coniglio: 25:27

Excellent.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 25:27

Nick, tell me a little bit more about that experience. You know, just asking the right questions. How has that been something that has helped you personally grow? You know, not only within your space and your realm of work, but just even just personally?

Nick Coniglio: 25:42

You know, I think the simplest way to put it is that answers end conversations, but questions really open them up. And you know, for somebody who's, again, rather introverted, you know, what am I always scared of? And that very annoying pause and silence that scares me to death, right, and what I found out by practicing that right as a way to network and engage with peers and people I look up to, is that that one skill of asking questions and being curious about things always moved me forward. Right, it always opened up additional, uh, opportunities for me, whether I was looking for them or I. I wasn't, and I, you know, and it makes sense when you think about it, right, because you're you're wanting to understand somebody else's perspective. You're wanting to understand things that you currently don't know how they operate, and that only helps you grow. So the whole notion of curiosity in driving anybody forward, we strongly believe in. We've seen it work. I've seen it work personally. Marnie short sells herself, but she's a. We've seen it work. I've seen it work personally. Marnie short sells herself, but she's a great question asker as well.

Nick Coniglio: 27:15

And the key to remember, though, is, when you're asking questions, that you really need to be present and listen to what the person you're communicating with is saying. And again, that I think is a struggle for a lot of people. I know you know I pride myself in asking questions. Sometimes you're like, okay, well, what's the next question I'm going to ask? No, stay present, listen to them, understand, just be genuinely curious. And I promise you that's one of the things we try to present with Sidney through the story and give kind of concrete example what that means. But it's a really underrated skill that I think a lot of people, especially younger people and I was still this one don't really think about doing.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 28:06

Excellent. Oh man, that is such a great answer. Like right now, just listening to both of you speak and going back and forth and answering these questions is I am just amazed and I'm like thinking. I was like, yes, like Sydney, yes, I can think of, like that's always. Sydney is just like just amazing.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 28:22

You know, and everything that I'm learning you know now I get to speak to the authors that helped form Sydney.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 28:27

But I mean, I think, just with your experience that you've had and the way that I listen to y'all and you like just are very compliment each other very well as far as you know the content that we're speaking of, and I was like, well, it's no wonder that this book is just great and it's something that's very useful and would be just a wonderful addition to any anybody's tool belt to be able to have it and read, because this is great.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 28:52

But going back to this, nick, this is kind of a nice progression also and this is great that it's working out this way, that talking about being present and asking all the right questions too. So, marnie, let's talk about the next aspect, I mean for me, for myself also, seeing as being in there and being present is something that is also a time investment, and I know that that is something that is one of our most valuable resources. As a matter of fact, here within the book, it says it's not just money that's one of the most valuable resources, but it's that time and energy so how are we using our time is something that is very detrimental to as well. So let's talk a little bit about that. How might we take some steps to audit our time and to making sure that we're spending it on what truly matters?

Marnie Stockman: 29:45

Yeah. So I gave a graduation address to a local high school this spring and I went through a few of the departments and I said if you're the chief financial officer, would you invest in you? Would you invest in your habits and your work ethic? And when you think about that, think about where you are putting your time. And it was interesting because you know I talked to five departments.

Marnie Stockman: 30:13

But when I said that line, I definitely got you got a reaction from the students. They were like, oh all right, she's going to hit it hard. We're not just going to get jokes out on the stage today. And so really to encourage folks to say every single thing you're doing is investing in yourself. So are those 10 hours of doom scrolling? Is that a good investment in what you're preparing yourself for? Right, is what you're doing, working to help you accomplish your goals?

Marnie Stockman: 30:46

So when students start thinking about that, a lot of folks in the business world or even in education will say, oh, I'm busy but not productive. Well, are you doing the right things to accomplish your goals or are you just checking boxes? I've worked with a couple college students recently that had not heard of the Eisenhower matrix, which is when you chart important tasks versus urgency of tasks, and a lot of people do urgent but not important things because they can check box them as opposed to really prioritizing the urgent and important or, you know, and really the high value on the important, and so it's interesting to get them to think about. So what are the tasks that you're doing and are they helping you with the bigger picture of who you want to be?

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 32:37

Oh, I love it, Nick. Is there anything that you'd love to add to that? Talking about time and how to invest it properly?

Nick Coniglio: 32:50

time and how to invest it properly. Yeah, and I would. I would relate it to what most people think about in terms of investing, which is money, right, investments and that whole notion, you know, compound interest. I think it's really important to invest in things that do compound. They multiply the more and more you do it. Things like you know learning or your health or relationships. Those things they pay back by 10, 50, 100x when you consistently and you put the time in to do those things.

Nick Coniglio: 33:24

But if you're spending, you know, in to do those things, but if you're spending, you know, your time on things like social media all the time, or just reviewing emails or scrolling, you know, scrolling the Internet, those, those are the things that really depreciate over time. So it wasn't by accident that when we talked about the office of the financial officer, we weren't really talking about money at all. And, believe me, I think financial literacy is critically important, especially for younger people. It's a book in and of itself. But when we think about finance, we think about time, and I think you should really think about those things that compound versus those things that depreciate.

Nick Coniglio: 34:09

And we all know what they are. We absolutely 100%, all know what they are. But what's hard to do is the self-reflection and we talk with and Sydney does this right it's really to say, okay, all right, where actually am I spending your time? Because you know, although we kind of know, until you see it on paper, if you start to log, it, put into a diary or log or something to that effect that's when it really jumps out at you and you know, out of the 14 hours I was awake today, I was spending 12 of those hours on things that depreciate very quickly, when I could have been working on something that can compound and make my journey so much better, both in the short and the long run.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 34:57

I love that and that's great. And you know, I think just having that audit, like you said, just being able to write it down actually and see it physically, just writing it down, is a great reflection piece. I remember when I first got married, you know, with my beautiful wife, and we're there, you know, just all of a sudden we just had to have that talk and say, okay, let's go ahead and sit down and let's manage our budget. And all of a sudden, once we put that down in money, like on paper, we're like, oh my goodness, like we just found things that were like wait a minute, like we've got a little leak here, like we need to make sure we fix this, that ice cream budget is draining us.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 35:35

Yeah, you know, those budgets are we eating out too often? Are we doing this too often? We do it. But then of course, that helped us in the very beginning to take control of something and that really helped us out and has really laid the path, Like you mentioned. Like just that that one instance in doing so has paid off, probably like a hundred X to get us to where we are now, and still we still follow a lot of those same principles now and that has really helped tremendously.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 36:04

So, even just with time that many people may say like, oh, I wish I could do this, I wish I could do that, I wish I could do this. It's like, well, what are we, you know, investing our time in, and sometimes just putting that down on paper that could be very scary and being like, oh, I was just on social media for like five hours on a Saturday. You know, what could I have done on those five hours? To maybe, you know, get back 10x of whatever it is, or pursue, you know, a different career, or pursue just betterment, professional development, things to talk about. You know, for myself and I've shared this story many times on the podcast, but many years ago when I was teaching.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 36:53

I was teaching in Arizona for one year at a charter school and that's where I met a Marine and he I don't know I don't remember what the conversation was, but he mentioned improvise, adapt and overcome, and I took that to heart, that from that moment on in my teaching career and even now, you know, in what I've been able to accomplish in education and through education those three words have been so important to have the ability to adapt.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 37:30

It's something that not many people may have and it's something that I think is something that is very critical, I think, not only for ourselves as adults, but even our young learners and you know people coming out of high school and college to be able to do that. So I want to ask you a little bit about that. As far as you know when we'll start off with Marnie, you know, we know that challenges happen and in being in the world of education, we know that it's a constant change and that we have to just continually improvise, we have to adapt. So how important is it for us to have that skill set, or the skill of adaptability, to meet our long-term goals?

Marnie Stockman: 38:12

Oh, critically important, because otherwise you will just let any failure derail you completely, and growth happens in the failure right. The learning happens in making the mistakes and trying. So you know, two things come to mind. One, you have to do the work. When you have hit a struggle, it's the work through that struggle that will help you grow.

Marnie Stockman: 38:38

But the other piece is if you are just following the path that is laid in front of you instead of designing your path, you may not even know where you're heading. If you are more likely to put a vision out in front of you Nick mentioned at the beginning of where you want to go and how you're going to get there, when you hit a bump in the road, you can still recalibrate and get back on target or maybe decide to change the target. But what won't happen is it won't cause a spiral that'll help you, just, you know, a downward spiral because you realized that, okay, something's got to give here and I need to figure this out. And that's what happened. When people just plod their way following the path that's right in front of them, they're just not learning to lead their own life, which is really something we really highlight. Raise the third bullet on the cover lead your life. So that's what adaptability will get you the ability to actually lead your life instead of just blindly following a path.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 39:46

Excellent. And, marnie, I think you're a great example also of just adapting. I mean, being in education, from going from math, then of course district assessment, and then principal and then now author and then of course building. Now in the ed tech space. I mean I'm sure there's definitely. You have to maintain a lot of flexibility and adaptability to navigate this space. And, nick, also, like you mentioned, with your experience 30 years you know in this space. I mean I can't even imagine how much or how critical adaptability is for you. So tell me a little bit about yourself and the importance of adaptability you know through your experience.

Nick Coniglio: 40:25

As Marnie would say, critically important. I think planning is very important, but being too rigid is dangerous. I think we have to go into it with that mindset that we're going to have to adapt. I mean quick story Marnie mentioned at the very beginning that when we left EdTech we had it on compete. So we started a new business in a completely different space and we had a go-to market plan which was, I would say, 90 to 95% driven off of customer trade shows and that was about I don't know three months before COVID hit and everything completely changed right.

Nick Coniglio: 41:14

No trade shows right in front of us, right? So we didn't just give up. We completely pivoted and we changed our go-to-market strategy into pivoted and we changed our go-to-market strategy into virtual leveraging partner networks. I mean things we didn't even think of at the very beginning, I think some things we had on the periphery, but we completely changed our model. But we had the same vision for our product and the company of what we wanted to be. You know, we were building a company based off of core values. We knew that we wanted to become the customer success platform of this IT industry and we knew we were going to listen and get the right feedback. But the way we had to engage with our clients and prospects was completely different than anything we ever imagined, and that's just one example. I think you know that was. That was one company, every company that I've been part of.

Nick Coniglio: 42:20

We had to adapt at some point and, speaking personally from from myself, I had to adapt right. I knew at some point that for me to do what I really wanted to do, which was to create things and solve problems for people, that I needed to step out of that closet. And I took a job in consulting because that forced me to get in front of people and start to develop people skills, of all things right, you know, which was very intimidating to me. But I had to adapt because that's I had goals and I wanted to achieve those goals and every challenge, whether it was to be vice president of consulting services, I was a COO for another company all things I was always intimidated to do and, quite honestly, on some of those I had to really work to get myself visible, to put myself in that level of uncomfortability. And in every one, of those cases.

Nick Coniglio: 43:27

I adapted my. You know what I thought was the way I was wired and I operated and I had to completely change. So adaptability is critical to anybody's success and I'm sure, dr Fonz, you have done it a gazillion times yourself.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 43:45

Even being here today.

Nick Coniglio: 43:46

It is probably because you adapted to something at some point excellent?

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 43:50

yes, absolutely, and I think that's such a critical skill. And now I going into adaptability, I know that this is, uh, something that sydney learns also throughout the story, and but I want to kind of start talking and shifting the conversation to the next main character that caught my eye in this story, which I think is something that is great, and which is Blue. So, marnie, we'll start off with you. So I know that you mentioned here that Blue was created to help people in designing their own path, so tell me a little bit about just the inception of Blue. How did that come about?

Marnie Stockman: 44:26

So it's interesting because Blue actually the idea for Blue came first. So Blue is the app that we are building that will help gamify you running the departments of you, figuring out who you are, etc. So we were actually sitting in an airport and said we're going to start writing the requirements for this app how can we build an app for students to help them figure out who they are, tell their story, etc. And as we started defining what they would do in the app, we said huh, this kind of this feels like we're writing a story. Nick then used the restroom that was right behind the gate that we were sitting in and he came back, I mean 60 seconds later, and said I think you had a terrible idea. I had a terrible idea while you were in the bathroom. He said, yeah, I think we should write a story. So that is how the Businessize this self-learning, gamify their own growth.

Nick Coniglio: 45:34

And I was just going to say we like to think of it. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the Duolingo app, right, the app that you know where you can learn different languages. You know, we feel like it's going to be. You know, the Duolingo app-like for personal development, filled with gamification. She talked about writing down and auditing your time. Well, that will be done in the app through some sort of gamification process, identifying who you are, what your values are.

Nick Coniglio: 46:04

We're not going to just give you a blank form. We're going to give you provoking games, bracket challenges to understand your values, to understand what your kryptonite is or what your strengths are, and then we're going to take that, we're going to learn from it and we're going to say, hey, we know that you're about to apply for college. Let's think about this. This is your story, these are your strengths. This is where some of your weaknesses are. Here are some ideas and concepts that you might present for an essay for your college application. Or you're going to a networking event because you're in college. You know, here are some topics that you might want to think about bringing up to that complete stranger, as you're trying to meet new people. So we're super excited. It comes with experience points and streaks and all the fun things that young people like, and we're super looking forward to later this year when it's when it's involved.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 47:07

Excellent and I think that is something that is truly unique and I think there's something that is there is definitely a need for that. To be honest with you and especially, you know, with our, our younger students getting ready to get out of high school and, like you mentioned, preparing just to get into college and just to be able to go deeper, I mean, and, marnie, I mean with your experience in education, you know the load of students or the ratio of students to counselors, you know to be able to get in and, of course, then you've got your counselors for you know financial aid, you know college and all of that, and I mean and to disseminate all that information. I mean this is something that is a great tool for students to get to know themselves more, follow a track, see what it is that they're really good at, and I love, like you mentioned, nick, to find those areas of weakness that they can improve on and personally and professionally develop as they get ready for college, things that they can go ahead and put into their college applications or college essays, which I think is something that is valuable because for a lot of students, they go into high school, they're I mean they're out of high school. They're like well, what just happened? Like, all of a sudden, it's like it's a blur and all I know is that I graduated now and I'm on to the next thing.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 48:26

But, but, but seriously, in that moment of like, what do I even have? Like what, what value can I bring in? And I think that nowadays, that's something that is very, very, very important. You know, at least from what I see and observe, that students know exactly what value had they have. And, like you mentioned, going through this and learning these skills, learning that you know interview skills, some of the interview lingo, getting ready to answer questions, how to do those things and doing it in a gamified way where you have challenges, I mean, I think that's something that is very unique and I think that is something that is going to be very engaging for a lot of students.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 49:08

And you know, and even for myself as an adult, I'm still like doing Duolingo and doing a lot of things that will give me points and you know, experience points and so on, and I think that's something that is great and I can definitely see that being used. You know, at least through those offices of you know college, those college prep courses and things of that sort. That would be something fantastic. And now you said the app. Marnie, you're saying this will be available approximately when?

Marnie Stockman: 49:40

So we're hoping at the end of the year and you kind of nailed it when you talked about guidance counselors we have a lot of folks you know in advisory periods or guidance periods. They need some help because the workload you know you've got 400 students that are trying to get to graduate and get college essays and letters of recommendations. So yeah, we're hoping to have some beta folks that we can work with Nick. Anything else on the timing other than we're aiming for the end of the year, yeah, we're aiming.

Nick Coniglio: 50:02

Hopefully it'll be sooner, but we're trying to be conservative with that. We have a working prototype of it now and we just want to make it right.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 50:13

Excellent. Well, that is wonderful and I know in the book there is a link that is available to to be able to be on the waitlist for this. So that is something that is great and I know, like I said, I am going to put the link here to the book and then that way they can reach out or purchase the book Also, of course, for your information, marnie and Nick, and you know, that way they get to learn a little bit about Sydney and her journey, which you know.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 50:35

That way they get to learn a little bit about Sydney and her journey, which I know is going to be something that's very relatable, as it was to myself and even to us here as adults, just talking about all those serious skills that even today, I mean, we're still using. And if it wasn't for us really equipping ourselves with those skills, who knows? Maybe the path might have been a little bit different, where one of us wouldn't be here on this podcast today. But I'm glad that our paths crossed and, of course, like Nick said, because of that adaptability and flexibility, we were able to connect and be here this evening to have this amazing conversation. And before I end the show with the last three questions that I always love to ask, but, nick, I want to ask you, you know, for our listeners, who are ready to take ownership of their future, what's the first step that they can take? Some of your best advice through your experience.

Nick Coniglio: 51:22

You know, in our last book, Lead a Light Glasso, we had a saying leadership is life and everybody is a leader. And I think the most important lesson that I have learned in my career and we hope comes through with Sydney and the cast of characters in this book is that you can't lead others when you don't lead yourself first. And I think it's just really important to focus on personal leadership be authentic, be yourself. I think a lot of young people I know I did struggle with I always wanted to be who I thought I should be, you know, based on how others saw me, not who I actually was. But we say the most important project you'll ever work on is yourself, and I think I know Marty and I both share that wholeheartedly. So hopefully it comes through with Sydney Lead yourself first, Excellent.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 52:23

Marty? How about yourself? What is the one message you hope the readers take away from the business of you?

Marnie Stockman: 52:28

Well, nick said it, the most important project you'll ever work on is you. You really do have to start there, because if you are not feeling that the true you is showing up at work every day, it probably doesn't feel good to show up at that work every day, and so it really impacts your mental health along with your ability to grow. So just critically important to understand you and that's what we're hoping to help folks walk through so they can really get a get themselves on the right foot to the best version of themselves.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 53:00

Excellent, I love it, marnie. So, before we get into our last three questions, where can our listeners connect with both you and Nick and learn a little bit more about the Business of you?

Marnie Stockman: 53:13

So our website is thebusinessofyouai, our social media is Blue, the Business of you, and then we are easy to find on LinkedIn because we have relatively unique names. So you can find Blue the Business of you on LinkedIn or either of us by our name, marnie Stockman, nick Coniglio. He's got some numbers after his, but you'll be able to find him and connect with him.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 53:36

Excellent. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And before we wrap up again, I always love to end the show with these last three questions. So, nick, we'll go ahead and start off with you. As we know, every superhero has a weakness or a pain point. So for Superman, it was that kryptonite that weakened him. So I want to ask you, nick, in your experience and what you've seen whether it be in the ed tech space, education space or just a combination of both I want to ask you what would you say would be your current kryptonite?

Nick Coniglio: 54:08

I think I'm a little too close with the panic monster, meaning that I have a tendency to procrastinate a little too much. Now I get around it because I create a false sense of urgency on a plan of list of things that I need to do, but I think procrastination is my kryptonite for sure.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 54:34

Yeah yeah, nick, I think we just became best friends because my, my, my motto is procrastinate later. Yes, so yeah I love that.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 54:45

I'm still that is something and I'm very similar in the way that you just mentioned that like even doing my dissertation and things of that sort, it was just like oh my gosh. And then until it was just like oh my gosh, and then until it was just like oh my gosh, I really got to do this. But it was just that processing, like I said, I had it here but it was just a matter of putting it down on paper. But then, of course, overcoming and overwhelm of like oh my gosh, I, I got to do this and yeah, so, but anyway, procrastination, that was my thing. Procrastinate later. I am getting a little bit better, I'm being a little bit more like just staying on top of things. But yeah, procrastinate later is my motto. All right, marty, how about you? I want to ask you, what would you say is your current kryptonite?

Marnie Stockman: 55:32

So it's interesting because I always say I hate filling out online forms with a white hot passion. But that stems from the fact that I don't like someone like the loss of control, as somebody else's emergency suddenly became my emergency. So you know, lack of planning on someone else's part became an emergency on my part. So probably Wrapped a little too tight sometimes, how's that?

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 56:09

Or all the time maybe and just on the procrastination world, because I can live there too I also wouldn't have gotten my dissertation done if I wasn't watching the clock countdown.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 56:13

You know, if it weren't for the last minute, nothing would ever get done. Share, yeah, that experience right now, like it's. It's so great to just be able to come home and say, hey, I've got a podcast and that's all I gotta think about, and then cutting some clips and editing where, as opposed to, oh my gosh, I've got a podcast, but then I also have a chapter four that I have to start editing and doing this and formatting. So now I'm like this huge weight has lifted off my shoulders and now I can definitely invest my time and other things that will bring me back that 10x also. Not that the dissertation didn't do that, but I'm just saying, like these passion projects, like you know, which is great, now I'm all in, you know, but thank you so much for sharing that. All right, we'll go ahead and start off with you for this one. Marnie, if you could have a billboard with anything on it, what would it be and why?

Marnie Stockman: 56:58

I feel like at this point it has to say all gas no break. I was recently, and so it's on my LinkedIn page. I've certainly been accused of that, and recently our local newspaper did an article about Lead it Like Lasso and when they interviewed me they decided to subtitle it all gas no Break. And one of my neighbors on a walk walked up and just like jumped in front of me and said I'll go with that.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 57:22

Excellent Nick. How about yourself? What would your billboard say?

Nick Coniglio: 57:28

It would say New York Jets Super Bowl champions. That's what it would say. I don't think I'll ever see that billboard in my lifetime because it happened right before I was born, but I'm a diehard New York Jets fan. Now, if we want to keep it a little more on terms with the conversation, it would be stay curious, stay kind, that's what it would be, but I'm a diehard Jets fan. I heard you say earlier that you're a Bills fan and I'm envious.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 57:59

Dr Fons Excellent, Love it, Nick. Well, hopefully we'll definitely see that billboard. I was like we got to always remain optimistic no matter what and hey, we got to just keep it that way, but I love it All. Right. My last question, Nick, this one. We'll start off with you first. If you could trade places with a single person for a day, who would that be and why?

Nick Coniglio: 58:23

I'm going to keep the sports theme because I love to compete and I love the sport of golf and I think I would like to be Scotty Shuffler on Sunday of the Masters tournament and find a way to lose it. But I would love to feel what that pressure would be like, because if you want to talk we talked about adaptability and problem solving earlier the level of adaptability you have to have to win a golf tournament just simply is mind-blowing to me because I can't even do it as a recreational golfer. So yeah, I'm sorry I'm no fun on these games, but that's my answer. That's my honest answer. Hey, it's a great answer.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 59:12

Hey, solid answer. Valid answer Great, thank you so much for sharing, marnie. How about yourself? Who is the one person that you would switch places for or switch places with for a day?

Marnie Stockman: 59:23

beach volleyball player. I'm about eight inches too short to be a beach volleyball player, but I do love volleyball. And first my students would always ask, like Ms Stockman, if you could change one thing about your body, what would it be? And I would always say I'd love to be able to jump higher, and I don't think any of them thought that that's what they should be picking. But so Kerry Walsh, yeah, I think same, think, same thing with nick. Also, I'm a competitor to be able to really finish the way. Um, that she and misty may trainer did. Yeah, impressive they.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 1:00:07

I mean, I remember them from many years ago and they just dominated. Yeah, I mean, I was just like, wow, what a duo. So, yeah, excellent, well, great choices, marnie and Nick, it has been a pleasure, it has been an honor to have you here. I am just so thankful. Again, big shout out to our friend Scott for making this happen.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 1:00:26

This conversation definitely has filled my bucket and has definitely allowed me to really take down some notes and just something to reflect on for myself. As we all know, like I mentioned, this is my solid PD that I get to share with everybody, and so thank you so much for being part of my EdTech Life and for all our audience members that are checking out this episode, please make sure you visit our website and visit at wwwmyedtechlife, where you can check out this amazing episode and the other 335 episodes where, I promise you, you will find a little something that you can take and use and sprinkle onto what you are already doing. Great. And again, a big shout out to our sponsors Book Creator, eduaid and Yellowdig. Thank you so much for believing in this mission to bring some amazing guests and amazing conversations into our space. And, my friends, until next time, don't forget, stay techie.