Positively Pittsburgh Live! 5th Anniversary Special and Pittsburgh Authors
2-27-12
Well we've come a long way, baby, as they say in the movies since February of 2007. Nearly 300 shows and 920,000 accumulated listeners later, we have interviewed over 1,800 people, all the most amazing people you can find from Pittsburgh and surrounding areas. Tonight, as has become customary on the Anniversary Special, we are interviewing Pittsburgh Authors.
Guests:
Joyce Faulkner, author of multiple books, most recently "Windshift," a historical novel about Women Air force Pilots in World War II
Dr. Katie McCorkle, author of "A Balanced Heart: 10 Weeks to Breakthrough"
Diana Fletcher, author of "Happy on Purpose Daily Messages of Empowerment and Joy for Women"
Tamar Cerafici Esquire, author of "Dominate, How Smart Lawyers Crush the Competition"
Bob Stearns, author of "Perhaps a Man Can Change the Stars, Eric’s Pursuit of Perpetual Motion"
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| Joyce Faulkner |
Joyce Faulkner, @JoyceFaulkner
President of Military Writers Society of America
Award-winning author of: In the Shadow of Suribachi, Windshift, USERNAME, Chance ... and other horrors, For Shrieking Out Loud, Losing PatienceCoauthor of: Sunchon Tunnel Massacre Survivors, Role Call: Women's Voices
I began writing to amuse myself when I was a tubby adolescent. I love the whole process -- planning, researching, writing -- and the many hours of editing that turns a lump of clay into a layered, cohesive story. As a reader, I appreciate the work that goes into plotting, characterization, and background. People often ask me if I write about myself. Of course, all authors ideas, thoughts, perspectives appear in their books. I'm in my books by the very topics that I choose to write about.
During World War II, the people of the United States pulled together in an unprecedented effort to defeat the enemy. The country put aside societal rules for the duration allowing women to serve in the military as nurses and administrators. At home, young girls, housewives, and older men went to work in the factories. Most extraordinary of all, given the attitudes of the time, more than a thousand women signed up to participate in the war effort as pilots.
The Women Air Force Service Pilot Program (WASP) began as two separate organizations led by two famous aviatrixes. The WAFS (Women’s Air Ferry Service) was Nancy Love’s idea for recruiting experienced women pilots to ferry military aircraft around the US. With Jackie Cochran at the helm, the Women’s Flying Training Detachment (WFTD) was established in 1942 to prepare women pilots for military flying. In 1943, Jackie Cochran combined the two groups and they became known as WASP.
The standards for women were higher than for men and the training was exacting. They ‘checked out’ in an assortment of military aircraft and performed such duties as delivering newly built or repaired aircraft to military bases in the states, towing targets, test flight, dogfight training, and transporting military brass.
Pilot status was highly sought after by American men of the era. Men viewed female pilots with suspicion and hostility. WASP flew military planes and obeyed military protocol, however, the military considered them civilians and denied them military pay and benefits. In 1944, the Army petitioned Congress to militarize the group. The WASP Militarization Bill failed because of public perception that women were taking jobs that should belong to men. Women’s Air Service Pilots were disbanded in December 1944. Nine hundred and sixteen women were on active duty at that point. Thirty-eight women died in the performance of their duties.
Windshift is a historical novel about societal change using the Women's Air Service Pilots experience during WW2 as a metaphor.This novel is set in Cold Creek, OH -- a fictional town with scenes in both Pittsburgh and Cleveland.
Windshift is narrated by a WASP named Shirley Maxwell who comes from a privileged but troubled background. With three other WASP -- Emmie Hopkins, Delores Lieberman, and Mags Strickland, she is assigned to deliver small planes being built at Wiley's Aircraft to Camp Morgan California where men pilots will ferry them to their assigned units.
Shirley tells her story and that of her friends from the time they begin flying in September 1943 until early 1945.
Here's what one reviewer said about it:
Joyce Faulkner has done it again. Her novel, Windshift, tells the story of four obscure women who joined the Women Air Service Pilot program during World War II. Shirley, Emmy, Dolores, and Mags are fictional characters, but their experiences are accurate reflections of what the real WASPs did for their country. They came from different backgrounds, wih varying levels of skill, and they fought their own battles agains the resentment of male pilots and opposition from those who believed that women belonged in the kitchen. Their stories of courage, daring, and resilience will resonate with every woman who ever dared to fly beyond societal boundaries and wih every man who has known a woman like them.
Shirley, Emmy, Dolores, and Mags leap off the page into our imaginations, thanks to Faulkner’s skill as a story-teller. Her descriptions allow readers to confront the characters as living people. Gradually we learn their back stories and come to understand and forgive their flaws. We worry about them, applaud their successes, share their tears, and mourn their losses. We come to know them as friends because Faulkner never steps between her characters and her readers. She doesn’t add her own commentary or interject her own ideology. She just narrates their stories, letting us get to know each of these women as we might get to know a neighbor or colleague through their own words and actions.
The result is a story that will linger in the reader’s imagination long after the book itself has been lost or relegated to a shelf. Like Faulkner’s previous World War II novel, In the Shadow of Suribachi, this book forces us to look at history without flinching and without air-brushing its horrible truths. As she did with the unknown men who fought at Iwo Jima, Faulkner has rescued the WASPs from oblivion and allowed us to meet them as living human beings rather than as statistics or stereotypes.
~Carolyn Poling Shcriber, Award-winning author of Beyond All Price
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| Dr. Katie McCorkle |
“Dr. Katie” McCorkle, Ph.D.
An innovator educated at Stanford University, the University of Pittsburgh, and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Katie is a psychologist and social entrepreneur in the Pittsburgh, PA area, with decades of experience helping adults, couples, children, and families. She is past Chair of the Continuing Education Committee for the Greater Pittsburgh Psychological Association, and is a member of the PA Psychological Association, the American Psychological Association, and the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology.
Dr. Katie is the author of “A Balanced Heart: 10 Weeks to Breakthrough”, a guided self-coaching journal offering readers the experience of successfully utilizing the tools and strategies they need to reduce their stress and birth new dreams into their life. She is also a co-author of the books “Women Will Save the World”, “Love Like God: Embracing Unconditional Love” and “Achieving Clarity: What the Heck Is It I Want”.
Dr. Katie’s CD “Touch Your Love” teaches how to begin living these 10 Principles. Her media career began in 2002 with a radio interview on WPTT in Pittsburgh. Since that time, speaking on love and relationships, she has hosted her own show and appeared in interviews and live weekly segments on dozens of stations throughout the US and England.
Professionally, Dr. Katie has developed several programs to serve others in unique ways. She developed an award-winning program for drivers under the influence of alcohol or drugs, was part of the team which developed the first program for adolescent sex offenders in Pennsylvania, and developed an award-winning, multi-agency project to help learning-disabled delinquents develop the academic skills they need to succeed in life.
In her faith communities, Dr. Katie has served on both national and local boards and committees. She is a teacher, devotional writer, public speaker and supporter of other people’s dreams, as well as her own.
10 PRINCIPLES to become more positive:
1. Open your heart and trust
2. Give and receive without attachment to the outcome
3. Create safety for yourself and others
4. Welcome everything as a blessing, especially when it doesn’t look like one
5. See only goodness (aka Love)
6. DREAM BIG!!!
7. Take responsibility for everything…no exceptions
8. Let go of what no longer serves you
9. Have no judgments, so truth may be revealed
10. BE the miracle you wish to create
Learn tools and strategies to successfully live those 10 Principles in Dr. Katie’s new book “A Balanced Heart: 10 Weeks to Breakthrough." It is a guided journal designed to provide structure for a book group, faith-sharing group, or other group of people who want to learn to live them together. See a 3 minute video about the book on youtube.com
Balanced Heart Healing Center is founded upon those 10 Principles, and is accepting new
clients for counseling, coaching, and group programs. Go to http://www.balancedheart.org/ to learn more, buy the book, sign up for the monthly newsletter, or volunteer with us.
Stress is the belief that whatever is happening shouldn’t be. When you instead WONDER how what is happening might possibly be the very best thing for you, the stress diminishes. Ask Dr. Katie about other stress busters…
Ask Dr. Katie about ways to create miracles in your life…
2 core fears we must overcome in order to become more positive are:
o I’m not good enough
o I don’t deserve my dream
4 words to eliminate in order to become more positive:
o CAN’T/TRY
o SHOULD/OUGHT
724-776-5534
drkatie@balancedheart.org
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| Diana Fletcher |
Diana Fletcher is a writer and life coach who has lived in the Pittsburgh area for 20 years. She has been an elementary school teacher, life coach, workshop facilitator, business owner and a mom at home. She is a vegetarian, a stress-reducing expert, and a wife. She is a writer who has always loved writing. For the last five years she has been the owner of Diana Fletcher Life Coaching and coached people in changing their lives. She has written and co-authored 6 books. Her latest is entitled, Happy on Purpose Daily Messages of Empowerment and Joy for Women.
I truly feel that people are meant to be healthy and happy and my self help books inspire people to achieve those goals.
My books offer simple, do-able strategies for people to reduce their stress, enjoy their lives and get healthier. People have the idea that being positive is an annoying, difficult action and that is it "faking." Being positive and happy is being honest with yourself and changing your thinking. My book helps people learn to do that. I give them something to think about and then a "Happy Action" that is simple and often fun to try.
I have always liked the style of a book that you read each day for inspiration, so I wrote the book that I would like to read and that I thought people would enjoy and find helpful. I am getting a really great reaction from my readers about the ease of using the book. It's thick so at first it looks overwhelming---then they open it and go....oh, I like this!
People do not have the time to read. Even people who are avid readers find it difficult to fit in reading. Happy on Purpose is written so that you can read the inspirational thought and the Happy Action in less than two minutes, yet it gives you something inspiring to think about all day.
So much stress and unhappiness comes from not living in the present. We are so worried about what we did or didn't do in the past, or what is coming later today, tomorrow or next month, that we let the minutes slip away...and that is ultimately our lives that we are letting slip away.
I am finding that digital sales are really starting to keep pace with my print sales. I like being able to offer the book both ways and many people have shared with me that they own both.(I have it in Kindle and B & N Nook version). The publishing world is changing and writers and readers are noticing huge differences in the way they purchase and read books.
I really have enjoyed living in Pittsburgh. For the last five years as I was running my life coaching business, I became familiar with all different areas--Pittsburgh has the coolest little neighborhoods tucked away here and there, and it is a great place to explore. I have met wonderful people through my coaching and speaking, and I have business owners all over who stock and sell my books for me.
http://www.dianafletcher.com/
http://www.thoughtsbydiana.com/
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| Tamara Cerafici, Esquire |
Attorney Tamar Cerafici is an internationally recognized leader and legal specialist in the often complex and challenging nuclear regulatory industry. She has been at the forefront of the industry in building regulatory and policy framework for a new generation of nuclear plants. She was a major contributor to the first Early Site Permit granted under 10 CFR part 52, successfully implementing alternative site analyses that have become the general standard.
She's also an internationally known expert on marketing techniques for lawyers, and other billable-hour professionals, speaking around the world to delighted audiences everywhere.
Specialties: Expert Witness: In nuclear regulator practice Cerafici resolved disputes with the NRC and defended environmental challenges for new plants . She has testified as an expert witness before the Atomic Safety Licensing board as well as NRC public meetings.
Environmental lawyer: Cerafici has worked closely with legislators, regulators and owners to develop unique management strategies for hazardous materials, including high-level nuclear waste cleanup.
Tamar has been coaching people as a lawyer, teacher, public leader and speaker for about as long as she can remember. She’s an internationally recognized expert on energy law. She’s been involved in negotiating deals worth billions of dollars, and has been an advocate for children who’ve been caught in the legal system through no fault of their own. But that’s not what turns her on. In fact Tamar went into law so she could act and get paid for it.
Tamar gets excited by the power of the entrepreneurial spirit she sees in all of her clients. Their drive and courage intimidated her enough that she wanted to know more. She knows the best way to learn from people is to teach them to recognize their own strengths and abilities.
She believes the abundance of these entrepreneurs – their positive Attitude in the face of all challenges, their Belief in themselves, and most importantly, their Courage to turn every tomorrow into a new day – makes a difference, no matter how financially successful they are.
But Tamar also knows that people, EVEN LAWYERS, with the right tools, networks, and energy, can build empires - see opportunity in every conversation -- and have richer relationships and bigger bank accounts than they ever thought possible.
Author of Dominate: How Smart Lawyers Crush the Competition
I use 4 marketing techniques to strategically market my practice.
1. Social Media
- Mainly Crap
- But useful tool
- Social media sequence
2. Magnet method
- ask the right questions
- have a winner’s circle of raving fans
- how to build the winners circle
3. Avalanche Technique
- Sponsored Seminars
- How to do it in 6 steps
4. Magic Bullet
-The written word
- Write SOMETHING!
And the fifth most important
5. ACCOUNTABILITY
- Radical Software
- Missing Link
http://www.joinmissinglink.com/
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| Bob Stearns |
(724) 933-3935
bobstearns@extraordinaryperformance.com
http://www.extraordinaryperformance.com/
POWERFUL POTENTIAL
“WE INSPIRE EXTRAORDINARY PERFORMANCE”
I. LEADERSHIP SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT
· Malcolm Baldrige Performance Excellence Process
· Customized Leadership Development Training – All levels
· Leadership Coaching – all levels of the organization
II. STRATEGIC PLANNING
· Hoshin “Breakthrough” Strategic Planning
· Balanced Scorecard Implementation
· Communication and Change planning /implementation
III. CUSTOMER LOYALTY
· Customer Satisfaction Strategies and Surveys
· “Top Box” Customer Loyalty Strategies
· Customer Requirement Assessments
IV. EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT/ACCOUNTABILITY
· Employee Satisfaction Strategies and Surveys
· Improved performance of teams and processes
V. PROCESS IMPROVEMENT/BUSINESSEXCELLENCE
· Process Improvement Initiatives
· Benchmarking of Best in Class Organization Practices
· Baldrige Application writing
VI. KEYNOTE SPEECHES
Eric’s Pursuit of Perpetual Potential”
2. Readers of the book have told me that it is very inspirational, you can see some of their comments below.
3. Perpetual Potential is the idea that most of us use and fulfill only a small part of the potential we are given during our life times. By utilizing the three Life Lessons presented in the book, we can pursue the fulfillment of more of our Potential, regardless of our life circumstances.
4. The three Life Lessons presented in the book are:
a) Take on Tough Challenges and Never Quit.
b) Focus on what you Do Have, not on what you don’t have
c) Change the Stars!
5. The three life lessons come from two very distinct and different life experiences that I have had. First a personal triumph: I led the Malcolm Baldrige Award initiative for a Pittsburgh based company, Medrad. Medrad won the Baldrige in 2003 and again in 2010. Baldrige winners have outperformed the S&P 500 in 8 out of 10 years studied. The Baldrige Award is the highest award that an organization can receive in the country. The award is given by the President of
the United States for organizations that excel in Leadership, Strategic Planning, Customer Focus, Performance Measurement and Knowledge Management, Human Resource Focus, Process Improvement and Organizational Results.
6. The second life experience that served as a motivation for the book was a tragedy. My oldest son Eric was killed four years ago in Athens, Greece. He was there as a junior at Penn State on a study abroad semester. He was walking on the sidewalk with a friend when a driver lost control of his car, came up on the sidewalk and hit him. Eric died five days later as a result of his injuries.
7. The three life lessons listed in number 4 above first came to me as I was trying to console Eric’s classmates in Athens, and this message has stayed consistent and constant for me. I have delivered this message to thousands of people, and it always seems to inspire hope and new beginnings.
8. In addition to the book, I am presenting the Perpetual Potential Event, on Tuesday, March 27 at the Green Tree Doubletree Hotel. This presentation is an opportunity for people to learn how to use the three life lessons to pursue and propel their personal and professional potential!
9. To register for the Event and/or to buy the book go to http://www.perpetualpotential.net/
Comments from people who read Perhaps a Man Can Change the Stars
I read Bobs book after my wife delivered our first child, our daughter, at Magee Hospital....what a work of love....
Just wanted to let you know that I read your book and was very moved by the sentiments you expressed. I have to admit that knowing Eric made it kind of hard to read and believe me, more than one tear was shed. However, your message (and Eric's) of pursuing one's potential was not lost on me. I think that sharing your professional experience and Eric's approach to life with others will benefit many.
Eric had a positive impact on every life he touched, including mine. I loved his spontaneity, his impish smile, his free-wheeling style and his sense of humor. He always made me laugh. He was also extremely polite and respectful. It was always a pleasure when he was at our house.
The package with the books just arrived in our office, and Vassia and I opened it. We send you heartfelt thanks for sharing Eric's life with us in this thoughtful and thought-provoking way. Although I have not had time to read it yet, I looked through and of course was immediately struck by the photos, which brought Eric so close once again. It takes a strong and generous heart to be able to tell this story, and through it to give strength and hope to people who might have suffered the same tragedy, or something entirely different.
Bob, I really felt inspired after reading the book. I think your writing hit home to the reader on many issues.
a) You wrote with passion....the book had emotion & passion...but it was not written emotionally; hope you understand what I mean here?
b) There is a clear understanding of the family foundation of love and spirituality that the Stearns family has for themselves and others.
c) Phenomenal expression on getting to know who Eric Stearns is, not was, BUT IS!
d) Great tie ins w/ business life and goals with your own Baldridge examples, great value to anyone in business.
My take always: This book touches your heart. The main message I took away was "Focus on what you do have not on what you don't have."
I think the messages in the book are great for young adults. As a matter of fact, I bought 12 books for my grandchildren and intend to give them a book when they graduate from high school …I gave the first two books to my grandchildren, one who is a freshman in college and one who is graduating. They loved the book and as a matter of fact gave the book to their parents and told them they had to read it!
Perhaps a Man Can Change the Stars presents a unique message – it is upbeat and inspirational!
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This was reported as a reproduction of PositvelyPittsburghLive news done by Joanne Quinn-Smith. (c) Joanne Quinn-Smith and PositivelyPittsburghLive(TM) 2012 All rights reserved.
Tara Darazio is a Positively Pittsburgh Live reporter, an independent copywriter, blogger, article writer, and social media strategist. If you are in need of writing assistance, or need help with your social media efforts connect with Tara on LinkedIn here.
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