BullyBuster with Rhonda Orr

My guest is Sarah Wagner, co-author of the brilliant book, Unleash Today, which I highly recommend.

Sarah’s a project manager based in Beijing, where she enhances relations between her home country, Germany, and China.

Sarah earned her LLM in International Law in the Netherlands. That’s also where she met her co-author, Kate Surala.

Sarah’s an amazing powerhouse who served as the Senior Policy Manager for the largest Tech Trade Association in Brussels, Belgium. She also worked in Washington, DC as the Head Delegate of the G20 Summit for Young Professionals in Sydney, Australia.

Her podcast, Here She Is, features diverse leaders and inspires diversity! And although I won’t share her age, she’s young.

My guest on this episode, Kate Surala, joins me from across the pond in London. She’s traveled around the world and lived in Europe, Asia, and Australia. Now, she's a Partner, C.O.O., and Head of Compliance and Legal at The Analyst Research, L.L.P.

Kate was also a leader of the legal and compliance research team after studying law and finance at University of Oxford. Attending Oxford was a goal since she was a young girl watching her social-worker mom represent children in court.

Recently, Kate published a book, “Unleash Today,” with co-author Sarah Wagner. They developed it after finding that existing business self-help books were written by successful women who were twenty years their seniors.

The one-of-a kind modern-day self-help and mentoring book was created for young, ambitious, and progressive women leaving universities and entering the workplace, much like Kate and Sarah.

Their goal is to share the lessons they've learned so other ambitious women don’t have to go through what they did.

Order the book at our website!

Today, I’m happy to introduce you to Greg Jenkins, who’s one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet!

I’m thankful for his military service stateside and in Germany, South Korea, and combat duty in in Iraq.

Greg was chosen to serve in the U.S. Army’s Diversity Task Force at the Pentagon, where he developed and helped establish the Army’s Diversity program, train to it, and master it for many organizations, corporations, and Department of Defense levels.

Greg continues to thrive with his own business within the arena of DEI or Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, with his firm, Greg Jenkins Consulting.

My guest this time is Fred S. Thomas. In his time in the US Navy, he worked as a Staff Briefer to the Commander-in-Chief of the US Pacific Fleet, a member of a special emergency response group Deployable Joint Task Force, and tons more.

Fred received his Bachelor’s while in Hawaii and his Master’s of Organizational Change. Those degrees and his expansive corporate career led him to serve in other arenas, such as volunteering as a coach for several girl’s athletics teams, Annual Fund School Site Council as the Parent Chair and the Chair of the African-American Parent Council.

Fred served with Hawaii’s Big Brothers Big Sisters one on one mentoring organization, something near and dear to my heart … since I have a partnership with a large Arizona chapter.

He’s always most passionate about bullying and racial / cultural topics! Especially because he is surrounded by women – his wife and three amazing daughters!

I can’t wait for you to hear his stories, especially the one about a racist act while in the Navy and the appropriate humor he used to defuse a very challenging hardship.

This week on the BullyBuster podcast, I am very fortunate to have Elinor Stutz as my guest.

Elinor breaks barriers and records everywhere she goes. She’s the author of several best-selling books, starting with her first one titled, “Nice Girls Do get the Sale: Relationship building That Gets Results.”

I just finished reading it! The pearls from decades of Elinor selling in a man’s world are still relevant today! I can see why her book is considered evergreen.

Elinor has decided to forge ahead with her skills, foresight, and bravery to continually help women.

She’s a popular inspirational speaker, and is writing Nice Girls Do Get the Sale – part two! Yay!

Elinor’s mom and dad were great training coaches, with her mom telling her to always be nice to everyone … check, she had the highest sales (by far) amongst the men she worked with. Elinor’s dad said, Never allow anyone to count you out … check – check!

Bullies were great training for Elinor, too, because she learned to listen, observe and (get this) ask questions. When the meanness took over, she would match their effort and up it a level to end the bullying!

Please join me today and let Elinor sail into your heart with her corporation: Smooth sale!

I’m thrilled to have, as my guest, Jessica Hickman – Born in Wales and now living in Australia, where she was subjected to severe workplace bullying. And, get this, Jessica was in Human Resources in the tough oil and gas industry. She was creating safer work environments for her employees and dealing with a high rate of suicide within her community. Jessica not only filed one or two reports of the vicious bullying she encountered from her own boss, she actually submitted over 30 reports about the awful bullying and abuse. She stayed at her job because of Visa restrictions and the fear that her employees would be left to deal with similar things. However, as Jessica puts it in her book – The Bullyologist – Breaking the Silence on Bullying, she chose “not to stay a victim,” the beginning part of our program’s Triangle of Triumph. She turned “Fear into fuel.” She’s in global high demand as a Key-note speaker, workshop educator and training seminars. She founded a professional anti-bullying methodology, for her company, Bullyology.

Today, I have Shelly Elsliger, founder of the #DecideToBeKind movement as my guest. Shelly’s from Toronto, Canada. As a child growing up there, she was bullied. She encountered the number-one reason little girls and women are bullied. However, you are going to hear how she got her voice back, in a big way, by starting her kindness movement as a leading International Coach Federation Trainer for Linked-In. You’ll find out why one red high-heel shoe is a life-long talisman for Shelly--and why she wears a red super-hero cape to speak at schools and universities.

I first met today’s guest, Bobby Kipper, when he brought his film, Bully Fighters, to Arizona schools a couple of years back. We served on a panel together discussing this issue and his Green Zone program. You’ll find out today what that program is and many others that Bobby has developed. Bobby’s journey began with a 26-year career in the Newport News, Virginia Police Department. He went on to serve as the Director of the Gang Reduction Program for the Virginia Attorney General. Bobby founded the National Center for Prevention of Community Violence. He won the FBI’s Director’s award for fighting crime. With four decades of experience fighting crime and implementing programs, he has some strong opinions on keeping schools and communities safe, Education on bullying, and public safety. He’ll talk about why the “De-fund the police” movement is misguided.

On BullyBuster episode 13, I’m lucky to have the founder and CEO of Power Zone Coaching, Rene Johnson. She is also a founder and former director of domestic violence for Sheroes United (You’ll find out what that means today)! Rene has authored books, magazine articles, and been a featured guest on CNN and elsewhere.

As a certified and leading international speaker, her own story of courage has helped her influence thousands of people around the world. She invites you to learn how to stay out of your comfort zones to become part of the civility solution.

We’re talking a lot about courage, today (which is one of our 5cs besides Civility, Confidence, Creativity, and Communication). I have to tell you, Rene is one courageous person! I can’t wait for you to hear her story about necessary risk-taking. You’ll laugh and cry with us as she encourages you to become a change factor in your own life.

Bullying is on the rise, and rising along with it is suicide among its victims.

But something else seems to be going up, too: Bully fatigue.

Like so many other widespread problems, it seems that people are getting tired of hearing about bullying. They’ve become apathetic.

That’s dangerous.

This week, we heard from a teen whose cousin committed suicide after relentless bullying. She went to school officials with a parent, but nothing was done.

 What might have saved her?  

 Here’s the letter.