Finding Fertile Ground: Communicate for Change

Oct 11 2024 72 ep. 47 mins 23

Finding Fertile Ground: Communicate for Change Podcast artwork

Host Marie Gettel-Gilmartin of Fertile Ground Communications delves into how we can use our words, practice self-care, and make the world a better place for all of us.

Society & Culture

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Four Strategies to Uplift People of Hispanic Descent

Oct 11 2024 8 mins

I’m rebooting my podcast to focus on communicating for change. This week we’re going to talk about how to uplift people of Hispanic descent. I share statistics about the prevalence of people of Hispanic descent in the U.S. workforce and why it's important to uplift them.In the U.S., National Hispanic Heritage Month is observed from September 15 to October 15. It’s a time to c

Dr. Ronnie Taylor: From ex-Mormon felon to Oregon’s first Black male occupational therapist!

Sep 29 2022 30 mins

Dr. Ronnie Taylor was born to extremely young parents who divorced after a few years of marriage. His mom converted to Mormonism and moved the family to Salt Lake City to start a new life. Unfortunately, the missionary who converted and recruited her failed to tell the church Ronnie’s family was Black. They weren’t exactly welcomed with open arms.His mom worked and went to coll

Melissa Jenkins Mangili: Neuropsychologist reinvented as a model

Sep 07 2022 36 mins

Dr. Melissa Jenkins Mangili is a neuropsychologist and medical school faculty member who has reinvented herself as a fashion and fitness model. Her life began with grit and resilience. She and her three siblings were was raised in poverty in rural Maine by a single quadriplegic mother. “The nice thing about being from a small town is that everybody knows each other…and rallied

Vernita Bowe: Transforming grief and COVID into a zest for life

Jul 20 2022 29 mins

Vernita L. Bowe is a survivor. As a smaller-than-average child, she experienced bullying in school. When she grew up she married the wrong man and wasn’t able to get out of that marriage for 24 years, three kids later.Parenting has been about huge loves and losses for Vernita. Her middle son landed in prison, and four years ago her oldest son Byron died in a car accident.“You r

Nicole Lee: Playing taps, coming out, a wild RV trip across country, and job discrimination!

Jun 14 2022 52 mins

Happy Pride! What better month to launch this fun episode and celebrate a wonderful queer story.Growing up in Germany, when Nicole moved to the U.S. as a teen she never felt like she fit in. Then she joined the military during Desert Storm, and she ended up playing Taps for 600 funerals of her colleagues. That nearly broke her. She married a man before coming out as gay, and her da

Cheryl Parks: From Shyest Girl in the Room to Sales Coach Extraordinaire!

May 12 2022 38 mins

This week on the Finding Fertile Ground podcast, I interview Cheryl Parks, sales and mindset coach. Cheryl works with my business coach, Liz J. Simpson, and has provided me invaluable advice and confidence boosts as I reboot my business. Cheryl and I immediately connected, and I was especially lucky to meet her in person in early March, since the Big Money Movement coaching program

Michele Heyward: A hurricane and engineering camp made her an engineer

Apr 27 2022 45 mins

Michele Heyward is a civil engineer who built the U.S. power grid. Now she's a tech startup founder building the future of work at PositiveHire. Michele grew up in rural South Carolina in a three-bedroom house full of kids. She had four siblings. She describes herself as the weird kid, really good at math.Encouraged to pursue science and engineering, she went to engineering camp 30

Gresham Harkless, Jr.: From childhood newspaper to founding two companies and becoming a media expert

Apr 06 2022 39 mins

When Gresh was a kid, his military dad worked overseas for a year and this English major/entrepreneur started a family newspaper to keep his whole family up to date on what was going on. His first business was born!This week on the Finding Fertile Ground podcast, I interview Gresham Harkless, Jr., founder of CEO Blog Nation and Blue 16 Media, and host of the I AM CEO Podcast + CEO

Chantal Cox: Creating a life she loves after stress, alopecia, and an abusive marriage

Mar 15 2022 34 mins

This week on the Finding Fertile Ground podcast, I interview Chantal Cox, a special educator, author, speaker, and Transformation NeuroCoach™. Chantal lives in Wichita, Kansas, now but she grew up all over the world. Her birth dad is Mexican, but her mom remarried when she was three years old. Her adopted dad was in the army, so the family moved every two years. They lived in sev

Devin Tomiak: Helping kids learn how to be resilient after experiencing a personal tragedy

Feb 17 2022 32 mins

This week on the Finding Fertile Ground podcast, I interview Devin Tomiak, founder of The Biggies Cards.After losing her youngest brother Grant to suicide 7 years ago, Devin Tomiak became driven to understand resilience--in particular, how to build resilience in kids. As a mom of two young boys, her preoccupation had a unique urgency. She created The Biggies cards, an innovative, r