3 Reasons You SHOULD get a Project Management Certification with DOL Coach COO Heather Kuhns

KP: 0:29

This episode is powered by ACT NOW Education, go to www.ActNowEducation.com for free comprehensive, educational resources and opportunities for active duty, veterans, military spouses, and children.

Heather Kuhns: 0:46

I think what makes us different is that, people are our greatest asset within DOL Coach. And people are what we focus on in our training courses to help people get better. You're not an evaluation on a piece of paper, and you're not a test score or test result. Which makes all the difference in the world, I think in our organization.

KP: 1:09

Warriors fall in, it's time for formation. Today, I have a guest whose educational motives involve breaking the status quo of a certification that has gone unopposed for over 20 years. Not only has a certification gone unopposed and unchallenged, but this certification crosses all boundaries from the military to the civilian workforce, and is universally recognized to better your task efficiency. It fully assures work completion. And it relates work experience between the military and civilian professions. This certification that we're talking about today is for everyone, and is a very high value. I can speak from my own experience. I have an MBA in Project Management. And I can tell you just from the things that I learned in my courses, I've actually applied them many times over to some of my different occupations that I've had over the years. But before we get into it, I want to make sure that we introduce our co'host and podcast assistant, Avi, who's with us today. How you doing bud?

Avi Dhanraj: 2:08

Pretty good, KP excited for today's episode, as always.

KP: 2:11

I hope you had your morning, Joe. Your morning coffee.

Avi Dhanraj: 2:15

I don't drink coffee.

KP: 2:16

That'll change in a few years. So I'm joined today with the Chief Development Officer of Dol Coach, Heather Kuhns. And we previously spoke with another former executive from DOL Coach about his background and the importance of this specific certification. You see, DOL Coach is an educational organization that offers various levels of project management certifications. And the unique thing about it is that it was founded by a special forces military veteran named Scott kinder. Now our guests, Heather, was a military spouse and has worn many hats throughout her career. Honorably, she decided to join DOL Coach to apply her mission statement to serve others. In summary, Heather seeks to help others grow both personally and professionally, to achieve their best self and make a positive impact on their respective communities. Today, today we're going to talk about where DOL Coach is now, where they're going to be in the future, and how their partnership has grown with Act Now Education. Heather, I want to thank you for joining us today on The Morning Formation.

Heather Kuhns: 3:16

Absolutely. It's my pleasure, KP and Avi. Thanks for having me.

KP: 3:21

Honor is all on this side of the video and microphone, but just starting it all off, Heather, would you mind talking a little bit about the partnership between Act Now Education and DOL coach? How has that been for the last year or so?

Heather Kuhns: 3:35

Sure. So we've partnered with Act Now to further kind of our combined mission, if you will, of helping people to continue to grow professionally and to enable military folks to have some other opportunities as they transition into civilian life. The partnership with Act Now has been pretty awesome. Jai and Binal are so passionate about what they do. And about that, that mission to provide opportunities to their members. It aligns with DOL Coach's motto of 'Freedom from Oppression,' which is, which is our motto 'De Oppresso Liber.' And we think about freedom from any kind of oppression, whether it's financial struggles, or career transitions, or people feeling like they're just held down because they don't know how to get to the next level. So we work with Act Now to provide project management certification training to our military and veterans and first responders. We've had hundreds of Act Now folks come through our course over the past couple of months. And so it's pretty amazing to see just the snowball effect of that and having the opportunity in 2022 to continue to work with Act Now.

KP: 4:53

I'm glad that you mentioned the the namesake in there as far as DOL coach, because I'm sure you get a lot of questions about that. And the last time we interviewed someone from DOL coach, they explained that and I was gonna ask you that question down the stretch, because a lot of folks just based off of the name itself may not know what DOL Coach stands for. And it's got a very, very deep meaning to it. That's very near and dear to the founder's heart. Heather, would you mind explaining what opportunities are currently free to our military community and also first responders and their family members.

Heather Kuhns: 5:31

Sure. So historically, through 2021, we've provided free training to the military through what was called our 'Basic course.' And realistically, it's very targeted towards military, first responders and our veteran community. So, we've offered the Basic Course, and certified nearly 12,000 people this year, which is amazing to me that we can certify that many people. So that has been a free course offered over Go To Webinar, and now it's over Zoom. We're transitioning a little bit for the future. Because of, you know, our military people are spread all over the world. There are timezone issues. People were trying to get on our training

courses at 1: 6:18

00am in Japan, or 4:00 in the morning in Korea or wherever they happen to be, which shows the dedication and determination to earn the certification, right. But it's not very, it's not very logical sometimes, to be on a training in the middle of the night. So what we've done for moving forward in 2022, is we've created a new course called RPM, which is our Redefined Project Management. It's a self-paced, Video on Demand series that we are going to continue to offer to our military and first responders and veterans at that low, low free price, but with the administrative fee. So we're deeply discounting it for our military to that $25 rate, if you purchase through the end of December. And I'm not giving a commercial or a sales pitch here. But it is designed specifically to meet those needs of people that say "I can't meet at seven to nine eastern. But I still want the certification." So Act Now partners continue to get a deep tier one partner discount with all of our courses, so not just RPM, which was formerly the Basic Course. But if they wanted to take a live, virtual instructor-led training course, similar to what we used to be offering, we're capping it now at 100 people, so it's super targeted and more personal. And they can get that for a super deep discount as well. But we also I don't know if you know this KP or Avi. But in addition to project management training, we also offer master classes. We offer consulting, we build partnerships with our ambassadors and other folks that work in the project management field. And military has access to that whole suite of resources and of people. So I think moving forward, as we try to share more about DOL Coach and how we're growing and what we offer, I think our military community will find a great home with us. I'm not sure if you have ever engaged with us on Mighty Networks, KP. It's a place where we connect. We have a whole room, if you will, for transitioning military with support from our project management experts that have also transitioned out just provide additional support and insight into how it is to transition out. So we have a lot to offer besides just the basic course.

KP: 8:50

Yeah, it sounds like you have a whole community over there.

Heather Kuhns: 8:54

We do.

Avi Dhanraj: 8:55

Sure. Now, Heather, have you followed up with any of these mentorees or people who have gotten certified to figure out how that process has changed their life or even impacted it, at all?

Heather Kuhns: 9:08

Yes, I love that you asked me that question. We have some real big fans out there. And in preparation for this, I was reviewing some of the testimonials that people have submitted to us. And several people that have gone through the courses in the last few months, have actually gotten promotions at work because of their diligence and pursuing more professional growth. We had Reginald who was promoted to the configuration or change manager after taking the initiative to take our training. We had someone promoted from IT Supervisor to IT Delivery Manager. And there's lots of stories about people that took initiative to take the class to be better, and then used those skills and were promoted because of that. We had a guy that was actually hired as a project manager right after he graduated from our CPO course, super excited, little petrified. But you know, there's been a lot of excitement and a lot of thanks, actually for being able to help people translate what they did in the military into what can be useful in the civilian world. So we've had great feedback. We had this gentleman go through the course and he's a vice president of his organizational training company. And he said, "We need everyone in my company go through this course in order to facilitate winning at projects." Right. We've had lots of people, too, that have come through the course and said, "Every single military member has to have this course as part of their basic training." And so it's exciting. We are partnering with Swick. And we're partnering with all the cool organizations to kind of try to bring this more into the forefront for all of our military folks.

KP: 11:00

Yeah, it sounds like there's so many things going on with DOL Coach and your growth over the last year has been just absolutely incredible. Now Heather, tell me what does the climb look like, for someone after they do complete the basic course.

Heather Kuhns: 11:16

So after the basic course, we encourage people, especially those that have been in the military, or in any profession for more than three years, to consider taking the next step, which is a PMAC. And that is a project management assessment and certification. It's an interview and it's about you. So KP if you'd sign up for a PMAC, we would spend about an hour talking about what you've done in the past, what projects you worked on. You would talk to me about lessons learned, how you managed your stakeholders, what you did with change management, risk management, anything that you might have come across as a project manager. And then you would be based on your assessment, you will be certified at a higher level. So it's, it's not a test, it's an interview about you. We certify as a certified Project Professional, so that's someone that has three years of experience working on a project. And that is equivalent to a CAMP through the PMI organization. And then we can certify you as a certified project master, a CPM, which is someone that is certified or has the experience of leading project teams. And a lot of our military folk that have been in for eight years can come out with that kind of certification because they've been managing teams of people managing projects. And then certified project directors the highest level. And that is someone that manages portfolios or programs of teams. So it's really, we encourage...So, Avi, when you go through, you know, basic or whatever, you come out and you get a CPO certification. You go to work for a couple years, and you want to come back and get certified at a higher level, you don't have to go through the course again. We just have an interview, and we've talked to you about your experiences, and see what's next for you. I think that's part of what makes DOL different is it's based...our certifications are based around your experience, skills, and knowledge and not on your ability to study a book and pass a test. So I'm not sure if that totally answered your question. But I think most people get the CPO and they're hungry for more. And so they want to say, "Well, I've done this, I know how to do this, let me get a higher level certification because I already know how to do it." So it's not hard.

Avi Dhanraj: 13:44

Right. Now, Heather, I want to circle back to what you're talking about. One, the transitioning out. Certifications make a huge impact on job market, especially transitioning out of the military. However, on this podcast, we'd like to focus on both transitioning in and out of the military. And I know that as a young professional or an aspiring military officer, certifications and training are great ways to establish yourself in the job market. And it's just a great distinguishing factor to set yourself apart from the competition. Now does DOL Coach do anything for military dependents in addition to active duty and first responders?

Heather Kuhns: 14:24

Yes. So the same discounted courses that we offer for active duty are available for spouses. And starting in January, we are launching project management 101. So PM 101. And it's for young professionals, ages 16 to 23. It's very similar to what the Basic Course was like, but it's tailored more for young professionals with a little bit different lens. A different focus on a scenario, if you will, that makes more sense to a younger age group, and that PM 101 course is also discounted for the military folks. So it's a new endeavor. We've piloted it with a school and it has really good reception. And so excitingly, and to give a little validity to how good this program is, we're partnering with FMU, with the Kelley School of Business, and with Butler University, to offer this PM 101 course within their business management.

Avi Dhanraj: 15:27

That's great to hear.

Heather Kuhns: 15:28

Yeah, it's really exciting.

KP: 15:32

That is awesome. I can't tell you how, how nice it is to hear that we're not just reaching out to be the veterans themselves and the service members, but we're also taking care of the families. And I think that's one thing, that is a clear difference between the military and the civilian world, is normally in the civilian world, it's your nine to five manager, you only really care about the person that's in front of you that clocks in at nine and gets out at five. But in the military, it's about the entire person, the whole person, the family. "How are things going on at home? Is everything okay at home?" And it was funny to me when I transitioned out of the military, and I got my first job, how that concept of the whole person versus just the person that's working from that nine to five, is essential to how that person is going to be efficiently operating for you. So DOL Coach, you guys are doing an outstanding job as far as helping out the entire person and the entire family. And I love that about, about your organization that you're a part of.

Heather Kuhns: 16:37

Thank you.

KP: 16:38

And just for anyone out there that's listening right now that might be in the military, how exactly does military experience get counted towards one of these certifications through DOL Coach?

Heather Kuhns: 16:51

So we count experience as experience. So I think the benefit of coming to DOL Coach with several years of experience working on projects, which is what you do in the military, you have your operations and you have your projects, and your projects repeat over and over, you know, ramp up for deployment, deploy, prepare to come home, come home, repeat, right. Or for exercises, which are actually projects, I think, being able to take that experience and say, "I've spent six years working in the three shop doing this." Okay, come over here, we're going to put you through the course, you're going to understand how to talk about that experience those six years. And so you might come out as a certified project mast, certified project master, because you have been running project teams for six years. I think what makes us different is that people, people are our greatest asset within DOL Coach. And people are what we focus on in our training courses to help people get better. You're not an evaluation on a piece of paper, and you're not a test score or test result, which makes all the difference in the world, I think in our organization. And it goes back to what you were saying KP about talking about the whole person, right. You can run projects, cleaning out your garage, running a volunteer organization, build and putting on a 5k as a fundraiser, you know, all of these things that people do, are projects, and that's all experience. And you can't showcase that on a test, but you can talk about it. And our coursework, gives you the language to talk about what you've already done in a way that civilians can understand.

KP: 18:46

I really think that's key, is making sure that you get that translation over. Because I can't tell you, even for myself and my experience when I got out of the military, simply explaining what my job was, as an Army Captain. In the S3, I worked in the S3 shop actually as an army captain, so I was in charge of all the entire battalions training. It was very, very frustrating because I kept wanting to use acronyms. I kept wanting to use terms that only military people would fully understand and a civilian wouldn't understand. So that translation is absolutely huge. And earlier, we spoke about some of the feedback that you might have received from folks that successfully completed one of these certifications. But can you talk a little bit about feedback that you've received from hiring managers, recruiters and employers about seeing this fairly new certification show up on some of the resumes? Maybe just in general, like what is some of the feedback that you've gotten from the folks that are actually doing the hiring?

Heather Kuhns: 19:51

Yeah, so I don't have a wide array to draw on from there. But I can speak to the part about, a lot of our ambassadors work for like US Bank of America as an example or as facilities managers. And we have the benefit of, our ambassadors have gone through our course and they loved it, which is why they want to be an ambassador. But the the point I'm going to get towards is when you have a CPO or CPP after your name, and people are expecting to see PMP which is this industry standard, that we believe, because of the marketing onslaught that they've developed for all of us to receive. It allows an opportunity for someone to say, "Yeah, I know it's not a PMP. But it's better because based on my experience." And so people can actually articulate what the certification means. And it has a higher value, because it's based off of experience, not passing an assessment. And so there's a little bit of a pushback. People are ingrained to say, "I need to get my PMP. Like, I need to get my PMP." Like, "No, you don't. There's other valid certifications out there that are based off of the reality of your experience." And so, I don't know, you'd liken it to driving a car, right, KP. Think about, "I'm studying the manual. And I'm gonna take a test. And now I'm an excellent driver, because I got a 100% on the test." But if you've never driven a car, you're not going to probably be a good driver. So when you liken that to project management, and you say, "I've actually done project management work for 20 years, for 15 years," whatever, "I can do this." And so an employer can say, "I see your experience on your resume. I heard it come out of your mouth, that you do know what you're talking about." And that has much higher value than saying "I got an 84% the third time I passed this test, but I've actually never really managed a project."

Avi Dhanraj: 21:57

Now Heather, I'm very, very familiar with what you're talking about right now. I have my CAPM from the PMI. And you know, even though it's just an exam, and I've never really managed a project, I do relate to what you're saying. But it does give me the foundational knowledge that if I do ever decide to go into a different certification, or do take on some sort of internship that aligns without that knowledge, then I'm already prepared. And I love that about the PMI, especially since the CAPM doesn't have an age requirement. Now, the Project Management Institute, PMI, is the industry standard, as you were saying, but you guys also offer project management courses. So what's the differences or similarities between what you offer and what they offer?

Heather Kuhns: 22:45

There's one that stands out pretty definitively for a lot of people. and that's the financial side of this certification. I'm not bashing PMI at all right now, we have several PMPs on our CPT team. And I was actually going down that road myself before I discovered DOL Coach. So the difference is, for DOL Coach, you take the class, it's 24 hour investment, live training, or 24 hour video on demand training, you get certified as a CPO. You're certified for life. You're a member of the Institute of Project Management for life. There's no lifetime dues. There's no necessity to earn more professional development units over time, because we figure if you're a project manager, you're working on projects all the time. So by the very nature of your position, you're continuing to build knowledge and ability and skills, right. So we don't have any PDU requirements, no dues, you're certified forever, you don't need to renew. You can continue to build on your own experiences, and then reassess through our PMAC, which is less than the cost of one four day boot camp to prepare for a PMI exam. And it's again, certified for life. So that's a huge difference. The other piece is that it's not test-based, it's experientially-based. And it's off of what you know, have done and can articulate. The project management, we're calling it VILT CPO, the virtual instructor-led training course for certified project officer, VILT CPO acronym, basically that just provides people with the the language, the methodology, and the resources to be able to facilitate talking about their project management experience. And all of our graduates, in all of our end of course surveys, we've had a 94.8% five star rating on our coursework, that people say "This is enormously valuable. This solidified my my knowledge of what I've been doing. This gave me a way to talk about it." Learning has occurred and it's been good. And I think it removes the stress of getting that gigantic PMBOK and studying for a test and needing a boot camp and prep classes and more prep classes and additional boot camp, and then you still might not pass. And so there's a lot of angst and I think with DOL, that "De Oppresso Liber," let's take away that oppression from anxiety and stress and make it simple, redefined and relevant. I don't have any passion about this, I'm sure you can tell.

KP: 25:36

Oh, I, I hear it. And I gotta tell you that from my experience, before I got my MBA in project management, and studied project management, I was doing things that I didn't understand the actual terms, and I didn't understand what I was doing. I was just doing it to get by. So for me my experience is, I was managing projects, I was doing things to shortcut and to efficiently get things done in a timely manner, and to 100% achievement. But when I went and got my MBA in project management, a lot of the things that I was doing, the the actual classroom application was being placed upon what I had already done. Which is similar to what,...it's exactly what you're doing. And that's, I'm so grateful that DOL Coach, that Scott came up with this, because for a lot of military folks, that's how it works. You kind of put the cart before the horse, when you go into the military because you get this experience. And maybe later on you get your education. So it's kind of, a little bit backwards from traditional, traditional, I guess growth. Personal and professional growth. And I can, I can see exactly why this is absolutely essential for anyone out there listening who is first responder or military. You must jump on this. Because at the end of the day, you've been managing projects, you've been doing these things, it's just you probably didn't understand. You were just surviving, getting through. But you're gonna be able to take what you've been doing. And make it even better by applying the classroom portion of the things. And so many folks out there, you know, haven't taken advantage of this so far. And Heather, I want to ask you, what are several things or myths about project management or project management certification that you can debunk for us today?

Heather Kuhns: 27:34

I think the biggest one, and we've been talking around this and talking to it a little bit, but it's going along with that industry capitulation to what has been known as the, the industry's standard, right, about PMI, that they are the only choice. Employers often put PMP required on their job postings without even understanding what that actually is or what that means. And so I think our CPP, our junior project manager equivalency for PMP is a step up from CPO. It says that you can work on projects. A CPP says that you can lead projects. And I think that there is always another pathway. That's why there's multiple organizations that have certification programs, right. So there's more than one way. I would encourage people to not just say, "Oh, that's the one I see all the time, on every social posting board or wherever. And that's what everybody asks for." Like, push back against that status quo and say, "No, I want something that's based off of my experience that's relevant and that's simple." And go for it. And then use the opportunity to explain when someone asks you, "What is CPO? What is CPM?" Well, "let me tell you," and you have an opportunity to articulate your own skills. I think that's one, I think another. I don't want to say myth exactly. But I think the importance of getting some kind of project management certification is...my personal feeling that if you have been doing something, and you can do it well, and you know how to do it. And there are some letters you can put up to your name, because you've already been able to do it. Why not go for that? Right. Why not add your alphabet soup, to the, to the end of your name. It gives validity and it confirms your experience to the world at large that you have another skill or another something else to offer. And it's like proof of what you've already done. And it also, like I said before, opens the door to explain what you've achieved. I think for and I'm kind of taking a little tangent here. But I think when our military folk, actually after working for 20 years, have to actually do a job interview for the first time ever, and they just want to regurgitate all of their missions, and their job titles and their groups and their units that they worked for, that is in comprehensible to anyone outside of the military. And being able to say, "Well, I have a project management certification because I've worked on projects for 20 years and this is what I did." And that contextualizes their work in a way that can be understood outside the military. And I think that's another value add. Just being a partner with Act Now and with other folks, in this world of helping people transition out of the military, there's a ton of push for people to get certifications in lieu of maybe a bachelor's degree or a master's degree or something. So the more that you can prove that, you know stuff, and you have gone through coursework, and you are continuing to learn and grow professionally, I think that's a huge value add. So those are just my thoughts on that.

Avi Dhanraj: 31:11

I completely agree. Now, following up on what you were just saying there, Heather, does do you well offer anything for the people who don't necessarily know what field they want to get into, but still want to learn cross industry skills and knowledge that can potentially transfer over? Kind of like how we learn project management to transfer into business and IT. Anything like that?

Heather Kuhns: 31:37

Yeah. So we have, we have a variety of master classes that we offer. Things like engaging stakeholders effectively, managing change and conflict, building better leaders, which is a leadership based course, creative and critical thinking. We've got some folks coming on board that are resilience trainers. And, you know, we're thinking about offering master classes around budgeting, especially for people like not budgeting your household budget, but actually working with a project budget, because in the military, you don't always work with a budget that you know of. So we're, we have a suite of courses that we offer. But one of our strengths, like I said, is our people and we have project managers from all different kinds of industries with varied experiential backgrounds, and we're all on Mighty Networks. And we encourage people to join there and post questions, concerns, looking for careers, looking for a mentor. We offer all of that through our Mighty Networks program. So we have some very passionate ambassadors that try to help people find internships. We have some passionate people that are translating military experience into education, and then putting people through a six week internship and then hooking them up with a job. It's called the Catalyst Organization that we just started partnering with as well. Lots of opportunities to network and to engage and to help people push forward. Jordan Conrad, one of our CPTs, is very passionate about helping service members transition out and providing tools and resources to help them with that. So it's not just about our training courses, it's about our people and our team. And we are very passionate about helping people grow personally, professionally into where they need to be. So yeah, we have a lot there. And I encourage everyone to join us in Mighty Networks.

KP: 33:36

Yeah, the Mighty Network thing is something I just wrote down, I want to check it out. I would love to be part of that conversation and part of that community because project management has meant so much to me. And I don't know why I'm stalling. Like, why haven't I reached out to DOL Coach because I've done project management before. I've done big projects. I've done small projects. My MBA is in project management. So I'll definitely get in touch with DOL Coach and I want to go through the program myself. And with that being said, you know, can you talk, Heather, a little bit about the basic time commitment one would have to take in order to attend or complete just the Basic Course itself?

Heather Kuhns: 34:13

So the Basic Course if you attended live, is 12, two hour sessions, roughly. And that's it. There's no outside homework. There's no pre requirements to complete, and there's no test at the end. The other way that you can take the coursework is through the video on demand series RPM, and it's roughly 24 hours of content. There's resource videos, there's panel discussions, there's interviews with our CPTs, there's contextualization through scenarios, and there's actual course content. So 24 hours or however long you want to spend, is another way that you can get that certification. Our master classes are about two - two and a half hours. Those are also certification driven classes. So it's a relatively low time commitment. PMAC, if you want to assess...and I encourage you KP to sign up for PMAC. You'd probably come out as a CPD, it'd take you less than an hour. And that's pretty sweet. So it's not a heavy time commitment.

KP: 35:15

Yeah, I'm definitely interested for sure, in checking that out. And it's just been for me like getting this podcast it itself up and going has been a project, and it's been learning things that I've never even imagined that I would be learning before and I thought it was simple. I thought it was just buy a microphone and sign up on a platform and BOOM! And there's actually a lot of things that are, that are involved as well. As far as value...

Heather Kuhns: 35:43

What's one of your greatest lessons learned from this?

KP: 35:47

One of my greatest lessons learned from setting up the podcast itself, the first one that actually comes to mind is, I would probably actually reach out and speak to several folks who had recently started a podcast. Because I didn't, I didn't understand, I didn't know the cost that it would take, the difference between quality of just buying a USB mic versus buying an XLR. I didn't understand cables, I didn't understand any of that stuff. And I feel like if I had spoken to someone, that's where I am right now, they could within that first year, they could explain to me, "Well, hey, I got into it, I don't have a background in this. This is what you can anticipate. And this is what you can expect as far as growth over the span of, over the span of the next year or so." And then secondly, I would say network. I wouldn't be anywhere close to where I am right now, if I wasn't connected with ACT NOW Education. Because Jai Salters, he caught me in Clubhouse, just speaking about podcasting. He pulled me off to the side and had a conversation with me and started challenging me and asking me these questions. And asking me, you know, "What's the difference between you and every other podcaster out there?" And I was like, "I don't know." I didn't know the answer to those questions. I just knew what I wanted to do. And as far as value, just want to ask you can you give us three solid reasons why folks should consider getting a project management certification?

Heather Kuhns: 37:18

Yes, two I think I've already mentioned. Confirming your experience is one, prove what you know, prove what you've already done. It comes across better in letters than sometimes having someone read your lengthy resume. So those letters give you an opportunity to explain what you've achieved. And I think that adds a different layer to an interview, that people can actually talk about something outside of the standard original interview questions, you know. It gives them another purpose, another conversational piece. But really, I think the biggest reason is "civilian-izing" yourself. I know, I worked as a family readiness officer for almost four years for the Marine Corps. And when I came out of that, and had to find a different job, taking what I had done as, working in the military and civilian-izing it, like "A FRO, a Family Readiness Officer, what the heck is that?" So....I'm a civilian. I'm a project and program manager. Like, so "building and working within a unit," you have to change that to "being in an organization." You have to, you know, change everything that you talked about, into different language that other people can understand. I think the value of getting a project management certification is legitimising the experiences that you've done, but learning how to talk about it, so someone else gets it. You could talk to another S3 Captain, and I could listen to it if I had no military background, and it'd be like, "What are they talking about? This makes no sense." It's, It's its own language. So our project management training, teaches people how to change. How you talk about it in the military, to how you talk about it in a civilian world. And I can say, with full confidence that everyone that's gone through the course, was like, "I understand what I did. Now I know how to talk about it." I mean, I have this testimonial here from Rebecca, who said, "As a Veteran, I never thought that what I did mattered in the world of project management. When I took this course, it opened my eyes and allowed me to see things through a whole new lens. I can now articulate ideas and concepts that were too abstract for me before." And to me that says, volumes, more than I could ever say. But I would encourage anyone listening, if you're transitioning or going to transition out at some point, you have to build a background that potential employers can mine for information of what you've done that they can understand. And if you talk military when you get out. There's still value in what you did, but people don't understand what you did. So I think that's key. And just to drive that home a little bit further. When I do a PMAC, I review people's resumes and their LinkedIn profiles. And God bless you all, your resumes are two pages of eight, eight size font, crammed, single-line full of all the stuff you've done and places you've been. Whatever's not secret, it's crammed onto those two pieces of paper. And it's like, "Yeah, that's nice. That's like a catalogue of where you've been. It doesn't talk to me about what your skills are." And that is like the format that comes out of I think every military person that I've ever seen their resume for. It's like, "You're not telling me what value you can bring to another company. You're not telling me what you actually have experience doing. But I know where you've been, and I know what unit you were in." And that's just not enough. So yeah, let's take what you've done. Let's take what you know. And let's put it into a capsule, that's digestible for someone else in another organization so that you can win moving forward.

KP: 41:19

Heather, I got to tell you something. Mark McGuire's got nothing on you, because you knocked that out of the park. The things that you talked about, with just the reasons why somebody should consider getting a project management certification is completely valid. When you're interviewing with folks, when you're sitting across from a recruiter, the number one thing that you want to do is you want to be able to relate. And so I've sat in front of panels before of three or four different people that were part of a business or a company. And because I'm so, I'm so versed from, I grew up in Hawaii, and I moved to the Midwest of Ohio, I was in the military, I do Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, like all these different things. It was so funny how many times when I was talking to folks, how I was able to just mention something, and I was able to relate to them. And the whole mood, the whole atmosphere of that conversation, that interview changed. And I can totally see how in the business world, all across all industries, I don't care if you're a business owner, or if you're in hairstyling or if you're in, you're a police officer, whatever you are, you're doing projects. And so you're going to be able to break the ice and get that conversation flowing by getting one of these certifications. And I really, really highly appreciate DOL Coach bridging that gap. It's something that I talk about every now and then about bridging the gap between the military and the civilian world. You just spoke about how you can come out and talk about military stuff, those two pages of eight, eight, font, things that you did, but you may not be able to fully talk about your skills, per se. You talk about where you've been. So thank you so much for your time today. Heather, I can't tell you how appreciative I am. As we're wrapping up the show, Heather, I just want to ask you, is there anything in summary that you'd like to tell our audience that's listening out there?

Heather Kuhns: 43:22

I think we covered a lot today. I would encourage anyone that's still interested in learning more, which should be every single person listening that you want to learn more, because that's what we do as humans is learn more. Go to DOLCoach.com, read about us, read about our team, engage with us on Mighty Networks. It's mighty,...it's DOLCoach.mn.co. So DOLCoach.mn.co, join us there and engage with our mentors and our ambassadors and our team. We're here for you. And we have a lot to offer and talk to me, get on my calendar, if you want to learn more information. Happy to connect, and you can do that through our website as well. So I'm really thankful that you had me here and got gave me an opportunity to talk about what we do and who we are. I think our number one driving thing is passion for what we do. And yeah, we're just gonna push into 2022 and see what happens in the next year.

KP: 44:32

That is actually quite interesting. I know you mentioned earlier in the show about 2022. Is there anything else that you guys have going on next year?

Heather Kuhns: 44:41

Oh, my goodness. Well, in addition to the the launch of PM 101 and RPM that has just launched, those are the video on demand series. Our new partnerships with various universities, with Catalyst, which is a huge group to partner with, I would encourage you to look those those folks up as well. We're continuing to build our masterclasses. We're growing our team. And we're actually out there, thank goodness, back delivering live training to organizations. We offer advanced organizational training, which is project management in four days, tailored and customized to specific organizations. Super excited about that. We're traveling next week to go deliver training for a construction company. So lots of great things. Keep your eyes out, DOL is gonna explode, we are going to take over the world in project management.

KP: 45:36

That is so exciting. And I'm not just saying that. I legitimately mean that because I totally, I'm all in on the actual organization and how it's, how it's structured. I love it. I love every part of it. Avi, would you like to summarize anything before we wrap up the show this evening?

Avi Dhanraj: 45:57

Well, before we go, I definitely want to make known that I mean, no matter who's listening, active duty, now transitioning out, aspiring commissioned officer doesn't matter who it is, they always have something to gain or at least something to learn from the DOL Coach community. And as a teen, I know I'm going to be checking it out, trying to see what I can do or contribute as well. And it's organizations like that and Act Now and of course, the podcast, that help expand our scope of influence. And as you were saying Heather, you had 12,000 people get certified this year. That's no small amount of impact. And, I mean, that's just unbelievable, the amount of lives you're impacting. And this is just the beginning as well.

Heather Kuhns: 46:40

Yeah, very excited.

KP: 46:42

I actually made a mistake I said this evening, you know why? Because I looked out the window, and it was so gray. And it's

only 11: 46:47

30 here in Southern California. But it's so great. It looks like it's getting ready to go sundown over here. It's not it's really, really dreary today. But anyone out there that's listening, listen, scroll to the bottom of this podcast or if you're watching us on YouTube, scroll to the bottom, you're going to find all the show notes on there. The links that we talked about. If you don't see one on there, just hit it in the comments and ask and I'll make sure that that we put it on there. But Heather, if anyone out there is listening or watching how can they get ahold of you? How can they contact you? What is the website that they can go to?

Heather Kuhns: 47:22

Heather@dolcoach.com, straight up. LinkedIn, I'm on LinkedIn, search me on LinkedIn, Heather Kuhns CPT. And our website is DOLcoach.com of course. And Mighty Networks is DOLcoach.mn.co. And we are all over that. That is like a safe, 'non-advertisement, non-stealing and selling information' kind of network. Private. You request to join, we invite you in and then you are part of our tribe.

KP: 48:01

I'm definitely, I'm definitely gonna check that out. Because it's certainly great to be part of that community and part of that conversation of what's hot and what's going on. And if you run into any roadblocks, it's good to kind of lean on someone and get, get some some questions answered. So definitely check that as well. And I suggest anyone out there listening to also check that out. As for The Morning Formation with Heather and Avi, I'm KP. I want you to stay tuned, stay focused, and stay motivated. Check out DOL Coach, and check out, contact Heather as well on LinkedIn or on her email. As for now. Warriors Fallout.