TED Community » Joshua Aasgaard

About Me

Daddy, husband, People Helper, teacher, former marketing director, CBT/distance learning expert, public speaker, corporate trainer, editor, artist, web & graphic designer, art director, political philosopher, Rainbow Brother, alchemist, marriage and family counselor, former interfaith minister, and ex-political scientist. He has many interests.

A hopeless romantic, in addition to spending time with his wife and daughter, he loves performing wedding ceremonies, and teaching people knowledge & skills to make their lives more abundant.

He graduated from Slidell Senior High and went on to receive a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy with a minor in Pre-law, English & 12 hrs of Computer Science and continued by earning a Master of Arts in Political Science from the University of New Orleans. Prior to his conversion to Roman Catholic Christianity, Joshua was also an active ordained minister, and received his Doctor of Philosophy in Interfaith Counseling from the New Mexico Theological Seminary. He considers himself to be a Zen Taoist Humanistic Roman Catholic Christian with leanings toward Hinduism.

Joshua provides pre-marriage, marital and personal counseling. As a certified NLP Practitioner and counselor, Joshua loves helping people overcome personal limitations: eliminate phobias like stage-fright, test-anxiety, fears of success/failure, and of their fears of flying or heights. He can also help teach women how to better communicate with men, and teach men how to appropriately respond to women's communication.

On the secular side, Joshua continues his career as a professional communicator in the role of a special education teacher, serving student with special needs in under-serviced communities.

For the next several years, Joshua plans on working in high needs public schools as a special education teacher.

He will also be working on a Doctor of Philosophy in Educational Administration or Curriculum and Instruction over the next several years.

Aasgaard has also had a very successful career in technology training, marketing & advertising, public speaking, counseling and teaching.

He plans on growing http://www.mediawell.com for next 20 years.

As always, Joshua can be found helping people get more of what they want out of life, while he thoroughly enjoys his own.

His evenings and days off belong entirely to continuing the sixteen year romance with his beautiful, intelligent and marvelous wife, Elise. His daughter, Clarisse, brings unimaginable joy to his life.

Location:
United States, Saint Louis, MO
Current organization:
Mediawell.com
Past organizations:
Special School District
Current role:
Adventurer
Gender:
Male
Areas of expertise:
Teaching, NLP & Hypnotherapy, NLP, Motivational Speaker, Ethnobotany, Tarot, Learning Fast, Cooking, Philosophy, Meditation
Member Picture


More About Me

I'm passionate about

life, liberty, learning and happiness for all! Music, art, politics, religions, philosophy...

An idea worth spreading

Everyone and everything is connected. The more deeply and directly we experience these connections, the more satisfying our lives become. Responsibility becomes joy. Work becomes play. And total fulfillment of our dreams becomes a natural course of day-to-day activities. We see immediately that our own dreams and hopes are directly connected to the fulfillment of other people's hopes and dreams.

Talk to me about

Education, training, mysticism, ethnobotany, and helping people enjoy happier, healthier, satisfying lives.

People don't know that I'm good at

sitting quietly and enjoying the sounds of nature. And when I'm successful I'm good at communicating with non-animal beings, plants, and the universe.

My TED Story

My TED story is not yet written. I want to learn more about shaman ism, teaching, and joy.

Comments

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  • A comment on Conversation: Which books have inspired you the most?

    Nov 19 2011: Without a doubt I think books like Aldus Huxley's _Island_, Daniel Suarez's _Freedom(tm)_, and Eileen's Workman's _Sacred Economics_ ( http://www.sacredeconomics.com ) have the ability to not just inspire, but improve our future world. Two of the most inspirational books I've read were _Frogs Into Princes_ and _Tranceformations_ by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. A review of the latest book matches my feelings exactly about recent developments along these lines http://realpeoplepress.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/steve-andreas-nlp-book-review-of-get-the-life-you-want.pdf .
  • A comment on Conversation: Why evolution could never solve aging?

    Nov 19 2011: While longer lives might seem to be beneficial, especially for those who are enabled to enjoy them, but the consequences to the rest of the environment and other species will also play into the consideration. It also seems that now is an exciting time where we can use technology to overcome biological limitations. There is a way toward a more sustainable way of living. I think Eileen Workman's http://www.sacredeconomics.com/ can help create a framework in which evolutionary processes are irrelevant. Conscious processes and mutual aid for mutual benefit creating a better world for us all.
  • A comment on Conversation: Does capitalism continue to serve the needs of people?

    Nov 19 2011: I think the solutions can start to be formulated along the lines of Eileen Workman's http://www.sacredeconomics.com . It's time to focus on what works for all humans on the planet, and not just the super elites. And by that I mean all of us reading this as well as our Lords and Masters on Wall Street and at http://www.db.com/ .
  • A comment on Talk: Gustavo Dudamel leads El Sistema's top youth orchestra

    Feb 18 2009: Wow! Makes "Gates unplugged" uninformed superficial speech look meaningless. Here we can see a culture and a country that have figured out how to create that which we are born for: ART, MUSIC, CULTURE. The rotting corpse of corporate capitalism will give birth to a new way of a thinking, a new way where everyone can grow to achieve their highest good. No math and science inanity going on there. Bring on the Masters of Arts!
  • A comment on Talk: Jose Antonio Abreu: The El Sistema music revolution

    Feb 18 2009: Wow! A place where freedom is possible and music can be appreciated by all, not just the wealthy. How.refreshing!
  • A comment on Talk: Dan Dennett: Dangerous memes

    Feb 17 2009: Sometimes its the completely "rational" memes that are MOST dangerous. It was rationality that lead the United States government to fight 37 bloody genocidal wars against the Native American peoples from 1780-1900. The arguments made to kill the "red man" were cogent, forceful, and well reasoned. Beware of reason. In the United States it was used at the highest levels to justify the murderous attacks of General Sherman not against Armies of the South, but against women and children in his march to the sea. It was reason which said attacking Hiroshima and Nagisaki was the rational choice. YES, dangerous memes are most often very "rational."

    The further people get away from the Glory and Beauty of the Creator of the Universe, the more stupidity and rationality gets embraced. The more people get close to seeing that we are all one on this planet, sharing the beautiful Glorious world, the less likely we'll want to Kill Each other. The problem of Dennet is how easily his memes lead to murder.
  • A comment on Talk: Jacqueline Novogratz on patient capitalism

    Feb 16 2009: Debt enslaves. It does NOT free.
  • +1

    A comment on Theme: Rethinking Poverty

    Feb 16 2009: Who is poor? The person who owns a $2.1 million condo in New York city, who's just finished his third divorce and hasn't taken a vacation in three years, or the hot-dog vendor who works on the same street, comes home each night to read to his three year old daughter, and after the kids are in bed spends the rest of the evening sharing his day with his wife and learns of the things she did walking in the park with the family?

    We need to rethink poverty. And realize that its the quality of life, not the quantity that matters.
  • +1

    A comment on Theme: Rethinking Poverty

    Feb 16 2009: The state in America has failed as well. There are Cripps. There are Bloods. There are the gated community slave owners. There are the enslaved/indebted. There is no difference between the failed illegitimate state power which incarcerates 1/100th of it adult citizens in the U.S. and it's genocidal incursions throughout the world through proxy wars and imperialist imperitives and the failed Rwandan state. IN Rwanda the propaganda isn't as effective as it is in the United States. But in both places, the poor are killed and imprisoned and the wealthy (who live far away and usualy in different countries) control what's going on. It is an evil. It's name is greed or capitalism. The root of the problem is evil. States simply do evil and call it "justice" but it's still evil.
  • A comment on Talk: Bill Gates: Mosquitos, malaria and education

    Feb 16 2009: KIPP is a program for teachers who start at 5 am and go home at 7 pm. If you want a balanced life, or time off in the summer forget it. For KIPP, teaching is a 50 week a year job just like every other job. It does create results. But I'd be surprised to see if there are any teachers who aren't in their first 5 years of teaching who would stay in a KIPP school once they are married and have a child.

    Now, there are great teachers, who don't have to work 10 hour days, and they exist throughout the U.S. at premiere schools and private schools. Most still have June, July, and August off. Now, in public schools students return to school in August.

    Great teaching happens when there is great planning and engagement. This can happen when in a KIPP student because the disruptive student can be removed from the school, and the data doesn't have to include the students with special needs or the kids with ADHD. Although teachers with ADHD are exactly what's required at KIPP school. KIPP is part of what's destroying the public school system. Every time public money is wasted on "experiments" that exclude reality (i.e., public schools can't exclude students with IEP and behavior problems, KIPP does). Now the sad thing is how many public school systems waste their money on temporary systems like KIPP. Of course, perhaps there's an endless supply of young, highly motivated teachers who can be recruited to the KIPP program every 5-7 years when the teachers who start in KIPP realize their whole life is their job, and they're friends are getting married, having children, having summer vacations, and having lives. They are married to their jobs. That's what KIPP is. A great thing for the kids who are lucky enough to go there. It's basically a private school funded with public money. And the benefits are real. But it's not a meaningful reform.

    Bill Gate criticizes management that comes a few times a year. Yet he see KIPP for how many days, b4 this praise?
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