Your Life BusinessTM

Who we are, what's important to each of us and what we do.

Introducing the members of our Team Life Business™

Jerry BergnerJerry Bergner (jerry@lifebusiness.us):

I have always had a passion for creating more results with less effort. As a furniture maker, carpenter, builder, and financial advisor, this has been a guiding force in the way I choose to do things. As a financial advisor and Life Business™ coach I am most motivated by helping my clients discover ways to get more out of their lives through focusing their efforts and simplifying their process. The Life Business™ program and methodology has given me the tools and thought process to make this a reality.

Originally from NY, I relocated to Chapel Hill in 1993 and underwent a career change ending my 15 year residential construction and design business.

I live in Chapel Hill with my wife Crystal.  Our 5 children are now out on their own so we are just beginning our lives as “empty nesters”. My most important new venture, “The Simple Life,” is beginning to take off.  Teaching and inspiring others to create positive life changes is my passion. My work with Life Business™ allows me to make the best use of this “motivated talent.”

My Life Businesses:

Jerry is our primary "go to guy" for our introductory "Go to Meeting" conversations. He also conducts our 1-Day Life Business™ Workshops - Steps 1-8 for individuals, couples and families. As a Life Business™ Certified Financial Planner Jerry works with clients on Steps 9-13 of our program.

Life Business™ services Jerry provides:

Vic CocowitchVic Cocowitch (vic@lifebusiness.us):

I am currently an independent, organizational development and leadership consultant, who after 23 years has decided to focus on a few health care system clients that are aligned with my interests and talents and allow my other Life Businesses time to flourish. I call this Life Business™, Focused Mastery.

For the past 10 years my wife, Dawn and 2 children, Kyle and Anya and I have worked with communities and families in Guatemala to build houses. We continue to help educate one family of 5 beautiful girls. All have completed high school and 3 are now in college. Each year I lead a trip of like-minded people on a giving experience to Guatemala to build a house and visit the girls. I call this Life Business™, Generous Spirit.

As a balance to the mental energy expended in my consulting practice, I started a Life Business™, called Hobby Horse that engages my hands in creative ways. After two trips to craft school to learn from fulltime artists, I bought into a wood shop where I try to keep a project going at all times. Currently this Life Business™ needs more attention. Too many projects are in the queue and not on the workbench.

Our family just completed a trip to Southern Utah to visit the stateʼs magnificent parks. This trip was part of our families Pop-up Camper Life Business™. Our goal is to see the world as cheaply as possible before our kids leave for college. So far it has taken us to Guatemala, Costa Rica, the Bahamas, Utah, New York City, Washington, DC. Trips to Alaska and Africa are being discussed by our "Board of Directors" looking at tradeoffs to find the funds to afford both in the next 5 years.

My wifeʼs Life Business™, Zen Garden, and my Life Business™, Tap Root, have combined time, money and energy to create a flourishing home that "grounds" us in our family and Chapel Hill, NC community. This is important to me after growing up in a military family that was always moving on.

My Life Businesses:

Vic is a senior Life Business™ consultant and mentor working primarily with life coaches and financial planners who are seeking Life Business™ certification.

Life Business™ services Vic provides:

Susie
Susie Eckblad (susie@lifebusiness.us):

I am an educator by trade and a mom by nature. Most of my professional life has been spent in schools – delighting in the wisdom and energy of children and the competence and dedication of other educators. Forced by my health to leave the professional realm long before I was ready, I continue to derive great pleasure from our six children – now capable adults - and our grandchildren, whose observations and insights keep us all honest!

Our life, with all its parts, is a very good example of Life Business™ planning – our movements are designed to allow us to enjoy our family where they live. Much of our travel is accomplished through home exchange – allowing us to experience new places while providing me with a restful base to recharge.

The Life Business™ Program has been an important anchor for me throughout multiple transitions. I continue to find true value in the model and the tools which provide both the structure and the practice for informed decision-making as my life has evolved.

My Life Businesses:

Susie works primarily with John helping couples and families learn and master Life Business™ Cash Flow Accounting.

Life Business™ services Susie provides:

John Eckblad
John Eckblad (john@lifebusiness.us):

Iʼm a ʻgraying foxʼ enjoying the opportunities this time of life offers, dealing with the constraints it mandates and nearing the age of required retirement account distributions.

Being self-employed all of my working life, save the first 2 years post my undergraduate degree, Iʼve made it a mini-crusade to come up with a meaningful understanding of the economy and my role in it.

Through my consulting, training and writing about Life Business™ I endeavor to share what Iʼve learned and what I think will benefit others. Iʼm particularly interested in the gifts of ideas like cash flow budgeting which Susie and I have developed and practice in our own lives.

While Iʼve found that there is indeed a kind of beauty in the way successful organizations have learned to succeed in our economy, there is also beauty in the colors, movement, structures, activity and life of working people, corporations and industry. A very significant Life Business™ for me is the collection and sharing of print and graphic art related to industrial life. My life in this area is introduced on our web site, Art-In-Industry.com.

Susie and I have six children and two grandchildren. We live our dreams fully on a good deal less than $100,000 a year. We werenʼt sure that it could be done but over the last seven years, employing the concepts and tools of cash flow budgeting, weʼve proven to ourselves that it can be.

My Life Businesses:

John is a senior Life Business™ consultant, mentor and coach working primarily with life coaches and financial planners who are seeking Life Business™ certification. Along with Susie John also coaches Cash Flow Budgeting for individuals, couples and families.

Life Business™ services John provides:

Audrey Green
Audrey Green (audrey@lifebusiness.us):

I turned 50 this year and my husband was treated for cancer. I have a pre-teen daughter, elderly parents needing more and more of my time, volunteer and professional commitments, deep abiding friendships and a home and family to manage. I am also growing a life coach consultancy. Itʼs a great life and, like many of you, I live in a constant state of balancing the oh-so full life with the desire to live my life more fully. I am not willing to miss the precious moments in each day in order to maintain a life too full. The Life Business™ model has provided an essential framework for me. My career has taken many twists and turns in politics and public policy, communications and marketing, fund raising, organizing and life coaching. I studied communications, public policy and education at UNC-Chapel Hill. I earned my Life Business™ certification in 2007 in collaboration with John Eckblad, Vic Cocowitch and David Kiel. I have been growing a life coach consultancy since. My "motivated talent" – the skill I have honed with passion and study – is helping clients clear the "clutter" in their lives to make more room for their lives. For some, the clutter is physical: collected possessions, disorganized clutter in a home or office. For some, the clutter is of the mind: so many important decisions, so little time, where to start? Our goal in either case is to answer the simple question: What keeps you from living your life more fully?

My clients range from fellow mid-life sojourners to the elderly. I have reorganized entire homes and home "systems" and I have helped clients make profound decisions about a wide range of end of life decisions, including end of life care, memorial services and estate management. I have helped clients write memoirs and final wish communications to their families. In each case, the "life satisfaction meter" has climbed dramatically for my clients and for me as the result of our collaboration. In Life Business™ terminology, this life business has a very high rate of return.

My Life Businesses:

Audrey trains our 1-Day Life Business™ Workshop - Steps 1-8 and coaches individuals, couples and families in personal, household and downsizing priority setting and organization.

Life Business™ services Audrey provides:

David Kiel
David Kiel (david@lifebusiness.us):

I have been involved with Life Business™ as a workshop leader, program designer, marketer, writer and in my own life since 1991. As an organizational consultant, my projects focus on strategic planning, organizational design, team building, leadership development, and conflict resolution.

I have consulted with managers and management teams in IBM, GlaxoSmithKline, Westinghouse, and Nortel. As a former professor of Public Administration and Public Health, I have also worked with numerous government and non-profit organizations including the National Governors Association, USEPA, the National Congress of Community Economic Development, UNC Health Care, and the Instrument Society of America.

My work in the last ten years has featured assistance to innovative economic development organizations like the NC Rural Center, the NC Indian Economic Development Initiative, NHS of Chicago. I am currently involved in forming a new program for faculty leadership development for the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at UNC Chapel Hill.

I studied organizational behavior at Yale University and received my doctorate from the UNC School of Public Health in 1974. My articles have been published in The Public Administration Review, The Training and Development Journal, and Environmental Quality Management. I am a member of the NTL Institute for Applied Behavioral Science and my wife Amey Miller and I live in Chapel Hill.

My Life Businesses:


David is a senior Life Business™ consultant, mentor and coach concentrating primarily on serving corporate accounts.

Life Business™ services David provides: