If you’re on this page, we’re assuming that you’re looking for trainings to become a mediator. And I think it’s important to understand the landscape of your options. So first thing I would just check is if it’s important for you to do it in person or virtually. Our trainings are done virtually. So if you’re looking for an in-person training, your best bet is to look for another provider. If you’re okay with or prefer the online, then you’re in the right place. The second parameter is just the timeframe.

So most mediation trainings are gonna happen over 40 hours over a week, or they do two 20 hour weekends in a row. Personally, I don’t think that helps me learn. So that feels like a fire hose and I can’t even get a sip. And in addition, it’s very difficult to take a whole week off work or to give up two full weekends in a row. So we did, to make our training more accessible, our timeframe is two hour time sessions. So two hours at a time, no one gets better, it doesn’t get better after two hours.

Mediation’s last two-hour sessions with humans mediate. We do one two-hour session on Tuesday nights, one two-hour session on Thursday nights, so it’s four hours of training a week over three months. So 90 days is usually the amount of time that it takes to make real change in our lives. That’s what the science says, that’s what spirituality says. Over and over again, we get this 90-day pattern of about three months is when we really make a full change. And it gives us time to integrate, to practice.

and to really digest everything we’re learning in those four hours a week sessions, two hours each. So this just allows it to be easier to learn, more effective at learning. It also makes them more accessible. So if you have kids, if you have other jobs, we are doing our trainings in the evening outside of work hours so that it is something accessible for you without having to worry about a commute. Okay, so we talked about the time. Now let’s talk about the full amount of hours.

So the industry standard and mediation for the longest time has been 40 hours of training. That is one work week. So I don’t know about you, but personally, it takes me more than 40 hours to get good at a new job. And also if I want someone to mediate my conflicts, I’d like them to have more than one week’s worth of experience. So our training is 60 hours. This not only gives you more hours at around the same price as a 40 hour training, I think we might even be a little less than that per hour, but

It also gives you opportunities to practice more. So you get more content, you get more opportunities to practice, and it makes you more competitive in the field because you’ll have more training than the majority of mediators. I will say that there are a few trainings that are 25 hours, and those I would not consider trainings that make you a mediator if even less time, but they do exist. I do not recommend them. So we have virtual, accessible timeframe, easier to learn, better hours, and then also

we ensure that you are more competitive in the industry because you get more hours, more practice, and it’s easier for you to learn and digest things. In addition, the mediator training landscape, they don’t always say explicitly what mediation model they are teaching. So you should be aware that there are a variety of styles of mediation, a variety of mediation models. We specifically teach the human’s universal mediation model, affectionately known as HUM.

And that means that all of our mediators, all of our curriculum is integrated into a systemic, repeatable, measurable way of mediating. So you can actually tell where your skill level is at and you’re not left to do all of it with just discretion and having to make decisions in real time. We’ve made a system so it’s easier to practice at that higher quality standard. So those are the things that make our training unique.

general mediation landscape is you’re gonna look for trainings that tell you what model they’re doing, that are doing at least 40 hours, more hours are definitely better, and you wanna find something that fits your schedule and if you wanna be in person or virtually. Those would be the core things. I would also ensure that those mediator trainings are compliant with the standards for mediation trainings which you have a different frequently asked question about, and I would also recommend making sure that your training offers a variety and

practice of role plays. So we offer mini role plays for each individual step. We offer four full role plays. We’re experiencing it as a participant and a mediator. And we actually give feedback on those full role plays. You get four in our training and you wanna make sure whatever training you’re doing, you’re at least getting one, but more is better, cause you get more repetition. You get better at practicing. And our training is the only training I am aware of at this time that offers skilled roles. So you get solo practice, they’re individual.

kind of Google Forms where you get a video and you get to practice your skills outside of the training so that you’re getting more repetition, you’re getting more mastery of your skills. So those would be the things that make our training different. We’re always happy to be a resource for you if you’re looking for mediation trainings, because you do want to find the right fit. And I would argue too, the last thing, most important thing I shouldn’t forget, is that our training does make you eligible for our apprenticeship program, for the performance-based evaluation, for certification.

And we hire you as a mediator through Humans Mediate, which is our sister company that provides mediation services. if the training doesn’t give you a direct path to practice mediation, to become certified through a performance-based evaluation, and doesn’t offer some kind of apprenticeship or some kind of job at the end of the road, then you’re kind of left to your own devices to find those. I certainly was when I did four other trainings and four other models. And what we’ve tried to create here is a nice clean path from

starting to become a mediator, not knowing, becoming one to begin with, then going through your apprenticeship certification, and then continuing with continued education as you continue to master your skills. And most importantly, we hire you to work with our clients because we’re that confident that our training, our apprenticeship and certification will get to that high quality process that our clients trust us to provide.

One question we get a lot is: How do I know if being a mediator is a good fit for me?

The first thing I recommend is taking the “fit quiz” on our website. It’s a short set of questions designed to give you a practical sense of what it means to be a mediator.

Now, here’s what makes someone a good fit:

• Willingness to Learn: Mediators need to be open to growth and mistakes. If you’re expecting to be perfect, this may not be the right path—because perfection isn’t real. What matters is the willingness to learn and improve.

• Deep Listening: Mediation requires a unique kind of listening—without judgment, with presence, and with empathy. If you’re someone who can accept people as they are, listen without jumping in with your own opinions, you’ll likely thrive.

• Adaptability: Being able to stay present, think on your feet, and roll with the unexpected is a big part of the role.

• Collaboration: Mediation is often done in pairs (co-mediation). That means modeling the collaboration you’re asking others to practice. You build relationships, give and receive feedback, and grow together. If you prefer working solo, this might not be the right model for you.

• Flexible Schedule: Mediations usually happen outside of standard business hours—especially evenings and weekends—because that’s when participants are most available. Some workplace cases may happen during the day, but flexibility is key.

• Comfort with Technology: Most of our mediation and training takes place online. You don’t need to be a tech expert, but you should be open to learning tools like Zoom and Google Drive.

If you still have questions, feel free to join one of our “So You Want to Be a Mediator” info sessions or schedule a one-on-one with me.

Ultimately, mediation taps into something very human—we all want to connect, to be heard, and to support one another. It’s less about who you are now, and more about how ready you are to learn, grow, and step into something new.

If you’re listening to this or reading this message, chances are… you’re already a great fit.

Get a job as a mediator. Short answer is yes. How challenging that is, what that job looks like is gonna depend. So first thing I will say is that mediation is not the kind of work that you should be doing 40 hours a week. You are listening to people arguing, yelling at each other. Sometimes it’s very positive and they’re just making collaborative plans, but you never know what’s gonna happen. It’s very intensive work.

It’s very skill driven. You have to be very on your A game. And what I recommend is mediating at most once a week, especially when you are starting. If you are looking to do like a 40 hour a week kind of mediation job, then you’re looking at mixing that with mediation case management, volunteer coordination of mediators, and maybe mediating a little bit here and there. But you again, don’t want to be mediating 40 hours a week. You would damage your mental health.

So the next thing I will say is jobs kind of come in three categories, but before I frame those three, it’s important to know that the majority of the mediators in the world are volunteers. So they do their training and they volunteer, and I will say they usually last two to three years before they burn out because they’re either mediating too much, the cases are really challenging and they don’t necessarily always have the support they need.

And in addition, they’re not being compensated for that work. So they’re volunteering, which means they’re not being compensated. And only so many people can afford to work for free indefinitely. So I would say that the majority of meters are volunteers. The majority of them last two to three years. And if you’re trying to last longer than that, you really want to guard against burnout. And again, make sure you’re mediating at most once a week and that you’re taking care of yourself between sessions. So now I talk about the jobs. There’s three categories I see.

Most common one is people go into private practice. Then after that, I see people joining maybe some mediation firms, some law firms have mediator jobs. And then the third option is you join some kind of organization. There’s some kind of job there. But the fourth option is what we are offering and we think is the best one. So I’ll go through those four. So the first is mediator private practice. You see mediators, they do their training, they put out a shingle and they start trying to mediate solo.

One best practice is to co-mediate. You have to have at least one other person to model collaboration. And if you’re by yourself, you’re asking your participants to collaborate, but you’re not doing that yourself. So if it’s good enough for them, it should be good enough for you. And there are many opportunities to model collaboration when you have a co-mediator, which is why it’s considered the best practice. So if you’re mediating solo in a private practice, maybe have a co-mediator, I don’t often see that happening.

The other challenge of private practice is just the challenges of starting a business. The skill set of mediating and the skill set of business are very different skill sets. You may love mediating, but you may not love running a business. As someone who started through myself, I know that mediation has helped me run my businesses, has helped me start them, but they’re very different skill sets and starting a business is very time and resource intensive. It’s not right for everybody. The third challenge I see with private practice

is it starts damaging neutrality. If you are the person who is your sole preneur, you’re by yourself, that means that you’re doing the intake, you’re sending the bill and mediating all at the same time. If you’re a mediator, you should be neutral and neutrality doesn’t mix well with anything. In fact, it shouldn’t mix with anything. So if you are sending the bill and mediating, that is two separate roles. It’s not good to mix those. If you are doing the intake and mediating, those are two separate roles. You shouldn’t be doing that. And when you’re in solo practice,

It’s very difficult to afford to hire a case manager, to hire co-mediators. So I often see private practices fail within the first five years, and there’s a lot of resources, time, and money that gets lost in the process of that. So you’re welcome to do that. Our training would make you qualified to do that as a mediator, but our training is not set up for you to learn how to start your own business. That would be a lot more time, and you would need a lot more expertise to do that. So the second option is joining some kind of group or firm.

Some law firms do have a mediator in-house. Again, they’re often looking for people with JDs or master’s degrees. There are a few smaller firms. Oftentimes, you see people hiring their friends and people they know, so it’s kind of hard to get into those, but they are out there. I would say one of the challenges joining a group, joining a firm, is that they all might not be mediating in the same way. You might find yourself in conflict. You might find yourself with more dysfunction if you’re trying to co-mediate.

with someone who hasn’t been trained in the same way you have. OK, so then the third option, this is the least common. Sometimes courts, sometimes higher education institutions, sometimes big organizations may hire an ombudsman or someone like an in-house mediator, in-house conflict resolution specialist. Those jobs are very few and far between. They often, again, are looking for people with higher education, master’s degrees, law degrees.

And they’re very competitive. Often when someone gets that job, they don’t leave. So there’s also not very much turnover. And again, they’re highly competitive. I would also make the argument that those roles could jeopardize neutrality. So if ABC company has hired me to be in-house mediator, whoever I mediate with outside the company, they’re going to feel I’m automatically biased and I should be because they’re paying for my job, right? So.

I might be a little more biased and mediate in a way that gets better outcomes for ABC company. Even the perception of not being neutral could damage the mediation, could make people not want to mediate with you. So there’s that problem. So what mediators practice and humans media has come together to create is a much straighter line and much clearer progress to becoming a professional mediator. So you take our mediators practice training that makes you then eligible for our

mediator apprenticeship. And then when you complete the apprenticeship, we do a performance-based evaluation to certify you. Those certified mediators are then in the pool of mediators that humans mediate. When we get mediation cases, we hire those mediators as contractors for those cases. We pay the living wage of where you live based off of the living wage MIT calculator. And that means that you get paid based on where you live, the cost of living of where you live.

that is constantly updated. So last I checked, it was updated every couple months. So then on top of that, that is the florist living wage of where you live is the lowest you get paid as you begin. And then as you get more experience, we then pay you more as you continue to grow. So this is high skilled work, you get higher pay for each mediation, and it’s a much straighter line. You don’t have to create your own business. We provide the case managers, we get the we

get clients for you, we do the sales of it, we do all the admin, and all you have to do is show up and mediate. We offer continued education and we make sure that you’re continuously getting feedback and growing as a mediator. So can you get a job as a mediator? Yes, although it is rare compared to being able to volunteer as a mediator. This training also gets you ready to volunteer if you choose to go that route. But for mediators practice and humans mediate, we created a straight line, a pipeline from training.

professional mediation, where all the mediators are trained in the same way, we practice the same model. And so we’re much better able to model collaboration and work together to improve our skills to get to mediator mastery.

Who is this training for? You! If you can hear my voice, if you can understand what I’m saying, then this training is for you. I unfortunately only teach in English because it’s the only language I speak fluently, but we are looking for people who are multilingual and eventually to do this training in multiple languages. Your economic or your educational background neither are barriers to entry of this training. We prioritized

the curriculum and the way we teach for accessibility at all levels. We are also willing to and have worked one-on-one with our trainees to help them with the tech we use. just Zoom and Google Drive. We make sure that you get the support you need to know how to use all of those tools before the training even begins. And then we also have office hours. We have support for if you need any individualized support, we are here for you. We wanna get you through it.

because there is an endless variety of conflict out there, of challenging conversations. There is an endless variety of combinations of people who want to mediate with each other, and therefore we need an endless variety of co-mediators, of people mediating, of trainees in our cohort. So if you’re a human being and you want to mediate, you’re welcome here, and I hope that you join the training and communicate with us if there are any barriers we can get out of your way so you can achieve that goal.

If you join this training, what are you committing to? Well, first and foremost, you’re committing to showing up. We have live sessions. This is cohort-based learning. And so you showing up actually improves the learning experience of all the people around you. We do activities and role plays together. You have a partner that you can co-mediate with. And so we’re showing up together through this journey. And that makes us better mediators and it helps us learn better. You’re also committing to trying your best. Just try.

Right? No one’s perfect when they start. The expectation is that you are going to make mistakes and you’re going to be a little rough around the edges at the beginning. Good mediation comes with practice and we make sure that you have plenty of opportunities to practice even after the training. We also want you to commit to giving and receiving feedback. So as mediators, it’s very important that we give each other feedback. We do that after every co-mediated session and throughout the training, we’re going to be giving and receiving feedback.

And finally, you’re committing to embracing mistakes. They’re gonna happen. This is a difficult skill to learn. You have to bring a lot of things together and build that muscle memory. And so we want you to embrace mistakes. We are expecting you and encouraging you to make mistakes during the training. The mistakes you make during training, during your apprenticeship, during your certification process, those mistakes are the things that are gonna be your strengths as a mediator.

When I got my first performance-based evaluation, I was terrible at a particular step. So I forgot how to do it. I totally blanked and completely winged it and did it wrong. That step is now my best step. I am the strongest at the procedural step that I messed up at when I started mediating. So just know that we’re gonna encourage and point you to situations so you get the opportunity to make a lot of mistakes, because the more mistakes you make, the more strengths you’re gonna have when you start mediating.

the expectation is never to be perfect. The expectation is progress over perfection and to embrace our mistakes.

So another question we often get is, what does this training include? And there’s a lot going on here. So fundamentally, it’s a 60 hour mediation training. It’s all online. We also send you a training kit. So we send you printed materials, a few extra little props and surprises to help you with your learning. We also have our live sessions that happen twice a week. The sessions are two hours long and two hours is because that’s best practice. Mediation is two hours. Your training sessions are two hours.

After two hours, no one wants to be on Zoom and no one’s getting any better. The next we offer is the full mediation role plays. We have four full mediation role plays. Those are three hours, you get 30 minutes of pre-mediation, two hours of mediating practice with role players, and a half hour of post-mediation. You get four because you’re doing it in the middle of the training and at the end, and you both have a turn as a mediator and a participant. So we explain role plays in more detail in a different question. In addition, we also have skill drills. So every week,

you are looking at the core mediator skills and you’re getting a solo repetitive practice to learn the skills. So it’s the thousand free throws. If you do a thousand free throws in practice, you’re definitely gonna make it in the basketball game. So it’s the same way here. We wanna make sure you get plenty of practice. You get that muscle memory that you learn it in your bones. So you can pull it out when it’s time to use them. You get feedback from the instructors, the teaching assistants, from each other, from your role players.

We’re constantly trying to give feedback that is one of the mediator skills. After every mediation, mediators give each other feedback. It’s the same thing in our training. And then finally, you get a certificate. You get a certificate saying that you’ve completed 60 hours of training, which is 20 more than the industry standard. And on your certificate, it says these are all of the competencies that you should have by the time you finish our training. So we vouch for you. We are able to provide a certificate that has details of the specific skills you have.

And that’s a way to kind of make all of these soft skills of conflict resolution more concrete and something you can use in your career and as your future practice as a mediator.

So there is tuition. There is cost to taking the training. We do need to compensate the trainer, the teaching assistants, and for all the work that’s gone on developing the curriculum and skill drills and role plays, all the exercises and activities as well. So what we have done is we’ve created three tiers. We have seed, root, and sprout. Seed is our lowest cost package, and it gets you everything you need.

minus all the bells and whistles. ROOTS gets you some of those bells and whistles and SPROUTS gets you all of them and they increase in cost. Now, if cost is a barrier, please let us know. We have options where we have some options for scholarship, for work study, we have options for payment plans. We don’t want the cost to be a barrier for entry. So if it is, please let us know.

If it’s not and you pay in full, please know that we take that and it does pay it forward to people who couldn’t afford to take it in full, pay in full, and know that we’re keeping the cost as low as we can. Our seed package actually is less expensive per hour than a 40-hour mediation training. So it’s actually the same cost. And so if you just break down the hourly costs, you’re getting more bang for your buck with the seed package. And we do update our pricing.

We commit to our new mediators like you and to our team that they get paid at minimum. So the floor is a living wage of where they live based on the MIT living wage calculator. So you know that your costs, the cost of this training is making sure that people get well compensated for their labor, that a small business thrives, and that you’re making an investment in yourself and your skills.

Being a better communicator, knowing how to manage conflict, these are priceless skills that will benefit you in every area of your life. And that investment also leads to motivation to make sure that you get the most you can out of the training. And every training we’ve had, no one’s regretted the investment. Everyone’s told us it was well worth it, and if anything, we should be charging more for it. My personal opinion is I don’t want the cost to ever be a barrier, and so we’ve intentionally kept our costs as low as we can.

and kept the tuition as low as we can. So please let us know if there’s any issues with joining. If you can pay in full, thank you and know that we pay it forward. And if you have any reservations about where that money goes, we’re happy to be transparent with you and show you how we pay our team and how we run our business so that, again, it’s the most accessible as possible.

Why 60 hours? So I will tell you that the industry standard and mediation is to have 40 hours of training. Let’s put that in perspective. That is one work week. And I don’t know about you, but on my first week on the job, I certainly do not become a professional. So we do 60 hours of training over 90 days. That way it’s not just a firehose of information. You’re able to take one sip at a time, actually integrate and understand it before we go to the next step.

60 hours means you also get more opportunities to practice. We do have to cover a certain amount of material, but we also give a spacious time to practice, get the repetition that builds that muscle memory, and we make sure that you’re also getting lots of feedback and opportunity to ask questions. In addition, that 60 hours allows us to do four full role plays. So in there is actually 12 hours of mediating role playing, which is the best way to learn mediation. So the best way to do it, the best way to learn is to do it.

Right, we practice the I do it, I demo it for you, we do it as a group, and then you do it with your co-mediator and role players. We give you feedback and ample time to practice. That 60 hours also allows us time for skill drills so that you’re able to practice the skills every week on your own. So that full 60 hours just gives us more time to integrate the skills in different ways, both in the live session, in the live session, know, like exercises in the group, mediator role plays, skill drills, and then there’s opportunity for questions and feedback.

And what you’ll find is over the course of 30 days, 90 days or over the course of 90 days, which is the course of the training rate, 90 days is like what comes up over and over again in spirituality and scientific studies about learning 90 days. It’s about what it takes to integrate a real change in our lives and becoming a mediator means listening differently, talking differently, understanding conflict in a completely different way. And so you’re much more able to integrate that, to learn all the layers of it and put it all together when you have more time to do it. So that’s why we do

We meet twice a week for two hours for each session. You get 90 days to learn and integrate this and get lots of repetition and practice. And then we do those two hour sessions, again, with the live training instruction, workshops, exercises, and then you get those for a role play. So 60 hours just give us enough time. Now, practically what that means is when you enter the field of mediation, you are entering with more training than the majority of mediators who only get 40 hours and some only get 25. So you’re starting

your career as a mediator with a stronger foundation, you’re more competitive, you have more training. You’re also set up to succeed because you’ve had more practice, you’ve had more opportunity to try and learn and digest this material. So we use 60 hours of training, you’re gonna be more competitive in the market, gonna the most trained mediators on the market, and you’re just gonna get a better learning experience if these skills actually stick, and so you can pull them out when you need them, which is gonna be at any moment’s notice in your life. So I hope this help explains the 60 hours and

We’re looking forward to kind of breaking that down for you if you join the training. And just know that it’s about four to 10 hours a week, depending on the week. And 10 hours is only the times when we have role play. So that only happens four times. So just know that we made it so that it’s something you can do on the side. You don’t have to take a full week off work like other trainings. And you don’t have to give up two 20 hour weekends in a row. We’re able to spread it out, integrate it into your existing schedule, and learn at a pace that makes it actually easier to understand and integrate.

So what makes mediation unique? It’s important to understand that mediation is just one of alternative dispute resolution processes. So ADR, sometimes it’s called appropriate dispute resolution. And what you need to understand, and what we talk about in the training is we have a whole part of the training where we talk about the different styles of ADR, alternative or appropriate dispute resolution, and how mediation is unique from that. So we’ll spend a whole two hours diving into this to be very clear.

But in short, there are a few things that make mediation specifically very unique. So the first thing is centering participants. So other forms of dispute resolution, including the courts, may center the judge or the arbitrator or the attorneys, right? Practitioners are kind of the center of the process. For mediation, participants are everything. They are the center, they are the main show. The medias are really just there to hold space for them to do things. So they’re called participants, not parties. Parties are for the court.

participants or active participants in their mediation. And that’s what we call them. The other thing is for most other dispute resolution processes, the practitioner may also be on one side or the other. Mediators are impartial or were omnipartial. We’re there for both sides or all sides of the conflict. We can have more than two sides of a conflict. We can have more than two participants. So the mediators are not on one side or the other. We’re not a part of an institution or trying to push some kind of agenda.

We are there for the participants and we’re holding space for them to talk to each other. Second piece that makes mediation unique is it is confidential. So if you go to court, there’s often a public record that you went to court and each jurisdiction has gonna have different rules about like what is published and what is not, and it may or may not show up on a background check. Mediation is confidential. So it is confidential what you say in mediation, mediation communication is protected.

By law, each state has their laws protecting mediator confidentiality and things that are set in mediation or a mediation communication are considered confidential. Again, we have a whole part of the training explaining what this means in practice. There’s also participant self-determination. Mediation is unique because the participants have to make the decision. The decision, the agreements, the content, it’s all up to participants. The way we teach you in the human’s universal mediation model is also to ensure

that participants are always opting in, that they’re giving consent every step of the way, and nothing ends up in the agreement or plan unless all participants agree to it. Okay, the last piece that makes mediation most unique is our neutrality. So neutrality in terms of we don’t take sides, we also don’t give advice or make suggestions, we also are not attached to any kind of outcome. So you may agree or not, you may make a plan or not, but we are detached.

from having an agenda about the outcomes. So the outcome is truly what the participants can get to or want to get to. We’re not influencing that. Also with our mediator neutrality, this is the most important, most valuable tool of a mediator. And so inner training will help you understand how to practice neutrality, how to make sure that your communication when you are getting clients or you’re working with clients outside the mediation maintain that neutrality because it’s the most valuable asset. It’s the thing that makes mediation most unique.

in that we’re not giving suggestions, advice, we’re not taking sides, and we’re impartial or neutral about the outcome, and we treat all participants the same. So we’re not trying to choose a side, we’re trying to make sure that everything we do is on neutral ground. So that’s what makes mediation unique. You can take the training and learn more about the alternative slash appropriate dispute resolution processes, and the training goes into all the ways that mediation is unique and how it is one of those rare

spaces that is truly neutral ground and how to be a true neutral as a practitioner.

So I’ve been mediating now for over a decade. And when I tell people I mediate, they’re always like, like an attorney or court. And I always have to explain that I’m not an attorney, that mediation doesn’t always happen when there’s a court case. So the next question I get asked is, what kind of mediations do you do? What situations do you mediate? The short answer is we practice the human’s universal mediation model. We call it affectionately, HUM. And in the HUM model,

It is designed to mediate any situation. So any challenging conversation, any conflict, it can adapt to that. Long answer is there are certain situations that require additional expertise, but you can still mediate them. So I’ll kind of say there are two types of mediations broadly. There are mediations that are happening in the community where there is no court case, and then there are mediations where there is a court case.

When there is a court case, you do have to have some familiarity with the local jurisdiction that case is in, and there’s extra paperwork involved. And often when you have a court mediation, it could either be court ordered by the judge, but either way there’s gonna be a timeline, right? You have to get it done by the court date. There might be deadlines in the court order from the judge. You can mediate those. So we can mediate those. Those are the ones people most likely hear about. And there are mediators who work directly with the courts.

Then community mediation is much broader, right? There’s no court case involved. It can be between any two people. It can be family, workplace, neighbor neighbor, landlord tenant usually ends up in the court, but sometimes they are trying to avoid suing each other. So mediation is the alternative to court. The idea is that you mediate instead of going to court or to prevent having to go to court. But if you are in court, you can still mediate. Some of the situations I have personally mediated,

created, there’s a whole variety of them. For me, if the participants want mediation support, if they say this is a challenging conversation, this is a conflict, this is a situation that I want support with, I won’t turn them away. I need both participants to consent to mediation, to agree that it’s important to both of them, but who am I to determine what is important or not? So for example, I’m specialized in parenting plans. You do need additional training because you have to comply with child support services.

or different laws in the state around custody and visitation. But we can do parenting plans. We can do parenting plans for parents who are separating, who are together, who are maybe living in different places. You are always eligible for mediation, right? There’s no point in time where you wouldn’t be able to mediate. I’ve mediated a lot of family mediations. So like estate planning or multi-generational housing. I’ve mediated couples who are divorcing, who are married, who were married.

or who are not married, who I’ve also mediated breakups where they’re not sure if they’re gonna stay together or not. So the key here is that how you see us talk about what situations we mediate, that humans mediate and mediators practice, we are modeling what mediator neutrality looks like. So the important thing is that the mediator maintains a neutrality. So the example I give is if there’s a family business and I say, I’m a family mediator,

And mom and dad are saying, this is our family, it’s so important. And brother and sister are like, it’s just business. From the gecko, if I say I’m a family mediator, then I’ve automatically taken mom and dad’s side. And brother and sister are not going to be interested in the mediator. They’re going to feel it’s rigged against them. Mom and dad might feel emboldened. So it’s better to just say, we mediate. Anything that our participants want us to mediate, we mediate those situations. They determine what is mediatable, what is important to them to have mediated.

As a mediator, our model, how we train you is to be prepared for all of those things. Parenting plans, divorce, landlord tenants, those do require some additional training that we can provide you if you’re interested in doing those specific types of mediation. But the overall skillset and the overall process is going to be the same. The differences is in how intake happens with the case manager. What might be different is the paperwork. It might be different what you need to report back to the court or another entity.

So another example is like I do planning and zoning. I’ve done protection orders. I’ve done small claims, right? All of those are gonna have different procedures based on the jurisdiction. So just know what situations do we mediate, any situations participants want to mediate. It might look a little different if there’s a court case and in a few cases like divorces and landlord tenants and parenting plans and maybe a few others, you need specific training and knowledge to handle that. But otherwise our…

the human’s universal mediation model, the skills you learn in this training will apply to any type of mediation, any type of case. And to maintain media neutrality, mediation and mediator shouldn’t be saying like, am this type of mediator because it could jeopardize their neutrality.

So what is the path to become a professional mediator? You can learn more about this on our career page on the mediators practice website. But just to give you a brief overview for the path, you’re gonna start with the training. So that’s our training. Most trainings are 40 hours, ours is 60. And that does allow you to be closer to becoming a professional mediator. And again, you will have more hours of training than most mediators in the field when you go through our training program.

After our training program, you’re eligible for everything after this. You have to do our training in order to be eligible for these things because all of these processes are designed around the human’s universal mediation model with the intention of hiring you through humans mediate to work with our clients specifically. So the apprenticeship is additional role plays where you get more thorough feedback. You also have to do a real mediation for another apprentice as a mediator. And you’re also going to mediate someone with someone in your own life as a participant.

So you get a minimum three role plays, one real mediation as a mediator and one real mediation as a participant. Next, you tell us, you tell the evaluator which of those two role plays did you think you did the best in? And then we evaluate those two and your real mediation. So they’re all recorded, they’re all online and we do a performance-based evaluation based on specific skill criteria. And then after you complete the performance-based evaluation, you get certified. You get a certification.

for saying, hey, you’re a certified mediator, you’ve passed the performance-based evaluation, and you’ve had at least 100 hours of training at this point. That high standard is what makes us unique in the field. That’s how we get more clients because they trust our mediators, because they go through these additional steps. And becoming a professional mediator, it is a never-ending process. You will always be learning. So there is continued education. You will always be learning more. And it’s something that you’re always going to be constantly getting feedback on and growing to achieve mastery.

And it’s not about the destination, it’s really about the journey. And it is a lifelong journey that is well worth it. I’m over a decade into it I can tell you every mediation I still learn from my participants, my co-mediator and from the experience.

If you’re looking around for mediation training, you do want to be aware of the mediation training standards. So one thing to note about the mediation industry is there’s not a central body that certifies everyone or tracks any of these things. So the best we have are a couple of organizations that have cobbled together a written statement about what standards training should meet. At minimum, your training for mediation should meet these standards. And I can assure you that our training at mediators practice actually exceeds these standards.

But for your own reference, the first place I would look is the Association for Conflict Resolution. They’ve written the model standards for mediator certification programs. It is a 19 page document and you can go through and see what they consider best practices for certification programs like ours. You can also look to the Mediation Association of Colorado. So mediators practice is headquartered in Colorado. We follow the

mediation association of Colorado training standards. So we meet those standards, we’re listed as a training they approve. And then also I’m a adjunct professor at CU Boulder, Colorado University of Boulder. And I have to make sure my training upholds to the standards for a higher education accreditation. So just to review, you’ve got your options for ACR, the association for conflict resolution, you’ve got the MAC.

the Mediation Association of Colorado, and you’ve got the Colorado University of Boulder, and our training meets all of those standards. Any other training you look at, you want to ensure that they are at minimum meeting the standards in their state for training, and the ACR, Association for Comfort Resolution, is national, so they should be able to meet those standards no matter where they are in the US.

What are skill drills? So we have something unique to our training. We call them skill drills with a Z, just like humans and mediators with a Z. And skill drills are a chance to practice the two core mediator skills, which are reflecting and asking open-ended questions. We give you a video of a monologue or a dialogue, and you’re able to identify the important parts to what they’re saying and practice your core skills. So you learn to identify what you’re listening for.

how to reflect that back to participants, and also how to ask open-ended questions. We do skill drills after every week. So every week you get a skill and then you get to practice it. It’s important with skill drills that you do get the value of the repetition. So it’s the thousand free throws, right? If you’re a basketball player and you throw a thousand free throws in practice, when you get to the game, you’re more likely to make it. So you get repetition, you build muscle memory. We also know from lots of research that repetition is one of the best ways our brains learn new things.

You also get immediate feedback. So what we have with the feedback is you fill out the skill drill and then the answers appear for you right then and there. So you know how close you are to understanding the skill, mastering the skill. You can also test how confident you are and if your confidence matches your actual ability. And then finally, this is all about optimal learning. So optimal learning means that we don’t just tell you how to do it and practice in live sessions, but you’re also able to go home, practice on your own.

get lots of repetition, both from the skill drill itself and then use it in your real life.

The role play. A role play is the closest simulation to a real mediation and we role play to practice our skills as mediators and also to get the experience of what it feels like for our participants from their perspective. So what does a role play look like? There’s two roles. There are role players who are acting as if they’re participants. They get a character, a scenario, and a script to get them started and they improvise, they improv the rest of the role play.

The co-mediators are getting to actually practice mediation in real time. This is how you build your muscle memory, how you apply the skills in the training. Our training is unique because we have four role plays. So two where you get to be a mediator and two where you’re a role player. One set we do in the middle of the training and the last set we do at the very end so you can see your progress. Any mediation training you do, you wanna make sure they have role plays because it’s the best way to learn.

there are some different types of role plays. So there’s a role play like a mini one where you’re doing one step of the process at a time. And we do have those throughout the training, but they’re not as valuable as being able to put it all together in a full role play. So what does a full role play look like? Well, a full role play looks like three hours for us, and we actually schedule them during training time. get 30 minutes of pre-mediation where you’re practicing pre-mediation with your co-mediator.

You get two hours of mediation, which is the best practice. Mediation sessions are two hours. No one gets any better after two hours. You get post-mediation, which is 30 minutes, where you get feedback from your role players, your co-mediator. You get to process what you learned. And in addition, we have feedback forms so that myself, the instructor, I can observe it and give you feedback. Your co-mediator gives you feedback. You give yourself feedback. And the role players give you feedback. So this is, again, the best way to learn because it’s the closest simulation to mediation, but also because you get a ton of feedback.

It’s the ideal learning environment because it’s not a real mediation. So the stakes aren’t real, there’s no pressure, but you are able to start building up that muscle memory, getting better at applying it in real time. And we just find that without multiple role plays in a training, multiple full role plays, you don’t get the full learning value. And it’s not as effective as actually having these in the training like ours has.

So what is a performance-based evaluation or otherwise called a PBE? So the performance-based evaluation is the most effective way to test competency in your skills, to measure it, to know where you are in your growth. So we do performance-based evaluations of the two mediations you do in the training. And then we do an even thorough, even more thorough feedback and evaluation if you decide to complete the apprenticeship.

So what does that entail? That entails we record the actual role plays and mediations you complete. We again provide feedback. say, is what you did, this way you could do better, or this is what you did, you did great, keep doing these things. So we have pluses, we call them pluses or positive things that you’re doing, and deltas are things you could change. And then finally, we put it in context. So there are milestones for mediator mastery. It is a lifelong learning journey, but we want you to know where you are in that process. You can better gauge

how you’re doing, how you can improve, and again, keep growing in your skills. A performance-based evaluation is a best practice for skill acquisition. It’s also a part of what the alternative dispute resolution field considers as best practice for actually certifying people as mediators. So when you do the training, you get your certificate of completion of the mediation training, and then the performance-based evaluation certifies and says, hey,

Based off of your actual performance mediating, not a quiz, not some arbitrary standard, or actually watching how you’re mediating and holding you to best practices, this is someone who is certified to mediate. It is those certified mediators that we hire through Humans Mediate to mediate for our clients and we pay them to do that professionally.

So what happens after training? So I will say in most mediation trainings, they train you and then you’re on your merry way to find out how you can get practice, where you can get mentorship, how you can get certified. You have to kind of combine your training program with other programs and it can get really messy. So our solution to that is to create a very clear path from when you complete your training to when we’re paying you as a professional meteor.

So let’s talk through some of those steps. So after the training, first thing that you get is your certificate of completion. It’s a little confusing. You get a certificate of completion for the training, and then you get certified as a mediator after you go through the additional steps here. So once you finish the training, you’re eligible for a mediator apprenticeship. We give you more role plays. So that way you get more practice and more experience and feedback before you ever get to your first real mediation. Then we do a performance-based evaluation.

which combines a viewing of your best role plays and a real mediation you do during the apprenticeship. Performance-based evaluation is the best practice for telling kind of where you are with your skills and competency. So we use that performance-based evaluation to certify you. So you get your certificate of completion, then we certify you as a mediator. And at that point, Humans Mediate, our sister company, hires you to mediate their clients. So…

You end up doing mediations through us. provide the case manager. We provide all the business infrastructure. So all you have to do is show up and mediate your best. And then if you want to go the deepest you can, and I’ll say that a lot of our current mediators have decided to do this because they just love mediation and working together so much that we formalize that and created a cooperative. So that’s a business where we own and run it together. So if you decide to do that, we have this full path.

through our ecosystem of services and businesses, and we really wanna set you up for success so that you don’t have to spend a lot of time looking for opportunities, they’re just given to you outright, and you’re able to start building your skills and practice. Hope that answers this question.

The unique feature of our online Become a Mediator training is that when you complete it, you are then eligible for our mediator apprenticeship. So people ask, what is the apprenticeship? Well, it has a few key components. The first thing is that you’re going to do three role plays at minimum. So you’re going to do three sessions in a row, same scenario, same co-mediator, same role players. That’s to learn what it’s like to do multiple sessions in a row, which is the

closer simulation to what we have in real life because in real mediation, it doesn’t always take just two hours in one session. It’s usually multiple sessions. You also get individual feedback. So what does an individual feedback looks like? We go ahead and re-record your role plays and then you choose of the three sessions, what were the two that I thought I did the best in? And then as the instructor or as the feedback person, we review your video and we give feedback on everything you did and said.

That feedback helps you grow as a mediator and it’s very thorough at this stage of the process. Then you’re gonna do a real mediation. You’re going to be a participant in mediation with someone from your life. So you’re gonna be mediating with somebody through a challenging conversation. It can be anything from planning a weekend and having fun just making a collaborative plan to like actually addressing some very real conflict in your life. Again, if you are going to be asking participants to mediate,

We want you to also have taken that same step in your real life. And this is very important part of the training, the apprenticeship, because two other apprentices are practicing on your case. So it’s a learning environment, again, a little lower stakes for the people who are mediating your real case. But for you, you’re actually participating in a mediation with someone in your life as a participant. And then the last step we’ll talk about later, but it’s called the performance-based evaluation, the PBE. And we go over your real mediation, because you’re also going to really mediate another apprentice’s real situation.

and your participant and mediate someone’s real thing. And I will review the real one, your top two, and then give you feedback and then show you which milestone you’re in in terms of mediator mastery. This is something that not every program offers. So it’s really helpful that our training provides this to you so that when you’re done, you have a next step if you decide you really want to become a mediator.

New

to Zoom or online trainings, we got you. We provide individual support. So you are one-on-one, we ask you before the training even begins, kind of your familiarity with Zoom, your comfort doing online trainings. We use the Google Drive for most things. We communicate via email, text, phone calls as needed. And then Zoom, we can do an individual session with you to teach you how to use Zoom, what the features are, how we’ll use it during the training.

And then any other support you need for online training, we’re able to very quickly get you up to speed on how to use the tech for our training. So if you’re intimidated by that, if you’re nervous about it, we will figure it out with you. You just communicate that to us when you apply. It doesn’t bar you from the training. It just means that we’re going to give you some extra support so you know how to use these tools and the training goes smoothly for you.

I both teach the college course at the University of Colorado Boulder, and I teach in the Peace, Conflict, and Security Certificate program. That undergraduate college course is the same content. I’m the same instructor, but a little different for online adult training. So I’ll talk about the ways that it’s different. So the first way it’s different is in enrollment. Our online course is not required that you apply and enroll at a university.

the CU Boulder class does require that you are an enrolled student at CU Boulder. The other difference is tuition. So for our course, it’s adult, it’s online learning, it is lower tuition, it doesn’t cost nearly as much as entering a higher education institution. We also, when I’m at the university, I have to assign academic articles to meet the accreditation standards of the college. For online adult training, which is what we’re doing through mediators practice,

Those academic articles are optional. You have access to them if you want to read them, but they’re not required to complete our training. The timeframe is also different. At the university, we do it over the course of a semester, and we meet in person and virtually because we are meeting on campus, so we’re mostly in person. For our online adult training, we do it over 90 days. That shows the research and all the kind of spiritual and academic and science.

points to that it takes 90 days to make a real change. So we give you 90 days, so three months to do the training and it’s all virtual and we do it outside of business hours so that if you’re working or you have to pick up your kids from school, you’re still able to attend the training. it’s a change, it’s a difference in enrollment, tuition, academic articles, timeframe and location. For this online training through mediators practice, you do not have to, you don’t need to have a college degree. You don’t have to be enrolled at a university.

You can optionally access the academic articles and read them on your own time, but it’s not required. Our time frame is 90 days. We have two hour sessions on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, and it’s virtual, all virtual for our online adult training.

Let’s talk about volunteer and professional mediators. So I will say the majority of mediators are volunteer mediators. They are part of a community mediation program and they are mediating for free. So they’re not being compensated for the time they’re mediating. They may or may not be offered training. They oftentimes have to pay for their training. So there are volunteer mediators. There are also professional mediators, which is what we are training you to become at mediators practice.

and what our sister company, Humans Mediate, hires you to actually do the mediations and compensates you through that company. So the first thing I want to mention is training. So volunteer and professional mediators get different training. So most volunteer mediators get at least 40 hours of training, sometimes it’s 25, but I don’t know about you, but 40 hours is about one work week. And for me, I was not good at my job after one week. I needed a lot more time, a lot more practice.

And I would say that if I’m entrusting someone to be my mediator, I would hope they have more than one work week’s worth of experience. So volunteer mediators do 25 to 40 hour trainings. You’re going to be a coming professional mediator through our program. So we give you 60 hours of training in the first mediation training, which is becoming a mediator. That’s this training. Then we put you through an apprenticeship and a performance-based evaluation.

and those hours amount to over 100 hours of training and practice before you ever see a real client. certification. So volunteer mediators complete, they have a certificate of completion of their training. Professional mediators go through a best practice performance-based evaluation and they become certified to be mediators based on set criteria and skill standards. Okay, next is compensation. So volunteers make $0 when they’re mediating professionals

through humans mediate get paid on the floor is a living wage of where they live based on the MIT living wage calculator. And then as they continue to get more experience, they get paid more. So the living wage is based on the cost of living of where you live. And that is much higher than the minimum wage, much higher than what you’re going to get paid as a new mediator out in the industry. Professional mediators are compensated, which means it also lasts longer.

Volunteer mediators tend to burn out after two to three years. It’s very hard to do highly skilled work that takes a lot of time to get good at and not be compensated for it. Whereas professional mediators are investing in their careers, they’re investing in their skills, and they do get the reward of compensation, which is the minimum reward someone deserves when they put that much time into getting good at something very important. Next, there’s quality control. Volunteer programs vary. Sometimes they have quality control measures, sometimes they don’t.

Professional mediators, are quality control measures. There are standards they have to meet. There are ethic requirements. They are going to have to go through performance-based evaluations and continued education. And the way we do it as humans mediate is we often record the mediations with the consent of participants. And we actually review those to make sure that we are maintaining that same high quality standard process that humans mediate is known for. And then finally, there’s continued education. So volunteer mediators,

They sometimes are offered continued education. There are trainings online or trainings through a program that are free. They’re not always required for professional mediators. It is required. We continue to offer them through mediators practice and we point you in the direction of other continued education trainings. We also make sure that professional mediators are compliant with the mediator standards of conduct and also the standard mediator model for mediator conduct and also the state laws. So we’re

We’re headquartered in Colorado, so we ensure we are aligned with and compliant with the Colorado Dispute Resolution Act, otherwise known as CADRA. So professional mediators, we are held to a higher standard. You are compensated, and there’s more additional education required. We also see professional mediators lasting longer in the field. They don’t burn out because they are getting compensated, and they are taught how to guard against that burnout.

So hi, I’m the instructor. Elizabeth Frans. And I’m going to tell you a little bit about my background and why you should consider me the instructor to teach you how to become a mediator. So I started mediating when I was 19. It was a spring break training at my university, Goucher College. And I only joined the Mediation Club because my friends were in it. The people that I was most interested in connecting with wanted to be mediators. I thought I was going to go to law school.

And I thought this might be a way to get into law school, which it can be. So I did my spring break mediation training. It did not come naturally to me. It was a challenge for me to go from being a hardcore mock trial person thinking I was going to be an attorney to switching into kind of mediator mode. I started mediating in the city of Baltimore through community mediation in Maryland. And I started as the in the inclusive model. I did my training. I switched my major from pre-law to peace studies.

and never looked back. So I ended up more in the alternative slash appropriate dispute resolution field instead of law. And it fit me better. I’m very happy with that decision. After the first 10 years of mediating, I did decide it was time to start training mediators. And before I did that, I actually realized that I wanted to create my own mediation model that was more universal.

for people to be able to learn and also for different types of mediation types of cases. So I developed the human’s universal mediation model in collaboration with other mediators and my mentees. And it was a wonderful collaborative process that continues to this day. So we iterate on it every year. And every year there’s a new version. So I created the human’s universal mediation model, otherwise known affectionately as HUM, H-U-M-M.

And once I did that, I started developing my curriculum. So I did a beta test with some Goucher students. I got a lot of feedback. I improved on it. I got hired to co-instruct at the University of Colorado Boulder, and then eventually got hired to instruct it myself alone. And in each iteration of the training, I get feedback from you all, the trainees, and each iteration of the training, I try to create more materials, more practice opportunities, more activities to really help them lessen, sink in.

So after many years of doing that and having, you know, over a hundred plus, I don’t know where we are anymore, trainees, I have figured out how to create new mediators and to teach them to practice at the highest level. What made me particularly qualified to create a model? I think part of that was my training in peace studies and system design. I also think it’s important to know that I’m trained in multiple models. So I started in the inclusive model, then I learned the transformative mediation model.

then I learned a version of the facilitative mediation model, and then I created my own model. So I kind of took the best from the models that I learned. I studied additional models to make sure that I understood what was working in the mediation steps and processes out there and how I can make it better. And now I’m in this phase of my career where I’m looking to research more heavily the actual efficacy of our model, of other models, or isn’t a lot, if any, research out there.

that kind of tests the efficacy of models other than the inclusive model. And I’m also looking to just continue to develop the training, get feedback, and just make co-mediators that teach me just as much as I learned from them. So that’s a little bit about my background as a mediator, as an instructor, as a professor. And I’ve now been in the field for over a decade. And it’s been really important for me to share what I’ve learned from my participants, from practice, from my co-mediators, and to continue growing.

the field of mediation. So now I guess last thing I’ll say is I’ve also started three businesses. So I have Humans Mediate that provides mediation services. I have Mediators Practice right here where I train mediators, help them with their continued education, certification apprenticeships. And then all of that led to really walking the walk on collaboration and creating Humans Collaborate, all of these with a Z. And Humans Collaborate is a cooperative.

where we actually own the business together. We use democratic decision-making processes to build and decide what happens in our business together. And we provide listening tours, workshops, coaching for organizations and refer mediations to humans mediate. So I’m in a place in my career where I’m really owning my expertise as it continues to grow and as I continue to learn. And now I’m just kind of sharing what I’ve been able to gather over all this time and I’m playing all these roles. I’m also as a mediation case manager and a mediation program designer.

And I just wanna share that with you and invite you into the industry and hopefully get you started on a foot that was further along than I got when I was 19 so that you don’t have to put in 10 years to learn what I did. You can put in less time and get better than me one day and then I’ll be learning from you.

Oftentimes we get asked, how does mediators practice? This program relate to humans mediate and then what’s humans collaborate? So I’m going to just go over it really quickly. So mediators practice is where we train mediators. This is where you’re doing the become a mediator training. We do continued education. It’s all about mediators practicing our craft, practicing our profession, making sure we’re constantly getting better. And then we have the resources to grow in our skills. Humans mediate.

is where we offer mediation services directly to our customers who are mediation participants. Humans Mediate has to be very neutral. It only offers mediation. And it’s been around now for over seven years. So as of this recording in 2025. Then Humans Collaborate, this is our mediator co-op. So when you finish your training for mediators practice, you are then eligible.

to be hired as a contractor to mediate professionally through Humans Mediate that provides mediation services direct to consumers. And then if you decide that you want to take an even deeper step into the HUM model, into our ecosystem, Humans Collaborate is like the final most full destination of that. So Humans Collaborate is a cooperative. It means that the mediators, own that business together. So we share the profits, we share democratic decision-making, and we do offer

other services. offer listening tours, workshops, coaching, and refer all of our mediations to Humans Mediate. So Humans Mediate is separated out just to make sure that neutrality is as tight and precise at Humans Mediate as possible. And then our other businesses, we all work together. We’re all similar people, but we’re either focused on training mediators, providing mediation services, or you’re joining a collaborative, a co-op.

where we are offering additional services and we’re also running the business together in a collaborative way.

Another part of our training is that we base all of our curriculum off of the human’s universal mediation model, otherwise affectionately known as HUM. This is a model of mediation that I personally designed and created. I created it because I didn’t see standardization, something that was easily measurable and repeatable in the field. I also just felt like I wanted a more practical model that could be used in all types.

of mediations and also universal to anyone. Any skill level coming into mediation, any academic background, any language, we can make the HUM model fit to that. So it’s very easily adaptable and we’re constantly iterating on it. So we’re currently on version 1.9 and we’re going to just continue to iterate as we continue to practice and experiment with what works best in practical reality. Why is this important to know?

One of the things I notice is if you ask a mediator, what mediation model do you practice, nine out of 10 won’t know the answer to that question. Often you do your training and you just assume that all mediators are trained the same way and do it the same way, when in fact they don’t. So there’s actually a wide variety of mediation models, so like different best practices, different processes. It’s very decentralized, can feel kind of fractured.

but also means there’s just been a lot more creativity and that’s wonderful. However, what that can create is some dysfunction when you try to collaborate and co-mediate with someone who’s trained in a different model than you. So I’m personally trained in multiple models. I started in the inclusive model, then I learned the transformative model, and then I learned the facilitative model, and then I created the human’s universal mediation model. And I also created an entire part of this particular training that goes through the most common models and shows you

how they’re different, what to expect from them, just in case you run into them in your life and in the field. So the human’s universal mediation model, we have a manual that does tell mediators step-by-step how to do things. We’ve scripted everything so that we are all using the same neutral collaborative language. And it makes it much easier to stay present to the uniqueness of the case and what the participants are saying, because it’s a muscle memory. You can even memorize the manual. It makes it lot easier to pick it up.

and not make any kind of rookie mistakes because everything is laid out for you. So the Human’s Universal Mediation Model is most closely based on the inclusive model. We use inclusive listening just like they do. And again, it has very unique specific steps that are designed to be accessible and universal for accessibility, for cultural competency, and to address kind of any sort of situation that may come up to mediation. So the Human’s Universal Mediation Model, we are the only training that trains it.

We are the only business, humans mediate is the only business that practices the humans universal mediation model. It is proprietary, it is copyrighted, it is a trade secret. And it is the secret sauce that makes our flow of mediators collaborate better. It makes our clients trust us more because they know they’re going to get the same high quality mediation every time. And the curriculum that you will be learning in this training is based off of this model.

Hi, we’re offering the become a mediator training through mediators practice mediators with a Z because we want you to be able to skill up this summer. We want to give you an opportunity to make additional income and to get real conflict resolution skills. So let’s talk about what the training is. It’s 60 hours and that’s very important because it makes you when you complete our training, mediators who have the most training and therefore are most competitive in our industry.

What do you do in the mediation training? Well, you learn life skills. You learn how to listen. You learn how to maintain your neutrality. You learn how to ask open-ended questions to get people to continue to talk. You learn relationship building, problem solving, conflict resolution, how to guide people through a process. These are all important skills that you can use professionally and personally. When you’re done with the training, then you’re eligible to become a mediator apprentice

which then leads to your performance-based evaluation, and then we certify you as a mediator. When you complete that whole process, then we hire you to mediate with our clients. So our training gets you the skill up that you can use to become a mediator. You can skill up in the industry you’re in now. This is often a way that people get promoted. You can get additional income because we will hire you to mediate our cases. And then finally, you get these real conflict resolution skills that are necessary in life and your profession. So I hope you consider joining our training this summer.

We want to see you in the training. It’s virtual. It is outside regular work hours so you can make it no matter what you have going on in your life. I hope you consider joining and becoming a mediator.

Hi. I noticed you have some experience in education and are a teacher. And so I’m reaching out to you specifically because teachers actually make amazing mediators. I’m a professor and teacher myself. And so many of the skills that I’ve used as a mediator have helped me in my education experience and with my classes and with all the stakeholders that are involved in education. So if you are a teacher, if you are a professor, if you are working in education.

you know there are many people involved. You’ve got your students, you’ve got the administration, you have parents. You also, if you’re in higher education, you have workplace development. All trying to make sure that students are ready for the future. There’s gonna be conflicts between those groups, between you and those groups, and mediation makes all of that a lot smoother. I noticed that my classroom management is much better because I’m a mediator. I’m able to manage all the potential conflicts that could come up between all the stakeholders with ease.

And I will say that it also has improved my listening and communication, which is very important when I’m connecting with my students. So we want you to scale up this summer, become a mediator. In addition, we’re doing it this summer because we know you’re busy during the school year. We also want to give you an opportunity to make additional income. So mediations often happen outside of regular business hours. This is something you could do after school. It’s also something you can do in the summer. so teachers definitely don’t get paid enough. We’re not compensated for all the value we do, all the value we add.

But this is a way to get additional income by mediating on the side. And finally, we want you to get those real conflict resolution skills. We want you to leave knowing how to handle that really contentious parent-teacher conference or that contentious meeting with a supervisor or principal or head of the university who are looking at your curriculum. We want to make sure that when you go into those, you not only feel more confident, but also that you bring with you the experience of handling conflict with other people.

So we would like to invite you to the mediation training. I hope you check it out. Our website is mediatorspractice.mediatoreswithaZ. And we hope you consider joining our training this summer. And we look forward to getting more educators, more opportunities to make additional income, to skill up if you’re looking to get promoted, and again, to have those real conflict resolution skills.

I noticed that you’ve done marketing and sales. Me too. And I can tell you that as a salesperson, we’re very good at taking nos. We’re very good at communicating a message. And we’re very good at knowing what our clients want. However, we want to skill up, right? We all know that trust is the essential part of marketing and sales. And people trust mediators.

mediators establish the most trust. They have the skills that get people to trust them with their most challenging intimate conversations on their worst days. And those skills are wonderful when you are learning how to do sales and marketing. So every sales team I was on, I can tell you I outperformed my colleagues because I was using these mediation skills. In addition, I was able to mediate on the side to make extra money. And now I focus mostly on mediation. So let’s talk about this summer. We hope you can skill up.

We want to get you those mediator skills that will make you better at sales and marketing, but also give you a whole new option in career. We want to find a way to get you additional income. When you complete our training, you become eligible for our apprenticeship, our performance-based evaluation. We certify you as a mediator, and then we hire you to work with our clients who trust us because we offer the highest quality mediation in the industry. In addition, we want you to have real common resolution skills.

Sales is a conflict, right? I’m trying to sell you something and you’re trying to not buy it. You’re trying to keep your money. I’m trying to get your money, right? And so these common resolution skills, they’ve allowed me to get so much better at sales because I’ve learned how to bring people to me, how to make sure I’m answering their questions and to ensure that if they feel heard and understood, they’re more likely to hear me out on what I have to pitch. So if you’re looking to skill up, if you’re looking for an additional job, additional income, we mediate usually outside of business hours on the evenings and weekends.

And if you want those real conflict resolution skills, I hope you consider joining our training. You can fill out the application at mediatorspractice.com. That’s mediators with a Z. And I hope we see you this summer.

I noticed that you are bilingual or multilingual here. So I want to just point out that if you speak multiple languages, you are, you do have a superpower. I think you know that already, but that superpower is also you’re a bridge person. You know how to bring people from one side of a language to another side of a different language. And mediation is exactly those skills. Listening to what people have to say, repeating it as accurately as possible in the additional language, and not judging anyone for what they say.

You learn to not add anything, to not change what they say because it is very sacred and important that what they are saying you are translating accurately and precisely. We do that in mediation. We translate what they’re saying in whatever language they’re saying it into into collaborative language that leads to that conflict resolution. So if you’re looking for additional work, if you’re looking to skill up, we hope that you’ll join our summer training. I want to talk about how interpreters, translators, people who teach different languages, anyone who’s multilingual or bilingual,

your brain is wired for mediation. This is a very easy skill for you to pick up. You get to mastery faster than most people. And it’s just another way that you can serve our community as a bridge person to bring these sides together. And especially in a time in our lives, a time in the world where we need mediators and bridge people more than ever. So I hope you consider skilling up this summer, potentially becoming a professional mediator and getting those real resolution, conflict resolution skills. That’s what we’re offering our Become a Mediator training this summer.

And what you will get out of it is 60 hours of training. You will become a professional mediator. You will be eligible for our apprenticeship program, our performance-based evaluation and certification programs. Once you complete all of that, we actually do hire you to work with our clients through Humans Mediate. So I hope you consider this. And I’m looking forward to hearing from you. And just know that we really value additional languages being spoken. We pay the floor as a living wage of where you live based on an MIT calculator. And we pay an extra bonus if you do speak multiple languages.

because bilingual, multilingual mediations are underserved. There’s not as many. And we really want to get you in our fields so that you can help us bridge the gap between different cultures and different languages. Thank you so much for hearing me out.

Hi, I noticed that you’re a product manager or you’re maybe looking to become one. And I’ve worked with many product managers. We actually have software in our own business that I’ve worked as a product manager on. And I know that it’s a very competitive field. So I’m here to kind of offer you a way to skill up this summer, to find additional income as a mediator, and to learn those real common resolution skills. As a product manager, you know this, you’re managing a lot of different interests, a lot of stakeholders, and the skills that mediators have make that job so much easier.

If you can get through a mediation where two people are in high intense conflict, workplace conflict around what happens with the product, what features get rolled out and when, become a breeze and a walk in the park for you. In addition, mediations happen outside of work hours. So if you’re looking to get some additional income, we would hire you to mediate. When you complete our training, you’re eligible for our apprenticeship, our performance-based evaluation and our certification process. Once you complete those, we do hire you to mediate with our clients.

That scaling up, it also makes you more competitive, right? You’re having to compete with a lot of people who are product managers who have various degrees of experience, but I can tell you from the product managers I’ve trained in the past, they’re always asked about their mediation training in interviews and it makes them stand out. It ensures whatever company hires you to do product management, they know that you’re a good communicator. You can build relationships, you can problem solve, that you can be collaborative. This certification, you get a certificate of completion, is a concrete way to make those soft skills more…

give you more leverage when you’re looking for jobs in the product management field. In addition, you get those real complex resolution skills. Those skills are good for professional and your personal life. In addition, you will definitely use them when you’re doing something as collaborative as designing software. So I hope you consider the training. Our website is mediatorspractice.com, mediators with a Z, and I’m looking forward to seeing you this summer. Thanks. Bye.

Hi. I noticed you’re a fellow teacher and so I want to reach out to tell you about something that I’ve designed specifically for us. So I’m offering a mediator training this summer and I’m offering it in the summer because I know us teachers are more available then and because we all need to skill up and also we need to make additional income. So let me just explain what a mediator training is. So mediators are conflict resolution professionals.

You are already doing that in your classroom. So classroom management, managing the teachers and the administration and the curriculum and the state standards and your students and competent students, you are already doing this. Let’s refine those skills and get you paid to do them. So mediators, we handle conflict, any kind of conflict, any kind of challenging conversation, and we usually mediate outside of business hours. So you could do it after school, you could do it during the summer. It’s a great way to supplement your income.

I know just as well as you do that teachers are under compensated and under appreciated. We make sure that our mediators start at the living wage of where they live based on the living wage MIT calculator. And then as you continue to get more experience, you get paid more. You also get paid more if you speak additional languages. Now, teachers make great mediators. This is a skill that will be very easy for you to plug into and it’s deeply meaningful. So if you’re a teacher, we’re doing it because we care.

We want to see students succeed. We’re really invested in the future in a very unique way. Mediation has that same value set. So we know that our community is only as strong as our weakest relationship. And you know what mediation does is it strengthens and repairs those relationships. So mediation is purposeful work. It’s a skill set that will overlap with your skill set as an educator. If you’re looking to get promoted, this is a great way to make those soft skills tangible. You get a certificate at the end of the training that you can use.

to apply to other jobs or look for a promotion. And in addition, when you take our training through mediators practice, that’s mediators with a Z, you then become eligible for our apprenticeship program. We put you through the apprenticeship, we put you through a performance-based evaluation, and then we certify you. Once you’ve completed that whole process, we do hire you to mediate with our clients. So we tell you, hey, here’s a mediation, are you available? And if you are, you get the gig. And it’s, again, very meaningful work, high-skilled work.

Isaac Nzuki (02:20.558)
good compensation. So I hope you consider joining our training this year. I do think teachers make great mediators. I’m one myself. And I can tell you that it’s definitely made a difference with how I handle my classroom, how I handle the multiple stakeholders in education. And I think that these comp of resolution skills will benefit you greatly and will hopefully add to your income, which I know we could all use it this time. So I hope you consider our training. Again, it’s mediatorspractice.com. It’s this summer.

We have it in the evenings. It’s 60 hours over three months. And if you need additional details, you can go to our website to apply. Thanks.

I noticed you’re an interpreter and so I’m here to tell you that you’re not only great at what you do as someone who bridges one language to another, but you would also make a great mediator because what we do is bridge one side of a conflict to the other to find win-win solutions that meet everyone’s needs. So I’m offering a training this summer. I’m specifically looking for interpreters. We have had interpreters through the program before and I noticed very quickly that interpreters

pick up mediation much faster. It’s a much easier skill for them to acquire. And so much of that is because you’re trained to, when you hear someone say something, to interpret that, to say it in the additional language, to translate it as closely to what they said is possible. Mediators are the same thing. We take what someone says in just competitive day-to-day language, and we translate it into collaborative language that leads to the resolution of the conflict they’re in. So I’m reaching out to you specifically. We need more interpreters. We need bilingual, multilingual mediations.

I can see that I’ve had many requests recently and throughout my whole career, but more so recently of participants who speak different languages and desperately need mediation. So I hope you consider becoming a mediator. I would love for you to join our training through mediators practice. That’s mediatorswithazpractice.com. We have a training this summer and we are specifically looking for interpreters. So.

I hope you decide to join. I hope that this aligns with your values as someone who is such an important bridge person. And I want to let you know that we do appreciate your skills. We make sure that you get paid the living wage of where you live. So that’s based on the living wage MIT calculator. It’s based on the cost of where you live. We do add additional compensation for the languages you speak. And the more languages, the more you can help your community from both languages come together and collaborate and resolve our conflicts.

the better our communities are. So I hope you just consider joining. More information is on our website and I hope I see you in the training.

So what if you’re unsure? Totally normal. This is a big investment in time and money. It is a change to learn how to listen, communicate, operate differently. And so if you’re unsure, know that that’s okay. No judgment. If you need more information, if it’s information that will help you, please go through our website, go through the frequently asked questions. We can answer most of those questions if you just look through there.

If you have additional concerns, you can always reach out to me and we can just chat about it. So I know that it’s not always people are kind of unsure. They have hesitancies. I’m happy to listen to them. And I will assure you that I do turn people away. I do tell people it’s not a good fit when it’s not a good fit. So, you know, mine yes means something because I don’t say yes to everyone. And I do think that it does take a level of self-awareness to know if this is a fit.

and then you’d have to communicate that to me if you want my help with it. Just know that if mediation isn’t a fit, we can also help point you in the direction of other careers, other alternative dispute resolution things that might be more fit for you. So if mediation’s not a fit, don’t give up. There might still be something in the world of alternative dispute resolution. There might be a mediation model or training that is a better fit for you. So if you want to, you can reach out, we can chat with you, we can email back and forth, and just make sure you’re in the right place, because being in the right place,

gets you the furthest, we want you to start in the right spot for you and fit is really important to us and it should be to you and we want to make sure that the investment of time and money you put into this makes sense for you. So don’t hesitate to reach out, definitely review all the information and there’s nothing wrong with being unsure. It happens when you make a big decision like this and trust your gut, know that you have the answer inside you and all we can do is help you find it. So if you need that support, let us know.

I am reaching out to you because I noticed that you have experience in sales. So do I. And I want to give you the secret to how I always outperformed the colleagues on my sales teams. It’s because I’m also a mediator. Salespeople make excellent mediators and mediators make you as a salesperson, gives you superpower you cannot even imagine. I got better at listening to my customers, better at overturning objections.

And I was much better at matching what they needed to what I had to offer. And all those skills made me consistently, like you said, outperform my other sales representatives. So I want to invite you to this training. We do need more people selling and explaining mediation. And so we want to match your skills to this field that is growing. So what we want to do is train you to become a mediator, give you an opportunity to make additional income on the side. We do hire you to become mediators when you complete our program. And we want you to get better at sales.

you want, I personally know, especially when you’re working on commission, it’s very important that each time you’re talking to someone that you have a higher odds of getting a yes. And so mediation skills are going to make that yes even more likely to happen. consider our training. It’s mediatorspractice.com, mediators with a Z. I hope you consider joining. We do need more salespeople in the industry of mediation, and we need them to be mediators as well. So please join. Please consider looking into it. And I hope that this helps convince you to join.

So what if you’re unsure? Totally normal. This is a big investment in time and money. It is a change to learn how to listen, communicate, operate differently. And so if you’re unsure, know that that’s okay. No judgment. If you need more information, if it’s information that will help you, please go through our website, go through the frequently asked questions. We can answer most of those questions if you just look through there.

If you have additional concerns, you can always reach out to me and we can just chat about it. So I know that it’s not always people are kind of unsure. They have hesitancies. I’m happy to listen to them. And I will assure you that I do turn people away. I do tell people it’s not a good fit when it’s not a good fit. So, you know, mine yes means something because I don’t say yes to everyone. And I do think that it does take a level of self-awareness to know if this is a fit.

and then you’d have to communicate that to me if you want my help with it. Just know that if mediation isn’t a fit, we can also help point you in the direction of other careers, other alternative dispute resolution things that might be more fit for you. So if mediation’s not a fit, don’t give up. There might still be something in the world of alternative dispute resolution. There might be a mediation model or training that is a better fit for you. So if you want to, you can reach out, we can chat with you, we can email back and forth, and just make sure you’re in the right place, because being in the right place,

gets you the furthest, we want you to start in the right spot for you and fit is really important to us and it should be to you and we want to make sure that the investment of time and money you put into this makes sense for you. So don’t hesitate to reach out, definitely review all the information and there’s nothing wrong with being unsure. It happens when you make a big decision like this and trust your gut, know that you have the answer inside you and all we can do is help you find it. So if you need that support, let us know.