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009 - Reflections from a Black President | Adonis Thompson [Past President]
4 Plays3 years ago
This month we are joined by Adonis Thompson, who served as President of SWACUHO in 2018 and 2019. We start by talking about Adonis’ career on the operations side of the house and how processing conduct cases built the necessary skills to be successful in operations. We talk about catch phrases, picking your battles, balancing job responsibilities and self-care. We then move into his SWACUHO involvement and the pathway that led him to become the first Black man to serve as President. Adonis talks about the expectations and hopes he felt and the platform he ran on to involve more HBCUs. We also breakdown the potential pipeline problem with the pathway to leadership for young Professionals of Color looking to elevate their involvement. Adonis then shares his experience moving to the private sector and working for StarRez. During that part of the conversation, we talk about the lack of knowledge depth housing staff have in the products they use and so-called “power users”. Finally, we close out this episode talking about how many of my staff over the years have told me how much they would rather work for Adonis than me! This is an episode you really shouldn’t miss.
Be Sure to Thank Our Guests!
Connect with Adonis Thompson on LinkedIn or Facebook!
Seeking professional advice? Fill out this anonymous form and a panel of housing staff will give you their take on your situation on an upcoming podcast.
Transcript forthcoming.
Recommended![025 - Fun Topics from the ACUHO-I Community Forum | Joel Gatti [Feature Topic] image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=112,quality=85/image-files/605db9539a00e40074826685/733e7e3d-9d73-4dce-9fd9-65d29d14b4dd.)
Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Plans
00:00:00
Speaker
I'm JC Stoner and this is the Swakuho podcast.
00:00:03
Speaker
Before we begin, I have a housekeeping item that came from the annual conference in February.
00:00:08
Speaker
I did a program at the conference on controlling your own professional development destiny where I aired snippets and takeaways from past podcast episodes.
00:00:16
Speaker
In the program feedback, someone mentioned they were playing with the idea of using the podcast like a book club with some of their full-time staff.
00:00:24
Speaker
I love this idea.
00:00:25
Speaker
If anyone does this, please email me at swakuhopodcast at gmail.com and let me know how it goes.
00:00:32
Speaker
Related to that, as I look to scale up the podcast, on the horizon, I hope to be able to provide reflection guides and worksheets to help direct members to take action with their own professional development.
00:00:43
Speaker
Today we kick off the next block of episodes by talking to another Swakuho past president, Adonis Thompson.
00:00:49
Speaker
We first cover Adonis' time as a mid-level housing professional and his move from residence life to operations.
Interview with Adonis Thompson
00:00:55
Speaker
We then shift to Adonis' Swakuho involvement that eventually led him to the president role.
00:00:59
Speaker
Adonis was the first black man to serve as president of Swakuho, so we spend some time talking about the challenges and obstacles for advancing leadership as a person of color.
00:01:08
Speaker
We then close out the episode by talking to Adonis about his transition to the private sector.
00:01:13
Speaker
Adonis is originally from Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
00:01:16
Speaker
He started off working in TV production and in the entertainment industry before finding his passion in student affairs.
00:01:22
Speaker
While working in the field, he held positions as a hall director, complex director, assistant and associate director of housing.
00:01:29
Speaker
Adonis was very active with housing organizations like Swakuho, Siho, and Akuhoai while working to help others see the value in them.
00:01:39
Speaker
In 2019, Adonis began working for Star Res, which allows him a good excuse to still attend the Swakuho conference.
00:01:45
Speaker
Often teased about looking young, he always laughed how students would confuse him as one of them on casual Fridays.
00:01:52
Speaker
Adonis, welcome to the show.
00:01:55
Speaker
Glad to be here.
00:01:56
Speaker
Glad to be here, man.
00:01:57
Speaker
It's always good to talk to my fellow Swakuho family.
00:02:00
Speaker
Good.
00:02:01
Speaker
Well, first things first, Adonis, your bio talked about you on a casual Friday.
00:02:06
Speaker
I'm curious what casual Friday looks like to you because I don't think I've ever seen you in anything less than a tie and a really chic vest.
00:02:14
Speaker
The funny part is like, I am definitely a jeans and t-shirt guy and now working remote, I'm breaking down to sweats and t-shirts, but uh,
00:02:24
Speaker
Definitely casual Fridays.
00:02:26
Speaker
I would look forward to being able to go back to the jeans, the T-shirts in the wintertime, throw on a hoodie, you know.
00:02:31
Speaker
And so it was very funny that I would walk down the hall and get questions from students that were like, hey, where's this?
00:02:38
Speaker
Where's that stuff that they would normally ask another student?
00:02:42
Speaker
Or they would say stuff to me that should have only been said to a student.
00:02:45
Speaker
I'm like, hey, you do know you.
00:02:47
Speaker
And they're, oh, man, I didn't even know it was you.
00:02:49
Speaker
So, yeah, it cracks me up when I'm not in the usual suit and tie.
00:02:53
Speaker
I miss it, though.
00:02:54
Speaker
I miss that.
00:02:55
Speaker
Did you ever use getting confused as a student to your advantage?
00:02:59
Speaker
It actually, that's probably the biggest time it played a role in my job was actually when I was a hall director.
00:03:04
Speaker
Because by the last year, me being a hall director, I started dressing up more, you know, dress for the job you want, not the one you have.
00:03:12
Speaker
And it was crazy because I remember I saw some students sneaking into my building.
00:03:17
Speaker
And these girls let me in like I was a student.
00:03:20
Speaker
So because I was just leaving the gym.
00:03:22
Speaker
So I go back up to my office.
00:03:23
Speaker
I give a little notepad and come right back to the room and I knock on the door.
00:03:27
Speaker
And I was like, look, I already know you in there because you let me into the building.
00:03:31
Speaker
The guy you can hear the guy say, did you really let me in?
00:03:34
Speaker
And so that's the one time it definitely played a part in the job.
00:03:37
Speaker
And it worked out because it made it so much easier to deal with.
Career Reflections and Operations Insights
00:03:40
Speaker
I love those stories.
00:03:41
Speaker
When I was an RA, and this would have been somebody on Tanya's staff who was telling me a story about they were walking down a hall, and it was like the first week, and it was one of those high-conduct, high-party buildings.
00:03:53
Speaker
And they ran into a couple students, and the students were walking down.
00:03:56
Speaker
He's like, what are you doing?
00:03:57
Speaker
They're like, oh, wait, are you the RA?
00:04:01
Speaker
The RA pointed to the person behind him walking down the hall, and he's like, who was an RA too, and said –
00:04:06
Speaker
I think that person's an RA.
00:04:08
Speaker
And they're like, oh, okay, well, then we're going to a party in our room.
00:04:12
Speaker
And so they invited him into the room and then he's like, okay, well, I'm also an RA.
00:04:18
Speaker
Got to be more careful.
00:04:19
Speaker
Definitely.
00:04:21
Speaker
So, Adonis, you worked on the operations side of the house at Arkansas State University.
00:04:26
Speaker
Every operations guest I've had on the show originally made their bones in residence life.
00:04:31
Speaker
I actually did start off, you know, working in the residence life field.
00:04:34
Speaker
You know, I did get to be an RA and always wondered what it would have been like if I was.
00:04:39
Speaker
But, you know, I jumped into it.
00:04:41
Speaker
And the funny thing is when I got into student affairs, and I even say this when I talk to customers now, you know, my new job is that I'm definitely one of those that fell under the adage of you don't choose res life, res life chooses you.
00:04:54
Speaker
Because I got into the field wanting to be a Greek life coordinator.
00:04:57
Speaker
And I ended up just getting the opportunity to be a hall director.
00:05:00
Speaker
And it was crazy because when I stepped in, it was like, oh, here's an opportunity to help mentor students and help do these type of things.
00:05:07
Speaker
But
00:05:08
Speaker
You know, of course, it comes with, as we like to say, the touchy-feely part and the programming and the free pizzas that programs and all that stuff.
00:05:14
Speaker
And I actually cut my teeth with that part.
00:05:17
Speaker
But when I stepped into operations, it was because, you know, I was moving up in my career and I knew I wanted to be a more well-rounded professional.
00:05:25
Speaker
And that was the part that I didn't have was the, you know, the operation side.
00:05:28
Speaker
So I felt like in order to make myself more attractive moving forward, you know, go out and get this other experience and learn what the other side of the house is doing.
00:05:38
Speaker
And that's what got me in there.
00:05:39
Speaker
And I really enjoyed it.
00:05:40
Speaker
But I think the weird thing about it is that I wanted to bring the people side of res life into operations because a lot of people look at operations as it's money, it's heads and beds, and we're done.
00:05:52
Speaker
And I wanted to bring that customer service aspect that, hey, we really do care about you and we want you to have the best experience into that operations world.
00:06:00
Speaker
So it was a great blend of those two worlds.
00:06:02
Speaker
And
00:06:03
Speaker
But Res Life was fun.
00:06:04
Speaker
You definitely don't get as many pizza parties and operations as you do with Res Life.
00:06:09
Speaker
Yeah, on episode four, when we were talking about preventative maintenance, that was a routine theme.
00:06:13
Speaker
It's like, how do you bring more of the res life over into that about the student-centered focus where it's like, you know, beds and heads or maintenance or, you know, those sorts of things.
00:06:23
Speaker
So do you feel like you were successful in doing that?
00:06:25
Speaker
Yeah, I think that was one of the things that if I could say I could hang my hat on something during my time in student affairs and res life, it was being able to do that, to have a good relationship with students.
00:06:36
Speaker
And it was weird because I think my...
00:06:41
Speaker
to where almost to the point that my student athletes didn't even want to go to their RAs or their hall directors.
00:06:47
Speaker
They would come straight to me.
00:06:48
Speaker
They would come to the office and just ask the front desk, hey, is Mr. Thompson here?
00:06:52
Speaker
I need to go talk to him.
00:06:53
Speaker
And I'm like, hey, you know, you got an RA over and you're building for that.
00:06:56
Speaker
But it was building that relationship.
00:06:58
Speaker
And also, you know, the times when parents would call and they're upset and they're cussing people out, this, that, and the third.
00:07:05
Speaker
And I'll never forget, I got a call once.
00:07:07
Speaker
And one of my student workers comes in.
00:07:09
Speaker
They're like, hey, you know, this parent's on the phone.
00:07:11
Speaker
They're mad.
00:07:11
Speaker
They've been cussing us out.
00:07:12
Speaker
And the first thing I said was, look, one, you all don't get paid for that.
00:07:16
Speaker
That's my job to deal with those type of parents.
00:07:18
Speaker
So go ahead and send a call back to me.
00:07:20
Speaker
So they send a call back.
00:07:22
Speaker
And I had this window in my office.
00:07:24
Speaker
Well, that was on the door of my office.
00:07:26
Speaker
And I could see my student workers looking through it because they're like, oh, man, this is going to be good.
00:07:30
Speaker
He's going to really get out because, you know, I don't really smile as much as most people think.
00:07:34
Speaker
And I got this deep voice that makes people think I'm just so mean.
00:07:37
Speaker
But the next thing you know, I'm in the office cracking up laughing with this parent.
00:07:42
Speaker
So when the phone call ends, my student workers just burst into the office and they're like,
00:07:48
Speaker
What the heck was going on?
00:07:49
Speaker
They were just yelling at us.
00:07:50
Speaker
And I was like, you know, they just wanted to be heard.
00:07:52
Speaker
And that's the opportunity I gave them.
00:07:54
Speaker
I want to hear what your problem is.
00:07:55
Speaker
I want to know what's going on.
00:07:57
Speaker
And now I'm going to give you options.
00:07:58
Speaker
And if I give you a no, I want it to be the best no that you've ever received, that you understand why you got that no and you understand the options that we have to give you outside of that.
00:08:08
Speaker
And that was something that I stress.
00:08:10
Speaker
with my team.
00:08:11
Speaker
And then we wanted to make it departmental that these are the ways that we want to see this business.
00:08:17
Speaker
And we want to make sure that everybody knows that when they leave, they had the best feeling and the best opportunity to be served when they came to us.
00:08:24
Speaker
I couldn't agree more.
00:08:25
Speaker
And I think I picked it up in operations also where that feeling of wanting to be heard.
00:08:30
Speaker
But so often we want to just keep interjecting to defend or this is the reason at all.
00:08:35
Speaker
Like I have found so much value and just as painful as is sometimes it's just let them go.
00:08:41
Speaker
Like let them go and listen and they're mad and –
00:08:45
Speaker
it kind of takes the wind out of their sails in a sense of like, okay, now that you've gotten that out, let's talk about options.
00:08:52
Speaker
What can we do?
00:08:54
Speaker
And it's so helpful.
00:08:56
Speaker
It's crazy because a big thing that I wanted to stress was also getting people to understand, like, get me as much information as possible and whatever you can bring to me.
00:09:07
Speaker
By the time I got on the phone with that parent or I had that student in the office, when they came in,
00:09:12
Speaker
I was already on, hey, I heard that you were having an issue with this.
00:09:16
Speaker
This is what I've done, blah, blah, blah.
00:09:18
Speaker
And I already started working on it.
00:09:19
Speaker
So by the time that they got to talking to me, they were in a kind of a state of shock because they were like, oh, you've already started handling this.
00:09:27
Speaker
And like I said, it took the wind out the sails and they're not as angry because it's like,
00:09:31
Speaker
I want you to see that your issue is important to me and I've already started working on it.
00:09:35
Speaker
And here's what we can do now.
00:09:37
Speaker
What else can we do?
00:09:38
Speaker
What else?
00:09:38
Speaker
What new information can you provide me that can help push this across the finish line?
00:09:43
Speaker
And I think just giving that, you know, showing up front that it's important and not just like, I say what you need to say so I can move on to the next problem.
00:09:50
Speaker
But showing that it's important, actually putting in some work beforehand really went a long way with the people that I dealt with.
00:09:57
Speaker
Oh, definitely.
00:09:58
Speaker
And when you say things like, I'm sorry it took me a little bit to get back from you, even though it's only been half an hour, but I just got off the phone with maintenance or is making calls to maintenance to see what we were going.
00:10:09
Speaker
I didn't get an answer, but I'm on it.
00:10:11
Speaker
It just helps so much, that little pre-planning or pre-work you do.
00:10:15
Speaker
Indeed, indeed.
00:10:17
Speaker
So as operations looks differently at every school, what were your primary areas of responsibility?
00:10:22
Speaker
For me, it was overseeing assignments, contracts, what we call specialized housing, which would be our international students, athletics, our LLCs, Greek life and things like that.
00:10:35
Speaker
Also did a lot of kind of training.
00:10:39
Speaker
Being the person after our director, if he wasn't there, it was like, OK, your job is to step up and be in that role.
00:10:45
Speaker
And also being a gatekeeper to make sure that he didn't have to deal with some of the issues that a director normally would have to deal with just because of the fact of you're busy.
00:10:54
Speaker
We're in a time of change.
00:10:55
Speaker
Let me take some of that off of your plate.
00:10:57
Speaker
I also did a lot with overseeing IT for our res life because we were lucky enough to be a department that had a dedicated IT person.
00:11:04
Speaker
And so, you know, which was definitely great because they dealt with all of our computer software.
00:11:09
Speaker
They dealt with all our housing software.
00:11:11
Speaker
So things that I was like, look, I really don't have time for that right now.
00:11:14
Speaker
She was already on a killing.
00:11:16
Speaker
And, you know, and that was a great thing.
00:11:17
Speaker
And, you know, so overseeing those areas was really big.
00:11:20
Speaker
And then also just kind of doing a lot of recruitment assessments.
00:11:27
Speaker
Housing was out there in the forefront doing a lot of that and setting up what we needed to do to make sure that students saw, hey, I need to be on campus.
00:11:35
Speaker
And then also retaining those students to say, I need to be on campus my next year, the year after that.
00:11:40
Speaker
That was a big part of what we dealt with for our operations.
00:11:44
Speaker
So what skills from your Res Life days set you up for success in operations?
00:11:49
Speaker
More than just like the abstract being student centered, but tangible skills.
00:11:54
Speaker
I think a lot of it, you know, the weird thing is, you know, dealing with a lot of the student conduct cases and things that I had to deal with really helped out because that took away the whole, I don't want to deal with conflict and I don't want to deal with having to have a person upset with me.
00:12:10
Speaker
Because a lot of times when you talk to a parent, it was because they were upset about something.
00:12:16
Speaker
And so being able to have those conversations and then bring that over and say, OK, only thing that's different is you're still having these difficult conversations.
00:12:24
Speaker
It just stepped up to the next level because you're not dealing with just a student.
00:12:28
Speaker
You're dealing with the parent and you're dealing with it on a money level because they're like, hey, I'm paying all this money to the school and
00:12:34
Speaker
to your housing department, I should be getting these services and this and that.
00:12:37
Speaker
And being able to bring that into it to say, okay, how did you work through those issues with a student that may not be able to come back after this issue that they caused?
00:12:46
Speaker
And so bringing some of that in was really key.
00:12:49
Speaker
I think another thing is that I was lucky enough that when I was a hall director and being in res life, they treated us like semi-professionals.
00:12:57
Speaker
And so a lot of the stuff that we were doing were things that you would normally see professional staff doing.
00:13:04
Speaker
So I think that those skills were developed a lot sooner.
00:13:08
Speaker
So it wasn't as much of a shell shock when I started getting into the operation side of things like, oh, here's all these other things.
00:13:15
Speaker
But I think also having the res life side, I could see this is what res life work does.
00:13:23
Speaker
And this is how it affects operation.
00:13:25
Speaker
And so now that I'm in operations, I can tell them what I really need because I've been on that side of the tracks and can say, hey,
00:13:32
Speaker
I understand what you're going through and I can relate to it because I've been in those shoes.
00:13:36
Speaker
This is what I need for you to do in order for it to help my job out.
00:13:39
Speaker
And this is what I can do for you to help your job out.
00:13:42
Speaker
I love the mutual giving and taking.
00:13:44
Speaker
It's all an exchange.
00:13:45
Speaker
Exactly.
00:13:46
Speaker
And I think it gets overlooked a lot, especially if you haven't been on one side of those tracks that you think, well, my world is more important because without us, you can't even do anything.
00:13:56
Speaker
And then it's like, well, without us, you all don't have the funding to do anything.
00:13:58
Speaker
But it's like, if neither one of you are there, neither one of you have a job.
00:14:02
Speaker
So, you know, it's making it important that you see both sides of it and make sure that you have that mutual respect for each other.
00:14:09
Speaker
Well, and it's so easy to assume other people's priorities when you're not on that side of the house.
00:14:15
Speaker
Why is this taking so long?
00:14:17
Speaker
This is the easiest thing, right?
00:14:19
Speaker
Exactly.
00:14:19
Speaker
And I think that was the thing is that a lot of times that hall directors would think that, oh, well, we should be able to get this and that, like this and that.
00:14:27
Speaker
But it's like, no, because actually it's a lot of other steps that you don't even have to deal with.
00:14:34
Speaker
before we can even get you that.
00:14:35
Speaker
And that's the thing is I think a lot of times we're blinded to the fact that we don't get to see everything that goes on in somebody else's position and you don't get that appreciation for it.
00:14:45
Speaker
And that was one thing that we also kind of brought into the department is that when our hall directors went through their training, it wasn't just to say, okay, we're going to train you how to do just your job.
00:14:56
Speaker
A big part of it was that I wanted to bring in that you need to see all of the people that you work with or that you
00:15:01
Speaker
your work affects.
00:15:03
Speaker
So now that you know what they do and the importance of what they do and how it affects your job, you now have that appreciation for it.
00:15:10
Speaker
So that was something, you know, the last few years of me being in the field was that every time I had to deal with training, that was a big thing is that you need to meet everybody that your job touches so that you can understand why you need to do what you do and how important it is to not only yourself and your students, but also to other people involved in the process.
Leadership and Personal Growth
00:15:30
Speaker
Well, so many people we talk about got to know the why, got to know the why.
00:15:34
Speaker
And sometimes I think like people, when they hear the why, maybe they just don't appreciate it as much.
00:15:39
Speaker
So maybe that's on the person communicating the why or maybe on the recipient.
00:15:43
Speaker
I don't know, but there's always that why.
00:15:45
Speaker
And it could go downstream so far, but still not be totally taken.
00:15:52
Speaker
The whys are important.
00:15:53
Speaker
And I think it's also not just knowing your why it's living by your why.
00:15:58
Speaker
You know, and that's the thing is a lot of times I think this was a big thing that I noticed while working in the field is that we do get caught up in catchphrases and things like this is the hot phrase of the moment.
00:16:09
Speaker
So we're running with it.
00:16:10
Speaker
But it's like understand and live by that.
00:16:13
Speaker
You know, it's almost like your why should be a principle that you live by.
00:16:17
Speaker
Is that, you know, this is why I'm doing this job.
00:16:19
Speaker
Here's examples of why this is important to me.
00:16:22
Speaker
And here's examples of me actually putting into action my why.
00:16:26
Speaker
You know, this is why it's important.
00:16:28
Speaker
And now I'm going to show you through my actions of why it's important to me and why I do what I do.
00:16:33
Speaker
Yeah, I could tell the catchphrase of the year every time when I used to go to TPE every year.
00:16:37
Speaker
Oh, yes.
00:16:37
Speaker
I was an entry-level candidate, was always talking about.
00:16:39
Speaker
It's in every interview.
00:16:41
Speaker
One year, it was like self-authorship.
00:16:43
Speaker
It is in every interview.
00:16:45
Speaker
And my thing was every time I would get that catchphrase, because we would go in and we'd have that list, okay, here's what we're going to get.
00:16:51
Speaker
Or it's like, okay, after the first couple of interviews, what was the word that's always been said?
00:16:58
Speaker
So whenever somebody dropped that catchphrase, I would instantly say, OK, well, give me an example of that.
00:17:04
Speaker
Yeah, because it's like I don't want just your rehearsed answer.
00:17:07
Speaker
I need you to give me who you really are in this interview, because who you are is what the students are going to see, because you're only going to be able to live up to that interview persona for so long.
00:17:16
Speaker
I need to know the real you in this interview, because the real you is who I'm going to end up hiring and putting out there in front of my students.
00:17:24
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:17:25
Speaker
So earlier you talked about you didn't experience the shell shock because you had a little bit more of that earlier on.
00:17:31
Speaker
Was there anything that was a big culture shock moment when you settled into operations from ResLife?
00:17:37
Speaker
The fact of having to finally sit down and accept that I could not
00:17:43
Speaker
win every battle that I wanted to win.
00:17:46
Speaker
That I felt like, yo, I got this game plan.
00:17:50
Speaker
I'm going in here.
00:17:52
Speaker
It is to the T. Let's make it happen.
00:17:55
Speaker
And when it didn't happen.
00:17:56
Speaker
And, you know, and that was one of the things that, you know, it hurt because it was like, okay, I put in all this work to make this happen.
00:18:03
Speaker
Why are you still not moving forward with it?
00:18:05
Speaker
And I think having to learn that everything comes with a season.
00:18:09
Speaker
And also, I was lucky enough, you know, God rest his soul to my old director, Patrick Dixon.
00:18:15
Speaker
He was awesome because if he told me no, if it was on me, he explained to me what I was lacking to get it there.
00:18:23
Speaker
If it was something that was departmental, he explained to me, this is why I can't do it at this moment.
00:18:29
Speaker
And yes, it may seem like we can do it right now, but this is why we can't do it.
00:18:33
Speaker
And that's when I really learned that it's not just picking and choosing your battles.
00:18:38
Speaker
It's sometimes saying, do I really want to go and waste my, you know, waste my ammunition on a spat when I know I'm going to have a bigger, much stronger battle to fight later.
00:18:48
Speaker
And so at times I would say, okay, if I can't get A and B,
00:18:52
Speaker
I'm a hold off because C is a lot more important.
00:18:58
Speaker
then and then I'm gonna go up to back because that's the hill I'm willing to die on and say okay I'm down for this those other two I wanted it I couldn't get it but I'm not gonna let you not let me get this one and that's when those were some of those lessons to learn but it was definitely having to understand it even sometimes when you got the best well-planned game plan out there there's still gonna be times that you're told no and you just got to be able to accept
00:19:24
Speaker
Well, and even if you sacrifice A and B now to get C, doesn't mean A and B are off the table forever.
00:19:30
Speaker
Exactly.
00:19:31
Speaker
And sometimes you have to know when to go back and say, okay, hey, so remember that one time I brought up so-and-so?
00:19:37
Speaker
Here's an even better opportunity to do it now.
00:19:40
Speaker
And my boss knew I was going to come.
00:19:42
Speaker
And there were some things that I would – we created a program that we brought in that was an international program.
00:19:49
Speaker
And I really was strongly pushing forward in the first.
00:19:53
Speaker
year it got shot down and I was like, you know, we're going to go out there.
00:19:57
Speaker
It was called global engagement.
00:19:58
Speaker
And I had a staff member that we brought in that was going to help out with it.
00:20:02
Speaker
And she helped push it to the next level.
00:20:04
Speaker
And I was like, yo, we're ready for it.
00:20:06
Speaker
Let's do it.
00:20:07
Speaker
And he finally said, you know what?
00:20:09
Speaker
I think this is the time.
00:20:10
Speaker
Go ahead.
00:20:11
Speaker
I'll give you this amount of space to make it happen.
00:20:14
Speaker
And let's see what happens from there.
00:20:16
Speaker
And we ended up making that program expand to the point that we were having to turn down students
00:20:21
Speaker
because we didn't have the space anymore.
00:20:23
Speaker
And I was like, hey, what went from shot down came to now being a part to where it's like, oh, OK, so how do I slow this down a little bit?
00:20:33
Speaker
Yeah, you've got to scale up a little slower.
00:20:35
Speaker
Exactly.
00:20:36
Speaker
Was there ever a time where you had been told no once, twice and multiple times and your boss ever told you, don't ever ask me about that again?
00:20:46
Speaker
Yeah, one time when I wanted to rearrange a building, I was like, yo, man, we're not using this for what you think we're using it for.
00:20:52
Speaker
Let's just go ahead and swap it out.
00:20:54
Speaker
Let's do this.
00:20:55
Speaker
Let's do that.
00:20:55
Speaker
And he was just like, no, we can't do that.
00:20:58
Speaker
You're not going to be able to do that.
00:20:59
Speaker
We don't have the money for that right now.
00:21:01
Speaker
And then luckily, you know, some other things came into play, which, you know, again, it was good that he shot it down because it would have actually put us in a big hole.
00:21:09
Speaker
But, you know, it was one of those things of just throwing it out there.
00:21:13
Speaker
And sometimes it's like fishing.
00:21:14
Speaker
Sometimes you just got to cast a rod to see what you can catch or see how many bumps you get.
00:21:19
Speaker
Because then, you know, OK, at least I know I can hit this spot and I'll come back to it later.
00:21:23
Speaker
But, you know, there were there were some times that he definitely would tell me no.
00:21:27
Speaker
And then there were sometimes he'd tell me no.
00:21:28
Speaker
And I knew, yeah, this is a one time battle.
00:21:30
Speaker
I'm going to ask.
00:21:31
Speaker
He says no.
00:21:32
Speaker
I'm just going to move on and go to the next thing for something bigger after that.
00:21:36
Speaker
I just think it's so fascinating thinking about like the capital exchanges in departments and watching.
00:21:42
Speaker
And I'll tell you what, I learned more about departmental or political capital or whatever you call it, just from the times I've lost than the times I've won.
00:21:50
Speaker
It really makes you reflect on like, what didn't I have in this moment that I could have maybe had, or what can I do to get there?
00:21:57
Speaker
It's just so fascinating.
00:21:59
Speaker
And I think what you said there was key is not the fact of losing.
00:22:03
Speaker
It's the fact of what did you learn from it?
00:22:06
Speaker
And that is the key part is that no matter every experience that you go through in life, be it positive or negative, there is something to learn from it.
00:22:13
Speaker
And you just have to be willing to be open minded enough and say, OK, what else can I get from this situation?
00:22:20
Speaker
Because there has been a lot of times that I've been told, no, through many jobs, through, you know, just life, period.
00:22:32
Speaker
from this to teach other people moving forward.
00:22:34
Speaker
And would you try to teach people that moving forward?
00:22:37
Speaker
Sometimes it's so abstract.
00:22:38
Speaker
Like, did they get it?
00:22:40
Speaker
Or did it's like, oh, I kind of got it.
00:22:43
Speaker
It's one of those things is almost that you have to let them learn from experience as well.
00:22:48
Speaker
And those are some of the things that I used to tell hall directors, like, look, my job is not just to tell you what to do, it's to get you ready for the next step.
00:22:55
Speaker
And then when I started, you know, dealing with professional staff, it was still the same way.
00:22:59
Speaker
It's not just to tell you what you're doing, it's to get you prepared for that next step.
00:23:03
Speaker
And here's some of the things that I've learned along the way, you take from it what you will.
00:23:08
Speaker
You know, I'm just throwing this out there.
00:23:10
Speaker
And I would also tell them that,
00:23:12
Speaker
There are going to be some things I'm going to let you learn on your own.
00:23:14
Speaker
You're just going to have to bump your head.
00:23:16
Speaker
But if I know you're going to make a monumental jump off the cliff moment, yes, I'm going to snatch you back and say, don't do that because I know exactly what's going to happen after this.
00:23:25
Speaker
But, you know, there's other things you just have to let people learn and you've given them the tools.
00:23:29
Speaker
Now, what they build with it, you know, that's a whole nother story.
00:23:33
Speaker
I'm going to let you fail, but not that bad.
00:23:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:35
Speaker
I'm going to let you fail enough that, you know, you may have to put some pieces back together, but we're not going to totally destroy the whole story.
00:23:43
Speaker
I think that's great.
00:23:44
Speaker
There's a note for all supervisors out there.
00:23:46
Speaker
Let them fail a little.
00:23:48
Speaker
So Adonis, tell us about a small niche skill you developed that had a big long-term impact on your career success.
00:23:55
Speaker
I would honestly say learning to listen a lot more.
00:23:58
Speaker
I think that going into it, when people say, oh, I'm a good listener and this and that, but
00:24:04
Speaker
It's one of those things of being able to listen and not have to give an opinion afterwards, just to be able to say, okay, go for it.
00:24:12
Speaker
And like, kind of like we were talking about earlier, sometimes dealing with parents of not sitting there, just waiting for them to finish their sentence.
00:24:19
Speaker
So you can hurry up and drop your part in there.
00:24:21
Speaker
It's like, sometimes it's like, all right, I'm just going to sit here and listen.
00:24:24
Speaker
Now, if you need my opinion or want it, okay, I'll drop it from that point.
00:24:27
Speaker
But, you know, I think that was a big thing of picking up, but also, you know,
00:24:32
Speaker
I think organization skills of I really started changing up how I started planning out things and how I wanted to approach work in different tasks.
00:24:43
Speaker
And operations really helped me do that because in Red's life, I could kind of be more free will and just, hey, I'm waking up this morning.
00:24:50
Speaker
It's Red's life.
00:24:50
Speaker
Let's do what we do, baby.
00:24:52
Speaker
With operations, it was like, no, you got goals and you got to beat them.
00:24:56
Speaker
And so you need to plan it.
00:24:57
Speaker
But another big one I would definitely say would be backwards planning.
00:25:02
Speaker
Because, you know, a lot of times we plan to say, OK, here's where we are today and now let's plan it out moving forward.
00:25:08
Speaker
And actually, one of the best skills that I picked up was how here's our end goal.
00:25:14
Speaker
What are all the steps that need to happen leading up to that?
00:25:17
Speaker
And we would start from the end and work backwards.
00:25:20
Speaker
And that was something that became really huge.
00:25:23
Speaker
And I love doing that because when it was that time of the year, pretty much we were setting up our operations calendar is like, OK, here's graduation.
00:25:30
Speaker
Now what's everything that needs to happen leading up to that?
00:25:32
Speaker
And let's get those dates set up.
00:25:34
Speaker
And then we can adjust from that when we start doing it forward.
00:25:37
Speaker
And I think that was one that's definitely a niche thing because I have not come across many people that do backwards planning.
00:25:43
Speaker
Which is so crazy because it's like so obvious.
00:25:46
Speaker
Like we're seasonal.
00:25:48
Speaker
Like we, whatever move out day is like, we can start backing up as like, okay, ads go up with like advertisements go out two weeks prior extension requests go out at this time.
00:25:57
Speaker
It's like,
00:25:58
Speaker
But we'd never do.
00:26:00
Speaker
Never do it.
00:26:01
Speaker
And it's weird because I'll start doing it in daily things in life that I'm just like, okay, I need a plan for this.
00:26:06
Speaker
So this is when it's happening.
00:26:08
Speaker
This is when this needs.
00:26:09
Speaker
And other folks are like, what are you doing?
00:26:10
Speaker
I'm like, don't worry about it, bro.
00:26:11
Speaker
Just trust me, this plan is going to be in effect.
00:26:13
Speaker
We're going to be ready to roll when it's time to do it.
00:26:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:15
Speaker
And the more minutiae you can get into it, the more effective it is.
00:26:19
Speaker
But then people start to feel like, why are you micromanaging when I'm supposed to send an email out?
00:26:24
Speaker
It's like, because it happened, we never do.
00:26:26
Speaker
And then we think about it last minute and then it feels like chaos.
00:26:29
Speaker
And you're like, you don't, you don't have a predictable schedule.
00:26:33
Speaker
And the weird thing is that anybody that works in student affairs, especially housing, predictability should never be a word your vocabulary.
00:26:39
Speaker
Because every day, I mean, there's days that I come in and I'm like, I learned to appreciate the love moments.
00:26:46
Speaker
That when it got slow, I learned to love those moments.
00:26:49
Speaker
Because when chaos hit, oh, it hit.
00:26:52
Speaker
And it was like days of, you know, not going home until the, you know, late, late, late, you know, hours of the night.
00:26:59
Speaker
Or waking up super early to go get planned for something.
00:27:02
Speaker
Standing outside and
00:27:03
Speaker
in the heat.
00:27:05
Speaker
I'm not even a traffic guy, but I'm directing traffic on how to get cars where they need to be for moving and stuff like that.
00:27:12
Speaker
Next thing you know, I'm thinking everything's great with my halls and blah, blah, blah.
00:27:17
Speaker
Next thing you know, I got students that are busting windows out and doing all sorts of crazy stuff.
00:27:23
Speaker
You learn to expect the unexpected.
00:27:25
Speaker
Nothing should be as predictable other than, hey, this is when we're sending out assignments.
00:27:30
Speaker
This is when the
00:27:31
Speaker
portals opening.
00:27:32
Speaker
This is what I need people to say.
00:27:33
Speaker
You know, those are predictable things, but the majority of that world is just, Hey, wake up and let's see what happens today.
00:27:40
Speaker
I'd love that.
00:27:41
Speaker
Like the one consistent thing in our lives is Adonis's operations calendar.
00:27:45
Speaker
There you go.
00:27:46
Speaker
We know this is going to be what we're running with and we will make changes as needed, but you can at least expect these things to happen.
00:27:53
Speaker
Everything else that happens, we're just going to do it.
00:27:55
Speaker
I mean, you know, everybody knows me knows I love the wire.
00:27:59
Speaker
And one of the things that was a quote from that show that I took into the job was that just keep it born.
00:28:04
Speaker
If you keep my job born, then we doing a great job.
00:28:07
Speaker
And I used to always tell my staff, even when I would leave, I would be, you know, most people say, hey, see you later.
00:28:11
Speaker
Goodbye.
00:28:12
Speaker
I would see hall directors after training, after I do my session with them.
00:28:15
Speaker
And the last thing I would say is, hey, keep it born.
00:28:18
Speaker
As long as it's born, we good.
00:28:20
Speaker
I love that.
00:28:21
Speaker
That is so great.
00:28:22
Speaker
I think one of my other favorite quotes from so far is, quote, let's do what we do, baby.
00:28:27
Speaker
I think we need to make conference ribbons for that.
00:28:31
Speaker
Make it do what it do, baby.
00:28:31
Speaker
I mean, and that's the fun part is that I think about young professionals in this field and I'm like, there is no other job that you're going to have that you're going to, that you have the opportunity to have this much fun with.
00:28:46
Speaker
Like when you are a hall director or an RA, you
00:28:52
Speaker
with your job day in and day out.
00:28:54
Speaker
Now, yes, there are going to be some days that it is not fun.
00:28:57
Speaker
Key inventories, never going to be fun.
00:28:59
Speaker
Not going to lie to you and say they're going to be fun.
00:29:01
Speaker
But there are times that where you get paid to go out and throw a program for students, to have parties with food there, with music there, and bring in guests and this, that, and the third.
00:29:15
Speaker
And you get to have these moments
00:29:17
Speaker
that other people don't get to have.
00:29:19
Speaker
And that was one thing that kind of scared me as I moved up in the field was that they always said, well, as you move up, you lose contact with the students.
00:29:28
Speaker
And that was one thing for me that I did not want to happen is that I said, no matter how I move on this chain, I'm still going to have that connection with students because without them, there is no position that I'm in.
00:29:41
Speaker
And so, you know, enjoy it, especially when you get to be at the ground level and get to work with those students on a daily basis and get to see them and get to know them.
Managing Challenges and Opportunities
00:29:49
Speaker
Because, you know, I look back on my time as a hall director and as a complex director and even in my AD positions.
00:29:56
Speaker
The fact that I picked up fraternity brothers, friends, people whose weddings I've been in, people who that I still talk to to this day, that I get to mentor to this day.
00:30:08
Speaker
That's an amazing opportunity that you do not get with every job.
00:30:12
Speaker
And it's something that I think that.
00:30:15
Speaker
If you don't really look at what your job can be and the fun that you can have and the impact that you can have in res life, you really get it.
00:30:22
Speaker
You really miss out on a great opportunity to just enjoy work, because honestly, I enjoyed work as a hall director.
00:30:30
Speaker
It was like, yeah, I got some stuff that's tough.
00:30:32
Speaker
But I enjoy the work that I get to do.
00:30:35
Speaker
And I'm not as taxed about it as, you know, as you get when you get into some of your later fields.
00:30:40
Speaker
It's like, enjoy it now because it's great at that moment.
00:30:43
Speaker
Just make it do what it do.
00:30:44
Speaker
Have fun.
00:30:46
Speaker
First of all, I love key audits.
00:30:47
Speaker
It's like I just didn't order 2,000 keys.
00:30:50
Speaker
I just accomplished 2,000 tasks.
00:30:53
Speaker
Productive.
00:30:54
Speaker
There you go.
00:30:55
Speaker
My thing is whenever we lost, it would be that one key that gets lost and everybody's freaking out about it.
00:31:00
Speaker
And I'm like, look, bro, you just got to go tell them they got to pay for the key.
00:31:04
Speaker
Somebody's got to pay for this key.
00:31:05
Speaker
Let's get it over with and let's just move on.
00:31:08
Speaker
I did have one summer where somebody did lose.
00:31:11
Speaker
Over 300 keys.
00:31:12
Speaker
And I was like, yeah, we're going to have to have a long, long conversation about this.
00:31:18
Speaker
Boy, 300 keys.
00:31:19
Speaker
I mean, sometimes at some point it's like if we're charging 75 bucks or whatever for a lost key, it's like the amount of time we spend talking and sending staff resources out.
00:31:27
Speaker
It's like staff salaries alone, like tripled that cost already.
00:31:31
Speaker
It's like, just do it and let's move on.
00:31:33
Speaker
Let's get it over with and let's move on.
00:31:35
Speaker
Yep.
00:31:36
Speaker
So looking back at your career so far, what's an opportunity you said yes to that afterwards you wished you would have said no to?
00:31:44
Speaker
I would probably say some of the committee work that I got into.
00:31:48
Speaker
And the reason why is not that it was bad.
00:31:51
Speaker
It was just I started spreading myself too thin.
00:31:54
Speaker
I was doing a ton of stuff on campus.
00:31:57
Speaker
I was just all over the place.
00:31:59
Speaker
And I remember one time I got asked to join this committee and I'm like, all right, great.
00:32:03
Speaker
Boom, let's do it.
00:32:04
Speaker
but I knew what else was already in my hands and things worked out and it still ended up being a good experience.
00:32:12
Speaker
But at the end of the day, I was so beat and just tired.
00:32:18
Speaker
And I was like,
00:32:22
Speaker
of things to do when I really did not have the time to do it.
00:32:26
Speaker
And that was one of the first, I mean, I'd heard this before, but you know, don't spread yourself too thin, make time for you, this, that, and the third.
00:32:33
Speaker
That was the time that it finally said, yes, you need to chill out because you're doing too much and you need to just at some point pass it along and say somebody else can take care of this.
00:32:44
Speaker
And that was one of those times that I wished I would have just stepped back
00:32:47
Speaker
And said no.
00:32:49
Speaker
And here's a great recommendation for the next person that can take over in that position.
00:32:54
Speaker
But I took it on.
00:32:55
Speaker
But the next year I was already planning, hey, this is something that somebody else can do.
00:33:01
Speaker
I'm gonna let them have that.
00:33:03
Speaker
What about a missed opportunity?
00:33:05
Speaker
Anything you wished you would have said yes to that you had passed on?
00:33:08
Speaker
I would say it's weird because I'm one of those people that I tend to say that you just live with.
00:33:13
Speaker
You know, I don't have regrets.
00:33:15
Speaker
And if you have any, you just learn to live with them.
00:33:17
Speaker
I think sometimes I think about, you know, offers that may have been made that I didn't shoot, that I didn't take, because sometimes I wonder what
00:33:24
Speaker
what would have happened if I would have taken that.
00:33:26
Speaker
But then again, I'm also a person that does not like to live life with what ifs and everything happens for a reason.
00:33:31
Speaker
So it's kind of like, you know, it is what it is.
00:33:34
Speaker
You know, I feel like I've made the moves that I needed to make in my career and in the field, but I really don't see many things that I was like, man, I wish I would have went back and did
00:33:46
Speaker
Now, there's probably some things that I wish that I could have done for students.
00:33:50
Speaker
Like, you know, if I could have had that one last conversation with a student before they moved off, there are some of those because especially with students that I saw that were troubled.
00:34:00
Speaker
But it's one of those things that also I look back at everything that I did do.
00:34:05
Speaker
And how much more could I kept pouring in before that student would have got the point?
00:34:09
Speaker
And some things it's just like, hey, you're either going to do it or you're not.
00:34:13
Speaker
And I think those are some times that I wish that I could have had that one last conversation
00:34:19
Speaker
or they decided to quit school and this and that.
00:34:22
Speaker
Because, you know, when you get in the field, especially on the res life side, it's that I can save everybody.
00:34:28
Speaker
And you have to understand, no, you can't.
00:34:30
Speaker
And, you know, that's one of those things that being able to accept that I couldn't save everybody and that not everybody was meant to be at a college setting or this may not be their time and season forward.
00:34:42
Speaker
You know, being able to understand and accept those things in the career path was probably the things that I wish I could have done again.
00:34:50
Speaker
I love thinking about the road not taken like you were talking about, but also, again, not from a sense of regret, but just like perspective thinking exercise of like, what if?
00:35:00
Speaker
I think it's healthy to do that as long as you do it in a healthy way.
00:35:04
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:35:05
Speaker
I mean, and that's why, and that's, I think, the big thing of why I choose to not live life with regrets, you know, because once you do that, it sticks with you and it just festers.
00:35:16
Speaker
And it's just like, man, I should have did this.
00:35:18
Speaker
And then I could have did this and I could like,
00:35:20
Speaker
You did what you did.
00:35:21
Speaker
Now be happy with where you are, because if you would not have done it, you may not be in the space places that you are.
00:35:27
Speaker
You may not have made the connections that you made and met the people, you know, and been able to do all of these different things.
00:35:32
Speaker
So, you know, everything happens.
00:35:34
Speaker
And one thing one of my mentors told me was that, you know, you need to ride the wave sometimes and, you know, do what you're going to do.
00:35:41
Speaker
And if you're meant to be back in these certain positions and places, you're going to get pulled back to them regardless.
00:35:47
Speaker
Yep.
00:35:48
Speaker
The grass ain't always greener on the other side.
00:35:50
Speaker
No, it is not.
00:35:52
Speaker
So earlier we talked about learning a lot from failures or mistakes.
00:35:56
Speaker
Do you have a favorite failure in your career?
00:35:59
Speaker
Something you learned a lot from that later set you up for success?
00:36:03
Speaker
Honestly, I think about the it wasn't really a failure, but it was it was a no.
00:36:08
Speaker
But I remember applying for a job prior to coming into the hall director job and I didn't get it.
00:36:15
Speaker
And what it did was it made me hungry.
00:36:18
Speaker
It made me say, okay, go back to the drawing board and see what you could have done better and how you could have approached it differently and the things that I can do to work on myself.
00:36:28
Speaker
And that hunger made me get this mentality that all I need is to get my foot in the door.
00:36:35
Speaker
And if I get my foot in the door, I'm kicking it in.
00:36:38
Speaker
And that's been my mentality about a lot of things in life is that just if I get my foot in the door, I'm going to kick it in.
00:36:44
Speaker
And it also made me understand that
00:36:47
Speaker
it's okay to be told no, because one, that may not be the opportunity for you.
00:36:52
Speaker
And two, it gives you a chance to evaluate self and to say, hey, what do I need to do?
00:36:58
Speaker
And what can I bring to the table to make myself better?
00:37:01
Speaker
And I think that was one of the biggest things that, because I really felt like, yo, I'm coming into this and I'm ready and I get this and blah, blah, blah.
00:37:09
Speaker
And when I got that note, and the crazy thing about it is I actually got the note from an advisor of mine.
00:37:14
Speaker
I was like, what?
00:37:16
Speaker
Oh, dear.
00:37:17
Speaker
But it was great to get it because now that I look back, I'm like, bro, if you would have never told me no, I would have never made these other moves in life.
00:37:27
Speaker
And I'm glad.
00:37:28
Speaker
And I even thank him for it.
00:37:29
Speaker
I'll never forget one of the last times I saw him.
00:37:31
Speaker
I actually thanked him for it.
00:37:32
Speaker
I was like, you don't understand what you did for me by telling me no back then and letting me know that this isn't your time.
00:37:40
Speaker
And I was like, all right, cool.
00:37:41
Speaker
And that's why I try to tell, you know, also young professionals, I try to tell them that is that,
00:37:46
Speaker
The no is not the end of that's just starting things.
00:37:49
Speaker
You know what I'm saying?
00:37:50
Speaker
You know, it's it's not like a race, you know, on a track to where if you jump the gun, you're automatically disqualified.
00:37:56
Speaker
You actually get a chance to reset and get yourself back in line and do it again and do what you need to do.
00:38:01
Speaker
And so sometimes take those no's.
00:38:03
Speaker
And like you said earlier, it's a learning lesson.
00:38:05
Speaker
What do you learn from it?
00:38:06
Speaker
And then let's go out there and let's make it happen and let's do what we can do to be better.
00:38:10
Speaker
And that's been a big thing.
00:38:11
Speaker
And it's carried from that first time to even now in my career, I'm still the same way.
00:38:17
Speaker
So between Res Life and operations, you've probably sat in a ton of meetings.
00:38:23
Speaker
What's the most ridiculous meeting you ever sat in?
00:38:27
Speaker
It's funny because it's always been a joke and you hear people talk about it, but I actually did sit in a meeting that was to plan another meeting.
00:38:36
Speaker
And I was like, this is, this is dumb.
00:38:39
Speaker
And the whole, and again, I don't have the super smiley face and I got the deep voice and I just kind of was sitting there and I had this look at one person in the meeting that knows me well.
00:38:51
Speaker
And they looked at me and they kind of snuck their phone under the table and text me, clear your face up.
00:38:58
Speaker
Because the whole time I was sitting in there like, are we literally talking about
00:39:03
Speaker
what we're going to talk about in this next meeting.
00:39:06
Speaker
And we couldn't email this as, hey, here's the agenda and a synopsis.
00:39:10
Speaker
Let's get this prepared.
00:39:11
Speaker
We and it was it was not a short meeting.
00:39:13
Speaker
It was literally like an hour long meeting.
00:39:16
Speaker
And, you know, one of those worst meetings is that Friday meeting at the end of the day.
00:39:20
Speaker
So I've waited all day to get to this meeting to find out the only thing we're talking about is what we're going to talk about in the next meeting.
00:39:29
Speaker
And I was like, yeah, we're not doing this one again.
00:39:32
Speaker
What was the topic of the meeting you were planning to have?
00:39:36
Speaker
It was actually something to get planned on to get ready for what we were going to do for hall directors.
00:39:41
Speaker
Okay.
00:39:42
Speaker
And I was just like, literally, this is, and that's the thing.
00:39:45
Speaker
It wasn't even a groundbreaking topic.
00:39:49
Speaker
And I was like, you know, if this is going to be some real deal, like, you know, this is some fiscal support type thing or we about to shut down a hall and we got to figure out how we're going to tell students because we kicking them out tomorrow.
00:40:00
Speaker
Yes, let's have that meeting.
00:40:02
Speaker
But when it was like something that I could have literally said, hey, just email this out.
00:40:06
Speaker
We can all agree about this in an email or you honestly, I wouldn't even been mad if you would text me this.
00:40:11
Speaker
And we could have took it from there.
00:40:13
Speaker
But they were like, no, we're going to come in.
00:40:14
Speaker
We're going to all get together and have this meeting about this.
00:40:17
Speaker
And the crazy part is I really felt bad for the people that didn't have to be at the meeting.
00:40:21
Speaker
Because I was like, yeah, we literally just got you sitting in here because there's nothing you really going to say about it.
00:40:26
Speaker
And so it is stuff like that.
00:40:28
Speaker
It's those times that you got to learn what's worth an email, what's worth the text message, what's worth just, hey, let me pull you to the side and tell you this.
00:40:36
Speaker
And then moving on over.
00:40:38
Speaker
Let's have this full because there was no agenda at first.
00:40:41
Speaker
We made the agenda to make the agenda about the agenda.
00:40:44
Speaker
And I was like, yeah, we're not doing this again.
00:40:47
Speaker
And you wonder why sometimes we feel like we never get anything done in this field.
00:40:51
Speaker
Yep.
00:40:51
Speaker
Because we spend time meeting about meeting.
00:40:55
Speaker
So earlier you talked about mentoring.
00:40:57
Speaker
What is a piece of advice commonly given that you would tell a new professional to ignore?
00:41:05
Speaker
You're probably going to have me getting ruffled feathers on this one.
00:41:09
Speaker
But you know me.
00:41:10
Speaker
I speak from the heart and I try to shoot it straight.
00:41:12
Speaker
I would say, I'm not going to say to ignore it.
00:41:16
Speaker
I would say to take it with a grain of salt and understand the fine line that you're about to walk.
00:41:22
Speaker
But as we move forward in this field, a lot of times we hear that, you know, about the whole self-care and this, that, and the third, which I'm
00:41:36
Speaker
for a huge advocate for self-care.
00:41:39
Speaker
But I also think that, and I was noticing this as I was coming out of the field, that I was seeing a lot of self-care, and I just did air quotes, that was getting used to, I just don't want to do this stuff, or I don't want to spend time outside of this and this to do it.
00:41:58
Speaker
And the thing about it is not saying that, hey, you need to work 18, 19, 20 hours a day.
00:42:05
Speaker
But it's also saying that you doing that one little extra thing may be that one little extra thing that's going to help you when you're ready to move to that next level.
00:42:15
Speaker
Because anybody can just do what's on the job description and say, OK, I did my job.
00:42:22
Speaker
But did you do that one extra thing that's going to take you to that next level to when you starting to recruit?
00:42:31
Speaker
just the job description, candidate B took that time and has that example of that story of when they did that extra thing and put in those few extra hours.
00:42:42
Speaker
And so understanding that self-care is great and you need to do it.
00:42:46
Speaker
You need to understand when you've overloaded yourself, when you're starting to not take time out to breathe.
00:42:52
Speaker
but it's not to be used as a reason to say, I don't want to do this part of my job where they shouldn't ask me to do this.
00:42:59
Speaker
Because I'm going to tell you now, there's no job out there unless you work for yourself.
00:43:03
Speaker
And even when you work for yourself, there's going to be times that you're going to do stuff that's going to take you out of nine to five or whatever your usual hours are.
00:43:13
Speaker
And so understanding the balance between self-care and knowing that it's okay just to do a little bit extra because
00:43:20
Speaker
I want to be that standout candidate moving forward.
00:43:23
Speaker
And I think that's one of the things, because I was witness to one of those conversations about it and like, oh, well, you should only be doing this and you should only be doing that.
00:43:32
Speaker
And I'm just looking like, are you literally setting a student up for failure?
00:43:35
Speaker
Because when they say, oh, I can't go do this or I can't respond to this call and it's in my own building because it's after my work hours.
00:43:47
Speaker
That kind of hits hard because it's like, bro, you can fix that problem in five minutes because you're there.
00:43:53
Speaker
But now we got to wait 15 to 20 minutes because you want to call somebody from a whole nother area across campus to come do it.
00:44:01
Speaker
And those are the things that when you got to say the balance of I'll just take care of that real quick and move on.
00:44:07
Speaker
and blah, blah, blah.
00:44:07
Speaker
But that would be my thing is understanding when to find that balance in that line and understand grain of salt when it takes self-care to a point that you're just not doing anything.
SWACUHO Presidency and Diversity
00:44:18
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:44:18
Speaker
And I think there's two things that I would comment on that is that one, there's a difference between working 41 hours a week, like doing one extra thing and doing 80 hours of extra work because you said yes to everything.
00:44:30
Speaker
Going back to you saying earlier, it's like, you know, saying no and all that.
00:44:34
Speaker
And then the other piece is like,
00:44:37
Speaker
I can take care of that thing in my building that you mentioned in five minutes or somebody can come across 15, 20 minutes later.
00:44:43
Speaker
But then you also have to deal with it the next day.
00:44:45
Speaker
And then it throws off your schedule where it's like, oh, all the downstream impact of that now ruins your next all eight hours of your day.
00:44:54
Speaker
And now we're talking about the self-care of that day in itself.
00:44:59
Speaker
And it's just it's extra stress that may get added on.
00:45:01
Speaker
It's just getting...
00:45:03
Speaker
You know, looking at those times of when you have to be able to say, and I think the key thing you said in your statement is that because you said yes to everything.
00:45:14
Speaker
Yep.
00:45:15
Speaker
And that's the problem is understanding that there is a time that you need to say no.
00:45:19
Speaker
And that even leads back to the whole committee thing.
00:45:22
Speaker
I kept saying yes to everything to the point that I was like, you know what, this is the time you should have said no and you didn't.
00:45:27
Speaker
But now that you in it, you got to go ahead and finish it out.
00:45:31
Speaker
And so, you know, that's one of the things is that you have to understand when you're overloading yourself and when it's time to just step back and let things be.
00:45:38
Speaker
But also when it's a time to step up and be the person that's going to be like, yo, I got to knock this out and get it done because this is something that needs to get done now.
00:45:47
Speaker
We need to be on it because, again, if you don't handle it in the five minutes you could have, you're probably going to have an hour of it tomorrow.
00:45:54
Speaker
Because one of the quick I remember a situation where that happened and that question came.
00:46:01
Speaker
ups ask the person like yo so why didn't you do this and it was one of those like uh-oh where are we going because you really don't want to tell the person that just asked you that question well it was after five and i didn't want to like okay
00:46:16
Speaker
We'll see how this plays out.
00:46:17
Speaker
So, you know, it's a tricky road.
00:46:21
Speaker
You have to navigate it.
00:46:22
Speaker
Sometimes it can be a slippery slope.
00:46:24
Speaker
But I think that that's one of the things I would definitely tell young professionals to look out for is to be mindful of how that is used when you go out there and do the whole, I'm not going to do this because it's outside of my algorithm.
00:46:37
Speaker
Yeah, it is tricky, especially for like people in management or a position of authority because – or at least in my observation, it's like young professionals bestow upon the responsibility upon their supervisor to provide them every opportunity.
00:46:51
Speaker
But then also the conflict of interest is like, oh, but you also have to manage my time so I can self-care.
00:46:58
Speaker
Like I don't know which one you want in any given moment.
00:47:01
Speaker
And that's the thing is like if you're going to ask for the opportunities to grow, if you're going to say, hey, what can I do to get to this next level?
00:47:10
Speaker
The funny thing about it is that that next level comes with doing some extra stuff and it comes with some after hour stuff.
00:47:17
Speaker
And I mean, and as you work through things, you know, even my friends that are entrepreneurs that have their own businesses.
00:47:23
Speaker
They literally are times that they're like, yo, you know, I can work from this time to this time.
00:47:27
Speaker
But tonight I got to pull in these extra hours in order to achieve the goal that I'm going for.
00:47:33
Speaker
In order to make that next move I want to make, I've got to do this little bit extra.
00:47:37
Speaker
And there's no way of escaping.
00:47:39
Speaker
And I think that's what sometimes people get confused.
00:47:41
Speaker
Well, I'll just work for myself.
00:47:43
Speaker
It's there, too.
00:47:44
Speaker
Trust me.
00:47:45
Speaker
It's in that it's in that realm, too.
00:47:47
Speaker
Yeah, if you want to have the really cool professional development opportunity, it may mean that you got to do that stupid key audit from 5 to 5.30.
00:47:53
Speaker
Yep.
00:47:56
Speaker
Exactly.
00:47:56
Speaker
All right, so let's move on to your Swakuho involvement.
00:48:00
Speaker
You were president of Swakuho for the 2018-2019 term.
00:48:05
Speaker
What was your pathway to the president role?
00:48:08
Speaker
Really, it was just kind of that work your way up.
00:48:10
Speaker
I started out in Swakuho as just a member.
00:48:14
Speaker
Then, you know, from the community fair, I saw some things and thought it was kind of cool and wanted to see what it was like.
00:48:19
Speaker
So I actually got into the programming committee.
00:48:23
Speaker
And the weird thing about the programming committee, and I always laugh because Ricky and I used to laugh about this and Gwen, you know, who was in the region, we used to laugh about it.
00:48:32
Speaker
I actually wasn't even supposed to be on a programming committee.
00:48:34
Speaker
I just happened to not be doing anything at one moment.
00:48:38
Speaker
And I walked into the room.
00:48:39
Speaker
It was like, hey, what's going on?
00:48:40
Speaker
I was speaking to everybody.
00:48:42
Speaker
And they were doing some work.
00:48:43
Speaker
And I asked, like, hey, y'all need some help.
00:48:45
Speaker
And I started help putting notes on the board to schedule out programs.
00:48:49
Speaker
And the next year, they were just like, yo, you on a programming committee.
00:48:53
Speaker
And I was like, oh, OK.
00:48:54
Speaker
And so that was the first step in.
00:48:56
Speaker
And then from that led to diversity and social justice.
00:49:00
Speaker
Just being over that, I ended up chairing that committee.
00:49:03
Speaker
That led to being a state director.
00:49:05
Speaker
And then from there, it was like, hey,
00:49:08
Speaker
Let's go for it.
00:49:09
Speaker
And ended up running for president and jumped into it.
00:49:12
Speaker
And it was it was it was one thing after another.
00:49:15
Speaker
But it was just great to have that progression to be a member, a committee member, committee chair, state director, then to the, you know, to the presidency.
00:49:24
Speaker
And I think that was a great way for me to get into it because I got to fill out different steps of the process.
00:49:30
Speaker
I love looking at that pathways to leadership.
00:49:33
Speaker
I think it's so fascinating.
00:49:34
Speaker
And I'm glad the current strategic plan for SWACUHO has a specific item called like pathways.
00:49:40
Speaker
I'm wondering, where was the point along the way where you said to yourself, I think I could be president?
00:49:46
Speaker
I think for me, it probably came around the time of being state director.
00:49:52
Speaker
is that I felt, you know, and the weird thing is actually being state director was really my goal.
00:49:57
Speaker
I just really wanted to be the state director at Arkansas and represent my state and help bring it up, help to get people involved in my state and things like that.
00:50:05
Speaker
And from actually that was kind of like, hey, I did it and I was going to be happy about it.
00:50:11
Speaker
And then, you know, from talking to a lot of the great mentors that I had, you know,
00:50:16
Speaker
Tanya, you know, Susan, Diane, just all of them were coming to me and they were talking to me.
00:50:23
Speaker
And I remember Kenny even was stepping up to it and they, they just had pulled me aside and said, Hey, it's time.
00:50:30
Speaker
And I was like, what you mean?
00:50:31
Speaker
And, you know, they were like, you know, why haven't you run yet?
00:50:34
Speaker
And I was like, well, I'm not really sure that I'm ready for it.
00:50:37
Speaker
And they were like, what's holding you back.
00:50:39
Speaker
And it was good to have them.
00:50:42
Speaker
I didn't feel like they were questioning me.
00:50:44
Speaker
it was more of, I felt that they were, they saw something in me that I didn't see in myself that I don't think I was ready to see in myself yet.
00:50:53
Speaker
And it was great to know that I had that support and they were like, yo, go out there and do it.
00:50:57
Speaker
Believe in yourself, believe in what you got.
00:50:59
Speaker
And I started looking back over things and I went back to my director and I talked to him and I said, look, I think that I'm going to do this and I want to know, you know, how do you feel about it?
00:51:09
Speaker
Are you going to be in support of it and everything?
00:51:11
Speaker
Cause yeah,
00:51:12
Speaker
I feel like this may be the time to go ahead and make that move and let's strike while the iron's hot.
00:51:16
Speaker
And I feel good about it.
00:51:18
Speaker
And he was like, yo, do what you do.
00:51:19
Speaker
And I prayed on it and had some talks with the fam.
00:51:23
Speaker
And it was like, all right, let's do it.
00:51:25
Speaker
And jumping into it, I wasn't as nervous as I thought I was going to be running forward because I felt like with Swakuho, it's always been family-like.
00:51:35
Speaker
And that's the one thing about the region that I've loved so much.
00:51:38
Speaker
And to be able to come back to the region that it always felt like fam.
00:51:43
Speaker
And when I got ready to do the, you know, run for it, you know, having the support of mentors and people, you know, within the region, I think that really just made it to where it was like, okay, it's time to do this.
00:51:54
Speaker
And if it happens, it happens.
00:51:56
Speaker
If it doesn't, you know, you had the experience of doing it.
00:51:59
Speaker
And I think that's what kept me from being scared to jump into the, to the fray.
00:52:04
Speaker
You were elected in one of the most dramatic elections in recent memory, or at least in my memory, right?
00:52:12
Speaker
Three people ran that year.
00:52:15
Speaker
How many ballots did we go through?
00:52:17
Speaker
Three or four?
00:52:18
Speaker
I want to say it was, yeah, three or four because we kept getting up, walking out, and it was crazy.
00:52:26
Speaker
We would come in and we were thinking, okay, it's done.
00:52:28
Speaker
We're ready.
00:52:29
Speaker
And go back in the hallway.
00:52:31
Speaker
All right.
00:52:32
Speaker
We come back again and get back out there in the hallway.
00:52:34
Speaker
And it was just like, what is going?
00:52:36
Speaker
Because, of course, we were walking far enough away from the room that we could not hear what was being said and going on in there.
00:52:43
Speaker
So we were really wondering what was happening.
00:52:46
Speaker
And then by the third, fourth time in the hallway, we were just like, I would have we out here talking about every other thing under the sun besides the other.
00:52:53
Speaker
Well, that was my real question is, what were you all talking about behind the scenes?
00:52:57
Speaker
I mean, it was crazy because it went from talking about the election, you know, and everything.
00:53:02
Speaker
We started making jokes about stuff and teasing each other and running with Kurt and, you know, and David was, I think, crazy.
00:53:11
Speaker
to have them on the ballot with me was also a great experience because it was two people that I really respected.
00:53:18
Speaker
And that was, you know, I had such respect for them and we've worked together before and being able to be with them.
00:53:24
Speaker
But the funny thing about it is,
00:53:27
Speaker
The whole time that we were out there and going through it, there was this moment of where we all just flat out said, no matter who wins this, we got each other's back.
00:53:37
Speaker
We're going to stand behind whoever gets it.
00:53:40
Speaker
And we're going to be there to work with you and be a great partner for it.
00:53:43
Speaker
And that was the amazing thing about it is because after the election was over,
00:53:49
Speaker
those guys, they lived up to what they said out in the hallway.
00:53:52
Speaker
And they stood behind me.
00:53:54
Speaker
They had my back.
00:53:55
Speaker
Anytime I needed to talk about something, they were there.
00:53:58
Speaker
And that felt really good to have that and to know that they were there for it.
00:54:02
Speaker
So, I mean, it was just crazy.
00:54:04
Speaker
You know, we were out there joking.
00:54:05
Speaker
And if you know Coop, he's a funny guy.
00:54:08
Speaker
So being out there with him cracking jokes was even funnier.
00:54:10
Speaker
So I think that was a crazy thing.
00:54:12
Speaker
And I think we were just glad to have it finally end, Winnie D.
00:54:16
Speaker
So correct me if I'm wrong, but you were also the first black president of SWACUHO.
00:54:20
Speaker
The first black male president.
00:54:22
Speaker
Dr. Joanne Smith was the first.
00:54:24
Speaker
And it's funny that you bring that up because...
00:54:27
Speaker
The night that I won, well, the night that it was announced and everything, when we did it at the banquet, she was there.
00:54:33
Speaker
And I never will forget having that opportunity to go up to her.
00:54:38
Speaker
And I never met her before.
00:54:40
Speaker
And I walked up to her.
00:54:41
Speaker
I introduced myself.
00:54:42
Speaker
And I gave her a big hug.
00:54:44
Speaker
And it's even on one of my Facebook pics.
00:54:46
Speaker
And it was on my Snapchat that day.
00:54:48
Speaker
But I remember giving her a hug.
00:54:49
Speaker
And I told her, because of you, I can do this.
00:54:52
Speaker
And it meant so much to be able to have, you know, that chance to do, you know, to represent and just be able to give her that love and show a free.
00:55:01
Speaker
And I mentioned her in my speech.
00:55:03
Speaker
I even told her, you know, I need to tell you, thank you, because it took courage for you to do it.
00:55:07
Speaker
It took courage for me to do it.
00:55:09
Speaker
And I want to be, you know, the same way that you were a beacon of light and somebody to inspire to be like, I want it to be that for the next person that's coming up, you know, and, you
00:55:19
Speaker
And it was even bigger than just saying, you know, for, you know, blacks in the field and anybody else.
00:55:24
Speaker
I just wanted to be somebody that others could look up to and say, hey, he went out there and he did it.
00:55:31
Speaker
I can do this, too.
00:55:32
Speaker
But, you know, especially in the field where, again, you know.
00:55:35
Speaker
Two, one black woman, one black man, and that's it.
00:55:39
Speaker
And so it's it's definitely something to say that, yes, you do carry this and you know, you want to represent it well.
00:55:46
Speaker
But it's also just one of those things that just, you know, living in a moment and being able to be proud to say that you can represent.
00:55:53
Speaker
So did you feel an elevated sense of responsibility or increased attention that came along with that?
00:55:59
Speaker
I think for me, I felt more of it by being young because I felt like I was still one of the babies in the group, you know, but now I can go, I go back to squad cool and I'm like, no, you're an old hero, you know, none of these new members, but it was, I think that anytime that you come in as a first,
00:56:17
Speaker
It's one of those things that you do carry that weight.
00:56:20
Speaker
But I also wanted it to not only just be like, oh, here it is.
00:56:25
Speaker
He's a black president.
00:56:26
Speaker
I came in as that, but I also wanted to walk out as he was a good president.
00:56:32
Speaker
And that was the thing, because I think sometimes when it comes to, you know, issues of race and things like that, any of our isms that's out here in the world, I think because we have to throw that tag in there so much that we lose sight of, hey, this person worked hard just to be in that position.
00:56:53
Speaker
in that position just by being who they are.
00:56:56
Speaker
And so, yes, I knew that I represented being a Black man in that position.
00:57:01
Speaker
And I also looked at it as an opportunity to say to other Black men, like, hey, I'm doing it.
00:57:07
Speaker
You can do it too.
00:57:08
Speaker
Now let's step up and get you in the position.
00:57:10
Speaker
But at the end of the day, I also wanted to walk out with people being proud that I was the president and could say that I did a good job on the way
00:57:18
Speaker
So there's been two out of 50 plus presidents who have been a person of color and occupying that role.
00:57:25
Speaker
Why do you think that is so few?
00:57:27
Speaker
Lord knows.
00:57:28
Speaker
I think part of it I will also, I think, is understanding what you can do in the organization and putting yourself in position to be able to do those things.
00:57:38
Speaker
It's like when you come to the conference, come to the conference, one, and learn things.
00:57:44
Speaker
Secondly, come to the conference and get involved.
00:57:48
Speaker
Once you get involved, that means more than just putting your name on a committee, but it's actually being a part of that committee, being an active committee member to when they say, hey,
00:57:59
Speaker
this person is doing great work, boom, boom, boom.
00:58:02
Speaker
They should be committee chair.
00:58:03
Speaker
And then from committee chair, building yourself up, but going out there and seeking those opportunities to get involved, but also eliminate the whole factor of, I can't because I'm this, you know, and that's the thing is like, I didn't want to go into it thinking, you know, because in some ways, a lot of people, you know, there was some, there was talks of, Hey, a person from Arkansas is not going to win the presidency.
00:58:29
Speaker
And I was like, okay, cool.
00:58:31
Speaker
I'm a young person.
00:58:32
Speaker
I'm a young black male.
00:58:34
Speaker
And I'm in the state of Arkansas, which is the second smallest region.
00:58:38
Speaker
You already got three strikes and you're not even supposed to get three strikes.
00:58:41
Speaker
So apparently I foul-tipped one of those.
00:58:43
Speaker
And I was like, yo, we're going to go out here and we're going to do it.
00:58:46
Speaker
We're going to swing for the fences.
00:58:47
Speaker
And that was the thing is not being afraid or not automatically canceling yourself out because of what some people may say would be a hindrance.
00:58:56
Speaker
And that's the thing, but
00:58:58
Speaker
You know, I think that would be a good topic to research.
00:59:01
Speaker
You know, and you you and I both know that sometimes within SWACUHO, it's only one person running.
00:59:07
Speaker
And, you know, it needs to be multiple candidates.
00:59:10
Speaker
It needs this.
00:59:11
Speaker
And that was something that was brought up in the speech, too, is that, hey, us going through three, four times of election show that you all care about this organization, that you want to make sure you put the person in place that you feel will do the job.
00:59:23
Speaker
And that's the way it should be every year that we see multiple people running for it.
00:59:28
Speaker
It needs to be multiple people that have the hunger to be president.
00:59:31
Speaker
And, you know, hopefully we see that as we go move forward, that multiple candidates come out and that we see multiple candidates of all sorts of, you know, nationalities and races and all of this.
00:59:42
Speaker
Just open it up.
00:59:44
Speaker
This is a diverse field.
00:59:46
Speaker
Let's go out there and show it.
00:59:47
Speaker
You know, the committee should show it.
00:59:49
Speaker
The board should show it that it is a diverse community, because I think also if you don't see it up there,
00:59:59
Speaker
that you can be up there.
01:00:00
Speaker
And that was one thing that I wanted to make sure that I could give to people that, yo, you can do this.
01:00:06
Speaker
I'm here.
01:00:07
Speaker
You can be here.
01:00:08
Speaker
Yeah, you brought it up, the part about there's only one candidate, so many elections.
01:00:12
Speaker
I think I can think of three elections in the time I've been in Swakuha where there's been more than one candidate.
01:00:18
Speaker
So, I mean, I feel like there's a pipeline problem on that pathway we were talking about earlier.
01:00:23
Speaker
Indeed.
01:00:24
Speaker
And that was one thing I think when I was president that I wanted to stress is that I really wanted to stress the involvement.
01:00:33
Speaker
involved.
01:00:33
Speaker
And that started from dealing with the newcomers and dealing with people that were in committees and getting them signed up.
01:00:40
Speaker
And then also from my state, I was just like, look, the state of Arkansas, we need you all to step up.
01:00:44
Speaker
We need you on committees.
01:00:46
Speaker
We need you to do this.
01:00:46
Speaker
We need to start getting schools involved and pulling people back in and things like that.
01:00:51
Speaker
And just getting out there and understanding what the organization can do for you, because it opens up so many doors.
01:00:58
Speaker
And we talk about networking,
01:01:01
Speaker
Swakuho in that conference and being involved, that's one of the best networking tools that I had in my entire career, because there would have been no Akuho-I involvement if I would not have started with Swakuho and starting to do things in Akuho-I that I never got to do before.
01:01:18
Speaker
That's why I really stress, get out there, get involved, because if you do that, it's going to open up some other doors and getting that representation.
01:01:27
Speaker
I think that once people start doing some other jobs within the organization, it gives them that passion and that hunger to want to do more.
01:01:35
Speaker
And that's the big thing is that we just have to keep getting people something to do and keep them hungry and keep them wanting to do it.
01:01:42
Speaker
Well, on a previous episode, Jasmine Jennings talked about growing up as a black woman.
01:01:46
Speaker
She was always told you have to be twice as good as everybody else around you.
01:01:51
Speaker
And I think about that in the pipeline, the leadership pipeline of like on the committee.
01:01:54
Speaker
It's like sometimes you don't even have to be anyone doesn't have to be twice as good.
01:01:59
Speaker
Sometimes you just have to say yes and then do it because there's so many people that just the attrition rate on committees of involvement is just so little on some of them that, you know, there's there's opportunity there to just say yes and do it.
01:02:13
Speaker
And I think that's what really got with Diane came to me about, you know, stepping up in diversity and social justice and doing that.
01:02:22
Speaker
A big thing was like, OK, how do we get this committee out here and get that name out there?
01:02:27
Speaker
And from that work and people saying just, hey, he's got this drive to push it.
01:02:32
Speaker
I think that that opened up the other doors.
01:02:35
Speaker
And so, you know, that's the thing is, you know, even if the committee is not the popular committee,
01:02:40
Speaker
Sometimes just you getting out there and putting in that work for that committee opens it up to where people are like, hey, I see what you got going on there.
01:02:49
Speaker
And then that also brings up that committee as well.
01:02:52
Speaker
And so it's just taking that leap of faith sometimes and just being able to, you know, sometimes you got to bet on yourself.
01:02:58
Speaker
And if you're willing to do that, you know, who knows what could happen.
01:03:01
Speaker
You mentioned involvement, but what was the platform you ran on in addition to that?
01:03:08
Speaker
Involvement was a big piece of the platform, but then also transparency was a big thing.
01:03:14
Speaker
Because I think a lot of times, a lot of people didn't understand what was going on behind the scenes with Swakuho.
01:03:20
Speaker
And so being able to communicate out to the body of, hey, here's what we're thinking the exec board is thinking about doing.
01:03:27
Speaker
Here's what ideas we've heard from you all.
01:03:30
Speaker
Let's start putting these things into play, but also communicating out this is what we're doing.
01:03:37
Speaker
And I think that was really big was to get that communication out there because you didn't want to be seen as, oh, that's the executive board, you know, the executive board, look out.
01:03:45
Speaker
And then people start running away in this.
01:03:47
Speaker
And I was like, no, we're approachable and we want to talk to you and we want to grow with you and we want you to take our spot in the future.
01:03:54
Speaker
And that was a big thing for me was just getting that open communication and getting that involvement.
01:03:59
Speaker
Those are two huge things for me when it came to running.
01:04:02
Speaker
But didn't you also run on increasing involvement from HBCUs?
01:04:07
Speaker
Yep.
01:04:07
Speaker
Reaching out to the HBCUs was a big, and it was funny to start seeing when I started seeing HBCUs pop up and I was like, you know, we doing it, we making these contacts, but even, you know, having a chance, you know, I think about within my state, you know, we had Arkansas Pine Bluff, we have Philander Smith,
01:04:25
Speaker
And to see them show up at that next conference was like so touching to me because I'm from Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
01:04:31
Speaker
And so to see my hometown school there meant so much to me.
01:04:35
Speaker
And, you know, and to see them get involved and seeing that they could gain so much from it.
01:04:40
Speaker
And that was one of the big things is just being able to see those schools pop up and then also seeing.
01:04:45
Speaker
their members get on committees.
01:04:48
Speaker
And so it's like, OK, if you can come here, get on these committees and then take back to your school the value that opens the door for you all to start attending these these these events more and more.
01:05:00
Speaker
And so it was really big.
01:05:02
Speaker
And then I think, you know, it was really starting to stretch out to say not just the HBCUs,
01:05:06
Speaker
But let's look at what other, you know, what, you know, the Hispanic serving institutions.
01:05:11
Speaker
We need to start reaching out to those schools.
01:05:13
Speaker
We had schools that were, you know, religious affiliated that weren't really represented, you know, that were in Oklahoma and in Arkansas and things like that.
01:05:22
Speaker
OK, what are these schools that we're missing?
01:05:24
Speaker
We're getting the mainstays and the flagships.
01:05:27
Speaker
But who are we missing?
01:05:28
Speaker
And let's start getting these underrepresented institutions in here and getting them involved.
01:05:32
Speaker
I've talked to a number of past presidents about their platforms and all that.
01:05:36
Speaker
I will always remember your speech because of that specific thing, because it was a very actionable, tangible, specific, whereas many presidents or president candidates run on like increased involvement in the abstractness.
01:05:51
Speaker
But I will always remember the specificity of like tangible deliverables that you were running on.
01:05:58
Speaker
I think that was one of the key big things.
01:06:00
Speaker
And part of it that kind of made me nervous is that I wanted to say, okay, what is it that we can bring to the table that is actually achievable?
01:06:10
Speaker
But also by doing that, that also meant you had an opportunity to fail.
01:06:16
Speaker
And if you fail on it, everybody's going to see it.
01:06:19
Speaker
But the thing was, I can throw out a lofty goal,
01:06:24
Speaker
And everybody's like, oh, he put that out there.
01:06:26
Speaker
Everybody says it.
01:06:27
Speaker
Or you can throw out something that, hey, if we make this happen, you're going to know we made it happen.
01:06:32
Speaker
And that was a bigger thing for me was that what can we do that people could actually see and that could actually affect the long term?
01:06:40
Speaker
And that's one of those awesome things that I thought about as a president is that you're only president for one year.
01:06:48
Speaker
You know, you're president elect, actual president, and then past president.
01:06:53
Speaker
And my thing was, no matter what I do within this year, I may not get to reap any of the benefits of it.
01:06:59
Speaker
But it's not about me.
01:07:00
Speaker
It's about what am I going to leave behind that somebody else can pick up this baton and run with.
01:07:06
Speaker
And that's where I think the cool part of it for me was, you know, I know that I'm not going to get to live this out, but I'm at least get to look back and say, hey, it's there and they're doing it.
01:07:16
Speaker
And that was a great feeling.
01:07:18
Speaker
Yeah, isn't that so true?
01:07:19
Speaker
A lot of things we do.
01:07:20
Speaker
It's like you'd never get to be there on the front lines when it all comes to fruition.
Transition to Private Sector and Star Res
01:07:27
Speaker
And here's a little fun fact is actually Julie Wixton from SMU was president two years in a row, 1989 and 1990.
01:07:36
Speaker
So I don't know how that worked out, but doing double duty with past president and president in the same year, I guess.
01:07:43
Speaker
Getting it in.
01:07:43
Speaker
I mean, sometimes, you know, nobody runs.
01:07:46
Speaker
Somebody has to drop out.
01:07:48
Speaker
I mean, because, you know, the crazy thing with me, I didn't, hey, no one told you to comment on me running president.
01:07:54
Speaker
My dog decides she's upset about something in the back.
01:07:56
Speaker
But that was one thing for me is I actually didn't get to finish out my past president year, you know, and so I feel like I want to come back to the region at least one time and say, I still got one year of this to do and I want to get it out of the way.
01:08:07
Speaker
But it's definitely one of those that it's a great experience and I think
01:08:13
Speaker
missions for it, to just go for it and do what you do, man, because it is a memorable thing.
01:08:19
Speaker
And I definitely was honored to be able to serve in that capacity.
01:08:23
Speaker
So that's a great segue.
01:08:25
Speaker
In 2019, you made the move to the private sector and started working for Star Res.
01:08:30
Speaker
What actually prompted you to make that jump?
01:08:32
Speaker
In life, you just find that there's times that it's time for change.
01:08:37
Speaker
And there were some things that were happening around that I was like, you know what?
01:08:42
Speaker
This may be, this is my sign that I may need to make that move.
01:08:46
Speaker
And I started,
01:08:47
Speaker
getting some moments to where things weren't as enjoyable as they used to be, that it was becoming more of a task and a chore than, hey, I'm loving what I'm doing when I walk in here and I get to do this.
01:09:01
Speaker
And that was something that I didn't want.
01:09:03
Speaker
I never wanted to feel as if what I was doing was not something that I was loving to do.
01:09:09
Speaker
And I think that for me also,
01:09:13
Speaker
It was just, I felt the need for being able to do something a little bit different.
01:09:18
Speaker
I felt like I achieved a lot in where I was.
01:09:21
Speaker
And I was like, okay, what's the next step?
01:09:23
Speaker
What are we going to do?
01:09:24
Speaker
But I also didn't want to get too far from student affairs.
01:09:27
Speaker
Henceforth, I work for a company that works with student affairs every day.
01:09:31
Speaker
And so that was one of the big things that being able to know that I'd hit a point in which a decision needed
01:09:41
Speaker
and you get to that point in the road of where you need to say, okay, you're going left, right or straight.
01:09:47
Speaker
And it was time to make that choice.
01:09:49
Speaker
And I don't regret the choice.
01:09:52
Speaker
I miss the field at times, you know, but I also understand that this opened up a brand new avenue of things and opened up a new skill set for me to be able to do some things.
01:10:02
Speaker
And it was just time.
01:10:04
Speaker
I think that's the biggest thing.
01:10:06
Speaker
If I could say anything, if I could break it down to one word, it was just time.
01:10:10
Speaker
You worked with Star Res before working for Star Res.
01:10:15
Speaker
Was there something on your Star Res wish list as a housing professional you always wanted to see happen that when you got to working there, you were like, I got to bide my time, build some capital, and then I'm going to make this happen for all my housing folks?
01:10:30
Speaker
It is funny because it was starting to happen.
01:10:33
Speaker
I was already kind of in the mode of doing it prior to when I got there.
01:10:37
Speaker
But it was when I was a customer, it was so different looking at what we have as our like StarCare, which is our learning modules where you can go in and kind of teach yourself how to use the software and learn different things and ask different questions.
01:10:52
Speaker
And I remember when I was a customer, it was like super duper long videos.
01:10:56
Speaker
And I was like, OK, I got to figure out a time in my day to watch this video or do this and do that.
01:11:01
Speaker
And now it's like looking at what we're doing, where it's like we have these learning plans where there are nice little bite sized chunks that you can go into and knock out things.
01:11:11
Speaker
It's got examples, little quizzes that you could have.
01:11:14
Speaker
And I'm like, man.
01:11:16
Speaker
And now I get to go in there and drop ideas about, hey, so we can put this in there and this would be a cool thing to learn.
01:11:23
Speaker
And that's the cool part about it, is that I get to talk to people that I work with and to the customers and take that back to the team and be like, yo, this is what's a hot topic.
01:11:33
Speaker
Let's start dropping that out there because when I first got there, I didn't want to just verbal vomit everything I felt as a customer and things I heard.
01:11:41
Speaker
But it was like now that I'm here and I've gotten to know the avenues to take, I can now take those ideas that we hear in those things and say, OK, hey, here's some stuff we need to be thinking about or here's some things we need to make lesson plans on.
01:11:55
Speaker
And let's put that out there for our customers, because this is what's important to them as they're moving forward with the software.
01:12:02
Speaker
So how frequently do you hear from housing folks?
01:12:05
Speaker
when they suggest something you should do to which you can say you can do that already?
01:12:11
Speaker
A lot.
01:12:13
Speaker
A lot.
01:12:13
Speaker
Because a funny thing about it is because you'll hear me say, oh, have you seen that StarCare article?
01:12:18
Speaker
Or I'll just send them a link.
01:12:20
Speaker
And I'm like, here you go.
01:12:21
Speaker
And they're like, what?
01:12:22
Speaker
And I even had that moment myself.
01:12:24
Speaker
Nothing was more humbling than to go into the company thinking that you knew stuff.
01:12:29
Speaker
And then I walked in and I was like, man, I know nothing.
01:12:33
Speaker
And it was like one of those moments.
01:12:35
Speaker
But also seeing how many tools that I had at my disposal that I didn't know I already had that I wasn't using.
01:12:43
Speaker
And I was like, man, if I could go back and be a customer again, oh, I'm about to tear this place up because I know all this stuff.
01:12:50
Speaker
Or I had all these things I could have been using that I wasn't.
01:12:53
Speaker
And so that was definitely one of the funny moments because I remember calling back, talking to some old colleagues, and I was like, yeah,
01:13:01
Speaker
So we were totally using this wrong.
01:13:04
Speaker
Just want to put that out there to you.
01:13:06
Speaker
But that was definitely, you know, a cool thing.
01:13:08
Speaker
But it happens so often that people will call and be like, oh, well, I can't do this.
01:13:13
Speaker
Or why can't I do this?
01:13:15
Speaker
Or this is not in the software.
01:13:16
Speaker
This is so easy.
01:13:17
Speaker
You should be doing this.
01:13:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's like, oh, it's right there.
01:13:21
Speaker
And some of it has literally been click this button.
01:13:25
Speaker
And they're like, what?
01:13:26
Speaker
I'm like, yep, it's right here in your settings.
01:13:28
Speaker
Just click that and you're good to go.
01:13:30
Speaker
And so, but it also, I think by seeing that, that's opened my eyes to things that, hey, when you're training a customer on it, make sure to mention these things because this may be the stuff that's getting overlooked that on the inside, I see it so often that as a customer, I'm not thinking to go there and use that part.
01:13:50
Speaker
Well, and I think part of the problem is like I think sometimes StarRes, any company gets a bad rap from like the people who aren't, quote, power users because there's a whole lot out there.
01:14:02
Speaker
And then me, you know, or universities typically have like.
01:14:06
Speaker
a power user or like you're the star res person that everything goes through them and they've only got limited time to explain or research or do the things and the nuances that aren't in their area.
01:14:18
Speaker
That you, you hit on like the perfect that right there.
01:14:21
Speaker
You just, if, if the world can see the way I'm looking right now, like JC is hitting on something that's like,
01:14:27
Speaker
They're striking a nerve that I'm like, oh, my God, that is so true.
01:14:30
Speaker
So true, man.
01:14:32
Speaker
Having the one and only power user is a big issue.
01:14:36
Speaker
And it's where I try to advise people to cross train.
01:14:41
Speaker
You may not have to tell them all 10 things, but you may need to get them up to seven or eight so that they can take care of it if that person gets it.
01:14:49
Speaker
get sick if that person leaves, that somebody else has that skill set to know how to at least get us across until they come back.
01:14:59
Speaker
Yeah, I think sometimes that bad rap, it's not a company problem.
01:15:04
Speaker
It's an interdepartmental problem often.
01:15:08
Speaker
And even when I was in the field, we fell into it to where it was like, okay, we've got certain people that are power users, certain people that are only users
01:15:19
Speaker
to use.
01:15:20
Speaker
But it's like that part that they have to use also is affected by some other things.
01:15:25
Speaker
And they may need to know, at least know about, they may not have to use it, but at least know about these things so that they can understand how this is playing out.
01:15:34
Speaker
And it's getting people to understand it.
01:15:36
Speaker
And sometimes I think that that power user term is a flex to be able to say, oh yeah, I'm the power user, baby.
01:15:42
Speaker
But it's like,
01:15:43
Speaker
I know some power users that just turn the thing on and that's it.
01:15:48
Speaker
I turn it on.
01:15:48
Speaker
I'm good.
01:15:49
Speaker
I turn the power.
01:15:50
Speaker
And so it's being able to understand what you get with it and then and utilizing what you have.
01:15:56
Speaker
And I think that's been a cool part of being in with the company is being able to get people to see.
01:16:02
Speaker
see that part of it and to say, hey, let's get you some more people that can build up to being power users.
01:16:10
Speaker
Because I think that's a good plan for it is you got people that are using it on a certain level, you've got your power users, but what are we doing to build them up to when they make that move to the next job that they can say, hey, I've got these skills with this software that helps them become more marketable as they're moving forward.
01:16:28
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
01:16:29
Speaker
So before we wrap up, just a couple of miscellaneous questions.
01:16:32
Speaker
What's a book you most frequently share with others?
01:16:35
Speaker
If I would say new book or new-ish book, I would probably say American Gods.
01:16:42
Speaker
I like the TV show, but the book is Amazing American Gods by New
01:16:45
Speaker
Neil Gaiman, awesome show, you know, especially when we think about what we are.
01:16:50
Speaker
I don't want to say worship to that extent, but what we look up to and have let our lives fall into.
01:16:55
Speaker
But also, if I would say classics, I would go with Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies, because I went back and read those actually last year.
01:17:06
Speaker
I went back and reread both of those and they were so relative to what's going on in today's society that it was almost scary.
01:17:15
Speaker
that I was like, this book was written way back then.
01:17:18
Speaker
And I literally could probably change the title of it and give it to somebody and they would think that you wrote it for today.
01:17:23
Speaker
And so those are the books that I definitely kind of constantly recommend those three books, American Gods, Animal Farm, and Lord of the Flies.
01:17:32
Speaker
I love all three of those books, especially Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies.
01:17:37
Speaker
Like I remember reading Lord of the Flies and like I was a grade school or junior high.
01:17:42
Speaker
Wow.
01:17:43
Speaker
And the fact of back then, you know, you're reading and you're trying to understand it.
01:17:47
Speaker
But now that we're older and we really understand it, it's like, whoa.
01:17:51
Speaker
Some heavy stuff right there.
01:17:52
Speaker
But yeah, those are definitely some of my favorite books.
01:17:55
Speaker
And, you know, getting ready to put those to my little niece and everything, my youngest niece and say, hey, here's a book I want you to read.
01:18:02
Speaker
You know, let's sit down and talk about it afterwards.
01:18:04
Speaker
And I think having those discussions with the younger generation of what they get out of it really makes it more impacting because you see how it's going down the line from when it was first written to my generation to the new generation that's coming up.
01:18:18
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like we'd be unpacking the sucks to your asthma or piggy a whole lot more from Lord of the Flies these days.
01:18:24
Speaker
Exactly.
01:18:26
Speaker
So, Adonis, my understanding is you like churros.
01:18:31
Speaker
Like, you don't just like them, but you like them.
01:18:35
Speaker
I'm in love with churros.
01:18:36
Speaker
Like, yeah.
01:18:37
Speaker
Whenever I see churros somewhere, if I'm there at the restaurant, I don't care how full I am, they're ordered.
01:18:43
Speaker
If, you know, when they came out with the churro cereal, got me a couple of these.
01:18:47
Speaker
Egg board was so sweet.
01:18:49
Speaker
Gave me some.
01:18:49
Speaker
I was in love with them.
01:18:51
Speaker
Whenever, I mean, churros are my thing.
01:18:53
Speaker
Like they should be sold everywhere.
01:18:56
Speaker
It should be a holiday.
01:18:58
Speaker
Why is there no national churro day?
01:18:59
Speaker
And if it is, I need to know the day because I'm going to celebrate it to the fullest.
01:19:03
Speaker
Well, we'll look up to see if there is a churro date and put in the show notes just for you.
01:19:08
Speaker
I will.
Leadership Impact and Conclusion
01:19:09
Speaker
And see the bad part.
01:19:10
Speaker
Now that you said something about it, I actually I have not eaten dinner yet.
01:19:13
Speaker
I do believe I will go somewhere and get some churros.
01:19:18
Speaker
Well, I don't know how much inspiration I provided, but I'm glad to be a part of that decision making.
01:19:22
Speaker
I love it, man.
01:19:23
Speaker
Love it.
01:19:25
Speaker
All right.
01:19:25
Speaker
And so my last thing, Adonis, is more on a personal level.
01:19:29
Speaker
I don't know.
01:19:29
Speaker
I think I shared this with you at TPE, but it was either the conference you were president or the conference you ran for president.
01:19:36
Speaker
But every single one of my direct reports came back from that conference, like completely in love with you.
01:19:43
Speaker
And you were like the greatest person they'd ever met and how like mentoring you were.
01:19:50
Speaker
And they just, I mean, I heard your name.
01:19:53
Speaker
all the time that week afterwards and even afterwards, you know, when I was on executive board, like, oh, how's Adonis doing?
01:19:58
Speaker
Like, they just were enamored with you.
01:20:00
Speaker
So I don't know what it is.
01:20:02
Speaker
I mean, obviously you're a compelling person, but did that happen with other people's staffs or like, you know, the mentoring that you've done over the years?
01:20:11
Speaker
It's funny because I still get to kind of talk to, you know, some of the people that were around during that time frame and just even during my time in Swakuho and
01:20:24
Speaker
I don't know if you remember that, you know, when I did the speech, my goodbye speech.
01:20:30
Speaker
And...
01:20:31
Speaker
I think for me, you know, one thing is I always want to say be authentic.
01:20:35
Speaker
You know, you know, you know, nowadays you'll hear people say keep it 100.
01:20:39
Speaker
You know, and the thing for me was I wanted to go into this as Adonis.
01:20:45
Speaker
I wanted to come out as Adonis.
01:20:47
Speaker
I didn't want to put on airs.
01:20:48
Speaker
I didn't want to be something that I wasn't.
01:20:50
Speaker
I just wanted people to see this genuine guy that just loved his organization and loved the people that he could work with.
01:20:57
Speaker
And I remember at the end of that speech of when I put it there, it was the one part where I asked the audience to stand up.
01:21:06
Speaker
And, you know, and I know how much everybody hates to have to do those type of things.
01:21:10
Speaker
Guilty.
01:21:11
Speaker
I'd ask.
01:21:11
Speaker
I said, you know, I was like, hey, I just need one last thing from you all.
01:21:15
Speaker
And I remember asking everybody to stand up and I told everybody to put one finger up and then point at themselves.
01:21:21
Speaker
And I said, now, you know who I did this for.
01:21:24
Speaker
And that was the thing is that being president wasn't to be able to go out and say, hey, I was SWACUO president.
01:21:31
Speaker
Yeah, look at this.
01:21:32
Speaker
It was because I wanted to serve my region and I want to serve those young professionals coming up and I want to be an inspiration to them.
01:21:40
Speaker
And that was the thing is just I think if you just are authentic and genuine to who you are, hopefully people can receive that well and just be able to be happy with that.
01:21:50
Speaker
And it felt great even this year at, you know, the last Swakuho, you know, in Fort Smith to be able to come back and see people.
01:21:58
Speaker
and receive that love.
01:22:00
Speaker
And I mean, I missed everybody so much.
01:22:03
Speaker
And just to come back and do that, it meant a lot that people still remembered me and my time in that role.
01:22:09
Speaker
And so, you know, I hope that, you know, it has that lasting impression.
01:22:12
Speaker
I hope that it has inspired people to go out and run and to be involved in committees and do things and even just to do more in your life.
01:22:20
Speaker
And so, you know, I've always said I'm open to
01:22:23
Speaker
to communicate with people.
01:22:24
Speaker
I'm just a phone call, Snapchat, Facebook message away.
01:22:28
Speaker
Feel free to, you know, get at me, you know, reach out because I am what I am and that's all I'm going to ever be.
01:22:35
Speaker
Yeah, well, you definitely made an impact on them because they all came back and they all just were like, I bet he's the best boss to work for.
01:22:41
Speaker
Like, you mean the second best boss?
01:22:42
Speaker
I'm like, who else?
01:22:44
Speaker
I'm like, me?
01:22:45
Speaker
They're like, no, he's better.
01:22:47
Speaker
Oh, my goodness.
01:22:48
Speaker
No, man.
01:22:49
Speaker
JC, you've always been somebody I've loved working with.
01:22:52
Speaker
So from working with you at Swaku, I'm pretty sure that working for you is probably fun, too.
01:22:57
Speaker
So, I mean, because that's the thing.
01:22:58
Speaker
We try to keep it, you know, just be who you are and, you know, enjoy it.
01:23:01
Speaker
So if you all get the chance to work with JC, trust me, you are in a good spot.
01:23:06
Speaker
I'm putting my stamp on that.
01:23:08
Speaker
Well, I appreciate that.
01:23:10
Speaker
Adonis, anything else you want to share before we wrap up?
01:23:14
Speaker
I mean, just the biggest thing, you know, one thing is that, you know, it's an honor to be able to do this.
01:23:18
Speaker
And it's just another chance to be able to reach out and touch people from Swakuho.
01:23:22
Speaker
Definitely, you know, love and miss you all.
01:23:25
Speaker
But understand that whenever I get the opportunity to see you, I'm going to definitely show you the same Swakuho love.
01:23:30
Speaker
And just go out there and get involved.
01:23:32
Speaker
Make this organization great by you going out there, putting 110% into it.
01:23:38
Speaker
and understand that what you give, you're going to get back way more than that.
01:23:42
Speaker
And so just take that leap of faith and do it.
01:23:45
Speaker
Well, that concludes this month's episode.
01:23:48
Speaker
Thanks yet again to Adonis Thompson for coming on the show.
01:23:51
Speaker
I'm confident that Adonis' stories and shared experience has been valuable to the Swakuho listeners, especially for a lot of our younger professionals.
01:23:59
Speaker
If you got something from this episode or any episode, please email me at swakuhopodcast at gmail.com or post on the Swakuho social media posts.
01:24:09
Speaker
I'll feature you on an upcoming episode, but be sure to include the episode you listened to, what you did, and what the outcome was.
01:24:16
Speaker
If you don't want your name shared, that's fine too.
01:24:18
Speaker
Just let me know.
01:24:20
Speaker
And don't forget, if you need some professional advice from outside your direct echo chamber, please use the form linked in the show notes to anonymously ask for advice.
01:24:29
Speaker
Next month, I'll be joined by two guests who are going to discuss, wait for it, email management.
01:24:35
Speaker
If that doesn't get you all juiced up and salivating throughout May, I don't know what will.
01:24:40
Speaker
But trust me, it is going to be a real barn burner.
01:24:43
Speaker
I'm going to start by asking my guests their number, the number of emails they have in their inbox, that is.
01:24:49
Speaker
We will be talking salutations, sign-offs, so-called email etiquette, copying bosses, and most importantly, small-scale strategies for effective email management, regardless of if you have zero emails or over 90,000.
01:25:05
Speaker
And with that, I say to you, good day.