Experience University Podcast

S4E17: Summer Break

April 27, 2021 Extraordinary Events Season 4 Episode 17
Experience University Podcast
S4E17: Summer Break
Show Notes Transcript

The podcast is taking a summer break! In this podcast episode, I discuss the importance of mental health, give an update on my PCMA North American Student Competition Team, and discuss the future of the Extraordinary Events Podcast! See you in the fall! 

Dr. K: Hello, hello, my wonderful friends. I just had this wonderful moment where I was doing the intro to the podcast saying, welcome to episode number 72. And I hit stop to stop recording. And then I was just totally dancing in my office to my own themes. Has any body ever experienced that before? Oh my goodness, it's a little bit of craziness, where you're dancing to your own song. That's just wild. I know. It's easy to hear a statement and then that reminds you of a song and then you rock out and dance to it to dance or to your own theme song. I am such a dork. 

Well, I have all the announcements today. So many announcements. Let's see. First, we are officially over 2000 downloads. What the heck, people I am so proud of you. We just started in August. And it seems like every semester we've got 1000 downloads or more. Just so incredible. I just I'm I'm in disbelief. Several people have even reached out singing that they love listening to the sound of my voice. To me if you've heard some of the podcasts. One of the reasons why it took me so long to record a podcast was because I didn't like the sound of my voice. It's just insane. Thank you so much to everybody who helped us get to this milestone. Thank you, to you the listeners. Without you, we wouldn't be here. The second big announcement that we have is the day that this podcast episode releases, which is on a Tuesday. 

This is a Tuesday podcast episode, we will find out if one of our two student teams for the PCMA  North American student competition has made it to the finals. I actually wanted to talk about their teams today, but then realized, probably shouldn't because this is a public podcast. And if they are announced as finalists, either team or both teams, then you would know all the scoop on their project. But I'm super excited to share it with you in the future. Let's see what else. Okay, so little bit of inner turmoil here. Because I'm trying to figure out the podcast for the summer. As you all know, my main purpose is I want to elevate event education. And the podcast is one of many platforms that I do that through I do events, I do continuing education events, I do workshops, I do trainings, I speak at a lot of different places. I have a YouTube channel, of course, we have the podcast, we've got our four credit classes and not for credit classes, we just do so much. And the podcast started in August, and this would be the first summer. So not saying that I'm setting your routine by trying to figure out what this looks like. 

I know a lot of podcasts do seasons, whether they're just a fall release, or a spring and fall release, or they just released 10 episodes at one time. I've had the students do all the research. And I'm just sitting there trying to figure out what this looks like. Well, the podcast specifically, is so integrated with the students. We do student podcast through the intro class, and student podcast now not through the intro class because other students at U and l are reaching out asking if they can do a podcast that aren't even in the intro class, which is a lot of fun. We have students that edit the podcast, we have students integrated in this podcast in so many ways. And I've decided that specific to the podcast just like events, Episode One, what is your Why? What is the purpose? And I think for a while I was getting my purpose confused with the podcast purpose. And of course the podcast is in alignment with my purpose, which is why I do it. I take the time to record these episodes. But every single program that I run that I'm affiliated with, they all have their own purpose as well. So I've decided that this week is the very last week of the semester, and then all the students will go away. So this is actually going to be the last podcast episode that you here until the fall. Now I so appreciate people that are caught up 100% to where we are in the podcast. 

I am totally calling you out Jordan, Love it. Love your Instagram comments. Thank you so much, and calling out Jackie, who's been sending us messages with some ideas for the future. Absolutely love it, keep it coming. But the purpose of the podcast really, is to have this students involvement. And so I'm going to take a break from the podcast for the summer, we're going to catch up on some of our YouTube videos that we've put on hold for the past six weeks ish. And you can check me out over there and get some FaceTime with me, which will be a lot of fun. I've also been having just a ton of fun sending out these personalized videos, make sure that you rate and review and take a screenshot because you can send that screenshot in to us just get it to us comment or message or send us an email, connect with us in the website, send it my way, and I will send you a personalized video thanking you for listening to the podcast. And that's also how I've ended up getting some really cool connections around the world from people who are listening to the extraordinary events podcast, we did talk a lot in January about some really cool initiatives that we're rolling out in the spring, got a little bit overwhelmed with conference planning, because we were doing some new, unique fun things there. But super excited that that is now going to be happening this summer. So stay tuned for that, you'll get to hear all about it in our catch up episode in the fall, and share the podcast with your friends. 

There's a lot of episodes to catch up on 172. And if the average episodes about 15 minutes, that's a lot of minutes. So share the podcast share that episodes, share with a friend or people you don't even like just get them to listen to it. And let's all elevate event education together. If you've been following and listening to the podcast for a while, you know that i affectionately called Tuesdays lessons and life coaching. And as we enter into the summer months, I just really want to talk a little bit about mental health and the importance of taking a break. If you live in the United States, we have this culture of working and working and working ourselves to death and not using our super limited two week vacation time. And I fell into that this past year. I have a cap on the number of hours I can rollover for my paid time off. And I hit that cap and I was no longer occurring hours. And I said to myself, I'm tired. I have a lot going on. I just need a break. I want to take a break for my mental house to catch up on sleep though if you've read any sleep studies or den asleep masterclass, you know, there's no real catching up. But there's just things that I want to do. 

And I've very strategically decided that I'm going to take off every other week throughout the summer, and visit my family and visit my friends and take a legit vacation. So I've got quite an interesting schedule this summer when it comes to just traveling within the United States and also some travel abroad if we're allowed to do it because of COVID. And I really want to emphasize to everybody that it is okay to not be okay. It is 100% okay to not be okay. I wasn't okay tonight, when my almost six year old decided she was going to have a massive breakdown and tell me that she hates me and she doesn't love me and she wishes I wasn't her mom and it's okay to not be okay. And I think that we all have this face, especially on social media. 

Because we know if on social media, we're negative, then people will unfollow us though, unlike us, it won't get shown. So we always have to be funny. We have to be sharing these awesome places that we're going to an awesome quotes. And there's a fine line between being authentic, and just showing the happy fun side of life. It's okay to not be okay. And if we're all being honest with each other, we're all not okay, at some points. Even the companies that are thriving during COVID they're making their best year ever. Those employees are probably not okay all the time. Those owners are probably not okay all the time. The world is crazy. And even when the world's not crazy, even if the world is just going on the way that it is. There are so many things in our lives and so many pressures from all different directions. And it's just okay to not be okay. And it's also okay to recognize that. I think that's one of the reasons why my students in my classes are really hard. And and I understand that even the quote unquote insure class is really a principles and practices class. My classes are hard, because it's not a quiz in a test. 

They're hard, because they're projects that make you think. And they require creativity. And I have very high standards. And I don't let students just not try. And that's hard. And it's interesting, because I was invited on this podcast by some of my former students who started a podcast. And one of the things that Meghan had said, she said, I looked you up on rate, my professor before I started your class. And I didn't understand how everybody could like you, but that your hard scale could be so high. And she told me what the numbers were, but I can't remember them. But essentially, the internet and all of these former students said, I was really hard, but I was really awesome. That's what she told me. And she didn't understand how that was possible. And she signed up for my course. And she took the course. And then at the end, she said, I got it, like I understand, because the class itself is hard, because the way that it's structured, but it's a good thing. And me as a teacher, I'm not sitting here trying to deduce points over and over again. In fact, I spent 12 hours, 12 hours grading projects last week, and some of them still weren't where I wanted them to be. So I said, Hey, you know what, I'm willing to give another six or eight hours to grade projects next week, as long as you update this, and you do the work, because I'm here because I want you to learn not so that we can deduct arbitrary points, I want you to get the concepts and I want you to apply them, not just understand it, but to apply. 

So it's really interesting because my classes notorious for for being on the herder side. And if you look at my fall teaching evaluations, here we are online class synchronous on zoom, we can all imagine what those boring meetings are. And if you look at my evaluation, all the comments were like Doctor case, so nice, Doctor case, so kind doctor case. So caring, Dr. Kay really listens. And none of that actually has to do with the content in the course, all of that has to do with the environment that I've set up, I've intentionally set up. And a lot of that is just being authentic, and being the authentic self. And just being me, this is me a whole person, if we're trying to design events for the whole person, and not just for their skill set, but for their 360 degree whole person, then we need to know who they are as a person. I am not just Dr. Kay, who is the teacher that you see twice a week. I'm also an event professional. I'm an extension specialist. I'm a mom, I'm a partner. I'm a colleague, I'm a friend, I'm a daughter, I'm a sister, I'm all of these things, and you can't just take one piece. And it's the same thing in the classroom environment. 

Now, don't get me wrong if you decide that you want to not show up to my class for the entire semester, and then send me an email the day grades or do three hours before they're due and say, hey, I want to know what I can do to be successful in this course, can we meet within the next two hours, I'm probably not going to respond to your email until the next day. But if I see that you're trying, if you give an effort, I will sit there and I talk to you. And I get to know you. And I figure out what your dreams and your passions are and I try to help you get the information and apply the information and customize the class. co create your learning experience to be what you want it to be and what you need it to be for the future. If we really think about events, if we think about classes, if we think about coffee with a friend, if we think about holidays with our family, they are nothing but experiences. We are all in this. We are all in it to create experiences and to live experiences. And we all come with our own unique lived experiences from our past. We are all unique. Nobody in my viewpoint is disabled. We are all just differently abled, we are all unique and come at life from a different perspective. And it is a okay to not be okay.

So with that thought, I hope that you just sit back and really experience these different experiences that you're living. So you can think about how you can design a unique experience that will last with somebody else. Because we are not in this for subpar events. We're not in this for just your we did this last year or nothing was broke, we don't need to fix anything. We're in this to design transformational experiences for other people to participate in. I hope that every single one of you takes time this summer, to get out and enjoy the sunshine, to spend time with friends, to talk with family to take some time off, go read a book, sit in a coffee shop, even if you don't drink coffee, and just people watch and just enjoy the environment and just be present in your life. If you are not following the extraordinary events initiative on Facebook, or Dr. k events on Instagram, you need to do that right now. Because if you don't do it, you have to wait until the fall to figure out how the PCMA teams did because I won't know until next week. 

Technically, we won't know if they one for another two weeks. But if you follow the Facebook page extraordinary events initiative or Instagram, Dr. k events, then you will get the real time for one one information on the student teams. I wish every single one of you a an extraordinary summer filled with amazing experiences that will stay with you for a lifetime. As always, thank you so much for taking the time to make the time. I'll talk with you in the fall.