Experience University Podcast

S5E3: Understanding Your Foundation

August 31, 2021 Extraordinary Events Season 5 Episode 3
Experience University Podcast
S5E3: Understanding Your Foundation
Show Notes Transcript

Today I reflect on how I built my professional foundation and how it resonates with me. The foundation I've built is what supports my purpose in life. Understanding why I think doing the things that I do and practice instills who I am. How's your foundation? What's your purpose?

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Dr. K: Hello, Hello, my friends. It is 5:16am. And I am recording a podcast. And it's not like it's going live tomorrow, It's at least a week in advance. I just was up and I was excited about life and the world. And I decided I was going to record a podcast. This will definitely be the earliest podcast I have ever recorded. So here's hoping that it makes sense, and if it doesn't, here's hoping that Lilly can edit it so that it does. 

I have been thinking a lot about purpose for many, many, many reasons. It was actually the first podcast on the Extraordinary Events Podcast was all about purpose. And I'm a very purpose driven person.

I remember I was doing an activity years ago, where you had little slips of paper and you had to go through and you did a series of exercises and activities to find the one thing that kind of motivates you, intrinsically motivates you. And some could say money, some could say family, some could say faith, and mine was purpose. At the end of the day. I'm a very purpose driven person. And this works out well in events, and it works out well in teaching, and on the committees that I'm on. I'm on a lot of committees. I think at my last count, I was on 16. And I was on a conference planning committee last week, we meet every Monday. And I always feel like I'm saying in that committee, I'm saying what's the purpose of this session? So the committee will talk about a really cool breakout they want to do or a really cool speaker, and I'm constantly bringing it back to the purpose. What is the purpose of this? What is the purpose of this speaker? What's the purpose of this breakout? What's the behavior change that we want for our attendees? It really has me thinking a lot about purpose and different purposes.

For a long time, I worked so hard with students to integrate students into the industry. And I still do that on the daily. I actually have updates for you all on PCMA board too, I did my interview. So that's really exciting. But I'm thinking about purpose. And really, what is the purpose of all the things that I do. It's really caused me to to create some shifts, some kind of last minute shifts and some of the things that I'm doing this fall, which is really interesting. So I want to share more about that with you as the semester unfolds.

One thing that I have found really interesting is to give you some updates if you listen to Episode 72, you could be bingeing this, or I think it's 73 you heard that I'm finally getting on TikTok, the "tickety-tock", I am getting on TikTok. My students laugh at me so much. I tried last year and I just kept having all these mental barriers. It wasn't the right time, I had recorded a couple and posted them and actually had good engagement with them! It just just felt so stiff and scripted. And so this year, I was really excited. I've actually recorded two and now they’re in video editing. So by the time you listen to this podcast, at least two TikToks will be out under "Dr. K Events". So make sure that you go and look them up. And I've really been thinking a lot about what I find the purpose of the TikTok - The TikTok -  I'm super silly with it with all my students, so that will definitely bleed over onto the podcast, because now it's actually in my vernacular. It's in my everyday language, me being silly.

I'm constantly thinking about Okay, what is the purpose of the podcast? What is the purpose of this social media channel? What is the purpose of this? And it's actually interesting. I was having a conversation with a friend and I was talking about the podcast that we listened to. I listen to two podcasts pretty regularly, I was kind of reflecting on how with one podcast, I take lots and lots of notes. I can't listen to that podcast without having a notebook or having my voice memo open on my phone. Every time I listen to that podcast, I get so many little nuggets that I just want to write down and reflect on and think about or integrate into my life. It's very practical with different steps that I can, can incorporate into my routine. And then I have another podcast that I listen to, I think I'm on Episode 115. I think maybe I've taken five notes the entire time. And I was really reflecting on this because I found that to be really interesting, because that wasn't a reflection of me as an individual person, who takes notes on everything. That it was really a reflection of the podcast, the fact that I could like and love both of these podcasts so equally, and it really came down to purpose.

One of the podcasts I felt was really about changing behavior. So it had lots of different things to try, little hats to think about, to try on see if it fits. And if it doesn't, you know, try on a different hat, and lots of good routine things. So I took lots of notes, and I really value that podcast because it really does change my behavior.

The second podcast, I write very few notes, and I just listen. And I've come to realize that for that podcast, that podcast is really expanding my worldview. It's really exposing me to different concepts and different careers, alternative lifestyles, and so many different things that are so... it's not even that it's beyond my realm, it's that I literally don't even know these things exist. There are some times they're interviewing people on their podcast, that I pause the podcast and go Google what the industry is, because I've never even heard of the industry. And it's just really fascinating.

I truly believe there's, there's a saying and I can't think of who said it. But there's a saying that says you can't be curious about things unless you know a little bit about it. So it's really interesting to kind of get people's feet just a little bit wet. Like here, this thing exists, and here's a couple cool facts about it. And now you're going to be curious, and you're going to go look it up. And I find that that's what that podcast does. Is it exposes me to brand new things I never would have thought about never knew didn't even know it existed enough to become curious about it. And it exposes it and just expands all the things that, that I didn't even know existed. And so both of those podcasts serve a very important role in in my life and in my professional development.

And I find this interesting, I run a listserv, and I say "I run", it’s my own personal listserv. And it's for event educators so any educator that's related to meetings and events can email me and be put on it. Or if you're a friend or colleague, then you're probably already on it. It's got hundreds of meetings and event faculty around the world. And I just decided two years ago, that event education, I really wanted it to move forward. I started sending out these emails in fall and spring and summer that just give an overview of everything that's happening. So here's things happening in PCA or MPI or IAEE, you know, all the alphabet soup, here's a student competition, and here's the updated textbook information, anything that had to do with events that could be relevant to education. And I just started sending it out. And this semester, I sent it out - I just sent it out last week. And I always get a ton of emails back like 'thank you so much, Kristin, for keeping us all updated', and 'thank you so much', and 'I look forward to this every semester and hope you're well'. And it's just a really great way to stay in touch.  One faculty member from another university had reached out and said: 'thank you so much for this list, I want to meet up on a zoom and talk about ways we can collaborate on a bunch of the projects you're doing and that we're doing!' and then they said 'also I love your podcast, and I'm going to send it out to all 3000++ of our students'. I hadn't even advertised the podcast in that email. It's just so many people now, I guess, have exposure to it.

And so I was sitting there, and I was thinking, Oh, my goodness, that's so cool that all these students are gonna get exposure to the podcast. And then I started thinking about the purpose. So what is the purpose of the podcast. It really is kind of a catch all - we have stuff with the industry, we have things with the students, we have these lessons and in life stories here on Tuesdays, and I was really thinking like, what's the purpose? And then how is the purpose of my podcast and my TikTok and my Youtube channel? How are they the same? How are they different? Are they the same target markets? What are the messaging So it's really been going a lot through my mind.

So I have decided for my TikTok -I won't explicitly state with the purpose is - but I have decided I wanted to be more on the educational front, on the fun side. And I really was focusing that on, on meetings and events, and kind of tying it to the podcast. But I think I also want to expand that a bit into teaching events. And having that just be a fun platform for all the things in my life, whether that's teaching events, or the actual events themselves, or the students. I think that that would just be so much fun. My YouTube is definitely anybody that, that does events. It's all about online engagement and strategy and design. The podcast has a little bit of everything for everyone. And I love that. And I think that's why it's attracted such a random audience, which I just love. So much. I get so many fun emails. 

We're planning another professional development opportunity, an online event. I know, we're all so tired of online events, but with the Delta, trying to have the global presence for that diversity of thought. I'm just really excited about some of the opportunities that provides. 

And so I did want to provide an update for those following along in the path. So if you didn't listen to last week's episode, Episode 73, then I was nominated for the PCMA Global board of directors. So I already serve in the board of directors for the Heartland Chapter, which is the Midwest in the United States. And I've just absolutely loved my involvement. I just love everything related to PCMA. And I was nominated by a supplier in Europe and some meeting planners and suppliers and faculty in the United States to be in the global board. And I don't think I recognized how big of a deal it was, I was like, oh, cool, like I get to get more involved with PCMA. And then I quickly realized that it was a really big deal. If I was elected to this, then I would be the first faculty member on the global board. In the 63 years since its inception, it's just like crazy to think about the opportunities this would provide to kind of tie academia and industry together. And so they're only taking so many people, there's interviews, and there was lots and lots of people nominated. Lots and lots of people from all over the world. So I was super nervous for my interview. So the last podcast, last Tuesday's podcast, I had just been notified that I had the interview coming up. And then now I've done the interview and I don't know if I was selected or not, but I think I'll find out later on this week at some point. And so hopefully the next time you hear this, then I'll know - hopefully. 

And so the interview process was really interesting, because I definitely was feeling some crazy imposter syndrome. And I'm self aware enough that I recognized it right away. I said, huh, this is this is imposter syndrome, where I was sitting there saying, 'well, maybe no faculty has been on the global board because they're just so far ahead of of where we are and maybe I have no business being on the board. And why would it be me out of all the faculty?' And I definitely had some crazy imposter syndrome going on. I had my interview and it was nine questions. Some of those questions. I know that I just killed like I'm looking existing board members are doing the interviews. And there was one question, I just looked at them on the zoom and two of the people were like 'you killed that question, you just you killed it, you got it like so right on with such great analogies and visuals'. So I knew that I killed those. But then you have the two other questions that it's like, did I even understand what you're asking? And I'm laughing, but in the moment, I was like, I literally don't even know what you're asking. And so I had to tell them, like, can you rephrase this question? Because I don't think my brain can even process what you're trying to ask. And they did. They reframed the question. I took a couple moments, and then I very much gave them a non answer, because I didn't actually agree with the question. If you know me in real life, or if we've been in different communities or situations together, one of the compliments that I most frequently get is that I just ask really good questions. And, and I think that's just because I'm innately curious, and just some of my background experiences and how I approach problems, or see things in a different way. And I didn't exactly agree with the question that they were asking, I thought that it should have been a different question. And so I kind of brought that up, I said, I'm gonna answer the question, how I'm perceiving it. And this is how I'm framing the question, which is not exactly what you're asking for. But here's, here's my question. And here's the answer. And they sat there at the end, and they tried probing me a couple times. And then at the end, one of the women on the call, she said, 'nobody, in the past three weeks of interviews, has answered this question the way that you just answered it. But I don't think that that's a bad thing, because I think it just goes to show how you are approaching things very differently, that you have your own unique lived experiences and how you're approaching these problems. And that's actually a really good thing.' So, you know, you never know, maybe my non-answer actually works for me, but I'm super pumped that it's over. But I'm also super anxious to find out if I'm on it. I'm just kind of like a little bit of a ball of nerves, because I guess subconsciously, it really did mean just so much to me and I didn't want to get my hopes up, because I know it's super competitive. So send me some good juju, if you're listening to this, here's hoping that I get on it. 

That's, that's really kind of it for for today, I wanted to really talk about purpose. Next Tuesday, we're gonna jump right back into lessons and kind of life stories, I wanted to do a my summer recap, and then like my purpose and my purpose for the different platforms, and how I'm going to be positioning that purpose a little bit. Because you might see a little bit of content on the Tuesday shift just a little bit. We started off doing on the podcast, we started off doing a lot with like, singular lessons and then we went more to like life coaching and lessons. And now I think we're gonna get back to just some more kind of lessons building in that storytelling aspect. So as always, thank you so much for logging on, downloading, rating, reviewing, subscribing, sharing with a friend telling others about the podcast. And thank you for taking the time to make the time. Time is valuable, and I never take it for granted. And with that, I hope you'll listen in on Thursday, which is our other PCMA group, which they scored second in North America, and they're going to provide us some of their feedback, which will be really fun. And then we'll jump into a crazy fun filled semester filled with lots of amazing lessons. Until next time, I'll see you later. Bye.