Ep. 53: BONUS Episode: NCSL

Today's episode is unlike any other I have done! Back in November I had the privilege of presenting at the National Conference on Student Leadership in Orlando, FL.  While I was there, I interviewed some students who courageously opened up and shared with me some of their dreams, struggles, and inspirations in leadership. 

Thank you to the following students, in no particular order:
Adrianna Teel - Rose State College
Alyssa Davis - Berea College
Giavonna Corley - College of Southern Nevada
Mario Dian Head Jr - Atlanta Metropolitan State College
Thomas Zakowski - Penn State Altoona
Josalyn Harper - Malcolm X College
Makena Mosely - Eastern Florida State
Sam Fury - Penn State Altoona
Solomon Jones - Atlanta Metropolitan State College
Peter St. Pierre - Atlanta Metropolitan State College
Steven Richardson - Capital Community College
Allison Strain - College of Southern Nevada
Fizha Shabbir- Middlesex College

Chapters

• 6:06 What is your dream as a leader? Pt 1
• 7:21 What does leadership mean to you?
• 9:29 What is your biggest takeaway from conference?
• 12:07 What is you biggest struggle as a leader?
• 16:16 Who is a leader you admire and why?
• 21:38 What is your dream as a leader? Pt 2

Transcript

Kyla Cofer: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Leadership School podcast. I'm your host, leadership and self-care coach, Kyla Cofer. Here at the Leadership School, you'll hear leaders from around the world. Sharing their stories and expertise on how to lead with balance and integrity. Our goal teach you how to be an extraordinary leader.

Hello everyone. Welcome back. I hope you are having a fantastic day. Wow. We are, I guess it depends on when you're listening to this, but when it's released and recorded, we are here at the end of 2022. I cannot believe here we are at the end of a year. For me personally and for the leadership school, this has been.

a truly incredible year. I might even say groundbreaking. My goal was to produce 30 episodes of the [00:01:00] podcast this year, and this my friends, is episode 31. I'm really, really proud of achieving that goal, but not 31 of. All time is just 31 this year, which means I've had over 50 episodes, hopefully you heard our celebration podcast with Dilip and Laura when we celebrated 50 episodes of Leadership School.

I really believe that milestones should be celebrated and I'm just gonna keep on because I am very proud of this accomplishment. It's something that I just really never expected to see and I. Just truly, truly grateful for all of you who've listened and who have subscribed and who've shared the podcast, um, please, if you haven't done those things now, take a minute, pause, subscribe, tell a couple people about it because.

I can say for me personally, in especially this year, I mean the last two years of of hosting leadership school, I have grown exponentially in my leadership from having these conversations, and I know that if [00:02:00] you are looking to really enhance your leadership by listening to this podcast, that will really.

Do that for you as well. I've heard that from so many people, how grateful they are for the skills and just the conversations that we're having here, and it's really fun to be a part of and really fun to see. So just thank you guys so much for your support. It means. So much to me, you know, here we are at the last episode of 2022.

Before I get into this incredible bonus episode and telling you all about what's about to happen in this episode, I just wanna say that we are gonna be taking a little bit of a break for the next couple of weeks because I believe in rest. So we're taking a couple weeks off and then we'll come back in 2023 with a really cool series.

We're going to be doing a college tour. So I'm gonna be meeting with. Faculty, staff from colleges all around the United States and talking to them about their leadership programs degrees, their courses, and just how they value leadership on their college campuses and give whoever is listening. If you are thinking about enrolling in a leadership [00:03:00] course, just giving you kind of a tour of the different types of programs that are available around the country.

That you might be interested in, and if you're not interested in college leadership programs, then these episodes are just going to be really great to give you an idea of what's happening on college campuses and what is being taught and the most relevant things happening in the world realm education of leadership today.

Really excited about these episodes coming up, so be sure. , like I said, subscribe, share with your friends and um, be really excited about the years coming up. Take a really nice break over the next few weeks. Give yourself a chance to really rest and dive into the new year with a lot of hope and a lot of excitement and some goals laid out for you.

Cuz I'm all about goals. It's how we. Accomplish things and meet things is cuz we have goals that we want to see happen. Anyway. Okay, let's get into what is happening here in this episode. This is a bonus episode. I'm calling it a bonus episode because it's [00:04:00] very different from the episodes that you've heard so far.

I had the privilege in November. To attend the National Conference on Student Leadership in Orlando, Florida, I was presenting two of my talks, sustainable Habits for Leaders, focusing on burnout, prevention and healing. And then the other talk on failure as a tool to success. Using failures to celebrate failures and use them to propel us into success instead of moping about them feeling bad about them or being afraid of failing.

They were very well received. It was an incredible experience. I learned so much. I really enjoyed being there with the students, and I got to thinking, Hey, here we are talking to students, but maybe we just need to hear from the students. I think we need more time of really hearing from students what their dreams are, their struggles are, what their hopes are for leadership, who they admire.

I, over the course of two days at this conference, uh, I interviewed a dozen student leaders and I asked them all a series of [00:05:00] questions, and that's what you're gonna hear in this episode. Students from around the country, college students. Who are pursuing leadership, who are growing in their leadership. So what we're gonna do is you're gonna hear the names of the students and their schools, and in between that I'll be asking questions and then we'll hear all the responses for that particular question.

It's really was so fun to hear from all of these students. They're their passion for leading. And for serving their communities. I am so inspired by this generation of students and I believe that you'll be too. My name 

Student: is Adrianna Teel, and I'm from Rose State College in Oklahoma. I'm Alyssa Davis. I am from Bria College in Bria, Kentucky.

My name is Mario Head, Mario Dion Head Jr. And I go to Atlanta Metropolitan State College. Hello, my name is Giavonna Corley, and I go to College of Southern Nevada. My name is Thomas Zakowski. I'm from Penn [00:06:00] State Altoona. I'm a senior and I'm from the Sheetz Fellows Program. It's a leadership program with an entrepreneurial focus.

Kyla Cofer: What is your dream as a leader? I don't have 

Student: anything like super specific, but I'd really like to be able to, so I'm studying engineering, but I'd like to design or build something that will make a huge difference. Um, and I'm not really sure what that is yet, but I'll find it out eventually. I think so. So I am going to school.

I'm a pre-vet student and I am actually, uh, vice president of the pre-vet club. I actually helped start it with one of my friends at my school, and my dream is to be able to go to vet school and. Get to lead other people because it's so hard to find vets who can connect with undergraduates and it's so hard to get through that time cuz it's tough to find a role model that you can talk to.

And I'd love to be that for someone. I'd, I'd like to be a vet at a, at a zoo to work with exotic [00:07:00] animals and I just, I want people to look up to me just to make sure that everybody knows what's happening and making sure that everyone can have good communication skills and that I can help them 

Kyla Cofer: do. 

Student: To make sure everybody around my campus to call each other Kings and Queens 

Kyla Cofer: we're so awesome.

That's so great. I love that. I'm curious, what does leadership mean to you? What does it look like to you? So 

Student: to me it's be able to grow and learn and become leaders themselves. And I think it's especially important to be able to. Step back and let other people shine. I feel like that's a very important 

Kyla Cofer: leadership quality.

Student: To listen to myself and to the other students and to understand how to be there for myself. What it means to be a leader to me is setting an example for the future generation. Like I know like many leaders [00:08:00] just mainly focus on. The ones that are already on their level or already adults. But to me, I find it more important to be a leader to the children because they are the future.

First thing to be a leader is lead by example, and also a leader should always not be afraid to fail or, you know, be ridiculed. What? Anything that they. Because people make mistakes. So that's one thing of being a leader. I think it's hard for me to define it as a word, but when I think of great leaders, I think of somebody that leads by example.

You know what I mean? They step up and rather than telling people what to do, they actually do the action. I think it's somebody that inspires people, so not exactly like an influencer in like their traditional sense where the influence people on social media, but an influencer where you can look to them and you can be like, that's the kind of person I want to.

A leader considers everybody on the team, like, uh, one big happy familia. 

Kyla Cofer: I 

Student: would say a leader is somebody who is able to like, identify an issue [00:09:00] and not only suggests a solution, but like come up with a plan of how to get to that solution and like help with it. Not just like dictate, you know, and to be like, okay, we are gonna do this instead of you 

Kyla Cofer: do that.

Student: My name is Josalyn Harper. I'm representing Malcolm Max College. Hi, I'm Makena Moseley and I go to Eastern Florida State College. I'm Sam Fury. I'm from Penn State Altoona in Altoona, Pennsylvania. My name is Solomon Jones. I'm from Atlanta Metropolitan State College. 

Kyla Cofer: Well, what's, uh, one thing that you've learned and taken away from this conference so far?

So, one 

Student: thing I would say would be a big thing that's believing the praise that people's given you, um, and how to respond to it is just Thank you. I appreciate it. Uh, I worked really hard at it and cause I know sometimes that's kind of hard for me to remember. Like people are like, oh, you did such a great job.

Thanks, but , but that's, that's really helpful. My second workshop that I went to yesterday, just like the, the people [00:10:00] were crying in there and like, it, it was like not giving up and just believing in yourself and telling you to be the person that you wanna be, and that was my favorite once and learn.

Overcome my, uh, negative and just keep moving forward with baby steps. Um, one of my big takeaways was that there's always something that you can do, whether it's. With a lot of people or just a small group that can really change your life, being in tune with yourself. If you're gonna be an effective leader of others, then you have to be, have a good emotional intelligence and know a lot about yourself and be able to connect with yourself and, and understanding, you know, who you are and how you deal with others.

I think that that's a key, um, sort of element. So, um, like not being scared to network with people. Um, I would say some of the big takeaways from this event was that, The amazing workshops. Cause again, this is my first time in ncsl and it's a [00:11:00] huge conference of students and people from all around gathering in one place.

And you get to know a lot, a lot. One of the takeaways, I would say is that to no matter who you are, no matter the whole of your skin or whatever predicament you're in, you just pick yourself up and you just keep going. You don't give up. Because even if there's a wall or obstacle in the way, there's always a way for you to overcome that, to not go side to side of it, but break through of it.

So that's kind of one of the takeaways I love. Um, my biggest takeaway so far is to not be afraid to like speak your mind. I think so both of the seminars I went to were very different in terms of topics, but both of them were saying how you should announce things and like just say it with your chest, be like, 

Kyla Cofer: like, don't hesitate.

Student: Honestly, I love how diverse, diverse it is. Well, it's not something I expect because this is my first time at one of these [00:12:00] student leadership conferences, 

Kyla Cofer: so it's actually a new experience 

Student: for me and seeing how diverse it is, it's 

Kyla Cofer: amazing. What would you say is one of your biggest struggles as a leader?

Student: Delegating. I do not know how to delegate at all. I am learning every day. . You wanna do it all yourself? I do, because I feel like when I do ask for help, the people that I ask for help, they don't help me out. And so I don't wanna fail because I learned you're the president. Everything comes down on you.

And so now I had two burnouts like I was telling you earlier, and I don't wanna have no more burnouts. I have so many ideas. And so I talked to my vp, she told me I have good ideas, but slow down and sit down with everybody and actually give them the details that we need for the requirements. Go back over the details and make sure that comprehend me.

And then set a deadline a. Biggest struggle as a leader? Um, for [00:13:00] me growing up, I mean, I'm, I've had limited leadership experience, but I've had the opportunity, whether it be in, in, you know, my limited work experience or throughout high school and college. Um, I guess it's, it's doing what you say, so it's easy to say something.

Right. And, you know, I could have all the right words to say to motivate a group, but if you're not going to follow that up and. You know, practice what you preach. I think then, you know, the wheels kind of fall off and people, people see through that. So for me it was, it was recognizing that, you know, not not just saying what I, you know, think and believe, but actually putting it into practice and doing it.

And so having recognized that about myself or maybe understanding that I've a tendency not to. Take an effort and make an effort to, uh, to do the opposite and actually, you know, follow through and do what I say. So it's been effective. I would say one of my biggest struggles as a leader is reaching, reaching out to as many people as I can.

I feel like sometimes I can't or I [00:14:00] don't make sure that I push myself enough to really. To the target audience that I'm trying to get to. And I feel like I do not do a great job at keeping them around, like keeping them engaged with my leadership, which is, I guess, something that you learn as you get older and you learn how to, um, I guess navigate that.

But I'm pretty good at working with people. I just feel like I. Keep them engaged in, there's like something, you know, yeah. To keep them following. I think I struggle with humility. Not that I'm like a very prideful guy, but just that sometimes I guess I struggle putting myself in other people's shoes.

Like I think of a per, uh, like a certain perspective and it's hard for me to shift my perspective, you know what I mean? So I think I'm trying to learn how to overcome that, how to be more aware of what other people want out of an organiz. . My biggest struggles as a leader is I get very nervous and shy when I'm talking to people that I don't 

Kyla Cofer: know.

Well, you're [00:15:00] not any problem right now. You're doing great, . Thank 

Student: you. . You do? Yeah, I just, I don't know. I feel like sometimes I tend to stutter or I just can't keep contact, like eye contact a lot. . So then I feel like the person I'm talking to won't take me seriously because I can't hold like a con a 

Kyla Cofer: conversation comfortably.

I 

Student: think for me it's, um, communication where it's like when I like people or I vibe with them, I too much of my personality,

that's not the best thing to be doing. And then sometimes when I'm having issues with like, I guess I'm a leader, but then I'm also like a work study. So while I'm a leader, I'm kinda like low on the totem pole. So when I have issues with people or with like students, I don't wanna be like overstepping.

And then sometimes I just kind ignore issues where they're, the people that having issues with are also creating issues with everyone else around them. My name is Peter St. Pierre Junior, and I'm from Atlanta [00:16:00] Metropolitan State College. Hello everyone. My name is Steven Richardson. I am from Capital Community College.

My name is Allison 

Kyla Cofer: Strain, and this 

Student: school I go to is College of Southern Nevada. Hi, I'm Fizha Shabbir and I go to Middlesex College in New 

Kyla Cofer: Jersey. Who is a leader that you admire and why? 

Student: Since I was really little, I looked up to like Steve Irwin. He was always so inspirational. Like he's just always so confident and he has literally my dream job, like teaching people about animals and I just thought that would be so fun.

I've watched him, like my whole wife and I still look up to his kids and his wife today. My second great grandma, she was my leader. I was able to, uh, get to know her up till I was nine and she passed away because she's the one that told me to be the doctor that I am, and never to stop, stop doubting myself still.

Like, yeah, she believed me. She, she just told me, baby, if you wanna be a doctor, do it. And don't doubt it. Put God first and you got this, my baby. I guess I really [00:17:00] admire my dad. He has always shown positive commitment and always been such a positive light in my life. And so I feel like he's always been a really great leader.

Uh, I was blessed growing up to have a, a large family, a lot of familial influence. Um, we have a family business, a construction company, so. My dad, my grandfather, my, my aunts and uncles. They were all big leaders, uh, role models for me growing up. So, uh, those are are leaders that I admire and aspire to be like, uh, their drive, their work ethic, uh, their willingness to give back to the community.

Uh, we're from a, a smaller community in Altoona. Of, uh, 30, 40,000. So, uh, everybody kind of knows everybody. It's, it's big, but it's small at the same time. So, uh, you know, they, they've had put an emphasis and, and made an effort to give back and it's just something growing up that I always admired of them.

Um, another leader to me, uh, as you can see on my shirt, says Sheetz Fellows Program. Um, if you're from the Northeast, you've probably heard of Sheetz gas [00:18:00] station. Um, Steve Sheetz, the founder of Sheetz, uh, gas Stations, um, endowed a, uh, a pr, um, some, some money to, uh, found a program at Penn State Altoona. And it's a leadership and entrepreneurship program.

It's called the Sheetz Fellows. And so I've gotten to work closely with Steve and, and he's a big, uh, mentor and role model to me as well. My only and oldest sister, uh, her name is Anisha Morgan because. At the age of 23, she, uh, was forced to take care of me, but she still, you know, like did everything that a mother and a father was supposed to do.

So, like I give my life to her. Like if she wants money, she can have it. Anything I, I can do it for her. I can do, I would do it. So, yeah. I have to say Elon Musk in a sense, he seen something he felt like he wanted to change in Twitter and nobody would've thought before he actually did it. Like everybody was like, it's crazy.

This man's by, not by the by Twitter or he is not gonna do all the crazy things he's already doing, and all of that just. Pushes me and every, oh, I think about it all the time. I'm like, [00:19:00] if this man could just wake up and do all this stuff that he needed to do, to do what he like, what he seen and wanted to change it, even though nobody was thinking about it like that, nobody was thinking about, oh, we should move to Mars.

Cause. . I feel like there's a lot of stuff that I think about and I'll be like, well, nobody's really thinking about that, so I will never catch traction. I might as well try to do it because if he can do it, and I would've thought nobody was would behind that, it just gives me the encouragement in my mind to go for things that I wouldn't think that would catch traction, if that makes.

I would say one leader that I admire to is Martin Luther King Jr. So I was born in 2000, 2000 maybe as you call it. And from that moment on, there's been things going on with motion of black and whites, the segregation, all that stuff. And so when I've learned about Martin Luther King Jr. Around elementary [00:20:00] high school, it really.

Awakened my, um, roots because I'm half Puerto Rican, half African American, I'm mixed Afro-Latino, whatever you want to call it. And he, again, he awakened my, my roots and say that were more than just a color. Were more than just superiority or poverty, or more than just the wealth and the rich and the poor and everything.

At the end of the day, no matter where you come from, we all still human beings. So he was just a big inspiration. He, again, did a lot of movement, a lot of action, and again, action speak louder than words. So I praise him, and again, I just look to myself. I look to my family and dear friends, and they help remind me to believe in myself that I can do better and be [00:21:00] better.

maybe like Martin Luther King Jr. Or again, I would probably say our advisor, his name is Brian Atkin, but our advisor is very like lenient and relaxed, but like when we need him, he's always there. So it's not like, you know, an official leader or whatever, someone in that kinda spot. But you know, for me it's always been my older brother.

Because he is always, you know, got his stuff together. He's very educated on topics and always willing to share, you know, his knowledge and his perspectives on things and you know, I'm ever being a little too wild, he always like, you gotta get in 

Kyla Cofer: check. What is your dream as a leader? Dream 

Student: of mine? Uh, well, I mentioned that I'm from a small community and, uh, it's my dream to stay local actually.

And I, I, I feel a deep sense of connection to my, my community, Altoona, Pennsylvania. So I don't see myself leaving. Uh, but I wanna affect positive change, uh, in and within the community, uh, whether it be through business or social work, um, you know, just in any way I [00:22:00] can. Uh, it's my dream to, uh, you know, continue to serve my community.

My dreams is to be was this man with a integrity based company. One of my dreams as a leader is to help really kids that are in need that are not, you know, really fixed, like in the middle of social class. So I would like help them, you know, like schools or jobs. Cause growing up, finding high, finding a high school was hard.

Luckily I was able to get into a good high school and it was hard for me to find my first job when I first turned 16. So that would be the one thing I would help if I was become a leader.. I think one of my biggest dreams as a leader is to just have impacted somebody's life enough to be like, when they're struggling, to be like, oh, I remember when I met Gia, and she, she like, does this, so that inspired me to do this.

Or to just always like, I don't know, just leave an impact 

Kyla Cofer: on somebody, 

Student: a big dream. That might be a little like fantasy right now, but I feel like in my lifetime it'll be [00:23:00] a reality. So I'm trying to work. building myself up to have the skills as an engineer and someone who's like capable with my hands and working so that when he does finally get us to Mars, I want to be one of those engineers who works there to help fix or just maintain a base and things like that.

To be honest, I'm a huge fan of just leading in like a very passive and natural way. I don't want to be in a position where my title is a leader or like a manager. You know what I mean? But I would love to be behind the scenes just working as like, I guess like a grunt or like a ground level worker, but influencing things in a way that shifts my corporation or my organization.

Over the summer, I work at a summer camp in the Poconos that's called Camp Mincy. And. When I work there, like I, I'm not high up and just based off like my leadership style, I'm very lax and stuff. So I think people kind of take me for granted. But I think if there's anybody that kind of shifts the culture or shifted the culture of that camp, it would be me just because of how I've been [00:24:00] able to like lead younger staff members and as they've grown up, like I've seen like, like my sort of attributes within them, just like the way they carry themselves and stuff.

So that's been like a very rewarding thing and that's just what I mean by leader. Be a leader, I guess, to be someone that, you know, people can kind of, you know, respect and see that, oh, I can always come to them for advice and someone that if I ever mess up you, it wouldn't hurt you to like, call me out on it.

Help me further myself and you know, I would just love to be in a position where I can help people get to where they need to be. My dream as a leader is that I want to be remembered, not because of the my words, but because of the actions I took, the process I took to get to point A, to point B, so that even though you may not know who I am, my face, my appearance or whatever, but at least I left on.

And to me that's [00:25:00] saying, I get some in case anybody say, oh, what did you do? I did this. I left a mark. What did you do? So my dream is to just leave a mark, to not be silent, to not feel. Alone to bring comfort to not just myself, but to others like myself, and to reeducate themselves so that they can help others, support others and be that support group and to accomplish many, many things so that they themselves can create a dream of their owns and become future student leaders.

Kyla Cofer: Thank you again. It was such a pleasure to talk with you. You can find the names of all our students and their schools along with the transcript in our show notes. As usual, if you were interviewed and you didn't hear your name, we are so sorry. We tried to get to everyone that sometimes that's just the way it goes.

The Leadership School podcast is executive produced by me, [00:26:00] Kyla Cofer, assistant producer Alaina Hulette, and edited by Neel Panji.