Stacked Keys Podcast
The idea to talk to women who are out there living and making a difference is where the Stacked Keys Podcast was born. There are women who make a difference, but never make a wave while paddling through life. Immediately I can think of a dozen or more who impacted me, but I want more. I want to talk to those I don't know and I want to share with an audience that might need the inspiration to find their own beat. This podcast is to feature women who are impressive in the work world-- or in raising a family -- or who have hobbies that can make us all be encouraged. Want to hear what makes these women passionate and get up in the morning or what they wish they had known earlier in life? Grab your keys and STOMP to your own drum.
Stacked Keys Podcast
Episode 232 -- Kristie Chandler -- Finding Your Path: Leadership, Learning, and Life Lessons
What does it mean to truly walk your own path while supporting others on theirs? In this fabulous conversation with Kristie Chandler, we explore the delicate balance between personal growth and professional leadership.
Kristie shares her fascinating journey from growing up in the hospitality business (complete with a family restaurant and a bed and breakfast in Natchez, Mississippi) to becoming an educator specializing in human development and family science. Her story reveals how seemingly disconnected experiences—from hospitality to residence hall director to orientation leadership—weave together to create a unique professional journey. "No job is a waste of time," a sentiment that resonates throughout Kristie's career path.
The conversation takes compelling turns as we talk of what makes an effective leader in today's world. Kristie's philosophy centers on speaking truth in love, focusing on people's strengths rather than deficits, and creating collaborative visions rather than dictating direction. She candidly shares personal challenges that shaped her perspective, from health scares to the difficult balance of career ambitions and family priorities, offering listeners valuable insights on maintaining identity beyond professional titles.
Perhaps most thought-provoking is Kristie's approach to teaching controversial subjects like family law and policy. Her commitment to walking "the middle line" while encouraging students to develop their own values-based opinions demonstrates an admirable educational ethos. She makes the idea of education exciting and relevant. Similarly, her passion for international education reveals how stepping outside comfort zones creates optimal conditions for profound personal growth.
We talk about having your close group of friends and those in your inner circle who are there for you. Whether you're navigating career transitions, seeking to be a more effective leader, or simply wanting to live more authentically, Kristie's wisdom on intentional community-building and lifelong learning offers practical guidance for stomping to your own drum while helping others find their rhythm.
Music "STOMP" used by permission of artist Donica Knight Holdman and Jim Huff
I'm walking all alone down my yellow brick road and I stomp to the beat of my own drum. I got my pockets full of dreams and they're busting at the seams, going boom, boom boom.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Stacked Keys Podcast. I'm your host, amy Stackhouse. This is a podcast to feature women who are impressive in the work world or in raising a family, or who have hobbies that make us all feel encouraged. Want to hear what makes these women passionate to get up in the morning, or what maybe they wish they'd known a little bit earlier in their lives. Grab your keys and stomp to your own drum.
Speaker 1:Whatever you do, it ain't nothing on me, because I'm doing my thing and I hold the key to all my wants and all my dreams. Like an old song, everything will be all right.
Speaker 2:Wow, I am so excited to have everybody with us today and we have got a special guest. I find myself I've been at a couple of meetings with this guest and find myself drawn to her conversation, drawn to her table, and I'm just real excited to introduce everyone to Christy Chandler.
Speaker 4:Welcome, christy, thank you very much and I feel the same way about you at the conferences that we've attended. It's been great to visit with you there.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you, thank you. You're just such a wealth of knowledge and I'm excited to get started, and right out of the gate. How about telling listeners both who Christy is professionally and personally?
Speaker 4:Okay, great, I'll start with personally, because it probably influenced who I am professionally. So I am originally from Natchez, mississippi, and grew up there, ended up going to Mississippi State University as an undergraduate, majored in business, after changing my major quite a few times, and then got out and decided to go back to grad school, where I majored in what's now called counselor education and the focus was on adult development, the emerging adult development and early adolescence as well. So that age range from adolescence to emerging adulthood is the time period that I focused on, and so that was pretty fascinating, and I love working with college students, which is what I do professionally. I also got a doctorate from University of North Texas in higher ed administration, and my career path has taken me in the higher ed world the entire time. So started out as a residence hall director at Mississippi State University, then went to Texas Christian University and at TCU I did residence life as well as orientation there, and I would have to say that, personally, hospitality is probably one of the things that I'm attracted to.
Speaker 4:My mother was a restaurateur, and so she had several restaurants. We had a bed and breakfast. Growing up, my father was mayor of our hometown, and so being hospitable was just a way of life for us and so I think that that also influenced my interest in things like orientation. Helping students and families feel welcome at the university was important to me. If I didn't have children and I didn't have a personal life, then orientation would be the way that I would have gone.
Speaker 4:I love orientation but it is a very time-consuming career path, much needed for families. But the summer is just really filled with all kinds of activities trying to help orient new families. So instead I went into student activities or student involvement and worked for a while here at Samford in that area and worked with orientation leaders initially, eventually moved out of that and found my way into being able to teach on the academic side and I teach in the Department of Human Development and Family Science and I teach primarily traditional college-age students so that adolescents through emerging adulthood, but I also teach human development. So I've taught adolescent and adult development, infant and child development. Right now I primarily teach marriage and the family, family resource management and family law and public policy.
Speaker 2:Wow, you do not have a slow day at all.
Speaker 4:No, that's right. And to further add to activities, we have three children. My husband and I have three children. All are grown and out of college now. Two of those three have children of their own. So we have three grandchildren as well, and that's been a lot of fun. Everybody always said grandparenthood is wonderful and I was like I'm sure it is. But now that I'm here I'm like, oh my gosh, it really is wonderful. So love that.
Speaker 2:That's fun. Well, it's interesting. Everything you've done, from your growing up years to your own adulthood and your career have all kind of meshed together and you built on everything that you've done. Did you ever think that bed and breakfast would play into your career and your thoughts as well?
Speaker 4:No, I never thought about it really. It was just just kind of what we did and my parents had an antebellum home at the time in Natchez, and so we would have visitors from all over the world who would come and stay there. And my parents still have contacts from all over the world. My mom passed away last year but even then we heard from people from all over everywhere because of the contacts that they had made there at the bed and breakfast and with my dad's job as well and with the restaurant business.
Speaker 4:The students in the professional perspectives course, which is a course we offer to our students where we kind of talk about the different options that they can do with the degree in human development and family science, and the professor who teaches that course had all of us in the department on the panel. So there are five full-time faculty and a program assistant. They're five full-time faculty and a program assistant. And it was interesting because one of the reasons she has us come and talk is because none of us had a linear path to our career. Everybody kind of had this meandering path, and she asked all of us what would be our one piece of advice that we would give to the students and the program assistant, who has worked in HR before as well. She said that no job is a waste of time, that you need to try to learn something from every job that you've had, because you never know where it might lead you've had, because you never know where it might lead.
Speaker 2:That is absolutely true and fantastic advice, because everything gives you something and you may not at the moment know where that will land. I've watched that with my own kids and their careers and you know even their summer jobs as lifeguards ended up. You know, becca ended up using that in her career because the community she went to work in needed that and so as an extension agent, she needed to plug that in. So there's all these opportunities that you can use. So you've been in education long enough to see lots of changes. What is one of the really good changes that you've seen? And when you're, for instance, in a panel like this today that you're seeing as you're looking out to those students looking back at you, what's something that you think is a good thing that you've seen happen?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so that's a great question. I think the thing that I have seen that has been a good thing is that being able to continue your education, either formally or informally, has just exploded, and the opportunities that all of us have not just students, but all of us have has greatly increased. So being able to be a lifelong learner is something that is much easier now than it used to be. Now, the difficult part about that might be that you might be overwhelmed by how much additional education is out there, but if you wanted to go learn how to do pottery, for instance, you could watch a lot of YouTube videos and learn how to do that. Now you may need to go take a class as well, but even being able to find where you could take a pottery class is much more readily available than it used to be like when I was growing up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, true, there are, and you're right. You can get overwhelmed or go to the wrong place or you know there's so many factors to that, to where it can be paralyzing. So how do you encourage students not to get paralyzed?
Speaker 4:Oh, that's a great question. So one of the things that I had suggested to students today was to use their resources. So I teach family resource management and we talk a good bit about financial resources in there, just because so many of them have not really had to manage their own resources as much as they will need to in the future. But we are also focused on other types of resources human resources, community resources, environmental resources. But the community resources is an area that I'm really becoming more and more passionate about, especially since COVID, I think, because we missed out on so much community when we were all kind of locked down, and I think students need to be encouraged.
Speaker 4:It's easy for them to get focused on their phone, their scrolling, their computer, whatever it might be, and forget that there is an entire community out there to go and explore and learn. And so when you're in college, or even high school, middle school, elementary school, you are almost forced into a community, are almost forced into a community. But when you graduate from college, you've got to be very intentional about building your community. So I think that's the thing that I would say is you've, you've, you've got to make a set a goal, be intentional about building that community and understand the value of doing that as well, and I think from that you can start to learn about other opportunities that are out there for you and it's not quite as paralyzing.
Speaker 4:I think it's paralyzing when you're just sitting there scrolling or looking on the computer.
Speaker 4:That can become pretty paralyzing.
Speaker 4:And so I think we need each other to try to help us learn what areas we might be interested in, what areas we're not interested in, what other people see as our gifts and our strengths that maybe we want to strengthen.
Speaker 4:Or maybe we realize that there's an area where I'm at a deficit and I need to go learn something. Public speaking is one of those areas that I think a lot of people have a fear about. Realize that there's an area where I'm at a deficit and I need to go learn something. Public speaking is one of those areas that I think a lot of people have a fear about, including myself at times, depending on who it is I'm talking to. So you know, going and learning how to do that better and their master classes and TED Talks and YouTube videos and all of those kinds of things you can go down a rabbit hole, but I think maybe setting yourself a timer on your phone so that you don't go too far down a rabbit hole and just kind of bring your attention back to what is my goal that I'm supposed to be working on in this area of education.
Speaker 2:That's interesting and, yeah, you sure can slip down a rabbit hole. I find it interesting. You talked about forced community and I have thought about this before, because, as a mom, you have all these communities that you're involved in and they just are. I guess forced would be a great way to say it. Um, you know, you go from the newborn group to the mother's group, to the mother's morning out group, to this, to the elementary school and all the way through to all the sporting events, and then, all of a sudden, you don't have anything right. All of a sudden you, you're, you're. Your kids are gone. And now what? You haven't found that, necessarily, but you still have career, but your kids are grown Right. Did you have to deal with that too as a professional woman?
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 4:So one of the things that I realized is that when, really when my second child came along, really when my second child came along, the type of job that I had at that point took me away a good many evenings and the hours were just difficult, and having two children was a challenge as far as trying to manage time and career, not to mention the cost of daycare, which was more than my house note at the time, and so I almost felt like I was just working in order to pay for daycare for someone else to care for my children, and so I decided that I would, you know, we would have a family conversation about how are we going to handle this, and we decided that part-time might be a good option for me.
Speaker 4:So I went part-time, but when I stopped, I was associate dean for student involvement and one of the things I realized was my identity was so wrapped up in my job and I can still let that happen if I let it, but I've tried so much harder than I used to because I just didn't even realize it but I would kind of introduce myself and I would be like, well, I used to be Associate Dean, or I'm so-and-so's mom, or I was always something else to someone else either career or parent and I really had to do some soul searching to figure out who I was as a person and those eight years where I was kind of working part-time trying to figure out what's what, it was a real growing time for me.
Speaker 4:I would like to say that I'm much better at that nail. I still can struggle with that and get wrapped up in my job and working you know, doing work here at the university or with my kids or my grandkids but I've really tried to stretch myself in a few areas and one of those areas is arranging flowers.
Speaker 2:And so yeah.
Speaker 4:I just really didn't even realize I had a creative side. I just never explored that part of myself. And so when my daughter got married, the woman who did the flowers, they were just so beautiful and I just thought that is just gorgeous. And the woman who did the flowers, she's up in age and I thought if I'm going to learn, I want to learn from the best. And so, again, this lifelong learning concept. So I joined the flower committee at church. Now I'm not great, but I haven't had any flowers fall off the platform or anything of that nature, but I've really enjoyed that and I've thought, you know, once I retire I think I want to work in a florist part-time, just for fun, to learn how to do things. I understand it's a really stressful kind of job working in a florist, but it's one of those little hobby areas I'm looking forward to expanding a little bit once I do retire.
Speaker 2:I love that. I love that because you've you're able to find something about yourself that's new and you're telling students to do that, and then here you are applying it and and realizing that that's going to come off and on throughout the stages of life. What's the scariest thing you've ever done? The scariest thing you've faced, whether personal, professional, just the maybe stop you in your tracks, kind of thing.
Speaker 4:So probably more personal than professional, would be anytime there is a health scare or a health issue with one of my kids. That will stop me in my tracks pretty quickly. One of my children had a health situation. They found a tumor, they got it all. It was kind of accidental. It was in an appendix and yeah, and so had an appendicitis, didn't know there was a tumor and got it all.
Speaker 4:That turned my world upside down because I became really focused on making sure that we did everything we needed to do in that situation.
Speaker 4:We needed to do in that situation. Everything turned out just fine, but it stopped me in my tracks. Yeah, on another personal note, the other thing that I would say stopped me in my tracks because you know I've already told you that I was pretty career focused, especially in the beginning Still am, but especially in the beginning and we were expecting our first child and I had a miscarriage and then had difficulty getting pregnant again and in the very beginning I was like, oh well, I'm a real planner. In the very beginning I was like, oh well, we're going to, I'm a real planner. And so I was going to plan and I had blocked out about six weeks, because, of course, six weeks is all I really needed to be on some type of maternity leave because I was going to try to be superwoman and come back, and I had six weeks blocked out in the academic year where I thought that would be the ideal time to deliver, and as if I had control over any of it at all.
Speaker 4:Yeah yeah, that's a life lesson in and of itself. And so I had a miscarriage, and then at that point I didn't care what was happening at work. I was really focused on wanting to have a child and didn't know if that was going to happen or not. So I had two miscarriages before my first child came, before my first child was born, and so that was another time that I kind of got stopped in my tracks.
Speaker 2:Well, Christy, I don't know if you can talk about that a little bit, but there seems to be quite a bit of that loss going on these days, and I don't know if it's because we're talking about it more or what, but what can you tell a young woman who's going through that? And not to side the dad either, because I think they're going through it too but I know that my son experienced a couple of miscarriages and then Becca experienced one, and I remember Isaac saying to me nobody talks about this and my response was almost like well, until you're in the club, nobody really does.
Speaker 2:So, what's your perspective and what do you have that you might be able to offer? That's encouraging. You talk to young people so much.
Speaker 4:Right. So one of the things that I was not aware of initially was that about 25% of all pregnancies end in a miscarriage, and that was not a stat that I was familiar with initially. Just knowing that that is a fairly common situation, I think, helped, because, you know, there was a lot of blame. Did I do this wrong or did I do that wrong? Is there something I did to contribute to the miscarriage? Was I too stressed? Was I too? You know, whatever it might be, fill in the blank, and it is, in my opinion, more common than I think we are led to believe. I didn't know at the time that my mother had had a miscarriage before I got pregnant. She just never mentioned it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't either.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, and I would say that now I have found this TED Talk. I don't know that it's really called good or bad, hard to say but that's kind of the tagline in the TED Talk is. She goes through and she talks about the things that people say, Like she had a child that had a developmental situation or a terminal illness or something I can't remember exactly what it was, and she would say people would say, oh, I'm so sorry. And then she talks about all of the things that she learned from her child that she was not expecting to learn, and then people, something good would happen and people would be like, oh, that's wonderful. And then she would find out that maybe it wasn't as wonderful as she had initially thought. So the big tagline is good or bad. Hard to say.
Speaker 4:So when something happens that you think is really negative, try to focus on what is it that I can learn from this? And it may be way on the other side of it after you've gone through a really dark tunnel to get there. And sometimes, when things are really great and wonderful, my husband often says this too shall pass. Whether it's good or bad, this too shall pass, and that's kind of what she's saying good or bad, hard to say that some things we think are going to be great and wonderful and they don't turn out the way we thought they were going to be and some things seem to be really negative and you learn and grow so much from the experience that it turns. I would say lean on your community, Lean on your spouse or significant other. I think people help get us through a lot of situations that we think we may not be able to get through ourselves. And then try to look at things a little differently than you might would look at them. If it's really negative, there's something in there that can still be learned, and if it's something really positive, there's still something in there that can be learned. So I think that's what I would probably say to people and I do think that what tends to happen, especially in families, when there's a negative event.
Speaker 4:When I'm teaching marriage and family, one of the things I refer to is kind of the turtle syndrome, that when you see a turtle and a turtle is threatened, they pull in all their appendages and they hunker down inside their shell. And families do that as well. When there's something negative happening to the family unit, we tend to pull in all of our appendages, all of our people, and we hunker down, tend to pull in all of our appendages, all of our people, and we hunker down, and that's a natural response. But we're not going to get anywhere unless we put those appendages back out. And the way that we do that is by using those resources again, using other people to help remind us of the good things that have happened in the past, knowing that somebody cares for you. Maybe they are aware of other resources that your family needs, that you weren't aware of yourself, and so, instead of you know, turtling down, trying to spread those appendages a little bit and travel down the road with other people.
Speaker 2:Well, which leads to the point of choosing your people is pretty important, and you know what is it they say? I guess the five people that you surround yourself with, that's really you feed off of that and that's kind of who you are. Do you have your people, your tribe? Have they changed over the years? Do you have somebody from childhood that you still pull into your circle today?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I would say yes to all of the above. So I have, first of all, my family and my extended family as well. So that's been since childhood. I also have a childhood friend that we still are in touch periodically not on a regular basis. I have a college friend that I still see pretty regularly, two or three times a year, and we will contact each other, you know, via text etc. But we're not in constant communication all the time. But we can pick right up where we left off because there's so much history there for both my childhood and my college friend.
Speaker 4:I would say that now a lot of my support group comes from my church and my church people there, and we have our Sunday school class that we regularly attend and the people in there are very it's a very diverse group group. It's not a group that I would have necessarily chosen myself initially, because I didn't know them well enough, and so now I would choose all of them and we're all very diverse. But I do have a kind of an inner circle group as well. So when I have an issue or a problem I may have mentioned this to you once before, but several years ago I fractured my back I slipped down two stairs, walking in socks.
Speaker 4:Don't do that, don't walk downstairs in socks yeah yeah, it's just a bad idea, and so, anyway, I fractured my back, and when you are flat on your back and you cannot get up yourself to go to the bathroom, you have to have somebody pull you out of bed to go to the bathroom. You will figure out who your real friends are. Yeah, reaching out to those people saying, hey, I'm in a bad situation and I could really use your help and it doesn't have to be physical, it could be emotional as well. Hey, I'm in a bad situation and I could really use someone to talk to, including someone who might say to me I'm here with you, I'll walk this path with you, but you might need to talk to somebody else professionally as well. So I think those kinds of friends are really good friends.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they are. You know, I've learned that sometimes I have to ask what do you need from me? Because I automatically go to my you know, one, two, three, four, five. Here's how I can fix it, here's what I can do, and I'm finding more and more that people sometimes know what they need from me and it's not what I think they need. Right, that's been a revelation for me.
Speaker 4:That's right. My husband and I experienced this quite a few years ago. We've been married since 1986, so however many years that is, but it's a while. And so he would come home from work and he'd say what was going on, as much as he could tell me, and I would jump into fix-it mode. And he eventually said I don't need you to fix it, I just need you to listen. And so when he'll start talking now, either one of us will say, okay, what do you need from me right now? And he might say I just need you to listen, or hey, I need you to brainstorm with me about how we might can you know, handle this particular situation. But I think you're right. It's a lesson that I learned, probably later than I should have learned it, because I just thought I'm in a helping profession, I want to help people. I just thought everybody'm in a helping profession. I want to help people. I just thought everybody would want my help. And of course, not everybody wants my help.
Speaker 2:Well, you are in a profession where sometimes it'd be really hard not to go. Look, let me just go get the book. We'll read this chapter. This is what we're Matter of fact, fact, you are my example tomorrow in class that would be so hard to draw those, those boundaries yeah it is difficult.
Speaker 4:That's right, it is. It is a difficult challenge there because you know, when you're teaching family, we're, you know it's. There's so many examples that you can use that do exemplify whatever the textbook is talking about. So I, you know through the years and I've got some decent examples. But through the years, as I've thought of things or as things have happened, I have asked permission of my family members. May I use this in class to discuss? And so they will. They've always given me permission, which is good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah it is. But it goes back to that lifelong learning. You know we have situations that come up and we have, um, just people in relationships. So you know you have to put a lot of trust in people. You have to put trust both in your department, people to have your back there, people to help you in your career and in your family. So how do you know? Do you have like a trust monitor of? How do you know that you can trust someone, that they're fully on the same page you are, or at least working, you know, down the same path that's a great question.
Speaker 4:Um, I think sometimes we just know we intuitively, if we'll listen to ourselves, we can kind of know I listen to how they talk about other people or other situations and I can pick up whether I can trust them or not. Sometimes I will, on something small, kind of test it out a little bit and say, hey, I need to need to tell you something. Please don't share this information. And if the information gets shared and it's not anything great, you know, huge, but the fact that I asked them not to share it and if it's shared, then I know I don't share great big, huge things with that person. They might can be trusted in other ways, but maybe not with information. So I think, mostly listening to how they talk about situations that they've been in and their choice of words, and if anybody says, well, I'm not supposed to tell you this, but I know you won't tell anybody, I'm like I'm not telling you anything. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I know I'm not supposed to, but Right yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4:That's not the person I'm going to share a lot of information with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no kidding. So you've been in a tremendous number of leadership positions. What do you? What's your description of a good leader? And I'm sure it falls into that trustworthy as well but, but basically from what you've seen and what you try to be Right, but basically from what you've seen and what you try to be.
Speaker 4:Right, I've actually been thinking about this. So I'm also chair of the Educational Leadership Department co-chair right now, and they teach leadership mostly K-12 leadership, but leadership in other organizations as well. We've just started a master's in organizational leadership. That's an online program, and so this concept of leadership has really been at the forefront of a lot of things that I've been doing lately, and so I've been trying to think about how do you teach leadership, how do you convey the importance of leadership, how does leadership look in different roles? So the way that I lead in one area might look very different than the way that I lead in another area.
Speaker 4:I think, doing what you say, and I think that that's really important. I think that that goes back into the trust area. One of the things that I've tried to do through the years is speak the truth in love, and there are days that I have to wait until I can get to the love portion. I could speak the truth, but maybe not in love, and so I have to kind of work on myself to get to the love part. When our kids were little and they would, you know, tattle we would always say are you trying to help or are you trying to hurt and that speak the truth in love. You know, I can speak the truth, but am I trying to help or am I trying to hurt? And sometimes, honestly, I want to hurt because it made me mad or it made me upset or hurt my feelings, or whatever it might be. But the concept of speaking the truth in love is one that I think makes a good leader, because they care for the people that they're working with and they want them to grow and develop and be the best that they can be. One of the things that we talk about a lot in our department looking at people's strengths instead of their deficits or their areas that they need to improve on is something that makes a good leader, trying to focus in on whatever the strength might be of the individual. I think that leadership also has to do with being a visionary, but to me, it's not my vision. It would be our vision as a group, and so I'm pretty collaborative in the way that we do things around here, and, fortunately, everybody else is pretty collaborative as well, and we still get things done. So you can be overly collaborative and not get anything done, but we get things done, which is really nice.
Speaker 4:I do think the academic year, the ebb and flow of an academic year. You know that you're going to come to an end eventually, so you've got to hit those deadlines when you need to hit those deadlines. But I think the strengths focus is really important. As a matter of fact, one of the textbooks that I've chosen in the Marriage and family course focuses on the strengths of families instead of the deficits of families, and so I think for me personally, that's one of the things that I try to look for in others, and oftentimes someone else's strength kind of counters whatever my deficit might be.
Speaker 4:So I tend to be pretty much a rule follower, and I have other people that I work with who think outside the box. But every once in a while, rule followers need to think outside the box as well, and so we need to know if there's a situation, how might we be able to approach this? So I'll go to those people that I know think outside the box, who think differently than I do, so that I can kind of get some ideas of how I might be able to handle a situation. That might not be my natural way of handling the situation.
Speaker 4:So I would say leaders tend to surround themselves with people who compliment them. They are not the same as them, but they complement their style as well. So I'm trying to think what else I think about leadership. It doesn't mean that you're the person in front giving directions that sort of thing. To me it can be, but to me that's not what a leader is. Oftentimes you're behind the scenes talking to people, working with people, trying to figure out what is our next move. Where can we really make a difference in the lives of the students that we're working with? So that's kind of what I think I think for today.
Speaker 2:Well, I hear you talk a lot about teamwork and cooperation, but I know that at times, competition comes up. When you hear the word competition, how do you feel? What is it Do? What bells go off for you?
Speaker 4:So I grew up in a pretty competitive family, so I might be compensating a little bit. My natural tendency can be very competitive tendency can be very competitive. As a matter of fact, when my daughter was young, she was on the swim team, and one of the things that we really liked about swim team is that you are competing against someone else but you're also competing against yourself, trying to get the better time each time that you swim. And so I had kind of made this irrational decision that when we had children that we were not going to raise competitive children, and so our daughter fit that bill initially, which is ironic because now she's pretty competitive as well. It eventually came out, but in the beginning I was like, listen, if you, just if you'll just try to beat your next time I'll. You know I was bribing, you know, mcdonald's or ice cream cone or extra time on TV or whatever it might be, because I realized that some competition is good. I mean, it helps push me to the next level sometimes, and so competition is not something I view as negatively as I did initially.
Speaker 4:So in our family there was a lot of you know.
Speaker 4:You wanted to be right, you wanted to have the best answers. You wanted to do what you know, whatever it was to win, but fortunately I was also taught that you don't win at all costs, and so I try to balance that as much as I can. But I can be very competitive Maybe not so much within our area, but I can be competitive towards other areas. I mean, you know, if you're at a university and you're trying to recruit students, I'm going to do what I can to try to recruit a student if I truly believe that this is the best place for them and that it fits with them. I don't want to have someone be a major or a student and it not be a good fit for them. I mean, they have to make the final decision, but I'm not going to do or say anything to try to recruit them here to be a major, because ultimately, I do truly believe that they've got to do what's best for them and that will then end up being what's best for everyone.
Speaker 2:So yeah. Yeah, it's funny when you're talking about the swim team competitions. When you're talking about the swim team competitions, I mean it is in life you can have that same level of competition. You know, did you do better on the test this time than you did last? Or in your work presentation? Is it better today than it was the last? So a dose of competition. But yeah, I played the games where it was like no, look it up in the dictionary and prove to me that's a word.
Speaker 2:Right, we're not going to let you have it.
Speaker 4:I have a friend who tells a story about swim team as well, and his son was on a swim team and he saw this little boy over there and he had several ribbons and he had like a first place, second place, third place, fourth place, sixth place and seventh place and he had laid all of his ribbons out and he goes now I just need to get a fifth place ribbon, because he was missing the fifth place. That's right. So that was his goal was to get a fifth place ribbon. And so you know, everybody has their own goals, and trying to help people accomplish those, I think, is what true leadership is about helping others accomplish their goals as well.
Speaker 2:I love that. I was just thinking, as you were talking about the ribbons. We, my kids, also swam, and in my bible I have a um one of their ribbons and it's um, maybe second place. There weren't but two of them in the heat. Right, you know what? It is second place and it you know all these years later, who knows? There weren't 40 people in that, but that's right right.
Speaker 2:But you know, it's all. It's all relative, but there are a lot of things that we're scared of. A lot of competition, a lot of leadership roles, a lot of positions. Is there something that crops up for you that becomes kind of a fear? Not necessarily one you can't get over, but but is there a fear barrier that you have in life in general?
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, I've probably got several. One is I really don't want to hurt other people's feelings feelings and I don't know where that comes from. But I don't like hurting other people's feelings and I will probably go out of my way to try to keep that from happening. And that may be where that speak the truth in love I can address difficult situations. But I need to know that I'm doing it because I really care for that individual as opposed to even if it does hurt their feelings, that I'm doing it for the right reason, Not just because I'm trying to hurt their feelings, but I think unintentionally hurting someone's feelings is probably a fear of mine.
Speaker 2:I can see that. Yeah, because you have so many contacts that you're involved in and it's like you talked earlier about the academic year and the deadlines and sometimes those pressures alone. You have so many minutes. I mean you really could take it down to minutes of where you have time to accomplish a huge goal. That right, that kind of can be life-altering for somebody, right, so that that could influence you.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I had a discussion one time with a student talking about knowing when to challenge and when to support, and probably comes from, you know, one of those theories that I've studied through the years. But providing the right amount of challenge and the right amount of support is really what I believe helps growth. And so for myself and for others as well and it is a, it is an honor and a responsibility and a burden to work with individuals and knowing when to challenge and when to support. And you want to push enough, but not push too much to where they freeze or they can't do something, but you also don't want to support so much that it doesn't promote growth and development. And same in my own life.
Speaker 4:I mean, I struggle with that with myself as well, and I think that's where, for me, prayer comes in Talking to other people about making sure that I'm being wise in my decision making, maybe not sharing you know specific details, but just trying to help hold me accountable, to make sure that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing to help others become the best that they can be, and I do feel like that's really kind of my calling here at the university I teach content. I do teach content. Fortunately I teach content on growth and development. But just having that honor and privilege and responsibility and burden of helping students in the transition between high school and adulthood, it's a big responsibility that I take very seriously yeah.
Speaker 2:It is, and you get the opportunity to teach a subject that you know well, but everybody comes in with a different slate, so you have to kind of figure that out and how to pivot from that. Has it become easier as you've been in it more, or is it about the same, or what's that like?
Speaker 4:I don't know that it's become easier, maybe. Maybe not being paralyzed by it has come easier. So the more experience I've had doing it, I still make mistakes. I can still think that a student is just being lazy, for instance, because they're not coming to class, but then realizing that they've got debilitating anxiety and they just can't come to class. And so I'm constantly learning from all of my experiences, but especially my experiences with students, that maybe it's a little easier but it's more complicated. I don't know if that makes any sense. I might be more comfortable with it, but the more I've done it, the more I've realized things are just complicated.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe too, things are more on the surface than they used to be too. Things are more on the surface than they used to be. Things 30, you know, 40 years ago, 30 years ago not that you were teaching them, but you know, you, you didn't. It was just buried deeper and it right, if you left home, you left it, you ran from it. So there was more of that, and now it kind of follows the kids.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yes, and I don't know. In some ways, you know, good or bad, hard to say. In some ways it's really good because there are more resources out there for students that students have available to them. You know, I don't even know if we had a counseling center on my college campus when I was in school. I truly have no idea, but obviously we have one. Most colleges, every college and university that I'm aware of, if they don't have their own counseling center, they have some kind of access for students counseling center, they have some kind of access for students and so those kinds of resources have greatly increased. And it's hard to know chicken or egg, you know, did those resources greatly increase and therefore people started talking more or were people in need and therefore those resources had to increase? And I think people were in need and those resources needed to increase and probably continue to need to increase because there's just a lot, there's a lot that people go through.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and the stigma needs to get pushed down, even more so than I guess it has.
Speaker 4:Right, when's the last time you cried? Well, I tend to be a bit of a crier, so I can cry when I'm happy about something. I can cry when I'm sad about something. The last time, well, I'll tell you this my children laugh at me because the big joke around our house is Mom, you cried during Kung Fu Panda and I was like I did cry during Kung Fu Panda.
Speaker 4:When he opens the scroll and in case you're listening and you don't know what happens here, turn this part off. But when he opens the scroll and there's nothing written on it, he thought the answer was going to be right there and the whole time the answer was with him and so, anyway, I cried. But lately, the most recent time that I cried was during class and one of my students, one of my male students, said in class. He said people ask me about this major and I try to tell them. You just never know when you're going to cry in class, and it's kind of true. And so I was showing a documentary. It was, in my opinion, a great documentary on. Can I say this? Should I?
Speaker 4:maybe I shouldn't say but anyway it was American Experience and it was on. I think it was called Change, not Charity, and it was about the Americans with Disabilities Act. Now, keep in mind that I teach family law and public policy, and so we were talking about all of the different ways that policy is influenced and that can be through policymakers, media, interest groups et cetera, and so it was about the Americans with Disabilities Act. And there's this one particular saying. I think my whole class was crying. I'd already seen the documentary and I was crying again. It was just very touching, and so I tend to cry more on touching kinds of things as opposed to sad things. I can cry when I'm sad, but I tend to cry more when it's something that's touching, almost inspirational. I tend to tear up then.
Speaker 2:We had talked about the family law and public policy class that you teach and how fascinating that is and how important it is, and I am just amazed at all that you have to have your fingers in to be able to teach people today, to be ready, and that law and public policy. How do you get ready for that? Because that stuff is changing, it changes constantly. I mean, what do you do not to just go? Oh, I just can't, and just want to teach history instead, right, right.
Speaker 4:So one of the things I try to do in that class in particular and I think I've already mentioned that my dad was mayor of our hometown.
Speaker 4:So government politics and I don't like politics, but government and our responsibility as citizens was something that I grew up with. I mean, it was just ingrained in us that we have a civic responsibility to be involved in our community and to care what goes on, and, of course, my father's livelihood was dependent on it. So people voting, for instance, was my father always used to say and he still will say this that you know, if you didn't vote, then you didn't have a right to complain about it. Didn't vote, then you didn't have a right to complain about it. And so that's kind of how I grew up In the class. My job is not to tell them what they should value or how they should think about a particular policy of some sort. What I try to do is help them understand how the policy process works, and I do have them research articles pertaining to family policy, what is family policy, but they can choose whatever article that they want. I don't choose the article for them because I feel like if I choose the article for them then it might accidentally lead them down a path and that's not my, that's not my job, and so what I start out the class with, which is what I ended with yesterday as a matter of fact is that, first of all, this class is a required course, so students don't usually take it because they want to take it. They take it because they have to take it and it is part of the curriculum for becoming a certified family life educator. So family policy is a course that has to be taken to become a CFLE. And so I tell them I understand that many of you are not in this class because you care about law and policy. You probably think of law and policy as being somewhere way far away from us, maybe in DC, long way away from Alabama, dc, long way away from Alabama but that my goal in the class is to help them understand how law and policy impacts families and that if I can do that by the end of the course, then I'll feel like I've accomplished what I'm supposed to accomplish.
Speaker 4:So I do my best to try to walk the middle as much as I can. I'm human. I will fall off to one side or the other, depending on what the topic is I don't subscribe to everything on either side of that middle line that I'm trying to walk for class. And one of the ways I try to hold myself accountable is we do talk about political parties and political ideologies and they know this. I've told them this not that they're going to be listening right this minute, before the final exam on Monday, but maybe they will that I will ask them a question using the political spectrum of political ideology and political parties. Where do they think I am on that political spectrum and what did I do or say that caused them to think that this particular political persuasion or this particular political party? And I do that to make sure that they understand the concept of political parties and political ideology.
Speaker 4:But I also do that to kind of hold my feet to the fire related to am I crossing a line? Am I, did I do something unintentionally or intentionally? I don't think I've done anything intentionally, but unintentionally or intentionally that showed my hand, showed my cards, as to where I lean. I wouldn't be teaching the topic if I didn't care about the topic. So I have opinions, but my job is not to convey my opinions or try to persuade them to hold the same opinions that I do. My job is to help them figure out how do they go about knowing what their values are related to policy and how do they go about changing things if they think things need to be changed. And so I try. I'm not always successful, but I try to be as middle of the road and they'll want me to tell them no, no, no, just tell us and I'm like no, no, no, I'm not telling you. You know, I'm not going to tell you. That's not why I'm here.
Speaker 2:I think that's great. I love that assignment, so we'll need to wrap up. But I can't let this conversation go without talking about travel and students, because you are into taking students abroad and so I want to touch on that of why you think that's important and what you see the benefits are and maybe even some of the cautions.
Speaker 4:Sure, I would say the university as a whole believes that traveling abroad or in the US I've taken students to DC before as well, so it doesn't always have to be abroad somewhere. I've taken students to London. I'm about to take a group of students to Denmark and Sweden. I've taken students to London. I'm about to take a group of students to Denmark and Sweden, and I think it's probably my philosophy of life in general, which is, I think I can learn something from just about everyone. It may not be the way that I would continue to do it, but I can at least learn something. Even if it's that, hey, I think we're doing things pretty well. But knowing and learning from other experiences. I also find that, especially for family law and public policy, especially for family law and public policy, that it I would say probably for any class, anytime you can have some kind of experiential component to it, it increases the learning potential. And when you travel somewhere abroad or domestically, when you travel somewhere, you kind of leave all the other stuff behind and you're just really focused in on that period of time that you've got designated, and so it's kind of a way to focus in on a topic that when you don't travel, you've got too many other things that are kind of making their way in to try to distract you, and you know, I always add components of sightseeing in there. It also helps to understand the culture that you're going into when you go and experience the sites that they have to offer, and I just think it's a really great way to learn because you're very focused.
Speaker 4:Sometimes you're outside of your comfort level, which is one of those ways to challenge, but as a faculty member, we're right there with them so we can provide support as well. One of my children traveled abroad for a semester and she didn't go with a faculty member and I really wished that she had, because she had a lot of challenges and not as much support as I had wanted for her on that experience. It ended up being fine and she learned a lot. She learned what she could do, which was a whole lot more than what she thought she could do. But I think if you have an opportunity to travel with a faculty member, that can be there to help with that support as well as the challenges that you face sometimes when you travel, even if it's your flight got canceled. I mean there's a learning experience there. Think that the focus being outside of your normal environment, kind of clearing your head a little bit, kind of forgetting, you know, out of sight, out of mind, of what's going on at home, I think it really improves the learning experience.
Speaker 2:Well, and often it's the chance you get to do it. Sometimes, when you get out of that period of your life, those opportunities are fewer and further between, so to take advantage of it is so great Right. So I'm really excited about that, and if you need a chaperone, I wonder where you can get one. I appreciate that, christy. We've talked about so many things. Is there anything that we have not touched on that you want to make sure we do?
Speaker 4:I don't think about me in particular, but I'm very curious how you decided to end up doing a podcast. Very curious how you decided to end up doing a podcast, because I think that I think people will think about doing something like that, but not jump out there and do it, and so I presume you had some a good bit of learning to do about. How do you interview? How do you actually record this? How do you post this? How do you?
Speaker 2:publicize it. Oh, wow, wow. Thank you for asking that. It is a learning curve.
Speaker 2:I initially got involved in podcasting I have an advertising company and have actually had it for 34 years and there's been changes to that. There's been changes of what we needed and we were producing some podcasts for other individuals, and I would find myself sometimes needing to be the third person in the interview and then edit myself out, because not everybody can ask questions that brought the right answers out, or brought not the right answers, but answers that gave enough substance to where they were interesting and informative. And then I decided, wow, there are women that are really interesting, and that's where I landed. I decided that I wanted to publish my own podcast and talk purely to women, and not always the women that are the famous headliners, but the women that are doing everyday things. And Isaac went to school with a young lady who had a song that was out there that she let me have, and it's stomp to your own drum and you have a pocket full of dreams and women do. They so do. And so that's where it came from and how it got started.
Speaker 2:Started and I've always my very first job like to not get paid for was going out to the mall for the radio station and interviewing people. For that. What do you think about? You know, man on the street, kind of thing, right, and that's so. I've always been one that has been able to, fortunately, have a conversation that went somewhere really quickly, and so that's kind of what has happened. And then I get the privilege I don't think I meet anybody these days that I'm not going oh you'd be really interesting. Days that I'm not going, oh you'd be really interesting. Or Becca, who works with me some and she is my scheduler. She will come back with a list of this is person you need to talk to. Let's go for it, and by making it not a planned script, then it doesn't put pressure on the everyday person to go. I got to get ready for that, I got to prep for that, so it's been a beautiful thing.
Speaker 4:Well, that's great. That's great. Well, I appreciate your work in this and branching out and jumping into something that was new and different, and I think that that's a great example for others as well.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, christy. How do people follow you if they want to get in touch with you, if they have questions about the degree that you guys offer or anything, how do they touch base with you?
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's a great question. So I'm on the Samford website. You can find the major there Human Development and Family Science and somewhere on that website is information about getting in touch with us either via email or telephone, and so, yeah, if you have any questions about that, I'd be happy to answer them.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. That's wonderful. I have one more question. Sure, you have a superpower given to you. You can use it for 24 hours. You can use it personally or professionally. What superpower would you choose? How would you use it? And I'd love to know why you would choose it. How would you use it?
Speaker 4:And I'd love to know why you would use it. I don't know why this is coming to mind right now, but if I had a superpower, I think the one that I would want is well, I don't know, I think I'm going to change my mind. Initially, I was going to say I would want to be able to remove all hurt from everyone, but I think that we learn something from the hurts that we've experienced. So maybe instead of that that I would if I had a superpower, I would try to help people figure out what they could do to contribute to the betterment of society.
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, I think that's what I would do. I like that, christy. Thank you, it's been an absolute pleasure.
Speaker 4:Thank you very much. I appreciate it. It's great to see you again.
Speaker 1:You too.
Speaker 2:Find Stat Keys podcast on Spotify, soundcloud and iTunes or anywhere you get your favorite podcast listen. You'll laugh out loud, you'll cry a little, you'll find yourself encouraged. Join us for casual conversation that leads itself, based on where we take it, from family to philosophy, to work to meal prep, to beautifully surviving life. And hey, if I could ask a big favor of you, go to iTunes and give us a five rating. The more people who rate us, the more we get this podcast out there.
Speaker 1:Thanks, I appreciate it. Nothing on me, cause I'm doing my thing and I hold the key to all my wants and all my dreams.
Speaker 3:Like an old song, everything will be alright when I let myself go with the night. Gotta. Stomp to my own drum. Stomp to my own song. Stomp to my own song, stomp. Hey, gonna, put on my boots and move. Stomp to my own drum. Stomp to my own song, stomp. Hey Gonna. Sing it out loud and say it real proud.
Speaker 1:Nobody's gonna step on my cloud Cause I stomp, stomp to the beat of my big drum. I got a big drum. Whatever you do, it ain't nothing on me, cause I'm doing my thing and I got the key to all my walls and all my dreams. Thank you.