The Happiness Blueprint Podcast
The podcast where we uncover how people build happier lives.
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The Happiness Blueprint Podcast
People Think It's Just An Instagram Post... // The Happiness Blueprint e019
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Giovi and Addison from Univ. of Tampa, share what surprised them about putting on events, what secrets they’ve learned for effective communication, and their motivation for making people happy!
0:00 Giovi & Addison from Univ. of Tampa
1:22 Surprises When Producing Events
5:54 Communicating so People Understand
11:47 Motivation to Make People Happy
13:22 Advice for Past Self
16:24 What Makes Addison Happy
17:24 What Makes Giovi Happy
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A special thank you to Vibe Arcs for sponsoring today's episode. To get started on tracking your personal, team or project happiness metrics, visit https://vibearcs.com/
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The Happiness Blueprint
// Powered by GBM6
// The podcast where we uncover how people build happier lives.
GBM6
// Let's Build LEGENDARY Together
// To get started, visit https://gbm6.com/
Think Like a Pilot
// Bobby Dutton, founder & director of GBM6, is a professional speaker, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He's also a licensed commercial pilot and flight instructor -- for fun.
// To connect with Bobby or learn more about his keynotes, visit https://thinklikeapilot.com/
This is the Happiness Blueprint.
SPEAKER_02The podcast where we uncover how people build happier lives. Hello friends. Welcome back to the Happiness Blueprint podcast. I'm here with two new friends. What are your names and what campus are you from?
SPEAKER_00Hi everybody. My name is Jovi Kacinski and I'm with the University of Tampa.
SPEAKER_01Hi, my name is Addison Sanders and I'm also with the University of Tampa. Awesome.
SPEAKER_02You said Jovi, just to make sure I'm crafting. Nice to meet y'all. What camp, what are you involved with on campus? Like what events you've involved in producing? What's kind of your role on campus?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so we work with student productions. I'm the recreation chair, so I make on campus events and off-campus events and trips. And yeah, I really have a lot of creative freedom with it, which is very nice. It's great.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm also in Student Productions. I'm the social media marketer, so I essentially just make all of the flyers, keep our Instagram running. Um, yeah, just let's letting the students know when and where our events are and just keeping them up to date with the fun things we have coming.
SPEAKER_02That's the goal. And if you all been involved in this for a couple years on campus, is a new activity for you. What's your kind of background?
SPEAKER_01We we were on the committee last year for it, and then this year's our first year on the exec board. So it's really it's been really fun getting to see like all the behind the scenes that like we heard a lot about last year. So and this is our first NACA and we're having so much fun. So incredible, yes.
SPEAKER_02Happy to have y'all here. Uh, what surprised you? It sounds like you've been go, I guess we've all been going to events our whole lives here. It sounds like you've been new to the executive side or producing it. What first surprised you as you got into planning events and producing events? What was something that yeah caught you off guard as you got into it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Ooh, for me, it would probably be how much work truly goes into it. With all of the planning, I never thought about location and all of that, vendors, especially having to reach out and work with the budget and all of that. So, yeah, it's just been interesting to see the other side of it and truly see how much goes into it because it's a lot more than you would expect.
SPEAKER_02An unbelievable amount, I think. Yeah, I've been working with GBF6 for many years now, and every year I'm shocked when I show up and see all the trucks unloading. It's like, how many trucks do we need to do this thing? How many does it take?
SPEAKER_01It's insane.
SPEAKER_02And how does it all get up and become a show? Yes, I see it in the back of the trucks. This is great, this is awesome. Yeah, but this isn't a show, this is a pile of stuff that looks cool to me because I'm a nerd and I like this stuff, but I know not everyone else offer it that way. Um, what about you? What surprises you got into producing a book?
SPEAKER_01I would say honestly, the same thing. I think a lot of people just think like, oh, because you do the social media, like it takes you five minutes to make a Canva post, but like it's the complete opposite of that. You have to make sure that like the post is gonna draw people in in a way that they're gonna want to come to the event. So it's been difficult with that, but it's been so much fun and it's worth all of my time and energy.
SPEAKER_02So I think the marketing side is always an interesting one, and of course, it is the side that I have to directly involve in as well. Um, but I think it's an interesting one of like we can plan a great event, yeah, but without marketing, no one comes to the event. It doesn't exist without the marketing. So while it is, yes, while it can be uh a cynical person and go, it's an Instagram post. Let's be honest about it. It's like one Instagram post is really important. And without that post, there is no one in the store. Yeah. And the goal is to make people happy, right? We put it on to make campus better, to make people's lives better.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_02If they don't come to the event, that's kind of hard to accomplish here. But how do you accomplish how do you navigate some of these stresses, right? Where the the social media posts are so easy to belittle and so easy to overlook, it's so easy to be like, here, I'm gonna take a picture, it's up, done. Yeah, but that's not enough.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02How do you balance this pressure to make sure that you are doing the best version and finding the best way to sell this event to people?
SPEAKER_01I think obviously just collaborating with my fellow exec members. Obviously, I can't put my posts together unless I have all of their information. So I think just texting them, asking them like what they want to see on the flyer for people to come is really important. But I would say kind of similar to that, just communication with everyone is always key, and they are there to help you. They're not there to make your life harder. So definitely relying on your fellow executive members helps for sure.
SPEAKER_02You're right, they're here to help you out here to make your life harder. Yeah. It's hard to accept on a team sometimes. Yeah, it's true. It sometimes feels like people are only there to make your life harder, they're only there to be thorns in my side. Yeah. I think leading all teams is the same. Whether we're building events or building communities, I think building families probably falls in the same category here of like, I don't have kids. I can imagine it would feel like having two-year-olds is like they were doing everything they can to annoy me. They're just that's all they're trying to do here. Yeah, right. Yes. Uh, how do you man now how do you navigate managing that team, Joe? What are some of the strategies you as you're a part of the team, as you're managing the team, as you're helping support your teammates here? How are you trying to do that productively and successfully and navigate it when it feels like there's a squeaky wheel that you just can't quite come to terms with?
SPEAKER_00Right, definitely just clear communication, kind of like Addison said, especially being not the only recreation chair. I work very closely with another person who has the same position as me. Just keeping everything clear and very lined up. We have so many different documents, and it's kind of difficult to make sure exactly to make sure that everyone is on the same page with everything. So, really reaching out to everybody during our meetings, talking about everything that needs to be talked about, really just keeps everything running smoothly.
SPEAKER_02Is that stressful for you? How do you manage this?
SPEAKER_00Yes, it is definitely stressful. Sorry. No problem. Um I don't know. I really just manage it by reaching out to everybody. It is kind of hard to do it all individually, but we do have one-on-ones about once a week with the president, vice president, our advisors. So I really just work like that to try to keep everybody on the same page because it does get to be a lot with each individual event, all the things that go into it.
SPEAKER_02But I think right that the one-on-ones are so valuable here where the goal is to speak to people in the way they need to be spoken to. Yeah, yeah. And that's not the same, right? That is communicating. It's like if communicating was here's one blanket message that it's gonna work for everyone.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. Pretty easy.
SPEAKER_02This would be a much easier process, yeah. But that's not realistic, right? The goal is to communicate to whoever you're talking to is figuring out what language you understand. What are you internalizing here? Like, do you need a little tough love? Do you need a really soft hand in this? Like, how do you respond to stress here? Uh, how do you manage this as you're working on the marketing side of this? Like, communication is your entire process here. I think there are so many different ways you can sell an event or try and communicate to people. This event is somewhere you need to be. Yeah, how do you navigate communicating to people in the way they need to be communicated to or they're receptive to?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think really just like giving them what they want to see is a big part. Um, I think if you're gonna ask people for opinions on what you want and you don't give it to them, it kind of defeats the whole purpose. So I think really striving to give them what they want to see and what they want really helps. But I think with social media, people love to see like flashy and like really high-key, like beautiful productions together. So I think we're really trying to aim for that and really making these flyers that people won't just go past and be like, oh, it's just another post. So I think really just listening to what people are telling you and not having it go like one ear and out the other is really key to it as well.
SPEAKER_02I think you're right that we're gonna work very hard on this, but sometimes people are gonna scroll right past you. They sure are. And that's just stinks. And sometimes you're gonna come to the event and they're gonna take the free food, the free shirt, and they're gonna walk right back out. And that stinks. That's frustrating, that's unfortunate. I think this is true of events, this is true of hosting a Super Bowl party, this is true of a birthday party, this is true of so many different things in life. How do you manage those moments where it's like, I work so hard, I want this to go well, and it doesn't quite always pay it out sometimes. How do you manage that this appointment? How do you uh pick yourself back up to gain some positive momentum again?
SPEAKER_00I think with me, it's getting together with my team and talking about the things that might have gone wrong and making a clear plan on how to make it better for next time. And also talking with the people who did show up to the event, seeing that they liked it, and it really does keep slick the morale up, seeing that people do like the events, even if one of them kind of flops a little bit. It's still good to see that people do enjoy it and they care.
SPEAKER_02Sorry if I hit a sore spot. It's like there is one that flops here that you might be alluded to, and I won't pull through freezing aside. It doesn't help. Yeah, it does, and I think part of this is like it's about being brave and taking chances here. Yes. And oftentimes those chances pan out, and that's why things go well. Yeah, yeah. Part of taking a chance means there isn't a lot of things.
SPEAKER_01It's a part of the show biz, unfortunately. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And it's part of being human, right? It's a part of I think that is the the key of putting on events here is you're learning how to take chances, learning how to scaffold these things. Yeah, for sure. And that's a life skill that will never stop being valuable to you, and hopefully we'll only grow in value for you. Is that like to find what we want in life, we have to put ourselves out there, right? I I love sitting and editing. My toxic trait perhaps is that I just want to sit and edit, and that's a great thing. It's great to love my work, yeah. But it also insulates me, right? It is me saying, I don't want to deal with the scary risk of failure. I want to stay with my computer, with my footage, where I am in control of what is happening here. And that's not the best way to grow, right? Me to grow, I have to go out there and take a chance. Yeah, try something new. How do you find the momentum to do that, Addison?
SPEAKER_01Um, I think just giving myself patience as well, editing and making sure everything's in like the perfect spot takes a lot of time and a lot of patience. So I think just giving myself grace and a lot of time to also make the post, not doing it like the night before where I'm rushing, I feel overstimulated, I can't put my best work on there is really important. So definitely just giving myself patience because I am trying to get better at my TikTok and my influencing page. So I've been editing a lot of videos lately and it takes a long time. So I praise you for loving the editing, but it takes a lot of patience. So I think that's just important to remember when doing the whole process of it.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Yeah, what about you? What kind of motivates you in some of these uh moments where things get tough?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think what motivates me is seeing everybody's happy faces when they do come to my events, and especially the aftermath. Like if people let me know that they liked what I did, it really just picks me up and makes me feel the spirit. Yeah, it feels the spirit. I want to plan the next one, I wanna keep going, making the next one better and better, getting a better turnout, just having people enjoy my events. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02This episode of the Happiness Blueprint Podcast is brought to you by Vibarx. Goals, budgets, and KPIs can tell you what happened, but they don't tell you how people felt while doing the work. Happiness is the most important metric of all, and it needs a system. Vibarx is that system for prioritizing your mental health and tracking emotional metrics for individuals, teams, and even projects. Users submit a weekly two-minute check-in, online or in the app, for metrics like happiness, stress, and utilization. Then, Vibarx processes that data into quantified metrics that help spot patterns, celebrate wins, and encourage support where needed. Personally, I loved using Vibarks with my team at GBM6. It's like such a great way to check in myself and make sure I'm hitting both my professional and my personal goals. I especially love that asks me for three things I'm happy about every week. During busy season, I find that things can feel a little chaotic and stressful, so this has felt like a really great tool to reframe my focus and make sure I'm aware of how many great things are happening around me, even in the most stressful moments. Vibarx is free forever for individuals, .edu teams, and .org teams. All other organizations can start with a 60-day free trial and then pay just $5 per user per month to build a healthier, happier, and more engaged workplace. Check out the link in our description to get started on your own journey towards a happier personal and professional life. Thank you to Vivebox for sponsoring today's episode. Alright, back to the show. I like to also think about like the ripple effect of this of like hopefully this makes my attendees' day better. If they go home and are kinder to their loved one, if they go home and do their homework because they were happy instead of trying to keep like there is a tremendous ripple that is possible that you can't quantify. You'll never see it, right? You'll see the people come to the event. You might hear them say, That was so good, I had so much fun, but you won't hear their mom be like, they came home and actually talked to me or something.
SPEAKER_01I never even thought about it like that, too. That's such a great perspective to think of.
SPEAKER_02So I think that ripple is important, like, we don't always know the impact we're having. It's our job just to be diligent and do our best so that we can have this impact to try to make that. Uh, is that why you think events are so powerful here? Like, what motivates you to put these events off for people? Because it is a lot of work. There is a lot of stress, there is a lot of late nights uh and headache and collaboration, all these things that are great in a lot of ways, but boy, do they take discipline and time to put in. What motivates you to keep making people happy?
SPEAKER_00Ooh, I think what motivates me is thinking about how I was when I first came to the school. Yeah, I came to the school as a very scared freshman, not having any friends because I was so far away from home, and going to the student productions committee and going to all the events, especially, yeah, and just really feeling picked up and I made so many friends there. It just makes me want to do that for other students and especially new freshmen, just to make them feel comfortable and welcome in their space.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, for sure. I would agree one of the first like events we went through together was a Sunset Social. So we went to like the beach, they had like pop schools and stuff there, and that was like when her and I kind of got closer and really met, and now we're like on the exec team together, we're gonna be roommates next year, we're like in all these classes together. So I think just knowing that like people can truly meet like one of their best friends just from going to one simple event is really encouraging, something that definitely makes me want to make the posters look good and really help with the events that we're doing.
SPEAKER_02So that's something that we're very aware of at GBM6 because something that someone said in an interview to me this year that really stuck out is like I met my best friend at this concert year. Now we're roommates talking about the rest of our lives, and it's like yeah, that's a powerful gift. When we set out to make the concert, we weren't thinking about hopefully you meet the person that you're gonna be your right-hand man instead of speaking, right-hand woman. But that's an incredibly powerful gift, and maybe they would have crossed paths somewhere else. Like, I guess the universe works in mysterious ways, and we know how that would have worked, but it happened here. It didn't happen somewhere else, it didn't happen orientation, it didn't happen in your math class, freshman year, it happened at the concert that we all put together. Yeah, exactly. And that's really, really powerful. Yeah, it's um I have two last questions. I'd love to wrap up with you. Um, one of them is uh advice you'd have for your past self. So you kind of talked about how the freshman version of you was so scared and you came in there a shell. Uh it could be advice for that version of you and the high school version of you. Like, what's something that you've learned or putting on events and being vulnerable and kind of taking these chances that you think would have benefited the past you that would have saved you some headache back in the definitely just be yourself and put yourself out there.
SPEAKER_00You wouldn't be able to find the people that are meant for you if you're not being yourself. Because yeah, I don't know. Just sort of put yourself out there because it really does make the biggest difference and helps you meet an insane amount of people and make those connections that'll help you in the long run.
SPEAKER_01For sure.
SPEAKER_02I think you're right, and putting yourself out there is a challenging thing. It sounds so simple. It's scary, but it is scary to go volunteer for the club to go say, I'm gonna join this. Like I I look back at my college self and I was not someone who was getting involved. I was like, what if they're all losers? What if I don't like issues? But of course, they weren't all losers. I was the loser for being skeptical of them and thinking I was too cool to be involved. In hindsight, it's like maybe I should have joined the club, maybe I should have taken a chance. I think you're right, that is the key to everything is taking that chance and give yourself the opportunity to find the good thing. Because y'all wouldn't have met if you didn't decide to go to the crisis.
SPEAKER_01For sure, yeah.
SPEAKER_02What makes uh what's some advice for class up?
SPEAKER_01I would say just like everything's gonna be okay. Like it all.
SPEAKER_02Sorry, that is the the shatter room, the stress room over there. I keep hearing it, it scares the heck out of me all the time. So, yes, sorry for those listening. I was trying to ignore it, but you're doing a great job, but it felt like an elephant in the room that I had to acknowledge.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I would just say everything's gonna be okay and like everything falls in place, happens for a reason. I think definitely listen to your parents when they tell you to go out and make friends and be yourself because without it, I'd probably be trapped in my room doing who knows what, not in Ohio and a random weekend in February, live like living my best life, meeting all these amazing people. So I think it's okay to be yourself and adventure out there for sure.
SPEAKER_02Sarcastically, doesn't it stink when your parents are right? Always there's so many things I look forward to.
SPEAKER_01It's okay, mom and dad, like whatever.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I wish you're always right. Uh my example here is always that uh my parents were both teachers, so when I was coming home and complained about homework, they would go, No, you have to do it, it's important. Yeah. And I'd go, no, it's tough. I don't need to do it. And my dad's line was always, you're not learning math, you're learning how to learn. That the act of studying here is teaching you what discipline is, what work is, and like you don't know calculus now, but if you do this every day for the rest of the year, your final is gonna look a whole lot different than like your inn take exam would have looked. Wow. And as a kid, I was like, no, dad, they're not teaching they're teaching me math. You're like, when am I ever gonna do this again? You're making this way too hard. And now it's like, dang. Yeah, I am learning how to do it. But it is important, I think. The lesson here is yeah, to accept the wisdom people around us, even if it doesn't quite make sense to us now. Yeah, oftentimes there's more profoundness to it than we realize. I don't know if profoundness is a word, but it is now. It is now it. So beautiful thing. Uh last question for both. Yeah, it's something that makes you happy outside it. So we've talked a lot about college events, a lot of campus events. Uh, Addison, I'll start with you because I've got uh put you on the spot here a couple times to start. Um, Addison, yes, what's something that makes you happy? It could be a place you love going, a hobby you love doing, a craft you love making, uh, a hole in the wall that you love going to that we all should know about. Uh, what makes you happy?
SPEAKER_01Um, I would say definitely going to the beach with friends, with family. I'm a huge family-oriented girl, so anything that I get to do with my family always just has a special place in my heart, but definitely a place is the beach. I am very jealous that I'm not at the beach on a nice 80-degree weather in Tampa, but this is so much better. But this is like maybe. But yeah, no, definitely the beach um and hanging out with my family for sure.
SPEAKER_02I'm going back to Connecticut after this. I'm head arguing the beach is better. Don't look at me like that. It's not that bad. We're okay.
SPEAKER_01It's still kind of cool. My roommate from last year lives there. She's there right now. She lives there, so yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, is there a specific beach that you love? Is it just like the beach in general? Is there like uh a beach that you all went to?
SPEAKER_01Is there I love Destin, Florida, that beach. Um, but closer to my house, Hill and Head Island in South Carolina. We my family and I go there. We try to go there almost every summer, and I love it so much. I miss it. I'm excited to go back soon.
SPEAKER_02But you there soon enough. It'll be 80 degrees soon enough, yeah. Um I guess sooner for you than the rest of us, unfortunately. But um, awesome. Yeah, what makes me happy?
SPEAKER_00What makes me happy, I would say, is my campus and the opportunities it's given me. I know that kind of connects back to Student Productions. Yeah, but having the opportunity to go to the University of Tampa is truly something that's so amazing to me. Being from Chicago, it's a really big change, but it really helped me put myself out there. And the campus is beautiful. I don't know if you've ever seen it before. It is so pretty, and I just love it there so much. You can hammock by the river. There's just so many opportunities that it gives you. Go on walks. Like we just saw videos, it was this weekend, so we weren't there, but there were dolphins just jumping out of the river just right behind our campus. Of course.
SPEAKER_01But I have like four feet of snow out of our gave our Tampa weather to you, but you know, we need it.
SPEAKER_02Awesome. That's beautiful. It makes me happy just hearing about it, so I can only imagine how beautiful it would have been between.
SPEAKER_00It's just truly amazing to be able to live there, and yeah, it just gives me so much, and it's yeah, it's amazing.
SPEAKER_02Awesome. Well, thank you for joining us. Thank you, time to eat present here. Uh, yeah, this is the happiness blueprint podcast. Thank you, friends. Awesome, perfect. We did it. That was so awesome!
SPEAKER_03Thanks for listening to the happiness blueprint, powered by GBM6.
SPEAKER_02It's about making people happy.