Breaking Bubbles: Find Courage and Connection // The Happiness Blueprint e023

Khalil & Sebelah, from North Carolina A&T State University, share how stressful times become rewarding ones, why they prioritize their process over their choice, and what their goals are as artists!

0:00 Khalil & Sebelah from North Carolina A&T State Univ
1:59 Stressful = Rewarding
7:26 The Benefits of Experience
13:28 Explain Choice vs Process
14:59 Advice for Past Self
19:08 What Makes Khalil Happy
20:06 What Makes Sebelah Happy

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The Happiness Blueprint
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// The podcast where we uncover how people build happier lives.

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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/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is the Happiness Blueprint.

SPEAKER_02 0:03

The podcast where we uncover how people build happier lives. Welcome back to the Happiness Blueprint Podcast. My name is Peter. I'm here with some two new friends, so please introduce yourselves. Yeah, let us guess know who you are.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

So my name is Khalil Mikkel. I'm a chemical engineering major from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

What's up? My name is Sabela Sharif. I'm a junior mass media production major in North Carolina and two state. North Carolina State University.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Yeah, it's a lot of parts of that university name. Thanks for joining us today, friends. What's your role in terms of on campus events?

SPEAKER_01 0:31

So for me, I am a first year, so I am a general body member. I'm having a ton of fun getting to learn our campus, getting to know all the people and surrounding, you know, the audience, everything about it, the culture of our campus. It's a very rich, the historical university. So I'm just having fun with it right now, like rolling with the punches. So for sure.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

You're also a first-year student. Yeah, I'm also or no, I'm actually a junior, but I am a first-year member at SUAB. Awesome. I'm also a general body member as well.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Awesome. What inspired y'all to get involved with uh events on campus? So again, like, and we kind of had this conversation off camera, but I am very deeply passionate about you know audio, visual, UEC, things of that nature. So, in terms of that, I've always had like a duper, it's like super deep and rooted passion for anything like on that technical side. And I I always wanted to be behind the scenes of big, like large-scale events like that. So, this is just definitely that gateway for me and like kind of get through that door.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Uh, I'm actually an artist, and the way that I really found out about uh events that SUAB does is I was in a cipher uh the semester before that uh uh applied, and I just had a really great time, and I was like, these guys are really good at doing these events, and I want to, you know, uh be um participate more in it and see what I can do more than just being in front of this game board I can do behind the scenes. So that's really what got me through the door.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

That's cool. Yeah, I think it's a really important perspective is to see both sides. I think that's a great part of producing events. Like we've all been to a bunch of events where there's like a high school prom is a classic one, or just little parties with our friends, like it all is kind of the same for me on some level. And that's one experience of it. But getting to understand how these events are made has been like a whole new perspective. A whole new world. What surprised you as you started getting into this? I assume, yeah, we're into a second semester, so yeah, I assume you had a semester under your belt and to start getting some practice in here. What surprised you as you got into it?

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Oh man, it is stressful. They don't lie about that. It's it's stressful, but it's fun. It's stressful with fun. I'll say for me personally, it's about you know trying to manage all that, like, you know, commotion, that stress and the fire, but also like stay, stay genuine, stay empathetic, and understand that everyone around you is having trouble, like, you know, trying to like roll with the same punches that you are. So it's definitely just having that empathy. That's the biggest thing for me.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Uh, what surprised me was all of the moving parts and the real complexities of what goes into planning an event. I think that's the best part about being an intern, is you really learn every single aspect of going into planning event. Like, we take it for granted in the fact that you may throw something like your own Super Bowl party, and all you gotta do is get the food and invite people and just see what happens. But when you throw a Super Bowl party at the scale for a whole school, you gotta figure out how to make it work for everyone and make it safe. And I I really just respect our e-board and I respect our advisor and everybody that really is showing us how these things need to happen safe.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

Awesome. Well, the Super Bowl party, one of the things you did, it tells me that was a very good thing.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Yeah, we just yeah, we just did it and it was and it was great. But it was a lot of moving parts, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

It was a huge turnout. I don't mean to cut you all, but it was a huge turnout. And like I actually had the opportunity to like you know manage that event, and you know, just seeing all those moving parts, and you know, like with the help of him, especially and everyone in that room, it was just it made it so much easier, but it was still a really big, like it was in tall order, so for sure.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

All that work that goes into it, I think, is stressful. It is a lot, and I think there's always the the surprise of the event that we thought we were gonna make six months when the idea was born. For sure. As you get closer, we go, turns out this part isn't gonna work. This thing, people aren't responding to this, they're not, they don't care about this part, whatever the vendor we thought we had for this is not good enough. This thing isn't gonna work out here, but it all does come together. I know the party did happen here. Yeah, uh, it must be very rewarding to see us all come together. I think as a happiness company as ourselves, we like to put events because it makes people happy. That's the motivation that keeps us going here. Uh, how does it feel to finally see the event manifest and see the two old party come together?

SPEAKER_01 3:59

It was it was a it was a beautiful experience. I mean, especially that halftime show. Because, you know, again, I I've reiterated like we have a very huge and diverse campus. So seeing kind of that unity on screen and in the seats of like everyone in that auditorium, and mind you, we were there's there's like screenings in several rooms. So there's there's a lot of people enjoying this big, awesome, you know, like just game. And it was it was a it was a whole lot of fun. Just seeing the smile on everyone's faces really made it that much more worthwhile.

SPEAKER_02 4:26

It's good to have that much of a turnout when North Carolina isn't really involved with the Super Bowl, right? Oh, yeah, no, we know Seattle as well. Uh but to have people that turn up and that amped up to be a part of it, even though there's no real time North Carolina. Uh are the Panthers, North Carolina or South Carolina? North Carolina. Okay, so yeah, tough, tough time. I apologize to bring that up. Um yeah, what about you?

SPEAKER_00 4:47

How did it feel about it all come together? Um, I'm an Eagles fan. But yeah, of course, it's definitely good to see the vibe of the room. Like, yeah, you know, sports brings brings us together as a people. And like you were saying with Bad Bunny, that performance really like everybody was just going crazy. And you know, everybody saw Cardi B. And even just the moments throughout the game, because you know, of course, the Super Bowl wasn't the most touchdown heavy, but it was very defense heavy, and that's still a big part of football. And everybody reacting to the hard hits and everything, you know, just taking in the aura of the room, it definitely is a great place to be.

SPEAKER_02 5:20

And I think it's also just to have so many people engaged in one thing at a time. It's really hard in this A, right? Like, there's unfortunately so many things in this world that can divide us, and I think that's just an unfortunate part of life and a reality of the world. It's beautiful to have so many people engaged in one thing, whether it is two-wheel party, whether it's a concert on campus, a homecoming event, whatever that thing is, to be able to empower that many people to build that kind of community is a really powerful thing. How do these events help make campus a better place? Like, how do you think this made people happy and how did that benefit their time on campus?

SPEAKER_01 5:48

So, speaking not only just of the Super Bowl party, but other parties we put on um and before, like Aggie and I live, it was like an SNL um themed kind of event we had going on. Cool, it went viral on TikTok. It was huge. So many, I'm talking millions of views. Like, I'm I I can set like probably a million likes by now. It was huge. Unbelievable. Yeah, it was awesome. Yeah, it was awesome. And honestly, seeing all those moments on our campus and all those moments in like pop culture and like in history, and especially like since our campus is still historical, seeing all those moments brought together was so much fun. You can see like the smiles on people's faces was priceless. The like the atmosphere was so vibrant, everything about it just made it so much more worthwhile. So that's that's honestly why it's just so worth it every every day to me.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

So yeah, I would say one thing I really like about SUAB is the fact that we use student performers and that we really call on the student body to come participate in our events, and it's not just you watching all the time. Um, Aggie Night Live was one thing, but I think it's really great because I can speak to myself as an introverted person. I'm not someone that's always gonna want to be in the face, and I'm not gonna be the first person to go out, but we really make a safe space for people to be themselves and feel more connected. Like you want people to feel like they're represented, even though they're not always the first one to jump on stage. Because, you know, let's be honest, we're all different. Not everyone is a social butterfly, and we really try our best to uh go off uh and try to entertain every demographic that we can.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

It's funny, that's how I got into camera work was I like music, I love being around it. Yeah, being on stage wasn't for me. I needed a way to be involved in this and make it my life, but yeah, the being on stage part of it. Sounds like you for for you, it is the being on stage part of it. Uh, how's it been helpful to like understand both the being on stage part of it and now understanding all that goes into it? Like, how's this made you better either as a performer or as an event producer?

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Oh man, it's been a trip. It's it's honestly been a trip, man. But I think the best thing about SUAB in uh this conference as well is really learning, like, okay, so what do you want to see as the person who is watching the performer? What's gonna keep you engaged? Because I gotta be honest. Am I engaged with this person? What is this person doing now? Rather than just taking it and always assuming that everything you're doing is always the best and it's not this, you gotta be honest about the fact that there's areas that you can improve in. I know that I'm talented or what I do, but I also know that I need to get better at connecting with the audience because someone is not connecting with me. I can point out the people where I'm like, I really like this keynote, but out of this also ed session, it probably wasn't for me. So I'm gonna take the elements that I really like about that and the elements that I would improve here and apply that to my performance. And in the end, I think it's really just gonna make an overall better uh performer in general.

SPEAKER_02 8:20

I think that perspective you touched on also ties back to the empathy you mentioned earlier of like perspective is not to understand my perspective, but everyone else, everyone else putting on events. Uh, I think we're talking about events here specifically, but this applies to any kind of like social community setting, right? Anytime we're like going to the grocery store, it's like, am I annoying this person? Am I like it's very true? And this all is kind of the same thing about making a happy community happy people is the same thing here. Uh, has it like challenged your empathy and like force you to think more about how we can include not just events that make me happy, but events are gonna make the whole community happy?

SPEAKER_01 8:51

Absolutely, and that's a great question. Honestly, empathy for me is so major, it's like the most fundamental part of being a person. So honestly, thinking about everyone in everyone on this campus, it's a large campus, 15,000 students, and you know, you don't wanna you don't want to put anyone in a bubble, you don't want to put anyone in a niche. This is an opportunity for everyone to engage, find something in common with one another, and just you know, be be one with one another. And and in in light of that, I want to say that trying to engage that audience and trying to get everyone together and just make them like you know, understand where the other person's coming from, like whether that's Aggie Night Lie that we were talking about before, the Super Bowl party or pregame, you have to find an element that in each of those events that everyone's willing to collaborate on and everyone's willing to like you know just come together on. So it's definitely definitely difficult and it has channel and challenged my empathy for sure, but it's all it's all worth it once you see how well everyone collaborates with one another at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_02 9:46

Yeah, I think you're right. You don't want to put people in a bubble. I think we often put ourselves in a bubble, I think, especially in college, it's it's a great time to like try and pop those bubbles, but it's usually self-inflicted. Like it's sure societies at times definitely can tell us, like, hey, I think you should be X or whatever, and right that stinks, but oftentimes, yeah, at least for me, maybe I'm speaking personally here, it's self-inflicted. It's me saying, I think I am this. It takes some bravery to go out and be like, maybe I'm that. Maybe I like doing this thing that I didn't know I liked, I was scared to try here. Uh, when y'all are kind of feeling stuck in your bubble, like what motivates you to go out? How do you find the courage to go out and try? Or, like, um, yeah, what motivates you to get out of your bubble at times?

SPEAKER_00 10:18

I think stuff like this honestly is really is really what grounds you and it really takes you out, like traveling, getting different experiences. Um, I also will say one thing that our advisor, Mr. Tyler, does, which I think is really crucial, after every single event in our debrief, he'll go in and he'll tell us the experiences he had with other students and tell them the feedback he got about this is what they like, this is what they didn't like. Because as hard as we're working, as much as we want success, we tend to sometimes make it about us and about what we think went well and we think did this. But it's really important to be grounded in the fact that everyone has different experiences about that. And if you think this event could have been way better, that's true. But there's also a lot of people that could have thought this was the most fun I've ever had in like months or my whole time on campus.

SPEAKER_02 10:59

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SPEAKER_01 13:13

You are challenging people, and honestly, like to kind of like piggyback on top of that. We were um debriefing last night, honestly, and like about all the ed sessions, and like our one of our um committee members, Maya, said something so impactful to me. She said, Don't explain your choice, explain your process. And that to me was that spoke a lot of volume because oftentimes you're not gonna be able to please everybody, and that's the hard part about having empathy. You can't appease the masses, that's just impossible. You can't, but what you can do is you can explain to them why you came to that decision. And they and at the end of the day, people are gonna recognize how much work goes into events like this, how much time and effort it takes to get someone like Beyonce to step foot on your stage, let alone the state. You know what I'm saying? It takes a lot of effort and energy just to get people to come out to see to see like a little DJ show. And honestly, like it's it's it's so fulfilling to see all come to fruition. But at the end of the day, people are still going to complain. And so, what you have to do to like you know mitigate that is recognize and explain to them how do we come to this conclusion? Why do we make these choices? You have to understand where we're coming from. We did this for you, you know what I'm saying? So I think that definitely like plays a part in that empathy and things of that nature, too. So yeah, so funny.

SPEAKER_02 14:21

There's a cliche of trust to process, right? Which is one of those things that you hear and go, okay, that's an excuse for your you failed. Right. But it's like, no, it really is important, right? Because the the end product might not have worked the way you want it to. But if your intentions were good, you pursued it with I think this is gonna help people. Yes. And if it doesn't, it's like, well, I tried my best, and that's all you could ask. And that that risk is what is uh paired with growth, and without that risk, growth is impossible. Right. The risk also implies that there's a chance it doesn't go great. So that's uh an unfortunate reality here. Uh it sounds like you both have learned a lot through putting on events and through just yeah, attending events and kind of become more well-rounded as a result of it. Uh, so one of the last two questions I'd like to wrap up with here uh is one is what advice would give your past self? Uh so this can be related to events, it can be related to coming out of your shell, kind of things we've talked about here. Uh, what's some advice that you think uh a younger version of you, maybe a freshman in high school version of you or something, uh would have benefited from hearing and would have needed to hear?

SPEAKER_01 15:11

Uh I'll definitely say, and I was actually just talking about this the other day too. So another great question, but I definitely say, you know, don't confine yourself, don't put yourself in a box. You can be great at a million things, but what do you want to be the best at? And what do you want to continue to grow at? What are those things that you wish that were different about yourself that you can change? What are you in control of? So recognizing what you are actively in control of in that moment and not like you know, stifling on the fact that, oh, I want to be this and I want to be that. Like, okay, cool. Yes, the the end goal is definitely where we want to be at, but what are you doing willing to do to what are you willing to do to take what it gets there? You know what I'm saying? Like, think things like that. That's definit that's definitely major to me.

SPEAKER_02 15:49

Uh, within the realm of what you're comfortable sharing, is there a time that comes to mind of a time that you had to step out of your comfort zone and say, hey, this thing is scary and I don't think it's for me. I think my friends are gonna laugh at me for doing this, but I need to go try this. Is there an instance that comes to mind that you're comfortable sharing here?

SPEAKER_01 16:02

Oh, for sure. Um, off the top of my head, I've definitely been trying to step more into the realm of content creation. So, and even um, because I have experience with like audio softwares too, like FL and things like that. So, you know, making music at first, even though obviously your friend will be like, bro, this is trash, like this is not good, and that's okay. Like, those are the growing pains you have to have in order to make better music. Or in terms of content creation, you're trying to make a little edit, it looks terrible, and it just does not look good at all, and you have to like try and get better at that and learn. That's all part of the process. Again, it's about understanding the process, not necessarily the end goal, enjoying yourself while you get there, understanding that everything takes time, it's just it's just essential. I think you're unwritten right that yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:43

The first effort is gonna stake. Right. That's just an unfortunate reality of everything we do. Like, the first time you rode a bike, you didn't go off a jump, right? You fell and you scratched your knee, you yelled at your parents or whoever was there for telling you that you could do it, that's all their problem. And like, that's fair, that's valid, and it's uh an unfortunate growing pain. But you're right, that is the only way to progress and uh get better at anything. So I think you're right to keep trying to do that, and it's an important muscle to keep flexing that, like, yeah, we gotta take chances, we gotta try stuff, and like maybe it turns out that making music isn't what you like, but the action of taking the chance to find that out will serve you tremendously, even if the music itself or whatever the action is doesn't serve it. So it's uh uh a license to keep in mind. Yeah, sure. What are you? Some advice you'd have your past self.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

I would say the the most important thing, and like the thing I wish I could tell myself I was younger is remember where you started at. Um, because I have a really bad habit of like getting locked into today and the future and forgetting where I started at. Specifically as an artist, I remember three years ago when I really wanted when I started, and I'm like, you know, I think I could really do this. I'm thinking when I do this. Of course, the songs I were making weren't necessarily great, and you know, people were saying similar, like, oh, this is trying to. But more importantly, I wasn't thinking that big with it. I was thinking, oh, I'm gonna just do this, and this sounds good, da-da-da. And now here I am now working on whole albums and collaborating with people and singers and other people, and really remember you started. I didn't perform anything. I remember watching other people perform in a block party that was actually SUAB's. I was like, oh, I want to do that. And I'm like, oh, I can never do that. Last year, I just did that. So I'm saying, just really just remember where you started. That's the most important thing.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

I have the same thing that I think it's really important to compare like myself to my previous work and not compare me to other people. And it's so easy to be like, I feel like I'm stacked, I feel like I haven't gotten better. Like, we don't see progress day to day. But when I compare what I made today to what I made 10 years ago when I first started, it's like, oh, that was pretty bad. I've gone a long way since that. And that then gives me the excitement to be like, what's 10 more years gonna look like? How far can this thing grow? Right because I've seen what this growth already can look like. And this is true on a 10-year scale, it's true on a 30-year scale, it's true on a one-week scale, right? Like as you make if you make a beat a day, day one and day seven are not gonna look the same. You're gonna have a lot of progress in there. Uh and I think you're right, that's uh beautiful thing to keep in mind, dude. It's uh yeah, comparing yourself to yourself and not to what other people do.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

Never think always to yourself, always to yourself.

SPEAKER_02 18:58

Hell yeah. Uh my last question, both of y'all here, uh, it's something that makes you happy. So we've talked a lot about events on campus, a lot about coming out of our shell here, uh, yeah, different hobbies you guys are into. But is there an activity you go to uh that makes you happy? Uh this is yeah, happiness blueprint podcast. The goal here is to understand what makes people happy, what makes y'all happy.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Uh first and foremost, my family. I love checking in with them, making sure they're okay. I I really like honestly being away from them makes me recognize like how much they did for me, and I really appreciate that. So definitely them. But if I had to say something else, like, you know, I love playing soccer, so like anytime I get like leisure time to play that, I'll definitely like take that opportunity, taking some time to myself, anything, you know, because college can be stressful. So any any opportunity you get to have to yourself for you, I definitely take that. And for me, that's soccer. So uh soccer's my world as well.

SPEAKER_02 19:45

That is my special awesome. That's what I grew up on. I think as I learn anything, I look back at a four-year-old me, it's like that kid couldn't get the ball off the ground, the ball was half the size of it. It's like now look at me. Like, look at look what growth and time reduce. I think that's awesome. What makes you happy?

SPEAKER_00 19:57

Family soccer big too. Manchester United just got five wins in a row. Uh yes. Haven't seen that in some years.

SPEAKER_02 20:02

So I'm scared it won't last too long, but I'll take it all right. Yep. I heard that. I heard that little what was I saying?

SPEAKER_00 20:14

Oh, music, obviously. Music is really big. I listen to it all day long. Um, what makes me happy? I think family is really huge for me too. Like, family has always been a really big thing, just being there, just present in the moment. I don't think I don't think you can ever, you can't buy that. Like, you have to cherish that.

SPEAKER_02 20:31

It's so easy to take for granted the people we have around us. Exactly. Unfortunately, nothing is permanent, right? So these these relationships will change, and people will change, and people might move across the country and things will change. And uh, yeah, it's really important to grateful for those things while we have them in the moment.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

Yes, but you can make it like like I would say, like Khalil family, the uh SUA Biza family, like you that that's that's what you can do. Like, we can make more families, of course.

SPEAKER_02 20:54

Absolutely, yeah. It's a beautiful place to end up, boys. Thank you for taking time and chat with us here. Thanks for being here with me. Uh yeah, happiness blueprint podcast. We don't did it, friend.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Thanks for listening to the happiness blueprint, powered by GBM6.

SPEAKER_02 21:06

It's about making people happy.