Inclusive Leadership for Students: A Conversation with Dr. Dar Mayweather

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:00:05]:
And so for me, it really helped me see that leadership is interdisciplinary. So it doesn't matter if you're an engineer, it doesn't matter if you're an architect. You're going to be navigating people who have natural gifts and talents, right? And the best leaders that we know bring those natural gifts and talents out of people. And that's what we want to create space for people to do that.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:00:33]:
That's Dr. Dar Mayweather, College professor and professional speaker for doing the good work. If you're a college student preparing for job interviews in your field of study.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:00:44]:
You'Re going to want to work with him.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:00:46]:
In this episode, we explore the intersection of education, career goals and leadership development. Dr. Mayweather emphasizes the significance of inclusive leadership training and the transformation in STUD leadership styles. So join us as we discuss the essential role of recognizing individual abilities and strengths in achieving career goals. This is the Academic Survival Podcast and I'm your host, Dr. Chandra McDonald. Statistics show that approximately 40% of students drop out of college every year. In fact, nearly 30% drop out their first year.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:01:30]:
Well, I am on a mission to improve these stats.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:01:36]:
Welcome to the Academic Survival Podcast and today I have with me Dhar Mayweather. Welcome to the show.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:01:44]:
Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:01:47]:
Dr. Dar Mayweather, tell us about your background.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:01:51]:
So be totally honest. Just excited to be here, to be able to tell my journey and to sum it up, moved from hall director or HD to faculty in eight years. So my career started in as a hall director, ran a residence hall, and through that experience, I got a chance to create multiple co curricular activities that allow for me to create a partnership with the College of Education between student affairs and academic affairs, which created open room for me to be able to learn how to teach. So I learned how to teach at a Division 1 institution that's very well known across the country, how to teach diversity and inclusion to resident assistants. And then that flourished into me becoming a leadership studies professor where I kind of help college students understand their natural gifts and talents so that they can get jobs from industry leaders and get noticed by industry leaders before they graduate.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:02:40]:
Hey, I want to talk about your hall director experience for a little bit. So tell me about that. Like, how was that? Because usually it's freshmen that are required to live in the dorm. So what was that experience like?

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:02:50]:
I think for me, I already had a lot of experience just working in housing. I was a resident assistant, I was a graduate assistant in housing. So it just made sense for me to once I decided to go into student affairs, higher education, that I go into the housing route. For me, it never was about like enforcing the rules and all that stuff, like being that heavy hand. It was, for me, it was more about like, how do we build community, how do we help folks, students especially get what they want out of their first, second, third years in the residence hall so that they can be ready for the real world. And so that's kind of how we programmed as me and my student team around, kind of preparing students for the next level, for the next world.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:03:30]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:03:30]:
Of whatever that looked like. So if it was freshmen, then we was preparing them for the sophomore year. If it was sophomore and juniors, we were kind of preparing them for the senior years. And so that's where a lot of those co curricular courses kind of play a role in my development because I was able to kind of implement those where students came straight from their room into the classroom in the residence hall, and we will talk about kind of what their goals were, set goals, achieving those goals and etc. And so I've been kind of helping students map this thing out for years that just. I was a hall director, right. So it's not like an academic advisor or career advisor, those things, but I've been doing kind of that work for a long time. And so I know not much about like residence life experience, but kind of like where I got, where I kind of started my journey and how I made sense of how hall directoring helped me be who I am today.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:04:21]:
Okay, and then that transitioned you eventually to the position that you're in now. So tell us about that.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:04:27]:
Yeah, yeah. So you know when you can create partnerships between academic affairs and student affairs, that work and everybody's happy. That's a skill that people don't really know about.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:04:39]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:04:39]:
Because like academic affairs and student affairs usually don't get along that well.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:04:47]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:04:48]:
So like there's an age old history to that. So for any college students listening, like, know that like the people who do programming outside of the classroom and the people who teach inside the classroom, they don't really talk to each other. So it's up to you to make your experience outside the classroom that just as formative as your experience inside the classroom. And so that's what I did a lot of work, right. A lot of my work outside the classroom with students was how do you become a multicultural leader? How do you be an inclusive leader? How do you be a leader that understands justice and equity in your potential industry?

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:05:28]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:05:29]:
So what does that look like specific to your industry. And so for me, it really helped me see that leadership is interdisciplinary. So it doesn't matter if you're an engineer, it doesn't matter if you're an architect, it doesn't matter if you're going into hospitality tourism management education. You're going to be either working with or working for somebody who's different than you, right. Who has a different identity than you, who maybe have a different lived experience than you, that comes up from a different background than you. And so having abilities to be able to navigate conversations, a lot of tough conversations, but also like community building conversations, supervisory conversations. Right. Being able to just say, like, hey, you might have a supervisor, that's super conflict avoidant.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:06:16]:
Right?

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:06:17]:
But you are the type of person that run into the flyer while it's ablaze. And so when you're able to understand that maybe that person is avoidant and you are more, maybe competitive, you, you are able to have those conversations differently about what you need versus being like, I just have a bad supervisor.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:06:38]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:06:38]:
That's what a lot of people just default to when the reality is it's just a different in style.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:06:44]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:06:44]:
And if you, if you understand diversity and inclusion, all we're trying to do is help you understand and recognize that people have different styles, right. Different backgrounds. And so if you can do that, you become a value add. Because now you're navigating conversations with your supervisor and people who are supervised by you or your supervisor, right. Who's different than them and helping you, helping you all make sense of the work that you do.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:07:11]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:07:11]:
And so that's, that's the value add of inclusion and inclusive leadership.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:07:15]:
Yeah, that's good.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:07:17]:
So you specifically do work that is separate from the institution. Right. But it's part of developing that diversity inclusion. Was it diversity equity and inclusion leadership. So if a student was interested in getting involved with your work or learning more about what you do, how would they do that? And what services do you currently offer for college students?

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:07:45]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So for me, I think it's for college students who are student leaders on campus, whether it's a fraternity, sorority, whether in residence hall, residence life, orientation leader, multicultural affairs. I mean, even if you're in a programming role in academic affairs or in your academic college, right. Anywhere that you work with students or work with people, whether it's youth or college students, you should be doing some kind of inclusive training.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:08:13]:
Right?

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:08:14]:
And for me, I'm going to stick to inclusion. You know, just take the diversity, the equity, social justice out. You're going to be navigating people who have natural gifts and talents.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:08:26]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:08:27]:
And the best leaders that we know bring those natural gifts and talents out of people. And that's what we want to create space for people to do that. But you also want to create space where people feel like they're hurt, feel like they're understood, feel like they can get empathy from the people that's in it. So that's the inclusion piece, and that's the leadership piece. And so what I do is. And what I want you to do is go to doing the good work.com backslash links, doing the good work.com backslal links and get the free activity book, right, where I teach you literally how to do my best. Inclusive leadership activities. You know, we talking about helping people understand that we have all have privilege and marginalized experiences.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:09:12]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:09:13]:
I'm a black person, so yes, I do have marginalized experiences in my black identity, but I also have privilege experiences in my male identity.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:09:23]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:09:23]:
And so I need abilities to be able to share and navigate both of those at the same time. I also have natural gifts and talents. And what we want is for people to show up in their natural gifts and talents so that they can be the best self in the space with you.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:09:43]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:09:43]:
So they can give the most, be the most productive. They can also be led the easiest when they're using their strengths.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:09:50]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:09:51]:
You know, think about for a student, you know, anytime somebody tried to get you to do something based on your weaknesses, you probably got frustrated, got angry, got upset, didn't complete it, didn't commit. It's because you were using your. Your weaknesses. What I believe is we get better when we use our strengths. And so that's what I tend to teach people.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:10:12]:
Yeah, that's good.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:10:14]:
There's research that shows that when a person could match their strengths and their gifts with the mission of the organization, they have better job satisfaction.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:10:28]:
Oh, 100%. 100%. Not even just like better job satisfaction. You have a better life outside of job.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:10:36]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:10:36]:
Because it doesn't feel like work. You know, you just, you just go and do your thing.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:10:43]:
Right?

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:10:43]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:10:44]:
And you feel real proud about yourself because you just crush something because you know you're using your strengths.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:10:49]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:10:49]:
Like, I'm a, I'm a professional speaker, and I'm also a teacher.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:10:52]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:10:52]:
I'm a professor. And so my strengths build on top of each other. When I speak, I get become a better professor. When I'm being professor, I become a better speaker.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:11:03]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:11:04]:
And so when you're Able to utilize your strengths in that way for students. You know, let's say you want to become a sports broadcaster. All right, cool. You got class. So that's one way that you're going to strengthen that. Another way is to actually go out and do some sports broadcasting. Right. Start a YouTube channel or, you know, podcast.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:11:25]:
Doesn't matter. Get better at it.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:11:27]:
Yeah, right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:11:28]:
Do the thing. Like, actually do the thing, you know, because a lot of college students think that college is on the job training, and it's not.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:11:37]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:11:37]:
You're not going to graduate most. With any. Most degrees in college that you can get. You will grad. You can graduate without ever having. Actually didn't. Did it, like.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:11:47]:
Right, yeah.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:11:50]:
Like, I wanted to be a probation officer, and that's why I went to school. And so, yeah, when I graduate. Yeah, you're not. You have no experience being a probation officer.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:11:58]:
No, no. And so you graduate and now you go into a college pool of people, right. Who have those experiences, who may have references, who probably have networks, who probably connected with alumni.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:12:14]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:12:15]:
We can keep going. Did internships, all those things. And now that's your competition.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:12:20]:
Yeah.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:12:22]:
Right. And so are you ahead of the competition or not? So ahead of the kind of. You know what I mean? Like, so you need to be able to know that about your own experience. And so when my college students, they leave my class, and especially in a leadership minor, when they complete the whole entire minor, they realize how much experience they either need to get or how much they actually got.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:12:45]:
Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:12:46]:
What are common blind spots for. For students in this space, the first.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:12:50]:
Blind spot is that students don't think that they're a leader.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:12:53]:
Oh, yeah. I could see that. I could see that. So. So what does that mean? I don't think I'm a leader. What? Like, what does that mean?

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:13:01]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It can be a lot of things. So it could mean that you're comparing yourself to leaders who've inspired you over your entire life.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:13:10]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:13:10]:
Or you could be comparing yourself to, like, celebrities, you know, people who have status and people who you revere and wish that you can be like. But you know you're not them.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:13:22]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:13:23]:
You probably suck at being them. That's why I tell all my students, right. You suck at being me. I suck at being you. That's why I gotta be me.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:13:31]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:13:31]:
And I gotta, like, stick to who I am, and I gotta stand in that. And that is what brings the opportunities that's for you to you.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:13:39]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:13:39]:
But you got to do the work. I think Another blind spot for students is the fact that they, they put their leadership in this box. And so if I don't show up and 100% of the issues are solved, I'm not a good leader.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:13:56]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:13:56]:
So now if you're not solving everybody's problem, then you're not being the best leader. And that's, that's not actually leadership. That's people pleasing. Okay, Right. I think another thing is that students don't have a definition of leadership. So, like, they don't even know how to practice it when you don't even have a definition. Like.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:14:14]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:14:14]:
Like you look at leadership as like a position or a person when it's actually a process that helps a group of people achieve a common goal. And so if you don't understand that leadership is more than just this human being that you love and revere, you'll never find your authentic leadership style.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:14:34]:
Yeah.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:14:35]:
All right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:14:35]:
And so I think those are some blind spots for sure that, that, that students were, you know, kind of have to work through.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:14:40]:
I remember hearing someone compare, you know, you can be a leader and based upon the authority of the position that you're in, or you can be a leader based upon your ability to influence. And so if you're solely lying on the position, then it's all about authority. But if you can lead through, through influence, then that, that at the end of the day makes a better leader. What are your thoughts on that?

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:15:09]:
Yeah, you know, so leadership styles, you know, kind of COVID that. And one of the questions you can ask anybody if you ever want to kind of like see how they define leadership is ask them, was Hitler leader?

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:15:22]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:15:22]:
And depending on if they say yes or no, we'll let you know how they define it.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:15:27]:
Okay.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:15:27]:
And so if they say, yeah, it's probably authority based leadership.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:15:33]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:15:33]:
But if they say no, it's probably more ethics based leadership.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:15:37]:
That's good.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:15:38]:
And so, you know, there's all those styles that exist, and all those styles are important. You know, I think about a time when I was working as a student leader on. It was the moving crew on campus. So we like move furniture in and out of the housing spaces and stuff. Hopefully nobody kills me if they hear this, but they was just lazy, you know, I mean, like, it was just a whole bunch of lazy dudes. And I was just not. Was not me.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:16:03]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:16:03]:
And so one of them days I was just like, yo, like, if we don't get nothing done, man, I'm just letting them know. Like, I'm just like letting folks know like, yo, this is who on the shift. This is what happened when I got to the shift. Like, this is what was done by the time I got done. This was a. Done by the time I got here, right? Like, I was just like, yo, I'm about to just, like, let the authority know. And that day, the next day and the day you fold, right? I mean, that day and the next day, right, the productivity was up, right? And so you need authority sometimes to make sure that people getting the job done, right? At the same time, you might have a situation where it's all about productivity. But then you, you know, in a similar situation, but you got somebody who got a broke hand, right? And so you.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:16:48]:
Now we talking about, all right, if I push you, if I push you. If I push you, we're gonna. We're gonna further injure you, right? Which could further make a problem for us. Cause we might lose you for a couple weeks, right? And we have a deadline that we gotta meet because this new residence hall just got up, Just went up, right? And so it needs to be filled by the time orientation starts, right? And so those are. Those are different type of conversation that you might need to be having a little bit more ethical background in, right? Maybe a more interpersonal approach to your leadership.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:17:19]:
Right, Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:17:19]:
And so depending on the scenario, one could need one and one could need the other. Because think about it like this. Those guys ain't doing nothing. And I come to them and be like, hey, hey, friends, let's. Let's just all do better, right? Let's just be more understanding of each other and each other's goals in this work, right? Trying to take an interpersonal approach. They would have been like, f you, man. We about to keep doing nothing.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:17:48]:
Right?

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:17:48]:
But as soon as I brought the authority into the conversation, the protect the productivity went up.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:17:54]:
So, yeah, yeah, that's good.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:17:59]:
When you're doing your leadership, when you're with your students, when they enter the class, I imagine they come in one way, but by the end of the term, what is the main changes that you see in. In their leadership style?

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:18:14]:
I think it moves them away from this idea that leadership is like monolithic. It's straightforward, it's horizontal line.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:18:25]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:18:25]:
I think a lot of times they move away from this idea that all they need to do is do this one type of leadership, and then that's going to help them become the person that they want to become in their future.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:18:37]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:18:38]:
Most of the time they're at a point where they're just seeing themselves more raw and so at the end of 16 weeks, it's like, wow, I went from just figuring out and hearing that I had these styles to now I'm able to articulate the stories that come behind me using these different styles.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:18:59]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:18:59]:
Okay.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:19:00]:
When I'm more leadership focused versus when I'm more management focused, when I'm more trait focused.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:19:05]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:19:05]:
Versus when I'm more behavior focused, when I'm more relationship focused, when I'm. Versus when I'm most process focused.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:19:11]:
Right?

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:19:12]:
So, like, they're able to determine the scenarios and situations in which they are practicing leadership differently.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:19:21]:
Okay. Okay.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:19:22]:
So you're super important.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:19:24]:
Yeah.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:19:24]:
So it sounds like they have like a bag of tricks.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:19:28]:
We all need them.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:19:29]:
Right?

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:19:30]:
Like, you know, and, and. And the. I think the most important part of that is like, realize that you pulling from the same bag, right? So it's not like, oh, I gotta. I got. This is my relationship leadership bag. Like, no, your leadership bag has your ability on how you build relationships, and your ability is your ability.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:19:49]:
Right?

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:19:49]:
So if you're more task oriented, that's how you build relationships.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:19:53]:
Right?

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:19:53]:
You give out tasks, you delete, you delegate. You make people feel like they're organized. But if you're more like interpersonal related, right? So you want to make people feel like they belong. You want to understand their strengths, their weaknesses, what gives them energy so that you can motivate and inspire them to do the work.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:20:11]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:20:11]:
Everybody does it differently, but everybody has their own abilities to get things done.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:20:16]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:20:16]:
It's in the same bag.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:20:18]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:20:19]:
That's good.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:20:20]:
So then when you are working with students, like, what is it that you enjoy most about the leadership transformation that you see?

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:20:29]:
Ooh, I don't know if I've. Have I answered this question a long time? What do I enjoy the most? I think I enjoy seeing students use this.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:20:46]:
Right?

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:20:46]:
So, like, I'm excited to share.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:20:49]:
Right?

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:20:49]:
Like, 100% of students who coach with me get the job. 100%. And so it gives me extreme gratification when you are maximizing who you already are to get to where you want to go. So, like, strengths finder, you know, Cliftons strengths finder. Like, maximizing is my top strength. So.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:21:11]:
Okay.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:21:12]:
Like, people sometimes think I'm too much because I'm like, yo, like, this is how you can make this better. This is how you can go get it, right? This is how you could be your best self. Like, I'm like, always cheering people on. I want people to just become a millionaire if that's what you really want.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:21:28]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:21:28]:
Like, that's. I want that for you.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:21:30]:
Right?

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:21:30]:
And I want to help you get there. But some people are also like, I'm just good where I'm at, right? Or, dang, like, you didn't even acknowledge the work that I did to get here, and you already trying to push me. And so, like, in our strengths, we also have to recognize that there's basements and balconies to our strengths, right? There's limitations to even the things that make us special.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:21:55]:
I like that. Basements and balconies.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:21:58]:
Yeah, that's. That's from CliftonStrengths. That's the things that they use to kind of help people understand that, like, your strengths is not a totality of who you are. It's a understanding of how you exist in the world.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:22:10]:
Right?

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:22:10]:
And so, like I said, for me, I do great at helping people reach their most potential, but also, I don't do great at empathizing with people with the work that they already did.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:22:30]:
Like, I just. I just traveled 100 miles to get here. And you're like, hey, let's get some hundred more.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:22:36]:
You know what I'm saying? Like, we got. We. You can do a hundred more.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:22:40]:
Stop being lazy. You got this. You got.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:22:46]:
Yo, that's. That's why my kids, they have a hard time satisfying me. They'd be like, man, I don't even want to tell you, because it's like you're already taking it to the next level, you know? And that's just how I am. I'm wired like that. So, like, there's places in where that excels, right? Especially, like, sports that excels, right? And sports coaching and pushing people, right? Motivating people, that excels, right? But it doesn't excel when you're in interpersonal, empathetic relationships with people, right? So like, my wife, she'd be like, nah, nah, time out.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:23:26]:
You're not about to coach me up. So with the students, you mentioned something about 100% of the students who work with you get the job. Tell me a little bit about that. That work that you're doing with the students.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:23:40]:
Yeah, yeah. So a lot of times college students have this idea what companies do, right? They have an idea what they do. They don't actually know what they actually do, right? And what they actually do is really based on a few things. One is whatever selling the most or whatever is bringing them the most money, right? And so even with colleges, like, so if this is for the grad, this is for the student who wants to go to Grad school, Right. Even grad schools, schools do a thing, but they don't do everything and they don't do everything well. Right? And so like you can get a degree in sports broadcasting from a smaller school and think that it's the same value as a sports broadcasting degree from like the University of Florida.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:24:29]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:24:29]:
Let's say you want to even go into college football, sports broadcasting and you go to the University of Florida, it's probably going to be a little bit different than going to small 500 person school and nowhere middle of America, right?

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:24:49]:
Yeah.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:24:49]:
And why do I say that is because, like, think about it like how many NFL players went to the University of Florida that probably got a sports broadcasting degree that's probably on ESPN right now. And so think about the students who graduate from that program. They get those connections, right? Who graduated from your program. Then the next thing is also like with, with companies, right? So like it depends on what they, what they do is what they sell the most, what makes them make sure that they don't close their doors.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:25:22]:
Okay.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:25:22]:
And that could be based off of, for college students, that could be based off of what they think they know about the organization versus what actually is.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:25:33]:
Okay.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:25:34]:
And so, you know, just, you know, give an example. So like media companies, so like, let's say espn.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:25:40]:
Okay.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:25:40]:
A lot of people think that ESPN is, you know, is a sports broadcasting company, but really they're a marketing company.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:25:50]:
Okay.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:25:51]:
So most of the money that they make is off ads.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:25:54]:
Oh, right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:25:55]:
And so they need to know what their audience likes so then they can solicit the people who sell those products to come and put their commercials on the show. So then you watch the sports show, but then you watch the ad for that show.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:26:11]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:26:12]:
That's what gets them paid.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:26:14]:
Okay, I got it.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:26:16]:
Right, okay.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:26:17]:
And so you're helping the students with understanding those differences.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:26:21]:
You got to.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:26:22]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:26:22]:
Because when you, when you, when you come into the, to the job, you thinking, oh yeah, I just want to help ESPN be the best sports broadcasting show ever. They're already that. So you're not helping them do the thing that they already are doing.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:26:40]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:26:41]:
What you need to think about is how can you help them attract more ads.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:26:45]:
Got it.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:26:47]:
See what I'm saying?

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:26:47]:
Yeah, It's a, it's a, it's a subtle difference, but it's a meaningful one.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:26:53]:
And so what you, instead of saying, I am the best at sports broadcasting, you might want to focus more on your personality, on how you attract people to sports broadcasting.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:27:06]:
Got it.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:27:07]:
Right. Because everybody Got the technicalities now. That's why you went to college. You know what I'm saying? But how do you do it differently? That's what we want to know.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:27:17]:
Yeah.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:27:18]:
Right. So I, it's, it's just deep, right? It's deep. I mean, and I even think about, like, for. So folks who want to go to grad school, right, you might have a school that is known for education, but right now, in reality, what they're graduating most is nursing students.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:27:39]:
Okay?

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:27:40]:
And so if you're going into education, you need to know that your college might be not as resourced as the program that's graduating the most students, which is giving us the most money.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:27:57]:
Yes.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:27:58]:
That's really good.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:27:59]:
Yeah.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:27:59]:
Right. And so when you're thinking, oh, yeah, I'm going to go into this college of Ed because they have this track restor history, blah, blah, blah, of creating these amazing educators, if that's still the case, then why is that? Is it the faculty? Is it the curricular structure?

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:28:21]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:28:21]:
Is it the specific type of training in classes that you get? And so those are the three things that I help college students look for. If it's like, all right, this is the school that I'm going to go into. The prestige is not the college. It's the faculty, it's the training, and it's the curriculum.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:28:40]:
Right?

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:28:41]:
Because think about it like this. You go to a smaller school and all of their faculty come from ucla, Cornell, Yale. You're getting Yale, Cornell, UCLA training.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:28:55]:
Yeah.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:28:55]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:28:56]:
But if you go to a school that got a whole bunch of faculty who are cool, but they don't come from any of the prestigious universities, that's a limitation in your experience that's going to manifest in your career pursuits.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:29:14]:
Right?

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:29:15]:
Because my faculty from, you know, so my faculty from USCLA, my chair, right. She got a, she has a Ph.D. from UCLA, and so her networks are now my network. Right. Everywhere she goes, I go.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:29:31]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:29:32]:
That's how they should be looking at your faculty exchange.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:29:36]:
Right?

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:29:37]:
You want to learn from the people who's being the best or connected to the best in the field.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:29:43]:
Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:29:44]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:29:44]:
And that starts with the people who you learning from.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:29:47]:
Yeah, that's good.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:29:48]:
That's. That's just a whole research angle at pursuit your, your career and like, your pursuits. It's like, okay, so it's not the school that's the closest to you or the cheapest or the. It's. It's like, which institution is going to better set me up for the future and the connections that I'M going to.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:30:10]:
Need, you know, the least amount of effort.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:30:13]:
Yeah, that's good too. Yeah.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:30:14]:
Right, because that's, that's what you paying into.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:30:17]:
Yeah.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:30:18]:
So I had a friend who, a couple of things, like I had a friend who went to a well known business college on the east coast, right. But she didn't at all plan on living in the east coast. She just wanted to go to what she thought was the best school to get her mba. And then once she graduated, she's like, in hindsight, I probably should have picked a college on the west coast because I knew I didn't want to live on the east coast. So she has all these connections for jobs and locations that she doesn't want to live in. And then I had another, I had another friend who went out of state to college for his bachelor's degree. And the goal at the time was like, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go out of state to school and then I'm gonna come back. Cause that's what the scholarship was, right? Go outta state to school and then come back.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:31:09]:
But because of the connections right, from that institution, went outta school, I mean, went outta state for college but then never came back. And, and he was okay with that. Yeah, but it was because that, because where you get your, and in many cases where you get your education is what basically what you're saying. It's like those connections are tied to those people or those institutions. And so kind of know where, know where you want to land, right? Know where you want to land. And then let's work backwards from like, okay, well, who do I need to get my, my, my training from 100%.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:31:42]:
And like, and, and the. I try to break it down as simple as I could to help people really understand the process, but the process is really determining on where you want to be and who can best serve you to get there. So like, if it's, if it's somebody on the east coast and it's somebody on the east coast, there's somebody in the south, it's somebody in the South. Finding that person is better than finding that program because the program is only made up of people who teach in it for real. And people leave jobs all the time. Like, seriously. And so if you, if you thinking that the prestige of this institution is based off of 20 years ago, or when you first thought that you wanted to go into this program, which was, might have been in middle school or elementary school or something like that, or even high school, right. You need to make sure that why they are as prestigious is the reason why you're going.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:32:40]:
And they're still that prestigious. And that reasoning. Right today.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:32:44]:
Right, yeah.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:32:45]:
Because again, let's say for example you have a program that teaches about social justice and leadership. But let's just say that that was really only one faculty member.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:32:57]:
Oh yeah, that's really good.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:32:59]:
And that one faculty member gets a high paying job at another institution.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:33:04]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:33:04]:
Because they're that amaz now that work is gone.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:33:10]:
It sure is.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:33:12]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:33:14]:
And then some, and then some institutions get rocked with some kind of scandal.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:33:19]:
And oh, they always try to, they always try to mimic it because they, it was so successful. But you can't mimic a person.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:33:26]:
Yeah, yeah, can't. Yeah, that's really good.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:33:30]:
One of the things though that, that, that reminds me of is in like the entrepreneurial space, you know, at the end of the day they say that you're selling you. It's always, it always goes back to the person.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:33:43]:
Right.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:33:44]:
And so I think that what you're saying is one like there's two sides to that. It's identifying the people who you want to be best aligned with and following that track. But it's also like who are you becoming?

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:34:00]:
Well, you know, that's even taking it a step further.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:34:03]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:34:03]:
Because these folks, these folks want to be leaders in industry that create change.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:34:07]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:34:08]:
So what, what they really want to do is solve problems. And you're not just selling yourself, you're selling yourself through services.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:34:15]:
Yes.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:34:16]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:34:16]:
So like what can you do to make somebody else's life easier? That's what entrepreneurs, schools, businesses, non profits, that's what they all do. Everybody's in the business of making people's lives easier.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:34:31]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:34:32]:
Nobody wants to spend money with somebody to make their life harder. Nobody wants to pay somebody to make their life harder. Nobody wants to hire somebody that's going to make our organization harder.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:34:47]:
Right, right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:34:49]:
And so you need to know what you're selling and was what services you selling.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:34:54]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:34:54]:
To industries to ensure that you get the person, you get the pick.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:34:59]:
Right.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:34:59]:
You get picked out of whatever the job pool looks like you need to know. And so knowing what problem you solve and how you solve it.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:35:10]:
Yeah.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:35:10]:
Takes you a lot farther than just being like I'm good at this.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:35:15]:
Yeah, that's good.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:35:17]:
What do you have next? Like what's lined up for you?

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:35:19]:
Yeah, yeah, I guess I'm launching a book, I'm watching a series of books. So this is, this is the first of a few. Yes.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:35:26]:
All right, so tell me a little bit about that.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:35:28]:
It's called how to get along. It's an inclusive leadership activity book. It's a trainer trainer activity book. So it's focused on helping people who want to do this work, do this work with communities.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:35:38]:
Oh, okay.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:35:39]:
And so, like I usually say, like, I transform by helping transform other people. That's how I got to supporting and helping over 150,000 people do inclusion work over my speaking career, right? And it was because I joined a trainer trainer, and I didn't have the words, I didn't have the knowledge, I didn't have the know how. And so I told stories of when I did it right and when I did it wrong. And those stories led to me being able to, you know, retire. My wife, right? She literally stays home with our son and we, we, we do decent with my salary and what I make with my business, right? And so the beauty of it, right, is that, you know, you can, you can be a part of this too. Doing the good work.com backslash links and you can get the book yourself, right? Or, you know, join my email list, right, by getting the activities, the free inclusive leadership activities. And you can literally start the journey without having to pay a single dime.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:36:41]:
Right?

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:36:42]:
And so this is for students, staff, faculty, anybody who's listening to this, right? Like wherever you are, it all inclusion, inclusive leadership training never makes you worse. It always makes you better because you get comfortable at being uncomfortable, right? And you're helping other people do that as well. And that's a skill, folks. And people will pay top dollar when you can do that, right? And so join, join the doing the good work family and join this community because we're going to be creating trainers that really have the confidence to inspire and educate at the same time.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:37:17]:
Awesome.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:37:18]:
Look at you doing the good work, Dr. Dar.

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:37:23]:
Entertain and educate, inspire and motivate. We're gonna, we're doing all that because that's what the good work does.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:37:31]:
Oh, absolutely. Well, on that note, I am going to close us out. Is there any last minute things you want to say before I, before I shut us down?

Dr. Dar Mayweather [00:37:42]:
You know, doing the good work.com Links and as always, keep doing the good work.

Dr. Shandra McDonald [00:37:54]:
That's it for today on academic survival. If you want to share your story on how you survived your freshman year of college, you can reach me at info@shandralmcdonald.com we'll be back next week with more ways to survive your academic journey. Until the next then, Happy studying.