Helena Gardener: Welcome to Here’s the Story, a show that brings student affairs to life by sharing the authentic voices and lived experiences of those who are shaping the field every single day. As part of the Student Affairs NOW family, we’re dedicated to serving and furthering the people who walk the walk, talk the talk, and carry the rock, all of us who find ourselves serving students in their education in student affairs in higher educa- in higher education.

It’s a mouthful to say student affairs in higher education. You can find more information about us at studentaffairsnow.com, or go directly to www.studentaffairsnow.com/heresastory, or you can watch us on YouTube or anywhere you enjoy podcasts. I’m gonna give a quick shout-out to our sponsor, Evolve.

Evolve is a series of leadership coaching journeys designed to bring clarity, capacity, and confidence, empowering courageous leadership to reimagine the future of higher education. Ooh, I’m your host. I’m Helena Gardner. My pronouns are she, her, hers, and I currently have been working in student housing for just over about 25-ish years.

I live my life as a mom, a daughter, a sister, a friend, and a mentor. We’re gonna dive into our conversation in just a moment, but I wanna share something new that we’re doing over at Student Affairs NOW. Student Affairs NOW has always been more than a podcast family. It’s a learning community for educators who are deeply

who care deeply about the future of higher education and student affairs. For the past five years, we’ve created space for conversations that inform, inspire, and affirm the work we all do. Now we’re launching a Student Affairs NOW Patreon to create even more ways for our community to engage, connect, and keep the conversation going.

So check us out. You can find us and join us at patreon.com/studentaffairsnow. Okay. Okay. I am excited today. I’m always excited, and you probably are saying, “You’re always excited for your guests,” and I am, because I’m always hanging out with some really cool people. And today I’m gonna introduce to you all Dr.

Corey Shapiro. Let me tell you something about Corey. Corey and I met when we had a shared office suite At that place he still works at behind his head, and it was a fantastic experience. I learned… Actually, that’s not where we met. We met at NHTI first, where we were on our own professional journeys figuring this thing out, learning from some really wise folks and in a cohort of many folks that I think predominantly, at least on the socials, I think we all stay connected.

It was a cool group, cool experience. I feel like it was 2007 or something, so it’s been like a billion years ago. So that’s how long I’ve known Corey, and then we worked together at Arizona State, and what I wanna say is I learned more about myself and other ways of being in meeting Corey because he taught me maybe where to be softer, where to be kinder, and I think I had some good moments to tell him so what we’re not doing and what they’re not doing.”

And for anybody I’ve ever interviewed with, when I talk about a person I’ve learned from being like opposites but being able to pick up on styles this is my person that I’m always talking about. So I don’t know if you know that, Corey, but anytime I’m out here trying to see what’s the next best thing, I always describe myself as a team member and a leader who fully understands that we’re always learning and developing, and the best spaces we can do that are from people who you can trust to be honest with you and to be direct with you when it’s difficult, when it’s funny, ha, when it’s sad.

And so I’m excited that I’m here today with that person, with my Corey who basically wins everything. So I just want you all to know he’s got the best luck a person has ever had, and I am grateful to even have experienced that. I don’t remember which conference we were at, Corey, but we put a raffle ticket in, and I was like, “I never win,” and you were like, “Let’s go do it.”

And I won, y’all. It’s the only thing I’ve ever won, because Corey wins a raffle. So I know that we got some winning energy today. So with that being said, when you’re rolling with winners like I do, you you get yourself a Dr. Corey Shapiro. And in that case, I know you have a story to tell today. And so you take it away, friend.

You take it away.

Cory Shapiro: Paulina, thank you so much. That, I love that story, and I know I learn so much from you as well. Thank you. And yes, we always balance each other out well.

It is my pleasure to be here. I appreciate you and the Student Affairs NOW family having me out here. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the field and the world that we’re in, and surprisingly, I’m about to hit 20 years just working at the same institution t- at ASU- Woo!

Arizona State University. And like any institutions, there, there are the ups and downs. There’s, that’s no different. In fact, I was in one position for 14 years my first 14 years at ASU, and for a while there I didn’t know how to move up. I didn’t know a lot of different things, and everyone always asked me why I stayed so long.

So really the focus of this time I’m spending with you today, the reason I stayed was I found my joy. Yes. And that’s been something I’ve been pa- trying to pass on my staff, to my students, to my colleagues at ASU and elsewhere, and that’s just what I wanna tell, talk a little bit about. And I know that would be a fun dialogue with anyone as well, but I’ve had to find a lot of different reasons to want to be here, and I can’t imagine myself anywhere else thanks to some of those experiences, both at work as well as outside of work.

And finding your joy, it has, you have to do both.

Helena Gardener: That’s so cool. You can’t

Cory Shapiro: just do everything at work, and you can’t just do everything outside of work.

Helena Gardener: So that- That’s so cool …

Cory Shapiro: yeah.

Helena Gardener: Thank you. Tell us all about this joy. I love it ’cause it’s gonna the word just itself keeps the smile, right?

It’s

Cory Shapiro: absolutely, yes. And I’ll start a little bit with a downer, where I’ve had so many conversations with colleagues that either… or staff a- at ASU or other schools-

…

Cory Shapiro: That have chosen hey, I need to move on from my role, or unfortunately many of them leave the field altogether.

So it’s not about ASU. It’s not about that school. It’s about this world we’re in, where s- where people don’t feel valued necessarily. Not all the time, and some people never do. Yeah. Or that they don’t find that work/life balance ever, or of course we know the magic word, the pay.

So regardless, or it could be supervisory issues or relationship issues.

And I know I’ve had those similar feelings at certain times in my career, but I take upon myself to have those crucial conversations with people that I need to, and to figure out my own intrinsic motivations. Yeah. And again, in or outside of work depending on where those just challenges are. So I know with a lot of those individuals I’d really sit down and have an in-depth conversation to help them figure out is this- About the field?

Is this about their work? Or is this about just something very specific?

And if it’s something specific, can we work on that? Or are they, is there anything they look forward to at work? I know I can’t imagine having a a job where I didn’t look forward to coming to work in the morning.

Every day I look forward to it. Now- Yeah … I’m not looking forward to all the work I have to do every day. I don’t think any of us do. But I look forward to seeing the people that I see on a day in and day out. I look forward to making a difference for someone during the day, and having some fun stories to come back and tell my wife at the end of the day about something that happened during the day.

And the fact that I hit all of those every day, and have for so many years, it’s taken a lot of work. But I feel for the people that, that can’t do that, or haven’t tried to do that. And people give up way too easily without trying to find out how to get their joy, again, in work or out of work, or both.

And I also see a lot of people in university housing that their entire lives are work. And they don’t ever do something outside of work. Or the people that it’s only outside of work, and they just dread coming into the office. So it goes both ways. And I’m here to tell you if you can find that balance where you’re taking some joy from both, you’re gonna be happy, or at least happier more often than not.

I don’t think anyone’s ever happy all the time in our world. There’s too many crazy things that happen. So- Sure … with that in mind, I’m- I’m happy to walk you through a couple of the things I’ve done or both in or out of work, or both. So yeah. And it really starts with the relationships. I’ve been lucky to work with Helena- Aw

At my own institution, as well as staying in touch as well as we can. We’re both busy, but- … still, every time I see her it brings joy to me. And so this- Thank

Helena Gardener: you … this is

Cory Shapiro: probably the highlight of my day outside of my- Aw … student banquet that I have later tonight. Thank you. Of course. Oh, the tie was not

Helena Gardener: for me?

The tie was not for me? I would’ve worn it

Cory Shapiro: anyway for you. Aw. Thank you. But I probably would’ve wore a more colorful one. Fair. Maybe green. That’s… Thank

Helena Gardener: you.

Cory Shapiro: Thank you.

Helena Gardener: Pink and green, y’all heard him. There we

Cory Shapiro: go. But the relationships, it makes my day to get… quality time is my number one love language.

Yeah. If I can sit down with my supervisor or a colleague or my admin or some of my students during the day and just chat for a few minutes about anything- … that’s gonna be a great start to my day.

Or a great end to my day, I should say. Same thing supervision. I’ve had some really challenging supervisors especially when I started my career.

And then I’ve had over the last so many years- various supervisors who I’ve really figured out how they work, and they figured out how I work, and there’s been a great give and take relationship. But I’ve had to learn to have that kind of a relationship with a supervisor, ’cause I think some of the challenges early on in my career were me.

I didn’t know how to be supervised or what, how to make the most of a relationship with a boss.

I also worked in retail at one point before going into higher ed, and that just wasn’t something that happened in that world. Higher ed, we’re lucky that there are a lot of very personable people that wanna build a rapport with you.

I also love to see people happy, so I will live vicariously through anyone who has a big smile on their face or who has some good news to share. And right now, around graduation time or we just had our student body elections for student government, and yes, half the candidates are thrilled, and the other half, unfortunately I’m trying to give them pep talks, that’s some of my meetings later today. I enjoy project management, and so I’ve learned that if there’s certain things I really enjoy, I can ask for that.

And that’s not something I knew my first several years. I don’t even think I knew about that when Helena and I worked together, that’s something I can seek out.

And one of those things I’ve been given, and I never asked for this initially, but then it became my whole world at work for several years, was advising student g- governments like RHA and the NRHH and going to conferences with them. That was something that I… it was never on my bucket list, but eventually became a huge part of those relationships and watching students succeed and just that happiness factor.

I loved being at those meetings even though I knew there would be drama every single meeting we had. And I was okay with that. Obviously professional developments, and for four years at ASU, one of my roles really did tie into creating opportunities for my staff, and I loved it.

Because I got to ask them what did they want and make sure that we created those- experiences for them, and not just sending someone somewhere, but how do we create that right here at home so that anyone can go to that experience? Politics is another thing. For some people, that pushes them out of an institution. For me, I’ve learned how to maneuver politics. I’ve learned not necessarily to change how I am in any way-

but rather, the- there’s certain days when you’ll go, you know when to or when not to go and talk to your boss about this or that, or how do you bring something up that you really want approved by the vice president or by the president of your university? It’s just, you just have to be savvy with that and know how to navigate it.

It’s not necessarily a good or bad thing, but it took me years to figure that out. I see tasks as opportunities, and I really just work hard to find the joy in my roles and create opportunities for joy. I’m right now an assistant dean of students, but I also know after being the associate director pretty much responsible for all 17,000 beds at ASU at all four campuses, I knew if I just switched over to an assistant dean role, yes, so much different kinds of responsibilities, I would miss the housing piece.

So I negotiated to hold onto some housing in my responsibilities. And so now I’m responsible for the res life experience at two of our four ASU campuses. But I had to seek those opportunities to hold onto that. And I’m in a role where I rarely see our community assistants. I see our professional staff often, but I took it upon myself to just set up literally one-on-ones with every single CA at my two campuses just to learn more about who they are and how we can better support them.

And for me, that’s fun. I get to learn about undergrad students, and I miss that. I remember doing that as a community director and as an assistant director of housing. So those are just some of the ways at work. But I’d be thrilled, if it’s okay, I could share some of the things I’ve done outside of work to find my balance.

Yes, please. And Helena knows some of these things, but I’m guessing some of our listeners who even if you know me might not know some of these. But yeah, finding that work-life balance is important. I’ve always tried to role model the not sending emails after 5:00 PM or on the weekends unless it was about after-hours related something, but that’s hard to do, and I know a lot of leaders struggle with that because there’s so much stuff always happening.

But when I first arrived at ASU, I decided even though I was from the Phoenix area but a lot of my friends had moved away over the years that I was gone, I first connected with my religious community. In fact, I realized that at that time I just couldn’t figure out how to meet others in their 20s and 30s.

So w- and it- it’s being part of the Jewish community, we’d created our own little Shabbat potluck experience, called it Shabbatluck, and next thing we know, we had over 750 members over the course of our several years of doing this, and people literally just brought an item. We had a huge potluck in a community space, and I met so many people that way, very few with any ties to ASU other than some of them attended ASU at one point.

So creating these nonprofits w- ended up being a really fun experience that I was able to pass on to other people, and that’s actually also how I met my wife a number of years later at one of those events. But I also… I took the initiative, and this is something that’s really hard to do. I joined meetup.com, which it’s not a dating website, but it’s a way to meet other people, and I went to several events, whether it was a hiking event or a movie and dinner event, just to meet random people, and my first year or two, I did a lot of those.

I even joined some dating websites, which I did not enjoy that either, even though- … had some success stories and some not. But again, it ended up being my sh- potlucks that ended up being my thing, which was perfect. You have to find your niches. I serve on nonprofit boards. Yes, I love to call into radio stations, and I try to win different contests.

I’m actually in the running for some Disneyland contest right now that-

Helena Gardener: You’re gonna win …

Cory Shapiro: I, on the way to work, I, yeah, I qualified- … this and that. We’ll see what happens. But I also some of my past colleagues from housing and I, every year we have an annual tradition. We love college basketball. I loved it as an undergrad.

I loved it as just growing up. So we go to the March Madness tournament for the men every year to one random city, and we plan it out 12 months in advance. We don’t know who we’re gonna see. A couple of the times we went to the Final Four, but usually we go to the first two rounds of the Sweet 16, Elite Eight.

This year it was Chicago, and I am just very pleased that became a tradition that several of us go every year, but then we invite different friends depending on the city we go to, to join us. And, there’s nothing like personal traditions. I also over the years have watched literally every season of the TV show Survivor.

So on Facebook, I had created a housing Survivor group, which now has over 300 people, some of you who may be listening to this right now. And we just follow along with the seasons and make our own picks and see who can guess the most people being voted out in a given season. So such a simple thing that has built community within a community, and it’s been fun.

So I know at some of our conferences, I bump into people that I only knew through that. I also have enjoyed Yelping. That’s where I get some of my academic writing practice after getting my doctorate. And I even do mystery shopping with my wife where we go and we’re paid to go check out some different restaurants every month and then to write about it.

That’s

Helena Gardener: cool. So

Cory Shapiro: lots of great experiences, but that’s just it. I have to prioritize having some of those experiences or else I’m gonna get sucked into my work world all the time. And I’m also pleased to say this past year, for the first time in my life, I adopted a dog with my wife, and we have a beautiful little rescue that has become the center of our world.

I’ve never had a dog. You probably have, everyone listening, at some point. But these are the kind of things that make my life complete, I believe, and well-rounded. So it’s hard not to be happy and joyful- … with a personal life and with good things happening at work. But again, it’s not always great.

I just have to put effort in to, to remind myself that the joy needs to outweigh the not joy. And if you only have not joy, maybe you do need to consider going somewhere else or see-

…

Cory Shapiro: How is your perspective? ‘Cause maybe you are actually enjoying certain parts of the job and you’re not giving yourself enough credit for that.

Helena Gardener: So you

Cory Shapiro: need to find someone you can talk to about this. I know I’ve talked to different friends and colleagues, whether it’s Helena or someone else over the years. So that is my story there, just getting the sense as to I’m happy and I have- … joy in my world right now, but it’s not perfect.

And I would like to think everyone listening is in a similar boat. You’re clearly staying in your current roles for a reason, but before you consider just jumping ship and going to some other field altogether, we need to talk about if you don’t feel valued, how can we get you to feel valued? I- do your supervisors really not value you?

Chances are they do value you. They just have a different way of showing it. And what else can you do to help yourself feel that this is the right field or the right job or the right school? So a lot of different things that we need to really dig deep in. But with that said, I’m curious. I know I’ve listened to your…

I listened in the past, and I know Helena- … always has great questions, so bring them on.

Helena Gardener: Thank you, Corey. Thank you for sharing that ’cause I’m all like, “This is my friend Corey, and this is what I learned from him.” Yeah. And I’m s- I’m listening and I’m, I had a full moment of oh, you mean you’re intentional With naming how you find joy.

And like I, so I knew what we were gonna talk about, but listening is oh, these are decisive moments for you. They’re not exploratory only, or let me see, this is … You’re making a decision to move. And what stood out for me first of all, I can’t move past Shabbat Luck. I have to say that still is the most fascinating and wonderful thing that I watched you build and how you not only found community for you, you created community for hearing like 700 people.

Like I literally remember when you started. I remember the first gathering. So this is I remember then being like, “That’s a cool thing,” and kinda being in awe and people just come. What do you mean? Yeah. But the intentionality of reflecting now of how that move not only helped you find joy, but helped other people have a place where joy would be, right?

Like it’s two different things. They come in and then there’s joy. Maybe they were intentional with their journey in finding it, but because you intentionally sought it out, it’s like you created a space. And you know I geek out over housing stuff all the time, and have been recently on this vibe of like we’re like, we’re the sense of belonging people.

And I don’t say that carelessly because sense of belonging in- incorporates and brings in so many things and creates space for multiple identities. But in the sense of the work that we do in building community, and have done since we met at least, ’cause we’ve been doing it a long time can’t believe we’re the long-timers now, but that is

Right? That’s like our professional. But then to have watched you do it with Shabbat Luck, and then to hear the intentionality behind it, because the thing that gets me that I’m taking for myself is you ask for what you want and you sought it out. Like you know what you like to do at work. And I just think that is yeah, this old age I don’t think I’ve ever thought about it that way, and so thank you for that gift of like we also have opport-

Like I do things for like professional, do I need a little bit more of this, I need a little bit more of that, or let me go get this budget experiences, or I’ll try that’ll be a good experience. But seeking out joy is very different than seeking out professional growth opportunities. You literally said, “I know what I like to do, and I ask for those opportunities if they’re not a part of my portfolio.”

And I love that you said, “I negotiated. I negotiated residence life into my portfolio because it brings me joy.” That is work I am- You didn’t say it, I’ll say it, good at, I do well, I understand that. There may be some pieces of the rest of my portfolio, they might be a challenge. But for me to be my very best self, I’m gonna seek out the things that I know that I can do that will make a hard day a little bit better, because I already know this is in the flow.

And that to me is the same Shabbat luck energy that I never saw in the way you described it of it being intentional with how you find joy. Where I think we, as you said, the world can get crazy, and we’re sometimes waiting for joy to fall out the spiral, right? We want it to fall out all of that and fall onto us for a happy day.

And then this is a long way of getting to my question, because I also am pulling in our pre-conversation that they didn’t get to see, but how you talked about you’ve been at this one institution, you were in one ro- one role for 14 years. The opportunity that you have, you’ve had to learn how to find your joy.

You’ve had a long, consistent experience that, I’ve been several places since we, we met and I’m constantly having to refigure it out. That sometimes doesn’t feel joy-ish. But when you’re s- when you’ve been a place and you’ve had opportunity to not only learn your job, learn yourself, learn your people, and you can now understand how to find your joy, what must it look like, Corey, when we’re in a season in student affairs, certainly since the pandemic did many things to us, brought many things to light, for us to watch people move quickly, we’re not judging, for whatever reason that we’re seeing folks turnover or people moving out or away, how do you experience that truly in your being of I don’t know, it does feel judgy to say this, I’m gonna say it, not you, like watching people give up- Yeah

before trying to be intentional? What do, how does that, what does that look like to you from the outside looking in?

Cory Shapiro: That’s a wonderful question. And before the pandemic, I had spent four years, while assistant director, it was my last part of the assistant director role, was doing training and development and recruitment.

And I remember putting a very personal touch on the recruitment process for a number of years at ASU, and literally right up until the pandemic and even afterwards, I wanted to get to know our candidates, even those we didn’t hire. Just throughout the process and make sure that we were never- That no one ever fell through the cracks.

But I also recognize when someone declined our offers or when someone accepted our offers or someone wanted to accept it but they were having to balance between institutions, they were telling me their stories. And often those who said no to us but I stayed in touch with, often some of them came back to me a year later saying, “It wasn’t what I thought somewhere else.

Can we talk again?” And just hearing people giving different institutions chances, that’s wonderful that they were open-minded in that regard, but that was also before people were starting to really give up. I think the pandemic really soured a lot of things because we saw the perception that our field was putting ourselves on the line in a dangerous situation at that time during the pandemic.

We were like the only department at the university that wasn’t remote I feel like at times. And I know at ASU we still had 10,000 students living in the residence halls come fall 2020. Now, it’s not our usual 15 to 17,000. There were a l- bunch of open beds, but that was a lot of students. And meal delivery trying to help them in a situation, an after-hours or duty situation.

I felt like every time something happened where we were engaging our students- … which normally would be a big part of our job, there were others felt that, the staff felt that we were putting them in dangerous positions. Yeah. And I heard this because I was in a leader in the AIMHO region- Yeah

from a number of different schools. Yeah. It wasn’t just ASU. Yeah. In fact, ASU I’m glad that we passed the torch off to our dining providers to do a lot of it. And that was great. But one way or another it does break my heart when somebody was like I don’t feel valued. I’m not getting paid enough.

I need to leave this field.” And that’s where at least with some of them I’ve been able to have a sit-down and help them understand what their priorities are and what they aren’t. And if they had to leave, let’s find a way to really have their transferable skills work in place. Yeah. Or some of them moved to other roles in the department.

Yeah. Or to other maybe working with our academic partners as the liaison with our housing team. Yeah. So I saw a lot of good stuff, but I’ve seen the struggles too. And I know for me I’m sure if I’d after those 14 years, like I finally learned how to advocate for myself.

Helena Gardener: Yeah. No

Cory Shapiro: one ever really taught me, and I think that there are people like you, Helina, who would say, “You gotta fight for this.”

At that time in my career I wasn’t in a place to fight for it- Yeah … ’cause I was happy to be here.

Helena Gardener: Yeah. On

Cory Shapiro: the other hand, I did learn how to eventually do that. And when we had some changes in leadership in 2020- I became the one running the res life initiatives during COVID.

All the COVID efforts and so on, and that got me some face time with a lot of people, and very quickly into an associate director role after so many years of trying to get, move up.

Helena Gardener: Yeah.

Cory Shapiro: And since then, being handpicked and asked can I cover an interim assistant dean role, I’m like, “I don’t wanna leave housing. That’s… I’m a housing lifer.” But now that I gotta do that and then come back and then make a new position out of it-

Helena Gardener: Yeah …

Cory Shapiro: I can still find what I wanna do if I advocate for myself properly.

And I think everyone needs mentors and advocates. Yeah. And if you don’t have it, talk to other people, and I guarantee there’s people that would line up to be your advocate. You just have to find them.

Helena Gardener: Yeah. And I love that, and I love that you took the relationship that you built with candidates seriously, right?

Because one thing we know for sure is we will see each other again on this journey. Yeah. And I don’t know, when I used to do conduct hearings, I would say to a person, like if I don’t recognize you, that’s one thing, right? If I don’t see you, I don’t have my glasses on, I may not speak, but we are clearly not strangers ’cause we’ve had very intentional conversations.

So when I see you in passing, I wanna say hey. You may not wanna say hey to me, but I love that you saw that and added that personal touch because I honestly don’t know too many people who do not know Corey Shapiro. But so there’s that, but it’s meaningful because your paths had ever crossed, and so I just, I appreciate that.

I’m thinking about probably my last big question is

like I, I appreciate you talking about taking the time to understand the political vibe on campus and then learning it and moving with it. I still tell people ASU is one of the greatest learning grounds that I had ever been on because of the complexities and some of the nuances, the multiple campus structures, and I just learned more about the profession myself endurance, things of that nature.

And I understand how what I call endurance can feel a way to another person. Similar to saying, people gave up. Maybe they gave up on the job, but then they didn’t give up on themselves, however we look at it, right? We don’t intend to say one way is better than the other.

But if you had A dream that was a message that you would give to folks, right? My dream of how people would be, ’cause I also think that you are also a humanist in many ways just a person blessed with a big heart to care and to give. What would your dream delivered as a message be for folks on, ’cause we talk a lot about being authentic, but you’re talking today about being intentional.

How do they learn how to be intentional? What’s, in a dream world, if we knew what that looked like, if you, and maybe you just know directly, w- how do you describe it? Tell us that, and then we’ll sell on out.

Cory Shapiro: I think part of that intentionality is first recognizing what the challenge in front of you is, what you want, and then you really do have to, like I know when I’ve talked about joy before, I’ve done sessions at ACUGAL, I- at Campus Live and AEMHO where- we actually spend time literally letting everyone just write down a joy plan or a strategy for what can they do more, that intentionality piece. And I think knowing their own en- environments and so on what do they have control over or can they seek out? Asking a supervisor, asking colleagues, asking people at home, asking their other half, whatever it may be.

I just know if I had a dream, like you were asking, it would be that everyone would look forward to something that’s happening during the day for them at work. Oh. And those intentional interactions they have, whether it’s with students, colleagues. I actually even enjoy interacting with parents and families, which I know a lot of people in our field do not do, because- Yeah, and because they have the same goals as us.

Yeah. They want their students to be successful. Yeah. But a lot of our colleagues don’t get that until we reframe that for them. Yeah. And that’s a whole nother session I did last summer. But I actually have a quote that if it’s okay with you- Yes, please … I think ties some of this into everything.

Helena Gardener: Yeah. “

Cory Shapiro: Joy is a decision, a really brave one, about how you are gonna show up to life.” And this was said by Wes Stafford, an advocate and former CEO of Compassion International, and it’s so true, every word there

Helena Gardener: about- Do it one more time. One more time …

Cory Shapiro: joy is a decision, a really brave one, about how you are going to show up to life.

That’s why it’s so important for me that everyone I’m around has some kind of joy in what they do, or at least in their life, that will help them be looking forward to whatever they have ahead of them.

Helena Gardener: I love that, Corey. I love anytime I’m around you. Like I told y’all, like Corey’s a winner. Like not just at raffles, but like I just think you do some really cool things in life.

And things I like about doing Here’s the Story is there’s never a time that I get to the end that I’m like, “Do better, girl.” Not because I’m bad, but because, like the wisdom and the reflection is always on time, so I appreciate that, and I appreciate it from you. But again, like it’s so much intentionality.

Sit with people and say, “Let’s talk about joy.” Sit with people and carve it out. Like I love, like you know that it works, and that is very similar to you telling me, “We can take this raffle ticket, and we can put it in.” And you gotta believe, though, that you can win it, right? Like you, if I go into it thinking like rah,” like sure you’re not gonna win, but so it’s this very similar energy, and I just love that from you of, it’s the reframe.

It’s how you choose. And in the beginning I said you taught me some things to be softer, and it was really, it didn’t change what the outcome was gonna be for whatever I was doing, but you taught me that we can take a different way in, and you can still come out the same way. And that actually is why I also enjoy working with parents because my ultimate goal is that no matter what the situation is, no matter how difficult it is, when you call me back, ’cause they always do, you call me back as a resource for whatever else you need.

Whether you got the W or not, you understood that in our conversation I was here for you, and to your point, that we were in it for the same thing, to help your student. And I think that takes work, and it takes time. And so similarly I’m just watching this full circle that I am so grateful to have spent some time with someone intentionally living, and I appreciate it because I think it takes incredible patience to get to centering your joy.

And y’all didn’t hear him say it, but he said earlier that this time with me was a highlight of his day. And so I feel grateful that- It’s true. … that today’s joy was like we would do this, and you could share a story, and you could give joy to a lot of people, and you can give tips and techniques. And so thank you for sharing that but also for choosing Here’s the Story as a place to do that as you continue on your journey.

Because I understand that we may see Corey at several places in the near future being featured in our profession but also helping people understand and find joy. So thank you for your time today, friend. I really

Cory Shapiro: appreciate it. Thank you, Melina. Thank you. And thank you to Student Affairs NOW, the family.

Thank

Helena Gardener: you. Thank you. I’m also gonna do one more thank you to our sponsor, Evolve. Higher education needs courageous leadership right now more than ever, and poor leadership simply has never been more costly. At Evolve Institute, they’re empowering leaders with the ca- capacity to turn challenges into possibilities and lead with and through them with clarity, confidence, and courage.

We offer leadership coaching journeys for leadership teams and individual leaders we here as they at Evolve. Visit evolveinstitute.com to learn more. This has been Here’s the Story, part of the Student Affairs NOW family. We are so glad you’ve joined us. Sometimes you’re here with us, we laugh.

Sometimes when you’re here, we cry. Every time, we learn. We sometimes commiserate, but we always celebrate being a part of Student Affairs’ experience. If you have a story, and we know you do, please consider sharing. We try every single time, and we’re gonna try one more time. You have the opportunity to leave us a two-minute p- pitch via voice file at studentaffairsnow.com/heresthestory.

If you know myself or my other two co-hosts or anyone in the Student Affairs family and you’re like, “You know what? Corey taught me how to be intentional, and I want to be intentional and share my wisdom with folks,” reach out to us. Every story is welcome, and every earnest perspective is worthy.

And even if you don’t feel like sharing yours, you can find our stories and others’ and Corey’s at studentaffairsnow.com. Again, you can find us on YouTube. Smash that like button and share button when you get there and anywhere you listen to podcasts. Couple more things. If this conversation or any conversation you’ve listened to has ever sparked an idea for your work or helped you feel more connected to others in the field, we’d love to have you join us.

And come on over, learn more, share more at patreon.com/studentaffairsd- let me do that again, y’all. Patreon.com/studentaffairsnow. I got excited there because this is a new endeavor for us, and we’re working to build a community to continue learning and developing. So check us out on Patreon. As always, our episodes are edited by Nat Ambrosey.

Nat, thank you for making us look good and sound as good as we do. We hope this fed your flame a little bit. Because your light matters, keep using it to make the world a better place. Until next time, this has been Here’s the Story. See you all later.