Welcome Greek you Nation to episode number 44 of the fraternity foodie podcast I’m your host Mike Ison CEO of Greek University I’m a speaker and an author our fourth book was just released it’s called using AI to grow your fraternity or sorority so go and pick up
That book today on Amazon or Barnes & Noble we also have another book that’s coming out for Christmas so be on the lookout for our next book as well we call these episodes the fraternity foodie podcast because there is nothing like great food to bring college students together fun fact Greek
University started in 2015 but there have been multiple speaker bureaus before us as well our next guest created the first African-American focused online directory of speakers so she is a wealth of information when it comes to public speaking and communication so I can’t wait to dive in having spent over
25 years in business Dr Norma Hollis intimately understands the struggles and challenges that entrepreneurs face she has weathered the storm and emerg stronger armed with a wealth of wisdom and experience to share with you Norma is a beacon of guidance teaching leaders and others how to navigate stress overcome obstacles prepare for growth
And Savor the fruits of their labor her insights and practical advice are invaluable resources for those on the entrepreneurial path as she encourages them to stay focused persevere and bring their dreams to fruition with her relatable storytelling and down toe demeanor Norma captivates as she imparts invaluable knowledge helping leaders
Find the resilience and determination needed to succeed welcome to the show Dr Hollis well thank you for that wonderful introduction and that Wonder ful energy and I’m enjoying being here so let’s go let’s go I appreciate it you have so much great stuff to share and our students and our College administrators
Are going to learn so much from you let’s start with the beginning you went to Michigan State for your undergraduate experience so tell our audience why did you choose Michigan State well I really didn’t I really chose Purdue University and I wanted to go to school in interior
Design and for my research Purdue had the most appropriate program however in the issue of Economics my father suggested well what don’t you think about Michigan State University so I did and I went in interior design but before the first year was over what I realized
Is that they required far more art than I had the patience to learn so at that time the field of Early childood Education was brand new and I had a brand new four-year-old brother even though I was in college he was very young and so that was my love and so I
Moved over from there to Family and Child Life Sciences and that was the story Michigan state was close my parents could come visit close by I had a sister in college also at Eastern University we could visit so it just made a lot of sense I love it I love it
Well I’m happy that it all worked out looking back at it now now of course you did start the first African-American focused online directory of speakers it’s called black speakers online how did you impact the professional speaking industry specifically for black speakers well the impact was really a lot from
The bureau I had a bureau called speakers Etc did that first which you mentioned the intro and then the the online directory came second and you know sometimes you don’t know how what you’re doing now impacts the future and what I learned after I stopped doing that work was that my work influenced
Many established Bureau to open African-American departments that was number one the second thing that it did is it encouraged a lot of African-American speakers to open bureaus for black speakers so now there are a tremendous number of they even call me a legend I I didn’t know if that
Was I’ve heard from many people oh okay I’ll take it but I didn’t know that that’s what was happening but you don’t know sometimes what you how what you’re doing now is going to impact your future both yours and other people that’s a great legacy uh there is no question
About that so congratulations that’s phenomenal work and you did open up doors I think for so many black speakers and black uh you know speaker Bureau uh it’s just incredible when you think about what looks like today in terms of the landscape so uh congratulations on
All of that you know I want to talk to you about our students how can students embrace the authenticity that is in every single one of them and live with purpose well you know Au authenticity is is is difficult for students for number of reasons when you’re a student 18
19789 you’re just leaving your parents home and you’re not out on your own yet so you’re in that transition time so pretty much what you know about life is what you learned in your parents home so your values are your parents values Your Community Values are the same and it’s
Not till you get to college that you really get that exposure to so many other people who are raised so many different ways have different ideas I remember when I went to college I met several girls who’ never even seen a black person they’d only heard about it
And they said oh you all are just fine well yeah but they had to experience it to know that but in college you’re going through so many transitions of well who am I really you know my best friend here is like this and this person thinks this
Way and this one doesn’t like me and that one does this different they eat different food and you get so much different stuff so it really is hard unless you’re listening to yourself so by that the intuition you see there on my board which I’ll talk about in a
Minute is really it’s important to learn to connect with yourself to know who you are the early you can learn you don’t have to wait to college I I can help teach that to children who are in preschool because that’s when your true self em emerges and that’s when it gets
Shot down when you get so many other people’s opinions about who you’re supposed to be and what Society tells you so college is when you really face that headon and you have to then begin to make decisions about who am I what are my values what what part of me came
From my parents how am I different from my parents and that’s nothing that you really do um uh consciously it kind of just happens over time and emerges so to being aware of that and being aware of making decisions that that feel right to you that feel right to your inner self
That’s the best thing I can tell a student at this point just be aware that that’s going to be a challenge that you’re going to have and you have to make decisions then and decide what really feels right for you that’s great advice you know I was reading an article
Recently and it was talking about student engagement on college campuses that it’s really starting to go down quite a bit um and retention is always a problem for colleges today so if our listeners if they want to increase engagement and improve retention let’s say in their student organization maybe
They’re a member of a fraternity or a sorority how can they discover what their team strengths are and what gaps they have in order to properly align their team well that’s when I want to introduce my grid to you for a moment what you see behind me that I call my
Authenticity grid is a result of 30 years of research on human nature personal professional and spiritual perspectives and for me it started when I was 28 and realized I had done everything my parents had said say to do they want me to go education well they
Want to be a doctor or lawyer or dentist first but I didn’t want to do that so I went to education I didn’t want to be a teacher so I went into Early Childhood so that made sense but then once I taught I taught for one month in
Kindergarten and I hated it and I knew I would like to work for children but not with them and at 28 I then realized also that I didn’t need to be married to this man that my parents said I should you know would make a good sense I didn’t
Need the house on with the big pick a fence I didn’t need the cars and the money in the bank I needed to know who I was and so that that that’s what led me to build this grid it started out with me identifying nine energies that I
Recognized in myself giving them a name to a name of of an of an animal and then developing it and what I’ve learned over the years is that to get things done effectively you first think about then communicate and then do so what’s important for college students to understand with their with their
Fraternities sororities and teams who are the thinkers who are the communicators who are the doers and if you’ve got too many thinkers then you’re probably not getting a lot done because you need doers to do that if you got a lot of doers you’re probably not working strategically so you’re going in circles
So you need a combination and you need to know who has what strengths now likewise on the vertical side that’s inner outer and expressive and so many of us are inner we’re very much listening to our voice we’re intuitive we follow some of us are outer more
Concerned with what other people say and how they perceive us and some are expressive we’re always doing something to make the world a better place or to express oursel or whatever so what do you have on your team and how can the expression be done how can you go deeper
Into what the true feelings are and the purpose of the organization how can you express the organization how can you present it to the world in a better way so this this tool that I’ve developed creates a a a coaching tool for the individual and for the organization if
Use it for the organization they can see where their gaps lie if you have too many thinkers and not enough doers you’ve got a gap there if you have no communicators no one’s going to share the information so that’s what I would suggest that they begin to get that kind
Of understanding of the complexity of us as humans we’re not single dimensional we’re all multi-dimensional and recognize the dimensions of the people in their organ organizations and use their gifts and talents in the best way possible I love it doing that assessment is so important I think they should be
Doing that on a regular you know every semester basis and trying to figure out who do we need to attract it to our organization in order to fill those gaps um and really the key is that diversity that you’re talking about having the doers having the thinkers and a good
Healthy balance of both if you’re just recruiting in your fraternity just from the football team and that’s your only source of members more than likely you’re going to get a concentration of students that are all looking at things the same way and you’re going to have to diversify somehow get into other schools
On campus you know other departments other Majors uh you know other people who are just maybe creatives for example instead of just the doers uh because having that healthy mix is really the key to your success um but all too often we just kind of go out and we recruit
People that are just like us that’s kind of how we’re wired as humans uh but we have to really diversify I think is really important so important absolutely life is diverse the world’s diverse so starts 100 per. now a lot of the students that are listening right now
They are stressed out beyond belief I mean the cost of college education I don’t have to tell you is just absolutely through the roof and college students are trying to figure out how am I going to make all of this work so how can students navigate all of the stress
That’s in their lives today stop and breathe start there stop and breathe so you know you’re we’re we’re raised and it’s no different I think in today’s society than when I was young to believe that we’re supposed to be perfect we’re supposed to find all the
Answers and be able to answer all the questions for ourselves and by the time we’re 30 we got our life perfect that is not true that’s all a bunch of whatever you want to call it but it’s not true so relax and take your time because it takes years years to really understand
Yourself to be clear on really what it is you’re here to do in the world and how you can do it best most people that I know that gotta have a college degree are not working in the thing they got the degree in so what the degree helps
You know is that you have the discipline and the and the patience and you go through the financial thing to make things happen now we talk a lot you hear a lot about having purpose on the planet and and fulfilling your purpose in the work that you do that you choose to do
While you’re in college so what I suggest as I mentioned earlier how important it is to know yourself and to be able to communicate with yourself and what I talk to people about and what I help teach is how to build a relationship with your inner self so
That you can communicate with that wisdom that GPS system living within you that’s connected to your purpose now if you can do that then you don’t have to worry about stress because you were put on the planet by some energy that created you that brought you here
And that has the GPS system that you can connect to to take you through your your entire life and if you get on the right path of doing the thing you’re here to do that energy is going to help you so it’s really about creating that connection with your inner self and
Going there for Solace knowing how to research knowing how to think I mentioned earlier to get things done well you think first then communicate then do so for yourself when the stress has come up think about it how can you evaluate it what caused it how can you
Read about it what can you go find who can you talk to about it communicate with yourself with others with the universe and then what do you do so don’t try to do something immediately without having time taking time to think about it and to figure it out it’s when
You get into trouble it’s when you get stressed and you go do something because someone says do something or because you know get inspired you know whatever but take time stop and breathe first talk to a friend a coach a parent a teacher someone and then think about it
Some more communicate with yourself and then go into action and then you’ll find and if you take that as a lifelong uh way to go and not just react react react react that’s what we do we react but take time and breathe and think and slow down and then take action excellent
Advice you’ve overcome you know thousands of obstacles and so when I work with college students sometimes an obstacle will present itself and sometimes they’re just real quick to just give up and just say Ah that’s too difficult forget it I’m not going to do it and then just basically give up on it
So what should students do in order to overcome whatever obstacles are placed in front of them in life well it goes back to the same thing first stop and and relax and you know the truth about obstacles and challenges is that the more of them you have the stronger you
Become yeah and the the more you appreciate your life there’s a difference between um happiness and meaningfulness and joy happiness kind of happens when people make enough money to get the bills paid but joy and meaningfulness in life comes when you’ve had to overcome something I don’t know
Anyone in my experience who hasn’t had challenges challenges are are everywhere I spoke to a college group recently one girl was sharing about how this happened and that happened and this happened that happened and I I had to just tell her you know everyone in the room that no
One gets out of this planet without going through challenges you’re going to have them so welcome when they come so ask yourself what can I learn from this how can I improve this and then when it’s over what did I do you know when I have my Bureau when I coach speakers I
Always ask them what was your challenge and how did you overcome it so the way you overcome and how you do one thing is how you do all things so find ways to figure out what is the real issue and how can I think myself way through it
Who can I talk to about it and what do I need to do same thing think about it first then communicate and then do don’t just try to go into action right away without a plan that’s Sage advice really really good stuff now you know I’m a big
Fan of developing public speaking skills I think especially because of the smartphones that the students are carrying around all the time they’re not really developing their communication skills and their public speaking skills it’s all you know let’s go on a date you know online and swipe right or swipe
Left I mean there’s no communication happening I mean back in the day you and I would sit across from the table we would get some dinner and we would have a conversation you know and none of this swiping right or swiping left so what advice do you have for college students
Maybe aspiring speakers who want to develop their public speaking Skills Practice get in front of the mirror get in front of your family so public speaking skills skills are used for a couple of reasons one because uh most people that are successful are good speakers so you need to have a command
Of the language and it’s also for your own personal development uh public speakers have a lot of confidence so if you want to do confidence building public speaking is another way to do that so I would suggest basically just practicing so College gives you opportunity especially in fraternities
And sororities and other places where you can go speak you can also speak to at schools to other students who haven’t graduated yet but you need to practice you need to find out and record yourself whenever you speak do a recording on your phone just if you can do vid video
That’s great if it’s just audio that’s fine and then play it back as soon as you can when you’re done because only you know what you said and what you were thinking when you said it so if you find yourself messing up when you’re speaking
Go back and say oh that’s because I got diverted I was thinking about me rather than than them or I was thinking and concerned about oh they’re watching me and they’re looking at me yeah they are if you’re talking people looking at you whether it’s to one person or to many
But just slow down practice and record so you can hear yourself then you can self-correct when you can self-correct then you can make all your personal changes for yourself and you can also see the progression of how you’ve grown another thing I would suggest definitely is to consider Toast Masters Toast
Masters is a great organization they teach you leadership skills communication skills confidence skills and that’s it’s an organized way that’s been around for years they’re everywhere and they’re inexpensive so that’s the other thing I would suggest great tips I would also say you know there are rotary
Clubs in every city in America they’re always looking for speakers every single week now it’s not going to be a paid opportunity but it is an opportunity for you to practice and so they would love for a college student to come in there and kind of just talk about the
Landscape at a local College let’s say that impacts everybody in that room no matter you know what company you have in that city um and so so I think that could be another really good way to get some let me just add I call that the core four and that’s Kanan the rotary
The Lions Clubs and O Chambers of Commerce yes so but I would maybe add schools to that for the students but yes every chance you get speak speak speak and speak some more amen amen now you know since we’re talking about speaking I want to talk about communication too
Because you know I’ll say as somebody who was you know a male 18-year-old in a fraternity you know our communication skills were not great even between each other a as a as a team right so how can our students who are listening now how can they improve communication within
Their student organization between each other well you know why don’t you just consider some dialogue groups some opportunities to to to give a chance to speak um I in my in my business I I bring people together every week to talk about different topics and all of my
Programs that I do involve group conversation group to group to group and what people tell me about my program no matter what I do they love that more than anything else because one thing that we all live our lives alone I mean within ourselves but when you figure out
When you learn how someone else solved problem like one that you have and solve it in a different way that’s when you learn a lot that’s when you begin to communicate that’s when you begin to know each other so this whole idea of getting together and just having
Dialogue just having uh like a topic like intuition ISU for example just get together and just talk about your Intuition or talk about your gifts and talents or find things outside of things that you find things that you enjoy doing more fun things and get together
And talk about that that will help you get more comfortable in talking students today have a disadvantage in a sense from the standpoint of having the phones because they don’t get a chance like you said to communicate as we did as children you know and it’s also difficult because we had to memorize
Phone numbers and directions and now we don’t you just push a button and it tells you where to go so we’re not thinking as critically as we need as we used to so having small groups and forming those I mean and even on campus especially if you’re having uh problems
On campus with anything diversity or what have you a un I mean a sorority or fraternity could start just some dialogue grps and just bring people together of different different um maybe seniors and freshman together or all freshman together just to have dialogue just practice you have things you don’t
Practice you don’t do well so create opportunities to practice sharing with other people and then that will improve that great absolutely fantastic you know one of the other things I wanted to talk to you about too is just creating diverse organizations it kind of goes back to our earlier question and our
Earlier conversation about the doers uh and the thinkers and all of that I think we all agree that we should have diverse organization um but the reality is when I look at you know let’s say IFC fraternities or panelen sororities these are traditionally white fraternities and sororities and so I think having a
Diverse perspective is super important especially when we’re thinking about the demographics of today’s college campuses it’s much more diverse today than it was 20 30 40 years ago so how can our listeners get more diverse students within their organization um you know on today’s campuses when when they look around it’s just all
White people I mean how do you diversify from that point well first it’s a commitment to do that you have to just decide that that’s what you want to do it’s not going to happen without that uh my black people are not going to come to a white fraternity or sorority without
An invitation without some difference now the main differen is really is the difference of culture and the difference in how we were raised and sometimes the way were thinking but there’s a great value in learning the difference in the cultures of other people and so it makes
Me wonder and maybe you know the answer to this Michael if there are any fraternities and sororities that are interracial at this time because most of them I know are uh strictly you know like deltas and the akas and all are strictly black and right all the others
I don’t know the others I used to know some of them you know were are particularly white so the one thing about college students that I just love is that that’s when you’re at the most ideal IC you see what’s you you’re old enough to know what’s wrong with the
World and you’re idealistic to know how it can be fixed so take that idealism and use it now and start something now because that can last a lifetime that can last not only something for the school but also for you and what you’re doing as a student so take that time and
Just because you’re Fearless then you know you don’t you don’t understand all the challenge you don’t understand and you think you can Ram through and do it all and change the world and you can’t and it can start with you just bringing the collectiveness together of what you
Believe so share bring your beliefs to reality when you’re in college and then that will let set a foundation for it to continue both in the college and in your own life yeah I’m with you I mean maybe we can have some conversations I think between councils between fraternities
And sororities um and learn about other cultures outside of your own and that just starts with conversation you know maybe it’s food you know love to think about food as something that brings people together right I mean we can disagree maybe you know politically maybe we come from different angles but
If it’s good food good barbecue whatever it is that we’re eating we both agree this is a great plate of food right here right so doesn’t matter where we’re coming from we both agree on this and that’s the starting point right so you know maybe it’s just about learning
About other cultures other than your own and I think then organically we can start to have conversations about how we can work together across cross councils and ultimately how we can diversify our organizations because I do think that we have so much to learn from each other I
Mean you know you bring up the Deltas uh the akas I mean you know these are dedicated women that when they join this organization let me tell you something this is for life okay this is I mean they’re going to conventions 80 years old 90 years old wearing those letters
You know the pink and green the red I mean it’s like it’s incredible and I’m jealous of that because in the white fraternities and sororities I will tell you I mean it is like something we did in college past tense it’s a fouryear experience and then it’s like we’re done
And then we move on with the rest of our life so you know I think there’s a lot that we can learn from each other typically you know the white fraternities and sororities typically are a little bit larger in size in terms of the chapter size so I think there’s
Information that you know we can share in terms of um you know recruitment and retention of students so there’s a lot to learn here from each other I just I feel like there’s opportunity here but it it starts with conversation it starts by bringing people together learning
About new cultures and sharing ideas um and and I think if we do that then maybe we get a little bit closer to the ultimate goal um all right this has been really really great discussion and you know I talked a little bit about food but that’s my weakness right I I love
Good food and I know you live out in in LA and there are so many good restaurants the problem is when I go out there like they come in and out of business all the time and there’s like always something going on there’s always
Some new Hotpot so where do you go for a great bite to eat out in La well my favorite place uh is a place called truckton TRX t o NS all right and it’s located uh right right just near the airport in fact and what I like about it
Is the fact that it has a broad menu so I take friends there all the time and everybody can always find something that they like or several things to choose from so that would be a great place now I don’t know about students themselves that’s a the Truckin is a good place to
Go as a group or to take your parents it’s not that it’s not good for young people as well but anything around USC around the Figaroa Adams area in Los Angeles I couldn’t tell you names but that’s where all the students are so I certainly would suggest if you’re
Talking about La proper that would be a good place to I can’t tell you where but there’s all kind of places that I don’t eat folks except the young people eat I’ve got a little older and you got to change your diet as you get older so I
Can’t relate to those kind of things but all around USC I’m sure they could find more than what they could what they could consume oh yeah that that whole area is just booming with restaurants over there but I will try truck stin when I’m uh in and out of LA airport
Because I go in and out of there all the time so I’m definitely going to check that out and I’ll let you know what I think after I go there that’s going to be a lot of fun all right so if our listeners if they want to bring bring
You in as a speaker for their college campus to talk about authenticity the authenticity grid that you’ve developed over time which I think is just fascinating where should they go in order to connect with you well the most direct connection would be info at normah hall.com info@ normah hall.com if
You want to see my speaking page it’s normah hall.com speaking normah holes.com speaking and I just want to make another comment about my grid and that what I’ve learned about it because it was kind of downloaded through me is that it is a life management tool a life management
Instrument and what I would be very interested in doing is helping students to understand the grid because it’s a self- coaching tool because there you know students don’t learn they don’t get self-awareness no one teaches it not the colleges not the high schools not life you know the students generally learn
Who they are from the bullies in in the playground and that’s generally wrong so what I want to do with college students particular especially freshmen and coming in is to help them understand themselves because if they get self-standing early enough in life then that’s a way to really overcome any
Obstacle because you know what you’re made of you got your fortitude you got your confidence and you know how to go to the grid to find out how to how to overcome any obstacles that might come your way so that’s uh that’s that and to teach it for for the uh faculty and
Students would it would be life-changing and I’d love to have a conversation about that those that might be interested I love it I think it’s fantastic ftic it’s the authenticity grid developed by Dr nor mahalis go and check out her website and all of her speaking options out there Norah holes.com
Speaking and you will see all kinds of options for your college student I would highly recommend going to check that out and uh listen what can I say Norma you are absolutely amazing thank you for sharing all this great information with us today thank you for having me I
Appreciate you Michael and I appreciate what you’re doing and how you’re bringing people to the universities because it’s so important thank you it is it’s critical well thank you so much and to our listeners if you enjoyed this conversation with Dr Hollis today I want
You to like this on social media and I want you to share it with other college students on your campus that is really really important because what Dr Hollis has to say is incredibly important for your long-term success both in college and after you graduate as a professional
As well so we hope you enjoyed this today and we hope to see you on another episode of the fraternity foodie podcast than thanks so much for joining us we’ll see you next Time
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