[00:00:04]
>> So I am so so a priest of our panel today my middle let each of them introduce themselves and share a little bit with you the purpose of this conversation is really unique it's no one. I really appreciate the fact that they have agreed to share with you some things that are deep inside of their spirit here and so I would use ask for you to stay open your spirit and we have some questions really good question it's a minute in advance but also we're going to give you an opportunity to ask a question directly when we get to the end so I'm going to ask each persons introduce themselves and answer one question to start what experience event or circumstance in your life has had the most impact on your resilience describe the situation and how it tested strength then or challenge your resilience.

[00:01:10]
Gene Steiner you start. So so let me begin by saying that any time that I asked to do these things I hesitate Ok because I know that it's not going to be easy and I know that it's going to challenge me and kind of bring me back to things that I don't think about on a regular basis.

[00:01:36]
But that's very important and that's one of the reasons to do it Ok so you know so yeah Sheryl 1st introduced me as well is this you know I'm kind of gone a little bit down the payoff as I'm ready to do that so. You know I at a very young age in my career I was really mentored by a wonderful truth and he gave some wise sage advice in the end he said you know John in life we all have to learn how to Daniel so we don't.

[00:02:14]
And when I think of resilience the I think of that kind of statement that you know there are times in life where we are really brought to our new school or something that we shape the core of who we are and you have a choice point in terms of bending verses or.

[00:02:35]
You know in there are ways that you can get something. Let me answer this question you see this question comes the answer for this question comes with looking in the rearview mirror. Because one of the things that happened very early in my life was my dad that. I just bought so I don't really have much of a memory.

[00:02:58]
But it changed everything in terms of like my mother was left that age 36 my father died at 39 with 4 kids direct. On Iran. And that really changed our lives I mean we had to lose we everything changed. And so you know what I would say is the example as I look back that I have of resilience is really my mother because she modeled it she demonstrated it from that point forward and now I can look back and see that you know she had in that moment the decision to make you know she could be the fall or she could figure out how to move poet raising 4 children you know 2 teenagers and my brother and myself and you know she took the right moves and kind of continued to move forward now others how did you do that other step then her mother stepped in and basically became a mother figure for us so she was the one we came home to not my mother because my mother had to work full time so but I was I look that at that I see a model of raise this city and I see a kind of ability to go with it and make the changes that one needs to make and to kind of really except.

[00:04:27]
And it's hard but sometimes what we need to in life is but none of us whether it's there or. Right or wrong or mean it's just some things we just don't and. I am lender a. Present for Institute relations of Georgia Tech about 24 years been here quite a while when I was given this this question I really had to think through a lot of different issues but I think the thing the event that really impacted me the most as far as my resiliency was divorce I had been married for 14 years and what I felt was out of the blue has been wanted a divorce I.

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Really think it changed me so much because it changed how I thought about myself it changed how I felt like others saw me I had you know been I was living the. Dream Life the nice family of 4 twins and successful husband nice house nice yard everything that you think you're supposed to have which I didn't have growing up because my parents divorced when I was 5 and so it was it was a horrific shock to me and it really made me think about who I was which I hadn't done in a long time and it made me it was humiliating that because I really people but they had a vision of me as who I thought I was and it was a humiliating experience and getting past that took a long time and I think of myself as a very resilient person through this show.

[00:06:16]
Had cancer 3 times last lots of different things in my life that I feel like I've powered through I can I can power through can power through that it was so high. Hard for so long. I didn't date for 7 years because it was just I couldn't go there and my head so it was a long time so that when I think it it taught me that resiliency for me resiliency is a decision to make a decision to move on move on I couldn't have gone back and forward and back and forward and I did a lot of forward movement so that was good and did a lot of things that I'm proud of there's a lot of gone back and to this day 15 years later something sometimes can bring me back to that really insecure person who asked her self-confidence because of that and that's hard so I think that taught me.

[00:07:10]
Yeah resiliency isn't just only a decision that I'm going to move forward there's there's a lot of back and forth to it. It's a process that is just what you. Already know yeah there's. Take you right back Yep Absolutely thank you. So the morning I'm frozen over in the College of computing so thinking about this question of the government.

[00:07:40]
Because I was having a hard time picking an event you missed and there's so many things that happen in my life great in the positive or negative setbacks and I decided that when I thought about the events that came to mind they all had a kind of pure to me and something that was similar and so any one of those events is sort of.

[00:08:01]
An example of sort of the kinds of things that help me think about what it means to move forward and let me pick one of them and the event I'm going to describe is new the 1st like the experience of the Certainly not the last but it was particular moment in my life and lots of other things were going on and I come back to it.

[00:08:19]
So. I was. I would see this in a sort of the seventy's I was 11 years old maybe 12 living in Luton the neighborhood we just moved into 1st house we ever had. Maybe a year before and I was sort of walking around the neighborhood walking up and down the street by myself and I remember the time of year it was.

[00:08:43]
And this pickup truck drove by. And person picked up rolled down the window spit on me and then called me out my name which some of you in the room knows know what that means and the rest of you can guess and drove off and I remember standing there on the corner of spring circle and going to a place and just looking around and to see what what just happened there were no adults around that my friends were around actually at that point there are very few kids my age there and so I was just sort of standing there alone he drove off laughing and.

[00:09:22]
I remember this moment. Listen helpless It was a feeling of power there was just nothing nothing that I could do in this versus going to get away with this and and there was nowhere to go there's no one to vent and to to to fix the problem and I decided what I remember at the time anyway is thinking you know I'm angry and.

[00:09:50]
And that's Ok to feel that way. But in some ways it as Lynn said it felt like there was a moment of choice and the choice needed to be to decide whether I was going to let the anger overwhelming and decide everything else I was going to do what I was going to do with that anger and turn it into something to as an excuse in some sense to solve the problems I want to solve and do things I'm going to do and I come back to that moment and moments like that when these things have happened to me again it would be another 10 years or so before a police officer pulled a gun on me into my face I thought about that then.

[00:10:27]
A few months before then some of the Grammy in a store and shook me and accuse me of stealing. And I've had many sort of events like that in my life and always had a 1st the same 1st reaction a sense of. What can I do there's nothing I can do there's no one to help move but I like to think and this is what I think has helped me as other things have happened in my life to say well it's a choice for me to decide not how I felt in the moment because you should accept that moment in how you feel as an authentic moment it's what you feel it's what your body is what you bring whatever is telling you should feel but then you have to process that and decide to go for it so for me the question of resilience is how to take that and either let it consume you whatever or how to take it and use that as motivation for making it harder for that to happen the next time and making it difficult for it to happen to people around you later The only thing that.

[00:11:24]
Brings him back to that kind of feeling that I have that it also keeps me going is I look at my son and I think about what I can do to make it less likely that it happens to him. When he turns 15 returns he turns 25. Sharing that there's so many things that happen that are outside of our control in life and how to find that personal power house figure out what's in my locus of control I can really get my hands around ownership over that life and how I respond to these circumstances shiling.

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Ok so the next question is from. So in your time at Georgia Tech you've experienced a lot of changes a lot of changes in leadership roles that you have. Right now mix of. In the midst of the swirling evolution of farming so how have you maintain your sense of self and your well being when the world.

[00:12:36]
Well not my strong suit I have to be honest I tend to overdo a little but. You know I think I did I started here gosh in 1995 and for a while to raise my kids and came back but. I really think it came down to 2 things and the word value on both what what value do I bring to my new boss my new job my new role to Georgia Tech and what are my values and what will I not go beyond what are those points that I won't go beyond and you know I think especially not so much with President Cluff because when I have to say when he left to go the Smithsonian he had been here he hired me after my divorce I went to him and said and the job of getting divorced and I'd work for him and God bless that man he said Ok I'll get a job and he brought me back here and so my loyalty to him was huge and then he tells me he's leaving for the Smithsonian in my.

[00:13:43]
Many. And so he did. But then when President Peterson came in I decided I really needed to express to him what I felt like my value to him was I needed to sell him on me what was it about me that he needed and and so hope and think I did excess believe me around for 10 years but but really talking to him about what I thought my strengths were what I could do to help him and also when and those to him and Dr Cabrera both of them when they 1st came in and said I'm going to tell you right now my 1st priority is always the institute always the institute will always be that way you are my 2nd priority and I'm here to make you successful because your success is the institute success but I understand those are those are my where I am and both have embraced that and love that and but I think it's important to put it out there.

[00:14:38]
But I do think having to change with so many different people right now I just complete transparency going from chief of staff now to a vice president Raul I love my job I love my team I love what I'm doing but it's really different. And I don't have the access that I used to and I don't have the knowledge that I used to and what's going on and I'm struggling with that is really when in the center of the storm all the time and then you're not in the center of the storm anymore you crave the center of the storm and I'm craving the center of the storm and there's nothing wrong with that and there's nothing it's just something I need to once again it's a process to get through I love what I'm doing I have 0 regrets about that move that present Cabrera asked me to make but.

[00:15:27]
You know it's a process so I do think you just have to be as flexible as you can and you have to really hold true to what what your values are and what you are good at and what value you bring. I have a question. Institutes for you.

[00:15:48]
Your bosses the 2nd. Good question. It's hard I struggle with that a lot I really I am not the best at taking care of myself I will put most anything before me. And you know my kids left 2 and a half years ago for college and I was an empty nest and never remarried I haven't remarried and I'm it really it was kind of like wow wait I've actually got time for me and so I do take some.

[00:16:27]
Unfortunately I'm lower on the list than I should be and I know that I know I need to put myself on the list actually just listen to a book and audible It's called Present over perfect and it's a religious book so if you're not Christian but I something that really some of the messages in that didn't hit that some did it was really how can I be more present and stop trying to be perfect in all of my roles and it was that sticking with me.

[00:16:55]
Now and so I need to find the ways to integrate that into my life more than I have. Someone to talk to me long ago there's our identity is like a triangle in on one side it's what we do that's our title our job our response. For others other side I have is the things that we acquire achieve over the course of our life and the 3rd one of the foundation.

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And oftentimes in the lot of our. What we do and what we have at the expense we are now and sometimes the transition especially takes you out of the middle can be the perfect opportunity to poor into developing and asking that I am so when you ask the I am if forces you to answer the question about which can be so rewarding you know yeah.

[00:17:57]
As the 1st week or 2 when I wasn't getting the emergency phone calls I was always the come 1st contact anything that happened at this place I was the 1st one who was called and that really took me a couple weeks to go I can walk my dogs without my phone I can walk you know I can go to bed without it run the ringer on you know those things at celebrations too but changes getting over your phone yes.

[00:18:24]
I'm not there yet but I'm close. Thank you for the next question is for China. John your role puts you right in the middle of some of the most challenging experiences that our community faces like a 1st responder in the front line. So how does that impact you as a person not just what you do.

[00:18:55]
And what techniques have you used to help you to stay well in those experiences sure. Well you know I mean I think the nature of the role is such that you know there's a lot of kind of serious happy sad things said come my way and my team Ok I want to make sure I say that it's not just me.

[00:19:19]
I was probably one calling when the time. Is that when you see I think. Much of what I do is kind of a product of my own life experience in the fact that over time skills develop that allow me to do some of the things that most people say I would never do.

[00:19:45]
I could never make that phone call to that family I would never you know and you know it's just something that over time that you learn how to do it and and you do make mistakes the Haitian way but you try to minimize those but the most important thing is to always remember that it could be your 100 times but is that the family's 1st.

[00:20:11]
And if you can keep that in mind then you kind of can stay in the place of really genuine empathy and understanding that what the potential your family is going to be. The other thing is just from doing it and being involved in so many of these I've learned from the families I've learned from the parents I've learned from the students as to what life is life after post kind of a very serious situation and I understand that right and so in understanding that I can help families kind of get to that place also Ok One of the things that I do with families is to open the door that they can contact me and there are some families who have lost a child who is here who's 3.

[00:21:02]
4 years later still Kong. Because they may need they need one they need a kind of reason to stay connected to this wonderful place that offered so much potential for their son or daughter and then that was taken away from them and so you know I think that's part of it now how do I take care of myself I mean I you know over time left developed some things that I run.

[00:21:27]
I don't have a lot. I run races and. I'm old but I still. But you know I mean that that to me if I have a really rough week a rough day to just go out for a line and you know when it's a short one a long one it's very very very beneficial Ok Yes And I you know my wife and I have been married 35 years we met in college I mean we've walked life's path through many different experience I'm just just a great person who you know I can turn to talk to you and get support and we've kind of come into this a paid some things that we at times just depending on what happened in the day if I call and tell it what would be Ok with it so it's great to have someone well you know whoever that is don't have fears about whoever that is you know and then you have to surround yourself with people who have you and people that you trust I mean you know I think we way ssion ships is key to resolving.

[00:22:33]
Any relationships and connections is very very being. And it's you know getting the support. And having a good therapist also helps me I just want to have having someone to do his students have heard me say there's a lot going on and some of you Mayor or the higher up you go on the you know the hierarchy of the of your position and your place of employment the lonelier it gets him.

[00:23:02]
I just want to say that most people don't think about that and the reason is that you really can't talk without much of what's going on because it's confidential It's involves other staff instead of so and my supervisor is the president. If I get by bring it present all the time so so it really does get kind of a lonely space and so you have to find people that you can really do trust outside of just here in the area so.

[00:23:31]
Thank you. So Charles. During the president compares investiture very eloquent comments as the emcee about events shared a little bit about your own lived experience and growing up in Atlanta and so can you talk a little bit about your source of strength. In how you persevered through the odds and you described a little bit in your opening comments about the way that their world view sometimes was not in alignment with who you are so how did you see muster the strength to continue to have persevered people only you so to think about the just the the set up so if you was middle school and.

[00:24:19]
He was really wrote. You can only really learn from making mistakes. But the secret is they don't have to be your muscles. So you can learn by seeing the mistakes that he was with the best way to do it. But there's a flip side of that too which is that you know you can learn.

[00:24:37]
Coping mechanisms you can learn skills you can learn how to be better by watching what you don't have to figure it all off and so there's kind of to answer the question one is is is is actually quite a line something that that when just but the 1st was and is my mother so like Apparently everyone up here I'm a child of divorce my mother father divorced when I was a man half years old I remember the moment when she came to tell me this and to explain to me that one it wasn't my or my younger brother's fault into the new man of the house I was going to have to respond to 3 things going.

[00:25:13]
You know as the eldest I took to because well she told me to and I always give my mother told me. And I watched her over the next 10 years or so as we moved from apartment to apartment and we and she tried to keep everything together I watch you take on 2 full time jobs and 5 helpful so that she could save the money so that we could go to college she left in the morning and she didn't come back until late at night and she did all the things she had to do and you know she was gone working on weekends and you know she was always there for us and we always knew that but she was going to make this work because she had no choice.

[00:25:51]
Now things worked out pretty well I have a full right to Georgia Tech so she used the money she hadn't quite put together she could use help my younger brothers but it was always a sort of source of inevitable strength of sort of how I tend to think of my mother and so it would be wrong and inappropriate for me to let her down so I try not to so that sort of my mother was just always a person there kind of showed me that it could be done but the 2nd thing and this is really worked for me and I don't think it's something that's that's true for everyone at least not the way I experience it but I think a lot of people particularly with.

[00:26:26]
And successful experience it differently so when called it values are these are my values these are the sort of my Northstar I return to it I make those values explicit and exposed to those around me and I try to remain true so I like to think I do the same thing but the way gets expressed for me is less around values but around the goals that I want to accomplish in the long run so I would say there's something strange about me there are many strange with this particular strange thing about me is when I was 8 years old about the time actually one of the reasons I know the divorce mattered so much is that I measure almost everything that happened my life like distance from that event and about the same time I made a decision that I want people to respect you know what it meant but I knew that's what I wanted to be.

[00:27:07]
About 2 and a half years later I knew that I I wanted to be a professor I didn't know what that meant I made a decision I wanted to go to Georgia Tech just as I entered 9th grade I only applied to one schools and undergrad anywhere I want to grow new I want to do.

[00:27:21]
And I just sort of kept walking on this path now that's actually what until I was a junior in college I realized that everybody didn't come into college knowing what they want now that seems like a nice powerful thing right you know what you want to do in these sort of follow ups and it is it also has some downsides which is that you tend to confidently for the future you don't live for the present and then eventually you get to a point where you can post all the things you want to do the topic of you know what to do with yourself.

[00:27:45]
I haven't gotten there yet but I've seen I've seen it coming at different parts of my life and I react to it by deciding I want to do something else and just sort of and sort of keep going but that there are things I want to accomplish with my life less about the.

[00:28:00]
What I have. Or even what I do and more about who I am the way I'd like to see the world be a little differently and so what I do and what I have hopefully means to him and that that sort of. I need to get there. Is a thing that helps me get up in the morning when I took classes as an undergrad there was there were some things I loved and it took no effort to study for them it took no effort to prepare for them or go to class because I love them and they're all that I really really really didn't want I told myself I have to do this in order to do that and so I can be excited about those who are ridiculous requests that I'm taking you know.

[00:28:39]
Humans in the room pretend I said biology doesn't matter. I'm going to take this thing I don't want to do is you just going to do so let me do this other thing. And so for me there's 2 things. Please help me think about how to move through the world one is the example of someone my mother who can make things happen is willing to do whatever is necessary to make those things happen for others around her for herself and for her children and the fact that there really is a true north story whether it's expressed his values or ways you want to change the world of goals you want to accomplish however they are that there is a place you're going and you're trying to get there and the things you have to do to get there this is you have to do to get.

[00:29:22]
Thinking. Sometimes it's hard to see that your star really have to start its focus. On where that it's you know in the end of returns today I know it's as you said it's the base of the triangle going who you are where you were a person who were family matters your personal community manager your person where well tell a close match or whatever whatever to get you through the day which.

[00:29:51]
I will tell you if we talk about this puzzle I mean I just like left their way up the you know whatever it is being able to return to it and say Is this who I am this is what I want however you get there. Will get you to you're to your future start going to start doesn't have to be a specific goal that you get 9 years you can be away you want to be next week.

[00:30:13]
I'm developing 1000000000 see right now because she's never talked to me you know like. You have a nice time every once in a while. My wife picked that I'm. Ok so I'm going to move now to the questions that came from all. The 1st one. So the question is which of your idea.

[00:30:52]
Is the better any of those has inherited grown or shaped your resilience than most. Yeah I did get see these beforehand and I thought about this a lot I think gender absolutely has but I don't think that's the most significant to me from my resiliency I think it's actually as I said parents grew up the parents of our size 5 and my mom a you too both spoke of your mom's and that's fantastic My mom was a wonderful mom she wasn't a strong person she really couldn't when when my dad left she moved back with her parents my grandparents were huge figures in my life my grandmother especially talk about a strong woman.

[00:31:41]
She shaped me so much mom's. Lack of action shaped me I think a lot. I saw the world. Run over and I felt like she allowed the world to run over as an adult now I see things in a very different way than I did when I was a kid those angry that she didn't do more stand up more do they do things that I felt she should do and so I think I really got that tough outer shell that I have sometimes because I was trying to go against what mom had had done or what I thought I conceived of her doing.

[00:32:27]
And. That I think shaped me so much that I wanted to project to the world that I was strong and I was tough and I was you know all these things successful. Still that old girl still in there and tells me those things a lot when I and it goes back to the gender I've been a tech a long time I was the only female in cabinet for a while I was.

[00:32:56]
The only female on the executive leadership team now. Those are times when I think it's forgotten that there's a different voice a different way of seeing things a different. Look in the room and so there have been colleagues and sincerely essay like these 2 have been so supportive of me in my career judged trajectory there have been those that have been not supportive and fighting back against that not being the shrill angry woman but being the strong woman and so I think sometimes I go I go overboard on the strength at times and don't show my own vulnerability vulnerability because I think as sometimes the only woman in the room I feel I can't and so that that stays with me but more than anything I think the identity of the the kid from divorce who.

[00:33:52]
Didn't get a college degree she didn't finish college. She met my dad in college she left when he graduated. She worked retail jobs we did not and I didn't realize how little we had until I was older and we really did not have much she couldn't do much for us financially or in other ways but she was just kind of.

[00:34:18]
Beaten down my life and I just I hate that for her she died 6 years ago and I hate that for her but I think it really did shape who I am to try to go against that. It's. Something that you say really stands out to me is.

[00:34:37]
Our experiences are. Not just fire demographics the things that we. Always say I haven't been girl in my. Arms. Right now but to your point we teach freedom and that includes teaching ourselves how to treat ourselves because there's enough of those voices that world that are giving us those messages why those voices in our own especially when things happen to us that are outside of our control that cause us to question our own strength.

[00:35:21]
That's. Absolute. Ok so the next audience question John was there any impactful moment experience or event in your life that signal to you that you would become a leader and the kind of leader that you would be. I can't think of a moment. I think waif was was a compilation of.

[00:35:53]
Mentors and people that I really respect to who are trying to remind me of my potential and reminding. That you can do this and so I think that that really helped me to begin to believe I can do this and they're trying to do this and in so and then it's just the experiences of doing it then and kind of in a meeting when I don't know how to do something that many when I need help I mean you know you can come off as always the all knowing and all powerful and stuff I mean I think part of you know being successful and being successful leader is noble and it's a chanson and other areas you know we better strengthen and some assistance and stuff so I don't have any one moment.

[00:36:45]
You know the moment that brought me to this place happened in the underground when a dean pulled me aside and introduced me to this whole deal and opened a door that I never even considered. And said can you know you should really think about this I've been watching you over your undergraduate years and stuff and you're good at this and you know I think you would really enjoy him but have lunch we had lunch we talked he kind of tell me about programs academic programs and career paths and stuff that changed the direction of my home direction and it put me on a path that today I sit where I sit because that I do believe that conversations one changed every day so it's and you were open I was I received that yes we're going to have a 19.

[00:37:37]
Month or. So Charles in the pursuit of a goal for the institution or people you represent There are times that and since you were in the individual with whom you must've gauge is diametrically up. Post to your goal here because they're pretty clear. And that 1st everything you even if you so what strategies you recommend for perswade me another person to engage in constructive civil discourse.

[00:38:13]
Sure. So you're describing normal today for me I'm so. It's a question it's a good question it's also the answer is very situational right so if that person is bras that is a very different conversation from if that person is some reports of some reports of some reports from them and they always have to be current You always have to ask the question what's the situation you're talking about where this most often comes up is when you're actually talking you're trying to help lead a group in some direction right you know say strategic consulting or something like that perhaps you are familiar with you trying to do these kinds of things in there what I have found to be very useful is to remember fundamentally to your audience that right is very easy when you're trying to accomplish something and you're having a discussion with a single person and you're having an argument to think that the goal of this to convince that one person in this is sort of like between the 2 of you I'm just looking at you I'm not thinking about your particular sorry.

[00:39:14]
But really it's usually everyone else you're trying to get a group to buy into a big vision something that will require change which everyone resists that will hopefully make things better and you move into the part of the body and into the help they'll push it for and so that's your audience which means you're in one of these situations really dealing with someone who just refuses to deal with it and doesn't want to deal with you for whatever reason may be on the substance or maybe personal it doesn't really matter and so is going to engage in this case of the map because they're not your audience the audience is everyone else or they're a person who genuinely feels that this is not the right way to go whether something there's.

[00:39:53]
Do but share your alternate goal in moving things forward in that case everyone else is still your audience in order for them to have the kind of conversation they want to have to convince people to things they might want to convince them of they have to be engaged in the conversation as well and then if everyone is open to the idea that data matters that you are trying to actually get to the same thing a same good place even if you differ on what that place is or the methods for the right thing tends to happen the conversation happens on its own so I think generally speaking the specific situation is actually very rare or it doesn't matter because that person isn't actually the audience you're talking to and when there really is a serious disagreement and by the way you have to accept that it's Ok for there to be some search for you you've been that person to sincerely disagree with someone else is trying to do so if you have the conversation you have it with you have a transcript and you bring everyone along typically the conversation happens on its own or it happens naturally as a part of that in the person if they're of good faith and really trying to make something better will get pulled along the conversation and you'll end up in of these unpleasant.

[00:41:02]
Thinking. I was a challenging question. So have some more questions that came in from the audience in advance and I'll just open it out to any of you that want it or all of you if you want so the next question is how do you instill in your team that moment delivery is Ok.

[00:41:27]
Well you look at me. So I'll answer that by saying that I don't I don't think I actually certainly not explicitly and intentionally. Instill in my team that vulnerability is Ok and it's not because I don't believe it is it's just not the way I think about it what I do think I do and I'm very intentional about that is to try to instill in a team that honesty is Ok and that it is perfectly fine when we're in a room and we're trying to solve some problem together to say this is what I really believe Charles you're in saying this is a bad idea whatever and that that's going to be Ok and I know that's a very vulnerable position for people to be and I don't think about it that way but it is because in principle in principle I could fire them I guess and so people worry about these these kinds of things and it takes a while to do that but once people believe that you know you're open to that that is fine I will say it's important at least for me that we're going to have that honest open conversation and you can tell me what you need to tell me and you can tell the people around it this is the culture I want to create while we're in that room and then eventually we're going to come to a decision and when we leave the room that's a decision that we're all going to support because that is important not you know which is a free for all here because we have to have a voice and we have to support of our obligation I think as people who are trying to accomplish something for the incident but being willing to say what you really believe in front of others and doing that will be supported I think is important I haven't thought about that a vulnerability but it is a kind of honor building in that I try to model and I try to encourage people to do that and also in the classroom with students I try to teach them that it's Ok to ask what they might think is a ridiculous question because even if it is a ridiculous question I guarantee you a 3rd of the people the room of the same question.

[00:43:10]
And you're actually a hero to that 3rd. I think oftentimes people are yes there is a fear mosse of employment that is very real. My experience Moreover people who do not demonstrate on beliefs are more afraid of not belonging or being left out that whole fear of missing out but also not wanting people to see them in a different way and this notion of yeah sort of perfection being the destination but it really should be in the direction.

[00:43:46]
That we're I think people appreciate it when you told them you don't know him they didn't absolutely I mean for me I think the way that I do it is I modeled with him I mean you know I don't think it's about having direct conversations about to do whatever.

[00:44:02]
But I just demonstrate my model and I think it's that sees you as being able to do that you give others permission also in supporting us so. We have a question for you so as this a master nears the end I am hoping. That stood for students resilience and wondering if I thought that encounter know I'm here cheering for them what can we do individually to or encourage and say spaces 1st students to really expand the capacity of the official programs that are available on can't move that great question you know what I would say is that everyone has the capacity to really help students and we have students feel a sense of connection belonging so Point right and that it starts with just like acknowledging of looking up and saying good morning hello in the hall or wherever you are you know to have some kind of a mess.

[00:45:13]
Ssage that goes out as a department you know acknowledging the time of this the mess that we're and we realize it's a very stressful time for many of you and you know a way here to support you and here is kind of a reminder of the resources on campus and it's these little things I think that really go a long way and help students to really feel that Georgia Tech is the caring plates because you can you can easily get lost in the duties of the day and the tasks that need to be for though both the students faculty and staff that you just lose sight of that and what I'll say is that the majority of students say at this point of the semester are stressed I mean it's a natural place for them to be as we move to the final days and grades are becoming more real in scholarships are in jeopardy and all of that right but you know there are things that we can do to assist those students and I think getting them through and one is to just acknowledge the fact that we were allies this is a really stressful time you know and so you know.

[00:46:23]
And it's also a stressful time for many fact Yeah yeah it's well yeah and I pray Sir there's this or it's that thing that happens especially around the holidays we've got a resilient that coming up December that still you know holiday acknowledging certain that build a stronger community around them.

[00:46:48]
Ok so here's another question this is a great one. I assume that all of us have gone through some kind of traumatic event in our life and some of us went through some really extreme traumatic events. If you really want to share an experience that you had with trauma and how you dealt with it.

[00:47:15]
Trauma to me signals kind of one big event I don't know that I mentioned when I opened up. I'm a 3 time cancer survivor I've had cancer breast cancer and I'm currently in remission with chronic myeloid leukaemia and each time I've gotten that diagnosis you know you get the punch in the gut feeling and you you figure out both right and breast they cut so early and you felt I was not going to die from those.

[00:47:48]
It was different and for the 1st time I really had to dig into myself and figure out where I was who I was where I wanted for my life what what have I not taught my children that I wanted to teach my children what had I you know that all those and it was that that one diagnosis was the hardest for me it's been 2 years now and I'm doing great.

[00:48:12]
It really to me the traumatic events tend to focus you really focus you on on priorities and who you are and where you are in your life and what you want and it's a cliche and then no it's not about the job and the position you're in it's not about.

[00:48:31]
Those things it's about you know feeling fulfilled in yourself and feeling that you've done right by your children if you have children or your family or whoever you're close to so for me it was really. Say I'm not a wallow or I don't I don't I don't typically you know and don't get really down on them I'm pretty optimistic person but that sent me to a place I've never been before and trying to dig out of that hole if I don't want to It didn't take me long I can find my.

[00:49:07]
My good place after a while but. To really sit back and think Ok I'm 52 now I am normal lifespan I can and now 80 and you know you don't want to necessarily think of those terms but. You know my thought is I could Life's Too Short You can happen any time and what I need to do that I haven't done yet and what do I need to tell my children I haven't taught him yet we're talking about you know waking your son up in the morning and I letting him when you know set the alarm themselves and getting out of bed one of them ain't too easy on my kids one of those that does so I've thought about that.

[00:49:53]
And then. Here's a. How do you handle disappointing and we cover when you feel you go in for the. Acknowledgment. I didn't. Want to answer that question so but. It's at least the story that almost loves you which is that I just decided it's not really me that at the end if you learn something from it it's not people who you want to meld with from understand what it is you're trying to do and why you can usually they're usually willing to forgive it once or twice or somewhere around 7 or 8 times you know it's a problem early on it's not because everyone's trying to quit so you know I'm.

[00:50:44]
Accomplished a few things have been happy about not accomplishing things I wish I hadn't and I felt like I got something from the experience and so I was Ok with it maybe that's just a story I tell myself Ok I don't know that it works for me and so I'm going to keep doing it but that's the thing that that sort of gets me through and I have you know my God in everything that I want to succeed at everything that I've tried it but I've always felt like I got something out of it prepared me for the next time I just assume that there's a reason for all this and you've got to go someplace good the way I think about it is that you know you never had someone ask you if you could go back in time and tell yourself one thing will be to be and I thought about it for a long time and my answer is nothing 1st off I've seen enough episodes of The Twilight Zone to know that you ever go back in time there when World War 2 soldiers never go back in time.

[00:51:35]
I'm in a good place a lot of the things that have happened to me is and I've taken a left turn to return for no reason and the good thing happened it could have been if I'd taken the right turn I mean multibillionaire right now I don't know but I'm happy I'm an actor like there's still things that I can do and things like an accomplished between each of those disappointments each of those values have led to the point where I currently am so I wouldn't change anything about them even the ones that are extremely painful.

[00:52:04]
Like disappointment only have power through expectations. So shift from the disappointment setting and you acting. In it so they don't like how you plan. What you want. Hit take another chair. And Sunny something and I do I think I've finally learned a lot of those disappointments are because I set my own expectations in my own head it's not my boss's expectation or my colleagues expectation or my family's it's mine that I've put in my head and so it may be a disappointment to me and that's Ok but it's rarely something that you know someone's going to come down on you were for but.

[00:52:57]
I had a friend in high school who did me the biggest favor of my life and I didn't realize it at the time and I was very judgmental and I was judging her on something that I thought she had done and was anyway she had the foresight and she had the courage to come to me and say you don't get to sit at my expense expectations for me I set my expectations for myself you don't get to put your expectations on me and that I still have to remind myself of that because you do have expectations for for others and those around you but it really was it was pivotal to me to say Ok these are the expectations that I need to put those on me and I can handle when I disappoint myself but.

[00:53:40]
Think of it in the right context it's not necessarily as big as you make it out to be. One more question and then we're going to open for question so this is a question actually from the last panel. But if you go back and give advice 30 year olds know what you know when you.

[00:54:14]
Should. Try to remember. I would give myself advice that life changes be flexible b.v.m. the bending instead of breaking I think I again at that point in my life I was married to had I wasn't I didn't have the kids but everything was hunky dory and I just sit there and thank my life is going to be great it's going to just move on this path because it's good right now.

[00:54:49]
You know you just have to be ready for the changes that life brings and be as nimble as you can be and I don't think I realize that at 30. You know I mean I think that. When it's the one we there are lots of wonderful things about them one of the is that you realize a few things one you're stronger than you ever imagine you could be.

[00:55:21]
To most people on. Most people on it and we don't realize that but I am always amazed you know. That I know people have gone through and have been able to find ways to get through it and move ahead. Terrible sad thing and probably all have something in our lives that we can relate to one that people are naturally with.

[00:55:54]
And yet when you get to an older age at 30 you don't realize like the long line of things that you'll get through this. Life brings kind of turns and not just you need some time with it's life that's part of what we all feel it and stuff but you can get through it and you can find ways to continue to head in step but that comes with age and with experience in that you know it would be great if we could all learn that lesson a little bit earlier and like to help ourselves out.

[00:56:34]
Like I said I would not go back in time or tell myself anything but the 30 year old version of my son my daughter I think I would I would say. This is actually the point where you're where you really get to be yourself you couldn't come to your own me when I was 2030 seemed very far away and I felt like I knew everything.

[00:56:56]
But it's about the time when you're in your thirty's when things are really beginning to come together and I think again in your I think these are big moments where you know the future is ahead of you and you know there's a chance to learn from the past you want to to to do the next decade or so but I think the 30 ish is about that time when it's coming together one way or the other but you still have time to to change who you are in a way that's going to have a sort of impact over for you know that's going to be measured in decades and just remembering that I think it is important I look back on.

[00:57:30]
You know about the time I had just gotten out of grad school I was just thinking about. Whether I really was going to go be a professor and all those things that I'd always thought I was going to be and there was a real moment there of decision.

[00:57:43]
But I had all these years in front of me. That was the time so I think that's the thing that I would I would tell my 30 year old children. So I have a 31 year old son and when I talk to him about what I've learned in the 20 years since I've been 30 is that most of the stuff that I worried about was just a waste of energy when you just sort of it's like a lot of us here is you can spend time with you don't go anywhere.

[00:58:15]
And boy when I think about all here I added up. You know that it never very nearly is horribly as I thought of mine. And then the horrible things I never really anticipated those at all so. I've never seen that. Well that's all I had and has opened up for for questions anybody have any questions or anything you want to add or anything questions I ask you want to answer one of those questions please join us.

[00:58:55]
In. That. I'm going to repeat the question just for the recording very you know. Charles he spoke about it experience when a police officer put a gun in your face so can you talk about that experience and what was what was that all about it you recovered that there was a traffic stop to Boston which from which you can extrapolate all kind of alter your.

[00:59:29]
How old am I but see. I must've been 20 of them early twenty's this is early 199293 summer. And I can't believe I can look back on that and not remember exactly when it was when it was early nineties and as a traffic stop going between Wellesley visiting my girlfriend and going back to Cambridge and I got pulled over by a cop and.

[00:59:59]
Broke my window when it came to me and I guess I turned my head too quickly or something and made a very clear so at the time a few things popped in my head The 1st was Guns are a lot bigger when they put in your face but I had not really thought about that but it was huge the 2nd was really zation.

[01:00:18]
If he killed me he'd get away with it. Much later not at the time I thought I would be the bad guy. They would find a way which is just kind of a terrible realization to have but the way I got past it frankly was that this is the 1st time something like that happens 1st I'm going to face in the 1st something like that it happened to me.

[01:00:43]
And you know I let the anger happen and then I told the people that I was going to tell. And then just decided that I got through it and it was Ok and the way I thought about it senses. You know I didn't have to make it out of that.

[01:01:02]
You know I should have never met any of you none of this should have happened so I might as well do the things I want to do and try to accomplish things that were accomplished and that's how I decided to to deal with that. And it's worked for me.

[01:01:16]
You know it probably helped that I was still in my twenty's and still despite thinking that I could have been killed I still had the sense that I was going to live forever and so I could sort of hold those contradictory thoughts in my head at the same time kind of kind of move through it and as I look back on it again as I've gotten older.

[01:01:36]
It could have been a lot worse and it didn't have to work out the way to do but this is like going left and going right you know it could have been better it has been worse and you know there's something I just don't have control over the only thing you know control over is not your immediate but your long term reaction to them and I was going to let that stop me from accomplishing what I want to do or try to turn it into something that gave me motivation to do.

[01:01:59]
I think about you know when you're confronted in a moment like that it's both the immediate reason reaction and the long term it. Means it's one of the things I'm always teaching my son that when he would encounter along force you have to make extra effort to demonstrate that you are not a threat and that you're not from that.

[01:02:22]
For that reason. I mean you have to own the media feeling the reaction that you have but that's different from living it dictate what you do in the next seconds or in the next room and then later you have to be able to reflect on it and think about what it means for that thing.

[01:02:42]
Feeling. Or you. Or. Well I mean generally speaking I mean so you know I don't have a good therapist at least not one that I pay but there are people I talk to a small number of them but I talk to them and I you know I feel comfortable telling them whatever is going on in my head and they apparently feel comfortable listening and that's what helps being right so the family the community whatever it is the best friends are in people some people want to talk to 30 people that's not who I am there's 2 or 3 and you know you know them for a long time and sometimes you don't talk to them for 3 years and we think of the family because the conversation really us left off and and that's how I cope with those things there's a small number of people I can talk to about those things and in that you know they get to go and that they will be honest with me about how rigid I feel except what I feel them and tell me whether I'm right or wrong and it's Ok.

[01:04:10]
So the question is What are you seeing is the trend in the hilly in some of. The developed stronger regional or so the pattern. Those are your own question it's not a good one I'll say that I think again looking like over the long run of things I do feel that the generation that we have in front of us is less resilient than students that I've worked with in the past and the question I always ask is why and I think that's a very complex question I think it's cultural I think it's you know parenting you know all kinds of issues with.

[01:04:51]
But I think a lot of students are so connected to their have families and parents that they're not able to make decisions and they're not able to cope in ways that previous generations those of us that went off to college and remain connected to families but not so in Gage in in every day kinds of decisions and things like that and this is a generation that it's an extension of the parent than the student.

[01:05:22]
You know becomes a we experience as opposed to the individual students experience colleges and universities are being asked now to pick up a lot of responsibility in you know working on these illions see what students are trying to help them develop those skills whereas in the past they would say that was really the role of the family and now we're being asked to do that.

[01:05:50]
Which is put us in an interesting place where that with the students and not necessarily a good place right but a necessary one right now still. In what respects to what. Well we're meeting that needs by doing all kinds of resiliency workshops through our counseling center through health initiatives through other areas within academic departments there's a you know there's a whole variety.

[01:06:22]
We have a lot of coaching programs right now we have a lot of mentoring programs I mean those are the ways that we can help students feel learn leisurely and see but the other thing is that you want your tact ass to come to a place where we can begin to talk about failure.

[01:06:41]
Don't do that here and of course nobody wants to fail but the reality is that failure happens every day here in all kinds of places feels classrooms and stuff and yet you know students feel like when they fail I'm the only one that's failing everyone else succeeding and that's not true for a lot of students who are falling short and when I say failing I mean I don't necessarily mean that you know a b. who's straight is their whole career.

[01:07:15]
Is a failure and this choice until they come to accept that they have be his an acceptable grade. For them and for and for Georgia Tech so you know I I just think that we have to do more in terms of helping to normalize some of us so that students don't really think it's it's a personal such a personal experience.

[01:07:37]
That you have the 1st years the hardest kind of a thing which is sort of that in the 1st time it really hurt and then you can get used to and you figure out how to how to make it the right and I think. When I think back when I was an undergrad here in the ninety's it was like we didn't talk about failure because everything was just expected to fail was just a part of the experience and so somehow.

[01:07:58]
The not talking about failure didn't matter I mean when I came Septimus rate this year was about 20 percent which makes us only the 3rd public university have a separate that history so even that idea of how the world has changed when I came in it was about 70 percent eccentrics but we lost a 3rd of our students in the 1st quarter.

[01:08:18]
Just a matter of course that of course people were going to you know hit the weak or Susan was going and it was just Ok so we would talk about it was just Ok what seems to happen since a couple of things. One is the stoop we still don't talk about it but because of that students think they're alone when they aren't and we do know from the literature and from our kind of experience that students like for example and it was a minority of women people don't necessarily feel like they belong wherever it is that they are.

[01:08:47]
They think whenever something bad goes it's just them right because they don't come in either with that with the universe as mine is supposed to be mine so it was their fault and I fall and they don't come in with a hissy several of you looking up and remembering people who are like that there's also the I'm the only person experiencing this and you need someone else to help you see that it is it is actually normal the other thing that I'll just add is and I would leverage on the tell me if this is true.

[01:09:13]
It's just my impression is I think the students we see not just the generation have is different somehow and we know this generation is different as was the generation before different generation for it but. I mean there's this wonderful map in 25 years that I found once members find incidents that show for the last 150 years the average distance a child would travel from one plane in a given week or something like that and it used to be measured in every successive generation so that the current generation literally does not be as your unsupervised on a tree so the generous to change but it feels like the students we get beyond the background noise have changed dramatically the kinds of students Georgia Tech the ones we're attracting the people who accept our offers are very different from the kind of students we have before even more so we look more like a Duke University yes then we did a Georgia Tech or even a Michigan.

[01:10:14]
Even 10 years. Well and I would say because I have twins that are 20 and neither tech kids and they I do think that competitiveness that's And still that and kids in middle school and in high school you know if you're not and present Petersen used to say this if your are not if your kids not in the right math track by the time they're in 8th grade they're not going to get into Georgia Tech and that's crazy to Mammy I was a junior in high school before I ever thought well I guess I have the side where.

[01:10:48]
You know it just wasn't that my daughter talks about we friend and that friend acquaintance. That she found out had committed suicide we were together down in Orlando a family and with 2 of us are driving in the car and as a what do you think happened and you know you can't blame everything on social media and I don't mean to do that but I think the competitive nature of how many likes you have how many this my God must Sally went to a party and then them bite me have the back of hell what's wrong with a man that she didn't invite me what you know these pressures that they're under because of that is enormous and I think that's.

[01:11:26]
I'm thing that's changed this generation and I think our kids here I used to teach 1000 for 7 years and credibly incredibly competitive with each other with themselves their families and one young woman I just killed me because her parents you get straight A's you don't get straight A's you know whatever is going to happen and the pressure on her was just intense so I think there's a lot of that.

[01:11:59]
So the question is what can parents do to build resilience. I think you've got the obvious as you go out and fail it's hard for parents but for me it was I do one thing my mom loved that she that I carry on you know when when I would ask her for help with homework and something and I think this is so mean but when I ask for help with Omar she go past the 10th grade figured out.

[01:12:25]
She right that's not my job you need to figure that out and she would make me figure it out and if I was late because I didn't turn the alarm on and I didn't wake up she was at work I didn't I didn't have a fallback it was me walking to school or something like that so it was a lot of you know what you just got to figure this out yourself my daughter called me from college yesterday actually said you can be so proud of me and I said what she said Well my my low tire pressure came on my car and I went to the place all by myself and had them check it out I'm like For God's exam.

[01:13:01]
That's what I have to be brow do you like. Ok great honey wonderful but you know I just laugh that are just like come on we have set the bar higher. So I would say what you really need to think about is if the. Children are going to go off to college.

[01:13:24]
You know they're going to separate from everything will they know the tension really. And everything that you do for Harry and it becomes all of us from the very 1st that my decision a neo needs everything how do you prepare for that what do you start doing. Or doing as much.

[01:13:49]
And you know even once the families are coming through for ain't a shoo in I ask how many of you are waking children up in the hands go up and then like you don't want to be right in your son's orders up in college and in the. In the.

[01:14:04]
Doing and you know and that's just one little example of things but you know I had a student in the office yesterday whose mom sent an e-mail and then called me with a litany of things that she was worried about and what was going wrong to him in his 1st semester at Georgia.

[01:14:23]
And the student came into the office sat down and said instead let me just say something that I think this is more about my mother than it is. And she was more wary than I and I said Ok say more about that and he was right I mean it hasn't been easy but he's getting through it he's managing it and in the end what he said to me is you know what I I realized 2 things one growing up is hard.

[01:14:52]
And college is forcing me to grow up because I have to take be more independent and I have to do things and then the other is I realize how much I miss my family now that I'm separate. C. and nice if you know if you've got great insight and you're right growing up it's on but you're doing right and this is how one does it then walk through it manage it so the resilience is like muscle memory and heart building strength of strength is also it's not just about what you do this then not to do so about resistance training peer build up muscle strain so I have a sense in your own you're right seems to be very good that it's right now and.

[01:15:46]
So I continue to remind him that you don't have to go out you know but you can't be here. Live your half because. You've got to go. You know my son was. Like Yes I didn't know yet. So my son wanted to drop a class and he called me about this class like it's your choice is all I said you got 4 years of funding to graduate after that you don't have any more so you make the choices this is going to make you late to graduate and suggest you don't do it but that's your choice.

[01:16:30]
Question with yes. Or no. And I'm concerned. About. I think well you know. You're. From. Me. Or. Somebody I'm a member from right question for the record so what do you do when your own personal values are in conflict with the values of the situation that you're organizational situationally.

[01:17:27]
How do you handle that I would say I think sometimes I've stayed too long and in relationships or things situations that I didn't want to. I have the conflict on and so I would kind of what myself shrink away. But then I get really angry with myself and so that's kind of the self-defeating thing so I don't think it is I've never had to just say Ok I am leaving a job because you are just out of sync with where I am and I think over time you figure out your your boss and your people you work with and figure if you can operate in that way I've definitely had situations Charles said earlier about you know sometimes you have to have a conversation and sit down you have that conversation to make a decision and then when you go out of that room you're you're one on that decision that's hard sometimes and I've done that with bosses where I think they've been too manipulative maybe even the way they've done things and so it really took a while to kind of get my own voice and to feel secure enough in my job and my role and the relationship I had with that person to be able to say that one makes me really uncomfortable and let me tell you why that makes me uncomfortable and then we would talk it out and I think that that's happened a couple times to me and.

[01:18:49]
I don't want to pull the plug on something just say you know it's also a judgment to a feel like I'm better than you my values are better than your values it's not that it's just let's figure out what's different about this and how we can come to a place where we can both be comfortable so I try to do that.

[01:19:07]
But I worked at 4 different colleges for a city to equal 32 years it was too short aligned the shortest line was a place that by the start of that I knew I had to leave I knew I had to leave because it was really not the place that I felt really interested micros and my skills I didn't feel I had my back and in my values were not there and so at that point I made a decision to figure out a plan and you know and it was difficult because I didn't feel at that point and you know a lot of people were saying don't do it you know you'll leave the dean ship in the behind to get another one but that's very decision is what brought me to Georgia.

[01:20:00]
And you know looking at. Moments like that you follow what you know is right and what you really. Desire quickly I think it depends like all things do but I think the. For me is a question of whether there's a fundamental conflict. Or there's and what usually happens for me anyway is that there's a conflict between your values and your aspirations versus the practical reality of what's happening this week and if you can say to yourself can we get to know the world around me willing to let us get from where we are to where we need to be to be consistent with our values or my values or whatever but you can stay and work on that and neither succeeds or it doesn't so is a very concrete and very simple example of value the I've come to hold over my time and macadamia is around accessibility you can and getting more and more people able to be.

[01:20:58]
Now contrast that with the reality the reality is the. Computer science is the largest major on campus. For the 1st time in Georgia Tech's entire history it's not mechanical engineering. But we're actually smaller than mechanical engineering by faculty. We can't triple the number of faculty overnight because even if we wanted to that someone would let us it's not possible lots of stress and strain.

[01:21:23]
The natural response to this and by the way it's not just that we have majors it's had all been a major taking the provision courses which means that to support that in perspective mechanical engineering would have to have 1.8 times the number of majors we do have the same credit.

[01:21:39]
So this is hard and it's hard for the faculty it's hard. Why am I telling you this because the natural response is to shut the door the natural response is to say we're going to cap the majors we're not going to allow any more miners we're not going to do that we're going to do you have no choice in terms of the largest room on campus those are going to 48 students I know because that's where I taught for many years and so you just can't take 340 not but in general when it's within your power it grates on me that we would say no to people who are trying to pursue their dreams so and in fact worse we know that when you do that it has a disparate impact on representing minorities and women not even just that they don't get in that they don't bother to try because they think it's not and you can see this in the literature is cleared up so that goes against a very serious value that I have but if there's a practical reality.

[01:22:30]
But we see a world where over a year or 2 or 3 working with people we can change things so that we don't have to do this and so we're willing to suffer in the short term because we can actually make a difference in the long term if you look at that as well as against my value so I have to leave than it actually means you don't have a chance to make it better and you have to make this isn't whether you can make it better whether the institutes values or the organizations values really are aligned with yours in the long term and it's really a problem that needs to be solved as opposed to irreconcilable difference there is an irreconcilable difference then you will maybe you have to go but it isn't something you can persuade people to do it's something you can do then you should stick around and do it believe them and that's something we've been interviewed.

[01:23:23]
By thank you so much for being here thank you for the panel.