Ep. 2 - Dana Zahorik, Fox Valley Technical College

Treehouses, thrift shops, and throwing firewood! In this not-so-filler second episode, Kevin and Brody are back! Join the fun as they welcome former NACADA President and advising superstar Dana Zahorik for a candid convo about leadership, community colleges, and why training and development should never just be about clicking through a handbook.

Along the way, they tackle summer burnout, the thrill of fall on campus, and the which movies should never have had sequels. Dana shares her origin story, throws metaphorical (and literal) firewood, and reveals what keeps her hopeful about the future of advising. Plus a lightning round shenanigans, cookie opinions, and a chocolate martini confession!

*The Pickup Meeting is a spinoff of the Adventures in Advising podcast!

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Transcript

Kevin Thomas  
And away we go, my friends. Here we are at The Pickup Meeting. Glad to be back for a second episode. How about that, Brody?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, they let us do it again. We made it.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, it's this is, like, this makes this official. Before it was just a hobby. Now this is a real thing.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, like the pilot, and this is, like, the first real episode. Like, you have the pilot, and then we do tons of pilots, but then you get episode one, and now we're, like, we're official. 

Kevin Thomas  
Any good season, sometimes there'll be some filler episodes. I don't think that's what this will be. Our guest today is fantastic. I'm really excited about it. We're not, we're not gonna go there quite yet. But like, like, this isn't a filler episode, folks, this is episode two. Like we've got it. We've got a real home run guest today.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
We absolutely do, a former president of NACADA, a dear friend of ours. We're excited about it.

Kevin Thomas  
That's what we call teasing in the industry I've heard.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yes, that is true, absolutely. So we were talking about this the other day on the phone, like how the Summer is almost over. That's crazy. It just started. 

Kevin Thomas  
I know and depending on when, like, folks are listening to this, like, the fact that, like, it could be fall, and they're like, reminiscing about the summer, and it just feels like we've blinked and it's over. And that's not to say that, like, it's a slow time, but I would definitely say that, like, summer is a strategic time. How do you think you've maximized what you've done this summer? 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I haven't maximized anything. I don't know what you're talking about. Like it you get so consumed with some of the daily work, right? Like I'm involved in preview here at my institution, and I speak every day for seven weeks, right? And so you've got that kind of as the anchor for your day. But I mean, budgets were big, right? So spent a lot of time strategizing monetary stuff and then getting we're doing some rebranding in our unit, so working on some of that, and working with our marketing person and getting the staff to buy in, it's been that's been a lot of fun, really exciting, but it moves so fast, and I sometimes struggle with all the work that's you got to get done to find the time to prioritize that work. How have you done that, Kev? Like I don't, I really struggle to get it done.

Kevin Thomas  
You know, in in past years, within, within my division, I'll do office retreats, right where we spend an afternoon or a day, depending on the office sometimes, and go through things. I think one of the things like my leadership style, very much, is relational. Very much is about connecting with folks and really embracing the culture of care and knowing my people. This year, it probably kept me from doing as many of those retreats as I normally would do during the summer. I think folks are tired like and I just think that's an overall theme. And that's not to say that they weren't tired in previous years. It's just you get to a point where initiative fatigue, or hey, it's time for something new. Fatigue comes comes in, and I felt like from a gage of things this summer, it was really focusing on how to strategically enhance what we're doing already and grow those things, even just tiny bits, with tweaks and just different efforts, as opposed to strategically, we need to get together and figure out a new path. I just, I felt like the burnout was real, and I would have, really, would have walked into a to a wall as an administrator, had I tried to push for more.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, I've been in my role two years, right? And I think it's taken two years to kind of make certain people know me and know what my style is, but I tend to agree with that, right? It's now. It's about tweaking the strategy. I try to come up with a theme each year, and my themes the first two years, actions, not actions, not outcomes, and numbers are people. People are numbers. I'm I'm coming up with a new theme this year, and I haven't finalized it yet, but it's really about kind of emulating that theme through the work that you're doing, and kind of thinking about something that's going to keep people motivated and wanting to do the work, and under the guise of, you know, we have important work to do. And higher ed is kind of crazy right now. People are tired. 

Kevin Thomas  
People are tired. And I think that, you know, regardless of where you're at in life, there's a readiness for the fall semester ahead. You know, for me, I have a 16 year old that's going to be going into his junior year. And I said to my wife the other day, I said, you know, it's time for the school year to start. He's ready for a routine again. And maybe it's I'm ready for him to have a routine. Absolutely, he's ready for a routine again. And as I'm talking to people on campus, I there's a lot of that, but there's also a lot of like, the energy on a college campus is different during. The summer. And that's not to say orientation doesn't bring a lot. That's not to say campuses aren't busy because we are different things going on, but it is, for sure, to say there's nothing quite like that energy of the fall semester. And I think folks are really ready for it and excited about what's to come.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, my my office looks out into the quad. So you can't even, you can't even avoid the energy, even if you wanted to, right. Like, I can look outside my window and everything is happening in the quad. It's been a fantastic part of my new gig here. And I just, I do, I love the fall, so maybe I wasn't as productive as I needed to be this summer, but the fall was really good. 

Kevin Thomas  
How do you get work done? How do you get work done with, like, you see the quad and, like, I would be like, well, they have ice cream today. Oh, look, there. They're building something new. Like, how do you I wouldn't be able to focus. I'd be outside all the time. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I walk every day. I try to do get my walk outside and enjoy the campus, right? When you have a beautiful campus, it's, it's easy to take that for granted. But you know, Illinois state's an old institution, and I've, I've enjoyed my the visual look of the campus, and I take advantage of that whenever I can. That's absolutely for sure.

Kevin Thomas  
So as we roll into the fall semester, you know, what are the things you're looking forward to? You do you have plans or travel or conferencing that's occurring that you're excited about, like, what are, what are some of those things going on?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, I'm definitely going to NACADA in Vegas.

Kevin Thomas  
Me too. I'm also now going to Vegas. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
That's fantastic. I'm excited about that. I really like Vegas. This would be...

Kevin Thomas  
I really do not, but I'm going. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Why? Why not? 

Kevin Thomas  
I don't. It just seems like a lot, man, I'm a simple man, you know, simple, simple likes, I don't need all the glitz and glamor, Brody, I I just, you know, I want the simple city. And Vegas is not the simple city. That's not the phrasing.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
No, it's not. It's the Sin City, right? 

Kevin Thomas  
I don't know anything about that. I'm just gonna go and enjoy the conference.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah. So we've got that. I've got a couple of regional things. I'm involved in ILACADA, which is the Illinois Academic Advising Association, the Midwest First Year Experience conference this fall is it's at Sauk Valley, I think, really close. So I'm going to try to hit both of those. I'm doing some Nakata consulting work. How about you? What do you got going on?

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, beyond NACADA, I'm going to go to my first ever NACACconference in the admissions world. It's in Columbus this year, and going to go check that out. I'm excited about that. And going to go to a Vikings game this September. Also super pumped to get up to Minneapolis and cheer on the Vikings. And sorry for everyone that's listening, all of you that really don't like the Vikings. That's just the reality. I'm going to a Vikings game. It's gonna be great. And let's see. I do a yearly man trip, man cation, if you will, with fraternity brothers from college. They're somewhere between 10 to 20 of us on any given year that go into the mountains of Gatlinburg and say that we climb mountains, but really we just enjoy some some company and interaction with folks and and maybe have a beverage or two as we just enjoy some time together.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, the last two summers you've had bear interactions, right? Like, real, actual bears.

Kevin Thomas  
Oh, on the trip, yeah, in November, yeah, oh yeah, yeah. Like, bears have come up and hissed at me, and I was, I was on a miniature golf course, and a bear was on the course in the middle of Gatlinburg. So, yeah, it it's strangely wild.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
That is strangely Well, we were talking on the phone. I think we should talk about this, and maybe we can ask Dana this. We're talking on the phone of movies that should have had a sequel, or movies that should never have a sequel. I have a different category, and that's movies that had sequels that should have never had sequels. And I was thinking about this the other day, JAWS turned 50. How the heck did they make more Jaws movies than just the first jaws? Come on, that was terrible.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, I remember the first one, and then I can't say I remember much after that. So, like, doesn't the original just end up standing on its own? Yes, that's what I'm saying. You know, movies like The Hangover would would hit, hit in that world, right? Like, where the initial one was, like, good, and it was like, why do we need three of these?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Why do we need three of these? Absolutely. 

Kevin Thomas  
I really tried on the one movies that should have had a sequel and and honestly, the way Hollywood makes money, I don't know the answer to that. We're gonna have to ask Dana, though it's gonna be really, really interesting to see what she says.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, wouldn't Ferris Bueller's Day Off have been a fun sequel? Like two, like, maybe college or adult life. Like, I don't know.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, the one that came to my mind is, like, one of my favorite movies of all time is the Shawshank Redemption, and I think that would have been a lot fun. But, like, what do you do, right? Like, yeah, they're just on the run from the law. They don't get to just build their boat. Like, spoiler alert, this. What happens in this movie 30 years later, best friends hanging out. Yeah, yeah. That's the only one that really came to mind for me. You know, my son and I were thrifting in Oklahoma City over the last week, and one of the fun things that I saw was there was one booth that had action figures of all kinds, and there was Titanic action figures, and I'm like, now there's a movie that didn't need a sequel. But, you know, beyond that, I don't know what I would know. I don't know that I have anything else to contribute to it.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
The only thing I heard in that explanation is that you were thrifting, and how, my friend, have we not thrifted together? Because I'm a huge Thrifter.

Kevin Thomas  
I don't know. I grew up in this, right? Like my grandparents had a antique place, Winx Antiques in Columbia, Illinois, and grew up in that world, and I remember going to estate sales with my parents and grandparents and and now it's just kind of stuck. And, you know, my mom collects little golden books, and I collect lapel pins of all kinds and forms, and Braden enjoys going and just looking for the geeky things that he likes and really enjoys. And so it's like that. I just enjoy doing it. We're going to have to go.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
We got to get that done. But, yeah, but maybe we should bring our guests on first All right, go to it. My man, yeah. So Dana, so horrick is with us today. No surprises, just one of the best people in the whole world, one of our favorite partners in crime in the world of NACADA. And we're super excited to have you on the show today. Dana, welcome.

Dana Zahorik  
Thanks for having me. It's nice to reunite.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Absolutely. You're kind of a big deal in the NACADA world, right? Former president, you know, training and development guru, what? What's keeping you busy in the car right now? Dana, anything?

Dana Zahorik  
Oh, wow, you set the bar high here. Well, my career goal was always to be part of the board and as the presidency, because I just love to be at that strategic level. So I was really excited to serve the association that way, and then all of a sudden, when you get down with the presidency, it's almost like you jump off a cliff, because it's quiet for a little while. You're so involved every day and it's quiet, which I miss. I miss being involved at that strategic level, but now I get to hopefully support all the other people that are part of the board and part of all these great committees, but I am keeping busy with the admin Institute, and I'm also doing some consulting work. So, yeah, always involved. I always will be. Dana. 

Kevin Thomas  
Dana, when, when I think about people in getting involved in NACADA or in any association, you know, it was one of these things. As I got involved, I was like, Well, you know, I'd like to be president someday, and then I would like run for elections and not win, or run for certain elections and win. And then had to choose paths and things that were there. Like, what do you think the biggest myth of the presidency is like, within NACADA? And then also, like, maybe flip side, like, what was that really fun, cool thing that you're like, Oh, I didn't know this was part of it. And I freaking love it.

Dana Zahorik  
Yeah, those are really good questions. So I think at one point someone did say, like, oh, you could be the next president of cotton. I laughed, because I was not an administrator. So I thought, Well, I always thought people that were presidents had to be like, provosts and college presidents and so I never thought that would be my trajectory. But somehow I started out, I just, I was helping with the peer advising commission group. It was called at the time, I drank the Kool-Aid and I fell in love with it. I was like, Oh, you can make impact in all these little different ways. So that was pretty cool when I when I when I did, because I think I might have been the only president that wasn't an administrator at the time. I was an advisor and counselor role. But my message to anybody then is you can lead. Anybody can lead if that's truly what you want to do and you work towards that skill set and listen. The most important thing is to listen. You're not going to be the person sitting at the table with the gavel, pounding it and telling people what to do. You're going to be listening to the members, all of them, so it can't be, you know, your own personal agenda, like I thought I was going to change the world. And, you know, help diversify the ballot. I feel like I just got started with that, and all of a sudden, you know, my year was up. So it goes by very, very quickly, that way. And you asked me about what surprised me, Kevin, was that the...

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, what was that surprise of like, oh, yeah, this is awesome, or just the surprise in general?

Dana Zahorik  
Well, okay, so it's an association of volunteers, and you have to keep that in mind, right? Everybody comes to the table, and you've got great leaders, and everybody has different philosophies and ways to go about it. So to me, it really helped me, prepare me for management. I grew this skill set that I never knew that I would have by pulling all these diverse ideas together, keeping the mission in mind, and still moving forward, maybe not as fast as I like to move. That's higher ed in general. I think sometimes it's like, I think you're going to change, rolled overnight, and takes a little longer to do it the right way.

Kevin Thomas  
You know, from the standpoint of sitting in the chair of President of NACADA, you were one of the few at that point, if not the first. I don't, I don't remember for sure that we came from a community college. And so I'm wondering, you know, what brought you to Fox Valley Technical College, and over your timeframe there, like, how has that evolved and really grown and changed? 

Dana Zahorik  
So I started as an intern here in 1995 after my first year. I know I just aged myself considerably.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Don't get too crazy. We're the exact same age. Dana, like, come on.You're not old. 

Kevin Thomas  
And I was 15.

Dana Zahorik  
I dye my hair, so try to hide that a little bit. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I dye my hair too.

Kevin Thomas  
Two bald guys and Dana actually has hair. Alright, here we are. 

Dana Zahorik  
So, when I started working here, I just, I've as an intern, I fell in love with how we made students feel, the culture, the environment. I mean, just walk down the hallway here, you could feel the great energy. And I was like, wow, I belong here. I hope our students feel the same way. It. Also interned at a neighboring institution, and I remember being in a line and watching the students, and all of a sudden, the advisor walked out and said, It's lunch time. The rest of you are going to come going to come back. And there's like, this huge line of people, and they were always registering. I was like, I don't want to do that. So it really, I guess, was a eye opener for me that culture plays a huge role in creating an environment for students. And then, just like, where I wanted to work, I just wanted to be part of that great energy, and I can still say, after all the bumps in the road here and difficult situations we've been in, like, I just still feel cared for by my institution. And I like, we just had our Noah Levitz results back, and advising was one of the top services for satisfaction. So I was really proud of my team and the hard work that they do. But yeah, that happened two years in the world, so that was exciting.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, Dana, let's talk about that a little bit more like I've been I in my professional world. I think I've worked on four different campuses. Post my, my most my, my most recent degree, right? You've been at the same place your entire career. Fox Valley is the only world you know. Like, what do you think are some of the advantages and disadvantages of that? 

Dana Zahorik  
So, for me to stay abreast of, like, the high impact practices and things that are going on higher I have to make sure I am out in, like, the doing the reviews with other colleges, doing consulting with other colleges has helped me really stay in the know. I have regular digests of news feeds that comes through so I can really stay on top what's happened in higher ed, and then professional growth is a huge part of that. I just we just had a Wisconsin Technical College meeting with all 16 supervisors, and we went right down the list, and we talked about what is happening with onboarding. Where are the gaps? What are you doing? And it's kind of funny, because some of the things that we did, I don't know, 15 years ago that we stopped all of a sudden, we're bringing them back, and now they make sense again. So it's just like this continuous assessment loop of what you're doing and making sure you're you're in all these different, I guess, pockets to learn what's going on and stay on top of it. If I just sat my own little desk and just never got out of here and asked other people they were doing, I mean, it'd be not great situation, I don't think. And I surround myself with really smart people that have great ideas.

Kevin Thomas  
Well, yeah, that world, right? Like, you know, that part of it where, or, you know, people that are in that world where they do strap themselves to the desk, they never leave the development parts are pretty restricted and good for you, for like, how you broaden and how you really grew, that that experience, because think about the journey that you've had. I mean, that's just, that's amazing.

Dana Zahorik  
Yeah, I also, I'm, I'm thankful I have a team. They just have great ideas, and so they'll say, Hey, can we try this? And my supervisor has always been great about letting me try new things. Sometimes they fail, and sometimes they're great, but just always trying new things. And then I think a lot of us forget to ask the students what they want. We might think they all want a three hour orientation. That's the best thing for them. But then you survey and then they're like, I don't want a three hour orientation. No, no, those are all little things to keep in mind, I guess.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
So, you come from a world that we don't sometimes talk about all that much, in NACADA, or I think it's an area that goes under the radar, right? Like when I come to conferences, right? Having an even at the administrators Institute, having a two year person, a community college person, a technical college person, is kind of like, you're like a gremlin of sorts, right? Like, I don't mean i. In a bad way. I don't mean that in a bad way, but like, how would you describe this? Because I think a lot of people that might be listening here don't automatically come from the community college background. How would you how would you describe that experience to someone that's not worked in that space?

Dana Zahorik  
First of all, Gremlins would be the one of the movies that should not have a sequel. Okay, I'm just saying.

Kevin Thomas  
There it is there is.

Dana Zahorik  
So I think that the hardest part about you're right, there's a very small portion of us at NACADA, but they, they've come a long way about making sure we're really using some of that universal language, right when, when you refer to universe. Refer to university, then that kind of cuts the two years folks out. And I know it's hard to think of all those things, but one thing, when you think about our general population, so our average age here is 26 and almost 70% of them are going part time. So a lot of times we're talking about conversations about adult education. I mean, that's our world. That's what we're doing all the time. So our people are coming in, they're working. They've got kids. You just have to deliver in a different way, and you have to, you can't just have, like, a prescribed program plan for them, because can be different for every person. So when we are, you know, onboarding folks, we have to really ask a lot of questions and individualize their experience, because if we don't do that, we will lose them, and then we build our resource plan with them based on that.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
That's fantastic.

Kevin Thomas  
You know, Dana, let me just say, you know, from a champion standpoint, there, there are several folks that I would put on that list, but you're such a champion for what community college can be and what it is. And I think that sometimes folks get to this where they're like, Oh, you work at a community college, and they put that phrasing that's there, like, how do you like, how do you stay so like, energized and upbeat, and the champion like, effort that you put forth on being just the greatest advocate for the education and experience that's occurring on your campus and in community college around because, you know, you're involved in these reviews on various college or community colleges throughout the country.

Dana Zahorik  
So it's interesting. You saw that I went to my son's high school presentation a few years back, and they said some of you will go to college, and some of you will go to tech school. And I was like, Oh, ouch, right? And people weren't perceiving that. I know we've come a long way, and that starts right at recruitment. So we're talking to the high school counselors principals, and we're trying to change that language at that stage, right, because they're talking to students. But we also, in the last couple years, we have a little bit of a hook with the tuition rates and student loans. We are out there saying, you know, you can literally get an associate degree for $11,000 on average. Where else you going to get an education? Then our placement rates are phenomenal. I think 91% of our students have jobs when they get out of here, it's just a phenomenal placement rate. And then you can also, I don't know if you look at nursing or diesel mechanics, they're probably they're begging for you to work for them before you even get out the door, and then you have a pretty good salary. So we get to tilt that a little bit more, especially recently, when people are scared of the whole, you know, the finance pieces of going to college.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
But I but, and I think, like what you said prior, right? Like, kind of the individualization of the approach to every student, I think, is really important, and something that every institution could benefit from you, you automatically have to do it right? It just is the it's the norm. And I think maybe that's something that our four year institutions have kind of forgotten about.

Dana Zahorik  
Well, I am think, like my team wants to do that. It's funny if I said we're talking about appointment lengths, like when you think about how much time should advisors spend with a student? Well, if I only allowed a half hour, then that really means you're probably only going to get to start those conversations. But we have 45 minutes at our appointments because of that, because we ask, how confident are you about your career on a scale of one to five? Right? It's all part of our master advising plan. Then we ask, what are your short and long term goals? And then we have a list of things. It's called Factors affecting college success, and it lists things that you might stumble on. So for instance, when I went to college, if someone would have said, Dana, what do you think you're going to stumble on, or what are you afraid of? I'd be like, no idea, right? I was first. Then no clue that we write down like it could be transportation problems, it could be daycare. So it's very rare when someone just leaves that blank, and then we kind of know where that conversation goes. How to build out your resources based on that. And if you check a whole bunch of things, you're probably going to case managing that student to make sure they're they're doing well.

Kevin Thomas  
For the audience that may not know. And Brody briefly touched on it. Dana is part of our faculty on the admin. Administrators Institute, and has been for several years, and is Incoming Chair of the administrators Institute. And so he and I both have had a chance to interact in a way of teaching and engaging as we serve on faculty for that role. And this next question comes from every year being just blown away by your insight and expertise on this particular subject, but you're recognized expert in training and development and like, it's something that when I hear you talk about, like, one, it's an area of passion, but the other is, just like I learned so much from those opportunities through through what you're providing, what's the biggest mistake institutions make, do you think when training and developing advisors?

Dana Zahorik  
So sometimes, when I first of all, thanks for that myself as the trained development expert on it. No pressure.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
You shouldn't apologize for that, Dana.

Kevin Thomas  
Thanks. Way to be expert audience, if you're following along with us for our audio friends, like Dana's face is super red, and so that's where we're at at this moment. It's really just gotten to that point. So now she's not sure what to do, and so we're just killing a little time for her.

Dana Zahorik  
And I'm back. I think sometimes when I see institutions like their handbooks that they create for advisors, it is very much about technology, systems and, you know, transactional. So I think when you think back about we should really focus on is making sure that you're number one. Have a mission and vision for your advising. What is the definition of advising at your institution? What are your outcomes? Do you have a syllabus like that? All has to be created first, and then you can train. So I've seen some people like, we are declaring we have a proactive advising model. They just, like, declared it. Then the advisors are scared out of their minds, like, what does that mean? That means more work, more on my plate, so you have backup and make sure you have all those other pieces in line first, you truly understand, like, what is proactive advising? What does that mean for me? And it's kind of fun if you ask each advisor to, like, write out their own personal advising philosophy, like, how does that manage the institution? Then I feel like you can get to the nitty gritty of that. You can look at the conceptual parts of a of your training development programs and the relational information, like, you have to have all three. You of those components. And many times people stop it just the informational or it's just like a little check. I told you about how to use that degree audit check. And it's also not super inspiring, right? Like advisors want to learn more, they're eager to learn more. And many times we limit them because we don't have the money, but there's so many cool things you can do in house, just at our own institution. I know some phenomenal speakers that could just, you know, knock our socks off. Think about your internal people, you know, do an article, read, there's so many cool things that you can do that won't blow up your budget.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, it sounds like that focus on the foundations is so key before you move on to trying to run, right? It's Learn, learn to walk before you can you could run. Probably gotta learn to crawl sometimes.

Dana Zahorik  
Absolutely and then, I mean, NACADA is all about borrowing from others. My training program is like a patchwork quilt of all the cool things I've learned from other NACADA members, I did not start from scratch. I literally, I went out on the clearing house. I found some colleges that had great ideas. I reached out to them. So it's just I made it my own, but based off of different pieces, the favorite piece I think people have really loved, though, is the advisor cafe that I stole from a school in California. It's just like a gathering session. And if you have donuts and coffee, people come to anything. So that's how you get them there, right? 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I'm there. For sure.

Dana Zahorik  
Comfort donut. And then we did like, we switched up the themes, but we would have like, a What would you do? Kind of like John Quinones, and we'd throw out some scenarios, real scenarios, and had people react to it at their tables and report out we did seven minutes of success. So you have people doing really great things at your institution. Have those people share out what they're doing, and other people are intrigued, and they have in house people that they can learn the details from them.

Kevin Thomas  
You You mentioned, what, What Would You Do? And then you said, a name. Tell me that name again. 

Dana Zahorik  
John Quinones. Did I say it correctly? 

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, I think he did. But Brody, this is the guy that was at the restaurant we ate at in St Louis a year ago together. It was the host of What Would You Do? yeah, and they're eating at this barbecue joint, and like, everybody's coming up and taking pictures with him, and Brody and I were just sitting there going, Who is this guy? Like, we have no idea. We didn't know.

Dana Zahorik  
Whoa, he came to Fox Valley Tech. I actually have a picture of him with one of my advisors, and I use that as my opening slide when I do that.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
We did not get pictures with him. Now I kind of sort of regret that. 

Kevin Thomas  
We were so full from the delicious barbecue that we couldn't function.

Dana Zahorik  
YouTube that like YouTube, what would you do? It's such a cool situation. It's like a social experiment.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Dana, you mentioned right, like the balance of the conceptual, relational and informational sides of advising when designing training and development programs. You know, I've really struggled here, like I presented in the spring on AI right? And we don't, this isn't an AI session, but the one thing that I've started to notice is how much the advising community has peddled in information, right? Like, that seems to be the space that every training and development program gets right, but to a fault, like, it's the only thing that we talk about. Like, how, how have you really integrated the relational piece and the conceptual piece into that development, right? Like, those are really about skills and understanding the roles rather than all of the information you need to be credible. But the other things are really important too, right?

Dana Zahorik  
Yeah. So, like, that's an integral part of our advising model. So so many times people are confused about what their role is within their advising model. So we actually have it laid out specifically, like, at this point in the student's journey, this is a milestone, and this is what you're doing. This is who is doing it. And we have a communication plan what we are saying. So like, if we give them the toolkit to be relational, versus if you're like, Go forth and be relational, like, what does that even mean? Yeah, like that a master advising plan that automatically builds in relation, because it's telling you, check on their career readiness, check on what some of those potential barriers might be. It's it's giving them the tools. So I feel like you need to build a toolbox that goes along with your model and some sort of, like, standard of care that you're expecting your advisors to deliver. If that helps with the relational piece, the conceptual piece, I feel like can be maybe that's where those article reads come in. A lot of people have talked about, you know, advising as teaching. Well, ask your team, what does that mean? So use examples. I said to somebody, I had a student one time that said, I'm mad at my professor, but I don't want to talk to them. And I'll say the student, well, when you get out into the workforce someday, and let's say you disagree with your boss, what are you going to do, like, right? Think about it in terms of what that will do when they're employed someday. And then it's like a little teaching moment, right? So then you can do some of those examples, but I feel like that that's hard for some people, something like, how do I integrate that into those conversations?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
That's great. Yeah, I'm glad that, I'm glad that you've mentioned that, right? Like, those the conceptual pieces about understanding and the relational pieces about skills, right? Like, I, I don't talk to many advisors who don't say, you know, I could be a lot better as an academic advisor. They almost all say they're really good, but there are things that we can learn and do to be better in our interactions with students, and that maybe is to my next question, you know, how do you work with folks who say, you know, I've learned enough, and I'm not. I think I'm really good at this. Like, how do we build in training and development for folks that maybe are the reluctant attendees of these sessions?

Kevin Thomas  
So what Brody is really asking? This is an answer for him, because he's walking around at home at night and like, Listen, I'm so good. I have all this figured out? I don't need training and development, right? That's not what he's saying. Sorry. So this question may or may not be for Brody and his development.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I'm done learning. I've learned everything I can learn. Look at me. I'm as smart as I'm going to be. 

Dana Zahorik  
You've topped it. You've hit that ceiling.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Thanks, Dana.

Dana Zahorik  
Well, okay, so you have to have, I mean, we're humans, right? You have to have some sort of incentive. I was very fortunate. I worked with our HR team to infuse that into like our because we have faculty advisors, we infuse it into a faculty development opportunity so they get what's called progression, where they would take so much professional development, then they would get a stipend or some sort of reward, right? That's changed over the years, but what would happen is then the faculty would see value that would get them involved, and so we utilize that as a tool to get them there, and then once you get them there, we have an advising certificate, and you can see, if you take the advisor Academy, and three, what we like called, like, elective classes, and you get this certificate. And now, and people are like, Oh, you have that certificate. And so it just, I don't know, I think that really was helpful. And the second piece. This was, there's some departments that are just busy right there. It's hard to pick a time they're all going to come to. So I've offered to take the show on the road. I will come to your department. That's right then you can't pick and choose who's going to be there. I'll come to your department. I did that with aviation folks. I just came into the whole Academy for that particular group.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, quick hits.

Dana Zahorik  
I was so excited because there was deans that showed up too. It's like, when you have your leadership showing up, that also tells you that they find it equally as important. So yeah, if you can get leadership involved too.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, that they can show that there's value in what you're talking about. It's important enough for their time. Absolutely. Dana, you know, one of the questions that we ask within the administrators Institute, and it's gotten us some good answers and some interesting answers, is, like, what keeps you up at night? And I thought, Oh, I'm going to ask this question. And instantly, right? Like, I can see the cringe already that, like, I don't want to go there, so why don't we flip this, like, right? Instead of that, like, what keeps you hopeful or energized about the future of advising? And if you want to go beyond advising and say, student success, because I know that's a lot of the world that you work into, like, yeah, what keeps you energized and hopeful?

Dana Zahorik  
Well, I have been in higher ed my entire life, and I find that you talked about, like, initiative fatigue, and I had to get a handle on that this last year, because I was like, Oh my God, I want to try this. I'll try that. And I was like, Stop, just stop. Because I'm even my team, right? I'm like, we should try this that has an effect on them as well. So we've really tried to hone in on, just picking, like, two things that we want to focus on. So we picked two high impact practices. And that's where I get excited and hopeful for the future, is, like, these high impact practices. There's a lot of research going on, like Complete College America had shared some information. NACADA had some great articles that really helped build those two and I was like, I might be overwhelmed, but I could still make a difference in those two areas. And so if we all did that, we could learn from some of the research and the data. I mean, there's some, just some really cool things that we can do. Or one example is we're looking at students with financial holds. That is a captive audience of people that want to come to school, right? There's, there's hundreds of them here. So what can we do as a college? What some people are doing is they're looking at the threshold for when you put a registration holds on. Some people are looking at flexible loans. They're looking at micro grants. Like there's so many cool things going on. So to me, even though there's the students under preparedness and needing more effort to keep students afloat, now, if you do some of these high impact practices, it can help you feel strategic. Still, you're still making a difference. And just like as continuous problem solving, which I enjoy.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, I was, I love that. I will tell you we've done. I've really tried to focus in my new role here, right? Coming to a new place like, what policies, what practices are so out of their depth or haven't been examined, that impact student success, right? So it doesn't require a lot of work on your advisors, and it just is about identifying where the problems are and then a position to kind of solve those problems. And the great thing about that approach, to me is that advisors have really great ideas about where the problems are, and sometimes they don't automatically feel like they've got the agency to get that done, and then that's where an administrator can come into play. And so we did that with our you know, I asked this question last fall of my staff, like, if you could fix one thing about math right at your institution, what would that one thing be? And man, the responses I got from my academic advisors and my academic support people and all of the areas within my unit, it just led to a treasure trove of things that you couldn't really get done and not that hard of work, right? Like it's just, and sometimes there's big things that you gotta do and you gotta put resources to it, but in other instances, it's really the other great thing is you're listening, right? Like you're you're taking the ideas, and you're using those ideas to solve those problems. I love that approach. Dana, that's fantastic.

Dana Zahorik  
I love the fact that so an advisor said to me the other day, you realize we're with the student from the start of their journey always to the end. Like, how many other staff in the college can say that? I was like, yeah, that's profound. You're right. Going back to what you mentioned earlier, a fun thing to do, just for fun, is do an audit of your holds, like, what holds do you put on students, restricting from registration and why, and which ones are equitable and which ones are historical? It's, it's eye opening. It's very eye opening.

Kevin Thomas  
And eye opening. How many people love some holds? 

Dana Zahorik  
So as a registrar, past registrar.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, we're doing we're doing the same thing right now with priority registration. Oh boy.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, they've always had it. They're going to be upset.

Dana Zahorik  
Yeah, those are not easy conversations.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
No, hey're not easy conversations.

Dana Zahorik  
That's one thing I've learned is sometimes, if you even have an outside consultant come in and say, Hey, look at our practices and policies to see if, if that you have some suggestions make equitable practices. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
We should have fun now, Kevin, don't you think?

Kevin Thomas  
you oh, let's have fun.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Do you still have? Do you still have? If you've got more questions, let's do it.

Dana Zahorik  
I want to have fun.

Kevin Thomas  
No, I'm just here for the fun. I'm the first 40 minutes of the show. I'm okay, you know, like, it's fine, but like, like, let's go.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
All right. You want to ask the first question?

Kevin Thomas  
Oh, boy, yeah. Okay. So what is something people might be surprised to know about you, Dana?

Dana Zahorik  
here comes some good stuff. This one you should have prepared me for.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
We like these honest answers right off the cuff, like we're not playing here.

Dana Zahorik  
Well, I'm a goofball. If people haven't seen that side of me, I'm definitely a goofball. But I think I led on this earlier. I was a first gen college student. I went off to school. I had no idea was doing. I almost flunked out of college. I got a 2.0 my first semester. So I don't think people would ever have deemed me like at risk, third in my class. You know, came came into college, and I just flew under the radar. Nobody ever thought there was anything and that and I came from a teeny, teeny, tiny town, and I come from a generation of three generations of loggers. I can throw firewood like no other I could complete with you. I would crush you.

Kevin Thomas  
Now I'm there's the sound bite. I would crush you. Check out this episode of The Pickup Meeting with...

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Dana Zahorik and if you don't agree with her, she will rush you.

Dana Zahorik  
Only fire with throwing competitions. 

Kevin Thomas  
Oh, I took it to a different place.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
So, Dana, if you weren't doing academic advising work, what would you be doing? Like, what would be a different career that you'd be doing, Dana?

Dana Zahorik  
Maybe I like, I'd love to do when I retire, because that would probably hint towards it, but that's right, yeah, I want to do something with children. Like, I if they had a spot in the hospital where I could just rock babies in the ICU, I would do that all day long.

Kevin Thomas  
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, so that's a good answer. Like, I'm not, I'm not. Your answer of baby rockin, right? Like I was not expecting that answer, because I feel like I've heard your retirement plan and it's to, like, buy adult tree houses and like, have a tree house campground. Am I? Am I way off the line?

Dana Zahorik  
I do have the plans for my tree house, but I came across so many zoning problems that I can't because of the square footage of it, so that one's paused.

Kevin Thomas  
Okay, so you've gone from tree house to baby rocking.

Dana Zahorik  
I mean, that was back in my head. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, it's a fair trade. 

Kevin Thomas  
It's great. I think it's going to be a rockin time. See what I did there. Dana, what is your you know, the premise of the pickup meme we've talked about this is like, it's the meeting that you just kind of stumble into, that you have this just random conversation with so what did your go to drink order coffee or other on a tough day at work, tough day with advising?

Dana Zahorik  
I know I'm definitely a Chocolate Martini person.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Oh, she went there. She went to alcoholic drink.

Kevin Thomas  
Listen, I said, we said tough, and we probably set ourselves up for that.

Dana Zahorik  
I should I had said coffee?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Say whatever you want. I mean, if people are going to think you're drinking chocolate martinis in the morning and a tough advising day, then...

Dana Zahorik  
Before work? I didn't hear that. I thought you said, if I'm having a tough day and I get home. Rewind. That would be a latte, it would be a vanilla latte. If it's after work, and then you said martinis, I can only have one. I'm a wondering, wonder and that, yeah, it would just be one after work, not plural.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I snorted. So we've so we've been doing these. Well, I can't say we've been doing it, because we only did it with Tara. We this is our second time, but we have lightning round questions, and they're fun too. Okay, and so we're gonna just lightning round it. And the first lightning round question, Dana, what was your first job?

Dana Zahorik  
Waitressing. Oh. Oh, sorry, dishwasher. The North Woods in in pickerel, Wisconsin. Everybody should do that. It's the most humbling. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I was a dishwasher too. It wasn't my hardest job, but doggone it.

Kevin Thomas  
Very tough. Yeah, those, those jobs are a lot. Favorite higher ed moment?

Dana Zahorik  
Favorite higher ed moment? Well, there is a student that took seven years to get through college, and she worked at Walmart, and she had told me that everybody she worked with said she was stupid and she would never make it. Oh no. And she like, she would come in by me just for encouragement, and so to see her graduate, like, yeah, I just get chills thinking about it. Still to this day, that was probably my better moment.

Kevin Thomas  
I'm getting teary eyed just thinking of it right now.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
What are you listening to, reading or watching right now? 

Dana Zahorik  
Bidgerton. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Oh, you're a bridgerton fan. 

Dana Zahorik  
Yeah, sorry. I'm not, yeah. I just and then anything comedy too. I'm a big comedy person. I just watched Happy Gilmore 2. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
We did. Pretty cameo heavy, but I wasn't that disappointed. I mean, it was fun and mindless, pretty good.

Dana Zahorik  
Yeah, as my kid would say it was mid.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
What's your favorite cereal, Dana?

Dana Zahorik  
Um, probably Rice Krispies with bananas cut up in it. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Love the banana in the cereal.

Kevin Thomas  
All right. In the same vein, your favorite cookie?

Dana Zahorik  
Salted like the chocolate chip cookies with the salt on top, the big chunks of salt, you know I'm talking about? Not crumble cookie, though. I want, I want a homemade one. I can skip anything bought. And once you bring a homemade cookie in, I'm all over it. 

Kevin Thomas  
It'll be interesting to see if this relates to your favorite ice cream flavor.

Dana Zahorik  
It has been and always will be, mint chocolate chip.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Okay. Does it need to be green?

Dana Zahorik  
I actually prefer it not to be. I like the white. You know what I'm talking about, when you see the white chunks in there, yeah, at one of those places where the custards flowing out of the machine, you know, it's fresh, yeah? And we're talking.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
All right, what's the what's the most overrated holiday?

Dana Zahorik  
Definitely Halloween. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I agree with you 100% Dana, we're on the same page. 

Dana Zahorik  
There's Halloween stuff out already. That's just not fair. Like, you know what? I mean, let's get to the spice and the pumpkins, and then we go to Halloween. You can't just bypass that beautiful little moment where all the fall leaves and pumpkin spice coffee.

Kevin Thomas  
I feel so judged in this moment, like, I think I literally just bought like, a big, like, Haunted Mansion thing for the house for this Halloween. And I was like, it's on sale right now. Let's get it. But did you put it out? No, but I really did think about bringing it to my office and sitting on the table for the next four months. 

Dana Zahorik  
Won't do it until September. It's just not fair to the rest of the fall funness.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I live on this old street in my neighborhood, and there is a house down the road about almost a mile where they haven't taken the big, massive skeleton. It sits like 20 feet in the air. They've never gotten rid of it. It just stays there all year. And I'm like, What are you doing? Like, come on.

Kevin Thomas  
And what are their names if they're listening to them. No kidding.

Dana Zahorik  
I do have fun with Halloween, though. Like, I built when my kids were small. We built a body farm out of cardboard. And you would put your hand, and then you would feel like spaghetti, right? And you'd feel grapes. You had to, like, really, whoop it up. And then we handed out shots for the adults.

Kevin Thomas  
Wow, that's the fun house. I'm in for that.

Dana Zahorik  
You just perked up when I said that, Kevin.

Kevin Thomas  
All right, we gotta, we gotta lighten this a little more. One idea for making airline travel better. 

Dana Zahorik  
I mean it just fixed that. Like the shoes I don't like taking my shoes off, that's disgusting. Yeah, we're good though.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Uh, how about an interesting fact that maybe only you care about or think is cool? Well, it could be anything like that. Interesting fact about anything.

Dana Zahorik  
Can I like come back to that one? Your lightning round thing?

Kevin Thomas  
We'll come back to that. That'll be our closing one. So you've got to think of something great, best food experience.

Dana Zahorik  
I can't think of any as a place in St Louis where they throw the buns.

Kevin Thomas  
Oh, Lamberts.

Dana Zahorik  
I love the fun part of that. It's not just the food, yeah, it's the fun part.

Kevin Thomas  
If you haven't checked out a Lamberts and they toss the rolls at you, better watch out.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I just buy the pound of bacon that you can buy. That's the meal I've gotten the last couple of times. And then I eat the fried okra, right? 

Dana Zahorik  
that's a must, right? 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Let's go favorite vacation?

Dana Zahorik  
Hawaii, because I just came from there. It's just fresh in my brain. I really enjoyed the caving and then electric mountain biking. Crazy, crazy fun. Anything outdoors for me.

Kevin Thomas  
I'm gonna flip this one so we don't end on this one. Brady. Worst moment of your college career? 

Dana Zahorik  
College career. You mean like working here?

Kevin Thomas  
Or your college career, whatever you want to go with.

Dana Zahorik  
Oh, so we had, it was called Act 10 in Wisconsin, and half of my office all left at once that like they retired, walked out the door. That was it was just hard, because it was like such good friends of mine, and they all left at once. When they leave one at a time, right? You can grieve a little bit, then you're good. But that was a hard one. I'd get up to the eggs, and I was like, I miss my friends. Recovered, though I have recovered.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Our last question, coolest college tradition that you've experienced?

Dana Zahorik  
Oh, one that I can talk about?

Kevin Thomas  
There are several answers that have me that we need a follow up to this podcast already. Dana, after hours, you know, like, maybe for this one, but like...

Dana Zahorik  
I did not participate in this one, but it did happen at my college, my undergraduate college,

Kevin Thomas  
Sure, sure. Whatever you need to tell us, Dana.

Dana Zahorik  
Um, people would disrobe and put bags on their heads and run out into this big mud pit, and I would lock the door and not participate. 

Kevin Thomas  
Holy smokes. I didn't know where that was going to go, Brody, but here we are. 

Dana Zahorik  
I feel like that. There's probably a lot of stories like that. People just don't admit, you know, yeah, because their moms might be listening.

Kevin Thomas  
But there it is.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, Dana, it was great having you on.

Dana Zahorik  
Thanks for having me. 

Kevin Thomas  
Just have to say, like, Listen, if we're going to have a pickup meeting. It's hard to have a better one than just sitting around with Dana and having a good conversation and chatting about all the things, but I we really appreciate you sharing today with the audience and sharing about your expertise.

Dana Zahorik  
Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1  
I miss your faces. Yeah. Are you coming to annual? All right. I'll see you there. That's awesome.

Kevin Thomas  
Dana will be at the annual conference. So if you have questions about Bridgerton, she is now your go to, yeah, that's the takeaway from today. She's not a big fan of Gremlins 2. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Thanks. See you. Oh, that was so fun, Kevin.

Kevin Thomas  
Oh, what a pickup meeting. I loved it. Yeah, listen this lightning round we're gonna have to keep evolving like you know, as we keep going through the weeks. People have suggestions for lightning round questions. Feel free to send them in and let us know that would be great.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, I really enjoyed her training and development stuff too. Kevin, gosh, she's got so much good stuff to share there.

Kevin Thomas  
One of the things that kept reminding me of and I used to teach an academic advising course, and on the very first class session, I would ask the students to write what their advising philosophy is, and have them turn it in. And, you know, no matter what, give them a really decent grade on it. And as long as they they did with did the assignment and and then at the end of the semester, the last assignment they would do is, what is their advising philosophy now? And a large majority of them wouldn't remember what that is, but then you know, through the semester now, understood that foundation that Dana talks about as being such a key part of of really how you set yourself up for success, and knowing why you believe what you believe, and why advising is important to what you're doing and part of your career. And that was just such a powerful activity.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, hearing her talk about the story about the student right and the impact right kind of the person coming and watching her grow through her experience with that student, and knowing what she was accomplishing and what she had heard in her head and from other folks is just a reminder. Reminder to about the importance of the work that we're doing, right? And then it's more than just scheduling the stories that I have when I'm working in advising people aren't running around going, man, Brody really made a difference in my life. That four year plan he put together for me was killer, right? And so that information is important. It builds the credibility that yet you have with the student. But at the end of the day, the way that you make students feel when you're interacting with them and and I think that's where good training and development kind of fits in, in terms of understanding our role as we work with students through their time with us at the institutions where we work.

Kevin Thomas  
All right, so as we, as we transition to an end here, like, what was the what was the one question from the lightning round that you're sitting there going, oh, I want to talk about this. There's the one standing out. I'm gonna guess it's food related. Like, your best food experience, you're like, I want to tell this story.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
God, I have so many good food experiences. That isn't what I was going to talk about.

Kevin Thomas  
Listen, if anybody follows you on Instagram, they know that you have so many food experiences that are so good.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I've been so bad about posting to Instagram here lately, too, Kevin,doggone it, maybe I need to get back into that. Here's what I'm thinking about right now, Kevin, I am addicted to a song right now. I cannot get it out of my head. I went to a concert this weekend. Went to sea wax a hatchet. I feel really lucky in my life. Currently, I live five minutes from a really cool venue in Bloomington, Illinois called the castle theater. Waxahatchee. Katie Crutchfield singing this song. Called right back to it, and I MJ Lenderman, who's an artist that I saw last year in Pittsburgh with my good friend Kerry Kincanon, who we have to have on the show for sure, right? I am addicted to this song. I cannot get enough of it. I think it's the perfect song. So there's where you're at. That's where I'm at. That's what I'm thinking about right now. All right, that song is perfect. What are you thinking about right now?

Kevin Thomas  
I'm trying to think of how we wrap this, this shindig, up today, at this moment. But, you know, like, honest to God, right? Like I mentioned this Oklahoma City trip with with, with my kiddo, and we went to this place. And I am not a pie person, right? Like, I'm just not, but went to this place called pie junkie. And, like, listen, I hope it's there two years from now when annual conferences in Oklahoma City, because Nakata people should flock to this place. They had a s'mores pie, and I got a French silk pie, not in one setting, because that's that's too much. But like in two different days, went to this place and and I'll be honest, after having lunch today, and I enjoyed my salad, it was great. But on my mind right now is some pie.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
My mom makes the best lemon meringue pie. There is. I just love it so much. But when you say pie, I think, I think, like the hostess fruit pies, like, I wonder. I don't know how I survived my childhood without those, but that's why I was such a fat little kid. Gosh darn well, maybe that's good enough. We should end right there. I don't think it can get better. 

Kevin Thomas  
We should, okay, but hold on, like there was one question, and we didn't get to ask Dana this one, and so I figured this a good way for us to end this one and then head out. If we gave you a billboard in the middle of the NACADA annual conference, what would it say? I know this is a really hard question that was on our list.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
I think do good? Like, be nice. I think it would be those two things, right? Like, do good.

Kevin Thomas  
I like it. I if I was going to go with it just at this moment, and it wasn't going to be something super positive like yours, is it would be put your phone away and talk to a human.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Oh, that's a great one too. I love it. Gosh. 

Kevin Thomas  
We're wrapping things up for today. It's been so good to have you listening. We hope to have you back when we have our next episode. But you know, it's where we're at. It's time to sign off next time new topics and see at the next pickup meeting. 

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
That's right. We'll try to be better. We promise. That's the only thing that we can promise. And we'll try to be better.