Ep. 33 - A "Just Us" Episode

May is doing May things: inboxes are chirping, calendars are packed, batteries are blinking red, and somehow Brody is recording while standing up. In this “Just Us” episode of The Pickup Meeting, Brody and Kevin celebrate a major milestone, unpack the weird little work habits that make us all twitch, and dig into why academic and career advising should stop living in separate silos. This episode has it all from “reply all” crimes to recharge culture, lifeguard life lessons, AI as an advising sidekick, summer goals, and vinyl record collections.

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

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Transcript

Kevin Thomas  
And away we go. Welcome back to the pickup meeting. Let's treat this meeting like a band aid. One quick rip and it's over. How are you?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Brody? I'm good. I liked that one.

Kevin Thomas  
Listen, my goal here is to just make sure that you enjoy the show, right? Like, I'm not here for me. I'm not here for the audience. Screw those people don't care. I'm here. Brody, bro shears as he towers over us today, are you like standing? What is happening? Yeah, I'm standing

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
today, you know, like, I've had this back issue that's not going away, and so I need to kind of move around from time to time. And today I'm standing. It's kind of fun.

Kevin Thomas  
It's something you're moving a lot like, I think, for our audience that watches, and we hear a lot of you really enjoy watching the show, for our audience that watches it, they're going to say, Brody made me nauseous because you are everywhere as I move around the screen.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, I'm I'll try to stay still, but I can't guarantee anything that's for sure. I mean, Kevin, like people are watching us, and I know they're watching us because there was one episode where you were on the left side of the screen and I was on the right side of the screen. And apparently this is a thing, like, I'm always on the left side and you're always on the right side. And we've had people tell us, don't do that again. Yeah, you got to be on the right side. Shout out,

Kevin Thomas  
Kristen Carey for the you're on the wrong side. Messages right? Like, can you fix this in the future? Who knew i i did not, but we have fixed it, and so now it's better for everyone, and people are people are listening and people are watching. And I would say a trend that's really occurring at this moment is a lot of people are watching and maybe fewer people are listening. But we did cross in early or in late April, 5000 views or downloads, which, to me, is mind blowing, because I thought it might be five when we started this thing,

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
yeah, like, May, yeah, like, our families and our friends, that's it. But people are

Kevin Thomas  
listening, yeah? I think the last I saw was like 45 countries, nearly 500 cities, and I think 46 of the 50 states, something like that. People are listening. I would call out the states, but I really don't remember them. But I because we gained New Mexico in the last couple of weeks, which we had not had. So shout out, New Mexico. Is it? Is it like,

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
it's like Idaho and Alaska and a couple of those western states?

Kevin Thomas  
Maybe, yeah, and, and then, randomly, West Virginia. What West Virginia?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Come on program. Let's go

Kevin Thomas  
Morgantown. I mean,

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
go, one of my

Kevin Thomas  
beer dear friends, the other team towns in West Virginia. So, yeah,

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
yeah, you know you were talking left side, right side. Like, I always sleep on the left side of the bed. So that's perfect. I feel, I feel vindicated in some way, like I can't really sleep on a right side of a bed. Is that? Is that weird?

Kevin Thomas  
I think so. Because, like, I just was thinking about and I'm like, I sleep in a bed. I don't really care.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Fair, I'm not sleeping well at all.

Kevin Thomas  
Well, no, because you're not feeling well, so now you're standing up and towering over us and pickup meetings, I know.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, I. I'm not that person. I mean, I'm standing because my back hurts, right? Like, that's it,

Kevin Thomas  
yeah, and that's we need you to get healthy, right? Like, the pickup meeting cannot be the pickup meeting with Kevin. No, I think I'm a good time, but no one else really does, and doing the show by myself not a good look. So, like, let's go. It's got to be with Brody and Kevin.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yes. How about a plan? There's a plan. So, yeah, get healthy for us. Yeah, working

Kevin Thomas  
on one of our future guests, and I don't remember, I think she's on in June or July with us this year. Beth. Lessen the VP for Student Affairs and Enrollment at CSU Long Beach. Calm down, folks. This is a just us meeting, and she posted something on LinkedIn recently that made me think of this, just talking about it a little bit, which is, essentially, we all have phones. We walk around with phones, and the behavior that we do with phones is interesting, but your phone hits 20% and a lot of us are panicked at that moment, and they're plugging that thing in, but when we hit 20% we push through to another meeting, another email, another late night, another conversation that we don't necessarily always have the energy for. And so we've built cultures on endurance and administrators answering emails and weird times, but like, depletion, as she says, Isn't dedication and and I really thought about this topic, and I love it. I love the fact that, like, she's not wrong, right, like, like, we have a culture in our world that we deplete ourselves and don't take the time that we probably need to.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, that's 100% true. And the other thing that I'd say is, like, don't have a life changing, physical event to change the way that we think about this. I'm I, you know, I've shared this before, but like, when something really bad happens to you and you have to really question, like, oh, man, life's really way more important than work, that's a blessing, but it's not the kind of blessing I wish on folks. We just have to get better at kind of understanding the importance of rest and rejuvenation. You know, the older I've gotten as a runner, you know, sleep and and recovery is just as important as the training session in so many ways. And I think we need to think about that from our work lives perspective too.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, I'm going to mention this later in our top three. But one of the things that is a goal for my summer is to take some time away to actually recharge a little bit and use summer for that. And that is not been my norm. I am one of these folks that say, Listen, like summers are busy on the college campus, and I am going to make sure that I take some time off in the fall and be strategic in that my right hand, Courtney Bryant, will typically say, you're never here in November. And that's true. I'm typically gone November. But I'm going to try to take some time away this summer and recharge and and make sure that my my battery is as close to 100% more frequently than realizing that it's often at 20 or 25% and I'm having to just push my way through.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, I I'm always very nervous here. The last month or so, I'm not sleeping very well because of my back and I've been I've been sick a couple times like I think because of the medicines I'm taking, it's just not been great. But like, my Garmin keeps saying I'm basically dead, and I don't like that at all. I gotta get recharged. But like, my sleep score poor. Sleep score poor. And I'm like, Ah, maybe I just need to take it off and throw it away, but it tracks my steps. Kevin Thomas, come on, I know, but you could take it

Kevin Thomas  
off at night. I could. It's true. I don't know how I feel about the wearing things at night. I used to have a Sleep Number bed, and there are times I woke up and I thought, oh my gosh, I slept amazing. And then I would look at the Sleep Number score, and it was like, was like, 55 and I'm like, Oh, I slept terrible. Why did I sleep terrible? Like, why am I letting technology tell me that I did or didn't do something? It's true, right? And now people are wearing the rings. Yeah, I I'm not, I'm not going to do that one either. I'm gonna stay away. I'm going to determine how I'm doing. I don't need your technology. Yes, I don't know that that's true. I probably do.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
How would you know how many

Kevin Thomas  
steps you have? I know I need it for the steps, but I don't wear it at night. I don't sleep in a watch that feels like a lot. I don't

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
know why you think that. It's a lot. It's just on your wrist. I I mean, I'm generally asleep. I don't even think about it.

Kevin Thomas  
When do you charge it?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Like, when? Like, yesterday, when I was in my car, I charged it because I'm not moving. So I'll charge it in my car like, if I like, here, right now the pickup meeting. If it was kind of low, I'd charge it during the pickup meeting, because I'm not really walking.

Kevin Thomas  
Now, interesting. All right, hey, a couple weeks ago we had a conversation about email, and it's probably been about a month ago we had conversation about email, and the number of emails that you keep in your inbox versus the number that I keep in mind, the answer right now is 16, and it feels like a lot, but it brought some feedback in this conversation, annoying things that happen within emails or within your workstation itself, and and I listen, I am at a point where There are certain things that are definitely triggers for me, and I think they're triggers for more than just me, which is things like messages that are simple and you hit Reply All on to say, thank you. Yes, you might as well just punched me in the face with that. Like, come on. Like, we don't need a reply. All that just validates that you're a nice human, or that you got the email. Do not hit thank you on that. My favorite, right is the as per my last email, yeah, that's aggressive. You're being crappy. Don't be crappy. Yeah, or, and this is my personal favorite, because I think I've done this and I need to stop, right? I need to stop doing it. You know what? I don't like your tone of that email, so when I reply back, your boss is going on it?

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Kevin Thomas, I know.

Kevin Thomas  
I know. So terrible, I know. Yeah, those are the ones that stood out to me. It's like, these things that we don't like always talk about, but came up from the email conversation. And the other one that got me on the work thing is how bougie I am now, and I will say that from work environment, because if you say, Hey, can you work at this, this area today, and I look at it, I'm like, No, there's one monitor. Like, I can't do it. Like, I need multiple monitors, and I have 232 inch monitors that are in front of you and all day long. And some of that's because I'm getting old and I can't see and I need to have it the bigger screen. But some of that is just because I can no longer function with just one monitor.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Well, I am surprised to hear about that lack of grown up behavior. I'm working on one monitor today. Lack of grown up behavior. Yeah, those that response the sea seeing of the boss on the email reply, wow. Yeah, that happened. It could, I guess. But I'm working on what with one monitor today, and it's like, the 15 inch monitor, right? And you're like, oh, so I have, like, our kind of, our notes in one and I can barely see your head, which may be a good thing. I don't, I don't know, but, like, I can barely see me in this whole thing. But I'm ready to talk about whatever we're going to talk about, so I guess it's okay.

Kevin Thomas  
All right, listen, last time you said I was looking good, this time you can't even see me. So, like, I don't know, yeah,

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
that's the whole I mean, the only thing with email that I have trouble with, it's pretty clear, is are, like, all the pings and the notations, like, I usually have them silence, and then just one day, I'll plug my computer in and everything's making noise, and I'm like, What the heck? I didn't change any of these notifications.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, as much as we like to say, technology is our friend, I don't know that

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
it is. I mean, the other thing too, that I'm really good at is nothing on my phone related to work gets pushed like, I don't, like, I have to go into teams to see what's on teams. I don't get any notifications sent to me. Same thing with email, right? So even if I have 2500 emails, and even if there are 50 or so that are unread, like, I got to go into my email to see that. And I think that's healthy,

Kevin Thomas  
yeah, I think so too. That's I do that as well. All right. Well, listen email more fun on the pickup meeting. Hey, we've been wanting to talk about this, and I think we've kind of hinted around the topic for quite a while. Yeah, a student doesn't wake up and think today I will do academic planning, and tomorrow I will do career planning. Yeah, they just think I want a life. So why do we keep these things in different buildings, different offices, different efforts, like what like, academic and career advising are so critical, but are often so. So siloed,

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
yes, it's not great. And the question becomes, who's responsible? And I think higher ed institutions are responsible, right? I mean, the research time and time again shows us that students see this as one in the same, right? I mean, how many times when you were an academic advisor, did you have a student go, man, I really love English, but I don't want to be an English teacher. What can I do? Or I'm taking this Intro to American politics class, and I love it, but I don't know what I can do with that, right? And as advisors, we have to have good responses to those questions. It can't be well, I can tell you what classes you need to take, but I don't know anything about political science. I think we just lose some credibility there. And the other thing that I'd say is right, so research tells us it's one thing from an academic advising perspective. The other thing that I always like to let advisors know is that from day one, the earliest definitions of academic advising integrated those two pieces, right? They said that the selection of coursework is one component of advising, but that vocational and career choice is another component, helping students maneuver and sort out life goals. Was a part of this work too, and I know sometimes we get hung up in I don't have enough time to do that, but I think there are innovative ways to kind of get that sorted. And when we ask advisors, they generally want to talk about these things. So why aren't we doing it better? Right? That becomes the question.

Kevin Thomas  
As we have this conversation, I can't help but reflect on our last just us, episode in which we were talking about reading and we were talking about purpose within reading. And I think that this is a big part of the academic conversation, but I also think it's a big part of the career advising conversation where students and I can remember this right. Like I can remember sitting down to take classes, or being in a class and thinking, Why am I in this right? And that purpose of class matters so, like, if you're in a career where calculus or physics or something is going to matter, like to be able to say, here's the career payoff by being in this class matters more than you've got to take this to get through Gen Ed, right? Or you've got to take this because then you can get to this class. The curricular purpose is not the same as a career purpose. Career purpose can be really motivating, because I'm going to need this in these fields, and that's where I think we have to get from scheduling to purpose, finding within the conversations were happening having. And I think that the national and state conversation of career outcomes being a greater focus means that Advising and Career advising, like both in academic and career, have to really evolve into having those conversations, which means a greater depth and knowledge that has to be there too.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, and I think easy ways to integrate this into academic advising, right? We, we should be curious about our students, values, their interests, what they're good at, what you know, their personality like those are clues that can help us, I think, really assist students as they sort through these kinds of issues. You know, what is it about political science that you really enjoy? Or what is it about this summer job that you really liked? We talked about career related experience, and I never forget this, but I had a student one year in my first year experience, course, said I don't do anything important. I'm just a lifeguard, and I'm like, hold the phone, like just one second here, right? Let's think about the title of your job. Can we just shift the two words, like you're guarding life. What could be more important than that? And what have you learned from that experience? Right? Your eyes have to be on that pool all the time. You have to be trained to deal with any emergency that might arise, like, you're responsible for the well being of however many people are at that pool in any given day. Like, how might that be useful in a different career? Like, let's start counting the ways and so students, we have a responsibility, from my perspective, to help students kind of understand how all of their experiences can be valuable to them as they move through their college journey.

Kevin Thomas  
And I think no matter what role you sit in, I think that this topic comes down to partnership. Yes, and you know, we think about this, it's not just advisors on their own, whether that's academic or career in those offices, because most campuses are siloed in that way. But we're talking alumni, local, employers, faculty, right? Like building those connections makes us better at being able to talk about the career outcomes and the career purpose that is attached to classes, and all of a sudden, if you're able to articulate that to a student, that this is going to be the outcome, this is going to be the purpose, I think that's pretty powerful. The other thing I would add in this, and we've kind of touched on this conversation, yeah, but technology is pretty powerful here. I know we were talking about our frustrations with email, but technology, and especially our partner in AI, can be helpful in this well, like you're about to meet with a student, and they're saying they're interested in a career in English, and you remember things from last conversation, jot some of those into it and say, you know, what are career factors I should be considering when I'm about to talk to the student? Yes, you know, like, use those resources that are there so that you can have a more enhanced conversation than just putting it all in the the students arena, to be able to answer everything. And you just are responding back to what they bring. Bring something to the table there.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, I agree with that, and we should be listening to students too. You know, they're they're telling us, they're giving us good ideas. They want shadowing opportunities. They want more professionals in their area of interest coming to class. They want more help with internships and probably earlier. They want us to kind of teach them some life and power, power skills. And then I think what we've seen, I know that I've seen this in some of our career services areas the last couple places I've worked, you know, more niche or smaller career fairs that are really very targeted. And students are saying, Yes, I want more personalized attention, more specific kinds of things when we think about career fair kinds of scenarios. And so we should be listening to students and both the campuses where I've worked here recently, I think those partnerships with career services, with act with academic departments, helping academic departments develop career outcomes, getting them to think about return on investment, getting faculty more aware of potential career opportunities in in say, for example, in liberal arts spaces, has been really, really fruitful in the last couple places where I've worked. It's it's made a huge difference.

Kevin Thomas  
Yeah, and I think that for me, I academic and career is a great conversation, a great, great look into things. But as universities, I think one of the things that this evolution that's coming, if it's not already starting in this way is figuring out ways to build success ecosystems that don't rely on the student being a project manager or a campus navigator, yep, to be successful in their own degree. Yeah, you know, like, I think about this all the time. When I look at Nessie data and look at different surveys that are sent out, and students are responding and they say, Well, my faculty member said this, or my advisor said that, honest, I don't know that students always know the difference between the two, and so if they're not able to tell the difference, they're looking at that wrap around service and that wrap around support that can be there that is going to create a success plan for them, whatever that might look like.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yes and the Yes, I totally agree with that and and I think the other piece look the elephant in the room is this, and that is so many of our students are connected in ways that that networking piece is really important in this discussion, and one of the things I think we're missing on in colleges and universities is helping those that don't automatically have that network get connected. And so I think the other piece to this is creating opportunities that help build networks for those students that maybe haven't had the chance to be as connected, right? And so to me, that's another space where institutions can be more intentional about the way that we're serving students in the academic and career integration realm, right is giving students that aren't automatically connected those opportunities to develop good work experiences. I know that. And in at the University of Southern Indiana, with our Lily grant, we started to we, we got money from Lily to be able to pay for students who are doing unpaid work, right? And that just was a huge game changer, because so many of those students really loved that opportunity, but they can't do it without being able to get paid. And so I think finding dollars or finding ways in which you build those networks is so critical.

Kevin Thomas  
I don't disagree. I don't know. Oh, hey, good chat. Good chat. Yeah, hey, it's late. Well, it's late ish May, and we know how this works, just like the academic year, sometimes you blink and it's over, sometimes you blink and summer's over. And so it'll be August before we know it. Don't throw things at us. Audience, one, we're not in front of you and damage your computer. Two, it does no good. You need to learn to deal with your rage, folks. But we wanted to talk about top three things you actually want to accomplish before the August Rush hits. And they can have a little work on this, but probably a little personal on this list, are there things that stand out to you is like things you want to accomplish.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, I have a couple that I'm look, I got to get back physically to where I want to be. There's no question about that. I am really struggling, like we talk about buckets, and my physical bucket is on the down low right now, for sure, so trying to be patient and give myself a little bit of grace trying to walk, and that's really been the only thing I've been able to do. But I'm hopeful that I'm going to get that sorted this summer. I want to curate my record collection. I got to get rid of some records. Kevin, you you and I know you poke fun at me all the time. I love my vinyl, but it got out of control there for a little while, and so it's time to it's time to thin the herd, so to speak. And then professionally, you know, I've got a new boss coming in, and I'm really looking forward to kind of sharing the impact that University College has had at Illinois State University, and I'm excited about that opportunity. And, you know, we did a great year in review for 2425 we were a little bit late getting that out, but we're going to spend the summer reviewing KPIs in each of our areas. I'm excited about that kind of our internal assessment piece, and then getting that document set and ready to go so that it's out pretty early here in the fall of 26 all of those things are kind of on my list. What about you?

Kevin Thomas  
Listen? I have my list. I in recent episodes, we've started to do a little bit more on sounders. I think we need a sounder for whenever you or I mentioned the place we work, or places we used to work and in like you and I are both prepared to like ding each other on that one, right? Like, it's like, yes, USI. Ding, Illinois State. Ding, Murray State. Ding, you know, like, I feel like, I feel like, we need to start to keep track of it. See who wins in this battle. I think it's you, but we could see who. Oh, I hate you so much. Yeah, so I'm excited. My son and I are going to go to Kansas City this summer, and we're going to do several things like we like to go to thrift shops and memorabilia shops and things like that, but I think we're going to try to catch Cardinals and Royals game this summer. So I'm excited about some time away to get up there. And I've never been to a Royals game in Kansas City, so it's amazing. Yeah, I'm excited about that, because there's not many more seasons of that. They're going to have a new stadium here soon. Oh, that's crazy.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah,

Kevin Thomas  
I honestly, I'm I'm really hoping to accomplish, and I know this gets into the work is building a good retreat for the division and or leadership within the division. You and I have talked about this. You're on you're on my list for that, because you do an excellent development with with happiness, and I feel like with the temperature and tone that's coming to higher education in the next three to five years, I think some focus on those things are going to be important. Talking about a collaborative effort with you and our good colleague Ashley Thomas, who does a lot on discovering your why. Yeah, wanting to have you both come to campus this summer or early in the fall and getting that set up. And then I am not a big reader. I know in our early May episode, we talked about reading, and my goal is to get through a book this summer. And I think that's just a personal goal of finding some downtime and reading something of interest and just enjoying those abilities to read and just taking that in.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, I gotta maybe I'll find it. I'll help you. I'll help you find a good sports book, something that kind of gets you going. That's really, really like, I just finished the Miles Davis book, you know, I and I'm going to find another music I'm thinking about reading the Neil Young, the Neil Young autobiography, and maybe some other music books, but you need a good sports book, like, come on. I know

Kevin Thomas  
those are the ones I typically read, you know, what was it? A five nights in August, three nights in August, Tony.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, yeah, that's great.

Kevin Thomas  
Kurt Warner's book, I think I've read, and Seabiscuit, like, if it's anything sporty, I'll typically do okay. It's just, I gotta, I gotta get better at doing more of that and less. Of having a phone in my hand or watching something on TV all the time.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Well, Kevin, I know you've had to read some. You're a pretty smart guy.

Kevin Thomas  
Hey, thanks, man. I do rockin Thomas, thanks. I appreciate that. I do what I do my best.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah. I mean, I'm not a doctor, but I still read, I

Kevin Thomas  
know, but you like to play one at home. No, I don't know. I did

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
say the holiday at Express last night. I mean,

Kevin Thomas  
come on, that's right. Well, we've gotten to the end here. And look, we made it through May, and our just us episodes.

Michael "Brody" Broshears  
Yeah, so gang, the future is coming, but for today, the sun's out, so go take a walk. We'll be here when you get back. And until next time, let's just do good and be nice. Let's go you.