Book Review: Show Your Work!

This recent work from author Austin Kleon aims to address the issue of getting your work discovered in our modern, busy, noisy world.

Much like his previous book, Steal Like an Artist (which I also reviewed here), it is an unconventionally written book, with a very brief, casual voice that focuses on some simple, but actionable tips. Kleon delves into things like being authentic, utilizing social media and other platforms to share content (your own and others), as well as just sharing your story and having fun with the process of creating. I don't think any of these tips are revolutionary, but seeing them here as well as other books and articles I've read further reinforces the advice. I do my best to embody many of them already, and it has been effective, so it deepened my commitment to keep it up after reading this book.

I will say that Kleon's work is probably not for everyone. I appreciate the candid, casual feel to these books and others like it, but it I have started to think that many will see them as too simplistic and too cavalier. It assumes a lot I think to just lay out the advice these sort of books do (essentially, just do it and the success will come) since I think life is a lot more complicated than the way these sorts of books convey things. They also seem to convey a bit of privilege at times that makes the advice less accessible to most people. From my point of view, not everyone can just drop everything and go for their "passion". People need to be able to pay their bills and live their lives while not having to worry about if their art is going to make them enough money. Thankfully, Kleon does acknowledge this a bit by seeing a lot of people as working a full-time day job to fund and supplement their creative "side hustles", and if you can make money off of this effort, that's great but it isn't necessary. This is refreshing and far more realistic from my point of view. Not everyone is going to have the time or the money to devote to creating a living for writing from nothing, and it is important to acknowledge that with a book like this. I'm glad this one does.

With all that being said (just had to get that out) I think this book, and Kleon's other work, Steal Like an Artist, are great starters for someone looking to nourish a creative hobby and looking to get it noticed too. I know I write for myself, but I'd also love for my writing to help and positively impact other people. I write from the heart and it's awesome to connect with other people through it.

Check out Show Your Work! and purchase it at any of your favorite book retailers.

Thanks for stopping by!

Finding Yourself & Geek Identity Theory

During my first semester of graduate school, I took a course on theory development within college students.  I learned about theories grounded in career development, religious development, and personal identity development.  Within personal identity development I noticed a commonality between all the theories.  I was taught to use theory as a base knowledge to understand a student better, being able to assess where each person was on the developmental level.  As a self-named geek, I was determined to find other applicable identities for students to develop.  Here is the "Wagner Geek Identity Development Model" (WGIDM) as seen through my own development.

Stage 1: Non-geek

During this stage, students do not consider themselves to be geeky.  This was reflected during my first year of college.  My interests were of movies and not much else.  I did not have an overt affection towards video games, superheroes, or anything deemed “geeky” by society.

Stage 2: Open to Geek Culture

During this stage, students are opened up to the geek culture.  In my second year of college, a fellow resident assistant took me to a comic book store and opened my mind to my favorite superhero, Green Lantern.  This moment sparked an internal revolution into geekdom, leading into stage 3.

Stage 3: NooB

This stage is when geeks begin to make meaning of their identity.  This can be seen through a new variety of one’s Netflix qeue, frequent trips to comic book stores or GameStop, and enhanced research on the geek culture.  It is during this stage that individuals seek out groups of fellow geeks to validate their feelings and share in experiences.

Stage 4: Leroy Jenkins

During stage 4, individuals dive into the culture in an attempt to figure out what type of geek that person wants to be.  For me, that resulted in watching YouTube videos about video games, downloading podcasts about Star Trek, and buying midnight premiere movie tickets.

Stage 5: Geek Chic

This stage revolves around individuals refining the type of geek they want to be.  Folks have searched every outlet in an attempt to whittle down what geek really means to them.  I finally decided that I did not know enough of World of Warcraft to try and become a level 70 goblin, however I knew I enjoyed superheroes and video games, so I stuck to where my true passions were.

Stage 6: Live Long and Prosper

This final stage can only be accomplished when a person fully admits to their geekdom.  This stage occurs when one has accepted that they are a geek and has begun to integrate their geeky tendencies into their personal life.  I was finally able to walk into the comic book store without feeling like an outsider, using superhero inspirations for door decorations for my residents.

Obviously with this theory comes one major critique: what does it mean to be a geek?  This notion is relative for each individual person.  To someone, a geek can only refer to science fiction novels, however to others being a geek can mean they are excited about woodworking.  The term geek is open to interpretation.  My own definition is that a geek is a person that understands a topic incredibly well and has become a true passion.  No matter what the definition, this theory can serve as an opportunity for folks to assist their students in the development of their identities.

Remember, with great power comes great responsibility, so use it wisely.

Hey y'all!  My name is Julie Wagner and I am a current graduate student in my second year of the College Student Personnel program at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.  Currently I am working in Campus Activities and get to work with fantastic students and their organizations.  I began my obsessions with higher education and geek culture in the fall of 2012 and have not stopped since.  My bookshelves are equal parts graphic novels and development theory books. Connect with me on Twitter!

The Power of Student Government in Shaping the Campus Community

* This post was originally featured on The Student Affairs Hub.

College students have long used the campus environment to work towards positive social change. The very nature of a university encourages this sort of intellectual discourse, and a common way for students to get involved in making a difference on campus is through student government. It allows for students to debate important campus topics, and provides a platform for the institution to directly hear the needs of the student body.

The beauty of student government is that it is typically accessible to all students. New incoming students can be encouraged to find a voice within this organization, meet fellow students, and start making their legacy known at their institution (Trust me, they'll thank you for the legacy stuff come graduation time).

I found out about the power of student government far too late into my undergraduate career. In my final year, I was passionate about getting hydration stations installed on campus, to provide cold, clean and filtered water in a sustainable way that would reduce the use of plastic water bottles while encouraging healthier habits in students. I realized a way to start to make this change possible was to lobby the student government to accept a stance of advocating for these to become a part of the community. Once they accepted, within months there were a few of these stations popping up around campus. This felt so inspiring to accomplish in such a short amount of time!

Perhaps they were already planning on doing this, but at the very least, through my efforts, the student body representatives let their voice be heard and for the future, the administration would know that students wanted to have the hydration stations and would feel more accountable to do so.

Especially for new, incoming students, building confidence, connections, and communication skills are all pretty valuable goals for student affairs professionals. So I encourage you to empower your students to get involved in student government. Even more importantly, I encourage you to bring students to the table and let them be heard when it comes to decision making. They'll have some important insights and they are the ones who it will affect, so I think it is only fair to hear them out. At the very least, they'll benefit from the experience.

The Secret to Helping Your Students Find Themselves

* This post was edited from one originally posted on The Student Affairs Hub.

I wasn't the most adventurous person when I was growing up. I only ever really went to the places I knew and ate the foods I knew I liked. While this tendency will always be a part of who I am, I've started to make intentional attempts to travel more, try more, and just get out of my comfort zone more.

You know that line about where the magic happens? Yeah, that's what I'm talking about here.

I have gone to more cities in our great country, started blogging, and have put myself out into the professional world meeting colleagues and forming connections, which as a proud introvert, is hard for me at times. I might mumble and grumble going against my nature, but afterwards, I'm always glad I made the effort to get out of my shell. I'm even planning my first trip outside of the country with my partner! I never would have thought I'd want to do a lot of these things or even have the opportunity to do them. I'm grateful for the growth these different opportunities in my life have given me and I know that students have the potential to experience the same learning.

As a student at college (or someone who works with them), there are ample opportunities to find ways to get out and experience more new things. That could be because someone is just in a new area while you're at college, it could be joining a new club or organization, applying for a job (on-campus or off), it could mean going on an alternative break trip to do service, or going away to study for a semester abroad. All of these hold value for engaging in an experience that, even if it is not exactly what was hoped for, students will get out of their comfort zone and learning new things about themselves, and the world around them.

So, making someone take risks, face fears, and embrace discomfort is easier said than done but the importance and value of the experience far outweigh whatever reticence a student might have. What we have to do as student affairs professionals is nudge our students to the zone of proximal development as it applies here, or in other words, where challenge and support are primed for growth and learning for students. They don't feel too safe or too challenged, but the discomfort is enough to allow for them to learn something new. For example, a student could learn a lot by traveling to a new city in the US with a group of fellow students, but it could be too much for them at once to perhaps travel alone to a new country.

Students will also simply listen to their trusted mentors on taking risks and finding their identity outside of their comfort zones. Our faith in them and our knowledge of the benefits of the aforementioned experiences help urge a student to go for it. I know when I was an undergraduate student, I never would have thought to apply to be an RA (which was far out of my comfort zone) but a few recommendations to do so from professional staff members helped send me other the edge and give it a shot. Five years later, here I am having found a career I love and I owe it all to the encouragement of others.

I urge you to urge your students to get out and experience new things. I'm sure they'll thank you for it.

Thanks for stopping by!

On One Year of Podcasting

Today marks one year ago exactly to when the first episode of The Student Affairs Spectacular Podcast (let's call it SA Podcast for short) premiered. Since then, we've had almost 50 awesome episodes with student affairs professionals all over the country (and even abroad in Canada). I've learned a lot from these great people about our work with college students, and have also learned a lot about myself. I wanted to share with you all some of my reflections and lessons learned from this first year.

Preparation

A big lesson I've learned after a year of producing, hosting, and editing this podcast has been the value of preparation. When we started this endeavor, we had just began sourcing guests and kept pace well with our weekly episodes. However, there were certain times last year (especially when I was in full fledged job search mode or our team was away at conferences) that we had to scramble to get episodes. We also had some technical issues get in the way of keeping up with our weekly schedule. It was nice to take a break for the winter holidays as it allowed me to reset and get ahead of the schedule to where now I have episodes lined up for weeks in advance already recorded. The whole process has been far more enjoyable and less stressful this year due to my intentional effort put in to preparing ahead of time.

Conversation

The whole premise of the SA Podcast is fun, engaging, and relevant conversations with and for student affairs folks. I would not have ever considered myself a conversationalist but this show has made me into one more and more with each week. The quality of the show hinges on my asking of good questions, validating answers, and keeping a good flow going with each dialogue. I like to think I've done an alright job with this, and nevertheless, I've seen the benefits start to spill over into my non-podcasting life. I talk to students and colleagues all the time in my day job as well as my partner at home and I know the universal skills I mentioned before have come in handy. I listened more intently and I ask questions more purposefully. While I still have a lot of room for growth, I've seen a positive impact already in terms of how I talk to people, am I'm very grateful for that.

Collaboration

The SA Podcast couldn't happen without the help of my fellow team members. Tom and I have hosted together as well as hosted our own episodes of the show, and I've interviewed some amazing people in our field that I look up to solely based on connections through Tom or the confidence I've built to reach out to people on my own. Sabina also is the community manager extraordinaire who helps get the episodes out every week and promoted to our audience. I'm very grateful to have their support and assistance as well as the opportunity the do this. It is a dream come true and I'm excited to do every episode. I couldn't do it alone so both Tom and Sabina deserve a big shout out.

I hope to keep providing engaging content and to keep learning about myself from the SA Podcast for years to come. Thanks to all those that listen and if you haven't checked it out yet, go do it now!

Thanks for stopping by!

What I'm Geeking Out About This Week - 08/22/14

Welcome to another week of my perpetual geek outs!

Since I didn't want to not post this week and having been busy recently with my job, I'm going to do something a little different this time around. This is a forward looking edition of what I'm geeking out about. I'm going to share some books I looking forward to geeking out about so hopefully we can read along together in the coming months. Enjoy!

• "Without Their Permission: How the 21st Century Will Be Made, Not Managed" by Alexis Ohanian
• "Contagious Optimism: Uplifting Stories and Motivational Advice for Positive Forward Thinking" by David Mezzapelle
• "The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth: Popularity, Quirk Theory, and Why Outsiders Thrive After High School" by Alexandra Robbins

I want to tackle these three distinct books for a variety of personal interests so I hope you can check out one or all of them!

Thanks for stopping by!

In Defense of Couples Who Profess Their Love on Social Media

"...it’s not the responsibility of the people in your Facebook feed to stop succeeding...it’s on us as individuals to figure out how to be happy for other people’s happiness and not translate someone else’s success into our own personal failure...it’s not the responsibility of our Facebook friends to live smaller lives. It’s our responsibility to be bigger people."

I read this post a while ago from Hello Giggles about a recent study on how people react to those people we all know who overshare about how much they love their partners. It came to the obvious conclusion that people were adverse to those couples that gush about one another endlessly on social media. The answer there is simple; moderation.

What I really connected with in this article though was about how a lot of people are mad, sad, or upset when other people in their feeds are happy or doing well. It taps into this energy within us that embodies our jealousies, our doubts, our anxieties, and we focus on someone else's chosen way to express their happiness and we get angry that one of our friends is celebrating a success in their life. Shouldn't we be happy for our friends' happiness?

I certainly admit I struggle with this very thing so when I read this article, it definitely hit very close to home for me. In my ongoing quest for ultimate "zen status" where I am at peace with the world and everyone in it, I take this on as my next challenge. I'm going to not get jealous or envious when someone I care about is doing well. I am going to be glad and celebrate the joys of my friends and family, because there is no harm to me if those around me do well. We're all on the same team and we all just want to be loved, to be secure, and to be able to enjoy ourselves while we're on this massive spinning rock called Earth. Lets all make it a more positive, supportive place for us all to be happy and for us all to celebrate that happiness however we see fit.

I hope you are inspired by this simple idea like I was.

Thanks for stopping by.

Updates from the New Job!

Hey there friends,

I just wrote a post for The Student Affairs Collective about my first few weeks at my new job. Check it out for some formal thoughts and learning that has gone on since I got here.

Thanks for stopping by and have an awesome day!

What I Learned From A Night Out & A List Of Great Questions

I had an awesome night out recently...

I went out with a group of my coworkers who I knew to varying extents in my as of that moment, short stint working with them at my new job. Our plans for the night had hit a wall so we all decided to just hang out at a local draft house to chat and relax after a long week. When there was a natural lull in the conversation, I noted how I love great questions and have collected a list over time. This peaked my colleagues' interest and I started rattling off some of the questions to the group. After a few questions (and maybe a few drinks) we were sharing stories and experiences from our lives and bonding over the deep dialogue we were having.

I learned some profound things from evening that I feel like can be helpful to others, especially my colleagues out in the wide world of student affairs. I learned the importance of people feeling safe, the value in self-disclosure, and the power of great questions.

Throughout the course of the evening, I made sure to really listen to the people in my group. They were sharing very personal anecdotes at times so I wanted to really hear them and appreciate their bravery being vulnerable with the group. We all got meta at times where we felt like I was being a group therapist but many of the skills I learned in my counseling courses during graduate school are just great tips for life when listening to people and encourage genuine emotional connections. No one would have been into my gauntlet of questions for us all to get know each other better if they hadn't felt safe in the group. Everyone bought in and helped create a safe environment, even in a public place like a bar, which was an important foundation to build off of for the entirety of the discussion.

Being an unofficial leader of the discussion as the keeper of the questions, I had an important role in the discourse. While people felt safe through my active listening and appreciation of their vulnerability, taking it all one step further was my own self-disclosure. I didn't fancy myself better than anyone else there and would often give my own answers first, if not second. I have a strong feeling the steam of the conversation would run out pretty quick if I was never sharing anything about myself

Lastly, the engine of this fascinating chat I had was my questions. I felt out the vibes of the group and kept my questions to more positive ones that asked about interesting concepts like what would be your desired superpower, your personal motto, the best vacation you ever had, and what profession you'd like to attempt other than your own. People shared as much or as little as they wanted and weren't made to share anything too vitriolic. The questions were some of my own creation, submissions from others, and some from the famous list used on Inside the Actor's Studio. Great questions get people thinking and sharing beyond topics relegated for "small talk". My all-time favorite question was the inspiration for one of my favorite blog posts, and simply asks "what do you geek out about?". I've gotten a wide array of answers to this question and it never fails to get a great conversation going since people are talking about what they love.

I always like to gleam grandiose life lessons from even the most mundane things. This night is a simple example of how personal conversations can create deep connections and allow for great positive change. People learned new things about people they thought they knew and appreciated each other not only for sharing, but for the new things they learned about one another. I hope for more fun nights like this in the future and I hope you can have some of your own too.

If you have any awesome questions you'd like to submit, leave a comment or tweet at me.

Thanks for stopping by!

Hack Your Life & Make The Most of the Next 30 Days

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnfBXjWm7hc] I was just talking about this video and sentiment the other day, in the context of my personal wellness journey. While I'm not quite where I want to be (I need to get a more consistent workout routine), I'm much better than I was a few years ago, mostly with better eating habits.

A major way I changed some of my bad habits was by undertaking several "30-Day Challenges", which are detailed in the short, engaging, fun video above. Whether you want to start going to the gym or stop drinking soda, write every day or stay off social media, doing something for 30 days is just about the right time to form a habit and pattern in your life. At the very least you'll sort of do a cleanse if you don't imbibe in junk food for a month, for example, and you can sort of ween yourself back in so you don't feel like you're depriving yourself.

Making small, incremental, sustainable changes in our lives is how we're able to become more healthy, productive, and positive. A line I like to say is that you can't get fit in a week, but you also can't get unfit in a week. Change takes time so get out there and start working on your goals, whatever they may be, since, like the video says:

"The next thirty days are going to pass, whether you like it or not. So why not think about something you have always wanted to try, and give it a shot, for the next thirty days."