Advice you rely on

Transcript:

Emily

Hi there, my name’s Emily Hines. This is St. Jude Connections. I work on the social marketing at ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. I’ve met tons of St. Jude supporters over the years, and it’s always a great experience. But it’s extra special when I get a chance to really talk to our supporters, to learn about who they are, and how their lives have shaped them. I got to do that with four people who were on campus for a big conference. I asked them a lot of questions and learned a lot from their answers.

In this episode, they’re answering the question, “What’s a piece of advice you rely on?”

You’ll hear from Chris, who works for the fraternity Tau Kappa Epsilon.

“Take that more challenging project, assignment, opportunity, whatever that might be.”

And Ronni, who’s in Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated.

“You can’t plan for every single thing that’s gonna happen in your life.”

And Keeley is here, too, representing the St. Jude Leadership Society.

“Just the word give. Give, give, give. My parents have engraved it in my head for forever.”

And first we’ll hear from Kaia. She’s also in Zeta Phi Beta.

Kaia

I just came back from a collegiate leadership symposium, and we had a panel of our graduate sorority members, and one of them said to us, Do it scared. Do it while you're in the fear. And I actually told this to somebody else yesterday, and I said, Do it scared because if you're trying to push past the fear, the opportunity is going to pass you by. And so if you do it scared, you can let God, let fate whatever you believe and just kind of take it from there because you don't want any opportunity to pass you by because who knows when something else is going to come back to you. You never know what's going to happen in life.

Chris

That was advice I got early on. And it's paid off for me multiple times with job choices, with relocating, any number of situations. Take that more challenging project assignment, opportunity, whatever that might be. My son just graduated from college, so I've been having that, a version of that conversation with him too, about what he's been looking at. It's an important part.

Ronni

I think a saying that my dad says all the time, plans aren’t etched in stone. Because for a while I was like a really big planner. I was like, Everything has to be ABCDE, you know, one, two, three, like, we're doing this and then this and then this. But he's like, That's not how life works. You can't plan for every single thing that's gonna happen in your life. And that is definitely true. And so when things don't go the way you plan, you just have to go with it. Sometimes what comes your way is better than you could have even come up by yourself. So not to shut down things just because it's not a part of your plan.

Kaia

That's a hard lesson to learn.

Ronni

It sure is. Yeah, it sure is.

Kaia

I can relate to that.

Ronni

And I definitely resisted it for a while. But, you know, sooner or later, I just had to be like, You know what? It's okay. I don't need to plan every single aspect of my life.

Keeley

That is good. I feel like I'm the person that has my schedule down to, like, the minute every single day. So I have to do that. I'm like, be better, be better. I think for me, I guess it's not really saying, but just the word give. Give, give, give. My parents have engraved it in my head for forever. And I think whether it's someone just got engaged or something and you give a gift or you're at the store and you think of someone and you just get them something for no reason. Those little things of giving or donating money to places like St. Jude, doing those things, it's good for you and it makes you feel so good, but it also builds those relationships so much. And it's my new thing to just buy all the little random things at the store. It's a little dangerous for the bank account, but it's such a good feeling.

Ronni

I love gift giving. It's one of my biggest love languages. I love to be like, oh yeah, I saw this at the store and I thought of you. They’ll be like, how much was it? And I'm like, Don't worry about it, I just bought it because I thought of you.

Keeley

It's good.

Ronni

It feels good. It does.

 

Emily

I’m right there, gift giving is super important to me – it’s such an easy way to tell my friends and family how much I love them. You can guess where I’m going with this, right? Your gift-giving is pretty important too. When you give to St. Jude, you save lives. It’s as simple as that. I know because I was a St. Jude patient when I was younger. Please go to stjude.org/connections to get involved. You can also watch videos of this conversation there or on the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital YouTube channel. And we’ve got more information about the St. Jude partnership with Zeta Phi Beta and Tau Kappa Epsilon – the fraternity that our founder Danny Thomas belonged to – and the St. Jude Leadership Society.

St. Jude Connections is a production of ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. It was recorded by Jason Latshaw, Dan Yohey, and Nathan Black. Produced by Geoffrey Redick. Edited by Grace Korzekwa Evans. I’m Emily Hines, thanks for listening.

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