ForCollegeForLife Podcast
ForCollegeForLife Podcast
ForCollegeForLife Podcast: Gavin Bell Introduction
Gavin Bell is a speaker and storyteller who creatively incorporates the art of both narrative and humor into his speaking endeavors. Professionally, he has worked in Higher Education as a student affairs practitioner for close to 6 years in a variety of different capacities. Ultimately, he strives to center relational student mentorship at the core of all his roles and aspires to create spaces where students have the ability to authentically achieve their goals and dreams.
His speaking revolves around promoting student well-being while utilizing creative and cultural frameworks in order to both categorize and specifically define what well-being can look like for the busy college student. Much of his framework has roots in Indigenous ways of thinking, as a way to honor his heritage of being a member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina.
Gavin brings a charisma and humor to the stage, while simultaneously incorporating aspects from his culture, which center on passion and reverence for relationship and healing. He brings a multitude of dynamic speaking experiences including, (but not limited to), college student workshops, symposium keynotes, and national conference presentations.
Gavin's Programs: https://forcollegeforlife.com/gavin/
Gavin's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gav_bell95/
Gavin's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gavin-bell-m-ed-70a31812b/
Hi, everyone, and welcome to the latest episode of the For College for Life podcast. My name is Casey Cornelius. I am the founder and president of For College for Life, America's leading college speaking agency. I always like to point that out at the beginning. And I get the distinct pleasure in this podcast of interviewing the folks who make us who we are, our speakers and facilitators and consultants, the people who help us earn that reputation and day after day and event after event, consultation after consultation. And today, you get the opportunity to meet one of our newer voices, one of the newer folks on our roster, but someone that I assume, I predict, that you're going to like quite a bit. Before I bring them to the mic, I want to tell you a little bit about the speaker. Gavin Bell is both a speaker and storyteller who creatively incorporates the art of narrative and humor into in his speaking endeavors. Professionally, he's worked in higher education as a student affairs practitioner for close to six years in a variety of different capacities. Ultimately, he strives to center relational student mentorship at the core of all of his roles and aspires to create spaces where students have the ability to authentically achieve their goals and dreams. His speaking revolves around promoting student well-being while utilizing creative and cultural frameworks in order to both categorize and specifically define what well-being can look like for the busy college student. My guess is you know some of those folks. My guess is you might even be one of those folks. Much of his framework has roots in his indigenous ways of thinking as a way to honor his heritage of being a member of the Lumbee tribe of North Carolina. Gavin brings charisma and humor to the stage while simultaneously incorporating aspects from his culture, which center on passion and reverence for relationship and healing. He brings a multitude of dynamic speaking experiences, including, but not limited to, college student workshops, symposium keynotes, and national conference presentations. And there's also another one that we're going to talk about here in just a second, but Without any further ado, let me go ahead and bring to the mic, none other than Gavin Bell. Gavin, did I do okay with that introduction?
Gavin Bell:I was going to say that is an awesome introduction. Thank you so much.
Casey J. Cornelius:It makes it easy when you have a lot of good stuff to talk about. Like that's the obvious key ingredient to this being an
Gavin Bell:easy process. I'm just doing the best I can. I
Casey J. Cornelius:hear you. I hear you. Now I hinted at something there at the end, and I feel like it's probably a good place to start. Gavin, recently you have completed something that is a bit of a gold standard in the speaking space, something that a lot of people aspire to or have on their bucket list. You have done your first TED Talk.
Gavin Bell:Yep, yep, yep, yep. And it's been
Casey J. Cornelius:pretty cool. Without doing the whole TED Talk, you want to talk a little bit about what that program was and also, I guess, what the experience was like doing it as well.
Gavin Bell:Yeah, for sure. So A lot of that TED Talk actually highlights one of my speaking focuses, which is holistic well-being, and more specifically, engaging holistic well-being from a practical standpoint. And I know we talk about this a lot, especially in the college scene, but a lot of our students, they want practicality. They don't want just a bunch of eloquent words. They want to be able to have something that they can take into their day-to-day life. And so I wanted to utilize framework that has some cultural roots and we can get into that a little bit later, but I basically utilized the medicine wheel, which is one of our primary cultural frameworks in indigenous community and basically made it practical for students. And my goal was to make it practical, not just for students that come from that culture, but for any student, regardless of background, regardless of belief system. And I think it's been a really cool opportunity, especially at NC State where I currently am employed to be able to basically test it out on different communities, different student populations. And I ended up getting lucky. I had a couple of folks send me the NC State TEDx application a couple of months ago. They were saying, you know, you should do this medicine wheel on the TEDx. And, you know, so I was like, OK, well, we might as well just go for it and just see. And thankfully, I ended up getting accepted. As far as the experience itself, it was pretty cool. It was a little bit nerve wracking. It was in a theater. And for those that know anything about TEDx, you have to be within 18 minutes, but there's not a time clock or anything. So you just as you practice, as you rehearse, you have to make sure that you're within that 18 minute window. Yeah. But more specifically, the day of, we had seven speakers and I was the seventh. I was the last one. And where they had us situated at backstage, we could kind of see on a monitor other people as they were speaking, but we couldn't really hear how anything went. We couldn't really see, you know. how any of the other speakers had done. And so once most of the speakers got done, they would go and sit in the audience. And so it was just kind of, it started off with a bunch of us and then it was less of us, less of us. And then pretty much at the very end, it was pretty much just me hanging out by myself. And so I was a little bit nervous about it, but it ended up going very well, thankfully. I was thankful that the theater, they dimmed the lights so much on the audience, we really couldn't see much of the audience members at all. But it was pretty cool. I'm not going to lie. As far as being able to be out there and that type of energy, a bunch of my students from NC State were able to attend. And so it was nice to be able to see Afterwards, in my element, along with my family, it was a bunch of different worlds that ended up colliding. Friends from college, my family, the students being able to come and support. So it was a really, I mean, quite literally a holistic moment of all the different systems that have supported me to get to where I'm at with this speaking thing. So I was thankful for it.
Casey J. Cornelius:You know, I don't know that you use the word lucky there. I don't know that lucky is it, right? I think that one of the things that... is highlighted in my mind over and over is that the better the stuff that we put into the universe, the more people recognize. And this is not just a speaking conversation, but just in general. So when we put good things in the universe and people recognize it, they're immediately connecting the dots of you and for you for those opportunities. I don't think that there's anything luck involved in it. I do want to dig a little deeper if you don't mind. So you've- Oh, of course. The framework of the medicine wheel a little bit. Can you talk a little bit about not only from your cultural upbringing, but also how that concept of the wheel informs how you think about well-being?
Gavin Bell:Yeah, yeah. So just to kind of create a visual in folks' mind as I'm talking through this. So the medicine wheel is a circle composed of four interconnected quadrants. And so those quadrants represent a lot of different things. So the medicine wheel is a framework that's being used across a lot of different Native communities across the country. So it's four interconnected quadrants. And depending on what tribal community you're talking to or referencing, there might be a slightly different interpretation. For some groups, the quadrants represent the stages of life. So your birth to your adolescence to your adulthood and then ultimately into eldership, transitioning into the next life. So almost like the circle of life, if you want to think about it that way. And then There's other interpretations where the different quadrants, the four quadrants represent the cardinal directions, similar to a compass, with each direction representing a particular set of wisdoms, values that we should engage in during this lifetime. And so that's another interpretation. The third interpretation is that the medicine wheel is a better way to understand the self. So one quadrant represents your physical, one represents your spiritual, then your emotional, and then your mental. And so In particular, that interpretation I thought was kind of helpful for my college students. And so what I would have them do very practically, like in my office, when they would come in for their one-on-ones and their advising meetings is that I would have them draw out a medicine wheel on an eight and a half by 11 sheet of paper, and I would have them fill in the different quadrants. And so I would have them put physical wellbeing, spiritual wellbeing, emotional wellbeing. And then instead of just simply saying mental wellbeing for the fourth quadrant, I would have them take it a step further and say, communal well-being. Because in particular, when we look at the research on undergraduate students, one of the main things impacting their mental health, their retention, their graduation rates is their sense of belonging and community at the college level. And so I like for them to think about what communities are they pouring into, but more specifically, what communities are they allowing to pour into them? And so I would have them kind of reflect on how they engage in each of those quadrants During the past week, I make it very simple. Just during the past week, how have you engaged physically, spiritually, emotionally, communally, and just simply making bullet points, nothing crazy, but that allows them to be able to see if you have eight bullet points and how you physically poured into yourself, but you only have one bullet point and communal for that week. It doesn't mean that you're doing anything wrong. But there's an imbalance there. And one of the core tenets of the medicine wheel is this idea that all those quadrants that I just listed have to be in balance with one another. And I think that idea of balance is something that spans across all cultures. I mean, we see different representations, whether it's the yin and yang symbol. I mean, there's a million different cultural representations of balance in this world. And so the medicine wheel is just one simple representation, but It allows students to be able to see where possible imbalances are. And it's a gentle accountability. So I think a lot of our frameworks, especially that we use for college students, kind of beat them over the head a little bit. And we also have a lot of college students, especially I'll use NC State for an example. Those kids are incredibly gifted, incredibly intelligent. But what that comes with is that they put a lot of pressure on themselves. They're their own worst critic oftentimes. And so with that framework, I wanted to be really mindful of having a framework that provided some gentle accountability without condemning them in the process. And what that allows them to see is, okay, This week, I didn't pour into community or maybe I didn't pour in into processing my emotions in the way that I wanted to. And so that's something that I can do better for the next week. Recognizing also that, you know, our students the same way as you and I, we're all humans. And so that balance across those four quadrants is not always going to look 100 percent perfect. And that's not the point. It's just something that we can kind of have in the back of our mind as a baseline, as a guiding point. And that's how I've tried to utilize that wheel, not just in the speaking thing with the TEDx, for example, or in my keynotes, but that's how I try to think about well-being in my day-to-day life as well. Because this is not one of those frameworks that I'm giving it to a bunch of folks, but I'm not actually utilizing it myself. This is one of those things that I like to check in with myself week to week. And sometimes you have to check in with yourself day to day. And for some of us, it's an hour to hour. How is my balance looking?
Casey J. Cornelius:Yeah.
Gavin Bell:And I mean, we and I think in particular, there's a lot of the quadrants what I try to do. I know I mentioned this already, but I try to make them applicable regardless of somebody's beliefs and backgrounds. So for example, that spiritual wellbeing quadrant, I know there's a lot of connotations with that word spiritual and what it means to have spirituality, things of that nature. And so when I break that one down specifically with my students, I let them know, you know, there's a lot of different orientations for some people when I'm talking about their spiritual wellbeing, they're going to orient up quote unquote to a higher power, divine nature, God, For some folks, they're going to orient outward. So that could be environment, getting out in nature as a way to spiritually reconnect. That could also mean just simply going into environments that make you feel spiritually warm. So for example, I currently work in multicultural student affairs at NC State. And geographically, we have a huge student center with couches and chairs. And a lot of students, about I'd say close to 80 to 100, come in throughout the day. And a lot of why they come in is because they say that they feel warm, safe, and cared for. So that's also an example of orienting environmentally to your spirituality and to your spiritual well-being. And then the third orientation is internal. So what are those things, a.k.a. that ignites your spirit, those passions, those hobbies that just get you excited, those things that you could be doing it for four hours, but it only feels like it's been four minutes. How often are you engaging in those things, especially when you're a busy college student, whether that's drawing, whether that's playing a sport, intramurals, things of that nature. And so all those different quadrants, I try to make sure that audience members know you do not have to adapt your belief systems or your culture to to the wheel, rather the wheel and a lot of indigenous frameworks recognize that folks are coming from different walks of life. And that's the beautiful thing about it. Especially in a college environment where quite literally, I mean, we know this, but there's so many different walks of life, not even just from a cultural standpoint, but also first years, second years to seniors, to STEM majors, to humanities majors. And so it can sometimes become challenging to define wellbeing practically for a huge group of people like that. And I think, you know, I'm just thankful because I think the ancestors were onto something way back in the day. And that's part of the reason, I mean, even with over 500 tribes in the US today, so many tribes, regardless of different belief systems, regardless of geography, so many all use that medicine wheel. And I think that it's a beautiful thing to be able to zoom that out beyond just native people, but to also show how those frameworks can be applicable for, all of our different cultures that we support today, especially in the college realm.
Casey J. Cornelius:Gavin, I love this. By the way, folks, if you want to learn more about Gavin programming, opportunities to be of service to your community, organization, so forth, forcollegeforlife.com slash Gavin, G-A-V-I-N, again, forcollegeforlife.com slash Gavin. I'm thinking as you're discussing this, a couple of elements of what you're describing today my hunches really, really resonates. The first one is that this is a self-assessment, right? So when you talk about like, Okay. Over the last week. And I think that that's probably a sweet spot. Like you say, for, for folks who are pretty good at this or really busy or so forth day to day, hour to hour, so forth, but asking a young, a young person to consider the last week of their life. And how has your balance been in each of these things? It's like, it's like doing assessment without quote unquote assessment, right? Like there's no questionnaire that goes along with it. And it's, I mean, it depends on someone being honest with themselves, correct?
Gavin Bell:Right, right. And I think the part, and I don't know if we even put this context in there, but I'm also a doctoral student currently in NC State's College of Education. I think
Casey J. Cornelius:everyone listening to this picked up on that, Gavin.
Gavin Bell:Yeah, yeah. I'm teasing, I'm teasing, I'm teasing. And a lot of my research specifically is around student well-being, undergraduate student well-being. And one of the things that the research identifies time and time again is that there's not really a well-defined definition of well-being, quote unquote. So even at different institutions, different offices, like your wellness and recreation might define it differently than your academic advising, which might define it different than your counseling center. And so I think what this ends up turning into is a self-assessment, but it also creates a little bit more uniformity as well and mindful. A lot of colleges already have really impactful ways that they're approaching well-being across different offices, across different institutions. And so this medicine wheel is not necessarily to replace those things, but rather it's to supplement those things. And I always like to make that really clear. Indigenous knowledge, indigenous ways of doing things are not to erase what's already being done, but rather it's to supplement it and give it a different perspective. And what it also allows for our students practically is the ability to communicate with one another. And I know in this day and age, sometimes that in-person communication in particular can be a little bit of a challenge, but I'll use the example. I did a workshop with the Honors College at NC State, and that was about 30 students, all from different walks of life, different areas of the university. And I basically had them write out on different areas throughout the room how they did their physical well-being, their spiritual well-being, and their emotional well-being. And I would have them rank for themselves first which quadrants did they feel like were their strongest quadrants and which quadrants did they think were the ones that they needed more improvement on. And so what I would have them do is circulate to the stronger quadrants first and write down what practically they did that week And what that ultimately turned into, by the time they got to the fourth quadrant, aka maybe their weaker quadrant or the quadrant that they wanted the most improvement on, the kids that that might've been their strongest one, they already had tips outlined on that side of the classroom. And so I would have folks be able to take pictures. We would put it on large poster boards. We would have folks write out their tips and strategies on big poster boards. But I would have them be able to take pictures to where now, You might be really strong and physical, but you might not necessarily be strong and emotional. But there might be another student out of that 30 that was incredibly strong and emotional. And now you're able to learn their strategies and now they're able to learn yours. So it creates that collaboration, that organic collaboration that doesn't feel forced. And it actually ends up being a benefit. And nobody feels like they're the weak one. If that makes sense. I think a lot of times with our assessments. Yeah. Are you, are
Casey J. Cornelius:you seeing trends though? Like, are you seeing like, Oh, it seems like overall, this is the one that people are reporting being needing, needing more attention to. Are you finding anything?
Gavin Bell:Yeah. Like for that workshop, for example, I got lucky with that one. It was about four, four, four and four. So like we had student for that one in particular, we had a decent amount that, across those four categories, we had at least two or three people that were strong. They ranked each quadrant as their top. So I got lucky there. Now, whenever I've done that assessment for larger groups and when I've looked back at the assessment in totality after like a semester or a year, the ones in particular that are always the challenge are emotional and communal. And I think the emotional, I think a lot of us have challenges dealing with our emotions. And I think whenever I even break that quadrant down, practically what I'm talking about is how are we dealing with our emotions proactively versus reactively? Because I think as a human being, we're designed to feel the full spectrum of emotions from happiness, joy, to sadness, to anger, to frustration. That's part of what we're designed to feel. But I think because of Different cultural expectations, different norms, societal norms. A lot of us will suppress different emotions. And what we, I think, ultimately think is going to happen when we suppress those emotions is that they're going to disappear. But emotions are energy and energy doesn't just disappear. And so it ends up being a buildup effect. And then after a while, it turns into what I call a Pompeii effect. We're often, we're blowing up at the wrong place, wrong time, at the wrong person, and often with the wrong words being used. And so the emotional quadrant is how are we sitting with genuinely the emotions that we need to sit with in a proactive way to where we don't end up having that Pompeii effect down the road. And I think regardless of like I said, the background or even like the identity that somebody is coming from, we all have a level of suppression that we engage with with our emotions. And I even use myself as an example, growing up where I grew up at, to be a young man, you were not supposed to represent sadness publicly. You were not even supposed to be too happy. You were supposed to kind of be stoic, mean mugging all the time. And so like, you don't realize like how much you're suppressing until you get out of the environment like that. you realize, oh man, like I was putting a blanket over half of who I was as a person. And so all of us have different identities and different social norms, whether that be coming from the South or coming from the North or what have you, that we kind of subdue different things about ourselves. And I think when you have a environment like college, so many students are in a whole new set of norms. But because of their context, because of where they've come from, because of their identities, because of pressures, even at the college level, they will suppress different things. And so the emotional quadrant is one of the main ones. And then community is interesting because, you know, ironically, you would think that community would be one of the strongest ones in college, especially at some of our larger institutions, but especially post-pandemic, we're just seeing that become more and more of a challenge. Students being vulnerable with one another, students being able to engage in person with one another in particular. And so, you know, I don't know. There's
Casey J. Cornelius:some research right now about all people, but young people specifically spending more time isolated too,
Gavin Bell:right? Exactly. Exactly. And so many of our classes, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but there are so many more, uh, virtual options and hybrid options. And so I have a lot of my students at state, for example, I mean, they might have a whole day where they're kind of to themselves on a zoom for class. They're not necessarily going in person. And so unless they're involved in the student organization or intramural group, for example, they may not necessarily get a whole lot of interaction that day. And I do think that it's not like a, I'm not going to, paint a broad stroke and say that hybrid classes are bad or virtual classes are bad because those things help me out of my doctorate program. But I do think that it does create a challenge, especially on larger campuses where students might feel like they're just a number anyway. And so if you're not having opportunities to genuinely engage and just simply have a conversation, that takes a toll after a while, especially when you're juggling intense academics, you might be juggling culture shock, you might be first generation, there might be a lot of other things going on. And, you know, it becomes a perfect storm in a way.
Casey J. Cornelius:Absolutely. No, this makes a ton of sense, and I'm sure it does to those who are listening as well. Again, please make sure you check out forcollegeforlife.com slash Gavin. Gavin, I want to ask you about another core concept of your work, and I'm soft-tossed this question. Can you talk to me about the importance of the hawk to you?
Gavin Bell:Yeah, so... the focus that you're talking about is aerial impact that's one of the speaking focuses that i have um and so with the hawk especially for southeast native communities the hawk is very much revered as one of the not just like top aerial predators but even from a spiritual standpoint there's a lot of representation and symbolism that comes along with the hawk and When I'm talking to my students in particular, one of the things about the hawk is that it moves with composure. And if you've ever seen a hawk in the air, I mean, it moves with power, but a hawk is not always making a bunch of noise. And even when it perches in a tree, even how it just simply sits, it doesn't even have to be flying, but even just how it sits, it sits with its posture upwards. It's confident. Its head is always up. Even with different birds like boars, and this is more of a National Geographic example, but when a hawk goes into a particular bird's territory, whether that be crows or whether that be mockingbirds, they will antagonize the hawk. And you can actually see this happen in the air. They'll circle the hawk in the air and they'll nip at it. And the interesting thing about the hawk is that it never fights back. It's almost like it knows its worth. It knows that it has no time to for the foolishness, basically. And so I utilize the hawk, particularly when we're talking about professional development, when we're talking about confidence in a career fair, when we're talking about confidence, just simply moving around campus, a hawk moves with composure. It doesn't always open its mouth any chance it gets. It's observant. It will circle a piece of land multiple times before it decides to go after anything. But the interesting thing about the hawk is that whenever it does decide to dive after that rabbit or that squirrel or whatever the thing is, it dives reckless abandon. I mean, it'll dive at over 80 miles an hour in certain situations. And so I use that as a representation for my students. When you finally have taken the time to truly observe the lay of the land, when you see that goal, a.k.a. that squirrel or that rabbit, Don't sit there and dive timid. Don't go after it timidly. You need to go after it full force. And when you've taken the due diligence to observe your surroundings, create your network, move with composure and steadiness, then you also have to move with confidence and assertion when it comes to the goals in this life. I
Casey J. Cornelius:can imagine, for example, like, the student who's going from being undecided to finally declaring a major or the one who's like, I think I want to run for this office to being elected. Correct me if I'm wrong. What I'm hearing you say is like, okay, so once you've identified what the goal is or what the target is or so forth, you need to move not only with intention, but with also some intensity, right? Some veracity to get there because you've taken the time to figure it out, and now the moment has arrived. Is that close?
Gavin Bell:Yeah, 100%. And the thing about it is that when you dive, when that hawk dives after that rabbit or that squirrel, it's not going to get it every time. That's the other thing. Because I think sometimes we view it as like a 100% success rate, and that's not going to be the case. I mean, sometimes you're going to dive full-heartedly into a goal, and it might not be the outcome that you wanted, but... If you've ever seen a hawk dive, whether it gets the squirrel, whether it gets the rabbit, if you've ever seen it happen, you're like, wow, that's powerful. You know what I mean? And so in other words, whenever you go full force after a goal, after an objective, not only is your power still going to be known, but you've also going to develop the different wisdom as well. So that hawk is going to learn and recalculate for the next time. The same way the student, whether it's the outcome that they wanted or not, they're going to learn and recalculate for the next time. That's only increasing their strength at the end of the day.
Casey J. Cornelius:I love that.
Gavin Bell:And the only last thing I'll say about the hawk and that analogy, one of the things that I talk about, not necessarily the crap on buzzards, but I do mention buzzards in the presentation because technically, I mean, if you've ever seen a buzzard, a buzzard is bigger than a hawk. It technically has a bigger wingspan. It's larger. technically it has a little bit more power, but the thing about it is that if you ever, if you know anything about buzzards, they only go after what's already dead, what's already accounted for. And so, and you can make the representation that buzzards in a way are passive, right? Hawks are birds of prey. It goes after what it wants. The buzzer is only going to go after what's already dead. It's going to take what it can get. And I usually try to tie that back to our students and saying, You did not get all the way to this institution, whatever the institution is, to just be passive, to just take what you can get. That is not what your parents, that is not what your ancestors, that's not what they died over for you to just take what you can get. And so move with that conviction, not only for yourself, but also for the communities, for the networks and for the people that have poured into you, that have raised you, that have impacted you. You're also moving with conviction for them as well. But yeah.
Casey J. Cornelius:Yeah, I just got a few goosebumps. I would imagine that some folks listening to this would have gotten some goosebumps with that. No, I mean, I think it's an amazing way to frame it, right? So everybody who's come before you has made sacrifices. And now for all of us, and this is not student specific, but for all of us, now's the time, right? To act with some urgency, especially when, and by the way, if you want to crap on buzzards, that's okay. They're not listening anyway. All right, so folks, if you've listened of this podcast over the years, you know that one of the ways in which we also introduce our speakers to you is by asking a series of rapid fire questions, some probing questions that allows us to know a bit more about them, what makes them tick, what interests them, et cetera, et cetera. So Gavin, are you ready for these questions?
Gavin Bell:Yes, sir. Bring them on.
Casey J. Cornelius:All right, cool. So let's imagine for a second that you have an entire day to binge watch anything. What do you choose? You have the whole day. You watch anything you want. What do you choose? Oh, man. Okay.
Gavin Bell:I would say, okay, so the show right now that I'm watching, and I know folks may or may not be familiar with it, but it's called Raising Canaan. It's part of 50 Cent's Power series. And Raising Canaan is just, the storyline is just amazing. And I love any type of show that represents that 90s era era. community that 90s hip-hop era I just I love that kind of vibe I feel like that's the generation I was supposed to be born into that makes sense well as an ambassador from that generation we would we would love to have you trust me yeah so it's just I don't know between that between the acting um I just, I believe it, I guess is the best way I can put it. I believe the story. I believe what they're trying to put down. And so, yeah, I would say Raising Canaan.
Casey J. Cornelius:Raising Canaan. Okay, I'm going to put that one on the list. Excellent.
Gavin Bell:All right.
Casey J. Cornelius:Second question, Gavin, what is the most used
Gavin Bell:app on your phone? Shoot, I would probably say... Okay, so the two, the first one would be Instagram. And that's just the basic thing. I like to scroll sometimes during the day as a way to just kind of take a break. Yeah. And I try to pace myself because you know, that can become some overstimulation at some point. So I don't want to have just some cheap dopamine the whole day, but I would stay Instagram. I got to be honest with that. And then the other one is life 360. I don't know if y'all know what that is, but basically it's a app where, you know, your family can download it and you can kind of, it's almost like a tracking app where you can see when folks are moving and if their phone needs to be charged and stuff like that. And I think a lot of times the stereotype is, you know, Parents would probably get that for their kid, right? But for me, I use it as a way to keep an eye on my mama.
Casey J. Cornelius:Me
Gavin Bell:and my mom, that's my partner for life right there. And so she's always moving around here and there. And she works over at Duke University across the way. And so she's always doing programming and different things of that nature. And so I like to be able to keep an eye on her. She's independent like I am. And so it's just a way for me to make sure, hey, charge that phone or hey, let me know whenever you're in the car, move in, especially when she has night programs. So Life360 would probably be the next bigger used app for me. You know,
Casey J. Cornelius:we couldn't possibly have predicted this because you didn't know the questions beforehand, but both of those answers that you just gave and the reasons why you gave them are so reflective of the medicine wheel concept too. Yeah. Right. Like you don't want to spend too much time on Instagram because, yeah, it's a cheap high and everything like that. But if you do, it's going to take away from the other ones. But then the community side, you're also checking in on your people like your mom and so forth and making sure that she's in good places, her phone's charged, she's safe, all that other kind of stuff. That infuses even how you use your phone.
Gavin Bell:A hundred percent. A hundred percent. I definitely try to make it something that I incorporate into my life, not just in the words that I say. I
Casey J. Cornelius:love it. I love, you know, and one of the things that I often say is like, even as an imperfect messenger, right? Like we, we, we try to improve even as imperfect messengers. That's awesome. All right. So let's imagine that you can have dinner with anyone, anyone, alive, dead, any time, space, whatever it might be. Who would you most like to have dinner with?
Gavin Bell:Oh man. Um, Okay, this one's a little bit of an odd one maybe for some folks, or not an odd one, but maybe just like an unaware one. So context, the Lumbee people, we have a guy in our tribe back from like the 1800s. His name is Henry Barry Lowry. And basically he's known as the Robin Hood of the Lumbee people. And so he basically would protect the people during like periods of, you know, war, war, removal when we were just basically being antagonized and you know areas of racism and stuff like that and he is just somebody in history that some people view him as a villain because sometimes his methods of protection were not always the most peaceful but some people also view him as a hero but he is in my lineage so on my mom's side I come from his lineage and so I feel like for me, I have such a passion for justice. And I feel like there's sometimes where I can be holistic about it, but I feel like sometimes my passion is just so, it's like a red passion, if that makes sense, if I want to put a color with it. And I feel like that comes from him. And so I would love to just be able to sit down and talk with him about like, okay, when you did these things, what was your mindset? Was it a mindset of red? Was it a mindset of blue? Was it for family? Was it for people? Was it for self? And I would just want to honestly have that conversation because I feel like all of us have to know where we come from in order to know where we're going. And all of us are not, and I mean, this is a big thing in native culture, but all of us are not individual entities. Like who I am is partially based off of who my mama was, who my father was, and who their parents were. Things get passed down. And so I think there's value in learning where you come from and how different things and how different behaviors and actions were done by the people in your lineage far before you ever got here. So yeah, I would say him, Henry Barry Lowry.
Casey J. Cornelius:In case you all don't notice, Gavin clearly doesn't have any depth to his answers or anything like that. No, it's all very purposeful. I guess the sub question to this, I'm not sure if I've ever asked anyone is, what would you have for dinner? Hmm.
Gavin Bell:I feel like I can just be simple with this one. I just love Mexican food, any type of Mexican food. And I feel like, you know, since he's in my lineage, he'd probably like it, too. You know what I'm saying? So just a good little ACP with some peppers and, you know, maybe some horchata on the side. I think I think that would be just fine.
Casey J. Cornelius:Sold. Sold. All right. So Gavin, it has been a long day. You've been busy, been bouncing around so forth. What do you do to wind down? Do you have any particular rituals or signals to your mind, body, spirit that it's time to stop for the day? What do you do to wind down?
Gavin Bell:So it's a three part, I feel like. So whenever I'm leaving work, I always like to have like some type of music playing in the car i'm a very big music person back in the day i used to dance and do all that type of stuff i used to do a lot of hip-hop dance where i grew up at like all of us knew how to dance that's context about me and so i i associate dance and music in a very similar way so i always have to have like some type of playlist bumping with some 808s whenever i'm leaving the office just to kind of celebrate hip-hop 90s hip-hop, some of it's more like the new age. I'm around students, so I have no choice but to hear some of the new stuff. And some of the new stuff's kind of dope, so I'm cool with it. So I'll do that as almost like a celebration to the end of the day. Then in the afternoon, I always have to go on a walk. It could just be for 30 minutes, but I don't know why. I'm sure there's science behind it, but the walk is always a way for me to kind of reflect on the day, but to also get energy released from my body.
Casey J. Cornelius:Um,
Gavin Bell:so I always got to walk and then I do art on the side. That's my side hustle. And that's like, usually the thing that I try to wrap up with. Um, so that's the third quote unquote part. Um, I don't know. There's just something about drawing and sketching and doing all of that. It just slows my brain down. It kind of slur slows my nervous system down, especially if it's been a very extroverted day. Um, with different student meetings and stuff like that. That's just a way for me to wind down before the night. So those are my three
Casey J. Cornelius:parts. You can almost envision, for those who are listening, you can almost envision someone leaving the office, bumping the music, taking a walk, and then slowing down and doing some art to kind of calm the nerves. That's awesome, man. That's wonderful. Listen, so for those who are still listening, again, please make sure you check out for collegeforlife.com slash Gavin, G-A-V-I-N. Gavin, last question to get you out of here. Where can listeners best connect with you? Is there a platform or anything like that that you would suggest if someone's like, wow, I love Gavin Bell and I want to know more and I want to connect with them, where would be the best place?
Gavin Bell:I would say... Definitely Instagram and LinkedIn for right now. Instagram, just because I'm going to engage on there, like I told y'all before, especially when I'm just needing some downtime, I'm always going to be on Instagram and I do like check DMs and things like that. I'll have a couple of folks reach out for different things via DMs in that way. Also LinkedIn, I definitely get on LinkedIn and that's in particular with my speaking stuff. That's where I try to make sure that different things are showcased. Folks know what's going on. And all of my email information is on LinkedIn as well. So it kind of helps in that regard too. So to that point, I mean, LinkedIn and messaging me on there, but also my email and everything is available on LinkedIn. And I always am big on checking my email. And so that can be another option as well. And I'm one of those people, if you can't tell, like I'm a storyteller, but I also am very relational. So even if it's just somebody wanting to hop on for like a 10 minute, 15 minute call, I am always down for that. And I will always make time for that. I think before a lot of conversations around different things and different opportunities happen, I know folks like to know who they're dealing with. And so I'm saying this now, I am always 100% open to just simply having a conversation. It doesn't have to be about a particular opportunity. or an engagement. It could just be quite simply just getting to know me and me getting to know you.
Casey J. Cornelius:I love it. Again, that's Gavin Bell. If you're looking on LinkedIn, if you're looking on Instagram, it's Gav, G-A-V underscore Bell, B-E-L-L 95, Gav Bell 95. Make sure you connect with Gavin. And folks, thank you so much for listening. We genuinely appreciate it. The only request that we have now, maybe it's a two-part request. The first, please make sure that you do the thing that you're supposed to do with podcasts, right? So like and share and subscribe, but also send this link, whatever platform you're listening on to the person that you feel like would most benefit from learning about Gavin and his work. The second thing we ask humbly is that whatever content that you think would be most beneficial, if you want to hear more about, please let us know. And we want to structure these podcast episodes to meet those needs as well. Again, we love what we do. We love being of service to campuses and organizations across the country. And if you think Gavin would be a good fit, please make sure you check out his work. And Until next time, as the music starts playing, we wish you well. We thank you for joining us today. Gavin, thank you so much for the conversation. And we look forward to the next one.
Gavin Bell:Yes, sir. Thank you for having me.