[00:00:00] Casey J. Cornelius: Hey everyone. Welcome to the latest episode of the For College for Life podcast. My name is Casey Cornelius. I’m the founder and president of For College for Life, America’s leading college speaking agency. I also have the distinct pleasure of hosting this podcast. Getting to interview our speakers, our, our facilitators, our consultants, the people who help us earn that title each and every day.
[00:00:31] Casey J. Cornelius: And this episode is a little different because I’m bringing to the mic to people who undoubtedly you’ve heard before, but they’re coming together in a new and creative way. I’m gonna tell you a little bit about it here. Lemme start with some questions. Have you ever ordered something online because the pictures look perfect, but when you open the package, it’s nothing like you were expecting.
[00:00:58] Casey J. Cornelius: Have you ever found someone on a dating app, but when you met them in person, they were basically a different human being altogether. Have you ever watched a student leader promoting their organization in a way that just didn’t seem authentic? Or does your campus have a fraternity or sorority house that looks amazing on the outside?
[00:01:19] Casey J. Cornelius: Disgusting and falling apart on the inside. Well, if you said yes to any of those questions, my hunch is you’re going to be interested in a new program, a joint program, between Chris Molina and Jasmine Williams. I wanna bring a mic to the mic here in just a second to talk about their latest creation, which is called Ending Catfish Culture.
[00:01:43] Casey J. Cornelius: Why are lying to our new members? If that’s not provocative enough, I guess I’m gonna bring to the mic, uh, Jasmine first, and I’m just going to ask the most basic question that comes to mind, Jasmine, and that is like, what’s the origin story on this? Like, like how did you come to this idea of focusing a new program on the concept of catfishing?
[00:02:08] Jasmine C. Willliams: I love that you ask this because it’s actually a really good story. Um, Chris and I were at a conference together about this time last year, and we were having a meal after one of the conference sessions, and I remember telling him, I was really excited because I had this. As it often starts for speakers, just this little inkling of an idea of something that I wanted to do a program around, but I kind of needed someone to like bounce ideas off of and expand it into something that could take a little bit more shape.
[00:02:41] Jasmine C. Willliams: And the concept that I was thinking about was this idea of how. Oftentimes people or organizations tell us one thing, and then when we meet that person or when we join that company or that college or that organization. The experience is very different than what we were told we were going to receive.
[00:03:03] Jasmine C. Willliams: And it often leads to this really difficult disappointment and how do we get around doing this? And is this something that we’re all guilty of? And Christus had so much great feedback, idea, suggestions, and then we kind of had this light bulb moment where we were like, wait. Should we just do this program together?
[00:03:25] Jasmine C. Willliams: Like the energy that we had when we were talking about it, and it was so exciting and so different and fun. I think we’ve been able to bring that to the stage with this program, which is really cool.
[00:03:36] Casey J. Cornelius: So for, for those who, who might not be familiar with the term, right? Like I’m, I’m gonna pretend for a second that, that people don’t, don’t know it instinctively, uh, what is, what is catfishing?
[00:03:47] Casey J. Cornelius: Like what, what, what does that term mean? Chris?
[00:03:51] Chris Molina: That’s a, that’s a great question and I think it’s good to define it because. It has been, uh, associated with dating and dating apps specifically. Right. Um, but the, the definition that we decided to go with after we, we spent a lot of late nights on Zoom talking to each other, Jasmine and I, um, is that catfishing is the creation of a fictitious persona or fake identity with the intent of deception.
[00:04:24] Chris Molina: And, and the, the part that we will highlight here, because it is something that we also highlight in our sessions when we’re talking about this is the intent part, because we go through lives, we are deceived oftentimes, just like whenever you described it in the beginning, have you ever ordered something online and got something in the package and that wasn’t it?
[00:04:44] Chris Molina: Well, what if the person that was in the warehouse just picked the wrong box and they put it in there? Yes, you were deceived, but was their intent. To deceive. And so that’s the definition that we go with and we, we very much focus on the intent part.
[00:04:59] Casey J. Cornelius: So I, I’m one of those people, like, as, as I’m reading those questions, I’m thinking like, yes, I, I have gotten something that I, I thought I.
[00:05:08] Casey J. Cornelius: What I was ordering and what I received was not the same thing, whether it was just completely different or different, different sizes or anything like that. But it seems like you’re really drawing into the, the purpose behind the, uh, deception or the, or the error or the mistake going in. Is that correct?
[00:05:28] Chris Molina: Yes, and I, and I’d love to pitch it to Jasmine after I just mentioned this because, um, as we’re recording this, just three days ago, I gave this at a major university to all of the fraternity and sorority folks there. And, and I took a moment to highlight another thing that Jasmine and I also spoke about, especially whenever we first started talking about this topic.
[00:05:48] Chris Molina: And that was that, yes, there is a difference between. Intent to deceive when the thing that you receive is completely different than the thing that you ordered or the thing that you, you, you were trying to get. And then whenever something else is just slightly different, there, there are two differences there.
[00:06:09] Chris Molina: But either way, if we’re coming at this from a leadership angle, it’s, it’s wrong in both scenarios that the, whether we intend to deceive or not, if we are actual leaders in organizations. The people that we are leading, we should ensure that they are all receiving the things that we promised them that they were going to receive.
[00:06:30] Chris Molina: Whether our intent is to deceive or not, yes, the intent does make it worse, but either way, if we’re gonna be honest with ourselves as leaders, we should, uh, there should be a fire lit underneath us to ensure that we are not deceiving our members.
[00:06:47] Jasmine C. Willliams: We give an example of this in the program that I think paints the picture for students really well, where we talk about the experience of like, say you go into a coffee shop and you order a drink a specific way, and they make your drink, call out your name, and as soon as you pick up the cup, you can tell if it’s not what you asked for.
[00:07:11] Jasmine C. Willliams: Chances are that’s probably a mistake, right? Like maybe they didn’t understand you. Maybe they ran out of an ingredient. Maybe they just didn’t have the time to make it that way, right? It was probably just a misunderstanding versus if we’re talking about college campuses specifically. One of the examples that we talked about was when colleges give tours to prospective students, a lot of times just due to time constraints, you can’t see the whole campus on a tour.
[00:07:40] Jasmine C. Willliams: But if you start to think back, once you are enrolled as a student to the tour that you took of your college campus, you start to realize that perhaps you only saw certain dorms and not other dorms on your tour, and perhaps you only saw certain parts of campus, but conveniently, other parts of campus that maybe aren’t as new or aren’t as nice might have been skipped and.
[00:08:05] Jasmine C. Willliams: Was the intent there to deceive you or was it just a timing constraint? So we start to have some of those types of questions with students to help make them think through the intention, because like Chris said, that’s such a huge part of this program when we spend a lot of time talking about that.
[00:08:25] Casey J. Cornelius: So brings back some memories of, um, in, in a much previous life, being a, a tour guide, a campus ambassador, if you will, uh, for myself at the University of Toledo.
[00:08:34] Casey J. Cornelius: And re remembering the things that like had to be highlighted on the tour. Like, look at the water slide and look at this really cool thing and look at this really cool thing, but stay away from X or Y or Z. So. I mean, I think we’ve all had those experiences of where in the long run we kind of go, oh, now I understand it, but it seems like this program is kind of a perfect fit for college audiences and college campuses in a lot of ways.
[00:09:02] Casey J. Cornelius: So where do you think that this is going to particularly be impactful?
[00:09:07] Jasmine C. Willliams: I think there’s a lot of opportunity with fraternity and sorority life and also with leadership organizations. And one of the really neat things about Chris and I teaming up for this program is that we both, while we’re really passionate about this topic, we both bring really different backgrounds to it, and so I think throughout the program we each get to touch on the spots where we both really shine, and so I can kind of focus on.
[00:09:33] Jasmine C. Willliams: Some of the communications aspects and how are we presenting information to people that might be misleading and Chris can focus on the leadership aspects and what’s the difference between being a leader who is willing to get uncomfortable with some things that we might’ve unfortunately, or even unintentionally taken part in, and how do we become better leaders by just having the self-awareness to do something differently.
[00:09:59] Chris Molina: If I can jump in real quick, Jasmine, if I’m, uh, please correct me if I’m wrong. You have spent, um, much of your professional adult life doing, um, external communications and public relations, um, for large organizations, correct?
[00:10:14] Jasmine C. Willliams: Yes, yes, yes. Lots of time.
[00:10:18] Chris Molina: Um, and so, um, I have spent a lot of my time for those that, uh, don’t know me, you’re hearing me maybe for the first time.
[00:10:25] Chris Molina: Uh, I spent the first seven years after high school in the United States Marine Corps on active duty. Um, and then after that I was, uh, um, a student leader at Purdue University. And, and I was in some student organizations. Um, but this is going back to how this originated and the conversations that Jasmine and I had and why I think this just continued to be a thing that we, we worked on and are still working on.
[00:10:51] Chris Molina: It’s that the internal operations that I love and I’m passionate about, the internal operations of an organization, that leaders are the ones that guide, they should match exactly to what the external communications. And, um, two, well, I, I’ll highlight one specific reason why I agree with Jasmine about this is a thing that fraternity sororities, um, could use a lot.
[00:11:20] Chris Molina: And based off the feedback from just three days ago, it, it seems like we’re very correct. Um, there’s a lot of time and energy that goes into fraternities or so and sororities looking very nice on the outside and. That’s in response to a lot of fraternities, sororities, not seeing the types of, of, of recruitment goals being hit and retention goals being hit.
[00:11:47] Chris Molina: And one of the places that Jasmine and I want to help with this is ensuring that the things that they were sold during, uh, expo week or whatever their canvas calls it, whenever there’s lots of tabling and everybody’s looking at all the organizations, they were sold something and. A lot of the times, the things that they were sold, it was not exactly what they received.
[00:12:09] Chris Molina: And, and I think the way that we are able to come at it from two different aspects based off of our background, helps a lot with, um, the fraternity and sorority audience, but
[00:12:21] Casey J. Cornelius: he’s been around that fraternity and sorority son a few times. I, I, I guess, you know, one of the things that, that I would say. It’s not in defense.
[00:12:29] Casey J. Cornelius: I mean, it’s just in, in reality, right? I, I, I love recruitment and I, I think about, um. Even conversations as an undergraduate member that I would have during, uh, recruitment or rush season or whatever your campus wants to call it, where you, there would only be so many members who were there to, to meet perspective members, right?
[00:12:50] Casey J. Cornelius: So if you’re, if you’re chapter over 50 people or a hundred people or whatever, you wouldn’t have all 50 or a hundred. You’d have the people there that you were pretty confident. One was representative, but two could put on a good, um. A good image would, would, would appropriately, you wouldn’t have the jerk, like you wouldn’t have the person who might, might, uh, start a, a conflict or assault someone or, or, or not be a, a good conversationalist.
[00:13:16] Casey J. Cornelius: You probably wouldn’t have them there during a recruitment event. So I, I guess what I’m hearing you say in some ways is that. If we want to do this more authentically, we need to show, um, not only prospective members of our organizations, but, but people who are considering any organization, kind of the, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
[00:13:39] Jasmine C. Willliams: It’s so funny that you give that example because there was a student, the first time that we ever presented this program. There was a student who raised his hand and said when he was going through the recruitment process to join his fraternity. Every single fraternity that he met with told him that they were top three for grades.
[00:13:59] Jasmine C. Willliams: He met with more than three fraternities, so he’s like, the math is not math, and like this isn’t even statistically possible, and yet everyone is trying so hard to put on a good front for new members, or if you’re a company to put on a good front for new hires. We’re missing the magic of showing people what those organizations are actually about.
[00:14:20] Jasmine C. Willliams: And it’s sort of a disservice to them because then they don’t get the opportunity to choose what makes the most sense for them. And we’re kind of making that choice for them by making everything seem so uniform, and also by assuming what we think it is that they want in the first place.
[00:14:39] Chris Molina: Um. Casey. Uh, but, and Jasmine, before we jumped on here, Casey, you reminded us to please mute our microphone so that we’re not talking over each other.
[00:14:49] Chris Molina: That was also good because of the laughing that I was just doing whenever you mentioned Casey. Uh, they are obviously not going to send the jerk there, or Jasmine reminding me that like we can’t all be top three in GPA, somebody, somebody’s lying. Um. I, I would also challenge, um, and this is a great leadership philosophy conversation, but I, I also, I, uh, brought this up the last time that I did this program.
[00:15:20] Chris Molina: We wouldn’t send the jerk out there to go recruit, um, if we’re recruiting properly. Are there, are there gonna be people that are jerks that don’t represent exactly what we are and who we are? Um, like, uh, there’s some companies that I’ve worked for that a large majority. Of the, the members, not just the leaders, but the members are exactly what is promised on the, the commercial or the social media or whatever it is.
[00:15:53] Chris Molina: And so it, it’s, I I understand exactly what you’re saying, Casey, and like that, that’s one thing that we, we highlight is yes, we, we put on a front and yes, we’re gonna, we’re gonna, if, if we relate this to like a farmer’s market, you’re always gonna put the nicest looking fruit at the beginning. Uh, but. If we’re doing our jobs during recruitment, I think we eliminate a lot of those problems.
[00:16:16] Casey J. Cornelius: Hmm. I think that’s a really interesting take and I, I wonder how many professionals are listening to this who, um, uh, I, I know this is audio, but I’ll raise my hand, uh, have ever been, I. Uh, strategically misled in the hiring process. Uh, where, where they’re told like, oh yes, working here is like x or you’re going to experience Y and then, you know, a, a week, a month, six months into that position, you’re like, oh, now I, I, I finally, I finally get it.
[00:16:47] Casey J. Cornelius: Right. Um, I, I think, Jasmine, I think I’ve heard you say this. Before, like we’re all a family here. I, I, I, I think I companies and organizations that, right. So much
[00:16:57] Jasmine C. Willliams: health and work life balance. Yes. I mean, who’s not going to say those things, right? Because I think everyone knows that that is kind of the quote unquote right answer.
[00:17:08] Jasmine C. Willliams: But to Chris’s point, what are we doing so that if that’s where we want to be, what changes are we making internally? So that is actually who we are. He does one really cool thing during this program where we help students start to identify in your organization what are some of the things that represent who you really are as a chapter, as a campus, as a school.
[00:17:35] Jasmine C. Willliams: And we give them some time, and a lot of them really struggle with this activity. And so we started saying, why don’t we first start by saying, where do you think that your org is right now? First and then go back and maybe circle or highlight where would you like to be? And we noticed that that was a little bit easier for them to say, okay, if I’m being realistic, these are some of the things that maybe aren’t the best, but realistically this is where we are versus this is where we would eventually like to go.
[00:18:07] Jasmine C. Willliams: But we recognize we’re not quite there yet.
[00:18:11] Casey J. Cornelius: I love that. It’s almost like saying, what if instead of saying, we’re. Top 3G PA, we, we actually did the work in order to, to get to top 3G PA. Like what, what, what would the outcome be? I love it. So listen, for those of you who might be curious about this, you’re going to find information about this new program on both Chris and Jasmine’s pages.
[00:18:30] Casey J. Cornelius: So for college, for life.com/chris for college, for life.com/jasmine, you’re going to learn more about ending catfish culture. I have a few more questions and one that I think. Maybe some people who have seen speakers, especially high level speakers, like both of you, um, do programs before are probably curious about.
[00:18:50] Casey J. Cornelius: And, and to be honest with you, even as somebody who has been doing this a long time, I was a little curious about it too. So, um, both of you. I not to, not to, uh, stir your egos too much here, but both of you are former speakers of the year, right? So what does it take for two speakers of the year? Two people who absolutely, positively want the mic every chance they get to come together and actually share not only an idea, but also a stage together as well.
[00:19:19] Casey J. Cornelius: Chris, what, what, what went into that process?
[00:19:22] Chris Molina: Yeah, it was, uh. There’s a lot of good stuff I think that I can say if I’m just being, um, incredibly honest. There’s a lot of good stuff that comes into this because, um, first of all, we’re, we’re really good at what we do. Thanks for stroking the ego. I, I’ll just, uh, just stroke a little bit more about what we’re both really good at, what we do.
[00:19:43] Chris Molina: But, um, on top of that, you can see it come out in our sessions and, um. We’re actually friends. Like we, like we enjoy each other’s company. Um, and you can tell because there’s a lot of back and forth in this session now, it’s not just for the entire keynote or facilitation or whatever you want to title this.
[00:20:07] Chris Molina: Um, it’s not just Jasmine and I going back and forth with each other. We, we in. We engage with the audience a lot, um, but we, we not only get to show a lot of who we are because we’re bouncing a lot of things off of each other, um, you are able to get two different types of storytelling, two different types of energy, and.
[00:20:34] Chris Molina: As good as we, Jasmine and both think that we are, I, I I’m, I’m gonna assume, and correct me if I’m wrong, uh, we both accept that we’re probably not gonna engage 100% of the audience every single time. We’re gonna get really, really high in the high nineties, but whenever it’s both of us on stage and you get both of our energies and both of our identities, and we have a lot of different backgrounds.
[00:21:00] Chris Molina: Um, we do a really good job of reaching pretty much every single person in the audience, um, whenever we are both on stage at the same time. Jasmine, did I miss anything there? I.
[00:21:12] Jasmine C. Willliams: I would say, although Chris and I are very different, something that we do have in common is we both like a good challenge. Like if you want Chris or I to hit a goal, just tell us that we can’t hit it and we will like go five times beyond whatever the initial goal was.
[00:21:28] Jasmine C. Willliams: Like. We just have that very competitive, like focused nature and it is a challenge to. Do the type of work that we do in a little bit of a different way. And I think it, it forces us to grow and to think outside the box and think of ways that we could amplify each of our strengths in this program, but also compliment what the other is saying at different parts.
[00:21:51] Jasmine C. Willliams: So it did kind of force us to look at how we would approach this a little bit differently than we would’ve either of us did it as a standalone program. And it’s funny because since we launched it, both of us have now done it. As a solo program, each of us has done it by ourselves and it’s a completely different energy than when we have the opportunity to present it together.
[00:22:14] Jasmine C. Willliams: So I hope that we continue to have the opportunity to do that because you can just tell the shift in the energy and even just the shift in the audience’s energy when we’re able to do the session as a, as a duo, which is awesome. Yeah.
[00:22:26] Chris Molina: There and we all here understand, like laying it up for somebody or just a nice pitch down the center so the other person can knock it outta the park.
[00:22:34] Chris Molina: And there are some points that I realize there, it’s a perfect layup for, for Jasmine, the way that I, I kick it to her and then whenever I’m doing it by myself, like I get to reimagine that and do it in my way, but. When we’re both on stage, it is, uh, it’s a really nice feeling when we’re on stage. And then we’ve also had it, um, had it recorded for a speaker reel.
[00:22:55] Chris Molina: Um, it’s really nice to see it as well, and you can tell that it, it comes across the way that we intended on the audience.
[00:23:03] Casey J. Cornelius: I think it’s really important. You know, both of you touched on this, uh, in, in your answers there, but for those who might be interested in this program, they can have both of you or they can have either of you, um, de deliver it.
[00:23:17] Casey J. Cornelius: Is, is that correct?
[00:23:19] Jasmine C. Willliams: It’s a, just a matter of which of us you think is funnier, and I think that if you watch the speaking reel when it comes out very soon, that answer will be pretty obvious. So we’ll let the footage speak for itself. It’s,
[00:23:33] Chris Molina: uh, can you tell that we’re competitive at all? And so humble is that evident
[00:23:37] Jasmine C. Willliams: full of grace.
[00:23:40] Jasmine C. Willliams: See, I think who’s funnier? I’m obviously winning, Chris. Not that it’s a competition, but
[00:23:45] Chris Molina: I love a good challenge. I’ll let you get a, get a nice little beat.
[00:23:50] Casey J. Cornelius: So I’m, I’m curious, right. So people are probably listening to this and they’re thinking about how this program could apply to recruitment, leadership developments, uh, organizational development, what, whatever it might be.
[00:24:02] Casey J. Cornelius: But I’m, I’m just curious from both of your perspectives, like if you had to identify your favorite. Like, like the, the thing about this, this new offering, this thing that you’re, you’re launching into the universe. What’s Jasmine? I’m gonna start with you ’cause you’re funer. Uh, what’s your, what’s your favorite part about this new program?
[00:24:24] Jasmine C. Willliams: My favorite part is actually not a part that I present. It’s actually one of Chris’s parts. And he asked the audience, how many of you have ever been catfished in some way? And every single person in the room raises their hand. And then he says, now, how many of you have ever played a role in someone else being catfished in some way?
[00:24:50] Jasmine C. Willliams: And you get like slowly, like one or two brave souls putting their hands up, but for the most part, crooked. He really talks about the self-awareness that we need to have. If every one of us has experienced this from a college campus, from an organization, from a job, from a relationship, how is it possible that none of us have played a role in contributing to that culture?
[00:25:14] Jasmine C. Willliams: And I just think it, that one portion of the program just perfectly summarizes why this type of content is so needed and to see it happen in real time. It’s just super powerful.
[00:25:27] Chris Molina: Oh
[00:25:28] Casey J. Cornelius: man. Chris, what about you? Favorite
[00:25:29] Chris Molina: part? Yeah, no, I love that. I love that for two reasons. Number one is because that’s what I was going to say.
[00:25:34] Chris Molina: And so now I have to mention my, my other favorite part of this program. Uh, but it, it really is, and I’ll return the favorite. It’s one of the things that, um, Jasmine says because of how deep we get to go into leadership. And one of the reasons why I think this is so impactful and it’s, it’s how it impacts retention and apathy.
[00:25:59] Chris Molina: And as a student leader, thinking back to my days in, in Alpha Kappi, I, I was always able to, to track all of those problems back to, to recruiting and our internal operations. But the thing that Jasmine says is how, when was the last time that we spent any effort? On how our organizations feel because we spend so much effort on how it looks.
[00:26:24] Chris Molina: But when was the last time that we spent any effort on how our organizations feel? And this one specific time she added to that, and she didn’t just say, when was the last time we spent any effort on how our organizations feel? She said, not just for the new members that we are trying to convince to join our organizations.
[00:26:44] Chris Molina: When was the last time we spent any effort on how, how our organizations feel for the people that are already in it?
[00:26:51] Casey J. Cornelius: Hmm.
[00:26:52] Chris Molina: And, and I love that because when, if we’re talking about our internal operations matching our external communications, how we’re treating our current members, no matter how much training, no matter who we get to show up to the table link, it’s gonna bleed through in some way, shape, or form.
[00:27:13] Chris Molina: And yes, we should talk about recruitment and fixing it there, but if we’re fixing how our organizations are for the members that are already there, we’re gonna fix a lot of these other problems.
[00:27:26] Casey J. Cornelius: Jasmine, I, I think I’ve heard you reference sometimes the, the difference here for like budgeting, right? Like, how are we recruiting, like the recruitment budget versus the retention budget.
[00:27:37] Jasmine C. Willliams: Have you ever even heard of an organization having a retention budget? No. No. Like I feel like that would be amazing, but even in the corporate world, it’s so common that people lose some of their best employees, some of their superstars, some of their. Literally the most talented people who are practically running things behind the scenes because they are not willing to put as much energy into keeping those people that they did to hire them in the first place.
[00:28:07] Jasmine C. Willliams: And sometimes I’ve seen people leave roles over the. Smallest things. And if someone in a position who could have changed that one thing for them had just done it, that person probably would’ve stayed. And so it’s like, how do we know the people in our organization well enough that we even know what’s important to them?
[00:28:30] Jasmine C. Willliams: But then how do we make sure that not only are we spending time and money and resources on. Recruiting for fraternity and sorority life, for campus-based professionals, for corporate organizations, but also making sure that we have resources allocated to keep those people and to keep them happy, especially if they’re doing really important work that matters.
[00:28:56] Casey J. Cornelius: So, I, I, I never liked the term devil’s advocate, but I’m, I’m going to at least maybe make a defense of not being. Completely transparent, uh, as a hiring professional or as a, as a recruiter or as, as a, as a, you know, new student orientation or whatever it might be. So, let, let me put this to, to both of you and, and see how you take it.
[00:29:15] Casey J. Cornelius: So the fear would be, I assume that if you were totally transparent and totally upfront and totally honest. Then you might lose out on people joining, or people applying or, or, um, uh, wanting to join your, your company, right? So if you, if you put on that job posting, the reason the last 10 people left the position, I.
[00:29:39] Casey J. Cornelius: There probably would, would be some, some trends that, that might, uh, arise or if, if you showed everybody the residence halls on campus, even, even the ones that you’re, uh, slightly ashamed of, there might be fewer people who applied. So what, what would be your answer? Like, what would be your response to the people who they’re like, okay, I, I get it and I agree with you, and we shouldn’t be catfishing people, but we’re afraid that there might be negative consequence to our, uh, fill in the blank bottom line, if we do so.
[00:30:05] Chris Molina: Ooh. And I would love to take this, but I also want to hear what Jasmine has to, has to say. Um, and sidebar, this is probably a, a whole conversation in itself to, for us to talk about who is pressuring, um, and how are they pressuring these chapters to hit certain goals, and, and, and how do we do it in a way that is ethical so that we don’t just say hit it by any means.
[00:30:30] Chris Molina: So that we don’t have the pressures of like, if we tell the truth, are we not gonna hit our goals? Um, but that aside, one of the stories that I tell in this program, um, deals with, uh, me as a student leader, as the president of our chapter, being at a A A A Club Expo. And I’m sitting there at the table and it’s during the spring so it’s not as packed.
[00:30:50] Chris Molina: So, uh, this one point, nobody is there. So I’m actually sitting down and I see the organization next to me, which is an organization that I had known for about three semesters at that, at that point. And we’re, we’re both in the school of business and I, and I see three freshmen walk up to them and they start asking all the typical questions about that organization.
[00:31:07] Chris Molina: And at one point, one of those students says to the club. Hey, uh, do you guys do any philanthropy? And as soon as that happened, I saw one of my friends in that organization nod his head and he said, yes, absolutely. We do so much for philanthropy and we do a lot for our community. It’s one of our core values and we, we really care about it.
[00:31:32] Chris Molina: Um, if you would’ve had a camera on me at that point, you would’ve seen me. Uh, have my head turned a little bit like whenever you’re talking to a dog and the dog’s trying to understand what you’re saying. That like head turn of like, huh. Because, um, what I said to him afterwards, those, those three students, they finished asking all the questions and they left.
[00:31:53] Chris Molina: And I walked up to that guy and I gave him a head nod and he head nodded me back and I was like, Hey man. Um. So if I’m just being honest, like you, we both know each other, we’re friends and we both know each other’s organizations and we have for many semesters now, bro, I’ve never seen you or anybody in your organization do any philanthropy for the community at all.
[00:32:19] Chris Molina: And, and you know what he says, which like, I’m glad that we were friends and he knew where that came from. I’m, I’m, I care about him. I care about the organization, I care about our campus. He just shrugged his shoulders and said the most honest thing. He goes, Hey bro, just trying to hit our numbers. And, and you know, like, I, I think that’s a, that’s a great way to show an, an honest way that a lot of people catfish, that a lot of people lie because that’s what this is, that he, he told a, a direct lie.
[00:32:55] Chris Molina: But before I kick it over to, to Jasmine, I I, one of the things that I always say in this program is, let’s imagine that we can rewind all the way back to that, that happening. And let’s say instead of him lying, he said, you know, I’m glad that you asked that because if I’m being honest, we, we don’t. But we should.
[00:33:20] Chris Molina: It’s in our core values. We talk about it every now and again, and it’s something that we really need to work on. So if, if you’re looking for an organization that is, is entrenched in doing really good philanthropic events, I don’t want you to join this organization and be disappointed. But if you are interested in leading.
[00:33:42] Chris Molina: Organization so that we can actually start doing these because we need to. Um, you’re not gonna have much competition and you would have my support. Like either way, we would either have somebody not join an organization and then be apathetic and probably leave, and then bad mouth. That organization that would either happen or we would get somebody joining, knowing exactly what they were getting and then helping that organization get to where they want to be.
[00:34:11] Jasmine C. Willliams: So many people have heard me say this, but in the corporate communications world, so much of our work is built around data. So if we don’t have data, we’re just guessing what people want us to say or how they want us to say it, or. Which way may they be the most receptive to? And some of the data that we know exists is around retention rates on college campuses.
[00:34:35] Jasmine C. Willliams: And for those that aren’t familiar, essentially how many of the students that enroll stay through graduation. And if you are having problems with things like retention rate on your campus. One of the things that you might wanna take a look at is how are we representing our campus to students as prospective students versus does that match up with the experience they’re going to have when they get here?
[00:35:01] Jasmine C. Willliams: And so I’ll just use myself as an example. My alma mater does not have a football team. Fun fact. And they were very upfront with me about it. They’re like, we, everyone is very upset that we don’t have a football team. Like it’s a whole thing, but we don’t have a football team. And there was no like, Hey, we’re gonna like mysteriously walk you around.
[00:35:20] Jasmine C. Willliams: So it seems like there’s a stadium over there, but there’s not, right? Like there’s like, we don’t have this thing, it does not exist. Maybe it’ll exist in the future. We don’t know. But if that’s something that’s very important to you, this might not be the right campus for you because we don’t have that here.
[00:35:36] Jasmine C. Willliams: So I think really the, the big point of it is it should be upon that person to choose if that’s a deal breaker for them or not. And when we try to mislead people, we’re taking that choice away from them, and that’s the part that’s not fair. That’s the part that distinct it, it’s the distinction between the barista example, right, of them maybe accidentally making your drink wrong versus someone intentionally doing something or making something look different when they know that that’s not what they, that you asked for initially.
[00:36:12] Jasmine C. Willliams: So I think that’s really the, the distinction between those two types of perspectives about it.
[00:36:18] Casey J. Cornelius: Jasmine, I’m, I’m, I’m gonna ask for just a little bit more on this. I think I’ve heard you use this example before. So, um, full transparency. I’ve never used a dating app. They, they kind of became a little vogue after my, my dating days were passed.
[00:36:30] Casey J. Cornelius: Um, but, but I’ve heard you reference the idea, especially I. And I hate to throw my guys under the bus on this one, but especially guys talking about their height on apps, right? So I’ll use myself as an example. Um, I am so close to five 10, but God said, you know what, you’re gonna be five nine and be, be happy about it, but I’m so close to five 10.
[00:36:48] Casey J. Cornelius: But if I put on a dating app that I’m six five, right? Like at some point in time,
[00:36:55] Jasmine C. Willliams: proven fact, that can be shown to not be
[00:36:57] Casey J. Cornelius: accurate, right? It’s demonstrably true, right? Yes. So like isn’t that kind of the answer in this like. If something you say is true can be demonstrably proven to be inaccurate or false or misleading, isn’t that even worse than just saying from the beginning?
[00:37:17] Casey J. Cornelius: Like, yeah, I’m, I’m five nine.
[00:37:19] Jasmine C. Willliams: Exactly. Exactly. And so many of the examples when we do this program, there’s so many examples that students give in the, the interactive portions that we are like, yes, that is exactly why we’re talking about this. And Chris has a portion of the program where he says, you know, I hope that in the future other students from your campus who we meet.
[00:37:41] Jasmine C. Willliams: Don’t raise their hands and say, yes, I have experienced what it feels like to be catfished by a school or by a fraternity or a sorority. And really it’s on each of us to play a role in ending that type of culture by being authentic and. Some of the students said, well, how do I do that when every other fraternity or every other sorority or every other college in America is doing this?
[00:38:07] Jasmine C. Willliams: You know, kind of misleading marketing, if we will, to make things look a little bit better. And the answer is, if you showcase who you really are, the right people will want to be a part of that. And that’s whether it’s on a dating app, that’s whether it’s a fraternity or a sorority, or whether that’s attracting someone to the right job opportunity.
[00:38:28] Casey J. Cornelius: I feel like that’s a good sledgehammer moment to, to kind of, kind of start wrapping this up. Listen, for, for both of you, this is a really cool thing that you’re launching into the world. Um, I, I do want to give people the opportunity to, one, learn a little bit more about the program, but also a little bit more about you.
[00:38:43] Casey J. Cornelius: So where can they best connect with you, Chris, where, where’s the best place for someone to connect with you if they’re interested?
[00:38:48] Chris Molina: I would love to tell everybody that right now. But first, Casey, I have to tell the audience about how we, we talk about a lot of different catfish examples, and this one was actually caught on camera.
[00:39:01] Chris Molina: I’m gonna have to send it to you, Casey, because somebody that I was talking to whenever we’re talking about examples, mentioned commercials, which is a great example of catfishing. They specifically mentioned ice cream.
[00:39:13] Jasmine C. Willliams: Oh my gosh. I know exactly where the sits going.
[00:39:17] Chris Molina: And Casey did the example that they gave, I don’t know if it’s true, but they said that ice cream commercials actually use mashed potatoes.
[00:39:30] Chris Molina: What? Did you know that? Yeah. Yes. And here’s the thing, why it was so great whenever I mentioned that to Jasmine. We had a camera on her face. You, it was like it. This was the worst day of my
[00:39:40] Jasmine C. Willliams: life. I’m not even exaggerating. Like you can see my face fall when I learn this information, and it’s such a good example of what it feels like to be on the receiving end of that type of experience.
[00:39:56] Chris Molina: Oh. So if you get to see us. Give this program together, you might see Jasmine’s very full of expression, face not lie at all, whenever she hears an example about catfishing. Back to your question though, Casey, um, people can find me, um, in two places that I, I go to the most. That is on Instagram and in LinkedIn.
[00:40:16] Chris Molina: On Instagram, I am under the handle. Um, at Sergeant dot Molina, so that is at sgt dot M-O-L-I-N-A and on LinkedIn, you just look up Chris Molina, look for somebody that looks like me, and you can find what my face looks like on either my Instagram or on for college for life.com/chris.
[00:40:41] Casey J. Cornelius: I’m still a little shook thinking about mashed potatoes being, uh, Casey, we have
[00:40:45] Jasmine C. Willliams: to send you the footage because I learned this in real time from a student to my obsession, and it was, it was heartbreaking.
[00:40:53] Jasmine C. Willliams: That’s the only way I can describe
[00:40:55] Casey J. Cornelius: it as, as a lifelong fan of ice cream, I’m bothered by this information. Yeah,
[00:40:59] Jasmine C. Willliams: yeah. Ja,
[00:41:00] Casey J. Cornelius: Jasmine, where, where can folks find you?
[00:41:02] Jasmine C. Willliams: You can find me everywhere at Miss Jasmine c Williams. I, like Chris Am always on Instagram or on LinkedIn.
[00:41:10] Casey J. Cornelius: I love it. To both of you, thank you for, for talking more about this new program.
[00:41:15] Casey J. Cornelius: Folks. If, if you’ve heard this and you’re interested in learning more, please make sure that you visit for college for life.com. You can find Jasmine, you can find Chris. You can find more information about this program, but also the last request that we ask of you always, always, always, if you found this podcast interesting or insightful or something that other people in your universe might want to hear.
[00:41:36] Casey J. Cornelius: All we ask you to do is do the thing that you’re supposed to do with podcasts and like, and share and subscribe and make sure that this gets in the ears of the people who need to hear it. Um, by the way, uh, we, we have a little sideline chat going on. There is an, an offline vote going on in terms of who’s funnier, Jasmine or Chris?
[00:41:57] Casey J. Cornelius: There’s no book. All I could say is we
[00:41:58] Jasmine C. Willliams: know the answer.
[00:42:00] Casey J. Cornelius: Well, let’s have a little fun if you’ve listened this far in the podcast. And you have a strong vote when you share it. Just say here, voting for
[00:42:08] Jasmine C. Willliams: a vote for Jasmine. This is about to be a friendship ruiner for me. Oh, I
[00:42:14] Chris Molina: ja, I just wanna remind you, last time we did this together, whose side of the room was bigger and had, let’s talk about more loyalty.
[00:42:20] Chris Molina: Let’s, let’s
[00:42:20] Jasmine C. Willliams: not talk about it. I have an intimidating aura and that’s all that I talk that up to, so it’s fine.
[00:42:26] Casey J. Cornelius: You can vote for Jasmine, you can vote for Chris, but always, always, always vote for ice cream being ice cream and not mashed
[00:42:33] Chris Molina: potatoes.
[00:42:34] Jasmine C. Willliams: Amen.
[00:42:37] Casey J. Cornelius: Thank you all for listening. Until next time, be well, and we look forward to hearing from you again.
[00:42:41] Casey J. Cornelius: Talk soon.
