S3 Ep1: S3:E1 Walls and Pathways with Professor Kevin Lehnert

Today on the show, I welcome Professor Kevin Lehnart. Professor Lehnert has a Ph.D. in international marketing business from St. Louis University, an MBA in economics from Loyola, a MA in philosophy from Boston College, and two BAs in philosophy and psychology from St. Louis University. Professor Lehnert and I talk about the walls and pathways that students encounter when they first come to Grand Valley and the opening ways in which we can better mentor each other. And throughout the entire university, we focus on vulnerability. A concept that seems simple at first and is at the key and the heart of mentorship. 

Episode Transcript

(00:11):
Welcome to the Seidman Mentorship Podcast.
This is your captainspeaking on this show,
we navigate the voyage of lifethrough the lens of Lakers,
some who have just come aboard,and others who are well underway.
We will speak with experts who will showus the ropes, help us plot a course,
and recount exhilaratingtales of uncharted territory,
all while promoting lifelong learningagility and a culture of mentorship.

(00:45):
Today on the show, I welcomeProfessor Kevin Lehnart.
Professor Lehnert has a PhD in marketinginternational business from St.
Louis University, a MBAin economics from Loyola,
a MA in philosophy from Boston College,
and two BAs in both philosophy andpsychology from St. Louis University.
Professor Lehnert and I talk aboutthe walls and pathways that students

(01:08):
encounter when they firstcome to Grand Valley,
and the opening ways in which youcan be a better mentor to each other.
And throughout the entire university,we focus on vulnerability.
A concept that seems simple at first,
but really isn't and is at thekey and the heart of mentorship.
Professor Kevin Lehnert, uh, this is, uh,

(01:31):
honor and a pleasure for me tohave you and, uh, welcome Ahoy.
Welcome to the show. As wesay on the Seidman mentorship,
we do all these nautical punthings. It's a lot of fun.
I'm sure you'd appreciatethat. But welcome.
Thanks. And the honor'smine, I mean, it's not,
it's not the- trust me, I amnot one to be honored. It is,
it is the other way around,for sure. Uh, thanks.

(01:52):
Well, it's, uh, a great opportunityfor us to talk about mentorship. Um,
I shared as we were getting ready,
I think you and I resonate onso many of the same things.
The challenge today will, forus, to keep ourselves on task,
on topic because we share so manyinterests, um, including mentorship, uh,
kindred spirit in you as,uh, you're an instructor, um,

(02:14):
but you're also reallyinvolved in the students.
I wanna start by asking aboutyour Laker journey thus far.
I've been here 13 years now. And,um, you know, I came, came out at,
uh, 2010 market's. Not super greatfor any faculty, much less, uh,
marketing faculty.
Grand Valley saw something in methat I didn't see in Grand Valley,

(02:35):
and this is the unique thingabout Grand Valley, right?
Grand Valley will see something inyou that you may not see in yourself.
I was throwing applicationsat the wall at Medicare.
It was a position Ihad applied to it. And,
and when Grand Valley interviewed me,they asked me, they said, Hey, you know,
we know the interview looksfor international marketing, looks for these things,

(02:56):
but what about ethics? What, you know,
because my background is in philosophyand it was only, you know, through,
through poverty kind of, that I got intobusiness and I said, holy Cats, ethics.
I mean, yeah. Because I neverthought I'd be doing ethics.
I figured I'd be 20 years in the fieldbefore I got to do ethics. And, uh,
so I've been doing ethics. The otherthing about Grand Valley, right?

(03:17):
My Laker journey is Grand Valleywas hiring when, when I got hired.
So I got hired with two othercolleagues, one from my, uh,
same doctorate program.
And they hired two colleaguesbefore me and colleagues after.
And so we all came up at the same time,growing our families at the same time.
And so when we talk aboutthis Laker family, right? In the marketing department,

(03:38):
when I got hired, it, itwasn't a, it wasn't a, um,
a metaphor. It was reality. And, andto this day, uh, Suzanne Bennett,
who was the department chairat the time, is my, uh,
emergency contact for my son. And, you know, and,
and I would call people from thedepartment. You know, when, when my son,

(03:59):
who at the time was a monthold when I got hired, uh, for,
for questions about, he's gota fever, what do I do? Or,
and asking for recommendations.
And we grown up together and wetalked about that Laker journey,
that laker for a lifetime. I thinkwe often forget that that's, that's,
there's a truth to that. That's notjust a marketing blip. That's not, uh,

(04:22):
something that we use handyou a pen when you graduate.
It's that connection for mentorship,right? That's part of that,
that's part of that family. Um,I tell my students, you know,
when we talk about finding jobs andthat, you know, it's not what you know,
it's who you know, you know,you know Grand Valley people.
What do you mean by that? We go toLinkedIn, pull up the Meijer job page,

(04:43):
guys want to work at Meijer? Okay.Someone wants to work at Meijer. And, um,
I say,
click this button and you click thisbutton and it tells you all the people who
are connected to Meijer,you know, the, the,
the business who are also connectedto Grand Valley and it's hundreds.
And the way LinkedIn works, they're alwaysprobably the more recent connections,
which means it's young people. Andmore often than not, someone's like,

(05:04):
I know that guy. Right? Or I know thatperson. And, and that's it. Right? And,
and that's been my Lakerjourney, right? The,
I don't go anywhere withoutseeing someone who's like, Hey,
professor Lehnert or whatever.And it's, it's wonderful.
And it's magical because it's,it's done out of compassion,
it's done out of, of love. It's doneout of enjoyment. And, and that,

(05:24):
that's something special about that,that I haven't seen anywhere else.
I like how you describe, aswe talked about this before,
these walls and pathways,uh, to mentorship.
And it sounds like what you weredescribing is kind of these pathways.
There are ways that you gotto where you wanted to go,
but not just through the fact that youknew somebody. We had this in common,

(05:45):
but I can tell you actually care.
I can hear the inflection in your voicethat you feel like you're a part of
this. And that's been myexperience too, many episodes ago.
I talked about when I returnedto Grand Valley after being gone,
that some of my instructors werestill here. Mm-hmm. .
So either that means theycouldn't get a better gig,
which I don't think is true becausethey were very effective, or they cared.

(06:08):
And I don't know a lot about otheruniversities if that kind of tenure of
having those folks around and havingthem involved is common or uncommon.
I do know that what we do at Grand Valleyis very unique with our connections
with the community at large. AndI know you're a part of that too,
spending other time, um, atbusinesses doing consulting.

(06:30):
You're not just a guy in theclassroom doing lectures.
Well, I mean, I think whowe are as people right?
Extends beyond that. As a faculty member,
who I am as a faculty memberand just someone who teaches.
And I think it's reallyeasy to forget that, um,
I am my most authenticself in the classroom.
You don't get more Kevin thanthe Kevin in the classroom.
But to be that in the classroom,

(06:51):
you have to be elsewhere.And it's that connection,
it's that community. Andit's that notion of caring.
I like how you used the wordcaring because to care right,
means to, to ex- to express, uh,
love to ex- you know, maybe not likeemotional, but to, to express a,

(07:12):
an openness and a willingness to help. And
that's something I think we oftenforget in terms of mentorship. Um,
especially as a young personwho's searching for mentorship,
we forget that willingness tohelp. And at Grand Valley, that's,
that's really what we're talkingabout when we talk about caring. Uh,

(07:32):
when we talk about that willingness tohelp, it's not, it's not being nice. Um,
it's not being easy. It,it's understanding and,
and caring about the people whoare coming to us for an education,
for mentorship, for guidance.
And I think oftentimesyoung people feel that,

(07:53):
that there, there's a reticence to that.Because we do care and we're just like,
well, just come, come to me, youknow, and I'll help. Um, and,
and we forget that that'shard. Uh, and so you're right.
You know, in the classroomand in the Grand Valley way,
there's that notion of caring that
really does speak to thatauthentic caring. Um,

(08:17):
we give a, well, we're on a podcast,but, but we do. Right? We really do.
And I don't think you succeed at GrandValley unless you do, because that's,
that's our culture.
What is the thing that you wish studentstoday would do that they don't do?
Oh, man. Be vulnerable.
What do you mean by that?

(08:38):
So, so in class we talk about trustand, and trust. Trust is a gift,
we forget that. We think, oh, you know,trust, trust in marketing is important.
Trust is a gift. And,
and what that gift is when you trustsomeone is a gift of vulnerability.
You say, hey, this business, thisthing, could take advantage of me.
Because I don't, I don't know everything,you know, I filled my car up with gas,

(09:00):
but I'm assuming it's the right octane.I don't know. I'm, I'm vulnerable,
but I trust,
I trust that the gas station's going togive me this stuff and my car's going
to, to run. It's not going toassure in the gas tank. Um,
but we're scared to be vulnerable.We're scared to be hurt.
And in the classroom, studentsare scared to be vulnerable.
So they don't wanna raise their handbecause they're scared of being hurt.

(09:22):
They don't want to put out anopinion, they're scared to go to, um,
office hours because they don'twanna seem like they can't do it.
And so we're, we're scared.We're scared to be vulnerable.
Cause we eq- we equate often vulnerabilitywith, with not being good enough.
And, and that's hard. I mean, golly gee,

(09:42):
it is hard. It's hard for me. It'shard for you to, to, to co-op and say,
I don't know. And, and I really wishstudents would be like, you know what?
I don't know. Please help to bevulnerable to, to say, you know what,
maybe I'm wrong. I don't know, but thisis just my point. This is my viewpoint.
This is what I think. Um,and, and hopefully, you know,

(10:04):
the faculty on the otherside or the mentor on the other side's caring enough to
say, cool, that's interesting.
That may not be aligned with the learningobjective, that we are aligned with.
Well, let's take it, let's findthe nugget of truth in that. Um,
the Jesuit philosopher Bernard Lanigansays that there's no such thing as a
counter position. And in class they say,well, so what's a position? You know,

(10:25):
you have a position. And, and so,um, um, you know, who would win in a,
in a fight? Batman or Superman?And do you have an opinion on that?
That's a tough one, right?Because this has happened.
So without angering half the lorethat believes one way or the other,
I don't know. I like Batman better.
Okay. So, okay, that'smy play, right? But I.
Don't know if he would win,but I like him more. Yeah.

(10:47):
So I'll take Superman, right? You havea position? I have a counter position.
Do we know? No, we don't know. We don'tknow. Where's the truth? We don't know.
And like we said, we're worried. Oh no.Did I just, did I just defend mm-hmm.
, you know, the, the otherhalf of the cosmos out there. It's okay.
You know,
somewhere along the line you have aviewpoint as to why Batman would do it.
He's always prepared, he's willing tofight dirty somewhere along that line.

(11:09):
You know, the person who thinksSuperman's going to do it, well,
because Superman's superman,he can go back and tie,
he can move mountains. Um, and thenyou got that person, who's like,
doesn't matter, Wolverine would kickboth their butts. Right? , right.
That's the point though. Imean, you gotta be vulnerable.
You gotta be one to stand up andsay, you know, this is it. And,
and to recognize that that's not,that's not an attack on you as a person.

(11:33):
You not knowing, you beingvulnerable is not an attack on you.
It's, it's, it's an attack on, on theignorance, on, on the sacrifice, on the,
on the vulnerability. That is us.
That's the human condition. And that'sokay because that's what we are,
we're trying to, to find that pathway to,

(11:55):
to be vulnerable to one anotherso that we can lift each other up.
How does a student practice vulnerability?
Oh wow. You know, if I hadthe real answer to that, this,
would it be the podcast ? I mean,you know, I'd be writing that book,
you know, I was speaking to you. Um, I,
I think the student practicesvulnerability by, um,

(12:17):
by being honest with themselves. Uh,
in other podcasts you talked aboutthe introvert, the extrovert.
I think it was Plato who said that, uh,
the only thing we know is that we knownothing. That I know nothing. And, um,
the, the point of that right,is, is that vulnerability.
Um, the, when you raise yourhand in classroom, right?

(12:40):
Raise your hand and the teacher callson you. And when you raise your hand,
the teacher calls on you and theysay, Gerry, you raised your hand.
You have a question. And you say, yes,professor, I didn't understand this.
But what happens when we raise twohands, when we raise two hands?
What's that mean? Touchdown. No, no,it means, it means surrender, right?

(13:02):
We, we certainly, it, it's, I don'teven understand the question, right?
You're speaking words, right? Butwhen you put them in that order,
it doesn't even make sense to me. Icall that accounting . Yeah. Uh,
but it's like the Charlie Brownteacher, right? Womp, womp,
womp to recognize that that'sokay. To just to be lost.
To be lost in the throes of wonder. Andso if we understand ourselves, you know,

(13:24):
if we, if we don't justsay, I got it to myself,
but we recognize that we don't get it,that's the first thing a student can do.
The second thing they can do topractice, is define pathways.
To share that vulnerability. Raisingyour hand in the classrooms. That's hard.
That's hard. I get that. Write thatquestion down. And after class,
talk to the teacher about it.

(13:45):
Write that question down and sendit to them in an email. Hey prof,
thanks for the lecture. When wewere talking, I had a statement,
I had a comment, I had thought, and Ididn't, I didn't really want to share it.
But you know, I, I, I wanted to shareit here. And, and a good professor,
you know, what I do is, when I get those,
because I recognize noteveryone can raise their hand,

(14:06):
is I'll bring that backto the class, say, hey,
one of your colleagues had thisopinion and this great viewpoint.
And I share that viewpoint. I won'teven call the student out, but I'll say,
you know, I'll share that viewpoint.
And then that gives the studentthe strength to say that their,
their viewpoint is heard.That their question was heard,
that their vulnerability was,was heard. And surprisingly,
what happens is the next time I don'tget that email from that student,

(14:29):
what do you think that student does?They raise those hands. Um, office hours.
Go to them.
So I, I shamelessly plug youroffice in your office hours.
Because when I was back at GrandValley, I did a very secret technique.
Uh, I learned from one of my mentorscalled management by walking around.

(14:50):
And so I wandered around thebuilding to see who was here.
And I remember you go to ProfessorLehnert's office, and as you pass by,
you notice it's different than otheroffices that you see because you have cool
stuff in your office that'ssaying it's an invitation to,
to come in and look at my stuff, right?
So you have the quintessential academicbooks on your bookshelf, right?

(15:11):
But you got a turntable in your office,
you got a little recordcollection thing going on.
And I think you're listening to sometunes. The first time I came by,
you have comic books, right?So, um, there's something different about this guy.
I, I want to find out. You're, you're,you're sending out a signal there.
Your bat signal is up. And I'm like,I wanna see what this guy's about.
And I have referred morepeople to your office hours.

(15:32):
Because I think you'rejust an approachable guy.
And for the people out there listening,
especially your Seidman students whoare like, I wanna practice networking,
or I want to test out this vulnerability,then step outta your comfort zone.
And if you've never, um,experienced office hours,
they're very easy to find a professorand pick somebody you like and find out
what their office hours are.
Because most professors that I seeat office hours are very lonely.

(15:56):
I describe them as shelter pets waitingfor somebody to come and adopt them for
this short period of time. Um,
but I'm gonna just go aheadand throw it out there.
And you can come to mine and you cancome to Professor Lehnert's anytime and
just say, hey, I'm hereto practice my networking.
I'm here to meet somebody new. Whatclasses do you teach? You know,

(16:17):
you have a great rating, by the way. Uh,
on rate my professor 4.7 over 13years. That's pretty impressive. Wow.
Uh, I took the liberty of our, ourresearch committee, which is me, uh,
took the liberty of doing that. Butoffice hours, a great way to do that.
I, and with office hours, don't,don't feel like it's the office hours,

(16:37):
just stop by the office. If thedoor's open, we're, we're willing.
And if that doesn't make the time,put some times out there. Uh,
my office is that way becauseI'm there. I work, you know,
five days a week in that space.That's my space. So it's,
it's for me as much as itis for someone else. And,
and I love the, the ideaof just coming, doesn't,

(16:59):
you don't have to have a reason.A friend of mine, his name's Ryan,
and we call him, "tell me a storyRyan", because Ryan has a story, wants,
wants to know a story about her. Hedoesn't have a story. He wants to,
he'll walk up to me, he'll sit downto you, never met you before and say,
tell me a story. Not who are you,what do you do, tell me a story.
And that's cool because that's life.
Life is nothing but a seriesof stories and chapters.

(17:21):
And if your story's boring,right? You know, so,
so even if you just walk in and sitdown to that professor and say, hi,
you know, uh, my name,my name's Gerry. Um,
I'm an MBA student, former MBAstudent. Uh, I saw you're a marketing,
tell me a story. I mean, it throws thefaculty member off, but that's okay.
We need to be vulnerable anduncomfortable too, right?

(17:44):
For sure. And I think that'spart of being a community.
And I hope people can take that and dothat when they're riding the Laker line
or when they're sitting in the commonsfor lunch and meet somebody they don't
know. But they do know them, right?
We're kind of trying to establish thatyou're part of the Laker community,
yet you, you paid your tuition, you'rehere on campus, you're part of it. You,
you, this is a benefit you're paying for.

(18:08):
It's a small world, right? Access. I'vebeen here 14 years, 13 years. And uh,
a lot of people have had me, you know,
a lot of people have had thegreat faculty members here.
And I bet as you as a student,you, you've had them too.
And they're still here.
You've had some of thosethe first years, right?
And so when you meet someone else, right,who's also a major or was also an MBA,
there was also those things, Hey, did youhave Professor Lehnert for ethics? No,

(18:31):
I didn't. Ah, man. You missed out. Who'dyou have? Oh, I had Professor Lynch.
Oh, that's cool. Because I had herfor something else. You know, that's,
that's the connection.That's the common ground.
Can't do justice to a conversation betweenyou and I without talking about our
shared geekdom. And youused a term earlier,
but we had a great conversation andwe might need a whole nother podcast,

(18:54):
a different time to do this.But I want to touch on it.
So consider it the teaser.
Talk about the throw of wonder andtalk about how we don't have that
as much in modern day society with allof our technology that we have now.
Um,
and use the nostalgia that I heard youthe first time you talked about it.
Man. I mean,

(19:15):
that was one of those conversations thatjust kind of was magic at the moment.
, you know, and you ask me to goback and think about it, but you know,
when, when I think about the throw ofwonder, right? The thrill of wonder, I,
I'm always referenced to acomedy bit that Pete Holmes did.
And, uh, if you Google, uh,Pete Holmes, Google not knowing,
you'll get the bit that hedid for Conan. And, and,

(19:36):
but the bit talks about this ideathat, uh, and he does it much,
does it justice, and the,
the humor in it is there as theprofessional comedian that Pete Holmes is,
but he says, you know, look,we've got this phone, right?
We got this brick of technology thatis the sum total of all human knowledge
just sits in our hand. And I can findanything I want, anything I want.

(19:57):
Pete Holmes does the exampleof where's Tom Petty from?
And he hits the phone and hits it.Boom. Done. And, and that's it.
And the idea of knowing is the exactsame as the idea of not knowing.
And if you think abouthigher ed, right? You know,
what's the purpose of higher ed? It'ssupposed to help us gain knowledge. And,
and I I say in all seriousness, reallywhat we do is not gaining knowledge,

(20:21):
just trying to gain wisdom.
Because I can pick up my phone and I canhit a button and I can find the issue
that, uh, you know, you know,
what issue is the issue where Batmanand Robin dies at Dawn. You know,
what issue is that? What's the firstappearance of Venom and Spider-Man?
Spider-Man 300? You know, I mean,I, I can hit the button, right? And,
and if I wanna know how old Tom Cruiseis or if I want to know any of this

(20:43):
stuff, Google will give that to me.
And so does this act of notknowing is the same as knowing,
but without that, right? If we don'thave that, if we have these problems,
these questions, these concerns,right? We're anxious. We're, we're,
we're tense. I don't know. I don'tknow what's gonna be on the exam. Time,
value of money, I don't know.Oh, you know, it's hard.

(21:06):
But you live with that and,and you struggle with that.
And then you come to termswith that and Pete Holmes says,
you're at a bar one day andyou look across and you see a girl with a Tom Petty,
and the Heartbreakers T-shirt.And you walk up and ask her,
where's Tom Petty from? And she says,
Florida and a wave of endorsementsflows over you ,
right? And think about, think aboutthat class you had. That was hard.

(21:29):
That sucked. Right? That wasjust, but you worked through it.
You got through it. And nowas you reflect upon it, right?
Maybe at the end of the class you'regetting bad evaluations and you're really
upset and it's a hard class and howdare they make you, you work so hard.
But you look back upon that,like the value of that, right?
The value of the hard work, uh,Thomas Edison. Like, you know, the,
the light bulb's not one success.It's a thousand failures.

(21:53):
because we don't learn fromthe, we learn from the failure.
We learn from the notknowing. And when you,
you have that break from thenot knowing to the knowing
the wave of endorsementsbecause of that throw of wonder,
because of that throw of not knowing.Uh, and that's why I like higher ed.
That's why I like, you know, being withmy students because I don't know, uh,

(22:13):
I'm, I'm raising a teenager todayin today's world, I don't know. Uh,
but they do. Right? And it'smagical and it's brilliant.
And that's my vulnerabilityin the classroom.
And the students help me with that.And that's how they mentor me.
And that's joyous. And we forget that.

(22:34):
We forget that in thework we do because we get
weighed down by theweight, by the struggle,
by our times and the effort.
And when we own the work,when we own the vulnerability,
when we own the anxiety,when we reach that success,

(22:58):
that's the throw of wonder.That's, that's the joy, the glory,
right? Um.
Spending time in that space where youactually don't know and go ahead and
struggle with it.
Right? Right. Because whenyou break through, right?
When you break through thatbarrier and you find that pathway,
wow, that's cool.
I think of all the great rollingplaying games and, and, uh,

(23:19):
the image in my mind is the hand with ahandful of dice or the D 20 or whatever,
cuz we don't know. We're about tofind out mm-hmm. ,
but we really don't know. We're gonnatoss the dice, roll the bones, and,
and actually see what happens. Spendtime just having a great argument.
And that doesn't happen as much anymorebecause we can pull out the phone.
Mm-hmm. , uh,recently I went to, um,

(23:41):
a gathering of some friendsand they pulled out the, you know, the phone basket,
right? So everybody's gonna put theirphone in the basket and then, you know,
we can talk aboutsomething and, and do that.
And I don't advise doing that by the way,
out of the blue at your next partypulling out the phone basket. Um,
but it was kind of fun to kindof throw back to that. And,
and one of the things that I thinkour mentees and our students see us do

(24:03):
is this. And it's kind of magical to them.
And in our pre-work for this, uh, show,I had asked you a question and this,
and the answer you gave meat the time surprised me.
And it's also a teaser to a podcast inthe future. But who were your mentors?
Well, I mean, I don't think I had any,
and I've got mentors now.

(24:24):
I've got mentors who maybe mentoredme then, but I didn't realize it.
Um, and, and for me that was, thatwas a failure, right? You know, I, I,
I was behind the eight ballbecause I didn't find those people.
I was the person who didn't.
How did you do it? I mean, you'rea successful guy, right? Um,
you obviously made it. So the personout there who is self mentoring,

(24:48):
which is one of the podcast topicswe're going to talk about, what did,
what did, I don't want to, I don'twant to cue up too many things, but I,
I've seen you in class and you tellthis really passionate story after an
ethical lesson about, andhere's the day I decided,
Kevin decided he wanted to becomea professor mm-hmm. .
And it was profound and it was beautiful,and I don't want to steal the thunder,

(25:08):
and I'm not asking to tee up thatstory because it requires the buildup.
So you gotta take Kevin's class,
you gotta take ethics with ProfessorLehnert if you want to hear the story.
But how does the, tellme the transition then,
how you became selfmentored, it sounds like, to,
to bridge to your success.
Well, thankfully I've got the, the,the value of time, right? I mean, I'm,

(25:32):
I'm old, I'm an old fogieright? Um, but, um, that,
that self-awareness I thinkis really the case. It's,
it's the drive that I have in, inmyself to try to do more, to be more,
and, and the, the drive to helpothers. And, and what, what I found,
what I found is my,

(25:52):
my biggest mentors werethe people who I felt I was
mentoring them. And, and you know,
that's, that's the magic, right?You know, it's cliche, right?
I didn't teach them,they taught me. But, um,
there's a lot of truth to that.

(26:12):
Was that professionally?
Was that just socially with thepeople you chummed around with?
It was everything. It was everything.You know, you know, being there for my,
my friends and recognizing, you know,I'm a big academic with, you know,
letters behind my name, but man, I'mnot lick smarter than anyone else,
just means I'm focused and driven in,in this pathway. Um, but, but you know,

(26:33):
the people who've been there to help meand, and realize holy, holy, you know,
they're, they're, they're helping me,you know, uh, and being there for them.
So, you know, being there for myfriends, but more importantly,
my friends were therefor me when I stumbled.
And it goes back to thatvulnerability, right? To, you know,
I found that the greatest mentors I had,
and the mentors I have today are thepeople who pick me up when I fall or who

(26:58):
catch me before I fall, who reachout to me and say, you know, Hey,
what are you doing? I haven'theard from you in a while.
Um, so powerful when, when you do that.And my, my favorite mentors today,
uh, and some of them have beenon the show, Bob Stoll, uh,
was on the show and hasbeen a mentor of mine,
was a Grand Valley person for30 some odd years the other day,

(27:19):
out of the blue as if he has the,the sixth sense and shoot you a text.
How you doing? Haven't heard from youin a while. What, what's going on?
And man, sometimes that hits on theexact day you need it. And from,
I don't know, maybe it's partof the cosmic human experience,
we could debate that, but it justarrived. If you do that enough,
it's gonna arrive one of thosetimes when you really need it.

(27:40):
And I had the same thing with a goodbuddy, uh, the other day who, um,
just had the sixth sense, you know,picked up the phone, gave me a call, man,
I'm thinking about you. How youdoing? It's so powerful. Oh, yeah.
And so simple.
Yeah. And that, that'sit right there. And, and
thank you for saying that because A, itreminds me, there's some people I need,

(28:01):
I, I owe some people somephone calls, .
You and me both.
Um, but, but you're exactlyright. That's, that's the play.
And that's where I found, youknow, the people who've, you know,
out of the blue they call, say, Hey,
you realize the impact you've made onsomeone's life when they do that too. Um,
you know, some of my friendsare musicians and, you know,
every often I'll pick up on their albumsand I'll drop them a note and say, hey,

(28:23):
I'm listening to the album youwrote, you know, years ago.
And I've got to tell you,you know, all the bands, uh,
that you've been in throughout your life,Chris Graybar is a musician out of St.
Louis, and he is been inlots of different bands,
and I've known him sincemy undergraduate years,
and he's been in four orfive bands as, um, and, uh,
his, his music's been the soundtrackof my life. And I drop a note,

(28:45):
just so you know, man,
it's summertime and I'm picking upthe Magnolia Summer album again,
listening to it. And thank you forbeing there. Thank you for, you know, I,
I haven't talked to him in years and,and, but he's there for me, right?
And it works both ways. And so if Iwas to give advice to a young person,
you say, what's the thing you want ayoung person to do? Do that, man. Take,

(29:09):
go, go to Walgreens, go to CVS. Getyourself a $5 pack of thank you cards,
or just blank cards andsit down and say, Hey,
insert teacher's name here. Hey, insertjust person you're thinking about.
Just wanna let you know,thinking about you. Um, one.
Of my mentors, you meanprofessors like to get those too?
Oh, , yeah. One of my, one ofmy professional mentors, Dave Good.

(29:31):
Dave Good, is a former sales professorhere at Grand Valley State. Uh,
he retired a few yearsago, but he said, Kevin,
your relationship's like a helium balloon.
And what happens with that helium balloon,you know, sits around for a while,
it deflates, right? Youknow, that balloon deflates.
So what you have to do is you haveto blow that up with air again.
And so it requires that, you know, that'show relationships keep happening. But,

(29:52):
you know, just like with the balloon,right? It doesn't take a lot of air.
You know, one or two breathswill reinvigorate that balloon.
And,
and I think students are afraid ofthat because you're not putting us out.
You're not putting anyone out. Trust me,
most of us as humans are really,really good at looking busy.

(30:14):
But there's time I, not to gettoo geeky, I think it was, um,
one of the Star Trek movies, uh,Captain Kirk, uh, William Shatner,
I think it was maybe four or three. Um,
but there's a statement in there thatsays, you make time for what's important.
You know, Captain Kirk, captainof the enterprise, right?
It doesn't matter what iteration, what'sChris Pine? What's William Shatner?

(30:34):
Whatever busy job you make time for,
what's important?
And you will find very quicklyand easily that mentors
and mentees, what's important isthe person asking in front of them.
And if I'm an undergraduate, if I wasto go back to, to young Kevin, you know,

(30:56):
future Kevin goes back to youngKevin. I, I would say, you know,
it's okay to ask and just, just do it. Uh,
Father Tusully, uh, Jesuitpriest out of Boston College,
we got to know each other over a common,uh, thread of horror films, right?
Jesuit priest likes horror films.
He would show horror films in thelibrary at BC on Friday afternoons,

(31:16):
got to know each other. And he'sone of those people I deserve,
I needed a phone call.But, but yeah, you know,
you make time for what's important.And the times I've reached out to him,
he's always replied back with a, yes,
I have time for youbecause it's important.
And when someone asks mefor help, that's important,
and I will have time for that.

(31:37):
I like to describe, uh, mentorship aswhere I get to say yes to students.
Not all of my roles and responsibilitiesat university allow me to do that. Um,
but I'm always trying to findthat way to, yes. So, um,
I wanna wrap up with a quickspeed round, because I don't know,
speed rounds are fun. Okay, so wait.
Wait. Us move through topics quickly.

(31:58):
Well, I mean,
I'm gonna do that old speed roundwhere I'm gonna say this or that,
and you get to pick one. And, you know,
it's no judgment call except for welistened to this three years ago and be
like, yeah, you picked this thing. So,uh, you know, I, I know you're a St.
Louis Guy, so let's start with somequick barbecue. So brisket versus wings,
brisket, brisket. I agreethat blues versus jazz.

(32:19):
Jazz.
Jazz, DC versus Mar.
Depends on the type of jazz though. Youknow, I'm, I'm, I'm a smooth jazz guy,
right? I'm not, I'm not likea Mingus kind of, it's a.
DC versus Marvel.
I'm a DC kid all the way.I'm so sorry. My friend,
my friend Kurt's aMarvel guy and he's like,
I can't believe you don't have any Marvel. You know, I mean, for me, uh,
DC comics are about Gods and Marvelcomics are about humans. And uh,

(32:42):
interesting. You know, that's anotherconversation that's not mentorship,
but a whole nother, butI'm a DC kid all the way.
Grand Rapids versus St. Louis.
Grand Rapids.
That's a big deal. BecauseI know that, that you,
and especially Professor Hinch, Imean, you, you guys are Missouri, St.
Louis guys. I mean, there's always,when it comes time to defend St.
Louis or there's an opportunity for youguys to represent, I know you always do.
You know, uh, that's true. St. Louis hasa lot of great things. It really does.

(33:06):
It's, uh, I grew as a person. I am theperson I am today because of my St.
Louis experience. My fr-, deep notfriends, brothers, family is in St. Louis.
Um, but it's, it's a hard place rightnow. And if I'm to think about the,
the place I wanna live to raise myfamily, um, that community, right? We,
we started this conversation aboutLaker journey, right? Right. And, uh,

(33:28):
my past is in St. Louis,
and I always thought I'd go backhome there and I might, but, uh,
my life and my present is in Grand Rapids.
Well, we are fortunate as acommunity and as a university,
and me fortunate, uh, as a colleague,uh, to share a relationship with you.
Professor Lehnert, thank youfor taking the time today. Um,

(33:49):
and all the days that you do when you'rein your office and you're here working,
uh,
and the passion that you bring for thestudents and for the community at Grand
Valley on behalf of Grand Valley, uh,we're grateful. Thank you for that.
Well, you know, hey, the pleasure'smine. The gift was given to me.
And I say that in all honesty and, uh,
it's continued to be a gift and I willtake it and embrace it and run with it

(34:11):
for as long as that gift has continuedto be given. Uh, so you're welcome. Uh,
my wife says I need to, to justaccept the thanks . Uh,
but it does work both ways. And, uh,
any student listening or any non-studentlistening, stop by the office, uh,
third floor Seidman, and, uh,you know, ask, ask a student.
They'll get you to the left or theright for the even side. But, uh, um,

(34:33):
I'm here and I'd loveto chat with everyone.
Oh, we appreciate that. And, uh,thank you for your time. Thanks.
Thanks Gerry.
Thank you for sailing along on thisepisode of the Seidman Mentorship Podcast.
For more information on the SeidmanSchool of Business Mentorship Program at
Grand Valley State University,set your heading to
www.gvsu.edu/seidman.

(34:56):
If you have a story to tell,know someone we should interview,
have questions or comments,
email us at go the number two gv biz
spelled B i z gvsu.edu.
Until next time,
keep a weathered eye on the horizonand we wish you fair winds so

(35:18):
long.