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The Sweet Spots

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I’m Dan Baum and you’re listening to Redefine U. Join us as we continue to explore what happens when we’re challenged to change our thoughts, beliefs or even who we think we are.

It’s Thanksgiving week and for most of us, this year’s holiday will look very different from years past. With all that’s going on in the world, how is it possible to experience hard times with a thankful heart?

In this episode, we’ll talk with Brandi Shepard, professor in AACC’s Department of Architecture and Interior Design. Brandi has faced serious health challenges on top of the pandemic, but still finds opportunities for growth and joy. Let’s hear her story and how she’s able to focus on the sweet spots.

Dan: I want to welcome Professor Brandi Shepard, who teaches in the architecture and interior design program at AACC. Hi Brandi. Good to talk to you.

Brandi: Hi Dan. Thanks for having me.

Dan: Well, normally I ask how people are holding up during this pandemic. I know it's been pretty rough for you. Do you mind sharing what you've been dealing with for the last seven months?

Brandi: Oh, goodness. Where do I start? If I go back to the very, very beginning of when all this started to transpire, three weeks prior to the start of the pandemic, I was diagnosed with stage one breast cancer in my left breast, and actually was diagnosed two days before my 46th birthday, and had to navigate cancer alongside of a global pandemic. And all in that time span, I was also purchasing a home and moving my family of five from our home that we had been in for 17 years to a brand new home just down the street in the same neighborhood. So a lot has transpired in the last seven months, and as I've navigated an illness alongside this change in our way of life.

Dan: And teaching and parenting. So how have you approached this? Or how have you handled all of this when you have so many different trajectories?

Brandi: I'm a pretty organized person. I have a book that keeps me straight. As something kind of comes about, I write it down, so I don't forget the day-to-day activities and try to keep things abreast and on the even keel. In terms of the emotional side, mental, emotional side, I think that I have really just looked at the whole process as a project.

Dan: Putting your project manager hat on.

Brandi: Right, totally putting my project manager hat on and looking at it and going, "Okay. What are my resources? And how do I leverage my resources? Who can I get to help out if I need help? Or who do I ask if I need a meal? Or who can do grocery shopping for me?" So I really have leveraged my resources in that respect. And each time I've had to deal with something that's come up in my treatment, or come up in the day to day, I just create milestones, and know that's a milestone that I have to work towards. And here are my resources that I need in order to facilitate and complete that milestone. So I truly did put my project manager hat on during this process.

Dan: Well, maybe we could shift for a moment. I definitely want to come back to that. But maybe just shift to your professional role. How long have you been at the college? And what do you typically teach?

Brandi: So I've been with Anne Arundel Community College since 2000. I started out as an adjunct faculty in the department of architecture and interior design. And a year later, I was hired on as a full-time faculty in the areas of architecture and construction management. And my area of expertise really is in construction management, and I oversee that program for the college.

Dan: So you and your husband both went to AACC as well. Right?

Brandi: We did. We both graduated with our associates of arts in architecture way back when. We did not meet at Anne Arundel. We actually are high school sweethearts and we've been together for over 30 years.

Dan: Wow. I did not know that part.

Brandi: Yes, yes.

Dan: Oh, I love that. You have deep AACC roots.

Brandi: Very deep AACC roots. I often say that I'm well educated and have many college degrees, but the college degree that I earned at AACC is one that I'm most proud of, to be honest with you, because it gave me a really wonderful foundation. And the people that I encountered with, even back in the mid-90s, early to mid-90s when I was a student, are people that I still know today. And that's not just my fellow classmates, but many of the professors that I had back then were still on board AACC when I started back in 2000. And so I was able to reconnect with them and just tell them how much of an impact they were that early on in my life. And I really enjoy my job and really value my time here at the college.

Dan: That's fantastic. Well, just sticking with the professional perspective for a little bit, what are you seeing in construction management now and going forward?

Brandi: Well, I would say our industry is very, very busy right now. And we're seeing a little bit of a paradigm shift away from commercial development of office space, and the residential sector is starting to pick up pretty heavily because people are home, and they're working from home. They're learning from home. And they're very acutely aware of their environment. And they're looking around in their kitchen and going, "I don't like this place. We need to change."

Dan: Oh, yeah. That's happened in our house a couple of times.

Brandi: Right, yeah. And so people are beginning to be acutely aware of their surroundings, where they didn't spend a lot of time at home. Maybe they were traveling or they were out and about. Now they're in this lockdown situation, and they have to better their space, and for them to be happier, to be more productive, and just feel more at peace. So we're seeing a significant rise in residential construction and architecture. And we're seeing a little bit of a decrease on the commercial side. And I think what you're going to see is that a lot of companies are going to move away from these large office spaces. You're going to see a change in their asset portfolio. And they're going to move away from people having an office space where you decorate with your pictures and have your plants and your motivational posters. And they're going to be doing more collaboration spaces. They'll do more along the lines of having smaller spaces where people come together with mobile devices, laptops. I think you're going to see a change in technology and moving away from desktops and more into mobility and agility.

And I think the other thing that you're going to see is an increase in secured compartmentalized infrastructure, so that's called SCIF, where server farms are going to become more prevalent as we build up the infrastructure necessary to do remote working, remote learning, and so forth. And so I think we're going to see a shift there in terms of increasing the infrastructure for technology.

Dan: Brandi, it's interesting you started by saying it's a shift in commercial real estate, more towards the residential side. But it's almost like a blending of the two a little bit. Is that what you're seeing?

Brandi: Yeah. As we start to go back to our new normal, I would say we're not at a new normal yet, we're still in this crisis mode. We're still in a transition. We're still figuring this out. But as we transition into a new normal, employers have recognized that people can be autonomous in their work environment, and that they can be agile. And so in times of where they do need to go into an office to have a meeting, or to have a collaboration with two or three other coworkers, or even just to get a change of scenery, sometimes you need to change your scenery just to get a more effective way of working.

You're going to see people be able to work from home, but also go, "Okay. I'm going to pick up and go into the office this afternoon and do a little bit of work, and work with a coworker. And I need a space to do that."

Dan: You've shared with me in the past this concept of ROWE. Remind me what that is and how that might relate to what you're talking about.

Brandi: I get really excited about ROWE. ROWE is results only work environment. When I was studying my master's in business administration, and my area of concentration is sustainable business, that concept was introduced to me 10 years ago. And actually, companies like Best Buy use this concept. And the idea was that we're not stuck in this time constraint when you show up at work at 9 o’clock in the morning, we go to lunch at 12, and then we leave at 5 o’clock in the afternoon. The results only work environment, or ROWE, works on the fact that we work on outcomes and we work to complete goals.

And how we complete those goals leaves us, gives us an autonomy on when and how we do that. And so the idea behind that is I don't show up to work at 9 o’clock in the morning. I can start work at 6 o’clock in the morning and work until noon, and then stop and enjoy the afternoon. And then if I so choose, and I didn't get my work done for the day, you pick it back up at 6 p.m., or 7 or 8 p.m. And maybe you work until 11. And so that's where that agility kind of comes into play when you're working towards completing a goal and looking for the results, and not a time constraint. I'm in here to this point, to this point, and then I start doing it all over again the next always. And then I do that Monday through Friday.

So it's an interesting concept because it allows people to work when their best time is to work. Maybe someone works better at 4 o’clock in the morning. Maybe someone else works better at 8 o’clock at night. And so we begin to see higher level of productivity, but also again, I bring back that whole level of agility, and sort of that autonomy that I'm not being looked at by my employer saying, "Okay. Are you actually working? Are you supposed to be doing work? Should this be what you’re doing." Versus, me having a results where I am allowed to work when I'm ready to work, as long as I'm meeting the goals and meeting the project timeline.

Dan: By necessity, many of us, it's just happening naturally. I love that you're excited about that.

Brandi: Oh, I love it.

Dan: That each of us has our own respective professions, and we get excited about those things. So I can hear in your voice this excites you.

Brandi: Yes. I think I've been as an educator in higher ed for the last 20 years, this is I've been working in this environment. If I don't get my work done on a Friday, I have Saturday morning to work if I so choose. If I don't want to work at the college, I can work at the coffee shop and do the same job, and meet with students virtually, or meet with students on the phone, or have a chat session with them. It really, what it does is it allows us not to be confined by space. So we're not forced to be in a space to do our job. We're in a space that makes us feel most comfortable. And not just space, but also time. So I think that's what is interesting about ROWE as a concept. And now it's funny because it's really taken off.

Dan: Well, and for someone with your situation, you're teaching, you're a mom. You're trying to project manage all this. You have your health. So you're juggling an enormous amount. What are you noticing most right now from your various experiences?

Brandi: That's a really good question. There are moments when I feel like I can't do it, but you just do it. You do it because you have to do it. And people are depending upon me to get these tasks, and juggle all these responsibilities. And I don't look at it as this heavy weight that's on me. I look at it as an opportunity to grow and find the joy in it. And I really truly do find the joy in it. I mean, it's a lot. And everyone goes, "Oh, I can't believe you're doing this. And how are you handling it?" I just do it. It's what I do. I'm managing my way through it. I'm leveraging my resources and going from there, and finding the joy. Find the good in all the negative is what I always say to my kids. I always go, "Not everything's going to be rainbows and lollipops, so find the sweet spot and focus on that. And everything else will get you through."

Dan: I think that's what impresses and amazes me most. I can hear the joy. That's why I commented on you being excited because I know you had chemo this morning.

Brandi: Well, I had radiation this morning.

Dan: Radiation, I apologize.

Brandi: No, that's okay. I'm a little bit about where I'm about with my treatment, I did six rounds of chemotherapy from March 30 through July 13, so a little over four months. And I did that every three weeks over that time period. In that treatment regimen, I had four drugs. Two of them were targeted therapy drugs that were specific to my breast cancer. And the specific type of breast cancer I have is her2 positive. And it was the, and I say it was because I'm now cancer free.

Dan: Congratulations.

Brandi: Yes, yes. But it was the second most aggressive cancer, breast cancer that a woman can have. It was fast growing cancer. I was incredibly fortunate because it was caught on a routine mammogram that I had in January. And over the course of the next month, there was a number of additional scans and biopsies and whatnot. But I had six rounds of chemo alongside the targeted therapy. Then I had a lumpectomy done a month later after I was finished my treatments. And then had reconstructive surgery on my breasts because the lumpectomy would have deformed me. So I had a little more of an invasive surgery because of that, and then about seven weeks after that surgery, I started radiation. So I'm now in treatment nine of 16 radiation treatments, and they happen every single day, Monday through Friday. And so I'll finish up in mid-October with that. And then I'm not done. I often say that although I'm cancer free, I'm still in cancer jail, and so not quite released from jail yet. I still have 11 targeted therapy treatments to go through. I've completed two of those 11. And really what we call this, the aftermath of the treatments, after you have a lumpectomy and the surgery and all that, they all this insurance treatment. And the idea behind it is to reduce my recurrence rate down to nearly 1%.

Dan: I'm shaking my head because that would just wipe most people out, and you're speaking of joy and being excited. So what have these experiences taught you most? Or what do you find are the main lessons learned?

Brandi: Let me think about that for a second. I can tell you I've learned a lot. I think the first thing that I learned, which is on the surface, is I learned to advocate better for my health. And it wasn't that I wasn't healthy. I was a healthy person. I ate right. I exercised. But I did not like healthcare professionals. And I work at the college, we have amazing nursing and healthcare professional faculty, and they're wonderful. But I myself was not a person that liked to be in the presence of doctors and nurses. And I would often avoid going to the doctors, so when you get sick, you have no other choice but to form relationships with people that intimidate you, or don't make you feel comfortable.

And I've learned to speak up and say, "This doctor isn't for me," whereas before I would just sit there and be like, "Okay. I'm going to respect that this person does a good job, but doesn't necessarily fit with me in terms of personality." So in this whole process, I've definitely learned to say, "This is not a healthcare professional that I want to build a relationship with. I think I need to go see somebody else." So that's definitely taught me to advocate better for my own personal health, and speak up when I'm not comfortable with something.

From the emotional side, I think we get caught in the minutiae of life. We go through the motions. We take care of our children. We do our jobs. We run our households. And we forget the person that we are. And I discovered, I should say I rediscovered the person that I am through all of this, and found that I was missing out on things that I once had great joy from, and that I wasn't partaking in. And there was physical activities like my kayaking. I love to kayak, and I wasn't doing it as often. I was missing out on some creative opportunities that I really wasn't partaking in because I was getting caught up in the minutiae.

I reignited a love of design, a real love of design. I mean, my head's for construction, but my heart is for design. And I found that I instantly got back into looking at design in a much more intimate way, and looking at design from many different facets, not just architecture and interior design, but graphic design and branding, and just generally how we put together things, fashion, all kinds of stuff. So I was really starting to get kind of back into that. And then I think lastly, I learned that I'm tougher than I thought I was.

Dan: Clearly.

Brandi: I never asked why. In this whole period, I've never said, "Why, God? Why do I have cancer?" I always ask God, "What's next? Okay. What do you got for me? What lessons are you teaching me in this?" And listening intently. And so I definitely would say that I'm a lot tougher than I thought I was. And I've endured a lot, but I'm also learning from that. And I'm getting stronger and stronger in many different facets.

Dan: You may have already answered this question, but you did say you are rediscovering who you are. So who are you?

Brandi: I think on the face, I mean, I always say I'm a wife, I'm a mom, I'm a college professor, I'm a Christian. That's on the face of it, when you look at me and what I do and how I take care of people, and how I approach things. But I'm also a person full of passion. And I think that's what drives me every day is I get up and go, "Okay. What's the day hold?" Because I'm excited about it, let's see what we can get done today. And I'm passionate about what I do each and every day.

Dan: So along with rediscovering, would you say you've redefined yourself in any way?

Brandi: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It's funny because I will often look back seven months from now and go, "Where would I have been today had I not had to go through this journey? Would I be any different?" I would've been dealing with children at home e-learning and me doing my job, and my husband also working from home. And he owns an architecture firm, and we had that to worry about. Would that change? Would my journey have changed my outlook on all of this? And I think that God puts us through things to widen our eyes a little bit. And as a believer, I will tell you that my faith has driven me through this whole process. And I've rediscovered how rooted in my faith I really am. And I've really leaned heavily on my faith through this.

Dan: Well, there's still a lot of uncertainty about the future. So how do your recent experiences help you face the unknown?

Brandi: Let me think about that. As long as I'm rooted in strength and perseverance, and I hold onto the grit, true grit, I know that I can face anything. And I will do it just like I've been doing. What are my resources? Who can I depend upon? What can I pull together to get me through this period? I'm a problem solver. At the very core of who I am, I'm a problem solver. And rather than lay blame on something or someone, I'd rather say, "Okay. This is what we have. Let's work with what we've got and let's keep moving forward." What can we do and how do we organize so that we can mitigate the issues happening in the future? Again, I just am really rooted in my faith, and I keep moving forward because of that, and leaning on the people that I need in order to get through it.

And that was one thing I have to say that I did learn, is I had to give up some of my control in order to get through some of this. I had to lean on others, which was really hard for me to do. And I was taught a very valuable lesson in having faith in others, not just having faith in myself. And that was something that I really gleaned a lot from in this journey. So for me, moving forward, it's about continuing to have faith, and that things will be different. They might not be better, they might not be worse, but they'll be different. And leveraging the resources that I have in order to move through the difficult periods.

Dan: You shared with me a quote that you like, which is, "We can do hard things." I don't know if you want to speak to that or not.

Brandi: My dear friend, Jen Lara, and fellow coach, posted a sign early on in our pivot back in March, and it said, "We can do hard things." And it's so true. We just have to choose to do it. We can't run away from it because it's just going to catch up with us. So I'd rather face it head on and be like, "All right. Bring it." And look at it straight in the eye and go, "Okay. You're a challenge. How are we going to get through it? We're going to put our big girls pants on and walk right through it." And we can do hard things. We as people, we're designed to persevere. We just have to choose to persevere through it. We have to choose to dig down deep into the core of ourselves, find that little bit of strength, and just move.

And one step, you take one step. And that's it. And then you take the next step, and then you take the next step. I often tell my students that. I go, "This is hard. I know it's hard. But you can do this. You just have to choose to do it." And then we go through a whole process of: What does that look like for you going through this tough time, or going through this challenge? And I often will say to them, "You can do this. It's hard, but you can do this." And it is. This is hard for all of us, but we can do it. We just have to work together. And we have to be gracious and be kind, and find the good in all of it.

Dan: So true. Clearly, you're doing hard things. Brandi, so glad that you're doing well. I saw you on a call the other day, and your hair's coming back.

Brandi: Thank you.

Dan: I really appreciate you taking the time. Thank you so much. Take care, and I wish you continued good health.

Brandi: Thank you so much. Appreciate being here.

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To fight cancer, Brandi turned to strengths she already had. She managed it as a project: identifying resources, leveraging those resources and setting milestones. She relied on her faith. She looked for the sweet spots in all the negative.

Looking for the good is a crucial part of practicing gratitude. There are always good things to be thankful for. A child’s laugh. A bird’s song. An inspiring podcast? If we take notice of them, those small, shiny bits of gratitude add up and their combined glow can light us through the darkest times. On the journey, we may just discover that we’re tougher than we thought we were.

What are you thankful for? Let us know on social media or by emailing redefineu@aacc.edu.

[credits]

Redefine U is a production of Anne Arundel Community College.
Our executive producer and creative director is Allison Baumbusch.
Our producer is Jeremiah Prevatte and our writer, Amy Carr Willard.
Others who helped with this podcast include Amanda Behrens, Angie Hamlet, Ben Pierce and Alicia Renehan.

Special thanks to Brandi Shepard.

Find show notes, how to subscribe and other extras on our website: aacc.edu/podcast.

I’m your host and creator of this podcast, Dan Baum. Thanks for listening.

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