Demarquis Battle, Advisor working in Financial Aid at Lansing Community College, describes his circuitous journey through higher education from playing college football and aspiring to run a Fortune 500 company, to discovering that he instead wanted to focus on serving people as a servant-leader. Daring to make a major occupational change in college, he found that his family and friends were there to support him, and he has taken his passion into higher education to help students find their own passion in life, too.

He recommends practicing positivity versus complaining. At this point in his life, he is trying to develop his ability, as a primary reaction, to practice making lemonade out of lemons. Negativity can become overwhelming, but in shifting to an attitude of gratitude one can find ways to experience joy even while in the middle of a storm.

Finally, DeMarquis talks about the power of being in person with another human being absent technology. He describes 3 types of foundational relationships: 1) an “up” relationship with a mentor, 2) a “down” relationship with someone whom you can mentor, and 3) a “horizontal” relationship with someone whom you can share the journey of life with alongside one another. He concludes this interview by talking about the necessity of finding one’s passion and purpose.

1. How to write a personal mission statement, Stephen Covey.
2. 10 reasons why you need a mentor, Indeed.

Welcome to Headroom, where we discuss all things essential to mental health and well being. I'm your host, Jim Owens, a licensed professional counselor at Lansing Community College.

Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast does not constitute psychotherapy. It does, however, introduce you to some phenomenal people who have incredible ideas for you and your life.

Having said that, let's get into the Headroom and begin Today's conversation with Demarquis Battle, advisor Lansing Community College. Hey, Demarquis , how are you?

I'm doing pretty good, Jim. Excited to be here.

Thanks for coming on the show, dude.

Absolutely.

I know you definitely have given some thought to mental health and wellness and well being, and so I'm glad you're on the show because I'm sure you have some ideas to share with people. But before we get into that, tell us a little bit about yourself, what you do here, maybe a little about your background and so on.

Yeah, for sure. So, you know, I've been serving in higher education for about 15 years in a number of different capacities.

You know, started off, I love to say this when I'm speaking to students as a work study student, so, you know, students will familiarize themselves with that and my presentations that I normally do. But from there moved on into more of a professional role within higher ed.

Eventually got into financial aid and being an advisor and so love serving students from that perspective. And so that's kind of like the professional side of things. But, you know, really fell in love with higher ed.

It's been a big part of my journey over the years and so that's what I'm currently doing. But you know, when I say who I am or what I do, I think what best describes it is I'm a servant leader.

You know, that's, that's really the nuts, nuts and bolts of it all, you know, helping people to grow, develop, achieve success. So that's, that's a little bit about me.

That's really what you've been working on professionally for quite a long night.

Yeah.

Time now.

Yeah, yeah.

And different domains in life. Hired isn't the only place I know that you do that, but yeah, yeah, that's cool. So you've had quite an interesting higher ed journey too.

I mean, you could share a little bit about that. And at some point I want to ask you, where were the stumbling blocks in here and how did you get through them?

But I think a lot of people look at folks who achieve a lot like you have.

Yeah.

And they think, well, it must have been easy. For him, he just probably was ready for college and went through college straight through and was not too circuitous. It was a straight line.

But I know your story. It wasn't a straight arrow. So tell us a little bit about that.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, I really have to take it all the way back to high school.

Go for it.

Right. So, you know, I was an athlete. You know, I played football, played basketball, you know, all the sports, track field and. But football was my passion.

And so, you know, growing up, the goal was to eventually make it to college and play football. And so, you know, I did that. Right.

I made it to college, I played football, and when I got there, you know, there were some ups, there were some downs, and that's life. Right.

And so going through those adversities really kind of exposed me to so many different things and really helped me to lean into another part of my life which was my faith. Right.

And so that kind of served as a foundational, you know, place for me is to kind of build upon that and, you know, help me to get through some of those adversities. And so, you know, eventually ended up shifting away from, you know, doing football. And at that point, I'm like, okay, what am I going to do now?

Yeah.

Because football was such a large part of what I would term a part of my identity. Right. And so now I needed to tap into some other facets of my life to really propel and go to the next place. Right. What am I going to do now?

Yeah.

And so kind of figured that out.

Stumbled quite a bit trying to navigate through it, but eventually end up leaning into not only my faith, but some other areas of passion that I had, which was business. Yeah, Right. In high school, I wanted to be. This was. This was my tagline. I'm going to be a CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

Period.

Right, period. So that's what I leaned upon. So I started doing some things in that business, marketing, sales from some experiences that I had.

But eventually I really leaned into people. Yeah, right. You know, I felt that there was a sense of purpose in serving people.

And so from that I kind of, you know, stumbled into the higher ed field. Yeah, right. From a professional standpoint. And then, of course, my faith being really key for me, leaning into serving in that arena as well.

Serving people from that. From that lens.

That's an interesting switch. Right. Because I think young people, they think I want to be successful. And sometimes that's measured by the Fortune 500 thing. It's signs.

It's Sometimes status. Something that your parents can brag about at the cocktail parties or whatever. My son is. Da da. My daughter.

But you said, I don't want to serve the dollar. I want to serve people. I want to help people go through this transition.

That's obviously what you're still doing now here and in your church and so on and so forth.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. So what was something that almost stopped you from. I'm just picturing, like, you go off to college to play football.

Your family must have just been like, wow, this is it. We got a star here.

That's right.

Right. I'm telling you, like. And you eventually were like, the star isn't shining right now. It's coming into a different place.

How did you manage that with, you know, relationships? Because I imagine a lot of our students feel the pressure from their families.

Yeah. Expectation of people. Yeah, right. From people on our lives can cripple us. Right. And I. And I almost fell into that same trap. What do I do now?

That the expectation was that I was going to play football and make my family proud, make my community proud.

And when I felt a pull in a different direction, you know, I didn't want to go back and tell all those people that supported me all throughout the years that I was no longer going to do that and I was going to shift to something else. Right. And so that fear, really, really, you know, it was huge. It was a huge barrier. But, you know, eventually I got over it.

I got, you know, through it with the help of, you know, some people that were close to me, to help navigate. And here's the thing. You know, oftentimes we think that the. The response from those who are in our support network is. Is going to be negative.

There might be some blowback or some pushback initially, but those that support you, they want to see you be successful, and they want to support you no matter what it is. Right. They just want to see you achieve your. And to push forward.

So eventually, that support network, who I was afraid was going to criticize me and ostracize me, they ended up supporting me and helping me to get through. And so, you know, I think that that was huge, that, you know, no matter your life adversity, you can get through that. You can get over that.

And that's the experience that I had. And I see that with so many people.

And I relay that to students that I work with, those that I work with in, you know, a faith context outside of here that you can overcome. You just got to keep pushing through,

man, I would say it probably had to drum up a lot of vulnerability and courage to do that, to make that call home or to, like, I'm gonna go in a different direction.

Not only did the people that were probably counting on you at university and the team, but at home and all that stuff, to call on some courage to be like, I'm gonna go in a different direction. It kind of like, your breath. I would be, like, holding my breath as I say this. I'm kind of holding my breath.

Like, we'll see what people are gonna say. But in the end, they came through for you. They wanted you to be successful.

Yeah. Well. And you have to start with you.

Yeah.

Right. You have to make that decision for you, not for anyone else, but for yourself and believe in yourself.

Yeah.

Right. And I settled within that, that I had a belief on where I was going once I kind of put a plan together. Now you got to have a plan, right? Yeah.

You got to have a direction. But once you feel confident in that direction.

Yeah.

Then you can move full steam ahead, and eventually they'll see, you know what? It looks like he's going somewhere. We're going to support that.

Well, yeah. I can relate a little bit in my own story. When I first went to college to be an architect. And then I discovered, I think I want to be a counselor.

But I remember thinking, like, I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if my family's going to support this. But also, that's a lot of college. I don't know if I'm smart enough to do it.

You know, I was like, and I don't know if I can afford it. Like. Yeah, but I. So the plan came together after the purpose. I had found the purpose. And I think maybe it's what you're describing.

Like, you knew you had to go in a different direction. And you were like, I'm going to figure out a way to do this, Which I figured it out. You figured it out.

Yeah.

If you would have stopped us at a certain point in time and asked us, do you have it figured out? We would have both said, not yet. I don't have figured out right yet, but I'm working on it.

Yeah. No, you make some good points there, Jim. And here's the thing.

There are breadcrumbs along the way that will let you know what you're supposed to be doing. Right. I thought football was my purpose. It wasn't football. It was people. Right. Any sport that I did in my youth I was a leader.

Yeah.

I served.

Right.

I led, and I had a way with people.

Yeah.

Right. So I thought, you know what?

I'm.

I'm called to be a football player. No, I'm called to be a leader. Got it. Right.

And so, you know, once I figured out, you know, this is shift and a paradigm shift in thought on truly what my purpose is, it's not what I do is who I am. Right, right. So once I started figuring some of that out, then I'm like, okay, now I can move into what I feel is my. My true purpose and calling.

Yeah. I think, like, even now, sitting at the table, you haven't described yourself, as with other titles that you could have. Which I know you have.

Sure.

And which I won't share. You can share them if you want, but, like, you've identified yourself as a servant, leader, not as you've said, advisor.

And I know you have other roles that you play in higher ed, and you're just like. That doesn't really define me. It's who I am and how I'm doing what I'm doing in these different domains.

Yeah.

That's what defines me.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You know, because titles can. Can kind of put us in a box. Right, Right. So I am an advisor.

Yeah.

I am a professor. Right. I am a FAI or a pastor, whatever it might be. Right. But you know what. What am I trying to help people do? I'm trying to help them grow.

I'm trying to help them develop and achieve success. I'm serving them, you know, serving students here. I'm serving my family.

Yeah.

You know, serving my children, serving my wife, you know, so.

Yeah, you're bringing home some bacon.

Yeah, that's right.

But you know what? Being in this community where we both work, we are around people who are interested in growing and becoming educated and learning.

And it's not even just the students. It's our colleagues. We're all, so many of us, lifelong learners. We're just excited to keep learning from each other, from our students and so on.

And I know.

Oh, yeah.

So every year, my wife is married to a different man. I mean, I'm not the same guy every year.

No.

Hopefully I'm getting better, and I think so. But she doesn't want to be married to that guy she married 18 years ago. I can tell you that. Not today.

He was okay back then, but he wouldn't cut it today, I don't think.

I don't know no different place now.

We're in a different place. So so talk to us about growth then.

I mean, if we're talking about change and growth and obviously, I'm most interested in mental health, but everything is connected. So what are your thoughts on what do you think students need to hear to be able to kind of understand how to approach wellness?

Mental wellness, emotional wellness?

Yeah, I think, you know, I was thinking about this, you know, coming into the interview, and, you know, practicing positivity, I think, is huge.

Yeah.

Right. You have to practice it. There's so much negativity in our world. Right.

No matter where you go and, you know, practicing positivity, you might not master it, but, you know, practicing it will, you know, give you the skills that you need to. When you're facing adversity, the first thing that you do, do you complain? Do you shell up? Do you. Do you.

You know, or do you look at the lemonade with the lemons that way? Right. What can I squeeze out of this?

Yeah.

And I've been trying to be a more positive when I'm faced with difficulty. And that's speaking well, that's thinking well. Right.

And I think that's an aspect of wellness that I think is important, is creating the environment that you can thrive in. And. And I think part of that is positivity. Yeah, yeah.

It's not. It's not playing this game that these aren't lemons. They're lemons. We get lemons in life.

Yep.

But you're like, that's fine. It's. It's gonna hurt. Honestly, if you bite into a lemon, for most people, that's not a pleasurable thing.

But you're like, what am I going to get out of this?

Yeah.

I'm already involved in this. What can I squeeze out of it that's going to be useful? Bring something out of it.

Yeah, yeah. Because everything. Everything is. Is. Is useful in a way. You know, the experiences that we go through. Right. The adversities that we go through. Right.

If I had not gone through the journey of becoming a football player in college, I would have missed out on so much that I needed in order to grow, to develop, to learn to person. Right. And now I can share those experiences with those that I'm serving, whether in higher ed, whether in the faith context, whatever I'm doing.

Right. So those. Those lemons are useful.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So what's the. I mean, I don't want to say what's the trick here, but how.

I guess I'm really curious about how did you decide that that was the place you needed to Put some focus. Like, I need to become a little more positive. I need to look for the positive.

Did you just notice that you were complaining and kind of looking at the negative a little bit more, or how did you come to that?

You know, I came to it from a. From a place of, this is overwhelming me, to where all I'm seeing is negative. Right.

I'm not even taking time to, you know, enjoy the things that I do have. Right. You know, they say an attitude of gratitude, you know, like. And so by doing that, it's a mindset. It's a. It's a shift in mindset. Right.

Where I'm starting to see, you know what. Although I face some adversities here, here's what I also received through this process. Right.

And so, you know, I think through experience, I think through mentorship from others. Right. Who have said, hey, you gotta look at the bright side. You know, is it a half glass, half glass, full or empty? Right. That sort of thing.

And so, you know, just really trying to train myself and practice that concept, I think has really helped me, you know, throughout the years.

Yeah. I'm also aware that, like, some people say, I don't want to complain, and they just try to force themselves into this positivity mindset.

And it's like, okay, well, you have to kind of. In my field, we kind of define the problem and then we go about treating it.

Sure.

We need to actually acknowledge that there's a problem in the room.

Absolutely.

And that is not being negative. That is not complaining.

I have some people come into a session with me, and they'll talk about the problems, and they're like, but I'm just complaining. And I'm like, if we stop at talking about the negativity of all this, then, yeah, it was just a complaining session.

But if we start talking about solutions and. Or what in it we can be grateful for.

Yeah.

Just hard to find in the middle of a storm.

Oh, yeah.

In the middle of looking back on a storm, you're like, oh, that cleared out some brush I got now some new land I can plant something in. Like, it's okay after you survived it, you know?

Yeah.

But in the middle of the storm can be tricky. But it's okay to acknowledge the negativity that's on.

Yeah. Let me give you an example. You know, we had a storm here in mid Michigan a month or so ago. Yeah. And it really. It wiped out a lot for a lot of people.

It was. It was a disaster. Right.

And.

But what did I get out of that. I got to play, you know, flashlight with the kids. Right. We got to put our cell phones down because the Internet wasn't working.

Yeah.

Right. We got to spend some time together. And so there's a memory that's now been created through a storm.

Yeah.

You know, we rarely sit to think about those sorts of things. Right. And so it's perspective.

Yeah, man.

I think about those sort of things. It's. It's powerful.

That's interesting. It's interesting you bring that up because we lost power on campus here about a week ago.

Yeah, we did.

And I was in session with a client.

Oh, wow.

And the power went. I'm at the end of this hallway. There's no emergency lights come out. It's dark in there. I just turned the flashlight on on my phone and flipped it up.

So it gave us kind of some ambient light.

Yeah.

And it immediately felt like there was a little campfire in the office.

Wow.

You know, and I was like, this is how people used to do this thousands of years ago. They sat around the campfire at night. There was no tv, no Internet, and they told each other their stories in their lives and made music and song.

And it just took me back, like, this is good for us. It's good for us to sit down face to face, just like you and I are doing it right now.

This is good for human beings to put the screens down and spend some FaceTime with each other.

Yeah, yeah. No, that speaks to another. And you might even ask this question. But if you're thinking about wellness, it's okay to relax. It's okay to unplug.

Says the guy with how many diplomas?

It's okay to do that from time to time. You know, I love to barbecue.

Okay.

Okay.

And I'll sit and fire up the barrel, fire up the grill, and, you know, just smoke some ribs or pork loin, whatever I'm doing, and just sit there and listen to what's happening around me. Just. And the sun's just, you know, shining on me. And that's my. That's my happy place. Right. That's the place where I can just detach.

And I think that's important for people, whatever it is, whether it's knitting, whether it's putting together a thousand piece puzzle, whatever that thing is, you got to have some of that. You got to unplug.

I almost. Yeah. I think of, like calling this the art of doing nothing.

Yeah.

Which I'm poking fun at you because I'm not much different. Like, we're both Pretty determined people to get things done. And we're all about getting things done for other people, but we're busy and.

Yeah, it's good to hear you say that because I need to hear this from my colleagues and my peers, like.

And you know me, so.

Exactly.

I'm always in a. You know, I often wonder, like, this desire to achieve, Wanting to do well, wanting to go to the next thing.

You know, sometimes we want to go to the next thing too quickly.

Yeah.

Take time to enjoy the moment. Right, right. And we see this. You know, I have kids and they're growing and, you know, am I taking time to enjoy.

There's a concept that we teach, being in person. Right. You know, if you're at a party, are you taking all the selfies? Are you videoing the whole thing?

If you're at a game or a concert, or are you enjoying it? I remember the first concert I went to some years ago. I won't date myself. I didn't have social media or recorded with a self. I had a flip phone.

Right, Right. I was like, so recreating that moment and sharing that story. It's in my head, it's in my heart, you know, so it's funny.

No, back in the. Back in the day, we used to. If we had a flip phone, we'd flip it up just so that the green led on the T9 would be like the lighter for the concert.

People are waving those right now. People are watching the concert through their phone screen.

Yeah. Which.

Okay, that's the experience you want to have. Go for it.

And we love technology. We do.

We do. And you and I both do, for sure. But, yeah, there's something about that. It's funny.

We have to talk about being in person with people now because, again, we've been doing this for thousands of years. Thousands of years.

Thousands. Yeah.

But we're not doing it as much as we used to. So you think we have to be more intentional about it. Like you said with your kids, the power's out. Hey, we're automatically gonna have more FaceTime.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And so, like, you know, I'm getting. Am I the interviewer or the interviewee?

We can do it either way.

Okay, so here's something that. And this might be a good. A good point to kind of wrap up with. You talk about relationships. Right. I think there are three types that we all need.

We have to find purpose in people.

Yeah.

I keep going back to the people thing, but from the human context, from the human experience. Right. We need people And I think one thing that the pandemic, you know, unfortunately did was it isolated us. Right.

And so I think more than any, any, any time in history, we need that connection with people. And so we have what you call up relationships.

Okay.

And so that is a relationship with someone that's been where you're trying to go.

Yeah.

Kind of a mentor.

Kind of a mentor. Yeah.

Someone that can help and share wisdom with you. So that's what we would call an up relationship. You also need down relationships. You know, that's.

Those are people that you can pour into and share your experiences with, and they can. You can mentor them and, you know, show them some things that you've gone through and help them along the way.

But you also need horizontal relationships. People that are right where you're at, you know, your colleagues, you're in the same kind of boat, same experiences, things of that nature.

You need the, you know, all three of those relationships.

And there's so much purpose that are in people and all those different relationships that will feed us and help us to remain well, to continue to pursue our dreams, our goals and all those sorts of things. And we can be holistic and fully have the human experience. I think that's so needed today. For sure.

Yeah. To have that. It's kind of like how wisdom traditions get handed on.

It gets handed down to you, and you hand it on down to somebody else while you have it. You're working with it. You and I, we're doing this right now. We're trying to figure it out in the middle of it. So we're next to each other.

We have a horizontal relationship.

Yep.

And there's been times when we've led each other in different areas for sure, too. But I know you and I both have had mentors in life and do still and have mentees.

Yeah.

And we feel that responsibility to, like, you know, help usher in the next generation and learn from our life experience. But we're trying to learn, too, from the generation ahead of us or whatever it is.

Absolutely.

And so how do you find those people? If you're. If you're a college student, you're like, man, I'd love to have a mentor.

And you might think you naturally go to your parents, but that's not a great spot for everybody to be able to go to.

No.

Where can they go find mentors?

No. Well, you know, you have to be a little vulnerable.

Okay.

Right. Willing to. You gotta. You gotta be fast. You gotta. You gotta be what we would term faithful, accountable, servant minded. And Teachable. Right.

And so first, before you even gather a mentor, you gotta be willing to be mentored.

You gotta be. When the student is ready, the master will present herself. There you go. I don't know where that's from, but it's somewhere.

Yeah, it's from somewhere. Right. And so, you know, you have. You have persons that are within your education community.

You have them in the faith community, you have them in different organizations.

Sports.

Sports community. Absolutely. But it's certainly something that, if you're desiring it, I think it'll find you, you know, and so I say that we all need that.

And you have it in a natural sense from your working environment, a supervisor, even when they're not officially your mentor, you're learning from people. And so you have kind of unofficial ways of doing that and more structured official capacities of mentors. And I think you can find that.

Yeah, I think this is really good advice, actually. And I've learned from it myself, to have mentors in life.

And fortunately, I've had some that have been in my life now for 30 years, counselors who mentored me. And still I can call them and say, I'm not sure what to do with this situation or the issue. And they're like, me neither.

I've been out of the business for 20 years. No. But it's good to formalize these things a little bit, too, and to be intentional about it. But I think your point about being teachable.

Yeah.

That adopting, like, a stature. I'm trying to find the right word here, but like a position of a willingness to learn, to be molded, shaped.

Because the other side of that is arrogance and pride, which is just like, I'm good enough the way I am. I don't need any instruction.

Oh, yeah.

I just need to get what I need to get so I can move to the next thing.

No, that's not.

You're gonna struggle.

Yeah, you're gonna struggle. That's not quite what it is. Yeah, right. And it's not so much, hey, would you be my mentor? Hey, how'd you do that?

Yeah, you know, I've been trying to figure, you know.

Yeah.

I mean, the very subtle questions, you know, that you can, you know, kind of open up that engagement, that conversation, to start gathering some of those things that you need in order to be successful.

Okay, we got a few minutes left, so I'm going to ask you one last thing about perseverance or motivation.

Sure.

You've had challenges in life. I've had challenges in life. We've persevered How?

You know, what do you say to somebody who's down and is just like, I just don't want to get back in the ring right now, or, I'm just tired, you know, how do I persevere? What do you. What do you say to people? Because I know you've had people come to you and say, like, I'm ready to throw the towel in.

Yeah. Yeah. First, I always say, I hear you. Sometimes they know what it takes for them to get back up.

Yeah.

But they just want to be heard.

Okay.

Right. So I always go into those types of conversations, like, you know what? I hear you. I hear what you're saying.

Yep.

You know, and if I feel that there's kind of an open door for me to speak more about my experiences, then. Then I share those, and then I try to reinforce after hearing them, try to find out what's their why.

Mmm.

You know?

Yeah. Say more about that, would you, like.

Yeah.

Their why.

Yeah. I think a why is a powerful thing. Why you do what you do, you know, and that, I think, is the fuel that's needed to push you forward. Right.

For me, right now, my why are my family.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

My children, my wife, they're my why. And, you know, we didn't quite get to it, but you know what I see myself doing from now to the future? Yeah. I'm trying to build legacy.

Yeah.

Right. That's my why. I want. I want to help my children grow to be successful and to be contributors to society and to, you know, make a difference. Right.

And so for somebody that's down and out.

Mm.

I want to affirm them.

Yeah.

Let them know that they're special, that they're unique, that they have purpose, and to let them know that they have a why. And if they don't know what it is right now, try to help them discover it.

Yeah. I think people need to be reminded of that why sometimes. Right. Because we discover. And sometimes it changes a bit.

I don't know if mine's changed a lot in a long time, actually. I think probably because I'm in my passion, I love what I'm doing, and I know you're in the same place.

Yeah.

And maybe it took a while to find that, but there are still times in my life now I need to be reminded of it, because work, we get overloaded sometimes, and sometimes work turns into a job. I hate to say it.

Oh, yeah.

You're just like, man, I'm just running from one thing to the next right now. Am I enjoying this? Not right now. No, I'm busy.

Nope. And you know what? That's fine. We don't always enjoy what's going on in life, and people need to have that, that humanity. Like, okay, you know what?

I don't feel happy or, you know, I'm having a tough time. Right. But that's why conversations are important. That's why things like this, podcasts are important, is reminding people of that why.

Wow. Well, thanks for coming on the podcast today. Yeah, you know, thank you everyone for joining us in the headroom.

Thank Demarquis again for sharing your wisdom. I know you've given a lot of thought to these kinds of things, so I appreciate you coming and sharing them with everybody who's listening.

Thanks for inviting me.

Yeah, man. And, and speaking of which, everyone who's listening, if you'd like some one on one help with your mental health, you can actually come.

If you're an LCC student, you can get free personal counseling. And if you're currently enrolled, you can come on down and learn more at LCC.Edu/Counseling.

Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time in Headroom.