On this episode, we go "Behind the Connection" to find out about Kate Correy and her new podcast called "Conversations with Kate" set to premiere on LCC Connect April 1, 2025. Kate is a multifaceted Lansing Community College student with a diverse background as a hairstylist, DJ, and musician. Our conversation touches on the essence of community engagement and personal growth, inviting listeners to discover the enriching narratives that will unfold in "Conversations with Kate".

Related Podcast: Conversations with Kate

This is Daedalian, General manager for LCC Connect. And this episode of behind the Connection features a chat with the host of a new podcast called Conversations with Kate.

The host of the program is Kate Correy. She is currently a Lansing Community College student that wears multiple hats, including hairstylist, DJ and musician.

Her podcast premieres on LCC Connect Tuesday, April 1. You can listen to it at LCCConnect.org or on your favorite streaming platform.

And now it's time to delve behind the scenes and find out what's happening behind the connection. So what exactly is Conversations with Kate?

If you were to explain it to somebody and you're encouraging them to listen, how would you explain that to them?

It's like having a conversation with your favorite person.

It was born out of my career as a hairstylist and a dj, making that connection with people and having conversations with people via, you know, through a dj, through music, and as a hairstylist, through day to day conversations with my clients. And that's kind of just the gamut all encapsulated together is just having that conversation with your favorite person, people and connecting.

Okay. Okay. And you of course are here at Lansing Community College as now you're a returning student, right?

Yes.

So where did you originally begin your educational journey?

Three. Wait, what? Huh? Three bad car accidents? What do you mean?

Like, literally, like within. Within a three month period.

Really?

Yeah. So five years ago, I was in a terrible car accident south of Barnes Road on 127. Oh, wow. And that was a week after I had broke my arm snowboarding.

And that kind of ended my tenure here. Then like, thank goodness the professor that I had for that class was very understand. And I got through the class with a skin of my teeth.

Okay.

So that kind of put a pause on that.

So did I miss that? So you originally started at Lansing Community College and then you came back. Did I catch that right?

Yes. Yeah. So that was.

Had you done anything before Lansing Community College?

Oh, absolutely, yes.

That's what I was wondering.

Oh, okay. So.

But now you've got me on the. You've got me like completely in a different direction.

In a different complete direction. Okay. So I started at Seminole State College. Well, let's tailor it back even further. So I started with Music Business Management at Full Sail.

Okay.

And I made it through two semesters, which with them is month and month long classes. That's it. And after that second month, I was like, listen, I was already in Orlando managing an event and managing a group of DJs slash producers.

And I was like, I'm already teaching myself what to do for Music Business management. Why am I gonna pay 60 grand to this school to do that? So quit there.

Okay. Now. Now you moved to Michigan.

Moved to Michigan.

Which many people would wonder why. I assume you have family here.

I do. My daughter's father's family is from here. And it's much easier to co parent from three miles away from each other rather than a thousand.

Okay. And I'm gonna say many people, I am not one of those people because I absolutely love the state. So to me, you know, and I love Florida.

It's fun to visit for me.

Right.

I will always want to be back in Michigan. I want to clarify that.

Yes.

Just because that's me.

That's you. Yeah.

Because this state rocks, in my opinion.

Listen, I agree with you. There was a long time where I never saw myself living outside of central Florida.

Yeah.

Like I was back in August of last year for my brother's birthday and felt like a piece of sizzling bacon as soon as I stepped outside. And I was like, yep, this is why, like, I love visiting there. I was just there at the beginning, beginning of the month to raise money for a benefit.

And I love it. But you know what? I'm back here. It's great. We have spring. Everything is, you know, the birds are chirping.

And you moved back here. And I'm really trying to get us back to the point that we were at.

Right.

That was about when you walked through the doors here at WLNZ to talk to me, Right?

Yep.

Anybody that's a longtime listener of LCC radio, prior to Our transition to working with Michigan Public, you actually did a drum and bass show, which is electronica. Yes. And it was called Halcyon Radio. You did that for what, two years, I think.

Is it called Michigan Radio?

Well, we changed things.

Well, not ended things, but my tenure ended here.

Yep.

And then we went into the management agreement with Michigan Public.

Okay. Yeah.

And that's kind of what happened there. I don't want to get too far into that because I'm still trying to work our way back to what we were meant to do, so.

So Halcyon Radio, excellent show.

And that's actually what's weird is I actually kind of knew you before. Before we did the power up.

Yep.

But let's get back into your educational path.

Yes.

And even more so having three accidents within a very limited amount of time.

And that's when we're recording this. Yes, because this will not air on St. Patrick's Day, of course.

So on St. Patrick's Day, the person I was d at the time and I were on our way back from Lansing.

And that day, the weather was like sunshiny and then snowy, sunshiny rainy. And I was the designated driver, was driving home that night and hit black ice. And my car was in cruise control, and I took it out of cruise control.

The car immediately went into the traction control, turned on, and my back side of my car just went to the. To the passenger side, and I could not control it.

Because what people don't know is that's a really great feature, but you can't control your car once traction control starts. And the car went into the ditch at 70 miles an hour and flipped three times.

Wow. I am so grateful you're still with us.

Me too.

And that is a lot. Okay, so that was accident number one.

Yes. And then there was two subsequent ones in June of that year. One on the 1st and one on the 12th.

But anyways, long story short, three car accidents later. Okay.

Yeah. You know, I, thank goodness, have never really been in what I would consider a detrimental car accident. So does that, like your.

What's the word I'm looking for, Psychology of how you drive now, does that.

Absolutely 150%.

Do you feel like it's creating the anxiety?

So directly after the first accident, Yeah, I was a walking, like on level five. I felt like someone had a gun at my head, basically. What's the word? Fight or flight? Every time I got in the car. Yeah, every single time.

It didn't matter where I was driving, especially if it was here in Lansing. The fact that I can drive calmly in Lansing currently or to and from here on 127, phenomenal. But it just took a lot of work.

One of my episodes that I have out is part of the work that I did to kind of heal that where, yeah, there was definitely a lot of driving anxiety and I still to this day have stuff like that pop up. But the great thing is now I have a lot of tools to use to, you know, if anything like that happens.

Wow. I am. Yeah. Like I said, I'm just so grateful that you were able to be with us today because that is a lot of stuff going on.

And honestly, this is not the direction I expected to go with this conversation, but it's okay. So you're a non traditional student, you're returning to school.

You actually went through the podcast PowerUp, which I saw your name, I recognized your name, and I was pretty hyped that you were getting back on board to do something here. With what I'm doing now, as far as LCC Connect goes, tell me a little bit about the process of going through the power up. What did you think of it?

What did you feel like went well? And what could we have done a little bit better?

I think everything went pretty smoothly. I was walking into school and about, you know, I'm big on like, okay, if the universe, like puts things in front of me, I kind of run with that.

Yeah.

And a couple of times I walked into the building in the Gannon Building and saw the thing and I was like, all right, okay, I get it, I get it, I get it. I'm going to go ahead and just do this, all right, Universe. I'm going to. I'm going to put conversations with Kate in the bucket.

You know, I was in the midst of school and sidetracked and, you know, add and then I got a little email reminder that said, hey. Which I love that. That's a great feature because it reminded me, hey, finish your application. We would like to hear from you. And.

And to be honest with you, the only thing that I would have changed was, like, once I finished and completed my application, the constructive criticism for you guys, I didn't hear anything back for the longest time.

Yeah, that's definitely something that we're working on.

But other than that, it was a great process.

I know that you and Lane are extremely busy people, Especially once I got in here and talked to the both of you, I understood why there was such a lag time. Yeah, yeah. That in and of itself is the only thing in the process, but other than that, it's been very smooth. I'm pretty excited to be here.

Just to give people an inside notion of what Kate's talking about is the fact that we're a very small staff and you're being very diplomatic about the lag time because we're trying to fix that and get better about it.

I also wanted to mention that the podcast power up, because I didn't talk about it, and anybody not familiar with it, I want them to understand, basically, it's our way of putting something out to the students and saying, hey, you're welcome to be a part of what we do here too.

I think it's a great idea.

I saw your name and I was like. I kind of had already, like, the notion of. I figured this was gonna work out because I was familiar with your work with Halcyon Radio.

So it was great that you got on board. What exactly made you decide to create the show, though, beyond the universe telling you and guiding you and saying that this is something to do.

And I was like, I'm going to make a podcast. And at that point, I literally just recorded a 30 minute memo on my phone.

And I ended up talking to one of my friends, Drew, and he goes, I think that's a great idea. I think you should do it. And I was like, you know what? And I'm gonna call it Conversations with Kate.

And then it kind of just sat there for a long time. And then this past my first semester, actually, I was talking to one of my professors about My health journey.

And she was like, you absolutely should put that out into the universe because you speak with such conviction on what you've been through, the tools that you have, and people need to hear that and connect with that. And that's what I did. I was like, you know what? There's too much on my plate right now between my daughter, work, and school full time.

But over the summertime, I'm gonna do it.

And we should mention that episode two is actually. It's gonna be featuring that particular conversation with Kate, if you will, LCC connect. And a little bit of an unconventional health approach.

And I only say that in that it's not something that a lot of folks would do. So what got you exploring that side of you, like the unconventional side of working to be healthier?

Conventional medicine wasn't working. I have add. It's un Officially diagnosed add, but it's all. And it's in my family. All of my family members have it.

Okay.

And conventional medicine wasn't doing anything.

Yes.

So this is after the accidents.

Yes.

Okay.

And that breaking the ironman after the accidents.

So was that the catalyst to this?

That was kind of like the crack that opened up the thing. Okay. Complex post traumatic stress is not just like having one event that makes you have a traumatic event.

It is a lot of things over an entire lifetime. And unfortunately, like I said, the conventional medicine wasn't working, so I had to figure out what would.

I'm not a fan of being like, okay, well, this is who I am now. Da, da da, da, da. I was like, okay, listen, here's a diagnosis. This is what's going on. How do I fix this? How do I remedy this?

And that's kind of just how I approached it.

And I went at it, trying to figure out how I could heal those things instead of looking at it as a disability or an injury that was just going to stick with me for my entire life.

Okay, so did you connect with somebody on some of these, I'm going to say, alternative healing solutions or answers as opposed to researching it? Or did you do both? How did you come across a lot of these?

So both of them. So there was a couple of different things that I did. Number one, and this will be in the health episode.

Breathwork altered my existence a couple years ago. I did a Breathwork session for one of my friends birthday on a full moon. And it absolutely, hands down, altered my existence.

Now, anybody not familiar with breathwork, explain what it is.

So it is a controlled breathing for a specific amount of time. And when you deliver oxygen to your body, there is no room for cellular death.

And it delivers a lot of, like I said, oxygen and helps you meditate, I guess could say, as well as, like I. I'm trying to think of the lady's name now. Jojo Campos. And she does breathwork sessions at Yoga Connect.

Okay.

And that is who came out and.

A lot of connect for you in.

This world, really, it's. Yes, it's right behind you. The LCC connect. Yes. But that is the person that I with specifically.

And then the other research was through, just surprisingly on TikTok, and then also a television show on, I want to say it was Netflix, but it was about cold plunging. And that was where I first heard about Breathwork was.

I can't remember the name of the show, but it was with Chris Hemsworth and he was kind of exploring all of these natural things to do. And he was talked about the Wim Hof breath method, breathing method. And that's where I first heard about that, as well as cold plunging.

He was doing it in ocean water that was like 30 degrees.

Cold plunging is just dropping yourself into some cold water.

Yes.

Yeah, the breathwork thing, I can go with you on that. The cold plunging, I'm not sure I.

Can go with that. It's not for everybody. I totally understand. It's not for everybody.

If you would have told me two years ago that I would be waking up and excited to do it, I would have been like, you're a liar. You're lying.

Well, and yeah, I mean, sometimes you learn that those things are helpful for you. So, yes, it works. Now, the controlled breathing almost in some ways sounds like meditation. Is that kind of what you're talking about?

It is. It's a type of meditation. So the breathwork sessions that I've done at Yoga Connect specifically, it's about 30 minutes long.

And you go into the room there, you lay down, you put an eye mask on, and you just do a specific breathing pattern for 30 minutes. She plays MEDITATIVE MUSIC, she speaks and walks around the room. So, yes, it is like a type of meditation, but it is a specific pattern breathing.

And like meditation, I assume your brain still wanders whether you want it to or not.

Sometimes, yes, it does. Yep, sure does. And you kind of have to like corral yourself and Back around the other things that I've gotten into in that regard. Joe Dispenza.

Oh, great, great, great. I could talk about that for hours on end. But, yeah, so it's been a little bit of combination of both.

Of researching and seeing things out there, trying things. There's also ayurvedic. I'm probably gonna say that wrong medicine that I am dabbling in in that regard to kind of heal that stuff as well.

Oh, cool. I'm glad you found a process that's working for you. And I know one of the things for you and has to be a form of therapy is music.

Absolutely.

And we'll dive into your journey here at LCC in just a little bit. But first, I want to know, are you still out there DJing?

I am not all of the time now. I did put that on the back burner because my daughter is just almost out of high school.

She's a junior, and I didn't really want to miss out on anything, especially with me being in school as well. I did just travel to Florida to DJ a benefit. We were able to raise, this time, $5,500. Over $5,500 for a benefit. But that was.

Well, congratulations on that. I wish I had the. There it is. You ready? There we go.

Thanks.

A little cheesy, but I like throwing it in every once in a while.

That's great.

So that's cool that you did that, and it's cool that you're still getting out there every once in a while, even if it's not as much as you used to. But. But your journey here at LCC has been music, correct?

Yes.

Tell me what's going on there. What are you doing? What are you hoping to do?

So the current degree is music education, music therapy.

The idea, the trajectory is to get a doctorate in music so that when I retire from here at 62, I can be a professor at an Ivy League school somewhere.

All right, well, there you go. That's the pathway summarized and done.

Yes.

How is it going?

It's going well. I really love immersing myself in this aspect of music. Getting into, like, the music theory of it and the sight reading and that side of things.

150% is making my own creation of music that much better, which I appreciate even more. I don't really know what to say other than that it's been such an immersive experience in a different way. New students, new teachers, new people.

And LCC has been really great in the music department.

So you're what we consider or what we call. And I was one of those too, a non traditional student.

Okay.

Are you finding that. And by that it means you're a little bit older than what a typical out of the high school student is.

Are you finding that to be a little bit unusual for you when you're in a class or is it comfortable for you?

It's actually pretty comfortable. All of the students are really welcoming. I was just thinking about the fact that, yes, I am definitely non traditional.

I am going to be 45 this year, but it's been really wonderful learning now. I'm a much better student now than I was in high school, but it's been a great experience.

That's exactly the reason why I wanted to ask you.

I mean, when I returned to school again, I was in my 30s, and it was that thing where when I first started going to classes, I kind of felt uncomfortable, mainly because I was a little bit older than most of the average students.

Right, right.

But it's also that thing where I knew your experience was probably gonna be like mine, where it's not as uncomfortable as you think it's gonna be.

No.

And really, the students are very welcoming to you and you don't feel out of it.

No.

And then the other thing that's cool is your, I don't know, your approach or whatever you want to call it, is just different. Where you're excited about it.

Yes.

As opposed to, like my experience when I was going to Michigan State right out of high school. I can tell you I wasn't excited about it all the time. It almost felt like it was a job, I guess a job that I didn't want to do.

And that's how it is for a lot of kids that age. And I can see that on some of.

Especially after you've been going to school for.

Yeah.

How many? I don't even know. 10. 12.

12 years.

12. 13. 13?

Yeah. Technically, 13. Yes.

Or more.

And I will say that I was the one student at the end of both of the last two semesters. I was sad that music theory and sight reading and like, the semester was ending. I'm like, no, I'm not ready to end. I want this to be.

I want this to continue.

Right, right, right. Okay. The show is called Conversations with Kate. Yes. LCC Connect. It'll drop. Drop, as they say. I feel so. Like, I feel so fake saying drop.

Because that is just not a word I usually use.

Okay.

But it drops Tuesday, April 1, on LCCConnect.org or on your favorite streaming platform, so you can always check it out wherever. Plus, it'll show up on wlnz. Now, my question for you is, when people listen to the show, what are you hoping they will take take away from it?

The biggest thing is sense of connection. And they want to tune in for the next episode.

They want to be able to come to the website, listen to all their favorite episodes or all the episodes kind of in succession, kind of like your favorite television show.

Okay, well, cool. That works for me. Kate, thanks so much for coming in and talking with me here. I'm behind the connection again. It's April 1st that it's going to drop.

You did it. Great job. Great job.

Tuesday. And by the way, with it being April Fool's Day, we want to say we are not fooling.

We are not fooling. We are not fooling. Conversations with Kate will be out April 1st.

It's legit.

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

You're welcome. The very last thing we do here on behind the Connection is the Randy. I do not know what the question is. You do not either. So here we go.

What's your favorite piece of clothing that you own?

Ooh, currently my Lululemon.

Lululemon.

My Lululemon two piece. So it's a pair of leggings and a top. Was wearing it this morning. Yep.

The Lululemon.

Yeah. Yeah, I got sucked into that.

I don't know anything about Lul.

So it is a clothing line.

I'm like, so not fashionably sensible me.

A lot of their clothing is workout forward type of stuff, and I was not for it because it's not cheap at all. At all. At all. And I did go and buy my daughter one pair of their leggings because she's an amazing human being and I can't say no. Sucker.

And then I had a friend of mine recently give me this set, and it is just a top and a bottom and it's like butter. And I will wear it as often as possible.

So it's basically a name brand.

It is a name brand, Lulu.

I had heard it before, so I knew it was a name brand, but I have no fashion sense. So.

Yeah. Yeah. Peanut butter and chocolate holiday.

Ooh, wow. I like that.

Yeah.

See, now we're talking about foods I like, Right?

You can never go wrong with peanut butter and chocolate in my book.

This is what I propose. Then the Irish dinners become peanut butter and chocolate. And then I will pop by your house.

Listen, anytime. I always have the two in the house.

So much better than cabbage.

Got it.