Level Up Academy by Dr. Leyland

She has always dreamed of going to college, but life took her into a different route. As a mother of two, she had to take care of her babies and now she has the chance to take her of herself. Her dream of doing visual and media design has taken her back to her passion. She took a class with me and this class has given her the inspiration to pursue her dreams and create opportunities to work towards her passion. She is now working on being intentional getting a job in the field she loves. She provided great insights for teachers on how to engage their students. Listen up!

Cancer, Death of her best friend and being told you have 30 days to live is a nightmare that most people can't even imagine let alone live it. Education has created a way for her to stay inspired and be the first person in her family to get a degree. Her cancer, her disorder, and her grandparents instilled in her how education is important. Her inspiration is her best friend before he died to continue their educational journey together. None of what life has thrown at her can stop her from getting her education. Listen up to her inspiring story.

WE had a great conversation about when she migrated to the U.S. and how she became a bilingual educator and her passion for helping her students. Then, as COVID changes the demands, she is transitional into becoming an Instructional Designer. But her journey to this transition hasn't been easy. Her resilience, perseverance, grit, and determination got her here today. She talks about ways she engages her students in her classroom Care to know how she did it? Listen up!

As a coach, a father, and a leader in his space, Jason talks about how leadership should start from being a parent. Children emulate what they see and if they see mom / dad lead through examples, it is easier to pick up those character traits and habits for their future. We talked about his commercial insurance position and how he treats his customers as a leader in his space. Jason talks about “where your actions betray your words” in our conversation and explains how leaders can remedy that. We talked about brand ambassadors, culture in organizations can make or break any organizations regardless of industry. I said, leaders should go back to kindergarten to know the basics of being nice and respect each other. Listen up as we talked about certain behavior and tools you can practice as a leader.

I am so grateful for everyone on my journey to inspiring the world. WE have more work to do. Thank you for all that you do to share the podcasts. I truly appreciate you level up squad. I am not getting paid for it, I just want to inspire others through your own adversity. I also have a big announcement at the end so listen up!

Life is full of surprises, hardships, laughter, anger, sadness, challenges, and love. What is constant is our ability to choose our journey. It seems like once we finish one problem in our lives, we get another one and another one. It is our choice to lay down and give up or stand up and face it head-on. Kristy Bowman did just that. She suffered from addiction and lived on the streets for 8 years, but her family saved her life. Her ability to make choices to get up and fight for her potential is what brings her in today as a Master's student in an MBA program. To say that she is an amazing human being is an understatement. One of Kristy's advice is "you can't base your future of what your past is" "look forward and quit looking backwards" What is it like to be homeless with a drug addiction and now a Master student? What are her lessons learned? Listen up to the Level up squad.

We have many conversations in this episode about how leadership has evolved in the recent past years. Zavahir talks about how schools need to focus on emotional intelligence and self-awareness programs in the elementary phase before focusing on academics. I talked about how in my class I marry theory and competency-based to engage my students. He talks about how he is intentional in making a difference in his students' lives through the different tools he uses. He also mentioned practicing gratitude and priorities along with being intentional in everything we do. Listen up for a deep dive into how the educational systems in India are changing the way they are trying to change their students' lives.

I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Gonzalez on LinkedIn through his high energy daily videos. After talking with him, we created this podcast full of information for both leaders and individuals on how you can level up your self worth. He talks about how to value yourself not by changing your surroundings, but changing your role in people. He talks about his coaching tools on how to overcome mental barriers that he uses on his mentorship. We talked about how the great resignation where the best people are going to the best companies. He talks about his purpose in life and how you too can create and know your purpose in life by giving back. Do you want to know more? Do you want to level up? Listen to this episode.

This interview was such a great and productive chat about student engagement and using psychology and communications to help teach students in class and outside. One thing that Professor Dekle said, “how you think really impacts how you talk or behave” got me thinking that we should really be mindful of our thoughts. With what is going on today with our world and our country, it’s easy to get sad and angry, but by being present in your class and focus on providing transferable skills to our students, it gets them to focus on what is important in their academic career goals. She talks about how she presents her class that is inviting with transferable skills that her students can use right away. She also considers and recognizes that her students have their own story and their own journey. She invites them to their best through encouragement. Listen up to what else we talked about in terms of student engagement tools.

Living in Chicago and growing up in Chicago is a difficult journey and it's hard for some of us to picture in our head if we don't live there. Much like most of us, when we are younger, we don't have any direction of what we want to be when we grow up. We have an ideal thought, but most of us don't believe in it. Dr. Johnson didn't know what he would want to do. But with mentors and people who believes in him, he is now a community leader, a detective, and a professor. In my interview with Dr. Johnson, when asked, what do you like about teaching? He responded by saying, "I like to give back". At a core of our being, we want to give back and shape our future through teaching. Dr. Johnson does that and more. Listen up to what he has to say about student engagement and how as teachers should be getting our students be future ready as our future is in their hands.