Mindful Academy
Mindful Academy
4.09 Career Clarity for PhDs with Jen Polk
In this episode of The Mindful Academy Podcast, Jennifer chats with career coach Jen Polk of From PhD to Life. Together, they unpack the evolving landscape of academic careers and explore the challenges and opportunities facing faculty, postdocs, and PhDs considering a pivot out of academia.
Jen shares insights from over a decade of coaching scholars as they clarify their values, redefine success, and navigate identity shifts in their professional lives. From the emotional toll of academic culture to the practical tools for career transition, this episode is a must-listen for anyone wondering, “What’s next?” after the academy.
Whether you’re feeling burnt out, curious about new paths, or simply seeking greater alignment between your work and your values, this conversation offers empathy, encouragement, and actionable wisdom.
Show Notes:
Hello, and welcome back to the Mindful Academy on either YouTube or in the pod catcher of your choice and confidence. I'm Jennifer Askey, your coach and host today, and I'm continuing my series of interviews with amazing people. With academic backgrounds, PhDs who have moved into a space where they're offering services that help you guys out there, do your work better, more effectively, do different work feel better about things, have a better website, write better stuff.
There are lots of things out there, lots of service providers like us out there who can help. And you don't have to go it alone and going it alone. Is tough. So today I'm talking to Jen Polk from PhD to Life and just a teeny tiny bit of background about how I got to know Jen. First of all, Jen, say hi so I [00:01:00] don't just talk over you.
Hi.
So when I trained as a coach in 20 16 20 17, I knew right away I wanted to work with faculty members and I. I started to explore what would it look like to start a business where I was a coach serving faculty members. And so I looked all over the place for other people doing similar work, and I found two.
And Jen was one of them, and she lived just down the road from me. I was in Hamilton, Ontario, she's in Toronto. And, but Jen was the model that you could actually build a business doing this back before Elon Musk ruined Twitter. Jen. Authored the hashtag with a PhD and like she built, I think you probably built a lot of your early business on Twitter, as did I, so we're both like really pissed at Elon Musk.
So Jen has been doing this longer than I have, [00:02:00] and Jen and I have been doing this longer than most. So Jen, I'm gonna throw it over to you and have you provide an introduction of who you are and what you do. Ooh. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Who am I, what I do? So my main, the main best way to describe what I do is I work with professors, postdocs, and other PhDs who are ready to leave academia.
And I help them figure out, so first figure out what it is that they wanna do elsewhere. 'cause oftentimes they're like this ain't it. This ain't it for whatever reason. I don't know what else is. So first, figure that out. That's really crucial. And then figure out how to best communicate what they want to other people, by which I mean like resumes and LinkedIn and interview all that practical stuff.
But it starts with wha who who are you? What do you want? Yeah. Yep. And so you mentioned like every [00:03:00] category of PhD as a potential client. Are you noticing different trends in your clientele in the last, oh, let's say six months? If one wanted to post state this to say November, 2024. Yeah, that's an interesting question.
And the, I no would be the short answer, but let me go back years actually. Okay. And say, so when I first started my business in 2013, I was recent, a recent PhD, and back then I. I always had faculty clients, but a lot of my clients were grad students and more recent PhDs. Which sort of suited, where I was.
In my own kind of, yeah. Relationship to academia. But over the years, my clients. Shifted to be much more likely to be [00:04:00] professors and postdocs. And now, and I say postdocs 'cause any scientists here will recognize you can be a postdoc for 10 years. So I could be on your third postdoc.
Yeah so I, most of my clients these days I would say for sure are professors or longer term postdocs. And at different stages, right? People who are tenured track but not tenured, the tenured folks and even the full professors. So there is definitely a range, but they've, I'd say my clients have aged a little bit with me over the years.
And other than the maturing of your business and just being around a long time, what do you think that points to?
Yeah, it's really interesting 'cause it I think it used to be that, that people assume that a business like mine would obviously only exist to steal money from [00:05:00] grad students. That is what, how, I mean that, that is, there was unethical to be charging grad students and. I think people more and more are realizing actually we, yes, of course there is a place for serving grad students and there are other, coaches and related business owners who do have a lot of those types of clients.
But there is a big need, a huge need for what we do for people who are faculty members. And I, I would say that. The Academy has been not a great place to work in general for long time. Yeah. Maybe always, and in it's in its own quirky, specific ways and not just, capitalism but that, from my perspective, the pandemic five, started five years ago really changed things.
Yeah. Yeah let me, th this is, I, maybe I shouldn't say this 'cause it's a [00:06:00] competing business, but Karen Kelsie's Facebook group, the professor is out, which I am endlessly jealous that I did not start, but it's got I feel like you, you missed it. I really screwed that one up.
I screwed that one up. But there's tens of thousands of members. Tens of thousands of members, and it is explicitly called the Professor is out, and obviously some of those members are grad students, but I think that has made it very clear oh yeah, even if I don't plan on leaving, I'm seeing my colleagues leaving.
Yeah. And as we read, I keep my finger on the Chronicle. I can't read it in depth 'cause it, my cortisol levels can only handle so much news from any field on any given day. The CBC, the New York Times, the Chronicle, like all of those, like just in very small doses. If I want to be somewhat sane and healthy.
Colleges are closing post pandemic, right? Small colleges are closing. If they're not [00:07:00] closing, they're facing real financial problems. So your PhD is in history, right? And mine is in German literature. And so you and I share the humanities text-based disciplines as a background, and those have been under assault.
For decades, generations even, right? Maybe since Sputnik, right? Since the sixties where North America was like, holy cow, we really need to educate our youth in sciences, tech, engineering, math everybody can read. We don't need to worry about that. Everybody cannot read. And now we see.
In various ways, science under attack. So maybe we're left with engineering and business kind of sorta, but not in an ethical kind of way, but like whatever field you're in, you may no longer be protected from some board of regents or board of trustees [00:08:00] or financial pressures saying you are no longer valuable to our institution.
Like the folks that have managed to stick around through the crap. And the politics, going back a few years now in Florida and Texas, et cetera, and Georgia, right on. And it's gotten so much worse. And I'm not sure that, who knows what's gonna happen, but like suddenly to your earlier question, the last six months, what is even happening?
What is, and I'm not necessarily seeing that. But I think you might be right that it's gonna happen. Yeah. I think in terms of my business paralysis, right? Yes. I feel like, yeah, myself included, right? Admitting that I can only take in so much before I'm like, I should go on a dog walk. This is really bad.
That people are paralyzed and don't trust that today's change is gonna stick around and still be next week's change. Yeah. So maybe I'll just wait a bit and see what. Tomorrow brings. But yeah I, [00:09:00] when I started. I also didn't know how to charge money, so some of my early clients were graduate students and they at the time were very much focused on like, how do I write a thing and, get through the writing process and get outta my own way and write, and I still do some of that work.
I still, I have clients who are working on big projects and need accountability and motivation and whatnot, but. It became clear, pretty clear to me pretty early on that my people were gonna be faculty members because that was my background, right? I had been in the academy, I'd gotten tenure and then moved countries and retooled.
But yeah, starting where you're at home and then seeing who else needs these services. So when people come to you. They have acknowledged, at least in part, that this might not be my forever job. And that maybe I want out. Where, okay. I know you have [00:10:00] programs that people go through, so I'm curious like figuring out what you really want to do.
If it's not this, what does that look like for people? Because I, when I had to do that for myself, this reinventing my identity, like I wound up in therapy, I was a wreck. And maybe because the professor is out has tens of thousands of members, maybe there's a little bit more acceptance that you might, have grabbed the brass ring and have tenure and still wanna go.
But when I did it, it was like, oh, here I am jumping off a cliff. And everybody's looking at me like I have three heads and Right. So what does it look like today when people say, this might not be the cat's pajamas? Yeah, so it's interesting because I think the first thing that folks often do. Is they'll go to LinkedIn or indeed.com.
And they'll type in like research or [00:11:00] their specific chemistry, right? Or philosophy or whatever it is, the sort of the key words writing. And they'll be overwhelmed and maybe disgusted and also maybe come up short depending what it is. But in any case, it's not gonna feel good. It'll be tears. It's not gonna feel good.
It's not gonna feel good because it that, or they will say the first thing I have to do is I have to convert my CV into a resume. Because everybody always says that's what you have to do. And they will very quickly realize that also sucks, and that also may. And then there are tears because what if your PhD is not actually the first thing on that resume?
Because dear reader, it is not. Yeah. That's just, it's not gonna go well. It's not gonna go well. And it's not that people are doing the things that they think they should be doing. They have been led astray. So my advice is, hold up. Forget the job ads. Forget, whatever your CB looks like right now.
'cause that's not the first step. The first step [00:12:00] is who even are you? Who even are you? If you can no longer say, I am a professor, I am an academic. I'm not saying you have to necessarily stop saying that, but let's say as an exercise that is not the first thing outta your mouth, that you cannot use those words anymore.
Who are you? Yeah. Now this maybe sounds a bit woo, but that's where I wanna start with you. And then of course we can do practical things like what even are your skills? What do you care about? What are your values? Where do you wanna live? What do you wanna make? Suddenly, potentially it's all open, and that is scary and exciting.
Right is. Yeah. Yeah. But the who even are you? Like I said, I wound up in therapy. Who even am I if I can't say I'm a German? Yeah. And I'm not a therapist. I'm not a therapist. Yeah. I, some of my clients, in our small group coaching will say, this feels a bit like therapy. And I'm always like, as I'm not a therapist, but Yes, I know what you mean.
Yeah, [00:13:00] and I think you and I both have clients who have us as a coach for. The action and perspective oriented stuff, and a therapist for the let's look back. How did we get here? Let's, where, therapy is where are you and how did you get here? And coaching is, where are you and where you wanna go.
So yeah, they go hand in hand, but it is an identity thing, right? And maybe, maybe to go back to our fictional chemist if our fictional chemist is doing bench science in the academy, maybe they can also go work for a company and do bench science. But my guess is that's the rare.
Industry transition and that most transitions to something outside of the academy involve a little bit more. Shape shifting, and this is where the hu humanities folks, I'm gonna be mean to us. 'cause I'm allowed to, 'cause it's I am one of you are like, oh, they have it so easy. The chemists and the biologists and whatever they have it easy [00:14:00] and okay, there are, in many of the fields, not all of them, there are some jobs, there may not be very many of them, they may not be in the places you wanna live, but there it is a thing that exists.
I remember years ago I met a postdoc and he was telling me how. No, he literally still does the exact same thing. He wasn't a postdoc anymore. He literally does the exact same thing that he did during his postdoc in his industry job. He was in the building across the street, and I, this blew my mind as a history PhD because that's just not a thing.
But the challenge that scientists often faced is that. There's a rumbling inside them that is actually, I don't just wanna continue to do what I've been doing. And that causes all sorts of, like identity problems as well. So I think we, we do actually have a lot of things in common. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. And what people who are leaving the academy for something else have in common, regardless of their field, is that with that PhD on your cv. How legible are [00:15:00] you and your skills to people outside of the academy and some industries, some individual companies and hiring managers have an amazing appreciation for the intellectual agility and speed of the average PhD who can come in and say, okay, I don't really know this stuff super well, but give me a month and 10 books or, 10 training sessions and I'm good to go.
And others are like, yeah, I don't know if I wanna hire somebody with a PhD. Yeah. And I'm sure that you and I have both interacted. I know I have the bo both ends of that extreme. I remember years ago, a woman, I shared a cab with her at a conference and she worked for the government. She was in a, she was a manager in a government and she said, yeah, I never hire PhDs.
I don't need that. I don't need that. And I. Okay. She like shut down that in that conversation. But on the other hand, I don't mean that, where that is like a suitcase full of all sorts of assumptions about what a PhD might. I had a [00:16:00] staff job at a university in Canada shortly after moving here before I trained as a coach and I was trying to figure out like, what else can I do in the academy if I'm not gonna teach?
German and the office manager in the place where I had this staff position flat out told me, I just don't know what to do with you.
Like I was a problem child.
Yeah. And so since we cannot. Rely on the world changing in the time that we need to be getting a job and income. Yeah. And that's a problem for, oh, it's a real thing, right? That's a problem. And people should be working on that, but. If you are a job seeker, you don't have a lot of time to wait for the world to change, so you have to do the work and it, on the one hand, it's like super annoying to have to do all of that [00:17:00] translation for other people.
But on the other hand, it's actually incredible because it makes you much more clear about who you are and that clarity is like really empowering. You get really. You get a real sense of who you are, that you can then communicate to anyone anywhere, and you can connect what you do with other things. I forget where I was going with this, but yeah, like it's annoying, but also it's really empowering and powerful and invigorating once I got over being pissed off that I had to reinvent myself and did a few more things out there in the real quote unquote real world, which is a myth, but anyway, shorthand that we all understand.
I have now, fast forward a decade, I'm actually excited about the fact that like Jennifer, 1.0 in the early two thousands, [00:18:00] grad student getting on the job market, having babies, whatever, grad, maybe Jennifer 2.0 scholar established, and now I get to pick my future. Yeah.
You're not in anyone's box. No one's putting you in a box. Yeah. It's, you can jump into different boxes. It's fun. Yeah. Now, you and I both wound up in the box of entrepreneurship. Which did you think when you were a young person that being an entrepreneur was your future? Never because my parents, my dad was a grade seven teacher.
His whole career. He was a gardener when he was like a teenager and through university, and then he was like, my, or my mom told them to get serious, so then he was a teach and he was a grade seven teacher, the whole that, that said he retired as a grade seven teacher and my mom started working for the government, like as a teenager, the federal government, and 40 whatever [00:19:00] years later.
Was still working for the federal government and she, when she retired, she then got a job with the provincial government and only took years before she retired again. So anyways, my point is I am not at all familiar from my own upbringing with this. Yeah. And like I was in a family where education was valued.
My mother actually never finished undergrad the first time around. And when I was doing my ma, she got her BA when I was doing my PhD, she got her ma. So I was in this environment where like degrees and educate formal education Yeah. Was really valued. And anyways, I'm going on and on and on. No is the short answer what?
Yeah. And so given. Given what you know now about the possibility of tailoring a message about who you are and what you can do and what's important to you for the world of places that hire people [00:20:00] what made you not do that and land up? Starting your own business. Yeah, it's interesting. I am very independent.
I think that is like one of my top strengths, for good or for bad, and just that doesn't necessarily mean that I would have to be self-employed, but it really works for me. I'm very introverted, right? I live by myself. I have that, I want that. So self-employment does suit me.
And I'm just not really good at other people telling me what to do. Having said that, I have run a business with a partner in the past. I do like collaborating. So there are, when things are right, they're right. But one of the, and I think part of it too is.
Socialization in grad school. So you know, as a human humanities person, your advisor at a certain point after your comps is like, okay, good luck. Let me know when you have a chapter for me to read. Yeah, send me chapter drafts. Which on the one hand is like [00:21:00] not the best setup, but the other hand you just get used to that.
Yeah. So I think that's part of it too, right? Like the money making, the charging for money. That like many aspects of it were not familiar, but the sitting at my desk in my apartment by myself that was familiar and picking your plans and your schedule and saying, okay, this is what's important to me this month.
This is what I'm gonna focus on. That either necessity or ability to set your own priority lists. It's certainly common to those things. Yeah. Yeah. And the, I say this sometimes I, it's, I think it's an important factor. My parents are boomers, as I say. They had like proper middle class jobs with amazing pension plans.
I don't have that, but they were good with their money, and that provides me with a safety net so that I can take risks that I know other people can't. Yeah. If I don't have kids, that's helps. I'm single, right? I don't have a partner, so that couldn't, that makes me [00:22:00] nervous sometimes. But, probably I, they'll, i, the worst case scenario is I'm moving in, make room. No one wants that, but, and yeah as an entrepreneur, I will say the fact that my husband is well employed is also my safety net. And I feel a little bit of loosening on that okay. Are you covering the bills?
And then some. And then some. As my children we call it graduate off the payroll. One has graduated off the payroll, the other has a couple more years. But yeah, so it takes a certain kind of. Bent, like personality bent and maybe a certain kind of safety net. We also both live in Canada where our basic health insurance needs are taken care of for us.
And so if you have emergency appendix surgery, you will not go bankrupt for that. That's worth mentioning maybe with a little bit of. [00:23:00] Harshness in my voice because I resent the fact that my family in the US does not enjoy that same thing. So the people who come to you, I imagine that so now that we've mentioned the professor is out, if a listener or viewer has not found that Facebook group, they've probably gone and looked at it.
Now I'm like, holy mo. But I think the frustrations of academic employment are. Are probably pretty evident. What are some of your favorites, though, that people come to you with the challenges? So yeah. Lots of things could be going on. One is, I just don't wanna live here. I. That has nothing to say about your employer and your colleagues, the work itself, whatever.
It's just I just cannot be working here and living here. Excuse me. And I have to live here if I'm gonna work here. So that's a very practical like. It is what it is. Yeah. Whether you don't, whether you don't like the community or you're a gazillion miles away from your family or [00:24:00] Right.
Like it's an, it can be a very isolating existence to just go where the job is. Yeah. Yeah. And of course as we can appreciate that where you wish to live, where you need to be living can change over the years based on what is going on with other people. Absolutely. Yeah. So that's that's one the o something else I would say.
Yeah, there's so many different things to say, but let me pick a few randomly. So that's yeah. Okay. That makes sense. Another one is, I have a client now who she is. She is this has been good and I've accomplished a lot, and I feel like I'm done. Yeah, great. And there's other things going on, but if that was the end of the story, like that's good enough.
You can feel like, yeah, great Check. This was great. I'm interested and excited about seeing what else I can do in the world. Like I love that. That's, yeah. That's not a Fuck you. I'm burning it all down, right? Sorry, I shouldn't be swearing. But fuck you. I'm burning it all down.
Also happens, [00:25:00] or Yes, the institution is burning down your departments or you went from having a major to just being a service department and so like the job you signed up for and the job you have are no longer the same thing. Those are. Yeah, absolutely, for sure. Those are the obvious, like technicolor reasons that you might wanna leave.
But I love the story of. That was good. Yeah. What's next? Yeah. Yes, I've, I, all of my clients have experienced all of the things, all of the extremes that you can, that you've ever heard of and hopefully haven't heard of, but also sometimes yep. Just wanna do something different. I, so the faculty members that I work with who, and occasionally I wind up with people who are like, I need to make sure there's a plan B.
So I do a fair amount of that as well. But and my goal is, okay, you're here. Let's make this really work for you. And I get a lot of, if the next 15 years look like the last 15 years, I'm gonna be so bored. I know. I won't know what I'm gonna do with myself. So here you have the same person who's [00:26:00] decided, okay, I don't, I know.
I don't want the next 15 years to look like this, so I'm ready for something else. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I want to just take that moment to acknowledge that. Even if you're constantly, publishing new things and teaching new things, it's okay to be bored and want a different environment, whether it's just a different workplace environment to do the same thing or different work.
Yeah. And let me say something, and I'm, they're directing that as somebody who's obviously not gonna be listening to this because that person would never listen to you, the people out there who might be thinking like it's only the losers. That needs your services. It's only the losers.
Hold up, yeah. Like the client I just mentioned who's published multiple books, won teaching awards, tenured, blah, blah, blah. Another client just yesterday, yeah, yesterday told us that she had just published her book. Tenured Professor just published her book. Amazing. Getting, lots of accolades around that and also just [00:27:00] quit.
Like great. Done. Yeah. And I work with a lot of chairs. I have some endowed professors. Just because you know your stuff really well does not mean that the interpersonal management style stuff that happens in academia, the self-management stuff required of you in academia, developing your leadership skills, your vision for your career.
You and I work on that all the time. Your vision for your career? Who, when was the last time somebody asked anybody on a campus, what does success mean for you? Yeah and it's such a simple question, I. What does success mean for you? Six words or whatever. But people haven't been asked that exactly.
I'm just repeating what you said. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's imposed upon you. It's imposed upon you. So when someone like, here is the next thing to do on the list, and maybe you do all the things on the list and you're like, okay, now what am I happy? Am I fulfilled? Now you're gonna be the dean, and then you're gonna be the provost, right?[00:28:00]
Ooh. But then you're going over to the dark side. Yeah, that's true. That's true. I. I love the dark side, by the way, because I think that's enough. So thinking about successes, like when you know that a client has like really made that transition and is, if not like blissfully happy, but at least has made the first important step towards authoring their own career what are some examples of that?
Yeah, and I really appreciated how you say said that because. Because really the success for me, from my perspective is that mindset shift from, okay, I'm maybe talking in extremes here, but I have no value. I have no skills to offer. No one's ever gonna hire me. This was like the greatest experience of my life.
Grad school professor, whatever. That's, it's over for me now. And now I'm gonna be living in a van down by the river. Yeah. I know [00:29:00] someone who's writing that exact book with an almost exact title. No, you will not. Anyways, but middle aged anyways that shift from huh. Actually I know who I am outside of this box.
That I have been shoved into. I know who I am, I know what I want. I'm ex, I don't maybe don't know exactly what it's called yet everywhere out in the world, but I'm excited to be building my knowledge around that, to be building a network and community around people who, can join me and doing this anyways, what I'm not saying is sometimes the success from my perspective is not, and they have a job.
That's great. And of course we celebrate those successes, but sometimes it's. I feel so much better and calmer and like I know what I'm doing and where I'm going now. Does that make sense? Yeah. And also if you're pivoting and you do at some point in this process, get a job, whether it's like the job that is very clearly the [00:30:00] first brick in your path or like my first.
Non-academic job grew out of a volunteer gig at the YWCA. And so it was not necessarily connected to my ultimate career goals at the time, or if it was, I couldn't see it. But your next job, if you leave the academy, is probably not the job you retire from. Yeah. And those are a lot of my clients too.
It's the folks that have actually managed to get a job, right? Because they're really good at learning how to write a resume. They're good at learning to do the things that they need to do and they're competent, et cetera. And so they did manage to get a job because, most of us need money to live, preach.
But it, but at certain point, once their nervous systems have relaxed a bit, it's yeah, that's, this is not. I needed this, it was the right decision at the time, and I need to figure out really now what's right. Yeah. And now I'm calm enough because I [00:31:00] am employed and can pay the bills that I feel like I have that time and space to do the deep exploration that is really part of any human being's path to fulfillment, I think.
In other words, what I'm saying is I work with the winners
And with people who wanna be intentional about their careers and not just let their careers happen to them. Yeah. Yeah. And a big theme, in my work and my clients, whether we talk about it explicitly or not, a big theme is like values, right? What are your values? And obviously capitalism, blah, blah, blah, but like gen generally living with your values, working with your values.
Yeah. And values again is something that if you spend your entire career in the academy, might not come up in conversation. What are the values that steer the choices you make around your work? So disappointing. 'cause it should be, that should be at the center, right? Values or priorities. But [00:32:00] when I talk to people and this goes.
For people that range from, like my recently graduated from undergrad kid to my clients who are, tenured professors. When I ask them what's important about the work they want to do next, it is super interesting how many people I've heard lately come up with something along the lines of either do no harm or leave the world slightly better than I found it.
It's it's really interesting okay, if that's because I don't hear a lot of people, regardless of demographic, say the most important thing is that I make bank. Or, and I publish three more journal articles or the exactly that I get the next award or do the next 17 publications or whatever.
Like it's all about am I having an impact on the people and the planet and the organizations around [00:33:00] me that I feel positive about? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's taking moment. Yeah. And just taking that moment of realization oh yeah, actually I do care about time with my family and not, publishing in impact factor journals, high impact factor journals.
Which maybe I have to do anyways, but I don't have to care about it. It doesn't right it, if it isn't what gets me outta bed, that's fine. How do I make time for it so that it gets done, but it doesn't take over my entire life. You have done, over the years that I've known you a, you've done your work in a variety of ways.
So one-on-one coaching group programs self-paced on online stuff. What does your work look like now? Yes, thanks for asking. So I would say two main things and a third thing. So main thing, and when I talk about my clients, I usually mean the folks that are [00:34:00] enrolled in my PhD career Clarity program.
And that is a it is a anchored by a self-paced online course that's like the core curriculum, with, as you can imagine, videos and worksheets and all that good stuff. And then. In addition to that, there are regular small group coaching. So I, and I do it all. Those are super fun for me. Four or five people at a time three times a month.
And every month I do a live workshop for folks in the program. And that is where we could go deep and do some work together on, whatever topic. Related to job search and it starts with who even are you? And it ends with Yeah. Gearing up for your first week on the job, right?
Like it's, yeah. So I really love the program. I think a hesitation people have is they're not sure that a group experience is one. That is right for them. And maybe sometimes it isn't. That's cool. But I would push back a little and say, actually you get a [00:35:00] ton of value from being in community with other people and hearing where they're at.
So it's actually better to get less one-on-one time with me and more with other people. Anyways, thank you so much for bringing that up. I have right now I think I have one session left doing some group coaching with. They're all post-tenure sort of mid-career folks. A university set up this program and I'm one of the coaches in nice.
I have two cohorts and so good. And the people who have stuck with it. And there have been people who came and were like, I don't know what I'm doing here. I know I signed up for it, but you're not telling me how to get a grant, so maybe this isn't what I wanted at Peace Out. But the people who have stuck with it, being willing to be a little bit vulnerable, which is what people are afraid of. Oh, no. People will know I need help or that I'm not a hundred percent sure of myself. Every nanosecond of the day, I might have to show my soft underbelly, and that feels terrifying. [00:36:00] We get it. But the people who stick with it, like just knowing, first of all, you're not alone.
Somebody else says something that resonates with you. I, I've been doing this work long enough that I'm like, okay, what I'm hearing a lot of this business next time I'm gonna bring, we did, two sessions ago, we did this values exercise where I did a guided values meditation. And they were like, what?
That was really powerful. And now I realize here's what's going on with me and. Doing that in a group, like we need community. This is such an isolating gig. Yeah. Even if you run a lab or you're in a really vi, vibrant department, like your CV is you in academia and that is fundamentally isolating.
Yeah. Yeah, so that's the one thing, the main thing that I do. So it's called PhD, clarity career Clarity Program, career. It's not the best name, but anyway. That's okay. And it will be in the, it [00:37:00] will be in the notes for this episode, and in the email that goes out about this episode, there will be a link to it.
Yeah. And so let me say related to that, folks are curious about my work and potentially the program. I do have a free webinar, which Jennifer can also link to, and I recommend you start there. You sent me that link earlier this week. That will also be in there. Yeah. Thank you for the gentle nudge. The second main thing that I do is for organizations most especially universities, but not only universities, and that is provide workshops, sometimes keynotes or whatever talks, but generally I'm doing workshops and usually online and.
And I really love those as well. I get super nervous, but I, the, my approach to doing a workshop is it's a real workshop. Yes, there is content delivery and slides and all of that good stuff that you expect, but we build for our hour and a half together, whatever it is we do build a community together and the participants are always, [00:38:00] yeah, they get way more than they thought they would get out of them, so I really enjoy doing those as well. Or just what are the themes of some of the workshops that you do? Yeah, so typically it's like career stuff. O often I'm doing like the kind of intro session I would say. You at your university, you or in your faculty or your department even.
You wanna provide like one workshop on career stuff. Okay, I can do one workshop on career stuff and it's gonna cover, how do you even figure out what's next? And it's heavy on that. Or we can do more specific stuff like resumes or interview prep or LinkedIn or whatever, right? So genius, any of those things.
Okay. I do also offer one-on-ones for individuals one-on-one coaching, and I don't sell coaching packages anymore. It's just if you wanna talk to me for an hour, we can do that. And I won't try and tell you other things unless I think you need them. But yeah, so I've moved away from [00:39:00] more one-on-one coaching and into the group experience. Yeah. Which makes it accessible for more people. Absolutely. Absolutely. It doesn't cost nothing, but it's much, yeah, it's much cheaper. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I just, we were just talking about the power of community and groups and so you and I have known each other for, I don't know, nine years now.
Have, and we've been in the same room a couple times. I think when Congress was at Brock we were in the same room and maybe, but like we know each other in the way people in the digital age know each other. It's, I know the bookshelf behind you, Izzy, when she was still with us. The kitty. The kitty, kitty.
And you and I are now in a little informal slack group of people, like the folks I've been interviewing who, we're solopreneurs running our own show and it also can be. Isolating. So we look [00:40:00] for community In that vein and in the vein of the title of the podcast, which is The Mindful Academy, how do you go about taking care of yourself and remaining emotionally and mentally resilient?
Making assumptions about that, whether I do that. Yes. I'm making assumptions that you are by and large. Yes. So I love an online community. I love an online community. I love our little slack slack team or whatever Slack calls it. Facebook groups. I used to love Twitter.
Twitter is dead to me, as we have already mentioned. Twitter is so dead to me. Twitter is dead and gone and that's it. But I, yeah, I love online communities. That's really fun. And I love a project, and so right the, these days my project is making my apartment better. I've lived in this apartment for 10 years and I'm a renter I'm not tearing down walls.
But I've been obsessing in a good, in a low key kind of fun way about paint colors. And now I'm thinking about if I need a rug [00:41:00] any in my. Anyway I was telling you before we started recording, I love to waste my own time. I love it so much. Which is another way of saying I love to be in flow with my own creative projects.
Isn't that lovely to not always feel like you have to be productive? It's fun. It's fun. Yeah. Capitalist. Is that a billable hour sense of productivity? And I'm easy to please. I bought three cans of paint off Facebook marketplace sellers recently, and like little small risk, right? Small risk, but 10.
And you were showing like pictures of the dresser remodel that you did. And and for somebody who spends a lot of time in your space, like it should be beautiful and make you happy. Yeah. Yeah, I won't show you my paint job in progress, but this wall will be different soon, which matters. I was actually just thinking that the way my camera is set up, you always see [00:42:00] my wall at a bit of a slant, but what would happen if I pivoted every, oh my goodness.
I just moved and it like changed our position on the zoom screen and Oh no. No. I'm very disoriented. But yeah, like we, we work in front of a background and the background should make us and others happy to look at it. Yeah. Yeah. So is there anything coming up next for you this summer? Either in the way of work projects or house projects or fabulous trips to Tahiti that we need to know about?
I got a long list of minor things and less minor things to do in my apartment. One, in terms of my business, one thing I would say is at the beginning of April, I did, for the first time, I did a workshop, not for the first time. I've done less workshops, but I did a workshop where I sold tickets to it.
On my own. And that was really interesting and fun and we'll see. There might be more of that. Let me not make promises, but [00:43:00] okay. There, there might be a way of being, of working with me that's not one-on-one and it's not the whole big program, but that still gives you some value and community, in a smaller timeframe. Yeah, and money frame. Spend a chunk of an afternoon together doing a thing. Getting a lot of value and then going and implementing that thing and seeing what you might need next. Like you and I did in February, that was also a nice experiment. So that was a very nice experiment. We were both in we were both speakers in Carol Cha's Impact which if you go to the clario group.com or look at my episode with C Carol, all of her stuff is there.
You'll find Jen and me and another Jennifer. Because we are legion, you cannot escape us. Yeah. Again, offering these services to people in the academy who are looking for what could be a little bit better than it is today. [00:44:00] Whether you leave or don't. Exactly. Exactly. Okay. Final thoughts. I'm gonna share all of the ways to find you.
You know what I haven't been putting in my little announcements about folks is if folks are on blue sky or not. And I know you are, and I know it's not quite Twitter, but it might be the best thing we have. Yeah, it's the best, it's the best replacement. Yep. I'm on. Okay. I and I of course follow you there, so I'll put your blue sky handle there too, in case you are on academic sky.
Yeah. And folks wanna see my house, my, my apartment remodel. Exactly. Or the, did you post pictures of the random kitty that showed up in your hallway? Ooh. Might, I might not have done that. I should do that, because that was pretty cute. That was cute. An escaped kitten. Yeah, I'm in the hallway. You knew you were a sucker and was like, maybe she has some, maybe she has some wet food.
I'm gonna go check this lady out 10 minutes later. I did. Thank you. No frills down the street.[00:45:00]
See kitties know a sucker when they find it. Any final words to our listeners and viewers? Yes. Final word I would say is I think we give you permission. Give you permission to entertain the thoughts to put yourself first. To explore, to talk to different people, new people to take some time to not work.
If you can avoid not do that, if you can do that. Yeah. Permission slip, broad permission slip. No expiry date. Here you go. No expiry date, right? And to maybe let your values lead those choices. Maybe. Excellent. Thank you so much, Jen. This was a joy. And to all of you listening, thank you for joining us.
Lending us your ears and or your eyes. I'll be back in a couple weeks. I think maybe with a solo episode, I have all sorts of notes about things I wanna talk about giving myself permission. One thing I have noticed about me is that when I. Put a microphone [00:46:00] in front of me. I go into teaching mode and I need to not do that for a podcast.
So I'm learning and growing and that's fun. It is not that I have failed. It is that I get, continue to keep growing and changing. So yeah, stick around for more good insights and interesting people to talk to. Thank you so much, Jen.