Self-Compassionate Professor

Although Dr. Meggin McIntosh loved her career in academia, between university politics and an inner knowing that she was destined for something else, she eventually left and started a successful business. In this episode, Meggin describes the moment she knew it was time to leave her academic career, explains the importance of listening to intuition, and offers advice to others about listening to t...

Victoria Crystal takes us back to graduate school and helps us to remember what actually drove us there and how much of those original longings are still with us now. In this interview, she tells us that she loves science AND that the academic research process felt restricting to her. So after finding the courage to leave her PhD program, she found a way to be a scientist on her own terms. She now...

Dr. Stacey Wieland discusses losing her tenured position to covid last summer, how she has grieved and begun to heal, as well as how the experience has opened her to new insights about her strengths as well as new career possibilities. Stacey discusses the importance of being able to hold both grief and hope simultaneously, strike a work-life balance, hold loosely to the future, use discernment to...

In this solo episode, my conversation (on Episode 54) with Dr. Lauren Broyles and the spring break season collide. I talk about the problem of overworking during spring break. I discuss why a spring break is necessary, how rest is actually a power position, and steps you can take to ensure you actually get a break this spring. After this episode, I hope you take a nap! 

Dr. Jillian Powers explains that we do not have to leave our academic identities behind when we leave our academic jobs. Jillian describes how she has been able to hold on to and adapt her academic identity even after transitioning from an academic career to a career in industry. She now integrates, into her business anthropology work, the things about academia she loves. Interestingly, she has ev...

Dr. Lauren Broyles speaks honestly and openly about the problem of addiction among academic women. As a former addiction researcher and a woman in recovery from both alcohol use disorder as well as work addiction, Lauren speaks about the pervasive problem in academia where women often "outsource" their emotions in order to cope with heavy workloads. This mental health crisis in academia, as Lauren...

Mark Herschberg shows us how developing new skills—even a tiny bit—can affect one’s impact in a big way. Drawing on his book, The Career Tool Kit , Mark shows us why it is important to recognize our weaknesses, how to develop them, and how to turn them into skills. Similarly, he also shows us how to increase our organizational impact: a process that requires people to open to new ways of doing thi...

Dr. Karen Laurence calls out issues associated with academic isolation—issues academics rarely discuss, but feelings academics know deeply. She describes how her sense of home where she felt connected to close family and friends grounded her during an often intense and competitive graduate school experience. And when she eventually left home and those close connections, she became increasingly att...

As my first repeat guest, Dr. Margie Serrato and I start by talking about how her experience in academia is only a small part of her story. This insight leads us to a bigger conversation about how we, as academics, actively arrest our own development because we are afraid of what others might think. Margie urges us to expand our beliefs about what is acceptable, dismiss our inner judgments so that...

Dr. Brian Witkowski urges us to think more flexibly about career, explaining how once you understand what you deeply care about, you can then translate your passion into a business model that allows you to do exactly the kind of work you want to do and earn a good living doing it. Brian emphasizes the need for academics to think about their work in new and different ways and shows us that we do no...

Dr. Caitlin Faas tells a fascinating story about how she finally found peace in her job as a tenured professor--a job that once felt stifling. That peace opened up new opportunities for Caitlin. And eventually, she was able to walk away from her academic job with grace and ease. In this episode, Caitlin demonstrates how she has been able to talk herself through difficult life and career challenges...

Dr. Emily Benson will leave behind her academic career in May/June of this year and begin working full-time in her growing career coaching business. In this episode she explains how her coaching business began, how she finally knew it was time to resign from her faculty position, the challenges of working in academia when you are a creative person, how she plans to say goodbye to academia in a hea...

Dr. Sara Branch tells an open and honest story about reaching burnout as a tenure-track faculty member, including the challenges she faced in navigating intense mental, emotional, and physical exhaustion as well as depression. Sara describes having lost herself at that time. But Sara's life changed dramatically in 2018 when she left academia and found herself again. The joy and freedom she now fee...

Dr. Alissa Ackerman describes the healing power of finding her own personal voice within her academic work—a change that facilitated deeper connections to her research, her students, and herself. Having built deeper connections, Alissa found herself better positioned  to offer healing to a wider public audience and ultimately, able to create much greater healing impact in the world than she w...

After having earned tenure, left academia, and built a wildly successful company (the National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity), Dr. Kerry Ann Rockquemore retired three years ago at the age of 45. In this episode, she shares her deep wisdom about how she grew into a life grounded in purpose and health: pausing every year to reassess her life and ensure that she's on track to fulfill her...

Dr. Natalia Bielczyk tells the story of feeling burned out in her PhD program. And in an effort to rest and regain a sense of interest and excitement in her work, she decided to take a year off. In that time, she allowed herself to explore and engage her non-academic interests. This time investment led her to the career in which she now finds herself--a career she very much loves. For those who ar...

Whether faculty, postdoc, or grad student, Allison explains the value of seeking support from career services on your campus, describes the dartboard strategy for networking, and tells her own career transition story. We also talk about the importance of paying attention to your emotions and keeping yourself organized throughout the career transition process.  

Dr. Andre Marques-Smith explains the absolute necessity of engaging with your passion throughout life: staying focused on the things that nourish your passion, noticing when your passion starts to wane and when it does, assessing the situation and making decisions that will open up new paths of passion once again. He talks about his changing interests over the course of his life and how he has eas...

Last week, in Episode 38, we heard from Dr. Jacob Kashiwagi, who discussed the components of good mentorship and leadership. In this week's episode, we hear from one of Dr. Kashiwagi's mentees, Dr. Jake Gunnoe. Dr. Gunnoe talks about how to be a good mentee, how to find a mentor, how to navigate the relationship, and he explains the many benefits of seeking out mentors. Few of us have had a mentor...

Dr. Jacob Kashiwagi describes his model for success, including finding a mentor, listening, making mistakes, and getting out of your own head. The model he lives that led him to creating a successful course at Arizona State University as well as building a successful nonprofit business came from his father's academic research--research he applied practically to managing his own home and children....

Dr. Vicky Sherwood describes how she started down an academic career path without ever making strategic decisions about where she wanted to go. Having earned her PhD and completed a post-doc, Vicky says she was "hell-bent on becoming a professor," yet over the course of her academic career, she carried an ongoing and nagging sense that she should explore other career possibilities. Eventually she...

Drawing on the work of Dr. Adriana Cavarero and other ethics philosophers, Eric argues that humans exist to support one another. He discusses the necessity of human connection and how we, as "unique unrepeatable" humans, are called into being by the unique unrepeatable conversations we have with others in unique unrepeatable moments. Within the context of finding post-ac work, we discuss the impor...

Dr. Laura Froyen discusses a powerful moment where she was flooded with compassion for herself and in that moment, she realized leaving academia would be in her family's and her own best interests. She talks also about her life purpose: helping families to make respectful parenting decisions and the critical need for children to learn how to make healthy and productive life choices. Laura offers f...

Dr. Jake Livengood speaks about the importance of preparing for uncertainty in the career/job-search journey. He makes a convincing case for career transitioners and job seekers to develop a "yes and" mindset--a mindset grounded in improv theatre where one accepts uncertainty and play; and in the process, finds foundational elements of career wellness and resilience: self-compassion, presence, and...

Dr. John Southard describes his difficult transition out of academia and into the business world and offers advice to others in similar situations. He discusses how he found the strength to move through the "academia hangover" he experienced, the challenges of hitting rock bottom financially, how he began his career transition journey by networking, and how he discovered that his research prepared...