Episode 110: Self Care is Self Preservation

In this episode of Office Hours, Marvette goes over the importance of self care and shares her top 5 ways of showing your self some love so you can stay rested and restored.

 

TRANSCRIPT:

Hello? Hello, happy Monday. Am I recording yes? For those of you who do not know me? Maybe somebody gave you this link. I don't know. You somehow got signed up. If you got friends like me, who signed you up for things? I am Dr. Marvette Lacy. I am founder. I'm like, I don't know what my title is. CEO of qual scholars, where we're all about helping doc students, just like you finished your dissertation in 12 months or less, and then signing your first three clients in 90 days or less, if you choose to have like a consulting business, because I know many people, the, one of the main reasons why you choose to pursue a doctorate degree is because you want to get into things like consulting and speaking. But I will talk more about that a little bit later. So let me know.

 

You can hear me. You can see me all right. Yes. So I'm curious before I get started I am not someone who is buttoned up. I am not someone like I pretend to be an academic. Yes. I got all the degrees, went to the fancy institution and I'll notice people, but I am here to break it down to you about literature reviews and how to do it in a simple way. It don't need to be complicated, but before we get too deep into material, I am curious if a few people was just like to let me know who you are and why you decided to join today. You can let me know in the chat box, or you can feel free to unmute yourself and let me know. I believe you can, you can unmute yourself. So Gabby, I'm gonna pick on you because you are a client. How are you and why did you decide to join today?

 

So I'm Gabby. I am my PhD student at the university. And is this the California, but typically live in Texas. Why did I decide to join? Cause I've been in what I call chapter two hell for a while. I'm trying to get out of the lit review stage so I can go on and do my defense by August. So I'm trying to do my proposal defense by August. I've got to get this done. Sorry. You hear a dog and the kid in the background, but

 

Oh, Nope. It was real life. Real life kids, dogs. That's why sir is outside. Why? Cause he likes to be a troll on these calls. I had to put them out. Thank you for going first, Gabby. I appreciate you letting me put you on a spot. I'm glad. Gabby has been in the program for a year now. Just she will be done way before August. Y'all don't let her fool you. She just likes to say things like that. Tasha, how are you, what did you decide to join today? Hello,

 

I am here because like Gabby lit review is not lit. Okay. It's just not lit. So I need to get lit light bulb review. I just need some help just to get this thing and put it out of the pieces together for all the people, which means me. Would I be talking to myself? Yes.

 

Yes. I mean, it's not wrong. We're talking to yourself, right?

 

I'll answer myself. I think it's okay.

 

I answered myself, have whole conversations. That's how you figure things out. How did Dr. Collier thank you for joining me. How are you this evening?

 

I'm good. I was on the wrong lane, my bad. I'm dropping in to say, Hey, it's the people so that they just knew who I was having some familiar faces, some new faces. I'm about to call you and faculty and residents for the program. So I'm one of the behind the scenes. Resources is not really so much behind the scenes, but just good to see everybody just listen in on a couple of things. I won't be here the whole time, but just wanted to show face and see what's going on. Hey, that's all I have.

 

And I want to shout out Dr. Collier [inaudible]. We are celebrating our four year Dr. Versary. We defended our dissertation. She went first on the 10th and then I went after her on the 11th and y'all listen, everything I'm Going to talk about today. We lived it and we had to do it on a very tight timeline. Okay. To give you an idea y'all we had to collect data, analyze data, write up a whole proposal. Excuse me, January 1st to March six. I, to let you let that sink in January 1st and March 6th, that's what we had to do. We had each other, we did it. And we not saying that you need to do that. We just saying that we'll do that. I'll do that. If my godson says don't do that, don't do that. But if you have to, okay. Yes. But I am curious, let me know.

 

Y'all like here, let me know in the chat box, it could be just cause you know, I needed something to do. I needed to be in community. I want to see what you talking about. Me. Inspiration and guidance. Yes. Yes. And also here like Gabby and Tasha because I'm in chapter two, H U double hockey sticks. I've been in it all semester, what it feels like. And I also want to defend by August and so I know I gotta, I gotta get to it. And I, I know I worked very well with a team and like having this inspirational setting. So that's why I'm here today. Thank you, Chelsea so much. I'd like, I'd like to share if I could.

 

My name is Leanna I'm from the Chicago land area and I have the classic. What I would say is grad school experience in terms of, I started many, many moons ago, more moons and I care to share at this point.

 

And it was before I had expanded my family. So coursework was a breeze. I was single and didn't even appreciate it. I was living the high life and I didn't even know. And then I got more responsibility in my job mid-career professionals. I'm working full time. I have very small children. We've all just been through the pandemic. And I am, you know, almost done with some writing pieces and it's just really about getting into a realistic group, you know, with, with those, those factors I did, I just shared on my life and figuring out how to find a motivation without resorting to, you know, midnight sessions that really, after a couple of days, don't do very well when you're working all day and you've got kids and you gotta write. So looking for some motivation to get back into the groove, because I know once I get back into the groove, I'm phenomenal, but it's really hard when you go down the shame spiral of I should've did this and I should've did that.

 

And why didn't I do this? So that's a little bit about me and why I'm here. Absolutely. Oh, you are in the right place Frienz. I think people are shocked that when folks come into the program, we spend probably at least the first month, if not more talking about, Hey, Hey, we don't need to be working at midnight. We'll need to be doing all of that. Even with the kids, even with the partners, right? Either with the job, we dont need to be doing that because you only got one you! You only have one body, one mind and you have to take care of you. And there's a way to do this process without doing all of that. And so I feel like, you know, I'm the nice one. Even though people say I'm not a Dr. Collier definitely will lovingly get you together too and help you with this process.

 

So thank you so much for, for letting me know why you are here, introducing yourself. So Lauren is coming out of cons and needed some motivation, Vanessa you're at the proposal stage. No idea where to start with it. You Tamisha completed quals last quarter, trying to get this proposal in by the end of this quarter. Ya'll listen. Let me tell you this. This is as much, I'm going to say about myself before I get into the things, but I want you to know that there's nobody over here. Perfect. Okay. Even though I just told you about this tight timeline we did in this dissertation, that would mean that we were showing up every day and we realized we had a schedule. We doing everything perfectly. That was not it. To give you an idea, I've managed my exams fall of what? 2016 at, in touch my proposal until June of 2017.

 

I get it. Get it. Couldn't write, Couldn't look at the laptop, get it. So that is why I created this program was why I do these types of workshops because it's something I wish I had when I was going through the process. I wish someone could just tell me, break down a process, tell me what to do. If you could tell me what to do, I could do it. But if I don't know what to do, how I'm supposed to do that, right? Donald, the people tell me they come in after you, how I want you to be scared. But they said they coming after you. They want to know why you're not in the program. Okay. Carlos, hi you are at the proposal. You're trying to get it in by the end of the quarter. Yes. Come on LA Don looking to defend by August.

 

Yes. Marisol, listen, Marcel came into the program from a workshop, just like this show. So I do have current clients in the room. If you put any questions in the box, they absolutely got you. So just know that if someone's answering your question, they're not Sarandos. They legit know what they're talking about. And they are happy to answer any question that you have. It don't matter. Like how, if you can get a stupid question, if you think it doesn't matter, please, please, please ask it. Great resource. Okay. Yeah. I'm going to get started because I want to be respectful of your time, but I am someone who feeds off of feedback. So if at any point I say something that hits you in your spirit, just you can put an emoji in the chat box. You can let me know. Okay. you've been doing an emoji on your screen. I love this is one of my favorites like webinars to do because I get inspired every time I do it. And I know that folks get inspired and motivated too so 30 day literature review less, get it. But before, if again, you want to let the people know that you are here, tap us on the Instagram. This is our handle, Qual_ scholars. And please use the hashtag so we can find you and shout you out. But just wanted to give you a little screenshots so you know what it looks like.

 

Yes, Georgia red and black. G, dogs. All right. You're in the right place. I'll adjust so that you do know that I'm not out here pretending. Dr. Collier and I graduated from the university of Georgia and the college student affairs administration program. Let me just, so we just here. Yes. Go dogs. So you in the right place, if you want to make the most out of your time opportunity during around. And I know we come to the end, people getting their shots. I get it the outside is opening up. Y'all probably got plans, but you like, but I still need to finish. I know a lot of y'all said you gotta plan to finish or propose or defend by August. Let's do that. You plan a lot of work, right? But you're not sure if you're doing it right. That was me.

 

I had all the notebooks full of notes that are already from all the articles, like the many, many folders of articles I had on my laptop. But I was still like, now, how do I translate these notes to our whole literature review? You're looking for one F to give just one, right? Cause if you like me and you were done, you don't need this degree. You can go work at trader Joe's. It's just fine. It gives you good benefits. Why you need a doctorate? Like this last point, right? Finding a regular Chemegular job. But I was like, listen, I came to five. And if the only thing that's standing in between me and finishing this program is this dissertation. Let's just do it. I just want to finish. Come on, just got your second shot today. I got my first one today and it's a whole experience.

 

My brain is the research that came out of me in terms of the way like class and race is intersected in this whole thing. But that's a whole conversation for a different day. Okay? This is math for you. I will, I will cuss you out. I will try to keep it to a minimum, but just know him. I slipped past. So if you need to put on headphones, I understand that those little people around if you're not open to different perspectives, you got some negative Juju looking at math plays for you. We all about community. We all about just good vibes over here. So we are inviting you. And to do that, if you look up for somebody to write this for you. So we did that and we got a great process for you to do that, but it's not necessarily something we want to go back through in a whole literature review for a dissertation.

 

If you are not ready to accept the responsibility for your actions, what this means, not to say like you have control over everything in a row, like a whole pandemic people losing their mind, right? Like not saying that you do get to decide every day. When you wake up, what you will do with your day, how you respond to your day, what you will get done. Sometimes we can forget that, that we have that agency, but we do. And then don't get mad. Cause I am going to offer you to join this amazing community. But listen, my main goal for you today is that you can walk away, inspired to at least ake one step after this. If you join the program, we are, we will be glad to welcome you in with open arms. We know it's amazing. I know it's amazing. So it's not here. I'm not here for about money. I'm here to help you at least get a starting point on this literature review.

 

So you are your ancestor's wildest dreams. I want you to sit back and think about this. You are your ancestor's wildest dreams. Think about your ancestors. Think about everything that you've had to endure. Think about every fight they had to go through. Every battle. Think about ancestors who wanted to go to school. And couldn't, they dreamed of being able to say like somebody that they know or themselves were able to walk through institution. I think about me going to the university of Georgia. And it wasn't that long ago. When people who look like me, couldn't go there. And a lot of people go there. Now our arguing now still not welcome. And right, it's not lost on me. That is an amazing opportunity. And damn, to even say that you can go and get a doctorate degree. That's amazing in itself, they are cheering you on. You are their wildest dreams.

 

They left us with the gifts and all of their legacies and their experiences, right. They went through what they went through so that we have the opportunity to look back. Right? You know, the saying of hindsight is 20/20. We can look back and learn from that. How did they move? Right? What were their strategies? And the reason why I'm bringing this up is because many of you, if not, all of you are doing some very like powerful, personal research that relates to you, your identities, your experiences, and your goal for joining this work is because you want to center people who have not historically or currently been centered. That's a big deal. Like it's a huge deal. You have an amazing opportunity to do work that is not only important to you, but that it's going to have a lasting impact on the world.

 

I am curious, let me know in the chat box, what words are your ancestors offering to you in this moment? What was coming up for you? I constantly get the message of just keep going, practice courage. You don't have to see the whole like path or you just got to take the first step. Yes. One step at a time. Let me not make, keep talking, but just keep letting me know. One is better than zero. Come on. Do it afraid. Yes, absolutely. No. Been through and I will say this, like even you you've been through worse than a literature review. We've been through worse than a dissertation. You've been through worse. This is just the paper. Just a paper and put some words on a page. It's just the paper.

 

We don't know the fee. Yes. I'm put that on my wall. Yes. I don't think about this as your dissertation is your most powerful weapon. I have beeen thinking a lot about, especially in the pandemic right? In the beginning, right last year, this time, if you're like me, like other people, like, Oh, this could be a good thing. You know, we have to be in the house. Right. I ain't going to give me so much time and space to do all the writings, what happened, asking for it. But the reality of that was completely different. We're navigating a whole pandemic, multiple pandemics, and that sense. But when you think about your ancestors, you think about history, right? Our ancestors, for the most part, the only option they had was to do physical labor in order to get ahead. Right. That's what they knew. It was the options and they worked right.

 

And you may be someone who's like, you will not outwork me. I don't know how to show up. I know how to get things done. But lately you may be feeling like, but I'm just tired. I'm tired. And I don't have any energy. And that may look like a lot of days and weeks of just sitting in front of the TV, watching Netflix, it may look like right, you want to write, but you just can't. And maybe the thought running through your head is like, I'm lazy. Why am I so lazy? I can just, I can just put the words on the page. But what I want you to think about is our work is not so much physical as it is mental. And one is not above the other because scientifically your brain uses more calories than your body ever will. Especially during a lot of thinking and creating what you are doing in your work.

 

And there is no way that you could ever be lazy. You wouldn't have made it this far. If you are someone who is lazy. So I hope that you can drop that. Any form of that thought of laziness, that's not it. And to show yourself a little bit of compassion that you made it this far through a whole pandemic and everything else that's probably going on in your life and everything that's probably been going on with family and whatever else has been coming up to you made it in your dissertation. When we think about, as a society systemically like thinking about who you're centering your dissertation, it is your most powerful weapon in fight against systemic oppression, right? Because people are burning things down. They will continue to burn things down, but we're going to have to rebuild like our world. And what we don't want to do is rebuild something like the thing we just got through tearing down, and you are in a unique position that you have more of a holistic perspective, right?

 

Not only do you have family history, society history, you have a a view of the research as a whole and what has been happening. And you also have the power and then you probably practice courage and dreaming about what the future could be. That it could be different than what it is right now, which is probably why you're doing the work that you're doing. And so we need your dissertation to give us the next steps and how we continue to build a world as we move forward. That is not like the one that we are fighting so hard to change.

 

With all of that and the inspire like inspirational moment, let's get real. Why haven't you finished this literature review? Let me know.

 

Can you stop reading? Yes. I don't stuck in my head. I'm scared. That's real. I kept reading and reading and writing and being like, but I can't put the words on the page. I don't know enough. Like there's so many other people have talked about this topic. Who am I to talk about this indecisive, at the last, keep your personal roadblocks. And if you finished your literature review, what were some of the things that stopped you? Because I know a few people on this call, what is the first step? I'll have good habits around writing, missing something, reading some more. Yes,

 

Let me know. So I mentioned this a minute ago, right? But you're just tired. That's real tired over it. F disagree. Don't really care. Got more important things to worry about. Right. Especially in this time, like family members are probably ill or lost, you know, jobs and trying to figure it out. Maybe you got a new job or you had to like help out in more ways. Right. Especially people with little ones and fur babies, you in the house all the time. Right. And every like work was kind of like a break, right? Like they went to probably daycare school. You got a break from them and now everybody's in. But if you're in the house by yourself, that's like days and weeks of not talking to someone else is a big reason why I got a dog. Now I talk to him. But you know, you don't really, you're not trying to hear me. I just done been in the house. I heard this, like not sure where to begin probably was motivated a few months ago, but can't get back there. Right. Frustrated and confused. Why you can't just get it together too scared to tell everybody that you really just want to quit. I even told my mama and them, and like, I got to quit. They was like, Oh, you're so smart. You'll get it together. I'm like, this is not about being smart. I mean, I can't put words on a page.

 

Who do you need to be in check the beginning of the question? Who do you need to be in order to finish your literature? Review Friends and family don't know how to help. Yes. They're like, you're just so smart. You can do it. You've been in school all this time. You can figure it out. I got this. And just not the same thing though. Not, not the same. They're like, okay, well just let us know when graduation. Cause we ready. We try to book. I, I tickets and the hotels and I'm like, listen, I ain't going to be no graduation. If I can't put words on a page, but who do you need to be?

 

Right. You probably are saying something, whether it's today or over the past month or so, I should be consistent. I should be disciplined. I should know exactly what I'm going to do every day. That's just show up and do those things. And I should show up and do everything on my to-do list. Right. I should have my meals prepped. I should have a clean house at all times. Make sure the kids are taken care of. They got activities to keep them busy. I also need to work out six days a week because we can't put on the quarantine weight. Right. And I should still have enough time to get my booty rubbed on. However, you get your booty rubbed on at the end of the night, whether you do it yourself with somebody else doing listening, you probably like, I should be able to do all of these things. Right. And you all 50 11 zoom calls. And you're like, and I better look camera ready. I better have on my preferred professional clothes, at least a professional shirt, whatever that means. Right? Look like I'm here and I'm ready to work. I should be doing all these things. Okay.

 

And as we continue and I feel like in life, as we knew it before has changed and that people realize that you don't need to be in person to do everything. So people got 50 11 committees. Right? Got the church COVID committee or whatever you all right. You gotta have a side business. Cause you know, like me, I was like, Oh yeah, I know. I only got like two months to finish this dissertation, but I should start a business too. Don't be like me. Okay. You can, I can show you how, but don't do it. How I did it. Right. I used to be like, I'm paying off debt because I knew I probably should go work a side job or something because the way it is GA ship, the set up, I've got enough money. I've got enough money to do that. Any student loans go hit and what am I going to do?

 

Right. You got to plan the orientation for August because we, at that time a year, but people making plans for the new year, I got to take all the people to the stove and it's still have energy. That's a lot y'all. And while it might not be exactly this on your list, but I'm sure I'm willing to bet that most of y'all have not all of, y'all got a list that looks like this every week. And you think that you should have time leftover at the end of the day, to be able to commit four or five hours to your dissertation. How ? With what energy? With what time, I'm in a day. It's just, just how is my question?

 

But I don't want to know is really holding you back because I know it's like what I keep reading, but I'm stuck because what I want you to know, and I hope that even see, you know how to write, right? You may have some technical questions when it comes to the literature review. But like in theory you could do this. This is not about writing is not about reading. It's math right? I'm for real doll. I am tired though. Imposter syndrome. I don't think my writing sounds academic enough. What I want you to know? Because let me go back. I'm just tired. Right? My favorite things to say it's my go-to when I am like stuck in my own mind drama. I'm just tired though. Like, no, but for real, I'm tired. Did you see everything I got To do? Right. But I want you to.

I want you to know that it's a thought that you have practiced what I have to remind myself. Is that me saying I'm tired or it's just so hard because those are my go-to. It's just something that I have practiced over and over. And I'm not saying that they're not real reasons that are, are real things that are draining time and energy, but there's a way like there's, I'm sure there's probably been times in your life that you probably have done more to just about the same, but you didn't feel this way. It wasn't this like Heaviness, This tiredness, right. Sleep will not fix it. You can probably sleep for a whole month and it still will not fix this, like heaviness, this tiredness. I'm gonna go back.

 

And the reason why I want to stick with the whole thought and I just want you like, just even if you can't be with me, just like, hold it for a minute of what if it was just a story I was telling myself, right? What if I could be tired? It still makes some other decisions. What if it didn't have to be the thing that held me back?

 

One of my favorite quotes is we are the ones we've been waiting for it to go back to the whole thing about you being your ancestor's wildest dreams. You've been having an amazing opportunity to be in this program. Right. Just because it's amazing. Doesn't mean it's easy. And just because like, you have probably been the smart one in your family and then think about like firsthand things doesn't mean that this process wasn't going to have its challenges. The reason why coursework is probably like, Oh, I could do that. Right? Maybe it had some bumps. Maybe it was a few, you know, all nighters is we've been doing the school thing for a while, right? Like you got K through 12. Yeah. Undergrad. Those of you who have masters, right? You probably got multiple masters . And then coming into this doc process, like you get class, like you get the whole system, we're going to have a semester or a quarter of a show up somewhere. Somebody's going to get me a syllabus. I'm going to do those assignments. I probably don't be irritated a little bit. But I know that process. What happens at the dissertation stage and even the comp stage is that you don't know how to do this. It's new.

 

Where the, I feel like the trap is, or the setup is, is that because you're used to this whole cycle of going to class and get an, a syllabus, it can give you this thing of like, I got the school thing on lock. So when you get to the exam part and the dissertation part, you're like, Nope, but I don't because I've never done this before. And the beauty and having never done this before is that you get to be, you get to learn how to be a different version of a student. It's a learning process. Nobody's expecting you to have it 100% like altogether. You know the answers because if you did, there would be no point to do this. The dissertation is a learning exercise all about, can you create like a research project from and finish it? Can you identify a problem? Create some questions that some broad questions you want to answer. Think of some methods to like get some data, to answer that and wrap it up and make it Argument. That's it. You get to be a student.

 

You don't have to have it all together. But I know that, you know, white supremacy in history, they'll tell you different, but you don't have to your dissertation.

 

It's bigger than you and your current temporary emotions. Cause you wont always feel tired. You always feel this heaviness, your work is important. Your work is going to impact world. We need your work out in the world and others are waiting for you to finish this dissertation. So you can give them permission to do the same thing. You can give them permission to go out and live their dreams. Whether that's also going into a doc program or doing something else. There are so many people who are looking at you. You may not know it. They may not never say like ever say anything and they may not ever like a post. They may not ever, but there will come a time and the like not too distant future people will come up to you and be like, thank you so much for being like an example for me.

 

Thank you for putting your work out. It helped me to do XYZ. You have no idea. And you have no idea how your work would even impact you. I really believe like your work is a roadmap to liberation because this is not about a dissertation is not about the degree from these institutions. It's about continuing the dream that your ancestors had. So again, who do you need to be in order to finish your literature review in 30 days, I want to pause and see if there's anybody want to say anything. Any thoughts coming up, Dr. [inaudible] I don't know your brain looks like it's going

 

Toggling between this and my day job. And so just what I been hearing. I sit on about six dissertation committees right now, and I have people who are post approval for their proposal. And they're still, well, there's this beyond the proposal. If they're actual dissertation work and they're still literally stuck in, where do I stop? Where do I pick up? And I had just had to have a call literally last week with one of 'em someone whose committee I'm on is a scholar whose committee I'm on. And we just had to talk it down. Like, listen, we have this thing. We have it outline. We have all these pieces covered. You're good. I need you to go do your research. Now I need more. I need, I'm telling you that you don't. Because I'm the person who will be on you like white on rice and gravy on the biscuit.

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If it was raggedy, I'm telling you you're in a good place. And that if you want to have some pieces that are helpful, as you continue to move forward, to make sure that there's no, that there's not new literature coming out. That's one thing we're not going to stay stuck here, prohibiting you from moving forward with your work when you're in a place where your work actually can move forward. So a lot of the blockages are here. And it's this. It's not that folks. Aren't smart enough. That's rarely if ever the case, honestly, truly is all the other pieces of life that can cause us to question can make us unsure of ourselves that we then don't know how to move forward. And there are actual blockages or barriers that we have to figure out how to navigate. If some of that is just positioning, not just, just as a minimized more, but it helps us to navigate and move around and to take into consideration these other things that are also priorities for us. So I'm going to zip my lip up and turn it back over to you.

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I love not as true. And as I was listening to you, I was thinking a question for everyone too, is what if you're already doing it right?

 

Right. What if you're already doing exactly what you're supposed to do and the only reason right.That you feel like you're not is because you're telling yourself that what if that was the only thing would that, how would that make a difference in your literature review process? Yes. Castor oil with gel braids. So let me tell you something I'm going to go and I'm gonna tell you what to do, right? But just like Dr. Collier said, this is, this is not, this is like 10% of this process. I'm telling you exactly what to do. What I tell people in the program, 90% is what's happening up here and how you're taking care of your brain.

 

So a literature review, how I'll look at it is to sell the reader on why your topic needs to be studied. That should have been in D not an S listening. Y'all I am that. I'm not an editor's what Dr. Collier does. I'm here helping people work through the mindset blocks, but essentially it's like, what is your argument for why your topic is needed? It's not meant for you to tell us every little thing has ever been written about your topic. Like truth. Be told, nobody wants to read that nobody wants to read a hundred page literature review. I don't care what they say. They don't. And they probably won't what they want to know is where do you stand? How do you see the literature? How are you connecting the existing literature to the problem you have stated that you want to explore a study, right? What does your reader need to understand about your topic in order to understand your study? And I want you to think about the reader is someone who has no idea about your topic. They probably never heard of it. So if I'm someone who is a, if I'm an alien that just came home to earth and I picked up your literature review, what do I need to know? That's it.

 

I would say more I'm on the side of a 20 page literature review. Like let's just get a cute overview and move forward. But I know different programs got different requirements, right? But I haven't been, just say like 20 to 50 pages, about 30 to 50 citations. It give you a ballpark and then check with your chair and your program. Right? Cause I don't want you to be live with Dr. Lacy said program, graduate school, go check with them. But if they don't have any information, just follow this. Let's keep it cute. Just three to five main topics that I need to understand in order, right? To move forward with your study in a theoretical framework, go, go on a slight tangent. One theoretical framework no need multiple , no need multiple one. They just need one to know where you come in from. Okay? Just one, you can put the rest of the theories that you love in your literature review, but we just need to know one. Okay. That wasn't a aside. All right.

 

Here's what I would tell you from all the literature review that I have, that I have read all the students that I have worked with. The number one issue is you did not define your problem clearly enough. You think you did? Let me tell you how y'all say, like I am going to study black women. Sounds good. What does that mean though? What's that mean? Why do we need to study them? I don't know. Cause you know, university don't care about them. Is that the main problem you're studying or do we got something else? You got a topic an overall topic, but what's the problem, right? Who are you focusing on? Like who is impacted by your topic? Like who are the people you are going to center in your research? Why do we need to focus on this topic for these particular group of people? How would these individual's lives be changed? If this problem is solved and when you complete your dissertation, how will the solve the problem be solved? Like how, what are some interventions? What are some things right? All of this, I should be able to know all of the answers to these questions by reading your problem statement. If you go back to your problem statement, when can't figure this out, that's where you start.

 

Once you have a problem statement, then you will use that to outline your draft of your literature review. Right? So as I'm reading your literature review first, you're going to introduce the topic to me and define it in a very, like a way that if you was talking to your grandma or I don't know a five-year-old, how would you tell them about this topic? And, and I think Marisol, you said this earlier about like maths on an academic enough. Here's where my pet peeve is of the people who be at the ARA or the, the conferences and they be using all these $10 million words, but I'm still sitting there like, but what are you saying though? But what did you do? I don't understand what you did. I got a whole 50 million degrees and I still don't know what you did it is cute to use those words.

 

But if you can't defend, like if you can't clearly say what it is that you are doing, and another thing I want you to think about is for most of you who you are doing this research for are for people who are never going to pick up your dissertation and read it, no shade. That's just not there. Like they're meeting them or for information, like most of you are going to be talking to people face to face in the community or doing like presentations or doing workshops or during different interventions in the field. And you're going to be able to have like, you're going to have to be able to translate your work into a way, not to say like they're dumb or anything. Cause that's not, it it's just that we all have different languages that we use. Can you translate your work across languages in the context of your audience.

 

So define your topic in a way that, you know, I just love to say like a five-year-old can understand. Didn't tell us about what are the current experiences of those you are censoring in your work as it relates to this problem. Like how do we even know it's a problem is another way to say that. And then what is currently being done to quote unquote, fix the problem and why is it not as effective? This is the literature review, these three things. Really.

 

So here's my example. I, part of my research is around sexual violence, campus-based sexual violence, right? And so I may say something like the rate of rape have been this same for the past 50, 60 years. Everybody know one in four, one in five women, right? Or what in whatever it is, right. We all have things. We've probably seen the posters, right? But they've been the same. It ain't changed. Even after all, all of the stuff that we've been doing on campus, but particularly Bipocfolks are usually missing from this discussion and or research about prevention and response interventions. And we know their rates are higher for Bipoc folks and there are less resorts resources and support for them. And so my argument that I'm making in this pretend research is when we pay more attention to the experiences of Bipoc survivors and we use that information to improve intervention, then everyone will benefit right. As my good friend, Dr. TJ Story would say, when you say to those on the margins of the margins, everybody benefits, Right?

 

So here is the problem. Clearly spell it out for the people. Yeah, we're doing all this stuff, but nothing has changed. And here's a group of people that's continually being left out of the conversation. How about we focus on them and then see what happens and you know, there'll be a larger impact. That would be my problem statement. Right?

 

So then when I got into my literature review, based on what I have written in my problem statement, I would first need to define what is campus based sexual assault. Because I can't make the assumption that the reader knows that after. I spend some time defining that and talking about that, then I will introduce the people. I am centering it in a research and say, what are their particular experiences when it comes to this? And then third, like what has currently been done and why haven't these interventions or practices not only been effective overall, but particularly for bipoc survivors. Okay.

 

I want to stop and just see, are there any questions about how I just went through that or anything that's coming up for people, or if you have a question about your own study,

 

I have a question for you doctor in regards to the lit review. So I I'm understanding the breakdown or the lit review at this point, but also in the, in the lit review, do you go into explaining your theoretical framework or is that something that would be isolated from the lit review? So you have to make the choice, right? When some people talk about it greatly in their literature review, some people choose to talk about it in their methodology chapter. I'm someone who likes to bring it up in the literature review and then go deeper into how I will use that theoretical framework in my methodology chapter or section. Okay. Yeah. That helps. Yeah. And what I, what I've seen people do is you mentioned your theoretical framework and your literature review, but you never come back to it for the rest of the dissertation.

 

And I'm not saying you're doing this, and this is for the benefit of everyone. How I think about it is for your literature review, tell us the history of the theoretical framework, tell us the tenants or the different pieces of the theory that you are using. And then tell us why you are using that particular theoretical framework. I think so in my brain, you do that in chapter two, like you're just giving us an overview, right? You're defining. And then when you get to chapter three, what you then need to do is take it a step further and tell us, how are you going to use it? How are you going to use it within the research process, right? How are you going to use it to guide decisions around methodology methods, how you collect data and particularly how you analyze data because your theoretical framework is a tool. It's not just to put it there because the outline told us like, how is this going to help you make sense of the data you're collecting and how you can collect that data? Any other questions? Okay.

 

So once you have a clear problem, you have a clear outline. And then I want you to know, you see my outline, not long, it's three things. It's not long. And a lot of people get lost in the detailed outlines. And I know if you have, if you're a program and our chair has expectations that you give them a very detailed outline, that's the one thing. But if that is not the expectation of you, keep it simple and just focus on these three areas. Once you have these three areas, I want you to take one, one area, find seven to 10 articles, just seven to 10. We don't need to read all of them. And you're probably like, go ahead and read seven to 10. I got this sounds good. You're going to review those articles. And you're going to take notes. How I would encourage you to review them and take notes.

 

Is this read, the abstract scone is going on to the back, read the discussion and the implications. If you're just reading those sections, you got probably 90 of not all the information you need to include for your literature review. If you're curious, and it's just a great article for whatever reason you want to read, the whole thing sounds good, but you don't have to read all of them word for word, right? And because the literature is helping you to build an argument, right? And, and like the, the things that are going to help you build the argument the most are usually found in the abstract discussions to implications recommendations sections.

 

And when you go to take notes, we're not going to take out whole quotes from the article, not doing that. We not going to just sit there and just pretty much like rewrite the whole article, but you call it the notes. We're not going to do that. You're going to open up a document and you're going to let yourself just free write a paragraph like if you had to tell your homegirl, I read this article, you only have four sentences to explain it to her. What would you say when ? And if you couldn't use quotes, how, what would those four sentences say? This is important for many reasons, because when you taking notes and you're doing quotes, What you're doing is just pretty much regurgitating their words. You're getting into this area of summarizing.

 

When you are forced to, or like, you know how you tell them somebody like Joel, all was watching this movie to other day. Let me tell you what happened. And I go into my whole spiel. I'm telling her, using my own words. I have watched the show. I made some connections. And when I go to tell her the, what I'm telling her is not only a summary of what happened, but my interpretation of what happened. That is what it means to synthesize the literature. Yes. We're not doing a book report. And I know like the second problem, right? The first big problem was not clearly defining a problem with the research. The second one is not knowing how to synthesize, right? Instead you don't a lot of probably summarizing or writing a book report. And that's fine because people don't usually tell you how to synthesize, but I want you to think about, as soon as you get done reading the article, what would happen if you just allowed yourself to write for shity sentences about what you just read, even if you're not quite sure if you got it right, but you just let yourself, right.

 

If you're the only one who's going to read these notes, take the pressure off. Nobody's going to tell you if you did it right or wrong, this is just an exercise of you learning how to trust you're on your own voice and trust your own understanding of what you just read.

 

Well, you have your seven to 10 articles. You're gonna read them. You're going to have a paragraph, a shitty paragraph after each article. So then that means you have about seven to 10 paragraphs. When you're done with that. What you're then going to do is you kind of review those shitty paragraphs that you written. You are going to open up a new document. You're going to say, what about just let myself, write? Like, I'm gonna just take this first section. Like if I had to define it again to my home girl, what would I say? And what questions came up for me? Do I allow myself to just go off about the article? Like if I was just doing a stream of consciousness, like, what would that look like? If you just allowed yourself to write, if you did that, you would have a two to six page, mini paper. Again, we're not worried about citing anything. We're not worried about spelling anything correctly. We're not even really worried about if it's a real sentence in that. We're right. About putting words on the page, right? They'll be telling about home girl about this, these seven to 10 articles where you read about this particular section. I know what I would say is find a trusted, loved one that you can give this shitty two to six paper to, and you say, hey, can you read this and tell me what you like, you read me saying?

 

They're not, we're not doing no more. Hey, can you look this over for me? Because then the people don't get caught up in the you ain't got, right punctuation. You didn't spell this. You've been cited. We don't need the, that at this moment. Well, we just need to know is if someone were to read just your stream of conscious thoughts, can they kind of get where you're going? This will help you to start processing. This will help you to get, you know, how like you go work out or something like you're going to go walk. Or maybe for those of you who run. And the first like five minutes of that workout, you're like, why am I doing this? I'm so tired. Right? And you gotta just push past that. And then eventually you get into your zone writing as the same way. We first got to get all of the, like, not necessarily junk, but like all of the random stuff out before you can start to make some real connections, some deep connections about how you think about the literature and how you want to connect it to your project. Writing is meant to be doing like, to be done over and over and over. Right? Very rare. If at all, is someone going to sit down, put some words on a page and it's ready to go.

 

It is about writing, getting feedback, writing, getting feedback, writing, getting feedback. Other people will help you process and help you clarify your ideas. That is why I do this process, right? So you're going to submit it to somebody. That's why I gotta be someone you love and trust because it has to be someone that, you know, they have your best interest at heart and anything they're giving you feedback. They're giving you is from a place of love. But once you do that and you come back, right, and you got to edit it, cause y'all know, y'all love to edit. I know some of y'all like, I'm going to sit down and write, and then you spend the two hours editing. We can do that at the end. When you got some more words on page. Cause we ain't got words on a page, can't edit anything. You can just

 

Combine all your shitty paragraphs and papers together into a larger document. And then you can go to town editing as much as your heart desire. I mean, but if you're around us, we're going to be like, turn it and stop hoarding it. But even get to that place. And you could just keep going. But guess what? You got a whole draft of the literature review. If like worst case scenario, you run out of time, you still have something you can turn in. You still have something you can defend. Cause let me tell you people, your committee, they're more forgiving if you don't have a citation or you're right, you need something to be edited. They're more forgiving of that than they are. If you don't have anything words on the page.

 

And some helpful tips, we don't decide. We are not going to be overwhelmed. We're not going to be confused and we're not going to be unmotivated. What have you just allowed us to be something it's just not my favorite part of the dissertation and that's okay. My only job today is to put, words on the page read articles fast, I want to put on here, stop reading and just write what would happen if you just open up a document and let yourself just write. But I know can be scary. So I'm just, I'm just going to say, just read the articles faster. Synthesize over summarize, listen, Tosh. My first draft of knowledge review, it had Beyonce songs, movie quotes, sentencesthat wouldn't even finish. I gave it to my chair and just bless her because she read it and gave me feedback. She didn't cuss me out. I am forever grateful to her. Five articles are related to your study. The goal is not to find articles exactly like your study, because if you're finding articles exactly like your study, then why are you doing your study?

 

Spend more time writing than reading an outlining. We're done with the reading of your outline. Just open up the document and write and then complete each process separately. When you're reading, just be reading when you're writing, just write. And when you're editing, just edit. You think that you might be saving time. Like I'm working smarter, not harder. I'm going to do it all at the same time. You're slowing yourself down. Be okay. Right? What'd you say Tasha Ebonics, movie quotes. I don't got a citation insight. It don't matter. You can do that later. Don't matter.

 

So on a scale of one to 10, how confident are you that you can write this literature review? Where are we at? Deep breathing? Yes. Chlesea.

 

The whole document. Again, people will forgive some missing citations. They will forgive it. They'd be like, okay, when you come back with this whole dissertation, now we'll literally just say, okay, we see some unsightly pieces here. We're going to need you to say something, but you got it in here. So just tell us where it comes from. And then we can go from there as opposed to I got nothing on his page. And we set up in this meeting when I could have been taking a nap or having a snack. Amen, man, a whole snack could have just been grading some papers or something.

 

Feeling like seven. I was at a two night yet at eight ish, 8.2. Come on y'all but these decimal 6.67 or the edge controls, they seven, 7.5 strong 7.7. I love this. Listen, don't let don't let nobody ever change you. Okay. Point nine. I love this. Love it. What would make it a 10? Like what would need to happen in order for it to be a 10, a clone? I, for me my goal as I like work on it more intentionally once the semester wraps in a couple of weeks is to get out of my house and work on it. Cause like I've been working in my house at the same desk for over a year and I needed a change of scenery. And so whether it's a park, the park bench outside of my apartment getting out of my house I think will help motivate me as well.

 

Yes. I missed a Panera too. And I just, this made me think of something Chelsea, like, I don't know if I said this on a podcast or a coaching call, but lately I've been going to my car to write. It's I'm like, listen, I don't know. I'm not going to go outside. It's too cold. I'm in Chicago. It's too cold. But I will go in my car and write things lately. Listen, I gotta get into this house. Cause I'm the same way. Like I just, there's only so much. I need to see people walking around and I dont want to talk to people. I'm a real introvert and we have the whole pandemic, , but I do want to see the people moving around. I go to my car. I said that on Instagram. Yes. I go to my car just too much. Yes.

 

Thank you. Donald's seven out of 10, right? You might be saying to get clear on my topic, I need to be able to maintain motivation. Probably need to figure out this whole synthesizing things and translate my notes. Right? How do I even find the articles related to my study for those of you who are like, I'm still there. Right. And just accountability to show up. Right? Cause I'm sure y'all feeling real good. Like if we were to write right now, I'm sure y'all could like, you can get out some pages. I want you to know you got three options, right? You can keep doing what you've been doing and just try to make it work. You can go and look up on the Googles and keep asking your friends and then what they did and try out all of these different options. Or you can join us, come hang out with us.

 

And so we had to finish your literature review course. It is a step-by-step guide to completing a full draft of your literature. Review, walk you through each process and it will help you a good Alex paragraph. Oh Alex. And the Alex paragraph for y'all is the whole right. Four sentences a day. If you can't do nothing else, just put four sentence down on a piece of paper and just keep going about your day. And if you could show up and do that every day, you will have a whole literature review in no time. But if you like nominee a little bit more than that of come join us. Right? So get crystal clear on your topic and fill that search. Y'all I was feeling real good. When I wrote this, fill that search of confidence, Danielle spine. Whenever someone asks you about your dissertation, I know y'all dread that question.

 

How are your dissertation going? You can wear a shirt and be like, don't ask me. I will tell you every week, feel excited about working on your literature review because you know exactly what to do and how to do it. It feels supported and accountable to your schedule and your goals because you'll be surrounded by other high performance students. Cause I want, for those of you who are in the program, if you want to share a little bit like in terms of the chat and I'll, I'll open it up for you to talk more, but just like, imagine how you feel right now in this space with other people. Imagine having this type of community on a weekly basis. Imagine being able to go into the Facebook group and be like, Hey, who's writing. I need to write. And people would be like, I can write with you in this same energy, have a completed draft at the end of 30 days.

 

And I noticed, is it like a bold assertion of like I could, it's been eight months. I haven't been able to write a page. You, you think I'm might finish a draft in 30 days. It's possible not saying that you have to, but it's possible pile on a call. Did it in like a few days, not even a week, right? So it's about start to finish by about a week and a half. I finished it, but I had a good job in about a week. Oh week. We can have y'all Oh, I just saw that sorry Paula a four week course where you received step by step instructions. You get a workbook, you get some videos. You'll have to be dependent on me to shove up. You can just get started right now. If you want it to have a system for reading, for writing, for editing, for how to ask for feedback, Paula, our resident librarian tells you how to find articles.

 

If you still there, she, she shows you on a screen exactly how to do that. How to figure out search terms. We help you with building and sustaining motivation. We got weekly calls and check in y'all and you get feedback on your draft. After you submit them, Dr. Collier will help you. She will give you feedback. She will let you know if you're in the, on the, like the right path. We have Q and A calls. These will be starting on. What is, what is this day? Wednesday April 28th, we'll be having Q and A calls every other week to get whatever questions you have. And you have answered., We, again, telling you how to find, organize, and review the articles fast to help you understand the difference between summarizing and synthesizing. We will help you identify your theoretical framework. And for those of you who are using critical race theory, we got a whole training on that from the wonderful Dr.

 

TJ Stewart who broke it down, broke it all the way down, not only what it is, but how to use it. So I want to show you for those of you who are interested. I want to show you, but let me know if you have any questions as I go this, cause I'll be answering where's questions about the program or about the literature review. I will stay on to answer as many cases that there are. So when you sign up for the program, you will immediately come to a screen that looks like this. We first have you go to orientation there. We just want to make sure that you know what you just purchased. We want to make sure that you know what you can expect. What's all included. And so it looks like this. If you're curious, it's going to tell you an overview.

 

We want to know some information about you. I walk you through what the website looks like, how to use it. Once you have done the orientation, then this will come into your library. And I wanted to show this because not only do you get the literature review course, which is right here for those of you, can, you all see this, okay? It's the literature review courses right here already for you to go through and to get started. But we also have courses on chapter one, chapter three, and this is like a mini qual. Like I would say sort of like certificate in itself, but not only will you get the qual basics, but it will tell you how to write your chapter. Three step by step got one for chapter four and chapter five. Here's the critical race theory that I was just talking about.

 

These are all our coaching calls and other calls and past Q and A sessions. But you get that. Not only do you get this part of the program, because I want to show you, let me see if it pop up, you get access to this side of things. I'm not going to go into many details because it's outside the scope of this conversation. But in case you were curious, cause I mentioned it earlier. If you're like, yeah, I want to do this whole consulting business. How do I do that? You also get access to this program where I walk you step by step. Exactly what is business, how to get started, how to sign your first three clients. I wanted to show you that because I know sometimes people are like, is this a real program girl? Or are you over here? Just trying to scam us? Whats up?

 

Okay. So to reiterate, you get access to the finish your dissertation program, which means immediate access to all course materials. We have scholar planning hour used to be formerly known as planning your dissertation. But we tell you not only how to manage your time, but how to get all this done in 10 hours or less each week. If you like Gabby, you only got four to six hours in your spirit every week and that's okay. She gets a lot done. And we got weekly writing sessions, but like I said, people all the time would be like, I'm writing just yesterday. That was a group of people writing there's all these people around unlimited writing feedback from the amazing Dr. Collier and the team of the Delta's dissertation coaches around. Right? So you know me, I've been talking to you, you heard Dr. Collier's, you've been talking to you.

 

We got Shatina M Jones. Now you need a boost in your confidence. You need somebody to give you a benediction before you go writing, this is your person. She will hype you up to do whatever she got you. And then Dr. Rashonda Breedan. She is our, she is when you need like a hug, you need someone to just like, just, just tell me I can do it. She'll just tell me ain't she leads our our planning calls, Dr. Collier does our writing feedback. And she does host we have calls right away where we give you a little boost of motivation before you write. And Dr. Jones does the same thing, amazing team talked about this. And so I wanted you to know, like, if I was selling these things separately and I have before, this is what I would sell it for. I don't do this to be like, you know, like the whole, what do you call those things?

 

Infomercials. I, I, truly, wants you to know how much time and energy has gone into this program. It's not just thrown together when, not just here, like trying to slap this to take your money. Again, I am committed to you finishing, but finishing with all your peace and joy intact. you can get started 197 a month. You can cancel at any time. Nobody's going to ask you any questions. You just let us know. You give us a 15 day window so that we can have enough time to stop payment and everything. But nobody's going to ask Gabby is the one who's going to process it. You don't send an email. You're gonna be like, I don't want to do this. God is gonna be like it got you turned it off, but you won't want to leave. You won't, you won't want to leave. It's an amazing community. So let me put this link in the chat box.

 

So if you're ready to get started, hit that. I'm going to go. I'm going to go over some questions. Some common questions that people usually have is this for me, are you working on the literature review it's for you, are you working on dissertation for you? If you're not even at the dissertation phase is for you. Because again, like I said, there's nothing like having a community of people who support you. Not that fake. Like I know like in some programs who get real competitive, like, Oh, you got that grant and they do that fake happiness. That's not, this group is not they to find every channel you own to celebrate you. You going to be like, how did you get from five by private Instagram account? Don't matter. We wanted to cheer for you. And if you go ghost, they will come find you. They will somehow find your phone number and be like, where are you at? Where you been? We ain't seeing you. Where are you at? You want to write. Do I need to be on the phone with you? Right. You right. I'll just sit here on zoom while you write. That's fine. I love this community. Love it.

Can't afford it. Can you afford not to do it? What would it look like if you just did it for a month?

And most of the time when people tell me this it's nine times out of 10, it's never about the money. As much as it is about they think like I get it. It worked for all these other people, but it's not going to work for me. You don't understand my circumstances. I do. I'm pretty sure that was one thing you can tell me that I haven't gone bad. And I, if I could tell you horror stories from my own experience, You can do this. Can't, make the sessions, okay.

You can get started with the material right now. Even if there's some people who never come to a live call, there's some people who are like, I got my own community. I don't need to read. I just need the information. Sounds good. There's some people who are like, you know, going through like videos is not my thing. I'm just here for the writing. You get what you need. You're like, Or at nine months you're past. And this is the last thing I will end with your past is not defining your future. You can always choose to make a different decision because the right hand look different and hit different. When you are with a whole group of people and you have structure to the dissertation process and you have support and you have accountability, it's different. It is different. And I go back to Cause I want to

 

Share this and she just, she just defended on April 1st, but she's been Dr. Braeden for awhile for us. So Roe came to the program last May around this time. And she was hitting a block, like she was just having a hard time writing. Like she was having a hard time keep going. And it wasn't because she couldn't plan her way or have a, to do list. Cause if y'all know her, she is the administrator's administrator. Okay. This is that wasn't the issue. And we were talking and she came for the literature review and I believe I actually told her to rewrite her literature review. I'm good for that. Yeah. I'd be like rewrite it. She rewrote that in maybe a week or two, she was done with her proposal a month later. She and I want to talk about her as an example is because she was doing a Participant accent action research, which if you, if you're familiar, you know, there's a lot of moving parts, but in her process, she just took her time. Her main priority throughout her dissertation was her peace. If you were following her on Instagram, you would have saw her baking, all types of things, cooking, all types of things just started watching like three or four shows at the same time, taking all types of breaks. She finished in record time. And I'm using that to say like, Oh, not that she has some like super, like she's a super magical unicorn is to say like, when you put you first to take care of yourself, you learn how to set boundaries and mean it. You learn how to prioritize. Okay. What are the most important things that I need to get done this week? And that's all I'm going to do and I'm going to celebrate. And then I'm going to go about my business. Your process doesn't have to be like this hard, arduous process. You can be excited. You can have fun in a dissertation process.

 

And it was amazing to not only watch her defend it, but to hear her chair say like, this is a beautiful project and you pass with no revisions. Amazing. That's what I want for y'all. You said across the country, Oh, show the calendar, Paula, hold on. Let me go find it. I was just saying that, you know, we have, you know, we have all the set different like programs, but we also have the same sort of just like called right away after dark. And it's basically when you need somebody to write with you or you want to write you just post in our group and folks will pop on with you. And sometimes, you know, I live on the West coast Natasha lives sort of you live in St. Louis, but like, it's like three hours different from me.

 

And so when she's finishing on starting, so depending on where you live you can, you know, find folks or if you're a night owl on the East coast, we're just getting started on the West coast or whatever. You can also do that, but that's the program schedule. Thank you. Yes. This is the schedule real also made this beautiful. Yeah. You get one of these every month. We will be adding more costs to this as well, because we're constantly working to change the program, improves the program so that you can have what you need. Okay. Any questions or anything? Any responses, whether it's about anything I talked about today, any other part or dissertation about the program? Any questions that folks have?

 

So we received a discount code for the lit review class. That just a portion of it. And is that asynchronous or is that like synchronous? Like, is it, cause I know you said there were calls also included.

 

Yeah. So everything is in under one program. The reason why I just sent you to the literature review is because I didn't want people who are not familiar with our membership to get confused. Right. So you all of the material for the literature review is already for you to go. So like if you wanted to start and, and work on it, you could the calls that we're going to be doing every other week is if you have questions, but you can always ask me a question. If you're familiar, we use a software called Slack. And it's a messaging system. So if at any time, if it's two o'clock in the morning, Donna, you, like, I got a question about this. You put that in the next day, somebody will answer, but we also have a Facebook group. If you're like, I'm trying to get this article, my institution doesn't have it. One of y'all can, one of y'all get it for me and somebody will go find it for you and help you out. So that discount code is for the first month off of the program, if you still have that code, but that was a little sneak treat for the people who signed up early. Okay. Any other questions? Paula or Gabby or Tosh? I'm trying to see who else? Marissa. Maria, you want to talk about your experience program?

 

So I want to hear her love it. Put me out of the spot on a Monday after it been benediction week at the resurrection it's okay. I'm Tasha. I go by Tasha Tasha. I am in St. Louis. I am in a social justice program at my institution. I joined who actually I think its one year anniversary. I did this a year later. So I want you to say, tell people, you know, I love saying this, that when I first talked to Tosh, she was like, I'm not joining your program. I ain't got no money. I'm just here to talk to you. So that's real if that's going through your head. Cause that's how she started off.

 

So I was definitely the one at my institution. We did a group dissertation project for the education doctor at the see panic. Y'all doing that and pray for y'all right. So I went from five to four to two to me. And I think after the second breakdown of my group, I was like, okay, we need some help. Pull it up to FID. I said, man, I was like, no, ma'am, I'm just here for the gifts and the goods. And I would just peace out. Well I fell follow the the coaching call, a little coaching call for the discount. And I had my little coaching call and I was just, I was going to be a nice little follow up, but it wasn't. I had a real coach call, she smashed my edges there and they grew back when she smashed them again.

Tasha (01:22:56):So with this she tells me, Dr. Lacy told me what was going to come to pass. She was like, well, you're going to call me back. And I was like, nah, I'm good. I'm you know, I got all the free stuff. I'm good. I'm out. And lo and behold, a month later here, I am knocking on her door saying you were right. I apologize. Let me hold myself and come back. But we had a really good conversation about where I was and what really keeps in that conversation is I think in the prep, in the PowerPoint, Dr. Lacy and said, what if you can't afford it? Well, my question is, what do you have to lose? If you signed up for the lit review program today, you're already in a place of feeling stuck. You're already in a place of having imposter syndrome.

 

You're already in a place of possibly not getting what you need from your chair, your cohort, your members, your community, but then also too, you're also in a unique place. You were doing a whole dissertation in a pandemic where we have already been by ourselves for over a year in the house. Coffee shops are shut down, Bradco. Well, I think that's the world's Conair, but reco really started here in St. Louis. But you, you have been in a place by yourself and for us in FID, we are a group. We are a community that is full of love and tenderness. When I signed up for the program I wasn't in, in the best shape, I wasn't in the best mindset. I wasn't the best person that I needed to be for myself, not even with the dissertation, but just for myself. And before we even talked about work lit review chapter, what my new goal was Dr.

 

Lacy and the community focused on getting me back to me. So a lot of my conversations for the first six to eight weeks were, how are you doing really? How are you doing? And then just in spirit of transparency, I had lost my job amid a dissertation, and I had paid for additional classes and didn't have that. So I didn't know what was going on. Aside from that, as things start to work out better, packages arrived at my door. And so this postcard came from Dr. Braeden and Janae, and then also came with a big oversized bag of Twizzlers and a 35 hour trader Joe's card that I just spent yesterday. But that's the type of community that we have. And when we say so, it's not just to get you to get you on the program, but if you're really here, you really need help.

 

This is, we want you to come join us no matter where you are. We accept everyone. No one is exempt because we all need help. And I think, especially for people of color, we have a hard time asking for help because we feel like that is gonna make us feel small, but this is the place to say, it's okay if you don't need help, if you need help, it's okay. If you don't know everything, it's okay. If you don't know what the hell you doing, neither did we, but it's because we had each other that we figured it out and you'll find a way would you want to just like, if you want a pair of Gucci, so for, you know, you, what can you afford? So what do you have to lose? If all that stands in your way of becoming a doctor is, you know, 197 a month, whatever, what the price is, what can you, what do you, what can you give up for that time to invest in yourself?

 

This investing in yourself for the dissertation is also part of self-care. It's more than just vole bags and getting your nails done and things like that or whatever you do. But this is the best investment that I could've ever made for myself and for my health, especially in a pandemic. That's just for me, I mean, I'm out here buying tulips and fifty dollar pictures yesterday and still showed up for a coaching call on a Sunday and showed up for right away today. And then I'm going to host a right away at the dark session after this. So Paula, we can log on. So, but yeah. Does, I mean, if you would assign me a year ago how I feel now and how I sound right now? I definitely didn't have this. So come join us, pull up. We're here for you and we love you and we want you to succeed. So, and if you can say your program that they don't want you to win, we want you to win at all costs. We got podcasts, we have Facebook pages, you have numbers. What's that, whatever you think you, you don't have, don't have, don't worry. We have it. And we'll, we'll create it. If you don't have it, that enough for you, Paula?

 

Of it, you always just make my heart so cool. And just every time I hear you, I'm telling you, you're going to be like Dr. Jones 2.0, so that's for sure. I'll just say I joined the team of Dr. Lacy, maybe like a year and a half ago. Legit about to quit the PhD program, not knowing where I was going or what I was doing I to, so those of you who have been in your programs for a very long time, don't be, don't have shame around it. I proudly say I'm wrapping up eight year number eight and I will be done this summer. So I will say we all have our processes and that's the thing with Dr. Lacy and the team is that even in the program, you know, so we're talking about the success stories and how quickly people can get it going get it done.

 

But also we also understand that life happens. And so me personally, right? I joined the program and within three months I had my lit review done in the past four months actually, but then pandemic and my life sort of fell apart and things fell apart. But still got no shame from the group. I really wasn't moving forward. In fact, the group saved me once again, held space for me, helped me realized that all of this Paula to work on certain things and she'll get back on the dissertation. And now here I am finishing the dissertation and hopefully defending, I don't know, July, we'll see. But it is this summer. So I just want to say that for folks that might be nervous about like, Oh my gosh, am I going to get pushed through? What if I'm not ready?

 

I'm not ready. We all know when we're ready and the group will help you be at those space when you're ready to do it. And and also push you to, in the sense of like right now in [inaudible], you know, talking with Dr. Lacy that personally I've been a scholar or I'm a student for so long. So I'm having a hard time moving onto that next step, because I'm like, what am I going to do if I'm not in school? Right. And you know, I'm working with Dr. Lacy and getting coached. And that's the thing about too, is that you get coached and you don't realize how much you're in your head about things and how much you need to get talked out of your head to get yourself moving forward. And so Dr. Lacy has been really coaching me through that, in that, you know quit self-sabotaging and move forward and you can finish.

 

And I think that's a lot of, at least for me, maybe it resonates from some of you all is that the Academy and just the process is really hard. And in for all the weird different things, we often self-sabotage ourselves without realizing. And she really gets you into a mind frame to realize what you're doing and stop what you're doing and be able to move forward into the next step. So I will just say that and stop there. It is worth every penny, I will say. I think without Dr. Lacy and the program, I would have quit two years ago and I wouldn't be a doctor, but I will be Dr. Mays come this summer.

 

Yeah. I was going to say, I didn't pay anybody to say anything. I didn't bribe them. And I usually come up. I remember Dante was like, she just paying out to say this. I think he said that actually in a webinar. Cause that would take, but yes, no, Maria. Yes. And Maria you're still like, right. Like, I, I, I love it. Like Maria came because right. It was about like master's program. Didn't going into dissertation and Micah who's also, she started in her master's program and this bro, like she joined us when she was writing her thesis for her master's program. And now she's back to defend and a couple of like next week, next week or two weeks. Yes. Nine days, days. So yeah. Let us know. Ya'll we are here to answer any questions that you have be honest, you can, I mean, y'all let me know if I'm going over for it, but I'm sure if you wanted to privately message one of them and ask the question early you like, I want to know the other side. I want to know the real. That'd be happy to tell you that as well. Cause I know,

 

I gonna say, let me jump in and say I'm one of the few mamas in the group and so doing this with kids. So if anybody on here has kids the four legged kid is right behind me acting a plum fool. She's so if you hear her, I apologize. But aside from, aside from that just having kids and trying to be able to do this it's it's hard. So someone on here at the very beginning talked about, you know, having kids, having little ones and doing it and joining this has helped me navigate through that. Like I don't have all the time in the world to get this done. We got bowling tournaments, we got games, I got school plays. I got all the things that I got to do to try to show up, to be there for my kids.

 

They know mom was there. And so this joining this I didn't, I use my financial aid money. I had, that's what I had to do. That's what worked for me to get this done, but joining this as the best thing I could do cause now listen, I got four hours a week to dissertate. I'm gonna get what I can done in four hours for that week. I'm fixing to have to go to the hotels and do some writing weekends and my husband is on board with it. So I'm going to the hotel and I'm gonna get a ride and weekend, like I have to do what I have to do to get this done. So I know people are logging off, but do it. This is the best investment because you're going to learn so many tips and tricks to get this done. And you can do it. Even if you are a parent, whether that's four legged or two legged, you can completely do it.

:

Yeah. Okay. Here, Sers. But he is banging on the door. He's over it. Sers. My little puppy. If you're curious, who I keep referring to? Yes. Did he get his fries? He did. He got them Thank y'all for attending though. Oh, a little babies. Yeah, thank y'all. And if questions come up again, feel free to reach out via email Instagram, if that's easier, you want to talk to one of them, people will be gladly happy to talk to you. So thank you current students for, you know, telling your experience. Appreciate it. I'm going to go get sir. Bye y'all.

 

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