Episode 125: Write your Dissertation Accelerator

This week on the podcast, Marvette goes over the 3 main characteristics of the most successful students in the program who have finished their dissertation.

Marvette also talks about the new Write your Dissertation Accelerator program that's launching and why you need to join if you're serious about finishing your dissertation.

Follow along on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/marvettelacy/

TRANSCRIPT:

Hello, everyone. Welcome back. I am so excited. So whenever I get a chance to just plan things like me and a whiteboard and a nice drink in my hand is like the perfect day for me. And I had an opportunity to do just that with Dr. Rashonda Braeden, who you heard from a couple of weeks ago. And if you didn't know, she is the director of cost scholars. And so she flew in this past weekend to Chicago, and we just had a whole weekend of just thinking about the business, thinking about where we want to go planning, asking ourselves some really challenging questions. But, but doing so because we really care about students getting results, we really care about students finishing their dissertations. Like we are obsessed with it. We want everyone who is in our world to become doctors to finish what they started.
And we started down this road of thinking about what do our, like our most successful students have in cop have accomplished for those students who have finished what were the factors that got them there. And there were a few things that really stuck out to us as we were reflecting. Number one, the students who showed up to the calls, let's just say, full stop. Those who showed up to the calls in the coaching sessions, when they showed up to they were open to the process of being on a writing call and being on a coaching call. Right. And I know that a lot of people who come into the program for the first time are like, what the hell is coaching? What is coaching? Like, I just need someone to tell me exactly what to do. Well, we cover that within your first week or two, been in a program, right?
And so you have a plan, you know exactly what to do, what you don't have support for. Maybe what you didn't have the space for before is all the other stuff, right? Life continues to happen. And this dissertation process, even though you have this big goal, like things are still happening with family. Things are still happening. We work relationship starting ending babies, families like death of loved ones. People getting sick, especially with the pandemic, right? Like life continues to happen. And where is your place to process all of that? Right? And in our brain, we are weaker. Why can't I say this word compartmentalize. Right. And we have been taught that like, when it comes to school, when it comes to PhD life or doctoral life, that's not the place for you to talk about your real life. That's going on. You know, how like anxiety kept you up all night or depression is really starting to get to you.
Where do you talk about the intersection between mental health life in dissertating? So we provide spaces for that very thing. And so those students who show up to these calls, who show up open, who show up with questions, who show up willing to hear a different perspective and willing to be honest about what roadblocks they are experiencing, whether they're directly related to the dissertation or not. We see students who do that, like just take off because they're spending less time hiding. They're spending less time feeling like they're the only one going through whatever. Right? And they open themselves up to receive the support, all of the support that's in the group. And so the students who do that, who come to those calls and who are open, I just, I can't even express to you in words, just how much that helps them. Number two, one of the, so I have the remain commonalities that we've seen with the students who have finished.
Number two, the students who were as like along this line of being open and coaching and being honest, the students who were as dedicated to their mindset and self care work, as they were tired of writing their dissertation finished faster. Let me say that again, the students who were just as dedicated to their mindset and self care as they were to their writing finish faster, they knew that working on their mindset and working on caring for themselves was just as important. If not more important than focusing on how much they were writing, focusing on how much they plan, focusing on how much they read and that may feel and sound very counter intuitive to you. But what I want you to know is that I say this a lot. You cannot outwork a mindset. So when I'm saying mindset, it's about how, what is the conversation that is going on in your head?
As you sit down to write, what does that conversation going on every day as you're walking and just living life, how did you speak to yourself? How do you think about the world? Are you just walking around saying this is so hard. People just don't understand. I don't have support. I can't do this. I don't know enough. How am I going to get all this done? If that is the conversation, and it's constantly looping in your head, you need, you got some work to do. You got some work to do in your mindset and your self care. And we say self care when I'm sitting here, like just do the bubble beds and go to the spine, just like throw yourself a picnic in the living room while all those things are dope. You should do them. If you want to. When we're talking about self-care at the core of it, we're talking about taking radical responsibility for yourself and for the results that you have in your life.
Meaning learning how not being in victim hood all the time, but to be in a place where you know that you have the power to change, whatever it is that you want to change, that the power, that 100% you get to decide if you're going to finish this or not. And I know that your brain wants to say, but I can't make my chair advisor signed a piece of paper. I can't make my committee show up. Listen, yes, there's always going to be things outside of our control, like less light, but when it comes to whether or not words, get on the page, when it comes to whether or not you're looking at your feedback, what, when it comes to, are you following your schedule? Are you asking for help? Are you asking questions when it comes to those things, 100% in your control, and most of you yelling at me on the road.
Now, most of you won't do those things. Most of you are so busy, spinning out about all the problems and you want to like stew and all the problems and how everything is going wrong, that you don't stop to take a step back and be like, well, what do I have in my control? What is going right? What do I do? Well, what is my evidence to suggest that I will finish this? That is a much more challenging conversation. And the only reason why it's challenging is because you're not allowing yourself to practice having conversation. When you come into this program and for the students that are in this program, they are constantly reminded. That is where your work is. That's where you put your energy into. And we do have students in the program who are constantly like, but what, how are you going to help us?
Right? What about the writing? Y'all listen, listen to me. Good. There are plenty of opportunities in this group for people to show up, writing people get support in their writing. There are calls at least two a week where you get to show up with someone on a team who is going to sit there with you and hold you accountable to writing. But we can't make you write. We can't like transport through the zoom room and pull up your laptop for you and make your fingers, right? You have to do that. And even when there's not someone on a team, we have a room, we have a zoom room available for anyone. We have a Facebook group where people come in all the time and say, Hey, anybody feel like writing today? And usually always like someone, one or two people, if not more, we're like, yes, I would love to write.
So let me be clear that people who are not making, writing progress, whether they're in the program or not is because they're choosing not to. And if they would focus on their mindset and their self care, as much as they were focusing on trying to make sure they had a designated time and place to write, they would be finished already. And so if this is you, if I'm stepping on some toes and stepping on your toes, just know, do you get to make the choice to show up for yourself? But you got to show up. You gotta show up. You have to know that you have to focus on caring for yourself. You have to allow yourself to recognize, be aware of your emotions and process your emotions that you have to be willing to bring your whole less self to this process into this program.
And the students who fail initially, I mean, we had eight of them alone in a spring semester. Those students did that work. They did that work. So that's number two, number three, and say the most important going off of cause you know, these build off of each other. Number three students who believed it was possible to finish the dissertation. Even within short lot short timelines, finish those who believed meaning that they, they thought it was possible and more than possible for them to become doctors like students who were committed to completing their dissertation because they wanted, they believe they will be doctors. A lot of people will self-sabotage because they don't even believe they can't even see themselves being doctor. And because they can't see themselves being doctor, they can even see what comes after that. And so they sabotage by not showing up to writing, but not at reaching out for the help, but not responding to the help.
But I asked in their questions by not looking at feedback because they believe that it is not. It's like, what's the point of doing all that work when you don't even think it's going to happen to begin with that's how important belief is these three things. People who show up for the calls open and ready to do the work. People who show up and do the work for their mindset and self care and people who believe it's possible to be doctor they finish. I tell people all the time I can sit up here and tell you exactly what to write. I can come to your house and tell you each word to put on a paper. And let me tell you, if you don't believe it, if you've got a mindset, if you're not open to it, you won't do it. A lot of y'all are so busy running around trying to find a perfect plan and a perfect book and a perfect whatever that you never stopped to sit to think like, is it me? Is it me? Jesus. It might be you.
And it's not about that. You don't know enough. It's not about that. You don't have what it takes. It's not about that. You didn't come from this school or this place, or you didn't like you don't have supportive people. You know it it's about you stopping you. You telling yourself you can'tdo it. Y'all this was not supposed to be in this tone, but I feel it in my spirit. It is you, you are stopping you. You are telling yourself that you won't be. You are telling yourself that you can't do this. You are telling you and listen, we can go on and on and on about how you heard these messages or maybe how these messages are reinforced. But I want you to know at the end of the day, you have to make the choice to do something different. You have to make the choice to believe something different. You have to be willing to go all in on you. You have to be willing to invest in you. You have to be willing to believe in you. Why was somebody else do something that you're not even willing to do? You, it don't make no sense.
So going back to this, like in our conversation with rose in our conversation, it was just thinking about the people who are not making the progress that they want to make. It's because of one or more of those three reasons. And so we are also thinking about how can we help students, not only students who are in the program, but future students get results even faster. Like our results are like ridiculous, ridiculous. I mean, people completing dissertations or weeks, people who couldn't write for months, couldn't even look at a laptop for months just in, she liked that if you heard that it was me snapping my finger, just finishing.
And so we're also thinking about the structure that we had and over June and July, we're wrapping up this week. But over these past two months, we introduced a new program inside of the Finish your dissertation program called scholar summer school. And this space was curated in a way to help provide high expectations for students who had very tight timelines that they wanted to complete before the fall semester began in June alone. In June alone, we had students completing their proposals and submitted it to their chairs. We had students who went from being able to about to write for months, outline and finished chapters. And as you heard last week from Yvonne, she was able to complete chapters two, four, and five, and submitted her complete dissertation to her committee in three and a half weeks. Amazing results. And so Dr. Bruton and I knew we were onto something we knew. And so we were like, okay, how can we do well, how can we take what we've done over June and July and make this a more permanent part of the structure of the program.
We wanted to show people what is possible. If you just dedicate yourself for four weeks, if you just said, okay, I'm going to try it because the way I've been going, it ain't working. It's not getting me where I want it. What if I just try to listen to them for shits and giggles? What if I just say, Hey, let me be open and just do everything they tell me to do for these four weeks. How far would I be? And that is what we created. And we have created Write your dissertation accelerator, right? Your dissertation accelerator is a four week group program designed to help students like you finish the proposal or complete their complete dissertation. This is what you get. Two calls a week, two calls a week. You're still in the program. You still got, you get access to all the resources.
But what we're going to do is for four weeks focus, you focus you into being like what exactly needs to get done for you to finish this goal in four weeks? And how do we help you build up your belief? How do we help you work on your mindset and your self care so that you can get that done? Because not only do we want you to achieve that goal in four weeks, we want you to feel better than ever. At the end of that four weeks, we want you to be so excited. So full of energy, that you're ready to keep the momentum going. This is not about you spending all night long and trying to stay up at the computer. No, it is about you taking focus, intentional action towards finishing your goal that you have for the four weeks. So we are going to be taken 10 students at a time.
And how this works is that you will first need to apply in order to join the accelerator. And the link will be in the show notes. Or if you want to come on over to Instagram, the link will be in the bio. So you're going to apply it. Let me tell you, this is not an application that you're going to be able to do on a toilet and five minutes from your phone. If you are serious about this, because we're only taking people who are serious. If you are ready and you're committed, you're gonna need to sit down somewhere and complete that application because the application is what we call our dissertation audit. And we are asking you a lot of questions because we want to know you and we want to make sure we have everything covered so that when we go to create your personalized plan for you, it's not generic.
It is exactly what it, what you need to do for the four weeks and beyond to get this thing done. It's going to ask you questions about your goals, about your dissertation, about your time management process, about your program experience and other self-care the goal isn't that you have paragraph after paragraph to answer it or that you have the perfect answer, whatever that means. The goal is to get an honest, holistic view of where you are currently so that we can create a personalized plan for you so you can finish your dissertation. So the main thing that we're asking you to do on this application and is to be honest, to be honest. So you complete that application. You will be notified within three business days if you are accepted into the program. Yes. I said if, because we don't want it everyone, remember it.
I want, I want people who are ready to do the work. I want people who are committed. I want people who are open. If you're going to sit here and question and do I list find you, someone who is more suited for you because I know this program is amazing. I've been doing this work for four years and the results that I get clients, I know this works. I only want to work with people who are committed. I only want to work with people who are ready to do this again. I'm not asking you to be perfect. I'm not asking you to have it all together. The main thing that I care about is that you're committed, open and willing to do the process. You can have nothing on paper. You can have no idea what your topic is, but if you are open, committed, and willing to doing this process, this is for you. So after you are notified, whether or not you will be accepted into the program, then you will receive the information to complete your payment and, and your contact information. And then we get started.
So what do you do when you join the program? So first you get a dedicated and personalized support and form of weekly writing clinics. We meet Sundays and Wednesdays. You also get one-on-one coaching calls with me because I'm committed to you. Having everything you need to achieve your goals. You will also receive our cloth scholars dissertation manual. That will walk you step by step through each chapter of the dissertation. Additionally, you will receive unlimited writing feedback on your address. So you can feel confident, submitting your final draft to your chair and your committee, us meeting weekly twice a week to write in community with other people who look like you and who going through what you're going through priceless. But then you also have access to the team of coaches. You can ask questions at any time. We are here to help you. Unlike your program, unlike your chair, unlike your committee, our focus is you. Our whole business exists to help you and people like you finish your dissertations, meaning that we would be there to answer your questions. We will be there to cheer you on. If you have in the moment, we would be there to celebrate with you when you win, right? If you need an edge, snap, snatched, or a toe stepped on, we got you there too.
And finally we give you access to our defend your dissertation workshop because not only do we want you to be able to submit something to words on a page, we want you to be ready. We want you to walk up in your defense. Like I wish the MF would try not to pass me today. That's the energy, right? So if you like, girl, I got it. I ready to start. How do I start? I want you to know that you get all of this, all of this. So let me recap. You get two one-on-one calls with me. You get, bi-weekly like to cause a leak of writing calls to get unlimited writing feedback, the dissertation manual, and the defend your dissertation workshop. Plus you get all of the classes that we already have. All of the classes and workshops that we have for each chapter of the dissertation and beyond you get access to all of that 2,500. And you can either choose to pay that in one payment of 2,500 or four monthly payments of 500, you get a year access to the program a year. The question I want you to ask yourself is what will it cost you? If you don't join? How much more will you have to pay and dissertation credit hours and loan payments by staying your academic program longer because you're not finishing your dissertation and making progress.
How, how much will it cost you by way of time and energy and missing out on an important family events. If you don't get help, everyone needs help. We, we are not meant to do anything alone as humans. And there is no shame in thinking like you need a culture, you need support. What's your, what the people won't tell you is that most people have support in this way. And one of our things that we really want to work on is taking a shame away from getting support because so many people get support. Y'all so many, it's just not talking to you about it, but why are you holding yourself back? Why are you not making a decision to invest in yourself, to go all in, to, to finish something you started? Because you're concerned about what somebody else is going to say, do you want to finish?
This is the way that you're doing this, working for you. Great questions to ask yourself. So who is this program for? Again? This program is for students who are committed to either finishing their dissertation proposals or their complete dissertations in four weeks. So we're going to be doing a draft y'all. I want you to think about if you had a completed draft and the only thing you had to do was edit, move things around and format. Tell me how much further you we'll get. What goals could you accomplish? Right? This is for students who believe that it just may be possible to be done with this dissertation once. And for all, for students who are willing to show up and be open and follow the steps. This program is not for students who rather spend their time thinking about how this could work for them, how it won't work for them.
It is not for students who will have negative Juju, who are not ready to show up for themselves or their dissertations. This program is not for students who are unwilling to try a new and different way than the one that they were taught. We are not the program for you, but if you, you are ready, if you're open, if you're willing, if you're committed, this is for you. Will we be offering this program again? Or what? If you can make each of the calls, we will be offering the program again. But I can't tell you when listing out while I want to be a planner and have all the things I ain't got it. And I can't tell you if it will look like this again, cause I'm someone. If you don't know, if you knew where to me, I like to change my mind and I'd be like this, do something else because I'm not afraid of testing things out and seeing what happens.
So I can't tell you if this exact program would be offered again. So a form of it will be, but I can't tell you if this one will be, but the question isn't, if I will be offering it again, the question is, what do you have to lose by starting now? What do you have to lose by starting? Now? This cohort will begin on August 4th, 2021. This is when it's, if you're listening to this in the future, all calls are recorded and uploaded to our private member portal within 48 hours so that you can watch or rewatch as much as you need it. So if you can't join or your schedule has something, just know that you can always come and watch them, the replay that'll be available for you. And again, writing spaces of community and being able to ask questions. That's available 24 7. Remember also, if you sign up by August 4th, you get two one-on-one calls with me. Y'all don't take many one on one calls clients I don't. So if you want that as a bonus, you need to sign up by August for it. They love to give bonuses and surprises to our clients, to our students throughout the year. We love to do that.
So the next step, because I'm excited for the write your dissertation accelerator. I'm so excited for this next cohort we already have. I think we had two people already in, at the 10 spots. So you want to get in and I hadn't been talking about it that much. You want to get it out. I'm confident that this is going to be a full cohort. And so you don't got much time to him and hot and straddle the lines, show up. I'm 100% confident that this program works and I'm confident that it will work for you. And I know you may have questions. You may have special circumstances, come to Instagram and ask us. We will be more than happy either. It will be me, or it would be Dr. Breeden who will be answering your questions. Y'all heard Dr. Braeden story. You heard Yvonne stories.
You heard how the program has helped them. If not go back and listen to those episodes because we want to help you in the same way, but you got to raise your hand first. So if you have questions, you want to join the program, come on over to Instagram at qual underscore scholars and let us know all the information will be in the show notes. Again, we just want to be here for you. So sign up at the application link in the show notes and in the bio. And let's be done with this dissertation once. And for all by the end of August, that's going to do it for me. Y'all talk to you next week. Bye for now.