79. Find your Pace with Dr. Fatimah Williams

Welcome to Disrupting Burnout - a podcast where we beat burnout so that you can love your career again! 

 How would you define disruption? What does it truly mean to disrupt burnout? In honor of March being Women’s History Month, I am so excited to introduce a new podcast series called “Women Who Define Disruption”. 

Join me weekly as I interview some amazing women who have made the decision to use their God-given gifts to create the life and career that they desire! In this week’s episode, we kick off the series with Executive Coach, Speaker, and Growth Strategist, Dr. Fatimah Williams. Prepare to find your pace as you learn how to build well, lead well and be well.

 It’s Time To Disrupt Burnout:

 7:00 - Understanding Your Season

21:30 - Overcoming Scarcity Mindset 

28:35 - Ways To Set Your Pace

37:20 - Choose How You Show Up 

44:00 - Defining Disruption with Dr. Williams

Find your Pace Takeaways
●      “Everything that is for me will be there for me.” - Dr. Fatimah Williams 

●      “We can’t do it all in all seasons.” - Dr. Fatimah Williams

●      “Smart people will always have options.” - Dr. Fatimah Williams 

●      “Create a world of possibilities through vision.” - Dr. Fatimah Williams 

●      “What I have is enough.” - Dr. Fatimah Williams

●      “Flow through restfulness.” - Dr. Fatimah Williams

●      “I don’t match energy, I set energy.” - Dr. Fatimah Williams   

●      “Disruption is being willing to stop the status quo even when it's set by you.” - Dr. Fatimah Williams

Connect With Dr. Fatimah Williams
Instagram: @fatimahphd | https://www.instagram.com/fatimahphd/

Website: https://beyondthetenuretrack.com/  | https://www.fatimahwilliams.com/

Connect with Dr. PBJ
●               To connect with Dr. PBJ, go topatricebucknerjackson.com

●               Follow Dr. PBJ on IG@drpatricebucknerjackson for#aspoonfulofpbj.

●               Need a dynamic transformational speaker?  Dr. PBJ is ready to serve.  Check outDr. PBJ Speaks | https://www.patricebucknerjackson.com/speaking

●               Support The Show |https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/lovepbj?locale.x=en_US

Transcript

0:00

We have to learn as high achieving professionals, how to understand our personal season that we're in the work season that we're in what is required of us and be able to map these flows together? Hey, friends, welcome to the disrupting burnout podcast. I am your host, Dr. Patrice Buckner Jackson, but you can call me PBJ. Free, you are in the right place here at disrupting burnout, we are giving you the tools to disrupt and beat burnout. So you can love your career and your work. Again, friend, we get it, you're in the right place at the right time we speak your language, we know what it feels like. We know that caring and serving in a compassionate way can cost you and your body in your mind and your spirit and your relationships. And this is your place to come to be refreshed. This is where you get refilled. This is the place to be revived. This is the place to fill your cup so that you can serve from your overflow friend. I'm so glad you're here and I'm ready to get started. How about you? Let's get into it. Hey, friends, it's PBJ again and listen, this series on women who defined disruption. I don't know if you are as excited as I am. But it has set me on fire. Something special happens in my heart, when I have the honour of interacting with and connecting with other women who are not just leaders who are not just compassionate, who are not just, you know, loving the folks around them, but who have also decided that they are going to take the path that was created for them, not just the path that was handed to them, not just the path that they've been told they have to take. But they have found and continue to explore it, the path that was specifically created just for them. And that is my goal. That's my purpose in the series. I want you to encounter these women that I have been blessed to know and to watch and to follow and to learn from who inspire my heart. And I hope that they are inspiring your heart to explore beyond the definitions in the boundaries, but explore beyond the title and the salary to Who are you and what are you created to bring in the world. And today, friends. This is a woman that I have followed for a while and she continues to inspire me. She continues to inspire me by her work by her heart, but also she speaks our language. So I have the honor of introducing you all to Dr. Fatimah Williams today. She is an author. He is an executive coach. She has a podcast series out there for you to for you to connect with this powerful woman works with faculty members, other academics and other professionals to help them not just define their career path, but to explore what that fit is for them for individuals for organizations. I am so honored Dr. Williams, thank you for joining us today. I am so excited to be here. I feel like this is a meeting that has been on the books for a while. And this is such perfect timing to sit here and talk with you and meet your audience. So thank you so much for inviting me. Thank you for your yes, I'm so grateful that you are here. As we always start my first question or my first prompt is for you to tell these folks who you are. Oh, I love it. This is one of the one of one of my courses I say this is the top interview question that people often take but they think they're going to do well. So let's see if I can take some my own advice. I will say I am a growth strategist and coach really the core of what I do I'm very committed to helping high achieving people and organizations build well be well and just actually express their work well so leading well right. It can be difficult when you're high achieving, to actually kind of not only be great at the work so right the leading well in the building well but we often kind of really have a hard time with that being well and living well. Right, our work can sometimes be out of balance. Because our commitment is so high to what we're doing, or because we just get tasked with a lot because we're great at what we do. And so my goal is to really work with individuals within organizations, and also organizations themselves to create the kinds of cultures and practices and habits that really allow us to have this healthy tension between growth as well as well being. And that's been so important for me. And I will say this too, even with the different iterations of my work, new programs that I've built, some that I've sunset, some that have come back, what I am seeing is that thread is consistently there, whether I'm working with an individual, someone who's looking to make a career change, whether it's an organization saying, Oh, my gosh, we're getting to a growth stage. And we realize we don't know how to project plan. Well, well, how do we do this in accordance to our values, and so anything that I'm doing, that's really where my heart is, because we can do great work. But if we are not well, while doing it, I just don't believe that is God's plan for us or our purpose. Our purpose is not to allow purpose to overrun and overtake our well being. And I don't think I think this is one area where, because a lot of us are so driven by the passion that we have the helping that we want to do, the purpose that we feel tapped into, that we don't also understand that you can also create healthy boundaries, healthy communication, to set those boundaries with others and with yourself. So that purpose doesn't overtake you, but that you can actually walk well while living through purpose. So that's who I am. That's where it is, and what I do. I'm sure bio will be there of the PhD and this and the, you know, board member of that, but this is who this is who I am. And this is a purpose that I'm walking out. Oh, Dr. Williams. So you are our people, and you're talking to our people. Because, as you said, as high achievers, sometimes we think, okay, if I can just get out of the career and get into the purpose, then my heart will be free. But what you just taught us is you can be overrun by the purpose. And as a matter of fact, that's probably purpose coming through where you are right now. So often we think that answer is to escape. But an escape is never the answer, because you just took you with you. So talk more about that tension. I love the way you say that, that tension between being well, and doing our work well, because sometimes it seems like such a conflict that cannot be resolved. Yeah. You know, so this, it's something that I'm kind of working through theoretically, because I do believe that it has a bit of I'll say this, I think when we are clear, as clear as we can be at the at the time, about who we are, what our values are, what our unique contribution, and I don't mean in the sense of what I do, but who I be, right? When I understand that. And for me, there's also the other level of understanding that everything that is for me will be there for me. I'm no longer chasing. I've worked with intention, but I'm not chasing, I am deliberate, but I am not desperate. And when we can embody it really is an embodied process. Because anyone who is high achieving, there's almost like an energy turning in you, right? There's an energy turning in you the ideas are spinning, the creativity is going or if you're an implementer, you're ready to get at it and get it done. Right. And so that internal kind of energy that we can feel moving to kind of keep us fueling and doing and doing. We've got to know how to manage that. We have to know when is it everything goes through seasons and cycles. So just because you've got the idea in the season, or the work is slated to be done in this season, we get to choose our pace, even when you weren't and I say this for people who are employed, who had employers who are setting timelines and milestones, you still get to choose your pace. And I think this is really important for those of us who are high achieving and purpose driven people to be sure to check in with our pace, but that's internal work. And some of it can be intuited. Some of it is you know, we have to be able to tap into ourselves and say, Is this really the season to push like this? Or is this my season to kind of sit back and glean To learn to observe to gather, is this because we can't do it all in all season? Right? So even for the high achiever, it's how do I understand what personal season I'm in? My personal life, my home life, my biological, just sort of human energy right now? How do I understand that? And then also understand the season that my work is in? Is this a peak season for us? Is this a low season for us? Are we kind of in a cycle where we're building new programming, and so things are really intense right now, and we're in heavy ideation mode, or now is that we're really all hands on deck, because maybe it's graduation season or something. And there's a lot to be done and all hands on deck are needed. We have to learn as high achieving professionals, how to understand our personal season, that we're in the work season that we're in what is required of us, and be able to map these flows together. But you can only do that when you first understand who am I and then stand also in, I understand what I bring. I don't have to prove myself to anyone, not for promotion, not for tenure, not for awareness and recognition. Right, I do think there's things we should do to make sure we are appropriately recognized for our work, but we don't work in order to receive affirmation from others. Right. So when we can kind of get that internal balance together that internal knowing I am amazing and wonderful, whether I show up at 100% today, or whether today gets them the five or 50. Right, that kind of helps to anchor us. So we're not out here, always doing always on 100, you know, miles an hour, it helps to anchor us in, who am I? And how do I want to show up for myself and others? And doing that from a place of integrity with self? And when I say that I don't mean poor integrity or not. But what do I need right now? And am I honoring that for myself? I feel like I'm sitting at your feet today. Because you are speaking personally to my heart. And I know to so many of us. I've found myself in a season since the turn of the new year. That I know I have a knowing in me that it doesn't fit back season. It is a and I am very good at the chase. I am very good at doing the Achieving the Getting Things Done. But my body and my school are telling me right now that this is a time not to catch every flight not to be on every campus not to be running hard not to be creating new that then and not even not even to overconsume from other people. Yes. What I've found in the last week or so, is I found myself feeling overwhelmed with information. Because when I'm stressed, I want to learn more, give me more because the more I learn, maybe I can figure this out. But my heart is telling me you don't need to know another thing. Right? You don't need another program. You don't need another coach. This is a time for you to sit. Yeah, when there's some specific things that I'm supposed to do right now. And I need to rest in that. But it's an intentional decision. Yeah. It's an intentional awareness and decision, please. Yeah, so here's the thing. Smart people are always going to have options. You will always have an invitation, or request a new idea. And I'll even go as far as to say, a god idea. But everything that comes to was in one season is not meant to actually be manifested in that season. What do I mean if I break that down? If we take planting, I have plants around me. Now this this little pitiful little plant right here started out so tiny, right? It was seed first. The seed had to be in the ground for a while it did not look like it was producing anything. And then it had an opportunity to come up right and it will continue to grow and flourish. My point being there's some times when seed gets planted, ideas get planted, right we have things that we want to move forward. But that doesn't mean that we're meant to execute in that moment. In fact, I would even say sometimes we need time to sit and fully receive the idea. Let it let it just kind of sit for a while, let it be a part of your thinking, let it kind of develop, right, let it develop, because sometimes we want to run with it. But what we need is to let it settle in us a little bit, let it marinate for a little while, right. So that then when it is time for us to move, we know what to do. And I'll even say this, there are some times when the quiet is necessary. So that we can start to kind of receive not just the what but the how, so that maybe your what you're supposed to do next came from a conversation with a client that then you kind of matched up with Oh, my gosh, I've been feeling like it's time to do this. And you're kind of putting the things together, let it continue to come together. And sometimes we're not required even to work toward the doing. And I'm going to give you a really specific example with this. Last year, I really felt like around August, September, I really felt like it's time for one of these programs that I've had kind of, you know, kind of floating in my mind, like, this program that I knew I wanted to do. I knew I wanted at least 10 month program for academics, that would help walk them through some key leadership issues. Right? So communication, time management, productivity, but done my way. So when you're coming to my program, and you know, I'm turning these things on their head, I'm disrupting them, right how we normally do them. And I'm like, Okay, I think it's time I don't really know, in my mind, I thought maybe it's for graduate students, I thought maybe this is a 10 month program for graduate students. Maybe that's where it gets pitch. What I've felt very clearly was just sketch it out, whatever's in your head about how this works. sketch out what you know, I will tell you, that was around August. By September, a provost of the University came to me and said, Hey, Doc, we have this challenge right now with faculty. They are challenged right now with how to move through what some of the residue of the COVID setback, right? So tenure and promotion is a little bit shaky for some of our people who we know it's strong, but they need a bit more support to kind of get back on track with how they're managing their work, how they're managing their writing their students, etc. and clear day, I was like, I told him that he said, Well, what do you think we should do? I think this is more than a workshop, I laid out exactly what I'd written not even a month beforehand. And it was very simple when I tell you this program was simple, because sometimes we think everyone wants the bells and whistles, there is a cry for simplification. People need the resources they need. And they don't need a lot of extra information or extra to do we don't need it, you know, get somebody else to do it. Right. So I laid out for him a very simple program by price point that I knew I could sustain the kind of environment that I really wanted to create. So 25 people at a minimum maximum, like that's where we wanted to hit. I'm not trying to service every faculty member that you have. This is really an intimate experience to walk people through a coaching experience and a learning experience and community building experience. So you get that good mix of community learning and peer sort of peer development as well and mentorship in a way that's approachable and accessible. I will tell you, then another university comes and says hey, we know we want to work with you. What do you think? I will say this, I sold that program$25,000 program with just a PDF. I had no website for it. I literally was like okay, I need you to build out this landing page to get this. It was a conversation so relationship but I will say it was a quiet in the clarity on the front end. I'd already sketched it out. Now I just and I didn't even have a chance to go look for my people. You didn't need to need to because they were attracted to you. Because you allowed yourself to become acquainted with the idea because you allowed it to rest in your heart because you allowed it to take root. You You weren't responsible for the fruit like once we plant the seed, nurture the seed, put it in good soil, the seed bed what it does, it does not need our manipulation in order to be or fruit, it only needs the nourishment and our care and to be in good soil. So because you allowed that you in oh my gosh, I could just scream right now is you allowed the idea to rest, and to be planted and rooted. You didn't have to go launch landing page, emails, cold calls, you didn't have to do all that running around. Because people were they were attracted to what they need. You were just ready. And it goes back to what you were saying. I don't have to jockey I don't have to compete. I don't have to overwork. What is for me is for me. Yeah. And that's the faith part. That is so important. When you talk about values. It's so important in my heart, that's my anchor that keeps me because my culture is to go after it went after it, go through it, go get it. But the faith holds me and anchors me would be a moment about scarcity and scarcity. Because I think that's one of the challenges we have why we can't let the sea Yeah. Yeah. So I scarcity shows up in so many ways. If I don't do it, some no one else will do it. Right. If I don't do this, somebody else is going to take my place. If I launch this idea, someone else is going, someone else is larger, and has already done it bigger and better. There's no room for me. Right? These are all that scarcity says there's not enough. Now I do think we have to do work and use resources wisely, like time, energy, money, relationships, right? All these things need to be youth well and appropriately. But when we're driven by scarcity, we're always working kind of against something. And I'm more about what are we working to experience and to create? Right? So when I think about, you know, my program is, what are we looking to experience and create and let that drive? How do we serve? Not over deliver, right? Because we kind of get that as well? How do we serve the actual needs of the people? What do they actually need? Right? And so it allows us to go instead of scarcity, creativity, right? ideation, our mind starts to search for resources that we didn't even know existed. And I say resources and people. Because when we start to come out of scarcity, and instead are thinking about, hey, this is an amazing idea, how do I get this moving? And how do I get this going? Or how can it be done? Not even how do i But how might this happen? We start to open up channels for new ideas, hey, there's another department across campus, that's really, you know, they started doing some of this, I wonder if we partnered what that might look like. Or there's a graduate student in our office who's been saying they want to do management consulting, I wonder if we bring them in to just kind of project manage this. So they can kind of make sure that we're on track and on time with thing gives them an opportunity to learn and grow and kind of frees me up to think and to kind of do the the larger kind of administrative things and they do something else, right, we start our mind start to kind of create opportunities. And when I say this, I also want to be clear to say that the mind is very powerful. So it's not just that I'm creating, in my mind at let's say, envisioning these, these spaces and things that can happen, as if I have to do them all. But it first starts with what is possible here. What is possible here if we if we start with anything was possible here. Right? It's not that, oh, well, we can't do that. And we can't do that what is possible here, we create a world of possibilities through vision, and then we start to go seek out, right. It may not come together the way you think, or what the exact pieces you think. But now at least we're driven by vision. We're driven by possibility and creativity, not by scarcity. And I will say this as well. Sometimes our ideas don't take as much as We thought that program, when I say, Listen, it has a landing page now, but a PDF, it was a PDF, a PDF, and even inside of the program, so we're renaming it to the professional Pathways program, we first had it called a faculty productivity program. And all of that people like this is so much more than productivity. This is not just productivity. And it's true, because I believe that productivity is rooted in some other things. So what what we're doing even in the program is just very approachable learning. It's not throwing everything at you. It's connectional. It's resource driven, but from a very laser targeted way, meaning for me, I'm not going to over promise something that's going to be hard for me to deliver. Come on. Right? If it's hard for me to deliver, now, I'm not sitting in the seat of like Grace, where my gift to help can really come through because I'm wearing do we have this going? Do we have that going? Have I done this? No, we're going to deliver well, with what we can do. And when I tell you people love it, the testimonials from it from the provost to the DEI, to the male faculty member to the female faculty member to the first gen faculty member, they're locked in. Because I'm not trying to overdo it or outdo it, it's what I have is enough. What I have is enough. And what you are describing, there's even evidence concerning how our bodies work that support, we cannot use higher level thinking, when we are stressed, when we are pressured. When we are overwhelmed our body since signals our nervous system says amygdala shut down, you cannot work right now. Because we can't use energy for you. We need energy to just survive. So often we've, especially in education, I'm hearing so much from educators right now that they feel like they're struggling for answers. And I always remind them, you have the answer. You know, you don't need to tell you how to do your job, you know how to do your job, you may be having trouble accessing the answer. Because your your body your nervous system is overwhelmed. So it doesn't allow you to grab hold to the answer the creativity, the higher level thinking we try to do all the things, we want to do all the things because if I can control all the things, and I can control the outcome, which is not true. It's not. But by all the things I can't take my rightful place of, of decisions I should be making. Because I need to invite help, I need to delegate, I need to release the pressure, I need to release the scarcity. So that the creativity and the ideation and the brilliance that is in me can even be released. It's held back by all of the stress that we constantly carry. Yeah, yeah. This is why quiet, it's so important. This is why having an it doesn't have to be a lot, right? I mean, I'm just talking to someone who I've done silent retreats, like three days solo Silent Retreat, that a monastery, I keep a very quiet life in terms of you don't, you have to find your own way to have quiet. But we have to find that to be able to allow the idea to flow, but also, as you're saying, to allow the body to just kind of settle a little bit. So if that is, you know, a walk, even in the middle of the day, 10 minutes just around the building, just to breathe a little bit of air allow this kind of free thinking to happen, right? To kind of move out of the stagnant ideas or the kind of cyclical thinking that we have about our problems and about our challenges. These small things can help to create space, riding in your car on the way to work if you're if you're you know commuting without music, right, just allowing no news, no music, let that 1520 30 minutes, whatever it is, just be a time to connect the times of clear I even do that with you know, as a journaling, practice iClear just to allow what's in my mind to kind of run his course run through so then I can and I do that just for a short period of time. So then once that's done, like two minutes or so just every idea that's in my head had let it come out. So that then I can be freed up for the higher level thinking, whatever it is, we have to find ways to allow for pockets of quiet. And that's one of the things that I teach, you know, I do this, this course called scheduled detox. And it really helps people to find, I say, we want to learn how to tap into our intuition, in order to set our priorities and our pace. Right, we already know sometimes what we're working toward and what our goals are. But we haven't quite set the priority inside of that. And we haven't established a healthy sustainable pace for ourselves. And I will tell you this because I hear this all the time. With high achievers, it's like, well, how do I know when it's time to shift out of a slower pace, and it's time to ramp back up. And what I'm hearing is I don't trust myself to read, I don't trust myself enough to know how to come out of a more restful state to have more, let's say one that's balanced more toward doing right. And that's only because we haven't practiced enough how to flow through restfulness, even while we're working. Right How to flow through restfulness, how to ramp up a little bit more restfulness, or what I like to call like your replenishment disciplines, right? So how to have more of those and some seasons. And then sometimes you got to taper that off, because you need that time to go back into your work. But you still are always tapped into a restful nest. Right, you're still tap into a restfulness, even if you're kind of decreasing the number of hours or time that you are dedicating to replenishment, right. So if that, you know, sleep, if that is games that you play, or perhaps knitting or whatever your replenishment disciplines are, for me, it's sometimes it's weightlifting, and swimming. Some seasons, I can't do it as often as others, but I have to recognize, okay, my replenishment disciplines might, I might need to kind of ramp them down just a little bit. But it's only for a season because I understand that I'm not going to go full on into work forever and ever. Never. It hasn't season. And then I'll come out of that and go back into more of a restfulness and play. Right. But what we're saying is we don't quite trust ourselves with being able to make the shift. But it's practice. It is practice, because often restfulness and play are the first offerings on our altar, right? Yeah, when everything is busy, when things are ramping up, or always, well, this I can control, I can control how much I take care of myself. So I'll let that go. In exchange for doing all these other things. It's not productive. And it's Yeah, and I am always, you know, I recognize that this has a bit of sometimes financial privilege to it, but outsourcing in ways and I will even reframe it from outsourcing, but it's eliciting support in areas where it's not your highest and best use. Right. So for example, I went for about a year where I was on a meal delivery system now this was not delivering my groceries I do that I'm but this was prepared meals, you know that were prepared according to health specifications that I like and but I did that for season of time. It wasn't every day all meals, but it was to get some my core meal during the work week taking care of so I wasn't spending a lot of mental energy. Capital, what am I going to eat today? Oh, did I order it? Did I make it already? Is it healthy? Do we need to deliver it or we know cut all that out? Energy draining, it's time draining. And when I do the calculations, I'm actually saving a may not be saving dollars. But in the long run, I'm saving some I'm saving energy. And I'm kind of net net on dollars, right. And it was a meal delivery service cook unity I choose all my meals in an app, my eight meals for the week in an app. And that's obviously eight more than eight meals in the week. But that's the eight meals that I had delivered. One time is delivered. And that's it the rest of announced pop it from the refrigerator and you can have this delivered to your home or if you're mostly at work and you want this to be your lunch meal. Now I know my nutrition, right for my meals because it's all there. It's all on there. I'm not spending fees in eating out but it's restaurant quality food and like chef prepared meal, right so it's doing all this work for me. And it's taking away the thinking time, the planning time the all of these things. So I use myself as an example to say sometimes we need To look at our lives and look at our work and say, Where am I committing time and places that are not my highest and best use, right. And then sometimes we have to deal with some of our social programming and cultural programming around receiving support, and what it looks like to receive support, but deal with your stuff. But at the end of the day, you need to support so deal with it so you can get aligned with it. And if you need to bring family members along with it, and help them understand how it supports them as well, and help them to reach their goals, or also communicating what is the timeframe that we're going to do this, if it's not something we're adopting for long term? Absolutely. Absolutely. And look at all of our resources, right? Because it's very easy to hear something like that, and exclude yourself. And yes, I admit that there's a level of privilege. And I think that there are some resources that we don't explore at times. I know I have a friend who's recently had a baby and had a very traumatic experience. And this woman has a sister who loves to cook. So her sister makes daily meals for she and her family, so that she can focus on healing and taking care of this newborn. So who do you have around you, if we're talking to academics, what grad student or student assistant, do you have close to you, who would love to be exposed and have the experience, but will also take something off your plate so that you can focus on a higher level that they cannot that only you can do earlier, you spoke about the internal pace, and being aware of our internal pace, how to use of support, and I'm talking specifically to educators, but I know that there are healthcare professionals and others who feel the same when your work environment is different pace or feels like a different pace than what your internal pace is where the demand feels overwhelming compared to what you maybe can offer at the moment? How do you reconcile that conflict? Yeah, this is it goes back to that inner knowing I don't match energy, I've set energy, right, I don't match the tone of where I'm going, I set the tone for myself. Right, because when I allow myself to be influenced by environment, now, sometimes we want to be influenced by environment, and that's fine. But if I allow myself to be influenced by environment, I am surrendering my ability to manage my self, I am surrendering my ability to manage my emotion, to manage my responses to manage how my house anxious or not, I get, right. So no matter what environment you go in first, you are always setting the tone for yourself. So I'll give you an example. This is this is a little bit more about kind of managing rooms that may have high expectations or spaces where you know, you can already foresee who I can see, I can really you know, kind of be in my head about this or really allow anxiety or anxiousness to kind of take over. I had a presentation I was doing with heads of the NIH, my team and I we've done this project that, you know, we've worked on for months. And now it had already gone through our the our contact, you know, that hired us into the NIH to do the work we'd already presented there. We've worked out all the kinks. But they wanted us to present it to senior leaders. And this is I mean, the senior the senior leaders, I don't remember now, like the titling of them, but definitely senior leaders. And I'm thinking our team has worked remote for all this time. We've never presented in person together. So there's that dynamic. I'm thinking, you know, I'm leading this, and I'm in a room leading a team and also content. I'm not doing it alone, but I'm leading the team and I'm leading this content. And so the night before my hotel room actually sat down to journal out, how do I want to show up in the room? So sometimes I do that just choose a word. How do I want to show up in the room? Right, is it confident? Is it gregarious? Is it and then I'll say what my second question is that I'm always asking, What experience do I want to create in the room? Right, what is the experience I want to create in the room? So what I did was I took just a couple minutes and I actually journal Sold out. What I almost scripted out what I wanted that presentation to look like, I drew the table. I've never been in that room before, but I'm like a table has, you know, it's probably going to be a boardroom style. Where do I want to stand? Where do I want my team to be? Right? Because I know that these things positions matter, right? So I'm thinking about just thinking through where do I want people to be? I wrote out, you know, they ask these questions, or oh, they kind of deliberate to the side, and then they say these things, then there's laughter and then there's, I write it out. And when I tell you, I feel like I walked into my own movie, come on, I set my energy, I can't control what my team members do. And I didn't even tell them that I did this. But I needed to regulate myself. So that even if I felt like I was gonna get nervous, I could come back to the feeling and experience I was already creating by asking myself, How do I want to show up? And what experience do I want to create? You get to do the same thing. And it may not be you may not need to journal it out of scripted out. But it may be that or it may just be choosing a word, choosing one or two words that are quick references for you. How do I want to show up this meeting is really triggering because this person never lets me speak. Or they never they always go on and on. And it seems like women never get to speak in this space. Okay, how do I want to show up? I know I feel triggered, sometimes it feels a little confrontational, I get to choose how I show up to this session is powerful. Not what I do, or what I say, right. But when I choose the how I want to show up, it will inform how I am responsive in those meetings, how I choose to raise my hand, manage conflicts, present my idea, because I'm grounded in what I'm bringing. You've just handed the power back. Because in those situations, we often feel powerless. That's where the anxiety comes from. That's where the overwhelm comes from. We feel like we are walking into a space at a disadvantage. And by taking the steps that you just described, we take our rightful place. In that environment. I often say no one is giving you anything for free, you belong there. You're not invited into the room, because you're getting a handout, you're in the room, there's something in you. We don't give things away for free around here, nobody's doing that. There's something in you that is needed in the room. So by doing that for yourself, no one else needs to know is none of their business by setting the space the pace for yourself. What what you really said is, I've already been in this room, so I don't have to be nervous. I was here last night. Exactly. I'm not new to this room I've already been. So this is not my first time walking in. This is not my first time sitting at this seat. This is not my first time participating on this committee, because I did this last night. So I'm gonna act like I've been here because I'm not new. Oh, I love that. I love that. Yeah, that is beautiful. Oh, Dr. Williams. Okay. I could I could talk to you. I mean, when I tell you that this has been everything I needed in my heart today. This has been everything I needed in my heart today. I have to ask you before we let the folks go, how do you define disruption? disruption, I think is really not falling into or going along with the status quo. Right? And so that means I value honor myself enough. My ideas, enough, my contribution enough myself enough to know, when is it time to move? When is it time to strike out? When is it time to speak? When is it time to present? Right and sometimes we're not It's not looking outside to dictate those things, but having a sense of clarity of ourselves and our purpose, and then being able to kind of move forward with that and I'll tell you how I do this. I feel like I live this. One of my core values is freedom, which can be very scary for people because freedom says it's not just I do what I want to do when I want to do it how I want to do it. It says I allow myself to be guided to the Places Spaces and projects that are that I am needed on that I am assigned to even if it means I have to renegotiate something, right? I'm not saying renege on responsibility. But there are times when we need to renegotiate even agreement, silent agreements that we have with ourselves that we have with others. So getting into routines at home that now they're just there, and there's a silent agreement that you always do these things, there may come a season or a time when you need to disrupt that in order to walk more into your purpose. So we've got to develop those skills to be able to do that. And so that's what I that's what I see as disruption. I do this in my business, even to having ideas and knowing like I said, with that Faculty Program, right, the professional Pathways program, it is being able to get off course to be guided to something that is better, even if I don't know where it's going, or how it's going to come together. That's how we created the professional pathways planner. I literally I remember, and I'll share this quick story with you. I recall, I hired someone who does like strategy and project management. I was ready to rerelease this course that I have called options for success. This course came out of me wanting to support academics who are saying I'm ready to change my career fields, like maybe I'm going outside of the academy, or I'm adding something else to my work on shifting roles some way. So I had this course I'm like, Okay, it's time to get it moving. We need to relaunch it. I hire her to work with me on the strategy to kind of get it done. How do we do this? I will tell you I heard very clearly no, this is time for your planner. I'm like, oh goodness, I've already signed a contract with this woman, we've already signed a contract to do this course. She gave me the grace enough to be flexible. She's like, I'll strategy with you, whatever we got going on, like I will flex with you. Right. So she was my right person to do that. That's how we created the professional pathways planner. For academics. It's like the only planner, I know that it's for higher education professionals, academics, graduate students. Why? Because I've been coaching faculty, clinical faculty, research faculty, number of different disciplines across the board. And I kept hearing the same thing. Same challenges, and I just very heard very clearly is not time for the course, it's time for the planner. Sometimes we have to disrupt our own planning, our own ideas, our own schedule, to do the things that are needed. When I'm telling you this planner was done in a couple months, we hired someone to design the inside, I hired an editor to help kind of work through it. We just pulled it together. Not too long after that. I'm at a board meeting, and I meet the provost of University of Texas, Austin at the time, I'm introducing myself, I'm new to the board, she ordered. I don't know it's like an insane number of of waiters after and then it just kind of kept coming through like that, oh, we want it. Let's buy 50 Oh, we want it let's buy 250 planners, right? If I had not done that, I would not have had a resource that would have met people's need. And I will say this too. It also met a need for me. I was working so hard and service delivery, I didn't have a product that could allow me to serve people without me having to be present to do it. That is oh sure way for burnout. So now with the planner and we just keep adding to it. Now there's a little course that goes with it that comes for free with the planter. So now you know how to use it and not just use it. You're learning methodologies to help you plan your professional pathway with these kinds of sustainability tools and techniques in mind. So disruption, is they willing to stop the status quo even when it's set by you? Oh my gosh. Yeah, this was for me. This. I'm glad that you all were able to eavesdrop my friends. This was for PBJ today. I'm so grateful. Thank you. You're welcome. If I can just say one last thing because it can sound either for some people like flights of fancy or like you just kind of walking a tightrope right or I don't have what she has to be able to do that. And I will tell you there's no special. There's nothing special particularly about me or about the people that I'm working with to support who get these kinds of results. It really is coming back into yourself and deciding having that trust that following this is actually going to work for my good. I say this as someone who, you know, I have been married and divorced, meaning now also one income as my business is my sole source of my income. Right. So when I say stopping, you know, a $1,500 course, launching that to launch a $38 planner that didn't come without risk. Right? It didn't come without risks, numbers would say launch the course, come back to that plan or later, the course will get you more money to help to be able to do more things, grow your business, etc. When we commit what we have to just trust and faith. And this is why we need to be emotionally healthy, and settled in ourselves so we can really discern, am I working out of fear and scarcity? Or am I really being guided to a better place so we can make those choices. But I just say this to say there is some risk involved, but you have what you need to be able to take calculated risks. You have what you need to be able to choose yourself and to be able to honor yourself and that means no disrespect or to anyone else or reneging on anything that you have to do. But you're recalibrating for you for yourself so you can manage yourself and have sustainable rhythm throughout your work life and throughout your home life. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And without it, we cannot sustain a health at body, mind, our emotions, everything is out of order. If we don't, this is so good. Dr. Williams, how can people connect with you hear more from you? How do they connect with you? Yeah, so on social media, I'm FatimahPhD. So that's LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook there. And you can also find us at beyond the tenure track.com Beyond the tenure track.com You'll see courses programs, you know, YouTube, we've got a lot of stuff, we got some resources as well on there. You can also find the limited series podcasts on there. So there's a bunch of stuff we have for you beyondthtenuretrack.com and on all social platforms. FatimahPhD. Oh, yeah. And I know that they are running to find you right now. Know that they are. Thank you so much for sharing truth with us. Thank you for your heart. Even in just these few minutes, my heart feels free. And I appreciate you for that. Thank you. Friends as always. You are powerful, you are significant. And you are loved. Love always PBJ by ever. Now hold on frame before you go. I want you to share this episode with somebody in your life who you know needs it. And you know we can't leave without this. I always have to remind you I need to remind you, you are powerful. You are significant. And you are loved. Love always PBJ