Episode 26 - A Conversation with Dr. Goings
This episode features Dr. Ramon Goings who is the author of “14 Secrets to a Done Dissertation” as well as runs the “Done Dissertation” dissertation consulting firm. On this episode, Dr. Goings shares about his background and we talk about the topics of imposter syndrome, and being a first generational student going through a doctoral program. Additionally, Dr. Goings shares some key takeaways that will ideally aid you with navigating through a doctoral program or with navigating through life overall.
To connect with Dr. Ramon Goings:
Website: www.ramongoings.com
Email: info@ramongoings.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramongoings/
To connect with Done Dissertation:
Website: www.thedonedissertation.com
Email: contact@thedonedissertation.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/donedissertation
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/donedisscoach
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/donedisscoach
Additional resources for Doctoral Students:
Elevate Your Academic Writing Training
This training teaches our writing structure that has helped hundreds of overwhelmed doctoral students to overcome procrastination, understand how to write for their audience, and defend with confidence in 12 months or less.
Done Dissertation YouTube Channel
The Done Dissertation YouTube Channel features over 600 videos related to navigating the dissertation process, writing for publication, and leveraging the doctorate. Videos feature interviews with prolific academic writers and thinkers in fields ranging from the humanities, social sciences, and hard sciences.
This book shares fourteen proven strategies that will help doctoral students navigate the dissertation process and finish in record time.
Listen to full episode :
Here is a transcription of Episode 26:
0:17: Hello and welcome to the Broke PhD Podcast where we build relationships or kindle emotions with every episode. I'm your host, Dr. G!
0:26: On this episode, I get to talk with Dr. Ramon Goings who is the author of “14 Secrets to a Done Dissertation” as well as runs the “Done Dissertation” dissertation consulting firm and during our conversation he shares about his background, we talk about the topics of imposter syndrome, and being a first generational student going through a doctoral program, along with Dr. Goings shares some key takeaways that will ideally aid you with navigating through a doctoral program or with navigating through life overall.
0:56: [Dr. G] Hey, y'all Dr. G here and I have Dr. Ramon Goings here!
[Dr. Goings] Hey, hey!
1:01: [Dr. G] And I'm so excited to have him on the podcast! And honestly, he's my first male guest. I know I need to do better. So for all your listeners out there, if you are a guy you want to be on the podcast, let me know. We're here! But I'm so excited for him to share a little bit about his background so y'all can get to know him a little bit more. So can you share about your background, please?
1:20: [Dr. Goings] Yeah, definitely! Well, thank you so much for the invitation! First, I'm Dr. Ramon Goings and my background is I'm a former special education and music teacher. So I started my career in a classroom trying to support kids. And then from there I got interested somehow to go get a doctoral degree. I don't know why I did it. Initially, I was a teacher and I just said, you know what, I want to become the principal. And I thought maybe the leg up I could have is having a doctorate. So I go to Morgan State University to earn a doctorate. And I quickly learned that getting a doctoral degree had nothing to do necessarily with what I was doing in the classroom, but more so training me to be a researcher. And in the midst of that, I had one professor saying, you know what, Ramon, you know, you are pretty good at this. You could get paid to, you know, share your ideas and be a professor. And I was like, really? People do that. And so that just led me to going on to become a faculty member. So I'm now an Associate Professor and Director of the Language, Literacy, and Culture doctoral program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. And in the midst of doing all that work, I started to help students, you know, who saw my trajectory as a doctoral student finishing quickly. I wrote my dissertation in seven months. And my faculty like, well, how did you do it? And can you help my professor, you know, other students in my classes do that? And so I just started helping people initially and someone said, Ramon, you gotta charge for this stuff. And I said, alright, I'll figure that out. And I started getting some business coaching. And then that's how done dissertation was birthed now only 8 going on nine years ago. And we have gone on to help hundreds doctoral students right in defending dissertation in record time. By the system I created when I was a student myself. It was kind of like the big kind of synopsis of everything I've done so far.
2:49: [Dr. G] That is a lot like, that is a full circle moment there. And again, I feel that I love that connection of special education that we both share. And then also accomplishing your dissertation and going through doctor program in a short amount of time. Hype it up. Yeah, yeah. Because that that's impressive in itself. And so I love that you're sharing your insight and your wisdom of how you made it through with others through done dissertation. And so do you want to talk a little bit more about that? I know you shared that that's where the beginnings happen of you going through your program and wanting to share those steps and those tidbits that you kind of used to get through that, but can you elaborate more on that?
3:27: [Dr. Goings] Yes, so I'll start back when I first started my doctoral program, I actually struggled a lot. So I struggled with academic writing. It was really a challenge for me because my background was in counseling. And then I come to a doctoral program in urban educational leadership inside to learn the literature and start figuring things out. But one of my first experiences that I tell students this because a lot of times we see the end result of a faculty member, but we don't always see the back end of what happened when it gets to that point. And so when I was doing my first class, the professors, you know, handed me back my paper back then I started in 2011. So, you know, folks are still doing like handwritten feedback. And so my faculty member put on page 2, he was like, you're gonna need a writing coach and an editor in order to improve this. And then I flipped the page three cause I'm trying to find my grade, but I flipped the page 3 and there's a big X on it and it just said you're going to need to rewrite it. And so that moment was like kind of pivotal in my journey. It's like I had a choice to make. Either I was going to get the feed, the help that the professor suggested, I was going to not do anything, and I had contemplated like, well, maybe a doctoral programs not for me or I'm going to figure things out. And you know, I was a college athlete and so I played basketball and I'm pretty competitive. So I was like, there's no way that this guy is gonna tell me I can't figure it out. And so I went on a quest for like the next two years trying to figure this thing out. And so with that, I started developing systems and tools for myself to improve. And again, I got to a point where I started to out publish the faculty. By the time I was leaving I had things in motion and so I, you know, I was trying to figure out, well, how do I help other people? And the faculty were like, hey, help these students at Morgan, like help us get them out. And so I was helping them and then I was initially just editing because a lot of students come to get support they think they need editing help, but as I sit to do the edits, they're asking me questions about why is the faculty are saying my theoretical framework and my research questions aren't aligned or what do they mean by I need to provide more insight about my data analysis process? So that leverage that started to go into more of the coaching realm. And then I just started kind of building out a system because I kept hearing the same questions over and over and over again from the individual people I was helping. And it got to a point during COVID where COVID combined with I wrote a book called “14 Secrets to a Done Dissertation.” Those two things combined really put a lot of spotlight on what we were doing as a company. And then we just grew where we couldn't do one-on-one anymore. We grew to a group model. We could help a lot of students at once. And so, you know, that's really where things went from me struggling, to me figuring out a system, to me kind of packaging that system now to help students.
5:45: [Dr. G] Ohh. I love that! And I, I love that journey that again, you went through it, that you went through those trenches to find these tips and to find those strategies that work. And I'm gonna hype up, I'm gonna have all your contact information so that y'all can go check out his book and go check out his coaching “Done Dissertation” if you need it, but again, like I love that you went through that process and I think that's a lot of life experience, right, that you go through those to figure out, OK, this is what it can be or this is what you should do so that you can then take that information and help others so that they don't have to struggle and go through all of those little steps that you had to go through and ohh, I'd love that so much! And can you maybe share not to give away all the tips, not to give away all 14, that's why they need to go to the books, but share maybe like a couple of the strategies that you might talk about in your coaching with “Done Dissertation.”
6:37: [Dr. Goings] Yeah, sure. One of them is a lot of students who get into the doctoral programs are what I call like perfectionists and somehow recovering perfectionists, right? So we've done well our whole academic career and then something shifts in the doctoral process, particularly when we get to the dissertation. And so one of the things we, we stress on, we talk a lot about in our coaching program, even the book is one of the secrets is that you have to master what we call the 80% rule. And what that means is that we want you to get your writing up to 80% par and then submit it. Because what we know for a lot of students will do is try to get it to perfection and then recognize that they're not able to do so. And then they start to spiral with that because I can't, they say I can't get it perfect. So then I, I won't, I don't want to send it. And then what ends up happening is that you have a document finished and then, you know, weeks or months passed and you haven't turned it in. Because not because it's not good, but you just don't think it's good enough and you're scared of getting that feedback. So that's gonna be one of the things. Like I just said, get it 80% and the best thing that your chair or committee can do is push it to the next 20%. Like they have expertise as well. So leverage that. So that's one. Another one is if you're in the process of developing your committee, at all costs, once you have your chair in place, run your selection committee members through the chair. Because a lot of times what you don't recognize is that there's these beefs and little spats that have been happening between faculty members for the last 10 years that happened before you even got to that program. And you selecting particular faculty members wouldn't be a good look. So like actually run it through your chair. And then the last one I will give is that you have to embrace and accept feedback. One of the things I know is that if you do not want to finish, I can guarantee you will not finish. If you do not submit your work for feedback, I can guarantee it. I'll put everything I have on that. But what that means is that you have to get more comfortable with getting feedback, and a lot of students are scared of that. And so we tell our students in our program is like, look, we're going to give you feed, that we talked to. You work on your writing. Get it to one of our coaches. We're gonna give you some written feedback so you have some ideas about what your faculty members might be thinking. Do our feedback and then get it off to your chair. The faster you get that loop happening, the faster you'll finish.
8:37: [Dr. G] Ohh, I love all of those! And to touch on the first part. Yeah, perfectionism, I relate to that little too much that I think that was the biggest thing of running into it, is that you want it to be the perfect manuscript and the perfect thing that you're writing. But it's just a fallacy of the mind, right? Perfectionism is a fallacy of the mind. And so I love that you were suggesting to those in your program of 80%. That's such a good target number because we're never really going to reach 100% even with our finished dissertations, right? You go back and you look at something, you're like, ohh, did I right that?
[Dr. Goings] There’s a little typos in that. You got typos in there like that? I got an editor and there’s still one in there. It’s crazy.
9:13: [Dr. G] Right, that even after the process. So for those of you all listening out there, just know that both of us sitting here looking back like, ohh, we got ohh, we didn't fix that or that. But you know, it passed. OK, We're here. We're still doctors.
[Dr. Goings] Yes, indeed, for sure!
9:26: [Dr. G] And I love also with running your chairs, who you want on your committee through your chairs, because yeah, that as much as we want to say that everyone is a big person and that there's maturity that exists out there, personal biases exist, right? And you want it to be as smooth a process and like, you don't want it to, you don't wanna like, encounter anything. And those personal beefs and those personal spats can really interfere, even if the people on your chair and your committee don't wanna admit it, but it definitely can have an impact.
9:57: [Dr. Goings] It's bad. It can be really bad. And we see it play out and it's unfortunate for sure.
10:02: [Dr. G] Yup. And then you also want to just make sure that you stay open minded to any constructive criticism. You don't want people just to like come out you and most of the times they will not do that. They won't just like tear you down just to tear you down that honestly they truly want the best for you and they are just trying to make you a better person. As far as a writer, as far as a researcher or whatever you were trying to obtain with going through this process or going through a program or with just writing in general. And so being open minded to that feedback is so key. So I love that you guys give the people going through your “Done Dissertation” program that opportunity to get used to that. Because, you know, sometimes we get defensive about our writing and you gotta break that down in order to be better.
10:44: [Dr. Goings] Yes. And always give the, the comparison like the Erykah Badu song “Tyrone.” If you listen to the live version, right at the beginning, she's like, I'm an artist and I'm sensitive about my ish. And a lot of times we see ourselves, we, I think about ourselves as artists, but in many ways we have like an artistic work, our dissertations, this body of work that we are putting together and we have so much riding on it. And so sometimes we can't see that someone may find something that we can improve. And it's, it's, it's a challenge and something we just get more comfortable with. And for anybody who wants to become a faculty member, this process doesn't end. Right, when you're submitting for publication, it's the same thing, right? You gotta deal with reviewers now, and review #2 in particular, always just has something critical to say about your work. You have to kind of get through that part of the journey. I think doing it at your decision phase will help if you're trying to go that route in higher, higher education.
11:29: [Dr. G] Yes, and even beyond higher education in the work setting too and the general work setting that you're probably gonna encounter people who wanna give you feedback that again, ideally there's gonna be the few that come at you sideways because they're just that type of person, but majority people want to help you grow in whatever capacity that they can. And so they're just trying to give you that feedback and that insight. And so that is important that you can stay open minded and you can stay kind of open to any criticism or feedback that they've given. Ohh, I love those. I love those tidbits. And again, check out the book. I'm gonna hype it up here. Check it out.
12:06: [Dr. Goings] Yeah, “14 Secrets to a Done Dissertation” yeah, it'll be quick read like and then I'm just gonna show them for folks watch on video. It's like it's literally you could read it in probably one sitting and get a plane ride short plane ride, you're done. Because I know a lot of doc students have a lot of other reading to do. So I didn't want to make the book so long that you didn't get through get through it. And it's written in a conversational way so that you can really understand the concepts and apply them.
12:28: [Dr. G] I love that! I love that so much. OK, so we're gonna keep talking. And so is there anything from your life experiences that you want to share with the listeners or the viewers if you're checking this out on YouTube? Hey, y'all! That you think would be very beneficial for others to kind of hear about and maybe gain some insights from?
12:46: [Dr. Goings] Yeah, I think the a lot of us were, especially those who aren't accustomed to finishing the doctoral program, being in a doctoral space. Like it could be kind of overwhelming at first when you're first starting out, but a lot of us what you have to remember, many of us who are first generation, you did so much to get to that point, it's like you belong in the room. So a lot of the times we have to feel, figure out and build that confidence. And then, you know, I would say even for me, I'm a pretty shorter guy. And so like be being I was the top basketball player in my state, right? And so being an undersized point guard and trying to deal with these big old folks that are trying to play, sometimes what I had to learn being younger was just like, ohh, I have to push myself harder sometimes and just, you know, just to make sure I'm in that space where I, I feel confident. And what it came to is I learned is that the more repetitions I had of being in the space and doing those things, the more confident I got. And so I took that same thing that allowed me to be successful as an athlete and then I just applied it to the doctoral space. I think can help a lot of folks is that the more you do the actions like of doing the writing, doing the reading, getting feedback, going through those things. The more you do it, the more you build your confidence and the easier it will get. But I, I can understand at first you're like, what is all this stuff? What's the theoretical framework? What is theory like? What is all this like all this is foreign language. And so we have to treat it like that, like you're learning a new language and giving yourself the time and space to do so. But I think you already have, many of us already have that skills set. We've overcome so many other things to get where we are already that a lot of times just a matter of applying that same mindset that helped us there to apply to these doctoral programs.
14:09: [Dr. G] Yeah. Ohh. I love that! And yeah, impostor syndrome, that hits real. And you feel like, oh, wait, what is that? As soon as you encounter something that you haven't, you know, encountered before. But I think similar for both of us that we are kind of the first of our like generation, of our family, of our lineage that are kind of going through those trenches. And there might be some out there who have parents who have gone through the process before. And that's great. You have footsteps that you can kind of follow in, right? And so they have that path that they can, you know, go and ohh, well, they did this and they did that. But for the rest of us that our first generation, like we don't have that. And so you are literally creating the model that hopefully the generations behind you can follow. And that imposter syndrome hits so hard where you're like, am I supposed to be here? Yes, if you're there, you're supposed to be there. And so I love that you transferred those skills and transferred that mindset from being you know maybe not the tallest guy on the basketball court, but hey, shout out to the shorties out there because like, they fast, they quick. And use that for going through your doctoral programm, going through the dissertation process. So thank you for sharing that.
15:15: [Dr. Goings] Yeah. No problem.
15:16: [Dr. G] Is there anything else that you wanna add or talk about in this moment?
15:20: [Dr. Goings] Yeah. Yeah. So I'm trying to think of other things that I would have learned over time is that, you know, a lot of us. When we're trying to reach a transformation, right, essentially earning a doctorate or whatever, the next thing is, sometimes we have to recognize that these there's a there's stepping stones to it. And a lot of times we just see the end result, but there's all these markers that happen in between. But for many of us, it's hard to recognize because we're so focused on the end goal, you know, and for me, you know, going to college or these other things you didn't realize that in order to attain those, there was all these micro little steps that you have to do. But I don't know what it is about the doctoral experience in particular. It's like we forget all that stuff that we had to do to get there and we just focus on the end result and we see it. I see mostly throughout the dissertation phase and we tell a lot of our clients is something I would recommend for anyone who has a long term goal where you don't see and don't get the satisfaction of it right away is that you have to have incentives put in place. And so, you know, you finish a chapter, you finish a draft. There has to be something that you are going to give yourself as a result of finishing something. Because if you just say, ohh, I'm going to do that trip to Cabo when I earned my doctorate then you'll be waiting four or five years to finish that. Like you need these micro things along the way and I just had to start applying that, you know, as a as an athlete, as a student, like if I wanted to improve when I struggled, I had to like put the practice in place and do little things and give myself these rewards along the way. Because again, some of these long term goals we have, goals we have take forever. And so it's just really hard to stay focused when we don't see anything tangible from them. So I've just learned over time to make things tangible so I can reach the goal.
16:50: [Dr. G] Ohh, I love that! And then also kind of taps into both of our special education backgrounds too, like chunking things down into smaller pieces and break it up into smaller tasks that you gotta sometimes have those smaller rewards and those smaller celebrations because that process is a very long process. And yeah, oftentimes we get wrapped up in like, OK, when I get to the like the end of the tunnel, right, then I'm gonna do this and do XY and Z. But having those little small things along the way can just keep you motivated and keep you determined to want to get to that bigger reward at the end. So I love that!
17:25: [Dr. Goings] A lot of my clients call what we do in our velocity coaching program, they call it the IEP for doctoral students. That's what they refer to it as because that way it's structured and scaffolded, right? But I think my background in special education to know how to build a learner from where they are to where they need to get need to go. I think that makes sense. But they always say it when they come in.
17:41: [Dr. G] I love that! And for those who don't have a background of special education, IEP [individualized educational program] is what we are focusing on there. And ohh, I love that1 That, yeah. That sometimes even those who are, you know, typical neurotypical, as they would say, need to get things broken up into smaller pieces that it just as humans, it just makes it easier. It's an easier process. But I love also that you're reminding us that there are a lot of steps along the way for someone to get there that whether it's in a doctoral program or outside, you know, you see the success, right? You see the end result and you see people winning. That's what people focus on. And you know, in the social media world and social media realm, that's what people show, right? They don't show the nitty gritty that they had to go through. They don't show the trenches that they went through. They don't show those like downtimes that they went through. They show, ohh, this is where I’m at, this is, I'm here now and they don't show how they got there all the time. I feel like more people are starting to reveal the process and start to reveal those trenches. So I love that you remind us about like, ohh, there's a lot of micro steps and a lot of things to get through first before you get to that end goal.
18:44: [Dr. Goings] And there’s such a lot of L’s that you take right and like just to give an example when I have, you know, I wrote my dissertation, seven months start to finish. But when I finished it in our program, it went to your committee. They approved, they loved it. And then for us, we had to actually have it goes to the department chair and they read it and then they say if you're ready to defend or not. And so I really got to the department chair. And she was like, yeah, this is good. But Ramon, you got to do these four things and that list of four things actually pushed me where I didn't graduate in the semester I was supposed to, I had to wait another semester to finish. Not because I wasn't done, but because I had to wait for faculty to come back from summer break because I couldn't turn around the, the edits and enough time to to get it back. So like these L’s happen all the time. But that L ended up being something was actually helpful because I wrote for my dissertation during that summer and all those publications that came out when I first became a faculty member, I wrote during like maybe a four or five month time frame when I was just waiting to defend. So sometimes we have to recognize that we have L's, but we just figure out how do we leverage these to do something impactful. Like for me, I just treated it as like a 5 month post doc while I was waiting to defend and sometimes you have to recognize that. There’s L’s all the time. I wish people would tell them. I try to tell them as much as possible because it's just part of what happens along the way.
19:52: [Dr. G] Ohh yeah, that yeah. And I wish people were more transparent with that. And I can understand, you know, both sides of the coin, right, That sometimes people don't want to share that part because they're going through it. And it's probably, I know personally I cried during my process that there were so many moments that, I felt there was hurdles and barriers that ohh, can I actually get through this? And like you said earlier, I question like, should I just quit? Like, do I want to do this? Is this worth it? Like I don't I don't need to do this. Like, and so that there's so many of those moments that people don't necessarily want to publicize and like be out there, but on the side, on the other side of it that it's so important to see that and to understand that it's not like winning throughout that people aren't just magically going through it and everything's like hunky dory and everyone's like crushing it, but that there are those L’s, like you said that there are, there's moments that you have to like, ohh, wait, this this isn't going according to my timeline or what I was planning to do. And now you have to grapple with well what do I do in this time that I wasn't expecting to have? So I love that that turned around that allowed you to write manuscripts and to have something that you then were able to use in the future. So ohh. Before we kind of get to the end of things, I want to make sure, was there anything else that you wanted to share? I wanna give you time.
21:04: [Dr. Goings] No, I, I think this is just helpful just for students who are recognizing that again, there is a route to go. I see a lot of students who just get stuck and like one of the things I always share is the percentage, right? 43% of doctoral students who start a program do not finish. So my whole goal with “Done Dissertation” and what we're trying to do as a company is to ensure that the students that we work with don't become part of the 43%, right. And so sometimes what that requires, I think for a lot of students you may need help and support outside of what you're able to have in your program. Not all doctoral programs are equal and so you may not get the support and it may cost you time, it may cost you monetary investment, but recognize that you're earning a doctorate and you have expertise that could be leveraged to do so many other things. And if folks don't feel like they can get returns on these degrees, please just watch some of my content. We'll talk about how to make money from this thing because like I, I didn't take a vow of poverty. I don't think doctoral students should either. But sometimes we gotta hurry up and finish because every semester, every year you're spending money in tuition. Now you're losing an opportunity costs and those types of things. And that's why it's in business because we want to help people get past and get out of these programs so that you can, you know, impact the community with your research, do the work that you want to do and get paid to do it well.
21:13: [Dr. G] Y'all come on, I need y’all to check this out because he's dropping knowledge right now, he's dropping insight. And so with that, as we wrap up this conversation, are there any takeaways or any, I guess, key tidbits of information that you want the listeners to have and to take with them?
22:31: [Dr. Goings] I'm curious for you, you, you, you hear from folks who might listen. What's the thing that you constantly hear from folks who are listeners or that you're getting feedback on? Because I love that I provide something that's directly for your for your you know, people that you're hearing from just curious as what you hear from your listeners.
22:45: [Dr. G] Yeah no, no ones like reached out and like said, ohh can I hear about this or ohh can I hear about that? So which again, if y'all want to drop that in the comments, let me know so that I can make sure that I can reach out to those individuals. And get that information or pass it on to Dr. Goings so he can reach out to you too. So, yeah, so it's very open-ended right now.
23:04: [Dr. Goings] OK, gotcha. Yeah. So, you know, I'm just, I would just say for folks, as you're going through these programs, just recognize there’s community of support out there. You don't have to do this thing alone. I think a lot of times in programs you can be made to feel like, you know, I have to be the one to figure it all out. And I think, you know, for us who come from communities where we have to do less, you know, more with less, that's our nature, right? We know how to hustle. We know how to figure it out, get it out the mud, whatever description you want to use, right? And but you have to recognize that this doctoral journey doesn't have to be alone. And what you don't see a lot of times is that your favorite person, your favorite academic has a coach, has a help, has an editor, has people, has a system in, has the infrastructure behind them to help push them forward. I think as doctoral students we need to be more comfortable with doing that. And one of those might be getting, you know, editing support, might be getting coaching. It might be, you know, getting people just look at your work like whatever that might be for you, it might just be simple as, hey, I'm a working parent and I might need to get Instacart to get someone to get my groceries for me because I don't have time to go out and get groceries when I need the extra hour or so to spend doing, you know, reading my papers for my program. So like figuring out what those resources are and just filling those gaps because again, we don't have to do this thing alone. So I think for a lot of students, if you're hearing this or if you're past this point, like create the system. Create the structure, get the help and support that you might need to get you to where you want to go, especially if you're struggling to do it, you know, solo by yourself.
24:24: [Dr. G] Yes, community and just having that support system in place, whatever that might look like for you as Dr. Goings just outlined is so important and I personally and I'm guessing Dr. Goings too, that, like, we couldn’t have gone through our own programs or even after without that community and that support and no matter the space, because I did my program online, I was able to find some of my colleagues online that we still talked to each other to this day who are still going through it, that we're connecting and communicating and hey, you know, can I lean on this or what about this and just bounce thoughts off of each other? And so I again, community support, whatever that might look like to y'all, even if again, it's just instacarting groceries or you know, door dashing something so that you can spend an extra 20 minutes of finishing up something. Please, please find it.
25:08: [Dr. Goings] I'm saying this like when I was building, we first started “Done Dissertation” and like trying to grow the company. It's like, you know, you know, in the doctoral program, they don't tell you anything about how to run a business. Or like any of the entrepreneurial things like, so I would have to do find experts in these spaces to invest in, to get the, the, the strategy. Because why would I spend three years when I can pay someone, even if it's $20,000 to learn it in three months and to be able to execute it would be an infinite return on an investment. And so I think for a lot of us, you know, think about we're all becoming experts in these doctoral programs so people are going to consult with you as the expert that's why they pay you because you have the insight to streamline everything they need to know because you have that information. And so I just think for us just being mindful of like where we have these gaps to go ahead and find the experts that can help fill those in for us
25:54: [Dr. G] Yes and I will also highlight do not be afraid to cold e-mail, cold reach out via DM's cold you know, whatever communication you can because I, personally going through my program, I was able to make connections with other professors or researchers that I was reading through their work and admiring their work and able to have a conversation with them or have them come in and talk to my colleagues and my program. So don't be afraid to reach out and make that leap because you again, what do you have to lose, right? The worst they can say is “no” so, but you won't know until you try. So yes. Well, Dr. Goings, I thank you, thank you, thank you so much for being here. And I have appreciated this conversation. This has been very insightful for me too. I got some takeaways I need to go and learn some things. So I thank you so much for being here.
26:41: [Dr. Goings] Thank you so much for the invitation! I appreciate it!
26:43: Well, that concludes this episode and if you were interested in reaching out to Dr. Ramon Goings, I will have his contact and social media information listed in the description box. I am so excited to have you on this journey with me. And if you've loved listening to this episode and you want to check out more episodes, then please check out the website – brokephdpodcast.com – to continue to follow along. I thank you for listening and I thank you for being here. And remember, no matter where you are in your own journey, YOU GOT THIS! Again, I'm your host, Dr. G, and I hope you have a wonderful day!