Finding Your People at Off-Script

In Dare to Lead , there is a story about a center director at a research university who was facing a confidence problem. He had apirations of completing his doctorate, but his life went another direction. Grad school din’t pan out. His family fell apart. He moved back home and had to restart his life. Brick by bring, he rebuilt his sense of self–new family, new career, new institution. All the while, he still felt like he was less-than because he didn’t finish that degree.

The irony, to me, was that (at least as author Brené Brown described his work) he seemed to be doing the thing he envisioned, just differently. The center director regularly collaborates with researchers, teachers, and staff members. He hosts programs and does research himself. What stood out to me was a moment in the story when he his own research leads to a novel find and he has to decide whether to keep it to himself (giving into the lack of self-trust that come with the shame of not having completed a previous life plan) or attend an academic conference in a new field with stranger colleagues (trusting himself that he’s doen the work and that he belongs). Choosing trust, he goes to the story and presents his work.

He finds his people.

There’s so much more to this story and Brown’s rich narration that I feel like I took a risk just sharing my reflection of it. Hearing this story led me to a visceral memory at an early academic conference in my career where I remember just desperately wanting to find my people. I tend to keep pretty busy at academic conferences. Part of this was out of the professional desire to build my career. But a good chunk of this motion was me trying to find my people. Each presentation and meeting was an attempt to find my people.

I think what astounds me about this stage of my career is that if you listen hard enough, you’ll find academics at every stage still trying to truly find their people.

One of my favorite things is that Off-Script has been one of those rare places where scholars– at least for a moment –have been able to rest in having found some people with whom they can be, listen, work, and build together.

We’ve got some great stuff ahead!

Dr. Rachel Schwaller’s presentation from Off-Script is now up on Broadcast Seeding.

More recently, Dr. Seth Perry joined us on October 10 for What Does It Look Like When God Cites himself? The Revelations of LDS Prophet John Taylor.” That’ll be up soon too!