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The HigherEdJobs Podcast is dedicated to helping higher education professionals find fulfillment in their careers and be the change agents that higher education needs in today's world. Join hosts Andrew Hibel and Kelly Cherwin, along with guest experts, as they examine job search strategies and break down the latest news and trends in higher education.
Andy Hibel 0:03
Welcome to the HigherEdJobs podcast. I'm Andy Hibel, the Chief Operating Officer and one of the co-founders of HigherEdJobs.
Kelly Cherwin 0:09
And I'm Kelly Cherwin, the director of Editorial strategy. Today we have RJ Jenkins, the director of education at Columbia University's Center for Veteran Transition and Integration. We're excited to have you on the podcast today to discuss an important topic that affects many people in higher education, imposter syndrome or phenomenon. I know you prefer using the latter term, which we'll discuss in a little bit. So the phenomenon is more than a fleeting moment or two of feeling insecure. In a nutshell, imposter syndrome describes self-doubt among high achieving individuals who overlook their accomplishments. It's common in academia, with some estimates that show nearly 70% of academic professionals will experience imposter syndrome at some point in their careers. RJ, You've also talked about how imposter syndrome is a significant challenge as people leave military service to pursue careers in higher education. So we know that our audience will appreciate your advice, including your fresh take on embracing the role of an imposter. So, RJ, thank you so much for joining us today. We're excited to have this conversation.
RJ Jenkins 1:05
I'm delighted to be here. Thank you so much, Andrew and Kelly.
Kelly Cherwin 1:08
So let's revisit some of your key points in your recent TEDx talk on imposter syndrome from 2023. And for those of you who are listening out there, we'll include the link in there. If people want to watch and listen to your talk. In your opening lines of this talk, you described feeling like an imposter on day one as a first year student at Columbia University in New York City. So what happened on this first day?
RJ Jenkins 1:30
Yeah Kelly, so I was raised by a Long Island railroad worker and a cocktail waitress in a rural community in Florida. I had a great home. I had hardworking, good parents, but it was a fairly provincial upbringing. I grew radishes for the county fair for Four-H, I raised chickens and Nubian dairy goats. Right, we used to fight in the pond. We would take PVC pipe and shove it into the dirt at the edge of the water, and then fling the dirt at each other. Right? This is how I grew up: in bare feet, just really connected to the earth. I did well in school, but none of that prepared me for Columbia University. I'm still not exactly sure how that happened to me, but I arrived as a first year student in 1999, and as I describe in my TEDx talk, the very first person I met was a young woman named Ariana, and we were waiting in front of the elevators and in the process of bringing our things up to our dorm rooms and in the interest of polite conversation, she asked me what I had done with my summer. So I told her that I had spent the summer taking care of my special needs baby sister Olivia, so that both of my parents could work full time and then I- I was raised with pretty good manners, so I then asked the question back to her. What had she done with her summer? And she told me that she had spent her summer traveling southeast Asia as a classically trained oboe player with the New York International Youth Philharmonic. And it was at that moment, about 17 seconds into my college career, that I felt like a total and complete fake, right? I'm not even sure I knew what a Philharmonic was at that time. I still don't know that I necessarily- I think it's a synonym for a symphony? But I also- I can guarantee you that no one was learning to play oboe in my home growing up, right? So it just sort of- and of course, Ariana did nothing wrong, right? She did nothing wrong. She wasn't bragging. She wasn't, she wasn't flexing on me. All she was doing was describing her experience, but her experience was so foreign to me. It felt so special. It felt so sophisticated, it felt so worldly, and it made me really feel, again, through no fault of hers, that I absolutely did not belong where I was, that I wasn't worth this experience. What right did a person like me have speaking to, let alone going to college with a classically trained oboe protege who had spent the summer traveling the world sharing the gift of her talent? Right? I'm what happens when a railroad worker meets a cocktail waitress at a country Western bar off the Long Island Expressway, right? So it just took a lot of time and a lot of care from some people, specifically faculty, who noticed me and noticed that I was withdrawn. Took a lot of conversations and a little bit of growing up to figure out that actually, that experience was part of the larger experience of growing through a college education.
Andy Hibel 4:38
RJ thank you so very much for sharing that and really kind of giving just a real rich description of what the phenomenon is like, but maybe taking a step backwards in this instance. Have you had a chance to reflect what you think triggered that phenomenon at that moment?
RJ Jenkins 4:56
Yeah, I mean, I think about that moment a lot because it was the first of countless moments where I encountered-I mean, I think, let's be clear, this wasn't about a sort of better person, meaning a worse person or a person who belonged at Columbia versus a person who didn't belong at Columbia, right? What this was for me fundamentally, and one of the things I talk about with my students all the time is this was an encounter with difference. It was an encounter with difference. And actually what I now suspect- in retrospect-happened is, I suspect Ariana may have experienced an imposter feeling in that moment as well. Right? Because here she was encountering a person who had spent their summer caring for a family member who needed care. And I suspect even though that felt to me like a less sophisticated thing to be doing, I wonder now if she too had a kind of reciprocal imposter moment. And I think that's because we were both encountering difference, which, by the way, I think is central to the mission of most colleges and universities. Right. It's not that I felt completely out of place in an urban setting. My mother would take us to the city as little boys. We grew up in Long Island and she would bring us into the city in the early 1980s, which, by the way, New York City was a different place in the early 1980s than it is now. And there we were at four years old and two years old, going to see the Rockettes as little kids. Right? So it's not that I didn't belong. It's that I was revisiting this place and the types of people that were in it for the first time. As a person who had been socialized in a completely different environment. And every single time that I experienced impostor feelings, what I actually was doing was pushing myself outside my comfort zone, trying something new, taking a risk, growing. And that has been the hallmark of my experience as an imposter phenomenon, even today. Right. I mean, if I'm being completely transparent with you both, I'm experiencing them in this very moment. Because every single time someone extends an invitation like this and says, "Hey, would you like to join us for a conversation, we would value your insight." I have to swallow this little impostor feeling that why would a person like me be asked to do something this cool? And this has been central to my reframing of this conversation because I've begun to understand and continue to learn more about the fact that I think impostor feelings are not actually a sign of internal brokenness. They're not actually a sign of deficit. They are, in fact, a natural byproduct of aspiration. And so I don't know if that answered your question, but I think essentially what happened there and what continues to happen is when we come up against something new and novel, something we're not fully prepared for, something that's going to force us to grow and change and adapt and push ourselves, I think a completely organic thing that also happens is-maybe momentarily, maybe for longer than a moment-we feel like a fake. And part of that's because we a little bit are. My goal is to say that's not a bad thing. That's not a sign that you're doing something wrong. That's actually a sign that you're doing something right.
Andy Hibel 8:28
In your wonderful TEDx talk, and we'll have a link to it in the notes and really encourage people to watch it. You really address that. The imposter syndrome should not be viewed as negative, but it always feels negative when it comes up and it is something that is an obstacle to that learning. How do you stop focusing on the negative? Because that's the obstacle to the growth that you're beginning to experience. And maybe, if you will, how do you lean into it as opposed to lean away from that, that strong negative feeling that you're having?
RJ Jenkins 9:02
Yeah. So I want to transport us for a moment from a sort of college classroom or from a sort of an employment environment, a job setting. Right. And I want to transport us to a gym. I want to transport us to a place where we're going to do some physical work. You mentioned something, Andrew, about this feeling popping up and it always feeling sort of negative, right? I would gently reframe that and say, I think what it feels is uncomfortable. That's that thing you're referring to as a kind of negative feeling. It's discomfort. It's a lack of of sort of copaceticness around whatever we're experiencing. So where we're used to that is we're in a job setting and we get some critical feedback and we immediately experience that moment of discomfort. Or we're in a new setting. And we try to make friends and we're having a difficult time and we experience that moment of discomfort. Or we're in a college algebra course and we get our first midterm back and we get a C, even though we worked really hard and we experience that moment of discomfort, right? And our immediate assumption in that moment is that that discomfort is proof that we should never have been doing this thing in the first place. Right? It's that sort of bias, that cognitive bias that we find proof of what we're looking for and what we've been looking for is that we should have never done this because we were never worthy of this in the first place. Right? Now let's transport ourselves to a gymnasium. Let's transport ourselves to a, you know, an orange theory fitness or a local gym. And we go there and we engage a personal trainer and we workout with them. And the next morning we experience...wait for it, discomfort. We experience pain, right? Our body hurts. But somehow, in that setting, we don't immediately think to ourselves, Oh, I should have never done that. What do we think, Andrew? We think, Oh my God, it's working, right? Somehow, in the context of a gym, we are able to interpret discomfort as proof that we are growing, as proof that we are getting stronger, as proof that whatever we're doing is moving us toward our goal. In fact, I would argue, if you had that personal trainer work you out and you felt no soreness, you would actually experience that lack of discomfort as being cheated of an opportunity to get stronger. But somehow, when I'm in a college algebra class and my professor makes me feel uncomfortable, I immediately interpret that as proof that I should have never been there in the first place, as opposed to proof that I'm getting what I paid for or that the endeavor is actually working, right? So to answer your question-what are we supposed to do-I think at the very core of this issue is how we talk about this thing. There are many other things we can do. We can we can have proactive conversations like the ones you and I are having. We can train our faculty and staff to respond in better ways to students who come to them and say "I feel like I don't belong here." But I think before we do any of that, we need to really get down to the language of this thing. Andrew, people are out there calling this thing a syndrome, and that word is not a positive word in our culture, right? A syndrome is something we are trying to manage, mitigate, treat or cure, Right? At best, it has this sort of pathological valence. At worst, it has a sort of moral valence about the way we're dealing with a character flaw or a personality sort of deficit. And I think moving away from the syndrome language toward the phenomenon language, or I'll tell you, even since my TEDx talk, I've actually evolved even further to talking about these things as impostor feelings with an "S" at the end. Because impostor phenomenon even suggests that there's some sort of monolithic way that this thing gets experienced, whereas impostor feelings, they're varied and they're nuanced and they're different for every person, and they pop up in different situations and all the feeling is, is a piece of data about our environment. And I just think, you know, if you went to your professor and you said "Man, I feel really uncomfortable," which I did, by the way, when I first got to Columbia and someone-instead of saying to me "You have imposter syndrome," they said you're experiencing an impostor feeling, which is a totally organic byproduct of aspiration, right? I think we would feel better. And now I'm going to push it one step further. What if, instead of saying imposter phenomenon or impostor feelings at all, what if a student went to their professor or an employee went to their supervisor and said, I, I feel I know I'm getting good feedback and I know I'm performing well and I know I'm reaching my goals, but I also just I'm having a hard time feeling like I'm worth it. What if instead of saying you have imposter phenomenon, what if they said that thing you're experiencing is called aspiration discomfort. What if instead of imposter phenomenon, what if it's that thing you're experiencing is called "Being-Awesome Soreness?" Right? I think that changes the game. I think it changes the game. Right? If we're all out here talking about experiencing aspiration discomfort, this is what happens when you push. This is what happens when you put yourself in a new environment. I just think we could really start to move the needle on people who are actually struggling and experiencing negative byproducts of feeling like an imposter, instead of saying "I feel like an imposter, maybe I'm doing something right."
Kelly Cherwin 14:41
That's fantastic. I appreciate your analogies and your examples and the idea of reframing it, because I agree it shouldn't be negative. And I also want to thank you for being honest about your feelings today, because, I don't want to speak for Andy, but I will say every time I record-you know, several years ago when we started talking about the podcast, I was like "Why? Why me? Why would people want to listen to me? Why am I in this chair?" So thank you for saying that this is cool!
Track 5 15:09
Looking for more conversations in higher ed? We invite you to join the higher ed military community as we discuss issues, best practices, news and general trends affecting our institutions and higher ed military affiliated community. Inspired by the deep commitment to service that veterans and military-connected faculty, staff and leaders have towards the academic community, we at HigherEdJobs established HigherEdMilitary as a resource for both original and curated news and information, as well as job opportunities from colleges and universities actively recruiting military connected professionals. Visit us at HigherEdMilitary.com on Facebook and LinkedIn.
Kelly Cherwin 15:41
So again, referencing your TEDx talk, you made a statement that really touched me in it. You were describing your experience in Columbia and you said, I felt like I didn't belong. I felt invisible and conspicuous at the same time, all the time. And like you said, this wasn't due to what your professors or others were doing or saying to you, but it was more inside of you. And I know you briefly touched on this in your previous response, but I was just wondering do you have any other advice for people who are working in higher ed or maybe they're in a job search or in a, you know, new role at an institution who may be feeling these conflicting thoughts and how they can overcome them, or these feelings like we referenced?
RJ Jenkins 16:15
Yeah. I mean, the first thing I want to say, Kelly, is I want to be super clear about something, because it's very important to me and it's one of the few hazards of this work is impostor feelings are different from feeling unwanted or unwelcome in an environment because that environment is in fact telling you that you are unwanted and unwelcome. So I just want to make sure I get this very clear at the beginning. If you are in an environment and you feel unwanted or unwelcome or unworthy and you are able to discern around you institutional factors that are in fact communicating actively, implicitly or explicitly to you that you are unwanted and unwelcome and unworthy, that is not impostor feelings, right? That is you having five functioning senses and you're responding to an environment that is telling you that you do not belong. And in that instance-and we can talk about maybe what institutions can do to mitigate some of that-but there are plenty of times-many times, especially, I'll just say, for women, for people of color, and specifically for women of color, in the research that I've looked at-where the perception that they do not belong is actually happening because they're being communicated to implicitly and explicitly that they don't belong. And in that particular situation, we don't say "Oh, I have impostor feelings, and they're a natural byproduct of aspiration and I should just power through." No, no, no, no, no, right? That is an institutional problem. It exists in institutions of higher learning, it exists in job settings, it exists in faith communities, it exists in families, it exists everywhere. And in that case, you need to come up with a plan, either to address the situation or perhaps to find a different institutional context, because it's very difficult for individuals to change institutional cultures. But that thing again, I just want to scream it from the rooftops is not imposter feelings. That is you having a healthy and protective and self caring response to an environment that's sending a very clear signals. Impostor feelings are where you are not receiving that feedback. In fact, you're receiving the opposite kind of feedback, which is you are welcome, you do belong, you are deserving. And still there's this internal voice that's telling you that you're not worthy, you shouldn't be at a place like this, a person like you doesn't deserve this opportunity, etc. Okay? That's impostor feelings, and I want to get that distinction very clear. And in that case, the other thing I'll say before I answer your question is we tend to focus on this in student populations, right? I focus on it in my work with veteran students for all kinds of, I think, fairly obvious reasons, veterans experience impostor feelings at a higher rate than the, quote-unquote "average student." They're coming out of an environment that's very different from higher education culturally, socially, they've been socialized to a very different structure of power, of communication. What's at stake changes quite rapidly almost overnight. There's been a significant interruption in their formal education, right? So they're coming back and they're managing that. But I think we also tend to focus on impostor feelings with first generation college students, students from historically marginalized communities or under-resourced backgrounds, students of color, LGBTQIA students...basically any student that when they're on a college campus, they perceive a meaningful difference between themselves and the majority of other people around them. By the way, another population we see this a lot: male-identified elementary school teachers. This makes sense, right? That tends to be a profession where there are many females and and male-identified folks perceive a meaningful difference between themselves and the majority of their colleagues. So this, this exists in all kinds of contexts. But I also want to say that in my work over the last couple of years, I've discovered that there's actually a lot of this going on in higher education professionals who are supporting these populations, feeling like they may not necessarily have the skill set to do this work, feeling like they're under resourced to do the work. We run into tons of higher education professionals who are wearing multiple hats, performing multiple roles. And I also see a lot of folks who take very seriously each and every individual student and their success and take quite personally their journeys. And so I've just found that this this sort of reframing has been helpful not only for student populations who tend to experience these feelings, but also higher education professionals who are responsible for supporting them. And finally, to answer your question, Kelly, I think it's normally called cultural competency, right? Building this kind of discussion into cultural competency training. I don't love the term cultural competency because I think we should all be aspiring to more than competence. I prefer the term capacity building. And I think that as we continue to build capacity as professionals, not only to perform our roles well, but also to support those who were there to serve, this conversation needs to be front and center, because I think the only way we begin to sort of move the needle on this is to change the way people are talking about it, number one. To work to remove the stigma in similar ways that I think we've begun to succeed in removing the stigma from mental health and from help-seeking behavior in higher education. I think we're finally moving the needle on that? I see more students proactively seeking help for any variety of issues, whether it's wellness help, whether it's academic support. So I think we're working it there. I think we need to do that here as well. So change the way we talk about it. Build capacity for people to understand this new way of thinking about it. And then, I know it sounds simple, but let's talk. And for us as higher education professionals, I think modeling some vulnerability around this is absolutely transformational for students. When the person in front of the room or the person on the other side of the desk who's supposed to have figured all this out, who's supposed to be further along in their journey, right? For that person to admit to the person on the other side of the desk, or the people sitting in the classroom, "I struggle with this, too." I don't think that enervates your power and credibility. I think it builds and curates your power and credibility. And so I think if more of us can get real with our students about these topics, I think we can start to see a real transformation around outcomes.
Kelly Cherwin 23:03
Thank you, RJ. That was fantastic. And I know you mentioned higher ed professionals serving those who have served, which indeed is you, but can you just tell us a bit more about your career path?
RJ Jenkins 23:12
Yeah, I mean, talk about impostor feelings as a sort of fuel for professional development, right? It's so funny too, because I meet so many people, so many students who think that this whole thing, this career thing is sort of this linear, kind of choreographed, sort of neat thing that happens, right? I mean, I am where I am. In, by the way, an absolute dream role. I could not be happier in my professional work. It's an absolute gift every single day. And that's not to say, by the way, that there are days where I don't like it, but it's just an incredible situation. And it happened completely by serendipity, Kelly. I mean like, or something weirder than serendipity, right? As an undergraduate at Columbia from 1999 to 2003, I actually studied primate biology. My goal was to essentially be a research primatologist. And when I did my thesis research, I actually contracted malaria in Kakamega, Kenya, and got very, very sick and was quite sick for quite some time. And happily I survived that. But when I came back to New York to complete my senior year, I was super spooked about how much time in the field...I loved my experience in the bush, but that sickness really kind of opened my eyes to the realities of that work. And so I had been taking English literature classes quietly all along. And so I hurried up and I completed a double major in English Literature, ended up winning a fellowship to the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom to study English literature at Cambridge, went on to do doctoral work in English literature. And in that process, I realized that solitary research and writing as a profession was not going to work. So I made the pivot that no one in academia ever really wants you to make, and I made the pivot from academic to administrator. I was so fortunate to get a job back at my alma mater at Columbia University's School of General Studies as a dean of academic advising, started as an assistant dean, became an associate, and then a senior associate dean of academic advising and did a ton of mentoring, academic support and academic advising for our school at Columbia University that specializes in non-traditional age students and integrates them fully into the undergraduate classroom. So if you're an undergraduate student at Columbia University in New York City, you are not only in a classroom that's diverse racially and ethnically and religiously and socioeconomically and regionally and other ways. You are also in a room that exhibits diversity of age and experience because the School of General Studies undergraduates, many of whom used to be professional dancers, we have K-Pop artists, we have folks who had children early. We have folks who ran businesses and are entrepreneurs. We also have veterans of the United States Armed Forces. Those folks are sitting in your undergraduate classroom as well. Through that work, I did a lot of work with our military-connected students. It was an absolute joy to work with them, to learn about their experiences, to begin to understand some of the quiet biases that we as a population have about veterans. And then when I made the decision to tender my resignation at Columbia in New York to move to Ocala, Florida, to build a life which my husband, I was offered the opportunity to work for Columbia's Center for Veteran Transition and Integration, which I very quickly accepted. Since then, I have been working on programs and resources to help build stronger outcomes and more inclusive environments for veterans in the United States Armed Forces and their families in higher education settings, no matter where they go to school. I also, in the last two years, very excitingly, have been working with a lot of colleges, universities and employers, including a very large group of community colleges nationwide who are trying to build more robust cultures of support for their military connected students. And so I've had the pleasure of working with those aspirational colleges and universities. And it's been super awesome because the work filters for a real interest in supporting this population. It filters for institutions who understand the innate value of this population in the classroom. And I continue to be really evangelical about the fact that veterans and transitioning service members permanently and positively change the alchemy of an undergraduate classroom in ways that are unbelievably enriching for everybody involved. And so that's the 30,000 foot view on the wild ride that brought me to this work, even though it's something I never in a million years thought I would be doing.
Andy Hibel 28:01
RJ, hearing you speak just kind of reminds me that sometimes we have to manage our careers and make a decision and understand that we're intentional and purposeful. But one of the wonderful things of working at colleges and universities or working with colleges and universities is having your career or having your experience just be experienced. And I feel like we should point out to audiences, HigherEdJobs also has a site called HigherEdMilitary, And we offer a-single winner per year-of a Spotlight award. We highlight for people in their careers who are doing an exemplary job of serving this audience. And it's not selected by us at HigherEdJobs or the folks who work on HigherEdMilitary. It's actually by the peers of our advisory council who select it. And I have to once again congratulate you and point out to the audience that you are the HigherEdMilitary 2023 Spotlight award winner. So, just want to make sure people know that. But kind of in that sort of work, as people exit the military and start a job search or a career in higher education, impostor feelings can be a significant challenge. What advice do you share with others to help them feel less invisible and insecure?
RJ Jenkins 29:10
I'll say two things before I answer your question, which seems to be my modus operandi today. You ask a question and I say a bunch of things and eventually get around to answering it. But the first is...talk about impostor feelings! Winning that award was an astonishing and very, very humbling experience. The folks who were up for that award are all doing exemplary work. I couldn't believe the sort of quality of folks who-I mean, people are really doing heavy lifting in this space. People are wearing multiple hats, as I've said. People are really giving of themselves in extraordinary ways to lift up this population. And so being selected for that award was the pinnacle of feeling like an imposter. And I'm very grateful and thankful for the recognition. I also would say that that would have been impossible without the support of my colleagues at the Columbia Center for Veteran Transition and Integration, who uphold my work and allow me to do crazy and wild things all the time. So whenever I have an idea, the answer is always yes instead of no. Which is a pretty exciting place to be. The second thing I think that secondarily important about that recognition was I think perhaps there's a sort of quiet suspicion or expectation or presupposition that in order to do the kind of work that I do, in order to build stronger, more robust cultures of support for veterans and transitioning service members and their family, that you, yourself, have to be a veteran. And in fact, I am not a veteran. I am not a transitioning service member. I'm a civilian who has dedicated my profession to doing this work. And what I would say about that is that while there are definitely moments where I experience a sort of gap of understanding that I'm working very hard to sort of address. I also think that we can't expect veterans and transitioning service members to thrive in the civilian world without civilian allies. Right. Civilian allyship is mission critical to making sure that veterans experience positive outcomes in the civilian world. And you won't be surprised to hear that my military connected students are often very grateful that they have a civilian advisor because they themselves understand that they are trying to make a move into the civilian world. And so having a civilian sort of Virgil is helpful. A civilian guide to becoming a civilian is useful. So I'm very excited to have received that recognition. And just want to remind folks out there that are doing this work who maybe experience the occasional impostor feeling because they themselves are not military connected. I would say lean into your civilian status and claim your allyship in a way that's helpful. To answer your question, Andrew, specifically military connected students, veterans and transitioning service members who are transitioning out of active duty and into higher education and workforce settings. Again, for me, step number one is to address the elephant in the room, and to help them understand that feeling out of place, feeling discomfort, feeling the occasional pinch of cultural misunderstanding when they sign their emails "V/R," which means "very respectfully," and no one knows what that means when their professor writes them an email and signs it "Bob," that's not actually an invitation to call your professor Bob, right? You continue to refer to your professor as Professor Howanitz until Professor Howanitz tells you it's Bob, right? These sort of translation errors are not proof that you don't belong. They're not proof that you never were supposed to be here. They're proof that you're learning a new environment and you're experiencing a cultural acclimation. Number two, I would say that there are two pieces to this, Andrew. There's transition and integration. It's in our in our name at CTI, Columbia Center for Veteran Transition and Integration. And while I believe transition is primarily the responsibility of the veteran, the veteran is the only person who can manage his or her transition. Integration is the responsibility of the civilian world. A good friend of mine once said Frodo can't return to the shire unless the shire is prepared to receive him. Our workplaces, our schools, our classrooms, our laboratories, our offices need to be places that are prepared to receive the transitioning service member. And that's not on them, that's on us. So we need to build our capacity to do that more effectively. The third and final thing I'll say, and I really hope that this message gets through to people because this has been very exciting, especially those who are working with veterans. We talk a lot about the skills that veterans bring to higher education and workforce settings, including but not limited to their ability to adapt to situations, their ability to be vigilant, their ability to work in teams, their leadership, etc., etc.. But I actually think there's one skill that all veterans have that's important to point out to them, and that is if you're a veteran, you have already proven that you are able to learn how to do new and difficult things that you didn't already know how to do. I'm going to say it one more time for everyone in the back of the room. If you're a veteran, you have already proved that you have the capacity and the ability to learn how to do new and difficult things that you didn't already know how to do. They have proven their ability to do that, and that skill is the most universal and transferable skill in the galaxy. One of the big things that veterans are up against is this feeling: how could what I did in the military help me succeed in college? How could fixing helicopters...how could forecasting the weather...how could being a line cook help me succeed in college? And the answer is, you've already proved that you can learn how to do new and difficult things that you didn't already know how to do. And that's what college is. And that, of course, is what adult life is. It's so weird, when I tell them that, their eyes light up because they never thought that they possessed within them the most universal and transferable skill in the galaxy. But in fact, they do, and they've proven that they do. And so sometimes I've talked about moving the needle multiple times, but that's really the metaphor that I use to think about this work. We're not going to see a revolution in this. It's going to be small, thoughtful, iterative change over time. One of the ways to move the needle is to just say things out loud to people that they need to hear. And that's our job as the folks who are supporting these folks that are transitioning.
Kelly Cherwin 36:08
RJ You know, I hope you know what a fan I am of you. You are such a authentic person. You said you delayed on posting, kind of putting this TEDx talk out there. I'm just curious, what was the delay for and what's been the reception to your TEDx talk?
RJ Jenkins 36:24
The delay was because of all the things we've talked about for the last hour, right? Why me? Who wants to hear from me? Right. I experienced it all the way through producing the TEDx Talk. I was sort of convinced by somebody to do it in the first place. A person to who now I'm quite grateful. I was sort of dragged by the nose through the process a little bit. I now look back on the process and it was one of the most growthful experiences I've ever had. Being made to put this thought into the world in a slightly more formal way that could then be accessed was very challenging and kind of scary. And the delay was just that: being afraid of what people would think. Putting my little baby idea out there and worrying about what would happen to it and by extension what would happen to me. So there's a little bit of humility in there also. Also Kelly, there's some vanity in there, because I then don't have control over how people talk about this piece of me or think about this piece of me. It's a little bit of fear of criticism. It's sort of all the fear that someone would think I'm being self-promotional. There's a phrase I sometimes use, fear that people would think I was "doing a thing" because I try not to be a "thing doer." And I don't love "thing doers." And we all know who those people are who do things. But ultimately, I decided that I needed to do a thing because I thought this thing could help somebody. And sometimes you have to do the thing, and I'm getting there with that. The same day that I published the TEDx Talk, I put "Imposter" in my LinkedIn profile description. I put the word in there because I felt strongly that I really needed to start owning that word as a self descriptor and not just be out there sort of evangelizing people to the recuperation of the idea. I needed to lean into that, and I have. And to answer your question, the response has been extraordinary. The response has been almost too much to bear because yes, people have said this was a cool speech. Yes, this was fun to listen to. But they've also messaged me privately to say how desperately they themselves needed this message because of...and I can't tell you the incredible variety of things people are managing...parents who needed to hear it because of things going on with their children, professionals needing to hear it because of things going on at work, husbands and wives needing to hear it because of things going on in their marriage. A gentleman who needed to hear it because of the situation he was in, providing elder care to his parents. And basically what I've learned through the incredibly positive feedback is that we are not alone. None of us are alone in managing these feelings. And I think the reframe has been helpful. And so I'm now retrospectively and retroactively grateful that I did the thing. And hopefully if even one person hears it and experienced some relief from it and I'm very, very glad to have done it and this conversation today meets that bar, this is a good thing, I think, that has happened as a result of you all encountering that piece of media. And I'm really, really grateful that you've invited me to have a more extended conversation about it.
Kelly Cherwin 39:50
Well, we're so grateful that you were a thing doer and did that presentation and joined us here today. So I think I can speak for all of us saying thank you for doing that.
Andy Hibel 39:58
Thank you.
RJ Jenkins 39:59
It's my pleasure. Really.
Andy Hibel 40:01
And let's say you've been a person who's listened to the podcast and thought, "I'm not the sort of person who sends a question or comment or a reflection to a podcast. People, I don't do that." But you've thought about doing that. Well, if you have any questions or thoughts or reflections, we and RJ would love to hear them. So please email us at podcast at HigherEdJobs.com or send us a direct message on X @higheredcareers. And we really appreciate you listening today, and RJ, we appreciate you being with us.
RJ Jenkins 40:33
Thank you again.
Kelly Cherwin 40:34
Thanks, RJ.
Andy Hibel 40:34
We look forward to speaking with you the next time.