Speaker 1: 0:13

Welcome to the cohort sisters podcast, where we give voice to the struggles, stories and successes of black women with doctoral degrees. I'm your host, dr Jean McCollough, and today we have an exceptional guest joining us. Please join me in welcoming Dr Janice Gassam Asare, an industrial organizational psychologist, forbes contributing writer, ted X speaker, award winning DEI consultant, one of LinkedIn's top voices in racial equity, and so much more. Dr Gassam Asare holds a PhD in organizational psychology from Hofstra University, as the author of two bestselling books Dirty Diversity and the Pink Elephant. And on top of all of these accomplishments, what I need y'all to understand about Dr Janice, especially if you're just listening to this interview and not watching it on YouTube is that she's also madfly. So you have to go to the chat box and get a look at the chat box. Okay, so you have to Google her right now and keep the drip. I really appreciate when black women are professional bosses and also fashion slayers, and you kudos to you because you do both. So welcome to the cohort sisters podcast, dr Janice.

Speaker 2: 1:24

Thank you so much, Ijama. I love that I would have. it's funny you say that I would have majored in fashion and undergrad if I felt like my dad wouldn't have dragged me to filth if I did, because I love just colors and my mom is like that too, so I think I got it from her. But I love that idea that we have duality and we can be fashion slayers and also quote unquote professional women.

Speaker 1: 1:51

Yes, absolutely. That's definitely something that inspires me. is that recovering or not recovering retired influencer? I used to dress up back in the day and now I ain't got time, so I really appreciate folks who still have the energy to put together the looks for the people. So tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from? What do you like to do when you're not doing the 17,000 things that you do professionally Like? what are some of your hobbies?

Speaker 2: 2:19

Yeah, so I. The question of where I'm from is always a complicated one, because I grew up moving around a lot. My parents are originally from Cameroon And so they came here in the 80s and then we moved around because my dad was a professor. So I think that's probably where I got inspired to become an educator, because both of my parents were educators, and so we were every two years moving around a lot. We even lived in the Middle East for a few years, so I would say the majority of my time was spent in Virginia. So when people asked me this question from a US context, i'm always like Virginia. You know, in Northern Virginia, we spent a lot of time growing up right outside of DC. I went to college in Richmond, virginia, and then I spent most of my high school in the 757 area, which is like Virginia Beach. So when people ask me that I'm like, virginia is my home, or what I consider to be my home, where I became a woman And in my free time I I am definitely a YouTube watcher.

Speaker 2: 3:28

I have my brother and I share a YouTube premium account and I love watching YouTube videos And I feel like I'm more of a visual person. So I go back and forth between podcasts, audio books and YouTube videos, but I feel like with audio books and podcasts sometimes my attention is elsewhere, which is good for when you're driving. But I'm a big YouTube video watcher And I also love the gym. I feel like it helps me with just my mental health and mental well-being and just helps to keep me centered. So I'm hoping as I get older I'm able to continue to find ways to just move my body. So I would say those are my, my hobbies.

Speaker 1: 4:10

Awesome. Thanks so much for sharing those. It's always important to ground folks. We like to ask people about their hobbies because we are so much more than our LinkedIn profiles and our degrees, so I appreciate you sharing your exercise hobby as well as your YouTube. When you are watching YouTube, do you have a certain kind of genre of videos that you gravitate towards?

Speaker 2: 4:32

I feel like I'm always watching Black women commentary channels. So like the For Harriet channel I really enjoy And I would say more like left leaning Black women commentary channels. And then I I'm like really interested in just like history type of things. I'm not a big history person but I feel like doing any sort of equity work you have to have a vast knowledge of the history of whatever countries you're doing your work in. So I've like kind of gotten into a lot of history. and then I'm really into technology. So I, my YouTube algorithm, always recommends chat, gpt or AI videos for me because of what I watch. So I'm really fascinated with like how technology influences people's behavior and how it helps our life. I'm kind of like one of those people who's a little bit of a conspiracy theorist and I love movies like I robot, where I'm kind of like the machines are going to take over, but I love technology at the same time. So it's like I those are kind of my genres, like the historical, the Black women commentary channels and then the like technology.

Speaker 1: 5:47

Nice. Yeah, there's so much. I think there's an overload of like chat GPT info right now, But I saw you actually wrote a piece recently about chat how chat GPT can help in the healthcare field. I don't know if you want to say a little bit about that.

Speaker 2: 6:02

Yeah, i'm actually working on it. It's been forever I've just been dragging my feet with it A article on whether chat GPT will actually replace the roles of D E I practitioners. So I'm like that's really interesting. But, yeah, i found this research really really interesting. I saw someone on LinkedIn repost this research article where they found they did a study with comparing chat GPT responses and actual physician responses And they looked at I think it was a Reddit or a Reddit like sort of posting where people can submit medical questions and say, hey, i have this health issue, what is it? And they found that the chat GPT responses were more empathetic and actually more accurate and detailed than the responses from actual physicians. And I think that that's interesting And that's helpful, because health care is, particularly in the United States, is just a nightmare And there's a lot of people that don't have access that they should have because of their socioeconomic status.

Speaker 2: 7:11

So I think that, even like in the realm of therapy, i think that for people who don't have access to or aren't insured which is mostly, you know, folks from racially underrepresented backgrounds are largely the ones that are uninsured I think that chat GPT will be able to remove some of those systemic barriers. I think people are thinking about it from a position of, like, the machines becoming smarter than us and all of the fears that people have around technology, and I think it's like the fear of the unknown. But I like to think about it as like we're not putting the genie back into the bottle like it's. It's the technologies here, so how can we use it to make our world a better place? So I thought that that was really interesting and great news for people who don't have access to healthcare.

Speaker 1: 8:02

Very interesting indeed. I'm a chat GPT user who's also very skeptical, and my research is on history of health disparity. So I was like, oh, this is an interesting take, because I'm always fascinated by the ways in which medical providers, pharmaceutical companies and then now technology and automated technology how they shape, define and reinforce racial health differences and racial health inequity. So I will definitely continue to be on the lookout for all things chat GPT related as it pertains to black health. And I want to kind of go back to your childhood or maybe early years. You mentioned that your dad was a professor, so I would love for you to speak a little bit more about how your inspiration to pursuing a doctoral degree Did you pursue a degree in a field that is similar to his like? how did you end up in organizational psychology and how did your dad being a professor influence and shape that the way shape the way that you pursued your own higher education?

Speaker 2: 9:08

Yeah, i would. I'd never thought growing up I would be a professor. I don't know if a professor is one of those careers kids think about and say I want to be a professor. I actually, i actually originally I'm more of a creative, so I wanted to be a artist. My parents we lived in Delaware and my parents would take us, take me to a school, i think, somewhere in Philly. They would drive me to on Saturdays, this school, and it's like a art, like painting and drawing school. So I really wanted to be an artist. And then I fell in love with writing And my dad kind of put the idea in my head that those jobs didn't pay well. So I was like as a kid I was like, well, i don't want a job where I'm going to be struggling. So I kind of like moved into.

Speaker 2: 9:56

I thought I was going to be a pediatrician because I love my pediatrician, he was so nice And I think, like those types of things, when we have really good or really bad experiences as children, it can influence, you know, what we want to pursue. So when I started college I always knew having parents that were, you know both, really education is something that's really important to them. I always knew it wasn't a matter of where I was going to go to college, it was just what I would study. And I actually then was like, okay, i'm going to go into pediatric nursing. So I started undergrad as a pre nursing major And then at some point my freshman year I took a psychology 101 course and I loved it And ironically, it was the first time I ever had a black professor or black teacher. I never had a black teacher in my K through 12. And then the first black professor, professor McCreary, was amazing And he was so engaging And I was like I really like psychology. I've always known I've loved to study people and just observe people. So I went into psychology.

Speaker 2: 11:01

I think my dad was a little bit disappointed because he comes from a STEM background. His PhD is in economics and finance, so he taught in business school, so he was a very pro like economics and finance person. And my sister I have an older sister and a younger brother my sister went to Yale and she ended up studying history. So I think it was kind of like Oh, i have a daughter at an Ivy League but she's studying a major that seemingly you know she uses it And now she works for the State Department and she's doing all of these amazing things. But at that time it was kind of like my daughter goes to Yale and people would get excited And then my dad would be like, but she's majoring in history, right?

Speaker 2: 11:44

And then me it's like, right, it's like I could tell that that was a feeling. And then for me it was like Oh, my daughter goes to this no name school in Virginia, right, even though it was the largest public university in Virginia. Oh, my daughter goes to this like no name university in Virginia, oh, but she's like majoring in psychology, right. And so it was kind of just like you know, i know my dad was just sort of disappointed in that. And when I was a junior, i took a marketing course And I loved marketing And I was like, oh, this is so fascinating to figure out how to create campaigns to make people want to buy things. And so I told my dad, and he's like you should go and get your MBA because marketing is something that you could study.

Speaker 2: 12:30

And so I was kind of like, after I graduated, i got my, my bachelor's in psychology. I was just kind of like I'm working as a bank teller And I knew I loved to, you know, interact with customers. But I was like, what am I going to do with my degree? And at the time I graduated, it was like during the financial collapse And it was just like there weren't a lot of jobs And I didn't know what I was going to do with my degree And so I was like I'm going to take my dad's advice And I'm going to, i'm going to enroll, and he put me in a like a GMAT prep course. Because I did an SAT prep course and it helped me do well on my SATs, he put me in a GMAT prep course. I only took one math course. Even though I'm really good in math, i only took one math course in my whole undergrad And it was like to a general ed course for my psychology degree. So I didn't do well on my GMAT And I applied to. There was a program at Wake Forest I wanted to get into. I applied. They rejected me. I applied to several different MBA programs And I did get into one at LSU on their Shreveport campus. So I enrolled in their MBA program And after a semester and a half I quit Because I just I loved marketing. I took a business law class and business law and I think, a marketing course and I love that.

Speaker 2: 13:57

But the accounting really, really was not my thing and the micro and macro economics was also not my thing And my dad I was scared of I think many of us are scared of like disappointing our parents And I was so scared to tell him it wasn't for me And I didn't want to seem like a failure. But I called my mom and I just remember crying. One day when I was driving back from school, i got my finance test and I think I got a D or I had failed it. And I called my mom and I was like I'm good at math, but this just isn't my thing, i don't want to do this anymore. And she's like if you don't want to do it, you don't have to do it. Right, and my mom was always so encouraging to us, right? She was a stay at home mom during our first like 10 years And then, when we were teenagers, she went back to school to get her bachelors and her masters and eventually her PhD.

Speaker 2: 14:50

And so I quit and I started doing research and I found this industry or this space called Industrial Organizational Psychology And I was like, oh, it fuses business, which is where I'm coming from, and psychology. So I started doing research and it so happened that I was living in Louisiana at that time and the city I was living in in Louisiana, that university, had an industrial organizational psychology master's program And it was a kind of like a go as you can program where you could take as many courses as you wanted in a semester. So I it was a trimester system So I actually enrolled and I got accepted and I finished in one year. So I was in and out and I was like, oh my gosh, i love industrial organizational psychology And I decided that I wanted to continue. And that's when I pursued my PhD, but after living in that very rural town.

Speaker 2: 15:49

If any of the listeners know about grambling, my dad taught at grambling. So we were living in Ruston, louisiana, which is about five hours north of New Orleans. It's very rural, it's right outside of it's in an area called Texarkana, so it's right outside of Texas in Louisiana and right outside of Arkansas. So I was like I have to go to a big city. So that's what led me to New York. And yeah, so that's my journey. I would say my parents definitely influenced me because both of them are educators. My mom was teaching secondary school and she was a French teacher And I never thought that I would be a professor or an educator, but I feel like I'm a teacher at heart.

Speaker 1: 16:31

Yeah, i love that story And I love how you talked about both of your parents influences and, as a child of immigrants, i get, i understand it all, i overstand it all, but I'm really glad that you found your way and forged a path through yourself and that not only started doing your doctoral process but continued on in your current career, which I think is so like. It's just such a cool, unique career And I know that myself and others are really inspired by that. We're gonna get to your career. I wanna ask more questions about your doctoral journey. So you talked about needing to go to a big city to do your doctoral degree, and so that's what took me to New York. What was it about the program at Hofstra specifically that enticed you? Do you feel like it was at the end, when all was said and done? was it the right decision? Like, was it the right program for you?

Speaker 2: 17:24

Yeah, that's a great question. So I looked at five different programs And for me I think what's really important when people are looking at like a doctoral program is the city, because most of the time when you're doing a doctorate of any kind, you are older than you were when you were doing your undergrad or master's degree And you may be at a different place in your life. And after doing my master's degree I was living with my parents, saving so much money because that part of Louisiana is so affordable And I but I just was like the quality of my life is not. I have big dreams and I feel like this city is not really able to contain me and all of the things that I wanna do. So for me, location kind of trumped cost.

Speaker 2: 18:16

In hindsight, i wish I would have looked for more scholarships because my program was private And, of course, i'm in New York, which is the most expensive area. I was in Long Island, but it's still really expensive in the New York city area, and so I had to take out a lot of student loans. So when I graduated, i was almost $300,000 in debt for student loans, so I paid almost all of it off, but it's still. Looking back, i was like, and it took me. The program was supposed to take three years, it took me five years, and so I think that, looking back, i made the right decision because there are a lot of opportunities I've been able to get just through the program. Many of my professors are really well connected And the people I went to school with are very well connected. They're working at large companies And I don't know if I would have been able to get that in a different city, and so I think that I learned a lot in the program And even though there were like a lot of ups and downs even like with what I decided to write my dissertation on, it wasn't my first choice, even though there were a lot of ups and downs in the process, i'm glad that I made the decision And I think that if I was in a different city, it probably would have been a completely different and maybe not as exciting of an experience.

Speaker 2: 19:42

But I think that after life, after graduation, has been. It was tough at first because I was an unemployed PhD, but now I've been able to really like find my way and find my path. So I would say I definitely made the right decision, but cost is a factor. So, looking at how long on average do people take in the program? Because for me, i was like I don't want to be here for seven, eight, nine years And there's many programs that are. There are ones in New York City that were seven to nine years And I was like I'd rather be in Long Island and do this program, which is marketed at three years, than being a program where I started my PhD when I was 25. And so I was like I don't want to be like 35 when I'm finishing, i just want to do something quickly.

Speaker 2: 20:31

So for me, the speed of the program and the location of the program was really, really important to me because if I could, at the previous location at Louisiana Tech, they had a I could have gone to if I'd gotten into their PhD program. I believe it was free and they give their PhD students assignment. But I was like I don't want to stay in the city where I feel like I'm not growing anymore And my quality of life is low. Even though I would come out of this program relatively without any debt, i don't think that I would be happy. And so I think it's important for anyone who's considering a PhD to think about, like, are you happy with the city?

Speaker 2: 21:16

Because I find that a lot of people end up staying in whatever city or area they go to school. So if you decide to get a bachelor's and you don't pursue any other education, you often stay in that city where you did your bachelors or your masters or your PhD. So I asked myself, if I wasn't going to school here or after I graduate, would I want to live here? And for me it was definitely a yes, i love the New York city area, and so I was like, yeah, i'm okay with this.

Speaker 2: 21:46

And then also the timing right, because I'm like, even though I could go to school for free and get a stipend, if I went to Baruch or this particular place, i would still have to delay working for seven to nine years, and so, even though this program is more expensive, i could start paying off my loans quicker than if I was in school for seven to nine years. So I think it's important to think about what you're prioritizing, also for people who are married or have children, though there are other considerations speed might be an important factor, or costs and getting into a program where it's fast and also you get some sort of stipend, even if it's in a city you don't really want to stay in. That might be important as well For me. When I started the program I was unpartnered, so I didn't have any considerations versus, except where do I want to be, where do I want to go?

Speaker 1: 22:40

So yeah, that's really. I like what you said about the trade-offs between it might take you, it might be more expensive, but you'll be able to enter the workforce more quickly and then be able to pay off loans more quickly. So I think that's a framework for as people are considering different options. I hope that kind of folks take that and do their mental math the back of the napkin math to see what the best options would be. But also like cast a white net. I always advise people like apply everywhere and then decide at the end, like decide in May or decide in April where you wanna go, as opposed to like not applying at all and then not having as many options. But that is really helpful insight.

Speaker 1: 23:20

You mentioned ups and downs, whichever. We all know that there are always ups and downs in a program, and so I would like for you to highlight one up and one down And, if you want, i'm curious, you piqued my interest when you said that your dissertation topic wasn't the one that you wanted to study, so I kind of wanna know what you wanted to study and what you ended up studying. If there's any other ups and downs that you wanna share with us, please do.

Speaker 2: 23:44

Yeah, so I would say that my down is I wish I had advocated for myself more in my program, even though I felt like it was eight of us in my cohort and four of us were non-white and four of them were white, so there was a good amount of diversity, i still felt like among faculty there wasn't a lot of diversity. I only had one black professor and she was like an adjunct and I met her later on in the program. My committee members were not none of them were black and I felt like explaining my dissertation idea. I don't feel like they really got it In 2012,.

Speaker 2: 24:28

My initial idea was to manipulate skin color on LinkedIn profiles and see what the impact of a person's race and gender was on their likelihood to get hired. Back in 2012, this was much more of an interesting idea than like in 2023. I think in 2023, it wouldn't really be interesting. But I really wanted to do something on race and even my dissertation advisor was Muslim and his last name is Islam, so he did a lot of research on religious discrimination. So I told him I thought it'd be interesting to like, manipulate, like religious headgear, race and gender on a LinkedIn profile picture to see if there were differences in a person's likelihood to be hired. So we thought about it and thought through how that would work. And then eventually he and my committee kind of felt like manipulating race would be too difficult because we didn't have access to Photoshop. And so it was kind of like how would we, with the very small budget that each PhD student was given, that needed to be done to actually collect the data? how would we manipulate skin color without having access to like more expensive tools? So he was kind of like I don't know if this idea will work And I really wish I had like pushed, you know, i wish I had like doubled down and really advocated for myself. But I just wanted to finish And I didn't want to be difficult, right, and I actually I have a book coming out called Decentering Whiteness in the Workplace and it's coming out in October, and this is one of the things I talked about in the book, where I recognize my desire to like prioritize and center whiteness in that moment, because I didn't want to rock the boat with my committee members And I didn't want my topic felt a little more quote unquote radical because it dealt with race And I was already the only person in my cohort that wanted to do anything related to diversity, equity and inclusion.

Speaker 2: 26:36

So they actually had to first of all find me and a dissertation advisor from a different university. No one no professors in my university were interested in diversity, equity and inclusion. So they said you have two options. We can pair you with a professor who doesn't focus on this and you would just do your dissertation on an unrelated topic. Or we could pair you with a former Hofstra student who works at a different university but he's still affiliated, you know, we still have a relationship with him and he can be your advisor So you could do diversity, equity and inclusion research with him. And I was like, oh, of course I'll go with him, but there were a lot of challenges because he wasn't as accessible as like a professor who was in the university, right, and he could only provide as much guidance as he could. But I think that having someone in the university would have made it a little easy. I could just walk to your office. So you know there were, and I think I was his first student. So I think there were a lot of like ups and downs with that, but I think that was definitely something that I looked back on and I'm like, oh, i wish I had done a different topic.

Speaker 2: 27:45

What we ended up going with was we still looked at hiring bias, but we looked from the perspective of disclosure and whether you disclose if you disclose that you have a particular mental health issue the way that you frame that issue whether that impacts your likelihood to get hired. So, if a person shares that they experience depression, if they attribute their depression to a chemical imbalance versus attributing it to stressful life events, i found that they're perceived differently right Then. So I looked at, like you know, when you have a gap in your resume and you say, well, i experienced depression and it was because of this, whether that impacted your likelihood to get hired. And then, also, like, looking at employment gaps I was manipulating employment gaps to see whether, like, a three year gap had the same impact as a one year gap. I think it had looked at a five year gap. So it was relevant still to the DEI space, because mental health is an important issue that a lot of people experience and its disclosure is also something big where people don't feel like they can disclose what they're experiencing. But it wasn't my. I really wanted to focus on race and racial differences and whether religious headgear, gender and racial differences impacted perception. So that was a low of not being able to study the topic I wanted to, but the high was the program was fairly quick.

Speaker 2: 29:20

I experienced a lot of ups and downs when I was collecting data where I used up the money that the university had given me And actually, like I used, amazon has like a data you know, set of like data that you can use, called their mechanical Turk. So it's fairly inexpensive. It's like just professional survey takers, so you can pay them 50 cents or 25 cent to take your survey and collect data that way, and I had used the money that the university had given me, which was maybe like $1,000 or $1,500. And I actually there was an issue when I input the data into Amazon, so I collected the wrong set of data And then I was panicking because I'm like a broke PhD student and I've used up all of the money. Now I don't even think I had like credit cards back then. So I remember telling my partner I was like, oh my gosh, i need money to like redo the study And my partner was like, okay, i'll help you, but it was just like it was a tough situation because the university was like this is all the money you get. I don't think at that time I was working, i think I was just. I just had student loans, so it was really tough.

Speaker 2: 30:30

So I think that, like, i'm happy that I took longer, on average, than my classmates. Most of them graduated within one woman. She was 60 years old. She finished in three years, which was amazing, but the rest of them, i think, finished in three and a half or four years. I was finished in five years And there may be some of my cohort members that didn't finish. But I think one of the things I enjoyed was it was a faster program And then it was also like very hands off, where most of the people who graduated didn't go into academia, they are consultants or they're, you know, doing all of these amazing things. So I think that the quickness of the program was one thing that I enjoyed.

Speaker 1: 31:13

Yeah, i feel like your idea was just like three years too early, like Canva wasn't out yet. Canva's, like easy software, didn't exist yet. You're just a little bit too early, but I think it would have been a really cool study. The one that you did is still really interesting and important work as well. You actually worked as an adjunct and an assistant professor for some time. I would love to know why did you decide to leave academia and pursue a career as an entrepreneur, speaker, author, consultant.

Speaker 2: 31:52

That's a great question. I so I worked in academia for a little over seven years And I just felt like, even in a city like New York, i just felt like there wasn't a lot of like. I'm over here as a huge advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion And then I would enter these faculty environments and I felt like there was no diversity, equity or inclusion, even again in a city like New York, where I've taught at a university in Long Island as an adjunct professor. I taught at a university in the heart of New York City and then a private university in Connecticut And you know, the same things were where the student body is pretty diverse but the faculty is not. And I think that once my university found out I was really interested in these things. There was this expectation that I would be doing a lot of labor related to like especially after the murder of George Floyd, there was a lot of like Janice does DEI and now it's like trendy, we could get Janice to do all of these things for the university and help us get a certificate and this and that, and I just was like.

Speaker 2: 33:02

I felt like I constantly experienced a lot of racial microaggressions, being the only black woman in my department And I just was like this isn't you know? I remember I was in this university in New York City And even though I was a visiting assistant professor, my office was on the floor with the English department and they didn't even have my name outside of the door. So I was like when students are coming to look for me, there's no name, there's no windows in my office. It was very like, sterile and cold And just like. And so when I went to this university in Connecticut, i was like, oh, this will be different. And you know, dr Keisha Thomas wrote a really compelling or she's the one that coined this term from pet to threat And what black women experience in the workplace, where a lot of times in the beginning, everyone's so nice to us. And that's that's how I felt the honeymoon phase when I went to this university in Connecticut. Everyone was so nice And I thought it would be different. And over time I realized no, this isn't like a thing that's specific to a university. This is an academia problem where if I see that someone like Nicole Hannah Jones, a pollster prize winning writer, is not able to get tenure, what chance do I have? And I wasn't even tenure track right, but I just was like I saw what my dad went through. My dad never got tenure. My dad was a full professor, right, and so my dad had achieved many accolades. His students loved him, but he never. I think he applied to for tenure a few times, but he never got tenure. And so I just was like I don't know if this is an environment I want to stay in.

Speaker 2: 34:41

And in 2018, i started my consultancy and things started to pick up, of course, in 2020, when companies realized Oh, we don't even know what anti-racism is. So I felt like, rather than dividing my energy in between the university, where I'm stressed out, i'm overwhelmed, i'm constantly experiencing micro and macro aggressions I could just pour everything into my consultancy. So, rather than trying to jungle both of them, i just was like it's been almost a year actually, next month makes a year since I left, but it's I've been so excited since I left And I feel like I have the opportunity to pour into things that actually make me happy, and so I think that it's really important for the listeners to follow your heart. It sounds very like cliche, but do what makes you happy. Because I wanted to say, in academia, for the prestige and for a consistent paycheck. And it's nice to say, oh, i'm like a six figure professor, because I know that in a lot of, in a lot of contexts, professors don't make six figures. So I was able to say, oh, i'm making all of this money, i have great insurance, i have a constant paycheck.

Speaker 2: 36:02

But I just was thinking about how stressful that job was And I was like I could not see this being sustainable in the future if I'm feeling so stressed out and I don't have as much time to pour into my business. So I think that at some point I knew in 2020, i had to start like saving up money and making my escape. So I think, if anyone feels like this, who's watching, saving up as much money as possible like six to 12 months of expenses, so that you can eventually make your escape, because leaving to go to another job is actually one of the best ways to increase your salary as well. So I know a lot of people who feel like, if you know they're being paid unfairly or less than their counterparts, finding another job in another, you know, company is one of your best bets if you want to jump in your salary.

Speaker 1: 36:56

Yes, thank you for sharing that. I'm always personally really inspired and motivated by folks who, for some period of time, juggle both an academic career and a non-academic career, as someone who is currently doing so. So that spoke to me personally. I don't know if it spoke to anybody else, but that was for me. And now I want to talk a little bit about your consultancy work. I know that we're coming up on time, so this is the last question that I have before we get into our final advice questions. So, as a consultant, you know you've worked with big names like Google, amazon, h&m. What is some advice that you have to other Black women, scholar, researchers who are interested in bringing their research expertise to large corporations as consultants, as speakers? What advice do you have for developing relationships? you know, getting clients? you know, don't give us all the sauce, but just give us a little bit of advice.

Speaker 2: 37:58

I always love to give all the sauce, because I'm not a gatekeeper and I believe it's important to share information, and I also don't have like a scarcity mindset where I think it's really important to share with others what I've learned, because I felt like when I started even though it's just five years ago, when I started my consultancy I didn't really feel like, you know, people were willing to share information. So I think the number one thing that has helped me is LinkedIn. I would say definitely for any Black woman Black woman, researchers or practitioners who are hoping to start a business or who have businesses and they want to work with clients is LinkedIn has helped me immensely. When I defended my dissertation in 2017, i was like I'm going to get on LinkedIn more and just connecting with people. I think, you know, there's so many opportunities on LinkedIn and there's it's. You have the ability to create and develop like a cultivate communities And I think it's important to start sharing the work that you do, because the way that I started getting speaking engagements was just sharing that. This is something that's important and interesting to me, right, and so, prior to 2020, i feel like many of my friends and family and people that were connected with me knew that I do this thing. They're like Janice does diversity in the workplace. I know, when I think about this, i think of Janice, because I see she's always posting about it or I see she's always talking about it.

Speaker 2: 39:30

So I think, even things that you think maybe mundane, there's an audience of people who are interested in it, right? So like if you just started getting into bike riding and you put on a helmet and realize the helmet doesn't fit your hair, that's something that is interesting to share on LinkedIn, where it's like Hey, i purchased this helmet and it wasn't created with people with different hairstyles or diversity of hair cells in mind. Right, i talk a lot on LinkedIn about hair discrimination and my experiences with my hair and how, when I got this particular hairstyle, i was thinking about the little mermaid and how these even though these are faux locks you know Holly and Chloe have a real locks And so I was thinking, ooh, i love this idea of just like mermaid hair, and I posted about it and said, oh, you know my mermaid hair. I'm trying to support and rep for the little mermaid, and so, like things that you think maybe are mundane or aren't interesting, i think there's an audience of people that needs and wants to hear that on LinkedIn. So I would definitely say sharing your work on LinkedIn.

Speaker 2: 40:38

If you're not a excuse me a writer, you know I love to write, so I would say creating articles and even newsletters on LinkedIn. But if you're not a writer sharing a picture, sharing a video what I do is I actually have a folder on my phone of Tik Toks that are interesting that I stumble across And when I want to post something on LinkedIn and I'm like I don't know what I want to post today, i might look through that folder and share a Tik Tok that I saw, that I found to be interesting, you know, and it's a good way to stimulate conversation, and I think that there's multiple ways that you can do that. If you're not a writer, you can post videos. If you enjoy videos, you could post 30 second videos of like what's one tip that is important to know in your field or in your space, and doing that, and I think what will really help you to get in front of the clients that need what you're offering is the consistency. So, even if you feel like no one engaged with the post, there's people that are seeing it And I think that the consistency means that people will be drawn to you because they know that, hey, i can go to ejamas profile and see that ejamas going to post about cohort sisters or that this is something helping black women in doctoral programs is something that is important to ejamas. So I'm going to go on to her profile because I know that that's something consistently she posts about right. So I think that LinkedIn to me if I could offer any one tool that is really really helped me as an individual and helped me in my business it's definitely been linked in. Even if you have a job, you're not looking for a job, it's just a place where there's so many infinite resources.

Speaker 2: 42:24

My opportunity to write for Forbes came because of LinkedIn. Somebody posted about a conference in 2017, 2018, and I was looking for a full time job and I applied for the to speak and they were like well, we decline your in your proposal to speak individually, but we want you on a panel with other diversity and inclusion practitioners. So I said, okay, it was unpaid And I went there. I spoke about my experiences and then there was actually an editor from Forbes in the audience And the next few days she emailed me and said Hey, we're looking to get more writers. Do you do any writing? And I was like, oh my gosh, yes, i love to write.

Speaker 2: 43:09

There's no way she could have known that because I didn't talk about writing when I was on the stage. But then I went and I shared she's like I need to see samples of your writing. The only thing I had beside my hundred plus pages dissertation was a few articles I had written on LinkedIn. So I was able to show those articles to her, which happened to be diversity, equity and inclusion related articles, and she was like, okay, these are perfect, you know. And like, five years later now I'm like a senior contributing writer for Forbes. But I think that opportunity was solely because of just me perusing LinkedIn, seeing, oh, they're having a conference and being willing to do some things for free, sometimes just because of the visibility purposes, and that turned into a really big opportunity. So I would say LinkedIn, get on LinkedIn, really start engaging on LinkedIn. I actually prefer it more than all of the other platforms because I think that Instagram algorithm is changing a lot. Twitter is what Twitter is, but I think LinkedIn is a really great place to build community.

Speaker 1: 44:13

Yeah, really, really good advice. No notes, no notes. So, as we wrap up, we have two final questions that we asked all of our guests. The first one is what is one thing that you would do differently, if any, during your doctoral degree? And I know that you sort of touched on this earlier, but I don't know if you want to share something different, yeah, what's one thing you do differently?

Speaker 2: 44:35

if you had to do it again, I would definitely have advocated for myself so I could do the topic that I really, really wanted to focus on And I would have tried to look for scholarships. right, i didn't really think about scholarships. I would have definitely tried to, and then I would have used my money better. I think I was like, especially in my master's program, i was like using my student loans for fun things, to travel, to do this, to do that. So I wasn't as responsible with my money and with my student loans. And now that I'm out and I see, oh my gosh, like I had, you know, when I came out $300,000 worth of loans, i think I could have done a better job of looking for scholarships, trying to save money in different ways, but also really advocating for myself while I was in the program and and you know, making sure that my desires were heard, versus just sort of being scared to speak up.

Speaker 1: 45:33

That's so important. And then, what is one piece of advice that you have for prospective or current Black women or non-binary doctoral students?

Speaker 2: 45:44

Find your community. When I was doing in my doctoral program, i didn't have a community of Black women that I could go to. One of my close friends started her PhD program a year or two after me, so I had heard that I could go to, but I didn't have like a community of Black women that I could go to And I think now there is. You know, i follow Black women PhDs on Instagram and there is the cohort sisters podcast And there's all of these resources where you can come together with other Black women who've already done it to ask for advice and guidance. I didn't have that, and so I would say really, really finding that community online or in person of folks who can help you or you can, you know, listen to you to get guidance from is so important because it reminds you that you're not the only one that's going through this, you're not alone, and then people can offer you advice for how they navigated the same situations that you're currently experiencing.

Speaker 1: 46:44

Yeah, great advice. We would love to have you join us in the cohort sisters community. We're actually relaunchable. by the time this goes live, we'll have relaunched our community on a new mobile app, so we'll definitely send you the info there as well.

Speaker 1: 46:57

Thank you so much, dr Janice, for sharing your journey, your inspiration and the ups and downs of your doctoral degree, as well as the amazing work that you're currently doing on workplace diversity and the importance of DEI in the workplace and in society at large. We really appreciate your time with us on the podcast today.

Speaker 2: 47:17

Thank you so much, ijama. I look forward to being in community, continuing to be in community with you, and I hope that the listeners really enjoy this episode.

Speaker 1: 47:37

Thank you again for listening to this week's episode of the Cohort Sisters podcast. If you are a black woman interested in joining the cohort sisters membership community or you're looking for more information on how to support or partner with cohort sisters, please visit our website at wwwcohortsistuscom. You can also find us on all social media platforms at cohort sisters. Don't forget to subscribe to the Cohort Sisters podcast and leave us a quick review wherever you're listening. Thank you so much for joining us this week and we'll catch you in next week's episode.