Maximize Your Company’s Success with Dr. David Braswell
Dr. David Braswell 24:08
I know it sounds a little corny, but I mean this from the bottom of my heart. These are nuances that saved me money that enabled me to expand the size of my, of the larger group that I wanted to be representative of. And these are things that my committee, they never gotten into those types of things. I mean, my committee was fine and I’m sure it I think mine, I don’t think I’m special. My committee was good people, but they just didn’t look at a dissertation the same way that you coached me to look at going about it not and I think it saved me months.
Dr. Russell Strickland 25:00
So we talk a lot on this podcast and I talk with my students about the difference between a traditional, and an unconventional doctoral student that kind of draw the line at traditional or young kids that that are 27 years old, go into graduate school so that they can become professors. A lot of your committee members come from that traditional mold. And they don’t think about there being another way to do things. And so they don’t think about compressing time as being a goal at all. It’s just not even it doesn’t register within that. That’s the goal. So that’s one thing that happens. I think another thing that happens is, there are people who think quite honestly, listen, this is your last chance to prove that you can do this stuff before you’re out on your own. So it’s kind of like the the inspector or the driving test. Whoever the whoever’s gonna proctor the driving test when you’re getting your license for the first time. They’re not telling you how to put the car into gear and when to stop and how to look both ways. They’re just telling you to do certain things. And either you can do them where you can’t. And if you can’t, then you fail. And if you can you pass. And that’s not a wrong way of doing things necessarily. But the problem is that when you get to the dissertation, you haven’t had someone instruct you really first you didn’t get all that time driving the car with mom or dad them telling you do it this way. Do don’t do it that way. And I think that’s part of what coaching allows is for you to go through the process with someone pointing this stuff out instead of just expecting that, you know, you’ll figure it out one way or the other.
Dr. David Braswell 26:32
I probably talked to a half a dozen school superintendents a day, virtually, and there’s never a week goes by that I don’t really hear of a connection of someone that’s in their dissertation or writing their dissertation. an hour before we signed on here. A gentleman from Mississippi He said, I’m sorry, I didn’t get back to you. We’ve closed the code writing thing we needed to schedule the days for it. And he said, I’m sorry, I’ve been delayed. He said, I’ve been at at Ole Miss. And for a summer program, I’m in my third year of my dissertation. And he said, it’s just, I’ve been introduced to that again, and the stress is back on. I can’t tell you over the years since I graduated, how many people I’ll just say, hey, let me just send you a name. If If you really want your life back and you want to get this done, and I can’t tell you how many people I’ll talk to a year later and they’ll say, you know, I’m, I just didn’t call in, I’m struggling and all that money that was spent during that time, rather than just go go from point A to point B. And I don’t want your viewers to think I’m being compensated to say these things. I don’t have a script. You haven’t offered me a penny. I just really hinting. No, I just, I just really think that it’s very beneficial if somebody wants to, to get her done.
Dr. Russell Strickland 28:25
And the thing is, at the point in our lives, where all of the students that I work with are, the time is worth so much more than than the money. I mean, it’s to get you know, that’s the thing that you told me when, when I asked you about the best part of graduate you said, I got my life back. And to get your life back a year or two earlier, is you know, you can’t put a put a price tag on that. But if you try to your business improved dramatically once you started having these credentials, and you could point back to the work that you’ve done. Is that right?
Dr. David Braswell 28:58
Yeah, not but but I need to ask I need to start, I need to state that I had a very successful business before I went to get my dissertation. The primary reason I went to get my dissertation was it was a bucket list. And I was I was 54 years old when I started to get that dissertation. I’ve been working on these, we had the solutions in place. I had been doing unconventional research for years, and I was proving to the market out there at the K 12 market that there was revenue at risk with our solutions. After I got into the program, though, and then when you and I started laying out the proposal and all of that, a little light came on and I thought why don’t I take this to the next level. And actually, instead of just accomplishing that bucket list, actually do something that’s going to help my company and it did.
Dr. Russell Strickland 30:01
And that’s part of the reason why the fact that you bring up the company was successful already. I’m assuming that but yes, it was successful already. And that’s why I stress hitting double and high double digit growth on a successful mature company is tough. It doesn’t happen very often. Big superstar companies don’t tend to do that. So that was an amazing accomplishment after you graduated.
Dr. David Braswell 30:25
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Was it was a nice unexpected gift.
Dr. Russell Strickland 30:32
nice bonus. And, and I’m sure if you decide to set that up for an exit. That’s going to help out quite a lot when that revenue jumps up that high in a few years.
Dr. David Braswell 30:42
Yeah, yeah. When I’m 100 I’m gonna retire.
Dr. Russell Strickland 30:48
That’s a that’s kind of when you do something you love right? And that my wife keeps asking me what are you going to do about retirement? Die. She stopped doing something else. When you when you’re getting good at it
Dr. David Braswell 31:03
well my wife asked me that too and I said, Well, I don’t think I need to retire because my company is my mistress and she she looked at me for a minute, Russell, we’ve been married 35 years Yeah, yes buddy and she said, okay, you can have UpSlope as a mistress but only UpSlope.
Dr. Russell Strickland 31:27
Well, as long as they can roll me out in the wheelchair, I think I can speak for a lot longer and keep doing it. Absolutely. Well. Dr. Braswell, what would you say is the best thing how has your life changed now that you’ve got this bucket list thing done? And again, whether that’s business or personal or whatever it might be what do you think was the most exciting rewarding thing that you’ve been able to accomplish since you graduated?
Dr. David Braswell 31:54
Well on on a. On a laughable note, I have realized that That it’s easier to have people listen to my solutions without having to convince a mom right just by having the title of Dr. Dave. Absolutely. I my wife asked me that question over dinner one time and she says, What’s the one thing you’ve noticed now that you’ve, you’ve got the title. And I said, I can come up with some pretty stupid ideas and they all still listen to me. Follow me, but the most exciting thing is walking into a room knowing that I I can rattle off literature reviews, and there were hundreds of them just off the top of my mind, and and that adds value and credibility or two What you’re saying when you’re speaking to a large audience of what, which I do constantly. The other thing that has been very surprising to me is that a lot of people look up to us as as the that 3% that has actually jumped through all those hurdles. Right. And I think that comes with a lot of responsibility to not only encourage people if they have the desire to do it, that they can do it. Right, but also make sure that you’re giving them good sound advice.
Dr. Russell Strickland 33:43
True. True because a lot of people if you if your first name is Doctor, they’re gonna believe what you say. So careful. I my wife will get upset with this with me sometimes, but I’ll tell her if I’m always right because either I know what I’m talking about. or Shut up. Yeah, I know the difference now. And, and so if you don’t know what you’re talking about, yeah, it’s very important that you don’t say something unless you’re very clear that you’re telling them. I don’t know, here’s how we can think through that this is maybe this will work. If you’re very clear about that, then then it’s okay. But if you’re telling them that you know something, they’re going to assume that you’re telling them the truth and that you know what you’re talking about. Very important. All right. Well, listen. Dr. Braswell, I want to thank you very much for being with us here today. I really do appreciate your time. How is it that folks who you know, maybe work in a school system or with a school district who might have need of learning how to manage their employees behavior and to set those expectations? How would they get in touch with you to learn more about that? Well, they could
Dr. David Braswell 34:52
Go to our website, which is www.upslopesolutions.com at UpSlope Solutions is one one strand of sniglet that they can call us out on our 1-800 number and that’s (800) 599-0350 extension 1 to get me and they can email me at dbraswell@upslopes.com.
Dr. Russell Strickland 35:33
Awesome. And I heard the reference to sniglet it in there if you don’t remember what that means look it up.
Dr. David Braswell 35:40
A lot of your audience may not be old enough to know a lot of the light.
Dr. Russell Strickland 35:45
If that one that one struck me about two or three words later, lightweight, I know what that is.
Dr. David Braswell 35:51
And it was first introduced as a regular word I think in the dictionary on Saturday Night Live. Yeah, twice right. Yeah.
Dr. Russell Strickland 36:02
Well, Dr. Braswell, thank you so much for joining us here today. Again, this episode was brought to you by Dissertation Done and if you want to get your dissertation done as quickly and as stress free as Dr. Braswell did then reach out to us at www.dissertationdone.com
Outro 36:23
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