Balance, Stick-to-It-iveness, and Planning with Dr. Preston Cherry
Dr. Preston Cherry [00:39:59]
Yeah, just don’t let it be a barrier for me. It was it was statistics. I was twenty years removed from stats. Twenty years. I mean, and that was actually pretty good. Back in. Hey, listen, junior senior year high school, a little bit of college and particularly in high school, I didn’t take another math course much community college first. Then I went to the university. But that’s when I got reintroduced to stats. It was three, three and a half, almost four years after high school. When I left high school, I was the college level math. I was doing stats and everything on the back. I mean, I was doing it by hand. That wasn’t my kid. And but when I went back, I didn’t I lost some of that. And just imagine just four years now and. I went another 14, 15, 16, whatever it was, and they started throwing the stat language back at me again and I remember what really but you know what? I partnered with someone and I partnered with someone. I was like, OK, as long as I could just get through and listen to. Here’s another thing. If somebody share me with this, I’m sure it’s probably academic. Why? And so forgive me if I’m not if I’m just not discovering or discovering some new or whatever somebody told me this: B’s get degrees. B’s get degrees. Meaning sometimes this goes to the process and this happened to me. Whereas, listen, I need to get a B in stats. I didn’t need to get an A. I was in a semester where I had a couple of classes where they needed my attention. They needed and I needed to just get through maybe stats in order to heighten or elevate the other classes. Sometimes all A’s are not possible in a particular particular semester. And again, and as I look at it, there’s no GPA for me. They stop mattering because there’s no GPA on my Ph.D. degree.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:42:09]
Yeah, that’s right. You’re not going to find a whole lot of people. I mean, maybe if you’re in certain circles in academia, you might find this, but you’re going gonna find a whole lot of people are asking what was your GPA and your doctoral degree? And a lot of people are going to ask what you wrote your dissertation on unless you’re in academia. By the time they say that you’re Doctor So-and-so, they’re deferring to you. It’s one of those we’re-not-worthy kind of things for most people because ninety-nine percent of the population doesn’t have that doctoral degree. You just finished that. And you’re good.
Dr. Preston Cherry [00:42:41]
Also to if I interject to it’s like if you don’t have a I don’t like the word weakness, but if you have something that you’re less good at, OK, that also helps the next stage of your career academic career, because now we’re getting into research teams. Right now we have a I have friends right now. There’s probably I know about three or four research team. They know each other well. They they pump out a lot of publications, you know, it’s because they have a team of five and somebody is good at creating data. Somebody’s doing this. Somebody’s doing that. And they got them a nice rhythm. So we don’t have to be excellent and everything. Yes. For me, statistics. Can I interpret them? Yes. Do I know about a few models? Yes. Do I know about fifteen different models. No. I mean so so somebody specializes in a model that I don’t know much about. OK, well then we’ll, we’ll partner up and review that project.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:43:41]
Yeah. Yes. Good point. Well let’s talk a little bit of the time we have left about what happened after the journey because everybody relates to the journey that that’s that’s in the middle of it right now. But you defended your dissertation. Congratulations, Dr. Cherry. What does the world look like to you at that point?
Dr. Preston Cherry [00:44:04]
It was a land of opportunity for me. I tell you, I was so happy. And matter of fact, as soon as I got ABD, I started all but dissertation. I started I started looking for positions. And and so I took that semester to to do so. And I was teaching all the to as well. So that’s another thing. And the workload I forgot, I forgot all about it. We need to talk about that time as big time and also not even to sometimes lead in your own class, which I did for for a year and a half, along with taking other classes along writing. And also also I started a business when I was in that was well, there was a lot to me three years later. I’m I’m happy because I have my runway and everything like that. But, yeah, that’s what happened for me is I listen, I, I wanted to I always thought about academia. First of all, I’ve grown I’ve grown to appreciate and want to do more research. I didn’t think I was going to be that way when I first came in. But now I do want to do the research, submitting three for publication here about a month or so or to see how that works. But yeah, I always thought that academia still to academia is going to be my fixed annuity. All right.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:45:20]
That’s the financial planner talking.
Dr. Preston Cherry [00:45:23]
Right, right, right, right. I wanted to share that. I wanted to you know, here’s another thing. Those interviews, that process, that whole semester, I took a semester to look for positions going on the higher ed education website. And look, that isn’t just looking for a position, really, to know how to decode certain things and all that type of stuff I end up going on. For four or five campus visits, an interview like seven times, I think, and didn’t make it the first two around. Anyway, I was busy flying around all that time. That takes a lot. So that was my first eye opening. I was like, OK, now I’ve made it ABD. Now I know how to do my dissertation because it takes a year in order to really find something because the process is so long. And that’s when I started. That was my first thing. That was good. Yeah. So my second thing would already had started, which I alluded to, which just for me I had, I had come from being in the professional world, the private sector not already had professional contacts. I had already been involved with my profession and all that, and I wanted to keep that up. So I didn’t even mention the board work that I was doing during that time, too. And everybody I think there was a I think there was I think was a betting ring on me, whether I’d make it or not, because I had so much stuff going on. Right. Which I don’t advise.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:46:45]
So those of you listening, don’t do what Dr. Cherry did.
Dr. Preston Cherry [00:46:48]
Yeah, right. Right, right.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:46:50]
That’s a lot of plates to keep spinning.
Dr. Preston Cherry [00:46:52]
That’s a lot. So I was just about. Yes, you’re right on that. I was just about to say that to that is that is that is what is an outlier. So go ahead and winsorize that that outlier, you know, is not suggesting your research as far as this is concerned. Yes. But yeah, I just happen to have that. That was just my personal makeup and going back on it to I wish I had more time and more even zeroed in focus so I can enjoy more the research. I would have had more participation, say maybe I’ve gotten maybe a couple of small publications or something like that, worked on a lit review as know. And and I can tell you when I was there and taken down that I have left. Oh my goodness. The cohorts that came behind us. They’re doing a fabulous job of getting a couple of publications. So while they’re there, because they didn’t have as much as I did going on, but that was personal preference. But getting back on the thing, on the question questions, so looking for a job, one, number two expanding my business, my practice, that’s what I wanted to do. Also zeroing in are trying to hone in, publishing the the dissertations. That’s also important. Getting that and getting out, getting out of there. Now, I’m six months removed. I’m trying to publish my submit my right now so they can publish in the spring and then try to come up with some sort of research agenda. You know, somebody suggested to me, don’t make your research wide. Make it narrow and deep. And learning that right off the bat… That’s the type of structure that will get your research agenda, where you can get to things that you were talking about Dr. Strickland, which was right, and use those to repackage those to write books, make presentations as speakers become a subject matter expertise all of that.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:48:45]
And you’ve got, like you mentioned before, you you’ve got a foot on both sides of the of the river, so to speak, with academia and research. We talked a lot about that. But then how does that help you on the business side in terms of your number one, your expertise, the perceived value to folks, but number two actually being able to do things on that business side? How does how does the the research of the PhD and the work in academia help feed the other side for you?
Dr. Preston Cherry [00:49:16]
Yes, this is a great question. And they do both. One does for the other. And having having been out practicing that helped me with it. It helped me which structure. Stick-to-it-tiveness. And this vision, all those soft skills that that that are necessary to get through the dissertation process, whereas someone was just and again, this is and sometimes just ability and personality traits and characteristics of what not some people have more so than others and they just use upon their strengths. However, if you just put that aside, there are things that you can learn being outside of academia, coming into academia that will help maximize the process that we’ve been talking about. And it sure did for me. I was able to compartmentalize. I was able to prioritize as well and all the other -izes that you have. But I was able to do that because I had transferred so many things. I had entered into into the private sector, into now academia. Also, I was aware and knowledgeable about my subject matter. So I have a PhD in personal financial planning. So I was able to I wasn’t new coming into the concepts that familiaity with the fundamentals and what was going on that helped me. Now I was able to — it help a lot. It helped a lot and I kind of shared that with some of my peers that didn’t have that it just because I wanted to help. And they helped me because that’s where where I didn’t have I was sufficient, insufficient. In some areas they were sufficient in other areas, particularly with the research family. And the question I had all these ideas, but I didn’t know how to really structure it into a research question.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:51:13]
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. One of my guests on the podcast a while ago he found out that his research that — he runs an organization that helps school districts with setting codes of conduct for their employees. And he his dissertation, he was actually researching in that area and he found out that he could take that research and then apply it what he was doing in his business. And he had a mature business. I mean, it had been around for a while when he started his doctoral program. But once he had earned his doctoral degree and he started being able to tell them how the concepts that he was sharing with them and and what his organization does for these districts was research that his business took off.
Dr. Preston Cherry [00:52:01]
Oh, yes. Oh, my goodness. That type of communication type of communication and expertise you can market that all day long, all day long. And it does give and did for me. It gave me an almost an improved way. I improved upon the way I was able to communicate to my clients or my audience about what the mechanisms that were behind or supporting the things that we hear on the news far as financial planning is concerned, just theory and all that. They’re not going to want to listen to a regurgitation of an academic paper. But if you’re able to to explain with a little bit more depth, you know, the why and how this is connected to that and be able to do that and and layperson’s terms. Exactly. It makes it it makes a difference.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:52:53]
We had to think when I was in as an undergraduate, I was in physics and math when I was an undergraduate. I have a very eclectic background, but we had something that back then that we called the grandma theorem. And the idea was, if you would learn something in your physics class and you could go explain it to your grandmother, then you knew it well enough that you really understood it. If you could tell someone something and this is how it works and they could understand it. They could give it back to you and say, well, that means this, this and this. And they understand it. Then you understand it because you were able to transfer that knowledge. And I think that’s very important. A lot of times, folks, when they get into that PhD and dissertation level, they want to talk up here. But if you can talk to anybody, then that’s when you really understand it. And that’s also when you become a lot more marketable, when you can communicate to more people.
Dr. Preston Cherry [00:53:46]
And I have I have a mentor right now that is able to do that. He is an expert in doing this. And he actually he actually is intentional about what he does. And you’re talking about this. This person is a phenomenal human being when he talks about research in his subject matter. I don’t get impressed often, but because in an extraordinary and special people is kind of overused. But this is one of them. He is fabulous and he’s intentional about taking just like what you said, the grandma theorem. Yeah. He’s intentional about making all of his presentations, fifth or sixth grade, level as far as its reading and his communication style, you know, the dumb it down and make people feel stupid. Right. It’s just so clear that you don’t have to know anything about what he’s talking about. Yeah, it’s fantastic. And yes, he’s very successful.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:54:43]
When I when I talk stats to our students, when we’re going through and working on quantitative projects, we don’t use words that they would hear math class. We’re talking concepts. And the only number we talk about is five percent, because that happens to be the number we pick to say when something’s significant or not. That is all concepts is all words and and images and things that make sense. We talk more about how you would convict somebody in a criminal trial than we talk about, you know, the numbers and averages and things like that, because it’s the concepts that are important. When you understand those, you really can’t understand what other people are talking about with regard to anything, honestly.
Dr. Preston Cherry [00:55:26]
Yes, absolutely. And I’ll give I’ll give a book in what you were just talking about, the profession, helping the academic and academic health and the profession. Remember, on The Matrix,.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:55:37]
I’m a big movie buff — Love it.
Dr. Preston Cherry [00:55:39]
Oh, yes. Oh, man. The Keymaker. All right. Oh, my goodness. You don’t know when you were going to use it or how you were going to use it, but. the keymaker had had had a key for you, and it opened doors, it opened doors, and that’s what that’s what the Ph.D. and doctoral degree does, it opens doors beyond measure, you know. And so so the doctoral process for me, I was the keymaker and I had my look at it. And now I’m starting to a a little bit I’m like, OK, opportunity presents itself. I’m like, oh, I got a key for that.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:56:14]
And it is kind of the master key because it opens all the doors. When you when you have a doctoral degree, even some doors open, people will come and say, well, you got a doctoral degree with this dog, you’re the expert. So that’s a great point, Dr. Cherry. Let’s uh, I want to kind of wrap things up there, but before we go, I’d like for you to tell folks how can they get in touch with you that your personal finance, your company, Concurrent, the work that you do in academics. If anybody wants to get in touch with you about any of it, what’s what’s the best thing for them to do?
Dr. Preston Cherry [00:56:49]
Yes, academically, I can be found at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay. So I just Google that along my name and I take you to my faculty page and my email address, which is CherryP@uwgb.edu. So you’ll find it there. My company is Concurrent Financial Planning. Really the life centered financial planning type of company where we’re matching your lifestyle with your money, your life aspirations, with your money goals and figure out what you want to do in life. And the moniker is, let your your life lead your money, not your money lead your life.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:57:25]
That’s awesome that that notion of being strategic about what you do is so important in everything. I mean, we talk about with our dissertation students, you talk about when financial planning clients, it’s really important. So take some time, not every day necessarily, because you can’t do that, but at least every quarter, take a day and think, where do I really want to be in a year, in five years and 10 years? And am I doing things that is contributing to that or or not? Because so often we just are doing things in life, just seem to come at us. And if you are intentional about what you’re doing, you can make it. You can make a lot bigger decisions than you might think.
Dr. Preston Cherry [00:58:02]
Absolutely, well, I think I was saying it pretty well; you just said it even better. So thank you, Dr. Strickland. I appreciate that. And that’s a good segue-way to where they can find me, which is ConcurrentFP, which is for financial planning dot com. And you can also follow me on Twitter @DrPrestonCherry. And I’m also at LinkedIn and Facebook as well.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:58:25]
Dr. Preston Cherry, ConcurrentFP.com. We’ll drop that stuff in the show notes. So anybody who missed it, you can head over to our our blog on DissertationDone.com and get the links there. Thank you so much for being with us today. Dr. Cherry. I want to remind folks once again, this episode has been brought to you by Dissertation Done. And if you’re in the mode of getting ready to start on your dissertation, you’re working on it, you’re struggling with it, or you’re just about fed up with it. See if we might not have a conversation with a DissertationDone.com/done. Our students, typically graduate about one to two years faster than the other folks in their peer group. And if you would like to be in that group and Fast-Track Your Dissertation, let’s have a conversation. Go to DissertationDone.com/done. And if you are out there, you’re an expert like Dr. Cherry and you’ve got something to share with the world. The dissertation, the doctoral degree is the key. But in order for people to know that you’re there, you’ve got to magnify. You’ve got to amplify. And there’s a great way to do that is by becoming a published author, we take our folks from a blank page, not even a concept, a blank page, all the way to being a published author in a lot less time than you might think it would take. Go to DissertationDone.com/book and see if that might be a good fit for you. Dr. Cherry, thank you again so much for joining me. I really enjoyed our conversation today.
Dr. Preston Cherry [00:59:46]
Thank you for having me. Me, too.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:59:48]
All right. And for everybody else, go out there and live your unconventional life. Have a great day.
Outro [00:59:58]
This has been an unconventional life. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed today’s episode, subscribe now to keep getting inspirational stories of unconventional lives as soon as they’re released. Until then, go out and live your best unconventional life.
