Your Journey to Doctor is Not Over with Dr. Louis Fletcher
Dr. Russell Strickland [01:00:01] Absolutely.
Dr. Russell Strickland [01:00:02] Yeah. That’s amazing. That’s amazing. Awesome. My goodness. We went all over the place, did we not, Fletcher?
Dr. Louis Fletcher [01:00:08] That’s what look, you’ve going to hang out with me. We’re going to go all over the place. You know, I got I have so many interests and I have so many passions. But I understand the core of it is I want to help people. And that’s one of the reasons why I’m the school district. But I just wanted to be a mercenary and not make as much money as I wanted to do. I’ve done that before. I can go do that. But what I say is I’m going to place in my life where it’s going to be comfortable, retirement is going to be fine. But I want to do things like help school districts and help people who are in situations, of course, to be able to get to a place where they can have a good life, too. And, you know, help people who have help police departments understand about restorative practices and teach them those things right there so that we can get back to what they call community policing, where like when I was a kid, I played for the police boys club in DC number eleven. I knew my coach was Officer Blue. We came to the neighborhood. I wasn’t running from the cops like, hey, blue. Yeah. So that was that was my coach. And I want us to be able to get back to a place where we love our police officers, we love our people in our community. And it is a community and we’re not running from people because we fear them. We’re running to them because we know who they are.
Dr. Russell Strickland [01:01:08] Yeah. Yeah, we. And that reminds when you start talking about community policing, the first thing I thought about was my daughter’s in a film class right now and they were going over West Side Story. And I remember the scene for about Officer Krupke and so, the guys were degenerates. They were they were not like, you know, they were opposing forces, but they got along, they understood each other. And there was there was community there. And these weren’t bad guys, but they were not miscreants.
Dr. Louis Fletcher [01:01:40] They had a place in their life when that was who they are but that doesn’t mean that’s who they are going to be.
Dr. Russell Strickland [01:01:43] Everybody understood that and all and the cops, even though they were kind of making fun of him and doing whatever they were doing, it was clearly a community thing. It was not an enemy situation and that’s kind of what I thought about.
Dr. Louis Fletcher [01:01:56] And it goes to that it goes to like my favorite Shakespeare guy, but one of my favorite things from Shakespeare, as much as I know that I know who I am, but I do not know yet who I will be. I think that kind of hit that kind of hit some of those right there. When you see a kid, you know, like that kid’s a little rough right there. Maybe he’s in a gang or something like that. And he’s like, what is that who you will be? Well, if you leave them to what’s going on and let them go is a natural process right there. Maybe that’s who they’re going to be. But if you if you intervene and you understand, it’s like the kid is pretty smart and there’s probably something else out there for him. And you get a relationship or not saying I’m changing your life because people are like, what are you doing? Let’s have relations. Let’s talk what’s going on, what you’ve been doing today. Eventually they’re going to say, well, what have you been doing today? And then that could turn into a friendship that leads them away from a dark place that they would have been in. And that’s the way I see it.
Dr. Russell Strickland [01:02:41] Yeah, that’s true. Awesome. Well, Dr. Fletcher, if someone wanted to continue this conversation with you, what’s the best way for them to reach out, get in touch about any of these things that we’ve been touching on today?
Dr. Louis Fletcher [01:02:52] Well, I think the probably the best way for me universally is LinkedIn. I’ve used that since it started. And it has a messaging kind of piece right there that allows you to reach out to maybe have a specific question or something like that if you want to get me to do a keynote speech for you or anything like that, very much, very much open to it. You know, if it’s training for restorative practice, I have a cadre of people that could probably put together to do that. And we do this training in the state of Colorado and we’ve it we do it nationwide. It’s a matter it’s obviously for a fee service. So, I can see them out there work for me and that kind of thing. But I tell you, we are looking at changing lives and transforming the way people interact with each other. And, you know, we have a certain joy in life while we do it. So, reach out to me in LinkedIn if you want to do that kind of stuff, you know, that’s what I’m here for.
Dr. Russell Strickland [01:03:44] Yeah, well, we will link to that in your TED talk and some other things in our show notes as well. Folks can find that at Dissertationdone.com\blog and just look for Dr. Louis Fletcher episode and it will be there and have those points of contact in there as well.
Dr. Louis Fletcher [01:04:01] Well, I really appreciate you reaching out to me, and I think this is a I wish I had something like this to look at when I was going through the process, because I could use some company, especially the mode that I was able to get my doctorate done. It was like a lot of me and my kids. So those kids are pretty smart now because I was talking to them that whole time.
Dr. Russell Strickland [01:04:21] Well, that’s the that’s what you do. You invest in your kids and hopefully they pay off for it for society in the long run. But, yeah, I, I love being able to help folks through this process because I see so many folks, they’re going to be doing the sorts of things that you’re doing right now when they when they get to the other side, whether they’re having their own doctoral degree. They’ve talked to me about the people that they want to help, the communities that need their advice and their support. And everybody that goes for doctoral degree, it seems like, wants to change the world somehow. And there’s nothing wrong with making yourself better off to in the process. But having that that heart to make this world a better place, it’s something I believe if it is a meaning to life, I would say no. But you can make there be meaning to life by making other people’s lives better. So that’s why I like working with these folks because they’re all in that same mindset.
Dr. Louis Fletcher [01:05:18] I agree. That’s gospel right there. And, you know, and when you are doing well for yourself, it gives me opportunity to give so much I give to charity and foundations and stuff each year. So, you kind of put you pay it forward and I believe in paying it forward.
Dr. Russell Strickland [01:05:32] Yeah. Awesome. Well, listen, thank you so much for being here with us today, Dr. Fletcher. I’ll just remind everyone quickly that today’s episode brought to my Dissertation Done. So, if you are an adult doctoral student and you are facing your dissertation now or in the future, reach out to us a DissertationDone.com/done and we’ll have a conversation, see if we might be able get you to graduation sometime in the next year or so. Cut a couple of years off your time to graduation and if you want to get your message out there into the world, credibility comes with having first name doctor. But authority comes with literally writing the book on your area of expertise. And we help folks with that, too. You can reach out to Dissertationdone.com/book to find out more about that. And again, Dr. Fletcher, I really appreciate your time today. Had a great time.
Dr. Louis Fletcher [01:06:19] Thank you. I enjoyed it as well.
Dr. Russell Strickland [01:06:21] And for everyone else, have a wonderful day and go out and live your unconventional life.
Outro [01:06:31] 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.
