Getting Through Your PhD One Day at a Time with Dr. Stefanie Boyer
Dr. Stefanie Boyer [00: 20:24]
It was it, you know, and, and it was so scary, because you go up onto the stage, and you had to have your lapel mic and everything, and you’re looking out and it was scary, but he would come in, and he would tell captivating stories. So interesting. And then there was another woman that was in there with me a couple different women at different but so there’s two different people that would work at one time. And you would just be helping to teach a class, he would come in, he would do his lectures. And then the rest of the class, we were administering cases, or we create the exams. And so I thought, oh, my goodness, he can literally work if he wants two hours a week and make over six figures and have this amazing quality of life and a consulting business. And so I was like, I want to do that. That’s the best that I was looking at is like, okay, you know, divorce rate isn’t nearly as high here. Because that’s what I always really cared about was having this really great family. And so I saw that and I said, you know what, I think I want to do this, but my test scores were not the best. I had an injury, a back injury. When I was in college, I was a javelin thrower. And it came time to sit for the GMAT and try to take this to get high enough scores. But I had a hard time sitting I had a hard time concentrating. And so the first time I took the GMAT, I didn’t even get a high enough score to get into the same college for my MBA as I had a 4.0 in my undergraduate at at USF. So I had to come in again, and, you know, retake the test to get just the bare minimum, because I couldn’t focus I was on painkillers, and I couldn’t sit down. And eventually, I trained myself to be able to sit for long periods. And now it’s much better. But I mean, it was really, it was really a struggle just to get the bare minimum to get into the program.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:22:18]
Yeah, that gives us a really tough because it’s not like you can rest your back, really, unless you’re literally laid up for weeks at a time.
Dr. Stefanie Boyer [00:22:25]
Right.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:22:26]
So, um, but one of the things I found in there that was really insightful is the fact that you check divorce rates on a career option. Me personally, I made a decision a long time ago, I want to be able to be there for for my kids. And I’ve got a whole lot of personal stuff that led up to that. But I want it to, to, to be there. And so I have a job now that I created that allows me to work from home or anywhere else that I might want to, generally speaking to control my schedule. So if something comes in, it’s a family thing that goes into the calendar. Well, I’m just busy. And my clients don’t know that I’m busy with, you know, taking my son to baseball practice or swim practice or something as opposed to helping another client. It’s just like, nope, I’m busy at that time. And so that’s something that’s always been very important to me. But you’re kind of taking it to another level of being able to say, Well, I looked at this the actuarial statistics on this career path as well, which is awesome. I really, I really think that’s, that’s very insightful.
Dr. Stefanie Boyer [00:23:29]
Well, you know, you you have time freedom, you have location freedom, right. And it’s all about being able to
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:23:37]
Function with or you got to be careful. So I’m still not at the point where I feel like I can walk away from things, and they’ll keep running without me, which is one of my goals right now. But so the location freedom is a double edged sword because I went and gave us symposium in Paris one day, which is one of these amazing things like how the hell did this happen, right. But I literally had that moment of, you know, the hotel room wasn’t quite ready yet. They let me drop off my bags. And, and so I was sitting literally outside of the Notre Dame Cathedral, this is before the fire and everything and checking emails, like, this is not my life. There’s like no way. But that that, like I said, so you can work from anywhere. But then again, you also corner sort of have to work from anywhere in a sense that, you know, when you go on vacation, you kind of bring work with you and you’re in your briefcase, and the whole office is right there in that bag you took with you. So you kind of keep check on things. So that’s the part that I’m still working on myself. But it has been a lot of fun to be able to do things this way.
Dr. Stefanie Boyer [00:24:39]
Right. I mean, if you’re going to work, why not work outside of a cathedral in Paris or in Tortuga? Right.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:24:49]
Yeah, that was, that was really one of those moments like I know that folks have have talked about having these kind of stepping outside of their own selves moments after they graduated and like is this really my life? I mean, I grew up in a small town, little, you know, literally one stoplight town, when I was growing up, didn’t even have a high school in my town, we had to go to the next town over to go to high school. And then later in life, I was outside, you know, checking emails outside of Notre Dame Cathedral while preparing for my seminar that I’m giving in Paris and I don’t speak like more than I think, you know, probably doing glaze is about as much French as I had. I know. And that’s enough to get by appears. Surprisingly, if you ask someone if they can speak English, in French, they’re generally nice enough to do that.
Dr. Stefanie Boyer [00:25:36]
That’s so true. It’s so true. Just learn a little bit at least yeah.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:25:40]
Yeah, that’s the that’s the thing. I think I came across when people I always before I went, people were saying, people in Paris are so rude. Um, no, I think it’s kind of rude if you walk up to somebody and speak to them in a foreign language and expect them to talk back. And so you know, someone comes to me in in, in America and starts speaking German to me. I’m like, dude, you’re in America. What do you do?
Dr. Stefanie Boyer [00:26:04]
Right? No, right?
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:26:05]
Over there. That’s not rude. That’s just like, why are you, you know, learn three words.
Dr. Stefanie Boyer [00:26:12]
Sure exactly, exactly.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:26:15]
But anyway, um, what kind of what moment? Did you have like that? So you graduated, you got your doctoral degree. And all of a sudden, you you were in this moment, you were looking around, like, I can’t believe this is my life. This is not me doing this?
Dr. Stefanie Boyer [00:26:29]
And no, I mean, gosh, I’ve had I’ve had a few of those moments for sure. Just even with our with our app that we have, just being called doctor, you know, I never really thought could this really be possible? Even my dad when I was going into grad school, on his birthday, I showed him in his card, I put the acceptance letter that I got into the doctoral program, and that they were going to even pay me. And I would have a tuition waiver, right. And he fell on the floor. And he was really exaggerating. But you know, leading up to that, I was like, oh, I don’t know, if you want to do that. Or, you know, you know, just trying to really take the pressure off? Because he didn’t I don’t think he thought I would get in I didn’t think I would get in I just kind of kept asking, did I get in? I want to do the program. But you know, just being able to say, wow, you know, I made it through and your life is so much better once you get through it. It’s hard when you’re going through the program. I mean, I was at a point where I wanted to quit every single day, because it was so hard. I would stay up all night reading and rereading the article. So I was ready in my seminars. And then I wouldn’t remember anything because I stayed up all night. Over and over
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:27:47]
When I was in grad school. So folks have been listening to this for a while. No, I actually went to two different doctoral programs. Because at the end of my first graduate stent, my thesis advisor died suddenly in a plane crash. So wasn’t quite the end of that stent. But then I had to make a decision. Do I want to sort of start over? Or do I want to, you know, I decided to move on and actually make a little money. Because I was in my mid 20s. And making like $13,000, a year in University in Chicago is very difficult. But I remember very, very clearly, that this problem set that they given us, it was very, very difficult. And everybody in the class struggled and struggled and struggled and we put hours and hours and hours into it. And we all walked into class, everybody’s like, did you get number such and such? And everybody’s like, no. So we walked in resigned that, okay, we’re going to turn in these papers, we didn’t, we fail, whatever. And he came back and said, well, if you guys need a little bit more time, and the entire class is like no. Just tell us. There’s only so much you can learn on your own. Sometimes being taught’s okay. But I do remember that sort of thing. It’s spending late late nights and working really, really hard and still feeling like you’re coming up short. And then of course, the professor was like, oh, well, I found this to be really, really tough, too. Because there’s a little bit in here that like I really struggle with and like, you’ve been doing this for 40 years. What do you mean, you struggle with it? Why are you telling us to do this? But that, that that school, that was their thing is like we’re trying to replace ourselves. Basically, we’re world class and we need you to be world class or else, you know, what’s going to happen to the profession moving forward. So it was a very interesting time and place to be.
Dr. Stefanie Boyer [00:29:32]
Exactly. And you know, I just I sit back now and I just I feel so fortunate that I got through it. And I had friends that would tell me just get through today and I’m like, No, I would a quit. Just give me some vodka and I’ll drink it and forget about all of this, you know, and they’re like, Just do me a favor. Just another day, another day. And it was like a year and a half of that, like just another day to finally get through. But I mean what you get on On the other side is truly amazing. And if I wouldn’t have gone into this, I wouldn’t have had a chance to design this application that we’ve created to help with sales training. And I mean, for that, truly I kind of look back. And I think I can’t believe that this is where we are. Because if you would have told me, you know, three or four years ago, we would be creating an app, or, you know, this whole training and we would have thousands of people using our system every single semester, I would have just laughed to say
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:30:31]
It wasn’t on the roadmap, right? It wasn’t something conceivable at that time. That’s one of the huge gifts that this doctoral degree gives, is is a future that you, you can’t fully plan for ,you’re preparing for it but you’re never really fully planning where you’re going to go.
Dr. Stefanie Boyer [00:30:46]
Exactly. And I wasn’t seeking this out. And if you would have said, Oh, you’re going to create this video game, you know, the simulation. I’m like, I don’t really play video games that maybe when I was a kid, I did. But they found me because of my position and because of what I was doing.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:31:05]
Rainmakers, but first, you said something else I thought was really good. Your friends kept telling you just get through today. Tell me about those friends. What What was that like?
Dr. Stefanie Boyer [00:31:16]
Well, one of my friends named Dean, she was getting her MBA with me. And she had always may be considered to do her dissertation. But she had two small kids. And so she just kind of went on to her professional life and she’s doing amazing thing she does maybe want to go back and get her dissertation and finish that. But she, you know, she I had to have that support network. And I had some friends that were in the doctoral program, maybe at in other other areas, other disciplines, like in psychology, you know, we had this training program, we had a cohort, and you would take classes in different areas, and you get to meet some of the people that you were in different dissertation categories with different parts of the programs. And you just have to have that support network of people. And gosh, you know, it was just it was, it was such a difficult time. It’s such a struggle, but my friends really cared. And they knew that at the end of the day, it would be worth it. And I just had to kind of trick myself into one day at a time going in, and they would and they’d say, you know, what, how can we help you? Like, don’t worry, they would listen, they would, you know, call me to see how I was doing. And I kind of had this tribe of people that were trying to help me and cheer me on that really wanted me to succeed. And that’s so important to have that.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:32:43]
I hope everybody’s listening to that, because that’s exactly what I was hoping you were going to say when I was asking about your friends. It’s so important. People undervalue that, to a degree that I cannot fully articulate. They think if I just work hard enough, you know, I can get this thing done. And you do need support, you need operational support. You talked about a process before? Well, the problem is nobody knows what the process is going into this thing. You’ve not done a dissertation before. Unless you are a real oddball, who has finished a dissertation, isn’t going back for. But but but so the process, then you need help with that. But the emotional piece that you mentioned, there, of you know, whatever it is that worked for you, for you was one day at a time, you know, for other people, it’s going to be planning and really seeing what the long path is, and marking off new milestones along the way, whatever it is, have that support, make sure you find folks around you who can, you know, both help you operationally and emotionally, so, so important. Those folks know what they’re talking about, you know, the operational folks hopefully know what they’re talking about. But even on the emotional side, I’m sure if you didn’t have any other friends who were like, you know, Stefanie, I’m going through this too, or, you know, I’m sure you can do it, you know, you’re the one who inspires me, if you didn’t hear that some from some of the other folks in the doctoral degree program, the person who was out working after she got her MBA, she probably that those, those emotional support notes would have probably fallen on deaf ears eventually, because you’re like, you don’t really know what you’re talking about. You’re not. But to find somebody else that is in your shoes that can also help you with that emotional support is also important. Not everybody has to have that. But at least somebody does.
Dr. Stefanie Boyer [00:34:26]
You know, it’s it’s so true. And my mom was one of my biggest supporters. And she would read my papers, even though I was like, I don’t know, she’s gonna really know what to do and how to fix it. But my aunt, she was an editor. And I mean, it was just, it was so meaningful to have other people who could look at my dissertation before I would send it to the committee and maybe embarrass myself because I had a grammatical error that I didn’t see because I was too tired, or I had just been too close to it. So you know, if you don’t have that editor of an aunt, you gotta have somebody that can review your materials for you.
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:35:01]
And hopefully you also have a nice committee that’s not going to embarrass you because you missed a comment somewhere. That’s what like, performance style is for, into the process. That’s one of the things that frustrates me to no end is committee members that will, like review a paper and give you all the grammatical problems. And I’ll tell you anything about the structure and the content and that sort of thing. That’s the heavy lifting for a committee member, they need to focus on those things for the most part. And yeah, we’ll we’ll clean up the grammar eventually. But anyway, this was one of my little pet peeves. Tell us about now, the transition. So you got your degree, these opportunities start rolling in, and you’ve mentioned rainmakers a couple of times, let the folks know what that is, and how that came about.
Dr. Stefanie Boyer [00:35:45]
Sure. So when I started, I went on a whole bunch of different interviews all over the place. So you go to a central location, and you interview, I think I had 26, interviews, everything was scheduled out from like, 730 in the morning, until the evening, even my lunch break, I would take, you know, interviews during that. And I was just going and I remember, we were at a hotel in California. And I was going from hotel to hotel room, I accidentally went to the wrong hotel room. And I was like, I was early and I interrupted someone else’s meeting. And it was just so frantic. And then after that, they start to invite you
Dr. Russell Strickland [00:36:19]
Really the wrong hotel room. I mean, you can walk down anything
Dr. Stefanie Boyer [00:36:21]
It was so awkward, because you’re at this place. And, you know, sometimes you have to sit on a bed and you’re interviewing and you’ve got like this group of people around you, and you’re just like trying to tell them about your research. And it’s just so awkward. Sometimes there was a boat that I got to interview on. And there was just so many different places at a restaurant that was busy. Everybody had something different than they wanted. But I was very lucky because I was gonna fill a sales position. That was my goal to do that. And as a woman, there’s not many of us. So I got an opportunity to interview at a variety of schools. And I was lucky enough to get into Bryant University in Rhode Island, which at first I was like, oh, Rhode Island, what do I get to do there? I haven’t even heard of Bryant. And I didn’t even want to take the actual interview to go out because I was in Florida. I’m like, what business do I have in Rhode Island? You know, what is this place. And so one of my committee members, he said, look, just take it as a practice interview, and just do it. And I was like, I’m wasting everybody’s time. But then I went and I loved it. I fell in love with the students, I fell in love with the location, the people, the president came over to me during my interview, and he welcomed me and, you know, I just, I loved it. And I’ve been there, you know, for 12 years now. So it was really a good choice. So I would definitely say to anybody who’s, you know, thinking maybe something isn’t right, just take the interview, and see for yourself and try to organize that. So they hired me to do, to create a sales program at the university. And I started out and I’m like, okay, how do I get people excited about sales? How do I get them do role plays, because if you do a role play for selling, then you have that practical skill. And you can’t just tell someone, this is how you sell, you have to give them experience, trying to sell trying to have that selling conversation. So we started doing competitions. And in the competitions at the university, I would bring the employers in that were hiring for sales. And they would do role plays with the students. And it was kind of like the voice. So the students were in the in the room with the with the buyer, the company representative. And there was a whole panel of judges that were all sales people, sales managers, VPs of sales, some CEOs. We even had like a couple of faculty members that would help out at times. And they would give the students all feedback. And so then all of a sudden, my students were getting great jobs way before they graduated. And I was getting calls from students and faculty at other schools and they’d say, oh, can we join your sales competition? Because I had every single semester. And then I was like, oh, I don’t know, this seems like a lot. And so then I think in 2012, we started it, we opened it up to other schools and, and we still do it every November, we have a big competition that’s open to other schools. And we get somewhere between like 20, 30 schools that join us every single year. And we bring about 400 people on campus to have this big event. And it got to the point where it’s too big, you can’t invite anybody else. There’s a space capacity, especially now. And there is a limited amount of time and people that you could bring in. So that’s when that’s when I was in touch with Scott Randall who created these games. He created gamification in the 90s in the early 90s. And he has a simulation a business simulation in the Smithsonian. So I was like, wow, this could be something really interesting. And he said you want to scale the competition? Do you want to scale your sales, you know, training and and I said, wow, you know, this would be really important, because I have 70 students in a semester, and I assign them all these role plays, I don’t have enough time to watch all the role plays. In the sales competition, we’re getting more students that want to participate than we have room for. So we have an opportunity to allow more people to participate, get motivated about sales, learn about sales, train and compete, that’s great. And then the other element was, if you have AI that does the judging, then you get rid of any bias that we have, we all have some kind of unconscious bias there. So then I thought, wow, this could be a really big opportunity. But it’s a hump to get over. Because you’re saying, okay, let’s use technology to be a buyer. Let’s use technology to be a judge. And so you’re having now roleplay a conversation, a sales conversation, like we would have, but instead of having it with a person with judges, watching, you’re having it with Alex, the AI robot, that’s gonna listen, adapt and respond. And then at the same time, he’s also thinking about, like, how did you perform in each of these categories? So you have this whole sales process? And then he’s saying, okay, what did you say? When did you say it? How did you say it? How well did you say it? And so you’re getting all these scores based on this conversation you’re having, and the AI doesn’t miss something. So like, if I’m watching a conversation you’re having, I’m taking a note about something, I just missed what else you were doing. So with that, now, the AI is doing it. It’s having conversations with students at one o’clock in the morning, on a Friday night at 8am. On a Saturday, you know, we’re looking at the we’re looking at the actual conversations, and we’re thinking, what, students are role playing with the bot at 1am on a Saturday, you know, it’s and it’s the students that are really go getters. And so one of the things that we’re really proud of is just the opportunity to get that practice so that you have this sales assurance, right? You You don’t just train it, you don’t just have someone subjectively evaluate whether you can sell or not, its objective, and you know, that the person can sell because they’ve actually applied it in a situation where they’re nervous, where they’re, you know, competing against each other talking to Alex.
