Reclaiming Your Worth and Boosting Financial Stability

Ever wondered how to turn academic success into real-world influence and financial stability? In this episode, we tackle the often-overlooked issue of undervaluing one's expertise as an academic. 

Follow Dr. Sheena Howards' socials:
@drsheenahoward | Power Your Research

Chapters

• 0:00 Empowering Academics Outside Higher Ed
• 8:19 Building Value and Visibility for Academics

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

And I remember driving for Instacart as a college professor that had a platform and thinking how crazy of a situation I had got myself in.

Speaker 1: 0:33

I don't want my work to be stuck behind an academic paywall. I want to leave a legacy, I want to reach my potential and I want to change lives. This podcast Power your Research and I want to change lives. This podcast Power your Research is my attempt to help the smartest people in the world do that very thing. My hope is that you use the lessons I share to make more money than what your higher ed job can ever pay you. I've done it, my clients have done it, and so can you. My hope is that you'll apply what you learn here and one day join the Power your Research program, where you can work with me one-on-one. Power your Research, an academic branding company where I help academics and educators increase their visibility, authority and income without the expense of a publicist. And I'm going to tell you why I started Power your Research and why it's so important for me to teach academics how to protect their future and to understand that they can leverage their academic credentials to leave a legacy, make an impact and be financially stable outside of their institution's paycheck.

Speaker 1: 1:55

I want to tell you a story, a true story. So six years ago I escaped an abusive relationship, and in escaping that abusive relationship I had an infant son with me. And when I say escape, I literally mean escaped, running through the night at 3 am escaping my ex-abuser, and I had nowhere to go but my mother's house. And at this time I am a full professor making very good money, but I literally have nowhere to sleep except for my mother's house, and me and my infant son slept in my mother's living room for a while and I remember sleeping in the dark living room, rocking my son to sleep with the tip of my toe while he was sitting in his rocker. In this living thinking I am a full professor, I have a public presence, I am, on paper, successful. But this is where I found myself, and that wasn't even the worst part of it, because after that it got even worse, because then I had to go through the process of trying to divorce a toxic person, and that is when I had no money. So not only did I not have a place to go, going through the divorce was easily over $200,000 and took me four years, five years to get divorced, and I remember driving for Instacart as a college professor that had a platform and thinking how crazy of a situation I had got myself in.

Speaker 1: 4:10

And I realized that in order to be able to send my son to the best school that I could afford in Philadelphia and to be able to secure my future, I could not pay those legal fees and save my way out of this situation I had to make more money. So, in addition to living with my mother, I had to make more money, and Instacart wasn't going to cut it. So, in order, I had to make more money, and I had to do it in a way that didn't require me to be flying all over the place to do speaking engagements or being an entire extra job that I had to drive myself. What value do I have in the world that I can give to other people to help them reach their goals? Because people will pay you to help them solve their problems. Power Year Research is able to pay my son's very expensive private school tuition to this day, and when I think about that moment, when I was on the sofa rocking my son with the tip of my toe, there was a lot of shame and resentment and guilt for a lot of different reasons. You know I had to fix myself, but I also found myself being angry at myself for spending years doing free speaking engagements, creating value to the world through the academic books I was publishing, but not having anything financial to show for it. Getting media coverage and visibility and being on NBC and in the New York Times, and all of that was great. But I was resentful in that moment because I hadn't capitalized on it in a way that brought in any income and I started to think if all those years, I was getting that income in addition to what my university was paying me, I felt like I would have had a bigger nest egg to be able to weather the storm of the divorce. And you know the situation I had found myself in having zero dollars in my bank account, sleeping on my mother's sofa.

Speaker 1: 6:41

Hey, everyone, real quick. I don't run any ads on this podcast, so I have to rely on word of mouth. If this podcast has helped you in any way, please share it with a friend and follow me, dr Sheena Howard, on LinkedIn, where I give more free content on building your brand as an academic. If you tell me you came to my LinkedIn from the podcast. I'll make sure I accept your request. My LinkedIn from the podcast I'll make sure I accept your request.

Speaker 1: 7:09

And so in getting out of that situation into where I am today, I had to understand that my self-esteem was wrapped up in the value I felt I had in the real world. So if I'm accepting speaking engagements for an honorarium or $500 or $1,000, or going to events and showing up, being present and not charging, today I understand that as a lack of self-worth and self-esteem. And so what I teach in Power Year Research is how you're going to get media coverage and visibility so that you can leave a legacy, so that your work matters outside of higher ed. It matters to the people that need it the most. The people that need your work the most are not your fellow academics, who are just citing your work in order for them to write a research paper. The people that need your work the most are the people that are not in academia. Those are the lives that you can change, and in changing those lives, you can serve those people in a way that's going to be sustainable for you, because you're going to be making money doing so, and that is what I've been able to do for myself, and that is the gift of Power your Research that I give to my clients.

Speaker 1: 8:19

And today, when people email me and they ask me to show up somewhere for free and these are people that have no relationship to me, you know, no historical relationship to me, no work that we've done in the past, they haven't added value to my life at all and they asked me to show up to their event, put gas in my car, get on an airplane, spend hours putting this presentation together to come and make their event remarkable, and they want me to go into debt to do it, because doing a speaking engagement and not getting paid is exactly what that is. It is offensive to me today because I am in a different place Now. I also think about my life in seasons. Okay, so when I was before my kid, I was in a season of showing up and doing things for free. Do I think I needed to be in that season that long?

Speaker 1: 9:18

No, and I see people today who are academics, who have been in the field, in their field way longer than me, who are still showing up, adding value, but they're not getting value back, and that is a problem, and academe teaches us to be that way and I do not.

Speaker 1: 9:36

I fundamentally do not agree with that, and I do not agree with that because of the story that I just shared with you. So that is why I started Power your Research. It was out of necessity, to save my life and to give my son the best life that he can have, and today I'm able to give that gift to people who want to protect their future, who understand that they are valuable but do not have the roadmap, the tools, the know-how to get from where they are today to the thought leader that deserves to have value outside of higher ed in the marketplace. Again, if you're new here, my name is Dr Sheena Howard. I'm the founder of Power your Research, an academic branding company where it is okay for you to be an academic and want to increase your visibility, authority and income and leave a legacy with your work.