Your Unapologetic Career Podcast
179 episodes - English - Latest episode: 4 days ago - ★★★★★ - 141 ratingsAre you ready to become the CEO of your career? Join Kemi Doll – physician, surgeon, researcher, coach, and career strategist – as she guides you on the journey to transform your academic life, so that you can channel your ideas, passions, and skills into a successful and nourishing career. In each episode, she’ll be taking a deep dive into one CORE growth strategy so you can gain confidence and effectiveness in pursuing the dream career in academic medicine that you worked so hard to achieve. Tune in for an always authentic, sometimes a little raw, but unapologetically empowering word. Learn more at www.kemidoll.com.
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
28 Managing the Clinical Creep (Listener Letter #2)
October 12, 2021 10:00 - 27 minutes - 19 MBThis Listener cannot get a hold of the clinical work that keeps seeping in around her boundaries. The triple threat – clinical, research, and teaching excellence – is always the goal, but the bottom line is clinical works just *has* to happen, so what gives? Raise your hand if this is relatable! 🙋🏾♀️ This week on the podcast, I honor this struggle and offer you my step by step process of breaking down what’s happening and building up to a structure more sustainable for you. Take a listen an...
27 Coaching Client Spotlight: Jessica Chen PhD
October 05, 2021 10:00 - 35 minutes - 24.6 MBDr. Jessica Chen is a practicing psychologist and health services researcher focused on the equitable delivery of care for PTSD in the setting of chronic pain and co-occurring substance use disorders in the VA system. She is also an alumni of my Get That Grant coaching program and an ongoing amazing coaching client. Take a listen to hear some real behind the scenes of her coaching journey: The primary fear that triggered her to consider coaching The price of compromise on your authen...
26 Leaving When You're Post-Tenure/Promotion (Listener Letter #1)
September 28, 2021 10:00 - 24 minutes - 17 MBThis Listener knows she’s ready to leave. But how to go about telling people? And what about the scars from her current position? This week I answer her questions and go deeper – into the worry behind these questions and what we must to do optimize both the job search and starting a new institution. To submit your Listener Letter, send an email to [email protected] with your question, and let’s go!
25 Do You Have an Early Career Mindset?
September 21, 2021 10:00 - 33 minutes - 23.2 MBWe define Early Career by the number of years you have been around, being pre-promotion, and/or pre-funding. Sure, it has structural functions to define it this way, and benefits in the grant game. If you want to inventory yourself for an Early Career mindset, take a listen to this week’s episode of Your Unapologetic Career podcast today!
24 From Career Chandeliering To Informed Believers
September 14, 2021 10:00 - 35 minutes - 24.6 MBThis is one of those HOW episodes. Specifically, the How of leveling up your support for your unapologetic career. Many of us are surrounded by wonderful cheerleaders and expert advisors and yet we lack the most crucial element of support – the one that matters the *most* when your back is against the wall with frustration, challenge, or exhaustion in your career. That support is not generic – it’s specific. It’s not ‘tough love’, either. This is curated support that comes from one category ...
23 Coaching Client Spotlight: Carrie Francis MD
September 07, 2021 10:00 - 30 minutes - 20.9 MBDr. Carrie Francis is an Associate Professor in the Pediatric Otolaryngology Division of the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at Kansas University Medical Center (KUMC). She is also a woman on a mission to improve workforce development and innovation in academic medicine, an expert in medical education and serves as the inaugural Associate Dean for Workforce Innovation and Empowerment. She started her coaching journey with the 2020 RECLAIM Retreat, then enrolled in our Get ...
22 Is It Time to Leave Your Institution?
August 31, 2021 10:00 - 31 minutes - 21.8 MBYep, let’s go there. This can be a taboo topic in academic medicine and it shouldn’t be. Whether it’s paralyzing fear of the consequences of an exit or being so stuck in settling that we’ve stopped imagining better – we avoid the question of leaving our institutions - to our detriment. But you know what, there is no need to avoid it! In fact, I offer to you that embracing this question no matter how you feel about your current job is valuable and *smart.* This is not the episode you think i...
21 Career Advice Audit (Part 2)
August 24, 2021 10:00 - 20 minutes - 14.1 MBIf you are serious about creating the career of your dreams, you probably know that getting advice is critical. The problem is what to do with it! How to judge whether the advice is good or bad, helpful or not, is a hazy maze without a framework. The truth is that ensuring you are following the right career advice requires an internal clarity that most folks are avoiding. No more! This is a big topic and I’m covering it over 2 episodes. In Part 2 this week, we cover how to consider the CO...
20 Career Advice Audit (Part 1)
August 17, 2021 10:00 - 34 minutes - 23.9 MBIf you are serious about creating the career of your dreams, you probably know that getting advice is critical. The problem is what to do with it! How to judge whether the advice is good or bad, helpful or not, is a hazy maze without a framework. The truth is that ensuring you are following the right career advice requires an internal clarity that most folks are avoiding. No more! This is a big topic and I’m covering it over 2 episodes. In Part 1 this week, we cover how to consider the so...
19 Coaching Client Spotlight: Kiara Alvarez PhD
August 10, 2021 10:00 - 30 minutes - 21.2 MBDr. Kiara Alvarez is a child clinical psychologist, a researcher focused on mental health inequities in the field of youth suicide prevention and the wellbeing of Latinx and immigrant youth and their families. She is also an alumni of my Get That Grant coaching program and an ongoing amazing coaching client. Take a listen to hear some real behind the scenes of her coaching journey: - What her ‘unicorn’ criteria were for finding a coach - Securing a K23 in a well-respected institution and ...
18 Staying Focused Amid Career Distractions
August 03, 2021 10:00 - 18 minutes - 12.9 MBIt’s easy to say No to the things you don’t want to do. But what about all of the things you DO want to do?! How do those fit into the regular rules of space and time? This advice came smack in the middle of the roller coaster ride of 2020 and remains urgently applicable today. If you are struggling with FOCUS amid ‘all the things’ in your career – this week’s episode of Your Unapologetic Career is for you. I want you to claim focus, and I want you to claim it *today.* Take a listen!
17 Breaking the Cycle of Self-Sabotage with Your Productivity
July 27, 2021 10:00 - 18 minutes - 12.9 MBWe are not robots and we are absolutely going to miss deadlines and not get things done! We can give ourselves grace and still want to be clear on how to avoid repeating the same patterns. The bottom line is that some of our productivity wounds are self-inflicted. Not *all*, but some. We usually only have one refrain for this – being angry or disappointed and then trying again. Rinse and repeat. We can get away with this, it’s just not pleasant. In this week’s episode, I’m sharing exactly...
16 Creating Effective Boundaries in Your Career
July 20, 2021 10:00 - 25 minutes - 17.6 MBMost of us start out with aspirational boundaries that crumble under pressure – and that’s normal. We don’t need to judge ourselves for this! We do need to know that these reactionary, two-dimensional boundaries are where we may start, but not where we have to end. Effective boundaries are a mandatory requirement of a successful, sustainable, and nourishing career. They are not optional, they are essential. In this week’s episode, I do deep dive on boundaries, offering you 3 solid steps t...
15 Coaching Client Spotlight: Shekinah Elmore MD, MPH
July 13, 2021 10:00 - 27 minutes - 19.1 MBDr. Shekinah Elmore is a radiation oncologist, essayist, public speaker, and clinician-researcher who is dedicated to improving multidisciplinary care for Black patients with cancer, especially in a global context. She is also an alumnus of my Get That Grant coaching program and an ongoing amazing coaching client. Take a listen to hear some real behind the scenes of her coaching journey: Why, when she first reached out for coaching, I turned her down Finding certainty in building an i...
14 How to Raise Your Standards and Find Your People
July 06, 2021 10:00 - 28 minutes - 19.9 MBIt’s easy to shy away from a bold proclamation of high standards – especially when the focus might be right back on YOU. We also have a very confused ‘wellness’ conversation going on in academic medicine that conflates striving for EXCELLENCE and overworking as synonymous – which is a lie. In this week’s episode, I’m sharing my thoughts on how this erroneous coupling came to be, why you have full permission to have HIGH standards for yourself and those you work with, and ultimately, why I...
13 You Do Not Have To Settle For Average - You Get To Be GREAT
June 29, 2021 10:00 - 29 minutes - 20.3 MBWe are not here for mediocrity. Period. But sometimes that leaves us wondering if we are consigned to overworking?? The answer is – Absolutely not! This week I talk about how we got to the place where striving for GREATNESS in your career has somehow become synonymous with overwork and burnout. That’s some institutional mindset y’all. I’m breaking that down and reminding us all that YES, we can be STELLAR – and our ideas deserve it. Take a listen today!
12 Constant Vigilance
June 22, 2021 10:00 - 22 minutes - 15.4 MBConstant Vigilance. I feel it too. That never-ending feeling “Am I doing enough?” The reason that you say you are ‘at capacity’, but more and more things keep getting added to your plate. The energy that fuels a constant renegotiation of our worth in our careers. Constant Vigilance is toxic. And I’m here to tell you, it is NOT yours to carry. The truth is that the game is rigged. And we can waste our energy on this vigilance or pivot and invest a much more compelling challenge. This week, ...
11 Elevating Your Self-Concept
June 15, 2021 10:00 - 20 minutes - 14.4 MBElevating your self-concept is a coachy-phrase that I would eye-roll at until it smacked me dead in the face. In a lot of ways disenrolling from trainee mindset, dreaming big, and having an unapologetic career is identity shifting work. This is a personal episode on my recent shift. I’m sharing because I must – and I want to ignite courage in the rest of us to do the same. In this week’s episode of Your Unapologetic Career, I go deep on a year-plus long journey of career redefinition and w...
10 My Primary Advice for Coaching: Process Over Personality
June 08, 2021 10:00 - 26 minutes - 18.4 MBMost of what goes into deciding to embark on coaching and then finding the ‘right’ coach for your needs is internal. At some point, you decide that the status quo is no longer going to cut it, and you are ready for growth and development without institutional conflict of interest. That alone is a major step. Then, that’s when I start getting all of the questions in my DMs. How should I choose a coach? How do I know this is the right decision? Again, mostly internal but I do have one major pi...
09 Reactivity vs. Strategy in the Grant Game
June 01, 2021 21:00 - 21 minutes - 14.6 MBI recognize that my thoughts in this episode go counter to so much early career advice, and I don’t care. I’m leaning in anyway. I care about this so much, because underneath the frenzy to “do anything to get a grant” is something quite problematic - a deep-seated devaluation of your value and worth. And we’re 👏🏾 not 👏🏾 having 👏🏾that👏🏾! This week I talk about why you need to use STRATEGY rather than reactivity in the grant game - from the very beginning. Whether you are just starting ou...
08 Getting "Unstuck" in Your Career
May 25, 2021 10:00 - 22 minutes - 15.3 MBSo here’s the thing – I get stuck too! There are many ways we can feel stuck in our careers – wrong job, wrong mentor, failed research, and unending rut…. The stagnation is exhausting. It’s the place where many many poor choices are born. In this episode, I open up about how I got majorly stuck earlier this year – and went and used my own advice to get out. Take a listen for a peek behind the scenes of my entrepreneurship journey and how this particular tactic to get unstuck is widely appl...
07 The Wrong Way to Deal With Failure
May 18, 2021 10:00 - 25 minutes - 17.7 MBNone of us ever want to fail. Ever. And yes, we know ‘failure is required on the way to success’ and all of that nonsense – but still, failure sucks. And because it does, we’ve got some pretty creative ways we are socialized to deal with failure in academic medicine. They are effective - they are just not without consequence. In this episode, I detail the main approaches I see to how we deal with failures like paper rejections and grants not getting funded, and why those may not be the b...
06 The Key To Making Better Career Decisions
May 11, 2021 10:00 - 19 minutes - 13.6 MBWith regard to opportunities, we get told 2 things: Say No and blame your mentor and Never say Yes right away, ask for time to think about it. So, both of these are reasonable and also horribly incomplete. If you’ve been trying to follow this advice and still at a loss for how to deal with ‘opportunities’ this episode is for you. The truth is that delaying a decision - without a process to make the decision - does not actually lead to a better decision. In this episode, I walk you throug...
05 How to Delegate
May 04, 2021 10:00 - 30 minutes - 21.3 MBFor the busy bee, delegation offers incredible value. It’s become a buzz-worthy resource that’s considered a privilege. But what about when you delegate only to end up with similar stress levels as before?! If you aren’t yet seeing the fruits of your delegated labor - this is for you. In this episode, I challenge you to rethink the way you approach delegation. We’ll break down how to prioritize the crucial components that you need to establish in order to make the most of any delegation opp...
01 Ten Lies of Academic Medicine
April 19, 2021 19:00 - 45 minutes - 31.5 MBIf I was forced to put everything I have to say in 1 podcast episode, this is as close as I could get. The beginning of any and all career transformation, the HOW behind getting those grants and winning the game *sustainably*, the logic that underlies pretty much everything else to follow all start with this – The Ten Lies of Academic Medicine. Today, we’re going in and we’re not taking prisoners. Consider it a professional dragging from the deepest well of love and caring for your careers. ...
04 Recalibrating After Failure (Being and Doing)
April 19, 2021 19:00 - 20 minutes - 14.2 MBFacing failure sucks! It throws us off balance and usually into one extreme (Being) or another (Doing). In this episode, I spotlight the need to strike a balance between all the feelings and actually taking action. Often we don’t even recognize which rut we are in. Whether we’re recovering from grant rejection, difficult colleagues, botched experiments or any other kind of ‘failure’ - the principles that underlay a healthy and speedy recovery remain essentially the same. Today, I lay ...
03 The Foundations of Productivity
April 19, 2021 19:00 - 21 minutes - 14.8 MBListen, there are really no new ideas when it comes to productivity. In fact, pretty much all of them can be boiled down to 3 core elements. In this episode, I explain what these elements are and why they are NOT actually the root of productivity struggles. We’ll unpack why although they’re super simple, we find them so hard to implement – and what to do about it. C’mon achievers, let’s go not just for success, but *sustainability.* Take a listen!
02 The CEO, Scientist, and Worker Bee
April 19, 2021 19:00 - 19 minutes - 13.5 MBThe process of building a successful career on your terms calls for a self-leadership mindset which too few of us have truly learned how to cultivate. In this episode, I explain my concept of the CEO, the Scientist, and the Worker Bee. Throughout my time in academic medicine, I've recognized these characters in myself and in other's careers across the board. So I'm offering clear insight i...
00 Welcome to the Your Unapologetic Career Podcast
April 19, 2021 19:00 - 9 minutes - 6.71 MBHere is the truth I realized: There is no one responsible for creating the career I want but me. Hi, I'm Kemi! I have a biomedical engineering degree from Duke University, went to Columbia P&S for med school, and on to Chicago for OBGYN residency training, UNC for gynecologic oncology fellowship, and a post-doctoral research fellowship in Health Policy and Management. I secured 3 independent grants as a fellow, and another 5 in my first 3 years on faculty. I study race, gender, cancer, an...