February 20, 2025 • 62 mins
Why do we do the things we do? And, more importantly, why do we keep doing them? Taking the time to reflect – to slow down, look back, and ask ourselves whether the path we’ve been on is the one we want to stay on – helps us be the person we want to be.
In this conversation with Dr. John Miles, a writing professor and academic assessment specialist (and my former boss), we talk about the importance of reflective practices to help us move from living on autopilot to living intentionally.
Since John and I are both trained in rhetoric and writing, we’re obviously big fans of writing shit down. So we talk about that a fair bit. And/but we also talk about:
- Navigating distraction in the digital era
- Celebration as a form of reflective practice
- Recognizing that what we do is not who we are (but it’s a part!)
- Reevaluating goals as we grow and evolve
- Figuring out our strengths and limitations as a pathway to career satisfaction
- Consciously using tools and practices instead of just doing them for the sake of it
References, Resources, and Links
Wofford College – where I was as an Assistant Professor of English and the Director of Digital Pedagogy (best title of my career thus far!)
Reinhart University – where John is the current Provost and VP of Academic Affairs
Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. https://bookshop.org/a/109472/9780525536512
Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives by Wayne Muller. https://bookshop.org/a/109472/9780553380118
Sherry Turkle – scholar focused on the impacts of technology. Reclaiming Conversation is one of her more famous books. https://bookshop.org/a/109472/9780143109792
Kathleen Blake Yancey. Reflection In The Writing Classroom https://www.amazon.com/Reflection-Writing-Classroom-Kathleen-Yancey/dp/0874212383
Ironman. The ultimate triathlon event in which participants swim 2.4 miles, then bike 114 miles, then run a full fucking marathon (26.2 miles). It’s bananas.
DiSC Analysis. Very business-oriented personality assessment. https://www.discprofile.com/what-is-disc
Habit Tracker. An app I used to use for, well, tracking habits. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/habit-tracker/id1438388363
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. https://bookshop.org/a/109472/9780143129257
Thích Nhất Hạnh. Vietnamese monk and prolific author. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Nh%E1%BA%A5t_H%E1%BA%A1nh
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The decisions I'm making are crafted by the intentions that I have.
(00:03):
Yeah.
We are so automatic that reflecting makes you stop and quit being automatic.
What you want to do is to be present, right?
In your experiences and your choices.
But if you're not reflecting on what you do, how are you going to become more present?
Welcome to Settling is Bullshit, a sweary podcast about claiming your joy.
(00:30):
If you are an adult human craving healthier boundaries, a greater sense of purpose,
or an increased capacity to feel at ease in your own skin, then you are in the right place, my friend.
I'm your host, Cate Blouke, and I'm here to offer you practical tools and playful encouragement
to help you step forward and be your most awesome self. My hope is that each episode will leave you
(00:52):
feeling a bit more empowered to make brave choices and claim your joy.
Hello, friend. I'm going to provide a little bit of extra historical context for today's episode,
in part because our guest, Dr. John Miles, is someone who played a really important role in
(01:14):
my career trajectory. When I graduated from the University of Texas with my PhD in English with
a focus in rhetoric, I got a job at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, as an
assistant professor of English and the director of digital pedagogy. And it was my job both to
(01:36):
teach courses, focusing on writing in digital spaces. I taught a class on podcasting. I taught a
class called Writing in Digital Environments. And it was also my job to help faculty incorporate
technology into the classroom. So the intersection between writing and technology
have always been really interesting to me. I am super glad I got out of academia before AI was a thing.
(02:01):
But I wanted to have a conversation a little bit about technology and very much about writing
and reflective writing practices specifically. And John hired me at that job. And I worked with him
in the Center for Innovation and Learning to help implement a portfolio program for first-year
(02:26):
students. And so it just kind of makes sense that if I was going to have a conversation about
reflective writing practices that John would be the person I tapped. He is now the Provost and
Vice President for Academic Affairs at Reinhardt University in Georgia. So we have both kind of
evolved in our careers and life paths. And that's something that we talk about. And John was both
(02:50):
the person who hired me at Wofford. And also someone who was really incredibly supportive when
only three years later it became very clear to me that it wasn't a good fit and they needed to move
on. And John was also my running coach at the time. I am a long-distance runner and you'll hear us
(03:12):
talk about how I have had a goal of trying to run a half marathon in all 50 states. Which is
something I am reevaluating. But when I was at Wofford, John, who is an Ironman triathlete,
he is a yoga instructor as well and just a genuinely lovely, kind, thoughtful human,
(03:32):
he helped coach me. I ran a triathlon. I did a triathlon while I was in South Carolina. I did
one and then realized I don't like swimming. And so I didn't make myself do it again. But yeah,
John coached me and we have very different approaches to kind of running metrics and goals.
(03:56):
And you'll hear us talk about and laugh about that a bit. So I wanted to give you that context as
well. And at one point I bought him a t-shirt that said suck it up buttercup. And that comes up as
well. So it was really nice to have a very meta conversation. Ten years after John hired me, he
hired me in January of 2015. And we had this conversation in January of 2025. And so it was
(04:23):
both a conversation about reflective practices and a conversation that involved a lot of reflective
practices about how we've both changed and evolved over the last 10 years. And ultimately, it's a
conversation about like carving out that space and the intentionality to really look at what we
have done and to ask ourselves like why did I do that? What did I get out of that? What do I want
(04:45):
to recognize and learn about myself through the process? So the first little bit of this conversation
is a little bit more academically focused because John has been teaching for 25 years. But it's also
a conversation about career change and general life goals and how we evolve as people.
(05:08):
So it was a really lovely and meaningful conversation for me. I think those are all of the pieces of
information you need to get what we're laughing about. We had a pretty good time recording this,
and I did do quite a bit of judicious cutting to help us not go on too many academically specific
tangents. But the fundamental invitation of this episode is to really think about our own learning
(05:36):
and thinking and how we evolve. So I hope it provides some inspiration for whatever you're
going through in your life right now and whatever changes you might want to implement. There's
some practical tools as well as just thoughtful conversation about being human and getting to
show up in our lives in the ways that we want to instead of just being on autopilot all the time.
(06:09):
You've been teaching for 25 years. What would you say is like
central to your core philosophy around teaching? What's your deal as a teacher?
What's my deal as a teacher? That's a really good one. Well, the first thing is about me
is I will give feedback on anything. If it is a draft, it doesn't have to be
(06:31):
finished. Students know they come in my office, sit down, we talk a lot, and I'll give feedback
and feedback. That is really comforting for some people and very frustrating for others
because they just want to do it once and be done. Yeah. Oh man, I'm just hearing so many
analogies for life in that right now. Like how I live my life. I think that's been a big lesson
(06:56):
for me. Life is all a fucking first, second, third draft. There's not... Yes. Yeah. I mean,
it's process. It's process and becoming and that's the same thing. I think you're right.
I think there are so many parallels when you talk about students' resistance to just settling in for
(07:17):
a little while, sitting with something. I see the same thing with the people that I supervise.
Yeah. They want a decision. They want to do something one time and we're like, whoa, wait a
minute. We need to back up here and talk about what's going on. Yeah. But yeah, people don't listen
either. No. No. I think one of the big growths for me as a human is to not take that so personally.
(07:43):
Oh man. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Because it's not... I mean, I mean, like most of us, not even intentional.
Yeah. People are just like so distracted or so into their own stuff that when you're talking and
you feel like you're talking about serious things, it's only because you think they're serious.
(08:07):
You know, not everybody does. Maybe you could... So I remember this... I don't know if this is like
colloquialism, but there's something about like you're supposed to tell students something like
six times if you actually want... Oh yeah. Is that true? Is that a like actually...
Yes. I think you can tell everybody something. I think one of the things my president says all
(08:30):
the time is you have to say it seven times. He says seven, but you have to say it in three different
genres. You need to tell them. You need to like post it on a... Post it... Like send an email about it
and then send an announcement in their email or something. Like you got to do it three different
ways because people are just like... They're locked into the way they receive any kind of communication.
(08:53):
So if they're clicking off emails, they're not paying attention. You know? Right.
So yeah, he's so patient with people, which is... He needs to be in the president. Well,
I mean, we all need it. I've been immersed lately in reading about digital minimalism,
(09:15):
about Sabbath, about like all these different flavors and genres of people talking about
the importance for carving out space because we are so completely inundated by information and
distraction and places to put our attention. And it's so hard to hear yourself think.
(09:38):
Yeah. You're never doing just one thing. Yeah. Almost never. Right?
One of the things that I'm glad... I'm old. I'm older.
I mean, old is relative. Now that I'm in my 40s.
Yeah. I was 50 and less than four months. I'll be 50 years old.
(10:03):
Okay. And one of the things that I'm glad of is that my kids didn't have devices when they were
little. Right. They could just stick an iPad in front of somebody. And I'm not suggesting I wouldn't
if I had them to get some space and time. But if you just think about your training,
that mediated experience from a very young age now and being intentional about how you use it
(10:29):
is so hard. Yeah. Because it is built to make you not do that.
Yeah. No, absolutely. Like I just finished reading Cal Newport's digital minimalism.
And you know, I've heard this so many times, but it's just really sinking in that like all
(10:51):
of the free social media app, whatever, like it's all designed to be addictive.
Yep. It is by design. So for me in that, there's like a lot of grace for myself around, okay, like,
no wonder this is hard for all of us. Like, we are surrounded by these things that are
(11:15):
demanding our attention in ways that are neurologically addictive.
Yes. And like, I'm in my fucking 40s and it's hard.
How do you expect teenagers and 20-somethings whose frontal lobes aren't fully formed
have the wherewithal to be like, I shouldn't do this all the time?
Yes. No, yeah. I mean, I think that's dead on. I'm just, I'm reading a book now.
(11:39):
It's about AI, right? So like everything now is about AI, right? And so what I'm reading about is,
it's the same concept that every book about a new technology is about in the beginning, right?
And AI is not new, but like an emerging changing technology. And that is, it's going to do really
good stuff. It's going to do really bad stuff. We need to make some rules around it.
(12:01):
Yeah. And we've never done it. I can't remember who said this a long time ago, but they were
talking about the digital age and they said, one of the things that emerging technologies have never
had is a moral reckoning, right? So we never bit, we were never like, these are the rules. Like,
let's all agree on them if it's collaborative or if it's from the top. But like the fact that we
have these technologies that are making, making people not care or care too much. And there's no,
(12:27):
there's no guardrails at all. Yeah. It's shocking, you know, one of the things we do
and have done since the beginning is there's no screens at meals. We eat together at a table
when we can, but we always sat together at a table and there are no screens at a table. There are
no screens in your room. Yeah. You know, there has to be space set aside for you to not be
(12:51):
because it's so easy to pick it up or turn it on or whatever. You know. Yeah. What have you seen?
Because you've been teaching for 25 years. Shit's changed. Yeah. Yeah. You know,
when I started teaching, it's so fascinating because I think about place so much. I started
teaching in very small rural North Carolina. And I taught in a single wide mobile classroom
(13:20):
that had 30 desks in it, but there were 10 rows of three desks facing one long wall, right?
There was no screen. There was a chalkboard. And I mean, you know, this was 1997, you know?
There were computers, but I didn't have one. There were no, there was no, I didn't have a
(13:42):
laptop. I didn't have anything. So students had, the only distractions they were doing were things
that were their own making, right? You know, they were like scratching shit into desk or whatever.
Yeah. Holes where they shouldn't be. But one of the things that's paper notes. Yes. And I want to
say, you know, they weren't not distracted. Right. Right. Like we've always been distracted.
(14:06):
Right. But in Sherry Turkle, you know, talks about the fact that it's a screen now, but it used to
be a newspaper, you know, or something that me, you know, gets between you. So when I, I mean,
I think the thing that has changed, two things, one is access to information in a way that I could
not have imagined and an inability to figure out how to teach people how to use the technologies
(14:29):
that are emerging at the time they're emerging. Because I don't know if it's resistance to people.
It's not my own resistance, but I mean, I remember Wikipedia being the end of everything,
right? Like at being at conferences and people talking about this thing that like,
how are we going to know what's true? And I'm like, I don't know that that's the problem with
(14:49):
Wikipedia. But I think it's really hard to be critical when you're in that, in that space of
emerging technologies. Yeah. But it's really easy to just say, I'm just going to not do it. I'm just
going to like, I'm going to tell my students that's bad. And we're going to go on about business as we,
as we should, and you do it outside the classroom, we're not going to do it in.
(15:09):
But I think it's a different class. You know, I taught a class last semester,
we had a, we had somebody get sick and I took over a writing class, you know,
and I forgot the rules that I had to have. Like you can't have a screen open. Because if we're
talking, if you're writing, you should have a screen open. But if like, we're talking, why do
you have a screen open? Because if I have this at my, I mean, I have tabs open other than you, Cate.
(15:33):
And I'm not in stores or anything, but like, that's what I'd be doing if I was sitting in a
club. Yeah. You know, so I think that the difficulty of keeping people in a moment has always been
hard, but it's even harder. And the difficulty of saying, this is really important, you should
take time to read it, you should think about it, and you should write about it. That's never been
(15:54):
easy to convince people to do, but I think it's even harder now, because we have tools that allow us
not to ever have to do it again. If we don't want to. Yeah. So I feel like I'm in this, you know,
I don't mean to say I have some kind of privilege, but I do have some kind of privilege because I was
here. Like I saw computers happen. Yeah. Yeah, I saw them come in and it was like, oh,
(16:17):
shit, what are we going to do about it? And it's the same thing. I like, I have, I have people
right now who are saying the way to do this right is to have people write everything in class,
because you can't know if they're writing. And I was like, that's not the answer. You know,
I don't think that's the answer. I know it goes against everything I think about what writing is,
(16:37):
but you know, I think we're going to have to change what we think writing is. Yeah. I mean,
it's going to be hard. It's hard for people. It's hard. Yeah, there's some threads I want to pick up,
and I want to pick up one of the things that I wanted to bring into this conversation in the
first place, which was this idea of metacognition and reflective practices, reflective writing
(17:02):
practices specifically. Because I know that that's been an important part of your teaching agenda
as an educator. So what is metacognition?
Well, you know, I should have looked up the definition, but I think
(17:23):
was basically thinking about your thinking, right? Like you're able to take the time to think about
what you did, the choices you made, and whether or not you would make those choices again,
or to argue for why you would make those choices again, in anything. And I'm going to tell you
a little bit of history. So I got into this, you know, a long time ago, just from a scholarly
(17:47):
perspective, right? Because it was the right at the beginning of the portfolio movement, you know,
Kathy Black-Anti writes, block on reflection, writes a ton of reflection stuff. And so I had
never heard of it, right? Yeah, that wasn't part of my educational curriculum. Right, none at all,
like nobody cared, right? So yeah, no. And like the teacher was the arbiter of what you did.
(18:09):
Like you got a great, like, and then if you were upset about it, you could go talk to them and
then tell you what you did and what's different, right? But it was like outsourced cognition. It
was like, Hello, teacher, what did I do? What do I do to get a different grade? Right? Not really
me looking inward about like, what choices did I make? Yes, yes, yes. So that's how I got into it,
(18:30):
right? I read all this stuff. And I thought, you know, it'd be really good. And we developed a, you
know, I was at the University of Mexico at the time, we developed a large scale portfolio assessment
around reflection, using a reflective, a reflective letter, we were calling it, about the outcomes
of the course and about the writings and sort of making this case, right? So we, we get it all set up,
(18:50):
you know, and we do this assessment and we realize that nobody knows what they're doing.
Yeah. Because nobody's been taught how to. Yeah, like, you say the words portfolio and reflection
letter and I imagine listeners are like, okay, like, I think I know what that means, right?
But okay, so you in a class, maybe you write four essays, right? Yeah. At the end of the
(19:12):
class, you take two of those essays and you make an argument in your reflective letter about why
those two essays demonstrate that you've, you've, you've achieved the outcomes or goals of the course.
Yeah. And how with examples. Right. Right. So it's, it's a, you know, it's a structured
reflection on what you've done, both what you've done and what you've supposedly learned,
(19:34):
right? Not doing. But, you know, the first time we did it, we thought, we'll just tell them to do
that. And they were awful. Nobody knew what they were doing. And then we got really structured
with it, you know, like, outcome one, paper one, tell me what you did, you know, and really,
it got better the more people practiced it. You know, I mean, sense. It does, it does, right?
(19:58):
And so to say you got to teach them this, the actual important thing is the reflection.
Right. Right. The essays themselves are great. Like you've done all that, that demonstrates one
thing, but the way you transfer all of this in their lives or and into their next classes and
whatnot is that they can actually take stock and say, I can look at my writing as evidence for
(20:22):
learning. Yeah. And that is, that is hard to do. It's hard to teach. And it's not, it's not linear.
No. Yeah. And I just, I mean, because what interests me about this is not so much the
academic portion anymore, but just the like idea of the value of reflective practices and writing
(20:47):
specifically because like I am an English teacher and like, you know, but what I appreciate about
that is that it is hard. Like it is hard to take stock and figure out what we've learned or how
we've grown. And especially if we don't carve out the time, right? All of these things are tied
together. You know, and it's the, it's January of 2025 and a lot of folks for new years kind of do
(21:15):
the like year in review and what did I learned and what has changed? Right. And I guess like,
why does that matter? Yeah. Well, you learn something about yourself. Yeah. Right. And I think
it, you know, I think there's an intentionality. I think, I think what it can do is breed intention.
(21:37):
Right. It can grow intention. And I think just imagine if we, if we took the situations,
if we took our year in review, right? And we decided, okay, I had the goal in 2024 to get in
shape. That was one of my goals, right? Because, you know, I'm recovering triathlete. I don't do
(21:57):
that anymore. I don't have the time for it. But I decided, I was like, listen, I can't have that.
What's your new definition of being in shape?
Well, I need to be in shape for life, right? And longevity, right? And so I walk more than I run.
I lift weights more than I do anything else. But that was hard. And I grieved. I didn't know how
(22:20):
to grieve it. And I did. But, you know, I don't think that was a good enough goal. That's what
I figured out when I was trying to figure it out. I like to be, to be, to get in shape again, right?
And so I think reflection, I think you have to start with goals, good goals, right? And then
Okay, what makes a good goal? Well, that it's measurable, right? But also that it's wide enough
(22:46):
that you're not saying, so I have four for this year. All right. Right. And I'm trying every day
to write about these at night. You know, sometimes I'm doing it in the morning for the last day,
but I want to feed my body. Well, right? I want to feed my soul. Well, I want to feed my brain.
(23:09):
Well, and I want to feed my relationships well.
I love those sound very lofty and not measurable, John Miles.
But I can say, I can say yes. So yes, they do. I do have a hard time with, with what it means
to be healthy, right? It used to mean one thing, it doesn't mean now. But if I can come, if I can
(23:30):
say, okay, today I ate in a way that was intentional for health. You know, that's what I'm thinking
about. And not to, I don't like, I don't sit around and think about the fact that I ate tater
chips. Like I don't really, like I'm not that hard on myself really. Yeah. But, but I do every day
think about, okay, what do I do? And not being too hard on myself or the decisions I'm making
(23:52):
are crafted by the intentions that I have. Yeah. We are so automatic that reflection makes you stop
and quit being automatic to start to develop the practice of having whatever it is you're
reflecting on, like you run races, right? When you run a race, I shouldn't say you. When I used to run
(24:17):
races, when I was, I mean, I do, but where you going with this? But when I would finish a race,
I would take stock, right? Like I had a goal. I did all this training. Now it would be stupid,
in my mind, to not do anything with that information, to just go on to race, right? Finish your thoughts
(24:40):
because I'm, I have a different perspective on this. I love it. You do. You do. And I think it's,
yeah, my perspective is not, I think it's like, you need to figure out what you did right and
what you did wrong. That's what I, you know, and so if I wanted to run a 330 marathon and I didn't
run a 330 marathon, I wanted to know why, right? And that's a kind of reflection, you know, to think,
like I did all this practice, what happens, you know, was it mental? Was it physical? But what
(25:05):
would have been better is if I'd have known along the way, you know, there's some intentional things
I needed to do in my training that did that. So yeah, I think it's a, what you want to do is be
present, right? In your experiences and your choices. But if you're not reflecting on what you do,
how are you going to become more present? Right? Because you're just sort of being automatic.
(25:27):
Right? Yeah.
You're just saying that.
I, uh, just because it resulted in a lot of laughing, like I don't like it. So I want credit.
Like I want credit is why I track my like running and whatever data. But I don't ever do anything
with that information because I'm not actively trying to get better or faster or whatever.
(25:50):
Yeah, I'm pretty. I know. I know this was a point of humor and contention between us.
But I do do a lot of reflecting in my life on like other shit.
Yes. Right.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. And you know, and it's all, that's all changed for me. You knew me at a time
(26:12):
when I was, I was pretty sure.
You were an Iron Man.
Yeah.
You were like full on.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, and there's a lot of data.
Yeah. Lots of data. And you know, and I think it's, it's easier for me now.
You know, really a process, but it's easier for me now. I do, I want the credit too. Okay.
(26:34):
Like that's how I feel right now. Like I want, I just want to know that I did it.
And that's one of the things too. I should say this, right?
One of the things I've never been able to do is celebrate.
Right. Like I've just always been, you do something, you go on to the next thing.
Right? Like you're just doing it. Like why, why do we need to talk about this and celebrate this?
(26:58):
And one of the things that's changed that is I married a woman that likes to celebrate everything.
Yeah. Go Brenda.
Yeah. She's very good at this. But you know, I'm getting there. And I think that's part of,
I think that's part of my personality, but it's also part of it's a, it's a sort of cultural norm.
And it might be around masculinity. It might be around business culture. I don't know which one
(27:19):
it is, but like I should just be doing stuff. You know, and, and now I'm doing stuff because
I think it's going to make, I have a goal. Like it's not to lose weight. It's not to do X.
And I like, you know, I walked 25 miles this week. If that's what I did, like that's a long way to
walk. That is a long way to walk. You know, like that's a long, and that's important for me to be
(27:41):
able to say, you know, yeah. But yeah, I think it's, yeah, it's interesting. I still have the
shirt that says suck it up buttercup. I just put it, I just put it in the pile to donate because
it's so small. But I do, you know, I think I probably made a ton of mistakes, coaching, training,
(28:07):
raising kids with that, with, without that celebratory part. But I think that celebration
is a kind of reflection. Because you're saying, you're saying, Hey, I, it took a lot to do this.
You know, I'm going to pause. And I'm going to think about how hard that thing was I just did.
You know, I'm going to celebrate that. And then I'm going to figure out if I'm going to do it again,
(28:30):
you know, and you may not make any other changes than that, but you're exactly like you're taking
time, you're sitting with it. And you're saying I did it. You love medals.
I do. I was just thinking about that. I was like, yeah, I haven't run a race since May. I'm currently
looking at my last medal. And I was listening to you know, I was like, yeah, I think that's why I
(28:52):
like medals. Because it's just this like tactile thing that's like, I did something hard. Yeah.
I got a little, I got a little shiny object to be like, look at, look at that. You achieved something.
Yes. Yeah. And that could be, that could be really, really bad. Right?
What's how dare you? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, I don't think it's bad for you because it's purely celebratory.
(29:18):
But I mean, if that's the only, you know what I'm saying? Like if it's reductionist in that way.
Right. But it's not for you. You enjoy the whole experience.
Well, sometimes, no, I mean, I will admit, like I have been guilty of like just doing the race
to get the fucking medal, to get the state checked off the list. And, and like that's not rewarding.
And, and you know, and part of my reflective practice has been thinking about that. Like,
(29:46):
so I had a goal of trying to run a half marathon in all 50 states. I have now hit 26 states. I've
been working at this goal for like 12 years. And I don't know if it's still a goal anymore. I'm
actually at a little existential crisis about it because like, I'm old and travel is expensive.
(30:06):
And I don't know if I actually want to do this anymore. But you're reflecting on that.
Yeah. Yeah. Like, and goals change. Yeah. And that's something I've been thinking about a lot
that's really interesting is that like goals change, we evolve. Yes. And something you touched
on briefly was that like grief process of when we change, even if it's like, you know, for me,
(30:32):
I'm in, in the midst of this right now of like, not sure if I want this to still be a goal anymore,
feeling sad, feeling relieved, not really sure who am I without this goal? Everybody knows I'm
trying to do this thing. Yep. Right. And you know, in this, in this instance, it's
fucking running half marathons, which is a little cuckoo bananas. But that happens in all areas of
(30:56):
life. It's not just the like, that it's something we can all relate to. Yeah, you touched on,
you touched on the thing, right? You're talking about what makes you you.
Yeah. Right. And what you, what I should say, what you think makes you you.
And if you don't reflect on that, when it's gone, or it changes, it's fucking hard.
(31:20):
Right. Like, everybody knew me to make this personal, right? Everybody knew me as a triathlete.
Right. I mean, it was on my bio for a long time. It might still be, I don't know if it still is,
I probably need to change it. But you know, a lot of my life, apart from my work and my family was
being a triathlete, whatever that meant at that time. Right. Yeah. And you convince yourself
(31:46):
that that's part of who you actually are. And it does become part of your, I mean, it's a lot of
time, you know, but that's not that important. It was important to me at that time. It's not
important to me now. And that's a hard process. And I think that there is, you know, egos caught
up in that. There's all kinds of other things caught up in that. But I think you're exactly
(32:09):
right. I mean, like who you were when you made that goal is not who you are now.
Yeah. I mean, and that was a big part of my departure from academia was that was a huge
piece was like, I had spent eight years in graduate school. I spent three years as an
official college professor. And that last year was a whole long process of like, do I leave if I
(32:33):
leave who am I? Who am I without this identity of this job? Yep. And I think that's a huge reason
that I see in clients that I see in that I saw in colleagues who expressed envy for my decision,
you know, is that we get so tied to these aspects of our identity and it can be really,
(32:58):
really hard to let them go. Yeah. And I think it becomes very easy to live unintentionally.
Yeah. You know, and just be like, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Maybe, you know,
but the hard work is pausing saying, I don't know if this is what I should be doing. And let's talk
(33:19):
about why. And let's start to get down into what, what is the goal, right? Or is it feeding my soul
in any way to do this? And I have, you know, I have made a complete 180 on like one of the things
I used to say all the time. And that was I never derived any of my meaning from what I did. Right.
I just did work because I needed a vocation, right? I have to make money. But now I actually feel
(33:45):
like you better be doing something that you kind of like. Yeah. And that you derive some meaning
from because it should be part of who you are. If not, you're just sort of a cognitive machine
that's working and you don't know why you're there anymore. Yeah. You know, so I do, you know,
watching you go through that was, was very interesting and enlightening in some ways because you,
(34:09):
you know, we've known each other for a decade, which is weird. It's so weird. In the conversations
with you over time, your happiness has gone through the charts from where you were. And you can tell
you're doing what you're supposed to be doing or should be doing that this moment. Because it's true,
(34:30):
though, and you weren't fully Cate. Yeah, I was trying real hard. I was like,
doing everything I can do to be like, all right, like, what, what levers do we got to tweak here
to make this work? And it just wasn't. Nope. Nope. No, sorry. Sorry to do that. But yeah.
(34:52):
Yeah, you can see it. Like, it's great. Hey, you get the prize. You're the first guest to make
me cry on my own podcast. I love it. It's amazing. Because I talk about it all the time on here about
how I'm a big crier and it doesn't happen much. But that was just really beautiful to hear reflected
back to me. Because, you know, the job I got with you was like all of the components that I thought
(35:20):
I wanted in a job. I had worked real hard. I landed my dream job. It wasn't what I wanted. And I
couldn't fucking make it work. Like, in spite of all of my best efforts, you know, and it was a big
lesson for me in like, letting go of control and like, stepping into the flow of life of acknowledging
(35:52):
when something isn't working. Yeah. Right. And yeah, I just think that I don't know that I believe
that we're all supposed to like follow our passion when it comes to careers. But I do believe that we
(36:13):
all deserve to like be in careers that leverage our strengths. No, I think that's so good. Yeah.
And it takes some time, you know, it takes some time to figure that out. And I think there's,
you know, spend all this time looking at data, right? Because it's my job. But, you know, one of the
things that I was giving a presentation to our board of trustees, and I was talking about this
(36:37):
generation of students, which I always find very interesting, but the, the, the gen, this generation
of students will change jobs six times, change careers six times is what they say. And, you know,
the people are like shocked by this. And I think, well, well, wait a minute, I've changed jobs
five times or four times. You know, like, it's really not like if you think about it, if you've
(37:01):
been working for, I've been working since I was, I've been working for 27 years, basically, right?
Yeah, 27 years, basically. And, you know, I've done four or five things. And I'll probably do two
or three more. But back to what you were saying too, though, I think when you talk about needing to,
(37:22):
when you're doing something that, you know, leverages your strengths, I think it takes a lot
of people a long time to figure out what their strengths are. Yeah. And what their limitations
are. Yes. Yeah. That's been a big piece for me, right? That like, there were a lot of ways in which
being a college professor leveraged a lot of my strengths, but like being in South Carolina and
(37:45):
being a college professor, like, didn't align with my limitations. Yeah. I remember having a
conversation with my sponsor at the time about like, just because I'm really good at something
doesn't mean it's like right for me. No. Yeah. You know, and a huge component of my development
(38:05):
of the last few years in learning more about my neurodivergence and like, just really understanding
like what works for me and what doesn't. I think the sweet spot of career is one where you get to
like leverage your strengths and not over tax your limitations. Yeah. Yeah. You know, there's a lot of,
(38:28):
there's a lot of good, well, first of all, that's like purely reflective, right? Yeah. Like, that's
been a long road to where you are. Yeah. And this works, this doesn't. Why is this not working?
How are we doing this? Do you know, which is hard work and not a lot of people want to do it?
(38:50):
Because it's unbelievable. It means I have to look at my limitations. I'm like, ah,
this is what I don't like. Like, I can, you know, and believe me, like I've been in this cycle for
years of like slowly figuring out what my actual energetic bandwidth is by overtaxing it and having
a meltdown. Like it's not a fun process. Right? But you have a process, Cate. Yeah. Well,
(39:15):
it's not a goddamn academic in my soul. Yeah.
How many years of college and not have it be part of your identity? Yeah. Yeah. No, agreed. Agreed.
I mean, I, you know, I think that, I think that that's, that's good. Your limitations. We, you
know, I have a colleague of mine who talks a lot about, you know, we did this, we did this disc
(39:40):
analysis, right? Are you familiar with this tool? Yeah. What is it? I'm familiar. What do they,
what do they stand for? Like, I don't know. There's not a circle. And, and you're supposed to do it.
Right. There's a circle. And I am at the top left of the outside of the circle, which means like,
(40:02):
if there's a problem, I'm going to figure out how to solve it. Okay. And I don't want you to get in
my way. I want you to help me. Right? Which I think are two different things, but we could talk about
that too. But most of the team that I work with is at the bottom right of it, which is they like
to contemplate things. Oh, yeah. That's very academic. Yeah. And I'm like, you know, let's
(40:28):
do something. And if it doesn't work out, then we'll just change it. Oh, that's the hard piece that
so many of us don't want to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that, you know, and I'm like, I'm pretty okay with
change. Yeah. You know, it's very, it's very hard. But, but the thing about that, the one thing I will
(40:49):
say too, the thing about that disc assessment, you start talking about what your strengths and
weaknesses are. And what they say is, you know, you should really work on your strengths a lot.
Yeah. Right. Because working on a weakness is not going to give you a lot of headway.
Yeah. Right. You need to recognize them, right, and figure out how to, how to avoid them, or find
(41:12):
people that help you lift you up in that way on your team or in your life, you know, but that just
resonated with me when you were saying like, I think that's really important. And I am, I'm working
on it. I think I'm pretty good at what I do. But I think part of the thing that makes me pretty good
at what I do is I am not afraid to be the one in the room that says, if we don't do something,
(41:35):
you know, not doing something is not the answer. Or asking the question, like, if you're sitting in
a room and you're doing these seven things, why is that the answer? Like, what do we need to do
to fix this? But, and that's really hard. It's really easy for me to do on external work problems.
(41:57):
Yeah. Not really easy for me to do on myself. Yeah. And if I could do that to be like, what,
what are we doing here? Like, why, why are we, why are we doing this thing? Why are you doing that
and take the time to think about it? That's, that'd be better at it, I think. Yeah. I think, like,
reflective practices often aren't something that we're taught unless we start picking up self-help
(42:20):
books or happen to be at a university that taught portfolio learning, but then it's a whole other,
like, learning and step of how to then apply that to life outside of a classroom, which is one of
the things that I think college is woefully unprepared as adults for is like, how to apply
any of this outside of the classroom, but agreed. So, you know, you, one of the things you, I don't
(42:47):
know if you remember this, one of the things you introduced me to was this habit tracker.
I didn't know I introduced you to that. Sounds accurate. Yeah. And I did find out that, you know,
that was not, that's not the way I could do it. Okay. Right. Like, and this is, you know,
(43:09):
I think important for reflection because, you know, there are lots of ways that your apps
and your watch and everything else will remind you to reflect, right? But as you might disregard,
like, a text message or a phone call, you can just disregard that too. So, there are,
I, you know, I think I really truly believe that you need to write things down. Yeah.
(43:33):
I think I do too. Yeah. But I want to hear you as the professional in the room, tell us why.
Well, I don't know that I'm professional, but we'll just, I'm working on it. Okay.
You're more credentialed than I am at this point. Well, okay, whatever. But so, you know,
I think you need a structure and time for reflection. Yeah. And I think you need to
(43:57):
be dedicated to the practice. Yeah. There are some people, I think, who could thrive with a
blank piece of paper in a journal and just go at it every night and they will reflect and
they will think about what they did and then it will be this pattern of behavior. I am not one
of those people. I need a structure. So, I've created a structure, but I think there are lots
(44:18):
of, you can buy them, you know, there are lots of, there's a whole industry of like different
journaling things that you can buy. But I don't think you need, here's what I would suggest.
I mean, do you want me to tell you what I would do? Yeah. Yeah. I think you need about three or
four things to think about every day. And I think you need to write some examples of them every night.
(44:41):
And then I need, you need to think about it. Right. What do I want to do? You know,
what is a good thing this year or this time? And I don't really, it could be one. I guess, you know,
I do four because it's just easy, but just taking the time and allowing yourself a structure to
(45:02):
write things down because you remember them. It's tangible. And back to an earlier piece of our
conversation, it's pretty cool to see that like, I did this, I wrote all these things down. Maybe
I'll look at them and think about what they mean. You know, instead of, you know, I clicked 47 times
(45:24):
in a habit tracker and it just tells me, you've done this for 365 days. Well, you know, I could
probably just lie about that. Right. You can't lie about writing on the paper because you write
it on the paper, you know, you're holding yourself, it's holding yourself, I shouldn't,
you're holding yourself accountable to the practice. Right. And that is life is a, you know,
(45:45):
you know, we built programs talking about teaching as a reflective practice. There's books written
on that. Right. I mean, I think it's the more you see, I think it's funny, you talked about the
self-help industry and those sorts of things, but the more you see the mind, whatever mindfulness
is, whatever, like being present, whatever that means, whatever all those words mean, but I think
(46:07):
being intentional about what you do and when you're not intentional about calling yourself out on it
and saying, what did I, why did I do that? Like what, if, especially if it's outside your values
or outside what you want to be, like why are you doing that? Not based on some system of like
overlord thinking of whatever, but just you yourself saying, I want to be, I want to be healthy.
(46:31):
Right. And I want to be able to get off the ground when I'm 65 and I've done enough damage to my body
in various ways that that might be harder for me than other people. So I've got to change that.
So did I do that today? Right. Did I do the things that are going to lead me to that? And if I didn't,
why? And if I did, why? And just keep asking as my friend says, keep asking why four times.
(46:56):
You know, you write something down and you're like, Oh, what, why that? Ask yourself why four
times? And then you're reflecting is what she said. Okay. Because I was talking to people about
doing this discussion because I was, you know, trying to prep, but, but it is, it's so funny how
when I take, take the time to look in almost every aspect of my life, I track what I am doing by writing
(47:19):
it down. Yeah. And I go back to it. Yeah. Yeah. And that going back to it piece, I think is super
important. I, I've like dabbled in journaling my whole life. But in 2020, I picked up the artist's way
by Julia Cameron and started doing morning pages really concertedly, which is just like three pages
(47:45):
every day of writing whatever the fuck's on your mind. And it was incredibly helpful. Julia Cameron
says like, burn them, throw them away. You don't care about them. She does not actually encourage
you to go back to them. And I often didn't because I had the instructions that didn't tell me I didn't
have to do that. Right. Right. Even if, even without going back and looking at them, you know,
(48:10):
writing about my emotional state. So there are studies, 20 minutes of writing about your emotional
well-being or emotional state of being for any consistent amount of time has really positive
impacts on processing heart emotions. But writing the same shit down, like complaining about the
same shit for like a month or a month and a half, like I'm going to notice even if I wasn't going
(48:34):
back and reading it. Right. Last year, I created a structure and a framework for reflecting on
what the fuck's been going on in my life. Also akin with some of the other stuff we've been
talking about, I do a digital detox at the end of every month. And I started like reading what I
wrote for the last month and being like, okay, like what, what happened this month? What was going on?
(48:56):
Was it what I wanted to have happen? Like what, what is up? And that's been really powerful.
But I'm going to, I'm going to take your little idea. Like what are the things on a daily basis?
Like what are my intentions this year? And am I leaning into those on a daily basis?
(49:17):
Not in a like habit track? Because like I meditate every day, like cool. But like,
what am I actually getting out of that? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think, I think I want to change
what I said earlier. Yeah. Because yeah, this conversation made me, made me figure something
out. Right. So it is, it in an educational setting, you need goals that are measurable.
(49:40):
Yeah. That you can track. Yeah. Right. And that way, like you did this, you did it 75 times,
that, you know, whatever that means something. I think that you need some, like what you just
said just like made me realize having the goal to meditate every day is a great goal. But asking
(50:02):
yourself why you do that every day is the reflection of it. Right? Yeah. It shouldn't just be a
check mark. And like, what happened? You know, like, if you're reading that, when you read his
stuff, all he talks about is how hard meditation is. Yeah. So just meditating is a goal. And for
(50:26):
some people, that's a really worthwhile and deep goal. Because you're like, I am taking time out
to do this and I've never done that in my entire life. At some point, maybe that goal should be,
I want to meditate every day. And then after I meditate, I'm going to figure out what happened
during that meditation. Or I'm going to do guided meditations for the next five weeks on X.
(50:49):
Because I've been struggling with it. Or, you know, like, like using it instead of just doing it.
Oh, using it instead of just doing it. I needed to hear that today. And I'm thinking,
when I'm thinking about like, okay, so like, I'm super tracky motivated, right? And I've talked
(51:10):
about this on the podcast before of just like, I will do Duolingo every fucking day. Because I get
a badge and a streak and whatever. But there's a difference between doing it to just check the box.
And when I'm actively trying to do new lessons and learn and not just like do the quick little
(51:32):
lesson to like get my daily lesson off. Right. Yeah. So your podcast title, right? Yeah.
Settle Handle Shit. Yeah, I love it. But I think what you just said is part of what schooling does
to people. Yeah. Right. Because our education, I use, that's not education, that's schooling,
(51:57):
right? But the, like you were probably very good at school. I was so good at school. That's why
I stayed in it forever. I didn't know what else to do with my life. I was like, I just, there's rule
of restructure. I know how to, I know how to get my prize at the end of the tunnel. Yeah. Yeah.
So I think, you know, another time we will talk about the fact that I was a horrible student.
(52:18):
Yeah. But I think that I can remember, like one of my biggest struggles as a teacher
are teaching people like you. Why? What are they doing? Because it's very hard to say
to someone who's figured it out. Right. You will do everything you ask to take a minute
(52:46):
to step back and say, why did I do this? Right? Because it sounds like criticism.
Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Right. Can you talk to me about, can you talk to me about this choice here?
Well, I did it. You know, it's not, like I did it and it's good. That's what you're supposed to do.
(53:07):
So it's, you know, and so if you think about it, the people who need to reflect the most are probably
the people who have been good at things for a long time. Yeah. You know, and I will also say,
I was thinking about this when I was on a walk yesterday, it is cold as hell in Georgia right
now. You know, and I went outside and walked my poor little dog. I put his sweatshirt, I put his
(53:30):
little sweatshirt on. But I was thinking about this, you know, I have, I have come to terms with my
anxiety and my issues around some mix of anxiety and ADHD for my whole life. And figuring that out
in my mid 40s was probably the best thing that happened to me. But I think being a little anxious
(53:54):
makes me take stock more and makes me reflect more. And I think if I'm asking myself, am I doing it
right? It's probably not the right question. Ooh, what's a better question? Why am I doing it?
Yeah. You know, like, am I doing it right? Like, what are the measures by which I can even understand
(54:14):
that anyway? You know, but like, if I'm taking time to do it, why am I doing it? And not to be like,
not to be late stage capitalist about it, but also like, what am I getting out of it? Like,
what meaning, what feeling, what, what, what am I getting in my soul, in my mind, in my body?
(54:37):
Yeah. That, that makes me need to do this more in this way, or need to do it differently. I think
that's part of, you know, my anxiety will ask that question all the time, you know, because mine
is more or less about letting myself down more than it is about letting other people down,
which is, you know, its own little, that's, Oh, I know. I like that. I mean, as my little
(55:04):
recovering perfectionist type A student, like, yeah, I was always looking for the right way to do it.
Yeah. And I was always looking for the right way by someone else's
metrics. And that was a big part of why leaving academia was, I think, really important for me,
but also really hard was that like, I had, I had done everything right. I had ticked the right
(55:31):
boxes. I had gotten the right job. And it wasn't fucking working. And I had to redefine what was
right for me. And that's, I think a goddamn ever evolving process. Because like, this is something
that is very annoying is that like, I change, like I figure out parts to myself and then my goals
(55:54):
change, my interests change. And, you know, I've had a really nice morning meditation and journaling
practice for a long time now. And just this week was reflecting on how like, why am I doing it this
way? Still, right? And part of my fucking ADHD is that when I do something the same way for long
(56:18):
enough, it ceases to have meaning. Oh, yes. And so like, I need to switch it up. And so like,
this is I'm treating this as like a little synchronicity from the universe. Because I was
just thinking about like, what if I started doing it at the end of the day instead of first thing in
the morning? Yeah. And like, you offered a lovely little like treat for me to chew on of like, okay,
(56:38):
I'm gonna try it that way. And I just, yeah, to sort of circle back to the very first place that
we started, right, this idea of like, drafts and feedback and like, trying things with the
understanding that I'm not supposed to get it perfectly on the first try. Yep. My body's like
(57:00):
clenching around. That's my big, one of my big like life evolutions, right, is, is letting go
of that idea that like, I'm both supposed to get it right on the first try and that there even is
a right on the first try. Right, right, right. You know, I think there's, you know, with many,
(57:22):
many years of yoga practice under my belt, many, many years of yoga teaching under my belt. I think
you, I think you nailed two things. One, when something becomes automatic, yeah, it's very hard
to reflect on it, right, because you're just doing it. And the meaning is the doing of it. It's not
(57:47):
what, why you're doing it. Yeah. Anything you just do out of habit is, is in, I think it's inherently
not reflective. Yeah, because you're on autopilot. Like that is by definition what habit is. Good
habits, bad habits. Right. Right. Like taking my meds at the same time every day. Great habit. We
(58:09):
want that on autopilot. I don't mean to like reflect about that. Yeah. Oh, yes. That's such a good
point. I think we, I think somebody could listen to this and think that I think you should reflect
on everything that you do in your life. And I do. Oh, God. Oh, her brains would melt. No, I do not
think that. Yeah, no. I think that's, that is, that is probably, you know, that's, that's probably
(58:32):
diagnosable in some way. Yeah, I think that's a recipe for life. So, but I do think, I do think you
need to figure out things that are important to you or things that you want to change or things
that you want to learn more about. Like any practice that has meaning, it's small. Yeah.
Yeah. Because if it's too big, you can't get, it's too hard. Yeah. We do, we have, like I have to do
(58:57):
a bunch of shit every day. Yeah. You know, like a lot of shit. Yeah, like dishes, laundry, brushing
teeth. Yes. Yeah. And I don't care. I like, I don't sit and reflect about brushing my teeth and think
I'm doing this. Do I do that? You know, I don't do that, you know, but I am thinking while I'm
brushing my teeth, what am I going to eat? How many cups of coffee I'm going to have today?
(59:19):
Whatever, you know, but I do think it is, yeah, I think small and meaningful.
And I think there is, there are lots of ways in which I've gotten a lot of things wrong
in my life. But now when I am busier with work than I have ever been in my life, I think I am
more intentional about being a dad, being a husband, being a friend and being good to myself.
(59:46):
And like if you can't turn it off and take care of yourself, like, and that's hard, you know,
it's real hard. Yeah, it's hard for people who, you know, I see my daughter who is a high achiever,
you know, and, but I'm seeing her shift a little bit, you know, at 22.
(01:00:06):
And it's fun to watch a human grow from a little itty bitty thing to this, whatever she is.
Twenty-seven?
You know, I'm starting to see it in, you know, my 17 to the 18 year old.
And I really, I think I was a good dad. I think I've been a good dad. But I think I've been a
(01:00:30):
better dad in the last four years than I ever was because I didn't have a lot of time to do
anything else and I devoted my time to my relationships in ways that I never had, you know.
And that's, that's been good. Like that's, that makes me, what I think is happy. I'm not sure I
know what that is, but what I think is happy. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. Well, John Miles, it has been an
(01:00:56):
absolute treat to have you on. My favorite question to ask at the end of a long and
yummy conversation is, what brings you joy?
You know, that took, that is a question I ask at the end of every interview I do for every job.
(01:01:17):
Like, what do you do that brings you joy? I think what brings me joy is being with people that I love
and sharing space with them and time with them and understanding that that is a choice.
And we've made it together. That brings me joy. And it's sappy and whatever, but I love
(01:01:46):
Brenda Miles and I love to be with her. She makes me happy. She makes me very happy.
So yeah, my family brings me joy, Cate. I've gotten to see that and it has been beautiful to witness.
(01:02:08):
Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please help me grow the podcast
by subscribing, leaving a review and sharing it with anyone you think would benefit from hearing it
too. Your support means the world to me. If you'd like to get updates about new episodes, posts,
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(01:02:30):
information there about working with me one-on-one to build your most amazing life. Until next time,
remember that I believe in you and that you are fucking awesome.
The decisions I'm making are crafted by the intentions that I have.
(00:03):
Yeah.
We are so automatic that reflecting makes you stop and quit being automatic.
What you want to do is to be present, right?
In your experiences and your choices.
But if you're not reflecting on what you do, how are you going to become more present?
Welcome to Settling is Bullshit, a sweary podcast about claiming your joy.
(00:30):
If you are an adult human craving healthier boundaries, a greater sense of purpose,
or an increased capacity to feel at ease in your own skin, then you are in the right place, my friend.
I'm your host, Cate Blouke, and I'm here to offer you practical tools and playful encouragement
to help you step forward and be your most awesome self. My hope is that each episode will leave you
(00:52):
feeling a bit more empowered to make brave choices and claim your joy.
Hello, friend. I'm going to provide a little bit of extra historical context for today's episode,
in part because our guest, Dr. John Miles, is someone who played a really important role in
(01:14):
my career trajectory. When I graduated from the University of Texas with my PhD in English with
a focus in rhetoric, I got a job at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, as an
assistant professor of English and the director of digital pedagogy. And it was my job both to
(01:36):
teach courses, focusing on writing in digital spaces. I taught a class on podcasting. I taught a
class called Writing in Digital Environments. And it was also my job to help faculty incorporate
technology into the classroom. So the intersection between writing and technology
have always been really interesting to me. I am super glad I got out of academia before AI was a thing.
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But I wanted to have a conversation a little bit about technology and very much about writing
and reflective writing practices specifically. And John hired me at that job. And I worked with him
in the Center for Innovation and Learning to help implement a portfolio program for first-year
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students. And so it just kind of makes sense that if I was going to have a conversation about
reflective writing practices that John would be the person I tapped. He is now the Provost and
Vice President for Academic Affairs at Reinhardt University in Georgia. So we have both kind of
evolved in our careers and life paths. And that's something that we talk about. And John was both
(02:50):
the person who hired me at Wofford. And also someone who was really incredibly supportive when
only three years later it became very clear to me that it wasn't a good fit and they needed to move
on. And John was also my running coach at the time. I am a long-distance runner and you'll hear us
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talk about how I have had a goal of trying to run a half marathon in all 50 states. Which is
something I am reevaluating. But when I was at Wofford, John, who is an Ironman triathlete,
he is a yoga instructor as well and just a genuinely lovely, kind, thoughtful human,
(03:32):
he helped coach me. I ran a triathlon. I did a triathlon while I was in South Carolina. I did
one and then realized I don't like swimming. And so I didn't make myself do it again. But yeah,
John coached me and we have very different approaches to kind of running metrics and goals.
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And you'll hear us talk about and laugh about that a bit. So I wanted to give you that context as
well. And at one point I bought him a t-shirt that said suck it up buttercup. And that comes up as
well. So it was really nice to have a very meta conversation. Ten years after John hired me, he
hired me in January of 2015. And we had this conversation in January of 2025. And so it was
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both a conversation about reflective practices and a conversation that involved a lot of reflective
practices about how we've both changed and evolved over the last 10 years. And ultimately, it's a
conversation about like carving out that space and the intentionality to really look at what we
have done and to ask ourselves like why did I do that? What did I get out of that? What do I want
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to recognize and learn about myself through the process? So the first little bit of this conversation
is a little bit more academically focused because John has been teaching for 25 years. But it's also
a conversation about career change and general life goals and how we evolve as people.
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So it was a really lovely and meaningful conversation for me. I think those are all of the pieces of
information you need to get what we're laughing about. We had a pretty good time recording this,
and I did do quite a bit of judicious cutting to help us not go on too many academically specific
tangents. But the fundamental invitation of this episode is to really think about our own learning
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and thinking and how we evolve. So I hope it provides some inspiration for whatever you're
going through in your life right now and whatever changes you might want to implement. There's
some practical tools as well as just thoughtful conversation about being human and getting to
show up in our lives in the ways that we want to instead of just being on autopilot all the time.
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You've been teaching for 25 years. What would you say is like
central to your core philosophy around teaching? What's your deal as a teacher?
What's my deal as a teacher? That's a really good one. Well, the first thing is about me
is I will give feedback on anything. If it is a draft, it doesn't have to be
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finished. Students know they come in my office, sit down, we talk a lot, and I'll give feedback
and feedback. That is really comforting for some people and very frustrating for others
because they just want to do it once and be done. Yeah. Oh man, I'm just hearing so many
analogies for life in that right now. Like how I live my life. I think that's been a big lesson
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for me. Life is all a fucking first, second, third draft. There's not... Yes. Yeah. I mean,
it's process. It's process and becoming and that's the same thing. I think you're right.
I think there are so many parallels when you talk about students' resistance to just settling in for
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a little while, sitting with something. I see the same thing with the people that I supervise.
Yeah. They want a decision. They want to do something one time and we're like, whoa, wait a
minute. We need to back up here and talk about what's going on. Yeah. But yeah, people don't listen
either. No. No. I think one of the big growths for me as a human is to not take that so personally.
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Oh man. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Because it's not... I mean, I mean, like most of us, not even intentional.
Yeah. People are just like so distracted or so into their own stuff that when you're talking and
you feel like you're talking about serious things, it's only because you think they're serious.
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You know, not everybody does. Maybe you could... So I remember this... I don't know if this is like
colloquialism, but there's something about like you're supposed to tell students something like
six times if you actually want... Oh yeah. Is that true? Is that a like actually...
Yes. I think you can tell everybody something. I think one of the things my president says all
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the time is you have to say it seven times. He says seven, but you have to say it in three different
genres. You need to tell them. You need to like post it on a... Post it... Like send an email about it
and then send an announcement in their email or something. Like you got to do it three different
ways because people are just like... They're locked into the way they receive any kind of communication.
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So if they're clicking off emails, they're not paying attention. You know? Right.
So yeah, he's so patient with people, which is... He needs to be in the president. Well,
I mean, we all need it. I've been immersed lately in reading about digital minimalism,
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about Sabbath, about like all these different flavors and genres of people talking about
the importance for carving out space because we are so completely inundated by information and
distraction and places to put our attention. And it's so hard to hear yourself think.
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Yeah. You're never doing just one thing. Yeah. Almost never. Right?
One of the things that I'm glad... I'm old. I'm older.
I mean, old is relative. Now that I'm in my 40s.
Yeah. I was 50 and less than four months. I'll be 50 years old.
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Okay. And one of the things that I'm glad of is that my kids didn't have devices when they were
little. Right. They could just stick an iPad in front of somebody. And I'm not suggesting I wouldn't
if I had them to get some space and time. But if you just think about your training,
that mediated experience from a very young age now and being intentional about how you use it
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is so hard. Yeah. Because it is built to make you not do that.
Yeah. No, absolutely. Like I just finished reading Cal Newport's digital minimalism.
And you know, I've heard this so many times, but it's just really sinking in that like all
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of the free social media app, whatever, like it's all designed to be addictive.
Yep. It is by design. So for me in that, there's like a lot of grace for myself around, okay, like,
no wonder this is hard for all of us. Like, we are surrounded by these things that are
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demanding our attention in ways that are neurologically addictive.
Yes. And like, I'm in my fucking 40s and it's hard.
How do you expect teenagers and 20-somethings whose frontal lobes aren't fully formed
have the wherewithal to be like, I shouldn't do this all the time?
Yes. No, yeah. I mean, I think that's dead on. I'm just, I'm reading a book now.
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It's about AI, right? So like everything now is about AI, right? And so what I'm reading about is,
it's the same concept that every book about a new technology is about in the beginning, right?
And AI is not new, but like an emerging changing technology. And that is, it's going to do really
good stuff. It's going to do really bad stuff. We need to make some rules around it.
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Yeah. And we've never done it. I can't remember who said this a long time ago, but they were
talking about the digital age and they said, one of the things that emerging technologies have never
had is a moral reckoning, right? So we never bit, we were never like, these are the rules. Like,
let's all agree on them if it's collaborative or if it's from the top. But like the fact that we
have these technologies that are making, making people not care or care too much. And there's no,
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there's no guardrails at all. Yeah. It's shocking, you know, one of the things we do
and have done since the beginning is there's no screens at meals. We eat together at a table
when we can, but we always sat together at a table and there are no screens at a table. There are
no screens in your room. Yeah. You know, there has to be space set aside for you to not be
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because it's so easy to pick it up or turn it on or whatever. You know. Yeah. What have you seen?
Because you've been teaching for 25 years. Shit's changed. Yeah. Yeah. You know,
when I started teaching, it's so fascinating because I think about place so much. I started
teaching in very small rural North Carolina. And I taught in a single wide mobile classroom
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that had 30 desks in it, but there were 10 rows of three desks facing one long wall, right?
There was no screen. There was a chalkboard. And I mean, you know, this was 1997, you know?
There were computers, but I didn't have one. There were no, there was no, I didn't have a
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laptop. I didn't have anything. So students had, the only distractions they were doing were things
that were their own making, right? You know, they were like scratching shit into desk or whatever.
Yeah. Holes where they shouldn't be. But one of the things that's paper notes. Yes. And I want to
say, you know, they weren't not distracted. Right. Right. Like we've always been distracted.
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Right. But in Sherry Turkle, you know, talks about the fact that it's a screen now, but it used to
be a newspaper, you know, or something that me, you know, gets between you. So when I, I mean,
I think the thing that has changed, two things, one is access to information in a way that I could
not have imagined and an inability to figure out how to teach people how to use the technologies
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that are emerging at the time they're emerging. Because I don't know if it's resistance to people.
It's not my own resistance, but I mean, I remember Wikipedia being the end of everything,
right? Like at being at conferences and people talking about this thing that like,
how are we going to know what's true? And I'm like, I don't know that that's the problem with
(14:49):
Wikipedia. But I think it's really hard to be critical when you're in that, in that space of
emerging technologies. Yeah. But it's really easy to just say, I'm just going to not do it. I'm just
going to like, I'm going to tell my students that's bad. And we're going to go on about business as we,
as we should, and you do it outside the classroom, we're not going to do it in.
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But I think it's a different class. You know, I taught a class last semester,
we had a, we had somebody get sick and I took over a writing class, you know,
and I forgot the rules that I had to have. Like you can't have a screen open. Because if we're
talking, if you're writing, you should have a screen open. But if like, we're talking, why do
you have a screen open? Because if I have this at my, I mean, I have tabs open other than you, Cate.
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And I'm not in stores or anything, but like, that's what I'd be doing if I was sitting in a
club. Yeah. You know, so I think that the difficulty of keeping people in a moment has always been
hard, but it's even harder. And the difficulty of saying, this is really important, you should
take time to read it, you should think about it, and you should write about it. That's never been
(15:54):
easy to convince people to do, but I think it's even harder now, because we have tools that allow us
not to ever have to do it again. If we don't want to. Yeah. So I feel like I'm in this, you know,
I don't mean to say I have some kind of privilege, but I do have some kind of privilege because I was
here. Like I saw computers happen. Yeah. Yeah, I saw them come in and it was like, oh,
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shit, what are we going to do about it? And it's the same thing. I like, I have, I have people
right now who are saying the way to do this right is to have people write everything in class,
because you can't know if they're writing. And I was like, that's not the answer. You know,
I don't think that's the answer. I know it goes against everything I think about what writing is,
(16:37):
but you know, I think we're going to have to change what we think writing is. Yeah. I mean,
it's going to be hard. It's hard for people. It's hard. Yeah, there's some threads I want to pick up,
and I want to pick up one of the things that I wanted to bring into this conversation in the
first place, which was this idea of metacognition and reflective practices, reflective writing
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practices specifically. Because I know that that's been an important part of your teaching agenda
as an educator. So what is metacognition?
Well, you know, I should have looked up the definition, but I think
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was basically thinking about your thinking, right? Like you're able to take the time to think about
what you did, the choices you made, and whether or not you would make those choices again,
or to argue for why you would make those choices again, in anything. And I'm going to tell you
a little bit of history. So I got into this, you know, a long time ago, just from a scholarly
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perspective, right? Because it was the right at the beginning of the portfolio movement, you know,
Kathy Black-Anti writes, block on reflection, writes a ton of reflection stuff. And so I had
never heard of it, right? Yeah, that wasn't part of my educational curriculum. Right, none at all,
like nobody cared, right? So yeah, no. And like the teacher was the arbiter of what you did.
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Like you got a great, like, and then if you were upset about it, you could go talk to them and
then tell you what you did and what's different, right? But it was like outsourced cognition. It
was like, Hello, teacher, what did I do? What do I do to get a different grade? Right? Not really
me looking inward about like, what choices did I make? Yes, yes, yes. So that's how I got into it,
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right? I read all this stuff. And I thought, you know, it'd be really good. And we developed a, you
know, I was at the University of Mexico at the time, we developed a large scale portfolio assessment
around reflection, using a reflective, a reflective letter, we were calling it, about the outcomes
of the course and about the writings and sort of making this case, right? So we, we get it all set up,
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you know, and we do this assessment and we realize that nobody knows what they're doing.
Yeah. Because nobody's been taught how to. Yeah, like, you say the words portfolio and reflection
letter and I imagine listeners are like, okay, like, I think I know what that means, right?
But okay, so you in a class, maybe you write four essays, right? Yeah. At the end of the
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class, you take two of those essays and you make an argument in your reflective letter about why
those two essays demonstrate that you've, you've, you've achieved the outcomes or goals of the course.
Yeah. And how with examples. Right. Right. So it's, it's a, you know, it's a structured
reflection on what you've done, both what you've done and what you've supposedly learned,
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right? Not doing. But, you know, the first time we did it, we thought, we'll just tell them to do
that. And they were awful. Nobody knew what they were doing. And then we got really structured
with it, you know, like, outcome one, paper one, tell me what you did, you know, and really,
it got better the more people practiced it. You know, I mean, sense. It does, it does, right?
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And so to say you got to teach them this, the actual important thing is the reflection.
Right. Right. The essays themselves are great. Like you've done all that, that demonstrates one
thing, but the way you transfer all of this in their lives or and into their next classes and
whatnot is that they can actually take stock and say, I can look at my writing as evidence for
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learning. Yeah. And that is, that is hard to do. It's hard to teach. And it's not, it's not linear.
No. Yeah. And I just, I mean, because what interests me about this is not so much the
academic portion anymore, but just the like idea of the value of reflective practices and writing
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specifically because like I am an English teacher and like, you know, but what I appreciate about
that is that it is hard. Like it is hard to take stock and figure out what we've learned or how
we've grown. And especially if we don't carve out the time, right? All of these things are tied
together. You know, and it's the, it's January of 2025 and a lot of folks for new years kind of do
(21:15):
the like year in review and what did I learned and what has changed? Right. And I guess like,
why does that matter? Yeah. Well, you learn something about yourself. Yeah. Right. And I think
it, you know, I think there's an intentionality. I think, I think what it can do is breed intention.
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Right. It can grow intention. And I think just imagine if we, if we took the situations,
if we took our year in review, right? And we decided, okay, I had the goal in 2024 to get in
shape. That was one of my goals, right? Because, you know, I'm recovering triathlete. I don't do
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that anymore. I don't have the time for it. But I decided, I was like, listen, I can't have that.
What's your new definition of being in shape?
Well, I need to be in shape for life, right? And longevity, right? And so I walk more than I run.
I lift weights more than I do anything else. But that was hard. And I grieved. I didn't know how
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to grieve it. And I did. But, you know, I don't think that was a good enough goal. That's what
I figured out when I was trying to figure it out. I like to be, to be, to get in shape again, right?
And so I think reflection, I think you have to start with goals, good goals, right? And then
Okay, what makes a good goal? Well, that it's measurable, right? But also that it's wide enough
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that you're not saying, so I have four for this year. All right. Right. And I'm trying every day
to write about these at night. You know, sometimes I'm doing it in the morning for the last day,
but I want to feed my body. Well, right? I want to feed my soul. Well, I want to feed my brain.
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Well, and I want to feed my relationships well.
I love those sound very lofty and not measurable, John Miles.
But I can say, I can say yes. So yes, they do. I do have a hard time with, with what it means
to be healthy, right? It used to mean one thing, it doesn't mean now. But if I can come, if I can
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say, okay, today I ate in a way that was intentional for health. You know, that's what I'm thinking
about. And not to, I don't like, I don't sit around and think about the fact that I ate tater
chips. Like I don't really, like I'm not that hard on myself really. Yeah. But, but I do every day
think about, okay, what do I do? And not being too hard on myself or the decisions I'm making
(23:52):
are crafted by the intentions that I have. Yeah. We are so automatic that reflection makes you stop
and quit being automatic to start to develop the practice of having whatever it is you're
reflecting on, like you run races, right? When you run a race, I shouldn't say you. When I used to run
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races, when I was, I mean, I do, but where you going with this? But when I would finish a race,
I would take stock, right? Like I had a goal. I did all this training. Now it would be stupid,
in my mind, to not do anything with that information, to just go on to race, right? Finish your thoughts
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because I'm, I have a different perspective on this. I love it. You do. You do. And I think it's,
yeah, my perspective is not, I think it's like, you need to figure out what you did right and
what you did wrong. That's what I, you know, and so if I wanted to run a 330 marathon and I didn't
run a 330 marathon, I wanted to know why, right? And that's a kind of reflection, you know, to think,
like I did all this practice, what happens, you know, was it mental? Was it physical? But what
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would have been better is if I'd have known along the way, you know, there's some intentional things
I needed to do in my training that did that. So yeah, I think it's a, what you want to do is be
present, right? In your experiences and your choices. But if you're not reflecting on what you do,
how are you going to become more present? Right? Because you're just sort of being automatic.
(25:27):
Right? Yeah.
You're just saying that.
I, uh, just because it resulted in a lot of laughing, like I don't like it. So I want credit.
Like I want credit is why I track my like running and whatever data. But I don't ever do anything
with that information because I'm not actively trying to get better or faster or whatever.
(25:50):
Yeah, I'm pretty. I know. I know this was a point of humor and contention between us.
But I do do a lot of reflecting in my life on like other shit.
Yes. Right.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. And you know, and it's all, that's all changed for me. You knew me at a time
(26:12):
when I was, I was pretty sure.
You were an Iron Man.
Yeah.
You were like full on.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, and there's a lot of data.
Yeah. Lots of data. And you know, and I think it's, it's easier for me now.
You know, really a process, but it's easier for me now. I do, I want the credit too. Okay.
(26:34):
Like that's how I feel right now. Like I want, I just want to know that I did it.
And that's one of the things too. I should say this, right?
One of the things I've never been able to do is celebrate.
Right. Like I've just always been, you do something, you go on to the next thing.
Right? Like you're just doing it. Like why, why do we need to talk about this and celebrate this?
(26:58):
And one of the things that's changed that is I married a woman that likes to celebrate everything.
Yeah. Go Brenda.
Yeah. She's very good at this. But you know, I'm getting there. And I think that's part of,
I think that's part of my personality, but it's also part of it's a, it's a sort of cultural norm.
And it might be around masculinity. It might be around business culture. I don't know which one
(27:19):
it is, but like I should just be doing stuff. You know, and, and now I'm doing stuff because
I think it's going to make, I have a goal. Like it's not to lose weight. It's not to do X.
And I like, you know, I walked 25 miles this week. If that's what I did, like that's a long way to
walk. That is a long way to walk. You know, like that's a long, and that's important for me to be
(27:41):
able to say, you know, yeah. But yeah, I think it's, yeah, it's interesting. I still have the
shirt that says suck it up buttercup. I just put it, I just put it in the pile to donate because
it's so small. But I do, you know, I think I probably made a ton of mistakes, coaching, training,
(28:07):
raising kids with that, with, without that celebratory part. But I think that celebration
is a kind of reflection. Because you're saying, you're saying, Hey, I, it took a lot to do this.
You know, I'm going to pause. And I'm going to think about how hard that thing was I just did.
You know, I'm going to celebrate that. And then I'm going to figure out if I'm going to do it again,
(28:30):
you know, and you may not make any other changes than that, but you're exactly like you're taking
time, you're sitting with it. And you're saying I did it. You love medals.
I do. I was just thinking about that. I was like, yeah, I haven't run a race since May. I'm currently
looking at my last medal. And I was listening to you know, I was like, yeah, I think that's why I
(28:52):
like medals. Because it's just this like tactile thing that's like, I did something hard. Yeah.
I got a little, I got a little shiny object to be like, look at, look at that. You achieved something.
Yes. Yeah. And that could be, that could be really, really bad. Right?
What's how dare you? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, I don't think it's bad for you because it's purely celebratory.
(29:18):
But I mean, if that's the only, you know what I'm saying? Like if it's reductionist in that way.
Right. But it's not for you. You enjoy the whole experience.
Well, sometimes, no, I mean, I will admit, like I have been guilty of like just doing the race
to get the fucking medal, to get the state checked off the list. And, and like that's not rewarding.
And, and you know, and part of my reflective practice has been thinking about that. Like,
(29:46):
so I had a goal of trying to run a half marathon in all 50 states. I have now hit 26 states. I've
been working at this goal for like 12 years. And I don't know if it's still a goal anymore. I'm
actually at a little existential crisis about it because like, I'm old and travel is expensive.
(30:06):
And I don't know if I actually want to do this anymore. But you're reflecting on that.
Yeah. Yeah. Like, and goals change. Yeah. And that's something I've been thinking about a lot
that's really interesting is that like goals change, we evolve. Yes. And something you touched
on briefly was that like grief process of when we change, even if it's like, you know, for me,
(30:32):
I'm in, in the midst of this right now of like, not sure if I want this to still be a goal anymore,
feeling sad, feeling relieved, not really sure who am I without this goal? Everybody knows I'm
trying to do this thing. Yep. Right. And you know, in this, in this instance, it's
fucking running half marathons, which is a little cuckoo bananas. But that happens in all areas of
(30:56):
life. It's not just the like, that it's something we can all relate to. Yeah, you touched on,
you touched on the thing, right? You're talking about what makes you you.
Yeah. Right. And what you, what I should say, what you think makes you you.
And if you don't reflect on that, when it's gone, or it changes, it's fucking hard.
(31:20):
Right. Like, everybody knew me to make this personal, right? Everybody knew me as a triathlete.
Right. I mean, it was on my bio for a long time. It might still be, I don't know if it still is,
I probably need to change it. But you know, a lot of my life, apart from my work and my family was
being a triathlete, whatever that meant at that time. Right. Yeah. And you convince yourself
(31:46):
that that's part of who you actually are. And it does become part of your, I mean, it's a lot of
time, you know, but that's not that important. It was important to me at that time. It's not
important to me now. And that's a hard process. And I think that there is, you know, egos caught
up in that. There's all kinds of other things caught up in that. But I think you're exactly
(32:09):
right. I mean, like who you were when you made that goal is not who you are now.
Yeah. I mean, and that was a big part of my departure from academia was that was a huge
piece was like, I had spent eight years in graduate school. I spent three years as an
official college professor. And that last year was a whole long process of like, do I leave if I
(32:33):
leave who am I? Who am I without this identity of this job? Yep. And I think that's a huge reason
that I see in clients that I see in that I saw in colleagues who expressed envy for my decision,
you know, is that we get so tied to these aspects of our identity and it can be really,
(32:58):
really hard to let them go. Yeah. And I think it becomes very easy to live unintentionally.
Yeah. You know, and just be like, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Maybe, you know,
but the hard work is pausing saying, I don't know if this is what I should be doing. And let's talk
(33:19):
about why. And let's start to get down into what, what is the goal, right? Or is it feeding my soul
in any way to do this? And I have, you know, I have made a complete 180 on like one of the things
I used to say all the time. And that was I never derived any of my meaning from what I did. Right.
I just did work because I needed a vocation, right? I have to make money. But now I actually feel
(33:45):
like you better be doing something that you kind of like. Yeah. And that you derive some meaning
from because it should be part of who you are. If not, you're just sort of a cognitive machine
that's working and you don't know why you're there anymore. Yeah. You know, so I do, you know,
watching you go through that was, was very interesting and enlightening in some ways because you,
(34:09):
you know, we've known each other for a decade, which is weird. It's so weird. In the conversations
with you over time, your happiness has gone through the charts from where you were. And you can tell
you're doing what you're supposed to be doing or should be doing that this moment. Because it's true,
(34:30):
though, and you weren't fully Cate. Yeah, I was trying real hard. I was like,
doing everything I can do to be like, all right, like, what, what levers do we got to tweak here
to make this work? And it just wasn't. Nope. Nope. No, sorry. Sorry to do that. But yeah.
(34:52):
Yeah, you can see it. Like, it's great. Hey, you get the prize. You're the first guest to make
me cry on my own podcast. I love it. It's amazing. Because I talk about it all the time on here about
how I'm a big crier and it doesn't happen much. But that was just really beautiful to hear reflected
back to me. Because, you know, the job I got with you was like all of the components that I thought
(35:20):
I wanted in a job. I had worked real hard. I landed my dream job. It wasn't what I wanted. And I
couldn't fucking make it work. Like, in spite of all of my best efforts, you know, and it was a big
lesson for me in like, letting go of control and like, stepping into the flow of life of acknowledging
(35:52):
when something isn't working. Yeah. Right. And yeah, I just think that I don't know that I believe
that we're all supposed to like follow our passion when it comes to careers. But I do believe that we
(36:13):
all deserve to like be in careers that leverage our strengths. No, I think that's so good. Yeah.
And it takes some time, you know, it takes some time to figure that out. And I think there's,
you know, spend all this time looking at data, right? Because it's my job. But, you know, one of the
things that I was giving a presentation to our board of trustees, and I was talking about this
(36:37):
generation of students, which I always find very interesting, but the, the, the gen, this generation
of students will change jobs six times, change careers six times is what they say. And, you know,
the people are like shocked by this. And I think, well, well, wait a minute, I've changed jobs
five times or four times. You know, like, it's really not like if you think about it, if you've
(37:01):
been working for, I've been working since I was, I've been working for 27 years, basically, right?
Yeah, 27 years, basically. And, you know, I've done four or five things. And I'll probably do two
or three more. But back to what you were saying too, though, I think when you talk about needing to,
(37:22):
when you're doing something that, you know, leverages your strengths, I think it takes a lot
of people a long time to figure out what their strengths are. Yeah. And what their limitations
are. Yes. Yeah. That's been a big piece for me, right? That like, there were a lot of ways in which
being a college professor leveraged a lot of my strengths, but like being in South Carolina and
(37:45):
being a college professor, like, didn't align with my limitations. Yeah. I remember having a
conversation with my sponsor at the time about like, just because I'm really good at something
doesn't mean it's like right for me. No. Yeah. You know, and a huge component of my development
(38:05):
of the last few years in learning more about my neurodivergence and like, just really understanding
like what works for me and what doesn't. I think the sweet spot of career is one where you get to
like leverage your strengths and not over tax your limitations. Yeah. Yeah. You know, there's a lot of,
(38:28):
there's a lot of good, well, first of all, that's like purely reflective, right? Yeah. Like, that's
been a long road to where you are. Yeah. And this works, this doesn't. Why is this not working?
How are we doing this? Do you know, which is hard work and not a lot of people want to do it?
(38:50):
Because it's unbelievable. It means I have to look at my limitations. I'm like, ah,
this is what I don't like. Like, I can, you know, and believe me, like I've been in this cycle for
years of like slowly figuring out what my actual energetic bandwidth is by overtaxing it and having
a meltdown. Like it's not a fun process. Right? But you have a process, Cate. Yeah. Well,
(39:15):
it's not a goddamn academic in my soul. Yeah.
How many years of college and not have it be part of your identity? Yeah. Yeah. No, agreed. Agreed.
I mean, I, you know, I think that, I think that that's, that's good. Your limitations. We, you
know, I have a colleague of mine who talks a lot about, you know, we did this, we did this disc
(39:40):
analysis, right? Are you familiar with this tool? Yeah. What is it? I'm familiar. What do they,
what do they stand for? Like, I don't know. There's not a circle. And, and you're supposed to do it.
Right. There's a circle. And I am at the top left of the outside of the circle, which means like,
(40:02):
if there's a problem, I'm going to figure out how to solve it. Okay. And I don't want you to get in
my way. I want you to help me. Right? Which I think are two different things, but we could talk about
that too. But most of the team that I work with is at the bottom right of it, which is they like
to contemplate things. Oh, yeah. That's very academic. Yeah. And I'm like, you know, let's
(40:28):
do something. And if it doesn't work out, then we'll just change it. Oh, that's the hard piece that
so many of us don't want to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that, you know, and I'm like, I'm pretty okay with
change. Yeah. You know, it's very, it's very hard. But, but the thing about that, the one thing I will
(40:49):
say too, the thing about that disc assessment, you start talking about what your strengths and
weaknesses are. And what they say is, you know, you should really work on your strengths a lot.
Yeah. Right. Because working on a weakness is not going to give you a lot of headway.
Yeah. Right. You need to recognize them, right, and figure out how to, how to avoid them, or find
(41:12):
people that help you lift you up in that way on your team or in your life, you know, but that just
resonated with me when you were saying like, I think that's really important. And I am, I'm working
on it. I think I'm pretty good at what I do. But I think part of the thing that makes me pretty good
at what I do is I am not afraid to be the one in the room that says, if we don't do something,
(41:35):
you know, not doing something is not the answer. Or asking the question, like, if you're sitting in
a room and you're doing these seven things, why is that the answer? Like, what do we need to do
to fix this? But, and that's really hard. It's really easy for me to do on external work problems.
(41:57):
Yeah. Not really easy for me to do on myself. Yeah. And if I could do that to be like, what,
what are we doing here? Like, why, why are we, why are we doing this thing? Why are you doing that
and take the time to think about it? That's, that'd be better at it, I think. Yeah. I think, like,
reflective practices often aren't something that we're taught unless we start picking up self-help
(42:20):
books or happen to be at a university that taught portfolio learning, but then it's a whole other,
like, learning and step of how to then apply that to life outside of a classroom, which is one of
the things that I think college is woefully unprepared as adults for is like, how to apply
any of this outside of the classroom, but agreed. So, you know, you, one of the things you, I don't
(42:47):
know if you remember this, one of the things you introduced me to was this habit tracker.
I didn't know I introduced you to that. Sounds accurate. Yeah. And I did find out that, you know,
that was not, that's not the way I could do it. Okay. Right. Like, and this is, you know,
(43:09):
I think important for reflection because, you know, there are lots of ways that your apps
and your watch and everything else will remind you to reflect, right? But as you might disregard,
like, a text message or a phone call, you can just disregard that too. So, there are,
I, you know, I think I really truly believe that you need to write things down. Yeah.
(43:33):
I think I do too. Yeah. But I want to hear you as the professional in the room, tell us why.
Well, I don't know that I'm professional, but we'll just, I'm working on it. Okay.
You're more credentialed than I am at this point. Well, okay, whatever. But so, you know,
I think you need a structure and time for reflection. Yeah. And I think you need to
(43:57):
be dedicated to the practice. Yeah. There are some people, I think, who could thrive with a
blank piece of paper in a journal and just go at it every night and they will reflect and
they will think about what they did and then it will be this pattern of behavior. I am not one
of those people. I need a structure. So, I've created a structure, but I think there are lots
(44:18):
of, you can buy them, you know, there are lots of, there's a whole industry of like different
journaling things that you can buy. But I don't think you need, here's what I would suggest.
I mean, do you want me to tell you what I would do? Yeah. Yeah. I think you need about three or
four things to think about every day. And I think you need to write some examples of them every night.
(44:41):
And then I need, you need to think about it. Right. What do I want to do? You know,
what is a good thing this year or this time? And I don't really, it could be one. I guess, you know,
I do four because it's just easy, but just taking the time and allowing yourself a structure to
(45:02):
write things down because you remember them. It's tangible. And back to an earlier piece of our
conversation, it's pretty cool to see that like, I did this, I wrote all these things down. Maybe
I'll look at them and think about what they mean. You know, instead of, you know, I clicked 47 times
(45:24):
in a habit tracker and it just tells me, you've done this for 365 days. Well, you know, I could
probably just lie about that. Right. You can't lie about writing on the paper because you write
it on the paper, you know, you're holding yourself, it's holding yourself, I shouldn't,
you're holding yourself accountable to the practice. Right. And that is life is a, you know,
(45:45):
you know, we built programs talking about teaching as a reflective practice. There's books written
on that. Right. I mean, I think it's the more you see, I think it's funny, you talked about the
self-help industry and those sorts of things, but the more you see the mind, whatever mindfulness
is, whatever, like being present, whatever that means, whatever all those words mean, but I think
(46:07):
being intentional about what you do and when you're not intentional about calling yourself out on it
and saying, what did I, why did I do that? Like what, if, especially if it's outside your values
or outside what you want to be, like why are you doing that? Not based on some system of like
overlord thinking of whatever, but just you yourself saying, I want to be, I want to be healthy.
(46:31):
Right. And I want to be able to get off the ground when I'm 65 and I've done enough damage to my body
in various ways that that might be harder for me than other people. So I've got to change that.
So did I do that today? Right. Did I do the things that are going to lead me to that? And if I didn't,
why? And if I did, why? And just keep asking as my friend says, keep asking why four times.
(46:56):
You know, you write something down and you're like, Oh, what, why that? Ask yourself why four
times? And then you're reflecting is what she said. Okay. Because I was talking to people about
doing this discussion because I was, you know, trying to prep, but, but it is, it's so funny how
when I take, take the time to look in almost every aspect of my life, I track what I am doing by writing
(47:19):
it down. Yeah. And I go back to it. Yeah. Yeah. And that going back to it piece, I think is super
important. I, I've like dabbled in journaling my whole life. But in 2020, I picked up the artist's way
by Julia Cameron and started doing morning pages really concertedly, which is just like three pages
(47:45):
every day of writing whatever the fuck's on your mind. And it was incredibly helpful. Julia Cameron
says like, burn them, throw them away. You don't care about them. She does not actually encourage
you to go back to them. And I often didn't because I had the instructions that didn't tell me I didn't
have to do that. Right. Right. Even if, even without going back and looking at them, you know,
(48:10):
writing about my emotional state. So there are studies, 20 minutes of writing about your emotional
well-being or emotional state of being for any consistent amount of time has really positive
impacts on processing heart emotions. But writing the same shit down, like complaining about the
same shit for like a month or a month and a half, like I'm going to notice even if I wasn't going
(48:34):
back and reading it. Right. Last year, I created a structure and a framework for reflecting on
what the fuck's been going on in my life. Also akin with some of the other stuff we've been
talking about, I do a digital detox at the end of every month. And I started like reading what I
wrote for the last month and being like, okay, like what, what happened this month? What was going on?
(48:56):
Was it what I wanted to have happen? Like what, what is up? And that's been really powerful.
But I'm going to, I'm going to take your little idea. Like what are the things on a daily basis?
Like what are my intentions this year? And am I leaning into those on a daily basis?
(49:17):
Not in a like habit track? Because like I meditate every day, like cool. But like,
what am I actually getting out of that? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think, I think I want to change
what I said earlier. Yeah. Because yeah, this conversation made me, made me figure something
out. Right. So it is, it in an educational setting, you need goals that are measurable.
(49:40):
Yeah. That you can track. Yeah. Right. And that way, like you did this, you did it 75 times,
that, you know, whatever that means something. I think that you need some, like what you just
said just like made me realize having the goal to meditate every day is a great goal. But asking
(50:02):
yourself why you do that every day is the reflection of it. Right? Yeah. It shouldn't just be a
check mark. And like, what happened? You know, like, if you're reading that, when you read his
stuff, all he talks about is how hard meditation is. Yeah. So just meditating is a goal. And for
(50:26):
some people, that's a really worthwhile and deep goal. Because you're like, I am taking time out
to do this and I've never done that in my entire life. At some point, maybe that goal should be,
I want to meditate every day. And then after I meditate, I'm going to figure out what happened
during that meditation. Or I'm going to do guided meditations for the next five weeks on X.
(50:49):
Because I've been struggling with it. Or, you know, like, like using it instead of just doing it.
Oh, using it instead of just doing it. I needed to hear that today. And I'm thinking,
when I'm thinking about like, okay, so like, I'm super tracky motivated, right? And I've talked
(51:10):
about this on the podcast before of just like, I will do Duolingo every fucking day. Because I get
a badge and a streak and whatever. But there's a difference between doing it to just check the box.
And when I'm actively trying to do new lessons and learn and not just like do the quick little
(51:32):
lesson to like get my daily lesson off. Right. Yeah. So your podcast title, right? Yeah.
Settle Handle Shit. Yeah, I love it. But I think what you just said is part of what schooling does
to people. Yeah. Right. Because our education, I use, that's not education, that's schooling,
(51:57):
right? But the, like you were probably very good at school. I was so good at school. That's why
I stayed in it forever. I didn't know what else to do with my life. I was like, I just, there's rule
of restructure. I know how to, I know how to get my prize at the end of the tunnel. Yeah. Yeah.
So I think, you know, another time we will talk about the fact that I was a horrible student.
(52:18):
Yeah. But I think that I can remember, like one of my biggest struggles as a teacher
are teaching people like you. Why? What are they doing? Because it's very hard to say
to someone who's figured it out. Right. You will do everything you ask to take a minute
(52:46):
to step back and say, why did I do this? Right? Because it sounds like criticism.
Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Right. Can you talk to me about, can you talk to me about this choice here?
Well, I did it. You know, it's not, like I did it and it's good. That's what you're supposed to do.
(53:07):
So it's, you know, and so if you think about it, the people who need to reflect the most are probably
the people who have been good at things for a long time. Yeah. You know, and I will also say,
I was thinking about this when I was on a walk yesterday, it is cold as hell in Georgia right
now. You know, and I went outside and walked my poor little dog. I put his sweatshirt, I put his
(53:30):
little sweatshirt on. But I was thinking about this, you know, I have, I have come to terms with my
anxiety and my issues around some mix of anxiety and ADHD for my whole life. And figuring that out
in my mid 40s was probably the best thing that happened to me. But I think being a little anxious
(53:54):
makes me take stock more and makes me reflect more. And I think if I'm asking myself, am I doing it
right? It's probably not the right question. Ooh, what's a better question? Why am I doing it?
Yeah. You know, like, am I doing it right? Like, what are the measures by which I can even understand
(54:14):
that anyway? You know, but like, if I'm taking time to do it, why am I doing it? And not to be like,
not to be late stage capitalist about it, but also like, what am I getting out of it? Like,
what meaning, what feeling, what, what, what am I getting in my soul, in my mind, in my body?
(54:37):
Yeah. That, that makes me need to do this more in this way, or need to do it differently. I think
that's part of, you know, my anxiety will ask that question all the time, you know, because mine
is more or less about letting myself down more than it is about letting other people down,
which is, you know, its own little, that's, Oh, I know. I like that. I mean, as my little
(55:04):
recovering perfectionist type A student, like, yeah, I was always looking for the right way to do it.
Yeah. And I was always looking for the right way by someone else's
metrics. And that was a big part of why leaving academia was, I think, really important for me,
but also really hard was that like, I had, I had done everything right. I had ticked the right
(55:31):
boxes. I had gotten the right job. And it wasn't fucking working. And I had to redefine what was
right for me. And that's, I think a goddamn ever evolving process. Because like, this is something
that is very annoying is that like, I change, like I figure out parts to myself and then my goals
(55:54):
change, my interests change. And, you know, I've had a really nice morning meditation and journaling
practice for a long time now. And just this week was reflecting on how like, why am I doing it this
way? Still, right? And part of my fucking ADHD is that when I do something the same way for long
(56:18):
enough, it ceases to have meaning. Oh, yes. And so like, I need to switch it up. And so like,
this is I'm treating this as like a little synchronicity from the universe. Because I was
just thinking about like, what if I started doing it at the end of the day instead of first thing in
the morning? Yeah. And like, you offered a lovely little like treat for me to chew on of like, okay,
(56:38):
I'm gonna try it that way. And I just, yeah, to sort of circle back to the very first place that
we started, right, this idea of like, drafts and feedback and like, trying things with the
understanding that I'm not supposed to get it perfectly on the first try. Yep. My body's like
(57:00):
clenching around. That's my big, one of my big like life evolutions, right, is, is letting go
of that idea that like, I'm both supposed to get it right on the first try and that there even is
a right on the first try. Right, right, right. You know, I think there's, you know, with many,
(57:22):
many years of yoga practice under my belt, many, many years of yoga teaching under my belt. I think
you, I think you nailed two things. One, when something becomes automatic, yeah, it's very hard
to reflect on it, right, because you're just doing it. And the meaning is the doing of it. It's not
(57:47):
what, why you're doing it. Yeah. Anything you just do out of habit is, is in, I think it's inherently
not reflective. Yeah, because you're on autopilot. Like that is by definition what habit is. Good
habits, bad habits. Right. Right. Like taking my meds at the same time every day. Great habit. We
(58:09):
want that on autopilot. I don't mean to like reflect about that. Yeah. Oh, yes. That's such a good
point. I think we, I think somebody could listen to this and think that I think you should reflect
on everything that you do in your life. And I do. Oh, God. Oh, her brains would melt. No, I do not
think that. Yeah, no. I think that's, that is, that is probably, you know, that's, that's probably
(58:32):
diagnosable in some way. Yeah, I think that's a recipe for life. So, but I do think, I do think you
need to figure out things that are important to you or things that you want to change or things
that you want to learn more about. Like any practice that has meaning, it's small. Yeah.
Yeah. Because if it's too big, you can't get, it's too hard. Yeah. We do, we have, like I have to do
(58:57):
a bunch of shit every day. Yeah. You know, like a lot of shit. Yeah, like dishes, laundry, brushing
teeth. Yes. Yeah. And I don't care. I like, I don't sit and reflect about brushing my teeth and think
I'm doing this. Do I do that? You know, I don't do that, you know, but I am thinking while I'm
brushing my teeth, what am I going to eat? How many cups of coffee I'm going to have today?
(59:19):
Whatever, you know, but I do think it is, yeah, I think small and meaningful.
And I think there is, there are lots of ways in which I've gotten a lot of things wrong
in my life. But now when I am busier with work than I have ever been in my life, I think I am
more intentional about being a dad, being a husband, being a friend and being good to myself.
(59:46):
And like if you can't turn it off and take care of yourself, like, and that's hard, you know,
it's real hard. Yeah, it's hard for people who, you know, I see my daughter who is a high achiever,
you know, and, but I'm seeing her shift a little bit, you know, at 22.
(01:00:06):
And it's fun to watch a human grow from a little itty bitty thing to this, whatever she is.
Twenty-seven?
You know, I'm starting to see it in, you know, my 17 to the 18 year old.
And I really, I think I was a good dad. I think I've been a good dad. But I think I've been a
(01:00:30):
better dad in the last four years than I ever was because I didn't have a lot of time to do
anything else and I devoted my time to my relationships in ways that I never had, you know.
And that's, that's been good. Like that's, that makes me, what I think is happy. I'm not sure I
know what that is, but what I think is happy. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. Well, John Miles, it has been an
(01:00:56):
absolute treat to have you on. My favorite question to ask at the end of a long and
yummy conversation is, what brings you joy?
You know, that took, that is a question I ask at the end of every interview I do for every job.
(01:01:17):
Like, what do you do that brings you joy? I think what brings me joy is being with people that I love
and sharing space with them and time with them and understanding that that is a choice.
And we've made it together. That brings me joy. And it's sappy and whatever, but I love
(01:01:46):
Brenda Miles and I love to be with her. She makes me happy. She makes me very happy.
So yeah, my family brings me joy, Cate. I've gotten to see that and it has been beautiful to witness.
(01:02:08):
Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please help me grow the podcast
by subscribing, leaving a review and sharing it with anyone you think would benefit from hearing it
too. Your support means the world to me. If you'd like to get updates about new episodes, posts,
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(01:02:30):
information there about working with me one-on-one to build your most amazing life. Until next time,
remember that I believe in you and that you are fucking awesome.
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