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From First Paw Media, sponsored by Dream Chaser Leadership in Anchorage, Alaska. This is the Peak Experience Podcast. Here we talk about leadership, team building, strategic management, and organizational development. Visit our website, peakexp.org. Now, here are your hosts, Robert and Michelle Forto.
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Hello and welcome everybody. This is Robert and you’re listening to the peak experience podcast. And I’m here with my special co-host Dr. Latoya Skinner calling in from North Carolina Latoya. How’s it going today? Good Robert. hope you’re doing good. I am doing well. Spring is upon us up here in Alaska. It’s probably the heat of summer down where you were you’re at. Are you enjoying the sunshine?
It is so nice. It’s a little chilly today, but it’s been averaging about 60 degrees. So it’s really nice. Excellent. Well today guys, we are finishing up this series and this is going to be a cool one because we’re going to tell you guys what is coming up next for us with our fancy piece of paper in our hands, our degree, and we’re out into the world and ready to go. But if you have missed this series, we have been doing this since sometime in October.
We have led up to this very moment. We’ve talked about all the pieces to a professional doctorate project, at least from our understanding, we have, I don’t know how many episodes, maybe a half a dozen or more. We really went from the first steps all the way about finding a research topic, talking about questions, problem statements, frameworks, lit reviews, samples, instruments, data collection, data analysis, and the findings.
And here we are talking about what all this means after we did all this work, several years worth of work to get to this point. And now we’re going to implement it. And if you guys are familiar with the professional doctorate, our goal is to find an organization, come up with a solution to a problem and then present that to them. So I’m going to turn this over to Latoya.
I know you have said this so many times, but we may have new listeners. Can you please tell us briefly who you are and what your topic was about? Absolutely. So I am Dr. Latoya Skinner and my topic was about ineffective communication in the workplace, specifically nonprofits and how it affects turnover. And can you tell us
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Briefly about your academic journey. How in the world did you get here to start to write this project?
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Yeah, so I have a bachelor of business administration and I have a master of science degree both from different universities. And what led me to Liberty was just my experience in the workplace and being a professional adult student on this journey through the doctoral journey and just meeting a program that allowed me to continue with
the way that my life is laid out and Liberty was a program that I could depend on for convenience as well as learning the practical parts of this journey. And my experience in nonprofit organizations, both good and bad, is what led me to my interest in this specific topic through the doctoral journey through Liberty University.
And my academic journey is pretty similar to yours. went back to school as an older student. I like to call it a midlife crisis. instead of buying a Corvette, went and, paid too much for, for, some schooling, but, my bachelor’s degree is in outdoor leadership. My master’s is in sports management and my doctorate is in obviously strategic leadership.
My degree or my excuse me. My project was on transgenerational succession in a family firm focusing on an emerging female leader and interesting enough, I have a small business that has an emerging female leader my daughter who is going to take this over so it was a little bit of a personal project for me, but I’m excited that I was finally able to find a firm or an organization organization to deal with and
They were awesome and I’m glad we were able to work with them. So today we’re talking about everything that comes after doing all of the work, what the, what the findings, relate to the question and then how we are going to implement that. the first section of this is how are we going to apply this to personal and professional practice? So our goal in our program was to
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answer a leadership question. And as Latoya was talking about, she was talking about communication in a nonprofit. And of course, mine was leadership readiness in a family firm. So let’s jump into this Latoya. How did you apply this work to professional practice in particular to this nonprofit that you’re working with?
Yeah, so I used a nonprofit organization in your neck of the woods in Anchorage, Alaska, of course. And it was a unique nonprofit and they have a number of volunteers that they depend on pretty much daily to keep their operations going. So it was not only a good journey to learn more about their organization.
but also just reflect on my professional journey through nonprofit management. And so I found this research, conducting it to be very enjoyable because it was something that was relatable and something that I was familiar with. And so I learned more about the organization, but also just nonprofits in general. And so,
When I was doing the data collection process, it allowed me to really touch base with people from all walks of life who participated in the research, the data collection. And so it was really helpful for me to hear their perspectives because again, they’re from all walks of life. And some of them had never been volunteers before. And then to be a part of an organization where
They are going to work just about every day to support this nonprofit with no pay. And so for me, when I was conducting this research, it allowed me to really look at myself as a nonprofit leader, but also just in the channels and the avenues that we communicate in. And everyone has a different perception when it comes to communication. And so their needs are different.
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And so this project really helped me to discover some of those needs and some of those things. and just being able to really hone in on the needs of, this case, the volunteers slash employees. And how big was this organization and how many people were involved in your study?
Yes, so they had about 100 volunteers on their listing and I contacted about 60 of them and I was able to utilize 30 of them from different categories and the categories were people who were considered volunteers, people who had received goods or services from them, and also those who were identified as leaders and the leaders were
typically board members and a couple of their chief leadership positions. Because again, everyone operated from a volunteer capacity, including their leadership. So you had about a third of the full volunteer segment of that nonprofit, right? In terms of who you spoke to? Yes, that is correct. Okay.
So in my case, I was working with a, a relatively small family firm here in Anchorage, Alaska. They are a moving company, obviously a family owned moving company that is contemplating succession in particular to. At the time we started this, we thought it was only going to be one daughter and it ended up being two and neither of the daughters who were obviously sisters.
knew that the other one was going to be the one that was going to be in that succession role. And that was very interesting because in most businesses and particularly in family businesses, most of them do not contemplate succession. And I like to tell people, it’s almost like your funeral. Many people do not plan for their funeral until it’s almost too late. They
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You know, they’re diagnosed with a terminal illness or they’re in the hospital and they know that they have to do things rather quickly. And unfortunately, a lot of family businesses are in the same boat. They just don’t think about this. And something I always say is there’s a famous quote out there that says, fail to plan and plan to fail, which is definitely a, a thing.
that, that goes along with this. So in terms of application to professional practice, my goal was to figure out how we can help this company transition from the first generation founders, whom was the mother down to the next generation of the descendants, the daughters. And I try to apply it in a, an inclusive approach because as a family business, it’s very similar to.
How you would think about your own family, a very, close knit, inclusive type group. And that was very much the same with this group. You know, they did vacations together as in family dinners and get, and barbecues and all sorts of stuff. So we had to figure out how we could include that in a succession plan. And of course there’s all sorts of challenges. And I try to at least guide them on what those challenges were and how they can set them up.
to be sustainable and continue on into the future. And one of my primary goals of application with this was to teach everybody involved, not just the people that were part of the succession, meaning the husbands and wives and daughters and mothers and all of that, but also the employees, the other leaders in the group on how it is not just a one-time event. It’s not like a funeral where you plan it and it’s a one and done.
This is something that is dynamic. can, it can take years to develop. So we tried to teach them about how that is appropriate. And then of course, we tried to figure out what the social aspects of this were. We mentioned that this was a very tight family unit and they always say, do not take work home with you. And when you own a family business and you’re having barbecues and holiday dinners together, often you’re sitting around the Turkey dinner at Thanksgiving.
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And you’re talking about what’s going to happen at work on Monday. So we had to figure out how we could associate that in not only a work environment, but also in a planning environment as well. lastly, in terms of application, my goal was just to really shift their thinking on this to provide how they can become much more ready to be ready for this, succession planning. that, that is my application.
So the next question for you Latoya are what were your potential implementation strategies? So you provided the question, you did the research, you did the data collection, you had your findings. Here you are ready to present this to these folks. What did you say that they should be doing?
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Yeah, so, you know, leaders have the ability to be impactful and influential. And so for me, I made sure to speak with the leaders of the organization who were basically helpful in organizing this research process with the organization. It is really sitting down beforehand.
And understanding that they were aware that there were communication challenges that existed. So what I found for the organization was not surprising or alarming or even insulting to them. And they were very open-minded. And so that was really helpful on the back end of the research being completed when I made recommendations about how they communicated. And they weren’t major changes, but they were just changes that hadn’t been implemented already. And so that included.
creating certain subgroups of their communication lines for email. I remember them all discussing being a part of a Facebook group, but keeping in mind, I had to remind them that everyone had access to Facebook. And so that created some challenges when there were needs for volunteers to be called on last minute. And so people were missing the call who could have been.
you know, very helpful to the needs of the organization whenever there were emergency calls. And so creating a WhatsApp group was one of my recommendations or implementing a Slack software that is used now for people to instant message within their workplaces. So the recommendations that I gave to them were very minute in my opinion, but they were very influential to this organization because again, they were already aware
that they were experiencing communication challenges. But these were ways that they could be impactful. And I think another recommendation that I provided to them was doing like a town hall for the volunteers to be able to come together in a formal setting and hear from leaders about the ongoing of the organization and not just communicating in one off ways with the volunteers.
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So a couple of quick follow up questions to that Latoya. the first question is in regard to these different apps, that you talked about Slack and, WhatsApp and all of that. you, you said that you had a pretty wide birth of, of, people in, the organization. Did you find that some of them were more, receptive to, to these types of things and others, particularly younger, generations or
Or, or if that, you know, cause obviously, people of the older generation are not as familiar with things like WhatsApp and Slack and all of those types of things. Yeah, I think they were all open minded to it because I, I don’t have room for regular email, which all of them had access to regular email because that was a way that I communicated personally with them. And so, what I noticed in my communication with,
all of the participants is that they were being contacted when I referenced one off waves, they were being contacted by their supervisors, you know, for the, I would say small meetings, you know, in most businesses or organizations nowadays, direct reports usually have a one-on-one with your supervisor at least weekly, if not bi-weekly.
And so these were happening, but they weren’t formal. And so a lot of the communication that was being done was addressing issues that could be left for other times. And so that was another implementation. And so even when I recommended email groups, subset to email groups, those were very helpful to them, understanding that, hey, if you send a message to someone who this does not impact,
They’re not going to read it. It’s not going to have anything to do with them. need to be intentional about the groups, the categories that you’re creating and who you’re communicating with and making sure that the messaging is intended for the right group of people. one last follow-up question in regard to this application or implementation, Latoya, can you give us an idea of when you finished your time with the group?
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When you finished the paper and did you have any further contact since then up to today?
Yeah, that’s a good question. So I started my research about April or May of last year, and I was done by, I would say July. And by the middle or end of August, I submitted, you know, all of the parts that were required in finality to my chair.
And I did my final presentation to him. And about a week later is when I was completely finished. And that was right around the beginning of September. And did you have any follow-up, with the group since then? Like if you touch base with them at all, maybe not necessarily in a research capacity, but maybe in a professional capacity of any sort, or was this here, here’s what we came up with. Here’s, here’s what I found.
you know do what you want? Yeah great question so when I was finished and complete with my program I submitted them the final paper in a pdf copy of course and I provided some context in the email description for them to let them know you know my findings
and that the document was attached for their review and keeping. And also two weeks later, I followed up with them because, you know, we’re talking about over 200 pages of text to, so I know that if they read it in full, took them some time. So two weeks later, I followed up and the director at that time, she responded back to me and said, yes, you know, we love this. We are very appreciative.
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and we will take into consideration, you know, all of the recommendations. And so from there, what I did was put a six month check in on my calendar and that should be coming up actually in the next couple of weeks for me to reach out to them and just see how things are going. I love that. And that is truly our task with this project is to be able to provide that implementation. And I asked because I’m going to talk a little bit about how my process sort of worked as well.
in terms of, implementation, we’ve, we’ve sort of given advice to our listeners throughout this. And we’ve had a lot of people have in our program in particular at Liberty and our DSL program have reached out and said, Hey, I love your podcast. You guys have given me great tips and all of that. So my number one piece of advice, if you’re early in the program, and I’ve said this before is try to write your papers in your other classes, in your core classes.
That can lead to how it can be used later down the line. And that’s exactly what I did and where it comes into the implementation of this project. So after everything was done, as Latoya was talking about, everything was presented and ready to go. And we were ready to, to, give these people are our action steps. If you will. I went with a coaching model. And if you remember the Toya, we did a coaching course.
Late in the program, I think it was like 755 or something was of course number. So when I in the, the program, we had to take a coaching course and I came up with a solutions based, program for this service organization that I, that I was dealing with. And I will have to say, when I presented this to my chair and to the admin reviewer, they were a static for some reason that I provided this type of.
Implementation. Maybe they say that to everybody. have no idea, but, it worked out very well because I used almost the exact framework. In fact, I used the same PowerPoint template that I used in that early course to develop this coaching program for this organization. So I came up with a 15 step program over that could be over several weeks, several months of coaching type appointments.
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And it was literally giving them the steps to follow to prepare them to do a successful succession plan. And if you don’t know much about coaching in terms of business coaching, the goal is not for the coach to tell you what to do. Like you would think about in a sports team, like, you know, you’re the quarterback on the football team and you come up and say, okay, coach, what play do you want me to run? And then the coach relays the play to you, you go out and you implement that.
On a business coaching model, your plan is to allow them to develop action steps or, or goal planning, implementations that they can take and then use what they already have. And then you’re just sort of a guide, more of a facilitator versus a, a leadership leadership position telling them what to do. So that was the plan to implement that. And interestingly enough, when I presented this,
Excuse me, let me back up just a second. When I did the research with these folks, it was right around Labor Day in September. So not very long ago. And then I finished up my, my degree program and sat with my chair as Latoya was talking about right around Thanksgiving. And I sent this over to them right around Christmas break. in between Christmas and New Year’s.
And I said, here’s your, here’s the like Latoya said here, here’s my work. Take some time to read it over. And then maybe we can talk about it in the future. Sort of just left it open ended like Latoya did. And, just a few weeks ago, they had emailed me and said, Hey, are you guys going to go to the, chamber of commerce after hours, networking event? And if you recall from these episodes, I.
Obtained this organization through a connection with the chamber of commerce. And I said, yeah, I can, I can come on down and we can meet. And in February, it was the last Thursday in February, I did the hour and a half drive down to Anchorage on a very snowy afternoon and met with the daughter of the organization. And we sat around and we talked at this network event and she says, we cannot wait.
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to work with you, let us get through the busy season and we would love to sit down and talk with you about some coaching. So I guess what, what I’m trying to say is from about Labor Day ish to about Valentine’s day ish, all this came to fruition and hopefully in the next couple of months or so, we will be able to truly implement this coaching program with the organization. And I think that that’s key because.
It provides some closure, at least on my end, like, hey, you know, this thing took four years to do, and these guys are going to at least try to work through these steps. And we’re going to talk about what’s next here in just a few minutes, but that’s where we’re at in terms of implementation. So the next one is. I love that. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. The next one is further or recommended.
studies, and this is important in any type of terminal degree, whether it be a PhD or a professional doctorate, like a DSL or anything like that. We have to figure out what can be next in terms of research. And this is much different than a PhD, meaning, it is not our goal to research a topic and come up with an answer and then spend our entire career working on this. You know, think about.
somebody working in a laboratory setting, you come up and you’re trying to find this, this cure to this disease or whatever. And you do this little project and earn your doctorate. Then you go to a postdoc and then you work in a lab for the next 20 years and then you become a, a chair of a research program. And then you have lab assistants and other doctoral students and all this. This is not how this works in our case. Our goal is to take that question or that problem.
be able to implement it with an organization and go back from there. So our recommended for future work was much more distilled than in a larger project. So let’s jump over to you, Latoya. Do you recall what your recommendations for further work were?
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Yeah, my recommendations were to explore the benefits of power and influence in leadership, as well as leadership communication styles and their effect on your human resource capacity. And lastly, other leadership models of communication. I think that these components were important to be further explored.
where it pertains to nonprofit organizational leaders and their volunteer workforce because they typically operate under these expectations where it comes to communication and just understanding the power dynamic that exists with leaders and their ability to really influence their workforce. think that oftentimes in nonprofit organizations, said in the beginning of this series,
that when it comes to communication in nonprofit organizations, it tends to be more laid back. And sometimes that is both a blessing and a curse in the workplace because a nonprofit organization, while they typically run different and their structure is different from that of a corporate stance, their output still needs to be the same. And so their communication.
should still be one that is very direct and very open-ended, but also one that really relays the message that you’re trying to come across because you’re not only communicating internally, but you also communicate externally to stakeholders within the organization. And so that’s really important how you message things is gonna be extremely important. Excellent, I love that.
And I think you really hit the nail on the head there with being able to provide some future work. in, my case, I had a couple of, recommendations for further work. when I went into this, I had never done any type of big research project like this before. And I learned very quickly, especially when I started asking the interview questions that I should not ask why questions, as the research shows why questions are often.
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Unanswerable. And I’m sure if you just think about, as you’re listening to this, if I asked you a why question, like, why is the sky blue? that is a very deep question and you probably could not come up with an answer, but in a business construct, if I said, why are you guys struggling so much with succession? They may not be able to answer that. So my first recommendation for future work is for researchers not to ask.
why questions. They should be open-ended questions that provide dialogue or answers back and forth, but how questions or when questions or what questions are a lot easier to answer than why questions. A couple of other avenues for further work is my research was limited to Alaska in the United States. I would recommend going to a much broader population. That was one of my big struggles.
we’ve talked about me niching down so far with a Alaska business in the service industry, with a, female owned business, man, I, I got myself into a pickle very quickly. secondly is, speak to more people, find a bigger company. Mine was only limited to 15 people and a very small focus group. If it was a bigger company, as Latoya was talking about having
A hundred people and she spoke to 30. You can get much more or richer data from a bigger sample. then lastly is to really dive into the psychological dimensions of succession. As we talked about with a family business, they’re already close. They already doing things in and out of work. Learn how to tailor a project that revolves around.
those dynamics and particularly about retirement and mortality and identity and self-worth and family judgment and all of those things and how those can be impactful to succession planning. And I think all of those would be much more beneficial to a research project. One last question to you, Latoya on this is when you were reading through all of your studies for the lead up to the lit review and all of that, how much time did you spend?
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on the the sections of recommended or future work in some of these studies and did your questions develop at all from some of those sections of those studies?
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Yeah, so I don’t think I spent much time on it, just because again, my personal experience in the workplace and just having a sense of where some of the future direction should go, especially because this organization was very transparent with their challenges up front. And as I got into…
the depth of the research data collection, it was really pretty easy to develop, again, those themes and then just thinking about, okay, this is where I’m completing, but where can this be picked up by someone else? And so that was pretty easy for me. I don’t think I spent a lot of time on that. And then could you repeat your second question?
no, that was it. Just did you use any of those sections? And then did you apply those that knowledge at all to your research questions? Like, did you find, you know, this pivotal study on communication in a nonprofit? And they just had a question that you wanted to answer.
Gotcha. Yes. and like I said, they were, they were transparent. And so working with them was actually a breeze, even with, the feedback that was received, it was still a breeze. And, I think what really helped me in this journey is that they were open minded and open to the feedback. Gotcha. in, my case, I was the exact opposite of yours. I found a study very early on, that, that, was exactly what I wanted to research. And my first.
Iteration of my topic was to deal with tourism, not necessarily just in the service industry. And I found a couple of studies that had questions that I really wanted answered really thought provoking questions, at least from a personal level. And I remember finding a study, it was from 2018 and that was a struggle on its own with that five year limit that we had, that had a question that I wanted to answer. And I remember. I use that particular question, that particular study.
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In my, my research question. I had this overarching question that I wanted to answer. Then of course we had those sub questions that we would use to do our interview guide and things like that. So that overarching question was developed from one key study from back in 2018. So that’s the goal of doctorate research, whether you’re doing a professional degree or a, a PhD type is you find out what other people have already done.
And then how you can advance that in some way, whether they’re trying to figure out something on a theory or research topic, like in a lab or something in a PhD level, or like a leadership question in a professional degree, like we were talking about. Okay. So the next couple of questions is all about us. And I think this is going to be key because we’ve talked about our journey up to this point and why we did it and how we did it and all of that. But the, what I think is going to be the.
key takeaways from this, at least on our end, Latoya, is personal and professional growth. Of course, you know, we did all of this and we sat so many hours in front of a computer screen and writing things down or typing them in a computer. And here we are at the end and we’re, it’s time to reflect a little bit. So let’s talk about personal growth first. What can you tell us? How did you, how did you grow through this process?
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wonderful question, as you can tell by the side. So, you know, when I first came into this journey, and I think I started in 2019, I, life took a lot of turns in this journey for me. And so it was really provoking and easy to fall into the trap of giving up because I experienced several family deaths.
I also experienced major illness of my own and career changes. And so it was really easy to fall into the mindset of I’m not going to finish this. But we have to remember that God’s timing is always best. And as a leader, creating success can really vary in the opinion of what success is.
and looks like can also vary just depending on the person. But throughout my research, there was a scripture that I found in James 3.17. And it states, but the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And I think becoming a leader is at our own pace.
This journey is at our own pace. And so what we take from it, it’s just that I’m always been, I’ve always been a firm believer that whatever knowledge we, we gain is ours to keep. that’s the one thing that no one can take away from us. And so as a leader, and as a person, I have really grown in areas of patience and, just continuing to hone in on that, you know, I’m not perfect. And there are some things that.
I’m still working on even in regards to my own communication styles. But I think that being aware of who we are, being self-aware is really important to how we show up in the workplace. You know, I often work in these nonprofits where they’re very close-knit and have these interpersonal relationships, which I have always had good relationships with my coworkers.
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but there are places that I began to draw the line because I never want for anyone to look at me as unprofessional or anything less than a leader. And that doesn’t mean that I can’t enjoy my work, be who I am, but I also have a precedent to set. And so sometimes as a leader, there are certain things and places that I cannot go where the other workforce is going. And so just being mindful and being self-aware
and how I show up each and every day in the workplace and even in my own personal life, know, maturity comes not necessarily with age. so that life can really teach us something. As my grandmother used to say, if we live long enough, it definitely will. And so with all of the challenges that I’ve experienced while I was a student, it’s really helped me to grow both personally and professionally.
Thank you for sharing that. Uh, definitely impactful for sure. Uh, in my case, I think I’ve said this story before, but I started my academic journey at least the second time, uh, way back in August of 2014, I was attending a walkthrough, uh, through the university of Alaska Anchorage with my daughter, Nicole. She was graduating, uh, or she had just graduated and was wanting to start college.
there at the local university and we were doing our walkthrough and she said, dad, I bet I can finish college before you. And I said, okay, is that a bet? And she says, yes, that is a bet. So, I, I was in, one of the little academic halls there. I walked in and I signed up for a degree in the, HP ER department, the health and physical education and recreation department and, started taking classes that August.
And, uh, long story short, uh, I won that bet. Uh, Nicole, my daughter did not finish her degree before me. And in fact, uh, she is going back to school in the fall of 2025. So very excited for that. Yes. Yes. Uh, so she saw my struggles, but so it was almost four years and three months or so later.
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that I did that second bachelor’s, my masters, and then of course my doctorate. it took 10 years and three months to win that bet. but I did do that. So that was a big, part of personal growth. the second huge part of personal growth was a relationship I didn’t even know, I had, and that was with my wife, Michelle.
And of course, when you’re married for decades, you become very complacent in your relationship. I sat right next to her at this desk where I’m recording this right now and Latoya, she read every single word of every single paper that I wrote in my doctorate program. She read that aloud and we did that together so I could understand syntax and you know, cause when you’re reading your own work, you often just skip over things. So.
She was, she was patient enough to read every line of everything I wrote, edit after edit after edit. So that, that allowed us to really grow professionally and personally, at least in that, that capacity. Secondly, I developed an excellent relationship with a mutual friend that I know through Facebook, who I ended up working with in a kind of
coach, mentor E type relationship with this lady’s husband. So we met every Friday afternoon, for an hour. And we just talked about the doctorate project, you know, what I was doing, what I was struggling with. And he would give me advice on how to, navigate this process. And he has a PhD in change management from years ago. So it was so cool to have that relationship grow. we’re continuing with that relationship as we’re going.
But I think one of the key aspects of personal growth that I did not expect at all, when I started my doctorate, I started on my website, robertforto.com. started a personal blog and I would update every single week my progress and I would give the challenges and the struggles and the triumphs and the pitfalls. And I would just talk about, know, this is what I’m struggling with, or this is, this is, know, what, what score I got on my paper.
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And I kind of just did it for me to kind of have a place to put all of my stuff. Cause I would upload my PDFs and all of that there. And before too long, people started contacting me and they said, Robert, I’ve read every, every week of your blog, I’m in seven 55 and I’m struggling with this. Can you give me advice? And it just, it just snowballed from there. And now I probably get 10 or 15, maybe 20 emails a week that says.
I found you through your blog and now through our podcast that we have done, thanks to Latoya. that was, that was so cool to hear from people and how I was able to help them and how now Latoya and I are able to help them as well. And what’s even interesting about that is my wife, Michelle, who sat right here and read every paper.
she is also in the DSL program. She is in her last, yes, she is in her last class before seven 85. So she’s getting ready to take the leap next term. But, what’s interesting is when she starts new classes, people will reach out to her and they will say, Hey, I know you, I read your husband’s blog. He is such an inspiration. So very interesting there. So some real cool.
Personal growth there. So Latoya, so we’re not here forever. Let’s finish these up if we can. Let’s talk about professional growth. So we’ve done this stuff where we’ve helped out ourselves. How did this help out in a professional capacity on your end?
my goodness, it’s been so dynamic professionally. And it’s so funny that, you know, you mentioned about your wife and my topic on communication. And it’s so funny when it comes to personal relationship, because my partner often tells me that I don’t always communicate in the best way with him. And so that’s come into a full circle moment for me where I’m still learning.
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But on the professional side, this has opened up so many doors for me where it comes to navigating the professional space. I’ve had more speaking engagements and speaking invitations be extended to me ever since I pretty much finished my degree program and started marketing myself. And I have been invited to be a part of different panels. And that’s not necessary to be a part.
of a panel, but it definitely has been very influential in my career path and being invited into those spaces. I recently did a speaking engagement at a local high school as a part of their career day and being a part of a panel about Black female leaders. And so it’s really opened the door for me to do more speaking engagements, but also
lot more consulting because I have been reached out to by other nonprofits to, lend them my opinion about what they can do to improve certain infrastructure within their organizations. And so, I’ve been, trying to get my business, wildest dream enterprises off the ground, which is a full service administrative service. and it’s been a really good ride. It’s been a good journey.
And I’ve started to just meet people that I probably would not have met. And like you, I have people in my inbox from Liberty that have been reaching out, other students, and just asking for my opinion or running things by me. And so that’s been really humbling because I don’t take it for granted because they don’t have to ask me for my opinion or what I think or how I could help them. But the fact that they hear our podcast and our segments,
And they are remembering our names and they’re reaching out for follow-up, is very, enlightening. And I really appreciate the fact that, they remember me. So cool. I’ve been podcasting for a long time, and I will have to say that this is the first time that it’s been more on a personal level. You know, we’ve done a podcast for our dog training company for years since 2009, and that’s a much different type of message than this.
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we’re truly able to provide help, when people are really struggling on, on a podcast like Latoya and I are doing. So in terms of professional growth, in my case, as I mentioned, this was kind of a selfish endeavor. we are a family business. have a, a female leader that wants to take over and our daughter. So we always thought about how we could do this, but not having any tools. So being able to do this project.
Uh, obviously was to provide answers. And I just want to do a quick, uh, read through on a sentence here because, uh, with succession and family business, you’re looking for a legacy. So this is, uh, the, the, the, uh, statement from here. The purpose of legacy is to help them maintain unity and commitment and build a strong pride of belonging in the face of difficult and complex situations. Their generosity enables them to accept and adapt to the circumstances.
both within the company and the family sphere. So that was truly the definition of my professional growth. Not only being able to take this out of the family, if you will, but to provide some type of legacy, not only with us, but hopefully with the other organizations that we’ve worked with. I have been reached out to many, many times since I have been working through this about
Speaking engagements and consulting like Latoya. And I think that is such a cool thing to see how those are developing. And I’m looking forward to those for sure in the future. Okay. Latoya. So the last question is what is next? So we’re at the end of our little podcast series. have our degree in our hand. graduation is upcoming. All of those things are ready to rock and roll.
You are now a master of your field, if you will, a professional in your field. You can call yourself Dr. Latoya Skinner. What is next for you? Yes, so it’s just continuing to get my business off the ground, continuing to work with my local community.
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and get my name out there and just make sure that I have a good reputation and a good precedent and just continuing to network with my peers. I think that it’s really important, but most importantly, my family means the world to me. And so for so many years I’ve sacrificed in not only this program, but also in undergrad and graduate school. And I’ve had their full support.
And so now I can focus on my family and just spend more time. You know, I have so much more time now that school is completely done. So I’m enjoying spending more time with them and just creating all those wonderful memories because my family is very close knit. And so it’s really enjoyable and I’m buying back some of that time. And so it’s really precious to me.
So one follow-up with that is, when was the first time you introduced yourself as Dr. Latoya Skinner and how did that feel?
my goodness. So honestly, so, my grandmother passed away the week. think it was a week after I finished my doctoral program in completion. And the first time that my name was in print as doctor was on her funeral obituary. when I was, when I was speaking.
And a lot of my family, had known that I had finished my program. And so it was a very surreal moment. It was a full circle moment because she just missed me completing my program. And that was my girl. She was so supportive. She was a straight shooter, but she was very supportive. And I know that in that moment, despite the circumstances, she was very proud of me.
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And so to be able to see my name in print for the first time on that piece of paper belonging to her funeral service and celebrating her life was really a full circle moment because she was a housekeeper and she sacrificed a lot for our family and just doing and cleaning up behind others and taking care of other people and here her granddaughter.
is a professional doctor. And so it was a full circle moment. And so really grateful for her life and the other elders in my family who have gone on for the sacrifices that they made by just doing everyday things to make a living for themselves and providing me with the opportunity to go to college, get a good education, and be the first doctor in our immediate family.
I love that. Thank you for sharing, especially that story about your grandmother. Uh, cause as you said, we sacrifice so much, uh, to be away from our families in one capacity or other through all of this and what, what a, uh, cool moment for sure. in terms of me, um, what is next, as we already mentioned, I have a lot of opportunities coming up. Hopefully, um, this, this first little,
gig with the, with the organization that I worked with will work out. not a big deal if it doesn’t, I just want to provide a full circle process for that. So I think that will be cool. it is a very expensive piece of paper. I’m looking at it right now, hanging on my wall. I paid all of mine out of pocket. So probably a $40,000 piece of paper there hanging on the wall, which is, it was definitely cool.
I, I love how people, complain about spending $200 on a frame on these doctor groups on Facebook, for, for a piece of paper that costs many, many thousands of dollars, but Hey, that’s, that’s one thing. That’s one thing or the other. So, so that is, that is a definitely what’s next is that, that is hanging there.
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I didn’t need this degree, by any stretch. have applied to a whole bunch of places, as adjuncts and that has not, that has not been easy, but I just do them on LinkedIn to see if anybody will bite and nobody’s bit yet. So that’s okay. I I’m developing other ways to, to, to figure out what to do next. the purpose of this obviously was to be able to provide a structure for this, to, take over.
for my daughter when she’s ready. So that is a definite what’s next. someday I’ll buy an RV and right off into the sunset with, with my wife. I don’t know when that will be, but, that’s a what’s next for sure. otherwise, yeah, it’s just kind of one of those fluid and dynamic things like you, like you were talking about, the first time, I said the name or was, it was told the name Dr. Robert Forto. I remember.
Was the, was the afternoon of my, of my meeting with my chair. And as I said earlier in this series, I made it a point to develop a very strong relationship with my chair. did so much as so as I flew to Arkansas to do this defense in person with her, because I thought that was important to me because I literally was part of this woman’s life. Or a couple of years. And I thought that that was key. And
I remember after that was all over and she said, I want to be the first to, to, congratulate you. said, that’s okay. And then we went next door, from her office. went to a Lone Star steak house and, nothing fancy, just, you know, all of the work was done. Now it’s time to talk as friends and his colleagues. And that’s where it really hit me. I truly have a colleague now that, was, was, you know, sort of my.
Well, she was my chair. She was sort of my superior or my supervisor, if you will. when that came to fruition and I was able to have a meal with her, even though was just some little chain steakhouse, that was the pivotal moment for me. And I thought that that was so cool. So that is that. Absolutely. Thank you. OK, so you know, if I can say one more thing. Yes.
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I, you know, I did some work for Duke university for their program that they have overseas. And I recall how I felt, interacting with all these other doctors and I pinched myself and I was like, wow, this was a good feeling that I am one of them too. And that’s a very surreal feeling. It is. And, you know,
coming from somebody that has been self-employed their entire life. have never collected a paycheck and I’m 54 years old. And it’s cool to be around people that are your peers now. Like you were saying, that is such a cool feeling for sure. So LaToya, before we wrap up here and tell people how they can reach out to us, I would like to see if you could provide one key takeaway.
Whether it be through this project, through this journey, what would you like to be a 30 second or less takeaway for everybody that is listening now that we’re at the end of our series.
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Yeah, have tenacity. Make sure that your skin is thick in the game because this is going to be a process. And the timeline that you probably have identified for completion is 99 % probably not going to be the actual completion date. And so don’t be disappointed. Life happens and this is why God’s timing is always the best timing. And so when that happens, when life happens and
You have to make some decisions. Keep going because the journey is going to be well worth it and you cannot give up. You have to keep going. I know there’s probably someone who’s listening now who wants to give up, but this is your sign not to.
I love that. in, my case, there was a Arctic and Antarctic Explorer. name was Colonel Norman Vaughn. he climbed Everest. He did the Iditarat up here in Alaska. He was just an all around bad-ass, in his life. And he has a quote, that is sort of my mantle. It is dream big and dare to fail. And.
I think about that all the time and, that is my true takeaway, whether you’re going through this academic journey, or a development in your business or whatever, always dream big and always dare to fail. And I think that, whatever works out, positive or negative, will, will, will eventually work out in the end as, as Latoya was talking about tenacity is, is a, is one of our greatest.
So there is mine. So Latoya, how can folks find you and can you tell us quickly about this business that you have?
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Yes, so people can find me on socials at my name and then through email I can be reached at lskinner, the number five at liberty.edu. And my business Wildest Dream Enterprises is a full service administrative service that supports any type of business, but mainly focuses on nonprofit organizations for the many reasons that we’ve discussed during this series.
And I’m very intentional about that. So please, please, please, please, if you need a consultant, let me know. And we’re to put a link to that in the show notes. I don’t think we’ve done that up to this point, in the series, but we’ll put that for sure. my name is Robert Forto, F O R T O. You can find me on any.
social media or on the web, by searching that name, robertforto.com is, is, my main site. That’s where all those people reached out to me over the years. And I’m sure they will continue to do that. and we’ll see what comes next, but otherwise it has been a extreme pleasure to be able to spend however many hours we have spent on this series with.
Not only my new friend, Latoya Skinner, but also a colleague. And I do not say that lightly at all, because I think that we’re going to go big places and hopefully work together in the future in some capacity, whatever that means, whether it’s networking or clients or whatever. I look forward to continuing this relationship with my new friend, Dr. Latoya Skinner. Latoya, it’s been a pleasure. We’ll talk again soon. Okay.
Likewise. Thank you so much. Thank you. On behalf of my cohost Latoya Skinner, this is Robert Forto for the peak experience podcast. We will see you guys next time. Goodbye. first palm media. This is the peak experience podcast. We hope you enjoyed this podcast and we invite you to subscribe and Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. You will find a link in our episode notes.
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