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Fatimah Williams, "Options for Success: A PhD's Guide to Navigating Career Transitions and Thriving in Your Next Professional Chapter" (Oxford UP, 2025)
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Welcome to the New Books Network
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C
hello everyone and welcome to New Books in Anthropology, a podcast channel on the New Books Network. I'm your host, Regan Gillum, and today I'm talking to Dr. Fatima Williams, who is the author of the book options for a PhD's guide to navigating Career Transitions and Thriving in your next professional chapter, published by Oxford University Press. I'm very happy to welcome my fellow University of Virginia Wahoo. To the podcast. Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Williams.
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B
Oh my gosh, it's awesome to be here. And I cannot believe that we go back that far.
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C
It was just yesterday.
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B
Yes, absolutely.
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C
I'm really happy to have you here and in this capacity of you talking about your book and this is your third book. You've written two previous books, Be Bold and Professional Pathways Planner. And so can you tell us about yourself and how you came to write this third book, Options for Success? Sure.
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B
So I like to I wear many hats. I'll just say that I wear a number of hats. So the way I really like to think about myself is I'm an executive strategist. I support leaders and organizations who are walking through change. And so I do that in one capacity as an executive coach to leaders, professionals who are navigating some sort of change, whether change to new role or wanting to kind of advance within a role they have or take on new responsibilities and they're managing that, but then also as a consultant who works with organizations that are also navigating change. And so that's where I get to do more structure work like organizational development, strategic planning, support. So again, kind of all under the umbrella of strategist and executive level strategist. So that's like the the umbrella around the work that I do. But Options for Success really has kind of a long history into where I would say really I started my career completing graduate school, finishing my doctorate and deciding to take a role that was outside of the academy. And a number of my colleagues who knew me through graduate school and even some faculty members would email me and ask me, how did you do it? How did you know what to do? How did you know what you wanted to do? And just a number of different questions. And so I started blogging, and that's been like probably 15 years ago now almost. So I started blogging my answers and just kind of thinking through it and having this feeling a little bit of this burden, like I'm hearing the questions and I can see where people are kind of missing a little bit of step by step on how to do this. And so it certainly didn't start as a step by step, but it started as me thinking about this is how it worked for me. But let me see, how does. How might this work more as a framework. Right. So not an individualized personal experience, but as a framework that someone could use to walk them through the idiosyncrasies of their own career transition. And that's how options for success was born.
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C
Yeah, thank you so much for that. And you write in the book that in over 10 years, you've worked with over 3,000 graduate students and faculty from different disciplines backgrounds to find fulfilling employment. And so can you talk about this work and the courses that you, you've been doing in these workshops as well that you've. That you've done?
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B
Yeah. So again, it started as a blog, so you can kind of count the numbers and see. Right. The analytics and see how many people are reading the blog. But from a blog. Then it became me going to college campuses or to conferences and speaking about this same framework that I was perfecting and developing. And so over time, it's so interesting to look back at it now because it started as a blog and then it moved into speaking, and then it moved into me wanting to like, gather a cohort around the framework, which is in the book. Right. It's the same framework just, you know, kind of perfected over time. But I wanted to see if, rather than speaking to people one on one about it, how would it work if we were in a small group and working through these seven steps of career transition as a way one, to do information transfer and knowledge transfer of what I was learning and what I'd experienced myself, but then also to help people to be able to begin to take steps on their own. I won't even say transition, because some people just needed awareness building. They needed to learn how to translate their academic Skills a bit more powerfully even for some of the academic roles that they wanted. Right. So it began as that, and then it became a course that was not just live, but it was recorded and people could watch it, listen to it, do it on their own time. And then I licensed that as that course as a product to other entities. So then it became, that's where the thousands, you know, even really beyond the 3,000 came. Because it would be sitting on other organizations websites and students and faculty could go through it at their leisure, anonymously. So not having to out themselves as considering other options or wanting to just sort of further translate themselves in a way that maybe was outside of the box that they'd been put in. And so that's how it just kind of kept moving along. And then it became a book. And I really hadn't, I didn't know that it would become a book. People would tell me, I think it's, I think you should write a book. I think you should kind of put this down in a book. But I knew I'd already self published two books. It's very difficult to self publish. Working with an, with a press is its own challenge, but self publishing is quite challenging. You are taking on everything soup to nuts yourself. And you don't realize how much it takes to not just write a book, but conceptualize everything from formatting, even with hiring people and having them do it, I still have to hold the creative container as well as the content container. So that's a long way to say that's how this work went from blog to course to licensed product to speaking to book.
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C
Yeah, that is really fascinating.
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B
Wow.
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C
And so the book lays out the steps, as you said, the seven steps for academics looking for work outside of the university or for work other than a professor, it seems like. And so I wondered, why is this transition so challenging for some? Or what are the challenges that you see people facing in this area?
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B
You know, it's interesting. One transition just isn't linear. Sometimes you just have an idea that either something isn't working, something that used to be working is no longer working, or perhaps there is a challenge that you're responding to, maybe some life transition or life change that has you saying, I need to do something different in my career. And what I find with academics is sometimes there's a clear I need to go to another industry to find my place now. Right. So this place I was in worked well for me for a time, but now I need to find somewhere else. But then there's this caveat of people in this, like, kind of category of academics who don't realize that they may not need to, quote, unquote, leave academia. Right. To find the answer to whatever the frustration, discomfort, or curiosity is. And so I like to say that too, about this book, because I really. I was gonna say I fought really hard for this not to just be a leaving academia book. I wanted it truly. Options for success. You've got a number of different options, even in the seat that you're in right now, to explore your gifts, your talents, your skills, and even money making. If you want to produce more income, you have that from where you sit right now. And it may not require a big leap of industry change or a leap of role change. And so even in the book, I go through this four stage, the career transition, life cycle, because I want people to see that there's a combination of shifts that you can make that are not just black and white. I'm in or I'm out. I'm leaving or I'm staying. And so the hope is that by kind of illuminating some other options, it gives people the chance to.
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C
To take a.
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To take. To not be so radical. Sometimes you don't need radical. Right. You just need slight shifts. And I wanted to allow some room and some space for that, for that shift. But I think the transition can be challenging because we often are just responding to the stimuli of something has to change, or I'm frustrated, or I need something new, or I may not get tenure or my postdoc is ending. And that that kind of reactive approach can shut down creative thinking and even the ability to see options for yourself. And so that's what I wanted the book to do, was kind of uncover make clearer things that tend to be obscured in a transition process.
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C
Yeah, I love that. How you can sit in these feelings of, as you said, frustration or, you know, these, like, emergency feelings, or, you know, this something's happening, and then you don't know what options are available to you. And that's what the book, you know, lays out, I think, for.
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B
Or even where to begin. Right. So that's. That often is a challenge, is people are not sure where to begin, and rightfully so, because usually this is a different kind of career transition than one that maybe you've made in the past. Right. Typically, especially for an academic, they've been on something of a predetermined path. Even if you kind of do other things in between, you're still typically on some, you know, what's next. It's charted for you. Um, and so once you're in a space of I'm not sure, then it's like the whole path is crumbled. It's like, wait, what? Where do I start? Where do I go? And usually it's, I need a job or what will I do? And like, for me, the steps were to say, listen, I know you won't follow these as a linear process. You can, right? You can. But there are parts of this that are iterative. So. So as you are beginning to talk to people in the field you're interested in, you're going to gain new insights, new information. You might need to go back to your skills and reassess them to say, oh, now I know more than I did before. So. But that's what I mean by saying, it's iterative rather than linear. But having those steps always gives you something to come back to so you're not kind of confused about where to locate yourself and about the progress that you're actually making. Because it can often feel like you're not making progress if the result you want is, I want to land a new job. Well, there's a lot that happens in between there. Even if your job search is only a month or if it's six months, there's a lot happening. And my hope is that having a process that has steps will help people locate themselves in places where they may be a little bit confused or tired or just not sure what to do with the information they've gathered from whatever step they're on in their search.
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C
And so each chapter has a theme and a variety of exercises to walk through these different steps. In chapter two, which is called Discover, you write that quote, career transition is an invitation to re envision our lives and careers. And so from this I took that Career transition is also like a life project. And it's one of the projects you include in that chapter is to make a vision board of your life goals. And I'm a fan of vision boards as well, at the beginning of the year for me. And so I wondered how vision boards help with this career transition.
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B
Yeah, I find that we need something that will take us out of the immediate overwhelm, isolation, unknowing, uncertainty. Right. Any combination of those. And having a vision board, I like to think of it as a vivid visual description of what you want.
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Right.
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So the next step, the next. The next thing that you want in your life, it kind of helps to see yourself holistically that I'm not just building a career, I'm. I'm building A life, you know, and I'm building a life. I really am. As a coach, I'm very big on us being integrated in our, in our personhood. Like integrated in the sense of I'm not just a career minded, but I'm a person. I want to live in a certain type of place. I want to, you know, take my family on these kinds of vacations or I want to learn these new things or whatever it is that's in your realm of vision, right? Like what you would like your life to look like in this next phase and next stage. The vision board can be a nice way to take us out of all of the thinking and the actions that happen in career transition and take us into more of a creative and visual space. So it has that effect of it. It's kind of opening, it's illuminating, it's creative, but it's also very much grounded in the sense that sometimes when you're, you can feel like you're the middle, you're not quite sure if all the things that you're doing are laddering up to this, this where you'd like to go. It can be helpful to see. Oh, that's right. You know, I'll give an example. For me, on one of my vision boards, years ago, I had a book cover on there and I'd clipped something that had like a new book announcement, right? And so when I was writing this is my self published books at the time when I was writing and working through and trying to decide like is this going to become what one of those books I remembered. Wait, your vision board said that you at one point when you weren't overwhelmed and uncertain, you really wanted to write a book. So right now it may be challenging to work through, you know, all the formatting things that are going wrong or finding a good editor for your self published book. But you said you wanted this and this is something that is a part of where you want to go next. And so it's a nice way that's not just looking at a sort of personal strategic plan. Right. Or a goals list, but something that's a little bit more exciting to kind of anchor into where you want to go. So that's why I love, I love vision boards for that.
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C
Thank you. That's a great, a great idea and great use of that, of that tool. And so chapter three is called Assess and you break down different skills into categories and offer ways to identify our skills. And you really give like a lot of, you know, different kinds of skills and list, you know, different Things that people can, you know, ideas that people can take from that. And so I wondered, like, why don't academics think about our skills that apply both to the academy but also to other workplaces?
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You know, I actually don't think that that's unique to academics. Right. Well, one, it's an immersive field. Right. So. And it's quite unique in the sense of how we use our skills. You know, by. For most research doctorates, it's. It's not applied. Right. It's applied in a different way. Right. And so it can be challenging, not because there's any deficit or anything wrong, but you've not had to apply the skills in, in a particular milieu, then you wouldn't know. You just wouldn't know what that looks like. You wouldn't know that appreciative inquiry, as a generative inquiry, which is language that might be used in consulting, is actually what we might think of in cultural anthropology as observation and just the ways that we ask questions in the field. So if you've not had to use it in a certain way, then it's. It's unknown to you. So that's one. And I'm glad that you asked that, because I can't stress enough. It is unknown to you. It's a new world. It's a new way of thinking. It's a new way of organizing problems and concepts, even if they're similar. And so in the book, I actually pull out a framework that I created called ecosystems and economies, because what ecosystems and economy says is, as a researcher, some portion of what you do there is likely it sits within an ecosystem. Right. You're not the only one who sees this problem or this phenomena. You're not the only one. So your field, your discipline, is not the only one who sees it. There is an ecosystem out there of other fields and industries who also see this phenomena or problem, and they may be addressing it in a new way, a different way. Different. They may even be asking a different kind of question about that phenomena or problem.
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Right.
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But you're not alone. You're not on an island. So the economy, the ecosystem is there, and the economy is also there around whatever. You know, there may be something in your research, maybe not the full research question, but something there. Right. That there's an ecosystem and an economy around it. If we can take that lens of seeing yourself or some portion of your work as part of an ecosystem and a broader economy, it gives you a way to say, all right, if I'm seeing it from this vantage point, what does it look like to see it from a different vantage point? And then it opens you up to say, okay, they're asking a similar question. But they're maybe solving it, though, instead of with knowledge, information, research frameworks, maybe they're solving it with products or with, you know, frameworks, or maybe they're solving it with some kind of intervention, like social intervention or ecological intervention, whatever it is. Right. So you're not on an island, you're not alone. Now it's just about opening up a little bit to see the ecosystems and economies within which you sit, and that can help to broaden out. But I, you know, spend a good bit of time and space in that chapter, assess with just writing down skills, because, again, I just want to illuminate what's often obscured, and I don't think anyone is trying to obscure it. But translation is difficult. You know, how do I know to translate if I don't have a basis for this new language? Well, I hope that in that chapter, I'm giving you a basis for translational language. There's just a list of a lot of verbs, and you can say, oh, wow, I actually do that.
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Right.
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Oh, I do that as well. So it can seem quite simple. But for me, it was a way to. How can I help academics to see themselves in new language that they would recognize themselves in. Right. That, that's. That was one step. And I would be remiss to say, you know, I know now, and I didn't do this in the book. I did not put much around AI and AI tools in the book, just because it's such a changing field. I didn't want the book to date itself or become weighted down. But I'll say, even before you can effectively use AI tools for resume writing, cover letter writing, you have to have a sense of where you sit before you can even give those tools really good direction as to how to even help you translate. So my hope is that in the book, what you start there also can help as you layer on in your process of thinking about who you are, what you do and where. It also has applicability beyond the role that you have right now.
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Yeah, that was a very, very helpful chapter. I'm not necessarily thinking about new career paths and whatnot, but I. I was very impressed with the list of skills and, you know, again, thinking about what I do in a different. In a different way.
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And I'll. I'll say this too, Reagan, I'm glad you said that. Right. Because you're not looking for something you're, you're in a space that you enjoy that's serves you well, but even within that, there may be other opportunities that you see for yourself that you might not have even thought about.
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Right.
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It may be something as, as simple as, oh, I never thought that maybe a committee or joining a committee on XYZ is something I'd like to do. That just by seeing your skills listed in new language opens up opportunities for your own personal growth and your own professional growth and just finding more, more spaces for your curiosity to go. Right. We tend not to need more things to do, so that's not what I mean. But I just mean even if someone has had the same job title for 20 years or 30 years, they've likely had multiple roles or different roles or at least different responsibilities within that. And some of those may be responsibilities or roles that were offered to you, and then some may be ones that you go out for. Right. But when we can see what we do in other language and more expansive language, it can also help you to see how you might want to leverage that or quite frankly, how you negotiate around where you are right now. So I like to say that as well, because I don't want people to think that it's just, oh, I'm looking for a job, or not looking for a job. I actually am more about the PhD's empowerment and agency because there's so much in the process that can feel like you don't have much agency. Right. You are looking at, not you in particular, but an academic is looking at, well, what open positions might there be in my field and then my subfield, and then in a region of the world I would like to live in, it starts to really feel like agency or choice is even narrowed. I want academics to see that wherever you sit, there's choice. And not just choice because someone's offered you something, but choice because you can go out for something you want.
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C
Yeah. Now that is, that's, that's great. And that is really necessary, as you know, in, in the academy, for people to feel like they do have some sort of agency in what they're doing. And so you mentioned one concept that you coined in the book, and then you have another concept in the book that you developed called social listening. And this entails tuning into discussions about your field in the public realm. And I wondered, can you talk about social listening and how does it help with job seeking?
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Yeah, social listening, just as, you know, you defined it really well. It's being able to just peek in, listen in on A field that you're interested in and doing that through either looking at social media threads, you know, that are in this particular industry or organizations that you know that are leaders there, or individuals that may be leaders and active in the field. So it may be through social media, it may also be through reading of headlines, you know, where is this company trending? Where is this field trending? What are some of the current challenges, what are some of the current developments? What is happening geopolitically or globally that may be impacting this? Right. Social listening gives you a way to tap in before you need to actually jump in. Right. So it can be a really nice way if you're feeling a little bit uncertain or you're new and you're saying, I just don't know. It allows you to gain exposure to a field awareness of it as well as information gathering without risk.
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Right.
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So it's almost like, you know, taking texts and reading them to be able to create a lit review. Right. Okay, here's this or here's a praises, here's the summary of what I saw and what I'm seeing. And of course it usually generates some questions. It's the same thing with social listening. Being able to follow the threads, follow the trends and then allow yourself to organically like it generates questions for you based on fit, based on what maybe is missing that you're not understanding well. And that becomes a springboard then for then being able to engage, to go from social listening to then maybe I'm going to email someone who works in this field and ask them for an informational interview or I am going to go to an event at a professional association, like maybe a regional meeting or a local meeting of this professional association. And now I can listen in with a more fine tuned ear and I can even participate and ask some questions as someone who's new to the field. But I've already listened enough that my questions are based in something. And that not only helps to boost your confidence, but it also helps people to give you more effective information once you start asking questions.
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C
And so you just mentioned that informational interviewing and that was where my next question was going to go. And so in the book you have this great insight into interviewing. You talk about like answering the question, for example, like tell us about yourself. And you also recommend like exploratory interviewing, as you just mentioned. And so I wondered, what is this exploratory interviewing? And you know, who could someone think about doing one of these interviews with?
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Yeah. So exploratory interviewing is perhaps you Are you're in your journey of deciding what field you're interested in and I'll even say what role because it may not be a field change, it may be a role change or role expansion. Right? And you're starting to gather information about what the role does or who does this. And it can be anywhere from I'm at the start of my process or, or I'm now applying and I need a bit more fine tuned support of information that's of the moment about this particular organization or set of organizations that I'm interested in. So my point here is to say it can be used at various points of your search. But exploratory interviewing is really giving yourself the opportunity to hear from people who are in the field already, who are doing the work, who are doing the hiring, who are at the decision making table. Whether that's someone who's, you know, entry level to director level to CEO just depends on what's more relevant for your, your job search and your role. But what it helps you to do is when it helps you to gain rapport with people in the field, but it also it helps you to become a known person to someone who is perhaps in hiring or just more people who know what you are interested in doing. I do share in the book some ways to make this effective for yourself because kind of the backside of this of exploratory interviewing is when people haven't done enough or much work before they ask for the interview and they're asking for things that they could have researched already. People, we all know, everyone is super busy, but they do want to help, right? They do want to make time and space. So I give some ways to make that really effective even to giving scripts in the book, right? Here's some things you can ask. Here's some ways you can ask for. You know, maybe it's a phone call, maybe it is giving them your questions in the email so that they can apply to the email right there or they can decide if they have space for a phone call. So I like to do that because different people will want different ways to be engaged in different ways. You know, earlier on in my career people would ask me, you know, oh, I see you're still in town where we went to grad school. What? You know, can we go do coffee? Listen, who has time to go do coffee? I don't, you know, and certainly it's not necessary, right? For certain things it's not necessary. I can be a resource, give really good information to help move you Forward with a 15 minute phone call or 20 minute phone call or even more time is not so much the thing. But it doesn't need a coffee, it doesn't need a lunch. It may need a phone call, it may just. So I give scripts that help you to see what feels best for you and for the relationship. And I'll say this too, Reagan, you know how to know who to approach. You know how to go out to alumni of either of your any of your institutions that you've graduated from or even gotten a certificate or anything from. They don't have to be people you know, but being alum of the same institution is a nice bridge where people may be more likely to talk to you if you are cold, right? If it's someone that you do not know. So there's a few different tips and tricks on how to reduce that barrier so you're not just in cold calling, so to speak.
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C
And so as you know, this is new books in anthropology and so you know, your PhD is in anthropology, as is mine. And so I wondered if you see anthropology in particular helping with this line of work or even your training just as a PhD in general, but I wondered if you could speak to either of those aspects of your background and how they help help you with the current work that you do.
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B
So I'll say there's a number of ways that the training has helped me and they're kind of like less obvious ways, right. So I'll start with a couple hats, right. Earlier in my career, when I made my first sort of career transition when I moved from the academy to the first role that I had, and program management, which kind of set between economic development and philanthropy. So managing a program there, what helped, I can even recall the interview, what helped me so much was as an anthropologist and I don't know this is particularly unique to anthropology, but you are able to see trends and patterns and you can also see, see kind of behind questions that people are asking you and you can see where people want to go, right? So in my interview I knew that they needed someone who could take this project from a 150 page strategic plan to actually being a living, breathing program. Policies, relationships built in the field. And I don't mean act the anthropology field, the field I was in, relationships built. It would have to translate into something. Well, I could use my ability to kind of think systematically through the problems that were being presented to me and create sort of a structure roadmap for how we would get there. Now for me it was the worldview and the methodology of taking lots of pieces of information, disparate pieces of information, and kind of being able to organize them in a bit more of a structure and then see how we would implement that also. So, you know, we would call that systems thinking another and sort of systematic like analysis. But also the ways that anthropologists are taught to ask questions and not take what is in front of us for granted. Right. So and knowing that we're coming into a different culture, whether it's a culture of someone in a neighboring community or someone in a community across the world or digitally. Right. We still know that we're coming in fresh and we're not over and we're not imposing our personal ideas, thoughts about it onto the system. And so that can be very helpful from problem solving perspective from, especially in my role as a consultant, I can step back, I can enter a new world, a new. I'll make this really, I'll make it really plain with a particular project that I had. So I was working on one project that was a merger between two hospital systems. I've been brought on the team to support with the people integration. So how do you take people from one institution that's very hospital system that was very large, multi site, to one that was a religious based hospital system, smaller in nature, very different cultures, very different cultures between the two organizations. Well, now we're saying we're merging these two entities. That's thousands of employees. And also that systems and processes and cultures of those institutions that are very, very different. So, so at one institution they begin their team meetings with a meditative moment or like a prayer. Right. And then the other one, it's we're in an agenda, we're down to business, we're getting it done. How do we take these two entities, blend them to be one and still go in the direction of the mission that we are going as an organization, as a blended organization. Well, I need to be able to value both equally. I need to be able to systematically see where in their policies, their processes, they're similar and different and then be able to play back to the leadership. Here's where you're same and different. Here's where you might find challenges. Here's where when we did focus groups with your employees of both institutions, we see where some trouble spots may be or where some questions may arise. Right. And so the skills of being able to do those different steps of that project do come from being analytical, open worldview and being able to systematically organize information and problem solve. And I will say too Regan, you know, because I Always when people ask that question though, you know, is your degree still relevant? That's really, sometimes what they're asking. I would not, I would, I would also say there's a lot of translation that's happening, right. It's not just like I can say PhD and here it just transports. There's translation that's happening and there's other skills that are needed to, you know, that I've had to develop books I needed to read to learn more about systems thinking or to find language for the thing I already kind of knew how to do. And then there's also certification programs and all kinds of things that can be quite helpful. They don't need to be a lot. Sometimes academics will think they need a new degree. Sometimes you just need exposure and you need some quick ways to help you translate. And that can happen even from if you're a graduate student, faculty member sitting in the seat you're in at the institution you're in. Look around, maybe you take a class in the business school, maybe you take a class on marketing, maybe you take one of whatever it is that you're interested in. Right. And so not to belabor the point, but I will give one example of an academic that I worked with. She was an assistant professor and also an anthropologist. And she was very much interested in consulting at like a top consulting firm. She kind of had insight into the work, but she knew that she was going to have to do something a little bit radical to get there. Well, she was very humble and I, I say she may not have used this language, but I really believe she was very humble to go to the business school, see where they were doing work on human design or you know, design thinking. And they had graduate students working in like cohorts on actual problems of actual companies in the area. And they would work together over the course of the semester and basically using that company as a client and giving the graduate students in that program and in that course an opportunity to work through and actually deliver a solution. Well, as an assistant professor in the department of anthropology, she took her time, rearranged her schedule and humbled herself to be peer to students, to learn and to be a part of this project as well. And so yes. Did her degree in anthropology help? Sure. But it also helped when she later was negotiating between, I think, I don't remember the companies now, but I know one of them was Google that she ended up at. But it helped to put herself in the space where she could practice this in a real way. Hands on.
- [39:58]
C
Thank you for that. That is really important to understand that. So it's like your degree, anthropology, or whatever it is you study and then possibly having to add to it with other classes, certifications, as you said, workshops, et cetera. And so this is the last question, and I wanted to ask you about the writing of the book. And so the voice of the book seems very encouraging in tone, which I really appreciated. And so, for example, when facing fear and discomfort, you write, and I'm quoting you, but remember, you are in process, you are becoming, you are exploring, and you do not need all the answers now. So it felt very, like I said, very supportive. And so what were you thinking when writing the book? Was that the tone you were trying to strike? And then were there any difficulties or surprises in writing this book, which is like a workbook as well as with a narrative?
- [40:56]
B
Yeah. I'm so glad that the tone really picked up that you could see that it was important to me to write in the voice of a coach. Right. And even if you've never had an executive coach, it's not therapy, but it's someone who helps you see what you cannot see. They help you to find perspective, and they also open up new avenues. So they help you to think about things with fresh perspective, new ideas. But they're also, at least my way of coaching. I'm between strategists because I want to help you move forward on steps, but I also. It's important to me that you are seen and heard. When people are in career transitions, they're often overwhelmed. They often feel like no one quite understands what they're going through. Right. Or they're under supported. And a coach can help you with feeling seen and heard, while also with the strategy of how to keep moving forward. And so that was really important to me that that was felt. And then for the narrative and workbook style, it's so experimental. I mean, it was experimental for Oxford to do. I'm really grateful for the editor that I have because she's a, you know, veteran editor, so she could see it. She had published other workbooks, and so she could see how blending the two was necessary. And why was it necessary for me? Because I really wanted to move from books about, quote, unquote, leaving academia that just give you stories of other people who've done it, even some who give you steps on how to do it. I wanted you to be the reader, to be able to take their own steps at their own pace and have something to show when, say, maybe you do go to your career services office and you need some support and you're asking questions. You've already started working on it in a tangible way. Right. And then if you're going to work with a coach or you're going to start in the real world with exploratory interviewing, you've got some things you've already worked through on paper, not just in your head. And that's so important for academics, especially in what can be a challenging process, to move from thought to action, from thought and information gathering to actually moving into action and getting out in the world, even if in small space. Steps first. Right. They don't need to be big leaps. So it was a challenge because I wanted both of those together. I wanted context, I wanted narrative, I wanted storytelling. So you could see other people who've walked through this process in very different stages of their career, and some with very different outcomes. But I wanted to give people a space to be practical and have something to do. So I'm just glad that. I'm glad that my editor went with it and I hope that it proves to be of support to the person who's really looking for how to work this out in a real way.
- [44:21]
C
Yeah, no, I think it will, and I think it's a really important book and very necessary, particularly at this time. Right.
- [44:29]
B
Thank you for that. Was wondering for you. You know, you have this podcast, you're speaking to authors, particularly books and anthropology. Like, what. What made you say, yeah, this, this fits. Like, this fits here for new books, because it is so different, right? Oh, I don't.
- [44:51]
C
I. Yeah, I don't know. I think that I can choose whatever books to. To interview people about. And so they don't necessarily have to be just an anthropology. We can really do any books. And then I think that because you're an anthropologist, I thought this would be good for new books in anthropology to look at other things that anthropologists are doing, but through the lens of a book, because it is the New Books Network. And then also I'm in all these different Facebook groups and things like that about people who are transitioning out of the academy looking for new employment, also just taking their skills in different ways, like some who are getting coaching certificates and whatnot, even. Even while staying in the academy or launching other businesses, you know, whilst while still being a professor. So it seemed like something that would speak to other people as well, you know, you know, who, who would have an interest in this, in this podcast.
- [45:54]
B
Well, I'm glad you invited me.
- [45:56]
C
I am as well. And so thank you so much. So I'm Regan Gillum. I've been speaking to Dr. Fatima Williams, who is the author of the book Options for Success, a PhD's guide to navigating Career Transitions and Thriving in your next professional chapter, published by Oxford University Press. Thank you so much for writing this book and for sharing it with us on the podcast.
- [46:18]
B
Thank you.
- [46:25]
C
Sam.