Welcome to The Resilient Learner!
Our mission is to help learners of all ages cultivate the adaptable mindsets and skills necessary to carve their own path in their education and careers.
If you haven’t already, check out our weekly podcast, The Resilient Learner Podcast, where host Sammy Davis leads discussions on a variety of topics to empower the driven, creative, adaptable people who have the skills to thrive in a rapidly changing world.
The Resilient Learner Podcast (TRL) may be for you if you relate to any of the following:
- You love to learn and are currently trying to learn something (start a new career/major/school/degree/class) but you’re feeling fearful/stuck/unclear about how to proceed.
- You lack clarity about your desires, goals, purpose and don’t know where to begin to figure it all out.
- You feel that your education did NOT prepare you to be successful in the ‘real world’ and want to do something about it now.
- You have impostor feelings and self-doubt is eating you alive and limiting your professional opportunities.
- You were a high achiever in K-12 and labeled as having ‘a lot of potential’, yet find yourself stuck and dissatisfied with your education and/or career.
- You were very good at following paths created for you by authority figures, but feel incapable of creating your own ‘life syllabus’.
Meet the host of The Resilient Learner Podcast: Dr. Sammy Davis
When I was about 1 year away from completing my PhD – set to graduate from a top research university, immersed in my research projects – I realized that somewhere along the way, I had really messed up.
On the surface, things looked good! Getting degrees, traveling around the world, learning about an incredible ecosystem, teaching people what I knew, etc. And finally, I was getting close to graduating (Phinally [almost] Done)!
Under the surface however, I was distraught.
I actually wanted to crawl out of my skin. I wanted to get hit by a bus, zapped by lightning, just somehow no longer able to feel the intense discomfort of my life. I woke up everyday wishing I could be anyone else.
I was riddled with doubt. I was doubting my scientific skills, my career prospects, my own identity and self-worth. I was unhappier than I can ever remember being, and everytime someone talked to me about my research, asked me how things were going, or were generally supportive of me – I felt deeply fraudulent. An impostor in my own life! *wearing an Edgar suit*
How did I get to this point? How did I get to the point of intense impostor feeling, agonizing self-doubt, and supreme disconnect between what I was doing and what I was feeling?
Honestly, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me. I am a classic rule follower/people pleaser. Teacher’s pet. Slayer of the school system. I struggled, now and then, with some subjects or concepts, and I wasn’t always the best at everything, but I could almost proceed on autopilot for most of my educational career, so naturally, I did. I proceeded from grade to grade, subject to subject – asking the questions that it seemed prudent to ask, taking the classes people suggested I take, following the ‘right’ path.
Complete these extracurriculars, AP classes, etc. – OK, sure, no problem.
Go to college? Definitely, who doesn’t go to college these days?
Enjoying your major? Why not do a PhD? Well, I am enjoying the work and haven’t exactly tried anything else, so what other option do I have?
Finish my PhD and become a research professor? *record scratch*
Here was my breaking point. I knew I was not interested in the academic research life. I didn’t LOVE research. I loved coral reefs, I loved ecology and natural systems, I loved my friends and my research community, I loved being able to help people through my work. But I didn’t LOVE research. Ok this is kind of a shock, considering I have been doing this work for the last 10 years and I don’t really have other skills.
Well damn.
I knew that I had to get serious about myself and figuring out my path.
What do I want to do? How can I learn how to do it? Who can help me? What do I need to succeed?
I realized that I could no longer continue on the same path. Nothing wrong with following an existing path, IF IT WORKS FOR YOU.
I was not happy with the way things looked for my future, and I realized I had to take ownership of my education and tailor my activities and experiences for my own individualized needs.
No one was going to hand me a syllabus for life (sad emojis)
During my personal process of cultivating and pruning my personal passion garden, the concept of ‘The Resilient Learner’ was born. In all of the content, my goal is to empower and equip learners of all ages with the mindsets and skills they will need to navigate an uncertain future that may be off the beaten path.