Carol:
Hey, hey, hey rebels. Welcome back to the podcast. I am so excited today because I have such a special individual who is joining us, to talk about their journey, just all the amazing things that they are doing in the world, and are preparing and poised to go into next. So I am so excited to welcome someone that I know well, have been working with as a client for I think a year or so now, or going on two years now, but I'm happy to introduce you to Dr. Jae Sevelius.
Carol:
We went through this. I'm thinking about rebellious, who is a clinical psychologist and lifelong academic, currently transitioning from Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, to Professor of Medical Psychology and Psychiatry at Columbia University.
Carol:
Jae is known internationally for their expertise in gender affirming healthcare for transgender and gender expansive communities, leading large community engaged research projects on transgender health in New York, California, and Brazil. Jae also specializes in psychedelic assisted therapy for identity based trauma, and holds a certificate in psychedelic assisted therapies and research from the California Institute of Integral Studies.
Carol:
And honestly, I think that's just only a snippet of the amazingness. This doesn't even really cover all that I even know about this amazing individual. So Jae welcome so much to the podcast. Thanks for being here.
Jae:
Thank you so much for having me Carol. It's such an honor.
Carol:
I'd love to just start off with your own career journey, because I know as an academic and I've spent a career in academia as well, everyone may not be familiar with what that looks like. And even some of what that life at the ivory tower is, what it does to you and things of that nature. So I would love for you to just share about your journey from when you started your career to where you're going to now.
Jae:
Sure. Yeah, thank you so much. I was always really, really passionate about school. From the time I was a kid, I was playing school during the summers and dumpster diving for workbooks. I loved school. I loved feeling challenged. I loved the structure of it and I loved learning, and so I always had this sense of, if I could do anything, I would just stay in school my whole life. And that's what I ended up doing essentially, was after I got my PhD, I immediately got a job as a Research Assistant at UCSF, where I'm currently transitioning out of, and worked my way up from Research Assistant to Project Director, to Post-Doctor World Scholar, to Faculty Member.
Jae:
I think of that as kind of a backdoor path. It was a pretty non-traditional path into the faculty trajectory, and I'm currently director of the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, where I started at UCSF.
Jae:
It's been a really rewarding journey, and I've been very successful in doing what I do, and I work in a soft money environment, meaning that my work is supported by grant funding. So I write a lot of grants. I do a lot of research projects. I write a lot of papers, and so there's a lot of emphasis on a certain type of productivity. And with that, there's also a certain emphasis on this given trajectory, a certain path that's carved out for you.
Jae:
You get this type of grant and then this type of grant, and this is what success looks like, and if you keep working that program, you could spend your whole career doing that. And being an Enneagram Type 3, An Achiever, I am very driven by those carrots. I love getting the grant. I love the rewards. I love the acknowledgement. I love the satisfaction of publishing a paper, but there is an emptiness that can start to set in.
Jae:
What I found for myself was that the work that I was doing, didn't really encapsulate all of who I was or who I am. And I felt like I had so much more to offer beyond repeating this formula for success. And even though I was doing it well, and there was something rewarding about that, I just had this nagging feeling that I had more to offer, and that I wanted to explore more of what I was curious about in the world, and didn't really feel like I could do that in the role that I had at UCSF.
Jae:
I felt that kind of stagnation for years. I hate to say that because there's always that part of you, that's like... There was something that where I didn't allow myself to break out. And I did explore other pathways and diversify my interests. I got interested in psychedelic assisted therapies, which was really different, and I think of as a little bit rebellious in academia, but I got so tired of hearing myself talk about how stagnant I felt and how bored of my job that I felt, and how I didn't know what my next step was, that I felt like I needed a big change. And that was scary.
Carol:
Yes. You said so many amazing things. I love when you talked about how you've always known that you've loved school, you love learning, and that you were dumpster diving for workbooks, which I think is so fabulous. I think what's really cool about that is not too many people know what they want to do when they're young, and literally pursue that career as they move forward, which I think is unique in and of itself.
Carol:
A lot of times people think one thing and then they take on a completely new path. So knowing that about yourself so early, I think is so amazing. But what I also think is, you use this phrase that I love about repeating the formula of success. That even though you have found the success, because a lot of times what we do is we follow the plan. We get there and it's like... And the mind is like, "Well, I'm here. It's what I wanted, so how do I find ways to make myself happy?" Even though, as you said, you were stagnant and looking for other outlets to try to fill a void and knew it was time to go.
Carol:
I think so many people could relate to that because it's like, "No, I did follow the plan. I do like my career. I do like what I do. It's not horrible, but something is just missing," and I think that is so powerful that you shared that. So coming to the realization that something was missing, what made you decide to say, "I want to do something different. I got to figure this out."
Jae:
I had been trying to figure it out for a while, and I thought that figuring it out meant I need to know what my next step is. I need to think, "Okay, I'm a clinical psychologist by training, so if I'm not doing this, does that mean I go into private practice? Does that mean I do this other thing?" I thought, "Well, there's no universities within the San Francisco Bay Area that I would rather be at than UCSF or that is a good fit for me. So I either stay at UCSF or I quit and go do something completely different, like private practice or coaching or consulting or entrepreneurship, freelance writing."
Jae:
I thought of all of these different solutions and none felt right to me. I didn't feel ready to completely quit academia. There are a lot of things that I enjoy about the structure of academia and the collegiality and collaborations that it makes possible. But I think what was missing in taking that leap to the problem solving, was the self discovery piece. And that was a piece that was really valuable for me in the work that we did together, because I'm a psychologist, I'm introspective. I thought I knew myself well enough to be like, "Let me just figure this out. What's the action plan?"
Jae:
But that step prior to it is doing that deep dive. All of the work, the different personality tests that we did, and I mentioned the Enneagram; and I had done the Enneagram before, but something about this self discovery process, I ended up doing a really deep dive into working with the Enneagram, and was surprised by how informative that was, how enlightening it was, and the self acceptance that it brought to really acknowledge the shadow sides of being a 3, and the pitfalls that I needed to look out for, and what was going to motivate me, what was going to help me feel secure, and what traps I might need to watch out for.
Jae:
So that self discovery piece was really, really critical, so that when the opportunity arose and when the universe opened the door for me to consider something I hadn't... was not even on my radar, I was able to see it for the opportunity that it was, and see how I could have all of this input into shaping that opportunity to fit with the vision of what I wanted, of who I am now, of what I see myself growing into, rather than just saying, "Oh, I'm just going to repeat some of the same mistakes that I made in my past by thinking that I have all the answers going into it," which I didn't.
Carol:
That is so awesome because you're right, you are a psychologist. So most people would be like you said, "I could figure this out." And I think most established, high achieving, successful, smart professional women are like, "Well, I got this far. I should go to figure it out." What I love was that you said, "I didn't have the answers, and I thought about all these other things."
Carol:
And that's the other thing I think people do, is they go straight to the action line. They go straight to "Well, what can I do?" As opposed to taking a step back, like you said, and discovering, who am I and what do I really want, and what really makes sense for me? I know for you through that process, you figured out, "No academia is where I want to be. I don't want to go off into..." At least for now, was the best decision for me now.
Carol:
Because I always say that it's always about the right now choice. It's not about, "Oh, the one perfect thing that I'm going to do until I die." That's what kind of gets us in the mess to begin with, in my opinion. It's the what makes the best sense for me right now in the ecosystem of my life, and what's aligned with my values, and where I see myself going, and the work that I really want to do that I think is really fulfilling.
Carol:
I would love for you to share a little bit more about why you believe that a discovery process is important, because listen, this stuff takes a moment. It's not an overnight proposition. And so many times, we want to go now, we want the answer now, we want to make the move now. And to stop sitting in action, to start to stay back and thinking, sometimes could feel really unsettling, or even to some people a waste of time. So for you, how were you able to navigate that?
Jae:
I think there's so many things I think about why the self discovery process is important, but I think one is that, I think working with a coach during the self discovery process was really, really invaluable for me because you were able to point out things to me about my own thought habits, things that I was expressing that I wasn't even aware of.
Jae:
Our thought habits are like the air that we breathe, and there were things about the discovery process, places that I got stuck, where I knew that I needed someone who was really skilled in recognizing these thought habits or loops that we get into, and then reflecting them back to me in a way that was also skillful, where I could really sit with it and work with it and think, "Okay, yeah, I see how that's a thought habit of mine, and how is that impacting me? And how will that impact me going forward, if I keep do it this way?"
Jae:
It's true. It's like, "Okay, I've gotten this far with these habits," but recognizing how doing things a different way or challenging my own thoughts and choosing different beliefs, choosing different thoughts, how transformative that was in how I felt and how I feel, and how I am facing new situations going forward, is one of the things that has been really incredible for me in navigating this transition from UCSF to Columbia, is really using this as an opportunity to say, "Who am I going forward? Who do I want to be? Who do I want to tell this new person that I am? How do I want to show up?" Is really what it comes down to.
Jae:
And showing up in a new way has been so eye opening for me, because I'm like, "This is part of who I am. That part of me has been inside me, but I've gotten into this habit of showing up in this certain way," and for me personally, it was about being agreeable, being different, being accommodating. And that makes me a nice person to work with, but it doesn't always get me what I want, and it doesn't always garner the respect that I know I deserve. It also means that I'm not always great at setting boundaries around my time and energy, and it's something I've been working on for a long time.
Jae:
But practicing those boundaries, practicing asserting myself in the negotiation process with Columbia was mind blowingly transformative. It was just insight after insight in practicing those new skills. I think of all of that as the self discovery process.
Carol:
So fabulous. So talking about this self discovery process, one of the things, the way I like to frame it is this inner game work that the bedrock of the framework that I use in the program is grounded in this inner and outer game strategy that, yes, there's tactics. Yes, there's tools. Yes, there's things that you can implement and do, but without the inner game, without the mindset, without managing our thought process, and checking those thought errors, and those thought habits that we have, none of the other stuff's going to work.
Carol:
Because if you're trapped in one way of being and showing up in the world, is hard to implement, to do something different. I always say, if you want the future you never had, you got to start doing things you never done. And so it means you have to shift things up a little bit. So from your perspective mindset, this internal work, this discovery work that you talked about, played a big factor, but what do you think is some of the challenges people would have, in engaging with this work?
Jae:
I could talk about some of the challenges I had.
Carol:
Yeah, please.
Jae:
I think, interestingly, like we've been saying, I'm a psychologist, I'm very familiar with things like cognitive behavioral therapy, and those sorts of things, but it's really different when you're doing this kind of inner work. Again, like I was saying, the thoughts habits that we have are like the air that we breathe. We don't realize that we're doing there or we're defaulting to something. When we have a belief, we think that's just the way things are, or that's the way things are as we see them.
Jae:
It was really challenging and a real shift for me to really get that we choose our beliefs. Intellectually, I knew that. Yes, it makes sense, but when you would ask me, how do I want to feel and what do I need to believe in order to feel that way?
Jae:
It was really an interesting flip for me to think about what do I need to believe, and be able to choose that belief. But when I did that, for example, I had what I considered kind of a crisis situation at UCSF that really threw me for a loop emotionally and really challenged my sense of who I am, I was kind of in a panic.
Jae:
And because I thought, "Oh, this is reflective of who I am as a person, or this person's perspective of me is really damaging in some way." When I was operating from that place, my actions came from this place of like, "Oh, I need to change this person's mind and convince them that I really am a good person, or be in fear that this person's opinion of me was going to be damaging of me in some way."
Jae:
It brought up a lot of fear and anxiety and self doubt, but when I chose to believe, "You know what? This person's opinion is their opinion, and they get to have it, and I know who I am, and I can be really rooted in that, and grounded in what I know my values to be and move forward from that place." It completely shifted the situation. I was not carrying that anxiety around anymore. I was able to move forward in a much more productive way.
Jae:
It was a huge lesson for me in the importance of the thought work, even when it's challenging, even when we're so comfortable in our thought habits.
Carol:
That is so powerful because even in the process of going from one position to another, leaving an employment situation to go to another, so many times, like you mentioned before, feeling stagnant and trying to find outlets. And so many times people have this belief that they have to hate their job or that they have to be in complete discontent in order to be open to other opportunities.
Carol:
I always say that it's so much better when you could step into something, as opposed to feel like you're running away from something. And a part of this whole thing about really managing our thoughts and our emotions, helps us to feel grounded where we are, so we don't feel like we have to run and make an exit or run to do something different because it's so horrible where we are, whatever, however, our mind is painting the picture.
Carol:
I know that's so hard for people who are like, "Just get me out of here," and I'm like, "Wait, let's slow it down, and let's get you whole and full, and thinking in a way that's more empowering, where you're in control so that we don't take that kind of stinking thinking with us where we go, and recreate the whole situation someplace else."
Carol:
So I love that you're sharing this because the inner game strategy, it's complex, it's deep, but it is so powerful, and it's a tool that really helps in not only figuring out how to get the clarity in terms of what you want to do, but even engaging in the process along the way, to step into what you're going to do next.
Carol:
So let's talk about the next step. You mentioned a little bit about salary negotiation and with all of that. What made this position right for you? How did you know this is the next position? What opened up for you to say, "Yes, it's time for me to make the move someplace else?" Because like you said, UCSF wasn't horrible, although you felt stagnant, but what made you open up for this new position?
Jae:
I think the main thing was the opportunity to shape the position from the get go, according to my new understanding of who I am, what I want, what I want to explore. And I saw that-
Carol:
Okay, that's powerful. I got to put a pin in that for a second. I want you to listen to what they said, "To shape the position that they were going into." Because most people try to bend and fit into something as opposed to, "No, let me shape something that's aligned to who I am, and what I want to do." I just want to put a pin in that because I was powerful. So please continue.
Jae:
Thank you. It was powerful for me too, because when I was approached with this opportunity, I realized, okay, "Columbia's got a lot going on. It's a huge institution. There's a lot to take advantage of," and I really gave myself the time to do the research and think, "Okay, what's going on there that I can explore. How does this fit with what I know, who I know myself to be now, what I am curious about, what I could grow into," and really allow myself too to express interests and ambitions that I hadn't previously allowed myself to articulate, because they felt so big or they felt so stepping into the unknown or really this next chapter.
Jae:
Whereas UCSF I've been there for so long that it's sort of prescribed. I have this very prescribed role and moving to Columbia where there's new opportunities, new collaborations, new ways for me to grow, and really doing the work that we did together around sort of visioning, I was able to articulate, "Here are the things that I want," and to see if Columbia could respond and say, "Yes, we can support you in doing that," and they did.
Jae:
And things that weren't initially part of the position that they had envisioned for me, I offered up and said, "This is what I want to do." And they said, "Yes, please come here and do that," and that was mind blowing. If I hadn't done that kind of exploration and also done the thought work to know that I was deserving of living out my full self expression and exploring what I want to explore, I wouldn't have felt like I was grounded enough to ask for that or to put that on the table.
Carol:
I love that. And then when it came time to the whole process of negotiating and moving forth, I know that was something else. Part of the activate stage, I call it in the program, is really about the really leaning into the tactics and strategies that you used to step into. And then once you were there, kind of owning that position. How was that process for you? And how helpful was that for you doing the process of going from one to the other?
Jae:
In terms of the negotiations?
Carol:
Yeah.
Jae:
Yeah. I had never negotiated a position before, ever. I stepped into UCSF like I said, even before I had finished my dissertation and then I just followed the sort of tears and the structures that they had laid out for me. So this was brand new and I know that without this work, I would've been one of those people, especially women, who just accept what is offered and feel really lucky to have gotten anything at all.
Jae:
And I'm so incredibly glad that I did not do that for so many reasons. One, I've learned how expensive it is to move to New York city, and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I think this move would've cost me money if I hadn't just really negotiated what I needed to negotiate and to feel confident going forward." But also because it allowed me to show up in the new way that I want to be in the world, which is to express my needs, say what I need, allow other people to have their reactions, to be able to just set boundaries and negotiate those boundaries with people. And doing that at Columbia as my first kind of interaction with them, felt really important to showing up in a new way for this new phase of my life.
Jae:
There were so many things about working with you on that process that was so helpful. One of course, it was just getting the confidence to ask for what I needed, but I mean, everything from getting concrete feedback about how I was phrasing the question, what I was asking for and really even going through the numbers with me, and being like, "Okay, here's what makes sense. Here's how I know why I'm asking for what I'm asking for," and then showing up that way. Yeah, I feel really, really good about how that process went. Feels great.
Carol:
That's so awesome. I would love for you just to share a little bit generally your experience. I know we talked about some of the nuances of the thought work, the discovery process, some of the tactics around negotiating, but just generally, your experience in the rebel academy, and your thoughts about working with a coach. I know that's another thing; coaching in the past used to be if you were doing something wrong, and so sometimes I think people still have a little bit of a connotation that I have to wait until something, before I go get the help I need.
Carol:
But I would love for you to talk about your experience with the program, the community, and just coaching generally, that you would share for people to help them understand.
Jae:
I think when you think about, even the most elite athletes in the world have a coach. People who excel at what they do, get coaching, and that's because it is so important to get that kind of objective feedback, to have someone who can reflect back to you where the places are that are growth opportunities, and support you in really pushing those edges.
Jae:
I think in order to level up in our lives, we absolutely have to get uncomfortable, and it can be really challenging. By definition, growing means getting out of your comfort zone. It's uncomfortable.
Carol:
I love that. To level up. It's another one I got. It's a tweetable, to level up, you got to get uncomfortable. Absolutely. Because growth by definition is getting out of your comfort zone. Love that. Okay, please continue.
Jae:
And when we're out of our comfort zone, what do we want to do? We want to jump right back into our comfort zone. It's really tempting to just be like, "Oh, this is uncomfortable, and I feel scared. That must mean that this isn't right for me or I feel afraid. I feel self-doubt is coming up. That must mean I need to jump back into something that feels a little more comfortable," but we're not going to grow that way.
Jae:
I think that when we're uncomfortable, when we're growing, to have someone who can say, "This is a good sign. This means that you're challenging yourself. You're growing, the discomfort will come and that's okay. It will also pass," that kind of support. That's where I think the Career Rebel Academy was also really fabulous and has been really fabulous in doing the group work. Because you get to not only get supported by other people who really know what it's like to be working with that discomfort, but you also get to support other people, and see what their processes are like and learn from that, learn from where other people are working.
Jae:
It was also really interesting to me to learn about how we all have different things that are our growth edges, and seeing where other people's growth edges are and how they were working with those. That's been really enlightening for me. It's just been really fantastic.
Carol:
One of the biggest objections I often hear from people around hiring a coach, is time and money investment. You're completely busy writing millions of dollars of grants and everything else that you were doing. How did you navigate that? How did you overcome that objection for yourself, and what would you say as advice to others who were struggling with time and money maybe on their mind thinking, "Ugh, I can't have a coach because of that reason."
Jae:
Yeah, I totally get the feeling busy. We are all really busy and that's sort of a cliche at this point in our culture. We're all really, really busy. And high achieving women are by definition, are very busy. But what it was for me was, "How much time have I spent feeling stagnant? How much time have I felt talking to family and friends about not knowing what the next step is for me? How much more time do I want to waste feeling I could be doing more?"
Jae:
And I was like, spending that time investing in myself and really, really discovering what I want and who I am, is a much better use of my time than feeling stagnant, feeling like I'm wasting time. I had already felt like I had wasted a lot of time. So this kind of time, this is an investment. I don't see that as a thing.
Jae:
The money piece, I also get a lot of us are very much in this scarcity mindset. Like, "Oh, I don't have enough money," or, "That's a lot of money." In some ways it's a worthiness issue, like, "Am I worth it?" How do you put a price on your own happiness? How do you put a price on your own growth? There's no price on that. These are our lives. Life is short. We only, at least in this go around, this particular iteration, we only get one, and so to me, there is no price on that.
Jae:
I also got really creative and I identified some professional development funds at my university that could help me cover the cost, and so I really would always encourage people, as the first step of getting uncomfortable is to go and ask, "Are there professional development funds?" Universities often have them for faculty, I know, but other companies are very much willing to invest in their employees in that way. And so finding out if there's a chunk of money you can get, or if they could cover the whole amount.
Jae:
I also think getting creative. If your family and friends, like mine were, tired of hearing you talk about feeling stagnant, not knowing what's next. Maybe you could do a little Kickstarter, and have people help you get to that place, because I know in my case, just in the negotiation process with Columbia, that my work with you has been paid for, probably three times over, and it comes back. It truly is an investment in that sense, and so tell your friends and family, you'll pay them back when you get that raise, because you will, if that's what you're going for.
Carol:
I love that. That is so fabulous. I think you probably capture this, but I'm still going to ask the question, for people who are sitting on the fence thinking, "I don't know, I'm not sure," and I'm sure that's a whole lot of mindset stuff and worthiness questions. There's a lot of that I'm sure going on. Usually, that's what I see. But if people are on the fence, what advice would you give to push them over to say, "Come on, step up. Let's make it happen."
Jae:
I would ask them really think about how attached to your unhappiness are you, that you're not willing to take a step into a change, into a new future? Is your current level of discomfort so comfortable to you that you're willing to choose that over the discomfort of the unknown?
Carol:
Wow. That's a powerful question right there. Gauntlet laid down. I love it. Hey, that's real talk. That is real talk because that's fundamentally what it's about. It's about, do I stay in this lack of clarity, stagnation, unhappiness, not knowing what to do next, and how long do I want to live in that before I actually decide to step into something that can actually move me in the right direction. What I often tell people is that we think that, "Oh, if I just wait or put it off later, that when things get better or they align," or whatever reasons we come up with to put things off, that it'll be okay to start later.
Carol:
I always tell people that problems compound like interest. So where you are now is not where you're going to be a year from now, you'll be worse, because problems compound upon themselves, just like solutions compound upon themselves. So if you're moving in the right direction, and you get more benefit after benefit after benefit, it compounds like interest, just like problems compound in the opposite direction in the deficit, if you don't make a move.
Carol:
So really right where you are right now, you're at the best possible decision making time to either step into the solution of success or a compounding problem situation that could be much worse moving forward. So I love that you shared that. So tell me, what does it mean to be a career rebel to you?
Jae:
To me being a career rebel means choosing a nontraditional path in order to be more fully who you are. And nontraditional can look all kinds of ways. A lot of times nontraditional from the outside can look fairly traditional. I'm a traditional academic, but I think of myself as having taken a very nontraditional path in a traditional field. It takes courage to do that.
Jae:
It takes courage to do something different, to change your trajectory, to make decisions based on who you are and not who other people see you as, or want you to be. I think it really has to do with taking ownership of your own path and being really true to who you are.
Carol:
I love that. That feels so aligned with the work you do in the world as well. Earlier, Jae was telling me they call her Dr. Rebellious.
Jae:
Yeah. That's my nickname, Rebellious Sevelius.
Carol:
I love that. That's so awesome. Listen, Jae, thank you so much again for being here. You shared so many great tips and information, and I love hearing your story, and I'm so grateful to have been on this journey with you and to have you share it with others so that they can learn or get whatever they need, in order to make the best decisions for themselves and their lives. So thank you so much for being here.
Jae:
Thank you. It's been truly an honor to have this conversation with you. And I appreciate who you are in the world.
Carol:
Thank you. All right, rebels, well, that's it for this episode. Stay tuned when we have some other amazing interviews that will be coming up soon. You're going to want to re-listen to this one again. So if you didn't catch all the nuggets before, you're going to want to hit the rewind to make sure that you can catch them on the second or third round, that you may be listening to all the amazing things that Jae said here today.
Carol:
And listen, until next time have an amazingly rebellious week. I'll see you soon.
