Big News!
“May I be the first to congratulate you, Doctor Robert Forto,” as my chair reached out to shake my hand.
If you are a rabid reader of my blog you know enough about me by now to know that I don’t do anything conventional.
I flew down to Arkansas to meet with my chair in person for my final presentation and I am glad I did. I had to be down in Phoenix for a business conference anyway so it was just a quick flight on Southwest Airlines (my first time on them by the way) over and it sure was an excellent experience.
I arrived at 3:30 pm and sat down at the conference table and loaded up the Microsoft Teams meeting so that it could be recorded and I started off.
I crafted my presentation in a way where I told a story.
Since my project was very personal to me since I was literally studying what I was wanting to know about our own family business and succession with an emerging female leader, I told the story of how it all began with my daughter Nicole at three years old down in our sled dog kennel with her little juice box and overalls.
It ended with the recommendations from the findings not only for the firm that I worked with but how to apply it in our own company.
Everyone said, “I have never seen a presentation go like that before.” My chair said, “These are usually dry, and boring with the candidates just reading the slides.”
After the presentation and the handshake my chair and I went over to the nearby steakhouse for dinner. This was my real reason for coming.
She and I had been together doing this project for over a year and a half. I felt it was important to celebrate this together and meet her in person. By, far it was worth the extra expense to fly down and do this.
During dinner we talked like we were old friends, swapping stories and a few laughs. We promised to keep in touch and we exchanged business cards.
I say all of the time, the most important thing in your professional career is your network. I know I have that now and I also know that I have a colleague and a friend.
Last Steps
I had to drive over to Oklahoma City-more than four hours–after our dinner and I immediately got to work at the hotel in doing my signature page. I had no idea you could do that on Word with your trackpad. I sent it off just before midnight.
I woke up early to a ding on my phone and it was a text from my chair saying she had already received all of the necessary signatures.
I submitted my project and now we want for final review.
What’s next?
A lot! I will announce more about this later but I am developing a group coaching program for DSL students that is part of our Peak Experience program. A lot of you asked about it here in scores of comments, private messages, emails, and texts over the years. There will be a fee for this but I plan to keep it relatively low.
Secondly, I am co-hosting a podcast series with another recent grad, Dr. LaToya Skinner on our Peak Experience podcast. Each episode we will talk about the steps in the DSL program. The first episode is out now and you can listen right on this page.
Thirdly, I am going to create a better way for all of you to access this content.
For years I had chronicled this midlife in college journey here on the blog and I did it by week and by course but when I started I had no idea it would go for more that 240 weeks!
What I plan to do is create a much more streamlined system for you to find and interact with the content and include scores of resources, paper examples, etc.
I may do this as a newsletter with a topic and then links to papers on that topic that corresponds to the course. ie. A lit review post will include links to various lit reviews from the courses in the program.
I will also continue to write blog articles, moderate the DSL group on Facebook and more.
Most importantly I will help my wife Michele finish up her journey in the program. She is currently in BMAL 755 and will be entering the project phase later in the year.
A lot of my colleagues in the cohort have asked me if I am going to go to the graduation in May. I think so but haven’t fully decided yet. I did go when Michele graduated with her Masters a couple of years ago. I will keep you up to date!
I know it will be a few weeks before my degree is finally conferred but this is such a huge weight off of my shoulders. 244 weeks! I remember when I naively said this was only going to be 130 weeks.
