112: Why and How to Invest In Yourself

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Hello, hello everyone! Happy New Year to those of you that are just now listening to this episode during the New Year. I have a fun episode I think it's um, it's an interesting episode for me because it's, it's a little bit more of like the mindset type work that I wish that I had received when I was an undergrad and grad student. The topic for today is on why and how to invest in yourself.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I know a lot of people talk about investing. And when they talk about investing, they're talking about, like literally investing your money in retirement accounts to make sure that you're going to be okay as you age, you're going to be able to take care of yourself. But there's also the concept of investing in yourself, which for me means doing things for you, for your own growth, for working towards your own goals rather than doing things for others. It means putting time, energy and money towards the things that you want to accomplish and get out of life. It means reminding yourself that you are worth it, because it can be hard to focus on yourself to take time out just for you.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And I think sometimes we forget that when you're in college, when you're in grad school, technically you are making an investment a financial investment. Because as a college student, you are paying for tuition. College is a financial investment in that you are quite literally paying the university tuition 1000s of dollars every year to be there. And that could be vs scholarships, it could be via fellowships, it could be through loans, it could be through like literally paying or your parents paying tuition for you.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And you know, as a low income student, I don't think I thought about that, that much that, that I was literally paying the university money to be there. And even though I had to take out loans, I've signed paperwork, didn't read the fine print, and kind of just forgot about it. And thought, well, I'll worry about it. When I'm older, I'll worry about it when I'm older. And a lot of things I kept thinking I'll worry about it when I'm when I'm older when I have to. But I want to remind you that you are technically paying for your education. And that is a kind of investment, sometimes it pays off. Sometimes it doesn't quite pay off in the way that you intend to sometimes you go for one degree, one type of job, and you don't end up doing that thing. But nonetheless, it's a kind of investment.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So because of that, I definitely think that there's a lot that you can and should take advantage of while you are a student, whether you're an undergrad or grad student, you should definitely take advantage of all the resources that the university has to offer for you. Whether that's receiving support from mentors, professors, librarians, staff, friends, even strangers if you reach out to them, and they happen to be nice enough to help you. There's so much support out there to help you reach your goals.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

But I think sometimes we forget that there's actually or we just don't know that there's a whole world out there of professionals who have a great deal of experience, doing work that will help you pursue and gain the growth that you want. They are individuals and I'm specifically thinking about people like therapists, people like coaches and consultants. They're the folks that are going to be there for you, whether you're in college, and between college and grad school, in grad school, after grad school. And for as long as you continue to develop your career.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

There are folks out there who this is their job to help support you with your personal and professional growth. Now, I didn't know about this world. I didn't know about this fold really until the later years of grad school when I first started to make explicit and intentional financial investments in myself and my career. And I wish I knew a little bit more about it because even though I was always a struggling student, always low income. I you know when you really value and care about something you are willing to put in the time and energy to save up hustle to find a way to make it work. And I did that. So I'll talk a little bit more about that.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

But before I do that, I want to talk about coaching, in particular, because I consider myself an academic coach. And I think it's important to have an episode where I talk about what coaching is, how what different types of coaching are available, just give a couple of examples, and then talk about the difference between coaching and mentoring. Because I know a lot of times I use those terms interchangeably, but they are different. So let's talk about the different types of coaching.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Here's some examples of different types of coaches or coaches for anything. Anything you could consider something that you want to learn, there's a coach for it all. But in my world I come across most often career coaches, sometimes they are career sometimes they are academic coaches, writing coaches, and life coaches.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So career coaches are folks that typically provide support with you, you know, getting your first job, switching careers and landing the next job pursuing your own professional advancement, negotiating your your packages, when you're getting a new job, or when you're trying to negotiate for getting some sort of promotion. So career career coaches are that they you know, they help you, they support you, and developing your career, they might review your resumes, they might provide you with support with interviews, they'll look over cover letters, answer any questions that you have to do the process. So that's what career coaches do.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Now, writing coaches are, you know, sometimes the writing coaches, sometimes their editors, so writing coaches actually coach you in the writing process. So they actually teach you the strategies to become a better writer, they don't just review your writing, give you line edits, and tell you what's wrong and ask you to fix it or have a writing coach will actually kind of work through the mental aspect of it too. So teach you strategies to kind of figure out what are common obstacles that you face in your writing challenges, teacher strategies to overcome them. And like work with you actually talk it out and help you strengthen your relationship with writing and in turn, become a better writer.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So writing coaching, they might provide the coaching like the one on one kind of talking, addressing looking over writing together, they might be reviewing work, you're writing on their own time through developmental edits, through line edits, and they might be going through like heavy kind of revisions with you, or they might just be going over it, you know, for kind of proofreading, because it's close to a final draft. They might be teaching you the mechanics of writing, you know, maybe you never took a formal writing course. And you're struggling with certain aspects of your writing, grammar, syntax, you name it, that they can teach you with that, or they can teach you all about that.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And then there's also life coaches, and I feel like that industry is booming so much right now. And they're kind of like the jack of all trades when it comes to coaching. But really, ultimately, at the end of the day, they focus on mind set work. And so they help you identify common thoughts and limiting beliefs, they may help you with your own goal setting will help hold you accountable. But really, they're they're there to assist you in identifying what you really want, and figuring out the obstacles and helping you kind of overcome those obstacles and ultimately reach your goals. So career coaches, writing coaches, life coaches, all kinds of coaches out there.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And one thing that I'm learning, as I've been surrounding myself with more individuals who I look up to, who I consider successful in their own way, not just necessarily successful in their careers because of their title, or because of how much money they make, but successful also in like, curating a very good life that they really love. You know, the curating a life full of intention, which is kind of the journey that I'm on right now. Those folks have achieved big life goals. Big because of a combination of the support that they've received, so itcould be through therapists, through a life coach, a business coach through fam tours through mentors, they have had people along the way, helping them out.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And so I just want to remind you that no matter where no matter what journey you're on, no matter what career you want, you can't do this alone, you really can't. And, you know, consider yourself very lucky if you have lifelong femtors and mentors who are willing to help you out no matter what, whether you're a student, or beyond that, that is awesome. But as I want to remind you that there are also other people out there who do this for a living, and would love to help you out just as much. So just keep that in mind.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So now that I talked about differences, and in different types of coaches, I also want to talk about the differences between coaching and mentoring or mentoring. So I spent many, many years working as a mentor to students, and also kind of informally mentoring a bunch of mentoring, mentoring a bunch of students, this has been 11 years now. So going on 11 years that I've been doing this. And so as a mentor, I am someone who is assisting and helping people who are on similar paths as I was, so I have walked in their shoes, I can provide them with guidance based on my experience. And I can give them very specific clear guidelines on what to do to get from point A to point B, because I've been there and I've done that. So mentoring is someone who has walked in your shoes.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

A coach, on the other hand, has not necessarily walked in your shoes, not necessarily not per se, but they have enough experience and expertise and knowledge that they can help ask you, you know, guiding questions, and help you ultimately reach your goals, identify common obstacles, and help you reach your goals, or provide techniques, strategies, tools to help you reach your goals. So those are the big differences, someone who has walked in your shoes versus someone who hasn't necessarily. And instead of them having all the answers, they'll help you they're helping you uncover your own answers.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So that's why I consider myself an academic coach, rather than a feminist mentor, because I don't want to make the assumption that I've been in someone's shoes, especially because I haven't, you know, we're all so so different. In some cases, yes, like, there is, there's just this click, when I meet someone, I just can't help it. We relate in so many ways, and then they're my femtee forever. I love to check in reach out, you know, when they come back, check in and give me updates. I love that.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

But with other folks, you know, it's more of a professional relationship, I help them get from point A to point B, they get the results that they want, they're really happy. And you know, I'm still just as happy to hear back from them if they do check back in. But I don't consider myself necessarily a femtor to everyone or a coach to everyone. It just depends on the relationship that I have with each individual. But I wanted you have to kind of think about the about the the differences between mentoring, femtoring, and coaching.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Now, I wanted to go back to what I mentioned earlier about my experience, hiring coaches and editors because it was such a big deal for me. At the time, it was such a big investment. So the first time I decided that I wanted to hire someone to provide me with support was when I was finishing up my dissertation. So near the end of my grad school years, I was working on my dissertation, I had a coastal full draft. And I needed someone to provide editing to look it over one more time helped me with liner this and helped me with formatting in any formatting issues.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And so I hired someone to do like one kind of draft of reviewing it for line edits, not like heavy revisions, just line edits. And they had one flat fee for the whole dissertation. And I remember technically, this was a more of one of the more affordable editors out there. It was such a huge investment. It was like the most money I had ever spent on myself in my life on anything and and then when she did the work, provided the work, it was fine, it was helpful. I remember thinking, oh my gosh, I just did that.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And one like, it was definitely worth it because it saved me hours upon hours of time that I would have had to do in rereading and editing and probably not finding all the mistakes, because I'm sure you can relate when you read your own writing versus reading someone else's writing, it's a lot easier to find someone else's mistakes and in your own sounds like we become blind to our own errors. So she saved me a ton of time. She paid did the work and a lot less time than I would have. And and that was it. Like it was a one and done. And I was happy with him. I was like, Okay, I guess like, if I work hard, save enough money. I you know, if I ever need support, I can reach out again.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And so that's kind of what happened when I got on the job market. So I was on the job market for two years. And by John Morgan, I mean, the tenure track job market at the time, I still thought I was going to become a professor and are one research professor at that. And I was going on the job market. And I was getting support advice, feedback from you know, from mentors from my advisor. But yet, I still I felt like I needed extra support. And I didn't want to bother people, I just didn't like being that like needy person, I was already meeting with my advisor practically once a week or every other week, so I was already taking up enough of their time.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So I decided to hire career coach. And this is a career coach who specializes in helping academics get tenure track jobs. And so I hired this individual to look over my cover letter, my CV and my application materials, essentially. So one of them for one of the positions I was applying to. And it was my job it was that was my first time hiring someone to help me with, with job materials. I remember, you know, reaching out for consultation, asking if they had a sliding scale. And they did have a sliding scale. And even the sliding scale was kind of high. For me. I was like, Oh, this is a bit much but but I knew that help.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So you know, I went with a sliding scale with that. And I sent in my documents, I received the feedback, I worked on revisions, it was a two time reviews. So you know, they, I sent my materials, they gave me feedback, I sent it again a second time than they gave me a second set of feedback. And and that was it for my materials. And and then after it was done, I remember thinking, one, it wasn't as much feedback as I thought I was going to receive.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And two, even though it wasn't as much feedback, after I worked on all the revisions and the edits, I loved the way that the materials were like, I just I was very pleased. I was like, okay, this is like this is good. I feel confident with my materials, my thoughts. It's been vetted by my mentor, my mentors, my advisors and a career coach and and I went on down market and as you can tell, I didn't end up getting a job but I, I did land interviews. So I did get shortlisted. And a lot of times you get shortlisted based on your materials. So there you go, I was satisfied with the service that I received.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And that was when I realized, wow, there's this whole world out there people that do this, like, wow. And they charge quite a bit of money. And at the time, I thought, oh my gosh, it's so much money, they must make so much money. But I didn't know about the world of small businesses and high taxation rates. And just like the limited amount of people you can work with one on one. And yeah, in reality, like you don't always make a lot of money coaching. But I just I just thought wow, like this is this is this is a world that I have never heard of. So there was actually a third time that I worked with someone.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And this was when I decided I'm leaving the tenure track job market. I'm going to switch careers, I'm going to start to apply for jobs in student affairs Academic Affairs. I didn't really know what I was doing. So I wanted to hire someone who had experience with this who had hired people had been, you know, director and hired full time people and had seen lots of applications. I wanted them to take a look at my materials, take a look at a sample job ad and also kind of provide career coaching like is this even the right type of job for me?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So that was really how because that wasn't just document review that was actual coaching, like that was actually having an hour long conversation with someone about what are my strengths? What are my values? What are my goals? How much money do I want to make? Where do I want to live? What percentage of my time do I want to be spending doing admin work? What percentage of my time do I want to be doing, managing people or like coming up with big ideas, and, you know, implementing changes and programs, etc, etc. So that was super helpful, because I had never had someone sit me down and talk about that.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And then from there, I was able to then create parameters that would then help me to quickly be able to say yes or no to a job, that letter was, it was worth my time. And that's how I found, you know, the McNair job that I had, that's how I found other things that I applied to those equally as excited about. So it was really, really helpful session. And again, it was formative for me because it shaped me, in the back of my head, I had this, this knowledge of like, if I could, I could probably do this, like, if I get enough experience, I could probably help others in this way, I can coach them and help them based on what I've learned.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So those are three experiences that I had. All of them were near the end of my college years, I mean, started college, grad school years. And, and they were really helpful. And it was, again, such a big deal I want to kind of provide context to so at the time, I had had my son, I was the primary breadwinner in my family, my partner was struggling to get a job and he was finishing up his online MBA and helping me with with caregiving after my son so I was working three jobs. On top of having a fellowship, just to make ends meet. I remember we were living on $50 a week for groceries, I was on WIC he was just trying to get as much support as I could to keep the lights on, like quite literally keep the lights on, we were struggling at points, I had to use my credit card. I mean, I only just got out of credit card debt last year. I mean, we were struggling.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And yet, I saved up my pennies for this investment to work with these professionals. And I didn't regret it. Each experience was really kind of eye opening illuminate and not only got what I asked for, but I learned a lot more about this world that I had no idea existed. And about even like step by step processes of how do you do this? How do you work with people? What kind of information do you provide? How do you do consult? All those things, super duper helpful. But it was such a big deal at the time. And once I actually did it once it was like, okay, that wasn't so bad. And then I was able to save up and do it again.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And to this day, I'll be honest, I still struggle with investing financially in myself. It's a lot I you know, when you have other people to look after other people to, to worry about other people who are financially dependent on you, it can be hard to put time and energy for yourself. But it definitely pays off in the end. And so I remind myself that every time that I, you know, learn a new skill sign up for a new coach, you know, or, or new program or anything that's like teaching me a new skill.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Reach out to folks, you know, whether it's reaching out for informational interviews, or for one hour of their time and pay them for their time. It's it's always been worthwhile. I've never regretted it. And I have a feeling that if you decide to work with someone, to hire an editor to hire an academic coach to hire a therapist, because you know, therapists cost money to you are privileged now as a student that you probably have access to a therapist, maybe not as often as you'd like to but at a low or no cost. But once you're out there in the world, outside of being a student, it can be very expensive to to budget for a therapist. So anyway, I'm getting kind of off. Off topic a little bit.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

But yes, going back to to what I was saying earlier, each of those situations was really helpful. It was a worthwhile investment. They have shaped my own approach to coaching. When I saw what they did, how they did it, how helpful it was, it just made me realize that I could do it too, that I could provide editing, support, writing support. Thanks to the foundation and writing that I received from my English literature and theatre degrees, you know, went from being the student who didn't know English going into elementary school, really shy, didn't want to open my mouth, because I was so embarrassed to speak, and ESL classes to an English major to a PhD in theater.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And now you know, I'm fairly confident in my writing abilities. I'm not perfect no one is, but I've learned a great deal from my experiences, through my degrees and through the editing that I've done in the last couple years actually started in providing editing, academic editing, in 2016, right, as I was wrapping up my PhD to help me kind of save up as I was in between jobs, and to have a side hustle again, just to keep the lights on. So I've been doing it for a little while now.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And then also, I realized, you know, through my work experience, and like, wow, I can provide project management, consulting, consulting on organizational skills, thanks to my experience as a manager, thanks to my experience running an undergraduate research program managing a fairly large budget. I realize now like I can do live coaching, too, because of the numerous books and podcasts and I've been reading and listening to the last couple of years that have quite literally changed my life, I wouldn't be here, living this intentional life, I wouldn't have the knowledge that I have. If it weren't for that, for me, investing time and energy in learning all those things.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And all those things helped me to learn to be more bold and brave in my dreaming and my goal setting and then taking small, measurable steps to accomplishing those goals. So now, of course, I've been talking about coaching. And so I kind of want to toot my horn a little bit too, because I also want to let you know, that I am currently accepting one on one times, and I don't always open things up for me to work with new clients. Because sometimes I'm at capacity, there's only so many people, you can help one on one in so many hours in a day.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So there have been times that people have reached out to me, because they're interested in my writing support or academic coaching, I mean, they need my help in helping them like organize their files or their you know, teaching them my system for organizing their, their emails, or they just need a pep talk, they need someone to help them, you know, with identifying kind of their gaps and hurdles and teaching them strategies, tools to to overcome those hurdles. Some folks have reached out when I have been at capacity. And I've unfortunately had to say that I'm not available, and then refer them to other people.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And I always when I refer them to other folks, I do it with, you know, the intention of supporting them of like, oh, I hope that you get what you need. Here are some folks who are doing good work. I have no problem with referring people to other folks, because there's so many people out there all of us trying to help you out. And I don't really believe in competition per se, because I feel like the right people will come to me at the right time.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And right now is a good time for me right now I am accepting new clients. And I do have the capacity for that. And I want to tell you a little bit more in case you might be interested in working with me this year, or if you know someone who might be interested in working with me. So like I said earlier, I now consider myself an academic coach, not just a mentor. Um, and there's a great deal of knowledge and experience that I have that can help you with navigating your trajectory in applying to getting into navigating graduating from your grad programs. So I'm fairly confident in my skills and abilities because of the kind of support I've been able to provide to students and clients for the last 11 years.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And I want to tell you a little bit about specifically the kind of support that I offer because I know I also need to update my website to be a little more clear. I have made some changes to be a little bit more clear about what I do. But essentially there's like three areas of support that I might Self specializes in or consider myself kind of those are my strengths. Those are my areas of genius. Those are things that I love to do and enjoy doing. So the first one is writing support and writing coaching. So I help people with their documents. So their grant application docs, fellowship applications, job applications, we do that over zoom, review your writing together live.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And that's where I get to identify what you're doing well, your areas of improvement, and I give you the feedback, live, and even give you some suggestions for ways to kind of address that feedback and work on your revisions. So writing support is really common, popular way to work with me, that's the most common way to work with me, because before, before this, you know, when I was just doing kind of academic coaching as a side hustle, the bulk of the work that I was doing was actually editing. So developmental inline editing. And that's what people needed support with.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And I help folks with their dissertations with the chapter you have. I even helped someone with doing the editing, the line editing and formatting of their entire dissertation. And that's when I realized, oof, an entire dissertation is kind of a lot. So I no longer edit entire dissertations. Now, I mostly kind of focus and specialize in application docs. So fellowships, scholarships, grant apps, you name it, job apps, I focus on those.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And then the second area, so writing support is area one, second area is organizational support. So I don't even have these as like Comosa, they say, as testimonials on my website, but if you know me, and some of you do, everybody on their mama says I'm the most organized person that they know. I don't know, I just can't help myself. Maybe it's because I'm a Virgo, maybe it's because I'm type A, maybe it's because of the trauma that I experienced as a child of immigrant parents. And the perfectionism that kind of, I've had to overcome over the years, but I actually, it's one of those things that comes naturally to me at enjoy organizing, it's like, almost like calming for me. Maybe I have control issues, who knows.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

But if you need that kind of help and support, if you want some more organization in your life, you want to maximize your efficiency, and you want to be more productive, not for the sake of, of doing more and burning yourself out. But for the sake of doing more in less time and having more time to enjoy yourself, then maybe you might want to work with me so that I can teach you some system. So how do you set up standard operating procedures, how to identify what you're good at, when the best time for you to work, what's the best setting for you to work in how to best kind of organize your timeline, how to organize your agenda, or your schedule, what tools to try out, there's so much out there, I love learning about it.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And I love kind of implementing them for myself and then offering some suggestions to clients based on their, their personalities based on their their ways of working. So if you just need help with organizing your emails and your I don't know, struggling with anxiety with that with email management or with your documents on your desktop, or with your Google Drive, or your OneDrive or your box, or what you name it, that kind of stuff. second nature to me, I really enjoy it. So I'm happy to help you with that.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Then the third sign or the third type of support that I provide is the mindset work. And that's the kind of work that I am doing kind of selfishly for myself. So for my own self growth I'm like reading all these books and listening to all these podcasts and learning a ton and wishing that the younger me had known all these things, but you live and learn. And so far the mindset work it's all about the strategies for managing or overcoming your imposter syndrome. What are the common limiting beliefs that are getting in the way of you achieving your goals?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

If you need a cheerleader of sorts if you need a pep talk if you need accountability, if you need help with goal setting, your goals are just too large or too small or focus too much on the short term or too much on the long term. If you need a sounding board if you need someone to help you build your confidence up. I am here for you. I'm learning I'm learning all these things for myself. I've been there. I've been there. Trust me I'm still kind of there in some way shape or form.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

You know I I'm very open and honest about sharing but I struggle with my mental health. I struggle, oh, with depression and anxiety, and even though I'm here and living in beautiful, beautiful, Portugal, I still struggle. But I use these tools, the tools that I've learned, I use them on myself, and they have helped me so much. And that's why I do what I do, and I share what I share. That's why I have this podcast too, because I know some of y'all just don't have the capacity, the the, you may not have the time, you're gonna have the energy, you may not have the money to work with me one on one.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And if that's the case, that's okay, listen to the podcasts, you know, check out the free resources. This is here for you. So if you're interested, those are the things that I do. Go ahead and schedule a free consultation, I've got the link on my website, I've got the link on my show notes, gradschoolfemtoring.com/services. For more info, I have my rates up on my website, I didn't have them up before. But I realized, hey, like I value transparency, I always have, I need to put them up. So I put that up on there.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So you can take a look at it before you even book your consultation, go ahead and take a look at and if you don't have the capacity, keep listening to the podcast. That's how you're supporting my work my labor my time, thank you for being an active listener. And also, I want to share kind of another way to work with me. And that's lower cost kind of option that's through my Patreon.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So it's if you didn't know I have a Patreon, you're gonna start to notice some ads, or one ad per episode, telling you about what my Patreon is. Just to remind you if you want to support what is Patreon, you might be asking if you have not heard of it. It's a membership site that allows creators writers podcasters educators folks like me to get paid for what we do. And it will actually help offset the costs of producing the podcasts because it's not free what we do.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And if you want to kind of to work with me in another level, the Patreon community actually allows you to engage with me through a private Live community. It's through discord. So it's a live kind of check community very similar to Slack. If you've used Slack before, you can reach out to me there for as often as you'd like as little as you'd like. You'll be able to suggest podcast topics vote on future episodes, you'll get to get some behind the scenes info, like you'll get to decide who I interview, you'll find out who future guests will be, you'll receive special shout outs. So every time someone signs up for to be a patron, I'm going to shout them out here on the podcast from here on out. And then there's different levels.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So there's monthly commitments, it's $5 a month, $10 a month, $20 a month. Whatever you are able to provide, you can find the link and my episode shownotes. If you want to learn more, what is Patreon? What kind of support is offered, like what kind of benefits do you get, you want to kind of be able to support this show in a different way. And but you're not quite able to do the one on one or you are not interested in the one on one coaching. Check it out, it's there, you'll be hearing about it more on the podcast.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And so actually, this episode is supposed to be all about investing in yourself. So supporting the Patreon is actually a way to invest in yourself because one of the levels actually allows you to be part of monthly live zoom networking hours, which I'm really excited to start doing from here on out. So again, more information there.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

But also, I want to leave you with three other ways that you can invest in yourself that won't cost you a thing at all. So here are three other ways to invest in yourself. The first is reading and by reading I mean reading for yourself reading for fun reading for your own growth. As an English major, I rarely felt like I had the time or energy to read for fun. I mean, to read at least a book a week, just to keep up with my classes. And it got worse in grad school. So I just didn't have that mental capacity to take on acquiring new knowledge. And because of that, honestly I felt stuck.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I didn't even get to learn basic life skills like for a while like how to do my taxes, how to create a budget, how to save for an emergency, how to invest for your future, how to meditate, like just things that would have helped me with life. I think I had to learn those things right away. Because again, I didn't have the capacity to read, I didn't really value it as kind of a an investment on myself to read for myself to read for fun. But one thing you can do if you want to start doing that, and if you just think about it as like, Oh, I'm just gonna like, listen to an audiobook for 20 minutes a day, or I'm just going to read, you know, 10, 20 pages a day, you'll be surprised how many books you'll read by the end of the year.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And so how can you do that? Do it so that it's free of cost is by getting a library card. You know, I haven't always maximize the use of kind of library cards in the past. But what was a big game changer for me was finding out a few years ago, that you could get access to free audiobooks through your library card. So maybe it's new news, maybe it's all news for you. But if it is new news, get yourself a library card, sign up for their free audiobook apps, there's apps like overdrive, Libby and Hoopla. Those are some that I use to this day. And now currently, actually, most of my reading that I do is via audiobooks, I had to get rid of so many books to move abroad because I couldn't possibly afford to ship them over here.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And so most of the books that I'm reading are audiobooks. And I love it, I really, really do. Because I realized I'm like, reading for me as a farsighted person causes a lot of strain on my eyes. So I'll always just be squinting and struggling and just dealing with kind of like tired eyes from reading and audiobooks. Or, I guess that game changer, I can pop that pop it on listen to an audiobook with my headphones on while I'm doing chores while I'm on public transit. Because now I take the metro, I don't have a car anymore. Or while going on walks, anything, I can be doing anything and listening to a book and acquiring knowledge. I love it. So reading for yourself is so key as a form of investing.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Another thing you can do is, and this is something I'm actually going to try to do more of because I haven't done one in a while. And I think I need to do it, again, is complete a personality values and Strengths Assessment. Why? Because this is going to help you to identify what your strengths are and what your values are. So what are the things that you're good at? What are the things that you love to do? And that's going to help you figure out if you're on the right track?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Like, are you actually pursuing a career that matches your values? And that maximizes your strengths? Because if you're not, I mean, why would you be pursuing a degree and a career only to then find out 5, 10 years later? That's not really what you want to do and tap to switch careers. You can do that plenty of people do that. But I'm also happy to help you figure it out sooner, save you some time and say. You're welcome. I didn't just like why, why are is this not part of basic kind of high school curriculum, it might be for some, maybe some private schools that I didn't go to. But having access to these assessments is really helpful.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

There are free ones, there are paid versions, when I'm talking about assess assessments, I'm thinking of examples like like Clifton, Colby, high five, there's all these different ones. And I think you can do is going to your career center if you're a student and see if they offer those assessments for free, because like I said, some of them cost money. And you know, some of them are quick 20 minutes, some of them might take an hour or two. But again, it's really really valuable. It's really helpful to find out what your strengths are to find out what careers match your strengths. Find out what your values are, and, you know, make sure that you're on that. That trajectory that matches, your skills, your strengths, your assets, and your interests, what you what you love, what you enjoy to do.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Okay, the third way to invest yourself, that won't cost you any money. This is really, really important is to surround yourself with people who motivate you. I've heard this time and time again that who you are, I don't even know what the quote is. I'm so terrible at memorizing quotes or sayings or the chills or any of that. But basically like the people that you surround yourself, have a very big impact on what you do on your career on you know, the goals that you reach two really, really critical to surround yourself with people that motivate you that influence you that help you meet your goals.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And so as an example, For me, I have my Chicana Motherwork Collective, we have been together since 2014. And going on strong and they're my sounding board when things happen in life, I know I have them I know that I get to see them every other week. And we always check in we check in personally, we check in professionally we check in on stuff that we want to get done for the collective. It's really amazing to have that group there. They have influenced my life so much that have helped me feel seen and validated and affirmed just the way I am. So many times I felt like I didn't fit in. And they helped me realize that I was great just the way I am. And it's been so helpful. So helpful. I love you all. If you're listening, I love you, las quiero.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I also have a new, relatively new other group, woman of color support group, it's a group of black and brown, women who had as scholars, creatives, and we also meet every other week. And we're helping each other carve out a life within and outside academia. That is intentional, unsustainable, to take care of ourselves to focus on our self care to focus on our craft. I always feel so uplifted. And like I can breathe a sigh of relief after meeting with them.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

We actually recently had a vision board party, we all met up on Zoom. We're all in different time zones do I got folks on Pacific Time East Coast time, and I'm on Lisbon time. So it's just like, an eight hours ahead of Pacific Time, five hours ahead of Eastern time. And in that vision board party, you had some really nice calming music, we brought our beverages and some of us worked on physical vision board with conversation, magazines and scissors and cut outs and posters and others worked on digital vision boards like myself. I created one on Canva I'll actually share my social media soon because I just I love creating vision boards. Life is not a lot all about vision boards.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And sometimes you don't always meet your goals, but it's nice to have something to to, to focus on to look to look forward to. In fact, this year, I'm going to try to print it out. I don't have a printer yet. But I'm gonna have to find a way to print it out. Find somewhere where I can print it out and put it in my office so that I can see it every day.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And one thing I want to mention is that, you know, every year I have a word of the year as I've been doing in the last couple of years, that's part of my vision board. And it has made a huge difference last year it was abundance and it made such a big life change for me to shift my mindset towards thinking abundantly rather than thinking about scar sitting around and thinking about there not being enough thinking what do I have more than enough of and focusing on those things made made a huge, huge difference.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

This year, my word is ease is crafting a life of ease and intention, asking myself how can this be easy? Yes, life is hard. Yes, we will struggle. Not all days will be happy. But there are ways that you can kind of simplify things or try to do things more intentionally slow down. I'm not trying to do a million things anymore, like I used to, and I get some work myself sick. I'm not doing that anymore.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So anyway, going back to it. The third thing is surrounding yourself with people who motivate you. So reading, reading for yourself. Assessments doing during one of the assessments to learn more about yourself and your strengths and and then having having folks who are going to cheer you on we're gonna believe in you who are gonna motivate you inspire you challenge you, you know, help you reach your goals that is very, very important, really, really huge and as a means of investing in yourself.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Speaking of surrounding yourself with people who motivate and inspiring hosts who motivate and inspire you actually want to give a shout out to someone that she knows it's a real shout out so I actually mentioned her name. I want to give a shout out to one of my mentors, Doctora Miroslava Chavez Garcia. I've shouted her out before but then I mentioned her name. And this time I'm chatting her up because he knows someone is really cool. When they continue to monitor you even ask After you've left your job where they were your supervisor, I mean, come on. Now, I look up to her so much.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And I'm actually really pleased and feel so privileged that we're actually going to be co writing a book together, which will be some sort of version of a grad school guide of sorts, where we'll share info about what we wish we knew about grad school as first and cheakamus. We're still trying to figure out the ins and outs of everything and come up with a timeline and a book proposal but and even though we're in the early stages, I am so so very excited, I've been wanting to work on a book.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And I think having the support of a mentor will make all the difference. So when in doubt, when you're struggling, seek support and help from someone don't do it alone. That's some, you know, a big thing that I've learned for myself. Anyway, I have a lot of plans for this year in the years to come. But again, it's okay to take your time I'm taking my time with reaching my goals, there really is no rush, other than the rush that you create for yourself. And yeah, just, I keep reminding myself, and I hope that I remind you that it really is possible to achieve your biggest dreams. Even if it takes time. Even if you go at a slower pace than others, you don't have to work yourself to death, you really, really don't.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Okay, last thing, because I know, I keep making it seem like I'm about to wrap up, and then I don't. So my last thing that I wanted to mention is actually one quick personal update. So as you know, I'm living in Porto, Portugal, with my family, and it's a big lifestyle shift for me. And several friends, family acquaintances have actually reached out they've, you know, wanted to check in and chat and talk all about kind of what my life is like here. And they've asked if I'll be documenting or sharing my experiences abroad. And it almost feels selfish to keep it to myself, because I'm like, dang it.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

If I had a friend who was I'd be all and also be all up on them asking, like, what's it like over there? And how do you like it and take pictures and so so actually, I had a conversation with my husband and partner, Josh and even with my son and me, and I'm like, okay, so I'm thinking of starting this podcast and sharing a little bit more about us and our family and our life here. What do you all think and they were up for it, they you know, we're interested and willing to, to support this project to take part in it.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And so what we have decided to do is start a podcast called Mixed Family Abroad, or Mixed Fam Abroad. Because we are a mixed family, I mean, we are racially culturally, in many ways mixed, we're neurodivergent our neuro diverse family got a lot of weight, even our even our our diets are very mixed. You know why mostly plant based and my husband's vegetarian or pescetarian shouldn't say vegetarian pescatarian. My kids eat it all they eat. They're omnivores, so they eat a little bit of everything. So we're mixed in many, many ways.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

We're used to dealing with the challenges of, of embracing difference. And so I think that's what's helping us navigate all the many different changes and transitions here in a new country. But if you're curious if you want to follow along, learn more about what we're up to in our adventures here. You can definitely do that by listening to the podcast, mixed fam abroad on Apple podcasts on Spotify. And we're also on one social media platform on Instagram. Same handle at mix fam, Brad. And there will be sharing pictures, videos, reels, flyers for the podcast. So again, only if you're curious. Go ahead and follow us on IG and subscribe to our podcast. And that's it. That's that's the episode for today.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I hope that you found this topic of investing in yourself helpful. I am still trying to get a hold of a few people so I can start interviewing folks for this upcoming year. So you can have some other special guests. I always love interviewing folks, actually, it makes my job easier that I get to listen and enjoy being in their company. So I've got some folks lined up that I'm going to be reaching out to for the podcast to come in as guests. And if you have any suggestions or you want to come on the podcast, don't be shy. Reach out to me gradschoolfemtoring@gmail.com I'll be happy to have you on. All right y'all I'll talk to y'all later.