Today on Bottomless Coffee we’re talking with Rae Hunter. Rae is close to securing her doctorate from Emory University despite having to overcome outright adversity, outright racism, and a form of imposter syndrome. In our conversation we discuss how Rae has had to leverage resilience, strategic thinking, and self-care to achieve her goal of becoming a scientist.
Insights
In our conversations we talk about change a lot, and at no point in any of our conversations have we said that change is easy. It’s not easy. But one reason that it’s harder that it needs to be to make change has to do with the adversity that we face from other people and the sense within ourselves that we’re not up to the challenge of meeting our goals.
There will be times when people who have control over a space will, through neglect or intent, create a hostile environment. Over the course of our conversation with Rae, she outlined how her early professional experience with Teach for America helped her identify the types of environments that promote positive outcomes in students. People thrive in environments where their humanity is recognized and their individual experiences are acknowledged.
On the other hand, Rae also shared that sometimes you have to push yourself to grow and achieve despite being forced into an unwelcoming or hostile environment. In our conversation we discussed leveraging resilience to endure what must be endured and ways to remove yourself from people and environments that hostile to your success.
Finally, we discussed the role that self-care plays in success and mental health. Enduring through hostile and toxic environments requires a lot of inner strength and it’s important to make sure that you make time for the things that fill you up. In the absence of a self-care routine, you’ll experience self-doubt, imposter syndrome, and burnout. Be intentional about noting the activities and practices that contribute to your self-care and reserving time for those activities or practices.
