Welcome to the Sword of Sure podcast. Where doubt looms, fear whispers, and the only way forward is through. I'm Samar Carbo, and if you've ever felt like you're just sort of sure about what you're doing, you're not alone. This is where we face the uncertainty. Push past the hesitation and keep going anyway way. So take a breath, step in, and let's move forward together. Hello and welcome to the Sword of Shore podcast. As always, this is Samar Carbo and I'm your host today and every day except last week.

Can we talk about it a minute?

So last week you saw the one of the major pitfalls of being a do it yourselfer podcaster. I was down and out, as half of the US seems to be. And as I am a one man band and a person who seldom asks for help, I did not have the energy to, to get an episode together for you and I sincerely apologize for that. I will do everything in my power to change up how I edit and maybe record so that I can make this process a little bit better for all of you listeners out there. We've been growing very steadily and I love to see that and I am not here to let you down. So, um, let's, let's charge forward together. But today we have Drum McNaughton, a veteran, a titan of education, and the host of the Changing Higher Ed podcast. I can't describe him any better than he can, so we're going to go ahead and get this episode started. Let's have a listen.

My name is Drum McNaughton. I'm the President and CEO of the Change Leader Inc. And we are a management consultancy that focuses on higher education and specifically in the areas of governance, accreditation, change management, academic realignment and mergers and acquisitions.

You seem to exude a certain confidence. Is that just a natural thing from you or have you gained that over time?

I think there's probably very few people, for example, Jesus Christ, who had that confidence coming in. We're all on a learning journey. So you know, there's the four different stages of learning. You've got your unconscious and competent. You don't know what you don't know. Then you've got your conscious competence, or I'm sorry, your conscious incompetence. You finally start to figure out what you don't know. It doesn't feel real good. You work hard, you become the conscious competent. And then after a while when things just start to come naturally and you're able to see things from much more of a Holistic perspective. You become, become the unconscious competent. And I believe in many parts of my life, that's where I am and in this others that I am the unconscious incompetent or the conscious incompetent. You know, take your pick, of course.

And, and I know from, of course from your intro page on your website and from our previous conversation that you are a veteran as well. Thank you for your service. Have we had sort of your confidence journey coming from that as well?

You know, the transition from being in the military was a very challenging, challenging transition. I had lived in the military life and you know, growing up down in Panama in a canal zone, which was like a little US colony, everything was very controlled, run by the government, et cetera. Going into the military very structured, and then getting out and seeing how things were structured totally different and in my perception, completely unstructured. It was a difficult transition to understand how corporate America thinks works. I'll give you a great example. I walked into a grocery store after getting out in San Francisco and there are 15 different varieties of ketchup. Frankly, that that was overwhelming because we could choose one variety, maybe two varieties in different sizes. Trying to make decisions coming out of that was something I had to learn.

It's not something we think about those of us who have been just insanely marketed to and had that explained to us this is the best kind or this is the best kind. We may not even see ones that we don't buy. But you came out of a very controlled, very specific environment, and I'm sure you had some choice paralysis around that. Was that life in general or was that specific to the grocery market?

Oh, I think it was life in general. I mean, you know, it was. There were multiple things that were overwhelming because, you know, completely under underexposed or never having been exposed to those type of things. It was having to learn a whole different framework and that go. That can go down and really impact who you view yourself to be as a person.

So you, you came your military service and was that when you got into higher ed, or did the training start before that?

Actually, it's interesting that you asked the question in that way because I never figured on going into higher education. I knew I enjoyed teaching my. The most beneficial and what's the word I'm looking for? Fulfilling experiences I had while I was in the Navy. You know, everyone says, oh my God, Joshua Pilot, that must have been great. Where I got my best feelings from, we're teaching other people how to fly. You know, it was that instructor that teaching Helping others. That made me feel far more fulfilled than doing anything else. So I knew I had that in me. And you know, my, my mother was a teacher, my grandmother on my mother's side was a teacher. So, you know, I had that quote gene in me. But when I got out of the Navy, I worked in the industry. I worked with Dell Computer, I worked with Computer Sciences Corporation. And it wasn't until I met with a friend of mine who did career exploration with senior executives. And he said to me, after putting me through a, you know, four hour interview and a battery of test experiences, two things. One, you need to go back and get a graduate degree. Your degree from the Naval Academy of Physics is great, but it didn't really quote, prepare you for what the commercial sector and what the public sector does. And the second was, you should be working in change management. Well, he was right on both of those recommendations. So I went back to graduate school and I discovered that education gene in me. And I started, after graduating, I started doing teaching and found that I love it. So that was the change management. It was a lot of change management that I needed to do with myself. And I did that over the years, but also too in helping others to change and now in the consulting arena, helping institutions to change. If you read any of the Eastern philosophy literature that talks very strongly about getting internal guidance through your intuition and then using your willpower to make that happen, you've got to have that guidance, the direction that you want to go. And then you've got to use your willpower to execute it. You know, we have a prayer that I say to myself, I will reason, I will will, I will act, but guide thou God, my reason, my reason, will and activity to the right thing I should do. So what I'm trying to do is get my will attuned to the divine will. And when I am able to do that, I can move forward very smoothly with, I wouldn't say without effort. There's always effort involved, but I can move forward with the assurance that I am doing God's will for what happens and sometimes will tell me, no, don't go that way. You know, that's not what needs to happen. It's like, okay, no problem, boss. So that's, I think that's a little bit better way of at least how I would explain it for me. Does that make sense to you?

Yes, absolutely. And it's a much more how I would describe, empowered way of looking at life than a lot of people have at their disposal. So then I ask you've got, you've got this. You mentioned a prayer. Do you have other habits that keep you in alignment in your life?

Absolutely. I meditate morning and evening, always. I don't miss. I go to our church regularly to keep that attunement that I need to be able to move forward. If you look at life as a series of experiences and challenges designed to help you grow, it takes away some of that what you talk about as imposter syndrome. It's like, okay, this is the next step in my unfoldment. And it's like, great. I don't want to say bring it on, because sometimes it's not a lot of fun, but it's the next step that I need to take and I will do it. I will reason, I will will, I will act, but guide down my reason, will and activity to the right thing I should do.

Oh, that's great. And obviously, being a churchgoer, there is one book that I can think of that you would probably reference pretty often. But are there other books that you picked this up from or teachers that have helped you sort of gain this clarity?

There have been. There's a lot of, quote, New age folks out there. But I have been a disciple of paramahansa yogananda for 35 years at this point. He wrote a book called Autobiography of a Yogi, which is in the top 100 spiritual books for the 20th century. He came over from India in 1920. I have followed his path, I followed his writings. He's written multiple books. And frankly, that has been the anchor in my life for many years.

That's lovely. And I'm just this gentleman up as, as we're talking. And yes, very easy to find. Even if you misspell it. Very easy to find. And that's, that's super cool. I'll definitely include along with an information to your podcast, information to, to follow up on, on what's going on with him. So while we're, while we're on that topic, certainly you've got a podcast now. I believe it's focused on higher ed, but can you kind of give us an introduction to the podcast itself, what sort of subjects you talk about?

Glad to. The podcast is named Changing Higher Ed and it's targeted at university presidents, senior executives and boards about the latest things that are going on in higher education. And we typically have as guests, presidents, board members, senior leadership in higher ed, whether it be from universities or associations with, you know, associations associated with higher education. We've been really fortunate to have a lot of Great guests. Today we released our 256th episode. It's been going on now for about six years. And frankly, I love doing the podcast. You know, not only do I get to meet really neat people and pick their brains, I couldn't ask for a better graduate degree in what's going on in higher education and how these experts are transforming our industry to where it needs to go.

And that's going to be hugely helpful. There are, I haven't done all the studies, but there are certainly some higher ed people. I know my father was in higher education for just about 50 years before retirement and after. As you, as you well know, the education bug never leaves. So that, that'll be great for those who want to consume better and more educational content. And there is one big question I always like to ask. Do you have for someone who is currently in the throes of imposter syndrome or those big self doubt moments who may be in higher ed themselves but don't know how to move forward or move up?

I think what I would say is imposter syndrome is a self manufactured fault. You have everything inside of people, men, women, we all have inside of us everything we need to know and do. The question is, can you tap into that knowledge? That's where for me meditation comes into play. Or in other vernacular for Christians, it's prayer and contemplation. I mean I did my, my doctoral work, my, my research work on the decision making processes of executives of meditate and I talk to multiple disciplines of people that I call meditators, but by their own, their own practice, they call it something different. So you've got that knowledge inside of you. Sometimes it's just a being, a matter guided you to a particular reference book or whatever. Sometimes it's just understanding that the imposter syndrome is just that it is an imposter. It is not who we truly are. And you're just being presented with the next step in your unfoldment, whether it is to get over imposter syndrome, to get over another potential. You know, I don't want to call it a character defect because we all have the perfect character inside of us, just different. So the biggest barrier for people is learning how to trust themselves. Not in an egotistic way as a, you know, bang your chest and go, I am the greatest. You know, with your fist up, turn like no, that's not it. It's trusting your authentic self to understand that each step along the way is part of your un, your own growth and unfoldment. Sometimes Growth is messy. Sometimes growth is not fun. But guess what? You can go through it now or you can go through it at another time, but you're going to go through it.

That is awesome.

Well, thank you so much, but I just really just appreciate you being on the podcast and you know, my pleasure.

Glad to have been of service to you, Samar, and I wish you all the best of luck with the podcast and life going forward.

All right, thank you. I'm gonna go hug my brand new baby so I can give her mom a break. You have a great rest of your day.

Thank you, sir. You too.

Bye now.

Bye. Bye.

Wowee. I tell you, every time we have a teacher on the podcast, they just, they're dropping so much knowledge and I wonder sometimes if they even know it. We went from the four stages of learning, from unconscious incompetence all the way up to unconscious competence all the way down to the teachings of Pama Hansi Yogananda. We really ran the gauntlet with this one and I want to really highlight something that he said there. Your biggest barrier is learning how to trust yourself. We spend so much of our lives trusting other people, trusting our leaders, trusting our friends, our tribe, people in authority figures that may not have any real leadership capability at all, but we trust them. And the way that we get past that is to trust ourselves. He also said, your authentic self is what you have to trust to understand that each step in your life is to your growth. Maybe it's not fun, but it's for your growth. And I also liked the idea that he said of, of unfoldment of our lives just unfolding before us rather than happening. Tells me that it's already there and it's already thought through. It's just happening for us in a linear way. If you have a story to share and you would like to be on the podcast, please reach out to me at sort of surepodmail.com I'd love to hear your story. And additionally, if something that was said in today's podcast really resonated with you, or you just really like the show, please feel free to leave a five star review and share it with a friend so that the podcast can grow and we can achieve our mission of providing a safe place for those who feel a little self doubt. Well, I've jawed on enough at the end here. I think you deserve a break. So I'll see you next Friday at 8am Eastern on the Sword of Sheer podcast. Later days.