Dr. Caitlin Kirby: Normalize failure

03/04/21 • 17 min

Dr. Caitlin Kirby is an environmental science educator and researcher. She successfully completed her doctorate degree in October 2019. Normally 3 years long, there are many struggles in completing a PhD. Stress, funding, work life balance and in Dr. Kirby’s case - rejection.

“Rejection from what?” you may be wondering. For Caitlin she did something unique when challenging her doctoral dissertation that brought the issue of resilience and rejection to light and she hopes that it will help others. I contacted Caitlin after seeing a post she did on Twitter, that was actually originally done on an academic Twitter account, and it got her a whole lot of attention worldwide. Just so you know, her original post read: “Successfully defended my PhD dissertation today! In the spirit of acknowledging and normalizing failure in the process, I defended in a skirt made of rejection letters from the course of my PhD. THANK YOU to everyone involved in my journey.” To learn more about Caitlin’s idea in creating this special skirt, I chatted with her recently over Zoom.

To learn more about Dr. Caitlin Kirby you can find her @kirbycai on Twitter.

To learn more about RESILIENT PEOPLE visit www.resilientpeople.ca or on socials @resilientpeopleca Please subscribe to the RESILIENT PEOPLE podcast and leave a nice review. Thank you.

To learn more about Dr. Caitlin Kirby you can find her @kirbycai on Twitter.

To learn more about RESILIENT PEOPLE visit www.resilientpeople.ca or on socials @resilientpeopleca Please subscribe to the RESILIENT PEOPLE podcast and leave a nice review. Thank you.

Previous Episode

Holocaust survivor Elly Gotz: Giving up hate to find happiness

My friend Maggie highly recommended that I somehow find Mr. Elly Gotz for RESILIENT PEOPLE. Her daughter attended one of his infamous school presentations. My son also heard Elly speak at his school. Until the pandemic started in 2020, Elly Gotz was doing over 100 speaking engagements a year - and at the time he was 92 YO!

Not only is he a public speaker, but also an author, engineer, business owner, pilot, a husband for more than 60 years and he recently added skydiver to his list of accomplishments - and there are many more! Elly’s presentations on living through the Holocaust and his message of giving up hate to find happiness leaves such an impact on all attendees - teachers and students as well as audiences everywhere young and old. I wanted to learn more about how he found resilience to move beyond the Holocaust, his message to others and where he gets this amazing energy to constantly challenge himself.

To learn more about Elly Gotz visit www.ellygotz.com or on socials @ellygotz.

To learn more about RESILIENT PEOPLE visit www.resilientpeople.ca or on socials @resilientpeopleca Subscribe to the RESILIENT PEOPLE podcast and please leave a kind review.

Next Episode

Dale Allen-Berg is a stay-at-home dad to special needs children

The challenges of being a stay-at-home parent are real. There are many rewards but it's a job that is 24/7 and at times very demanding.

For Dale Allen Berg, being a stay-at-home dad to three active young children under the age of 6, is enough to make anyone run away in fear. On top of the regular chores he does at home: cooking, cleaning, driving for last-minute items, appointments, programs - his three children: Liam, and twins Ethan and Madison all have special needs that require a lot of medical and occupational assistance. In addition, Dale is also living with his own serious health issues. He has said that people call his life a rollercoaster, that he’s been flung from the most exciting highs to the scariest of lows. As a former concert producer and executive chef, these high-pressure jobs may have prepared him for his life now. But it’s still a lot to handle. Dale's resilience comes from sharing his daily experiences on a blog and prior to the pandemic he spoke to groups to share his life story and lessons learned.

I spoke with Dale from his home in beautiful Kelowna, British Columbia. To learn more about Dale Allen Berg visit daleallenberg.com, or find him on socials @daleallenberg. To learn more about RESILIENT PEOPLE visit www.resilientpeople.ca or on socials @resilientpeopleca.

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