Jill Schulman - A Marine Veteran Explains How to Conquer Fear - E217

Makes Sense - with Dr. JC Doornick

Jill Schulman joins Dr. JC to discuss her journey from being one of the first female Marine Corps combat engineering officers to becoming a positive psychology expert and author of

Key takeaways

• Jill Schulman was one of the first women to lead in Marine Corps combat engineering, commissioned in 1996 after graduating college.
• She earned a master's degree in positive psychology at the University of Pennsylvania under Martin Seligman, focusing on fear and well-being.

Main topics

• Action vs. Confidence
• Marine Corps Combat Engineering

Notable quotes

"Confidence does not create action. Action creates confidence."

Conclusion

Listeners gain actionable psychological frameworks to reframe hesitati

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) What if everything that you've been told about courage is wrong and confidence isn't something that you feel before you act, but something that you build after you act? My guest today was one of the first women to lead in Marine Corps combat engineering. She then went on to train more than 30,000 leaders around one idea. Confidence does not create action. Action creates confidence. Jill Shulman. Welcome to the Dragon's Lair. Speaker 2 (0:30) Have you noticed that the world that we live in has been doing most of the thinking for you? That your beliefs, perceptions, Speaker 3 (0:37) reactions, fears, and doubts have been shaped by unsolicited outside noise? How easy it's been for you to slip into that default sleepwalking mode and label it as Speaker 2 (0:49) life and reality. Yeah. That ends here. Welcome Speaker 3 (0:52) to the Make Sense with Dr. JC podcast. This is your opportunity to start thinking for yourself, reclaim control, and step back into that role as the shock collar and dominant force of your own reality. It's when you change the way that you look at things that the things that you look at begin to change. So let's wake up, let's rise up, and let's make sense of why and how shift happens. Speaker 3 (1:20) Makes sense. Speaker 3 (1:22) My first question to you is one that I ask most of my guests is, what's it like to be Jill Shulman these days? Speaker 1 (1:29) These days, I would say it feels like I've never been busier and my life has never been more full than it is now. I am in the center in complete stillness. Speaker 3 (1:40) Like the eye of the storm. Speaker 1 (1:42) I have never been in more alignment with what my purpose is. And I feel like I've always been there throughout my career from my time in the Marine Corps to my corporate work. I keep taking that next step. Now that I'm doing what I'm doing now, I'm just in this beautiful alignment that I've never felt before. Like, you know, when you just know this is what I'm meant to do. And so everything I do, like I enjoy it. I'm passionate about it. So that's what it feels like to be Jill Shulman. I refer Speaker 3 (2:08) to that as a healthy obsession. Speaker 1 (2:10) Yeah. Speaker 3 (2:11) I've had people say like, hey man, you might want to take a break. You're a little obsessed with that. And I would be like, I'm glad that you noticed. Yes, it Speaker 1 (2:18) reminds me. My brother and I were talking once and he's like, when are you ever going to slow down? I'm like, dude, I hope never. Because I am like, I love what I do. And I think part of this is the example of my parents. Like my parents had a job. to make money. And they counted the days to retirement because they couldn't wait to not do what they were doing for a living. And that was such a profound example for me when I was young, because I didn't want that. So I feel so lucky for what you're doing and what I'm doing. Like the thought of not doing what I'm doing or retiring sounds miserable because I love what I'm doing. Like, do I want to maybe at some point take a few more vacations? But I feel so lucky that I have this healthy obsession. This Speaker 3 (3:00) would be an interesting question for you because the perception from the outside in is that you're obsessed. And when are you going to take a break and all of that stuff? When are you going to slow down? What that person doesn't know is that you have actually slowed down quite a bit, but just with other things. Because here you are in the perfect place doing exactly what you love. I would assume that you've done quite a bit of pruning and some shedding of other shit that doesn't matter. So what have you eradicated from your life? Speaker 1 (3:29) Yeah, that's such a great question because two years ago, I had a moment where I had to decide like, if I keep doing the same things I've done, won't create the space for really what I want to do. So I had to make this hard decision and it was scary talking from the bravery expert here, the science of bravery expert. I had to decide to start saying no to the work that I had done in the past, at least the volume of work. Right now I focus on the science of bravery and I speak and I write and I teach people how to be brave. But before that I have a company and I do leadership development workshops for companies and it's great work. It's meaningful work. I'd say it's very good. I was at the top of my game. So I would get booked out a year in advance to do teaching people how to be effective leaders. So again, it's, it was really good. But what I realized that sometimes you can let good. get in the way of great or extraordinary. So if I wanted to level up, I needed to stop doing this very good work. And so I had to make this decision to start blocking out time in my calendar to not say yes to that, because if not, the entire year gets booked out and I'm doing the same thing. So very scary from someone that this is what pays the mortgage to not take these huge contracts for hundreds of thousands of dollars for a company to do all these for me to say no to that. What's been a wonderful, I guess, surprise is I have helped other people who are like the Jill of 15 years ago, where I was just getting started doing leadership development. Now I'm giving them an opportunity to do the leadership development work for my company. I'm basically shifting the business of doing the leadership development and developing other people that are so excited to do that work, allowing me to really focus here. So think about this concept of how sometimes when we have a good job, or things are good or fine. And then sometimes we get a message like we should just have gratitude. We should just be thankful and be completely happy where we are. And I don't think that is true. I think when we have these dreams, ambitions, when we find that alignment, we have to sometimes start pruning, as you're saying, and saying no to things that could be good. Speaker 3 (5:31) And Speaker 1 (5:32) I think it's even harder when things are really shitty and fucked up. It's easy to say like, well, I'm going to stop doing that. And Speaker 3 (5:38) that says a lot about a person. where you take something that you've worked so hard to create that you're so good at. It's like easy money because you'd probably do it for free and let somebody else do that. That's a big moment in your life. That's what a true leader is, is not somebody that just creates a following. It's that somebody that raises other people up as well. And then you got to step in at the right time with those people and say, hey, get your shit together because there's a next step. Take us back to the Marine Corps because, you know, that is a fascinating part of. not only your past, but your process as well. I believe that you said you didn't think that you'd make it. So what is it that I taught you about overcoming fear when you feel completely out of your depth, out of your element? Speaker 1 (6:20) So it's been a while since I've been in the Marine Corps, but if I take you back to when I was 18 years old, part of the reason I decided to go down the Marine Corps route, a couple of reasons. Number one is I wanted a life of purpose or I wanted a career purpose and that gave it to me. And my grandfather was a Marine as well. It also gave me free college. But when I showed up, to San Diego, California to start my journey to earn the title of United States Marine. I actually was feeling pretty confident, I think, when I got on the plane. But when I showed up on the first day, I had no idea what I was in for. I was unprepared. In fact, I can tell you just a funny thing. I put a lot of thought, because I was an 18-year-old girl, into my outfit, because how do I make a good first impression? And I was reporting not into boot camp. I was reporting into the Reserve Officer Training Corps, so the college route. to go to college as a midshipman and then come out an officer on the other side. I did research. You can't wear jeans as officers in the Marine Corps. You're not allowed to. And like, what do you wear as a kid if you can't wear jeans? And then I didn't want to wear a dress because it'd be too girly. I actually showed up in these long silk shorts with a matching shirt, but it was hot pink with white polka dots. Speaker 3 (7:21) And that was something you thought through? Speaker 1 (7:23) I thought through and I thought I was looking so professional. So think of kind of a stunt double to... L from Legally Blonde. That's exactly Speaker 3 (7:31) what I was thinking. Speaker 1 (7:32) Yeah. So that was me. And then anything you know about Marine Corps, what you've seen in the movies or bootcamp. And that was my first day. So I showed up kind of feeling like I got this full ride. I got a full scholarship on the Marine Corps. They recruited me at the University of San Diego to use my scholarship there. So I was feeling pretty confident when I got there and they know how to knock down that confidence right away. On my first day, I realized I didn't fit. I didn't look like anyone else. And that first day I actually had someone laugh at me in upperclassmen. He's like, you will never make it as a Marine. And I think a little part of me wondered, is he right? I think he was trying to haze me and maybe try to fire me up. Because you know what? Sometimes when you tell someone, they're never going to be able to do it. Sometimes you let that get into your mind and you believe it. But for me, it kind of fired me up. want to prove him wrong. So the thing I learned in the Marine Corps that relates to my research on bravery is sometimes bravery is these heroic moments. Isn't that what we think from the movies, right? It is running into a burning building. We think of heroic moments. That's what bravery is. But what I discovered in my journey is bravery is little moments. And this is what the research really tells us that you can build bravery in a lot of little moments. So for me, I had that first day. My first Friday was even worse because I couldn't keep up in a run. And that is, there's nothing more shameful as a Marine if you can't keep up in the runs. Because I grew up in Minnesota. Do you know what the topography is like in Minnesota? It is flat. So the little training I did to run was flat. Was there Speaker 3 (9:02) an element though of the female component as well? You know, like I would assume you weren't the only one, but. you're supposed to be able to prove that you can keep up with a man. And was there that stuff too? Speaker 1 (9:15) Yeah. I mean, but that's one of the things that made it harder. Cause if I really think about that moment. A lot of the people that I was running with, these are people that were actually enlisted in the Marine Corps. They were the top performing enlisted Marines. So they were given an assignment to go to the university, become an officer. So a lot of people I was running with, they've been Marines for four to six years, right? So they have that experience. Like I'm 18, but then there were some of us that came in 18 and we were the midshipmen. So we weren't. prior Marines. And there was one other female, it was me and one other female and the rest of them were males and three of them ran cross country in high school. So like I was kind of out of my element, but so to answer your question about the female thing as a Marine, to be successful as a Marine, if you keep using like, well, I'm a girl, like you're not going to be successful. One of the things that made me the most successful in the Marine Corps is I didn't hold myself to the female standard. I held myself to the standard of Marines. And it took me a long time. It took bravery for me to keep showing up because I failed that first Friday and the first full year, I couldn't keep up getting up the hills, but I kept showing up and kept working at it. And eventually I was able to keep up and I held myself to the male standard. And because I did, I thrived. So I usually talk to like. My audiences, when I speak, especially I get asked a lot of times to speak at women's events and I'm like, all right, careful. If you want me to speak at a woman's event, here's my message. It's not going to say like, what was you? You're a girl. I'm going to say, focus on your competence. Be the best at your job. Be the very best at whatever it is. And then your confidence will follow. So if you're competent and you're confident, you are going to soar. So that's what I focused on as a Marine. Like I just kept working on the skill. And if you keep working on the skill, right, even though it's scary because you might fail, but for me failing and failing and failing, I eventually emerged really strong. And so the end of this story, me being so pitiful, showing up as an 18 year old, by the time I got to officer candidate school. That's between your junior and senior year. If you don't make it through officer candidate school, it's like bootcamp for officers. You don't make it. I ended up being the top finisher from my school. So the enlisted Marines go, like we all have to go. Like I outperformed. everyone in my ranking, females and males. And that other female in my unit, she quit after the first year. So I was the only one left. Right. So, and I share that not to impress anyone, but it's just impress upon your audience. Like what I discovered back then, I didn't realize until I studied it in psychology is that many times what bravery means for all of us, it's showing up when we're scared and no one else knows that we're scared. And it's doing that again and again, that really builds that bravery muscle. It builds that competence and self-efficacy over time. Speaker 3 (11:52) I love that. And I believe you were one of the first or the first women officers in combat engineering. Just explain what that is. And because that's a big accomplishment. Yeah. Speaker 1 (12:03) So this was back in, I'm