616: Authoring Your Life: Why the Personal Statement Is About (Much) More Than Getting into College

Sandy Longworth (00:00)
you


Ethan Sawyer (00:01)
you


Hi friends, and welcome back to the podcast. So in today's episode, I'm joined by my longtime colleague and our chief people officer here at CEG, Sandy Longworth. Sandy has worked as a therapist, a researcher, a college counselor, among other things, and has spent years studying the role that narrative storytelling plays in how teens develop their identities. Now, important note.


Sandy is a trained therapist and we do talk a lot about therapy in our conversation, but I just want to make clear that I do not hold that college counseling or essay coaching or what we do at college essay guy to be therapy. isn't as college counselors and essay coaches. And I'm talking about more of us as a profession here. We help students discover the skills, qualities, values, and interests that they'll bring to a college community or campus. And then we help them express those parts of themselves in writing.


Now, having said that when I was first introduced to narrative therapy in 2012, I was struck by how some of the techniques like reframing, for instance, which involves finding alternate perspectives on a certain set of events, something that's sometimes called re authoring or restorying overlap with some of the things that happen in essay coaching or counseling sessions. And that's the territory that Sandy and I explore in today's conversation. We get into things like.


How adolescence is such a key time for identity development and how the process unfolds and why it's so significant for personal statements. talk about narrative identity theory, what it is and how our stories shape who we think we are and who we think we can be. We talk about how narrative therapy techniques can help students develop and showcase their qualities in their personal statements. And then Cindy walks me through a narrative therapy exercise.


that students can use to reflect on their own experiences and write authentically about themselves. Sandy's a proud first-generation college graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who earned her MS in marriage and family therapy from Seattle Pacific University, finished her doctoral coursework in child and family studies at Madison, and completed her school counseling certificate at Northern Illinois University. Now, there's a little more to her bio, but I'll let her share that with you directly. Hope you enjoy.


Hey, Sandy, welcome to the podcast.


Sandy Longworth (02:36)
Thanks Ethan.


Ethan Sawyer (02:38)
I'm


laughing because I'm like, I feel really close to you and feel like, you know, we've known each other for, we were trying to decide how long we've known each other and it's like, we're not sure it's like 10 plus years, but it's funny to be like, I don't know, having this, what feels like a sort of private conversation in this public way. Yeah. So yeah, I'm just noticing that and feeling, yeah, feeling that, yeah, feeling connected to you.


Sandy Longworth (03:04)
same.


Ethan Sawyer (03:05)
So I'd love for you to just maybe share with folks a little of your background, if you could.


Sandy Longworth (03:11)
Sure. I'm avoiding extreme language. If you know anything about college SEI, we don't like extreme language. I was almost going to say, I've always been interested in, but for as long as I can remember, I have been interested in therapy, counseling, psychology. I was the kid who like watched Bob Newhart in the eighties and was like, oh, I'm going to have someone on couch and like talk to them about life and big ideas.


My best friend in sixth grade used to call me Dr. Flo Brothers. We used to write notes back and forth letters and I was Dr. Flo Brothers who was always helping her. She was Betty Confetti because she was in pieces. That was when I was 12. So I went on to get my degree, my bachelor's in psychology from University of Wisconsin Madison. And then I went on to get a master's in marriage and family therapy at Seattle Pacific. ⁓


It felt important to me to have the family as part of the therapy process because I see the root of so many things happening within systems and the system of the family specifically. So my belief is that if you treat someone individually, you're kind of not helping as much as if you treat the systems they're in. And then from there, my brain got sparked on research. I really wanted to be a researcher practitioner. So I went to do my doctoral work back at


University of Wisconsin in human development and family studies. It started as job and family studies. And I studied some really unique research methods, action research, and things that kind of level the playing field between researcher and subject. And then I worked at Northwestern on a low-introductional study of kids who are incarcerated. My focus has really been on adolescents. And then once I became a parent of twins,


I decided I wanted to work in the school a year so I could spend as much time with them. And so I became a licensed high school counselor. And from there, I fell in love with the college application process. It's such an exciting time. And I feel like so many kids are underserved because there's so many swamped school counselors. So I started my own business as an independent college counselor.


and discovered you and what you do in this beautiful process with the personal statement, which to me really felt like narrative therapy, which is the theory of therapy I'm trained in. So came on to college essay guy as an essay coach, and I've been here ever since doing lots of different things.


Ethan Sawyer (05:47)
Yeah, what I hear in the share is like a way that you're that you I sense you really followed your curiosity and what my friend Dan would call like your heart tug. And when we met through narrative therapy at a conference, you know, initially it was like, hey, I'm looking for more coaches. And then it quickly became, you you became the director of workshops. And then it was like clear that that jacket, there was just more room and more that you could.


could do and wanted to do and evolved into this role of chief experience officer and now chief people officer. So it's just, it speaks to me of like, I don't know, your skills in so many areas. I'd love to just, if you're open to it, just do a little, there's an exercise, this is a side to everybody listening that we have called the roles and identities exercise. And I find it fun to ask guests to pick some roles and identities that you connect with.


I wonder if you'd be down to like share the deeper cut of like what you really do. Like what are some of the invisible hats that you wear in work and in life? Like some of the roles that you play maybe from this, from this list. So maybe pick, I don't know, two or three or something.


Sandy Longworth (07:02)
Sure. Well, I mean, one that I think kind of flows from what I was just saying is shapeshifter. My best friend and I always say we're like chameleons because I do feel like I can kind of seamlessly play different roles, connect with people who seem vastly different on the surface. To me, it's very genuine. I really genuinely connect with people of various, you know, hats, I guess.


So Shapeshifter is one of them. Storyteller is another, as you'll see from this interview. I talk in stories, and I think in stories. And in fact, one of my nicknames with my friends is Kramer, if you watch Seinfeld. Jay Peterman, I think it is.


Hayes Kramer for his stories because he has such great stories. That's how I am. All my friends are like, Sandy, you have amazing stories. I think in stories and co-creator, co-creator of realities and possibilities and opportunities, I think. Then the final one I think would be whole poker because I really like to think outside the box. I like to break down barriers and unseen structures and norms. Norms bother me.


I think they are often built, norms are built to benefit someone. And when you benefit someone, often hurt someone else. So I'm not someone who likes to follow norms. I like to create my own. So when I hear things, often am naturally thinking of what other angles could I look at this thing from and kind of poking holes in definitive statements, looking for the gray.


The gray area, black and white doesn't work that well for my brain. So yeah, I found that that sometimes can be problematic for people who feel threatened by that. They don't do it in a disrespectful way. I don't think, but I think it sometimes I've had conversations with people about it when they feel threatened by my questioning. ask a lot of questions in my whole poking and it's just true, genuine curiosity at getting out the true like.


feelings around things. Feelings are incredibly important to me. So those are a few.


Ethan Sawyer (09:25)
Yeah.


Yeah, I love what you're saying, especially around the whole poking. Like, I witnessed this in you, and I experience it as like, you do it with lot of attunement and love, you know, a sense of like, how is this going to be received by this person? And so I find it easy to receive the questions that you ask.


Sandy Longworth (09:45)
Thanks for saying that.


Ethan Sawyer (09:46)
So let's talk about this particular time in students' lives, which, you know, we work with adolescents, we work with students in the 14, the 17 years usually, and it's such a big time for identity development. Like, will you just share a little bit about this time set context for us and why it's particularly significant for the work that we do for this, you know, helping students craft personal statements?


Sandy Longworth (10:16)
Yeah, it's really, think adolescence is really a magical time, honestly. It's when the human brain has so much, I mean, there's incredible growth in infancy and childhood, but in adolescence, you start developing decision-making skills, the ability to think abstractly, what ifs, to begin practicing self-control, not completely, but practicing ability to see themselves.


it and reflect upon themselves and compare themselves socially to other people. They can start to think in timeframes and starting to think about the future. They so there's what ifs, what if I did this, what would happen? Those skills are all just developing that you don't see any younger kids. And of course they all develop at different times. Any parent will tell you siblings all that I have twins, which really has blown my mind because as a psych major, I wrote so many page.


papers on nature and nurture, and it was always the twin studies you'd look at. And so being a parent of twins, I'm like, my gosh, there's so much nature set in these kids. So you start to look at where they are developmentally, but they start to integrate their emotions, their memories, their social experiences into thoughts of who they are and the possibilities of who they might be.


And so those things are all swirling around in their head. You see kids often wearing different clothing. Some kids are wearing the same clothing as others because they're trying to fit in. They don't want to see it out. Others are trying to stand out and they're trying on punk rocker or emo or whatever that identity is. They're trying it out and seeing how the world reacts to them. So to me, it's just such an exciting time because there's so many possibilities yet.


to come of them to figure out what's important to them, what do they value, and how do they act out those values in their life.


Ethan Sawyer (12:20)
So I'd love for you to, like, I want to double-click on the part of narrative storytelling. How, what role do you feel like narrative storytelling plays in how students are thinking about and really developing their identity?


Sandy Longworth (12:39)
Yeah. Well, I mean, people who research this, there's a narrative identity theory out there that says that this is actually the crux of how we develop identity. Identity is your own personal narrative. And so it's the stories you hear about yourself through your uncle who says, ⁓ know, Sandy's always so, I mean, we can all think back and hear those stories. My mother told stories about


Enter a room and five minutes later, Sandy's got five best friends. know, that stuck in my head about who I am. I'm social. I'm friendly. I connect with people. So you start hearing those things that people say about you. You see it reflected in media, whether it's movies that you see about people who look like you or stories in magazines or in books. So when you read and you start seeing these narratives of people, it opens up possibilities about who you can be.


but we internalize it and we are constantly recreating. You and I right now are impacting my sense of self and identity as well as yours. Like when you said, when you do that singing, when you hold poke, you really are attuned to people. like, ⁓ maybe I'm an attuner. that goes in a pocket of my identity and who I am truly from like here on out, that will be a thread in my story.


And so those stories are really powerful. so narrative therapy, which is what I practice, is it comes out of narrative identity development. But it's the idea that sometimes these narratives, these dominant narratives that become so strong and rigid as we get older, can be problematic for us. And we get entrenched in those.


But teenagers are not yet entrenched. They're still like, yes, they're starting to feel the bindings of those stories and narratives around them, but they're still weaving them and they're still able to shape shift them sort of. So the more that we can gauge with them about the stories and discover what they really want, who did they really wanna be, the more important that is. think that's why like when my kids went.


for the college essay process or college application process. I didn't work with them. And one of them really wanted to work with me, the other did not. But I said, look, I have my stories about you. And I am really tied to those stories of who you are. I want you to be freed from those and really take this opportunity to talk with someone else about your dreams, your hopes, your vision of yourself now and who you want to be in the future.


So you can actually create that reality for yourself without being weighed down by my impressions. Either way, I have one kid who is very compliant, and if I had said something about her, she would want to be that person. My other kid is a little more whole-pokey and oppositional. If I said things, they might be like, no, I'm not that, and go the other way. So I didn't want to have that powerful voice, because really, in our conversations, it is very powerful.


things we say and the questions we ask people create these identities.


Ethan Sawyer (15:56)
Yeah, the two things resonate big with what you're saying in me. Like, one is this notion of becoming. And I've often thought of this process as being like what ends up yielding once students go through this process. Like this personal statement ends up being a record of becoming. Yes. Like, here's my status update. The latest version of who I think I am.


discovering myself to be, you know? And it's very immediate and it's very like, some of it's like last year, but some of it's like yesterday or some of it's like right now, like you said, of like there's this liveness which is in this moment. Like who am I? What's happening? What's emerging in me? And so it's like this record of the emergent self.


even though students think, I'm just writing this thing for college, there's this thing that happens sometimes in the process where they're like, oh, dang. And we've seen this moment all the time with students, like, I didn't know that this was so deep. They'll say something like that. And then the other thing that's hitting me as you're talking is like, one is like our choice, like our ability to choose these things about ourselves. And second is like who we give the power to.


Sandy Longworth (17:00)
Yeah.


Ethan Sawyer (17:17)
co-create with us. And narrative therapy talks about this a little bit, like our, I don't know exactly what the term is, like our board of directors or something, that we, these folks that we sort of decide, you know, have the permission to help us determine who we are. And then there are people that we're just like, no to, and like, no, I'm not going to let that person be on my board. Yes.


Sandy Longworth (17:28)
show.


Yeah,


so I'm not a big letter writer. I have done so. But letter writing can be part of narrative therapy as well. It's a physical enactment of identifying your story. So there's the verbal saying of your story, but there's also the process of writing your story, which in college applications, we're doing the personal statement. But in therapy,


Letters can be really powerful, letters from therapists to their clients or from clients to family members, friends who they want to tell their story to or invite them into their creating this identity, this new story that's important to them. And they want them to witness. So they're inviting in witnesses to their becoming. And like you said, that I have heard of therapists having clients write to


people in their lives who have not been on board with the story that they want, you know, the preferred self, the preferred reality. And so they have been perhaps in actors of imposing a negative dominant story for the client. And so they might write to them and say, I am, you know, allowing you to be freed from the position. I no longer want you to be on my board of directors or advisors. There's lots of different terms, but yet very freeing.


I just wanted to go back to, was thinking a little bit about how we think of it as freeing and becoming. That is the language that I use with people of all ages. there is, I want to acknowledge that teenagers, one of their developmental tasks is to kind of stake this claim of who they are. So you'll often see students really wanting to be their adamant about who they are and their identity. sometimes our language can


clash with that a little bit, but I think just acknowledging it's okay and it's actually very normal for them to speak in terms of more black and white. I'm this and I hate that. And it's them sticking out their territory, know, testing it out. But if we, as the adults talking to them can use this language of possibility and curiosity around that, I think it's really freeing and allows them to maybe they stake their claim here and later they discover they want to shed that.


identity and move to something else. So I think we're, we're sowing seeds for them of possibilities. But another thing that families, I think, don't realize that about this process, because sometimes they can think, well, why are we talking about feelings and what's important to them, right? I just want them to get into the college, right? So this is


This is a process where students are applying. The goal is to get into the college. It's not just a self-discovery. So what they don't realize, though, is the personal statement is meant to convey who that student is and will be on campus. That's what the admissions readers want to know. If a student is not self-aware, they don't know who they are, they cannot convey that in a story, right?


If they don't have stories and they just tell and say, I'm a really curious learner, and they're just telling these things, it's not as believable. What's that word you use? Verisimilitude? Yeah, so it's believability, right? So I often talk about that with students. Like if someone tells them something, but they have no evidence of it, do they believe it?


Ethan Sawyer (21:12)
Yeah.


Sandy Longworth (21:23)
Typically not. They're going to be more skeptical than if someone tells them a long story with lots of details and self-reflection. So not only can the admissions reader get to know a self-aware student much more easily, but when you weave in the insights and the contradictions that we were talking about earlier, sometimes there are tentative sides to a student and they're just perhaps becoming this. That's a sign of


maturity, right? So younger children thinking black and white, the older you get, the more your brain expands and you're able to think in shades of gray. So the more that a student can reflect and see contradictions and those nuances, the more mature they're going to appear to the admissions reader. So those are all qualities that are actually helping them to get accepted more easily.


Ethan Sawyer (22:20)
Yeah, it's a phrase that pops into my head. I don't know who said it. Somebody recently on the team was talking about self-awareness as a strategy. thinking of this as like if we are more focused on the process and the process of development and discovery, that there's a real wisdom in that that ends up, you know, we end up creating something that's actually, I think, more powerful, more expansive, more


with more depth and more breadth than if we were to just focus externally on the sort of like, do they want? And just sort of trying to sort of recreate that because, know, AI can create that, know, punch-ins and qualities. And, you know, it'll generate a thing. What's missing for me with something like AI is like an ability to like get in and get into these nuances and get into these, which maybe at some point, some here, hence,


AI will be able to support or will be able to use AI to support and getting into these nuances. We're not there yet, but it seems like that's best done in a relational context, like with someone else sort of guiding you through this. And that's why part of what I love about the process.


Sandy Longworth (23:32)
And it's not just the personal statement. I really see value in this type of work with the supplemental essays, too. So if a college asks, why do you want to go to University of Wisconsin, XYZ, you have to know yourself in order to define what you're looking for and why you're a good fit for this college. Or if a college says, tell me about when you've been a leader or what community you've been in. Again.


there needs to be some insight, self-awareness in order to speak about yourself as a leader or what role you've played in a certain community. ⁓ it's not just like I think it starts, I usually say it starts and ends with the personal statement, but it bleeds into the supplemental essays as well and makes them much stronger when there's a strong sense of self being communicated.


Ethan Sawyer (24:26)
Yeah. I want to, I feel moved to clarify for folks, just as an aside, like what we're talking about is like what college essay guy does with students is not therapy. Like we don't, you know, hold it that way at all. But there was this moment for me when I was like in a counseling program, like, you know, 13 years ago when I learned about narrative therapy and I was like, yo, some of this stuff that students are doing is like, is kind of deep. You know, I had that moment that students have and there's like this other stuff that's happening along the way, but


I just want acknowledge that it's like, it's with this goal of creating this, what you've called, I think, really well, like a preferred story, with the aim and the intention of showing to a reader, here's who I'm going to be. Here's who I'm going to be in this community, this college community. But I want to acknowledge that there are certain qualities that we sort of kind of need to work in there. There are sort of qualities that colleges are looking for. So I want to connect this to college for a minute.


We've done some research on this and we found that there are certain qualities that colleges are looking for and I'd be curious to hear from your perspective how you know these how narrative like storytelling can help students Bring in these qualities. So what am I talking about? I'm talking about things like intellectual curiosity and leadership or initiative talking about service to others and collaboration and consistent engagement


So this is something I'll link to this in the show notes. We call these the admission nutrients, like elements of a healthy application, as it were. How do you feel like what we're talking about, storytelling, can help students both showcase these qualities, but I think to some extent also maybe even develop these qualities in themselves?


Sandy Longworth (26:14)
Yeah. Well, I mean, a very common refrain you hear teachers, know, and essay coaches talk about is show, don't tell. So don't tell the admissions folks, I'm a really curious person. Right? Like, okay, that's great. But anyone can say that. So for believability, you want to show them the curiosity. And how do we show people things as we tell them stories about our actions and our thoughts?


And so I think one of the best ways to show curiosity is to ask questions. And so you're showing how your brain works. So with students, I start with values always. mean, at CIG, that's college SEI. That's what we're always talking about, is values. So starting with values. And those are aspirational, I think, by definition. Those are things we aspire to be, things that are sort of lofty and very meaningful to us.


And then I go from there and ask them to tell me stories about how did you discover this? One thing I like to do is sort of do the biography of the autobiography of a value. How did this value become known to you? And who would know that this value is important to you? So if it was curiosity, who else would know, Sandy, that you're


a curious person or that you have curiosity in your life. What are the earliest threads of that? And they start retelling stories that they have heard about themselves, that they themselves have engaged in. They show us how that emerged and how it is lived in their life. So those are the things that really help an admissions officer believe that these are traits that are important. They are acting out in their life. And of course, we know those things that


like you said, that have been shown to be successful in applications. So intellectual curiosity, we're going to ask about those, the leadership. mean, most of the supplemental prompts will ask about that anyway. So I think that is our service, what service have they done. So we can sort of lead with the questions we ask. But to me, it always starts with the values and then the storytelling. And sometimes students get stuck. They have a really hard time thinking about.


So I may actually assign them to go and talk to friends and family to ask them, where have you seen me acting out this value of community service is really important to me? How do you see me acting that out or the environment, whatever the value is? So collecting these stories so that they can then retell them and synthesize into who they are. And again, because development is not identical, some students


have a harder time with that. They have not thought about it. They haven't been asked these questions before. So it may be the first time and it may take a amount of time for them to discover those stories and see themselves as that. Whereas other people, know, other students have struggled with it. They've had conversations with friends or family. So you see kids all over the board. Sometimes they come in with stories they think that admissions people want. And again, it's sticking for authenticity, you know,


Where is the vulnerability worse? by that, I mean, where is the emotional connection for them? Where are they moved?


Ethan Sawyer (29:33)
Yeah, it's like I can imagine someone listening to this and thinking, ⁓ this sounds like it would take a long time. And it does take a long time sometimes. And that's why, you know, I think that's the value of this process. And I think part of why it takes a while to do this is that we aren't just asking 17 year olds to like report on who you are, like just write a report, you know, pick a story. That's who you are. We're actually inviting them to


begin to map the terrain of their experience and meaning make. We're inviting them to go in and look at different experiences and think about what did that mean to me? How did that shape me? How has that helped inform the me that is before you today? And the complexity of that terrain is infinite.


That's why I think I hold this as such a beautiful and in such an expansive process because we're mapping nothing less than your relationship to your own sense of self and sense of being, your beingness as it were. ⁓ it feels like such, I feel so, that's why I often come off a session and will say to a student, I just feel so grateful to be invited into this.


the foyer of your, you know, if your sense of self is like many rooms and there are different parts of you that you inhabit. I'm just sort of invited into the anteroom and I'm given a tour in some cases of like these different experiences and sides of a student. And I'm like, wow, what a gift. What a gift it is to be invited into that space.


Sandy Longworth (31:24)
Yeah, yeah. And I want the listener to not to be like scared of the process, you know, when you say it's because honestly, I have to say I've had some experiences where students have been thinking about this. And they didn't know it was okay to talk about this. And they're so excited. It's like almost been bottled up in them. And they're like, Really, I can just talk about that. And it just comes out. And sometimes I've had experiences where it is so quick, they get it so


quickly when we talk about what we're looking for and it just comes out and it is so beautiful. It's so moving and to your point like I tear up sometimes and I'll say to kids, gosh, I'm not even your mother, but like I can't wait for your parents or loved one to read this because it's so beautiful. It's such a glimpse at your heart, you know.


Ethan Sawyer (32:14)
Yeah, I love that. So I want to go back to this idea that you've alluded to earlier. And it's this notion that our stories create our reality. Just kind of a mind blowing thought to just sit with, like stories create reality. Will you connect that for me and for us to like the personal statement? Like, to what extent is that true? How does that happen?


Sandy Longworth (32:38)
Yeah.


Well, gosh, I don't think it's as transformative for everyone, again, based on how much they've already been thinking about themselves and kind of wrestling with these questions of who they are and who they want to be. For those who haven't or have maybe sold themselves short, haven't really owned the wonderful qualities that they have and were


documenting them and showing evidence, these stories upon stories of things that they've done that act out these values. I think it solidifies for them like, yeah, I am pretty awesome. We always ask students afterwards, we do a satisfaction survey and we ask them about the process. And one of my favorite questions we ask them is, what surprised you the most?


about this process. And they often say that I never knew I was so great at, you know, X, Y, Z. And that's what comes out of it. So they, they might have been acting tentatively out their values, right, acting them out and behaving in ways that align with their values. But after they, they've talked about it with someone and written it over and over.


that this is an identity, this is a value that's important. They are much more likely to go out into the world and act with confidence and be that type of person who they wanted to be. So it becomes the reality. And the more they then present as such, they are viewed as such. And it becomes more more firm. know, parents will say to us, my gosh, I just am seeing my...


my son, my daughter being so much more confident in the world. He knows what he's going to do. Even down to like tiny details of, you know, when we work on the YS essays with kids. I love doing that because I'm a researcher at heart too. But they, you know, they dig in, they learn about the classes and the professors and the clubs on campus. Sometimes they're like, I don't even want to go to that school after, because they don't have the things that really appealed to me. I just knew the name. But other times they're like,


I know exactly what classes I'm taking freshman year. know when I go to that club fair, I'm going to go right up to this table because I know I want to be a part of that club. So again, we're making opportunity, we're opening doors, you know, and making opportunities that they act upon because they have had conversations and they've written it down. It becomes more real to them.


Ethan Sawyer (35:16)
⁓ A term from narrative therapy that I really love that speaks to what you're sharing is this notion of thickening marginalized identities. You who are listening can't see Sammy nodding, but I see you nodding. This concept for me is so important and I think it's so crucial to this process. And an example of a marginalized identity for a student might be, for instance, I'm not confident or I don't, I haven't really done much to help others.


Sandy Longworth (35:25)
Yes.


Ethan Sawyer (35:46)
Or I'm, I don't know, I'm not that intellectually curious. And then students don't literally say that. Usually if you ask them, are you curious about stuff? They're like, yeah, I'm curious about all kinds of things. But let's take the first form. Like I'm not confident. In a student who's writing about a story about the development of their confidence, once they have spent five drafts, 10 drafts telling the story of how they developed their confidence, by the end of that, it's like, yeah, I am a confident person. There's an ownership taking that happens in that.


And what's, I find really enlivening about this process is identifying what are some of those marginalized identities, the identities that they've sort of pushed to side. And it's why I love this roles and identities exercise, because there's a sort of claiming, like even as you're, you know, doing the list at the start and you're like, I'm a hole poker, I'm a, you know, a tuner. There's some sort of like claiming that's happening that I think students, I'll often ask them like, did anything, same thing, you know, did anything surprise you at this? And they'll be like, yeah.


I guess I am, and it'll often pick a lot of the roles and identities. And so it's sort of cozying up to the idea that we have within ourselves these different selves, these different ways of being. It's sort of, for me, rhymes a little bit, or half rhymes with internal family systems and the notion of all these different selves inside of us that we can be present to, or more present to. And it's sort of like, ⁓ yeah, maybe I am this.


writing about it a little bit and literally expanding the sentences and sharing more about that is doing it and I think in really practical way.


Sandy Longworth (37:21)
Yeah. Well, another really practical thing that comes out of it is they're learning interview skills, right? mean, in an interview, you are asked, who are you? Who are you going to be in this job? And so they are practicing not only who they want to be, but how to communicate that to other people. So there's so many ways that these skills really do help them moving forward. Yeah. And it's sort of like, you know, I think about when thickening stories,


There's all these stories that exist out there, right? But it's like, if you go to a car dealer and you buy a red Honda Accord, you drive off the lot, all of a sudden you're seeing red Honda Accords everywhere. ⁓ You're like, I didn't know there was somebody out here. Well, that's the same thing if you ask a student about them being a leader and they're like, I don't know, I'm not really a leader. And then you start asking more questions. Then you discover all these ways that they have been a leader in their friend group.


with their siblings, you know, in other settings that aren't like those, I've never been a president of a club, okay, but there's other leadership. So they start seeing it everywhere. And the more that you can talk about it, that little thread of them being a leader becomes this really thick story with lots of detail and a history and a timeline. That's not something we do in narrative therapy too, is give us something, not just a plot, one plot in a timeline, but a-


a history and a future. So really, really tying it to this isn't just something we discovered about you today. This is something you have been doing and other people have seen in you. And let's figure out who are those people who've seen that in you and will help you continue into the future. So yes, it is really, it's incredible. And it is mind blowing that these conversations really, I think,


you know, a path for the students and ways that we would never know how they wouldn't, you know, how they would have proceeded without it. But I think we're just giving them much more confidence to be who they want to be. Yeah. And, feel like it's real. It's not just, just something I wrote, you know.


Ethan Sawyer (39:32)
I'd love to stay with the practical here, and you've already shared a little bit about how this happens, practically speaking, in like sessions and stuff. But for counselors listening or students listening, how does this, what are some practice things that people can actually do to basically bring this work into the context of the personal statement? So one, for instance, that you've already mentioned is like,


telling the origin story of a value. That seems like an awesome one. Where did this one show up for you first? How have you related to it? How are you doing now? What's your relationship to that value? Give us some other ways that, practically speaking, this work manifests in the personal statement process.


Sandy Longworth (40:19)
Yeah. I mean, for me, it is around values. So whether it's determining the biography and the future, right, forecasting, how is that value going to impact you in the future? How do you foresee yourself acting out this identity, this value in the college campus, perhaps even further? think inviting in audience, you know, it's not necessarily it's not necessary for all students. Like I said, it's it's some students maybe who feel ⁓


less confident in their values or their identities. It's building an audience for them. one of my favorite questions is, who would not be surprised to hear this about you? I'm sure you've had this with students where they say, gosh, I've never told anyone this, but I really like this, or I really hope to do this. And so to thicken that story, this sort of secret that they've just bared their soul to you, right? It's like, who would?


Who in your life would not be surprised to hear about that? And they have to really think sometimes it's a best friend that they've confided in. Would you be willing to talk to them about that and how they see that in you? So building an audience thickens the story.


Ethan Sawyer (41:34)
wonder if we could just try this together. Like you could just, you know, do an exercise with me and lead me through it and ask me some questions and we could just show people what it looks like. ⁓


Sandy Longworth (41:44)
Yeah,


yeah, yeah, let's do that. Great. OK, so I'm going look at the values list that we have just using the one on our website.


Ethan Sawyer (41:53)
Great, I'll put it in the show notes so people can see it.


Sandy Longworth (41:56)
I usually start with having people identify the top 10, but I'm going to have you start just identifying the top five. So what, I'm going to write them down. are your top five values today?


Ethan Sawyer (42:08)
Yeah.


Today what I'm feeling present to is connection. I'm feeling present to... Ooh, mystery. Like the mystery of this process. Personal development.


Practicality and, ooh, this is on our list, but it's something like slowness. Slowness, like taking time, like, yeah.


Sandy Longworth (42:41)
I'm trying not to be informed by what I know of you.


Ethan Sawyer (42:46)
Good luck.


Sandy Longworth (42:48)
So one of the things I encourage people to do is to truly be curious. Try not to lead students. That's hard sometimes. So I'm going to try not to do that with you. So of those five, connection, mystery, personal development, practicality, slowness, is there one that feels less certain or more tenuous to you?


Ethan Sawyer (43:13)
Yeah, slowness. Okay, because if you really knew me, you'd that I love to go fast. And even on this call, I'm deliberately speaking more slowly, trying to attune to what's alive in me, what's happening in me. And boy, it just runs counter to what I'll call the...


Sandy Longworth (43:15)
⁓ Someone I was gonna say


Ethan Sawyer (43:41)
I'm going to call it an entrepreneurial energy in me, which is the part of me that just wants to build and create and do and let's find a piece of a project and do the thing. the medicine that I'm dosing myself with is through mindfulness and through even my interactions, even right now, just slowing down. So yeah.


Sandy Longworth (44:10)
So you talked about ways in which you're often not leaning into slowness when you feel that entrepreneurial desire to build and do. I wonder if there are times that you are doing both of those things. You're feeling that entrepreneurial spirit and you are leaning into slowness.


Ethan Sawyer (44:34)
Yeah, mean, yeah, first of all, like I get a lot of excitement when I hear that question, because I'm like, ⁓ that's possible. That's totally possible. And I think that I'm doing it right now. Like on this podcast, there's a way that I'm being with you that is like swimming in the mystery of like, what are we going to say next? Like what's emerging here? Like who are we becoming, you know, live on in front of, as it were, all these people listening.


And then there's this other part of me that's like, yeah, but we're like doing a thing. Like we are showing a practice. We are sharing a practical strategy, a practical technique. And so that's like really like lighting something up for me, like sort of it's allowing both of these selves to exist. The part of me that wants to like be in the mystery and the not knowing.


and the part of me that wants to move a thing forward or to teach a principle or share a practical technique. And you can even see it in the questions. The first part of the questions are like, yeah, let's explore this idea, the framework. And then there's like, all right, but let's get down to brass tacks. So yeah, I think it's happening right now.


Sandy Longworth (45:54)
Yeah. And I wonder if there are other people in your life who would also have stories to tell about Ethan, who is entrepreneurial and brings slowness.


Ethan Sawyer (46:07)
Yeah.


Sandy Longworth (46:09)
Mmm.


Ethan Sawyer (46:11)
I had a, ⁓ what I would call like a difficult conversation yesterday with some colleagues at work around, like it was some really sensitive terrain. I'm not going to get into the details of it, but there was a way that like on a business level, like as an organizational level, we had to like make a decision about something and move a thing forward. And what I tried to bring into that call, and so my brother was on the call. can share that much.


What I tried to bring on that call was like a sense of the meta of like not just like what needs to get done here, but like what's also happening in this conversation? Like what's really underneath the thing? What's the unspoken? And so I think that my brother, I would hope that he would see that in me and say like, yeah, Ethan does bring a dimension of like


It's almost like I call it like, I call it zooming back or being like, what's really happening right now? Like what is the context that we're in? And I can see, I see how that context and bringing that in can be so much more connective and actually allow us to move more quickly and to make a decision because we're coming into like greater alignment with like the truth of what, what is happening in a particular moment. And I think that when we can get into that greater alignment about like, what are we really talking about here?


that suddenly it's like, ⁓ well, yeah, if we can get shared reality there, that in some ways that it does allow us to move more quickly when other, when like to quote a poem, when the food needs to be brought in or the fire be put out, you know, when the sort of everydayness of the work needs to happen, it's like, well, if we can get aligned, then so yeah. So I think I'm going to say my brother.


Sandy Longworth (48:07)
Yeah, I'm just, I feel like I'm learning so much about what slowness means to you, because slowness could be a lot of things. And the things that are coming out that I'm hearing is slowness is about


Finding out what is the unspoken, what's the meta, the zooming back and getting to shared reality, paying attention to what's emerging, and maybe not missing, you didn't say this, but maybe not missing details. ⁓ Is that?


Ethan Sawyer (48:42)
Yeah, think that there's like, yes, I think that sometimes it involves picking up on subtle details. I think what it allows me to do when I'm in this space is like, it sharpens my discernment for which details to go for. Because I think that like in any given interaction, there are so many things that we could focus on. And I think that this is true with, in my work and our work with students is like,


There's a lot of, I want to call it noise, because that seems to make it all one frequency or something. But it seems like what's coming at us is like all these different frequencies. And what we're doing is we're tuning into our own sense of, I don't know, like our Spidey sense. sometimes, you know, we sometimes call it as counselors. And then we go, ooh, this thing seems like an important detail. So it's like focusing on details, yes, but not all the details. It's like finding the right.


the right detail, as it were, or the one that like sparks aliveness in me.


Sandy Longworth (49:44)
Yeah.


Yeah. I'm curious what makes it easier for you to lean into slowness or have a relationship with slowness. It could be people, could be situations, settings. What helps you lean into that?


Ethan Sawyer (50:04)
Yeah, like drinking less caffeine helps me lean into it. Also, yeah, being in regular practices that invite slowness, like meditating in the morning, having connections that are nourishing, like conversations with others who are sort of attuned to this quality of, you know, way of being with one another. I find that that that relationality is really important to me. And having less scheduled, like


Having just not packing my day with so many meetings or so many action items, like having three things to do in a day as opposed to nine things, doing less better.


Sandy Longworth (50:47)
Yeah. Yeah. So that definitely helps me. I'm curious if you were to think back on your childhood, where there are moments that you, because you do have a lot of energy. You are someone who moves, your mind moves quickly. You have a lot of place in the air, I feel like, all the time. But if you were to think back to your childhood, where there are moments where you had a relationship with slowness that you can think.


Ethan Sawyer (51:16)
gosh, yeah. Well, there's like early life where it was like organizing my baseball cards and like, you know, it just sort of, so that feels like a sort of precious time where I'm like, I would never do something like that now. But like, I think the more salient or the one that's more alive for me is like when I was in high school and in college, I would write poetry a lot. And there was this


space that I would go to, like mentally, emotionally, where I would just write whatever was emerging in me. And a lot of it had to do with love or unrequited love or something like that. there was just, and not always, but there was this place that I would call my poetic self that I really nurtured and nourished that when we started to, decided to have a kid and we like,


I was like, okay, I need to make some money and work. That sort of went away. And a lot of my writing became more focused on helping others. And I sort of let that part go. And I feel a little sad sharing that with you. Like, the poetic self sort of like, you know, was like just set aside for a while. And it's just over the last, like really the last few months that that self is starting to reemerge. We had a counselor.


retreat a few months ago and I was writing about this actually. And then my friend was like, hey, you should write a poem. And I was like, okay. I don't want to right now, but like, and then for my friend's wedding, one of my really dear friend's wedding, we were looking for a poem because he's like asked me to read a poem. And I was like, you know what? I'm spending a lot of time trying to find one. Let me just write one. So I wrote a poem and it was the first one that I'd written in years. And it was like ⁓ returning to that space felt so


Yeah, so like I was returning to a part of myself. So I hadn't connected that to slowness until now, but I think it's really, you know, deeply connected actually.


Sandy Longworth (53:23)
Yeah, this might sound really weird, so bear with me. But I'm loving that you named it this poetic self. And I'm wondering if there's ways that the poetic self has been writing poetry without writing poetry.


Ethan Sawyer (53:41)
Yo, ⁓ that blows my mind a little bit. ⁓ Yeah, I think there are ways that it's like in my connections with folks that it's like that poetic self emerges. Yeah, there are certain like I notice.


in the workshops that I choose to take part in or the retreats that I have over the last couple of years wanted to go to is like returning to that self. I hope, but I don't know that I do. I hope to bring that into my work, like when I'm facilitating, for instance, or teaching. But there's some part of me that still feels like they're separate and they could be more, but let me just try and see. ⁓ a part that I piece that I can own is like,


at the starts of sessions of webinars and stuff, we'll do a check-in question. Or when we do team meetings, there's a way that I'm wanting to bring that side of myself and just be in presence and mystery together. When we start our team sync meetings, for instance, coming into mindfulness together for a couple of minutes feels like an example of allowing that side of that self, potentially that self to emerge.


So I guess there are little ways that I'm doing it. But I love this question. I feel like I've given like a B minus answer, which I'm OK with for now. But I'm kind of like loving this question, Sandy, about like how have I maybe been doing it all along and maybe just haven't been aware of it? Because there's like a, I've been like creating space for it in others, but like how have I been doing it with myself? I'm like, I'm taking that question home with me. So thank you.


Sandy Longworth (55:23)
Yeah, because I think it's about what I'm hearing is self-expression and freedom, but it's also really connecting back to, I wrote down your five values, connection, mystery, personal development, practicality, sort of like on another column, and slowness. But I see this as like very connected. You've used the term mystery and like getting into that mystery, but it's also connecting, whether it's connecting with yourself or connecting with others.


Ethan Sawyer (55:53)
Boy, the practicality one is so strong in me though, because even as I listen to you share this, I'm like, boy, I really want this to be helpful for listeners. And I really want folks to feel like this is practical. And it's like my internal alarm is like, this is taking too long. So it's interesting because I think what I'm actively trying to do is like bring all of these qualities of connection and slowness, cetera, into the everyday and be like, and here's the thing that you can do with this that's going to lead to


know, something interesting, an insight, a connection, moment of like, you know, and by connection, mean, connection with like, I made this mental connection with myself, but also connection between two people, like between a counselor and a student, for instance. So yeah, it feels like the four things are like, but I'm constantly being drawn to like, but what can we do with us? So


Sandy Longworth (56:44)
Well, that's what I love. I mean, you've talked about this, but that sometimes the most interesting stories have attention. And so to me, if I'm looking at this and it's like one of these things is not like the other, it's like how that's why I was asking you, how are you both? How are you both practical and slow? know?


Ethan Sawyer (57:01)
Okay, personal statement. There we go. like I had this moment. I'm just at a college, just like I'm in a where I'm like, there's my personal statement where it's like, okay, so part one, we call this like Hegelian dialectic, but I just got excited. So I want to share with you. Part one is the thesis is like, I'm so practical and entrepreneurial and sharing all that and how that lives in me and manifests in me. And then there's this other impulse that I have towards slowness and connection and mystery. And I share a little about that.


And then the sort of implied thing, that's the antithesis, right? Is like, how do I synthesize these things? And that's what I'm, that's like a constant productive tension in my life is how do I bring those into, you can tell I'm getting excited because I'm like, I could write about this. Like, how do I bring those into my life in a way that like is, yeah, is like really, it's like generous, but also like,


Yeah, there's something. How do I bring those into my life? I think is the sort of the working draft. And what is it like to feel those two things in tension? It's uncomfortable sometimes and it's like, yeah, really difficult, but it feels like if I can harness the power of both of these, I think that's part of what's cool about this process and about our work is like if I can bring that quality of slowness more into this sort of driven


and some oftentimes outcomes focused thing, gosh, that's what I hope to do. Like that feels like my life's work.


Sandy Longworth (58:41)
Well, the pleaser side of me is wanting to be practical and be like, let's break down what I just did. Is that OK if I do that? OK, so, you know, a lot of times students will start with the stories that come easily to them. so I started by asking you if there was a story that was more tenuous, like more, you know, not as dominant and trying to help you thicken it. Right. So I'm asking you.


Ethan Sawyer (58:49)
Please, let's do it.


Sandy Longworth (59:08)
Who else knows about this site? I'm inviting an audience and co-creators of this story of you and slowness. And then I'm asking you about history. It's not just in this moment or like what we're doing here or what we did in the meeting yesterday, but how have you done it in the past? And then I'm sensing this tension, right? That is almost like I have to be one or the other and I'm inviting and bothness through the questions I'm asking.


Ethan Sawyer (59:34)
Yeah.


Sandy Longworth (59:38)
So you could reject any of those things. I'm tentatively asking them. I don't like to be too forceful, because I respect that I am creating reality by the questions I ask you. But yeah, that was to help to illuminate what I was doing.


Ethan Sawyer (59:55)
Totally.


Yeah, totally. there's the, I'm inviting you into and what I was inviting you into is like to, to like help me co, help me construct my identity a little bit. And what I noticed, I was talking with a friend recently about, about boundaries and how sometimes if we're too forceful with it and we start to like play around with someone's identity and start to make judgments. So for instance, if I said to you like, Sandy, you're a, you're a tricky person.


that it immediately invites defensiveness, right? Because it's, we're messing at the level of someone's identity. But if instead we're asking good questions and inviting, first of all, having clear consent, right? That's really important. And then asking great questions, then we're off, there's so much we can do. yeah, I didn't know how this was gonna go. We had sort of like a loose idea that we would do a thing and this is the thing we did.


Excited because now I've got a personal statement to write. But yeah, just appreciating your, the simplicity of the questions. I appreciate it that you gave me space to like just go, you know, and sort of like you gave me these little canvases almost to paint on is what it felt like. So yeah, yeah, I'm feeling really grateful.


Sandy Longworth (1:00:56)
Have a nice.


That was fun. I had a little bit of nervousness too about where it was going to go.


Ethan Sawyer (1:01:23)
So I want to ask you a question. Sometimes, and I don't know if this makes the final cut or not, but some of what we're talking about is sort of like a narrative, and sometimes it's a challenges-based story. But we have something at CG that we call a montage, which is like, oftentimes it starts with a theme that a student wants to explore, like their relationship with someone in their life, or food, or their love of plants. Like, how could this inform


a montage essay and just to let folks know what that means. A montage would be like, I love plants and little did I know that plants have manifested in lots of areas of my life and have taught me lots of skills, qualities, values. Let me tell you about this plant in my room. And they tell about the plant and how it's manifested. And then they move to another plant and talk about how that has manifested in their life. And so it's more of like what I call like sampler platter style. So rather than having like one big meal, like one entree, you're getting


the mozzarella sticks and the jalapeno poppers. And so we're getting like a few different smaller stories that are maybe like a paragraph long. So how could you see this working in that context?


Sandy Longworth (1:02:35)
it works beautifully because of the idea that we are not the narrative ideas that we don't have one story. We don't have one set innate identity that we're trying to discover. We have lots of parts of ourselves, so I feel like it's more honoring of the human experience and the multiple sides we have of ourselves. To me, the only time I ever work in a narrative structure is if someone feels like,


They have a story that is so central to who they are, this typically challenge based, that they just feel like if I don't tell this story and it needs this 650 words, then someone won't understand who I am. But otherwise, really just, because we ask about multiple identities, multiple values, the montage is so great for that because there's a paragraph for each of those.


And they are all true about the same person, right? So the tricky part is sometimes finding the thread. So it's plants that connect all these values or these identities, whatever that. I actually don't think it's that important what the thread is. It's whatever is meaningful and allows the student to write on it, the connection. But really, these are just different sides of themselves that they're sharing. And so if they can show five sides of themselves to an admissions reader,


Like what a gift instead of just one story. it's again, it's stories, it's five stories or that's typically how I have, you know, spaced with 650 words. So to me, the montage is really set for this mindset. It fits exactly how I think about humanity and who we are.


Ethan Sawyer (1:04:25)
Yeah, as you share that, I'm like present to how there's this, I think there's this expectation out there or there's this story out there that you have to find your story and it has to be the one. And gosh, that puts a lot of pressure. And it puts a lot of pressure on the last two paragraphs for like, you're gonna do, you know, some, you're gonna share as Ira Glass says some.


first part of it, it's like this happened, then this happened, then this happened. But it puts so much pressure on those insights to be like life-altering transformational insights. And boy, that's a lot of pressure. what a montage does is it sort of spreads out the goodies, the insights into the different paragraphs so that if paragraph two doesn't work out so well, paragraph three might have a chance of picking up some of the slack. And it also


takes the pressure off, I think, of students feeling like they have to make something big out of something small. you'll hear somebody say, well, it doesn't have to be a big story. could be about something small, like what you ate for breakfast this morning. And I'm like, wow, that is a really hard essay to write about your breakfast and to make that as big as possible. It takes a lot of sensitivity and a lot of oftentimes


craft, like well crafted writing. And then the student's energy goes into like writing beautiful sentences and details. Whereas I'd really like to redirect that energy into thinking about what are these different parts of yourself that are emerging. And it can be oftentimes a more straightforward telling of those sides of the self, whether it's five or three, and not have to be like constructed in terms of, and I'm just having this realization now that it's like, think


Sandy Longworth (1:06:03)
Yes.


Ethan Sawyer (1:06:18)
students are oriented towards like I need to fantastic or impressive sentences. It's more like there's all this stuff that happens before you actually get to the writing. It's like, you know, before you, you know, they're like, I need to strengthen my words muscles. And it's like, you need to strengthen your ideas muscles. It's like, what does that work? And that's like, you know, almost like the nutrition before we work out or something. I'm mixing my metaphors, but.


Sandy Longworth (1:06:46)
Yeah, I find that students find it really freeing. They're often confused by the montage because I have them working oftentimes on the paragraphs separately. They are separate stories to me. They're the same person and we'll find a thread, but I don't worry about that. I don't start with that craft. And so I do think that when students are like, wait, I could talk about these, you know, three, four five things.


It's so freeing instead of like settling on one because maybe mom wants you to write about this, you know, and you want to write it. And there's all these different stories. So I do think kids find it freeing and also just the idea that you don't have to be definitive about who you are. It can be this process of I'm discovering and this is who I'm becoming. That also is freeing instead of like just having to know so much at 17 years old. You know?


Ethan Sawyer (1:07:43)
Yeah. And I'm always impressed by and sort of marveling at the range of how this goes. Because it's such a, like sometimes it'll like a student will come in and like in 90 minutes, we've got the whole darn thing mapped out. And sometimes we're in session five and it's like, whew, it's still not clear what the thing is. Like we have some pieces of it, but we don't have the like the backbone of it yet. And it's amazing to me.


how different it can be. I mean, we have tools for like bringing up the pieces and we can find a way to like pick a box and speed up the thing if we need to. But I really appreciate that about this process is that we never quite know how it's gonna go. And it's what makes it difficult when someone's like, how long does this process take? I'm like, well, how much thinking have you been doing about your life? And how much do you like writing and these kinds of things?


Sandy Longworth (1:08:31)
Hahaha


Yeah, I don't know about you, but I can tell a lot in that first draft. You know, after we've met, we've gone through the brainstorming and we just talk about some possibilities. When I see that first draft or outline, I'm either like, we got a lot more questioning to do here or like, wow, this is going to go really quickly. It's really interesting. Yeah.


Ethan Sawyer (1:09:01)
Totally. I can, you know, I can, you know, sometimes we can tell right from the brainstorming, right? We look at how much time was spent on the 21 details exercise and, you know, the roles and identities. Like, did they do it? You know, did they write details around how these roles and identities manifest in their lives? And you can sort of, yeah, there's a lot you can tell there. I try to hold it lightly and sort of go, well, maybe they were busy if a student hasn't quite gone through it all.


But sometimes students really just, know that like we like, it's going to take an hour, hour and a half. And then I can tell them like this took, they like really leaned in here. And I I so appreciate that because I think there are so many nutritional aspects to the process itself.


Sandy Longworth (1:09:45)
Yeah, yeah. And it's hard. This just came to mind too. I'm sure you do too. I often get asked, will you look at my son's essay? Like after they've written it and I don't know them, I've never met them, I have no brainstorming. And I'm like, I can look at it. But if you want feedback, I really need to see brainstorming because I don't know what all the possibilities are, all the stories about the students. So this is, it's like in a vacuum.


Ethan Sawyer (1:10:10)
What do you love about this work?


Sandy Longworth (1:10:13)
I think I love the possibilities. love the, it feels like unleashing people into the possibilities of the world. opening their, and adolescence is that time anyway, where there's so many things opening up to them. You ask a five-year-old, what do you want to be when you grow up and they have very limited knowledge, teacher or police officer or whatever, what they see in their world.


As you get older, the possibilities open up and this work allows us to open up those possibilities even more and really help people lean into who they want to be. So I just feel like I'm like unleashing them into the world with all these possibilities. And I'm a naturally optimistic person. also, best friend says, this is going to sound weird. She always says, I've told you this before. She says, Sandy, you fall in love very easily.


And she doesn't mean romantic love. It's like everyone I meet, I fall in love with because I really naturally see their gifts and how they shine. And we don't all see ourselves that way. And so being able to hold up that mirror to someone and ask them questions about all these wonderful sparkly parts of themselves and seeing them like really step into that suit and then go off into the world, I just think is so beautiful and such a gift.


Ethan Sawyer (1:11:39)
Yeah, I see these things in you too. I really, it's just lining up something for me about our connection and how I really see that. feel the way that you sort of hold people. it's, for me, it's like this, what Carl Rogers calls the unconditional positive regard, which we talk a lot about at CEG. And I see that in you, like your ability to hold folks in unconditional positive regard and really just want the best for them. And I see that with a lot of folks on our team, but I see that really strongly in you.


What do you hope that folks will keep in mind as they go through this process? you know, I'm interested in like, yeah, parents. What would you say to parents? What would you say to counselors?


Sandy Longworth (1:12:23)
I would hope that they would view this as a developmental process, not just a hoop to jump through to get to the next stage in life. I hope that they will help shine the light on the student instead of on the college and what the college wants and how does their student mold themselves into what the college wants, but instead focus on what they want.


It's tricky because there's so much, there's a really dominant discourse out there, right? That, you know, to succeed, they have to go to the best college. And so I think there's a lot of pressure because parents love their kids and they want what's best for them. I hope that they can take a note from you and slow down and think about who is their student? what's, who do they want to be and how did they find the place?


that they can spend four years on a campus, they can spend four years on becoming more of that person. Yeah.


Ethan Sawyer (1:13:32)
I imagine some folks will be listening wondering, where do I go to learn more? This is cool. Where do I learn more about this stuff? what would you point folks towards if they're like, even broadly speaking, they're kind of interested in this kind of stuff? I'm just going to keep it broad. ⁓ Where would you point folks?


Sandy Longworth (1:13:51)
I just met with one of our coaches yesterday, coaches yesterday, who's very interested in narrative. So narrative therapy is very different from this like narrative identity theory. But if you're interested in the narrative therapy writings and discourse, the people who really started it are Michael White and Dave Epstein, who are in Australia. Michael White has passed away, but they have a place in Australia called the Dulwich Center. You can put it in the show notes, I guess.


And then there's in the US, there's the Narrative Therapy Initiative in Boston, and there's the Family Therapy Institute out of Northwestern in Chicago. those are, they put out a lot of free resources. There's books and things you can read and webinars and podcasts you can listen to. Yeah, I'm more steeped in sort of the therapy side, which is not necessarily, I mean, it's not what we do at Caljessigae, but that's really what informs my work.


Ethan Sawyer (1:14:47)
Yeah, and I want to point to some of the things that we've already talked about and a couple that we haven't already if folks are interested in this as it relates to the personal statement and The thing that we'll link to in the show notes is like this simple values exercise Which you can do so many different things with as as one that I think is really valuable the other one that I've Recorded a bunch of podcasts on is the roles and identities exercise. There's a whole little series on that that you can check out There's a version for students and parents. There's one for counselors


And that starts to point to some of the practicalities of this work, because I've been sort of bringing it into this process for some time. And then the other one that I'll point to is something called the feelings and needs exercise, that if you're new to college essay guy, you may not be familiar with, but it's like for those of you who face the challenge and feel like you would like to metabolize it or process it a little bit, or could this be something for a college essay, it's one that brings in


some principles from nonviolent communication and other modalities, then you can find that in the show notes as well. But I guess what I'm saying to y'all is that it's baked into a lot of the resources that you'll find at CIG. Sandy, thank you so much for spending this time with me and sharing yourself and your wisdom in this way. I'm really grateful.


Sandy Longworth (1:16:07)
This was so fun. Thank you so much, Ethan, for inviting me. ⁓


Ethan Sawyer (1:16:15)
Thanks friends as ever for listening. Hey, did you know College Essay Guy works with students one-on-one? We do. If you're interested to learn more, we have that plus everything else that we discussed in the show notes at collegeessayguy.com slash podcast. Finally, I just wanted to end by giving a special shout out to my producer, Alex, and our editor, Dan. Y'all are amazing. I feel so supported by you and just wanted to say thanks officially and eternally. That's all. Be well.


and stay curious.