127. Physician Wellness Role Models: Prevent Burnout And Lead Better

One small little change in the recipe of your life might be that one thing that's going to help you start adding those cumulative benefits. Pennies in the bank every day will eventually add up to a million dollars.

Are you a woman in medicine, feeling overwhelmed and disconnected from the personal fulfillment that you desire? You're in the right place. Join doctors Joanne and Erin as they rewrite the rules for women in medicine. Let's begin.

In this episode, we are going to be talking about something very important, about how as physicians, we are role models. It's such a big topic. And I'm here with my Amazing Co host, Dr. Erin Hurley, pediatrician and also physician coach. And we're going to explore this topic. We talk a lot about it, but we don't always understand what it means. So we're going to do some unpacking. So, Erin, let's get straight to it. Where do physicians show up as role models?

Oh, I want to focus on them role modeling wellness, because we've been working on a wellness series from episode 124 with Dr. Tamara Beckford, and the series will go through about episode 129 or 130. So stay tuned if you're wanting to uplevel your wellness. And I think we forget all of the places we can be seen as role models as a physician. And as we've said before, you may not have an actual title of leadership, but that doesn't mean you're not a leader. You likely are a leader simply as a physician or healthcare provider. And we show up as role models for our patients, certainly. And I remember a business coach that Joanne and I both worked with. His wife had a baby and he said, I couldn't believe how unhealthy the doctors that were seeing my wife looked. It was unbelievable. And recognizing we are role models. And if we're not taking care of ourselves, we're demonstrating to our patients it's okay not to take care of ourselves. So just that reminder not to make us feel guilty about it, just remembering people are watching and looking up to you and you have power just in showing up in the room. So the other one is the staff you work with. They're taking your example. They're watching what you do. Their eyes are on you. And you are seen as a leader to them. I am sure of it. And paying attention to how we show up with our health, not just how our patient care is delivered, because we're going to do better patient care when we are doing well, ourselves. If you are a leader, a practice owner, a Supervisor again, you've got one more leadership feather in your hat. And just paying attention to how you're showing up. And role modeling, especially even in interactions, are they healthy interactions, are they showing that you're doing well versus showing up stressed all the time? And then even at home, how do you show up for your immediate family, your partner and your kids? And there's that, do as I say, not as I do doesn't work. Because guess what, everybody's watching what you do. And your actions speak much louder than your words.

I love this conversation. One of my values is exactly that I am a role model because it's a beautiful filter to show up as your best self. Talking about coaches, one of our coaches, Lauren Lahave, she talks about what would you do or how would you show up if there was always kind of like a camera crew behind you, like those reality shows. And we have that whether we know it or not, we have other women around us. Like Erin just talked about all the places where we're showing up, that it's kind of more obvious that we're role modeling. But there's also some subtleties of other women watching silently from the sight lines and wondering if it's possible to be both successful and well, I love how you said it that we don't always practice what we preach and it's such an important thing. And my first filter is always my kids. But I'm very mindful also of the other people around us. And if you can think of also the people you look up to, the people that you see as role models and why are they the role models to you? And then wondering, how can I be that for someone else? I love that. And as usual, one, you mentioned a few things, but why is this particularly important for women in medicine?

One of the topics you just shared is how are we showing up for other women in medicine? And a powerful story from when I worked at a large organization and supervised a physician. She actually role modeled for me. She was, she was so good at volleyball. In college, she was inducted into the hall of fame in Canada where she went to college. And so she had that drive with and that discipline with exercise, something that I struggle with. And that's why I love working with Rod Stanley, my trainer, who we've interviewed a couple times on the show. Because I struggle with that discipline, that showing up without someone to hold me accountable. Suzanne and I had similar age kids and they started karate taekwondo at the local karate for kids center. And my, my son was going there and when she started Going with her family, I thought, well, she's a busy physician. She has young kids just like I do. She has a household to help run. But if she can do it, maybe I can too. And her role modeling was the key factor that helped me decide I'm going to commit to taking taekwondo and actually got my second degree black belt over several years. And her role modeling for me, even though I was her supervisor at the time, helped me show up. And the lessons I learned in karate were so powerful for myself for how I showed up, for how I take input and feedback, for how I parent and was a game changer at leaning into this sport that all of my five family members participated in, and all of us, everyone's either a first degree or a secondary degree black belt with my husband and I and my kids. And it was such a powerful thing. And I'm so grateful that she role modeled for me. That ability that, yes, you can do this. Even as a busy physician mom, I.

Love that we are black belts in this family as well.

Yeah, so powerful. The other piece about why it's so important as women physicians, as I alluded to before, people look up to us as leaders. There can even be somewhat of a power differential, whether you want it to be or not, with your patients, with your staff, with maybe some of your colleagues, especially if you're a leader or a practice owner. And keeping that in mind, that again, those eyes are on you and are you showing up as your best self? Are you having conversations with intention or are they going sideways? Are you getting frustrated at small things? Or are you bringing health and wellness to each conversation that you have, using that pause instead of reactivity? So when I'm talking about wellness, it's not just how are we physically, how are we mentally, how are we emotionally, how are we relationally with those people around us? And I know when I started getting better quality sleep and more of it, because I prioritize my sleep. I've shared this before. When I began meditating on most days or at least 20 days a month, when I began working with a coach, I started showing up differently in every aspect of my life because I was paying more attention to what I needed for holistic wellness. And Joanne was alluding to that in one of our last episodes. If you haven't listened to that as well, and tapping into that, how would my best self show up in these circumstances? Even when you might have been up all night on call, even when you had one calamity after another after another, how can we pour into ourselves as Joanne's talked about with those intentional pit stops, not waiting till the wheels are falling off the bus and it's gone off the road, how can we be intentional about those things that will pour into us so that we are at a high state of overall health and wellness and role modeling? The capacity that you can show up with for those others who are watching you when you pay attention to that.

That'S really important. And I like to think of if we are not intentional, as you're saying, we end up modeling. And I think of this for my models when I was in training, that it's the over functioning, the burnout as a badge of honor, the being quiet as a woman in medicine or a lot of guilt. And instead, from what I hear you say also is if we want to model more of that blueprint of a calmer, sustainable, fulfilling life, then be models more of the balance, rest, boundaries, emotional health, self compassion, all those amazing topics that we've talked about in this podcast and those are the things that we need to really have the awareness to practice for ourselves so that then we can show up for others? It's I think these are, I hear you talk and I'm feeling it in my body of okay, how am I showing up? Even though we do this work, it's so important to be intentional on a regular basis because we forget life happens, we get busy and this work goes to the side. And in having this check ins where we can say, hey, who am I role modeling for right now and how do I show up, like you said, as my best self for myself and those watching, that's so important. Life would be so much better if we were constantly like that. But it's something that's worth putting in the effort. Thank you for bringing all this up. And you mentioned a few tools. What else can we do to be better role models in medicine, especially for wellness, intentionally?

One of the areas that I found helpful is sharing what you're doing because this other physician shared that she was participating in karate with her family. She shared that with me. So I knew that it was possible and it inspired me to consider doing the same. So talk about those wellness practices that you're doing. Joanne and I share those frequently on this podcast because maybe you as our listener are stuck and you're like, oh, I hadn't thought about doing this thing. So we're hoping to put new ideas in front of you. So share what you're finding helpful and helps let that spread like a ripple effect. And even what I see when I Do the group coaching. I love working with my one on one clients and they get to join my group coaching sessions as well. And the magic that happens there is when one of the group clients is working on something they share. I'm struggling with water intake or I did, I took my water in this week or I exercised seven days this week. Those practices start spreading like wildfire to the other members of the group and it's that ripple effect of positivity just by sharing your wins and successes. So that's half of it. The other half is do you need accountability? For me, I do so much better when I work with my personal trainer, Rod Stanley, because he's my accountability guy. He knows that I'm going to show up. I know he's going to be there for me and push me. When I don't have it in myself to do that, don't hesitate to lean in and help somebody. Have somebody else help you where you need more support. And part of that is also the community. So many of my group clients and one on ones are local to me. We started going to the gym where Rod works and now we started creating this ripple effect or hey, are you going to the Saturday workout? Are you going to the Saturday workout? And then we encouraged each other and it made it a lot more fun because we were tapping into the community and being able to share each other's successes. A third area is take one small step. As I've shared, I've been following Ed Mylett. He's one of the coaches in Brendon Burchard's growth day program and he has a book called the Power of one more. And I began listening to it recently and think about what if I got one more rep if I'm doing pushups, what if I got one more hour of sleep? What if I got one more meditation in this week? What if I got one 10 minute walk in during my day? How much might that one thing help you do that you're not doing already? And it's so powerful. You know, we talk about. I'm going to give an example of how I put several of these things together. I have a one on one client who's had a lot of complicated things going on in her life. And so we had a one on one session and I thought I'm like, I'm going kind of basic here but I see that you're stressing out, you're having trouble getting to sleep. Can we just sit and create a game plan? And I shared with her what I'd Heard from Brendan Burchard who's doing these three stretching breaks during the day. And I thought, okay, you're a busy physician yet I think you can find a minute, two minutes, three minutes during your day. Can you plunk in a couple of parasympathetic triggers during your day and see what happens? And so we talked about what you might, what she might do and when she might do it. And so the next day she texts and she says, I hope you've had a good day. I just wanted to let you know that I did a three minute meditation breath break this morning. And then when the day finished, I did a qigong for healthcare workers exercise and it helped. I also went to bed at 10. Here's to the beginning of new recipes. And it just gives me chills thinking. So here I thought, you know, we talk about back to the basics. I spent less than 10 minutes with this client to say, let's figure something out. She implemented and she says, and it helped. So let's not overcomplicate it. One small little change in the recipe of your life might be that one thing that's going to help you start adding those cumulative benefits. And as we always talk about pennies in the bank, every day will eventually add up to a million dollars. That one thing that you choose to do differently today can be that start to your million dollar wellness bank account.

Wow, that's so good. That's like you're taking notes as I hear you talking. It's like this is a moment to pause, rewind and hear it again so that you can write it down. I love that million dollar wellness account. Or rephrasing what you said, so powerful. And the, it adds up sometimes how good we are, as much as we know our perfectionism gets in the way that we sometimes say like, oh that's, that's too simple. That's really not gonna make a difference. And, and it does when we do it consistently, when it helps us have better habits and, and rituals right. And, and we celebrate and, and normalize all this work. This is so, so powerful. And, and again, it's, it's worth summarizing here because whether we like it or not, we are role models. You are a role model for someone for sure in your life. And we need to pay attention to how we're really showing up. What's the presence, what's the energy? What are we doing? What are we preaching that we're not practicing and have that own awareness and that intentionality can make a huge difference. Again, like even imagining that you have a camera behind you, that. That helps me. It's always like, startling almost of, oh, yeah, what would I be doing differently? And love the steps that you gave us because it's. I don't think it's what you would think of automatically, but it could be so powerful when we inspire each other by sharing, Sharing what we're doing. That's good. And then even sharing our struggles in a vulnerable way, but not in that negativity bonding, but more to say, like, what else can we do? And. And what you said, when we share what's inspiring, how it creates that ripple effect of positivity, and of course, we love community and how that helps us with accountability, that's. That makes the biggest difference. I love that. And, and yes, yes, yes to one step, one small thing, one more. Let's not complicate it. And to remember that's how we build that bank account. I love that. I'm going to definitely listen to this and write it down exactly how you said it. Erin, what's one extra nugget here to add to all the wonderful things you've already said?

Just as we would like our patients to pay attention to preventive measures because we don't want negative consequences for their health, when we pour into our wellness bank account, we're not going to go into debt. We're going to have fewer regrets of. I wish I would have started this practice sooner. I wish I would have paid attention instead of ignoring what my body is trying to tell me. And so we will show up with future regrets, fewer regrets if we pay attention today, right now, with. What's that one thing that you, our listener, can commit to starting today so you will not have regrets for the future you.

Mm. Love, love, love, love. And I wanna say thank you to you and thank you to our listener. And if you're here, please stay tuned. Our next episode is coming right up.

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