Productivity Secrets From a NASA Flight Surgeon

Hello, friends, and welcome to Perfect Practice. Today I have a very fascinating guest. I know you are going to love our conversation. In our preliminary conversation, I am so intrigued and excited to share Ann Sung with you. Anne is a medical doctor, and she has a very diverse and interesting background. Very inspiring, actually, because you'll see as we get into this dialogue that she's got a lot to offer to the world. And today our focus is going to be productivity. And what I found interesting about Ann is where we met. So I was speaking at a conference called Limitless md. One of my friends and colleagues, Vikram Raya, was the host. And we had all kinds of different, you know, people with diverse and various backgrounds. And what united all of us who were there is everyone wanted to be a high performer. Everyone wanted to be at the top of their game. Everyone wanted to contribute to society as physicians, but then also contribute to their family and their legacy by creating abundance in their lives. So it's pretty amazing to see the diverse group of individuals all coming together and culminating to be the best version of themselves. So it was kind of like IFM meets Tony Robbins in a way, because it was very driven individuals, and Ann was one of them. And she was just, as you'll see in a moment, just a total rock star. She's got an amazing background. She's a medical doctor. She's a master's in public health. She works in the ICU and in the ER as a physician. She's also a NASA flight surgeon. And that piqued my interest, too, because I'm like, I wonder how some of the most significantly important people on our planet, how they function, what do they do to be productive, because they have the same number of hours in a day that we do. So she's going to bring all of these cool insights and her experiences into this dialogue and conversation. And I'm so gracious and grateful for her offering her time to speak with myself in our community. So, without further ado, Anne, welcome. Thank you for joining me today.

Thank you, Satchin. I really appreciate you inviting me on and just wanted to let the audience know everything that we talk about from here on out. It's my personal opinion, no affiliation with any university or government associations.

I love when you have to have a disclaimer like that. Like that. I think that's the first time we've had such a disclaimer on the podcast, so thank you for being the first. I love it. Um, so tell. Tell me, first of all, like, you just came back from upw. We were talking about that earlier and I'm sure you've been before. So how is this time different than before? So UPW is Tony Robbins event, Unleash the Power Within.

Yeah, it was a four day event and you know, when I first went it was a 27 in 2017, I was just finishing critical care fellowship, so not yet, you know, a full attending. Yeah. Attending an ER and which is just a completely different mindset back then. Haven't started my social media, haven't started my productivity. Empty coaching. Started my Amazon product line. That's what I did during fellowship. And just different, different fears. Working on different fears at that time. Like being afraid to even like post on social media. Working on First UPW. What's got me to completely stop drinking one year later. So I haven't touched alcohol since 2018. And also that's when I realized I was lacking in terms of reconciling with my mom, having a good relationship or at least go through the forgiveness and thank you phase with my mother. This phase, different phase. More established as an attending now working for NASA for the past two and a half years now almost three years. Started my coaching company, social media presence, investing in real estate, have a podcast now. And now I have people that I manage and I have expectations that I realize really to trade for appreciation. And again, more work, even more work with my mother. Even though I've done it before, it requires even more work, which is another story. And then realizing before that was, you know, girlfriend and boyfriend with my now husband and this time with the baby, the second one on the way. Trading those expectations that grew throughout the years into again, unconditional love and feeling that unconditional love one more time. Just like how we were back in 2013-2017 during those dating stages. So very different. Learning through as you go through life.

Yeah. It's like they say that you never step in the same river twice. Right? Because the river is different and you're different. And what a great gift to give to your unborn child. Right. To be able to be in that environment and feel so much love and kind of a recommitment and rekindling of the flames of your relationship. I mean, so important. Right? And something that, you know, we can talk about funnels and productivity and all that stuff all day, but I think that relationship that we have with our parents. Right. Is so huge. That relationship with our significant other, our children born and unborn, I think that's such powerful work. So thank you for sharing that. And I almost forgot you were pregnant, but that's right. You are pregnant currently and this is your second child, right?

Yeah. Yeah. My unborn child was probably like, what is going on? Why am I shaking so much? Because dance a lot at upw. But it was. It was so incredible. Day three of. There's something called the Dickens process, where you shed the belief systems, but then they. He calls them bullshits and then you speak the truth. And there was a physician there who also senses energy, who can see energy, but through sensing. It's very interesting. She said that once every. All 10,000 live attendings shed their BSS and got in sync and spoke their truth and then did the incantation of, you know, I am now I am. The voice she visualizes. She could sense like every. All the hearts and all 10,000 were coherent beating coherently. And she just thought that that was really powerful. I thought it was powerful just because I could sense it was powerful, that there was a shift to energy. But it was so interesting that she sensed it.

Yeah. It's amazing what happens when a collection of people come together with the desire to elevate however they're showing up in the world and shed those limiting beliefs that hold us back and step into really a new life. You almost feel reborn after you go to an event like that. So for those people who are listening who haven't been, I think it's one of those things you have to go at least once. I don't know how much longer Tony's going to be doing this, but as long as he's doing it, it's definitely a great investment in yourself.

Yeah, Absolutely agree. If you haven't gone, look at the dates coming up. Go live. You won't regret it. Change our trajectory. It's back in 2017 and our lives were never the same after.

I think I went in 20. Were you in Chicago?

It was New Jersey.

Okay. So we were in at the same time. Amazing. I love hearing that. So we highly recommend it to those that are tuned in who haven't been. And even if you've been again going the second time, almost sounds just as powerful, not more powerful because of we're in different stages in our lives and, you know, different challenges might be popping up for us and different breakthroughs might be available to us as well. You said something that you kind of glossed over, but I wanted to bring to everyone's attention. You said you started a business while you were in residency. Did I hear that correctly?

Yeah, I was in fellowship. Amazon product.

What was your first product on Amazon?

It was. I don't have an. But it was a umbrella. But it's an inverter umbrella. I don't know if you've seen an inverter umbrella.

I have an inverter umbrella.

Oh, okay. So the handle, I attached a cup holder to it. So when you're holding something, you know, your umbrella, you just put your drink there so you don't need to rummage around or have extra hands. It just basically holds your drink there for you. And there was an inspiration from the four hour work week. So I was like, okay, let me do a product and you know, just doing things at like 5am contacting, you know, Alibaba, and then just before I get to the fellowship at 6am, just micro steps during that time. And I finally launched during my fellowship, sold them out, made a few more orders and I decided, I think I went traveling at that time. So I just let it sell out and that was it.

That's amazing. I. I almost want to go buy one. I don't know if, I don't know if they still sell those or not. But what inspired you to start that business? I mean, I'm sure you had a ton on your plate. Did your, do you come from a line of entrepreneurs or where does it, where does that drive for entrepreneurship come from?

No, I think the, the inspiration, well, came from Tim Ferriss and then, you know, other people talking about Amazon. But the inspiration at that time and the motivation was fear. Fear of not going back to how we were before. Since my mom and I were immigrants from Taiwan. We moved here when we were nine years. I was nine years old. And then so they were divorced since I was a baby. So she was a single mom initially working as a server at Chinese restaurants, ihop, various other places. Seven days a week sometimes, or she would take late night shifts till 2am and a few times, one time she definitely got robbed. And a few, one more time was a close call. And I just saw how difficult it was and how heartbreaking it was to lose those tips of like, I don't know, less than $50 probably the whole entire night. And so. And also growing up with the shame that we were poor and you know, we didn't have like initially when we first moved, we didn't have a dining table. So we would have a big cardboard box and just flipped it upside down. That was my dining living room table. So like the shame and like, you know, having my rich friend's mom dropping me off at my apartment and it looks like shabby. So the motivation stemmed from fear Initially, and need for security, certainty, probably significance because of that.

Interesting. It's so fascinating to me, like, what. What challenges people had growing up. And it seems like those with. Those that face, like, the most significant hardships are. Are the ones that seem to come out on the other end. It's like maybe they develop a set of muscles. You know, you talked about fear, but I. I would say. And maybe. Maybe we can talk about this, but beyond fear, there. There's also something there. There might be, and I don't even know what it's called, but an emotion that just kind of drives you, right, that. That inspires you to take action. And a common theme that I hear from the most productive and successful people is this triumph from something, you know, tragic or very challenging. It's almost like you develop a set of muscles or a mental callus or a physical callus that allows you to. To. To step into things and. And take action and. And do it. Even though you're scared, you still do it. It's like, I think they say, fe fear is being scared and doing it anyways. So I don't know if there's anything you'd like to add to that, but if there was anything else that drove you, I'd love to. I'd love to hear about it.

Yeah. Yeah. Because failure was not an option. You know, we talk about that. NASA, too. Failure, just not an option, I think. You know, my mom depended me to succeed, and I felt like the weight was on my shoulders, and it was just her and I. So, you know, she wanted me to be a physician or a lawyer. Decide on a physician, because it is the one profession where you can help people every day. Whoever you see, never mind. You know, the hospital systems, administration, paperwork, everything. But if you really put your presence into it, see the patient, you can't help them. And I think it's also stemmed from. She's always very resourceful. She is. She. She started her own business back in Taiwan, a CPA business. She is not afraid to be alone. She doesn't depend on. Doesn't need a man to depend on. She always thinks that she can do anything she wants. And so probably a little bit of the courage, you know, fear plus action equals courage. A little bit. A lot of that stemmed from growing up and modeling her and seeing her own mindset of what she's been able to do, you know, no matter what, I'm gonna take my daughter here, work as much as I can, do whatever I need to do. And now she started working in the clinic at the front desk got a CRNA license. So like, okay, not crna see, CNA license. And then she's like, okay, I'm gonna go do a massage. Got a massage license. Like, okay, I'm gonna go open my own massage store. So she just opened her own massage store. So now she owns a massage store. She won't outsource, she won't hire. That's okay. She's better than she was before.

Well, what a wonderful full circle moment for your whole family. I love that.

Yeah.

Thanks for sharing.

Yeah, of course.

So I know that we really want to talk about productivity and help create efficiency for people. And there's so many things that suck our time these days, you know, so whether it's social media or, you know, kind of that never ending inbox or, you know, shopping on Amazon, whatever the case may be, there's like, we're just so distracted these days and you know, you might have better stats on this, but I feel like productivity levels have actually gone down significantly. And I feel like what because we live in a digital era now versus working on an assembly line mean some people still do and we're grateful for that. But because we live in a digital era, our time can be leveraged so differently. Right. With tools and automations and media and so on and so forth. So I'd love to hear some of the, you know, some of the challenges that you find practitioners but even people face that waste and suck a lot of their time each day. What are some of the common mistakes or common pitfalls of productivity for people?

Yeah, I would say, you know, from talking to the physicians, entrepreneurs or just physicians in general who are clients. The most common thing is mindset and being intentional with what you want to do, not having clarity of your goals, of your vision. And why are you even doing things that you're doing right now? I would say that's like the most important thing to address before you can be productive. And when I'm talking about productive, I don't mean productive in work, being productive in your whole entire life. Are you productive with your kids? As in are you intentional in spending time with them with presents and planning out things that create beautiful memories together? And are you productive with their spouse where you're intentional with your date nights or even appreciating him or asking him or her what kind of hobbies or anything they would like to learn? Or is there anything they would like to attend, like a sports event and be intentional? So I usually have my clients go through like a life vision of where they want to be like when they're 85, 95 with full vitality and mental capacity. Then we come up with the five goals for the year, and then we take a look at what they're doing and eliminate all the things that don't contribute to those five goals. And then the night before, you set three top three top priorities. Oh, and we do the why, like seven levels of why. Once you have a really strong why, then you will. You're more likely to distraction proof your day so you can complete those top three priorities. You set those top three priorities that move the needle and those five goals the night before. And then the next morning you do whatever it takes to distraction proof your environment with various tech and software or physical barrier to your tech sometimes to get that done. So that's like a rough framework.

Okay, do you have a lockbox for your phone? Is that what you're referring to?

In the beginning, when I needed it, I would just. Whenever I needed to do deep work, my phone would be outside in the dining room when I sleep. I never take my phone in, or I take my work phone in, which doesn't have anything distracting on it. Put it on airplane mode so there's no connection or Bluetooth or anything and just the alarm and that's it. But most time, personal phone is always outside the bedroom.

Yeah, those are huge. Right? And then one of the things I'll just call myself out on this is, uh, I was guilty of us taking my phone in the bathroom and that, you know, once I stopped doing that, I was like, oh my God, like I have, like, even if it's just like an extra 10 minutes, it's 10 minutes that I could be doing yoga or breath work or, you know, now I can make my own coffee. Right. Like, like there's so many things that can suck up your day and it's these little micro habits. So setting ourselves up for success in that regard, I think is huge. I think one of the things that I don't even know if you have this or not, but you know, having social media on our phone can be like a such a huge distraction as well. And they, you know, obviously you know this as a productivity expert, but they have, you know, social engineers, attention engineers that keep us sucked in. So we've got to understand that that's happening and then not try to fight it, but try to eliminate it from our periphery. Right. So it's not even there for us to access.

Yeah, I think a really important thing. We could talk a little bit about tech and how to do that. I've grayscaled my phone. So my phone, it's called dopamine desensitization, so I grayscaled it. So you don't, you're not really attracted to the colors. So. And then it's pretty clean. The first homepage, it doesn't have any messaging, doesn't have any social media. All the text, email and everything is in that one category called inbox. And they're batch checked like maybe a few times a day. And for my personal phone, not my business phone, I have no badges showing anywhere, no notifications, nothing dropping down, nothing in my lock screen. It's just clean, fresh. I just check when I want to. So ever since, so I took a class from Steve Kotler, the flow expert, you can be 500x more productive if you get hacked into flow state. These tech implementations, at least on my phone and also my laptop has been like instrumental, like I cannot, I absolutely cannot fathom how people can get anything done with multiple vibrations. Lock screens drop down. Sometimes when I download an app and accidentally have it turned it off, it irritates me whenever I see it. So you're right. There's teams of people there engineering this to get your attention. And it's hard for you to fight it unless you do something massive and drastic, which is turn off your notification. Just let it go.

Yeah. I'm curious now if you've recorded a video that documents the process of how to turn all that stuff off and how to set the grayscale feature up.

I will put a link of the grayscale in the resource list. The notification, you just go to notification settings and literally off, off, off, off, off, off, off. They just setting a shortcut. Three clicks, it turns it back to color. If you have like videos and photos and the three clicks, it's back to grayscale. And you know, it just makes your phone boring. And then it's simple biochemistry. Once you don't secrete, you're not secreting all the dopamine anymore. Your receptors start going down and you don't need more and more. Like you like cocaine?

Basically, yeah, you know, I, I did that. My phone turns red. So I have it like this. And, and so then there's, there's, it's great when the, the sun goes down because there's no blue light coming off of it. And so very similar. Like you don't even like looking at it when it's like that. When it's monochromatic like that, it's like, oh, this is like weird to look at. So it serves its purpose when it needs to. Right. If the phone rings, I can still see it, but I'm not. It's. It's not like those jelly beans, those like digit, like visual jelly beans that you're reaching for. Right. Because the colors they use, the contrast levels they use, all of that stuff is very specifically designed to, to draw you into it. Right. They want you reaching for that phone as much as possible.

Yeah, the badges, you know, the red circles, the best thing is to take it away. But if it's a black and white, it's like, okay, whatever.

Yeah, it doesn't get your attention. Right. So what are some of your, like you talked about, you know, things that we can do to our phone and you, you kind of briefly mentioned like different apps and productivity hacks. Are there others that you can offer that you think would be helpful?

Uh, yeah, I could talk a little bit about some of the things you can install and maybe we can talk about some more common issues which has to really do with mindset. Um, so yeah, with the tech, if you have Gmail and Chrome, use Chrome to access your Gmail. I would download the extension inbox. When ready, I will have this link as well into the product resource list, productivity resource list. So it basically when you log into Gmail, it shows blank. It's just like no email. You don't see any emails. So you can compose, you can find the email you need to respond to as part of your top three priorities. Those are the important reach outs or asks that will actually move the needle of your five goals. And then you will not get distracted by all the other people's requests of you, but doesn't move any of your five goals at all. So when you're ready, then you press show inbox and you back check and then everything shows up. But you've already done your top three. You already done. You've already done your most important request of the day. So that's okay. Another thing is unroll me is also another thing I downloaded for Chrome where subscribe to a lot of things. What it does is that with each email and you know there are other websites where it scans through your email and then you know, you can press enroll unenroll batch, do that. But then sometimes you still don't catch them all. Enroll me. There's a icon that shows up by each promo email. You just click it to one click unsubscribe and it will pop up. Um, do you want to delete all prior emails from this Company so not only unsubscribes you, but gets rid of all of your junk. But I've also seen people, if you guys have like 31,000 emails or even 3,000 emails from like the past two years, just start fresh. You're not going to ever go back to look at those emails. Just delete them all, take away the badges and then start fresh. Just like people who keep journals for like two, three years, medical journals, and think they're going to go back to read it. That's not going to happen. Just start fresh. If on your desktop, same thing, notifications and email. Those like things that pop into your screen, all those are distractions, just turn it off. And if you have a messy desktop, create a folder, name it, mess. Drag everything on your desktop into that mess folder. If you have the anxiety of not wanting to lose things and just organize it later. But this, at least now you'll have a clean desktop. So those are some of the, I would say tech distraction proof. And then you leave. If you really can't, you know, get distracted by phone, you leave your phone outside of your work area and don't check it. Do a promodoro technique, maybe 25 minutes on flow, 5 minutes off. If you're really good, you flow for 60 minutes deep work and then you go check your phone. So it's like trying to address that internal trigger of wanting to check something. Or if you need to check something, just write it, write it down. So that you said after I finish these like Items for the 25 minutes, I could do this and this and this on my phone. So those are some of the tech stuff and the regarding other limited mindset it is usually I could do it better than people. So I don't want to outsource. I don't have a manual to give to others. It's too much to train them. Other things are I'm afraid that my identity is going to be stolen by an assistant or I don't know how to hire people. I don't have time to do it. So in general, it's limited mindset. Most people will blame their circumstances. Other people, like my husband won't let me hire because he doesn't believe in spending money on hiring people when we can do cleaning and cooking ourselves. Or the third thing is we, you know, think it's ourselves. We can't do it. I can't do it. So the three most common limited mindsets that'll prevent you from spending time with your kids, with presence, so that you're not Stressed out having date nights with your husband? Create another six figure business. Create financial freedom, generational wealth. So that's the cost of inaction.

Yeah. You know, you bring up a good point because my wife and I, we, we hired a cleaning person and we're so grateful she comes and cleans our place up. And my wife, she always felt responsible for that, that duty, even though we've split up the task. But it would always just be something that's, I got to do this, I got to mop the floors, I got to do that. And I never really think about it until it's time to do it. But she thinks about it, you know, constantly. It feels like almost. And once we, we, we hired a, a lovely lady to clean our home for us. She looks forward to it. And yesterday we were kind of, we were kind of joking around. She's like telling my son, devin, clean up your desk. The cleaning lady's coming tomorrow. So you, so you. It's still like, it's still something she thinks about because she's like thinking about what the cleaning lady is going to think about cleaning up for us. But we keep our place pretty clean. I love feng shui. I don't know if you apply any of those concepts with your clients, but.

Well, not with my clients, but I have hired feng shui experts for my own home. Yes.

Yeah. And feng shui, for those of you that may not be familiar, is an ancient, basically art they use in the east. In, in India they have something called Vastu shastra, which is very similar. And it's the positioning of objects yourself in relationship to the mouth of chi, which is where energy comes, the positioning of the sun. All of those things are taken into account to create the optimal space and set up for people. And I found that makes a huge difference, like a big one from a productivity standpoint because for us to be in flow, we have to be in a relaxed state, right? Like a alert yet relaxed state versus being like, you know, stressed and alert. And so a big one that I find is, is with the positioning of the door in the room. And a lot of times people, depending on how the room setup is and their desk is set up, their back will be facing the door. And that keeps our nervous system in this kind of low grade state of stress because it's wondering what's behind me. And so if you can't change the positioning of your desk, then a great tool could be to put a mirror on your desk so you can see the door. So that just kind of instantly kind of calms your nervous system down as well. So nobody can surprise you from behind, so to speak.

Yeah, it's the power position. That's why the wall is behind me and there's double doors right in front of me. Same thing in the restaurant. You want to sit in a power position too, when you can see the door and then also your bedroom against the, against the wall behind you and then so you could see the, the door, whoever's coming in. So yeah, it's, it's a very similar. And everything is kind of like twos or equal round, not sharp. Kind of create that energy flow in, in the house. So just. There's a lot of science that goes into Ed. Clutter is a huge thing.

So right.

You have clutter. Your, your mind is just like subconsciously cluttered and distracted and that energy can't float either. So yeah, lots, lots of things to do. Lots of things you can do in your workspace to kind of increase your productivity.

Yeah. You know, as is the microcosm, so is the macrocosm. So, you know, we have a lot of distractions outside of us. It's. We're fighting our biology not to be distracted by them. Right. And that takes energy away from the tasks that we want to go deeply into. I'd love to, I'd love for you to share where, you know, when, when people think of productivity, they think of doing more. And I think it's, and maybe you can correct me here, to me it sounds like it's about getting more done but not necessarily doing more. And, and so the analogy that I shared with you earlier, it's like we're trying to put ten pounds of stuff in a five pound bag and it just doesn't fit. So I'd love for you to talk about perhaps where does getting rid of stuff first? I mean, maybe I answer my own question, but is it, do we need to get rid of stuff first or do we need to become, you know, add more stuff to our plate? Like where, where do we start? Because some people are like, oh my God, I've got all these things to do now. I've got to do this, this, this and this. Like where, where can people start?

Yeah, I think the very first thing, there's various tactics, but the first thing is to figure out your whys. Seven levels of whys. You just keep asking why this is important to you. So for example, I was talking to somebody like, why do you want to, I don't know, invest in real estate? Oh, because, you know, people retire, you know, during this, and then it's the one avenue to do it. And you also need a good credit score. So I need to like save up. But like, why? Why do you care? You just keep going. In the end, she realized is actually she wants to do all these things because she wants to go travel and she doesn't want to retire when she can't do anything anymore. She doesn't want, you know, have lost the vitality. She wants to be able to have the ability to retire and to travel, have the freedom to travel. So once you get to that level of why now you get to your five goals. Once you get to your five goals, then you look at every single thing that you're doing now. Is it moving the needle towards your five goals, towards your life vision, or is it not? If it's not, eliminate it. So the first step is elimination. With the Eisenhower matrix, I use that quite a bit. Number well, going back a little bit to the five goals, that's the main way of focusing. Because when I say five goals, it doesn't mean five business goals. When I say five goals, most commonly the first one is yourself, Your own health, your mindset, your vitality. Number two, if you have kids, it's your kids. Number three, if you have a significant other, they don't get lumped in with your kids, their separate category. So we often put them together like, oh, they're good. They're like status quo and like automated. It's fine. Which is like the routine. It's not, it's not intentional. So really the top three is already taken up. So you really have two more goals for the year. You only have enough bandwidth for creating something or keeping up something new in your business. So then that's really the focus. Anybody who wants to do real estate, coaching, et cetera, those are your focus. And then we use the Eisenhower matrix quite a bit. If you ever feel overwhelmed, you can look it up how you know the quadrant. But essentially you want to eliminate as much as possible. And not just social media and mindless netflixing, but those things that well. And you want to delegate as much as possible. So the things that still need to be done, you delegate it out to people who can do it better or who can take things off your plate. So if you're a physician, say average salary is 200 hours, 200 an hour, you're not spending $200 doing your laundry and folding your laundry or cooking or something like that. And then you want to automate with tech as much as possible. So it essentially doesn't leave like frees up your mental bandwidth so you can work in your zone of genius. And I would say the zone of genius is where it is the important, not urgent quadrant. There's a lot that goes into what should go into that. You know, different quadrants, but important, not urgent quadrant are things that move the needle in your top five goals. And very few things go into the urgent and important quadrant. I consider those things more medical emergencies, family emergencies, or if you're a physician at work, then your patients. So the delegation is a huge, huge part I 10x my productivity after I had my first baby because I got really good at delegating everything out. So I was able to underwrite, you know, two multi unit properties. They didn't work out, but you know, my husband and I, you know, postpartum, six months, underwrote two properties, got under contract and everything, bought our primary home, grew my social media, grew my coaching, all six months postpartum. When you're supposed to have, you know, more no time. So that's due to delegation. And I would, I want to say it takes a mindset change to begin delegating. You can't be stuck in the past. You know of your own fears of, or maybe you've had a VA before and you're like, that didn't work out, so I don't want to hire another one. You could be stuck before, so that means you will never change. So you know, it must be like, you know, for change to happen, it has to change now because you reach emotional threshold, like you're not spending enough time with your kids, you're not growing in your other ventures, you're not investing, you're not creating generational wealth. You can't retire. So it must change and you must change now. And you, and you must believe that you can change now. So I guess today when you listen to this podcast episode, you make a decision now. Are you going to stay in the old identity, the old story, the, you know, believe, the limiting belief that you tell yourself, or you just create a line and you step over and take a risk and take action and step into the new identity so that you can create a different future for yourself. So that's what I would say for those people with the mindset of I am not able to outsource because I can do it better or I can't do it because I don't know how to manage people. If you can't be a physician and learn from zero knowledge to becoming a physician, you can learn anything and you manage A ton of people at your work already in the hospital. And another thing I'll say about mindset, it's not about the knowledge and skills that you currently have, but it's the mindset of knowing that you will get everything done because you have all the resources that you need. This is a similar mindset of the astronauts that I worked with. They come from different backgrounds of pilot engineers, scientists, etc. And they all have different skill sets and knowledge and converge to learn even more. Different skill sets and knowledge. All right, like robotics, like piloting a space vehicle, etc. Like how to conduct the science, how to like run DNAs. And like it's, it's not something like we, we learn unless you like you're working the lab. They all have the common mindset that they can do anything because they're resourceful. They're very humble as well. They're not arrogant. They're very, very good people, very nice, very open, warm hearted. And then number three, they are not afraid to ask for help. They know that there are experts in various fields that they're learning and they're not afraid to work as a team and ask for help. So those are the three and they, they're very courageous as well. So they take action. They, they, they know their goal and they know their why and they take action and risks and they ask for help. And then they're not going to say, well, I'm afraid so I don't delegate or I'm afraid I'll ask for help or I'm afraid, no, the belief is it's already done. Whatever I want to do, it's done. Just consider it done. So that's why I want to share this kind of long.

No, that's, that's wonderful. You know, as you're sharing that and as, as I'm reflecting, I'm wondering how much of our inability to delegate comes from our parents modeling that to us. So I didn't share this with you, but my parents owned a motel growing up and my father bought it after he turned 50. So it was like almost like a second wind for him in his life. And they would not outsource anything, even the front desk. Like they would, they would work like every position from the cleaning person to the front desk to the accountant to the, you know, the person that runs to the bank and the person that places the order. They did everything. And you know, I can see how for some people that would model this idea that you've got to do everything. For me, it actually probably did the same thing that you're saying is that for me is like, oh, I don't want to live my life like that. So it was like a case study of what not to do as opposed to a case study of what to do. But thankfully, I had the foresight to kind of look past that, but some people don't, so they kind of take on the burden of. Like my wife, for example. Her mom places such a great emphasis on being a good home, you know, homemaker, if you will. Right. So she takes pride in. In my wife, Deepa, being. Being great at those things. So when Deepa wanted to hire a housekeeper, she almost felt guilty. She felt like she's betraying her mom or letting her mom down because she's not able to, you know, not that she's not able to, but she's delegating that task to somebody else. So I don't know if you can speak into that a little bit and if. If you've seen that at all in your clients.

Yeah, I think a lot of immigrant clients have the same mentality. You, why do things. Why. Why pay other people to do things where you can do it yourself? Essentially, what is. It's. It's just like, why my mom doesn't hire additional massage therapists and would rather do massages on her own at 65? Because of that exact same reason. It's like, you know, giving out 50%. It's like money stolen from them. Instead of looking at the big picture, like, what is the cost of inaction? What is, like, how little are you playing? You know, how much? How little are you playing? By staying small, this is staying small, and you have the ability to reach more people with what you're. To reach more people with what you're doing, to scale up by delegating. So the cost of inaction could be lost time with their kids, lost time with their husband. If you have a message that you want to spread but you're too busy, or you have a medical skill that is really important, a new tech or an invention idea in your head. But if you're too busy with the little things, that's not in your zone, genius. And you're afraid of delegating, then think about all the other people who are going to be at a loss because of your own fears. And, and you're right. You know so much of it, I think it's probably from generation, from, you know, modeling, from fear. It's from fear because you want certainty and you want stability. So without it, then it's the Unknown. So I think it just stop, cross over that line, break the pattern.

Yeah, it's almost like, you know, my, my parents and I love them more than anything. So this, this is more, you know, hopefully instructive for people. You know, they would just, it was almost like a sign of weakness to hire somebody else. And anytime they saw somebody idle and not working, like the front desk person, they're just supposed to sit there until somebody walks in. Like they're not going to start like doing the accounting paperwork and all the stuff that the owner might do if there's downtime. Right. Because for the owner there's no downtime. And, and then they would just be like, oh, that person's not doing anything, so I'll just take their job. Right. Because they're not doing anything anyways. And it just like all of a sudden like all the tasks fall on you. And, and so I think for a lot of practitioners, especially those that are just starting out, you know, I know a lot of people in our audience are just starting out, so they're that solopreneur and so they're reluctant to hire because sometimes they don't have the income coming in just yet. But that could be the breakthrough that they need so that they could do more income generating activities instead of things that are just sucking up their time and making them, you know, not as productive. I've also found, and, and maybe, maybe you've discovered this as well, is that this is, this is me personally, is that when I don't want to do something, I will do something productive, but not the thing that I need to do. So I might need to, you know, build something online. And instead of doing that, I'll go wax my car, which to me is still productive. I'm still working, I'm checking off a lot of the boxes and to me it's a meditative process, but I don't know if you can speak to that, like how do people use distraction and things like that and maybe perfectionism as an excuse to not put themselves out there or get things done.

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. It takes discipline and practice, really practice to build a habit to do the hard things first or the things they don't want done first. And then later on after you get into the habit when you're trying to. So the night before, usually I decide the top three priorities and if there's one and I write it like step one, step two, step three, they're numbered in priorities, the steps. And I know exactly which was number one when I see a task and I'm like, I don't want to do it. Like, it's not something I'm looking forward to, and that's number one. So I don't know if that answers your. Your question. And then people, yes. Like, they are using busy work, the things that don't move the needle, as their top three priority. When I say top three priority is things that are moving the needle of your five goals for the year. And then the leftover time, then you go do it in the afternoon, then you go do those busy work items that still maybe needs to get done. But, you know, you have that golden hour of productivity in the morning. That is when you use it for any sort of deep work, for creation, for underwriting a property, for looking at your expenses, et cetera. Those things.

Yeah, I think Brian Tracy calls that eating the frog. So it's the, the thing that you don't want to do the most is probably the, the thing that you need to get done and probably the thing that will move the needle the most as well. Either, you know, creating new business or, or closing a door or, you know, whatever it is. It's. It's your avoid the obstacle is the way, as they say. So just get out there and, and get it done. And if you can do it first thing in the morning and you tackle that hard thing first thing in the morning. Kind of like a cold shower. Right. If you do a cold shower first in the morning, the rest of the day seems pretty easy. So if you can fire off that email or check that task off your list that you've been putting off, you already feel like you've tackled like 50% of the day.

Yeah. And the one quick thing I'll say is if you probably don't want to do it, it's probably because it's too big. Like, it's not chunked down enough. So, like, find a property. Okay, why don't. What about, like, reach out to three agents in the morning and tell them what I'm looking for and start a deal funnel? Yeah, that's maybe better. Or find a property. Okay. Research San Antonio market for this, this and this for 30 minutes. That's a little bit more specific. So chunk it down, List out all the steps that you have to do to reach that goal, and then whatever you can do in 30 minutes, that's how much you chunk it down. And maybe that'll seem a little less daunting because maybe because the lack of clarity or how make that task seem impossible is giving you the discomfort and not wanting to do it.

I love that. And this has been a very fascinating conversation and I, I know we can keep chatting. I'd love for people to know where they can learn more about you and where they can connect with you to. To see if working with you might be the right fit or following you might be the right fit. Where can we send people?

Yeah, they can go to productivitymd.com on there. There's the podcast page. You can follow me there. It's right now. It's called it's not rocket science show. We are transitioning to ProductivityMD. But if you go to ProductivityMD.com you can book a 30 minute coaching discovery call with me through Calendly. You can also, you know, follow me on social media, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube. It's Ansung T S U u n G M D across all social media. And that's a n n note E so I will also send you guys in the show notes. You can put in a productivity MD resource list of things. I use the planner, I use the va, you know, recruiting agency via task list, house manager task list, things I use for vitality, et cetera. One thing about the va, about the cost really quick, it's not. People think it's a lot. I hire my first VA from Philippines for $3 an hour. So would you pay $3 an hour to somebody to save you, you know, that hour? Because your hourly rate is like 200. If you're a physician, it's not 3 anymore. If you want a good quality one, it's probably 4 or 5. Currently I pay 10 for my assistant, but she is like 10x the productivity. So just wanted to share that out there.

Amazing. Thank you so, so much and so grateful and appreciative of our budding friendship. And here's to productivity for all. We all need more and it allows us to give more, serve more and you know, be our best selves. So thank you again, Ann. I appreciate you and we'll be sure to share all the links that you shared with us in the show notes as well.

Thank you, Sachin. It's been a pleasure, super fun and I am super excited to see what your journey takes you as well because I've learned a lot from you regarding health and mouth taping as well. Thank you.

Awesome. My pleasure. Have a wonderful rest of your day.

All right, you too. Thank you.

Bye.