#10 podcast swift success final 070424
===
[00:00:00] As you navigate these early years of your career, stand tall in your worth and remember, you've earned your place here. Don't worry about those who can't yet understand your value and contribution. Your voice matters in medicine. Your journey is uniquely yours.
Are you a physician who's looking to build your career and be recognized nationally, but is having trouble getting on the program or getting your articles published? Are you having difficulty finding mentors and coaches to help you get ahead quickly? Well, don't spin your wheels or lose out on your personal life.
This is the podcast for you. I'm Stacey Ishman, and I'm the host of the Medical Mentor Coaching Podcast. I'm a full professor who's built clinical research and administrative programs while mentoring and coaching young academic physicians from medical school through their first ten years of practice.
It was not long ago I was in the same boat as many of you, struggling to be known for my area of expertise, feeling like my contributions were lost in the shuffle, and unsure how to advance my career. I spent a lot of time juggling tasks that didn't quite align with my goals, or didn't or bring me any joy.
And I [00:01:00] missed out on a lot of precious moments with my family. But I've had my aha moment, and now I'm all about channeling my energy into activities that truly propel me forward and bring me happiness. Please join me on the Medical Mentor Coaching Podcast as we dive into all things career advancement, finding your niche, and working towards that elusive work life integration.
I don't know if you've ever been to a Taylor Swift concert, but I had the opportunity to attend a show at Wembley Stadium a few weeks ago. Now, in all truthfulness, I'm not even a big Taylor Swift fan. I'm definitely not a Swiftie. I mean, I'm not even sure I could have said I was a fan before I went. But I was excited to see the woman, the myth, the legend.
I mean, I might have only known the lyrics to a few songs, but the 90, 000 people around me who sang all of them sure knew the heck out of them. And it was really impressive to watch this woman make a room of 90, 000, mostly women, feel seen. Honestly, it reminded me of starting off in academic medicine.
This is a smart, enthusiastic woman who's connected with her audience or her [00:02:00] clients, or for us, our patients, who's been taken advantage by the system, but is resilient and creative and driven. And good Lord, could she change an outfit quickly? It was like one of us was trying to switch out of our scrubs in order to get quickly to clinic or really to get quickly out of the hospital.
But I'll also tell you, like us, she must be a great listener because she's a great storyteller. When she talked about her process or as I listened to her song lyrics, it really made me think about the job that we do. We tell stories to our patients. Here's what I've done before. Here's how I can make you better.
Here's what you're telling me and how it fits into a pattern. We're pattern experts. But if you can't tell the story so that somebody understands how our ability to fit those pieces together is going to help, we're not doing any good.
And so I when I looked at this woman and her stories and her connections, I thought she'd make a great physician and can make me a better one too.
When I go to Grand Rounds, the presentations I enjoy the most are those that tell a story, not jumping from one topic to another. But building on the models of talk like this, I [00:03:00] created my own, on how to present an evidence base. And for me, the area of focus is pediatric sleep apnea. So in it, I tell the journey of how I had a theory, and I did a study, and it helped me learn if something was right or it was wrong, and this led me to my next question, which I then did a study about, or I looked at the literature and I found, you know, some, some other evidence.
And it helped me shift to something else, or pivot, or move along with an original theory. But it was all about how I worked my way through a journey.
And as I sat in this concert, it was a journey.
She took us from her first album to her most recent album. And to be honest, I haven't even heard her most recent album before this, but it hit me that she's got some of the exact attitude we need to be carrying forward.
I think unless you've been living in a cave, you've probably heard the song Shake It Off. It's one of her most widely known and maybe one of the most useful ones for us to think about because it's really about shaking off the hard stuff and moving forward. It's almost exactly like the topic of podcast eight, which was titled Be a Goldfish, about acknowledging the negative and learning from it, but [00:04:00] letting go and moving forward, not sitting in that negativity.
And to me, that's exactly what Shake It Off is about. As we all know, rejection is part of the process of academic medicine. Maybe you didn't get promoted as quickly as you wanted, maybe your grant proposal or abstract wasn't chosen, or your latest manuscript didn't get accepted. And good lord, if all of yours have been accepted, please DM me, because mine have not.
But there's all kinds of things that will feel like rejection. I mean, my advice isn't even taken by all my patients. Sometimes they choose another plan, or another doctor. And if anybody has children, or a significant other, I can tell you, absolutely, my advice is rejected on a regular basis at home.
So when I think about it, it really reminds me of the idea of the goldfish.
Quickly move past things, move past the negative, encourage learning and resilience.
Another song I think serves us well, but was not sung that night to be honest, is our song entitled Long Live, which is about celebrating our victories, and it's something we absolutely need to do more of. No matter how small, I think we need to take the time every [00:05:00] day, every meal, every evening, whatever time is the right reflection time for you, to celebrate our wins.
Maybe a patient did really well, or a paper got accepted, or your hair just looks great today. You know, all those things are things we should enjoy. They should make us feel good. We deserve to feel good. I mean, maybe my child actually talked to me for two minutes.
I was on a plane recently with one of my children, and we actually were going to watch a movie together. Now, I wanted to watch Aquaman Returns, which he thinks is terrible, well Rotten Tomatoes said it was terrible, and I might have a thing for Jason Momoa, so I wanted to see it. But, you know, stuck on a plane for a whole bunch of hours. He sat there and he said, okay, let's watch it. And he hit both movies at the same time.
And we spent two hours interacting back and forth, good scene, bad scene, interesting scene, you know, mom, you're pathetic, but I got two hours of time from him, which to me, gosh, might be my winner for the month. But I really do think it's useful to include these moments, include your personal life, include your work life, the little [00:06:00] and the big stuff, because we need those ones.
And it really does reroute your brain, so you start focusing on the positive. And it's great to do with your kids, or your friends, or your colleagues, or your spouse.
Now the next thing I want to highlight, and was sung that night, is Ready For It. That's another one I think a lot of us may have heard, and it's about approaching new challenges with confidence.
And there's a lot of things we're going to do in our careers which we may not have felt full confidence for at the beginning. Whether you're starting a new job or trying a new procedure, it may be as simple as walking into a social gathering. I get social anxiety in those cases. But one of the things I've learned to do is embrace the discomfort.
And that is not easy.
But if you can think of the discomfort as something different, it's not just, I feel bad, but I have an opportunity to learn from this. If it's somehow a way you can move in a direction you really want to go, that's great. I really encourage it.
You have probably heard people talk back and forth about how this feeling of discomfort is really your primitive brain and fight or flight.
It's telling you there's a tiger running in the room, run the other direction, but we all know there's no tiger. [00:07:00] No one's really going to chew me alive at the social event that I'm walking into. It just feels uncomfortable.
So if you can overcome that, let yourself sit in that discomfort. It's so enlightening to realize you can move on to the next thing.
I can learn. I can network. I can meet somebody new. And the next time I go in there. It's maybe not so scary.
The other thing to realize is this discomfort is probably an event that we could also be recognizing as excitement, if you look at the positive side of that same emotion. So if you can work to sit in that discomfort a little, you can also work to rewire your brain to see if some of that excitement side more.
Well, that was not well said, but what I'm trying to say is take the time to feel a little uncomfortable so that you can get to the place where you see excitement for things that are all about learning, but maybe brand new.
Regardless, I think it's all about being open to opportunities to learn and grow, and I strongly encourage you to be ready for it.
The last thing I want to talk about is You Need to Calm Down. It's really a manifesto for self [00:08:00] worth. Our message here is that your judges don't necessarily understand your circumstances, and your worth isn't determined by the perceptions of others. It's also a great reminder to me that the real prize is taking the time to understand each other.
Just as importantly, I appreciate that it champions setting boundaries and not allowing others to affect your confidence or self worth.
At the beginning of my career, and honestly even today as I try and balance my clinical and administrative schedules, setting boundaries is a bear for me. While I'm less likely to have guilt for not having patient availability, I struggle with wanting to support my colleagues with my time as much as I can.
At the same time, I want to be sure I don't sacrifice my well being and the time I fought to carve out with my family and my loved ones.
Now in this song, there's a line that's snakes and stones never break my bones. Who doesn't need a reminder that gossip and unfair criticism can sting, but don't define you, your capabilities or your potential.
And while I don't want to go too deep into my newfound Taylor fandom, I love her commentary about not [00:09:00] comparing yourself to others on the internet. They say comparison is the thief of joy, especially in the age of social media, and I love the reminder we need to focus on the gain, what we've accomplished since the last time we tried something, instead of the gap, the area between where we are and where others are or where we think the expert level is.
I want to thank you and Taylor Swift for this pop inspired wisdom for early career physicians and hope you're already adept at shaking it off, celebrating your victories, embracing discomfort, and knowing your self worth.
As you navigate these early years of your career, stand tall in your worth and remember you've earned your place here.
Don't worry about those who can't yet understand your value and contribution.
Your voice matters in medicine. Your journey is uniquely yours.
The medical world needs your authentic empowered self more than ever.
I look forward to talking to you next week on the Medical Mentor Coaching Podcast.
If you found this podcast useful, please subscribe at Apple or Spotify and pass it along to a friend who might also be working their way through the [00:10:00] academic medicine journey.
