In the following stories you'll see what kinds of changes participants in MY FIRST 24 make in their lives and how their experience of life transforms over the course of 12 weeks.
- Growth happens every single day right in front of my eyes when I listen to the docs in MY FIRST 24. Every day! Here’s the story from 2021. The story of a breakthrough one of our pulmonary/critical care physicians shared with me. She’s in her first job out of fellowship. Her contract is ending in a few months. Her dream is finding balance in her life (even amidst this pandemic).
- She realized that she really really really loves the people she works with and her work setting. She loves the patients. She feels valued by her colleagues and the people she serves.
- But she was getting sucked into this vortex of productivity and “I have to keep up”. One day she told me, “I saw 50 patients!” She was exhausted. And she was getting home super late. She looked at herself and thought, “I’m not the wife I want to be.”
- When we started our coaching journey she was so stuck in this tug-a-war between her work and the rest of her life. So she got real honest with herself. She realized she needed a boundary. A really firm one. But she didn’t know where to start. With coaching it was easy. Because she decided on a new mindset and realized what her priorities were.
- After looking at the numbers, she figured out that she won’t be able to stay in this job, reach her financial goals AND get home at a reasonable hour (a priority for her) unless something dramatically changed.
- So? This happened: “I can figure out what I want and ask for it. And I can ask for it in writing.” BAM!!!! She called a meeting with her boss. She consulted with a lawyer so she’d be prepared.
- AND THEN SHE WENT AND DID IT! She asked for all the things. And her boss said yes. Of course.
- Because she’s a total Rockstar! Now of course she still has a decision to make. So she’ll need to figure out the mindset that will get her there. I have no doubt she will.
- She is absolutely going to get the balance and quality of life she craves. No doubt about it. Because now she knows how.
- *** Update: got a text from her...she's now the Director of their MICU, is happy and managing her time better thanks to our work...AMAZING! ***
COACHING THROUGH CRISIS: A COACH AS A NAVIGATOR
- The answers are all within our clients’ own brains. The problem is that they don’t know how to access them. They’ve never been asked the question quite this way or that way. Or they’ve never been in the right brain space to be receptive. Or whatever the case may be.
- Every month or two there is somebody who is in such a state emotionally or physically that they text me just before we’re supposed to be having a coaching session and they say that they can’t do it. And as their coach, as somebody who has gotten to know them quite well, I can say just the right thing that encourages them to talk to me. Even in the midst of crisis and overwhelm and tears streaming down their faces, I hold their hand and walk them through the storm.
- We have a lot of fun in our groups and in our individual sessions. But there are also times like these where the work is serious and focused and very brave. And all of it is thoughtful. And we all grow because of it and come out the other side transformed. I’m inspired every single day by the women physicians I coach and the changes they’re making intentionally in their lives.
- This is such a privilege to do this work with you all. I am so grateful for your trust.
- This story is about a family doc and a surgeon. She is an immigrant, a mom, a wife, a daughter with a parent fighting cancer, and she is also in leadership at their hospital. Her husband tells her often, “It is lonely on top.” She came to MY FIRST 24 feeling like she didn’t belong in her town. Like nobody there could or would even WANT to understand her much less connect with her or befriend her.
- She has the respect of the people around her. Because she is a great, compassionate, dedicated physician. And she has cultivated solid working relationships. But there’s something missing. She feels disconnected from the people around her. And she didn’t realize until I started coaching her that it doesn’t have to be like that — that she has the choice.
- I remember the shock on her face when the breakthrough came to her. She was completely silent and just sat there staring at what I had written down. Thoughts and feelings she’s had. The way she has been behaving this whole time. And what that’s gotten her. And then she let out a very big sigh. I asked “What?” And she said, “This has to change. I can see that I need to change. I want better than this. For myself. But also for my kids.” And she’s doing it!
- These incredibly deeply set beliefs she held previously are being replaced. She is connecting with other female docs in the community. She’s reaching out and she is being let in! She’s not alone. She is optimistic. Sometimes. She sees promise. Often. And she’s working on it. One step at a time. After almost a decade of feeling like she doesn’t belong she’s finally finding herself at home.
- Francine L, MD is a pediatrician with an incredible dream. A dream of building a multidisciplinary clinic for children & youth with eating disorders. And she did it with a team of dedicated providers & staff. But they struggled to secure funding and were unable to provide comprehensive and quality care. So she drew a boundary in 2020 and closed the clinic.
- She came to my coaching program still passionate about the cause & committed to trying again. But she didn’t believe in herself enough and didn’t have some of the mental tools she needed to be successful in a sustainable way.
- Through coaching she learned to love and respect herself, to realize her power, her agency, her expertise, that there is room for her at the table and that she can totally pull up a seat. She’s now prepared to take that chance again, to own her expertise in this field AND in what her community needs. SHE IS DOING THIS!
- This new mindset literally changed EVERYTHING. She’s had meetings with top level administrators within Canada’s regional public health system and with local elected officials. She is drawing attention to this issue and framing it, as it should be, as a pressing public health need. And the best yet? She’s secured provisional funding for everything they need!
- What could be better?!?! Well, that was at the end of our 12 week program. Francine signed up for the Alumni Program to continue coaching. Fast forward another month and she and her co-founders had purchased a building. Fast forward a little more and they had recruited their staff (including pediatricians and a psychiatrist). Fast forward a little more and literally within a few months of buying their building they opened their practice.
- They're going strong so far and the practice is thriving! And, most importantly, patients and their families are getting the care they truly need.
- *** UPDATE: Francine continues in the MY FIRST 24 Alumni Program and over the 2.5 years since they opened their practice, they've since expanded, hired more providers, staff, including an Office Manager, purchased more space in the same building, and now are in the process of purchasing the remaining space => meaning that they'll own all 4 units and can really bring down the walls and create the ideal environment for their patients and families. She's also currently the Regional Medical Lead for all of the pediatricians in the public system in her area of Canada, which is a huge responsibility. And with her consistent focus on self-coaching and bringing her challenges to our group and individual sessions, she's taking all the ups and downs in stride.
From Frustration & Resentment to Feeling Light & Focused
My number 1 priority is to create and hold a safe space for my clients to share, vulnerably, what's going on for them. And often what I hear are frustrations. Because the people I work with are all highly intelligent, highly functioning clinicians who care deeply about doing the right thing. They have very high expectations of themselves. AND...often...high expectations of others as well.
So when I hear these highly capable, smart, dedicated people venting frustrations with me, it's often because they're faced with the very un-just situation where a person on their team or a leader in their organization just doesn't seem to care as much as they "should" or aren't doing their job to the standard that my client is expecting.
And that's exactly what happened for one of my clients. A family physician at a very busy urban clinic who has a lot expected of her and who does her very best every day in her service to her patients, to her team, and to her community. She's very involved in community advocacy and is also a wonderful mom.
What kept festering and festering for her was that there was a Case Manager in her clinic who's job is to connect patients and families with community resources. But they weren't responding to the referrals providers were sending and weren't connecting the patients.
At all. After weeks and weeks.
But guess what?
First of all, it was an assumption that this Case Manager didn't care. And it was an assumption that she wasn't compassionate. We have NO IDEA whatsoever about what is going on for another person.
And second, no matter how much we want somebody to care or to have compassion for our patients we can’t do a single darn thing about it. We can’t force them to care.
In this circumstance, it's possible that my client could bring this up to leadership and and start building a case for termination if the person was really consistently neglecting their work responsibilities. But even then, we're not often in a position to actually make any of the relevant decisions ourselves.
The problem here for my client was not actually the Case Manager not doing her job. The problem for my client, a physician who's expected to provide excellent care for 24 patients per day AND manage her Inbox, AND stay abreast of her e-mails, AND get her notes closed on time, AND then come home on time and be the parent and wife she wants to be...
The problem for her was that she was ruminating and dwelling and fixating and spinning out in her frustrations and resentment and despair when her patients weren't getting access to the important and FREE resources that the Case Manager was supposed to be getting them. And that spinning out was ruining her day and making it hard if not impossible for her to focus on the tasks in front of her and the patients in front of her.
So what can we do when we realize that our most precious resources (our time and our emotional and physical energy and bandwidth) are being siphoned out of us by frustrated, resentful, bitter, angry, toxic thoughts?
That’s what I literally help people with every day here as a coach.
Here we have this wonderful family doc. And here she was giving this work colleague WAY more power and WAY more brain space and bandwidth than she deserved. She was allowing this person to literally drain her of her precious precious energy.
Does this person need to have that power?
NO!
So what’s the story that we want to tell ourselves in those moments? After we allow ourselves to process the anger or the frustration, instead of fuming and dwelling in it, where can we take our energy and attention and actions?
That's what I asked her. And this is what she came up with. And I love it.
“I’ll do what I can for my patients and I’ll do my very best.”
And her best doesn’t need to involve this person at all.
And my client’s best is going to depend on her capacity and bandwidth in that moment. Whatever it is. She’ll figure it out with her patients and their families. In a way that serves them AND serves her, the doctor — who is also a person, and a mother and a wife and a daughter and a sister and a community advocate and a friend etc etc etc. Her job is not the only important part of her life. So she also learned to create and maintain healthy boundaries.
And guess what? SHE DID ALL THAT! And she feels FREE! And LIGHT and PRESENT and FOCUSED now. She has more ENERGY to direct toward the things she prioritizes.
Isn't it amazing what we can accomplish and how we can experience life if we give ourselves the opportunity, the permission, and the power to do it?