October 2, 2024 • 47 mins
Sarah Hart Unger, a board-certified pediatric endocrinologist, balances her medical career with a highly successful podcast and family life. She emphasizes the importance of aligning career and personal passions, as seen in her transition to podcasting and course creation. She advocates for effective time management, setting boundaries, and integrating personal interests into professional life. Sarah also highlights the mental health benefits of exercise, particularly running, which she finds crucial for her well-being.
Action Principles
Pick one to do this week.
- Create custom systems. Understanding your personality and developing a system that works FOR you, not against you, leads to increased productivity. ACTION: Learn what works well for you and integrate it into your work system.
- Process stress productively. When facing stressful periods or increased demands, allow yourself to adjust your schedule and get help, even temporarily. ACTION: Schedule buffer days and use available time off to handle a stressful situation in a healthy manner.
- Implement an exercise routine. Consistent physical activity improves your physical and mental health. You'll be more productive and able to focus at work. ACTION: Schedule 30 minutes of physical activity each day into your calendar.
- Align your career with your passions. You will be motivated and more successful when you do what you love. ACTION: Choose a passion and find a way to incorporate that into your work life, even if it's using a portion of your paycheck to donate to a cause you support.
Guest Resources
You can learn more about Sarah Hart-Unger by visiting her website, TheShuBox.com, or listening to her podcasts, Best of Both Worlds and Best Laid Plans.
Suggested LinkedIn Learning Course
Finding Your Time Management Style
Free Time Management Course
Thanks to Dave Crenshaw's partnership with Microsoft and LinkedIn Learning, you can get free access to his full course, Time Management Fundamentals, at DaveGift.com.
Dave Crenshaw develops productive leaders in Fortune 500 companies, universities, and organizations of every size. He has appeared in Time magazine, USA Today, FastCompany, and the BBC News. His courses on LinkedIn Learning have been viewed tens of millions of times. His five books have been published in eight languages, the most popular of which is The Myth of Multitasking—a time management bestseller. As an author, speaker, and online instructor, Dave has transformed the lives and careers of hundreds of thousands around the world. DaveCrenshaw.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:00):
My dream job was actually to become a
psychiatrist, and I got thatidea not from something eyebrow,
but from watching growing pains,because the dad had this job as
a psychiatrist.
Dave Crenshaw (00:13):
In this episode, you'll get to know Sarah Hart
Unger, the physician with aplan, and you'll hear the story
of how she balances a happy lifeas a pediatric doctor, a
successful podcaster and amother of three. I'm Dave
Crenshaw, and this is my successShow. Welcome back, friends, to
(00:35):
the Dave Crenshaw Success Show.
This is where I speak to some ofthe most successful people I've
met in my life's journey, andI'm on a mission to find
universal principles of successthat you can use today to help
you succeed. In case it's yourfirst time here, and I'm new to
you. I'm a best selling author.
I speak around the world toFortune 500 companies, and I've
(00:55):
taught millions of people how tobe successful through my online
courses, particularly onLinkedIn. Learning with this
show, I was inspired to createsomething different. First, I
wanted to help my kids succeedand help them find universal
principles of success, and Istarted interviewing people that
I admire, and I thought you'denjoy learning along with them.
I seek to interview people whohave multifaceted success, so
(01:19):
success in multiple areas oftheir life, not just career
success, but they also have ahappy life, and they make time
for friends and family and tohave fun. And by the way, if you
know someone like that who hasmultifaceted success, you can
send your guest suggestion to usat guest at success dot show.
(01:39):
Now, before we get into today'sepisode, I'd like you to do
something. I would like you todo something for yourself. And
what that is, is to look forsomething you can do as you hear
Sarah's story today, look for anaction that you can take today
or this week to make my guestsuccess story a part of your
success story. Today's guest ispretty remarkable. Dr Sarah Hart
(02:04):
Unger is a board certifiedpediatric endocrinologist as
well as a podcaster, speaker andcreator of the shoebox. Her
expertise covers many areas fromdiabetes to growth and to other
endocrine disorders. She's ahighly sought after doctor, and
has expertise in graduatemedical education, where she's
(02:25):
served in leadership roles as awriter, she's passionate about
helping people make the most oftheir limited time through
effective planning and goalsetting. She's the host of the
best laid plans podcast, whichhas been featured in The New
York Times, and she's also theco host of the best of both
worlds podcast. She lives inHollywood, Florida, where she
(02:47):
enjoys reading, running andspending time with her husband
and three children. Sarah, it'san honor to have you on the show
today.
Unknown (02:55):
Thank you so much for having me on I'm so excited to
chat today.
Dave Crenshaw (02:58):
Yeah, and where are you located right now
Unknown (03:00):
I am in South Florida, so basically between Miami and
Fort Lauderdale, it's currentlyabout 95 degrees.
Dave Crenshaw (03:08):
Oh my goodness, yeah, it's a lot. That's a lot
warmer than where it is in Utahright now. I think we're at
about 70. So thank you for beingon Sarah. And I'm really
interested in diving into yourstory, because you've done so
many different things. Youreally have a very interesting
career path. I like to askeveryone the same question when
(03:28):
we start, which is, when youwere a teenager, what did you
want to be when you grew up?
Unknown (03:35):
I had a couple of passions, but my dream job was
actually to become apsychiatrist, and I got that
idea not from somethinghighbrow, but from watching
growing pains, because the dadhad this job as a psychiatrist,
and he did it from his house.
He'd like wander into this room,chat with people. He seemed like
this distinguished character,and then it seemed like his day
(03:58):
was over, and he'd like, walkout and hang out with his
family, and I'm like, that looksawesome. I also became
interested in some, like, booksand stuff about random
psychology topics, and thought,Okay, I'm gonna be a
psychologist or psychiatrist.
Gonna be like the guy in growingpains, yeah? So that was my
initial idea. Well, that's
Dave Crenshaw (04:18):
interesting, because I think now you've
accomplished something verysimilar, right, not as a
psychiatrist or a psychologist,but you work from your home, and
then you get to go out and spendtime with your family there in
Florida, right? You kind of gotthere some
Unknown (04:32):
days, I work from my home, yes, and I get to talk
with people. And to be honest,even in my professional medical
job, I do a lot of psychiatryadjacent work, just talking with
kids and teens. So yeah, oh
Dave Crenshaw (04:46):
yeah, yeah, you're definitely in a position
to help people sort of as, like,their first contact with
psychiatry.
Unknown (04:53):
Yeah. I mean, I can't claim to be an expert on on that
specific field, but since I takecare of kids with conditions
like. Diabetes that can bereally, really challenging from
a mental health perspective.
There's plenty of tough topicsto delve into and talk about,
where I get to kind of thinkabout how I can best serve them.
Dave Crenshaw (05:10):
That's wonderful.
Mental health is a huge thing inmy life and my family. Several
people in my family deal withsevere anxiety. I was clinically
diagnosed as off the charts.
ADHD, that is the term that wasused when I took the test. So
that's a big part of what wefocus on, on our family, and how
to manage that in a healthy way.
Unknown (05:32):
I get that we have at least one formally diagnosed
ADHD member of our family, andprobably at least one unformally
diagnosed member of our family,least at this point. Yeah.
Dave Crenshaw (05:42):
Okay, so let's talk about where you went from
there. You thought that that wasgoing to occur, so you went to
college. Where did you study?
Unknown (05:50):
I went to Williams College, which is a small
liberal arts school in WesternMassachusetts. It is lovely and
idyllic. I grew up in kind of aboring Philadelphia, not boring,
but a maybe less beautifulPhiladelphia suburb, and I
wanted something country andlush and beautiful. And when I
visited Williamstown, I waslike, Yes, I am in on this. And
(06:11):
I initially was a biology major,and considered doing a
psychology double major seethinking along the lines, yeah.
And I had a wonderful timethere, and decided to go pre med
a couple years into college.
Now, psychiatry is a medicalfield, but I think by the time I
got to maybe sophomore or junioryear in college, I was thinking
more like other fields ofmedicine, just the idea of
(06:34):
continuing to work with people,use science and help others and
have a very kind of social jobas well. I guess you
Dave Crenshaw (06:43):
know, there's something you said there that I
do want to pause on for asecond. We've mentioned
psychiatry and psychology. Ihave found that most people
don't understand the differencebetween the two. Could you
briefly explain the differencebetween a psychiatrist and a
psychologist, because they bothserve very important roles.
(07:04):
Yeah,
Unknown (07:04):
so a psychiatrist is a MD or medical doctor. They get
trained in medical school, theygo through a psychiatry
residency, and there is someoverlap with what they do, like
some psychiatrists dopsychoanalysis or traditional
forms of therapy, but a lot ofwhat psychiatrists do is also
centered around medicalmanagement, meaning giving
pharmaco therapeutics ormedicines, basically to people
(07:27):
to help with various disorderssuch as depression, anxiety and
lots and lots of other things.
Whereas psychology, there'sactually a lot of different
forms of psychology. The truepsychologist, I believe, because
this is not my field. Is a PhDmost of the time. There may be
Master's equivalents, but Ibelieve when you say
psychologist or they're a doctorof psychology, they're either a
(07:47):
side D or they're a PhD inpsychology. So the training is a
little bit different, and it'snot centered around medications,
per se, but more like talkingforms of therapy. And then
there's really lots of branchesof psychology as well, like
there's organizationalpsychology and behavioral
psychology and developmentalpsychology, and lots of
different kind of
Dave Crenshaw (08:08):
flavors of that.
Thank you for explaining that. Iknow that that's not necessarily
your your field of expertise,but I felt it was so important,
because I come from aperspective that both have been
very valuable in my life. I workwith both a psychologist and a
psychiatrist, and they havehelped me really have a lot of
success. So thanks for indulgingme for a second with that
question. So talk to me aboutwhere you started. So you did
(08:30):
pre med. Where did you start? Tosay, Yeah, you know what? This
is, what I want to do instead.
And in fact, I'm going to focuson something like endocrinology.
Unknown (08:43):
So I'll be honest, I don't think my story is typical
here. Most people, when they'rein college, don't really have an
idea of a specific field ofmedicine that they're interested
in. And I certainly wouldn'thave stood up and said, like,
I'm definitely going to be anendocrinologist, but I took a
class called hormones andbehavior, taught by an excellent
professor who is still atWilliams named Noah Sandstrom.
Professor, Noah Sandstrom, andthis class was just like one of
(09:06):
the best classes I had evertaken, because we learned how
just these subtle hormonalshifts, like different changes
in the blood, can actuallychange how animals and humans
behave. And that connection wasjust like so wild to me that you
could predict that, you know, astressed out animal is going to
make more of this hormone, orthat giving XYZ hormone is going
to make someone do a differentthing, like that was just so
(09:26):
wild. I also found the pathwaysreally intuitive and interesting
to learn about, and so from thatstandpoint, I ended up doing
research with this professorduring college at Williams. A
lot of people elect to do what'scalled thesis research. So you
spend, like, an entire yearworking one on one or in a small
group with a professor to doyour own original research. And
(09:47):
mine was actually on maternalstress and memory in rats. So it
was kind of an endocrinologyslash. It was called psycho
neuro Endocrinology at the time.
But yeah, even back then, I wasthinking, yeah, endo seems. Kind
of cool. I didn't really knowwhat that career would actually
look like. I had never met atthat point, an endocrinologist
or a pediatric endocrinologist,but I definitely had the idea
(10:10):
that that was a topic of studythat was very interesting to me.
What
Dave Crenshaw (10:15):
is the difference with a pediatric
endocrinologist? What uniquechallenges do children face with
that versus, say, an adult thatyou might be working with? Yeah,
Unknown (10:27):
well, it's just totally different training. Actually. If
you're interested in being apediatric endocrinologist,
you're taking care of kidsmostly under the age of 18, and
you go through pediatricsresidency instead of internal
medicine residency, and yeah,the conditions you deal with are
actually pretty different. Imean, there's certainly overlap.
Both children and adults. Forexample, get type one and type
two diabetes, but disorders ofpuberty and growth and like
(10:51):
neonatal issues, likehypoglycemia or adrenal issues
or thyroid, those are going tobe, you know, specific to
pediatrics, if you're dealingwith little, tiny babies. So
back in that college phase, Ikind of didn't, I didn't think
about what things were going tolook long term. And I actually
thought at that point that I waspotentially interested in doing
an MD PhD and continuing to doresearch as I acquired my
(11:14):
medical degree. So I know youwant us to talk about kind of
failures, or maybe the way thatthings didn't go how we planned.
Yeah, please. I actually endedup applying to med school to
specifically MD PhD programsinstead of just straight MD
programs. And partly, I had justhad such a great time doing that
research with my professor, andthought, hey, I'm just going to
(11:35):
continue. I'm going to be aresearcher and a clinician. At
the time, I was 21 years old,making this choice. Didn't think
about the fact that an MD PhDtakes about 10 years, what that
would mean for my life andcareer. It didn't work out
exactly how I had planned. Okay,
Dave Crenshaw (11:51):
so what? What did happen? Why didn't that work
out?
Unknown (11:55):
So I did get accepted to a number of programs, which
was amazing. Mdphd programs arequite competitive. And I was
very lucky enough to be selectedfor Duke's program. So I
matriculated there in 2002 so Idid my two years of the medical
portion, which included one yearof kind of academic study, and
then one year in the clinics.
And then I did my third year inthe lab, and then I started my
(12:17):
fourth year in the lab. And waslike, so my fourth year overall,
and was like, I don't like thelab as much as I thought I liked
the lab, and oh my god, I'mgonna be stuck here for another
three, four years, and I don'teven think I wanna do research
anymore in my career. And like,How can I be giving up my youth
to the lab when it's not so Ibasically had like, a crisis at
25 years of age, a quarter lifecrisis. I think I called it sure
(12:39):
and ended up leaving the PhDportion. Duke was awesome. Their
understanding of this, theydon't want to drag somebody
through a program they're nolonger passionate about. So I
was able to just transition backinto med school, and had another
year of med school, andcompleted med school in 2007 but
I did leave the PhD behind forthe Masters.
Dave Crenshaw (13:01):
What specifically did you not like about the lab?
Unknown (13:05):
I didn't like that when you were doing experiments,
there was, like, no, there wastoo much uncertainty. Like, you
can work so hard on somethingand then if it doesn't give the
result you were hoping for, yousort of have to, like, start
from scratch. But I'm more of a,like, I want to start with a and
add B and know that, like, I'mpretty much gonna get C. And I
know it's not like that increative work either, but it
(13:25):
kind of is that way in clinicalmedicine, to a degree. And I
just it wasn't social enough forme. I think you could go days
with, like, barely, I mean, youcertainly talked in, like, lab
meetings or with your lab mates,but I just didn't have the
passion for it anymore. And tobe honest, I don't think I was
that good at it because thepeople that were good at it had
the passion, and so it was kindof like feeding on itself, like,
(13:46):
Okay, I don't love this. I'm notgetting stuff done now I love it
even less. And so I just, I alsosaw myself getting older, to be
honest. I knew I wanted kids,and just felt ready to move on.
So and
Dave Crenshaw (13:58):
what I want to highlight there, because this is
about how to find career successand life success. And there was
an awareness on your part thatthis wasn't for you. And I think
a lot of people, they just keepplowing ahead. Well, I made this
choice. I'm just going to keepdoing it. And that's not
necessarily a good thing when,especially in the early part of
your career, where you'refiguring out, what do I want to
(14:20):
dedicate my life to. I thinkit's okay to make those switches
early on. For those who arecontemplating going to medical
school, what does it take tosucceed in medical school,
especially at a place like Duke,you
Unknown (14:34):
have to enjoy it. You have to keep your purpose in
mind and what you want to do,because it is a lot, lot lot of
work and some tedious work. AndI think if you're not excited
about what you're going to do atthe end of the line, it's going
to be hard to keep up with that.
I think a lot of the basic studyskills that apply to any subject
in any area are going to applyto med school. There's nothing
magical or different about it. Ithink you have to work on your
listening and communicationskills really hone those down,
(14:56):
because your time. Spent in theclinic is all about how you
communicate. You'recommunicating to your attendings
and your residents about whatthey want from you, and, you
know, the results they want tohear from you about with your
patients. You're communicatingwith your patients how to, you
know, explain something andanswer their questions and make
sure you kind of meet them wherethey need you. And I think that
really honing those skills,figuring out when they don't
(15:19):
work out what you can do betteris really, really important for
medical school and medicine ingeneral. And
Dave Crenshaw (15:26):
you're bringing up an interesting principle here
of success that I think we'veall seen doctors who are great
at it and doctors who are not,which is listening, which is
paying attention to what thepatient is telling you. How do
you or did you make sure thatyou brought the right attitude
(15:49):
to listening to others, ratherthan just sort of dismissing
what they're saying? And youknow, I know the answer, let's
get out of here. Let's, let's,let's go to that a plus b equal
c, immediately. I
Unknown (15:59):
think it takes practice. I think it takes
messing up sometimes and missingsomething and have an attending
point out that, hey, you went inthere with XYZ agenda and like
you weren't right, or you didn'ttake the time to really consider
this other possibility.
Dave Crenshaw (16:12):
Did you give attendance the permission to say
that to you, or were they justbold enough to save it? Oh,
Unknown (16:18):
in medical school, there's nothing about permission
you get, like you're gettingfeedback, whether you'd like it
or not. At least, I think it'sbecome Kinder in more recent
years. But let me just say that,like back in the day, people
were very not shy about what youweren't doing well. So, you
know, sometimes that waspainful. Other times, I think
you are able to develop a thickskin.
Dave Crenshaw (16:40):
Yeah, I think that's good. I think directness
is always valuable, but I thinkthere's a way to be direct in a
kind and polite way so that theyclearly know what they need to
do, but you don't need to makesomeone feel terrible about
their mistakes.
Unknown (16:54):
Yeah, the culture's definitely shifted in that way,
and that's great.
Dave Crenshaw (16:57):
So talk to me about when and how you started
to go into practice foryourself. What was that process
like? Yeah,
Unknown (17:05):
so, you know, medicine takes a long time just to, you
know, for those who arelistening and contemplating that
path, for me, it was five yearsin med school because I did that
extra research year. Butnormally, medical school is four
years. Then there are threeyears of general pediatrics
residency. At that point, Icould have chosen to become just
a general pediatrician andpractice in a community or join
(17:27):
a group practice, but because Iwas interested in pediatric
endocrinology, I had to dowhat's called a fellowship. So
that's three years on top ofthat. So we got four plus three
plus three. In my case, fiveplus three plus three. I spent
11 years at Duke doing all ofthat training. What's a
fellowship? What does that mean?
Fellowship is a specialization.
So again, like I became apediatrician after those three
(17:48):
years in residency, but tobecome a pediatric
endocrinologist, you do threemore years of training, and
that's kind of divided intoresearch time and clinical time.
And by the way, you're paid as aresident and as a fellow, you
are no longer quote in school.
You're an employee of thehealthcare system or the
hospital where you work. You'rejust not paid very well. So it's
like enough to live on. But Istarted looking for jobs during
(18:08):
my second year of fellowship,and knew that, because my
husband was from South Floridaand was interested in living and
working near his parents, wedecided to kind of limit our job
search to South Florida, and sothere were only two kind of
bigger healthcare systems thatwere hiring for pediatric
endocrinology. So my job searchwasn't very long. I interviewed
(18:30):
at both of those places andended up getting an offer at the
one where I am still workingtoday and have been there now
almost 11 years.
Dave Crenshaw (18:40):
Oh, that's amazing. You mentioned your your
husband. I know that your familyis very important to you. So
where in that 11 year journeydid he come into the picture?
Yes, so
Unknown (18:51):
we met in medical school. In the very beginning,
we were dating by the firsttest, we didn't do very well in
that test. It's okay. We datedall through that time, and then
we got married when I was juststarting my my last year of med
school, and he was finishing hismed school because he was a year
ahead of me, because he didn'tdo that extra year in the lab.
Thankfully, his training linedup with mine perfectly. He's a
(19:13):
vascular surgeon, and so weactually finished both at the
same time, mid year, 2013 and
Dave Crenshaw (19:19):
were able to move together. Okay? And so he's a
doctor as well. Yes, he's
Unknown (19:24):
a vascular surgeon.
Dave Crenshaw (19:25):
Does that spill into your personal life? Do you
talk about medical things, or doyou maintain a good boundary
between those? I
Unknown (19:34):
think we talk about stuff. We definitely talk about
stuff. I find it helpful,actually. I mean, we don't like
talk about stuff all the time,because no one wants to talk
about their work all the time.
But if there's something aboutwork that is stressing me out, I
can feel comfortable that he'sgoing to understand kind of how
the language to know what I'mdealing with, and same for him.
And so I think it's helpful. Ithink we also both kind of
understand that there are timeswhen work may pull us in a very.
(19:58):
Obligatory manner, like whenwe're, quote, on call, and I can
talk about what on call means,you know, if someone needs you,
you have to put that onpriority. You have to pick up
the phone, or, in his case,sometimes he has to actually go
to work. I think a non medicalpartner would get it, but they
may not get it from that, like,internal level, like, I know,
you know, when they're callinghim, it may be because someone's
literally, like, bleeding andthey need, they need surgical
(20:20):
assistance immediately. And youknow, he needs to go. I get
that. Let's
Dave Crenshaw (20:25):
pause on that for a second. I know that you are
helping people with timemanagement. You're very
interested in that. And as atime management productivity
guy, I saw a problem that youjust brought up, which is, you
try to manage your time. You tryto be organized, but some
positions require interruption,and that creates chaos when you
(20:46):
have that interruption. Soyou're still on call from time
to time,
Unknown (20:51):
yep. So I'm on call a week at a time, but only six
weeks per year. So I think it'svery important to understand
exactly what the boundaries arearound like that, that you can
shift into that reactive modefor a defined period and kind of
really work on preparingyourself for that, setting
yourself for success whileyou're doing it, and then
(21:12):
ramping off of it and knowingthat it's finite. So that is the
one beautiful thing about mostcall systems now, is that, yes,
you are on call for a period oftime, it also means that you can
entirely sign off for otherperiods of time.
Dave Crenshaw (21:25):
So what I want to talk about is the structure,
specifically how you adjust,because you're going to operate
a certain way when you're not oncall. And I think a lot of
people, they feel like they canhave control, except in a job
where they have to beinterrupted. So I've got my
opinions about it, but I'd loveto hear your opinion about what
you do structurally to your weekon the weeks that you are on
(21:48):
call, like, what do you not do?
What do you do in thosesituations? Yeah,
Unknown (21:53):
I try to get into things that are very important
to me very early in the morning,because I'm very unlikely to be
interrupted during those times.
So even when I'm on call, I knowfrom experience that I'm very
unlikely to be paged from like,you know, 5am to 7am or
something like that. So ifsomething is extremely important
to me, I'm going to be doing itduring that time. I also get
more support for myself duringthat time, like that is when I
(22:16):
use the meal delivery kits andmake sure I have extra
childcare. We do have a nannywho has been working with us
since 2013 those weeks can be alittle difficult, because my
schedule can be lesspredictable, but then other
weeks, it's much morepredictable, and so things kind
of balance out in that way.
Yeah,
Dave Crenshaw (22:37):
there's a lot of great little nuggets of wisdom
in there, the fact that you'remaking adjustments, you're
saying, Okay, this is going tobe a more stressful period, so
I'm going to get more help.
These are all things that arerelevant, even if you're not a
doctor on call, perhaps you'rein a situation where life became
crazy for a little bit. Andthese are good tools that anyone
(22:58):
can use. Talk to me about amentor that you had during all
that school, someone that youlook back on and say that person
had a great impact on me. And Ibring this up because part of
what I see in the patterns ofpeople who are successful is
they have a mentor who helpedthem at some point, is there
(23:20):
someone like that? And you lookback and you always think of the
lesson they taught you,
Unknown (23:25):
yeah. I mean, I would say multiple members of the
pediatric endocrinologydivision, but in particular, two
stand out to me. One is RobBenjamin and one is Nancy
McIver. They're both facultymembers. One of them's still at
Duke, the other one's at UNC.
They're actually both divisionchiefs now, which is
interesting. It's kind of likeleaders of the division. And
they both loved their jobs,loved their families, really
(23:48):
were active participants intheir families, and were really
unapologetic about kind ofreally enjoying both spheres.
And I, I loved seeing that, Ithink they also both set really
appropriate boundaries aroundtheir work. I think they worked
hard, but they weren't willingto do things that maybe they
didn't need to do specifically.
(24:11):
And both have been incrediblysuccessful, as well as being
just like super nice people thatI've kept in touch with, yeah,
Dave Crenshaw (24:17):
well, and you talked about how they have the
the balance of all of that, andthat's a big part of what you're
doing now is helping people alsohave that balance right. So
you're passing on that lesson toothers. How did you get involved
in this 40% doing things thatreally aren't medical?
Unknown (24:37):
So I started a blog in 2004 think original mommy blog,
except I didn't have kids backthen, so I don't know what you
would call it. There reallyweren't that many people doing
that at the time, and I was kindof bored on an outpatient
rotation in the middle of thecountry, in North Carolina. And
(24:58):
I was like, I think I'll start ablog. Blog. My friend had one. I
was like, Oh, I really like thiswriting thing. This is actually
a lot of fun. And this was,like, the kind of early blogger
boom. Women were doing it. A lotof women were earning, like,
significant amounts of money. Inever, ever was super
commercially successful on theblog side alone, but I built a
lot of relationships. I learneda lot of things, and over the
(25:21):
course of writing 1000s and1000s of posts, because it's
something I truly love to do, bythe way. I mean, I love the act
of writing and reflecting, andlove what my commenters would
have to say, Like it felt likebuilding a community. It was
just so much fun, and it stillis. I still love blogging, and
it does not feel like work tome. So, you know, I'd write
(25:42):
about my life. I'd write aboutmedicine, obviously not about
patients, like I was verycareful, but it was more like
about my experience. And thenwhen I got pregnant, and well,
actually, I struggled to getpregnant, so I wrote about that.
And then when I finally did getpregnant, I wrote about kind of
the early mommy years. Andsomewhere in there, I started
listening to a lot of podcasts,and I said, Oh, I think I might
want to start a podcast like, Ilike talking. And then Laura
(26:06):
Vanderkam, who, at the time, wasa best selling author, but we'd
become friends because we werecommenting on each other's
blogs, and she's like, Hey, I'lldo a podcast with you. That
sounds cool. And that's whenbest of both worlds started. And
I think I started to realizethat some of what I was doing
could be leveraged into, like,you know, true business type
(26:26):
stuff, and then I had a lot Iwanted to share with the world,
and that is how I ultimatelyended up deciding to leave a
leadership position at work,which I really enjoyed in many
ways, because I just felt like Ihad something to say, and this
was my chance to say it. But itreally all started with the
blog.
Dave Crenshaw (26:44):
Did you find that it was easier to devote that
much time to something whichinitially really was a hobby,
right? Was that made possiblebecause of the career that you
have been having in the medicalprofession and the money that
you were making from that?
Unknown (26:58):
No, I think was more just like straight up
compulsion. And then I lovedoing it, get up early, write my
blog post, because I just feltlike I had to. And then I would
like go running and go to work.
I think it was more therapeuticfor me. It didn't take away from
my work hours. I mean, Ipracticed. I was full time
completely at that point. I wasstill in medical school and then
in residency. So I wasn't doingit as a side job. I was doing
(27:19):
it. I mean, hobby is a word, butI almost just feel like it was,
like a side passion. It was apassion of mine. But have you
Dave Crenshaw (27:27):
moved away from having a full time job in the
medical profession?
Unknown (27:31):
Yep, as of October of 2022, so this is like very late
in the game, and that is after Istarted my other podcast called
best laid plans, and realized Ifelt like I had a structured I
write about lots of things on mywebsite, and we talk about lots
of things on best of bothworlds. But one thing that just
came up again and again waslike, how important our planning
processes are for settingourselves up with success, and
(27:53):
how little most of us think ofthese things. And I just started
becoming obsessed with the idea,I love the book, Getting Things
Done, the classic David Allenbook from like, 2003 and I'm
like, I want to create a moderngetting things done specifically
to help women, you know, becauseI feel like, in the productivity
space, I don't know, a lot ofthe work just doesn't feel like
it's totally for us. And so Ilaunched something called best
(28:18):
laid plans Academy, thinking,like, oh, I don't know. Will
anybody, like, sign up to dothis with me? It's gonna be a
course teaching people how tobuild their planning system. And
it was really, reallysuccessful. So I was like, Okay,
this is becoming, like, real,like, I want to put more of
myself into this. And that'swhen I decided that it's time to
just cut bait and see what I cando on my own via the different
(28:40):
podcasts and via the teaching ofwomen, and that's kind of what
led us to the current hybridwhere we are right now.
Dave Crenshaw (28:47):
What do productivity systems miss when
it comes to women and their timemanagement? I mean, you're
talking to someone who my careeris built around that. So I'm
curious about what I might bemissing there.
Unknown (28:59):
I think that a lot of times, like, the mental load at
home is not discussed as much.
So like, one thing that is partof when we teach weekly, I teach
planning on, like, differenttime horizons. We go from annual
to seasonal to monthly toweekly. And like, a lot of the
weekly is centered around acommunication plan with your
partner to make sure everybody'son board for things during the
week. And you know, what is theway that you're splitting up
(29:21):
labor in the household to makesure that you are able to get
some time for yourself and soand that your partner is as
well. Things like that are justnot they're not present in Tim
Ferriss or in getting thingsdone. And you just assume that,
like, there's got to be a womankind of, like behind the scenes
taking care of everything andmaking sure everybody else is
making things run smoothly. Butlike us working women,
(29:41):
especially, although all women,a lot of times, we are that
person, and that stuff takes alot of work, but we're sometimes
doing it on top of paid labor aswell. So I think there, there
are just unique challenges thatneed to be thought about. Or
like when you're planning outyour day thinking about exactly.
You know, where the child carefits into that, and being
intentional about like, okay, myday needs to end at five
(30:04):
because, not just because I feellike it, but because I have to
pick up a kid from this activityand take up to the next
activity, and then I'm going todo work when I'm waiting for the
kid at gymnastics or whatever.
And I'm not saying there's notmen that do those things, but on
the whole, I think thesechallenges tend to be more
salient and common for women,especially after they've had
(30:25):
kids. Could
Dave Crenshaw (30:26):
you share like one principle that you teach to
women and you say, All right,here's a mindset to have to
prepare yourself for this, or tomanage the chaos of all these
things? What's what's oneprinciple that would be helpful.
Yes. So
Unknown (30:42):
I love teaching people to do kind of a weekly overview,
and having some kind of formalcommunication plan that is both
verbal and written, so that canlook a lot of different ways. I
don't think it's a one size fitsall thing. In my particular
case, it's looking ahead to thenext week and filling out a
whiteboard that lives in ourhouse with kind of where
everyone's gonna be, what we'rehaving for dinner, like if my
(31:04):
husband's driving certain days,if I'm driving certain days. So
that's kind of like a writtenrecord that everyone can refer
to, but then also having adiscussion with all the
stakeholders, meaning the kidsand the partner, to make sure
that everything actually worksand that everybody is on the
same page to kind of set thingsup for success.
Dave Crenshaw (31:21):
As I'm listening to this that sounds tactical,
which is very important, do youalso have strategic
conversations, more big pictureconversations with your family
when it comes to the long termplan of things?
Unknown (31:36):
Yeah, and that's actually so that would be more
on, like the larger timehorizons in which I think that
it's awesome when couples, ifpossible, can do a yearly
retreat to kind of think aboutwhether that just means a few
hours at home, or if it means anactual, like, trip away, to talk
about big goals and whateverybody wants, what kind of
big, exciting things they wantthe family to do, or the
(31:57):
direction they want life tohead. So, like, the way I kind
of structure things is to havepeople build a custom planning
ritual at every level, but thatkind of big picture, tactical
stuff that would be on theannual level, and, to a lesser
extent, on the seasonal level.
Dave Crenshaw (32:12):
So you're still in the medical profession, and
you're doing these other things,and you're managing being a
mother and a wife. What are youdoing to make all of that work,
to make sure that you'respending the amount of time that
you want to be spending on eachof these things?
Unknown (32:32):
I think a lot about the value of my time, and I think
ahead about how I want to spendmy time now Laura would probably
say Laura's my co host for bestof both worlds, and I think
you've had her on as well. She'sawesome and an inspiration of
mine. She loves to track time,but I tend to be more kind of in
the looking forward, kind of alens. So I love to do an ideal
week exercise every singleseason where I lay out on a kind
(32:56):
of like a vertical planning pad.
Like, how do I want to spend myhours in an ideal week,
understanding that no week isgoing to be the ideal week, but
then actually sitting down everyweek as I do my little
whiteboard and sitting throughmy own thing and making sure
okay. Monday, I have clinic thekids have to get to soccer. Is
that figured out? On Tuesday, Ihave a lecture, less structured
day. What are like the threemost important things I can do
(33:18):
for my podcast or my courses tomove things forward, and I also
plan out my workouts for eachday, because that's something
that's incredibly important tome. And then I kind of look
ahead to the weekend and makesure that we have like, a like,
a decent balance of of thingsgoing on, but also that there's
at least something in there thatis fun for me. No, that's
Dave Crenshaw (33:38):
really important.
Is that fun part? I wrote a bookcalled The Power of having fun.
Sarah, so that's how importantit is to me, from a productivity
standpoint, but also a wellbeingstandpoint. What is fun for you?
Unknown (33:50):
Fun for me is social things. I'd say for the most
part, I'm in a book club. I alsorun, and the runs that I do with
friends are usually Mondays andWednesday mornings, and then
sometimes we have get togethersas well. This is super nerdy,
but I love, like shopping forfancy stationery. So when I'm
ever stressed out, I will eitherdo that, try to find a store to
go to and browse around and lookfor it, and then, as cheesy and
(34:13):
cliche as it is, if I reallywant just like pure relaxation,
I love to get myself a massageor get my nails done.
Dave Crenshaw (34:19):
Oh, that's great.
With all this stationery. Whatare you doing? Calligraphy? Are
you like writing? Yield, thankyou, notes and sending it out to
people. What are you doing withthis stationery? Sarah,
Unknown (34:29):
that would be super fun. It's more like notebooks
and like fancy like planningtools and things like that.
Like, you know, your stickynotes that were imported from
Japan are made out of somespecial paper and then the cool
brush pen that you can writewith. So there's a whole world
out there of stationaryenthusiasts, believe it or not.
Well,
Dave Crenshaw (34:47):
yeah, I have a daughter who's into that. Okay,
you've mentioned workouts.
You've mentioned running severaltimes. Talk to us a little bit
about the role that fitnessplays in your. Success,
Unknown (35:00):
I think I would have a lot of anxiety, other mental
challenges, if I didn't run. Ifind it incredibly therapeutic
for me now, I've run fourmarathons. Actually, I have
another one coming up in twoweeks, and I've run since, you
know, the 2000s My husband was acollege level runner as well,
and I kind of learned the art oflong distance running from him,
(35:24):
but for me, running is moreabout mental health than
physical health. And then I alsofind other forms of fitness
incredibly important as well,like strength training and yoga
for flexibility, although I sortof have forgotten what those are
like these days because of thefact that I'm running a marathon
in two weeks when you're whenyou're at the peak of training.
The other things tend to fall bythe wayside, and then I'll pick
(35:45):
them back up as soon as I amdone, because they are
incredibly important. You just
Dave Crenshaw (35:49):
made a really interesting statement, though.
You said that this is more aboutyour mental health than your
physical health, and that, to mesounds like the perspective of
an endocrinologist. Talk to usfrom a hormonal standpoint of
the role that physical exercisehas on our mental health.
Unknown (36:09):
Well, first of all, I will say, from a from an
endocrinologist perspective, webelieve that exercise is
incredibly important forphysical health as well. I mean,
if I could prescribe it as atreatment for a lot of
conditions, I would and in fact,sometimes I say that to
patients, it just is a differentlevel of relaxation and calm
that I get when I am doingregular cardiovascular exercise,
(36:31):
that nothing else takes theplace of that. For me, I do
think this is individual. Ithink there's a reason why some
people kind of fall into thisand they they get so much,
almost intrinsic reward fromdoing it, that they they keep
doing it, and other people arelike that didn't do anything for
me. So I don't know the howuniversal this is, but certainly
for some people, includingmyself, it just makes a huge
difference on my outlook and mymood and everything.
Dave Crenshaw (36:56):
I think that that's really important. It's
funny. I remember having aconversation with one of my
daughters, and I mentioned goingand working out, and she's like,
why? Very practical. Like, whyI'm like, well, you're gonna
think better, you're gonna writebetter. You're gonna be more
successful because you exercisethat seemed to hit with her,
(37:17):
that seemed to resonate withwhat she wanted. That's
Unknown (37:20):
awesome. I mean, I also just believe, like we evolved
not to sit in front of a screenall day. We evolved to be moving
around doing something, and ourcurrent lifestyles are just not
in line with how we were meantto live and exercise. Kind of
helps. It's not like we weremeant to run marathons
specifically, but it probablyhelps bring us back to a state
more of kind of how we weremeant to be,
Dave Crenshaw (37:42):
yeah. All right, so talk to me about the future.
What do you see ahead for yourcareer over the next five years?
Unknown (37:51):
I don't see any huge changes. I love what I'm doing
right now, which is that I'mclinically practicing part time,
and on the other time, I'm doingpodcasting. I'm doing speaking,
I am doing course teaching andeven, like, live event hosting
and stuff. I never saw that onecoming. That was like a whim,
and then it was so much fun, andI'm like, I have to do this
again. So I guess the one thingthat I really, really want to
(38:14):
do, like really, is I, I feel Ihave a book in me. The content
that is makes up my course, bestlife plans Academy alone is like
a book, and I would like to havethat published traditionally so
that I can get my message out tomore people. So I am hoping to
be able to kind of add that tomy jack of all trades stuff that
I do on the planning side. Butother than that, I just hope to
(38:37):
keep growing all the channelsthat I'm currently doing. I do
not do any social media, no
Dave Crenshaw (38:43):
Instagram, no LinkedIn, nothing like that. I
quit Facebook
Unknown (38:48):
in 2016 and Instagram in 2021 I found them really,
really bad for my own mentalhealth. And then was like, if I
find them bad for me, why am Ithere?
Dave Crenshaw (38:56):
Okay, so that brings up a really interesting
question. I think I know theanswer, but I'd like to hear
what your perspective is. Whatis the difference between social
media and your website? They'reonline, they're using screens.
So why is one work and onedoesn't? It's
Unknown (39:13):
a great question. I mean, and I read other people's
websites too. I use a servicecalled Feedly that like
aggregates different privateblogs, websites are so much more
personal and they're so finite.
I mean, even if you subscribe to10 websites, you're done in like
10 minutes or so. Somebody'sblog post is not an infinite
scroll. It's kind of a one time.
And it also feels more like anenvironment that I own and can
(39:37):
therefore kind of take in thedirection that I control, versus
Instagram, there's a lot oflike, you know, the algorithm
decides what people see, andthen maybe, also, maybe I have
10 posts, and Instagram decidesto show everybody one of them.
But that's not really, like, themain point of what I'm trying to
convey. Like, there's a lot lesscontrol there. But honestly, the
true reason is that is just myown personal experience with
(39:58):
those platforms and that i.
Found them very detrimental tome versus blogs. I don't feel
that way at all.
Dave Crenshaw (40:05):
I agree. I think there needs to be a healthy
boundary. I don't know ifcompletely exiting it is right
for everyone, but I know thatthere are ways to create
boundaries with it. I've helpedmy kids by saying, hey, look,
here's a time limit on yourphone. This is how much time
you're allowed to spend.
Instagram's top of mind becausethat's what we just recently
talked about. So you have acertain amount of time you can
spend on Instagram, and thenthat's it. Totally
Unknown (40:27):
I think boundaries and other things work really well
for lots of people. Noteverybody has to go cold turkey,
but I love it. Yeah.
Dave Crenshaw (40:34):
Okay, so this is the point, Sarah, thank you so
much for sharing your story withus. This is the point where I
like to summarize and call outsome action items that someone
can take my goal with this showis to not just hear these great
stories, and your story iswonderful and it is inspiring,
but to also help people takeaction. I'm a big believer in
acting on what you learn. Sowhat I'm going to do is I'm
(40:56):
going to highlight three actionsthat I noticed out of many that
someone might take this week tomake your success story part of
their success story, and thenI'd like you to add one at the
end. Sound good. Sounds good.
All right. So the first one thatI highlighted, this was early in
your story, when you weretalking about working in the lab
versus being a doctor, iscultivate awareness of your
(41:20):
personality. Cultivate awarenessof what works for you and what
doesn't work for you. Avoidgetting sucked into that trap of
saying, Well, I've already spenta year of my life on this. I
need to just keep going andinstead saying, Wait, is this
working for me? Is this right?
And then pursue the things thatmatch who you are and how you
(41:42):
like to operate best. That issomething I've seen consistently
among the executives that I'vecoached, is they find the sweet
spot for who they are and howthey want to operate. So just
ask yourself the question, Am Idoing the thing that really fits
myself? Am I doing the thingthat I love? The other one I
want to call out is thatconversation that we had about
(42:03):
being on call and how you had toadjust your schedule and adjust
your expectations for yourselfon those six weeks out of the
year that you're on call. We allhave moments where whether or
not our job is putting us thisway, something in life is
putting us in a situation wherewe're under stress and where
(42:25):
we're going to have a lot moredemands. I just went through
that recently with the passingof a parent. Suddenly the whole
schedule changed, and I had todeal with all these other things
when that happens, give yourselfpermission to get help. Give
yourself permission to adjustthe schedule, even if it's
temporarily, and makeadjustments so that you're
(42:46):
lowering the expectations onyourself, so that you are better
prepared to handle theinevitable interruptions that
are going to occur. And then thelast one, I just want to
highlight that concept ofexercise and making that a part
of your schedule. This issomething that, boy, I'm a lot
better than I used to be, say,10 years ago. With it, I still
(43:08):
have improvements that I canmake, but boy, do I see the
impact of getting regularexercise has on my mental
health. If I don't exercise forroughly an hour every day, I
cannot sleep at night. Soconsider what you're doing right
now, and just say, Can I add alittle bit more? You don't have
to go full crazy, and you don'thave to, like, add two hours to
(43:31):
your schedule of exercise, justadd something a little bit more
than what you were doing before,and then maybe in a month or
two, add a little bit more tothat. And I think you'll start
to see some of the benefits thatSarah talked about. All right,
Sarah, what is an action thatyou would suggest someone can
take this week?
Unknown (43:47):
Yeah, I would pay attention to see if there's
something that you love doing somuch you would do it for free,
and then figure out if there isa way of integrating that into
your work life. And by that Idon't necessarily mean like,
quit your job and become apodcast or something like that.
But instead, are there ways thatyou could gradually either grow
something or even find elementswithin your current role to
(44:11):
exercise that passion? So yeah,pay attention to what you would
do, even if nobody was watchingor paying you for because I
think it took me a while, butI'm like, I really love
blogging, I love writing topeople, and ultimately, found a
way to make that kind of part ofwhat I do.
Dave Crenshaw (44:27):
And when you do something that you love, you
have more longevity. You'll worklonger and harder than someone
else who's just forcingthemselves to do it, and it
won't feel very much like workto you. That's a huge advantage
when you're doing something youlove. Sarah, thank you so much
for taking the time to shareyour story and your wisdom with
(44:48):
us. I sure gained a lot out ofit. So thank you. Thank you for
being willing to do this.
Unknown (44:54):
This was so fun I liked, kind of like going
through memory lane. So thankyou for having me on and giving
me a chance to share my story.
Yeah,
Dave Crenshaw (45:00):
and I'm sure there are a lot of people who
want to follow you. They want tocontinue the relationship with
you. Where would you like themto go to stay connected and
follow your work? Yeah,
Unknown (45:11):
they can go to my website, the shoebox.com, T, H,
E, S, H, U, B, O, x.com, orcheck out you to the podcast
that I'm part of best of bothworlds or best laid plans. Thank
Dave Crenshaw (45:21):
you for sharing that with us, Sarah, and thank
you everyone for listening.
Remember, it's not so much aboutthe knowledge you gained or how
inspired you were, it's aboutthe action that you take. So
please do one thing this week onwhat you heard today, and you'll
make Sarah's success story apart of your success story.
Thanks for listening.
Darci Crenshaw (45:45):
You've been listening to the Dave Crenshaw
Success Show, hosted by my dad,Dave Crenshaw, and produced by
invaluable incorporated researchand assistant production by
Victoria bidez, Sound Editing byNick Wright, voiceover by me
Darci Crenshaw, and the music isby Ryan Brady via Pon five
(46:06):
licensing, please subscribe tothe Dave Crenshaw success show
on Apple podcasts Spotify,wherever you like to get your
podcasts. If you have asuggestion for someone my dad
might like to interview, pleasesend it to guests at Dave
crenshaw.com and please don'tforget to leave us a five star
review. See you next time you.
My dream job was actually to become a
psychiatrist, and I got thatidea not from something eyebrow,
but from watching growing pains,because the dad had this job as
a psychiatrist.
Dave Crenshaw (00:13):
In this episode, you'll get to know Sarah Hart
Unger, the physician with aplan, and you'll hear the story
of how she balances a happy lifeas a pediatric doctor, a
successful podcaster and amother of three. I'm Dave
Crenshaw, and this is my successShow. Welcome back, friends, to
(00:35):
the Dave Crenshaw Success Show.
This is where I speak to some ofthe most successful people I've
met in my life's journey, andI'm on a mission to find
universal principles of successthat you can use today to help
you succeed. In case it's yourfirst time here, and I'm new to
you. I'm a best selling author.
I speak around the world toFortune 500 companies, and I've
(00:55):
taught millions of people how tobe successful through my online
courses, particularly onLinkedIn. Learning with this
show, I was inspired to createsomething different. First, I
wanted to help my kids succeedand help them find universal
principles of success, and Istarted interviewing people that
I admire, and I thought you'denjoy learning along with them.
I seek to interview people whohave multifaceted success, so
(01:19):
success in multiple areas oftheir life, not just career
success, but they also have ahappy life, and they make time
for friends and family and tohave fun. And by the way, if you
know someone like that who hasmultifaceted success, you can
send your guest suggestion to usat guest at success dot show.
(01:39):
Now, before we get into today'sepisode, I'd like you to do
something. I would like you todo something for yourself. And
what that is, is to look forsomething you can do as you hear
Sarah's story today, look for anaction that you can take today
or this week to make my guestsuccess story a part of your
success story. Today's guest ispretty remarkable. Dr Sarah Hart
(02:04):
Unger is a board certifiedpediatric endocrinologist as
well as a podcaster, speaker andcreator of the shoebox. Her
expertise covers many areas fromdiabetes to growth and to other
endocrine disorders. She's ahighly sought after doctor, and
has expertise in graduatemedical education, where she's
(02:25):
served in leadership roles as awriter, she's passionate about
helping people make the most oftheir limited time through
effective planning and goalsetting. She's the host of the
best laid plans podcast, whichhas been featured in The New
York Times, and she's also theco host of the best of both
worlds podcast. She lives inHollywood, Florida, where she
(02:47):
enjoys reading, running andspending time with her husband
and three children. Sarah, it'san honor to have you on the show
today.
Unknown (02:55):
Thank you so much for having me on I'm so excited to
chat today.
Dave Crenshaw (02:58):
Yeah, and where are you located right now
Unknown (03:00):
I am in South Florida, so basically between Miami and
Fort Lauderdale, it's currentlyabout 95 degrees.
Dave Crenshaw (03:08):
Oh my goodness, yeah, it's a lot. That's a lot
warmer than where it is in Utahright now. I think we're at
about 70. So thank you for beingon Sarah. And I'm really
interested in diving into yourstory, because you've done so
many different things. Youreally have a very interesting
career path. I like to askeveryone the same question when
(03:28):
we start, which is, when youwere a teenager, what did you
want to be when you grew up?
Unknown (03:35):
I had a couple of passions, but my dream job was
actually to become apsychiatrist, and I got that
idea not from somethinghighbrow, but from watching
growing pains, because the dadhad this job as a psychiatrist,
and he did it from his house.
He'd like wander into this room,chat with people. He seemed like
this distinguished character,and then it seemed like his day
(03:58):
was over, and he'd like, walkout and hang out with his
family, and I'm like, that looksawesome. I also became
interested in some, like, booksand stuff about random
psychology topics, and thought,Okay, I'm gonna be a
psychologist or psychiatrist.
Gonna be like the guy in growingpains, yeah? So that was my
initial idea. Well, that's
Dave Crenshaw (04:18):
interesting, because I think now you've
accomplished something verysimilar, right, not as a
psychiatrist or a psychologist,but you work from your home, and
then you get to go out and spendtime with your family there in
Florida, right? You kind of gotthere some
Unknown (04:32):
days, I work from my home, yes, and I get to talk
with people. And to be honest,even in my professional medical
job, I do a lot of psychiatryadjacent work, just talking with
kids and teens. So yeah, oh
Dave Crenshaw (04:46):
yeah, yeah, you're definitely in a position
to help people sort of as, like,their first contact with
psychiatry.
Unknown (04:53):
Yeah. I mean, I can't claim to be an expert on on that
specific field, but since I takecare of kids with conditions
like. Diabetes that can bereally, really challenging from
a mental health perspective.
There's plenty of tough topicsto delve into and talk about,
where I get to kind of thinkabout how I can best serve them.
Dave Crenshaw (05:10):
That's wonderful.
Mental health is a huge thing inmy life and my family. Several
people in my family deal withsevere anxiety. I was clinically
diagnosed as off the charts.
ADHD, that is the term that wasused when I took the test. So
that's a big part of what wefocus on, on our family, and how
to manage that in a healthy way.
Unknown (05:32):
I get that we have at least one formally diagnosed
ADHD member of our family, andprobably at least one unformally
diagnosed member of our family,least at this point. Yeah.
Dave Crenshaw (05:42):
Okay, so let's talk about where you went from
there. You thought that that wasgoing to occur, so you went to
college. Where did you study?
Unknown (05:50):
I went to Williams College, which is a small
liberal arts school in WesternMassachusetts. It is lovely and
idyllic. I grew up in kind of aboring Philadelphia, not boring,
but a maybe less beautifulPhiladelphia suburb, and I
wanted something country andlush and beautiful. And when I
visited Williamstown, I waslike, Yes, I am in on this. And
(06:11):
I initially was a biology major,and considered doing a
psychology double major seethinking along the lines, yeah.
And I had a wonderful timethere, and decided to go pre med
a couple years into college.
Now, psychiatry is a medicalfield, but I think by the time I
got to maybe sophomore or junioryear in college, I was thinking
more like other fields ofmedicine, just the idea of
(06:34):
continuing to work with people,use science and help others and
have a very kind of social jobas well. I guess you
Dave Crenshaw (06:43):
know, there's something you said there that I
do want to pause on for asecond. We've mentioned
psychiatry and psychology. Ihave found that most people
don't understand the differencebetween the two. Could you
briefly explain the differencebetween a psychiatrist and a
psychologist, because they bothserve very important roles.
(07:04):
Yeah,
Unknown (07:04):
so a psychiatrist is a MD or medical doctor. They get
trained in medical school, theygo through a psychiatry
residency, and there is someoverlap with what they do, like
some psychiatrists dopsychoanalysis or traditional
forms of therapy, but a lot ofwhat psychiatrists do is also
centered around medicalmanagement, meaning giving
pharmaco therapeutics ormedicines, basically to people
(07:27):
to help with various disorderssuch as depression, anxiety and
lots and lots of other things.
Whereas psychology, there'sactually a lot of different
forms of psychology. The truepsychologist, I believe, because
this is not my field. Is a PhDmost of the time. There may be
Master's equivalents, but Ibelieve when you say
psychologist or they're a doctorof psychology, they're either a
(07:47):
side D or they're a PhD inpsychology. So the training is a
little bit different, and it'snot centered around medications,
per se, but more like talkingforms of therapy. And then
there's really lots of branchesof psychology as well, like
there's organizationalpsychology and behavioral
psychology and developmentalpsychology, and lots of
different kind of
Dave Crenshaw (08:08):
flavors of that.
Thank you for explaining that. Iknow that that's not necessarily
your your field of expertise,but I felt it was so important,
because I come from aperspective that both have been
very valuable in my life. I workwith both a psychologist and a
psychiatrist, and they havehelped me really have a lot of
success. So thanks for indulgingme for a second with that
question. So talk to me aboutwhere you started. So you did
(08:30):
pre med. Where did you start? Tosay, Yeah, you know what? This
is, what I want to do instead.
And in fact, I'm going to focuson something like endocrinology.
Unknown (08:43):
So I'll be honest, I don't think my story is typical
here. Most people, when they'rein college, don't really have an
idea of a specific field ofmedicine that they're interested
in. And I certainly wouldn'thave stood up and said, like,
I'm definitely going to be anendocrinologist, but I took a
class called hormones andbehavior, taught by an excellent
professor who is still atWilliams named Noah Sandstrom.
Professor, Noah Sandstrom, andthis class was just like one of
(09:06):
the best classes I had evertaken, because we learned how
just these subtle hormonalshifts, like different changes
in the blood, can actuallychange how animals and humans
behave. And that connection wasjust like so wild to me that you
could predict that, you know, astressed out animal is going to
make more of this hormone, orthat giving XYZ hormone is going
to make someone do a differentthing, like that was just so
(09:26):
wild. I also found the pathwaysreally intuitive and interesting
to learn about, and so from thatstandpoint, I ended up doing
research with this professorduring college at Williams. A
lot of people elect to do what'scalled thesis research. So you
spend, like, an entire yearworking one on one or in a small
group with a professor to doyour own original research. And
(09:47):
mine was actually on maternalstress and memory in rats. So it
was kind of an endocrinologyslash. It was called psycho
neuro Endocrinology at the time.
But yeah, even back then, I wasthinking, yeah, endo seems. Kind
of cool. I didn't really knowwhat that career would actually
look like. I had never met atthat point, an endocrinologist
or a pediatric endocrinologist,but I definitely had the idea
(10:10):
that that was a topic of studythat was very interesting to me.
What
Dave Crenshaw (10:15):
is the difference with a pediatric
endocrinologist? What uniquechallenges do children face with
that versus, say, an adult thatyou might be working with? Yeah,
Unknown (10:27):
well, it's just totally different training. Actually. If
you're interested in being apediatric endocrinologist,
you're taking care of kidsmostly under the age of 18, and
you go through pediatricsresidency instead of internal
medicine residency, and yeah,the conditions you deal with are
actually pretty different. Imean, there's certainly overlap.
Both children and adults. Forexample, get type one and type
two diabetes, but disorders ofpuberty and growth and like
(10:51):
neonatal issues, likehypoglycemia or adrenal issues
or thyroid, those are going tobe, you know, specific to
pediatrics, if you're dealingwith little, tiny babies. So
back in that college phase, Ikind of didn't, I didn't think
about what things were going tolook long term. And I actually
thought at that point that I waspotentially interested in doing
an MD PhD and continuing to doresearch as I acquired my
(11:14):
medical degree. So I know youwant us to talk about kind of
failures, or maybe the way thatthings didn't go how we planned.
Yeah, please. I actually endedup applying to med school to
specifically MD PhD programsinstead of just straight MD
programs. And partly, I had justhad such a great time doing that
research with my professor, andthought, hey, I'm just going to
(11:35):
continue. I'm going to be aresearcher and a clinician. At
the time, I was 21 years old,making this choice. Didn't think
about the fact that an MD PhDtakes about 10 years, what that
would mean for my life andcareer. It didn't work out
exactly how I had planned. Okay,
Dave Crenshaw (11:51):
so what? What did happen? Why didn't that work
out?
Unknown (11:55):
So I did get accepted to a number of programs, which
was amazing. Mdphd programs arequite competitive. And I was
very lucky enough to be selectedfor Duke's program. So I
matriculated there in 2002 so Idid my two years of the medical
portion, which included one yearof kind of academic study, and
then one year in the clinics.
And then I did my third year inthe lab, and then I started my
(12:17):
fourth year in the lab. And waslike, so my fourth year overall,
and was like, I don't like thelab as much as I thought I liked
the lab, and oh my god, I'mgonna be stuck here for another
three, four years, and I don'teven think I wanna do research
anymore in my career. And like,How can I be giving up my youth
to the lab when it's not so Ibasically had like, a crisis at
25 years of age, a quarter lifecrisis. I think I called it sure
(12:39):
and ended up leaving the PhDportion. Duke was awesome. Their
understanding of this, theydon't want to drag somebody
through a program they're nolonger passionate about. So I
was able to just transition backinto med school, and had another
year of med school, andcompleted med school in 2007 but
I did leave the PhD behind forthe Masters.
Dave Crenshaw (13:01):
What specifically did you not like about the lab?
Unknown (13:05):
I didn't like that when you were doing experiments,
there was, like, no, there wastoo much uncertainty. Like, you
can work so hard on somethingand then if it doesn't give the
result you were hoping for, yousort of have to, like, start
from scratch. But I'm more of a,like, I want to start with a and
add B and know that, like, I'mpretty much gonna get C. And I
know it's not like that increative work either, but it
(13:25):
kind of is that way in clinicalmedicine, to a degree. And I
just it wasn't social enough forme. I think you could go days
with, like, barely, I mean, youcertainly talked in, like, lab
meetings or with your lab mates,but I just didn't have the
passion for it anymore. And tobe honest, I don't think I was
that good at it because thepeople that were good at it had
the passion, and so it was kindof like feeding on itself, like,
(13:46):
Okay, I don't love this. I'm notgetting stuff done now I love it
even less. And so I just, I alsosaw myself getting older, to be
honest. I knew I wanted kids,and just felt ready to move on.
So and
Dave Crenshaw (13:58):
what I want to highlight there, because this is
about how to find career successand life success. And there was
an awareness on your part thatthis wasn't for you. And I think
a lot of people, they just keepplowing ahead. Well, I made this
choice. I'm just going to keepdoing it. And that's not
necessarily a good thing when,especially in the early part of
your career, where you'refiguring out, what do I want to
(14:20):
dedicate my life to. I thinkit's okay to make those switches
early on. For those who arecontemplating going to medical
school, what does it take tosucceed in medical school,
especially at a place like Duke,you
Unknown (14:34):
have to enjoy it. You have to keep your purpose in
mind and what you want to do,because it is a lot, lot lot of
work and some tedious work. AndI think if you're not excited
about what you're going to do atthe end of the line, it's going
to be hard to keep up with that.
I think a lot of the basic studyskills that apply to any subject
in any area are going to applyto med school. There's nothing
magical or different about it. Ithink you have to work on your
listening and communicationskills really hone those down,
(14:56):
because your time. Spent in theclinic is all about how you
communicate. You'recommunicating to your attendings
and your residents about whatthey want from you, and, you
know, the results they want tohear from you about with your
patients. You're communicatingwith your patients how to, you
know, explain something andanswer their questions and make
sure you kind of meet them wherethey need you. And I think that
really honing those skills,figuring out when they don't
(15:19):
work out what you can do betteris really, really important for
medical school and medicine ingeneral. And
Dave Crenshaw (15:26):
you're bringing up an interesting principle here
of success that I think we'veall seen doctors who are great
at it and doctors who are not,which is listening, which is
paying attention to what thepatient is telling you. How do
you or did you make sure thatyou brought the right attitude
(15:49):
to listening to others, ratherthan just sort of dismissing
what they're saying? And youknow, I know the answer, let's
get out of here. Let's, let's,let's go to that a plus b equal
c, immediately. I
Unknown (15:59):
think it takes practice. I think it takes
messing up sometimes and missingsomething and have an attending
point out that, hey, you went inthere with XYZ agenda and like
you weren't right, or you didn'ttake the time to really consider
this other possibility.
Dave Crenshaw (16:12):
Did you give attendance the permission to say
that to you, or were they justbold enough to save it? Oh,
Unknown (16:18):
in medical school, there's nothing about permission
you get, like you're gettingfeedback, whether you'd like it
or not. At least, I think it'sbecome Kinder in more recent
years. But let me just say that,like back in the day, people
were very not shy about what youweren't doing well. So, you
know, sometimes that waspainful. Other times, I think
you are able to develop a thickskin.
Dave Crenshaw (16:40):
Yeah, I think that's good. I think directness
is always valuable, but I thinkthere's a way to be direct in a
kind and polite way so that theyclearly know what they need to
do, but you don't need to makesomeone feel terrible about
their mistakes.
Unknown (16:54):
Yeah, the culture's definitely shifted in that way,
and that's great.
Dave Crenshaw (16:57):
So talk to me about when and how you started
to go into practice foryourself. What was that process
like? Yeah,
Unknown (17:05):
so, you know, medicine takes a long time just to, you
know, for those who arelistening and contemplating that
path, for me, it was five yearsin med school because I did that
extra research year. Butnormally, medical school is four
years. Then there are threeyears of general pediatrics
residency. At that point, Icould have chosen to become just
a general pediatrician andpractice in a community or join
(17:27):
a group practice, but because Iwas interested in pediatric
endocrinology, I had to dowhat's called a fellowship. So
that's three years on top ofthat. So we got four plus three
plus three. In my case, fiveplus three plus three. I spent
11 years at Duke doing all ofthat training. What's a
fellowship? What does that mean?
Fellowship is a specialization.
So again, like I became apediatrician after those three
(17:48):
years in residency, but tobecome a pediatric
endocrinologist, you do threemore years of training, and
that's kind of divided intoresearch time and clinical time.
And by the way, you're paid as aresident and as a fellow, you
are no longer quote in school.
You're an employee of thehealthcare system or the
hospital where you work. You'rejust not paid very well. So it's
like enough to live on. But Istarted looking for jobs during
(18:08):
my second year of fellowship,and knew that, because my
husband was from South Floridaand was interested in living and
working near his parents, wedecided to kind of limit our job
search to South Florida, and sothere were only two kind of
bigger healthcare systems thatwere hiring for pediatric
endocrinology. So my job searchwasn't very long. I interviewed
(18:30):
at both of those places andended up getting an offer at the
one where I am still workingtoday and have been there now
almost 11 years.
Dave Crenshaw (18:40):
Oh, that's amazing. You mentioned your your
husband. I know that your familyis very important to you. So
where in that 11 year journeydid he come into the picture?
Yes, so
Unknown (18:51):
we met in medical school. In the very beginning,
we were dating by the firsttest, we didn't do very well in
that test. It's okay. We datedall through that time, and then
we got married when I was juststarting my my last year of med
school, and he was finishing hismed school because he was a year
ahead of me, because he didn'tdo that extra year in the lab.
Thankfully, his training linedup with mine perfectly. He's a
(19:13):
vascular surgeon, and so weactually finished both at the
same time, mid year, 2013 and
Dave Crenshaw (19:19):
were able to move together. Okay? And so he's a
doctor as well. Yes, he's
Unknown (19:24):
a vascular surgeon.
Dave Crenshaw (19:25):
Does that spill into your personal life? Do you
talk about medical things, or doyou maintain a good boundary
between those? I
Unknown (19:34):
think we talk about stuff. We definitely talk about
stuff. I find it helpful,actually. I mean, we don't like
talk about stuff all the time,because no one wants to talk
about their work all the time.
But if there's something aboutwork that is stressing me out, I
can feel comfortable that he'sgoing to understand kind of how
the language to know what I'mdealing with, and same for him.
And so I think it's helpful. Ithink we also both kind of
understand that there are timeswhen work may pull us in a very.
(19:58):
Obligatory manner, like whenwe're, quote, on call, and I can
talk about what on call means,you know, if someone needs you,
you have to put that onpriority. You have to pick up
the phone, or, in his case,sometimes he has to actually go
to work. I think a non medicalpartner would get it, but they
may not get it from that, like,internal level, like, I know,
you know, when they're callinghim, it may be because someone's
literally, like, bleeding andthey need, they need surgical
(20:20):
assistance immediately. And youknow, he needs to go. I get
that. Let's
Dave Crenshaw (20:25):
pause on that for a second. I know that you are
helping people with timemanagement. You're very
interested in that. And as atime management productivity
guy, I saw a problem that youjust brought up, which is, you
try to manage your time. You tryto be organized, but some
positions require interruption,and that creates chaos when you
(20:46):
have that interruption. Soyou're still on call from time
to time,
Unknown (20:51):
yep. So I'm on call a week at a time, but only six
weeks per year. So I think it'svery important to understand
exactly what the boundaries arearound like that, that you can
shift into that reactive modefor a defined period and kind of
really work on preparingyourself for that, setting
yourself for success whileyou're doing it, and then
(21:12):
ramping off of it and knowingthat it's finite. So that is the
one beautiful thing about mostcall systems now, is that, yes,
you are on call for a period oftime, it also means that you can
entirely sign off for otherperiods of time.
Dave Crenshaw (21:25):
So what I want to talk about is the structure,
specifically how you adjust,because you're going to operate
a certain way when you're not oncall. And I think a lot of
people, they feel like they canhave control, except in a job
where they have to beinterrupted. So I've got my
opinions about it, but I'd loveto hear your opinion about what
you do structurally to your weekon the weeks that you are on
(21:48):
call, like, what do you not do?
What do you do in thosesituations? Yeah,
Unknown (21:53):
I try to get into things that are very important
to me very early in the morning,because I'm very unlikely to be
interrupted during those times.
So even when I'm on call, I knowfrom experience that I'm very
unlikely to be paged from like,you know, 5am to 7am or
something like that. So ifsomething is extremely important
to me, I'm going to be doing itduring that time. I also get
more support for myself duringthat time, like that is when I
(22:16):
use the meal delivery kits andmake sure I have extra
childcare. We do have a nannywho has been working with us
since 2013 those weeks can be alittle difficult, because my
schedule can be lesspredictable, but then other
weeks, it's much morepredictable, and so things kind
of balance out in that way.
Yeah,
Dave Crenshaw (22:37):
there's a lot of great little nuggets of wisdom
in there, the fact that you'remaking adjustments, you're
saying, Okay, this is going tobe a more stressful period, so
I'm going to get more help.
These are all things that arerelevant, even if you're not a
doctor on call, perhaps you'rein a situation where life became
crazy for a little bit. Andthese are good tools that anyone
(22:58):
can use. Talk to me about amentor that you had during all
that school, someone that youlook back on and say that person
had a great impact on me. And Ibring this up because part of
what I see in the patterns ofpeople who are successful is
they have a mentor who helpedthem at some point, is there
(23:20):
someone like that? And you lookback and you always think of the
lesson they taught you,
Unknown (23:25):
yeah. I mean, I would say multiple members of the
pediatric endocrinologydivision, but in particular, two
stand out to me. One is RobBenjamin and one is Nancy
McIver. They're both facultymembers. One of them's still at
Duke, the other one's at UNC.
They're actually both divisionchiefs now, which is
interesting. It's kind of likeleaders of the division. And
they both loved their jobs,loved their families, really
(23:48):
were active participants intheir families, and were really
unapologetic about kind ofreally enjoying both spheres.
And I, I loved seeing that, Ithink they also both set really
appropriate boundaries aroundtheir work. I think they worked
hard, but they weren't willingto do things that maybe they
didn't need to do specifically.
(24:11):
And both have been incrediblysuccessful, as well as being
just like super nice people thatI've kept in touch with, yeah,
Dave Crenshaw (24:17):
well, and you talked about how they have the
the balance of all of that, andthat's a big part of what you're
doing now is helping people alsohave that balance right. So
you're passing on that lesson toothers. How did you get involved
in this 40% doing things thatreally aren't medical?
Unknown (24:37):
So I started a blog in 2004 think original mommy blog,
except I didn't have kids backthen, so I don't know what you
would call it. There reallyweren't that many people doing
that at the time, and I was kindof bored on an outpatient
rotation in the middle of thecountry, in North Carolina. And
(24:58):
I was like, I think I'll start ablog. Blog. My friend had one. I
was like, Oh, I really like thiswriting thing. This is actually
a lot of fun. And this was,like, the kind of early blogger
boom. Women were doing it. A lotof women were earning, like,
significant amounts of money. Inever, ever was super
commercially successful on theblog side alone, but I built a
lot of relationships. I learneda lot of things, and over the
(25:21):
course of writing 1000s and1000s of posts, because it's
something I truly love to do, bythe way. I mean, I love the act
of writing and reflecting, andlove what my commenters would
have to say, Like it felt likebuilding a community. It was
just so much fun, and it stillis. I still love blogging, and
it does not feel like work tome. So, you know, I'd write
(25:42):
about my life. I'd write aboutmedicine, obviously not about
patients, like I was verycareful, but it was more like
about my experience. And thenwhen I got pregnant, and well,
actually, I struggled to getpregnant, so I wrote about that.
And then when I finally did getpregnant, I wrote about kind of
the early mommy years. Andsomewhere in there, I started
listening to a lot of podcasts,and I said, Oh, I think I might
want to start a podcast like, Ilike talking. And then Laura
(26:06):
Vanderkam, who, at the time, wasa best selling author, but we'd
become friends because we werecommenting on each other's
blogs, and she's like, Hey, I'lldo a podcast with you. That
sounds cool. And that's whenbest of both worlds started. And
I think I started to realizethat some of what I was doing
could be leveraged into, like,you know, true business type
(26:26):
stuff, and then I had a lot Iwanted to share with the world,
and that is how I ultimatelyended up deciding to leave a
leadership position at work,which I really enjoyed in many
ways, because I just felt like Ihad something to say, and this
was my chance to say it. But itreally all started with the
blog.
Dave Crenshaw (26:44):
Did you find that it was easier to devote that
much time to something whichinitially really was a hobby,
right? Was that made possiblebecause of the career that you
have been having in the medicalprofession and the money that
you were making from that?
Unknown (26:58):
No, I think was more just like straight up
compulsion. And then I lovedoing it, get up early, write my
blog post, because I just feltlike I had to. And then I would
like go running and go to work.
I think it was more therapeuticfor me. It didn't take away from
my work hours. I mean, Ipracticed. I was full time
completely at that point. I wasstill in medical school and then
in residency. So I wasn't doingit as a side job. I was doing
(27:19):
it. I mean, hobby is a word, butI almost just feel like it was,
like a side passion. It was apassion of mine. But have you
Dave Crenshaw (27:27):
moved away from having a full time job in the
medical profession?
Unknown (27:31):
Yep, as of October of 2022, so this is like very late
in the game, and that is after Istarted my other podcast called
best laid plans, and realized Ifelt like I had a structured I
write about lots of things on mywebsite, and we talk about lots
of things on best of bothworlds. But one thing that just
came up again and again waslike, how important our planning
processes are for settingourselves up with success, and
(27:53):
how little most of us think ofthese things. And I just started
becoming obsessed with the idea,I love the book, Getting Things
Done, the classic David Allenbook from like, 2003 and I'm
like, I want to create a moderngetting things done specifically
to help women, you know, becauseI feel like, in the productivity
space, I don't know, a lot ofthe work just doesn't feel like
it's totally for us. And so Ilaunched something called best
(28:18):
laid plans Academy, thinking,like, oh, I don't know. Will
anybody, like, sign up to dothis with me? It's gonna be a
course teaching people how tobuild their planning system. And
it was really, reallysuccessful. So I was like, Okay,
this is becoming, like, real,like, I want to put more of
myself into this. And that'swhen I decided that it's time to
just cut bait and see what I cando on my own via the different
(28:40):
podcasts and via the teaching ofwomen, and that's kind of what
led us to the current hybridwhere we are right now.
Dave Crenshaw (28:47):
What do productivity systems miss when
it comes to women and their timemanagement? I mean, you're
talking to someone who my careeris built around that. So I'm
curious about what I might bemissing there.
Unknown (28:59):
I think that a lot of times, like, the mental load at
home is not discussed as much.
So like, one thing that is partof when we teach weekly, I teach
planning on, like, differenttime horizons. We go from annual
to seasonal to monthly toweekly. And like, a lot of the
weekly is centered around acommunication plan with your
partner to make sure everybody'son board for things during the
week. And you know, what is theway that you're splitting up
(29:21):
labor in the household to makesure that you are able to get
some time for yourself and soand that your partner is as
well. Things like that are justnot they're not present in Tim
Ferriss or in getting thingsdone. And you just assume that,
like, there's got to be a womankind of, like behind the scenes
taking care of everything andmaking sure everybody else is
making things run smoothly. Butlike us working women,
(29:41):
especially, although all women,a lot of times, we are that
person, and that stuff takes alot of work, but we're sometimes
doing it on top of paid labor aswell. So I think there, there
are just unique challenges thatneed to be thought about. Or
like when you're planning outyour day thinking about exactly.
You know, where the child carefits into that, and being
intentional about like, okay, myday needs to end at five
(30:04):
because, not just because I feellike it, but because I have to
pick up a kid from this activityand take up to the next
activity, and then I'm going todo work when I'm waiting for the
kid at gymnastics or whatever.
And I'm not saying there's notmen that do those things, but on
the whole, I think thesechallenges tend to be more
salient and common for women,especially after they've had
(30:25):
kids. Could
Dave Crenshaw (30:26):
you share like one principle that you teach to
women and you say, All right,here's a mindset to have to
prepare yourself for this, or tomanage the chaos of all these
things? What's what's oneprinciple that would be helpful.
Yes. So
Unknown (30:42):
I love teaching people to do kind of a weekly overview,
and having some kind of formalcommunication plan that is both
verbal and written, so that canlook a lot of different ways. I
don't think it's a one size fitsall thing. In my particular
case, it's looking ahead to thenext week and filling out a
whiteboard that lives in ourhouse with kind of where
everyone's gonna be, what we'rehaving for dinner, like if my
(31:04):
husband's driving certain days,if I'm driving certain days. So
that's kind of like a writtenrecord that everyone can refer
to, but then also having adiscussion with all the
stakeholders, meaning the kidsand the partner, to make sure
that everything actually worksand that everybody is on the
same page to kind of set thingsup for success.
Dave Crenshaw (31:21):
As I'm listening to this that sounds tactical,
which is very important, do youalso have strategic
conversations, more big pictureconversations with your family
when it comes to the long termplan of things?
Unknown (31:36):
Yeah, and that's actually so that would be more
on, like the larger timehorizons in which I think that
it's awesome when couples, ifpossible, can do a yearly
retreat to kind of think aboutwhether that just means a few
hours at home, or if it means anactual, like, trip away, to talk
about big goals and whateverybody wants, what kind of
big, exciting things they wantthe family to do, or the
(31:57):
direction they want life tohead. So, like, the way I kind
of structure things is to havepeople build a custom planning
ritual at every level, but thatkind of big picture, tactical
stuff that would be on theannual level, and, to a lesser
extent, on the seasonal level.
Dave Crenshaw (32:12):
So you're still in the medical profession, and
you're doing these other things,and you're managing being a
mother and a wife. What are youdoing to make all of that work,
to make sure that you'respending the amount of time that
you want to be spending on eachof these things?
Unknown (32:32):
I think a lot about the value of my time, and I think
ahead about how I want to spendmy time now Laura would probably
say Laura's my co host for bestof both worlds, and I think
you've had her on as well. She'sawesome and an inspiration of
mine. She loves to track time,but I tend to be more kind of in
the looking forward, kind of alens. So I love to do an ideal
week exercise every singleseason where I lay out on a kind
(32:56):
of like a vertical planning pad.
Like, how do I want to spend myhours in an ideal week,
understanding that no week isgoing to be the ideal week, but
then actually sitting down everyweek as I do my little
whiteboard and sitting throughmy own thing and making sure
okay. Monday, I have clinic thekids have to get to soccer. Is
that figured out? On Tuesday, Ihave a lecture, less structured
day. What are like the threemost important things I can do
(33:18):
for my podcast or my courses tomove things forward, and I also
plan out my workouts for eachday, because that's something
that's incredibly important tome. And then I kind of look
ahead to the weekend and makesure that we have like, a like,
a decent balance of of thingsgoing on, but also that there's
at least something in there thatis fun for me. No, that's
Dave Crenshaw (33:38):
really important.
Is that fun part? I wrote a bookcalled The Power of having fun.
Sarah, so that's how importantit is to me, from a productivity
standpoint, but also a wellbeingstandpoint. What is fun for you?
Unknown (33:50):
Fun for me is social things. I'd say for the most
part, I'm in a book club. I alsorun, and the runs that I do with
friends are usually Mondays andWednesday mornings, and then
sometimes we have get togethersas well. This is super nerdy,
but I love, like shopping forfancy stationery. So when I'm
ever stressed out, I will eitherdo that, try to find a store to
go to and browse around and lookfor it, and then, as cheesy and
(34:13):
cliche as it is, if I reallywant just like pure relaxation,
I love to get myself a massageor get my nails done.
Dave Crenshaw (34:19):
Oh, that's great.
With all this stationery. Whatare you doing? Calligraphy? Are
you like writing? Yield, thankyou, notes and sending it out to
people. What are you doing withthis stationery? Sarah,
Unknown (34:29):
that would be super fun. It's more like notebooks
and like fancy like planningtools and things like that.
Like, you know, your stickynotes that were imported from
Japan are made out of somespecial paper and then the cool
brush pen that you can writewith. So there's a whole world
out there of stationaryenthusiasts, believe it or not.
Well,
Dave Crenshaw (34:47):
yeah, I have a daughter who's into that. Okay,
you've mentioned workouts.
You've mentioned running severaltimes. Talk to us a little bit
about the role that fitnessplays in your. Success,
Unknown (35:00):
I think I would have a lot of anxiety, other mental
challenges, if I didn't run. Ifind it incredibly therapeutic
for me now, I've run fourmarathons. Actually, I have
another one coming up in twoweeks, and I've run since, you
know, the 2000s My husband was acollege level runner as well,
and I kind of learned the art oflong distance running from him,
(35:24):
but for me, running is moreabout mental health than
physical health. And then I alsofind other forms of fitness
incredibly important as well,like strength training and yoga
for flexibility, although I sortof have forgotten what those are
like these days because of thefact that I'm running a marathon
in two weeks when you're whenyou're at the peak of training.
The other things tend to fall bythe wayside, and then I'll pick
(35:45):
them back up as soon as I amdone, because they are
incredibly important. You just
Dave Crenshaw (35:49):
made a really interesting statement, though.
You said that this is more aboutyour mental health than your
physical health, and that, to mesounds like the perspective of
an endocrinologist. Talk to usfrom a hormonal standpoint of
the role that physical exercisehas on our mental health.
Unknown (36:09):
Well, first of all, I will say, from a from an
endocrinologist perspective, webelieve that exercise is
incredibly important forphysical health as well. I mean,
if I could prescribe it as atreatment for a lot of
conditions, I would and in fact,sometimes I say that to
patients, it just is a differentlevel of relaxation and calm
that I get when I am doingregular cardiovascular exercise,
(36:31):
that nothing else takes theplace of that. For me, I do
think this is individual. Ithink there's a reason why some
people kind of fall into thisand they they get so much,
almost intrinsic reward fromdoing it, that they they keep
doing it, and other people arelike that didn't do anything for
me. So I don't know the howuniversal this is, but certainly
for some people, includingmyself, it just makes a huge
difference on my outlook and mymood and everything.
Dave Crenshaw (36:56):
I think that that's really important. It's
funny. I remember having aconversation with one of my
daughters, and I mentioned goingand working out, and she's like,
why? Very practical. Like, whyI'm like, well, you're gonna
think better, you're gonna writebetter. You're gonna be more
successful because you exercisethat seemed to hit with her,
(37:17):
that seemed to resonate withwhat she wanted. That's
Unknown (37:20):
awesome. I mean, I also just believe, like we evolved
not to sit in front of a screenall day. We evolved to be moving
around doing something, and ourcurrent lifestyles are just not
in line with how we were meantto live and exercise. Kind of
helps. It's not like we weremeant to run marathons
specifically, but it probablyhelps bring us back to a state
more of kind of how we weremeant to be,
Dave Crenshaw (37:42):
yeah. All right, so talk to me about the future.
What do you see ahead for yourcareer over the next five years?
Unknown (37:51):
I don't see any huge changes. I love what I'm doing
right now, which is that I'mclinically practicing part time,
and on the other time, I'm doingpodcasting. I'm doing speaking,
I am doing course teaching andeven, like, live event hosting
and stuff. I never saw that onecoming. That was like a whim,
and then it was so much fun, andI'm like, I have to do this
again. So I guess the one thingthat I really, really want to
(38:14):
do, like really, is I, I feel Ihave a book in me. The content
that is makes up my course, bestlife plans Academy alone is like
a book, and I would like to havethat published traditionally so
that I can get my message out tomore people. So I am hoping to
be able to kind of add that tomy jack of all trades stuff that
I do on the planning side. Butother than that, I just hope to
(38:37):
keep growing all the channelsthat I'm currently doing. I do
not do any social media, no
Dave Crenshaw (38:43):
Instagram, no LinkedIn, nothing like that. I
quit Facebook
Unknown (38:48):
in 2016 and Instagram in 2021 I found them really,
really bad for my own mentalhealth. And then was like, if I
find them bad for me, why am Ithere?
Dave Crenshaw (38:56):
Okay, so that brings up a really interesting
question. I think I know theanswer, but I'd like to hear
what your perspective is. Whatis the difference between social
media and your website? They'reonline, they're using screens.
So why is one work and onedoesn't? It's
Unknown (39:13):
a great question. I mean, and I read other people's
websites too. I use a servicecalled Feedly that like
aggregates different privateblogs, websites are so much more
personal and they're so finite.
I mean, even if you subscribe to10 websites, you're done in like
10 minutes or so. Somebody'sblog post is not an infinite
scroll. It's kind of a one time.
And it also feels more like anenvironment that I own and can
(39:37):
therefore kind of take in thedirection that I control, versus
Instagram, there's a lot oflike, you know, the algorithm
decides what people see, andthen maybe, also, maybe I have
10 posts, and Instagram decidesto show everybody one of them.
But that's not really, like, themain point of what I'm trying to
convey. Like, there's a lot lesscontrol there. But honestly, the
true reason is that is just myown personal experience with
(39:58):
those platforms and that i.
Found them very detrimental tome versus blogs. I don't feel
that way at all.
Dave Crenshaw (40:05):
I agree. I think there needs to be a healthy
boundary. I don't know ifcompletely exiting it is right
for everyone, but I know thatthere are ways to create
boundaries with it. I've helpedmy kids by saying, hey, look,
here's a time limit on yourphone. This is how much time
you're allowed to spend.
Instagram's top of mind becausethat's what we just recently
talked about. So you have acertain amount of time you can
spend on Instagram, and thenthat's it. Totally
Unknown (40:27):
I think boundaries and other things work really well
for lots of people. Noteverybody has to go cold turkey,
but I love it. Yeah.
Dave Crenshaw (40:34):
Okay, so this is the point, Sarah, thank you so
much for sharing your story withus. This is the point where I
like to summarize and call outsome action items that someone
can take my goal with this showis to not just hear these great
stories, and your story iswonderful and it is inspiring,
but to also help people takeaction. I'm a big believer in
acting on what you learn. Sowhat I'm going to do is I'm
(40:56):
going to highlight three actionsthat I noticed out of many that
someone might take this week tomake your success story part of
their success story, and thenI'd like you to add one at the
end. Sound good. Sounds good.
All right. So the first one thatI highlighted, this was early in
your story, when you weretalking about working in the lab
versus being a doctor, iscultivate awareness of your
(41:20):
personality. Cultivate awarenessof what works for you and what
doesn't work for you. Avoidgetting sucked into that trap of
saying, Well, I've already spenta year of my life on this. I
need to just keep going andinstead saying, Wait, is this
working for me? Is this right?
And then pursue the things thatmatch who you are and how you
(41:42):
like to operate best. That issomething I've seen consistently
among the executives that I'vecoached, is they find the sweet
spot for who they are and howthey want to operate. So just
ask yourself the question, Am Idoing the thing that really fits
myself? Am I doing the thingthat I love? The other one I
want to call out is thatconversation that we had about
(42:03):
being on call and how you had toadjust your schedule and adjust
your expectations for yourselfon those six weeks out of the
year that you're on call. We allhave moments where whether or
not our job is putting us thisway, something in life is
putting us in a situation wherewe're under stress and where
(42:25):
we're going to have a lot moredemands. I just went through
that recently with the passingof a parent. Suddenly the whole
schedule changed, and I had todeal with all these other things
when that happens, give yourselfpermission to get help. Give
yourself permission to adjustthe schedule, even if it's
temporarily, and makeadjustments so that you're
(42:46):
lowering the expectations onyourself, so that you are better
prepared to handle theinevitable interruptions that
are going to occur. And then thelast one, I just want to
highlight that concept ofexercise and making that a part
of your schedule. This issomething that, boy, I'm a lot
better than I used to be, say,10 years ago. With it, I still
(43:08):
have improvements that I canmake, but boy, do I see the
impact of getting regularexercise has on my mental
health. If I don't exercise forroughly an hour every day, I
cannot sleep at night. Soconsider what you're doing right
now, and just say, Can I add alittle bit more? You don't have
to go full crazy, and you don'thave to, like, add two hours to
(43:31):
your schedule of exercise, justadd something a little bit more
than what you were doing before,and then maybe in a month or
two, add a little bit more tothat. And I think you'll start
to see some of the benefits thatSarah talked about. All right,
Sarah, what is an action thatyou would suggest someone can
take this week?
Unknown (43:47):
Yeah, I would pay attention to see if there's
something that you love doing somuch you would do it for free,
and then figure out if there isa way of integrating that into
your work life. And by that Idon't necessarily mean like,
quit your job and become apodcast or something like that.
But instead, are there ways thatyou could gradually either grow
something or even find elementswithin your current role to
(44:11):
exercise that passion? So yeah,pay attention to what you would
do, even if nobody was watchingor paying you for because I
think it took me a while, butI'm like, I really love
blogging, I love writing topeople, and ultimately, found a
way to make that kind of part ofwhat I do.
Dave Crenshaw (44:27):
And when you do something that you love, you
have more longevity. You'll worklonger and harder than someone
else who's just forcingthemselves to do it, and it
won't feel very much like workto you. That's a huge advantage
when you're doing something youlove. Sarah, thank you so much
for taking the time to shareyour story and your wisdom with
(44:48):
us. I sure gained a lot out ofit. So thank you. Thank you for
being willing to do this.
Unknown (44:54):
This was so fun I liked, kind of like going
through memory lane. So thankyou for having me on and giving
me a chance to share my story.
Yeah,
Dave Crenshaw (45:00):
and I'm sure there are a lot of people who
want to follow you. They want tocontinue the relationship with
you. Where would you like themto go to stay connected and
follow your work? Yeah,
Unknown (45:11):
they can go to my website, the shoebox.com, T, H,
E, S, H, U, B, O, x.com, orcheck out you to the podcast
that I'm part of best of bothworlds or best laid plans. Thank
Dave Crenshaw (45:21):
you for sharing that with us, Sarah, and thank
you everyone for listening.
Remember, it's not so much aboutthe knowledge you gained or how
inspired you were, it's aboutthe action that you take. So
please do one thing this week onwhat you heard today, and you'll
make Sarah's success story apart of your success story.
Thanks for listening.
Darci Crenshaw (45:45):
You've been listening to the Dave Crenshaw
Success Show, hosted by my dad,Dave Crenshaw, and produced by
invaluable incorporated researchand assistant production by
Victoria bidez, Sound Editing byNick Wright, voiceover by me
Darci Crenshaw, and the music isby Ryan Brady via Pon five
(46:06):
licensing, please subscribe tothe Dave Crenshaw success show
on Apple podcasts Spotify,wherever you like to get your
podcasts. If you have asuggestion for someone my dad
might like to interview, pleasesend it to guests at Dave
crenshaw.com and please don'tforget to leave us a five star
review. See you next time you.
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