Latest / The Action Catalyst / It's Not Rocket Science, with Dr. Ann Tsung (Productivity, Performance, Management, Decision Making)

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It's Not Rocket Science, with Dr. Ann Tsung (Productivity, Performance, Management, Decision Making) · The Action Catalyst

• 0:00
  Dr. Ann Tsung: Well, good morning, comm check. Sorry, just habit.
• 0:04
  Stephanie Maas: So Dr. Ann, tell us a little bit about you and your background.
• 0:08
  Dr. Ann Tsung: Yeah. Hi, everybody. My name is Ann Tsung. I am a physician and I'm playing in
• 0:12
  emergency medicine also did a fellowship and anesthesia critical care. And I did another
• 0:18
  fellowship in aerospace medicine. A my full time job is with NASA as their flight surgeon. So I
• 0:24
  take care of astronauts through training, and then their mission. And then on the side, I work in the
• 0:29
  emergency room and critical care, part time, productivity coaching on how to get people's time
• 0:35
  back, and also a podcast show hosts of ItsNotRocketScienceShow.com. Everything I've ever
• 0:41
  learned throughout the years.
• 0:42
  Stephanie Maas: Wow, it sounds like a real loser. Your parents must be super disappointed.
• 0:46
  Dr. Ann Tsung: Yeah, it's been, I mean, my mom has been telling me to be a doctor, since I was very
• 0:51
  young.
• 0:51
  Stephanie Maas: I did look through your background. And not only are your professional
• 0:55
  credentials, incredible, but the things that you do in your spare time as well. So I wore my
• 1:02
  glasses today, instead of putting in my contacts in an attempt to look smarter. So we'll see how
• 1:06
  that executes.
• 1:07
  Dr. Ann Tsung: You look amazing. You look amazing.
• 1:11
  Stephanie Maas: So you have this incredible background, I heard you kind of say in passing,
• 1:16
  you were told to be a doctor from when you were little. Walk me through that journey a little bit.
• 1:22
  Dr. Ann Tsung: I was born in Taiwan moved to from Taiwan to Houston when I was nine. And yes, like,
• 1:27
  you know, in the Asian culture, being a physician, or lawyer, as a very, like it's prominent in that
• 1:33
  culture for parents who want their kids to, you know, go towards those professions, became a
• 1:39
  physician, at that time already being in Houston, when I went to visit the Space Center, I already
• 1:44
  know that I was interested in space. And no matter what specialty or what profession, I ended up
• 1:49
  going into, I was going to work for NASA. And then third year medical school. That's when I was
• 1:56
  studying at borders, but didn't want to study anymore. So I googled space doctor. And that's
• 2:01
  when I came about, like this whole new world of aerospace medicine, fellowship training. And I
• 2:08
  went down that route, essentially, I was always good at planning and visualizing the future. But
• 2:13
  in terms of learning productivity, I wish I had known this like maybe elementary middle school
• 2:18
  high school, I didn't learn this until residency or as an emergency medicine. When I learned about
• 2:23
  Tim Ferriss, Tony Robbins, and kind of took me down that road of efficiency, maximal efficiency
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  that 80/20 rule. In general, my superpower is efficiency, I've always been able to achieve what
• 2:35
  I actually set my mind to. And I realized that that's where I want to take it like I want to, you
• 2:40
  know, not only do my main job, I would love to share in my knowledge about how to elaborate your
• 2:44
  time. So you can spend that doing what you love and spend it with your loved ones.
• 2:50
  Stephanie Maas: It think it's common in practice, regardless of what your practice is that you know,
• 2:54
  time is money, your most valuable asset is time. So you mentioned specifically about coaching folks
• 3:01
  on really how to spend your time when they come to you or when you talk to folks, what would you say
• 3:06
  is the biggest time mistake you see people making.
• 3:10
  Dr. Ann Tsung: I would say it would be doing things that you could be paying others to do less
• 3:17
  than your current hourly rate, the leverage other people's time you automate it, you delegate it,
• 3:22
  you'll eliminate it. For example, think about your hourly rate. And if you can pay somebody to help
• 3:28
  you with housework, if your hourly rate is more than that, then go ahead and pay somebody to help
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  you with that. And so those are things that I pay for, and I can come down from work be, you know, I
• 3:40
  can do things in my zone of genius. For me, my zone of genius is planning is talking to people is
• 3:46
  coaching is working on the medicine. So my zone of genius wouldn't be utilized. If I was in the
• 3:52
  medical room equipment room, that wouldn't be my zone of genius. So what is your zone of genius?
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  What is your ultimate goal? Like? What freedoms are you trying to achieve like time freedom,
• 4:02
  location, freedom, emotional freedom, vitality, freedom, like for health, and then you worked out
• 4:07
  you chopped down to perhaps a three year goal, one year goal than 90 Day goal. And once you have a
• 4:13
  focus of the 90 day goal that you would like to achieve, then you have a plan on essentially
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  creating SMART goals very specific time base for the week. But once you figure that out, then
• 4:25
  you're not distracted by the other little things that you feel like you need to control. Because
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  there are things that you can outsource to other people who can do a way better than you way faster
• 4:36
  than you, for example, social media marketing, ads creation, or even just putting things in Excel
• 4:42
  sheets. It's a micro step process. But once you can leverage other people, then you will free up
• 4:49
  more time to work on your five goals and the focus things that move the needle towards your freedom
• 4:54
  and not just doing things to be busy to check things off. So that's why I feel so passionate
• 4:59
  about it. But I wanted to share this everything. I've learned that because when people get more
• 5:03
  time freedom, it allows them to do the things that makes them happy. We're always stressed for time.
• 5:10
  And when we can prioritize correctly, then we're not going to be missing out on time with our loved
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  ones, essentially. And this is why I do what I do.
• 5:19
  Stephanie Maas: Absolutely. You talk about prioritizing tasks through the Eisenhower matrix.
• 5:25
  Tell me a little bit about that.
• 5:27
  Dr. Ann Tsung: Yeah, absolutely. I use that all the time. On days, especially on days, I'm
• 5:32
  overwhelmed. So the Eisenhower matrix was developed from President Eisenhower, there's one
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  side on top, it will be like, urgent, not urgent. And then on the other side, it is important and
• 5:45
  not important. The top left quadrant is the urgent and important. And that's where you don't want to
• 5:51
  be, you don't want to be rushed. Things that belong there are family emergencies, and medical
• 5:57
  emergencies. And some people say it would be like time sensitive items that you're working on. Like
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  say at work, like say the International Space Station is somehow is in jeopardy or the crew is
• 6:10
  in jeopardy, that would be important and urgent, though, you want very few things to being there.
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  On the top right quadrant, if you're looking at it is the not urgent but important item. And that's
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  where you want to spend most of your time on, say, a big project that you're working on with a
• 6:27
  deadline, like two or three weeks out, but you have time to work on it. You want to be, say
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  creating experiences or date nights with your spouse or your children and take each child out to
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  experience separately to connect. I think that's important. It's not urgent, but it's important.
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  Looking down and left. It is urgent, but not important. So those are items that people are
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  requesting things from you, and it seems urgent to them. But really, it can wait, a lot of times we
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  have this inner an easiness that we just want to respond right away. So then what the minute they
• 7:03
  ask, or we have our notifications and that Outlook or email on all the time, and every time it pops
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  in, you want to respond right away because of fear of missing out. And actually, a lot of those
• 7:15
  things are urgent to other people and maybe lead to us. But really it's not that important. The
• 7:21
  bottom right? Is the not urgent and not important, as should be eliminated. Right? So those are
• 7:29
  things like checking social media mindlessly. And I'm all for you know, winding down watching TV,
• 7:35
  Netflix, but if you're doing that, in place of doing things that move the needle or
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  procrastinating that I will say that's a non important and not urgent task. Once your energy is
• 7:46
  brought down, then you cannot work in your zone of genius, which is the important but not urgent
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  task.
• 7:53
  Stephanie Maas: Absolutely. Thank you for walking me through that.
• 7:55
  Dr. Ann Tsung: I would bring up also regarding delegation, we talked about delegation, in terms
• 8:00
  of how about hiring house managers. And I would like to talk about the only the other huge help is
• 8:06
  I had was my virtual assistant, my virtual assistant does everything from business to
• 8:12
  personal, I'm leveraging his time to basically put something on a PDF or a slide or website and
• 8:18
  putting in numbers in Excel, my time is used to go in there to the Excel to analyze it. That's my
• 8:23
  Zone of genius, little things that once you hire a virtual assistant, you start realizing how many
• 8:29
  things that you get annoyed that you don't want to do. And you just outsource it to them. Like they
• 8:33
  can do all of it.
• 8:34
  Stephanie Maas: And of course, I can hear people the audience go, oh, that must be nice, because
• 8:37
  she makes all this money. She can afford it all these things. But that's that's what it is. It's
• 8:41
  the catch. 22 is your time is freed up to do all the things that make you the most amount of money
• 8:47
  instead of having to split your time on things that are better served elsewhere. Yeah. Okay. So
• 8:55
  sometimes when we talk with folks that just have this on believable, over achieving presence, and
• 9:03
  what they've accomplished, what they're doing, how they're doing it, it can almost make you
• 9:08
  unrelatable and that I mean, I feel like on some days, it's a miracle that I brush my teeth every
• 9:14
  day. So in the spirit of making you very relatable, What are you not good at?
• 9:19
  Dr. Ann Tsung: Oh, letting go of control, it's always a work in progress. Because I'm very I mean
• 9:27
  maybe in medicine and maybe that's why because you know drug dosages, it's in milligrans, I want it,
• 9:33
  I'm very meticulous. It's letting go of control and doing things that that really matter in the
• 9:39
  long run. But it's a work in progress.
• 9:42
  Stephanie Maas: What do you do for fun?
• 9:44
  Dr. Ann Tsung: Regularly? I do Olympic weightlifting.
• 9:46
  Stephanie Maas: Yea that sounds super fun.
• 9:49
  Dr. Ann Tsung: I mean, I've been doing it since our emergency medicine residency and I love it. I
• 9:52
  think it's it's been almost 10 years. I started with more of our CrossFit type workouts started
• 9:57
  learning Olympic weightlifting. And for those of you guys who don't know Oh, it's more. It's like
• 10:01
  snatches cleans and jerks, plus, you know, a lot of front squats, back squats, deadlifts, etc, as
• 10:07
  training for it. And I just I don't do any cardio anymore. And I just love the feeling of like,
• 10:14
  flexibility core strain, I don't need anyone's help carrying my 50 Plus pound luggage. When I go
• 10:20
  trekking in the mountains, I could carry my own pack because I got the 60 pounds, and that's fine.
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  And I like the feeling afterwards. And it's efficient, I can get done really fast and an hour
• 10:31
  and the burn it's gonna continue on. And it's for longevity as well because it'll keep my bow strain
• 10:38
  and bone density, muscle strength and bone density high as high as possible. And then other things I
• 10:44
  do for fun cooking, but I don't like prepping and only cooking certain things but not regular
• 10:48
  cooking. So I love like special things. I love sourcing, authentic ingredients, things that you
• 10:57
  can't get. Unless it's like from that country like special Italian like Parmesan Reggiano from the
• 11:03
  red cow olive oil that's harvested last season. Marcona almonds, I love like culinary delights.
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  And then the other part is traveling sharing experiences with my child. And also with my
• 11:16
  husband and myself to like, Anywhere. Anytime I get a chance I would like just take off and
• 11:21
  travel. And we've taken our eight month old on two plane trips, and I think two or three road trips
• 11:26
  already. And two hikes when he was 10 weeks old. So yeah, just creating experiences.
• 11:33
  Stephanie Maas: Who is somebody you've always wanted to meet, but haven't yet.
• 11:37
  Dr. Ann Tsung: I would love to meet Jay Shetty. I listened to his his podcasts a lot his teaching,
• 11:42
  you know, in terms of authenticity, his message has a lot of great content and tips for emotional
• 11:47
  intelligence. And I feel like if we can be done like a mug, high emotional intelligence, then no
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  matter where we are in life, or what life throws our way we can handle it and will actually become
• 11:59
  stronger from it.
• 12:00
  Stephanie Maas: What book are you reading right now are listening to.
• 12:03
  Dr. Ann Tsung: I just finished "what happened to you" by Oprah and talks about the childhood trauma
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  and why people could be acting the way they're acting. And instead of saying, Why are you doing
• 12:17
  that? Why do you do this, but instead ask what happened to you, because a lot of times it can be
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  traced back to infancy stage, from then Nick Nicola. Abuse, etc. And that's why they act the
• 12:30
  way they act. And this is a different approach to treating.
• 12:34
  Stephanie Maas: So do you think you'll spend your entire career as a traditional doctor?
• 12:37
  Dr. Ann Tsung: No, no, no, I don't think so. I think and they, and I'm hoping to achieve the five
• 12:43
  freedoms. And two, so the five animals again is time freedom to be able to change, you know, work
• 12:50
  my schedule, location, freedom, or location agnostic, I could work anywhere, anywhere in the
• 12:55
  world, really, emotional freedom, that's where I want to be in terms of emotional intelligence, and
• 13:02
  having the capacity to take on anything in life, vitality, freedom. So in terms of longevity, and
• 13:08
  financial freedom, of course. So it's always working towards that goal. And I want to be able
• 13:14
  to control my own time, I definitely want to do medicine, on my own time. So it's not like full
• 13:20
  time, like I need it to survive, but on my own time, to practice to provide value, and also do
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  coaching to help create time for other people, and to travel the world, with my one son and more kids
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  to come and to share and teach them through experiences, like going somewhere to do some sort
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  of volunteer work in a different country to actually travel and track and experience the
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  hardship of going up on altitude to track for like hours a day to be on the coal to carry their
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  packs, etc. To survive. Those are the things I want to create down the line.
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  Stephanie Maas: What is, and this is a kind of a silly question, but I like asking anyway. What's
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  like a little known fact about you that not very many people know.
• 14:05
  Dr. Ann Tsung: I don't know this, people know or don't know. But English is my second language. And
• 14:10
  I actually had to learn English I didn't. I was an ESL until middle school. And I actually didn't, I
• 14:18
  had to use a dictionary but one of those electronic dictionary that you type in one word to
• 14:22
  translate. I will use that all the time in middle school in order to read books. So I wasn't able to
• 14:28
  get out of an ESL English as a Second Language Program. I didn't go into regular classes until I
• 14:34
  was in seventh grade.
• 14:35
  Stephanie Maas: Wow, that had to be difficult.
• 14:38
  Dr. Ann Tsung: I think it was initially because when I first came, I was nine years old. I took
• 14:42
  English classes in Taiwan and Sesame Street with Sesame Street for seven years wasn't enough and I
• 14:49
  was very shy. So I spoke a few words and I had you know, friends who are only Chinese and we spoke
• 14:54
  Chinese only Mandarin, and it was during a competition and middle school, that the more books
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  you have You need to go and answer questions in the library, you get points and whoever wins gets
• 15:04
  like a prize and that was competitive. So I wanted to win. So I read books, like voraciously in sixth
• 15:10
  and seventh grade up to like the 10th and 12th grade level, but I did it by, you know, started
• 15:16
  lower, of course, and I did it by translating, almost like every sentence had a few words, and it
• 15:20
  just learned English that way. And Full House.
• 15:25
  Stephanie Maas: Full House, that's great. Oh my gosh, that's awesome. Okay, so this is just a
• 15:30
  personal question. I'm curious about you went to Antarctica. So my son loves penguins. So my bucket
• 15:38
  list is to take him. I mean, he wants the real penguins. I want to take him to Africa. I've
• 15:43
  looked into some and now look, I hate the cold. So this is not going to be we're not going to be
• 15:47
  trekking anywhere. I'm not playing around. I'm gonna get off of something warm, walk around, take
• 15:53
  some pictures and then get back on to something work. So what advice would you give knowing I want
• 15:58
  to go to Antarctica?
• 15:59
  Dr. Ann Tsung: Um, let me think. Yeah, so for those of you don't know, I went to Antarctica as
• 16:03
  part of the aerospace medicine program when University of Texas Medical Branch Galveston and
• 16:08
  you go there to learn remote medicine, just like when the astronauts go into space and the space
• 16:13
  station's remote medicine, telemedicine. So I was there for a month. It was summer. And McMurdo. So,
• 16:19
  I would say if you want to go to Antarctica, number one, it's not as cold as winter in the
• 16:23
  Midwest, when it's summer.
• 16:25
  Stephanie Maas: Okay, so go in the summer, okay.
• 16:27
  Dr. Ann Tsung: And it's maybe 30s, unless you're on the south pole can be colder. But it's yeah,
• 16:33
  it's like 30. Sometimes there's Windchill sometimes, of course, there's snow storm, there's
• 16:38
  like, but it's not like negative. So it's doable, because we do it here in the Midwest. And so it
• 16:45
  depends on where you want to go. You can go from Christchurch, New Zealand. Or you can go from
• 16:50
  Oshawa, I believe as well South America. And you could go to the McMurdo Station and the in the US
• 16:59
  side. Or you can pay a little more, you can go to South Pole, but the penguin sightings a lot of it
• 17:06
  is that McMurdo Station from when I was there, and when the ice starts melting, I believe it was like
• 17:11
  January, February, later on, that's when they see the penguins come out. And then the penguins. I
• 17:17
  mean, we saw, we saw seals, and I believe we saw occasional penguins when they started warming up.
• 17:22
  But I know later on, you'll see penguins like within the base, just roaming around, not scared
• 17:27
  of people at all. That would be so cool. Yeah, just oh, one of the warm tie, and specifically
• 17:33
  asked them for penguin sightings. And I know there's other bases, too, that is close to the
• 17:37
  water. So it may be a different timing in terms of when you can see wildlife. But it's not that cold.
• 17:42
  It's not like I'll just dress warmly dressed like it's for the Midwest. If you go to the summer,
• 17:47
  you'll be fine.
• 17:48
  Stephanie Maas: Okay, noted. Thank you. All right. Anything else as we head to the end of our time
• 17:53
  together?
• 17:53
  Dr. Ann Tsung: Yes, I would say one big takeaway I want you guys to take you know to get from this
• 17:59
  whole thing is to please leverage your time. Think about your hourly rate. And think about what
• 18:05
  you're doing. If you can outsource that to somebody else, like a house manager to do your
• 18:11
  dishes, fold your laundry, your proper you then outsource it. So you can work on creating your
• 18:17
  five goals for your life, your year, your 90 days. So think about that. And then think about hiring a
• 18:23
  virtual assistant as well. Reach out to me at Tsu and GANN md@gmail.com. Also, if you need my help
• 18:30
  to kind of assess your five goals for your life, I am offering a 60 minute complimentary coaching
• 18:36
  call that you can schedule with me. You can go apply at Anne Sung md.com. That's n sang md.com go
• 18:42
  through the questions. There's a Calendly link at the end, you can book a call with me one hour, the
• 18:49
  space is very, very limited because I do work full time. And then the last thing is that if you would
• 18:56
  like to check out the podcast you can go to It's not rocket science. show.com I'm on all the social
• 19:02
  media, Instagram, Facebook, they're all and sung MD A n n t S u n g MD and feel free to check me
• 19:08
  out. Also YouTube as well. You can see me in person, see what this and lots of ways to reach me
• 19:15
  if you need help.
• 19:17
  Stephanie Maas: Awesome. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. And just the
• 19:20
  opportunity to get to know you are truly inspiring. It was really great to see some of
• 19:25
  their realness and really appreciate you being here. Thank you.
• 19:29
  Dr. Ann Tsung: Yeah, thank you so much, Stephanie for having me on The Action Catalyst. I love our
• 19:34
  time and I hope this was a valuable to your listeners.