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Brave with Sasha Shillcutt · Lean Out Podcast

• 0:01
  Welcome to the lean out podcast.
• 0:03
  I'm your host, Dr.
• 0:04
  Don baker.
• 0:05
  Are you looking for a new approach to finding authentic and sustainable work-life balance?
• 0:10
  You've come to the right.
• 0:11
  Place.
• 0:11
  For inspiration.
• 0:12
  information.
• 0:13
  and a community.
• 0:14
  community.
• 0:14
  of like-minded.
• 0:15
  Professionals.
• 0:16
  Let's get to the show.
• 0:23
  Hello?
• 0:24
  Hello.
• 0:24
  Thanks for being here.
• 0:26
  As I'm recording this, we are approaching Thanksgiving week and I wanted to wish you a happy Thanksgiving.
• 0:34
  And I want to express my gratitude to you for being a part of this podcast community and making it such a fun endeavor for me.
• 0:41
  I really love the interactions I get with listeners.
• 0:45
  And all of the great guests that have made it onto the show.
• 0:50
  It's a beautiful time of year to take stock of all that we have and all that we're thankful for.
• 0:55
  But at the same time, you can have gratitude and also want things to be different.
• 1:01
  If you're struggling and you've been thinking about getting a coach, I want to remind you that I have a 20% off sale this month.
• 1:09
  And next month.
• 1:10
  That's November and December for my one-on-one coaching services.
• 1:15
  You can book a call through my website, practice balance.com and we can talk about how we might be able to work together.
• 1:23
  Today I have a very special guest for you.
• 1:26
  Sasha shall cut.
• 1:28
  M D M S F a S E is a tenured professor of anesthesiology and the founder of brave enough.
• 1:35
  She has taught thousands of women how to achieve work-life control through courses, retreats, and conferences, including the very well-known brave enough annual CME conference.
• 1:47
  Sasha is the author of two books between grit and grace, how to be feminine and formidable.
• 1:53
  And brave boundaries strategies to say no sound strong and take control of your time.
• 2:00
  She is also host of the brave enough show for women physicians.
• 2:04
  I know you will love this episode.
• 2:06
  So without further ado here is my conversation with Sasha.
• 2:13
  SS-Dawn: Sasha still cut.
• 2:14
  SS-Dawn: Welcome to the lean out podcast.
• 2:16
  SS-Dawn: So happy to have you here.
• 2:18
  SS-Sasha: Thank you so much for having me.
• 2:20
  SS-Sasha: I'm super excited to be here.
• 2:22
  SS-Dawn: Me too.
• 2:23
  SS-Dawn: So for those listeners who don't know about you, can you give us a little brief description of your life and what your work life balance is looking like right now?
• 2:37
  SS-Sasha: So I am a cardiac anesthesiologist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.
• 2:43
  SS-Sasha: I practice clinically there.
• 2:45
  SS-Sasha: I also, do some administrative work as a vice chair of strategy.
• 2:50
  SS-Sasha: And then I run, uh, founded an organization called Brave Enough back in 2016.
• 2:58
  SS-Sasha: And I run that, pretty much nights and weekends and on my off time.
• 3:03
  SS-Sasha: And that is just a, uh, amazing organization that brings me a lot of joy.
• 3:07
  SS-Sasha: That works just really fills my bucket.
• 3:10
  SS-Sasha: I get to teach women through courses online.
• 3:14
  SS-Sasha: And also in my events, I have retreats and an annual CME conference, uh, how to really, you know, walk into the life that they want without leaving medicine altogether.
• 3:25
  SS-Sasha: I mean, sometimes we do have to leave medicine to find that joy.
• 3:29
  SS-Sasha: But, I really, my work that I'm doing is really to empower women to stay in medicine because I believe in that we should be able to do that.
• 3:36
  SS-Sasha: I don't think that there's two options.
• 3:38
  SS-Sasha: Like you either are a burned out stressed out, overwhelmed woman, physician, or you quit, you know?
• 3:44
  SS-Sasha: So my work life balance is very, I would say dynamic.
• 3:50
  SS-Sasha: It is something that I'm constantly working on every single day of my life.
• 3:56
  SS-Sasha: I have to have it in the forefront because what I do is extremely boundary.
• 4:01
  SS-Sasha: When I'm at the hospital, I'm focusing on patients and my work there, my academic work there.
• 4:07
  SS-Sasha: And when I'm not at the hospital, I'm very boundaried.
• 4:10
  SS-Sasha: I leave it there and I work on brave enough.
• 4:13
  SS-Sasha: So because of these two kind of competing in some way forces to me, they're really a joined and they make me whole of who I am, but it's taken me a while to figure out what that looks like and how boundaries play such a huge part.
• 4:30
  SS-Sasha: Personally for me to keep that balance going.
• 4:33
  SS-Sasha: I'm also a mom of four kids and a wife and a friend and a daughter.
• 4:38
  SS-Sasha: And you know, I, I have a very busy life.
• 4:42
  SS-Sasha: I have a very full life and that takes even more boundaries to make sure that I am staying well, that I'm doing the things that are best for me and my wellbeing and putting that in the forefront.
• 4:55
  SS-Sasha: And I couldn't do that if I didn't have really strict boundaries.
• 5:00
  SS-Dawn: I love that you brought up boundaries right off the bat because I was going to ask you about it.
• 5:05
  SS-Dawn: You have, your most recent book called Brave.
• 5:08
  SS-Dawn: boundaries strategies to say no sound strong and take control of your time.
• 5:12
  SS-Dawn: And I loved this book.
• 5:14
  SS-Dawn: I loved how it was a mix of information and inspiration, but also your journey through how you.
• 5:24
  SS-Dawn: Bound boundaries.
• 5:25
  SS-Dawn: So talk about how you figured out that you needed them because I know before you were like, what, what is boundaries?
• 5:31
  SS-Dawn: What does that even mean?
• 5:33
  SS-Sasha: I, I don't even, I didn't have a terminology.
• 5:35
  SS-Sasha: I didn't have the language or the strip story or the infrastructure for what a boundary was because to me, I thought they were something like in the psychology literature about people that are maybe going through a divorce or something, I really had no idea.
• 5:50
  SS-Sasha: How much, what I needed and what I was trying to look for and describe to people that I was struggling with was a boundary issue.
• 5:58
  SS-Sasha: And I didn't realize this until, after, about 2021, um, really as the pandemic was hitting, I had been having this stirring that I was spending a lot of times running a very large Facebook group that was, you know, draining my soul.
• 6:15
  SS-Sasha: And I had tried all these ways to manage this group, hiring people for a free Facebook group, um, getting other women to help me with it.
• 6:24
  SS-Sasha: And no, there was just, I would find women to help me manage the group and moderate the group and it would burn them out.
• 6:31
  SS-Sasha: So everybody that tried to help me moderate the group burned out with it in some way, shape, or form.
• 6:37
  SS-Sasha: So then I just hired people to do it.
• 6:40
  SS-Sasha: And then I'm thinking this makes zero sense.
• 6:42
  SS-Sasha: I'm paying.
• 6:43
  SS-Sasha: People to moderate a Free Facebook group.
• 6:47
  SS-Sasha: Like that is taking more and more of my time.
• 6:49
  SS-Sasha: Then the pandemic hit, then we had all the social injustice.
• 6:52
  SS-Sasha: We had all these things that required anybody, whether you have a Facebook group, whether you're running an online community elsewhere, a community you know, at your church or whatever you were doing, if you're a leader in your department, all of us during that time as leaders, we're having to expend a lot of emotional energy, every day to take care of the people in our communities, to make sure that we were being a safe place to land.
• 7:17
  SS-Sasha: And I really prided myself in doing that in this group.
• 7:20
  SS-Sasha: But the problem was it came at the expense of my own health and wellbeing.
• 7:23
  SS-Sasha: But I was so like, I've created this huge thing.
• 7:27
  SS-Sasha: I can't just shut it down.
• 7:28
  SS-Sasha: Like I, it helps people.
• 7:30
  SS-Sasha: People love it.
• 7:31
  SS-Sasha: It's the 5 percent of people who are making it very difficult, obviously for me, but I also knew like I can't be doing this an hour and a half to two hours of my day.
• 7:40
  SS-Sasha: This is not feasible for me.
• 7:42
  SS-Sasha: So I went to a therapist, at the advice of a friend who's a psychiatrist.
• 7:46
  SS-Sasha: I was telling her about this.
• 7:47
  SS-Sasha: I actually went to her for advice and she said, you need to talk to somebody about this.
• 7:51
  SS-Sasha: And then, a lot of great things came out of that because I realized she said, you, what you're asking for yourself.
• 8:00
  SS-Sasha: are boundaries.
• 8:01
  SS-Sasha: You need boundaries.
• 8:02
  SS-Sasha: And I was like boundaries.
• 8:03
  SS-Sasha: And she said, you have a very toxic relationship right now with yourself.
• 8:07
  SS-Sasha: You are trying to be everyone's mother in this group.
• 8:11
  SS-Sasha: You're trying to be everyone's friend in this group.
• 8:14
  SS-Sasha: You're trying to be this perfect person who can help everybody who's struggling.
• 8:19
  SS-Sasha: And it's all coming at the expense of your own health and your family's health.
• 8:24
  SS-Sasha: So.
• 8:25
  SS-Sasha: That put a word and a structure around what I actually needed, what the answer was for me in this situation.
• 8:34
  SS-Sasha: And it really encouraged me to understand what boundaries are.
• 8:38
  SS-Sasha: And that's what led to the writing of, and the publishing of Brave Boundaries.
• 8:44
  SS-Dawn: wondering how it was to, this is kind of just for my own personal knowledge, write a second book because you had your other book about how you found Your place in medicine, how you have a feminine presence, that was called Between Grit and Grace, which I also read.
• 9:02
  SS-Dawn: What was it like to do the creative process of working on this other book?
• 9:07
  SS-Sasha: Yeah.
• 9:07
  SS-Sasha: I wrote my first book between grit and grace and everyone was like, when's the next one coming out?
• 9:11
  SS-Sasha: And I, I really feel strongly because I get asked that now, like I will know when I'm supposed to write the next book.
• 9:18
  SS-Sasha: I will have something that has been such an amazing lesson to me or something that I learned that I want to share with other women.
• 9:25
  SS-Sasha: And.
• 9:26
  SS-Sasha: I never thought going through this really hard year where I had to close the Facebook group down and just transition really to a different version of myself.
• 9:35
  SS-Sasha: What, uh, that writing a book would come out of it.
• 9:39
  SS-Sasha: If I was not planning on doing that, that was not in my, my yearly plan for that year.
• 9:45
  SS-Sasha: But after I went through this experience and transition, And really transformation and how I saw myself.
• 9:54
  SS-Sasha: I thought, Whoa, this was probably no different than someone.
• 9:59
  SS-Sasha: Going through a life transformation in the middle of their life.
• 10:03
  SS-Sasha: Another woman, whether it's quitting a job, whether it's getting a divorce, whether it's losing someone grieving for someone, starting something new, starting a new career, right?
• 10:14
  SS-Sasha: We do this.
• 10:15
  SS-Sasha: We change our identities in a way and we shift our identities and that's okay.
• 10:20
  SS-Sasha: And so it was hard to write this book because it wasn't like a I'm so strong.
• 10:27
  SS-Sasha: This is what I've learned.
• 10:28
  SS-Sasha: I'm so empowered.
• 10:29
  SS-Sasha: It was very humbling.
• 10:30
  SS-Sasha: Cause I was like, yeah, this is the mess that I got myself into.
• 10:34
  SS-Sasha: And here I was this person who thought I had burnout figured out.
• 10:37
  SS-Sasha: And then I found myself in a second period of burnout and I had to set boundaries and I had to do something drastic, which was close a.
• 10:43
  SS-Sasha: Group of 12, 000 women in one day.
• 10:46
  SS-Sasha: And, I didn't get a lot of love for that.
• 10:48
  SS-Sasha: And so I really went through this really dark period.
• 10:52
  SS-Sasha: And, um, I know that that made the book better because it was coming from a place of vulnerability and it was coming from a place of honesty and truth.
• 11:04
  SS-Sasha: And.
• 11:05
  SS-Sasha: I just had to share it with other women because I thought if I'm going through this, surely other women are going to go through something similar.
• 11:12
  SS-Dawn: Yes.
• 11:13
  SS-Dawn: I think that was the real strength of the book was that vulnerability of being able to say, like, I messed up and this is what I've learned from it.
• 11:24
  SS-Dawn: I really appreciated it.
• 11:25
  SS-Sasha: Thank you.
• 11:26
  SS-Dawn: Yeah.
• 11:28
  SS-Dawn: Tell me about what it was like to face that backlash Of so many people when you decided to do something that was unexpected, but that was so needed for you.
• 11:42
  SS-Sasha: Yeah.
• 11:42
  SS-Sasha: So I actually hired a coach to kind of help me with this transition.
• 11:46
  SS-Sasha: And her and the therapist were both kind of working with me through to walk through this.
• 11:50
  SS-Sasha: And it was really funny because she's like, okay, when are you going to shut it down?
• 11:54
  SS-Sasha: I'm like in one year and both when I told the therapist this, and I told the coach this, they were like, uh, no.
• 12:01
  SS-Sasha: And I'm like, okay.
• 12:01
  SS-Sasha: Okay.
• 12:03
  SS-Sasha: six months.
• 12:04
  SS-Sasha: Then the next time we met it, they were like, uh, six months, you're not going to make it six months.
• 12:09
  SS-Sasha: It's, this is wearing on you.
• 12:11
  SS-Sasha: And finally I think it was my therapist that said, If someone told you you had cancer in your body, would you wait six months to cut it out?
• 12:20
  SS-Sasha: And I was like, but this is not a cancerous thing.
• 12:22
  SS-Sasha: This is a beautiful thing.
• 12:23
  SS-Sasha: I was like arguing.
• 12:24
  SS-Sasha: I was, you know, doing all the things and they're like, no, it's not.
• 12:28
  SS-Sasha: It is an amazing thing for 95%.
• 12:30
  SS-Sasha: It's but of the people in there, but it's the 5 percent that are, that are toxic, that are taking an hour of your day.
• 12:38
  SS-Sasha: And that is not.
• 12:40
  SS-Sasha: Good.
• 12:41
  SS-Sasha: That is toxic.
• 12:42
  SS-Sasha: And I was like, Oh, okay, you're right.
• 12:45
  SS-Sasha: And that was so hard for me, Don, to grapple with that.
• 12:48
  SS-Sasha: I was going to have to shut something down.
• 12:51
  SS-Sasha: That was good for so many people, but it was not good for me.
• 12:56
  SS-Sasha: It was so hard because I felt selfish.
• 12:59
  SS-Sasha: I felt bad and I knew I was going to get backlash.
• 13:02
  SS-Sasha: So then I ramped up the timeline to one month.
• 13:05
  SS-Sasha: I gave myself one month and I shut it down.
• 13:09
  SS-Sasha: And the backlash I knew I would get it.
• 13:12
  SS-Sasha: Um, it was harder than I thought it was going to be.
• 13:15
  SS-Sasha: I got like, Lawsuits threatened against me.
• 13:18
  SS-Sasha: I mean, they were dismissed cause they were like, there was no leg to stand on, but a couple of women tried to sue me over shutting down the group.
• 13:26
  SS-Sasha: I think a lot of women were really angry and I held, I just tried to hold space for their anger.
• 13:31
  SS-Sasha: The hardest part for me was.
• 13:33
  SS-Sasha: There was about, I would say 10 women maybe less, maybe more that I felt a deep sense of betrayal because I felt I had invested in these women.
• 13:44
  SS-Sasha: I had given my time to these women.
• 13:46
  SS-Sasha: I'd help these women.
• 13:47
  SS-Sasha: I thought they were my friends and they were really angry at me and not just angry.
• 13:54
  SS-Sasha: They were talking poorly about me and, you know, shaming me and putting that out in public.
• 14:02
  SS-Sasha: That was really hard for me.
• 14:03
  SS-Sasha: It wasn't the like 300, 400, 500 women that sent me messages of sadness and anger.
• 14:09
  SS-Sasha: Those I could hold space for.
• 14:11
  SS-Sasha: It was the women that I didn't see their reaction coming.
• 14:16
  SS-Sasha: Now I will say this, like probably I would say 90 percent of the messages I received were kind.
• 14:24
  SS-Sasha: Um, we're, we understand we're sad.
• 14:28
  SS-Sasha: We're so very sad, but we understand.
• 14:32
  SS-Sasha: And a lot of women, even now I've had women still that was three years ago, reach out to me and say, boy, I get what you did now because I had to do this thing.
• 14:41
  SS-Sasha: But it was still really hard and it was really hard to wake up the next day after I did it.
• 14:49
  SS-Sasha: And, my whole online presence and community had changed.
• 14:55
  SS-Sasha: Instead of getting, you know, I'd wake up every morning to like at least three or 400 notifications every single day of my life.
• 15:03
  SS-Sasha: And I woke up to five and they were all negative.
• 15:10
  SS-Sasha: Right.
• 15:10
  SS-Sasha: Um, and so That was really hard.
• 15:14
  SS-Sasha: It was hard for my ego.
• 15:16
  SS-Sasha: It was hard for my identity.
• 15:17
  SS-Sasha: I didn't trust people all of a sudden.
• 15:19
  SS-Sasha: I was like, who can I trust?
• 15:20
  SS-Sasha: Cause I also had these women that I thought I could trust that I felt very betrayed by, just a handful of women.
• 15:26
  SS-Sasha: And so I was very fragile for probably, I would say six to eight weeks.
• 15:31
  SS-Sasha: I was the most fragile emotionally.
• 15:34
  SS-Sasha: That I've, I have been in a long time and I had to, I just had to walk through it.
• 15:39
  SS-Sasha: You know, when you go through those types of things in your life, you just have to walk through it.
• 15:44
  SS-Sasha: I wouldn't say it was the same thing as being canceled, but it was a close second and no one can experience it for you.
• 15:52
  SS-Sasha: You just have to like open your phone every day and read the text messages and cry for a few minutes and vent for a few minutes and not always feel like going out in public or not feel like posting or questioning everything.
• 16:06
  SS-Sasha: But then in the end.
• 16:07
  SS-Sasha: Man, I learned such good lessons about myself and I would never, I wouldn't change it.
• 16:12
  SS-Sasha: I would do it again.
• 16:12
  SS-Sasha: I would have go back and I would do the same thing again.
• 16:16
  SS-Dawn: Thank you so much for sharing this because I remember when it happened too and I was surprised, but I was also like, damn, that is brave.
• 16:25
  SS-Dawn: And that is what I thought.
• 16:26
  SS-Dawn: I was like, she is brave and I can see why she's doing this.
• 16:30
  SS-Dawn: Um, and.
• 16:33
  SS-Dawn: A lot of times I think in modern day society where we have safety and we have a food abundance and we have all these things, these are the kinds of things that people fear is a backlash or doing something that then gets them shunned socially.
• 16:51
  SS-Dawn: And I find that.
• 16:52
  SS-Dawn: You know, in the women that I coach and that I speak with who want to do something different or do something that's not expected of them, that's what holds them back, is the worry about, am I going to be able to survive, the negativity Of what might happen, and I'm wondering if you can tell me what being brave means to you, what are the elements for you?
• 17:17
  SS-Sasha: That's a really good question.
• 17:18
  SS-Sasha: And I really like what you said because I think it's really important to, to show that and to talk about the fact that.
• 17:26
  SS-Sasha: When we, as women set boundaries or we say no, or we make a change in a job or relationship or whatever it is, you are going to get backlash.
• 17:36
  SS-Sasha: And it doesn't mean you've done something wrong for yourself.
• 17:39
  SS-Sasha: It, it might mean that you've disappointed people.
• 17:42
  SS-Sasha: And you have to get used to disappointing people.
• 17:45
  SS-Sasha: Nice people.
• 17:46
  SS-Sasha: And that's really hard.
• 17:47
  SS-Sasha: It's really hard to do.
• 17:49
  SS-Sasha: And a lot of times we don't live our life fully.
• 17:52
  SS-Sasha: We don't actually step fully into our lives.
• 17:56
  SS-Sasha: We play small because we're so afraid of disappointing others.
• 18:03
  SS-Sasha: One of the great questions I love to ask when I'm coaching is who is it that you're really afraid of disappointing?
• 18:09
  SS-Sasha: Because often it's yourself.
• 18:11
  SS-Sasha: You haven't really figured that out.
• 18:14
  SS-Sasha: You think, oh, it's my boss or my mom or my partner or whatever, but it's a lot of times it's yourself.
• 18:22
  SS-Sasha: And I was really afraid of disappointing myself also in this.
• 18:25
  SS-Sasha: So for me, being brave and being courageous is.
• 18:29
  SS-Sasha: Living authentically.
• 18:32
  SS-Sasha: I just this weekend spent a wonderful weekend away with four girlfriends, and they're all physicians, and we were laughing at the end of the weekend we were packing up to go, and we were also really appreciative of the fact that on this girl's trip.
• 18:50
  SS-Sasha: Nobody felt pressured to do anything.
• 18:52
  SS-Sasha: Everybody was like,'cause I said it at the very beginning, I'm like, I've made us some plans.
• 18:57
  SS-Sasha: But if anybody wants to just hang back and take a nap, or if you don't wanna go on a beach ride, or if you don't wanna ride bikes to breakfast or whatever, our time is so precious as women doctors that we actually get away.
• 19:09
  SS-Sasha: You know how that goes.
• 19:10
  SS-Sasha: And I'm like, nobody do whatever.
• 19:12
  SS-Sasha: They don't wanna do.
• 19:13
  SS-Sasha: That to me is courage to be able to say like.
• 19:16
  SS-Sasha: I don't want to go to that thing that everyone's doing.
• 19:18
  SS-Sasha: I actually want to read a book on the beach by myself, or to say, I'm not taking this promotion because it doesn't really fit my goals for myself.
• 19:27
  SS-Sasha: Or to say to your spouse or your partner, I'm not going to that thing.
• 19:31
  SS-Sasha: Like, I don't want to go I'm burned out.
• 19:33
  SS-Sasha: I'm tired.
• 19:34
  SS-Sasha: I need rest.
• 19:35
  SS-Sasha: Please don't be offended.
• 19:36
  SS-Sasha: I'm not into that.
• 19:37
  SS-Sasha: I don't want to do that.
• 19:39
  SS-Sasha: We as women do not Do that.
• 19:41
  SS-Sasha: We just please everybody at our own expense.
• 19:44
  SS-Sasha: And I certainly have done it.
• 19:46
  SS-Sasha: You know, I've been coming in hot on hour 26 of working and my whole family's waiting for me to do something.
• 19:53
  SS-Sasha: And I'm like, Oh my gosh, oh my gosh.
• 19:55
  SS-Sasha: I, okay.
• 19:55
  SS-Sasha: I'm going to just drink a red bull, you know?
• 19:58
  SS-Sasha: And then I'm like, I have no desire to do whatever everybody is planning on doing right now.
• 20:04
  SS-Sasha: But I have guilt because I'm a bit away from everybody.
• 20:06
  SS-Sasha: So what's the most courageous thing for Sasha?
• 20:09
  SS-Sasha: It's actually to say no, and my family is not going to hate me.
• 20:13
  SS-Sasha: They're not going to divorce me.
• 20:14
  SS-Sasha: My kids aren't going to be like, you're no longer our mom because you won't go to this basketball game, right?
• 20:19
  SS-Sasha: But in our brain, we are so used to doing what society expects of us.
• 20:24
  SS-Sasha: So that is really courage.
• 20:25
  SS-Sasha: It's brave enough.
• 20:27
  SS-Sasha: To be who you are and to do what is best for you.
• 20:32
  SS-Dawn: I love it.
• 20:33
  SS-Dawn: And it reminds me of the story that was in your book where you went on a ski trip.
• 20:38
  SS-Dawn: And you, you know, you thought everybody would want you to like, do the black diamonds, like be going crazy.
• 20:46
  SS-Dawn: And you're like, I really don't want to do this.
• 20:48
  SS-Dawn: And it turned out that they didn't expect that of
• 20:51
  SS-Sasha: Yeah.
• 20:51
  SS-Sasha: Yeah.
• 20:52
  SS-Sasha: They're like, why do you think we want you to do a black diamond?
• 20:55
  SS-Sasha: I'm like, I don't know, because I think I'm going to ruin the trip as the ski mom.
• 20:59
  SS-Sasha: If I don't do it, you know, it's, it's crazy, but it sounds crazy, but it's not, we all have these expectations of ourselves as women and as, as, as partners and wives and moms and, Professors and doctors.
• 21:15
  SS-Sasha: It's just overwhelming.
• 21:17
  SS-Sasha: And then we go at the end of the day, we're like, why are we so tired?
• 21:20
  SS-Sasha: You know?
• 21:21
  SS-Sasha: And it's a really great question.
• 21:22
  SS-Sasha: I'm sure you, and I know you do a ton of coaching and I love your work and I love your book.
• 21:27
  SS-Sasha: And I love all of what you do and the life that you live so bravely on social media is so different than normal.
• 21:34
  SS-Sasha: And what is expected and I love asking that to my clients is like, Where does this come from?
• 21:42
  SS-Sasha: And many times it's coming from ourselves, like the pressure to succeed and to be what everyone else wants us to be is coming from ourselves.
• 21:50
  SS-Sasha: And it's often coming from the way our mother did it.
• 21:55
  SS-Sasha: And yet, most of us that are physicians didn't come from physician mothers.
• 22:00
  SS-Sasha: And even if we did, We have different lives and we have different ones in need.
• 22:05
  SS-Sasha: Right?
• 22:05
  SS-Sasha: So we have to just recognize the origin of these false beliefs.
• 22:10
  SS-Sasha: That can also be very helpful.
• 22:13
  SS-Dawn: Yeah, absolutely.
• 22:14
  SS-Dawn: I always say like, what rules are you living by?
• 22:17
  SS-Dawn: And where did the rule come from?
• 22:18
  SS-Dawn: You know, who made the rule up?
• 22:21
  SS-Dawn: Did it come from your work culture, from your family culture?
• 22:24
  SS-Dawn: What will happen if you don't obey this rule?
• 22:27
  SS-Dawn: Yeah, for sure.
• 22:28
  SS-Dawn: Um, the other thing I'd really, really like to ask you about today, because I really admire your podcast and how you go through these seasons of themes You've had, Parenting, dealing with change, which I was a guest on your podcast when you had the change, season and stress management and, and sleep and health and those kinds of things.
• 22:51
  SS-Dawn: And your most recent one was really focusing on difficult events and hardships.
• 22:57
  SS-Dawn: And you have gone through a lot this last year and I want to know what prompted you to do this season and how this experience that you've gone through has changed you.
• 23:11
  SS-Sasha: Well, the very honest truth is I kept putting this season off because I've been in such a period of grief that I was like, I can't go on a podcast and encourage other people.
• 23:21
  SS-Sasha: I am struggling so much and I can't even get through a podcast without crying.
• 23:27
  SS-Sasha: And then I realized like, Oh, I have built a company and a community around being vulnerable, brave, and authentic.
• 23:38
  SS-Sasha: So am I being brave and authentic and vulnerable when I'm hiding the fact that I'm actually grieving and trying to think of what topic can I talk about that will be so vanilla that it won't make me cry.
• 23:54
  SS-Sasha: Right.
• 23:55
  SS-Sasha: That's it.
• 23:55
  SS-Sasha: And I was like, I have two options.
• 23:58
  SS-Sasha: I either have to do a podcast and be honest about what I'm going through, or I just don't do the podcast.
• 24:03
  SS-Sasha: So I decided that I would go put this together and I was telling my girlfriend this weekend, I'm in my crying era.
• 24:11
  SS-Sasha: Apparently, apparently this is my era.
• 24:13
  SS-Sasha: Other people are in all these other areas, but I'm in my crying era.
• 24:16
  SS-Sasha: I don't normally, I've not cried as much and I don't normally cry so easily, but I've been crying a lot this last year and that's okay.
• 24:23
  SS-Sasha: I'm learning.
• 24:24
  SS-Sasha: That's just okay.
• 24:24
  SS-Sasha: It's just another phase of life and it's another thing.
• 24:27
  SS-Sasha: And I've gone through, you know, the loss of a family member, um, very complex medical things and also losing my home and 90 percent of my possessions to a tornado.
• 24:37
  SS-Sasha: So a lot, a lot of things, and it's been such a hard year, but as I was telling my girlfriends this weekend, I've never felt as loved as I have in the last year.
• 24:50
  SS-Sasha: I, Realize that when you live a life in community, when you're in community with others, whether that's a podcast community or coaching community or Facebook community or church community or community in your job, even if it's like five people, when you live life in community and you choose to do that, that's a, that's a choice.
• 25:12
  SS-Sasha: And you open yourself up to people and you're real with people.
• 25:15
  SS-Sasha: When bad things happen, you are not alone.
• 25:20
  SS-Sasha: You are loved actually.
• 25:22
  SS-Sasha: And I have felt so loved this year, like so loved that if all of these things wouldn't have happened, I would have missed out on that.
• 25:34
  SS-Sasha: I would have missed how odd I'm seeing the goodness in people, the kindness in people, how I have helped other people and they're helping me now.
• 25:43
  SS-Sasha: I wouldn't have sat on all that.
• 25:44
  SS-Sasha: And so I just see it as a A very positive that's come out of his very heart here.
• 25:52
  SS-Dawn: Yeah.
• 25:52
  SS-Dawn: I can so resonate with that.
• 25:54
  SS-Dawn: It was a long time ago now that I had a cancer scare and had a big surgery and all that, but I remember having those feelings leading up to that.
• 26:04
  SS-Dawn: Time where I realized what was wrong with me, I had a lot of self hatred and comparison and all of it melted away because people reached out and family came from far away and like, we're here for you, you know, we're going to be there.
• 26:22
  SS-Dawn: Right when you get wheeled into the operating room and, um, you know, I got flowers from people I hadn't even heard from in a long time and, and got things sent to me like food and all of that, like you're saying, and you're just like, Whoa, I cannot believe this.
• 26:37
  SS-Dawn: I didn't realize.
• 26:39
  SS-Dawn: And you forget.
• 26:40
  SS-Dawn: You know, and, and we're so, like you said, we have these communities, but sometimes you take them for granted because you don't necessarily see people every day, in person, face to face.
• 26:53
  SS-Dawn: And then when something bad happens, you realize that they're there for you.
• 26:57
  SS-Sasha: Yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 26:59
  SS-Dawn: that.
• 27:00
  SS-Dawn: I, I definitely recommend everyone go listen to this season about hardships.
• 27:06
  SS-Dawn: There's so many pearls in there.
• 27:08
  SS-Dawn: I loved the ones that you did with other experts and guests, but also just the ones by yourself.
• 27:14
  SS-Dawn: And you could tell that you're holding it back, holding back the emotion, but like trying to get through it and say what you say.
• 27:22
  SS-Dawn: And it was just so special.
• 27:24
  SS-Dawn: And like you said, it's not that we welcome negative things to happen to us, but when they happen, there are always these growth experiences that come out of them.
• 27:36
  SS-Dawn: So it shouldn't be something that we.
• 27:38
  SS-Dawn: live our lives fearing.
• 27:40
  SS-Sasha: I agree.
• 27:41
  SS-Sasha: I think everyone's going to experience to a degree what I've gone through in the last year.
• 27:47
  SS-Sasha: It might not be till you're 10 years from now.
• 27:50
  SS-Sasha: It might've been that you experienced it when you were 10 years old, but you're all, everybody's going to experience grief at some point in our lives.
• 27:58
  SS-Sasha: And the question is, do you want to experience it alone?
• 28:03
  SS-Sasha: Cause it's really a choice.
• 28:04
  SS-Sasha: Like you, you can, you can experience it alone and hide it from other people.
• 28:10
  SS-Sasha: Or you can be vulnerable and reach out and be like, I'm grieving, and you're going to have so many people come out of the woodwork to, to bless you if you look for it, right?
• 28:22
  SS-Dawn: Yeah, absolutely.
• 28:25
  SS-Dawn: I love it.
• 28:26
  SS-Dawn: We talked in the beginning about your work life balance, how you have so many roles, and the idea that you care about staying in medicine, you still love to work in medicine, you encourage others to do the same, which I totally agree and I like to have people on my show that have also kept their profession going in some way, but it's non traditional and yet they're branching out to do things that really fulfill them and not necessarily burning out and leaving and going doing something totally different.
• 28:59
  SS-Sasha: Right.
• 29:00
  SS-Dawn: So I want to ask you what you really love about the mix of the things that you do in your life right now.
• 29:08
  SS-Sasha: Well, I love that.
• 29:09
  SS-Sasha: I, I have different things that bring me joy and I don't get bored because I really, I mean, I've contemplated leaving medicine multiple times and just people say to me all the time, like, why are you still practicing medicine?
• 29:23
  SS-Sasha: Why are you just not doing brave enough?
• 29:25
  SS-Sasha: And it's a valid question.
• 29:26
  SS-Sasha: But I love practicing anesthesia.
• 29:29
  SS-Sasha: So there's a part of me that really loves it.
• 29:30
  SS-Sasha: And so I can't, I just, I'm not ready to give it up.
• 29:35
  SS-Sasha: You know, it's just not the right timing for me to give it up.
• 29:37
  SS-Sasha: I, I truly love it.
• 29:39
  SS-Sasha: Uh, and I like that also, you know, I tried to create kind of brave enough in my department, in academics, in my institution, and it didn't work.
• 29:53
  SS-Sasha: It just didn't work.
• 29:54
  SS-Sasha: That's a whole other episode.
• 29:55
  SS-Sasha: We could have a whole season on why it didn't work.
• 29:58
  SS-Sasha: And now I'm so glad it didn't work because I like having the autonomy to do what I want.
• 30:02
  SS-Sasha: If I want to hold a webinar, I hold a webinar.
• 30:04
  SS-Sasha: I don't have to go through 10 people to ask me, is this an appropriate topic to have or who, or what should we say?
• 30:11
  SS-Sasha: And who should we invite?
• 30:12
  SS-Sasha: If I want to put on a conference and I want to invite people that I want to invite, I just invite those people.
• 30:19
  SS-Sasha: Like, I love the autonomy of being a founder and being able to give women the message that I want to give.
• 30:26
  SS-Sasha: It's a lot like, and you'll understand, it's a lot like being an anesthesiologist.
• 30:29
  SS-Sasha: When we want to give a patient something, we don't write an order.
• 30:32
  SS-Sasha: We're just like.
• 30:33
  SS-Sasha: We give it, right?
• 30:34
  SS-Sasha: We do it when a patient needs something.
• 30:35
  SS-Sasha: We don't like wait for somebody to come in the nurse to get it out of the pixus and somebody to get a bag of fluid.
• 30:41
  SS-Sasha: We just do the procedure.
• 30:42
  SS-Sasha: We just do it ourselves.
• 30:43
  SS-Sasha: And so autonomy is extremely an important value.
• 30:47
  SS-Sasha: It's one of my top three values in life.
• 30:49
  SS-Sasha: And I love being a founder for that reason.
• 30:53
  SS-Sasha: And I will say it's probably going to look different in a few years.
• 30:56
  SS-Sasha: How I split my time is going to look, hopefully it's going to look different, but that's the beauty of courageous enough to live your life according to your values is you're going to look different than other people.
• 31:10
  SS-Sasha: And you obviously know that you live your life totally different than what society expects you to do.
• 31:16
  SS-Sasha: And.
• 31:17
  SS-Sasha: And you probably have gotten backlash or people going, why are you doing that?
• 31:21
  SS-Sasha: Why are you living way out there?
• 31:22
  SS-Sasha: Why are you doing this?
• 31:23
  SS-Sasha: It's not for other people to understand.
• 31:26
  SS-Sasha: It's not for other people to understand.
• 31:28
  SS-Sasha: It's for you to, you get it.
• 31:30
  SS-Sasha: And that's all that matters.
• 31:31
  SS-Sasha: Right?
• 31:31
  SS-Sasha: So I really love how I have split my time.
• 31:36
  SS-Sasha: I think for some people that it would be Schizophrenic living, but for me, it works.
• 31:44
  SS-Dawn: I feel that same way about my own life, you know, all the variety, I love it so much and I understand everything you're saying about anesthesia too.
• 31:52
  SS-Dawn: I feel the same way and yeah, yeah, definitely we're, kindred spirits in that way.
• 31:58
  SS-Sasha: Yes, we are.
• 31:58
  SS-Sasha: We are.
• 32:00
  SS-Dawn: Is there any last advice you would like to give women who are contemplating a work life change and don't know where to start, feel like they're stuck on the treadmill of achievement?
• 32:12
  SS-Sasha: I would say get a coach because, if you're afraid to do something, you don't know how to do it, but you know, you need change, get a coach.
• 32:19
  SS-Sasha: First of all, a coach is just going to help you reflect back on yourself.
• 32:23
  SS-Sasha: They're not going to tell you what to do.
• 32:25
  SS-Sasha: A good coach.
• 32:26
  SS-Sasha: They're not going to like steer you down a path of bankruptcy, they're going to just help you make good decisions that you may just not know how to make or have the courage to make yourself.
• 32:38
  SS-Sasha: And I always just say, start with a coach.
• 32:41
  SS-Sasha: And people come to me and they want me to like help them with a business plan.
• 32:44
  SS-Sasha: And I'm like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa.
• 32:45
  SS-Sasha: You gotta, you gotta get a coach because.
• 32:48
  SS-Sasha: You need to meet as a coach or you need another coach who fits with you because you have to ask yourself why you're unhappy, why you want to change, what changes you want so that you can have a strategy so that when you do shift, whatever you're planning on shifting, you're like, Oh, I made this choice.
• 33:06
  SS-Sasha: I know I made the right choice.
• 33:07
  SS-Sasha: I'm going to do X, Y, or Z.
• 33:10
  SS-Sasha: So I would say if you're struggling and you're like, I want to make a change or I know I need to make a change.
• 33:15
  SS-Sasha: I don't know what to get a coach.
• 33:18
  SS-Dawn: It's great advice.
• 33:20
  SS-Dawn: Thank you, Sasha, so much for being on my show.
• 33:23
  SS-Dawn: I have really enjoyed talking with you, and can you tell the audience where to find you if they want to learn more or connect with you?
• 33:30
  SS-Sasha: Yeah.
• 33:31
  SS-Sasha: The best place is my website.
• 33:32
  SS-Sasha: It's become brave enough.
• 33:33
  SS-Sasha: com.
• 33:34
  SS-Sasha: I have a little Friday newsletter.
• 33:35
  SS-Sasha: I write every Friday and it tells you all the things.
• 33:38
  SS-Sasha: So go to my website and sign up for the scoop.
• 33:42
  SS-Dawn: Excellent.
• 33:43
  SS-Dawn: Thank you again so much.
• 33:45
  SS-Sasha: Thank you.
• 33:49
  I've been following Sasha's work for several years and I just love how real she is and how she shares her struggles with the objective of helping others learn from her own journey.
• 34:00
  Here are my takeaways from our conversation.
• 34:04
  Number one, if you're struggling with burnout and feeling drained of your energy, consider how your boundaries or maybe a lack thereof.
• 34:12
  I might be taking part in this situation.
• 34:15
  There was a time when Sasha was being beaten down by everything she was doing in her life by responding to every message in her large Facebook group and trying to be everything to everyone in her clinical work and at home as well.
• 34:29
  And once she figured out she had a boundary problem, she started slowly to fix this.
• 34:35
  But it doesn't come without difficulty, which leads me to my next takeaway.
• 34:40
  Number two.
• 34:41
  Courage is not about doing heroic feats or being a martyr or any other outward actions.
• 34:48
  We often associate with being brave.
• 34:51
  It's about being your authentic self it's about being who you are.
• 34:55
  And doing what's right for you, despite the fact that it might disappoint some people.
• 35:01
  Number three.
• 35:03
  You are loved.
• 35:05
  Remember this during this season of gratitude and abundance and community.
• 35:10
  They always say that when you go through tough times, you find out who your real friends are.
• 35:15
  And while it's true that sometimes you lose friends because you realize who's not actually there for you.
• 35:21
  You also find support where you least expect it, it might be through a coworker or someone at your church or a neighbor.
• 35:31
  Or even a friend or another family member.
• 35:34
  Thank you so much for listening today as always and happy Thanksgiving.
• 35:39
  My parting question for you to ponder this week is when I post a Sasha, what are you loving about your life right now?
• 35:47
  Thanks for listening to the lean out podcast.
• 35:50
  If you find these conversations inspiring and useful, please forward them to a friend and also leave a review on iTunes or Spotify so that other people can find them easier.
• 36:02
  If you want to get in touch with me, you can find me at my website, practice balanced.com, where you can subscribe to my newsletter and get updates regularly about new podcast episodes, blog posts, speaking, engagements, and coaching services.
• 36:19
  You can also support my work by buying my book, lean out a professional woman's guide to finding authentic work-life balance for yourself, a friend, family member, or coworker.
• 36:31
  Have a great day and we'll see you next time