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Adventure with Rachel Wood · Lean Out Podcast

0:02
Dawn: Welcome to the lean out podcast.
0:04
Dawn: I'm your host, Dr.
0:05
Dawn: Don baker.
0:06
Dawn: Are you looking for a new approach to finding work-life balance?
0:10
Dawn: You've come to the right place.
0:12
Dawn: Listen, as I interview amazing women professionals, who've taken the steps to lean out.
0:17
Dawn: And find balance on their own
0:19
Hello?
0:19
Hello.
0:20
Thanks for being here.
0:21
Today, I'm going to be talking with Rachel Wood.
0:24
When I invite guests, I ask them to provide me with a couple of sentences for a bio.
0:29
And I really love Rachel self-made bio.
0:31
I'm going to read it to you right now.
0:34
Rachel Wood MD is an American mom, wife and anesthesiologist currently practicing part-time general anesthesia in the south island of New Zealand.
0:44
In her free time.
0:45
She loves mountain biking with her husband.
0:46
Husband.
0:46
And playing Legos with her son and infusing as much adventuring into her family life as possible.
0:54
I think you'll really enjoy this conversation.
0:56
If you've ever wondered what it's like to live and work in a different country.
1:01
Rachel is a prior coaching client of mine.
1:04
And I saw her go from being burned out and significantly concerned about her health to carving out a part-time position in her private anesthesia practice.
1:13
To then eventually leaving that practice all together to embark on a new adventure with our family living and working part-time in a completely different place all the way across the globe.
1:25
I hope you enjoy this conversation with rachel
1:29
Dawn: Rachel Wood, thank you so much for being here.
1:32
Dawn: I'd like to start off with you introducing yourself and telling us a little bit more about you.
1:38
Rachel: All right.
1:39
Rachel: Thank you so much, Sean.
1:40
Rachel: so yeah, my name is Rachel.
1:41
Rachel: I am a, um, anesthesiologist.
1:44
Rachel: I'm a mom and I'm a wife trained in the U S and lived there my whole life.
1:50
Rachel: And I'm currently practicing part time anesthesia in the South Island of New Zealand
1:55
Dawn: and how long have you been working in New Zealand now?
1:59
Rachel: So we moved my family.
2:01
Rachel: I moved to New Zealand just the beginning of this year.
2:03
Rachel: So literally we arrived on New Year's Eve, December 31st.
2:07
Rachel: And I think I started my job 2 weeks into January.
2:11
Rachel: So it's been about 3 months.
2:14
Dawn: Tell me, what is the biggest difference you've noticed in practicing in New Zealand versus America?
2:23
Rachel: It's quite different.
2:24
Rachel: The medicine aspect is very similar.
2:26
Rachel: You know, the day to day anesthetics and sort of how we do our job is similar, but I'm pretty struck by environmental differences practicing in.
2:36
Rachel: Very different health care system.
2:37
Rachel: So New Zealand has a universal public health care system, which is available to all residents and citizen.
2:47
Rachel: So, people come into the public health system where I work and there is very little, any cost associated with the services they receive, including going to surgery.
2:56
Rachel: It's not a perfect system, but that really does create a different environment where it's a bit less.
3:02
Rachel: For production focused, a bit less, um, rushed.
3:06
Rachel: People seem much calmer, people seem much more focused on the patients.
3:10
Rachel: And for me, a much more enjoyable environment to work in.
3:14
Rachel: So that's one, one difference I would highlight.
3:16
Dawn: So why did you decide that you wanted to move there?
3:20
Rachel: It was sort of a process.
3:22
Rachel: I was three years out of my training.
3:25
Rachel: So I did my anesthesia residency and I did a fellowship in pediatric anesthesia, which was great.
3:30
Rachel: And I got into my first job, which was a private practice job with a really good.
3:35
Rachel: Group in Oregon, um, and just sort of found that as I was settling into my attending job that it was becoming harder and harder to find the enjoyment in medicine.
3:47
Rachel: And, we all were kind of working through the pandemic and working with increasing staffing shortages.
3:51
Rachel: So this was not unique to my group or my job, but I was finding that my stress levels were kind of rising and my satisfaction was sort of falling and I was really Just looking for ways to kind of reclaim some of that work satisfaction.
4:04
Rachel: And I think there was also this sense of, gosh, you know, I'm done with all my training.
4:09
Rachel: I've gone through all these stages and hoops that we're supposed to go through.
4:12
Rachel: And I landed in this place, which had a lot of great things and a lot of great aspects, but it wasn't as.
4:20
Rachel: Enjoy those.
4:21
Rachel: I thought it would be so there was some disappointment there and I was just trying to find a way to kind of write that balance.
4:28
Rachel: So getting to New Zealand was definitely a process of figuring out what parts of medicine I did enjoy and where might be some places that I could sort of reclaim those aspects and through security through that sort of what led me to look for jobs outside of the U.
4:45
Rachel: S.
4:45
Rachel: and just to try to work in a completely different health care system.
4:49
Rachel: I had spoken to colleagues of mine in the States and sort of friends of friends who had done that, who had worked in Canada and worked in New Zealand specifically, and has had really positive things to say about practicing medicine in other countries.
5:02
Rachel: And so that sort of sparked my interest.
5:05
Rachel: And then I kind of kept my eye out for some jobs, put in some applications, didn't hear back, sort of went back to just working my regular job.
5:14
Rachel: And.
5:15
Rachel: You know, applied for a few more jobs.
5:16
Rachel: And eventually I think it took about a year and also at the same time doing some coaching with you as far as just kind of clarifying what it was that I was looking for in sort of my next, job,
5:30
Dawn: When we first started working together, it wasn't even something that you had mentioned.
5:35
Dawn: It was just probably this possibility in your head, but it was more the, what am I liking in my job?
5:44
Dawn: And what am I not liking in my job?
5:46
Dawn: What do I want to peel away versus what do I want to keep in the day to day?
5:51
Dawn: Kind of work that I'm doing.
5:54
Dawn: I'm wondering if there was ever a particular turning point that made you say, okay, I need to stop working in this practice I'm in, and I need to switch to this completely different system.
6:08
Rachel: I had really wanted to go from full time to part time and had that conversation with my group and they were really receptive to it and did allow me to go part time.
6:19
Rachel: But I remember as I was making that move, just thinking, gosh, I really hope can help me to feel a little more balanced because I was really struggling with just feeling.
6:30
Rachel: Overstretched having not enough time for my personal well being, not enough time with my family.
6:36
Rachel: Just feeling really disconnected from all the other things that, you know, I valued and sort of all I had time for energy for was being at work.
6:43
Rachel: And it was really just getting to a point where I was not coping well with it.
6:47
Rachel: And I think for me, what that looked like is losing, the ability to find satisfaction and things I used to find satisfaction in such as, making a connection with a patient, taking care of a complex patient, or even just being able to connect with my coworkers, really basic things that I really do love about my job and had really enjoyed in the past.
7:06
Rachel: I was no longer able to, achieve those things.
7:10
Rachel: And that was really startling to me.
7:11
Rachel: So I think when I got to that point, and you and I had talked about that and just reflect on that, I really.
7:16
Rachel: Yeah.
7:16
Rachel: That was the big impetus for needing to change something.
7:19
Rachel: And you're right.
7:19
Rachel: It wasn't immediate.
7:20
Rachel: Like, ah, she moved to New Zealand.
7:22
Rachel: Like that's the solution right there.
7:23
Rachel: But it was just sort of more of this sense of.
7:27
Rachel: I can't do this for the next 20 years.
7:28
Rachel: I've got to do something different because I'm sort of going in a downward spiral here and I don't, I don't want to see where that ends up.
7:35
Dawn: So you are a wife and a mother.
7:37
Dawn: What did your family think when you brought up this idea of moving and working in a completely different country on the other side of the world?
7:47
Rachel: yeah, yeah.
7:48
Rachel: And it's funny because we've traveled a bit.
7:50
Rachel: My husband is actually very well traveled, but neither of us had ever been to New Zealand.
7:53
Rachel: Not even for a visit or a holiday.
7:56
Rachel: So it was a pretty wild suggestion.
7:58
Rachel: I am extremely.
7:59
Rachel: fortunate in that I have a husband who is one very geographically independent.
8:04
Rachel: The work that he does, he can basically do from anywhere.
8:07
Rachel: And he's also extremely supportive and kind of adventure minded.
8:10
Rachel: So he really did see how much I was affected by.
8:15
Rachel: The stresses of my current situation and how unhappy I was becoming.
8:18
Rachel: So he was sort of a mindset.
8:19
Rachel: Well, if this is a chance for us to have a little more balance and to have a little more time together, and for you to be a little happier than, yeah, let's, let's do it.
8:27
Rachel: Let's go for it.
8:29
Rachel: And my son is now five, but was, three and a half at the time we started talking about this.
8:34
Rachel: And so that in some sense is also very lucky, you know, he's not yet old enough to be so enmeshed in his social situation, but it was a pretty easy move for him.
8:42
Rachel: That being said, there was a lot of uncertainty and kind of scary moments along the way as we sort of took each next step to accomplish this big move and a lot of conversations where my husband and I would look at each other and think, are we completely crazy?
8:55
Rachel: We're just leaving this job.
8:57
Rachel: That's pretty good and, you know, a house and neighborhood that we like and all of our friends and family.
9:04
Rachel: And this is crazy.
9:07
Dawn: I have a pretty good idea being an anesthesiologist myself, what your former position used to be like, how do your days look when you go to work and what's a typical week for you in New Zealand?
9:22
Rachel: so I am a part time, anesthetist is what they call anesthesiologist here.
9:27
Rachel: And so for me, what that looks like, it's, a pretty small hospital.
9:31
Rachel: So our department is quite small.
9:33
Rachel: I work two to three days a week.
9:35
Rachel: And typically what it is, is two days.
9:38
Rachel: In the or in theater, and then on a 1 call day, which is sort of where you're not necessarily in the hospital, but you're available and working for some portion of the day.
9:48
Rachel: And every week is a little different, but on a just 1 day at a time basis.
9:53
Rachel: It's actually.
9:54
Rachel: It feels much more manageable because our days start a bit later in the U.
9:58
Rachel: S.
9:58
Rachel: As you know, you know, or could start really early.
10:00
Rachel: You might be in or by 7 30, sometimes even 7 o'clock, which means you're up and out the door really early.
10:08
Rachel: Usually not seeing your family before you leave the house because everyone's still asleep and it was pretty common back in the U.
10:14
Rachel: S.
10:15
Rachel: Here or starts at 8 30.
10:17
Rachel: And so it's amazing.
10:18
Rachel: The difference that just having that 1 extra hour makes it like I'm leaving home when the sun is up.
10:24
Rachel: Have a little breakfast with my son and my husband before I leave, which seems like a small thing, but it's not.
10:29
Rachel: It's tremendous.
10:30
Rachel: It has a tremendous impact on kind of the quality of my week and then, you know, we might work all day, but things tend to wind down here by 536 at the latest.
10:40
Rachel: And then really, if anything is going on after 6 o'clock, that's sort of the call team, which is quite different.
10:46
Rachel: You know, I worked at a very busy hospital, a very busy center, and we were routinely have.
10:51
Rachel: Multiple or is going until seven, maybe eight o'clock and, and yeah, I think that's pretty typical in the U.
10:58
Rachel: S.
10:58
Rachel: So, and I don't know if my job is representative of all of New Zealand, but that seems that's sort of my day to day.
11:03
Rachel: And it's, it's really, it's very manageable.
11:06
Rachel: And the other thing that makes it feel so much, more manageable is the fact that I am part time.
11:11
Rachel: And even if I have a busy day with.
11:14
Rachel: Something stressful that may happen.
11:16
Rachel: I have, you know, time then to recover, to unplug, to kind of enjoy my surroundings here.
11:23
Rachel: And so I don't have to then just be back there the very next day at 6 a.
11:27
Rachel: m.
11:28
Rachel: or 6.
11:28
Rachel: 30, and kind of start the cycle again.
11:30
Rachel: So there's a lot more decompression time, which has been tremendously helpful.
11:36
Rachel: Like kind of maintaining my equilibrium.
11:37
Rachel: It's been a huge difference.
11:39
Dawn: Yeah, I definitely know what you mean because for a long time I worked where I didn't usually work two days in a row and it was wonderful.
11:49
Rachel: Mm
11:50
Dawn: when I do per diem work, I do work a bunch of days at chunks in a row and it is a bit energy draining.
11:56
Dawn: So having that time in between.
12:00
Dawn: can be really nice, but a lot of people in the traditional, especially in the U.
12:04
Dawn: S.
12:05
Dawn: Medical system, we don't really get that.
12:07
Dawn: What's been the hardest thing about separating yourself from what everyone else is doing and doing something different?
12:18
Rachel: Yeah, I think that was when I first was contemplating this move, or even when I was first contemplating just going part time from my full time position, I had a lot of fear around, other people's opinions of me and other people's judgments of kind of what, what would that say about me as a professional and what would that seem to me as a anesthesiologist that I was electing to work less.
12:40
Rachel: Worried about being taken less seriously.
12:42
Rachel: I worried about being viewed as less competent.
12:45
Rachel: And I worried about actually kind of being less competent, you know, actually losing skills and knowledge.
12:52
Rachel: And that would sort of hinder my ability to do a good job.
12:56
Rachel: And with each step away from that full time.
13:01
Rachel: All out role those fears got less and less because they just.
13:07
Rachel: Turned out not to be true and it may be the case that somebody did think that about me that she's less, you know, she's less serious, but the overwhelming majority of my colleagues in my previous group were extremely supportive and, very respectful and really encouraged me to do kind of what I needed to do to feel more sane and, more healthy.
13:28
Rachel: And again, the more I've gotten away from that now being here, I actually find that.
13:31
Rachel: Okay.
13:32
Rachel: I feel much more competent.
13:33
Rachel: I feel much more confident in my role when I am at work, which is kind of surprising because if you look at the hours, I do work a lot less than I used to.
13:42
Rachel: But when I'm at work, I feel much more focused.
13:44
Rachel: I feel much more engaged.
13:46
Rachel: I feel less distracted.
13:48
Rachel: And I'm able to just show up and do my job because I know that it's not going to consume my whole week that there will be time for other things later on.
13:57
Dawn: Is there any particular tactic you use to overcome the fear.
14:04
Rachel: I think 1, that's really effective.
14:05
Rachel: And I think, you know, I may have done this together is sort of playing out the fear.
14:09
Rachel: Right?
14:09
Rachel: Like, playing out, okay, I'm afraid of this and let's say the worst case happen and then what would that look like?
14:14
Rachel: And then taking the next step like, well, then what would that look like?
14:17
Rachel: So, for example, as anesthesiologists, we're responsible for doing a very wide range of cases.
14:23
Rachel: We have a wide range of procedures that we do on a regular basis, but it's pretty common.
14:27
Rachel: I think for us to kind of get into these niches where we do a lot of.
14:32
Rachel: A certain number of things, and then we do less of another, you know, subset of things.
14:36
Rachel: Um, so I had done less, regional anesthesia in my recent career in the States, because I was pediatric focused and out.
14:44
Rachel: So I was doing less adult regional.
14:46
Rachel: And since I didn't do it, but I just didn't do as so much that I felt like I had every single, you know, technique and block at my fingertips.
14:53
Rachel: And so I had a lot of anxiety for some reason.
14:55
Rachel: I was really fixated on this 1 thing coming into this new country.
14:59
Rachel: And I thought, oh, what if they, you know, what if I can't.
15:01
Rachel: Do the blocks they want me to do what if they think I'm, not competent to be here and what if they think I'm a terrible anesthesiologist and they don't want me here and, you know, cycle of, um, fear, and then playing it out like, well, okay, say I get there and I can't do X, Y, or Z block as well.
15:19
Rachel: I want to, or they think I should, and then what do I do?
15:23
Rachel: Well, I might ask for help, and then what would they think?
15:26
Rachel: Well, they might think it's weird, but they might just still think nothing of it.
15:29
Rachel: And just kind of taking each next step gave that fear a little less power and control.
15:34
Rachel: It's not to say I don't still have fear and anxiety around new things, but it's remarkably effective because Usually you find that even if there's an area for improvement, the thing you're really scared about will not be as devastating as you thought it would be,
15:51
Dawn: It's commonly said that the anticipation of the fear is actually worse than the thing that you think you're fearing.
16:00
Rachel: Right.
16:01
Dawn: So, what you were doing there is diffusing the fear and then breaking it down into little bits of what will happen if this happens.
16:09
Dawn: And then, then what if that happens?
16:11
Dawn: And then what if that happens?
16:12
Dawn: So,
16:12
Rachel: Yeah.
16:13
Dawn: You touched on what I would assume is one of the best parts of this new scenario, which is having these off days and some downtime.
16:22
Dawn: And I'm wondering what those off days look like.
16:26
Rachel: We live in this really beautiful town at the top of the South Island of New Zealand, which has a lot of.
16:33
Rachel: Hills and biking trails and, walking trails and it's fairly close to the ocean.
16:38
Rachel: my husband, I typically go mountain biking on my days off as a trail, a couple minutes from my house, which is great.
16:43
Rachel: And then, once we pick up my son from school, there's actually a lot of really cool local.
16:48
Rachel: Resources here, even though it is a small town.
16:50
Rachel: So there's a really great local library.
16:51
Rachel: There's a great local, swimming pool, and so we just kind of bu around and that for us feels really luxurious to just have those times during the week where we can connect and do really simple things together.
17:06
Rachel: I really like to cook and there's a really great farmer's market, so we typically go on the weekends and kind of stock up.
17:11
Rachel: And then my son, Likes to help with kind of all the things in the kitchen.
17:16
Rachel: We typically will cook a meal.
17:18
Rachel: Even if it's like chocolate chip cookies with maybe a little bit of dinner on the side.
17:21
Rachel: It's pretty fun.
17:22
Rachel: So, yeah, that would be a typical day off during the week, which again feels so luxurious to have that not just kind of reserved for the weekends, but to have that little recharge and reconnect.
17:32
Rachel: Midweek is huge.
17:35
Dawn: It sounds wonderful to me.
17:37
Dawn: I love the simple things like that too.
17:40
Dawn: Has it been difficult to meet people?
17:44
Rachel: it's been remarkably easy to meet people.
17:47
Rachel: And I think part of that is through my job.
17:50
Rachel: And part of that is through having a small child who, you know, we take him to events that there are other kids at.
17:56
Rachel: And so that's always a really nice way to meet other families.
17:59
Rachel: I don't know if this is a New Zealand thing or just a smaller town thing, but people are very friendly, for example, and kind of just almost overwhelmingly friendly and also really wanting to just chat with you.
18:11
Rachel: So, we moved into our 1st rental.
18:13
Rachel: We kind of got here, you know, bleary eyed and we landed in this rental and we had no idea where we were.
18:18
Rachel: And within the 1st, few days, 3 separate sets of neighbors kind of knocked on our door and introduce themselves and invited us over for tea, which is.
18:29
Rachel: A meal here.
18:30
Rachel: It's not just tea.
18:30
Rachel: It's actually like snacks and all that.
18:33
Rachel: Sometimes even dinner, um, brought my son, books and puzzles and toys that they just had lying around their house, just unprompted because they knew we only brought duffel bags.
18:44
Rachel: We didn't really bring most of our stuff.
18:46
Rachel: So just tremendous kindness and generosity.
18:50
Rachel: There's a couple of things in the community that my son really likes.
18:52
Rachel: For example, there's a Lego club at the library on Sundays and there's a ninja class.
18:56
Rachel: So we, we started doing that.
18:58
Rachel: And through that, we've met a lot of families and, made some connections and it's definitely still ongoing.
19:03
Rachel: You know, we do miss our community and our, our friend group in the United States, but yeah, I'm pretty struck by how people here are really willing to not just chat with you, but really find a way to help and kind of make you feel more connected and it's been very, we felt very welcomed.
19:19
Dawn: What's been the best part of this whole change for you?
19:26
Rachel: I think this feeling of sustainability is the best part, even though I was practicing in a group where I loved my partners and it was a town that I liked and we had all of this Social support.
19:41
Rachel: It didn't feel like that was a sustainable situation for me, and I really didn't know how I was going to make medicine work in that setting.
19:51
Rachel: And now I feel like, well, you know, again, there's no perfect job.
19:56
Rachel: There's no perfect system.
19:57
Rachel: This is a very sustainable situation for us.
19:59
Rachel: I, I enjoy my job.
20:00
Rachel: The majority of the time.
20:02
Rachel: I don't come home.
20:03
Rachel: I don't end my weeks feeling completely depleted and negative, we are figuring out ways to stay more connected to our community in America while building a community here.
20:15
Rachel: There's a calmness that I wasn't expecting that goes along with that feeling of, oh, I could do this for a while.
20:20
Rachel: Whereas before I just didn't really know how to make it better.
20:23
Rachel: You know, it was just, really overwhelming and this feels much calmer and.
20:30
Rachel: Like, we can kind of work with this and figure this out and it's going to be really good.
20:33
Dawn: Well, it sounds wonderful.
20:35
Dawn: Are you ever going to come back?
20:38
Rachel: People ask me that a lot.
20:39
Rachel: I don't know.
20:40
Rachel: We're sort of in this honeymoon phase of we're really enjoying this life at the moment.
20:46
Rachel: And we're excited to see sort of what.
20:49
Rachel: What it brings, what this road brings, but we're open, you know, we, we are very fortunate in that we have the flexibility and that you and I have a job that is quite in demand globally.
21:00
Rachel: So, if we decided to kind of take a different path and to do a new thing, we could do that.
21:06
Rachel: But for now, this feels really good.
21:07
Rachel: So, no immediate plans to come back,
21:09
Dawn: yeah, I get it.
21:11
Dawn: Is there anything that, you know, now that you would tell yourself, 3 years ago or even when you were a student or a resident
21:23
Rachel: yeah, I think what I would say, it just kind of giving yourself permission to reevaluate what a successful life looks like for you, when I was a medical student or even a pre medical student, I had this very clear picture and then it changed a little bit as a resident and, as a fellow and each step along the way, we sort of refine our image of what a successful job career life looks like.
21:44
Rachel: But then things shift, right?
21:46
Rachel: You know, it may be having a child.
21:48
Rachel: It may be a different life event.
21:50
Rachel: It may be a move.
21:51
Rachel: It may be a job.
21:52
Rachel: It may be, world politics, whatever it is, things shift.
21:55
Rachel: And if you find yourself in a situation where it doesn't feel like the right fit, all of a sudden, even if the exact same situation was the right fit, even a year prior, that's okay.
22:07
Rachel: That's okay.
22:08
Rachel: And it's okay to then reimagine what a successful life looks like.
22:11
Rachel: But it's hard to let go of that.
22:13
Rachel: It's hard to let go of that image of, oh, but I'm a, I'm, you know, I'm a full time professional.
22:19
Rachel: I'm a serious, you know, anesthesiologist, whatever it is, it takes a lot of energy to reimagine that, but it's okay to do.
22:27
Rachel: I certainly have a lot of fear and anxiety over letting go of that life that I had crafted for myself, and trying to kind of think of something different.
22:35
Rachel: Really, you know, the most helpful thing and helping me through that transition was talking to people who had done it and listening to people who had kind of stepped outside that traditional track and made it work, in these very unconventional ways.
22:49
Rachel: So I think the more people who do that and share about that, the more okay it will be and the more accepted it will be within the medical community.
22:59
Dawn: I agree and that's what I hope with this podcast is to have these kind of conversations so that people can hear that they're not the only ones who are contemplating a change like this, or there are people out there that have done it and have lived to tell the tale, basically.
23:19
Dawn: Yeah.
23:20
Dawn: Is there anything else that you'd like to add to that or anything that we haven't talked about that you'd like to mention?
23:28
Rachel: When you are contemplating either a small or a big change, just taking some time before you make moves to get really clear on kind of what it is that you're wanting that's different.
23:38
Rachel: You know, I actually went back and went through when you and I first started coaching together my intake form and I remember writing down.
23:44
Rachel: Goals like what are specific things that I want to have, you know, be different the next few years.
23:49
Rachel: And they were really simple things like have more time for my health, have more time for relationships, and then we distilled it down even further into core values, like what really is important to me.
23:59
Rachel: Right.
23:59
Rachel: And yes, my job is important to me, but also relationships are important to me.
24:03
Rachel: And adventure is important to me flexibility is important to me.
24:06
Rachel: And so I think those are really nice guideposts as you're navigating either small or big changes to help you, feel a little more confident as you kind of navigate that uncertainty it's sort of not very specific, but I think that's really important.
24:20
Dawn: It's not very specific advice, but it's extremely important advice.
24:26
Dawn: It really is something that people overlook and don't think about enough.
24:33
Dawn: So I love that that is.
24:35
Dawn: That's your top line of advice for somebody.
24:39
Dawn: Well, Rachel, thank you so much for chatting with me today and being on the podcast.
24:45
Rachel: It's really my pleasure, Don.
24:46
Rachel: Thanks for chatting.
24:48
Rachel: This was a lot of fun.
24:51
Okay.
24:52
It was really interesting to hear about the differences between medical practice, particularly in anesthesia.
24:59
Between New Zealand and America.
25:02
I'm really happy that Rachel has found a great place to be right now in her life.
25:08
Here are my takeaway points from our conversation.
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Number one.
25:13
When you create white space in your days, it allows you to see other things that you've been missing.
25:19
It allows you to consider.
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Uh, other aspects of ways that you could lean out.
25:24
Rachel took the first step of dropping down her work hours a bit.
25:28
And then that helped her to realize this new dream of moving to New Zealand with her family.
25:35
Number two.
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If something seems scary.
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Imagine the worst case scenario.
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When you do this, you can diffuse the big fears that are in your head by making them into bite sized, manageable obstacles that you can envision yourself overcoming.
25:54
Number three.
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When thinking about the time that you spend not working.
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It's helpful to distill those things down to very simple elements, moving your body, spending time with your children.
26:08
Preparing delicious food, rachel is able to point out the simple things she takes pleasure in every day.
26:14
Things like dropping her son off at school in the morning.
26:17
Taking a mountain bike ride or choosing an interesting food at the farmer's market.
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These are the things that make up.
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Happiness and a fulfilling existence.
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So my parting question to you is.
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What's simple things.
26:33
Do you take delight in every day?
26:38
Thanks for listening to the lean out podcast.
26:40
If you like what you hear, please leave a review for this podcast on iTunes or Spotify.
26:45
So other people needing this kind of community and inspiration can find it easier.
26:52
Also, you can support this podcast and learn more about the ideas presented by buying my book, lean out a professional woman's guide to finding authentic work-life balance.
27:04
Lastly, if you want more information about working with me.
27:07
Please visit my website@wwwdotpracticebalance.com.