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Identity with Michael Foti · 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.
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Place.
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For inspiration.
0:12
information.
0:13
and a community.
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community.
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of like-minded.
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Professionals.
0:16
Let's get to the show.
0:18
Hello?
0:19
Hello.
0:19
Thanks for being here.
0:20
I'm excited to bring you another interview episode today.
0:24
I am back to the mountains after a long stint of clinical work in the city and the sky is blue bird blue.
0:32
I'm not even wearing a jacket, which is a first for this year.
0:36
I must say.
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I'm very cold sensitive, and it's finally starting to get warm enough for me.
0:42
So I'm really excited about that.
0:44
We've been planting things in our greenhouse and sowing some seeds.
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So.
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Uh, hopefully that will get going soon.
0:52
I hope you enjoyed hearing chapter one of my book lean out.
0:55
If you didn't catch that, it's one episode back from this one.
0:59
If you're reading the book or listening, and really like what you hear, please go to Amazon and leave a review so that others will find the book when they search for solutions to their work-life balance issues.
1:10
I appreciate it.
1:12
My main premise of the book lean out is that lean in culture and getting caught on the treadmill of achievement are costing women, their health, sanity, and fertility.
1:22
Truly mental health problems.
1:24
I do not escape those of us in high octane professions and high income situations.
1:30
It's estimated that approximately 300 physicians die by suicide every year.
1:36
10 to 15% of physicians will encounter a problem with substance abuse during their career.
1:42
And you can double this for lawyers as reported by an ABA study.
1:46
The incidence of depression among attorneys has also been reported to be as high as 45%.
1:54
Today, my guest on the lean out podcast, experienced mental health challenges during the early part of his medical career.
2:01
Health problems that brought about a huge amount of shame for him.
2:05
A reinvention of his identity and a journey to lean out.
2:09
Yes, I did say him.
2:11
His name is Michael Fody.
2:13
Michael was born and raised in the Bronx, New York.
2:15
He's a dad, a husband, and a clinical assistant professor of internal medicine at the Touro college of osteopathic medicine in Middletown, New York.
2:25
He's also active as a teacher and a mentor to medical students.
2:29
And he's the standardized patient program coordinator at his institution.
2:34
Michael's experience has prompted him to become a staunch mental health advocate for healthcare workers.
2:40
He's a fan of this podcast and he contacted me wanting to share his story.
2:45
And, you know, once your podcast starts to get noticed, you get more and more people inquiring about being on it.
2:50
And sometimes it's obvious that people have a very specific aim to promote something, promote a product or a service, but this was not the case with Michael.
2:59
So here we are a first on the lean out podcast.
3:02
Our first male guest.
3:04
I've been interviewed about the lean out concepts on other people's podcasts that are designed more for a mixed audience.
3:11
And I've been asked before, well, what about men?
3:14
Of course, most of the information and all of the resources that I include in the book lean out are applicable to men.
3:21
In fact leaning out can feel even more difficult sometimes for men due to the expectations that exist in our culture for men to derive a significant amount of their identity from their work.
3:31
Not to mention the fact that they also have a drive to provide for other dependent family members.
3:38
There are so many great takeaways from this conversation with Michael.
3:41
I can't wait for you to listen.
3:43
Here we go.
3:46
MF - Dawn-1: Michael Foti, welcome to the show.
3:48
MF - Dawn-1: I'm really happy to have you here.
3:49
MF - Dawn-1: Can you please introduce yourself to the audience and tell us a little bit about what your work life balance looks like?
3:58
MF - Michael-1: For sure.
3:58
MF - Michael-1: Thank you, John, for having me.
3:59
MF - Michael-1: So, yes, my name is Michael Foti.
4:01
MF - Michael-1: I am a clinical assistant professor of internal medicine and standardized patient program coordinator at the Toro College of Osteopathic Medicine in Middletown, New York.
4:11
MF - Michael-1: My work life balance, which has definitely evolved over the last few years, is very much When I'm not at work, very much spending time with my family.
4:22
MF - Michael-1: I think that the time that I've spent with my children and my wife has really nourished that part of me that got lost during the very darkest points in my life.
4:32
MF - Michael-1: And when I'm back with them, making sure that I make time for my family, and especially my children, is really the most important thing for me.
4:41
MF - Dawn-1: Well, keeping it simple I think is really important you know what your priorities are and that's great.
4:46
MF - Dawn-1: So tell me a little bit more about your family.
4:49
MF - Dawn-1: how many kids do you have?
4:50
MF - Dawn-1: What are the ages?
4:52
MF - Michael-1: Yes, I have a son, Valentino, who's two years old, uh, and I have a daughter, Vitoria, who is going to be five months in a little bit.
5:01
MF - Dawn-1: Ooh, you have a baby.
5:02
MF - Dawn-1: That's awesome.
5:03
MF - Dawn-1: Okay.
5:04
MF - Dawn-1: Great.
5:05
MF - Dawn-1: And as far as work goes, your, background is internal medicine, correct?
5:12
MF - Michael-1: That's correct.
5:13
MF - Dawn-1: And tell me a little bit about your journey of evolution and work life balance.
5:18
MF - Dawn-1: You alluded to the fact that you've had a lot of changes, especially through the COVID pandemic.
5:24
MF - Dawn-1: And I have heard you speak on a different podcast where you talked about how that period of time shaped a lot about what you wanted to do with your life.
5:35
MF - Dawn-1: And I think you may have been in training.
5:37
MF - Michael-1: That is correct.
5:38
MF - Michael-1: Yeah.
5:38
MF - Michael-1: I was in my first year, intern year, of my internal medicine residency in 2020, when COVID 19, as you all know, arrived here in the United States.
5:48
MF - Michael-1: And, you know, it unfortunately has some of the darkest moments of my life.
5:53
MF - Michael-1: I know this is 12 to 16 hours a day of, taking care of patients, suffering, dying, having to decide every hour if a patient needed to be placed on a mechanical ventilator, calling their loved ones to tell them that they love them, holding their hands as they passed away because we couldn't allow their families into the hospital because of the COVID.
6:16
MF - Michael-1: isolation precautions and trying to prevent spread of COVID.
6:19
MF - Michael-1: And it truly was some of the darkest points of my career on top of the fact that around the same time, my mother passed away suddenly to what we found to be undiagnosed lung cancer.
6:32
MF - Michael-1: And after graduating residency is when my journey with mental health began, uh, I developed anxiety and depression.
6:41
MF - Michael-1: I was woken every night from an intense panic and almost felt as if I was having a heart attack.
6:46
MF - Michael-1: And this carried on for months.
6:49
MF - Michael-1: I wound up switching jobs.
6:50
MF - Michael-1: I was initially a residency preceptor.
6:53
MF - Michael-1: I wound up switching to work in general primary care.
6:55
MF - Michael-1: I thought maybe that it was related to the job itself.
6:58
MF - Michael-1: Turns out it was not, the symptoms continued and eventually sent me to the emergency room when my panic got really bad.
7:07
MF - Michael-1: And I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression and I felt very much ashamed.
7:13
MF - Michael-1: Or having to deal with this.
7:16
MF - Michael-1: I thought to myself, I had all these expectations.
7:18
MF - Michael-1: I devoted myself to becoming a doctor.
7:21
MF - Michael-1: And that's really all that I saw was this was my goal in life to become a doctor.
7:25
MF - Michael-1: And the fact that I couldn't live up to that is much of the shame that I felt, you know, I felt embarrassed and, I shut it away from my son.
7:33
MF - Michael-1: I shut it away from my wife and, and, uh, you know, it was in my basement day in and day out because I just felt so much shame and embarrassment.
7:40
MF - Michael-1: Eventually though, I got the help that I needed.
7:42
MF - Michael-1: I saw my primary care physician who started me on an antidepressant.
7:45
MF - Michael-1: I began seeing a psychologist, and I put the work in on me.
7:49
MF - Michael-1: And this is where the work life balance shift, because what I had discovered about myself is I literally became lost.
7:57
MF - Michael-1: In this mission of becoming a doctor.
7:59
MF - Michael-1: And it's all I, all that I saw, all that I had seen around me.
8:03
MF - Michael-1: I forgot everything else that part of me that made me Michael, I had forgotten about, because all I could see is as if I put the blinders are, was becoming a doctor.
8:12
MF - Michael-1: And when that came into question is when my world truly shattered.
8:16
MF - Michael-1: And so things that I tell my students are.
8:19
MF - Michael-1: You know, whatever profession it may be, it's what you do.
8:22
MF - Michael-1: It's not who you are.
8:23
MF - Michael-1: You have to nourish that part of the soul that makes you unique and do the things that you love, spend time with the people that you love.
8:30
MF - Michael-1: And that's when this really the shift all occurred.
8:34
MF - Dawn-1: Those are some really intense experiences that you had and I'm so sorry about your mom and you know, you alluded to, the idea of what I call the treadmill of achievement, which was that you had the blinders on and that achieving and becoming a doctor and that identity was all wrapped up in your self worth.
8:54
MF - Dawn-1: And then when those two things became separate, it was a questioning of what do I really want?
9:02
MF - Dawn-1: How do you see The idea of leaning out, as a man versus as a woman, how is it different?
9:12
MF - Michael-1: That's a great question.
9:13
MF - Michael-1: In terms of, thinking of my own story, and I think just in general, um, I don't know how different really they are because as we know, in medicine, so many more women are going to medicine than men, if we look at the numbers, right?
9:28
MF - Michael-1: And so I think that that achievement, Culture is still going to, persist if we don't speak up.
9:36
MF - Michael-1: And that's kind of why I leaned out because I saw that I had put the blinders on, just focusing in on my career alone.
9:44
MF - Michael-1: I could see the difference being that unfortunately over many years and decades, there's been many expectations placed on women unfairly.
9:55
MF - Michael-1: And not so to men, right?
9:58
MF - Michael-1: And I think that women, especially medicine, year by year are breaking those barriers down.
10:03
MF - Michael-1: So I think it's becoming less and less of a difference as more and more women are entering fields such as medicine and really breaking through.
10:13
MF - Michael-1: The idea of this, uh, achievement culture and, need to lean out will be more and more similar between men and women.
10:21
MF - Dawn-1: Yeah, that's a good point.
10:23
MF - Dawn-1: I wonder if, you felt at all like it was even more shameful to lean out as a man because of the idea that.
10:36
MF - Dawn-1: Men are already in that, role of, like, your identity and your profession are very intertwined, and women are kind of coming into that, and it's becoming more common, like you said, but for men it's been established for a while.
10:50
MF - Dawn-1: Did you feel, anything like that?
10:53
MF - Michael-1: Yeah.
10:54
MF - Michael-1: And as you stated it, I think I, it definitely was in the forefront of my mind without even realizing it in terms of being a man, what I can say is at the time, a lot of the shame that I felt and not wanting to.
11:07
MF - Michael-1: Really faced my wife was I at the time, uh, as I currently am was the primary caregiver of the family, the primary income, right?
11:15
MF - Michael-1: Because prior to graduating residency, both my wife and I were working full time.
11:20
MF - Michael-1: Once we had our son, I was still in residency.
11:24
MF - Michael-1: But by the time I graduated, she wanted to raise our son herself.
11:29
MF - Michael-1: And so she decided to switch from her full time role as a paralegal to a remote part time position.
11:34
MF - Michael-1: So I became the primary income, you know, for the family.
11:38
MF - Michael-1: And so when that happened, where I couldn't, where I felt I couldn't live up to being a doctor and I, my career came into question.
11:44
MF - Michael-1: I felt shame because I felt I'm supposed to take care of my family.
11:49
MF - Michael-1: And I can't do that right now.
11:51
MF - Michael-1: Right.
11:52
MF - Michael-1: So that was where a lot of this embarrassment came into and shame for my end.
11:56
MF - Michael-1: And it calls it to a bigger question, right?
11:58
MF - Michael-1: I think more and more women are going to, again, like I mentioned before, break those barriers down, where I hope in the future, this isn't even a thought, what man versus women, primary income, or what have you, this is, really partners together, figuring out how to live their lives together and whatever makes them the happiest, right, whatever decision that is.
12:20
MF - Dawn-1: You talked about how when you had this mental health wake up call, you started focusing on yourself and you got help through medications and a psychologist.
12:33
MF - Dawn-1: What did you do to repair your relationship and get that back to being a primary part of your work life balance and your priorities?
12:45
MF - Michael-1: Yes, so a lot of it was, and this was a lot of advice also for my psychologist, to spend time doing really what you love, what makes you happy.
12:56
MF - Michael-1: And that's how you repair, um, the relationships that, that have kind of been torn down by a lot of this and also how you get back to being you.
13:03
MF - Michael-1: Right.
13:03
MF - Michael-1: So for me, I had to do a lot of introspection and see what do I love doing most?
13:08
MF - Michael-1: And for me, it wasn't hobbies or anything like that.
13:10
MF - Michael-1: It was, as I mentioned earlier.
13:12
MF - Michael-1: Spending time with my family, my kids, because I wasn't doing that.
13:15
MF - Michael-1: I was putting a hundred percent of myself into my work and not, it's not any of the percentages of my family.
13:20
MF - Michael-1: And so a lot of it was just taking that time to spend time with my children, spend time with my wife and.
13:27
MF - Michael-1: Be present in that moment.
13:29
MF - Michael-1: And I think that was a large part of it.
13:31
MF - Michael-1: And I think another part of it too, as I mentioned before, was realizing that this profession was what I did.
13:37
MF - Michael-1: It wasn't who I am.
13:38
MF - Michael-1: There's much more to Michael than being a doctor.
13:41
MF - Michael-1: There's a lot that I, you know, a lot of things that I love to do.
13:44
MF - Michael-1: I love being around friends.
13:45
MF - Michael-1: I love being around family and I had got lost from that.
13:48
MF - Michael-1: And so I needed to find my way back to me basically.
13:52
MF - Michael-1: And I was also realizing, and this is what led to me being on other podcasts, is I've become very much a passionate advocate for mental health.
14:00
MF - Michael-1: There's a very much a stigma.
14:02
MF - Michael-1: of mental health and medicine and that healthcare professionals can experience these things.
14:08
MF - Michael-1: Right?
14:09
MF - Michael-1: Can experience any of these thoughts that I was having any mental illness, anxiety, depression, or, or feeling shame.
14:15
MF - Michael-1: And that's something that we need to combat because it's it's Not a weakness to experience any of this.
14:21
MF - Michael-1: It's very much a strength to get the help that you need and realize that you need help and make that decision.
14:27
MF - Michael-1: And it's really the strongest thing anyone would do.
14:29
MF - Michael-1: So, um, I, once I realized that as well, I was able to separate myself from what I did and really put my, into what I love.
14:39
MF - Michael-1: And that's my family.
14:41
MF - Dawn-1: That's great.
14:41
MF - Dawn-1: So I'm hearing a few things that really help to repair your relationship where first working on yourself and then spending the time with your family.
14:50
MF - Dawn-1: So you have to spend time with yourself, gain self knowledge, and then you can spend quality time with your family, being present with them, separating yourself and doing that, work inside to separate your own identities and then helping others through advocacy.
15:08
MF - Dawn-1: So besides being on podcasts and spreading the word, what are other ways that you are doing advocacy for mental health in the medical field?
15:20
MF - Michael-1: I've spoken at several medical schools, including the three campuses where I'm affiliated.
15:26
MF - Michael-1: I've spoken at the national level for the Council of Osteopathic Student Government Presidents for the National Student Osteopathic Medical Association.
15:34
MF - Michael-1: And recently, I spoke at the National Academy of Medicine Health Workforce Wellbeing Day virtually alongside the U.
15:42
MF - Michael-1: S.
15:42
MF - Michael-1: Surgeon General.
15:43
MF - Michael-1: It was an event in Washington, D.
15:44
MF - Michael-1: C.
15:44
MF - Michael-1: and it was, uh, it was a wonderful event that we're now starting every year, and that was a bill that was passed.
15:51
MF - Michael-1: And now on March 18th, we will honor the Health Workforce Wellbeing Day.
15:54
MF - Michael-1: So this was the inaugural event and I was very honored to be invited to speak at it to represent the osteopathic profession.
16:01
MF - Dawn-1: That's great.
16:02
MF - Dawn-1: It must be so fulfilling to add this part to your work life balance.
16:08
MF - Dawn-1: And I know that you do a lot of mentoring for medical students.
16:12
MF - Dawn-1: Tell me a little bit about, the program that you have where you, have open office hours, at your medical school for them.
16:21
MF - Michael-1: Yes.
16:22
MF - Michael-1: Yes.
16:22
MF - Michael-1: Uh, it's called Cafe Foti.
16:24
MF - Michael-1: And you know, really, uh, it was an idea that just came to me one day last semester where I thought I'd love to provide a safe haven for our students where they could come and if they want to review any of the material that they're learning, or if they want to get some career advice.
16:39
MF - Michael-1: Or just a space to really, you know, have a safe space to talk to a faculty member.
16:44
MF - Michael-1: And I have a Nespresso coffee machine in my office.
16:47
MF - Michael-1: And so I always provided them with free coffee nonetheless.
16:50
MF - Michael-1: And I said, let me add some snacks to this.
16:52
MF - Michael-1: And I started calling it Cafe Foti.
16:54
MF - Michael-1: And really the students fell in love with the idea.
16:57
MF - Michael-1: They're constantly coming into my office and not just for coffee.
16:59
MF - Michael-1: They'll sit down and talk to me.
17:01
MF - Michael-1: And, um, so much so that a large group of our first year medical students purchased a sign that now says Cafe Foti in my office.
17:09
MF - Michael-1: It lights up.
17:10
MF - Michael-1: It's this whole thing.
17:11
MF - Michael-1: And so, you know, I'm just so happy to be there for the students in that way.
17:15
MF - Dawn-1: That is awesome.
17:16
MF - Dawn-1: I love it.
17:16
MF - Dawn-1: And snacks always draw in a crowd in medical school.
17:21
MF - Michael-1: Oh, that's for sure.
17:22
MF - Michael-1: That's for sure.
17:24
MF - Michael-1: Yeah, it's been great.
17:25
MF - Michael-1: You know, the students are so appreciative of my time and I appreciate them.
17:28
MF - Dawn-1: Yeah, yeah, awesome.
17:31
MF - Dawn-1: What kind of advice do you give students when they talk to you about work life balance or, things related to the future and uncertainty?
17:42
MF - Michael-1: You know, this is really interesting, actually.
17:43
MF - Michael-1: I think there's a big shift there was actually a recent study that showed over two thirds of the medical students that they surveyed are already thinking about pivoting their careers from medicine, or what can I do alongside medicine, whether it be entrepreneurial, whether it be academics, such as myself, right?
18:01
MF - Michael-1: And I have many of my students come to me and say, I'm worried about burning out, and they're not even there yet.
18:07
MF - Michael-1: And they're worried about this, right?
18:09
MF - Michael-1: They're like, what else can I do?
18:10
MF - Michael-1: And, you know, when I give them the best advice that I can, that this degree does allow you to pivot into many things such as myself, I'm an academics, you can go into small business, you can go into many different things, media, you know, there's a lot of things that this degree can, can help you pivot into.
18:27
MF - Michael-1: However, it does speak to a larger systemic issue.
18:31
MF - Michael-1: Which is that I don't believe that healthcare workers are supported enough, in terms of, physician wellness.
18:37
MF - Michael-1: I don't believe there's enough resources that are built in to not only medical educational institutions, but also at the national level healthcare institutions to support, healthcare workers where they feel they have somewhere to go.
18:50
MF - Michael-1: If they are battling burnout, stress, mental illness, what have you.
18:54
MF - Michael-1: And I think it does speak to that larger systemic issue.
18:58
MF - Dawn-1: Yeah.
18:58
MF - Dawn-1: and there is still a stigma in the professional world where, we, we were talking offline about the fact that state credentialing agencies and hospitals in certain locations will still ask you questions about if you've been treated for mental health conditions as if that somehow is like a ding or a red flag on your record.
19:23
MF - Dawn-1: Right.
19:23
MF - Dawn-1: And it's a scary thing because it really deters people from getting the kind of preventative help, that they need.
19:31
MF - Dawn-1: Like you said, students coming to you worried about burnout when they don't even have burnout.
19:38
MF - Dawn-1: In a way, that's kind of good.
19:39
MF - Dawn-1: It's a good sign because they're concerned about it.
19:43
MF - Dawn-1: It shows that they know that there's the potential there and that they need to take steps now.
19:50
MF - Michael-1: Yes, a hundred percent.
19:51
MF - Michael-1: I mean, I think there is a rising awareness of this now, such as the health workforce, wellbeing day, that action collaborative, we're trying to increase awareness on physician wellness and on mental illness and the medical community.
20:04
MF - Michael-1: So there is an increasing awareness.
20:06
MF - Michael-1: And I think that's great.
20:07
MF - Michael-1: But we still have a ways to go.
20:09
MF - Michael-1: Right?
20:09
MF - Michael-1: So yes, I myself dealt with that where I had to worry when I was working when I had to take a medical leave and my concern about whether I should disclose that it's due to anxiety and depression.
20:22
MF - Michael-1: Right?
20:22
MF - Michael-1: And eventually I did.
20:24
MF - Michael-1: But while, you know, really the only option for me was to take a medical leave at the time, there's not enough built in resources of support.
20:31
MF - Michael-1: Also, you're afraid to speak to your colleagues because you don't want to, you know, in a sense, uh, get blacklisted from the medical community and not get another position.
20:40
MF - Michael-1: So you worry about these things, but this, this shouldn't be a worry.
20:43
MF - Michael-1: Right.
20:43
MF - Michael-1: And so it does speak to a larger issue here in terms of.
20:47
MF - Michael-1: Supporting those with burnout.
20:50
MF - Michael-1: But then again, that even goes into a larger issue into why so many physicians have burnout, and that goes more into, corporate medicine and, having so seeing to see so many patients and the 15 minute visits and can't really build rapport with your patients and all of that, that's really taken over the country and that that's really at the top of a big, big part of this.
21:10
MF - Michael-1: However, at the, that's going to take much more time to tackle at the very least we have to support our physicians who as a result of this are dealing with burnout.
21:20
MF - Michael-1: We're just reminding ourselves that physician, nurse, PA, whatever, uh, practice you're in, we're human beings and we can suffer the consequences of this just like any other human being, right?
21:32
MF - Michael-1: I've lost my mother.
21:34
MF - Michael-1: I lost many patients and, and eventually suffer from anxiety and depression.
21:39
MF - Michael-1: That's very much part of the human experience.
21:40
MF - Michael-1: And we, we shouldn't expect perfection from anyone in the healthcare field or really anyone, we're human beings like anyone else.
21:47
MF - Dawn-1: Yes, absolutely.
21:48
MF - Dawn-1: And as I say in my book, the system is definitely broken, and you can sit around waiting for the system to change, and you can complain about it, but It's going to take a long time.
22:01
MF - Dawn-1: And so what can you do now?
22:03
MF - Dawn-1: You can do things like learning about yourself, like making sure that you're taking care of yourself in a proper way that fits and is aligned with, the way that your brain works and with the values that you have also you can be an authentic leader, which is really the way I see you.
22:22
MF - Dawn-1: You have experienced something personally and now you're using that to help other people and you're being the example and you're showing your vulnerability saying, look, hey, this happened to me.
22:34
MF - Dawn-1: I am a human being.
22:35
MF - Dawn-1: Yes, I am in this physician role, but all of us are human beings and I'm not any different than anybody else.
22:42
MF - Dawn-1: And here is how, you know, I'm helping you.
22:45
MF - Dawn-1: I'm going to, be the example and I'm going to carve my work life balance the way that I want it to be.
22:51
MF - Dawn-1: And then you're, you're helping the next generation.
22:53
MF - Dawn-1: So that's wonderful.
22:55
MF - Michael-1: I appreciate that.
22:57
MF - Dawn-1: Yeah, yeah.
22:57
MF - Dawn-1: In the last, couple minutes, I just wanted to know a little bit more about things that have helped you personally in this journey.
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MF - Dawn-1: Is there anything that you are doing, any practices, mindfulness practices, self care practices that you find very helpful to continue in the midst of having had anxiety and depression and losing touch with the things that matter to you.
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MF - Michael-1: Definitely.
23:29
MF - Michael-1: That's a great question.
23:29
MF - Michael-1: And again, thank you for what you mentioned before about me.
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MF - Michael-1: I really appreciate that.
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MF - Michael-1: I will say meditation actually has always been something for me that I truly enjoyed and I've kept up with it.
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MF - Michael-1: I've actually did a bit of guided meditation with my students as well at Toro and, I think it's fantastic.
23:45
MF - Michael-1: That's something I've always kept with.
23:46
MF - Michael-1: But beyond what I mentioned earlier about spending the time with my family.
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MF - Michael-1: For me, it's my family.
23:51
MF - Michael-1: But what I say is nourish that part of your soul that makes you unique and things that you love also doing something.
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MF - Michael-1: Every week, or at least a few times a week that puts you in the present moment.
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MF - Michael-1: So for me recently, I actually took up Taekwondo, something that, you know, I've really enjoyed.
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MF - Michael-1: It's something where I can stay there, be present in what I'm doing and kind of block out all that other noise.
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MF - Michael-1: So whatever it might be, whether it be music, whether it be writing, whether it be, poetry, whatever may have you something that puts you in that present moment and kind of block out all that noise, it's, it's extremely important.
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MF - Michael-1: I have one of my students, you know, she's fantastic.
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MF - Michael-1: She's actually a published author.
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MF - Michael-1: She said to me, I don't know if I'll be able to keep up with my writing.
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MF - Michael-1: And I said, Please keep up with your writing that uniqueness about you, you're going to carry to your patients.
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MF - Michael-1: And so something like that, always keep that part of you that you are, it's unique to you and something that keeps you in the present moment and something you enjoy.
24:51
MF - Dawn-1: Those are great, great pieces of advice.
24:54
MF - Dawn-1: Well, Michael, thank you so much for being on the podcast and sharing your experience with us and the advocacy that you're doing and the mentorship.
25:02
MF - Dawn-1: I really appreciate it.
25:04
MF - Michael-1: Thank you.
25:04
MF - Michael-1: Thank you so much for having me.
25:06
MF - Michael-1: This is wonderful.
25:06
MF - Michael-1: And I really do enjoy your podcast.
25:08
MF - Dawn-1: Thank you.
25:11
I really enjoyed having Michael as my first ever male guest on the show.
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I love how, if you listen closely, you can hear his baby cooing in the background of this recording to.
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Are you a male listener by the way, who has a lean out story?
25:25
If you'd like to be a guest, contact me through my website, practice balance.com/get in touch.
25:31
Or you can DM me on Instagram.
25:33
My handle is at practice balance.
25:36
Like I mentioned before the show, Michael is such a sincere soul and he really wants to help others avoid the suffering he faced.
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After we recorded, I sent him a signed copy of lean out, so he could start a library in the cafe.
25:49
Fody.
25:50
Hopefully the med students can then learn a little bit more about leaning out to.
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Here are my takeaways from our conversation.
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Number one, start with yourself.
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When I asked Michael about his first steps out of anxiety and depression, he said, I put the work in on me.
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When he hit rock bottom after shutting himself off from his family, those who love and support him the most.
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He made the smart decision to work on himself.
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We all have many roles that holds significance for other people in our lives.
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But you can't expect to fulfill those roles.
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Effectively, if you're not healthy yourself.
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So start there and also remember that when you're trying to choose between taking care of yourself and doing more, more, more.
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Number two.
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An important part of healing from any sort of difficult experience can be helping others who are at risk, but haven't yet gone through what you went through.
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Lead as an authentic leader, by example, and also advocate for others like Michael does for mental health and medicine.
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I love how he's also working to raise awareness of burnout among his students.
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Number three.
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What you do is not who you are.
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Too many of us, high octane professionals, both men and women wrap our identities around our professions.
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Yet we're all just human beings.
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We're all vulnerable to the same physical and mental illness as others.
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Don't wait until you're facing a crisis of threatened identity to work on.
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Yourself and recognize.
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Recognize the other.
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Parts of you that make you.
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You.
27:26
You.
27:28
I have one last takeaway that doesn't really fit with the other three.
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So I'm just going to call it a fourth takeaway and it is to identify your flow inducing activities.
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And I do this frequently with clients because it really helps you to figure out what kind of things you care about and you like doing when you're not at work.
27:47
And he talked a little bit about TaeKwonDo and about, people doing music and a particular medical student that he has that as a writer.
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So my parting question to you today is related to this little extra takeaway.
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What is one flow inducing activity that you have in your life that really enhances your happiness?
28:09
Thanks for listening to the lean out podcast.
28:12
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.
28:24
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.
28:40
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.
28:53
Have a great day and we'll see you next time