The book launch and celebrating our wins
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Speaker: [00:00:00] Hello. Today we're gonna be talking about celebrating and/or the fact that I hit number one on Amazon and I forgot to celebrate is really what we're talking about. So last Thursday, my book came out. It's called The Physician's Guide to Owning Your Time, and by the weekend, it was number one on Amazon in three categories.
Speaker: I was super excited, and a few days later, somebody asked me a really smart and simple question: "What are you doing to celebrate?" And I did not have an answer. My wife, Katie, did. She had already planned a get-together for the book launch. It never even occurred to me, and she'd taken care of it by putting a picture of the book on the cover.
Speaker: It was the sweetest thing ever, and the cake was really good. And it's interesting, 'cause I wrote this whole book about owning your time and making sure you prioritize things, but I had not put celebration on my own calendar. So that's what today's episode is about So I have an accompanying blog for those of you who like to read what you're looking, what we're talking about here.[00:01:00]
Speaker: Please feel free to go to my website, which is amedsg.com, and there is a blog section. And so those pictures in there, you'll get to see a picture of the cake, which is really exciting. But it's really interesting. So this book is really about a couple things. One is about permission, making sure you give yourself the opportunity to do some things.
Speaker: And some is about intentionality, really knowing and deciding what you want your life and your career to look like so that you design it appropriately. And then some techniques to actually make that happen. And so we had this amazing book launch on Thursday. I had a lot of people show up for the webinar where we launched it.
Speaker: It was a 20-minute launch party. And then there was an in-person party that my wife was smart enough to invite people over for and to surprise me with the cake. And we went on to become number one in bestseller in medical management and reimbursement practice management and reimbursement and healthcare delivery.
Speaker: And actually in the top 10 for a category about wellbeing and work-life balance in business, which I'm super excited about because [00:02:00] while every single one of our medical practices are businesses, we don't often think about it that way, and it is something I think is super important regardless of your industry.
Speaker: But what I really wanted to talk about was that Katie was celebrating the book, and I was managing the launch. She was so insightful in terms of thinking about doing that. And here's the part that I didn't really talk about in the blog, but when someone names a physician's wins, watch what happens because we deflect.
Speaker: We talk about being a team effort. We talk about it was just a small grant. We say it was only a book," or, "I only sold 150 copies that day," or whatever. We shrink before anybody else can do it to us. And so I know where it comes from. We are trained that humility is the right way to go, that, anything that looks like self-promotion is terrible.
Speaker: Talking about the money is terrible. Talking about wanting to succeed feels terrible. And the next deadline is absolutely already out there waiting. We've probably been pushing [00:03:00] something out waiting for it, and so dwelling on it may feel somewhat irresponsible. And the last part is that imposter syndrome part for many of us, is that we don't believe that we deserve the win or it's a fluke or it just doesn't count until the next big thing lands.
Speaker: And so For me the fact that I wasn't holding onto the win, I wanted to show my kids and my family and my friends and my trainees and everyone that is out there watching that we get to enjoy the wins. It was a big, awesome day, and I love the fact that I wasn't smart enough to figure out how to celebrate, but Katie really was.
Speaker: And so over the years, I'm really trying to talk about things like taking some time for stillness. And so I want to think about what you might have in your life that you have not taken the time to think about in terms of wins and how you might celebrate. I start every coaching call when I work with the people who I co- coach, and we start with wins, and part of it is positive framing, and part of it is just [00:04:00] recognizing your wins.
Speaker: It's amazing how at the beginning people will tell me, "I can't think of anything," and then we'll have these conversations where it... I hear win after win, and we begin to have conversations about that's a win. That's a win," but we stop or we are not trained to look for them. I literally had somebody who had gotten married over the weekend and had n- couldn't think of a win and mentioned it briefly later in the call, which I was, like, astounded by, and I am sure I have done big and small versions of this.
Speaker: And also, we're always looking for something giant. It doesn't need to be a giant win for it to be important Now, the book's central idea is that time follows our decisions. So what goes on the calendar gets done. Everything else waits for when I have more time or when things calm down. I don't know about you, but my life has never calmed down.
Speaker: In fact, I think I've said that so many times, at one point Katie's "It's, that's never gonna happen." And I really sat down and I was like, "You're right. It's never gonna happen." I keep setting my life up purposefully to be busy. I actually love [00:05:00] how quickly things move. I love moving things forward, and I just needed to recognize this is the world I keep creating.
Speaker: I keep going to new jobs, new cities, new opportunities. I create very similar levels of energy in all of them. So in chapter seven of the book, we talk about deep work and the Eisenhower Matrix, and the reason I like it is because most of us get stuck in the urgent stuff, but things like celebration almost never looks urgent.
Speaker: So it keeps losing out to whatever does look urgent, and there's so much stuff in that quadrant for physicians. The fix is the same one I talk about in the book, and it talk about writing time or protected research time. It's really about deciding what matters and giving it a date. But if I need to be reminded the week my book came out on time management, then everybody should feel comfortable saying, "Okay, we can learn.
Speaker: All of us can do it." Now, I want you to do an exercise with me. I'm gonna do this with you. What I want you [00:06:00] to do is think about your wins from the past week. Some could be big. Some can be small. I'm gonna give you four for me. I have a really big one, obviously, the book was launched and hit number one on Amazon in three categories There was one that nobody saw that I really appreciated, and I asked Katie to make sure she was okay with me talking about it, but we had this conversation about how we process.
Speaker: And she will verbally process. She'll say what she's doing, and I will start jumping in with solutions. I don't know if anybody else has ever done this. And her thought is "Yeah, I know those things. I can figure those things out." She's really just trying to talk through it with a thought partner.
Speaker: She doesn't need me to fix the problem, and she doesn't need me to tell her solutions. She just needs to talk through it on her own. She's a verbal processor, whereas I do almost all internal processing, and I put things out in the world looking for feedback. So there's lots of problems in this, right?
Speaker: I didn't know she was just processing until she said, that's verbal processing. I don't need you to answer." And then I said I put things out there looking for a response, and you're not giving me [00:07:00] a response." And she's thinking, "Oh, this is verbal processing. She doesn't look for something from me."
Speaker: And I wasn't asking overtly for feedback. And so it's been so fantastic. I can't even tell you how many times this week she's started saying something and I'm listening and I actually said, "Is this verbal processing, or do you want me to try and think about solutions?" "No, that's so great. This is verbal processing."
Speaker: And at the same time, I put something out there and she said, "Is this verbal processing or you're looking for feedback?" And I said, "No, I'm actually looking for feedback." So even just making that conversation easy, none of us getting stuck in the thought that happens, huge difference, and naming that difference has changed how we talk to each other, and I think it makes us feel both more seen and more heard.
Speaker: It has absolutely done that for me Now, the third one is one I almost didn't count. I watched an anime movie with my son, and he asked me to watch it. I didn't have to reach out first, and most of the anime we watch together is pretty violent. But this one was different. It was a romantic anime. I had not actually watched one before, and it showed me a really another beautiful part of his [00:08:00] personality.
Speaker: And then the fourth one is the one that took the most grace about. I had surgery about seven weeks ago, and I'm just starting to come out of the brain fog, and the win is recognizing that I need to give myself more of a break. And I need to give myself the time in order to be able to recover. Now, the other thing that was exciting is that I made it to a band competition.
Speaker: My son cleaned his room without asking while we were there, and I came back, and he had put all those things out and figured out what he didn't need and what didn't fit him anymore, and it was just a beautiful thing to see him growing into the kind of adult that I'm so proud that I had some part in making.
Speaker: So once I noticed I stopped celebrating, or I didn't plan a celebration, I actually did. So here's what I did for myself. I gave myself some time for self-care. I got back on an exercise bike for 10 minutes just to get back into the idea that I'm somebody who works out and put workouts back on my calendar now that I'm allowed to start [00:09:00] doing them again.
Speaker: I also took time to do nothing and just be still. It was amazing to see where my thoughts took me. And I got together with friends to play Mahjong several times with a group last night who I really enjoy. And of course, there was the launch party and the cake. Now, I want you to pause and write down three of yours, one big one, maybe one nobody else would notice, and one you almost didn't count.
Speaker: And then if you have any difficulty doing this, please reach out. I would be happy to help you do it. But this episode is also one of my wins because I noticed I wasn't celebrating, and I did something about it Now, for department chairs or division chiefs or leadership, departments often track RVUs and publications and grant dollars, but very few have a way to mark when a faculty member hits a milestone.
Speaker: Recognition is cheap. Turnover is definitely not. Schloss and colleagues in academic medicine in 2009 put the loss of losing a faculty member between [00:10:00] $120,000 and $600,000 for a surgical subspecialist, and that was in 2009. So give a note after a promotion or make a mention at faculty meeting when a grant lands.
Speaker: Talk about the person who actually planned the party and ask yourself how your department actually marks faculty achievements on purpose so that everybody can be celebrated and can celebrate each other. Now this week, please pick out a win, put a celebration on your calendar, give it a date and a time.
Speaker: It's much more likely to happen. And if you haven't read the book yet or purchased it, please go to Amazon. It's less than $5. I'd love it if you read it, and ask a friend or pass it along to a friend, and then tell me what celebrating looks like to you. Send it to me or tag me on whatever platform you actually watch this or follow me.
Speaker: Thank you so much, and I look forward to talking to you next week
