Brooke: You are listening to The Life Coach School Podcast with Brooke Castillo, episode #337.
Male Announcer: Welcome to The Life Coach School Podcast, where it’s all about real clients, real problems and real coaching. And now your host, Master Coach Instructor, Brooke Castillo.
Brooke: Hello, my friends. Welcome to the podcast today. I am so excited to have a doctor panel. I think that makes me sound so official to have the doctor panel and I’ll tell you, the reason why I wanted to have it is because one of our doctor life coaches posted in Slack recently and got me very excited. I’m going to let her tell you about her post and how excited we are to have so many doctors becoming life coaches.
So, we have five doctor life coaches that are on today. I’ll introduce them one at a time, but we’re going to start with Sunny Smith and she’s going to tell you about that post she did in Slack and kind of give you – maybe just give us an update on what your perspective is on doctors in life coaching.
Sunny: I would love.
Brooke: Welcome to the podcast.
Sunny: I’m so excited to be, Brooke Castillo. Okay, so I had posted because year last in the mastermind it was right around a year ago, it was September of 2019 when the world was open, and we were there in Dallas. When I had come to Dallas to train, I remember I was so excited that there was another doctor, besides Katrina, right? Because Katrina made me think I could do and not be crazy.
When I trained there were a couple of doctors and so we all got together, we made a little group of us, and then we made a video for the mastermind and there were 18 of us. It was so meaningful, to me, it was so profound. People had tears in their eyes in the audience, hundreds of coaches. We said, “We welcome your healing alongside ours. This is so meaningful to us.” That was under a year ago, Brooke, and that was 18 people.
Brooke: Yeah, well it was awesome.
Sunny: So, it’s been quite a tumultuous year for physicians and for the world, as you can imagine. My coaching practice has grown. A lot of the women, all the women on this podcast are part of that and we happen to launch a large program right before the pandemic started on March 1st, and then on March 11th, all the doctors were like, “Holy crap. No PPE, what do we do?” Blah, blah, blah.
Anyway, we stuck with them. We doubled down. We’re like, “We’ve got you. We’ve got you. We know there’s a pandemic. We know there’s no childcare,” all this stuff. So, I think there’s just been more and more need for life coaching and you speaking and more people listening to you and to Brooke.
So now, I’m always corralling all the physician life coaches because that we’re all very like-minded. We love each other, we support each other, we have this abundance mentality you teach us. So, now there’s 140 of us, Brooke, 140 in training or certified at The Life Coach School.
Brooke: That is so amazing. I was so excited to read that message, especially the way you presented it was so funny. You were like, “I was trying to see how many more doctors that we had had that had joined as life coaches,” and I thought it was going to be a few more. Really if had doubled it would have been impressive, but to 140 physician life coaches, I’m just so excited.
What do you think the reason is for that? Do you have any ideas?
Sunny: I mean, for instant, in the last month because I run a Facebook group of us so we can all congregate and speak to each other and support each other because it’s weird out there. When you’re the only life coach you know at your university or at your institution and people are like, “What are you doing?”
So, when we get together and we can support each other, about 30 people have joined in the last month and in part – I mean, I can speak to those people who are my clients, it’s just – it’s a very supportive, loving – I know on the men podcast that you just had. You’re like, “It’s not supportive, it’s not loving.”
Brooke: We got to tell that to the men.
Sunny: But what it is is it’s just holding space. It’s non-judgmental. It allows you to be human. I think what it does for physicians, in particular during this pandemic is it normalizes and humanizes the experience of being a physician right now. Behind the mask, scared, thinking about your kids, are you going to bring it home?
It was all there before. We were overworked, overstressed, the demands were like, we’re a robot instead of human beings, but now I think, in particularly – also a lot of physicians, interestingly – like, even Hala is an emergency physician for instance, and you think, “Oh my gosh, you’re in the emergency. You’re on the front lines.”
But then also physicians really kind of got sidelined as well. There was a lot of, “Well, we don’t really need you,” and we always had these solid clinical incomes and all of a sudden not only are you worried when you do work because your life in threatened. But then also, the stability you always thought was there isn’t there and you just have all this managing your mind to do in the last six months.
So, I think coming together with other people who get you uniquely, physicians speaking to physicians about, “Hey, have you listened to that Brooke Castillo podcast? The circumstance is COVID’s in our hospital. The circumstance is there’s not enough PPE. The circumstance is we aren’t getting our paychecks anymore.” You know most people are like, “Cry me a river,” but you’re like – there’s just a lot to deal with right now and let’s separate the circumstances from what we’re thinking about it and try to make this more useful and realize that we’re still in charge of our results, and our thoughts, and our feelings in all of this.
Brooke: Right. So, tell us a little bit about your practice. You had mentioned that you did a launch. Tell us about who you work with, what you work on, what your focus is. Tell us a little bit about you.
Sunny: Thank you, that is a great question. So, in February I had talked about, when I was on your podcast, that I started a program called Empowering Women Physicians and I love that. So, it’s sort of become EWP and someone commented on that post you’re talking about, one of the coaches who works with us now, and she says the EWP stands for “Example of what is possible.”
Brooke: Oh, I love that.
Sunny: I was like, “OMG are you even kidding me?” That was just like be still my heart, like so amazing because all of the women physicians in there really are examples of what is possible. They are badasses. They’re like, literally, doing heart surgery or brain surgery or immunizing all our children or going out on the front lines. I’m a family doctor, and actually it’s primary care doctors who are dying the most from this because we’re exposed the most.
So, my program is for women physicians and I open it up every quarter and we do one-on-one coaching, we do longitudinal group coaching, and we do larger group coaching, and of course, I’ve modeled it largely after Scholars and Brooke Castillo’s model. Because you have one-on-one, you can have group.
Brooke: Love it.
Sunny: Everything you need and want I think is in there and I really do believe we’re all stronger together. I think I really got that from you and I’m always trying to bring all the women physicians and we actually have some dudes now. We have dude physicians, they are certification, and a couple of dude actually did come in my program this summer and we welcome them.
Brooke: Yay.
Sunny: It was actually a woman physician who signed up her husband at first, and then they both participated, and then another one, and anyway, I have some more male physician clients that are kind of more on the down low, but I did this little – you know, I’m an academic. I work at university and so I do assessment, and outcomes, and program evaluation.
I’ve been the director of the courses that are the most popular at the medical school for a long time, most well-reviewed, etc., most well-attended. But the evaluations I get on the coaching in these coaching programs knocks it all out of the mark. It’s deeply meaningful and we did like a pre/post-survey this time with some – a survey from a gentleman from Stanford. I told him what we were doing and so we did pre/post and we actually moved the needle on physician self-compassion which is really hard to do.
So, I think we’re just so hard on ourselves and we expect so much of ourselves and so to get people to realize, “I’m human, too,” and all these other people, all these other women on the call, they’re just like me. They’re just like me and we’re all just doing the best we can. Our lives aren’t the same as they look on Facebook.
There’s the Facebook pictures and there’s what’s real behind the scenes. Come behind the scenes, come into our program and find out what really goes on behind every single one of these women’s groups or experiences of the world because that’s what’s real.
Brooke: It’s so interesting because my son is really sick right now. He’s at college and he’s really sick, and he’s having all sorts of trouble and I’m trying to remotely tell him to go see a doctor. I was thinking how when you’re a kid in school you don’t want your teacher to be a human. Like, when you see them in the grocery store you’re like so confused. You’re like, “Why are you eating? This is so weird.”
I think it’s a little bit like that with our doctors. I just want my doctor to only study medicine and only think about my child all the time. It’s so easy to forget that they’re human beings that are helping and serving all day, every day because it’s like I just want to make sure that you’re the authority figure that’s going to solve my child’s problem. So, my hat is off to you and the work that you do.
I just want to acknowledge you personally, just your positive, wonderful energy. I just always enjoy seeing your name anywhere I know it’s going to be something really uplifting and exciting. I love that you’ll pulled all the physicians together in a community to support each other as well.
Sunny: Yeah, I think I’d just say, one last thing is it’s really important to me that speaking about the mental health and normalizing self-care and talking about what you’re thinking and feeling. If that’s a part of what this is I think that that is what the culture of medicine is missing right now, and that this, interestingly, an entrepreneur from Plano, Texas has somehow brought this into the culture of medicine. I think it’s an important tipping point in history where we’ll be addressing that more and more.
I think, even, every woman on this call is like a public figure and people don’t realize, not only are they doctors in the office, but they have these businesses or these groups and they’re human, too. I think that’s – it’s like a behind the scenes to come in with us and learn that we have thoughts and feelings, too.
Brooke: Yeah, I think that’s so important and I think it’s as we have more physicians who are trained in life coaching and really taking care of themselves it’s inevitable that that will be passed on to their patients.
Sunny: Yes, and our children. Oh my gosh, because the outcomes that talks about, “How does this show up in your family? How does this show up at your work with your colleagues? With your nurses? How does this show up with patients?” Actually, the reason Milene is here, probably, is to talk about how she shows up in her office with the patients with that because she does it better than anybody else with her patients. I mean, the ripple effect because doctor’s lives touch so many lives, we all have thousands of people we influence, that the ripple effect of this work if you just work on the doctor is really significant. Again, many kudos to you and Katrina for bringing it to us.
Brooke: Yeah, I love it. So, let’s go to you, Milene. Let’s talk about how you came to find out about The Life Coach School and life coaching, why you decided to do it, and how you integrate that into your life as a physician.
Milene: Sure, I found Katrina back in 2017. I was in her first group program. I did six months with Katrina, I ended up losing about 80 pounds.
Brooke: What?
Milene: And completely changed my narrative about myself.
Brooke: I love it.
Milene: Not only was it my weight, I had changed my relationship with my mom. We had been estranged. I had a son that he and I – I changed that relationship and everything was just so much better. About three months after finishing the program I was like, “Okay, wait a minute, I’m starting to slip. What can I do?” So, I joined Scholars and I did a year of Scholars.
After about 9 months in Scholars I wasn’t really that dedicated anymore, so then after about another 3 months I’m like, “Okay, I need something else. I need something else, what could it be?” So, at that time I wasn’t that happy in the office. I was doing okay at work, but then I thought, “Well, maybe my second half of my career I can go into administration.”
So, I started Googling and I found Sunny through a Google search. I did Life Coach School and Women, and up came Empowering Women Physicians, so I called her and I hired her.
Brooke: What?
Milene: Yes, and I hired her.
Brooke: That’s crazy. So, wait, you were already in Scholars?
Milene: Yes.
Brooke: You Googled, you found Sunny.
Milene: Yes.
Brooke: It’s like a full circle moment. Okay, so you hired her, beautiful.
Milene: So, I hired her thinking that Sunny was going to show me how to become a CMO, how to dress, what to wear, how to act, and little did I know that by her examples she showed me that I was the perfect person just as I am with my difficult to pronounce, being – I’m Hispanic, wearing my Mary Janes was just crazy.
So, we started coaching on stuff in the office. My productivity improved. I was no longer working on the weekends. My difficult patients were no longer difficult. One of the things that we worked on was having fun at work because I felt like I was waiting to exhale until the end of the day, and she’s like, “Well, how come work isn’t fun? How do we make work fun?”
We started working on that and during that time Sunny said – I said, “Well, this could be really helpful for patients.” And she said, “Well, you could coach them if you wanted.” I said, “Well, you know, I guess I could.” So, I started coaching patients and just found that it was the missing link.
So, all these patients that would come to see me with these problems – you know, it wasn’t bad enough for medications. They really just someone to talk to them and to maybe help them to see things a little bit differently. So, my engagement increased, started asking them open-ended questions, really trying to figure out where their actions were coming from, help them with medications.
How many patients ended up coming to see me who were on medicines and felt obligated to take these medicines? Had no buy-in, they felt forced, and just slowly but surely helping them to get their power back, helping them to realize that they can engage in their healthcare and that they can realized the reasons why they’re taking the medicines isn’t just because some doctor gave it to them, but to prevent strokes, to prevent heart attacks.
So now, fast forward, it’s been over a year now. I’ve had patients that specifically make appointments to come see and they’re like, “Doc, I just want to talk to you. I just want to talk to you.” It’s just fun. It’s just fun. You’re just really talking to people, connecting with them and helping them to see the humanness in themselves and in everything else that we’re doing.
Brooke: That’s so interesting. That kind of circles back to what Sunny and I were just saying about how I think we’ve been trained to just think that doctors are authority figures that will tell us what to do with our health. Instead of being able to conversations and I’m imagining you having these kind of conversations where you get to know your patients makes you more human to us as a patient, too, right?
Milene: Yes.
Brooke: And so that now relationship becomes I think so much more intimate. I was even just talking to my son today because he’s feeling sick and I said, “Make sure when you go to the doctor you tell him everything.” Like, “You tell him all the things. All the secret things.” I think a lot of times it’s like we feel like when go to see a doctor there isn’t that connection there.
Milene: Yes.
Brooke: So, I love the way that you’re describing and just being able to have the coaching tools to be able to approach it with some structure makes it so you’re not doing therapy, you’re not going down that road if that’s not your specialty, but you’re able to have a conversation that can be effective with your patient. I love it.
Milene: Very effective, and I think also knowing that oftentimes they have the right answer. I think coaching has really helped me to be able to tap into that knowing that the answer is within them and it’s just a matter of us talking.
Brooke: Yes.
Milene: When I tell a patient that what’s causing their anxiety is their thoughts, it’s crazy. They believe me. An instant buy-in and I can’t tell you how many patients have come to see me, how many panic attacks or just really having a lot of anxiety and they don’t come for their follow-up.
So, the first few I would call and say, “Hey, what’s going –“ “Oh, I’m fine. You told me it was my thoughts so I quit thinking that.”
Brooke: Wow, that’s amazing.
Milene: It’s just like – it has really been sort of the secret sauce to help. Now, I’m still working full-time and I’m coaching and my satisfaction at work has just tripled. I’m so happy it worked, so much more efficient.
Brooke: I love it. I love it. Okay, all right, let’s move to you, Yashika. Tell us your story about how you came to life coaching and what your daily life looks like as a physician. Tell us everything.
Yashika: So, I came to coaching because I was really struggling as a black woman in medicine. I really felt lonely and isolated. I am also active-duty Air Force, so I’m in the military. So, I felt like every place I was I was kind of the only and it just was getting very painful because I had nobody to really talk to and when I would express what I was going through people didn’t always get it.
Oftentimes it made me think, “Maybe it’s me.” I started questioning myself. I’d be like, “No, I heard that. I felt that.” I’m like, “I’m not going crazy,” but when everybody in the room says like, “No, that’s not what it is,” or, “You’re just taking it wrong,” or whatever, it really makes you start to feel like something is wrong with you or that you’re too sensitive.
So, I really was looking for a way to connect with medicine again. I loved medicine, but I was like, “Well, maybe this is just not going to work and I don’t know why.” But it had always been my dream.
I started coaching – I started listening to the podcast just because I wanted to reconnect with myself and find out what was really going on. What were the inner things that were causing me so much discomfort day-to-day? I loved my patients. I loved my hospital, but I still felt like there was this inner friction, this inner turmoil that I couldn’t resolve and because I was one of the very few black people in my entire hospital I didn’t have anybody to even talk about it with.
Even like when I came home my husband, also, didn’t quite get it. So, really, listening to the podcast and going through the work, I was like, “That’s what it is. It’s not just me, there are things.” I feel life – definitely some of it was my thoughts, but some of it really was the circumstances around me and I think until this year a lot of people didn’t get how people of color really were experiencing the world, right?
Brooke: Right.
Yashika: So, it was easy when you talked to other people they’re like, “No, that’s not what happened. That’s not correct,” or whatever. So, when I started coaching and when I was like, “Okay, it’s not me, not everybody gets it and that’s okay, I’m not going to change their opinion, but I wanted to be able to reach out to other women of color in particular, physicians, and say, “We have a safe space. Let’s be able to talk about this. Let’s let you know that there are implicit and explicit biases that are going on.”
Other people aren’t always going to get it and that’s okay, maybe the world’s not ready yet, but we have a space here where you can come and you can talk and you can share and you’re not going to feel like you’re the only one and you’re not going to feel crazy.
Brooke: I love that. So, what kind of medicine do you practice?
Yashika: I am board-certified in OB/GYN, so I deliver babies, take care of women, and I sub-specialize in urogyn. So, I really have like perimenopausal and post-menopausal women are my main thing, but I work with residents so we still deliver babies and we do the whole gamut.
Brooke: Okay, and are you currently coaching as well?
Yashika: I am currently coaching. Yeah, so I use a lot of my coaching with my patients in the office. They don’t know it, but –
Brooke: Right.
Yashika: Right? But I also have a whole thing for Physician Women of Color. I do masterminds, I started doing conferences and retreats just because there was no place for us to gather, talk, and feel space. So, I do all of that specifically for them as well because I think it’s great. It’s nice to be able to talk to other women physicians, but there are other layers that are built in that if you’re not a physician woman of color that people don’t quite get and it’s nice to be able to have somebody that you say it and they instantly get it.
You don’t even have to finish your sentence and they’re like, “Yes, that’s exactly –“ and it’s nice to be able to walk through that with them but also be able to hold space and show them another way to think about it. Because sometimes you get so wrapped up in your own mind that it’s hard to step back and it’s also very hard to trust other people when you know that they’ve never walked in your shoes.
Brooke: Yes.
Yashika: So, I think it’s easier for them to connect with me because they can trust me. They know I’ve walked that same path. So, if I’m telling them to think about it differently, it’s not that I’m telling them that to convince them of something else, I’m just trying to really show them there is another way to think about that.
Brooke: Yeah, I think the work you’re doing is so important because there’s kind of the two layers of it. It’s kind of like step one, first, you’re not crazy. This is happening, this is your experience and it is maybe painful or frustrating or aggravating, whatever it is that you’re experiencing and slowing down enough to be like, “Yes, this is real and this is true and we need to process that through.”
And then the next layer of that is what can we do about it in terms of communication and changing the circumstance, but also personal power and being able to change your mind about it as well. I think that whole process has been, especially for me to be talking about it with you and to understand it in this way I think is so, so, so needed. And so important especially because you have all the issues you’re dealing with as a physician and then the layers on top of that that are very unique to your personal experience. Being able to validate those and then help other women I think is a beautiful thing.
Yashika: Yeah, and I think like you said, it’s the idea of having no power and oftentimes you feel when you don’t feel you have power, you’re like, “Well, why am I even here? What is the purpose of this?” So, that is what I want to step in and help them do; take back power even when they feel like everybody has pulled it away from them. It’s still there and help them grow in that.
Brooke: Yeah, and I think one of the interesting things about – I’ll be curious what you have – Sunny, you have a lot of experience talking to a lot of physicians about this and Katrina, we kind of refer to Katrina as the OG, she’s like the original gangster that came on as a physician and became a life coach. She’s no longer currently practicing medicine, but are most of the people you’re talking to in your community still actively practicing?
Yashika: Yes.
Brooke: Yes, they are, okay. So, most doctors are coming and becoming certified as life coaches and learning about the life coaching tools and taking them back into their current jobs and applying them there which I think is amazing, not just for the people you’re working, but for all your patients as well. Have you found that to be true?
Yashika: Absolutely, yeah.
Brooke: Awesome. Okay, Hala, let’s talk to you. Introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your background and experience in becoming a life coach.
Hala: Hi, Brooke. Nice to be here. Thanks for having me. My name is Hala Sabry and I am an emergency medicine physician. I just moved to Washington State like literally three weeks ago.
Brooke: Wow.
Hala: Yeah, lots of transition for me and I am finishing Life Coach School certification in the next two weeks, so lots of interesting phases.
Brooke: Yay.
Hala: I actually met Sunny way before life coaching was on her radar. I started a group called Physician Moms Group about six years ago and I had about 115,000 people [inaudible]
Brooke: What?
Hala: Yep, all over the world and I made the group. What’s funny is I made the group at a time where – so, I went through infertility for many years while I was in medical school and – actually, when I was resident after I graduated and I had this whole idea of what my career would look like. It was just super planned. I had this whole manual for myself. I was going to graduate, go into administration. I was going to advocate for doctors.
My dad was a doctor and he hated it, so I was like, “Why am I going to do this? That doesn’t seem very smart,” but I was like, “If I went into medicine and then I advocated for physicians then I’d love it.” So, I went through it and lo and behold I meet the man of my dreams, we get married and then I can’t get pregnant. Try, try, try and then eventually I get pregnant and I have a child. Then I get pregnant with twins 10 months later and I realize that being in medicine almost meant you couldn’t be a mom.
They just had so many really weird non-verbal rules of your dedication to medicine and how like your family came second. I was like, “How do I do this? I can’t slow down. I need to pay off my loans.” I’m living to paycheck to paycheck, I have to take care of these children, I suck as a wife, I suck in every part of my life and so I thought one day I was going to quit.
I was like, “I think if I just quit everything will get better,” and so as like a Hail Mary I reached out to a friend and said, “Hey, I know that there’s mom groups online, but there’s nothing specific to physicians for moms.” There was one physician group, but they weren’t about parenting.
I was like, “Maybe we could do this.” So, I just made a group called Physician Mom’s Group which is self-explanatory and it exploded. That’s how I met Sunny actually. So, Sunny was in my group or is in my group still and I started doing retreats and also conferences and everything that I really thought I would need at least five years ago, what I needed then.
So, Sunny and I was – she was at a retreat of mine and we were talking like late at night in a Jacuzzi, I think it was like two in the morning. I have no idea what we were talking about, but all I know is like six months later I had seen on Facebook that she got into a really bad accident, really severe like broke bones, broke her face, and then the next call I got was, “Hala, do you want to go to Bora Bora?”
I was like, “I think she hit her head way too hard.” I have no idea what is going on. So, me being emergency medicine I’m doing all this, “Are you okay?” Asking a lot of questions and she’s like, “No, I joined The Life Coach School,” and I was like, “What the heck are you talking about.”
So, long story short I just had – so, I have five children now and I have two sets of twins and my last set of twins were two months old when Sunny called me with this revelation and of her Empowering Women Physicians. She kind of referenced the spa conversation we had and I was like – I’ve always felt connected to Sunny. So, I was like, “Okay, you know what? I’m down. Let’s go to Bora Bora. Don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I’m going to make it happen,” and I was like, “I don’t really need life coaching, but I’ll go to Bora Bora.” That was my idea.
So, I go not really knowing what life coaching is and I didn’t realize how miserable I was. I went from this point of vulnerability where I empowered myself really from a place of like survivability. I just really needed to survive and I’ve built this platform for so many women physicians to enjoy, but I actually took it away from myself.
It was really hard to step into that CEO route. All of a sudden, I was the face of a lot of things, different organizations were looking at me to help them make decisions because they knew I had the reach and the influence for women physicians. All of sudden, I’m in this leadership role that I wanted which is ironic, that’s why I went into medicine, but then I wasn’t expecting it in that way.
So, basically through the week at Bora Bora with Sunny I started realizing, “Hey, this coaching thing is really important and a thing.” So, I started doing a little bit more reading. Obviously, Sunny and I – well, not so obviously, but Sunny and I are really close so there was a lot of discussions back and forth and I had joined some coaching programs as well.
Then I just decided, maybe I need to do a little bit more deeper dive to even just help me manage my group. So, I went into Life Coach School. I entered and at that point I thought it would just help me with my management of my group as well as I was doing consulting for really large tech companies like Facebook and things like that, so I was, “I’m so happy in my work with them,” and through that – because you know all of my coworkers, we were talking about niches and things like that and I was like, “I don’t know. I don’t really know if I’m going to coach.”
I started thinking about it more and more and more and it was like actually, I think, my dissatisfaction was this kind of arrival fallacy that I made this group, it’s super big, and almost this thought like, “You’re never going to do anything big again.”
I was like, “Wait, no, I don’t want to be put in this box.” And everything else that I’ve done in the last six years, and I’ve done so many amazing. I’ve worked with UNICEF, I’m on the Council for the National Women’s History Museum that’s going to be built in the next two years, that’s a work in progress for the last 20 years with descendants of Susan B. Anthony. I’m doing such cool things and it all comes down to legacy.
I started talking to Sunny and I was like, “I think I really want to help women create their legacy,” because when I think about everything that I’ve done and the string that connects all of them is recruiting women, retaining them in spaces that they weren’t before, to really change the structure of society and impact. So, everything that’s gotten me going and all of the different projects that I’ve done that kind of seem like a lot of potpourri for me that was really confusing actually really do have a common theme and it’s impact and change.
If I am in this position of leadership, I’m in the perfect position to lead other women professionals to do that. Not just doctors, but I think that there’s – I mean, I was looking at statistics in all different fields, all professions and women are just not as represented in most of them. So, what are we showing the next generation and the one after that? Who thought of the idea of this glass ceiling that needs to be broken? We’ve all broken it. I mean look at your mom, look at your grandmother, where are you at now?
Every one of us has broken it so it’s more of like changing our thought process of catching up because we’re not behind, we’re already ahead. It’s just how much further do we want to go? I really want to help women get to that point because that’s where I was just two years ago of thinking, “Well, this is the best I’m ever going to do.”
Brooke: That’s so interesting. I’ve coached so many physicians and so many attorneys now, I feel like it’s a very common theme. It’s ambitious, smart women who go into careers and want to be successful and want to spread our wings and fulfill the opportunities that are available to us and then we get into those positions and we may not be happy and we may want to have children and have a family life and have balance and have self-care. I feel like so many people at that point that you were at don’t know where to go. Where do we go to get the support? Where do we go to get the help and is there something wrong with me? I’m a doctor for goodness sakes and why can’t I be happy in this?
I think that’s one of the things that – it’s just a theme I see. It’s like, “I worked so hard –“ That’s the other thing, right? “I worked so hard to get here. I passed the bar and I passed my medical boards and now I’m here, I’m not just going to give this all up because I’m unhappy. That’s not an option.” So, I do think the work that you’re doing, the work that all of us do with coaching is really honoring – understanding that we’re not unhappy just because of our job, first of all. Let’s do that work, but second of all, if we don’t want to even if we have done all this work there are other options, other opportunities for us and so it sounds like – I love the idea for you of legacy.
Because I think a lot – like what you were referring to is, “I’ve now built this huge community,” that’s a pretty big deal, but I think a lot of people would just say, “I’ve now become a doctor,” and that’s a pretty good deal, right?
Hala: Well, yeah, and it’s funny because you don’t realize when you’re there – I mean, I guess looking back being a doctor is a big deal.
Brooke: Yeah.
Hala: Because I’ve been a doctor for a while and my dad was a doctor, I think in my head it was like normal because that was normal in my family. I have a lot of doctors in my family, but yeah, it just goes to show every person’s family, legacy, and evolution looks different.
So, for me, nobody in my family has ever built a network of 115,000 people and so – but it was interesting though because even though when I was looking around and even being in communication with other community leaders whether it was inside medicine or outside of medicine – I mean, speaking of lawyers, one of my really good friends is the founder of a really big law group just like mine and it’s about 20,000 lawyers in that.
I’m surrounded by like-minded people, but it was funny though because once I was surrounded by like-minded women who had large groups, we all thought the same. Kind of like, “Well, we’re not really that happy. Now what”? Now, I want to help – and it’s not just about community leaders, it’s about any type of accomplishment. When I was a doctor, I was thinking now what? I’m a community leader, now what? Well, now I continue to grow. I’m ready.
I’m ready to grow. Why do I have to stop growing just because I did this amazing thing? That’s a stepping-stone and that’s for other women to also grow in that manner. I’m a really firm believer of true leaders make other leaders and I just want to be part of that movement and just superwoman empowerment and not only within the physician world, but in all industries because honestly we all need each other.
So, if I can be an example to one person in another industry then so be it. If I can help them get to where I am at and where I’m going to be then that’s even better.
Brooke: I love that.
Hala: I credit you and Sunny, everybody here on this panel, I’ve had communication with everybody here. We all share different spaces online. But yeah, no, it’s been really amazing to see how much growth they can have.
Brooke: I think that’s something that everyone listening to this podcast whether you’re a life coach or a doctor or anything is just the idea that when you get to a certain level of accomplishment that I think sometimes we think, “Oh, now we’ve arrived. Now, I’m a doctor,” or, “Now, I have this big group,” or, “Now, I’m running this really big hospital,” whatever it is.
I think for so many of us we stop growing. Like what you’re saying, we stop having the bigger dreams for a bigger legacy and for bigger ambitions in our life and then we feel like, “Oh wait, is this all there is? I should be happy.” That cycle of punishment and also not feeling like you have to do more, right?
You don’t have to do more, but if that’s within you there’s no need to feel like you have to be satisfied at the current level that you are and that you can expand beyond that. I love, love, love that.
Hala: It’s [inaudible] but yeah, thanks for even commenting on it. I feel like it’s going to be a weird space. I was telling Sunny, I’m like, “I don’t know if people are going to understand this,” but of course they do.
Brooke: Oh yeah.
Hala: Because it’s really common actually just nobody really talks about it. We just shame ourselves into –
Brooke: It’s so inspiring to hear other women talk about big dreams and goals and contributions even when you’ve already done so much. One of the things – before we go to Bonnie, I just want to talk about this a little bit.
One of the pushbacks that I get a little bit as a very successful, ambitious woman who’s always encouraging everyone to keep going and keep reaching, sometimes the pushback I get is, “When is enough enough? When will I have accomplished – why do I have to keep going? I’m exhausted and I don’t want to have to create a legacy. I don’t want to have to do all these big things,” whereas some of us feel inspired to do that. How would you respond to that?
Hala: Well, first of all, not everything has to be big, I mean, at all. Just because I’ve done things that seem big to other people that some of them may not seem big to me, so I think that social impact is bigger to me. That could be something as simple as things that you do in your own community or things that you’re already doing.
So many people, I think that if everyone just thought about something nice or kind of that paying it forward thing that you guys do, everybody does something. That’s impact. That’s legacy. I think legacy – the reason why I was also a little uncomfortable with the word at first is people think that legacy has to be something big.
I was sharing with Sunny the other day, I was on my Peloton and there was a quote about the definition of an icon. I was like, “My gosh, I never thought about it.” I never looked it up because in my head icon was Janet Jackson because I think she won an MTV Icon award and so in my head that was something really big, right?
What’s so funny is that we’ve decided that certain words or certain adjectives are unattainable. So, it doesn’t mean that you have to keep going to do something bigger. It could be just doing the same small changes, like those 1% changes every day because the downstream, the ripple effect of that is huge.
So, for me, I’m trying to – it’s not that I want other people to do really big things, I want people to continue to give and get out of this individualistic society that we’re used to thinking that we all are in. Kind of seeing other people for who they are, so that way we’re ready. Yashika said something really, really important. She said, “The world isn’t ready yet” to really absorb and understand a lot of the racial issues that we talk about right now. The world isn’t ready.
Brooke: Yeah, right.
Hala: So, when are we going to be ready? When we start caring about ourselves and other people and realizing that our actions affect other people. Literally, when I was in Bora Bora I was telling Sunny, this was like seriously I was like, “I think I’m going to shut down the group. There’s too much pressure. I feel like I’m living in a fishbowl. Everyone’s looking at every – “ These are all thoughts I had.
I mean, of course, not all of it is true, right? But these are thoughts I had. “This is too much pressure. I don’t think I can do this anything. I don’t want to do it anymore. I feel used. I feel this, I feel that, I really want to get out of it.” But Sunny, obviously is super always positive because she really is all the time, not just online. But she was like, “But do you see the impact that you’re making?”
I was in such a dark space that I was like, “I don’t care about the impact.” But actually, why did not just press delete? It’s super easy. It’s because I actually do care about the impact and I just had to restructure my thoughts around it. If I’m one person just like – I thought I was alone, I was the only person that didn’t know how to manage having kids and being a doctor. I truly thought that, right?
Brooke: Right.
Hala: But clearly, there’s 115,000 people and more. There’s a dad group now and everyone is having the same problem. Any working professional, even people who their full-time job is stay-at-home mom. It’s hard. It’s really hard to take care of people, other human beings, right?
So, if I thought I was the only one at that time and I was proven wrong, then here I am thinking, “What’s stopping me from throwing all my success away and not doing it anymore?” Well, there’s a lot that’s stopping me from doing that and I know that if I’m one person thinking that, that probably everybody on this panel has thought it, plus other people.
If I can just break that silence on that subject matter, I don’t see a lot of people talking about that – because it’s kind of like a pity party. “Oh, boo hoo, you’re a doctor. What’s so bad about that?” Nothing is bad about it, it’s just more of I have thoughts and I just need to work them out.
Brooke: I want to speak to something that you said because I think it’s misinterpreted a lot where you had talked - we’re such an individual culture. We’re so focused on the individual, but I think with women, especially with women, we have to focus on ourselves first because we’re constantly wanting to give and wanting to suffer in silence. So, when you say individual, it’s like, if we’re suffering, we need to figure that out and be tough quietly and then we can go back out and give to the world.
One of the messages that I think we’re all giving is like that work that we do on understanding ourselves and finding the time to take care of ourselves has that ripple effect, especially when you’re a doctor with your colleagues and with your patients. So, I think you’re a beautiful example of that. I love what you said about it doesn’t have to be this huge thing. I think a lot of time, especially when we hear, “Oh well, Hala has this group and it has 100,000 people in it, how am I going to have an impact?”
With your patients that you’re going to every day, the six patients that you have on your books today, that is your impact and on yourself and taking the time to use these coaching tools on your own mind. I love that. Okay, Bonnie, let’s go to you.
Bonnie: Hi.
Brooke: Tell us a little bit about your background, your story, how you came to coaching.
Bonnie: How we know Sunny?
Brooke: Yeah, tell us about Sunny. I love it.
Bonnie: I’m a board-certified dermatologist – [inaudible]
Sunny: I apologize.
Brooke: No, everything has a nod to you. I love it. It’s beautiful.
Bonnie: So, speaking of arrival fallacy, I didn’t get into dermatology residency until the third time I applied and I truly believed once I got into the derm country club, it’s a very competitive field to get into, that life would be perfect. I truly believed that, “If I only get in – “Anyway, so that was five years.
Brooke: Then the bells would ring, the confetti would come down, and you’d be happy for the rest of your life, yeah.
Bonnie: Dermatology is known for very structured work hours and so a lot of people choose it for multiple reasons, but I love the specialty and I also love that I control over the hours. When I started to feel dissatisfied, I really thought something was wrong with me because other doctors actually make fun of dermatologists, so if a dermatologist is complaining they’re like, “Really? Buckle up, buttercup, we work overnight, we work weekends. You’re working four days a week and you’re complaining.” Then, I really felt like there’s really nothing for me to complain about. I think there was that.
But I think all doctors feel bad if they’re feeling dissatisfied at work because we know we’re sort of seen in society as someone who has a good life. So, I found Sunny through a Facebook group. The theme here is Facebook groups here, and she was offering coaching. I had done some previous personal development work. I had friends who were life coaches before anyone even knew what that term meant, so when I saw her post offering free coaching I jumped on it because I knew the value and it had been some time since I had been doing thought work or just any personal development. I’m like, “This is a good time for me.”
I had started a business, but I was kind of confused about it. I was actually about to quit, so it’s kind of interesting what Hala said. I think all of us have wanted to quit multiple times and so, I kind of was at this crossroads. I had started this business by accident and I think probably many of us started these things. It’s not like we woke up and be like, “Hey, I’m going to be a life coach. I’m going to start a business,” and all this kind of stuff.
So, it kind of happened by accident and I was in a physician group of women where the group was talking about money. It was a group specifically to talk about personal finances and that’s sort of the group that I started answering people’s questions and then people starting tagging, and then my friend was like, “Why don’t you start a blog?” That’s kind of how it started.
It was kind of just for fun, I never thought it would become anything and then I started coaching with Sunny and I was at this crossroads. I just had a baby, I had some pretty bad postpartum anxiety and I was like, “Why am I doing this? I already have a good life. I have a good job, I make great money, why would I sign up for working 7 days a week managing this Facebook group?”
Because anyone who runs a Facebook group knows it’s a lot more work than people think it is; answering people’s questions, just managing people, and then I kind of just decided go big or go home, and what’s the worst that can happen if I went all-in in this business is I just go back to being a dermatologist. That didn’t seem so bad to me. It’s like, why not?
Brooke: Yeah, love it.
Bonnie: I had a great “back-up plan,” I could just go back to being a full-time dermatologist. So, I still practice, I just practice very part-time now. So, I told the story with Sunny because we were making goals for my business, it was 2018 when we started working together and I had made around $35,000 in the business that year and she was like, “Okay, let’s pick a goal for 2019.” I was like, “Oh, how about $100,000?” I thought that was like a great goal. She’s like, “Uh-uh.” I was like, “What? What do you mean it’s not high enough?” She was like, “If you pick 100 it’s going to just be more of the same.” Like, you’re going to just have to do more of what you did already.
She was like, “The minimum you can choose is 200.” So, I chose 200 because that was the minimum. Of course, obviously, I could have chosen whatever I wanted to, but her thinking, her explanation was, “Well, if you choose 200 it’s going to require you to grow and do something new inside your business.
Brooke: Okay, wait, so I just want to make sure we’re clarifying here. So, you had your own dermatology practice or you were working for someone else?
Bonnie: I was an employee.
Brooke: You were an employee and then you decided to start your business on the side?
Bonnie: Yes.
Brooke: Coaching business on the side, okay. So, tell us just a little bit more about what you were doing in that business.
Bonnie: Sure, so that business was basically financial education for women physicians. So, kind of like what Hala was saying. Obviously, there’s tons of resources for personal finance but they’re not by women physicians. So, there was a male physician who had created a brand around personal finance, but he was a man and had a stay-at-home wife and so a lot of female physicians, especially moms, just felt like they couldn’t relate to him.
I wasn’t a mom when I started this business or blog, but I just started writing about things and basically answering people’s questions, the common questions that popped up. Also, what I found interesting is we’re like some of the most intelligent women in the world, but we think money is hard. Like a study of money and so I think there’s a lot of anxiety around it.
People don’t want to look at their numbers. I think there’s this whole thing like we should know how to deal with money because we are doctors, except no one taught us so why would we know? Then, patients think we’re rich. I think it’s like all these expectations and then we feel bad that we don’t know how to deal with our money so we just hire someone to deal with it basically is what usually happens.
Brooke: Wow, yes, and then abdicate responsibility of it and not understand what’s going on with it. That’s been my experience talking to a lot of women physicians about it. That’s really interesting. Did you start working one-on-one? You said you were making like $30,000. What were doing in that business?
Bonnie: So, in that year I was doing some speaking and all of this stuff, in my mind, it happened organically. There was a conference and people started asking me to speak, so I started speaking and started getting paid through that. Then, the following year I created an online program, a course basically that also had coaching.
Now, at that time I actually wasn’t a certified coach and so I actually hired people like Sunny to coach the people because the course was – through the coaching experience I really got like all the things like, “This is what a Roth IRA is,” all that stuff is like A-line strategy, but what’s really missing is the stuff above the A-line and that’s what I learned with Sunny.
So, to me, I was like I have to become certified because this is like the missing piece in financial education because so many physicians are stuck in scarcity mindset because of the competitive nature of our fields and just getting in and also, depending on what specialty you are – so dermatology is generally a well-compensated field but I have a lot of students who are the traditional lower paid specialties like pediatricians and they really believe that they’ll never a certain amount of money because of their specialty because they’ll look at statistics saying, “I can’t make more than X, that’s just the way it is,” and they just kind of shut down and think it’s not possible.
Brooke: The other thing that’s so interesting about that is I think there’s this perception that doctors are rich, right? Like, if you’re a doctor you’re rich. You’re raking in the dough. So, I think there’s so much shame for doctors that aren’t able to manage their money or aren’t making as much money as they think everyone else thinks they’re making.
I’ve coached a lot of women on shame around that as well, so is that something that –
Bonnie: Oh yeah, lots of shame just about money and then there’s also money shaming that happens. If people are spending money a certain way, they’re like, “Oh, you’re not spending your money correctly. You shouldn’t be wanting nice things for yourself.” I definitely see a lot of that going on or someone posting asking for help, but their net worth is let’s say a million dollars they’re shamed for saying, “Why would you have any problems? You have a million dollars.”
Brooke: Oh right, interesting.
Bonnie: So, things like that happen, but anyway.
Brooke: Okay, so let’s go back. Sunny said 200K that’s the goal, that’s the minimum. I had interrupted you when you told us that. So what happened after that? Tell us.
Bonnie: So, I created a program and basically my goal with this program, and I still offer it, is to provide basic financial literacy. All of the stuff you never learned in med school or ever. I feel like there’s life skills missing from the education system, have you noticed that?
Brooke: 100%, I agree.
Bonnie: Not just life coaching skills but then money skills, these are just really important things that every human being needs to know. So, I teach them that and then I also teach them the coaching that their thoughts create their feelings and ultimately thoughts create money. That just blows people’s minds once they really connect that piece.
Brooke: Yes.
Bonnie: Because if I say that in the beginning, they’re going to think I’m crazy, right? You can’t say that.
Brooke: They’re like, “This lady,” yeah.
Bonnie: “This lady is a little out there,” but once they truly see that connection and that they just need to start believing that they can have more money no matter where they are, no matter if they’re divorced because I have a lot of students who are newly divorced and so they’ve lost a lot of money and they’re a single mom so now they’re scared about money. So, anyway, I did make that goal.
Brooke: Nice.
Bonnie: Just over about $207,000 that year.
Brooke: Very nice. Isn’t that amazing? Almost like your thoughts created it.
Bonnie: What?
Brooke: I love, love, love that. So, that’s the program that you’re currently doing now, and you’re still practicing dermatology part-time?
Bonnie: I do tele-derm now and that’s partially due to COVID because offices like dermatology kind of shut down when the pandemic hit and so I wasn’t able to get a job. I just finished a job. So, actually, when I started working my business I was like, “I’m going to quit my regular job and I’m going to become a traveling doctor.”
So, there’s this thing called Locums. I actually lived in Seattle for three months, and then I actually lived in Hawaii for three months as a physician. So, I was like, “I’m just going to travel and work and get paid and then figure out this business and then come back and get a job.” When I came back that’s when COVID hit, so anyway.
Brooke: Okay, you’re still running your business?
Bonnie: I’m still running my business and then I see patients on the computer, so it’s all tele-derm remote.
Brooke: You’re doing that all right now?
Bonnie: Yeah.
Brooke: Okay. How is that working? Is it like on Zoom you’re looking at people’s skin?
Bonnie: So, yes and no. I actually got this job before COVID, so it’s usually patients submit pictures because the thing is when you do live Zoom it’s always out of focus, the patients don’t know what to show, so it doesn’t really work out very well. They take pictures, they submit it and if it’s out of focus I have to tell them, “Please resend it.” I do have to do occasional Zoom calls depending on the nature of the visit, but it’s basically all through an app on their phone.
I actually think it’s a great service for patients because patients don’t want to take time off for work to go to the doctor. Sometimes they have to, obviously, but there are many things in derm and there are certain things I can’t do and I’ll tell them, “I can’t do this visit. You need to see someone in person.” We can do things like acne, simple rashes, because a lot of places – I don’t know about where you live, but the wait for a dermatologist can be months.
Brooke: Oh yeah, easily.
Bonnie: Here they can be seen within 24 hours.
Brooke: Oh wow, that’s awesome. That’s so cool. I love that the world is changing and that we can see our doctors from our own homes in some cases now. That’s so awesome. Okay, so I could talk to you guys all day. I love hearing about your experiences. I love hearing about what you’re doing with your lives. I am so excited about taking life coaching and integrating it into your practices and with your colleagues.
All of the stuff that you’re working on is so exciting to me. So, I want to go through one more time, we’ll just kind of go down the row and I just want maybe one final thing that you would say, maybe for you, Sunny it’s a physician out there, maybe it’s not, maybe it’s one of your patients, just one final note. Also, how we can get in touch with you if somebody is like, “Oh my gosh, I didn’t know this even existed.” Everyone’s going to want to find out who this Sunny woman is anyway, so let’s start with you, Sunny. Tell us how we can get in touch with you and any final words that you have.
Sunny: Okay, so I want to say, of course, thank you again, so much for doing this and bringing this work to us. I want to also, for any physician or person who’s listening and thinking this is only for people who want to become coaches? Because this is a panel of physicians who became coaches. It’s not just for people who want to become coaches.
Yes, it’s very helpful there, but I also want to take the opportunity to say that the leaders in physician wellness, the leading researchers, speakers, publishers, the leading voices in this space say every physician deserves a coach and you really could say every human deserves a coach.
Brooke: Agreed.
Sunny: But at our national meetings, I spoke at the American Conference for Physician Health hosted by Stanford, and AMA, and Mayo and the opening and closing speeches, keynote was every physician deserves a coach. So, this isn’t just for entrepreneurs. There are two, now, randomized controlled trials which are the highest level of evidence that we have that coaching helps physicians and improves their wellness and their overall quality of life.
This is an evidence-based intervention. Everyone deserves this. We all deserve this and I would say it’s also known and published in JAMA that it’s a sign of a mature physician wellness program. I have clients who have been able to bring this data to their organization and get grants who are now enrolled at The Life Coach School to train through grants paid for by their institution and they’re going to bring it back to their institutions.
So, not everyone has to be an entrepreneur. Just that this does work. Your mental health matters. It’s evidence-based. Just give it a try. Just give it a try. Just experiment. It’s not scary, it’s not freaky, it’s not woo woo, it will really blow your mind just how moving even one session – right? But certainly, if you go into a program certainly.
Then, before I say anything about myself, I just also want to give a shoutout to some people who couldn’t be here if that’s okay?
Brooke: Yeah.
Sunny: That Devon Gimbel, and Kristi Angevine, Jessica Schaeffer, Dena George, people who have been incredibly instrumental in helping all of us. Everyone here knows all these names. There’s so many. I can say so many names, but yes, you find me at empoweringwomenphysicians.com or come to our Facebook group which is Empowering Women Physicians. Yes, we can take care of the dudes, we’ll hook you up, too. So, don’t worry, the dudes don’t have to suffer. Come check us out.
Brooke: All right, Yashika, what do you want to say in closing?
Yashika: I just want to echo really what Sunny said. I guess the one thing I would say specifically for physician women of color is it really does make a difference to have a woman of color coach.
Brooke: Yes.
Yashika: I think it’s great if they’re a physician because they get that part, but yes, every woman of color really needs a coach. I feel like there are so many layers that are never addressed. This is the way to get there and get there really quickly and then be able to have the answer and move on. You’re not going to just sit there and spin in the cycle which a lot of women of color feel like that.
Professional women, absolutely, so every women of color absolutely needs at least one coaching session. Six months is great, but if you just have one coaching session, I think so much of the weight that we feel as women of color really starts to lift and you can finally just exhale. Which, for many of us we just have never been able to be our authentic selves. We’ve never been to just breathe and just enjoy what’s going on. We’re always trying to hide and manage. I don’t know, just kind of making sure that other people were okay with us being in –
Brooke: Yes.
Yashika: Almost apologizing for being there, but not really realizing that that’s what we were doing and I think, for me, coaching allowed me to be like, “I deserve to be here and I’m okay with whatever everybody else in the room is thinking.”
Brooke: I love that. If people want to get a hold of you, how can they find you?
Yashika: Yeah, so you can get a hold of me at thrive2g.com, and that’s just T-H-R-I-V-E-2-G.com and that is where I do all of my coaching, primarily physician women of color, but I do have other women professionals that come to me because they are just looking for somebody and that is a great place to start. We’ll welcome you in and take care of you.
Brooke: I love it.
Sunny: Is it okay if I say, people have been talking about me a lot this time, but I just want to highlight that Yashika is really leading her community. She has a conference coming up that’s virtual for women physicians of color. She’s really leading the space and a lot of the women physicians like Sonia, who you had on, and many other women physicians look to Shika, and are a part of Shika’s conference.
If you’re a woman physician of color just look at those women who are in there, a whole bunch of them coach with me in my program and they get outstanding reviews. They’re phenomenal human beings, so go to that conference with Yashika and get hooked in with the most amazing people on the planet.
Brooke: Love it. All right, Milene, let’s go to you. How do you want to close it out?
Milene: How do I want to close it out? I want to just say that coaching has just gotten me back to my true self. I think my self-talk just has improved so much. My narrative – I always say that I’ve got a new best friend and that’s me. I’ve got my own back again which is just so, so, powerful.
I feel like even though I had made it through medical school and accomplished so many things I still just felt so alone and just really didn’t feel deserving of where I was. I think that that was the magic of coaching is being able to go week-after-week and really working through all of those issues and now get to the point where I’m just so happy right where I am.
I don’t have to accomplish more, I do more because I enjoy it and because it’s something that I want to do, and continuing to grow and just being in this community is just so beautiful.
Brooke: Awesome, and if people want to get a hold of you what’s the best way for them to do that?
Milene: I’m at www.thedoctor-coach.com
Brooke: What? How’d you get that? She is “The” doctor coach.
Milene: Yeah, Sunny always laughs at me because I’m “The.”
Brooke: I love it. All right, Hala, what about you?
Hala: I just want to thank you for having me on today and thank Sunny, and both you and Sunny for teaching me to dream even bigger. I totally understand what Milene was kind of describing as an idea of feeling alone. So many of us feel alone and it doesn’t matter how accomplished someone is.
For all those professional women who have worked really hard to get where they are, I want to be able to support them and them dream even bigger even if it’s maintaining what you are doing because like so many other people, so many entrepreneurs, it’s easy to want to quit. It’s a good clue when you think that you want to quit, it’s a clue that there’s a possibility of growth and really focusing on yourself so you can give more to yourself and others.
I’m hoping that I’m just an example of what can be. Just like what you say, Brooke, all the time and I hope that other women that really care about legacy will come and join me.
I’m going to be found on www.halasabry.com, just my name. I was going to hide behind a legacy type of domain, but I figured if I really want to build a legacy then people will know my name for what it is. So, I’m not going to hide behind a name, so yeah, halasabry.com, kind of a weird name but there’s only one of me, I think. H-A-L-A-S-A-B-R-Y and I’m on Instagram, @drhalasabry on Instagram. But thank you so much for having me and your affect on my life, thank you.
Brooke: So good. I love what you just said, because people don’t believe me, but I want to quit all the time and what you said was like if you feel like you want to quit it’s probably an indicator that there’s an opportunity for growth. That is beautifully said. That is really, really good to think about it that way because just because you want to quit doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you it means you’re human and there may be an opportunity for you to grow. That’s really good.
Okay, Bonnie, you’ve got to close it down for us, sister.
Bonnie: So, I just want any female professional listening to this who feels trapped by money to just understand that she’s not alone and that learning about money and that learning about coaching tools – the reason why I do this is that I really want women physicians to feel empowered, to practice medicine on their terms, because a lot of us feel trapped just the way medicine is going.
They feel trapped, like they can’t change things because they depend on that for their jobs, for example. So, if they can really get [inaudible] then it frees them to do bigger things, work with Hala to leave a legacy. Women physicians, I think so many of us, have huge dreams and we just feel sort of trapped because of current job situations, etc. So, that’s just my dream for all women out there.
Brooke: I love it. So, if they want to find you how do they click to find you?
Bonnie: So, my website is wealthymommd.com
Brooke: wealthymommd.com that is good. Well done on that URL. Well, I just have so much respect for each and every one of you. I think that being a physician is amazing and being a life coach physician like adding both of those to your resume I think is the magical combination.
Seeing what you’re all doing out there in the world is so inspiring. So, I appreciate you taking the time, I know you guys are very busy, coming on the podcast and sharing your experience with everyone. I know that they’re going to love it.
If you want to find any of these coaches, get coached by them, join their groups you can always to thelifecoachschool.com and look in the show notes. We will have all the links there for you to find them and utilize their brilliance.
So, thank each and every one of your for coming on today. I really appreciate it and I’ll talk to you all next week. Take care, everyone.
Hey, if you enjoy listening to this podcast you have to come check out Self Coaching Scholars. It’s my monthly coaching program where we take all this material and we apply it. We take it to the next level, and we study it. Join me over at thelifecoachschool.com/join. Make sure you type in the “The” thelifecoachschool.com/join. I’d love to have you join me in Self Coaching Scholars. See you there.
