Dr. T  0:00  
Owners of a direct care practice are more likely to experience higher job satisfaction than the insurance based practice. And it's no wonder why direct care is independent of insurance. Patients pay the doctor directly for their expertise, the doctor gets full autonomy in how they care for patients and how they get paid. They have chosen this path with a love of medicine. This is the direct care way. 

Dr. T  0:24  
By listening to this podcast, you may even start to believe that you too can have a successful direct care practice. Come listen with an open mind as I share my personal journey and how I pivoted from an insurance based practice to direct care right in the middle of the pandemic. And the valuable lessons along the way. This podcast may be the very thing you need to revitalize your medical practice. I'm your host, owner of a direct care podiatry practice Dr. Tea Nguyen.

Dr. T  0:52  
Hey, welcome to another episode. I'm recording my home. And again, all that background noise. And today, all the motorcycle list wanted to come out today. So just ignore that. Today's episode is the power of No, this is such an incredibly powerful word, saying no to things that you just don't want to do, or things that are uncompensated, your time is valuable. And you need to know that by now. You're you have billable time. So whatever time you spend talking to somebody who wants to pick your brain, your time to take a console by phone like that those are billable times. Don't forget that you're building a business here, you also need to make money with the time that you have. And we all have 24 hours in a day. So don't waste it, doing a bunch of stuff for free. Because maybe you're a people pleaser. 

Dr. T  1:44  
You know, this is a phrase that we hear a lot. And a lot of us especially in the service industry, we truly want to help people, that's a great thing. On the one hand, that's just who we are, it's what we're really good at. And it brings us joy to improve somebody's life. On the other hand, if you're saying yes to everything, you're actually saying no to other things, you don't have a bottomless energy pit. So you really have to conserve your, your energy, just like your phone, you know, when you charge your phone fully, there's a there's a capacity, the more you use it, the faster the battery drains, and then you have to recharge it to restore the power humans were the same. We need to restore by sleeping, and then be energized for the next day. But if you keep saying yes to things, because maybe you're afraid to say no, then you're actually draining a lot faster. A little background about me, I'm a middle child, well, I'm three out of four, but effectively the middle child. 

Dr. T  2:43  
So I've had the opportunity to be the older sibling at one point, and also the youngest sibling at another whether you believe in birth order or not, I totally embrace being the middle child, the middle child who is rebellious, who speaks up out loud, is not afraid to speak up. That's me. But it took some time to become that I had to go through some of my own challenges to realize I needed to put boundaries for myself for my sanity, and to really protect the time outside of clinic. So whatever I do at work, it's done at work. And when I get home, that's family time. So I am very cognizant of how I spend my energy and my time so that I have energy to do both. And I want to do both really well. I want to be a great mom and wife really well. And I also want to be a great surgeon very well. So I have to allocate my time and energy effectively. So anyway, that's me, but I also don't really like conflict. So for me, conflict avoidance worked because I lived in a household that was a little chaotic. And it was my safety mechanism to avoid conflict. Because I hated what conflict brought up. It brought a lot of violence and brought a lot of animosity and so on. So I was a conflict avoider. 

Dr. T  3:59  
And by being a conflict avoider, I often said yes to things that even if it wasn't stuff I wanted to do, just because I didn't want to have the confrontation of Why are you saying no. So for a long time, I was saying yes to anything, any project that came across me, I would say yes, I'm capable of doing it, I'll do it. Or I'll be the first to volunteer for position. Or I will be always the person people can rely on for doing things, even if I didn't want to do it. But I was reliable in that way. And then time happened. I'm getting older. I've got a kid now. And I just don't have enough time or energy in a day to do all the things anymore. So I had to start saying no. Because if you're saying yes to everything, you're saying no to other things. Here's what that could look like. If you're saying yes to seeing another patient in your already full schedule. You're saying no to yourself, your personal time, to the time that you need to restore to recharge or the time with your family after work hours, that's what's happening. 

Dr. T  5:02  
You're shifting your priorities. So you're shifting more your priorities into your work. And you're taking away from your personal time. And in life, to have a fulfilling life, you need to have a good balance. So just think about that for a moment, the next time you say yes to something, what exactly are you saying no to? Is it worth it, I hope you get to the point where you realize that saying, no is not actually a bad thing. It's actually a protective thing. Once you start putting up your boundaries, people will respect you and your time, they will understand that you have protected time and are not answering phones after hours, for example, or they know that you you're not always going to be the person who's going to take the hospital console, therefore they need to go through their rotation of whoever's on call, so that you don't become everybody's crutch, you don't have to be the person that everybody relies on, that is a lot of weight to take on on yourself. And if you're taking, if you're taking care of your business and your family, boy, you're going to be drained really fast, you might even be on the edge of burnout. And that is not necessary, that should not be you, you have a skill to help people and you deserve to be compensated for that skill. 

Dr. T  6:10  
So I would invite you, if you are the type of person who is like me, who tends to say yes to nearly everything in anything, just because we're kind of a people pleaser, and we don't like conflict. I want to invite you to think about it this way. If you're saying yes to whatever it is that you have in front of your face, what are you saying no to? And is it worth it? Does it bring me closer to my goal? Does it give me more time and energy back down the road? Is it an investment? Or is it just a thing to keep you busy so I can feel productive? You see how being busy isn't always a good thing. You can be very busy and not very productive. That's kind of what insurance based practices do. You're very busy with a lot of patients. But at the end of the day, you're probably wiped out. And maybe you feel like you're doing the same thing over and over again, you're like walking in a circle not getting very far, because you've lost the capacity to be productive, you're just lower. At the end of the day, there are studies about this as well. When you are functioning as you're fatigued, you don't think clearly and you make more mistakes. And that can be a huge problem. So let's not create more problems than we need to learn to say no more often and know how to draw your boundaries. 

Dr. T  7:26  
Over time, I had to become that people pleaser, that person who says yes to everything to somebody who is a lot more aware of how time is being spent. And I'm not saying that by the end of this episode, you're going to have all of your boundaries set up. No, you're going to figure out what works for you. And you're going to be able to focus on the things that you truly enjoy studying millionaires, multimillionaires, billionaires, the one skill or characteristic that they acquired or really value is that they're incredibly, they're incredibly protective of their time. They have all the money in the world, but they realize the most important thing about them, to them for them is time. So they're not spending their time doing frivolous things. That's not how they got wealthy. They are protecting their time by saying no to things that don't align with them. And yes, two things I do. And I want you to think with that billionaire mindset as well, for women, women who say no, we're going to come off as abrasive, difficult to work with or uncooperative. And I invite you to embrace that people are just going to have to get used to women saying no, just deal with it. 

Dr. T  8:37  
We are valuable, we contribute to our community, we are also allowed to have protective time, that's all there is to it. So no is a complete sentence, no is necessary to protect that time. And to have self respect as well. Respect yourself enough to say no to things that don't bring you joy, or being closer to your goals. And I saw cool online, and I saw a quote online that I just really love. It said those who get upset about you putting up your boundaries are the ones that are benefiting when you didn't. So think about your circle, think about the people who get upset that you have boundaries. Now, maybe they weren't meant to be in your circle after all, or better yet, hang out with millionaires, multimillionaires, or those billionaires, those who really value time and understand the value of No. And when you do that, you're going to start to see a shift in your energy and your time. And you're going to enjoy the time that you do have way more than what you didn't have when you were saying yes to everything. So don't forget, you need to recharge. So find a way to recharge we all have 24 hours in a day. 

Dr. T  9:44  
We all have a limited amount of time and energy to spend suspend it well. And you also need to recharge at the end of the day by doing the things that you love or making time for yourself for self care and sleep. So the power of no is actually willing to give you back time and energy? How cool is that? Right. All right, I'll catch you next time. 

Dr. T  10:07  
Thank you so much for being here with me. If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, please like, share and subscribe. So more people like you can have access to another way of practicing medicine, that direct airway. Let's connect, find my info in the show notes and send me your questions. That might be the topic for future episodes. 

Dr. T  10:26  
And lastly, if you remember nothing else, remember this be the energy you want to attract. See you next time.