Are you multipassionate?

Dr. Tea  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. Tea  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. Tea  0:51  

How do you stay on track? Good question. When you're a business owner, you've got a lot going on. Not only do you have to work on maintaining your license and staying up to date on medical education, advancements, and so on to take care of your patients, you got to think about the business, learning how to market getting new patients in creating relationships with existing patients, making sure they come back and spread the referral. All the things and you know, it's that is just the business on its own. And then you've got a life outside of your practice you maybe you have family, children, parents who take care of hobbies that you want to enjoy, you know, you're here to live a life that is not consumed with just work. And it's like, how do we balance it all. And I'm here to tell you that there's, there's something we got to really just address right away. And I think a lot of us kind of fall into the idea that we got our degrees to get a job. And that was it. You go to work, make the money and then and then you retire, right? We do that for decades and decades and decades. But I think something had clicked in me in the past year. And that is the expectation that we are linear, in which we know that we're not we're very dynamic, we can easily change our mind, if we don't like something, we don't have to be defined by our profession. So there are there is this overtone of what's expected of us. And then when we don't meet those expectations that are placed on to us, then we have this deep level of disappointment. 

Dr. Tea  2:34  

And I want to share something about myself that maybe you'll resonate with. I am somebody who likes to do a lot of things all the time, I've tried very hard to stay focused on one thing, and I just could never find myself to do that. And this traces back to who I am all the way back to when I was a kid. Back in podiatry school. Even in residency and fellowship, I always wanted to do more, because I just really enjoy learning. I thrive with mental challenges with intellectual stimulation. And if I get stuck in a situation where either I feel like I'm not enjoying it, I'm not personally thriving or growing, then I totally disengaged. And I found myself kind of creating my own mess because of that. And there was a word that I just learned more recently, that made me who I am much more acceptable to myself. And that is I'm somebody with multi passion. I'm a multi passionate person. So my life does not revolve around being a podiatrist, although that's how I thought my life was going to look like we commit so much time to our craft. 

Dr. Tea  3:49  

And we are constantly told that in order to excel in what you do, that's all you have to focus on, you know, the one thing and to some extent, I agree with that mentality, that ultra focus to become an expert, because I want to become an expert at the things that I do. But I also know that once I get to the point where it's kind of, if that was it for me, then you know, I don't enjoy what I'm doing anymore. So if you are somebody who just find yourself buried in multiple projects, either they're incomplete, or you just kind of thrive in doing more than one thing, like Welcome to my cloud, because my brain just needs that constant stimulation, you know, and that can be a good thing. And that can be a bad thing. So I'll share with you what the good thing about that is. 

Dr. Tea  4:37  

The good thing is you have a very creative brain, which means when you encounter a problem, because you have multiple passions, you can integrate them in solve problems a little bit faster. You can see things from a bigger point of view, rather than tunnel vision. So I think that's our advantage. But the disadvantage is that because we do lose focus We lose discipline, which also means that we watered down the things that we should probably be focusing on. So instead of focusing on the one path to get you to where you need to be, you've got five different projects that are spreading you thin. And that's okay. I truly think that that's okay. And that is acceptable and normal to be that state of being where you just got a lot of things going on. And now that we're learning more about folks who have ADHD, and they're open to speaking about how their brain works, and how their brain works differently from somebody who is able to maintain focus more linearly, that doesn't make either party's right or wrong. It's just how we were created and how we function in the world. Now, I don't think I have ADHD, not that I've ever gone to the doctor to get diagnosed, but I do really engage in the world that I have I doing multiple things, I have my private practice, I have my coaching program, which they kind of align with each other. You know, I created a practice that worked really well for me, and I want to share that with people who are interested in opting out of insurance. And so with my practice, it just kind of came naturally to help other doctors create the same, the same kind of practice to for them, right, like how to opt out. 

Dr. Tea  6:18  

But then I also have a life outside of those two businesses. You know, I'm a mother to a five year old, and I'm, I want to be engaged with her because as many of us do, we live vicariously through our children and I want to create a life for her that I didn't have that I crave, I had wished that I had more emotionally available parents, but you know, of somebody with an Asian descent, that wasn't really a cultural thing for us. So it wasn't really normal, to have parents who were emotionally engaged with our rearing. They did what they could what they had, and I'm grateful for that. But I wanted to give my daughter a different experience. And so I volunteer at her school once a week, just so that I can spend time with her while she was at school. And so she can see what it means to be a community helper outside of my work. So I obviously put that onto myself. But that's, that's what I enjoy. Because the big picture is, I am more than my profession. I am a mother, I am a wife, I am someone who's engaged in the community. And you know, and then on top of all that I need to find time for myself to just not do stuff. And I don't think we've gotten to a point where normalizing not doing stuff is appropriate. But I think we're getting there, we're starting to value what it means to pause. And I'm actively learning about what it means to pause. Sometimes I feel guilty, maybe you feel the same way. If you if there's a pause in your day, you feel like maybe you're not productive. Or if you get sick with COVID for two weeks, you feel really held back like, ultimately, what are we racing against. And that's how I want to help you reframe the situation you're in if you're in a situation similar as me where you've got a lot of stuff going on. And you feel the joy in doing all of the things. 

Dr. Tea  8:10  

But sometimes you got to take a pause and pull back a little bit and say what am I doing all this for? Especially you're feeling like you're running out of gas. And I felt like this, when I had gone through one of my coaching programs, I had a mentor who really pushed me through my business and helped me accelerate my personal growth. But I found that I was just I didn't have the endurance to keep up, which made me feel defeated. Oftentimes, it made me feel actually very small. And like, like it wasn't a good, it wasn't a good design for me to function in that way to constantly be hyper focused on the one thing, it just burned me out. And I just didn't enjoy what I was doing anymore. And so I, I mentally checked out for a solid six months of this program. It was a year long program. And I'm grateful for the experience because I met so many awesome people who helped elevate me. And I get to share their wins with them. Like what a privilege that was. But I also found myself kind of getting dragged through it because it did feel like everybody was far ahead of me. And we often talk about not trying to compare yourself to anybody else. But it's it is hard to do. Because if you're surrounded by giants in the field of work that you're in, and you're just trying to catch your breath, but they're constantly moving, it can make you feel kind of held back. So I share that because I want you to understand that we are not linear people. We are not defined by our profession. And it's too common that we kind of gets sucked into this mentality, especially if we go to professional conferences or we're in an environment where you know, the only thing people talk about are the papers that they published, or they're talking gigs that they secured, you know, all of these things that are really, really cool. But that is their own journey. It's not necessarily ours, you know, it's not yours, it's not mine, we have to create our own journey, and we have to do it at our own pace. 

Dr. Tea  10:13  

Like, if you're running a mile too hard, you probably won't run for the next six months, because like you burned yourself out, you didn't prepare yourself, you didn't take those small steps to make incremental meaningful change, instead, you just went straight to the marathon. And that is a really poor way to go, you need to condition to get to that point. And I think that's kind of where I was, you know, not too long ago, where I jumped in this group of people, and I had a really hard time keeping up. So I want to make sure that as I create my coaching program, it's small, on purpose, because it's going to evolve, the technology we use, to advance our business to scale up to make more profits and things, those things will change with time. And I want to stay up to date with that. But also, it's going to be okay, if you find yourself kind of being dragged behind, take a pause and look at what is a little bit more reasonable. You know, we're not racing to go to the Olympics, we're not racing to get to some social stature by doing all of these things, especially if it doesn't bring you joy in doing them. Or especially if you're looking at other people, and you're comparing yourself to them, you know, they're chapter 20 journey, and you're on chapter two, that that's not helpful for you at all. So instead, I want you to to number one, just be okay with who you are, you're exactly who you're supposed to be. And it's perfect. The world needs that gift that you have. Number two, we're not linear, you don't have to do the one thing, the same as somebody else, life comes up. Your pace is different expectations and goals, you know, those are all variables that can affect how you approach things. And that's okay. And you should embrace that, you know, if you go through a period where maybe you had a really bad breakup, or you lost a job, or something really dramatic happened in your life that was really out of your control, make sure you just give proper grace to the phase of life that you're in this is life, it's not going to be linear. And the last thing I really want to offer you is just giving you space to be okay with where you're at, because we're all trying to rush to go somewhere. But what's the point of getting there? If we don't have anyone to celebrate with? Or if we never enjoy the journey that God is to get there? I don't even know if that was a properly held English sentence. But you know what I'm saying? What's the point of getting to the endpoint, if none of the 10-20 years of experiences was not joyful, or fun, or it didn't expand us in and give us a way to grow in a meaningful way? Like, what's the point? What's the point of making a million dollars, if none of it was fun? I want to make money in a fun way. And I want to do it my way. And I'm showing up on the podcast week after week showing you you can do whatever you want, you just have to decide that you want it and then decide to have the discipline to get there. And if you happen to have multiple passions, just know that if you are divided in multiple areas, then your piece is going to be you know a little bit different than if you were to focus on the one thing, and then you hit the target and then you move on to the next thing. And that's okay, I'm not saying that's wrong, I'm just letting you know, like you have permission to do whatever you need to do to experience this life and make it meaningful.

Dr. Tea  13:38  

So going back to the individual who has a bunch of passions has a bunch of projects that are uncompleted. And you're just living life, that's awesome. To be able to just be okay with where you're at, and not having to hit your goal every single time like every single week or every single quarter. That's okay, we need to be flexible with how we get to the end. And what is the end ultimately, your deathbed I hope that's not the end, you know, I hope retirement is not the end that you're looking forward to, but rather just be okay with where you're at. Be okay with who you are, be okay with the pace that you have to go to not burn out. So that was a chapter out of my mental journal that I'm just kind of spilling out here into your ear. So I appreciate that you're here and listening to me talk about what it means to be a business owner and how sometimes you know, it's not linear, and that's totally okay. So if you need help with certain things in your business, you need some accountability. You need some direction, you need some discipline. That's what my group coaching program is for. It's really easy to kind of get trapped in your own mind and not see clarity. So sometimes you got to rely on somebody else to help direct you and that's what we're here for. So, join our group. We are a supportive bunch and I I hope that you take this invitation and join us on the other side. That's all I've got for today. I appreciate you so very much, and I'll check in with you next week. Take care. 

Dr. Tea  15:11  

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 care way. Let's connect, find my info in the show notes and send me your questions. That might be the topic for future episodes. 

Dr. Tea  15:30  

And lastly, if you remember nothing else, remember this be the energy you want to attract. See you next time.