66. How to Overcome the Guilt Trap Many Professionals Encounter with Laura Suttin

00:05 Dr. Ann Tsung Are you struggling to advance your career and sacrificing time with your loved ones because of endless to-dos, low energy, and just not enough time in the day? If so, then this podcast is for you. I am your host Dr. Ann Tsung, an ER critical care and space doctor, a peak performance coach, a real estate investor, and a mother of a toddler. I am here to guide you on mastering your mind and give you the essential skills to achieve peak performance. Welcome to Productivity MD, where you can learn to master your time and achieve the five freedoms in life.

00:51 Hello. Welcome to Productivity MD Podcast. I am your show host Dr. Ann Tsung. And over here, I have Dr. Laura Suttin. She’s a family medicine board of physician. She’s also the Founder of Purposeful MD. She’s a coach for physician and other medical professionals on how to create the lives they love without actually feeling the guilt, and also the podcast show host of the same name, Purposeful MD, an author of a book coming out October of this fall on time management for women physicians. She’s also a real estate investor and got four kids in her family. So the reason why I wanted to talk to her is, how she’s able to juggle so many things, create so many things without feeling the guilt. Because a lot of us want to pivot. And of course, I also want to discuss with her how she was actually able to pivot completely from being in family medicine to coaching. So thank you again, Laura, for coming onto the show. Tell us a little bit about why you began your journey on coaching and why you decided to make that last minute push to completely transition 100% into coaching. Because it’s really hard for us physicians to lose — sometimes I hear, “I feel like I’ve lost my identity as a physician.” So I’d love to hear from your point of view, and please do a more detailed introduction about what you do as well in coaching. Thank you.

02:10 Dr. Laura Suttin Yeah, thanks for having me. So, as you said, I’m a family physician. I started the Purposeful MD in 2021 with the mission of helping physicians to create the lives they love without guilt. And that without guilt, I think it’s really important because we might do a lot of things out of guilt or obligation. But that’s not required, and that can really hold us back. So getting rid of that guilt is something, I think, is just really, really important. I got into coaching about five years ago. It was a colleague of mine at the time that was pursuing a coaching certification. I didn’t even know really what coaching was or how it could benefit me or anybody else. I had done some personal development work within my organization at the time. I had done a lot of mentoring and worked with physicians one-on-one. The more I looked into coaching, the more I just felt like this would be something that’d be really valuable for me and something that I would really enjoy. So I was certified through the Physician Coaching Institute in 2021 and launched Purposeful MD not long after that. Then last year, I got an additional certification through the Insight Coaching Community. I stay active in that program as well. So lots of coach training. I get coached myself. I think it’s really important that we, as coaches, get coached because we have blind spots, too. And so I just am really passionate about physicians having access to coaching. I feel like athletes, elite athletes, get coached, right? Why don’t physicians get coached? We have our patients lives in our hands every day. So why don’t we get coach? I just think it’s really important.

03:45 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, I started I think probably 2017. So maybe five, six years ago as well. I completely agree I wouldn’t be here. I think I’m like 10x or maybe 20x from where I first started. How did you make that pivot, or why did you make that pivot completely to transition from traditional medicine practice to full-time coaching?

04:09 Dr. Laura Suttin So the last, actually, probably 10 years of my career have been a mix of clinical work and administrative work, as well as a medical director within my organization. So leading teams, leading projects, leading initiatives. Those projects and those roles were really at a place where I felt like I could hand them off. I built a team around me to carry on without me. Even as I was delegating, as I was transitioning, just watching the up-and-coming leaders and also some really established leaders within the organization take over some of the projects I was doing and just really be passionate about it was something that was very cool to see. So that was one reason. I also knew that I couldn’t go all in on my business unless I fully focused on it. It was something that was really important to me. I really wanted the flexibility to be my own boss, to work from home if I want, or to go to an office that I enjoy if I want to spend some time with my daughter. I have a 17-year-old, and she’s a junior right now. And so she’ll be a senior and then going off to college. She is not going to stay close to home to go to college, so I want to spend as much time with her as I can over the next year and a half while she’s still here. So kind of a combination of factors. I really wanted to do as much coaching as I could and reach a wider audience. And so I know I could only do that if I put my full focus on it. I really had kind of felt like — and I had. It was a side gig for me. I really had felt like I’d had my foot in two camps over the past couple of years, and that was just a bit of a struggle for me.

05:42 Dr. Ann Tsung You know, Tony Robbins talks about, like, it’s the moment of decision where your destiny is changed. I wonder, was there a moment where you can remember when you made that decision?

05:53 Dr. Laura Suttin Yeah, it was actually at the ACE Conference two years ago, so the precursor to emerge where you and I met in person a few months ago. This was the ACE Conference in 2022. I’m hearing presentations from women who have made the pivot and physicians who have created lives for themselves that they truly enjoy. I knew at that time that I needed to take that jump. I just didn’t know when. And so, yeah, what I told my coach a couple weeks ago was: I want to create a life that I don’t need a vacation from, and where I don’t wake up on Monday morning going, “Oh, I have to work another week,” or, “It’s Monday again.” I don’t want that ever for myself. That’s what I want for my clients, too. Life is too short to be in places physically or metaphorically where we just feel stuck.

06:41 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. And so essentially, I mean, in a way, it’s you cutting off your life boat so that you have to succeed in the current coaching realm. Is that kind of also the strategy as well?

06:53 Dr. Laura Suttin It is. It is. I think my husband is still — he’s gainfully employed, and so this was a lot of conversations with him. What does that look like for our financial future, especially with college tuition coming up? So a lot of conversations and a lot of leaps of faith, for sure. I wouldn’t be able to do it without his support, for sure. And so I recognize that privilege there that we’ll sign up for health insurance with his company. And so we still have a lot of those things in place. And so that was a big part of it, too. But, yeah, it’s definitely now like, okay, I’ve got to do this. I’ve got to make some money in order to support myself. I don’t have any excuses anymore.

07:34 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, I guess you could always just pick up extra PRN shifts if it comes down to it, right?

07:40 Dr. Laura Suttin I could, and I think that’s one of the great things about being a physician. There are so many ways if we want to make money. There’s so many ways that we can do it. If I want to do locums or PRN work on primary care, I’ll only just pick up the phone and work tomorrow if I wanted to. So yeah, definitely lots of opportunities.

08:00 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, I think for a lot of people — you don’t have to be physicians. But people who are thinking about pivoting, they often don’t fear set all the way to the end. So what that means is, like, you feel like you won’t make enough money, et cetera, et cetera. Then if you don’t make enough money, what other options do you have to risk mitigate it? A lot of times, we just think about, okay, I’ll just work a few shifts, just pick up a few fish. It’s not the end of the world. It’s fine. Because they’re always looking for someone.

08:25 Dr. Laura Suttin Yeah, absolutely. And I had to get coached on that because there was a lot of fear. Like, what if I don’t do this? What if I’m not making any money? Then, okay, well, let’s — that’s something I do with my clients. Well, let’s go down that road. If this is really a fear, then let’s walk through it. What would you do? And so I made a list of, these are all the things I can do to earn some income. And so, yeah, it’s just empowering to feel like I have those choices.

08:46 Dr. Ann Tsung So that’s maybe like a little bit on the how. I want to talk about how you’re able to juggle everything as well. But backing up about the pivot, trying something new if you have passion for something, doing something challenging, the unknown. One thing to do is to fear set. I wonder. Is there like another common challenge that you see in your clients? You have talked about like feeling guilty creating the life they love. Well, can you tell us a little bit more about that? What is a tactic that people can use right now to get over that?

09:16 Dr. Laura Suttin Yeah, it’s just there are so many obligations that we put on ourselves and that society puts on us as women, as moms, as physicians. And we’ve been conditioned and trained to take care of other people our whole lives. Society tells us that’s our first job, even to the point of being punished for not doing that when we’re in training. If we took time out to go to the bathroom when we’re scrubbed into a case, or finished eating our food when we were called to a delivery, or whatever that looks like, I mean, that was just unheard of in training. And so we were trained and rewarded and recognized for ignoring our own bodily needs: sleep, food, going to the bathroom. I mean, all these things that we have to do. And so untraining ourself and unlearning that is really, really difficult. So we have this voice a lot of times inside our heads that says, “Well, I can’t ask for something that I need. I can’t take care of myself. I have to take care of my kids, or my parents, or my patients, or my partner, or whatever that looks like.” And so that’s where somebody like a coach can be really helpful to help us to see that other voice and to help to question it. Is that really true? What’s another way that we can look at it? Is there something else that might be true there?

10:35 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, I think I can correlate this to having a newborn.

10:39 Dr. Laura Suttin Yeah, yeah.

10:40 Dr. Ann Tsung It was like my bodily needs are not met right now. But I have to really focus. Like, right now, with a seven-week-old, like really focus. Like when she’s hungry, then I’m like chugging water and trying to get the milk, but I need to make sure I’m like chugging my water at the same time. But at the same time, I could correlate with some of my clients. There’s one incident where they’re trying to match up. They don’t get regular date nights, or they don’t get regular time with their family because they just rely on a schedule that’s giving them. So they can’t plan ahead. But at the same time, I asked them, like, “Can you just tell them that you want these days of the week off or every other Friday off or something like that, so you can plan?” Then that thought was shocking to them, like earth shattering. Like, “Oh, right. I can ask for off.” I mean, they’ve been on attending for many years, but they haven’t unlearned that fellow or residency where you just get given your schedule. They don’t draw boundaries.

11:39 Dr. Laura Suttin Right. I had a client recently who set an actual lunch hour for herself, where she says, “I leave the building. I go for a walk. And I tell my staff, I’ll be back in 45 minutes.” That was earth shattering for her to do that for herself and to set that boundary for herself because it’s just so — we’re conditioned to do the exact opposite, and we put everybody else’s needs before our own. “Well, I can’t do that because they might need something.” And so it’s, yeah, just recognizing it is really, really key.

12:08 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, we often say that if you keep your cup full, then you can serve others. But doing it is hard, to unlearn all that. So have you found anything? Is it just a decision that you make, and you just do it? Or is there something that you found that worked well with your clients to unlearn that?

12:27 Dr. Laura Suttin Some of it is a decision. I think it depends on where the client is at. I mean, sometimes it is, yes, I’m just going to decide to do it. There are a lot of emotions that come up in that process. We talked about guilt. What is the guilt — is it telling us something? Is there a message in there that maybe we’re doing something that doesn’t align with our values? Or is it just society’s messages to us that’s saying, well, you should be 100% for your kids and never do anything for yourself? And so really just asking what’s the guilt telling us, and if the guilt is coming from a place of societal expectations. I had a coach tell me guilt is for criminals. It really just helped me reframe like, yeah, I really don’t have anything to be guilty about in this situation. It’s really society telling me that I should be doing everything for the people around me and putting myself last. And so if it’s an emotion like that, then we have to just acknowledge it and say, yeah, I’m feeling guilty because this is the way I was raised. This is the way I was trained. This is what I was conditioned. And it’s okay that I feel this way right now. I’m going to hold some compassion, hold some space for myself, and still tell myself that I deserve my lunch hour, or I deserve this whatever boundary I’m setting for myself. I will be a better parent, doctor, daughter, friend, wife, partner, whatever those things are, by taking time for myself. So there’s a lot that goes into it.

13:56 Dr. Ann Tsung I hear the word ‘mom guilt.’ I mean, I’m ultra sensitive too right now, of course. But all the time, what can you replace the word guilt with?

14:05 Dr. Laura Suttin You have a seven-week-old, so you’re sleep deprived, right? Your body is physically exhausted because you’re caring for the needs of a newborn. So I think in that situation, it would be more like just fatigue and exhaustion. Sometimes people feel some shame. There might be some shame, again, based on if we were raised to put everybody else’s needs before our own, or conditioned that way. There could be some anger. Like, why am I the one that the daycare calls, and they never call my partner? They always call me because I’m the mom. Why does society make that okay? Why am I the one that is expected to have a perfectly clean house, and why am I the one that’s expected to cook dinner every night? So anger at the way society has perpetuated these stereotypes too, and that comes up a lot. Then the cherry on top there is that, as women, we’re not socialized to feel anger in ways that are healthy and appropriate. Anger is a normal human emotion. But a lot of times, we tell ourselves, “Well, I shouldn’t feel angry. I have everything I want. It’s not that bad.” Then we beat ourselves up for it, so we’re kind of piling on top of it. So I definitely see that a lot in my clients.

15:15 Dr. Ann Tsung That is very interesting. I’m asking for myself. So how should you feel anger? How should you display anger? Or are you just saying that, you said that the female don’t usually first acknowledge. But how do you get it out, essentially? How do you display it, or what should be the best way to address anger, I guess?

15:33 Dr. Laura Suttin I think what I see a lot — again, I know this is a generalization — is that we tell ourselves we shouldn’t feel angry. And so we kind of stuff it down. We stuff it down. We stuff it down. Then it just blows up, and we kind of have a meltdown in front of, usually, family or friends or people that are close to us and we feel safe around. That is just the suppression of the emotion. The analogy I like to use is that it’s like a beach ball, where if you try to hold it under water, it becomes harder and harder and harder. Then you can’t hold it down anymore, and then it just pops up in your face. The longer you hold it down, the more energy it generates and the harder it hits you in the face, and it pops up. I mean, different people are going to have different mechanisms to help manage those emotions, whether that’s exercise. If it’s a strong emotion like anger, doing some body movement can really help. I don’t necessarily mean I’m a runner. But not everybody is going to want to run. Whether that’s yoga, or pilates, or just 10 jumping jacks, I mean, just any way to move the body.

16:35 Sometimes crying can be a really good release of emotion. Sleep is a really good way. All these things are going to help to bring our bodies back into safety and help to calm our nervous systems so that we can think a little bit more clearly. Then when we feel calmer and safer in the body, then we can ask for what we need in a way that is going to be more productive. When I say productive, it’s this going to the partner and saying, “Hey, it would really help me if you did this, or we shared household duties in this way” rather than, “Well, you never wash the dishes,” instead of some of the ways that those emotions can come out. We don’t intend to hurt the people around us, but it happens. That’s what comes to mind for me when I think about working through those emotions and managing through. And it’s hard. Because, again, we’re taught and we’re trained to stuff our emotions. In our training, we code a patient and then we have to go next door and give bad news to another patient. Or, we have to then go deliver a baby. I mean, it’s just this roller coaster of emotions that we experience, and we don’t allow ourselves the time and the space, typically, to process them. So it takes practice. It takes a ton of practice.

17:49 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, we’re trying to just pushing it down lower. Not silo it but compartmentalizing it. Yeah, it’s totally true. Like after a code, okay, you deliver the bad news and then you go see like a psych patient. Then like SI, then you go suicidal ideation. Then you go see another that’s just, I don’t know, upper respiratory infection in a kid. It’s just like, oh, my god. It’s crazy in the ER. I can resonate with what you’re saying, especially right now with the fatigue and exhaustion, like you said. A prime example is like we’ve started this CPE questionnaire for PREP of 2023, pre-delivery and post-delivery. It was just like, there’s like little progress. It’s just more and more frustration and lack of progress, that my partner had decided, he said that he was responsible for. But then, we just both are at 100%, and we just don’t have progress. So sometimes when I have less sleeps — there are days when there’s less sleep, like four hours instead of six hours — then all those little things start coming up. Like every little action, I get more reactive. So I completely get what you’re saying. Our solution right now is just hire people to let us sleep.

19:04 Dr. Laura Suttin Yeah, absolutely. I love that you guys are doing that. It sounds like you’re also giving yourself grace in that this is a limited time period of your life. It won’t be like this forever. Right now, you need your sleep, and you need to nourish your body. And so maybe you’re not going after the big goals that you might go for when your kids are a little bit older. I think that’s something that we have to just be realistic about, what stage of life we’re in. The stage of life with small children is going to look very different than the stage of life when our kids are older and getting out of the house.

19:38 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, that’s something I am constantly telling myself. That you’re doing this for your kids, but you’re feeling guilty. Not guilty, but you’re feeling frustrated because of lack of progress in your professional lives trying to do this for your kids. But at the same time, if you’re trying to rush things in professional lives, then you’re not spending time with your kids when they’re young. So it’s like a cycle, right? It’s an oxymoron, and you’re kind of going against your original why, which is also what I see in a lot of physicians as well and my clients.

20:08 Dr. Laura Suttin Mm-hmm, yeah.

20:09 Dr. Ann Tsung And then a little bit more on the productivity side or time management side. What would you say, for you to be able to achieve all this and have multiple ventures, what is like the top few tactics that you can share with the audience or that you’ve seen that’s effective in your clients?

20:29 Dr. Laura Suttin Yeah, well, there’s lots of different things. I would say the first thing is to get really clear on what the priorities and your values are and what’s important to you right now. I was actually even just thinking about this myself this morning. Because as I’m in my new stage of entrepreneurship, I’m thinking about how I plan my day. What are the activities that I focus on? What are the activities that don’t need as much time? Those need to reflect my values. And so one of my values, I think, well, not surprisingly, spending time with my daughter, like I said, before she goes off to college. And so there are going to be things that I put off, professionally or personally, in order to prioritize my time with her over the next year and a half. Another stage of life, it might be — I’m a runner. And so there might be if I’m coming up on a marathon or training hard for a race, then I might prioritize some of that over something else. And so knowing what we value and what is important in any particular season of life is really important. Otherwise, we’re kind of like your client that you’re talking about. We’re letting our schedule control us instead of us controlling our schedule and being intentional about it.

21:42 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, it’s essentially setting your non-negotiables. Like, what’s important to you? Set your non-negotiables, and your schedule actually works around that versus when you have time or at night when all of your work is done, then you’ll spend time with your spouse and your family on your lowest energy state. Okay. Got it. So what is actually a life without guilt? What does it actually look like? Because maybe what I’m trying to ask is, when physicians are in the thick of things, they don’t even know what’s abnormal or normal anymore. They feel like where the state that they’re at, the sympathetic state that they’re at, the constant reactivity they’re at is normal. What can the life look like, essentially? What if they can actually enact these tactics to draw boundaries, have non-negotiables, et cetera?

22:32 Dr. Laura Suttin So first, I want to say that I still feel guilt. I don’t want people to think that I don’t ever feel guilt, because that is not the case. That happens all the time. I think it’s an ideal state. I’m never going to get there to not ever have guilt, but it’s something I continuously strive for. And so I love that question. I love that you brought that up. Because when we’re so kind of living in this state of frenzy and hurriedness, there’s like this badge of honor to be busy and crazy busy nowadays. And so when we’re constantly in that state, we don’t even know what it’s like to feel this calm. Even within the Zeitgeist about being calm and self-care and bubble baths, that is such a trope that is so common in society today about massages and yoga and bubble baths. That’s not self-care for everybody. That’s not relaxing for everybody. And so we have to find within ourselves what it is that’s going to bring ourselves back into that parasympathetic rest or digest.

23:34 One of the books that I love that talks about this a lot is called Burnout. It’s by doctors Emily and Amelia Nagoski. They are two twin sisters. One is a sex therapist, the other one is a choral musician and professor. I’m blanking on which is which. But the book is amazing. It talks about how to work through your emotions so that you’re not letting them really own you, kind of what we’re talking about. They describe some really practical things that can help to bring our body back into this state of safety. Sleep is a great one. Any form of physical activity is a great one. Laughter, like deep belly laughter, at a comedy show or some cat videos, whatever it is. Crying is a good one. Hugging or close contact with another human being or a furry friend is another one that helps to stimulate that oxytocin. Those are some things that we can do to really ground ourselves and help bring our bodies back into safety. Deep breathing is a really good one, too. It doesn’t have to be a sit in full lotus and meditate but any sort of deep breath. Especially if the out breath is longer than the in breath, then that helps to stimulate that vagus nerve and that parasympathetic. So we have to spend some and enough time in that relaxed state for us to even know what we want. And until we can calm our bodies in that way, we won’t really know what we want. We’re just reacting to everything.

25:00 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, like without, basically, like the release. This happens at the flow state. When you’re in flow state, you need a release and rest before you can get back into productive flow. So this is a similar thing, or scheduling white space or thinking time. If you can’t pull back and think and plan, then you’re just reacting through your life. I have a funny story about comedy. Because I was like, yes, I got to — since emerge, I was like, more comedy. I need to watch more comedy. Because I don’t watch comedians. I used to be funnier, but not anymore. I feel like after two kids, I just don’t take jokes very well anymore. That’s what my husband says. Anyway, last week maybe or two weeks ago, I was going through Netflix. I’m going to watch a comedy, like a comedian, essentially. I flipped through two trailers, or maybe I started like five minutes of this comedy show. I even fast forwarded to the good part, and then the baby woke up. I was like, well, I just watched a few minutes. That’s it. But I think, for me, the best thing I found recently was funny Instagram videos of tolerisms, which resonated with my current toddler. So yes, it’s not like about lifting, running, meditating, breathing, bubble bath. But it’s about maybe something that resonates with you, with your family, your family quirks, and then finding content on that on social media or something like that. So that was new to me. I have never done that before on social media, and that I actually laughed. That’s new.

26:33 Dr. Laura Suttin Yeah, it’s a great release. It’s a great release.

26:35 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, and I think the deep breathing, I don’t know if you do the 4-7-8 breathing. Or do you have a time count where you’d like to do your breathing?

26:44 Dr. Laura Suttin I have done the 4-7-8 before. I don’t specifically do that, but I use a meditation app that, just kind of depending on the day, has different breathing exercises.

26:54 Dr. Ann Tsung Okay. And so what is your self-care then? You had talked about running. You talked about meditation. Anything else that you do regularly scheduled?

27:91 Dr. Laura Suttin Yeah, meditation, running. I love to read. So reading something just for fun. Lately, that’s either — I still read a ton of, I guess, what you would call self-help development books. But reading books about, I just read one on self-care. I just read one on how to improve relationships, all types of relationships. And so I think those are just interesting. I love historical fiction, so I read as much of that as I can. So that and running, I think. I call running like a Roomba for my brain. It just vacuums up all the cobwebs. I usually come away with some insight on something that I didn’t even know I was struggling with. So it’s great physical and mental activity for me. And sleep. I mean, I sleep as much as I can. I’m perimenopausal, so sleep doesn’t always come for me as easily as I would like. But I do not skimp on my sleep.

27:57 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, it’s the cheapest. I always say it’s like the cheapest productivity hack and the cheapest fountain of youth, basically. You look younger if you sleep. You’re more productive when you sleep, but yet we cut it off all the time. And something you brought out that’s super important to reiterate, that that guilt may not go away. It will come back. But it’s the practice of acknowledging it, that you feel that way, that you think that way, and then switching your mindset, that’s what’s important. It’s the same thing with meditation. From what I learned, the meditation is not — people say, “I can’t sit still. I can’t think nothing.” But it’s the exact act of thinking something and the act of pulling yourself back. That is the practice. That must be there for you to practice. So it’s the same thing with the guilt. This is how I feel. I don’t know where your thoughts are.

28:49 Dr. Laura Suttin Absolutely. Absolutely. I hear that all the time. “I can’t quiet my brain. I can’t meditate.” Well, that’s not the point of meditation. The point of meditation, exactly like you said, is to bring yourself back to that anchor, whether that’s feeling your hands, or your breath, or the sounds, whatever that anchor is. It’s the same way with emotions. The point is not to feel them. I’ve had so many clients say, “Help me not to feel angry.” I say, well, I can’t do that. What we will do is work on what to do when you do feel angry. So it’s noticing the emotions that they’re coming up, allowing yourself to feel them, which is radical in and of itself if we’ve been raised in a culture or society that doesn’t think that women should ever get angry about anything. And so allowing yourself to feel it, acknowledging it, working through it, and some of those ways that we talked about to bring the body back into safety is just so important. Every time we can do that, it’s like a muscle that we’re strengthening. And it just gets easier over time.

29:47 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, you’re essentially connecting those neurons or the axons, making them thicker and thicker. The neural pathway just goes faster and faster. Similar to meditation, this is a form of meditation in a way. There are different types of meditation where you could go through a scene that you may not have had the best reaction with your spouse or whatever, and then change the way you think about it. So this is the exact same thing, it sounds like. I wonder, and I’m curious to know. Have you ever had experience of changing somebody’s set points? What I mean is like some people have their own certain set point of their emotional home, or it could even be like a body weight or something like that, or amount of money they make. They have this set point that they have internally. And to change it, I’m wondering if you come across any techniques for that at all for self-sabotage?

30:40 Dr. Laura Suttin Yeah, I think what comes up for me when I hear you say that is actually this book I just finished reading last night that was recommended to me. It’s called How to Be the Love You Seek by Dr. Nicole LePera. She’s the holistic psychologist on Instagram. She has a series of books, which I didn’t realize. This is, I think, the third in the series. She talks a lot about co-regulation, which is, when we can regulate our own nervous system in those ways that we talked about — whether the meditation or exercise or whatever that looks like — then the people around us, the beings around us, become more regulated in and of themselves without us having to do anything differently. It’s the same effect that a pet has on us. Pets usually, when they’re in our home, they’re usually feeling safe and regulated. When you have a sleeping pet laying on you, then it can stimulate oxytocin and regulate our nervous system in the same way so that when we can feel safety in our own bodies and feel grounded and relaxed. It has an effect on the people around us, even without us having to do anything. So I think that is really, really powerful. A lot of my clients, as they go through coaching with me, they start to experience this. They’ll say, like, “Yeah, I started feeling more relaxed in the situation around my child or around my partner, and the whole dynamic changed. I didn’t feel like I did anything differently, but I’m just showing up differently.” So I think that’s really powerful that the work that we do has this ripple effect on other people.

32:09 Dr. Ann Tsung So it sounds like also to change your own emotional set point or change whatever set point that you have for yourself already through years or years of conditioning is to get yourself into more regulated nervous system state. It sounds like that’s key, just being in parasympathetic as much as possible.

32:28 Dr. Laura Suttin Yeah.

32:29 Dr. Ann Tsung Okay. It’s always the nervous system. That’s always the hardest.

32:32 Dr. Laura Suttin It is.

32:34 Dr. Ann Tsung All right. So we talked about how to do it and then really the goal of what the clients can hope to achieve, which is not completely guilt-free but to acknowledge and to change the story or the meaning behind it. I’m curious to know, what do you envision for yourself in 5 or 10 years? I know right now, everything is a new venture. But ideally, either for you, your family or your business, what would you like to achieve?

33:00 Dr. Laura Suttin I would love to have a business that, again, allows me freedom. So if my husband and I want to travel — we love to RV. We love to camp with our RV. So if we wanted to go for a couple weeks out with our RV, we could work while we’re doing that. Hopefully, in the next couple years, I’ll have grandchildren. I want to spend some time with them. And so I just really want to be more present for my family and for my life. I love that coaching allows me the ability to do that. Plus, I love being present with another human. So that’s part of it, too. So other than that, I don’t know what the next 5 to 10 years looks like for me. I think I never thought 10 years ago, I’d be doing what I’m doing now. So who knows?

33:44 Dr. Ann Tsung That’s interesting, about what you said about RV. That’s something that we want to do as well. I just don’t know how old we’re going to do it when the kids — because right now, you would have to child proof everything right now. So probably not now, but that’s definitely, like, we wanted to do that as education and going around the National Park. So we will be talking after.

34:02 Dr. Laura Suttin Yeah.

34:05 Dr. Ann Tsung And regarding the coaching, can you tell us a little bit about what you offer?

34:11 Dr. Laura Suttin Yeah, so I offer one-on-one and group coaching. I’m enrolling in a group program now. So probably, by the time that this airs, that will be closed. But I’ll be re-enrolling again later in the year. So as far as one-on-one coaching, the way that I set it up is, I would offer a gifted session, a gifted coaching session, for an hour or two before talking about enrolling. Because I want to make sure that a prospective client, that we’re a good fit for each other. So if somebody’s interested in getting a coaching session with me as a gift or two sessions, then I’d love to connect.

34:46 Dr. Ann Tsung Awesome. Can you tell us a little bit about the book that’s coming out this year?

34:50 Dr. Laura Suttin Yeah, so the book is not yet titled, but it will be about time management specifically geared towards women physicians. I’ve had non-women physicians read it, and I’ve been told that it’s applicable to people of all genders and careers. But I feel like women physicians have a unique set of challenges and common beliefs about ourselves. So I’m really excited. It’s going to come out in October.

35:15 Dr. Ann Tsung And where can they find the book when it comes out?

35:19 Dr. Laura Suttin So the book will be on my website. It will be with Amazon or wherever books are sold, but I’ll be publishing it or publishing information about it on my website as well.

35:27 Dr. Ann Tsung Okay. Awesome. Then that leads to what is the website or social media? How can people contact you?

35:32 Dr. Laura Suttin Yeah, my website is thepurposefulmd.com. So if you follow me on there, then you’ll get access to my book when it comes out and access to my weekly newsletter. You can connect with me there on my website as well. I’m also on Facebook as the Purposeful MD. I’m on TikTok and YouTube as @thepurposefulMD. I’m on LinkedIn as myself, Laura Suttin, as well.

35:56 Dr. Ann Tsung Awesome. And I want to leave the guests or the audience maybe three main takeaways or action that they can take. Oftentimes, I don’t want people to just go through the hour listening to this without taking action. I want this to enact a change. If you make a micro change now, that 2-millimeter shift can change your life exponentially, I always say. So what would you leave the audience currently?

36:20 Dr. Laura Suttin Yeah, that you matter. That you’re being on this earth matters, and you’re taking time out for yourself matters. You’re not alone. This life thing is hard. So reach out for support because we’re all here to support you.

36:34 Dr. Ann Tsung Right. I think, initially, we were talking about pivoting to full coaching and time management, but then I went on to managing your nervous system. There’s like so many little nuggets there. I thank you for going with the flow with me and to share your knowledge and all these techniques as well with the audience. I know they’ll really appreciate it. And as always, the show notes will be on productivitymd.com. And thank you again, Laura, for coming onto the show. I really appreciate your time.

37:06 Dr. Laura Suttin Thank you for having me.

37:07 Dr. Ann Tsung All right. And for everyone else, just remember that everything we need is within this now. Thank you.

37:14 Disclaimer: this content is for general information purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine. No doctor or patient relationship is formed. The use of this information linked to this content is at the user’s own risk. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical conditions they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions. The views are personal views only and do not represent any university or government institution.