68. How to End Limiting Beliefs That Are Stifling Your Success with Dr. Shafer Stedron

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. I am your show host Dr. Ann Tsung. And today I have Dr. Shafer here. She is a neurologist and also a life coach, and also the podcast show host at Talks with Dr. Shafer. She also has four kids of her own as well. And the reason why I wanted to bring her here today is because if we want to have maximum productivity in terms of our even work, our household, our own well-being, like physical and mental well-being, it all centers around mindset. So this is what we’re going to really dive in, and how we can break through your limiting beliefs, change your mindset, so you can take control of your time. So thank you, Dr. Shafer, for being on the show. Could you give us a little bit about what is the reason that caused you, as a neurologist, to dive into even more mindset and life coaching path?

01:44 Dr. Shafer Stedron Well, Dr. Ann, thank you so much for having me on the show. It’s so exciting. And I was so excited to have you on my show as well. So it’s great to see you again and have this conversation. You know, for me, I was going through some significant life changes in the structure of my family. And when we are faced with really big challenges in our lives, I think it’s pretty natural that we have to do a deep dive into our mindset to overcome that challenge. Otherwise, we get really, really stuck in what’s happening to us. And the mindset work is so key to help us. Instead of getting stuck in where we are now and most likely in the past, start being forward thinking so that we can reclaim our story and build a future that we want to live instead of getting stuck in our past.

02:28 Dr. Ann Tsung And how did you go down into diving into becoming a life coach? Was it through the coaching that you had before, that’s what made you want to become a coach, et cetera?

02:35 Dr. Shafer Stedron So, you know, it was a happy accident, as for my life was really a theme for me. So many things that I’ve experienced. I’ve had a very diverse background. I’ve been a musician, a writer, a physician. I’ve done a lot of different things with my life, and they’ve all nourished me and fulfilled me and created who I am in different ways. As I was going through that really challenging time in my life and I was figuring it out in what I call the messy middle, those really, really challenging days, I was actually having women specifically reach out to me and ask me for help. This was a really challenging time in my life. I changed my phone number. I was really not leaving my home. It was a very challenging time. And people were somehow still finding me and reaching out and saying, “Listen. I got your number from so and so, and they think that you have experience and you could really help me.” And because of the experience that I’d had, and I knew how important filling this role for people was, I thought I want to do this right. How can I do this? Because being trained as a physician did not set me up to fill that role. I also have a degree in psychology as well, but that’s not what they were asking for. They didn’t want a therapist. And so then I looked into life coaching, and I became certified with the Jay Shetty life coaching certification program, which was an incredible experience. I really came in contact with my future through that learning adventure. I think, we as physicians, we are lifelong learners, and we’re always reaching outward. You and I have talked about this before, how we’re always seeking something. And it’s often a title, a job. We’re always seeking that next certification, that fellowship. But when I came into life coaching and became certified and had those experiences working with people, as myself being the coachee and also becoming a coach, it was a different experience. It was really stepping into myself and my purpose and finding where I belonged. As much as I’ve absolutely loved all of my other experiences, and they have informed me and enriched me, becoming a life coach was a different experience.

04:47 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, it sounds like you feel like your authentic self, which maybe for somebody who they don’t sometimes quite know if they’re acting as their authentic self, and it’s hard to explain it, it maybe similar to me chasing these fellowships, et cetera. But my passion is actually talking about time and efficiency. And so creating more time so you can spend it with the people that you love. So it fuels you, and time just passes by when you’re doing life coaching. And it energizes you, at least for me. I don’t know if that’s the case for you.

05:20 Dr. Shafer Stedron Yeah, absolutely, it does. You learn so much about asking good questions through the practice of doing so, and that enriches you in every way in your life. And when we really focus on our mindset, that just opens up a different state of being in our relationships, how we show up at work, how we show up with our loved ones, with our children. My biggest hope, and one of my goals in the way that I set up my work — because I’m a life coach. I have Talks with Dr. Shafer, my podcast. I also have a children’s literature publishing house that I created, and we’ve published several books for young authors. I’ll be publishing my own book in 2025. The idea is not to just help people when they’re in that moment of crisis like I was or people who have reached out to me are around my age group, older, younger, but to actually help people understand mindset when they are developing, when their frontal lobes are still in that developmental stage, getting in on the ground level so that when they’re 20, they’re making decisions based on really belonging and fulfilling themselves rather than chasing those accolades and those degrees like we’ve discussed before.

06:36 Dr. Ann Tsung I think there’s two points I want to make here that I think is very important. Number one is that whatever stage you are at right now, whoever is listening to this, that you can always pivot or start something on the side if that is your passion, your interest. It’s not one or two. It’s one and two, if that makes sense. You can pursue your passion and your interests and build something out of it. That’s the first point. Then number two is, I am passionate about raising children as well. Since I have a six-month-old and a two-year-old, I’m like, I want to make sure I’m not looking at the screen in front of them. I don’t want to portray distracted parenting, et cetera. One way is to make sure that the parents have the right mindset so that the kids can have the right mindset as well. I love that you’re publishing kids’ books on this. And so that is number one why parents need to work on mindset. Can you give us some more reasons why it’s so important, either for the kids? Can the kids learn the mindset? Anything else that could be like a cause for the parents to want to learn what we’re going to talk about?

07:42 Dr. Shafer Stedron It’s so interesting. Because I think many of us around our 40s, maybe a little sooner, maybe a little after, we experience what has historically been called the midlife crisis. And I don’t think it’s really the first time we’ve had these crises. We just don’t remember when we were 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, we were figuring out the world, and nothing made sense. We were looking to our caregivers to figure out, how am I supposed to approach this problem, right? Because we just don’t know, and we were mirroring them and learning from them. But then we ended up in our 40s, our 30s, our 50s. And all of a sudden, we realize, okay, I’ve come this far down this path using these tools that were taught to me by people who were doing their very best, whatever that looked like. Because someone’s best doesn’t have to be someone else’s best. So they were doing their best in that moment, in that time in our development, and we carried those tools with us. But often, we get to the point in our lives where we say these tools don’t work anymore, and I’m creating problems for myself and inefficiencies in my life. Because, for example, I have so many limiting beliefs in my mindset because those things were modeled to me and taught to me as a child. And now it’s affecting what I believe I can do. So I end up having roadblocks in front of me, that maybe I could get around if I could get around my mindset. But I’m not even cognizant of what those problems are, of what those roadblocks are within my frame of mind. And so it’s imperative that as we are learning to do better, that we are taking those tools and passing them along so that, hopefully, a midlife crisis looks very different when our kids are in that age and that time of their lives, as it does for us.

09:27 Dr. Ann Tsung So learn it to model for your kids so that you can teach your kids, if you have kids. Or just learn it so that you can recognize, perhaps introspect what had happened to you in the past, what caused you to make certain decisions and why you have those thoughts, those actions that you’ve taken in the past, what drove you to that, and how you can change it. And so I’m wondering then — I’m going to do two categories. One category, limiting beliefs around time. Then the next one, limiting beliefs around perhaps as a parent. Because I’m always trying to be a productive mom. But productive not in the sense of like, more like presence and quality time with them, with mom. Maybe we can touch on, oftentimes, we think of our kids, and we forget our spouse too. So some limiting beliefs with our spouse would be great. But let’s do time first.

10:17 Dr. Shafer Stedron You know, with time limiting beliefs, for one thing, we have to take back the reins on what we want from our lives, what is our why, and get really curious about that. And as we ask ourselves the question, so why do I want that, there’s going to be answer A. Then you need to ask a question about answer A. And this is where a life coach can be exceptionally helpful. Being a guide, they’re not giving you the answers, but they’re just guiding you on this journey of, okay, we got answer A. Answer A is not the answer. It’s not the answer. Maybe B, maybe C. But probably, we’re going to get to Z before we really know the why. And so a life coach can help you on that journey. Once you get down to your why, it’s almost like pruning a tree. You can cut away all of these habits and things that you’ve been giving away your time and your energy too that don’t feed your why. And I think there’s so many things that we can look to. Lifestyle, right? So why do I think my house needs to be a certain size or look a certain way? Or, do I really need to remodel the kitchen? Do I need to lose all that energy and time and money and resources on that project that I think is really important? Well, why am I doing that? And when we do the mindset and the limiting beliefs work about what’s driving us and why, and does it really feed us on our path to our true greatness and living our true story, we can just get rid of things. We can say no, I don’t need to work those extra shifts at the hospital to make that money to renovate the kitchen. Because I like my 2000’s kitchen. It’s fine. One, we can put some paint on it as a family. The kids can do the first coat. Then we can come in after and then tell the kids for the next 20 years that they did the whole thing. Who cares? They’ll be so proud of what they did, and we’ll save $40,000, and also all the time that we would have been working to make that money if that’s not what feeds us. So it sounds really simple. But when we have these beliefs and we ask why, why am I chasing this goal, and we listen to our bodies when we’re on that introspective journey, and we figure out what percentage of the things am I investing my time and energy in that really don’t feed me and don’t get me to my goals, that helps us divest ourselves of all of that feeling of responsibility and often feelings of shame around trying to emulate something that’s just simply not us and what we want.

12:51 Dr. Ann Tsung It sounds like maybe the time limiting belief in terms of time is people not understanding what is driving them. They want to maybe keep up with the Joneses, or maybe there’s something. Maybe when I was little, since I was so poor, I just wanted to buy a really nice car when I grow up and start making money. To chase that, even though you don’t really need that, like a perfectly fine car. The standard amount is fine. But I do remember, similarly, when I was young, like in fellowship, I wanted to buy expensive purse because it was like a sign I’ve made it. I did buy the expensive purse. But the next expensive purse, I never bought because I just spent all my money on personal development. I realized I don’t need the purse anymore.

13:36 Dr. Shafer Stedron No, no, you can’t buy who you are. I think you do have to ask again the question, the deep question, as to, why do I want that? What am I looking for with it? There are some people that when they go down that rabbit hole, so to speak, they’re still going to want the person. That’s okay. But then I think that if we’re going to feel good about the purse and not actually feel anxious about the purse, or even shame about the purse, we need to know. No, that’s a decision I made, and I am proud that I put this time and effort into buying that. And every time I use it, it has to give you something back. Otherwise, it’s just taking from you. Again, I think when you look at time management, not giving your time and energy and focus to things that are taking from you rather than feeding your joy and feeding your purpose, that’s a really important distinction to be thoughtful about as you are setting out your directives for the year. So kind of the big picture. So then when you’re doing your daily items, it’s like, do I want to do this? Does this take me towards my goal? No. When you’re worrying about maybe what another mom at school said or did, or their volunteerism, or anything, taking a step back and saying, “That’s triggering me. I’m feeling something in my body and my chest when I think about the choices she’s making and the choices that I’m making. Why is that?” And if we go down that and we say, “Well, it’s because I want to spend more time with my kids. I want my kids to see me a certain way,” well, is volunteering 20 hours a week on the PTO going to achieve that? Or, is something else, like what you’ve said, being very mindful about how you use your smartphone around your children and being mindful about time management things, like you and I have discussed before about, you know what? I’m going to have someone else get the groceries. Because that’s the low hanging fruit of time management, and I get to give that time back to my kids. When we’re thoughtful, and we take the emotional shaming component out of it, and we really focus on, “Okay. What do I want? How do I want to use my time,” I think that allows us to be much more efficient. And it really starts with mindset work so that we can start to approach it without shame. Because shame is a big-time suck, and it never helped anyone.

15:57 Dr. Ann Tsung I think I did work PRN shifts just for that purse, you’re right, back then when I was a little bit more, say, unconscious or didn’t think much of it. And your techniques that you describe aligns perfectly what I tell my clients or the audience. If you set your five goals for the year, then you have a very clear boundary of what to say yes and what to say no to. So you can eliminate the things that doesn’t really serve you towards your goals, or even having those thoughts to go down that negative spiral. Like, I’m not as good as that mom, etcetera, or I’m not doing this. You don’t even have those thoughts where you don’t linger in those thoughts, because you know serving 20 hours on PTO doesn’t get you to be more present with your kids. It’s actually maybe more time away from your kids.

16:43 Dr. Shafer Stedron Exactly. It’s related to the school. So, in your mind, the first reaction is, “Oh, I’m a bad mom. I’m not doing that.” But maybe that just doesn’t fit into your family schedule. And that’s okay being truthful to that reality and not over committing yourself and not committing to things that really don’t align with your goals. That doesn’t help anyone.

17:02 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, I agree. I guess we talked a little bit on the limiting mindset in time and the limiting mindset as a mom. Any limiting mindset between spouses that you’ve encountered?

17:15 Dr. Shafer Stedron That’s so interesting. It’s interesting because you are a life coach as well, and we talk about coaching. And we talk about even things like therapy. Because this is a concept that we talk about a lot on my channel, because we do a lot with domestic violence and abuse and intimate partner violence and understanding coercive control relationships. But I think that, in any relationship, it’s really important to understand that the heart of a relationship starts here. Because you can’t get anything else out of a relationship that you’re not showing up for, right? You have this agency called your presence and your time and your energy, and you do get to decide what you want to partake in and what you don’t. It sounds really simple. Maybe, even to someone, it may sound flippant. But what it really is is empowering. And once we really, in our mindset, take our power back, then we can show up as the partner we want to be. And when we do that, we can save so much time and energy with our partner because we’re not in this power control dynamic, where you’re not doing what I want you to do. I have to convince you to buy into what I want. No, we’re just, I’m showing up as me. You’re showing up as you. I have to accept who I am, and I have to accept who you are. We have to find out ways to align or to decide if we don’t align. Because sometimes that is the case. Or, maybe we align, but we need to divide and conquer these activities because we handle them differently. I think your skills mean that you should do this for the family, and I’ll do this for the family. So, that way, we’re not bickering about it every single time. Because, again, we’re wasting time and energy. So there are so many ways that we can show up better in our partnerships. And it really starts with showing up as a healed person. So we’re not looking for them to fix situations, but we’re just showing up with the best attitude and intention that we have and then modeling that for our partner as well. And that really invites them to do the same. If they don’t, that’s a different conversation, and that’s something that should be addressed and sorted out. But most likely, they need to go on a journey themselves, and you can’t pull them into it. They have to be ready and willing to go on that journey, too, so that they can meet you and your relationship in a way that works for both of you.

19:51 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, it really starts from the heart first. For those of you guys who are not watching YouTube, Dr. Shafer pointed to her heart. Would you give an example? Was there a scenario that comes to your mind of somebody who — what is like a running script that they may be telling themselves where they maybe are more transactional? Versus if they change that mindset, is there a different running script that they can tell themselves instead to get them into a more giving and less transactional type relationship?

20:25 Dr. Shafer Stedron Well, I think that when you’re transactional, that feeds in too. So when you distill it down to what that is, that is control. That’s hard to hear because none of us want to think that we’re controlling. But because of the way that our culture is set up, things are quite transactional. And that means you have expectations. And when you have expectations, that’s a control dynamic. That’s, I’m showing up and I expect certain things from you. And when you work on in your mindset of not having expectations and just again showing up, I have my boundaries, right? Because a boundary and an expectation is different. A boundary is, this is what I will accept, and I’m going to have to have a plan for if this boundary is not respected. But the plan isn’t there’s going to be a consequence to you, and I expect you to do this thing. That’s not how boundaries work. And in relationships, if we can really work on modeling for others how we want to be treated, then they can make the decisions if they’re going to meet us there or not. And if they’re not meeting us there, we can’t fix them. We have to show that we respect ourselves and that we are going to respect our boundaries. And if you’re in a healthy relationship, that would be a really good signal to send the person that they need to consider how they can help meet you. But if you come with the expectation — no, I’m going to control the situation. I’m going to make you meet there — that’s a different interaction, and it’s not very likely to be successful or to be a connecting experience for the two of you as a couple.

22:01 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, I think the control thing is great. And it’s probably putting down your pride, too. At least, that is with my case. I always have to put down my pride. I say to myself, why do I have to be the first one?

22:16 Dr. Shafer Stedron As physicians, you’re used to writing orders. You’re literally asked. What are your orders, doctor? And when you’re in medical school, in residency, intern year, you are really in a lot of controlling, power dynamic type situations. And that’s modeled for you. The people that I respect the most that trained me and that I really set out to model are people who didn’t make orders. They worked truly as a team, and they were much more effective leaders than people who gave orders.

22:53 Dr. Ann Tsung And then the same, it can apply to spousal relationships too. It’s not you versus me. It’s we. Like instead of saying, this is what I’ve been trying to do. Well, not trying. I am doing. Every time we talk, it’s we, we, we. We have a name. We need to change our name now, now that we have a daughter. We used to have a team name. It’s Micaiah because it’s Michael, Kai Ann — Micaiah. So what’s the best for Micaiah? So it stops going like, well, I think this is it. I want to do this. But you think differently da, da, da, da, da what’s best for our whole household.

23:32 Dr. Shafer Stedron I love that, and it’s acknowledging all parts of the unit. Because what can happen is, sometimes, and I think especially for us as women, even though we’re physicians, even though we’re powerhouses and we’re so smart and we’re so accomplished, sometimes we’ve been culturally trained in relationships to basically give up our ground to move forward. And that just leads to resentment. That doesn’t help with connection, and that doesn’t build a team. So again, the boundary is not just for you. It is also for the other person. Because when you’re both bringing your full selves to the relationship, you can be the most effective in building that beautiful future that you’re trying to build together. Not so if really only one of you is allowed to come and dominate the other. That’s not future building. That’s resentment building.

24:17 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, I think it’s important to model this for our kids. If you have any kids, it’s important to model this for our kids so they learn an open way of communication. You had talked about being able to teach this to our kids. Is there one top tool in terms of mindset that can really build the most resilience in kids? Or if they learn like nothing else, if they just learn this one thing, is there something that you, the parents, can teach your kids?

24:43 Dr. Shafer Stedron So something that I think is really important, and you hear it all the time, is adding “I can’t do it yet” to a sentence. I think that, again, changes the direction of the sentence when you just basically add something that has a forward focus on it. I can’t do that. Period. End of sentence. When your child says that, they’re basically like, “Close it up. It’s over. Done. I can’t do that.” Whereas when you model for them, “Oh, I can’t do that yet, but I’d love to learn,” you are modeling for them and teaching them to have that growth and learning mindset. Which, again, we as physicians, that comes very naturally to us. But it has to be taught and modeled, because so many people get stuck in this limiting belief that failure is bad, right? You can’t fail. And in medicine, we know all about that, right? We are so afraid of failing. We are so afraid of mistakes. But that’s so unrealistic, and that is so not growth-focused. Because we all have to fail over and over and over every single day if we’re going to be growing and getting better. And if we’re not failing, we’re playing small and we are not getting better, which is a terrifying thought, right? And that’s not the thing we want to model for our young ones. So I think by making sure the way that you structure your conversations is really important.

26:06 And another tool that you and I have talked about, before starting the show, that I use is something called the but wheel. And I use it both with my children, as well as with clients, and on the show Talks with Dr. Shafer. It’s that the importance of not only the words that we use when we’re thinking about our situation, our circumstances, both the order in which we time them in our mind. That affects our mindset. That affects our frame of mind as to whether we are going in a growth, in a forward direction, or going back. So I could say, and we used this example before, I want to be a NASA surgeon. I want to be a NASA physician, but I’ve never done that before. I mean, how does that make you feel in your body when you structure the sentence that way? It feels like a door closed. Versus, you could say, “I’ve never done that before, but I want to be a NASA surgeon.” That’s totally different. That’s what’s her name, Elle — what’s her last name, from Legally Blonde? Like, I can. Yeah, that sets you in a completely different direction of feeling. I haven’t done this before, but I want to. That can ignite something in your mindset and in your willpower that sets you on the trajectory of meeting that goal.

27:23 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, I think that’s awesome. I’m definitely going to take that with my kids, the toddlers. I don’t know where he’s learned it from. Maybe school. Because we don’t say I can’t in the household, but he started saying I can’t. Then I was like, no, you can. You will. You must.

27:41 Dr. Shafer Stedron That’s a 1980’s parenting right there. You can. You will. You must. Yes, I remember that.

27:49 Dr. Ann Tsung Don’t say that. You can’t do it yet. Let’s keep trying, and I’ll show you how.

27:54 Dr. Shafer Stedron Yes, exactly. I’ll model this for you. And yes, we’re going to make lots of mistakes. I know it’s hard. Well, it goes back to what we said earlier, that at this age, they don’t know how to do it. You are their model, and you take that really, really seriously. And that’s such a blessing for your children that you take that responsibility so seriously. So, hopefully, when things get really scary, and they’re going into college, and they’re choosing their career, and they’re choosing their partner, all these really big, high-consequence decisions, because they’ve made so many decisions and they’ve failed, and they’ve allowed themselves to pivot when they fail, they’ve allowed themselves to be introspective about their mistakes rather than hiding them — because, oh, let’s cover that up. I’m not allowed to make mistakes — that makes all of the difference for where their life can lead them.

28:46 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, and you want to raise resourceful kids who are resilient, they have the courage to try and not think of it as failure but think of them as lessons. Also, just to recap also, we had talked about showing up authentically, showing up openly for your spouse as well. Then knowing why you’re doing certain things, maybe having your goals set for the year, finding out your why and eliminating the things that do not align with your why, that is really the first step to saving time when you cut things out. So the first thing if you want to clean up your place is not to buy boxes to store more things. It’s to throw away or donate things. So we talked a lot about a lot of different scenarios. And I want to touch on, you have mentioned, how to create the happiness now. Because a lot of us are like, in the future, in the future. How do you create happiness projects now?

29:42 Dr. Shafer Stedron So it’s something that you and I have discussed about. You know, it’s important to be planning for our future. We set out these big goals for the year. And often, many of us will have 5, 10, 15-year goals. We’re thinking about retirement in part so we can say, okay, I have a plan for that, right? I don’t have to worry about it. I am executing a plan as we speak, and it’s percolating in the background. I don’t have to give it my active attention. Because our attention can only be on one thing. But that’s not going to give us fulfillment now. So what I would recommend, and something that I’m very actively pursuing in my life, is making sure that I am investing now in our happiness. For my family, because we have several authors in the family, that looks like investing in writing projects. That looks like investing our time in several different philanthropic efforts that help animals. Because we have young children, and they’re very passionate about fundraising for animals. And when they do that, not only do they help the animals, but they show themselves the power and strength they have when they are 10 years old. That just raises the ceiling for when they’re 20, what are they going to think and believe that they are capable of achieving? Again, we get back to that mindset. When we are really cognizant of what we are modeling for and the opportunities we are presenting to our children, and how we are basically supporting them in the things that they love to do, and helping them learn time management, and helping them learn to chase real, true fulfillment rather than trying to fit in and waste time and energy on things that don’t nurture them, then we are setting them up to make good choices long term in their mindset and in how they want to spend their time so that they are really efficiently chasing their goals and living their dreams.

31:31 Dr. Ann Tsung I mean, you set your long-term goals, it sounds like. If you have something you’re passionate about now, something you know that brings you joy — either philanthropy, writing books in your case, or anything else, like for me, maybe traveling — then do that. Start doing that. Start planning for that with your kids, with your family. Don’t just tell yourself, like, when the kids grow up, then I’m going to go travel. Because you never know if that day is going to come. You just never know. It’s only the near term. It’s today. You had talked about asking curious questions. So I wanted to leave, like, if you had one action item, a call to action for our audience here, what type of questions, or how can they start asking themselves these curious questions so that they can get on the path to perhaps changing their mindset?

32:16 Dr. Shafer Stedron So one easy way to start is to focus on something that’s a bit of a trigger point or a pain point. Because our brains really like to pay attention to pain. We’re hardwired to do so, right? Because we want to stay safe. Our brain is trying to protect us at all cost. So a good way to start with mindset work is to notice your triggers and start asking why. Right? So instead of just, ooh, I’m afraid of offering myself up for that presentation so I’m not going to do it, do I want to do it? Yeah. Okay. Why do I feel fear? Why do I have that feeling in my chest? Really diving into that to understand your why, and just don’t give up. Keep going. I call it the trigger detector because I liken it to a metal detector. You’re on the beach, and you’re just cruising along. And beep, it goes off. What do you do? What do we do when we feel fear? What do we often do? We drop it and run. We’re like, I’ll leave that thing buried. But really, it’s like gold. It’s like finding treasure on the beach. And instead of running from it, when you hear the metal detector go off, what do you do? You dig. You find it. And when we dig for the answers to our why something is triggering us, then we can start to work on the reconditioning and the rerouting of our responses so that they can actually be taking us in the direction of our goals. Again, that comes down to saving so much time and energy. Because when we’re triggered and our body goes into that fight or flight response, that’s going to affect us for, most likely, hours. If not, for some people, depending upon what their life looks like right now, it can affect you for days. So instead of getting triggered and running away from it and leaving it for another time and likely never, instead of doing that saying no, I’m going to pay attention when my body is sending me this big signal, I’m going to figure this out. I’m going to work on what the limiting beliefs I have around that thing are so that I can start to de-magnetize the situation and start to release the emotional part of it. So that I can then, in all parts of my life, say, well, if I could get over that trigger, if I could get to a place where I wasn’t losing my time and my energy, and I wasn’t feeling sick in my body with that really hard thing, what could I do when I’m not triggered? And then we can really start to set our intention to work on our mindset and to focus on how we are directing our thoughts with that but wheel, making sure that we are growth-focused with our but sentences and not past focus and getting stuck in those limiting beliefs, so it can really achieve our goals.

34:50 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, I think it might be similar to the experience I have 40 years of Zen. We thought about everything, every situation, like a specific circumstance that gave us resistance, trigger, fear, pain, sadness. We had to find a gift that came from that circumstance, either forgive the other person. But a lot of times, it’s forgiving myself, actually. And even now, I still have these triggers. But I tied my knowledge to things, to my self-worth in a way through rounding as a medical student, as a resident, as a fellow. I had to know everything. And if I didn’t know one little piece of information, it was like, “I let the whole team down,” or, “I just look stupid.” It probably stemmed from way back, where my mom was really focused on academics, too. And so, even now, I recognize it now. But even now, when I don’t know something, I’m like, yeah, I will say I don’t know. I’ll go find out, which is fine. But sometimes it comes up, especially in a medical setting. If I’m acting as a physician, that comes on the worst. I recognize it now, and I’m okay with it now. But I think this might be what you’re talking about.

36:01 Dr. Shafer Stedron Yeah, that’s your trigger. The trigger gets not as loud. But when it’s still going off, it’s like, okay, I’ve desensitized myself a bit. It’s still there. I’m going to dive deeper into that. But the beautiful thing is, it’s just an opportunity for growth. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s a thing to actually be excited about because it means that we can get better, which is what we all want to do.

36:21 Dr. Ann Tsung Yeah, agree. I agree. I think the opportunity for me at that time was, I realized it and I realized that I don’t need to tie my self-worth to any knowledge. Because I will never know everything in the whole universe, or medical knowledge really. There’s no way.

36:36 Dr. Shafer Stedron Yeah, and if someone came to you — it’s so funny, because we have these expectations of ourselves. But if someone came to you and they were like, “I know everything,” you’d have some diagnoses in your head. And none of them would be that they’re a genius, right? Because a genius would say, “There’s no way for someone to know everything. That’s not humanly possible.” So it’s funny, we set ourselves up for failure in the cages that we set in our mind. One thing I like to tell people is, imagine that these beliefs and systems that you’re stuck in, they’re hamster wheels. They’re not cages. You can step off. But it takes intent. When a body is in motion, it’s going to stay in motion until you set your intention, until you step off. And that’s the part that requires the mindset work and a readiness to go on that journey. But when you’re ready, you absolutely can step off of that hamster wheel.

37:28 Dr. Ann Tsung That’s a perfect visualization for me and the audience probably. If you find yourself going down that negative spiral — either with your spouse, or with your kids, or with yourself, or somebody said something to you — maybe visualize yourself like giving yourself poison continuously on this hamster wheel. Then just step off the wheel. And then maybe look at it from a third person. Just look back at the wheel and look at it from not a third person point of view but from outside in, and just choose that you don’t have to be a part of it anymore.

37:59 Dr. Shafer Stedron Exactly. And ask the question, was that getting me anywhere? And we know by definition that hamster role was quite literally not getting you anywhere but burning your time and energy and your focus. Those are the resources that matter way more than our money and all the things that we and the society really focus on as being the most important things. But we know, as physicians, at the end of our lives, our patients aren’t saying how wonderful it is that they had X amount of cars, or homes, or a Rolex, or whatever. It’s their time and the time with the people that really nourished them that they cared about. That’s the most precious resource that they had their entire lives.

38:39 Dr. Ann Tsung Awesome. Thank you so much for everything that you’ve shared with us. The sooner you can change your mindset, the sooner you can get off the hamster wheel and to put your attention on things that will actually bring you joy instead of focusing on some things that bring your energy down and bring you negative emotions. So thank you again, Dr. Shafer. How can our audience find you in terms of what you’re offering, your podcast, and any books that you had talked about?

39:04 Dr. Shafer Stedron Yeah, I would love for people to come find me and join the community. So my website is www.drshaferstedronova.com. And if you just Google Talks with Dr. Shafer — Shafer is spelled the easiest way possible. S-H-A-F-E-R. If you Google that, then you will find the podcast and short clips, because I do really like to meet you where you are. So if you like to read a blog on my website, or if you’d rather listen to a podcast, watch the audio visual episodes, see the small TikTok clips, whatever it is that helps give you a little bit of a jolt to your more comfortable but uncomfortable way of living and thinking, and start to really do that mindset work, it’s going to help you improve your life and get you to the point where you’re just really excited and reclaiming your story. Because, as far as we know, this is the one life we get. And I just really hope, through the work that I’m doing, through coaching, and through the channel, that we will inspire people to really take ownership and agency over their life and live it the best way, in the way that’s really truthful to who they are as a person.

40:09 Dr. Ann Tsung Awesome. Where can they find your books? Is it on the same website?

40:13 Dr. Shafer Stedron Yeah, so we’ve published three books by Amelie Anastasia, my daughter. So she’s our main child author at the moment. They are Fox Tales, Fox Tales 2, and Wolf Tales. It’s coming out November 12. So she’s been doing some book touring with that. She’s actually going to be reading it on KidLit TV. So that’s a fun place where, if you have little kids, you can go to KidLit TV and you can actually watch her reading Wolf Tales. That’ll be out, I believe, in November or December of 2024. But if you go to amelieanastasia.com, you can buy her books there. You’ll also learn about her philanthropy and her podcast, which is called What’s Up Young Authors, where she encourages other authors to pursue their dreams. She interviews both young authors like herself, as well as what we call mentor authors of children’s literature, to help inspire them too.

41:03 Dr. Ann Tsung Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time here. And for the audience, just remember that everything that we talked about will be in the show notes, all the links, at productivitymd.com. Again, Dr. Shafer, I really appreciate your time here. And for the audience, just remember that everything we need is within us now.

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