Your Unapologetic Career Podcast
Your Unapologetic Career Podcast
61 Coaching Client Spotlight: Melisa Wong, MD, MAS
You can text us here with any comments, questions, or thoughts!
Dr. Melisa Wong is a thoracic medical oncologist and geriatric oncology clinician-investigator at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Melisa’s research aims to transform cancer care for older adults—to help patients clarify their goals and values in the face of uncertainty and support oncologists to keep these truths at the core of the care they provide.
Melisa directs the UCSF Older Adult Cancer Care Program and co-chairs the Cancer and Aging Research Group Health Services Research Core. She is the PI of a National Institute on Aging (NIA) Paul B. Beeson Emerging Leaders Career Development Award in Aging (K76). Prior research funding includes an NIA R03, American Society of Clinical Oncology Young Investigator Award, UCSF KL2, and UCSF Pepper Center Advanced Scholars Award. She is also an alumnae of our Get That Grant coaching program and an ongoing coaching client!
Listen in as we discuss her coaching journey and:
- Having a pandemic baby with no childcare – and surviving
- Maxing out on what she could achieve to avoid burnout on her own (she did a lot!) – and then turning to coaching
- How learning how to make decisions in a new way removed the fear of screwing up
- The counterintuitive process of using planning and goal setting and structure to ADD more flexibility to her day
If you loved this convo, please go find Melisa on Twitter (@melisawongmd) and show her some love!
What I see is that it's almost like we have all of this learning. We get all of this experience under mentorship, which of course matters. I say this all the time. Mentors are very important. I have great mentors. They're amazing, et cetera. But it's like, if you don't take the moments to capitalize on what you've learned by making your own decision and by actually noticing that I have the skills to do this, like I do have the skills to take in input, to think about all the different variables and then make my own choice. Well, if you never learn how to do that, then actually you're not also going to become as good of scientist as you want to be. Hello, hello. You are listening to Your Unapologetic Career. Being a woman of color faculty in academic medicine who wants to make a real difference with your career can be tough. Listen, these systems are not built for us, but that doesn't mean we can't make them work for us. In each episode, I'll be taking a deep dive into one core growth strategy so you can gain confidence and effectiveness I'll see you next time. Hello, so I get so many questions along the lines of, How can I work with you? You're changing my life and I want more of this. And if you fall into that category and you are a woman of color faculty member in academic medicine, public health, or allied fields, then just keep listening. Listen, are you building the academic career you want or hard at work checking boxes on everyone else's to-do lists? A successful career doing the work you love doesn't mean you have to sacrifice your values, your family, or your joy. Stop trying to be everything to everybody and get to learning the strategies that will 3x your productivity, hone your passions into funded projects, and create the career you worked so hard to achieve. If you've been to every career development and professional development workshop that sounded great but didn't actually deal with the kind of institutional pressures you face, if you're working hard but somehow stuck in inefficiency, putting everyone else's priorities first, if you spent years trying training, and sacrificing to become academic faculty. And here you are still working nights and weekends on the projects you care most about. I'm here to tell you that you can walk away from this institutional mindset forever and take control of your career with clarity and strategy. Every day, I help women of color faculty of all career levels in academic medicine, like you, reframe and recreate their academic life so that they can channel their ideas, passions, and skills into grant funded work with institutional support and sustainability. And that is why this episode is brought to you by Get That Grant, our six month high performance coaching program for high achieving women of color faculty in academic medicine who are ready to reclaim career control and secure grant funding doing the work they love. In Get That Grant, we help you kick imposter syndrome to the curb for good. So you lead your career with clarity and confidence. You learn productivity and strategy skills for grants and papers to maximize your chances of success without wasting your time, abandoning your passion, or working yourself into the ground. We help you build the foundation for an amazing and fulfilling academic career, changing your life and the lives of everyone your work will touch. Yes, this future is possible for you and it's waiting on you to make the first step. If you are ready for career success without sacrifice, I encourage you to join our waitlist at chemidol.com backslash grant. After you join the waitlist, you'll be notified when the next Get That Grant cohort will be enrolling. Your application process will include an in-depth career foundations assessment, helping you identify the gaps in your foundation that are holding you back from enjoying the career you worked so hard to achieve. No more secret worrying that the career you want isn't really possible. This career assessment will show you exactly where you need to focus to level up your your experience and your impact. Join the waitlist today to get in line. Visit chemidol.com backslash grant to sign up. Talk to you soon. Hello, Melissa. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. Oh my gosh, thank you for being here. I'm super pumped. So first, please tell us your specialty, where you work, and what good work are you doing in the world?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, of course. I am a thoracic medical oncologist and geriatric oncology researcher, and my research focuses on understanding how older adults experience our cancer treatments in their daily lives and using that information to help educate patients, caregivers, and oncologists to help everyone make more goal-concordant decisions. that are aligned with what's important to the older adult.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, I love it. Yes. Also very crisp, very clear. I saw you smiling as you said it. How does it feel to say that out loud?
SPEAKER_01:It feels great. It's a lot clearer now than it used to be. And that is something that I noticed actually at our very first intake call where when I was kind of describing why I was thinking about coaching, I mentioned to you that I've always had this thought in the back of my mind that I'll do research for as long as I'm good at it. And if I become ungood at it in the future, then I would just stop and someone else would carry on. And our conversation helped me realize that no one else would actually do my research. research. They would do their own research and there was value to that, but they wouldn't do exactly what I would want to do in the way that I would do it based on my perspective and experience with my patients. And so I realized, no, I actually have to do it myself because no one else is going to. Oh
SPEAKER_00:my gosh. Absolutely. I think that that piece of scarcity that we're taught really early, kind of like, oh, that's already been done before. Somebody has already shown that somebody who's, it just shuts down so much creativity and people's hope. And it's just so sad because like, since when is there only one way to answer a question, especially when you're talking about these kinds of questions. Like, no, we need a lot of perspectives. So I love that. Thank you for sharing. So you kind of alluded to this, but help paint a picture for us of where you were in your career when you started to consider coaching and what was it that was not working for you that made you want to even like consider getting help in a different way?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's kind of hard to think back to that period of time. It was quite painful. Lots wasn't working for me. at that time. It was spring of 2021. We were a year into the pandemic and I was a year into becoming a new parent as well without the social support that we all expect as new parents.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, so pandemic baby, like full on. Yes. Okay. 100% pandemic. Yes. Okay. Got it.
SPEAKER_01:And so I was so burnt out at that point because my clinical demands were increasing. I was doing my best to try to create clinical boundaries and I kept getting pushback that's not how we do things here like why aren't you just kind of being available at all times and I was doing that because I was really trying to protect my research time so I knew that something wasn't working and that it wasn't sustainable and I was doing what I knew I could try to do to try to make it better for myself but it wasn't really working there wasn't any support around me of other people doing things like that I was kind of an oddball trying to create boundaries and I Go figure.
SPEAKER_00:Can we just pause? How sad that is. Like I'm a weirdo trying to have boundaries. Continue. I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And so I was talking to mentors, talking to people that I really admired on what I could do. And no one specifically recommended coaching at that point. People recommended some other things. And I was kind of at a point where I thought, well, everyone's burnt out, but I'm not going to let this take me out. Like I worked too hard Yes. It's up at this point. So I used my discretionary fund to buy down my clinical time. I decided to take a lot of the vacation that I had earned because it was maxed out. And a good friend introduced me to your podcast and your words were just exactly what I needed at that time to hear a different perspective, a perspective that was more, I think, faculty members centered, but in a way that actually benefited the entire institution. Yes.
SPEAKER_00:focused on faculty, but it's not to the detriment of institutions. It's like, that's what drives me the most crazy is like, if we figure out how to support our faculty and how to have boundaries be okay at work and things like that, then we all win. Like the institutions win too. There's less turnover. There's less burnout. There's less people, all the things. So it sounds like you heard that, which is like, makes me happy because I don't spend too much time talking to institutions because like, why? I talk to y'all, but that's definitely an underlying piece. And the other thing I heard is like that spirit that's like, listen, this is not going to take me down. Like, or at least I'm going to go down fighting. I'm not just going to go down fighting, resign to this. Okay. Thank you for sharing. I think there's a lot of people who resonate with that. And especially that feeling that I feel like I've tried everything that seems like I could. And I've asked all these people that I like admire and trust. And yet still I am miserable. So there's like, got to be something else.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. It just wasn't sustainable at that point. And then it wasn't fun. I didn't enjoy it because it was such a log, it felt like it was hard to understand why I was working so hard to kind of just have everything else lock what I was trying to do or try to take my time or take my energy in different directions. And so it just didn't seem like it made sense. Like this was not a logical choice at that point, but now it very much is. And I have coaching and need to think for that.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Let's get into it. So can you remember a moment and get that grant where something shifted for you in a big way? And however you feel comfortable, I'd love for you to share that with us.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, there were a lot of smaller moments that built up over time. One that comes to mind was working on a project where there were different ways to go about the analysis or the design of the study or write up the paper. And it was the first time that I really saw myself as the CEO of this project or the paper or my work. And before that, it was very much, well, what does this mean? mentor say you should do? What does this other mentor say you should do? And a lot of the feedback I had heard, well, we'll just do what your primary mentor says to do. And for the first time, I really took in all of that feedback from others and from people that I really admired and really valued their opinion. And then I made a decision for myself for the project, which was very different than kind of how we were trained in kind of training mindset to think about, well, if I don't know what to do, I'll just ask so-and-so and they'll tell me what to do. And so it was really Yeah. that we're the only person responsible for our own career is something that I learned in GTG. And I had literally never heard anywhere else, even though I've done tons of different career development programs and leadership training. Oh, are you one of those?
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so you've done a bunch. Okay, I love it.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, and it was just a different perspective that really puts you in the driver's seat. Because if we don't make those hard decisions where there is no right answer, There's no one right way to do something in most of science. If we're not the ones making those decisions, then we're really just abdicating that role to someone else.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And you miss out on the opportunity to build confidence in yourself. People are like, well, I want to be confident. I'm like, the only way to be confident is actually to step out and make the decision and take the risk and then learn from it and then do the next thing. And then you start to realize, oh, maybe I can make decisions. Maybe I can choose. I agree with you. It's really odd how much that piece is missing. I think in a lot of career development, of course, but in academia in general. And what I see is that it's almost like we have all of this learning. We get all of this experience under mentorship, which of course matters. I say this all the time. Mentors are very important. I have great mentors. They're amazing, etc. But it's like, if you don't take the moments to capitalize on what you've learned by making your own decision and by actually noticing that I have the skills to do this. I do have the skills to take in input. to think about all the different variables and then make my own choice. Well, if you never learn how to do that, then actually you're not also going to become as good of a scientist as you want to be. That was the other part for me. When I help people and even for myself is realizing like, if I want to do this, I actually have to start to learn how to do this independently. I have to see myself be able to take an input and make decisions. So I guess I'll ask you, how did that feel? How was that shift for you in the aftermath of deciding, okay, I'm going to be the CEO here. I'm going to make these decisions?
SPEAKER_01:I think it feels a lot more empowered. And I know that some of the decisions I make may not lead to the outcome that I want, but I can't necessarily control most of those outcomes.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_01:And so I make the best high quality decision I can in the moment with the information I have. And it just feels like you just make the decision and move forward because a lot of times we get stuck because we're not sure how to go one way or the other at a fork in the road with a study design or something like that. And we just get stuck there and we spiral and we're not sure. And then we ask a lot of opinions and we get a lot of information and then we still don't make a decision. But once you make the decision, you can actually move forward and, for example, write the rest of the protocol and all depend on that initial decision. And then you feel great because you have completed a stepping stone to getting your study open, for example.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. And, you know, I get the hesitation because we just want it to be perfect. And to be honest, we haven't had a lot of experience with the decision really resting on our shoulders. I think we also get used to training mindset. We also get used to, well, ultimately, it's somebody else's call. It's not my call. And so it's like moving past that in terms of maturity. But then in recognizing like, yeah, it means that sometimes you're going to make the wrong call. But you know what else you're going to have to learn how to do as an independent faculty member is make mistakes and then fix them. That's also part of it. And I think early career, well, let's say early to mid-career, it's like this cauldron. It's like baptism by fire of making decisions and seeing how they go because you want that skill. Actually, at the end of the day, we all really want that skill to be able to say, I'm going to make the call. And if the call doesn't go the way I want, I'm going to still be okay. I'm going to also figure out the next thing. I'm going to problem solve through the next thing. Because once you feel that way, now you're free. Now you can be like, okay, so what work do you want to do? It's not about, oh my God, I made the wrong call. So I appreciate you highlighting that aspect of it because it's almost like to me, the default narrative is the opposite, which is don't make your own decisions. Listen to what everybody else says, but also in this way, you'll never fail. If you just listen to what everybody else says or listen to what this person says or that person says, that gives you the security to know that you'll never fail, which is always hilarious to me because the statistics do not bear that out. How are we defining failure? Burnout, leaving the academy, not doing your work. Not like all of these things happen down that pathway. So we might as well try it differently. Anyway. Yes.
SPEAKER_01:100%.
SPEAKER_00:Love it.
SPEAKER_01:And if I am going to make a decision that maybe doesn't turn out the way I think, wouldn't I rather do that now when I do have the deep support of my mentors to help me kind of figure out what to do as the next step versus not making my own decision until I'm far into my faculty. Yes. Then it really does lie on you because you don't have a mentorship team anymore. Right. And then nobody's,
SPEAKER_00:everybody's like, what's wrong with you? How come you haven't figured out how to make a decision? Yeah, totally. Totally. Oh, I could go down this road a lot, but I won't. But like, I just, I can't agree more that there's like a lot of personal growth available to people who have been high achieving for a really long time, checking all the boxes, learning how to make a decision, make a choice and have things like not go perfectly. That is just a requirement. And I feel like it frees us ultimately at the end of the day. Okay. Now I'm repeating myself. So I keep going. So in addition to this empowerment, What do you have now that you didn't have before embarking on coaching, especially Melissa Wong, who's gone through a whole bunch of career development and leadership stuff and who loves that world? What do you have now that you didn't have before?
SPEAKER_01:So I have a lot of structure and tools for how I approach my work and my work day. Early in the pandemic, because I had no childcare, I was trying to just work in between naps on the weekends, late at night. And I literally showed up to my computer every day, not knowing what work on. I had big goals on a Trello board, but I didn't have any specifics on my calendar. And I really only used my calendar back then for meetings with other people. I'd never put tasks for myself on my calendar. So I just have a lot more structure to how I approach the day. I plan out the week. Now, if I didn't plan out my week, it would feel super strange. It would almost be the equivalent of going to clinic with no patient schedule. You would never do that. And now I would never Yeah. rituals and the daily bumpers or boundaries to help me achieve those goals. Because I still don't have childcare. I still don't have a lot of normal time to do work. So all the changes have been internal, not external.
SPEAKER_00:Melissa, you just said a whole word there. So I feel like we need to pause. Nothing has changed outside. You still don't have childcare. You still have a pandemic baby. You're still dealing with all of those same pressures that you were before. But what I heard you say is what you have, one, is you have structure to your... Even within that, even within not having childcare or whatever, you still have structure within your schedule that goes beyond who you're meeting with. And you have clarity about what you are going to get done. Not just, oh, I have these goals out here, but this is my path along the way. So I wanted to point that out too, that structure is available to you because you create it for yourself, not because somebody comes and gives you the structure. And then the third thing that just flew by really quickly, I want to make sure we really emphasize, is that you have flexibility built in so that, again, the structure works for you. So it's not a new rigid thing. Because I think this is what I'll tell you. I think people are terrified. People are very terrified when they hear, oh, I have structure and I have tasks on my calendar to do because it just feels like something else for them to fail at. Like, oh, that's not going to work for me. It's just my more rigid. And I can't like, basically I can't predict. I just, it's a pandemic. I have no childcare, et cetera. But what I heard you say, and what we coach on definitely and get that grant is that structure creates freedom. If you're thoughtful about what you need, which begins with knowing what you need, which begins with understanding, how do you work? What are the things that interrupt you, et cetera, et cetera, then you can build in that flexibility. And so, like you said, you go into your week with a plan and you might not know every detail, but what you do know is the plan works. And I think that's the difference in feeling like going, showing up to Monday. Like, I don't know what the hell is going to happen this week. I hope it ends well versus I don't know exactly how it's going to go, but I don't worry about whether it'll end well. It will end well because I have my structure. Is that what you say? That's right. In terms of
SPEAKER_01:experience. And if I don't get what I wanted to have done for that week, I have a specific process and structure for how to audit that. And when I start to feel overwhelmed, let's say for example starting to write a specific aims page for your first r01 you know for example I have tools to deal with that overwhelming feeling. I don't just sit in it and let it spiral the way that I used to. Now I have very concrete ways to approach it and I recognize it much earlier than I used to. Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:that's a big one. The tools are fire. Y'all should join. But that recognition that's like, oh, I'm doing that thing again. That used to take, what, two weeks, two months? What is happening? A year. A year? Yeah. I mean, so many clients are like, yeah, I haven't touched this paper in a year because I literally didn't understand what my issue was until now. Love it. Thank you for sharing. Okay. So what advice would you give a woman of color faculty member like you who has taken the leap? She's signed up for Get That Grant and she wants to get the most out of it. Also, she might be freaking out.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. I was not one of the clients who freaked out. I was checking my email every day to see when can I log in? Can I log in yet? Because it hasn't started. I would say trust yourself. There was a reason you were interested, there was a reason you reached out and applied and enrolled and it really is an investment in yourself, in your team, in your future work, the future patients that your work is going to touch. And it's something that I think we all should do from the get-go. I started coaching when I was kind of at the end of my fourth year on faculty and some of the other clients in my cohort were starting their faculty position. And I really wish that I could have done something like this back then, but Kemi hadn't developed it yet. But now it does. And it is an option for many of you because it would have just given me so much more structure that then does give you that freedom to not worry about what's happening every day, not worrying about whether or not you're going to hit the milestones that you set for yourself, not the milestones that the institution or your promotion track sets for you. And so it really is something that can help anyone at any point in their career. And it really is an investment in yourself and the institution and everything that your work is going to touch in the future. And it's about time you should invest in yourself.
SPEAKER_00:I know. I think that's one of the most maybe tender moments for me is realizing that for a lot of people, Enrolling in coaching, enrolling in Get That Grant is literally the first time that they have invested in themselves just because they are worth it. Because me being better at work, feeling better at work, executing on what I want to do here, having a better career experience, that is worth it just for you. And PS, it's also worth it for, again, your institution, everybody else. And that always just hits me a little bit. I take it really seriously because... We've all been also working our asses off for decades. Like it's just, it's so sad. I'm like, we've been working really hard for a really long time. I mean, I don't want to give anybody's ages, but like we're full on adults and get that grant. Okay. And a lot of people tell me that they're like, yeah, this is the first time I've ever just invested in me because I'm worth it. So yeah. I just couldn't say that more or enough, honestly. Whatever the program is, whatever you decide to do, we have to change that narrative. It is okay to invest in yourself. To me, the returns never end because you're personally growing. There's no risk in terms of the return on the investment because you're just not going to emerge the same as you were before. Well, at least in my coaching program, you will not. I don't know what else is out there, but you get that grant. It's transformational on purpose. And that's part of the reason is because I want those who step out for the first time and invest in themselves to have an experience that it was worth it because all of us should do that all the time. That makes sense. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And the transformation really is noticeable by other people. When you just react differently to situations or challenges, the way you respond with clear boundaries or clear communication or clear priorities is very different than the default that you'll continue to hear. And that's why I love the community and get that grant because you don't have to start by explaining kind of the underlying premise of having boundaries. You don't have to explain like why you would have your own priorities for how you decide what work is most important at this time. And so the community has been a really wonderful thing as well.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I agree. I agree. It's a bunch of amazing faculty members doing amazing things. And even that is a narrative change. Like I know you said you were in the depths. You also super successful from the external gaze. You had hit all of the marks that so many people expected to want to hit. Honestly, like 360, right? Not just like, oh, you have a faculty position, but oh, you've gotten funding. You're doing this work. You have a family. you had your baby, like, aren't you just hitting all of the marks? And so like, I feel in a lot of ways that is kind of our lane is like, if you're hitting all the marks and everything's going to hell, how can we, because the fact that you're still hitting all the marks to me is like, that's the potential. Like that means that if we actually get you all organized and clear with structure and calm and boundaries, gosh, what are you capable of? Like you've been doing all this under duress. Like you've been achieving against all of these odds that are set up to really just burn us out as early as possible. I mean, I try not to rant, but it is still amazing to me how, like you said, that being a person trying to have boundaries can make you an outcast. That is something that we're changing one faculty member at a time, for sure. Is there anything else you want to share
SPEAKER_01:with
SPEAKER_00:us before we wrap
SPEAKER_01:up? I just want to say thank you for having me. And it's been so wonderful to... learn from you and to learn about what coaching is. I think there can be misconceptions about coaching. Is it mentorship? Is it sponsorship? Like what is coaching? And so I would say if there are any listeners who don't know what coaching is, that's okay. You don't need to know. Just come on in and see what it is for yourself because it truly is different. And there is a hundred percent of space for the need for it for so many people. And don't wait until you're completely burned out like I did.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's a good point. And you know, I think it's important to also say coaching is like an unregulated industry. So like people can do anything, almost anything they want to be like, I'm coaching, you know, whatever. So I have totally separate things to say about that. And nothing wrong with it in my mind, but it is different. And I think that's like one of the first transformational experiences actually that people have. They come in and they're like, oh wait, you're not just going to tell me everything to do. And it's like, oh no, like we're going deep. Because when I think about myself, our program coaches, like our goal is to reconnect you with that amazing person that already beat so many odds to get where you are. That's the thing. It's like, we're reconnecting you with that person because she's got a lot of answers, a lot of problem solving, a lot of creativity, and she's just been smothered for so long. And so it is why it is really a process. People are like, what happened? It's a process because there are a lot of similarities and commonalities of how we get to where we are, why we're burned out, why we don't have boundaries, all of these other things that we peel back layer by layer while peeling back, adding what you actually need. Get rid of this unhelpful habit. Put this one in its place. Get rid of this unhelpful narrative. Put this one in its place. And I think that is a piece of why even from the beginning, even a month or two in, people start talking like, I am not the same anymore. Yeah, it's for all of that. So thank you for sharing your journey with us. And congratulations on your baby. I know. What is time in the pandemic? Your baby's like, what, two now? He's not even a baby anymore. He's a hero. He's doing Oh, they fall for, Oh, okay. They don't suffer. Like the way that they can injure themselves is still shocking to me. I have a three and a seven year old and I just look at them and I'm like, this was completely unforced, like an unforced error here. And now there's blood everywhere. So yeah, it's an interesting ride, Melissa. Thank you. I hope you have a great week. Thanks for joining us on the show. Thank you so much. Hello, I'm coming through to remind you that we are starting a listener letter segment on the Your Unapologetic Career podcast. Write in with questions that you have. You can ask me anything. I will decide what I want to answer. You can bring forth challenging situations or suggest topics you might want to hear more about. To do that, you can reach me at podcast at kdollcoach.com. That's podcast at K-D-O-L-L-C-O-N with your questions. Please note if you'd like to be anonymous and I will always do my best to keep you so excited to hear from y'all. Bye.