Why being “100% replaceable at work” is actually a red flag |🔥 A millennials hot take on career change advice for doctors

Have you ever been told this piece of career advice- that seems like good advice- but is actually quite strange and harmful.

“You’re 100% replaceable at work. you’re not replaceable at home. If you died tomorrow your job would replace you in a week or less”.

But if that’s true.

If someone else could take your job without anyone blinking an eye… what does that mean about the kind of work you are doing?

What if I told you that accepting that fact that you are “replaceable” at work is holding you back from living your purpose?

In this episode you’ll learn:

• What parts of your current job truly are replaceable within the current healthcare system.
• Why being "replaceable" at work is a red flag that you want to avoid.
• How to be uniquely irreplaceable in your career AND still have boundaries and a personal life.

Press play now to uncover WHY we must find what makes us unique and irreplaceable so we can live out our purpose.

Life After Medicine explores doctors' journey of finding purpose beyond their medical careers, addressing physician burnout, career changes, opportunities in non-clinical jobs for physicians and remote jobs within the healthcare system without being burned out, using medical training.

Transcript

Speaker: 0:00

In this episode, you'll learn why being replaceable at work is actually a red flag.

0:05

welcome to life after medicine, the podcast, helping millennial health professionals find their purpose and turn it into their paycheck because you were meant for more than 15 minute patient visits under fluorescent lights. I'm your host, Chelsea Turgeon, a residency dropout turned six figure entrepreneur and world traveler together, we'll explore how you can make a difference without sacrificing your health and happiness.

Speaker: 0:30

today's episode we'll talk about the phrase that a podcast guest said to me that gave me the ick and the bigger problem with being replaceable at work that no one's thinking about. And I'll also give my hot take on this phrase that will make you really reconsider your ideas of work life balance. Let's get to the show. So I did an interview on this podcast back in 2021, I think my very first year of doing the show. And I had this guest on the show and she said something that made me cringe so hard, the phrase is, you're a hundred percent replaceable at work. You're not replaceable at home. If you died tomorrow, your job would replace you in a week. That's one version, there's another version of it that like gets me even more where it's, you're totally replaceable at work. You're not replaceable at home. Home is your real life. Keep that perspective always. And I hate this idea like the idea of being replaceable at work. And only being irreplaceable at home, it gives me the ick and I want to unpack why I fundamentally disagree so hard with everything about this statement. But first, I do want to say I understand the sentiment and for some people, there's a moment where they need to hear some version of this because the sentiment behind it is like stop prioritizing a job that doesn't care about you. And this is advice that I give my clients too. Like when they're feeling like they need to put other people's concerns at work above their own concerns. This is, I don't say anything like this phrase, but there's the sentiment behind it where it's like. You have to do what's right for you. You can't make it your problem that right now your co workers are relying on you, and your patients will understand if you leave, no matter how great of a doctor you are. I give them versions of that, and taking that overall sentiment of you need to stop putting your priorities into an institution or into a job that just doesn't care about you. And to bring that into perspective but I believe it's a completely different conversation of like, where are your priorities and where is your perspective, than you're replaceable. And then I also want to say I do think it's accurate in the current healthcare system. I do think that in the current healthcare system, you're quote unquote replaceable. Because in a lot of ways, you're a cog in the wheel. And there's a lot of things about what you do on a day to day basis that can easily be replaced, just in order to keep the system functioning. From that standpoint. They can find someone else to come in and check the boxes on the EMR and see the patients and grind out the things, right? So I think, from a system perspective, and from a workflow perspective, yes. It's true that you are replaceable. Also want to say, you're not replaceable in the hearts of your patients. You have been with them in some of their scariest, most vulnerable moments. And sure, they might get another doctor, but they won't get another you. They're gonna remember you. And someone else could come in and take your function in their lives, but that doesn't mean that you're replaced. Honestly think that's offensive to be like, you're going to be replaced. I don't like the copy paste vibes of you don't matter. Like to me when I hear you're replaceable, I hear you don't matter. And that sucks. I don't think that's true at all. I think you've had certain relationships with patients. And those will never be replaced. There's two things about that is one, you're not replaced in the hearts of your patients. That's just like super clear to me. But within the system and like the way that things function, absolutely you can be replaced in that. And then this is where the problem comes in. Being replaceable at work is a problem. If you could really be replaced. At work, no questions asked. That means that you're just doing work that is completing a task. That means you're just checking boxes. That means that the stuff you're doing is not creative. And so it's accepting this weird worker bee status quo of Let's all just do jobs that don't matter so that we can all be replaced. If you're doing a job that is actually creating And innovating and doing work that's at this unique intersection of your strengths. That's irreplaceable because you're trailblazing. So Don't want to be replaceable. At work, because to me, that's a sign I'm not living out my purpose. If it was truly like, I died tomorrow and some old Joe Schmo could come in and take my job and do exactly the things that I was doing, and it wouldn't make a difference or like a dent and people wouldn't miss me in a matter of weeks or months. If my death didn't make a massive impact on the people's lives that I'm helping. Then what am I even doing? I'm not interested in being replaceable to me. That's the opposite of leaving a legacy of living your purpose, of making an impact in a truly unique way that you care about. I think if I'm a hundred percent replaceable at work, like I'm doing it wrong. If I'm truly doing work that could just be replaced, like I'm not living out my purpose. And now there's some, not even caveats, but there's nuances here around this, right? You can be unique and irreplaceable in the work that you're doing and still have boundaries around work. You don't have to be a workaholic just because you're unique and irreplaceable. Just because you're doing work that's completely irreplaceable. Doesn't mean that's all you ever do in your life. So it's odd to me that those are put at such like an intersection. It's almost okay, you have to just check the boxes at work in order to have work life balance. If you're doing work you really care about, then it's going to consume you. I think there's like a weird, I don't know, around that, but it's you can be doing work that you care about so much that is unique, that's irreplaceable, that's creative, that's like living your purpose and you can still take a step back and go to the gym and take a nap, hang out with friends and live your life, right? They're not like, sometimes maybe you have a season where you're doing more and more work and it's a busy season and no more hustle season. And then you can have other times where. You have more downtime and like integration, but it's, I think it's a really weird idea that like, that the phrase we would use to help bring perspective, right? Because what this phrase is trying to do is to bring this perspective of stop giving everything within you to a job that doesn't care about you. That's real. That's I definitely agree with that, but why is the phrase we use to mean that you're replaceable, like, why does it have to be that in order to not care, you need to be replaceable? I don't know. I just think there's a lot of weirdness around that. I don't understand it. And it gives me the ick. Another thing around this, because like I said the version of that phrase that I think is even grosser. Is home is your real life. Keep that in perspective always. Oh my God. Okay. One, there's something weird to me about this because it does create this like family centric kind of programming, assuming everyone has these like traditional cookie cutter families. And there's, I've seen other versions of this phrase that it's that's even saying you're replaceable with your friends, but not with your kids. And so then that creates a really weird. Dynamic of the only meaning you could possibly have in your life. And the only place to be unique is as a parent. And then that's not true for everyone. And so I think that's weird. Because not everyone has, like I'm speaking for myself, like I don't have a traditional family in that sense, but I love my friends and my community and they are my chosen family. And so what I believe in that kind of scenario is that. Who I am in my work helps me to be a better person with my friends and like in my community, in my personal life. They're not separate. I don't have a sense that one is my real life and one is not my real life. That's super strange. It doesn't even make sense to me because it's like, it's who I am in both of those contexts that. Make me better and they feed into each other. And this is a con like a conversation, I think, around work life balance, too, which I'll do in another episode. But it's they're equal parts of me that are fed by each other. So there's times where in a client call, I'm commenting on something that happened with one of my friends to show them a lesson or teach them something that I've learned. Or sometimes when I'm like spending time with my friends, I'm really inspired by something that I'm doing at work. And I bring that energy into our conversations and like the ideas I have. And then the ideas that we talk about with friends goes to my client. It's just all connected. And so to think that one is real life and one is not, is such a strange segmentation of. Like your entire, like your whole personhood. And again, this is a whole conversation on work life balance, which is not really exactly what I want to talk about here, but that's just something to, when they say replaceable at work, not replaceable at home, it just creates this weird tension of you need to be a different person or like you have different value in these different contexts and maybe it's different, but I want to be. I want to be uniquely irreplaceable at work and at home, and I want to have boundaries. And while we're at it, let's go into a definition of irreplaceable. Too special, unusual, or valuable to replace with something or someone else. Yes, that's what I want to be everywhere in my life. Unique, one of a kind, incomparable, unlike anything out there. Yes! That's what I want. That's what I choose to be in my work life, in my home life, and that's what we all have the potential to be. And I believe we are that. But if we're in a work environment that doesn't value how unique and irreplaceable we are no wonder we're unhappy. No wonder we're miserable. No wonder we're not living our purpose because we're checking boxes and we're replaceable. No, that's like not what I'm interested in. Okay, and I want to leave you with a few quotes on being irreplaceable, being unique, so that you can really start to embrace this mentality going forward. I'm going to start with some Maya Angelou, obviously. If you're always trying to be normal, You will never know how amazing you can be. Maya Angelou. You can never leave footprints that last if you're always walking on tiptoe. Nadine Gordimer. So my loves, if you want to learn how to identify what makes you irreplaceable and what makes you unique so that you can actually live your purpose, that is the work we do in my world. Head to coachchelsmd. com to see how we can work together.