The Physician with a Plan, Sarah Hart-Unger - Endocrinologist and Podcast Host

Sarah Hart Unger, a board-certified pediatric endocrinologist, balances her medical career with a highly successful podcast and family life. She emphasizes the importance of aligning career and personal passions, as seen in her transition to podcasting and course creation. She advocates for effective time management, setting boundaries, and integrating personal interests into professional life. Sarah also highlights the mental health benefits of exercise, particularly running, which she finds crucial for her well-being.

Action Principles

Pick one to do this week.

1. Create custom systems. Understanding your personality and developing a system that works FOR you, not against you, leads to increased productivity. ACTION: Learn what works well for you and integrate it into your work system.
2. Process stress productively. When facing stressful periods or increased demands, allow yourself to adjust your schedule and get help, even temporarily. ACTION: Schedule buffer days and use available time off to handle a stressful situation in a healthy manner.
3. Implement an exercise routine. Consistent physical activity improves your physical and mental health. You'll be more productive and able to focus at work. ACTION: Schedule 30 minutes of physical activity each day into your calendar. 
4. Align your career with your passions. You will be motivated and more successful when you do what you love. ACTION: Choose a passion and find a way to incorporate that into your work life, even if it's using a portion of your paycheck to donate to a cause you support.

Guest Resources

You can learn more about Sarah Hart-Unger by visiting her website, TheShuBox.com, or listening to her podcasts, Best of Both Worlds and Best Laid Plans. 

Suggested LinkedIn Learning Course

Finding Your Time Management Style

Free Time Management Course

Thanks to Dave Crenshaw's partnership with Microsoft and LinkedIn Learning, you can get free access to his full course, Time Management Fundamentals, at DaveGift.com.

Dave Crenshaw develops productive leaders in Fortune 500 companies, universities, and organizations of every size. He has appeared in Time magazine, USA Today, FastCompany, and the BBC News. His courses on LinkedIn Learning have been viewed tens of millions of times. His five books have been published in eight languages, the most popular of which is The Myth of Multitasking—a time management bestseller. As an author, speaker, and online instructor, Dave has transformed the lives and careers of hundreds of thousands around the world. DaveCrenshaw.com

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

My dream job was actually to become a psychiatrist, and I got that idea not from something eyebrow, but from watching growing pains, because the dad had this job as a psychiatrist.

Dave Crenshaw: 0:13

In this episode, you'll get to know Sarah Hart Unger, the physician with a plan, and you'll hear the story of how she balances a happy life as a pediatric doctor, a successful podcaster and a mother of three. I'm Dave Crenshaw, and this is my success Show. Welcome back, friends, to the Dave Crenshaw Success Show. This is where I speak to some of the most successful people I've met in my life's journey, and I'm on a mission to find universal principles of success that you can use today to help you succeed. In case it's your first time here, and I'm new to you. I'm a best selling author. I speak around the world to Fortune 500 companies, and I've taught millions of people how to be successful through my online courses, particularly on LinkedIn. Learning with this show, I was inspired to create something different. First, I wanted to help my kids succeed and help them find universal principles of success, and I started interviewing people that I admire, and I thought you'd enjoy learning along with them. I seek to interview people who have multifaceted success, so success in multiple areas of their life, not just career success, but they also have a happy life, and they make time for friends and family and to have fun. And by the way, if you know someone like that who has multifaceted success, you can send your guest suggestion to us at guest at success dot show. Now, before we get into today's episode, I'd like you to do something. I would like you to do something for yourself. And what that is, is to look for something you can do as you hear Sarah's story today, look for an action that you can take today or this week to make my guest success story a part of your success story. Today's guest is pretty remarkable. Dr Sarah Hart Unger is a board certified pediatric endocrinologist as well as a podcaster, speaker and creator of the shoebox. Her expertise covers many areas from diabetes to growth and to other endocrine disorders. She's a highly sought after doctor, and has expertise in graduate medical education, where she's served in leadership roles as a writer, she's passionate about helping people make the most of their limited time through effective planning and goal setting. She's the host of the best laid plans podcast, which has been featured in The New York Times, and she's also the co host of the best of both worlds podcast. She lives in Hollywood, Florida, where she enjoys reading, running and spending time with her husband and three children. Sarah, it's an honor to have you on the show today.

Unknown: 2:55

Thank you so much for having me on I'm so excited to chat today.

Dave Crenshaw: 2:58

Yeah, and where are you located right now

Unknown: 3:00

I am in South Florida, so basically between Miami and Fort Lauderdale, it's currently about 95 degrees.

Dave Crenshaw: 3:08

Oh my goodness, yeah, it's a lot. That's a lot warmer than where it is in Utah right now. I think we're at about 70. So thank you for being on Sarah. And I'm really interested in diving into your story, because you've done so many different things. You really have a very interesting career path. I like to ask everyone the same question when we start, which is, when you were a teenager, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Unknown: 3:35

I had a couple of passions, but my dream job was actually to become a psychiatrist, and I got that idea not from something highbrow, but from watching growing pains, because the dad had this job as a psychiatrist, and he did it from his house. He'd like wander into this room, chat with people. He seemed like this distinguished character, and then it seemed like his day was over, and he'd like, walk out and hang out with his family, and I'm like, that looks awesome. I also became interested in some, like, books and stuff about random psychology topics, and thought, Okay, I'm gonna be a psychologist or psychiatrist. Gonna be like the guy in growing pains, yeah? So that was my initial idea. Well, that's

Dave Crenshaw: 4:18

interesting, because I think now you've accomplished something very similar, right, not as a psychiatrist or a psychologist, but you work from your home, and then you get to go out and spend time with your family there in Florida, right? You kind of got there some

Unknown: 4:32

days, I work from my home, yes, and I get to talk with people. And to be honest, even in my professional medical job, I do a lot of psychiatry adjacent work, just talking with kids and teens. So yeah, oh

Dave Crenshaw: 4:46

yeah, yeah, you're definitely in a position to help people sort of as, like, their first contact with psychiatry.

Unknown: 4:53

Yeah. I mean, I can't claim to be an expert on on that specific field, but since I take care of kids with conditions like. Diabetes that can be really, really challenging from a mental health perspective. There's plenty of tough topics to delve into and talk about, where I get to kind of think about how I can best serve them.

Dave Crenshaw: 5:10

That's wonderful. Mental health is a huge thing in my life and my family. Several people in my family deal with severe anxiety. I was clinically diagnosed as off the charts. ADHD, that is the term that was used when I took the test. So that's a big part of what we focus on, on our family, and how to manage that in a healthy way.

Unknown: 5:32

I get that we have at least one formally diagnosed ADHD member of our family, and probably at least one unformally diagnosed member of our family, least at this point. Yeah.

Dave Crenshaw: 5:42

Okay, so let's talk about where you went from there. You thought that that was going to occur, so you went to college. Where did you study?

Unknown: 5:50

I went to Williams College, which is a small liberal arts school in Western Massachusetts. It is lovely and idyllic. I grew up in kind of a boring Philadelphia, not boring, but a maybe less beautiful Philadelphia suburb, and I wanted something country and lush and beautiful. And when I visited Williamstown, I was like, Yes, I am in on this. And I initially was a biology major, and considered doing a psychology double major see thinking along the lines, yeah. And I had a wonderful time there, and decided to go pre med a couple years into college. Now, psychiatry is a medical field, but I think by the time I got to maybe sophomore or junior year in college, I was thinking more like other fields of medicine, just the idea of continuing to work with people, use science and help others and have a very kind of social job as well. I guess you

Dave Crenshaw: 6:43

know, there's something you said there that I do want to pause on for a second. We've mentioned psychiatry and psychology. I have found that most people don't understand the difference between the two. Could you briefly explain the difference between a psychiatrist and a psychologist, because they both serve very important roles. Yeah,

Unknown: 7:04

so a psychiatrist is a MD or medical doctor. They get trained in medical school, they go through a psychiatry residency, and there is some overlap with what they do, like some psychiatrists do psychoanalysis or traditional forms of therapy, but a lot of what psychiatrists do is also centered around medical management, meaning giving pharmaco therapeutics or medicines, basically to people to help with various disorders such as depression, anxiety and lots and lots of other things. Whereas psychology, there's actually a lot of different forms of psychology. The true psychologist, I believe, because this is not my field. Is a PhD most of the time. There may be Master's equivalents, but I believe when you say psychologist or they're a doctor of psychology, they're either a side D or they're a PhD in psychology. So the training is a little bit different, and it's not centered around medications, per se, but more like talking forms of therapy. And then there's really lots of branches of psychology as well, like there's organizational psychology and behavioral psychology and developmental psychology, and lots of different kind of

Dave Crenshaw: 8:08

flavors of that. Thank you for explaining that. I know that that's not necessarily your your field of expertise, but I felt it was so important, because I come from a perspective that both have been very valuable in my life. I work with both a psychologist and a psychiatrist, and they have helped me really have a lot of success. So thanks for indulging me for a second with that question. So talk to me about where you started. So you did pre med. Where did you start? To say, Yeah, you know what? This is, what I want to do instead. And in fact, I'm going to focus on something like endocrinology.

Unknown: 8:43

So I'll be honest, I don't think my story is typical here. Most people, when they're in college, don't really have an idea of a specific field of medicine that they're interested in. And I certainly wouldn't have stood up and said, like, I'm definitely going to be an endocrinologist, but I took a class called hormones and behavior, taught by an excellent professor who is still at Williams named Noah Sandstrom. Professor, Noah Sandstrom, and this class was just like one of the best classes I had ever taken, because we learned how just these subtle hormonal shifts, like different changes in the blood, can actually change how animals and humans behave. And that connection was just like so wild to me that you could predict that, you know, a stressed out animal is going to make more of this hormone, or that giving XYZ hormone is going to make someone do a different thing, like that was just so wild. I also found the pathways really intuitive and interesting to learn about, and so from that standpoint, I ended up doing research with this professor during college at Williams. A lot of people elect to do what's called thesis research. So you spend, like, an entire year working one on one or in a small group with a professor to do your own original research. And mine was actually on maternal stress and memory in rats. So it was kind of an endocrinology slash. It was called psycho neuro Endocrinology at the time. But yeah, even back then, I was thinking, yeah, endo seems. Kind of cool. I didn't really know what that career would actually look like. I had never met at that point, an endocrinologist or a pediatric endocrinologist, but I definitely had the idea that that was a topic of study that was very interesting to me. What

Dave Crenshaw: 10:15

is the difference with a pediatric endocrinologist? What unique challenges do children face with that versus, say, an adult that you might be working with? Yeah,

Unknown: 10:27

well, it's just totally different training. Actually. If you're interested in being a pediatric endocrinologist, you're taking care of kids mostly under the age of 18, and you go through pediatrics residency instead of internal medicine residency, and yeah, the conditions you deal with are actually pretty different. I mean, there's certainly overlap. Both children and adults. For example, get type one and type two diabetes, but disorders of puberty and growth and like neonatal issues, like hypoglycemia or adrenal issues or thyroid, those are going to be, you know, specific to pediatrics, if you're dealing with little, tiny babies. So back in that college phase, I kind of didn't, I didn't think about what things were going to look long term. And I actually thought at that point that I was potentially interested in doing an MD PhD and continuing to do research as I acquired my medical degree. So I know you want us to talk about kind of failures, or maybe the way that things didn't go how we planned. Yeah, please. I actually ended up applying to med school to specifically MD PhD programs instead of just straight MD programs. And partly, I had just had such a great time doing that research with my professor, and thought, hey, I'm just going to continue. I'm going to be a researcher and a clinician. At the time, I was 21 years old, making this choice. Didn't think about the fact that an MD PhD takes about 10 years, what that would mean for my life and career. It didn't work out exactly how I had planned. Okay,

Dave Crenshaw: 11:51

so what? What did happen? Why didn't that work out?

Unknown: 11:55

So I did get accepted to a number of programs, which was amazing. Mdphd programs are quite competitive. And I was very lucky enough to be selected for Duke's program. So I matriculated there in 2002 so I did my two years of the medical portion, which included one year of kind of academic study, and then one year in the clinics. And then I did my third year in the lab, and then I started my fourth year in the lab. And was like, so my fourth year overall, and was like, I don't like the lab as much as I thought I liked the lab, and oh my god, I'm gonna be stuck here for another three, four years, and I don't even think I wanna do research anymore in my career. And like, How can I be giving up my youth to the lab when it's not so I basically had like, a crisis at 25 years of age, a quarter life crisis. I think I called it sure and ended up leaving the PhD portion. Duke was awesome. Their understanding of this, they don't want to drag somebody through a program they're no longer passionate about. So I was able to just transition back into med school, and had another year of med school, and completed med school in 2007 but I did leave the PhD behind for the Masters.

Dave Crenshaw: 13:01

What specifically did you not like about the lab?

Unknown: 13:05

I didn't like that when you were doing experiments, there was, like, no, there was too much uncertainty. Like, you can work so hard on something and then if it doesn't give the result you were hoping for, you sort of have to, like, start from scratch. But I'm more of a, like, I want to start with a and add B and know that, like, I'm pretty much gonna get C. And I know it's not like that in creative work either, but it kind of is that way in clinical medicine, to a degree. And I just it wasn't social enough for me. I think you could go days with, like, barely, I mean, you certainly talked in, like, lab meetings or with your lab mates, but I just didn't have the passion for it anymore. And to be honest, I don't think I was that good at it because the people that were good at it had the passion, and so it was kind of like feeding on itself, like, Okay, I don't love this. I'm not getting stuff done now I love it even less. And so I just, I also saw myself getting older, to be honest. I knew I wanted kids, and just felt ready to move on. So and

Dave Crenshaw: 13:58

what I want to highlight there, because this is about how to find career success and life success. And there was an awareness on your part that this wasn't for you. And I think a lot of people, they just keep plowing ahead. Well, I made this choice. I'm just going to keep doing it. And that's not necessarily a good thing when, especially in the early part of your career, where you're figuring out, what do I want to dedicate my life to. I think it's okay to make those switches early on. For those who are contemplating going to medical school, what does it take to succeed in medical school, especially at a place like Duke, you

Unknown: 14:34

have to enjoy it. You have to keep your purpose in mind and what you want to do, because it is a lot, lot lot of work and some tedious work. And I think if you're not excited about what you're going to do at the end of the line, it's going to be hard to keep up with that. I think a lot of the basic study skills that apply to any subject in any area are going to apply to med school. There's nothing magical or different about it. I think you have to work on your listening and communication skills really hone those down, because your time. Spent in the clinic is all about how you communicate. You're communicating to your attendings and your residents about what they want from you, and, you know, the results they want to hear from you about with your patients. You're communicating with your patients how to, you know, explain something and answer their questions and make sure you kind of meet them where they need you. And I think that really honing those skills, figuring out when they don't work out what you can do better is really, really important for medical school and medicine in general. And

Dave Crenshaw: 15:26

you're bringing up an interesting principle here of success that I think we've all seen doctors who are great at it and doctors who are not, which is listening, which is paying attention to what the patient is telling you. How do you or did you make sure that you brought the right attitude to listening to others, rather than just sort of dismissing what they're saying? And you know, I know the answer, let's get out of here. Let's, let's, let's go to that a plus b equal c, immediately. I

Unknown: 15:59

think it takes practice. I think it takes messing up sometimes and missing something and have an attending point out that, hey, you went in there with XYZ agenda and like you weren't right, or you didn't take the time to really consider this other possibility.

Dave Crenshaw: 16:12

Did you give attendance the permission to say that to you, or were they just bold enough to save it? Oh,

Unknown: 16:18

in medical school, there's nothing about permission you get, like you're getting feedback, whether you'd like it or not. At least, I think it's become Kinder in more recent years. But let me just say that, like back in the day, people were very not shy about what you weren't doing well. So, you know, sometimes that was painful. Other times, I think you are able to develop a thick skin.

Dave Crenshaw: 16:40

Yeah, I think that's good. I think directness is always valuable, but I think there's a way to be direct in a kind and polite way so that they clearly know what they need to do, but you don't need to make someone feel terrible about their mistakes.

Unknown: 16:54

Yeah, the culture's definitely shifted in that way, and that's great.

Dave Crenshaw: 16:57

So talk to me about when and how you started to go into practice for yourself. What was that process like? Yeah,

Unknown: 17:05

so, you know, medicine takes a long time just to, you know, for those who are listening and contemplating that path, for me, it was five years in med school because I did that extra research year. But normally, medical school is four years. Then there are three years of general pediatrics residency. At that point, I could have chosen to become just a general pediatrician and practice in a community or join a group practice, but because I was interested in pediatric endocrinology, I had to do what's called a fellowship. So that's three years on top of that. So we got four plus three plus three. In my case, five plus three plus three. I spent 11 years at Duke doing all of that training. What's a fellowship? What does that mean? Fellowship is a specialization. So again, like I became a pediatrician after those three years in residency, but to become a pediatric endocrinologist, you do three more years of training, and that's kind of divided into research time and clinical time. And by the way, you're paid as a resident and as a fellow, you are no longer quote in school. You're an employee of the healthcare system or the hospital where you work. You're just not paid very well. So it's like enough to live on. But I started looking for jobs during my second year of fellowship, and knew that, because my husband was from South Florida and was interested in living and working near his parents, we decided to kind of limit our job search to South Florida, and so there were only two kind of bigger healthcare systems that were hiring for pediatric endocrinology. So my job search wasn't very long. I interviewed at both of those places and ended up getting an offer at the one where I am still working today and have been there now almost 11 years.

Dave Crenshaw: 18:40

Oh, that's amazing. You mentioned your your husband. I know that your family is very important to you. So where in that 11 year journey did he come into the picture? Yes, so

Unknown: 18:51

we met in medical school. In the very beginning, we were dating by the first test, we didn't do very well in that test. It's okay. We dated all through that time, and then we got married when I was just starting my my last year of med school, and he was finishing his med school because he was a year ahead of me, because he didn't do that extra year in the lab. Thankfully, his training lined up with mine perfectly. He's a vascular surgeon, and so we actually finished both at the same time, mid year, 2013 and

Dave Crenshaw: 19:19

were able to move together. Okay? And so he's a doctor as well. Yes, he's

Unknown: 19:24

a vascular surgeon.

Dave Crenshaw: 19:25

Does that spill into your personal life? Do you talk about medical things, or do you maintain a good boundary between those? I

Unknown: 19:34

think we talk about stuff. We definitely talk about stuff. I find it helpful, actually. I mean, we don't like talk about stuff all the time, because no one wants to talk about their work all the time. But if there's something about work that is stressing me out, I can feel comfortable that he's going to understand kind of how the language to know what I'm dealing with, and same for him. And so I think it's helpful. I think we also both kind of understand that there are times when work may pull us in a very. Obligatory manner, like when we're, quote, on call, and I can talk about what on call means, you know, if someone needs you, you have to put that on priority. You have to pick up the phone, or, in his case, sometimes he has to actually go to work. I think a non medical partner would get it, but they may not get it from that, like, internal level, like, I know, you know, when they're calling him, it may be because someone's literally, like, bleeding and they need, they need surgical assistance immediately. And you know, he needs to go. I get that. Let's

Dave Crenshaw: 20:25

pause on that for a second. I know that you are helping people with time management. You're very interested in that. And as a time management productivity guy, I saw a problem that you just brought up, which is, you try to manage your time. You try to be organized, but some positions require interruption, and that creates chaos when you have that interruption. So you're still on call from time to time,

Unknown: 20:51

yep. So I'm on call a week at a time, but only six weeks per year. So I think it's very important to understand exactly what the boundaries are around like that, that you can shift into that reactive mode for a defined period and kind of really work on preparing yourself for that, setting yourself for success while you're doing it, and then ramping off of it and knowing that it's finite. So that is the one beautiful thing about most call systems now, is that, yes, you are on call for a period of time, it also means that you can entirely sign off for other periods of time.

Dave Crenshaw: 21:25

So what I want to talk about is the structure, specifically how you adjust, because you're going to operate a certain way when you're not on call. And I think a lot of people, they feel like they can have control, except in a job where they have to be interrupted. So I've got my opinions about it, but I'd love to hear your opinion about what you do structurally to your week on the weeks that you are on call, like, what do you not do? What do you do in those situations? Yeah,

Unknown: 22:55

I try to get into things that are very important to me very early in the morning, because I'm very unlikely to be interrupted during those times. So even when I'm on call, I know from experience that I'm very unlikely to be paged from like, you know, 5am to 7am or something like that. So if something is extremely important to me, I'm going to be doing it during that time. I also get more support for myself during that time, like that is when I use the meal delivery kits and make sure I have extra childcare. We do have a nanny who has been working with us since 2013 those weeks can be a little difficult, because my schedule can be less predictable, but then other weeks, it's much more predictable, and so things kind of balance out in that way. Yeah,

Dave Crenshaw: 23:39

there's a lot of great little nuggets of wisdom in there, the fact that you're making adjustments, you're saying, Okay, this is going to be a more stressful period, so I'm going to get more help. These are all things that are relevant, even if you're not a doctor on call, perhaps you're in a situation where life became crazy for a little bit. And these are good tools that anyone can use. Talk to me about a mentor that you had during all that school, someone that you look back on and say that person had a great impact on me. And I bring this up because part of what I see in the patterns of people who are successful is they have a mentor who helped them at some point, is there someone like that? And you look back and you always think of the lesson they taught you,

Unknown: 24:27

yeah. I mean, I would say multiple members of the pediatric endocrinology division, but in particular, two stand out to me. One is Rob Benjamin and one is Nancy McIver. They're both faculty members. One of them's still at Duke, the other one's at UNC. They're actually both division chiefs now, which is interesting. It's kind of like leaders of the division. And they both loved their jobs, loved their families, really were active participants in their families, and were really unapologetic about kind of really enjoying both spheres. And I, I loved seeing that, I think they also both set really appropriate boundaries around their work. I think they worked hard, but they weren't willing to do things that maybe they didn't need to do specifically. And both have been incredibly successful, as well as being just like super nice people that I've kept in touch with, yeah,

Dave Crenshaw: 25:19

well, and you talked about how they have the the balance of all of that, and that's a big part of what you're doing now is helping people also have that balance right. So you're passing on that lesson to others. How did you get involved in this 40% doing things that really aren't medical?

Unknown: 25:39

So I started a blog in 2004 think original mommy blog, except I didn't have kids back then, so I don't know what you would call it. There really weren't that many people doing that at the time, and I was kind of bored on an outpatient rotation in the middle of the country, in North Carolina. And I was like, I think I'll start a blog. Blog. My friend had one. I was like, Oh, I really like this writing thing. This is actually a lot of fun. And this was, like, the kind of early blogger boom. Women were doing it. A lot of women were earning, like, significant amounts of money. I never, ever was super commercially successful on the blog side alone, but I built a lot of relationships. I learned a lot of things, and over the course of writing 1000s and 1000s of posts, because it's something I truly love to do, by the way. I mean, I love the act of writing and reflecting, and love what my commenters would have to say, Like it felt like building a community. It was just so much fun, and it still is. I still love blogging, and it does not feel like work to me. So, you know, I'd write about my life. I'd write about medicine, obviously not about patients, like I was very careful, but it was more like about my experience. And then when I got pregnant, and well, actually, I struggled to get pregnant, so I wrote about that. And then when I finally did get pregnant, I wrote about kind of the early mommy years. And somewhere in there, I started listening to a lot of podcasts, and I said, Oh, I think I might want to start a podcast like, I like talking. And then Laura Vanderkam, who, at the time, was a best selling author, but we'd become friends because we were commenting on each other's blogs, and she's like, Hey, I'll do a podcast with you. That sounds cool. And that's when best of both worlds started. And I think I started to realize that some of what I was doing could be leveraged into, like, you know, true business type stuff, and then I had a lot I wanted to share with the world, and that is how I ultimately ended up deciding to leave a leadership position at work, which I really enjoyed in many ways, because I just felt like I had something to say, and this was my chance to say it. But it really all started with the blog.

Dave Crenshaw: 27:46

Did you find that it was easier to devote that much time to something which initially really was a hobby, right? Was that made possible because of the career that you have been having in the medical profession and the money that you were making from that?

Unknown: 28:00

No, I think was more just like straight up compulsion. And then I love doing it, get up early, write my blog post, because I just felt like I had to. And then I would like go running and go to work. I think it was more therapeutic for me. It didn't take away from my work hours. I mean, I practiced. I was full time completely at that point. I was still in medical school and then in residency. So I wasn't doing it as a side job. I was doing it. I mean, hobby is a word, but I almost just feel like it was, like a side passion. It was a passion of mine. But have you

Dave Crenshaw: 28:29

moved away from having a full time job in the medical profession?

Unknown: 28:32

Yep, as of October of 2022, so this is like very late in the game, and that is after I started my other podcast called best laid plans, and realized I felt like I had a structured I write about lots of things on my website, and we talk about lots of things on best of both worlds. But one thing that just came up again and again was like, how important our planning processes are for setting ourselves up with success, and how little most of us think of these things. And I just started becoming obsessed with the idea, I love the book, Getting Things Done, the classic David Allen book from like, 2003 and I'm like, I want to create a modern getting things done specifically to help women, you know, because I feel like, in the productivity space, I don't know, a lot of the work just doesn't feel like it's totally for us. And so I launched something called best laid plans Academy, thinking, like, oh, I don't know. Will anybody, like, sign up to do this with me? It's gonna be a course teaching people how to build their planning system. And it was really, really successful. So I was like, Okay, this is becoming, like, real, like, I want to put more of myself into this. And that's when I decided that it's time to just cut bait and see what I can do on my own via the different podcasts and via the teaching of women, and that's kind of what led us to the current hybrid where we are right now.

Dave Crenshaw: 29:49

What do productivity systems miss when it comes to women and their time management? I mean, you're talking to someone who my career is built around that. So I'm curious about what I might be missing there.

Unknown: 30:01

I think that a lot of times, like, the mental load at home is not discussed as much. So like, one thing that is part of when we teach weekly, I teach planning on, like, different time horizons. We go from annual to seasonal to monthly to weekly. And like, a lot of the weekly is centered around a communication plan with your partner to make sure everybody's on board for things during the week. And you know, what is the way that you're splitting up labor in the household to make sure that you are able to get some time for yourself and so and that your partner is as well. Things like that are just not they're not present in Tim Ferriss or in getting things done. And you just assume that, like, there's got to be a woman kind of, like behind the scenes taking care of everything and making sure everybody else is making things run smoothly. But like us working women, especially, although all women, a lot of times, we are that person, and that stuff takes a lot of work, but we're sometimes doing it on top of paid labor as well. So I think there, there are just unique challenges that need to be thought about. Or like when you're planning out your day thinking about exactly. You know, where the child care fits into that, and being intentional about like, okay, my day needs to end at five because, not just because I feel like it, but because I have to pick up a kid from this activity and take up to the next activity, and then I'm going to do work when I'm waiting for the kid at gymnastics or whatever. And I'm not saying there's not men that do those things, but on the whole, I think these challenges tend to be more salient and common for women, especially after they've had kids. Could

Dave Crenshaw: 31:28

you share like one principle that you teach to women and you say, All right, here's a mindset to have to prepare yourself for this, or to manage the chaos of all these things? What's what's one principle that would be helpful. Yes. So

Unknown: 31:44

I love teaching people to do kind of a weekly overview, and having some kind of formal communication plan that is both verbal and written, so that can look a lot of different ways. I don't think it's a one size fits all thing. In my particular case, it's looking ahead to the next week and filling out a whiteboard that lives in our house with kind of where everyone's gonna be, what we're having for dinner, like if my husband's driving certain days, if I'm driving certain days. So that's kind of like a written record that everyone can refer to, but then also having a discussion with all the stakeholders, meaning the kids and the partner, to make sure that everything actually works and that everybody is on the same page to kind of set things up for success.

Dave Crenshaw: 32:23

As I'm listening to this that sounds tactical, which is very important, do you also have strategic conversations, more big picture conversations with your family when it comes to the long term plan of things?

Unknown: 32:38

Yeah, and that's actually so that would be more on, like the larger time horizons in which I think that it's awesome when couples, if possible, can do a yearly retreat to kind of think about whether that just means a few hours at home, or if it means an actual, like, trip away, to talk about big goals and what everybody wants, what kind of big, exciting things they want the family to do, or the direction they want life to head. So, like, the way I kind of structure things is to have people build a custom planning ritual at every level, but that kind of big picture, tactical stuff that would be on the annual level, and, to a lesser extent, on the seasonal level.

Dave Crenshaw: 33:14

So you're still in the medical profession, and you're doing these other things, and you're managing being a mother and a wife. What are you doing to make all of that work, to make sure that you're spending the amount of time that you want to be spending on each of these things?

Unknown: 33:34

I think a lot about the value of my time, and I think ahead about how I want to spend my time now Laura would probably say Laura's my co host for best of both worlds, and I think you've had her on as well. She's awesome and an inspiration of mine. She loves to track time, but I tend to be more kind of in the looking forward, kind of a lens. So I love to do an ideal week exercise every single season where I lay out on a kind of like a vertical planning pad. Like, how do I want to spend my hours in an ideal week, understanding that no week is going to be the ideal week, but then actually sitting down every week as I do my little whiteboard and sitting through my own thing and making sure okay. Monday, I have clinic the kids have to get to soccer. Is that figured out? On Tuesday, I have a lecture, less structured day. What are like the three most important things I can do for my podcast or my courses to move things forward, and I also plan out my workouts for each day, because that's something that's incredibly important to me. And then I kind of look ahead to the weekend and make sure that we have like, a like, a decent balance of of things going on, but also that there's at least something in there that is fun for me. No, that's

Dave Crenshaw: 34:39

really important. Is that fun part? I wrote a book called The Power of having fun. Sarah, so that's how important it is to me, from a productivity standpoint, but also a wellbeing standpoint. What is fun for you?

Unknown: 34:51

Fun for me is social things. I'd say for the most part, I'm in a book club. I also run, and the runs that I do with friends are usually Mondays and Wednesday mornings, and then sometimes we have get togethers as well. This is super nerdy, but I love, like shopping for fancy stationery. So when I'm ever stressed out, I will either do that, try to find a store to go to and browse around and look for it, and then, as cheesy and cliche as it is, if I really want just like pure relaxation, I love to get myself a massage or get my nails done.

Dave Crenshaw: 35:21

Oh, that's great. With all this stationery. What are you doing? Calligraphy? Are you like writing? Yield, thank you, notes and sending it out to people. What are you doing with this stationery? Sarah,

Unknown: 35:31

that would be super fun. It's more like notebooks and like fancy like planning tools and things like that. Like, you know, your sticky notes that were imported from Japan are made out of some special paper and then the cool brush pen that you can write with. So there's a whole world out there of stationary enthusiasts, believe it or not. Well,

Dave Crenshaw: 35:49

yeah, I have a daughter who's into that. Okay, you've mentioned workouts. You've mentioned running several times. Talk to us a little bit about the role that fitness plays in your. Success,

Unknown: 36:02

I think I would have a lot of anxiety, other mental challenges, if I didn't run. I find it incredibly therapeutic for me now, I've run four marathons. Actually, I have another one coming up in two weeks, and I've run since, you know, the 2000s My husband was a college level runner as well, and I kind of learned the art of long distance running from him, but for me, running is more about mental health than physical health. And then I also find other forms of fitness incredibly important as well, like strength training and yoga for flexibility, although I sort of have forgotten what those are like these days because of the fact that I'm running a marathon in two weeks when you're when you're at the peak of training. The other things tend to fall by the wayside, and then I'll pick them back up as soon as I am done, because they are incredibly important. You just

Dave Crenshaw: 36:51

made a really interesting statement, though. You said that this is more about your mental health than your physical health, and that, to me sounds like the perspective of an endocrinologist. Talk to us from a hormonal standpoint of the role that physical exercise has on our mental health.

Unknown: 37:11

Well, first of all, I will say, from a from an endocrinologist perspective, we believe that exercise is incredibly important for physical health as well. I mean, if I could prescribe it as a treatment for a lot of conditions, I would and in fact, sometimes I say that to patients, it just is a different level of relaxation and calm that I get when I am doing regular cardiovascular exercise, that nothing else takes the place of that. For me, I do think this is individual. I think there's a reason why some people kind of fall into this and they they get so much, almost intrinsic reward from doing it, that they they keep doing it, and other people are like that didn't do anything for me. So I don't know the how universal this is, but certainly for some people, including myself, it just makes a huge difference on my outlook and my mood and everything.

Dave Crenshaw: 37:57

I think that that's really important. It's funny. I remember having a conversation with one of my daughters, and I mentioned going and working out, and she's like, why? Very practical. Like, why I'm like, well, you're gonna think better, you're gonna write better. You're gonna be more successful because you exercise that seemed to hit with her, that seemed to resonate with what she wanted. That's

Unknown: 38:22

awesome. I mean, I also just believe, like we evolved not to sit in front of a screen all day. We evolved to be moving around doing something, and our current lifestyles are just not in line with how we were meant to live and exercise. Kind of helps. It's not like we were meant to run marathons specifically, but it probably helps bring us back to a state more of kind of how we were meant to be,

Dave Crenshaw: 38:43

yeah. All right, so talk to me about the future. What do you see ahead for your career over the next five years?

Unknown: 38:53

I don't see any huge changes. I love what I'm doing right now, which is that I'm clinically practicing part time, and on the other time, I'm doing podcasting. I'm doing speaking, I am doing course teaching and even, like, live event hosting and stuff. I never saw that one coming. That was like a whim, and then it was so much fun, and I'm like, I have to do this again. So I guess the one thing that I really, really want to do, like really, is I, I feel I have a book in me. The content that is makes up my course, best life plans Academy alone is like a book, and I would like to have that published traditionally so that I can get my message out to more people. So I am hoping to be able to kind of add that to my jack of all trades stuff that I do on the planning side. But other than that, I just hope to keep growing all the channels that I'm currently doing. I do not do any social media, no

Dave Crenshaw: 39:45

Instagram, no LinkedIn, nothing like that. I quit Facebook

Unknown: 39:50

in 2016 and Instagram in 2021 I found them really, really bad for my own mental health. And then was like, if I find them bad for me, why am I there?

Dave Crenshaw: 39:58

Okay, so that brings up a really interesting question. I think I know the answer, but I'd like to hear what your perspective is. What is the difference between social media and your website? They're online, they're using screens. So why is one work and one doesn't? It's

Unknown: 40:15

a great question. I mean, and I read other people's websites too. I use a service called Feedly that like aggregates different private blogs, websites are so much more personal and they're so finite. I mean, even if you subscribe to 10 websites, you're done in like 10 minutes or so. Somebody's blog post is not an infinite scroll. It's kind of a one time. And it also feels more like an environment that I own and can therefore kind of take in the direction that I control, versus Instagram, there's a lot of like, you know, the algorithm decides what people see, and then maybe, also, maybe I have 10 posts, and Instagram decides to show everybody one of them. But that's not really, like, the main point of what I'm trying to convey. Like, there's a lot less control there. But honestly, the true reason is that is just my own personal experience with those platforms and that i. Found them very detrimental to me versus blogs. I don't feel that way at all.

Dave Crenshaw: 41:07

I agree. I think there needs to be a healthy boundary. I don't know if completely exiting it is right for everyone, but I know that there are ways to create boundaries with it. I've helped my kids by saying, hey, look, here's a time limit on your phone. This is how much time you're allowed to spend. Instagram's top of mind because that's what we just recently talked about. So you have a certain amount of time you can spend on Instagram, and then that's it. Totally

Unknown: 41:29

I think boundaries and other things work really well for lots of people. Not everybody has to go cold turkey, but I love it. Yeah.

Dave Crenshaw: 41:36

Okay, so this is the point, Sarah, thank you so much for sharing your story with us. This is the point where I like to summarize and call out some action items that someone can take my goal with this show is to not just hear these great stories, and your story is wonderful and it is inspiring, but to also help people take action. I'm a big believer in acting on what you learn. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to highlight three actions that I noticed out of many that someone might take this week to make your success story part of their success story, and then I'd like you to add one at the end. Sound good. Sounds good. All right. So the first one that I highlighted, this was early in your story, when you were talking about working in the lab versus being a doctor, is cultivate awareness of your personality. Cultivate awareness of what works for you and what doesn't work for you. Avoid getting sucked into that trap of saying, Well, I've already spent a year of my life on this. I need to just keep going and instead saying, Wait, is this working for me? Is this right? And then pursue the things that match who you are and how you like to operate best. That is something I've seen consistently among the executives that I've coached, is they find the sweet spot for who they are and how they want to operate. So just ask yourself the question, Am I doing the thing that really fits myself? Am I doing the thing that I love? The other one I want to call out is that conversation that we had about being on call and how you had to adjust your schedule and adjust your expectations for yourself on those six weeks out of the year that you're on call. We all have moments where whether or not our job is putting us this way, something in life is putting us in a situation where we're under stress and where we're going to have a lot more demands. I just went through that recently with the passing of a parent. Suddenly the whole schedule changed, and I had to deal with all these other things when that happens, give yourself permission to get help. Give yourself permission to adjust the schedule, even if it's temporarily, and make adjustments so that you're lowering the expectations on yourself, so that you are better prepared to handle the inevitable interruptions that are going to occur. And then the last one, I just want to highlight that concept of exercise and making that a part of your schedule. This is something that, boy, I'm a lot better than I used to be, say, 10 years ago. With it, I still have improvements that I can make, but boy, do I see the impact of getting regular exercise has on my mental health. If I don't exercise for roughly an hour every day, I cannot sleep at night. So consider what you're doing right now, and just say, Can I add a little bit more? You don't have to go full crazy, and you don't have to, like, add two hours to your schedule of exercise, just add something a little bit more than what you were doing before, and then maybe in a month or two, add a little bit more to that. And I think you'll start to see some of the benefits that Sarah talked about. All right, Sarah, what is an action that you would suggest someone can take this week?

Unknown: 44:49

Yeah, I would pay attention to see if there's something that you love doing so much you would do it for free, and then figure out if there is a way of integrating that into your work life. And by that I don't necessarily mean like, quit your job and become a podcast or something like that. But instead, are there ways that you could gradually either grow something or even find elements within your current role to exercise that passion? So yeah, pay attention to what you would do, even if nobody was watching or paying you for because I think it took me a while, but I'm like, I really love blogging, I love writing to people, and ultimately, found a way to make that kind of part of what I do.

Dave Crenshaw: 45:29

And when you do something that you love, you have more longevity. You'll work longer and harder than someone else who's just forcing themselves to do it, and it won't feel very much like work to you. That's a huge advantage when you're doing something you love. Sarah, thank you so much for taking the time to share your story and your wisdom with us. I sure gained a lot out of it. So thank you. Thank you for being willing to do this.

Unknown: 45:55

This was so fun I liked, kind of like going through memory lane. So thank you for having me on and giving me a chance to share my story. Yeah,

Dave Crenshaw: 46:02

and I'm sure there are a lot of people who want to follow you. They want to continue the relationship with you. Where would you like them to go to stay connected and follow your work? Yeah,

Unknown: 46:13

they can go to my website, the shoebox.com, T, H, E, S, H, U, B, O, x.com, or check out you to the podcast that I'm part of best of both worlds or best laid plans. Thank

Dave Crenshaw: 46:23

you for sharing that with us, Sarah, and thank you everyone for listening. Remember, it's not so much about the knowledge you gained or how inspired you were, it's about the action that you take. So please do one thing this week on what you heard today, and you'll make Sarah's success story a part of your success story. Thanks for listening.

Darci Crenshaw: 46:47

You've been listening to the Dave Crenshaw Success Show, hosted by my dad, Dave Crenshaw, and produced by invaluable incorporated research and assistant production by Victoria bidez, Sound Editing by Nick Wright, voiceover by me Darci Crenshaw, and the music is by Ryan Brady via Pon five licensing, please subscribe to the Dave Crenshaw success show on Apple podcasts Spotify, wherever you like to get your podcasts. If you have a suggestion for someone my dad might like to interview, please send it to guests at Dave crenshaw.com and please don't forget to leave us a five star review. See you next time you.