Lean Out Podcast

Experimentation with Errin Weisman

• Dawn Baker • Season 1 • Episode 27

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In this episode, Dawn Baker talks with Errin Weisman about her journey through burnout and beyond. She exemplifies the idea that work-life balance is truly a journey with highs and lows. 

Dr. Errin Weisman is a physician, life coach, podcaster and mother of three. Because of her personal experience with professional burnout early in her career, Errin speaks openly with straight, raw honesty about her story in order to help others. She practices family and addiction medicine in rural Indiana, and she lives on a farm with her husband (who happens to be a farmer), 3 children, alpacas, and chickens. Errin also enjoys getting mud on her shoes, teaching her children how to catch tadpoles and reading a great fantasy fiction novel.

My conversations with Errin on the Doctor Me First podcast:


Get in touch with Errin: 

Get in touch with Dawn: 

Welcome to the lean out podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Don baker. Are you looking for a new approach to authentic and sustainable work-life balance? You've come to the right place. Listen as i interview amazing women professionals who've taken steps to lean out and find balance on their own terms Hello? Hello. Thanks for being here. Today, I'm pleased to share my conversation with my friend, Dr. Aaron Wiseman. We recorded this episode on Halloween and here we are right after Thanksgiving. So that shows you how behind I am in my editing. I have a few more really great shows. However to share with you before this year is up. I'll probably take a little break in the new year from episodes and then start a new season. Is there anything in particular that you'd like to hear about? Anyone in particular, you'd love for me to interview. Let me know by commenting on the blog post for this episode. Or send me a message through my website@wwwdotpracticebalance.com or DM me on Instagram.

EW-Dawn

Erin Wiseman, welcome to the show

EW-Errin

hey, it's great to be here.

EW-Dawn

We've known each other for a little while and I have watched your work life balance evolve over the years. I'd love it if you could tell us what your current work life balance is like and how you got to where you are today.

EW-Errin

Sure. So I am family medicine, addiction medicine in rural southwestern Indiana. I currently work three days in the office. And one day tella, and then my other time is spent on our little hobby farm. Plus my husband is a grain farmer. So several hundred acres there, um, hanging out with my three dragons, my kiddos, and just enjoying life and what it has to get. And it hasn't always been this way. I also will put out to the audience too, I mean, right now we're recording on Halloween, which means I got It's going to be below freezing tonight. And you know how children are when you make them wear coats over their beautiful costumes. So we'll have to get like the thermal underwear out and all the things. I'm going through, a big grant application, at work. So that's a big project and I'm studying for my addiction boards. So. It's a little crazy right now. But what I like to remind myself is this is just one of the waves that comes through and it too will calm down again because I know this is just a moment. This is just a phase right now. So I want to put that out there. It's not like everything is rainbow and sunshines, but I really do love the balance that I, I have now. And going back to your question, was it always like this? Absolutely not right about. It's almost going to be 10 years ago, 2014, I had had my second baby. I was in my big girl attending job with all the student debt, but finally making an income and where I was supposed to be on the top of the mountain. I found myself far, far down in the gully because all through training, you know what we say? Like it's going to get better. It's going to get better. It's going to get better. And then when I got out. It's still the same. Plus like more responsibility. There's no one to in my rural area, there was no one to be like, Hey, can you come look at this? I don't know what to do with it compared to when I was in that urban area training. I had worked so hard. I don't come from a family of doctors. I went to a teeny tiny Christian school. I went to DO school and did well, but. I had just worked and worked and worked and worked and really hindsight looking back on it. I just had no more margin left. I had been doing it for so many years at that point. And of course, you know, overachiever I am. I had a baby first year of family medicine residency, and then I had another baby third year, my two boys. Um, And I did all the things with the research and going to conferences and, you know, showing up and being that star resident that I was just like beyond exhausted. I was numb. There was just nothing there except like anger and rage and like huge, big emotions, like extreme sadness. To the point that I would definitely call it major depression. And I, I didn't know what to call it at that time. I just know I felt awful, but everybody around me was so proud of me. And I did what I tell my patients not to do. I got on the internet and I was like, what is wrong with me? And that's when I started to learn about burnout before burnout was cool.

EW-Dawn

ANd you were maybe a little bit out of your training at that time is that correct?

EW-Errin

Yeah, I had just got my first job out. I had, I literally, because I had, you know, most. Residents graduate and get moving, you know, end of July, June, July, mine went through August. So that tells you how much maternity leave I took with two children. And I literally finished residency the end of August. And I started the day after labor day with my new job. And so there was no breaks. Ever that I took all the way through I just like put my head down and just slammed through as hard as I could because I was really living with the thoughts and the rules in my head, like if I just work harder, it's just gonna get better. It's gonna get easier. It's gonna be okay.

EW-Dawn

So at that point, what did you decide to do?

EW-Errin

I had my checkbook ready and I was ready to pay back my forgivable loan and, and just leave. I was like, I can't do this. I thought about. Getting another degree. I started looking at jobs, but I literally live in a county of about 12, 000 people. And so there's not the plethora of physician jobs to change. And I was scared. I, I had two little boys at home. I had a farmer husband. We had just bought in our first house. So we had payments. We had these huge student loans and I felt just so trapped and so. That at that point I was like, you know what? I am young. I am in shape. I will go work at the local Toyota plant. I'll put cars together. I actually applied for a marketing position at a moderately sized banking organization because I had done some marketing work, for a hospital in college. I was like, I can do that. Um, I was like ready to go be at the local farm store and sell chicks and, and work the checkout, but I was desperate. I needed some kind of change and I didn't know where I was going to find it And also secretly, and it's something I hadn't talked to anyone about because I was so fearful. I felt like the only way out was death, and I'll be perfectly honest, I did have suicidal ideation, I had a plan, I knew how I was going to do it, and I had several backup plans, but what really kept me, it wasn't the job, it wasn't the money, it was those two little boys. Sitting on the couch watching Paw Patrol while I was back in my room sobbing because I thought what have I done with my life and why do I feel so awful? And so I did finally talk to my husband. I was like, I can't do this. Like, I have to quit. And he just begged me, give it six months. If you can give me six months, we will figure it out. We will get some money saved up. We'll sell this house. We'll go live in a tent if we have to, but just give me six months to figure this out. And I thought, okay, I can do six more months. Like that's, that's doable. The worker in me was ready to do that. But in that six month time, I was still on the internet. I think PMG had come out real early, right about then. And I started seeing other physician moms talking and really, having the same experience I did, but no one really had a solution. It's not like I could have jumped over to pharma. I wasn't willing to do locums at that point because my kids were still really small and I was still nursing. So I was like, I don't know what, so in the middle of a 1 a. m. Google search, I found this lady. Her name was Philippa Camili. She was a family medicine physician out in California and I was reading an article by her and she started talking about this thing called coaching, which I had been a collegiate athlete. So I had athletically been coached. But I was like, I don't know what this like voodoo is, but I thought if she can help me, I will give her any amount of money not to feel like this. So I set up a call and I thought, okay, this is, this is going to help. This is going to be better. And little by little. It helps me get through that six month period so that we could figure out what to do. And it was those little small changes inside of me approaching my. Tendency to overwork to validate myself, my perfectionism, those thoughts in my head that I had to look like the Pinterest mom things got better without even changing my job at that point. After I got to a point where I was out of panic mode and really like trying to make decisions out of fear, and out of a place of suicidality. wHen I was better, I actually did go into my CMO's office and I was like, listen, I'm going to go part time and this is what I just have to do this for myself. And I did kind of have to set an ultimatum that either I was walking away or I was going part time because I had been talking to them about it for a while, like, Hey, I need a change. I didn't tell him I wasn't doing good because I was very scared about that. And I think a lot of other folks can realize that like you don't want to go into your workplace and be like, Hey, I'm having active suicidal ideation. And I cry every morning before I walk in from the parking lot. So, and so I finally was able to get it changed to three days a week. And those Monday, Wednesday, Fridays felt like. Diving to the bottom of like a deep, deep pool, with all the pressure and holding my breath. But those Tuesdays and Thursdays felt so light. Like I was cruising around in a floaty, like just absorbing the sun. And that was enough at that point for me to continue through and, and we can continue through on the long journey. But I just want to say to anybody who's listening that if you are struggling right now. This is not your forever. Change is absolutely possible. And I came out of a very, very dark place. And I can say that it's not been easy, but it's absolutely so much better nine years later.

EW-Dawn

Yes, I really want to acknowledge that when you talked about having suicidal thoughts that it's wonderful that you went and asked for help from your husband, but then you also sought help from a coach and you did research and you knew that you needed to have help. You didn't just continue on in a vacuum. So it's wonderful that you did that and I'm just really grateful that you're here today and that you kept going on the journey.

EW-Errin

Yeah. Cause you know, the one anchoring thought I had was I can't leave these little boys without their mom. I mean that sometimes you just need like one thing and I find that with my patients too. Maybe it's family. Maybe it's. It's their dog. Maybe it's faith, but like, hold on to that hope and I have to mention all through this whole time, I didn't realize it at the time. I just thought I was just really tired because I was doing so many things, doctoring, mothering, community advocate. You know, all, all the thing, farm wife, athlete, you name it. I was probably doing it during that time, but now in 2023, looking back, I was absolutely struggling with fibromyalgia too. It wasn't until about three years ago that actually the, the chronic illness caught up to me and just laid me out on my ass to where I finally. Now know I was also struggling with so much more, that was, that was under the surface and happening in my body. It's just remarkable. I look back at that woman and I am so compassionate to her because she was holding up so much weight and some of it was invisible that she didn't even know about.

EW-Dawn

Well, I definitely resonate with what you're speaking about because in my own personal health journey and work life balance journey, I had what I thought was burnout and a lot of the burnout symptoms, and then it turned out that I had a full blown physical illness as well, and I talk about that in the Lean Out book, that the lean in culture really costs women and men as well, their health, sanity, and fertility. And so people sometimes have mental health manifestations and they can have physical health manifestations. And so this is, becoming common. And the fact that you have now identified Even years later is wonderful. So tell us a little bit about what happened. Did you completely leave and then pivot to building the coaching business that you have? Yes.

EW-Errin

the pathway. So I wanted to complete my contract that I had signed with that organization. So I completed the three year contract and gave them my notice. And said, you know, I'll be leaving. I'm not resigning this contract. Um, and I had a really nasty non compete. Luckily, I had cleaned out that clutter that was in my brain to where I could actually get creative and think of like, Hmm, what else can you do to make money? And. Again, you know, I was looking around and trying to figure that out. I had started coaching because it was so powerful for me that I was like, where are all the young mom physician coaches at? So that was kind of happening in the background. It was real. You know, I go to the library and use internet because we didn't have internet at our house kind of situation or the local McDonald's. Those are the two places that had the best internet was McDonald's or the library. Those Tuesdays and Thursdays, I was able. Well, to like get into that and to get into creativity and to say like, what else, or what if, and have conversations, I think that's the biggest thing that I can take away from that time is like, it actually gave me the margins to have conversations with people to know that I wasn't alone, that help was available, that I could figure this out. And so those Tuesdays and Thursdays, I use that a lot to research. So my non compete was I could not do family medicine for X amount of miles from any of the organization's locations. Well, this organization is extremely large across Indiana, Kentucky, and Illinois. So I was gonna have to like travel, but at the point too, I was like, I don't even know that I want to do family medicine anymore. I just... I gotta do something different, but also mom's gotta make some money. So, I figured out that if I change specialties, then my non compete no longer held up. So I worked in a local small emergency room. I had done moonlighting through residency. So I was comfortable. I think I can do this. And so I signed up to work 10 or 12 days a month, which Doesn't sound like a lot. It still is, but it's not full time. I actually made more money working less in emergency room, developing new skills and having more time to invest in hobbies and to reinvest in myself. It was amazing. And I learned so much professionally. I wrote my Dr. Me First book during that time. I had another baby. It was just, it was a really great time. And as I was, moving through that, I knew that this was just kind of a bridge job. This was just getting me from one place to the next. And I didn't know what that next was. But I also knew that for me, I needed to explore other options and try things. That's one thing about me is I, I love going and trying things and just seeing what sticks. And so I then started doing Teladoc before Teladoc was cool. That was like 2018 I also found another little part time position that was just a couple hours a week where I would go to our local jail and provide correctional medicine services. Don, oh my God. I loved it. I loved it so much. Really meeting people's needs where they were at. There was an EMR to document in. I didn't have to worry about insurance. And they were like my people. They were down to earth. Um, Struggling. I had done a lot of addiction work in residency, but the thought had been put in my head like well, you don't want to take care of those kind of people or, you know, you don't want to be that kind of doctor. And I had really shied away from it. I listened to my attendings who had said those things when in actuality, I have watched every drug documentary. All the jail shows on all the streaming networks, like I love that stuff. I even go to the annual DEA meeting up in Indianapolis just because I love the science of addiction. And I just decided, I'm going to lean into my weird at this point. So I was doing part time, a little bit of Teladoc, a little bit of jail medicine and a whole lot of coaching. That was when the podcast took off. I formed a second online company called Physician Coaching Alliance, which is a super powerful entity now in the space. And I did a lot of things, but I started to get the itch. So then COVID hit, of course. Teladoc was crazy. There was like thousands of people in the queue every day. I was doing a little bit of, attending proctoring work at a local family medicine residency, and I was doing my jail job, and I had three little kids at home because we were all sheltering in at that point, and I was like, man, something's got to give, and so that's when I slowly started to. Give up a job, give up a job, give up a job to the point of December, 2020 till June, July, 2021, I didn't do any medicine. So that was my space when I didn't do any clinical medicine. I did coaching. And it was that summer that I was like, you know, I miss it. And it was really good to take a break, and to reflect. And I was very specific on what I would do and what I would not do. And I mentioned, you know, I knew my next step, I wanted to do something using my skills with addiction medicine, using my coaching skills, taking care of patients. I knew I needed a lot of autonomy. I am, SAS on wheels. And I do not handle micromanagement well. So the opportunity came up in my local community that a mental health organization wanted to start a medical FQHC embedded in the middle of it. And I was like, yes, that's what I want to do. So August of 2021, working with that organization, I set up an FQHC and we just celebrated two year birthday. In August that's kind of the quick and dirty that get me to where I'm at now, but it really comes from The trying, trying things out, you know, knowing what my budget was and knowing that if I just make enough money to cover everything that we need, we'll be fine. Cause that was one of my worries is like, I'm going to like do these jobs and we're going to have to eat cat food and the lights are going to get turned off. And I can happily tell everyone, we never got our electricity cut off. We actually did go on a few small vacations when I was doing this journey. And we never ate cat food. In fact, we probably ate too good and gained our COVID 15 weight with it all.

EW-Dawn

You know, I have heard this ongoing theme from guests I've had on the podcast time and time again that knowing the amount you need and having that difficult conversation is so pivotal. Can you tell me what that was like talking with your husband and like, how did you figure out nitty gritty what you actually needed to make to be sustainable.

EW-Errin

Well, luckily for us, I had gotten the advice of continuing to live like a resident, even when you make the big money. And so we were actually able to save. And have a pretty good savings account put back with all of that. And the other great thing we live in a rural area. So our cost of living is extremely low, which is amazing, I'll be perfectly honest, like, I would encourage anybody who's struggling, like, you need to find a country area because, your lifestyle will be cut in half immediately just by moving. And so, We just sat down, looked at all our budget, looked at, where money was going out. So when I was in that very first job, one of the first things we did is really pull back from investing from my paycheck into retirement funds were like, you know what, we need to stock up a big, stockpile because we know we're going to be going through a lot of flux. we Both committed to say, okay, this is the amount of money we need to bring home and we're going to work together and try to, to figure this out. Cause also during this time, I forgot to mention my husband went from, he's an elementary school teacher and administrator. He started working full time on the farm as the farm manager as well. So we both went through quite a bit of transition and we just said, like, we just need enough. We just need enough. No job is worth your sanity or mental health. So let's just raise our kids and let's just do enough so that was the goal was to find a job that I didn't have to take a vacation from. And again, like it took quite a bit of time, quite a bit of several years. So I quit. The first job in 2017 and like I mentioned, I started the FQHC in 2021 and will I stay there forever? Like right now, it's great. It's good. I'm not looking to make any changes, but I do know. That if I do, it will be a step forward and, improvement from whatever situation it is just because I'm, I have a proven record now that, and I have to remind myself this, like, you can make good decisions. People may not understand them, but they'll be good decisions for you.

EW-Dawn

Along with this clinical job that you have now that you are loving, you have this whole arm of coaching that you've built up both you being a coach and then also helping to mentor and do masterminds with other coaches. Describe how the coaching arm of what you do fits in with your life right now and the different things that you're doing.

EW-Errin

So the coaching entrepreneurship businesses and the help and support that I give to burnt out overworked professionals has definitely changed. So I get to show up when it's, Me that needs to be there and then they take care of all the background noise and the emails and the other things. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to do both. There is just not enough time in the day and I just do not have enough energy or spoons to get me through to be perfectly honest. And so it's. It's one of those that I had to do a lot of mindset work around, like, if it's not me doing it, is it still quality, you know, because I am so heavily invested in my podcast, in my private coaching, in the mentorship that I do and the strength building in PCA, um, that I've had to kind of like level up and see that., your business gets to look like whatever you want it to look like and whatever fits the situation to make you the most healthy and well, because there have been times where I'm like, do I just need to like, fold this up and be done with it? And so I really go back to the goals of why do I do what I do? So on my. Personal brands, which are Dr. Me First and Burnt Out to Badass, I said I would continue to podcast as long as it's fun. And right now, it's still fun, so I'm going to keep doing it. And for Burnt Out to Badass, I said I would keep doing it as long as there are people out there who need to hear my voice. And do I have to be on social media every single day blasting? Absolutely not. And do I do that? Absolutely not. But it's still out there in Google World for anyone who needs it. Or the book is still on Amazon for anyone who needs it. Or the 400 plus episodes of Dr. Me First podcast are out there for whoever needs it. And I don't have to constantly be creating and then on physician coaching Alliance, my goal has always been to bring people together, to bind us together because we know that we are better in community. And that the only way to change the space of healthcare is if we change it. And so it's been really, really great to see so many people come into the Physician Coaching Alliance space. And what I've really been doing is like, if you have a passion or project, go for it, I don't need to be in the middle of it. You just tell me how I need to help and support. And so we're seeing a lot of great creative projects coming out of that. A lot of great leadership. It's been amazing too that we are now doing quite a bit of corporate coaches coaching, which means I get to pay people. So I have a payroll and contracts and subcontractors and all the amazing things that, I didn't know if it would ever grow into.

EW-Dawn

I love that you're still doing all of these things and you're really doing them with intention and with that idea of like, what do I really want to be doing with this? What is the goal of this particular endeavor? And yet you still have these endeavors going and the podcast is excellent. I will link to a couple of episodes that we've had together, conversations we've had, and people can explore the many, many different episodes, interviews, and solo casts there. Erin, I'm wondering if you have any parting advice to give to women who are feeling overwhelmed and stuck and burned out like you did almost 10 years ago in that place

EW-Errin

yeah, absolutely. Like I mentioned before, like, you're not alone. You're not alone at all. We maybe just don't talk about it as openly. I really encourage people to take the break You know, I wish we all could go on an eat, pray, love journey for a year and a half, but it's not always, it's not always available. So like I mentioned when I went part time, it was those Tuesdays and Thursdays. Those were my eat, pray, love days. And was it easy to rest at first? Absolutely not. I think it's taken me years to figure out how to be bored again and how to relax and rest. And so I would just encourage people to look at that. As far as when you do have time to relax, does your brain slow down? Are you able to enjoy it? And if not friend, you're a workaholic work is your drug. And I understand it 110%. The other thing I would mention to folks as well, as addition to taking the break getting whatever help Looks like for you, be it, formal psychiatric help, coaching, help, just finding community to be in is I would say you, you have to look at your life intentionally moving forward. Like right now I'm doing a lot of board studying. So there's a lot of things that do have to be put on the back burner. It's not that I won't ever go back to them, but I think it's giving yourself the compassion to say not right now, like this in front of me is most important. It's just reminding yourself that you don't have to live in that place of like, Oh my God, I have to do all the things. No, mostly what you have to do is you have to get up, you have to brush your teeth, you have to eat some type of food, you have to take care of the little things that depend on you, and that's about it. So everything else we're choosing, and it's just reminding yourself that you can't choose everything and just to intentionally be like, okay, what is it that needs to be done? And what can right now, just pause. The sun will still come up. It will still shine. The world will keep going,

EW-Dawn

yeah, so many good advice points and really the last of figuring out what you have to do versus what you're choosing to do. Aaron, thank you so much. I really appreciate having this conversation. I'm grateful that you took time out of a busy Halloween day when you have three kids and you're doing board Prep to talk with me.

EW-Errin

Absolutely friend. I'm just so honored to be a part of the lean out project I love the book and everything that you're doing. And I would just say, to anybody who's listening that Dawn's your girl, you need to get ahold of her.

EW-Dawn

Thank you.

I've known Erin for a few years, but I learned some new things about her during this conversation. We met through physician coaching Alliance. So I was not aware of all the different twists and. Turns that her clinical side of work-life balance has taken. Here are the takeaways I got from our conversation. Number. Get creative with your resources. Entertain all types of roles that you might feel. Aaron knows that she loves to, in her words, try new things and see what sticks. This turns out to be a superpower that allows. allows. her to continue doing clinical medicine after leaving a burnout job. At a big institution that had a vast non-compete. So broaden your mind to the things that you can do, and don't be afraid to experiment. You can always change again. A helpful thing to do. If you're considering creative options is to figure out your financial enough. Go through your finances with your family and decide how much you absolutely have to make and go from there. Number two. Get help. Don't let burn out. Get to the point of suicidal ideation. There are lots of ways you can find help from coaches, therapists and online communities. Please send me or Aaron a direct message. If you're listening to this now, and you feel like you're in that place. You are not alone. Uh, break, whatever that can look like for you. And some other years to listen can be very therapeutic. Number three. Remember that work-life balance is a continuous journey. Like Aaron, we all go through intense times when things don't really feel sustainable. And then we pivot to something else and then things feel chill and mellow. Then something happens and it changes again. And you have to readjust your priorities. It's all part of your own hero's journey. My parting question to you today is. Where are you currently in your work-life balance journey? Is this an intense time or is this a more mellow time? How does that affect your priorities? Thanks for listening to the lean out podcast. If you find these conversations inspiring and useful, please forward them to a friend and also leave a review on iTunes or Spotify so that other people can find them easier. If you want to get in touch with me, you can find me at my website, practice balanced.com, where you can subscribe to my newsletter and get updates regularly about new podcast episodes, blog posts, speaking, engagements, and coaching services. You can also support my work by buying my book, lean out a professional woman's guide to finding authentic work-life balance for yourself, a friend, family member, or coworker. Have a great day and we'll see you next time