299: The EQ Zone: How Great Leaders Think Clearly Under Pressure, with Dr. Mickey Lebowitz

Healthcare professionals are some of the smartest people in the world. Yet burnout, frustration, and emotional exhaustion continue to drive talented clinicians away from the work they love.

In this episode, Dr. Mickey Lebowitz, physician, emotional intelligence expert, and author of The EQ Prescription, explains why the real challenge in healthcare is not a lack of knowledge. It is learning how to manage ourselves when the pressure is highest.

We explore Dr. Mickey's powerful concept of the Emotional Intelligence Zone, why leaders often struggle under stress, and practical techniques for staying grounded when the heat is on.

If you've ever wondered why knowing better doesn't always lead to doing better, this conversation is for you.

Connect with Dr. Mickey Lebowitz on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mickey-lebowitz-2550b2156/

Transcript

Welcome And Why EQ Matters

Dr. Pelè 0:07

Welcome to the Human Side of Leadership Podcast. I'm Dr. Pele. On this podcast, we explore how leadership is experienced in real moments, not just defined in theory. Today we're talking about emotional intelligence and why it may be one of the most important and most overlooked skills in healthcare. It is truly my pleasure to welcome Dr. Mickey Libowitz. Dr. Mickey is a board-certified endocrinologist, emotional intelligence expert, educator, researcher, speaker, and author of two books dedicated to helping healthcare professionals thrive in increasingly demanding environments. The EQ prescription and losing my patience. Dr. Mickey, how are you doing today?

Mickey Lebowitz 0:54

I am doing well. Thank you so much for inviting me. This is a real treat.

Dr. Pelè 0:58

Yeah, well, you know, uh what I saw on your uh LinkedIn thing, you you want to be called Dr. Mickey. I'm like, hey, that's like me, Dr. Poley, Dr. Mickey. There you go. We're brothers. Yes, I appreciate that. Well, you know

Losing My Patience Origin Story

Dr. Pelè 1:12

what? Why don't we start with your story? And I know and we mentioned you have two books. We're gonna talk about both of them a little bit, but I want to start with the book with the crazy name. The one that says, Losing my patience, why I quit the medical game. I think that's a crazy name. That's a powerful name that gets me straight into a problem. Why did you write that book?

Mickey Lebowitz 1:31

Tell us your story from that book. Okay, well, I'm glad you brought that up because uh the title, uh, when I was uh when I was writing the book, I was researching all the challenges that were I was facing in 2007 and why I left my practice of medicine. And as I was I was researching the book, I found out that the problems that I was experiencing in 2007 were really there in 1997 and 1987, and they just got worse. And I said to myself, I remember sitting at my computer, I was typing away, and it was 11 o'clock at night, and I said, you know, I'm losing my patience with all this stuff. And I go, ah, that's that's a good name for the book. That's how I came up with the title. But the book, what the book was intended to do was to uh give um light to what's happening in medicine in 2007 and how the system of healthcare and the business of healthcare was making it very hard for guys like me who really were dedicated completely to taking care of patients and making it so hard to do so. So that's why I wrote the book to give voice to the people who are I call in the trenches, seeing patients all day, every day, and letting the world know that not everything is okay. And guys like me were gonna leave the practice because uh it was so uh unpleasant to practice. Even though it was great to take care of patients, wonderful experience uh to do so, but it made it made a hard day harder the way the systems were were set up. And and the thing was when the book came out, so many of my friends and colleagues said, I'm glad you wrote the book because now I don't have to, suggesting to me that I captured what they were experiencing also.

Dr. Pelè 3:23

You absolutely did. And you know, it's not only in healthcare. Uh a lot of us put on our best faces, but we are really struggling under the weight of systems that don't support that human element. You know, when you look back now, was there one specific moment when you realized that the system was just affecting you emotionally in ways you couldn't ignore? I mean, was there a story, some specific moment that you could uh share?

Mickey Lebowitz 3:49

Well, that you know, that's a really uh astute question. And um actually the answer is there was not one particular situation. It was more like a death by a thousand cuts. And um it was I I I recognize basically the first day in practice, 1991, that this was gonna be a very hard journey. Even after all the training that I went through, all the internship, the residency, the chief residency, the fellowship. But when I got into practice, it was like, man, this system is really gonna be hard to navigate. So I kept uh over the course of time, I changed my practice practice environment uh two to uh three different times, excuse me, trying to find a niche that I could do what I was trained to do, which was to take care of patients and try to separate out all the other things that were making it hard to do. So I was in a initially I was in a uh practice, it was a multi-specialty practice owned by a group of physicians. And I lasted there for seven years, but we I was working harder than ever. And each year we made a little bit less money. Not that the money was so important, but you know, to work so hard and make less was uh um not palatable. So I then left that practice and I was employed by the hospital for about six years where I was working at, and that was good, except I was in the hospital all morning, saw patients all day, and then in the hospital all night, weekends, and that was just not tenable either for life, work-life balance, and I felt like I was burning out. And then I was offered another position to be an employed physician by a group of family practitioners, some of whom were friends of mine and went to medical school with, and I did that for

The Final Straw In Practice

Mickey Lebowitz 5:25

a few years. But then what happened, and this was to your point, the final straw, is that the the um the owners of that practice said to me, Hey, you either have to see more patients, excuse me, to uh to to make the same amount of money or say see the same number of patients, but make less money. And I said, That's not good. Either one is not good for me because, first of all, I was on the list of best doctors in America every year, which by the way is better than being on the list of worst doctors in America, so I just want to say that. And uh I couldn't work any harder. I was in the office, you know, first thing in the morning, 7, 7:30. I stayed late at night, you know, trying to keep up on the charts. It was just um I I couldn't work any harder. It wasn't safe for me, it wasn't safe for my patients. We had 5,000 patients in the practice. I was supervising two more nurse practitioners, and um I just couldn't do any more. So I was left with a decision, you know, either continue on a path, on the on that path, or try something else. And I I looked at my wife, I said to my wife, I I gotta I gotta see if there's something else out there. And that's when I changed. Uh and I left the practice. I lost my patients, I left the practice. I still remain clinical. I went to the VA and I worked for two years as an academic hospitalist. And then after that, I went and I was a senior medical quality director at our hospital, and I was taking care of patients on a macro level, putting in systems and processes, policies to make care for our patients safer, uh, more efficient, and more uh more uh financially effective. And that was very good. And what I learned from that is again, I wasn't alone. I saw so many of my peers who were really being uh beaten down, broken up, and burnt out also. And to me, it was a shame to see that because we spent so much time, so much energy, made so much sacrifices, and spent so much money achieving all these skills to help our patients and our, you know, in our communities not to enjoy what we're doing. It didn't make sense. And that's why I kept looking for a solution. What is the answer? Because in the Losing My Patience book, truthfully, I didn't really have a good answer, a solution to the problem, other than to suck it up and just you know plow through. But

The Only Control Is You

Mickey Lebowitz 7:45

I kept looking for an answer, and uh the solution I came up with was comes down to an old riddle, and that is what can I control and what can I control? And the answer is the only thing I can control is me. And the only thing that you can control is you. So then the question is, how do you do it? And that's when I came up and I learned about emotional intelligence, and I um and then I became certified in multiple areas of emotional intelligence, and I thought just to end the story, that if uh if it was me, uh if it's been beneficial to me to be more uh knowledgeable about EQ, emotional intelligence, then maybe uh especially seeing uh given what I see with all my colleagues and peers, clinicians and nurses alike, and students, then maybe it would be helpful for them. And that's why I wrote the second book, the EQ prescription.

Dr. Pelè 8:36

You know, let's talk about that a little bit. And just as an aside, my wife is uh an ER doctor. She's an ER physician.

Mickey Lebowitz 8:43

And you know, we've been married for the top of the list of burnouts.

Dr. Pelè 8:46

Exactly. We've been married for 20 years, and I can tell you she moved to uh be a locum tenants uh physician because at least that gave her the chance to be gone for a few days and you know, then be home for uh for several days. And that was so much better than a constant, you know, uh burnout as you've described that that is possible. You know, in your latest book, uh you describe uh and your latest book is the EQ, the emotional intelligence of prescription. By the way, I love your titles. Emotional intelligence of prescription. Um you you talk a little bit about uh how people dedicate their entire lives to health care, yet many leave uh dissatisfied or burned out. I know you've described it a little bit in terms of your experience, but could we ask the question why? Why is

The Real Drivers Of Burnout

Dr. Pelè 9:38

this happening in the first place? Um and let's kind of get to the why of why this problem exists before we get to the EQ prescription and some of the ideas that you've you've put together to solve it.

Mickey Lebowitz 9:49

Right. Well, that's an also really great question for you. Thank you. Uh so the first thing we have to recognize is that we are at our core emotional beings. Okay, so I I you know accept it. I hope people accept this, but we all uh see the uh experience the world through our five senses first, you know, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and um so and we and or our uh worlds are affected by our internal thoughts, which immediately affect our emotions, emotions. So emotions are incredibly important. And and the fact of the matter is the root of the problem isn't logic. Because if it was logic, the whole problem with burnout and healthcare would be solved because some of the smartest people that I know, high IQ people, are in healthcare. So the answer isn't logic, the answer is emotions. So the question is, what is generating the impact on clinicians, nurses, emotions? And that is oftentimes we are asked to do things that take us away from what we're really driven to do, which is to take care of patients. And uh, if you look at the the list of reasons why people like me uh in healthcare are burnt out, is all the bureaucratic tasks that come up, all the uh all the administrative um obligations that we're we have to do. Uh there's um all the hoops that we have to jump through because we don't we don't really run the system. The insurance companies run the system. So if we want to order a particular test or a particular medication, uh we oftentimes have to get approval from an insurance uh payer uh to do so. And and the and the list goes on. So it's all these I call it noise things that impact us, and then it and then there's something called moral injury also, which we're sometimes forced to do things that we know aren't aren't the right things to do, as an example. Um uh sometimes we feel like and the patients certainly feel this uh that we move you know people too quickly through the system, and we don't spend enough time with them, and they don't feel seen, heard, understood, valued, and appreciated. The patients don't feel like they've had enough connection with who's provide who's uh providing the care. So, like for me personally, I felt that earlier on in my career. And so instead of seeing like the routine 15-minute offices, that I changed it to 20 minutes to give them more time and me more time, so I didn't have to feel rushed and they didn't have to feel rushed. But it's it's a compilation of all these external things that impact us. So if it was just a matter of us seeing patients and uh and and managing that, which some which by the way is very hard. And um, you know, happily most people get better, but not always. And the things that really could drive us into a burnout is when things don't go right and people are upset or worse, people get hurt. That's another thing that can contribute. So it's a compilation of all those things on top of us being emotionally uh at our core.

Dr. Pelè 13:04

You know, I I I want to just uh flip to the other side now because you've given a really good uh description of the dark side, if I if I could call it that, the the difficulty and why of you know of of uh this burnout issue. But

What Emotional Intelligence Really Means

Dr. Pelè 13:18

on the other side, many people think emotional intelligence is just being nice or maybe being self-aware or some kind of combination of the two. How do you very quickly define emotional intelligence? And then I'm gonna ask you one very important question about emotional intelligence. But how do you define it?

Mickey Lebowitz 13:36

Okay, well, uh, first of all, there are many people who are nice who are not emotionally intelligent. So emotional intelligence is much more than just being nice. In fact, sometimes people call emotional intelligence a soft skill. I call it essential skills because what really takes people from good to great, great to greater, and greater to greatest is not their competency. I mean, we competency is fundamental and you you have to have it. But what really takes people to the next level is their ability on EQ. And EQ is the ability to connect with others because you're able to connect with yourself first. It's the ability to connect your head, your logic with your heart in your decision making. If I took it down to the weeds, it's the ability to be self-aware, to recognize how I think and feel, my needs and wants. It's the ability to be socially aware, what you think and feel and what you want, uh, timing and etc., things like that. It's the ability to be to manage yourself, you know, recognizing what choices you have and being intentional with your decisions. It's the ability to connect with others and to develop and maintain relationships, relationship management. And last and not least, but may and maybe most importantly, uh is the ability to uh for self-direction, to know what you really want each each in your life in general, what you want each day and what you want with each interaction, and to make your decisions in alignment with what you want and avoid what you want to avoid.

Dr. Pelè 15:06

Dr. Mickey, first of all, that was a masterclass definition on emotional intelligence. Thank you for that. Now for now for yeah, now for my my part two question, which I think is is unique to healthcare, and that's this you know, you know more than most people that healthcare is high pressure. It is not just hey, I'm gonna lose money if uh if if I don't behave myself, it's it's I'm gonna lose somebody's life. I mean, it's it's it's a it's a very high pressure environment.

Why EQ Matters Under Pressure

Dr. Pelè 15:41

Why does emotional intelligence become especially important when the pressure is so high?

Mickey Lebowitz 15:47

Well, that's another great question. So you know, most people, most people who uh can do okay when the waters are calm, the skies are blue, and you know, the stress levels under control, you know, even if your emotional intelligence is uh is not as high as it could be. And by the way, EQ is a competency, it's something you could learn, you know, if if you want to. So it's unlike IQ, which typically is fixed. So most people when the heat is on, uh when the waters are calm, skies are blue, stress under control, they they do okay. But the real the real uh benefit of EQ is when the skies are gray, the waters are rough, and the stress is really high. And the question is, how do you manage yourself through that? And the answer is that uh emotional intelligence, uh, people who are uh high in EQ could recognize that the heat really is on and I'm feeling a certain emotion or emotions, because people don't typically just say one emotion. You could be angry, sad, uh and and ashamed all at the same time. I mean, uh so if you could recognize what you think and you feel then and articulate it and use specific words to name it, then oftentimes you could then use those emotions for energy to say, okay, I am feeling you know uh pissed or annoyed or irritable. Why? Why am I feeling that way? I'm feeling that way because name your reason, and then because of that, what are my choices? What do I do to use that energy, that emotion for energy to do what I really want and get what I need to really need to do and hold it together? You know, if I could just for one more second, and that is uh before I wrote the book, I was going around New York State with a friend of mine who's a PhD psychologist, and he was working uh with a woman named Elaine Miller-Karras, and she developed this resiliency model, and she was working with first responders, uh, firemen, policemen, uh paramedics, EMT, and trying to help them deal with the traumas that they saw all day. So she developed this thing called the resiliency zone. And the zone is really just a visual of two horizontal lines, and when you're between those two horizontal lines, you're your best self, right? And people see you as your best self. But naturally in life, there are things that are gonna narrow your zone, widen your zone, bump you out of your zone when you're triggered. And the key is do you know when you're in your zone? Do you know what it feels like to be in your zone? Do you know what it feels like to be narrow, wide, out, or whatnot? So what I did is I took that resiliency model and I combined it with EQ, and now I came up with this respectfully, uh transformative uh novel idea called the emotional intelligence zone. So when I say, okay, the heat is really on, I say to myself, and I do this all day, by the way, um uh my zone right now is really narrow. I gotta really be careful. I recognize that my zone is narrow. So when I go to make a decision, I I better recognize that, hey, this might not be the best time to make this decision. What do I have to do to widen my zone so that my blood flow to my brain is is best so I can make my best decision and do my best thinking. So that's where EQ comes in to help people when the heat is on and the stress is high.

Dr. Pelè 19:10

You took the question right out of my mouth because I was going to talk about your I love that I think that's one of your central innovations in in your book, the the the EQ zone, and really uh helping people understand what it is, when they're in it, when they're not in it. But I think to give some concrete uh substance to it for someone who may be hearing about this the first time, can you give us a real maybe healthcare example of someone operating inside the zone versus operating outside of it?

Mickey Lebowitz 19:41

Yeah. Well, let me let me uh start by saying that um I'm gonna tell you everything I know about neurophysiology in like one

The Emotional Intelligence Zone

Mickey Lebowitz 19:49

minute. So um, so everybody has a fixed amount of blood in their body, right? And um when the heat is on, when the heat is on and you're in sh uh in fight or flight mode, in a stressful mode, then what happens naturally in our body is that blood flow that normally is normally uh equally separate uh flows through different parts of the body, goes specifically to the areas of the body that allow you to fight or flight. It goes to your muscles. So, in so doing, that blood flow goes away from the part of the brain that allows you to do your best thinking. And that's why when the heat is on, it's hard to do your best thinking because the blood flow to the part of the brain, which is called the prefrontal cortex, it's right above your eyes, it doesn't go there. So try to do your best thinking when you when you're really in a high pressure situation. If you don't manage yourself to say, okay, this is really stressful, then uh that blood you're not gonna be able to do your best thinking and make your best decisions. So the key is how do you calm yourself? How do you calm yourself so that the blood you know you you you stop being in that fight or flight mode, the blood flow returns to that part of the brain that allows you to do your best thinking, and then you can then you can move forward. So the key is uh my zone is narrow, what do I do uh to or I'm bumped out, what do I do? So there are there are several different strategies that I offer in the book.

Fast Ways To Regain Control

Mickey Lebowitz 21:18

Uh something as simple as name it to tame it.

Dr. Pelè 21:21

Right?

Mickey Lebowitz 21:21

So by just by saying, like the other day I came down, I talked to my wife, I said, I was, you know, I am so irritable today. And I was like, huh, I feel better. I just named it. I just named it, you know. So naming it to tame it. There's something called box breathing where you breathe in for four seconds, hold it for four seconds, breathe out for four seconds, and rest. That's that's another very quick thing to do. Sighs, you could just sigh. You could ground yourself. There's five, four, three, two, one type of things to do. I I personally like a good uh explicative. I'm I'm you know, I don't go crazy and yelling at you know f bombs or MFs in the street, but I will, under my breath, in a private place, you know, and and I researched. That and uh just by uh by cursing, it gives you power over the situation. So that's another strategy that people you know can use to help you know manage themselves when the heat is really on. There are other strategies, and it's very personal. So some people will you know gravitate towards one thing versus another thing to help them get through. But the key is to recognize that you're in a in a tough spot. How do you you know and and to and to then ground yourself somehow to get yourself in a wider zone or back in the zone so you can do your best thing to navigate whatever's in front of you.

Dr. Pelè 22:34

So so you you know, first of all, thank you for the expletive uh uh one. Now I have a good excuse to uh do that once in a while. You make me name it to tame it, right? But um, but I you know, I I was thinking as you were talking about, of course, these are uh self-driven strategies that you've shared so far.

Leaders Set Culture And Capacity

Dr. Pelè 22:55

Um obviously um in my world, leadership development world, things like that, I want to know what can a leader do to help others stay in that emotional intelligence zone. And maybe sometimes what is it that leaders are doing that they may not realize is pulling people out of that EQ zone by the things they do, their behaviors. What's your perspective on the leadership impact on other physicians or or nurses or admin folks?

Mickey Lebowitz 23:26

So um you probably know that leaders set the tone. And and and they and they could make or break the culture and the organizational culture and climate or individuals' uh culture and climate. So they they have a a huge impact. Uh there's a there's a book, uh, and I've referenced this in my in my EQ prescription book called Patients Come Second. And you might say, people listening who are in healthcare might say that's heresy. Patients come first, physicians or clinic nurses come second. But the answer is, and this is I use this in my book, the answer is that in order for organizations in general and individual and individual caregivers in particular to give the best care, they have to be their best. And that's why patients really come second, because in order for an organization to deliver great care, patients have to come second and and uh and the team has to come first. So, what can leaders do? Leaders could first recognize uh what within the org their organizations uh are they deficient in that make it harder for the people to deliver care and make sure that the people have the right resources to do what they need to do. I'll give you I'll give you some such a simple example. I I'm in the hospital, I'm walking around, and uh and then I hear overhead page. Uh, whoever has the bladder scanner or the glucometer to you know to measure glucose, can you return it to five south or whatever? I'm like, isn't that terrible? We we don't have enough bladder scanners to measure how much urine is residual in somebody's bladder or glucometer to measure glucoses, uh, and we have to make an announcement, and somebody's and the nurse or whoever is waiting to do the procedure and and they don't have the equipment. You know, give us enough equipment to do what we need to do. You know, give us a schedule that makes it you know uh uh palatable for us to do our work. Give us the resources we need. And so I think from a leadership standpoint, that's important. And and and maybe equally, if not more important, is for leaders to recognize what we're faced with and uh and to try to take what I call the pebble out of the shoe of the people who are delivering the care. So I'll give you another example. For uh seven years I was a senior medical quality director at our hospital, and I felt my job was to help my peers, my colleagues, my nurse, my nursing and clinician colleagues. What do you need from me as a leader to help you get through your day easier? Let me take that pebble out of your shoe shoe so you're able to walk and do your job better, easier, so you don't feel like every step along the way is painful and an obstacle. So that's what I think leaders should do. I think empathy goes a long way. Hey, I I hear, I I I hear what you're doing, I see what you're doing, and and uh and usually empathy doesn't require fixing it, but in this situation, it it can.

Why Knowing Is Not Enough

Dr. Pelè 26:36

Yeah, you know, I I have to say that well, first of all, you know, there's this thing called the knowing doing gap. And um, you know, uh on our podcast, we're interested in how do we close that that gap. I'm sure you would agree that healthcare professionals, as you said, some of the smartest people in the world, uh they know what they should be doing. Maybe under high stress, uh they're not doing those things. I'm not sure. But I guess my question for you is you know, why why is knowing just not enough? And people end up finding themselves in these maybe it's habitual, I don't know, but in these situations where the emotional intelligence is just so low, they're not practicing empathy as you shared. They're not doing the things that help the team succeed. What how do we close the gap?

Mickey Lebowitz 27:24

Well, you know, I I brought up in the beginning, you know, earlier on that um eq EQ is a competency. Although there's another riddle that I like to use, and that is how many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? And the answer is one, but the light bulb has to want to change. So some people might not say, hey, they they might say, and and and I'm generalizing, so you know, um, but somebody might say, listen, I made it to this, you know, high leadership position. I'm fine. I don't need to, I don't need to know this. You know, and actually to use another example, I was talking to, this is a couple a while back, I was talking to a friend of mine about emotional intelligence, and he's been uh a clinician, uh, an outstanding clinician for 40 years. And he and he said to me, I don't need EQ. Well, the punchline of the story is that uh for a uh I I went to a couple of uh his office visits with a neighbor of mine, uh, and you know, nobody's perfect, but he certainly could use some additional EQ training. But he was like, I don't need it because I've been successful in his mind for 40 years as a clinician, and he's a great clinician. Uh, but he could certainly have used a little EQ uh coaching, in my opinion. Uh so um the leaders need to, you know, say, okay, uh I I could use a little EQ training also, because then I would have a greater uh feel for uh for social awareness, how my how my team is working, how how my how they're functioning, uh, what do I need to do from a management standpoint to help them, you know, and and then how do I develop relationships with them? Because uh relationships are everything. You know, just to add one more quick story. I was talking to a CEO of a hospital, and they said to me when I was the quality director, how do you get things done at the hospital? And I said, Well, I I thought it was a very insightful question. How do I get things done? And the answer was uh I can I develop relationships with people. And then they said to me, Well, how do you do that? And I'm like, Well, that's a good question, but you're the CEO. You you should kind of know that. But I I answered and I said, Well, you develop trust. And then they said to me, Well, how do you do that? And I'm like, Well, geez, may maybe not everything is as understood and well known as it should be. So to answer your question, is I think that uh, and and this is well described, it's not like my opinion, uh, that the best leaders have high EQ.

Dr. Pelè 29:53

Yeah.

Mickey Lebowitz 29:53

Best leaders have high EQ because they could they they could do all these things that I'm talking about well, and they and they could develop a culture and a climate such that people want to work there uh and stay there, and people want to come there and uh to re and be recruited there.

Dr. Pelè 30:09

I'll give you two analogies that I've uh learned just by listening to you right now, and then I'll ask you uh our final question, uh, which is in my head right now. Okay. Um, and the first one is something you said earlier. I love it. You you basically made the analogy that's similar to what happens when you get on an airplane, and they tell you first, if something's going wrong here, first you need to take care of yourself before your child. That's similar to, as you said, you know, take make sure you're okay before you can treat patients. And uh so I love that. And then the second thing that you've shared that I really think is powerful is another analogy that goes sort of like this. Um you know, the student is ready, and only when the student is ready that the teacher uh appears, or something like that. But you just the idea of people need to be ready to learn and uh apply and and and study some of the things that you've written in your book.

One Step To Start Today

Dr. Pelè 31:03

Um but let me just ask you the question that's sort of on the tip of my mind here, and that is for anyone who may be listening right now who finds that they are possibly not in their EQ zone as you've described, what is one thing they can begin to do right now, besides getting your book? Because I think everybody should get a copy of it. I agree, at least one copy. You agree with that?

Mickey Lebowitz 31:26

At least one copy.

Dr. Pelè 31:27

At least one copy. What is one thing they can do right now, like right now, to you know, to to make sure that they're okay?

Mickey Lebowitz 31:37

One thing they could do to make sure that they're okay. Well, I think the first step is recognizing that they might not be okay. That that's a good place to start and say, okay, I I'm not where I really want to be, I'm not doing what I really want to do. That's a good place to start. So that evokes, as I said earlier, some initial emotional response. You know, I'm dissatisfied, I'm disheartened, uh, I'm uh disenchanted. Um, how can I use those particular emotions as energy to do something to help get you where you might want to go? So I think recognizing initially that you're not where you want to be, and the emotions that accompany that, and then use those emotions to say, okay, what are my choices with this? How these what is this emotion telling me? Because emotions are not good or bad, it's just information.

Dr. Pelè 32:39

Yeah.

Mickey Lebowitz 32:40

The question is, how do you use that information to help get you what you want and avoid what you don't want?

Dr. Pelè 32:46

Yeah.

Mickey Lebowitz 32:46

So I guess that's my my quick answer

What Gives Hope Going Forward

Mickey Lebowitz 32:49

on that.

Dr. Pelè 32:49

Yeah, Dr. Mickey, after everything you've experienced as a physician, an educator, an author, emotional intelligence expert and coach, what gives you hope about the future of healthcare leadership? What's the positive side that we can look for?

Mickey Lebowitz 33:07

You ask good questions. Um so what I hope is that um it if I can't change the system, which which which I can't, I mean if if they came to me and said, hey, Lieberwitz, can you change Dr. Mickey, can you change this? Well, how would you change? I I know exactly how it changed the system. That's a whole nother discussion for another time. But what what I hope is that um that people become more emotionally intelligent, and that they could use, recognize the importance of those emotions in and and impact in what they say or do, in their reputations, in the ability to develop and maintain relationships, in maintaining well-being, in uh self-direction, that will really help them thrive in health in in their healthcare professions, and equally as important, and and maybe even more, is that we don't become different people when we leave the clinic or the hospital or the office. That uh the what I'm teaching about in my EQ prescription book isn't uh isn't just in healthcare as a professional, it's for life in general. So it's all transferable. All the information in that book can be used in relationships with your spouse or significant other or whoever, in in your and parenting skills, and it's all it's all right there. So the only reason why I wrote the book uh specifically for healthcare is because that's my niche. But there have been so many people who have read the book outside of healthcare and said, I really use this now in my relationships with my who I love or uh and use it at home with my kids, and it's been very gratifying to hear that.

Dr. Pelè 34:53

Yeah. No, I appreciate very much how you started with hey, there's some things you can change, like yourself and and and how you show up on with emotional intelligence. There's some things you can't change. Uh stick with what you can change right now. And um I I think I also really appreciate just the the general view that you've brought uh about the fact that there is

Closing Thanks And Goodbye

Dr. Pelè 35:17

hope. Right? It's it's you know, you can actually get this done. Um I want to thank you for uh being a guest today. You uh really are a great teacher, and I'm I'm just honored to have uh learned from you a little bit going forward. Thank you.

Mickey Lebowitz 35:30

Well, back at you. Thank you so much for having me and for asking such thoughtful questions. That that was great.

Dr. Pelè 35:36

All right, we'll talk soon.

Mickey Lebowitz 35:38

I appreciate the time.

Dr. Pelè 35:40

All right, take care.