How Curiosity and Questions Can Transform Your Leadership

We explore how leaders in eye care can stop playing fixer and start coaching in ways that reduce burnout, build real capability, and improve clinic flow. We share scripts, mindset prompts, and time tactics that make coaching up and coaching inward both doable and effective.

• difference between consulting, mentoring and coaching
• why curiosity and silence unlock better answers
• aligning on shared goals before hard talks
• a script for coaching up late physicians
• using empathy without excusing behavior
• handling defensiveness and timing the follow up
• self-coaching prompts to clear bias
• common mindset traps and imposter feelings
• calendar audits and meeting triage to free time
• scaling a coaching culture across the clinic

Contact Savory at https://www.savorycoaching.com/ or https://www.linkedin.com/in/savory-turman/ 

===

This episode is brought to you by Seasoned Advice HR, where I help eye care clinics to hire, retain, and manage better — helping you get Better Results Through People. Learn more at seasoned-advice.com. 

Get my free HR and leadership downloads here: https://www.seasoned-advice.com/signup-for-free-downloads

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Greetings and welcome to iCare Leadership Live. This is the podcast for iCare leaders who want to level up their leadership, create better cultures, and improve the financial results of their clinics. Now, let's join the show. My guest today is Savory Terman. And welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Thanks, Mike. Good to be here.

Why “Leadership Coach” Not “Executive Coach”

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, it's interesting. I'm gonna, I'm gonna break the the the the what do they call it, the fourth wall. I don't know. You know, we were just talking beforehand about how you like to refer to yourself and you know, coach, executive coach, leadership coach. And you had some interesting, you had an interesting take on that, which I think it really it helps to highlight how you look at the at what you do. But you're a coach, but can you kind of talk about what we were just talking about there?

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of us use the terminology executive coach just because that's really well recognized throughout industry. I find that I have an issue with that, uh, just ethically, internally, because within organizations, often executives are the people who coaching is provided for, professional coaching is provided for. And certainly that has impact and that can be really monumental. I also find that executives sometimes really have less FaceTime and touch the least amount of people within the organization. Yeah. The people who really need leadership coaching and to discover their own leadership style and who they are and how they want to present and how they lead their people well are the people who are on the front line. Those leaders, the middle management, those in director roles that are kind of climbing to that C-suite level, those are the folks who we really should be investing in a lot more in terms of coaching. And so I lean into the terminology leadership coach, primarily because whether we're in a formal leadership position or we we're leading in our families or in our friend groups and social circles. And also we're the CEOs of our lives. So I I lend more myself to the term leadership coach. It's how do you discover how you want to lead your life, your team, your business, your organization?

SPEAKER_02 2:23

Cool, awesome. Well, I'm honored to have you here, and thank you for that explanation because I think it really kind of illustrates how you look at the work that you do. And and we're here to talk about coaching, coaching your team. And you know, this is iCare Leadership Live, and and and if whoever's out there listening is probably in the iCare world, ophthalmology or optometry, and you're probably a leader or you're an aspiring leader, and coaching might be something that you might need to do at some point, right?

Coaching vs Consulting vs Mentoring

SPEAKER_00 2:59

Yeah, absolutely. And I think in within the workforce, ophthalmology, healthcare, everything. The word coaching is used, and it's such a spectrum word, and it's used from everything from disciplinary actions or behavior performance changes to succession planning, personal or professional development, it's everything in between. So it's it's a big spectrum to cover when you use the word coaching, it's a heavy lift for that word.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Yeah, you're right. I've definitely, as an HR person, I've definitely, you know, heard people use it in the more negative connotation. We need to have a coaching. We're gonna do a little coaching here, you know, and and that could be really serious or just kind of serious. Um, but I'm guessing that you're not really the disciplinary type of coach. Um, you know, what are what are some of the typical types of conversations that you have as a coach?

SPEAKER_00 3:57

So most of my coaching is the fact that I'm an external source for people now. I'm I'm not an in-organization coach. I don't work within a company. And so I'm coaching people, my clients specifically to their agendas, whatever those things are. I'm not necessarily coming in as a consultant, and I'd love to take a second to just differentiate some different types of coaching that we use. Okay. In the nomenclature, we have consulting is more of you tell me what's going on, I tell you how you should handle it. And that's what we do a lot of times as leaders. And people will bring us questions. We're in the positions that we're in as managers. I myself was a manager within a large organization, and I got to that place because I'm good at fixing things. I fix problems and I'm good at that, right? Um, and so that's how a lot of us got into our roles without formal management training, is we were really good at fixing problems. And so people bring things to us and we fix them. But often what happens is the more we do that, the more people come to us and the more stuff we have to fix, and the closer we get to burnout because we're doing so much more. And when I'm working with leaders, a lot of times I'm hearing things like, I don't have time to develop my people. I've got too much to do, there's too much work, we don't have the budget to train our leaders. We don't, there's so many limiting factors for leaders within the eye care, the healthcare, the global workplace uh organization, that we we just have a really hard time carving that out. So we go into this fixer mode, this consultant mode. Bring me your problems, let me give you an answer. Bring me your problems, let me give you an answer. Sometimes we get to shift into more of a mentor type role where I've done this before. That's kind of the perspective. I'm the mentor, I've done this before. Let me tell you or lead you in how you can do this as well. So we see this being referred to a lot in social media and other types of communication. People will say, Oh, I'm a business coach. I've built my business to figures, I can teach you how to do it too. Okay. That's a mentor, that's an instructor, that's somebody telling you, this has been my experience, this is how I've successfully done it. Let me introduce you to those principles as well. So we're using we're hearing the word coach used in that space, but really truly, that's what people are doing. They're giving you mentoring and it has so much value.

unknown 6:34

Yeah.

The Cost Of Being The Fixer

SPEAKER_00 6:34

How it differs now for me is I am working with people to try to discover their own answers within themselves. And that in and of itself can be a little confusing because you might say, well, obviously, I can figure out my own answers if I have them. I can figure them out. Um, ultimately, sometimes we can't. The neuroscience behind it is we we have blocks, we have blinders, we have things that get in our way. So having somebody to help us process those things, listen completely and fully, and ask the questions can be really impactful in that space. So that's where I get to serve my clients now.

SPEAKER_02 7:15

Okay, sure. Yeah. So that's interesting. I think about, you know, as when I've been a leader in-house, I've probably done mostly the mentoring and the fixing.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_02 7:28

And maybe not so much of the coaching um aspect. And so I think um, I guess my my curiosity is like, well, is coaching, quote unquote, something that is even appropriate for people who are in-house? Is or should they leave the coaching to um, you know, the outside experts?

SPEAKER_00 7:49

I think you can do both. Um, I think it can be in-house, and I think there's a time and place for it. Not every situation allows that space. I jokingly say it's kind of like teaching your kids how to tie their shoes. You know, um, sometimes you're in a hurry, you're late to work, you got to get stuff done, right? So you tie the shoes. But if you never take the time to sit down and make the little bunny ears and do all of the things and let them make the mistakes and have the space and the time and the patience to help them get there, what ends up happening is you're tying their shoes for a prom, right? It doesn't serve you, it doesn't serve them. And so you can't expect growth if you haven't given some time and given some energy and effort into that. So I think there's a space for that in-house. And if you step back and go, okay, we're all on the same page. I want my employee to do well at work. They want to do well at work. Most people don't wake up in the morning and say, How can I really screw my day up today? You know, most people want to do a great job. So you you sort of already have the same agenda. How do you get the processes flowing? What are your techniques? What are your tools to start to help people to develop that processing themselves so they don't have to come to you to fix every single time?

SPEAKER_02 9:14

Okay, okay, that makes sense. I love the the shoe tying analogy. It kind of hits home for me as a as a dad of a 10-year-old who is maybe using some could use some coaching on the shoe tying department. Um okay, so there's a real benefit to to coaching, I think is what I'm getting from you. And the benefit is you can help that person fish for themselves, right? You know, as opposed to giving them a fish or teaching them to fish. Um what is um what's maybe one technique that let's say I'm a practice administrator, maybe I'm a physician and I'm running a practice. You know, what is a technique that I could apply to to start to get some of that benefit?

SPEAKER_00 10:05

I think probably the easiest thing that we can do is ask better questions. Okay. Um, leading with curiosity, I think, is a really good tip for people. I say that because our brains are wired to fill in gaps that we don't have and to complete those gaps and come up with a story.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Okay.

Sponsor Message And HR Focus

SPEAKER_00 10:27

So we've already, when I say we, as managers, as people, we've already created and crafted a story in our minds when we show up for a conversation most of the time. Sometimes we have data gaps and we we substitute our own belief systems or we substitute our own knowledge and we come out with a verdict or a conclusion. And as a manager, you have to realize not only is that happening in your brain, that's happening in the brain of the person that you're sitting there talking to. That's how we're hardwired. So often, as managers, we're trying to convince an already decided jury that they need to change their verdict. That's a heavy load, right? Um, and so ultimately, by going in with more questions and leading with more curiosity, that can be helpful. And that can be helpful in disciplinary conversations and initial conversations when you're setting the tone for a project you want someone to lead, trying to get alignment there, coaching up if you have a disagreement with your physician and you don't know how to talk about it, you know, all of those things can be really helpful.

Coaching Up: Addressing Late Physicians

SPEAKER_02 11:42

This show is sponsored by Seasoned Advice HR Services, where I help eye care businesses to make more money and save more money by hiring better, retaining better, and reducing your HR risk. If you would like an HR assessment or ongoing HR support, please reach out to me at seasoned-advice.com. Let's do a for instance here because I really like the coaching up. That was one that kind of caught my um my ear there. So let's say I'm a practice administrator and I am frustrated a little bit because I don't feel like my my my physician owner or the or the my main you know go-to doctor. Um, maybe they're doing some behaviors that are counterproductive, in my view. Um, it could be anything. Um, so how could I approach that person with a coaching mindset, you know, and a questioning mindset?

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Yeah. So let me let me choose a behavior that I I've heard about a lot when I was in practice, that I had to address a lot when I was in practice. The doctor who really wants to stay on time, but they show up to clinic 40 minutes late.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

Okay. I've never heard of that. Wink wink.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

I get staff complaining about that. I used to get staff complaining about that. And it's hard because it's your boss, maybe they're the company owner. So it's like, well, it's their company, they can do what they want. But then everybody's dealing with the pushback from the patients, and everybody's staying late. And then you as a manager getting hit for overtime, and all of these things are going on. And so often I would bring that to the physician in the mindset that, hey, I'm not here to fix the guy. I'm here to address the problem or gal in this situation. I'm not here to fix the doctor, I'm here to address the problem with them, right? So it's not, I'm going into it with the mindset that we're on the opposite sides. I'm going into it with the mindset that it's not my job to fix this, it's my job to bring it up, to surface it, and let's have a conversation about it. Right. So I would go into that conversation with an observation and then a question.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

So the observation is, Dr. Mike, I understand that we want to keep clinic on time. You've shared with me some struggles that you've had with clinic staying on time. I've noticed that I usually don't see you in clinic until 9:45 in the morning when we start at nine. I'm wondering, or how would you like to work together to make sure we stay on time when your arrival time is behind? Should we adjust the schedule? You get you can start to play with more questions if you're feeling kind of nervous. You can offer some ideas. For most people, I like to tell them sit in the silence. Ask the question, sit in the silence. It's very uncomfortable at first, but the silence is where the magic happens because that jury in their brain is going, Oh, well, if you look at it, I want to stay on time. And uh, you know, so it it allows for that processing to happen. So if you can, if you can give yourself that little pause and let yourself sit in the awkwardness of the silence, then they can come to conclusions in their head. That's how I would approach that.

SPEAKER_02 15:20

Okay, so it sounded like, and that was a great little two-step uh approach that you kind of outlined, with that first step that I heard being like, I'm kind of setting our common ground here. Is that kind of what you were trying to go for? Of like, hey, look, we I know we have some common ground that that's that's known.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Yeah, because immediately when you start questioning someone, you know that there may be some defensiveness. So a lot of times we ourselves get in the mindset that we have to overcome the defensiveness that they have. Okay, we don't have to overcome the defensiveness, right? We just need to remind, hey, we're on the same page. I'm not here to fix you, I'm here to surface the issue. We both have this common goal. Yeah, we both want to win, we both want to leave at five, we both want patients happy, we both want staff happy, we want overtime to go down. All of those things are important to both of us. Here's my observations. What are we gonna do?

Handling Defensiveness With Empathy

SPEAKER_02 16:26

What can we do? So, what let's say that I'm Dr. Mike here in this situation, and maybe I get defensive because because I can I can smell where we're going with this, and I don't like where it's going. Yeah, and I'm like well, savory, you know. I'm a bit I'm busy and you don't know what I have to deal with. And so um, you know, you're just gonna have to be you're just gonna have to understand that this is my life, and I'm and I'm one of the doctors.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

Yeah, I mean go ahead. Finish your disagreement, Dr. Mike.

SPEAKER_02 17:02

Oh no, that's all I need to say to you, Sabory.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

Yeah, you know, I I fully get that. I get that we all have a lot going on outside of this company. I totally understand that, and I totally also understand the fact that you want to run your practice the way you'd like to run your practice. The the dilemma that I'm finding is that you you have these expectations of how the practice would run. And I need to either adjust those expectations for my for the team and our schedule, or I need your help in adjusting when you're when you're coming into the clinic. If there's another option, if you have another solution, I'm certainly open. Let's problem solve this together, right? So bring it back to the fact that we're problem solving, we're not on opposite sides of this fence.

SPEAKER_02 17:55

I love it, I love it. Um, because you're you are trying to create a collaborative conversation here, and which is especially important, you know, if you're talking to someone uh senior to you, right? Because you can't approach that and say, hey, this is how it's gonna be, and when are you gonna start showing up on time? So this is a super awesome ninja technique. Another ninja technique I I think I heard you use, which was you agreed with the pushback at first. You found a way to kind of agree with it, which was you said, uh, you know what, I get it. We all have things going on. So that was like that was a very nice move you used right there.

Ask Better Questions And Use Silence

SPEAKER_00 18:39

That's empathy, that's empathy, and uh too often people confuse empathy with sympathy and empathy with excusing behavior. Empathy is look, you're a person, I'm a person. I get it. However, the requirements on us as leaders within the organization, those don't change, right? I'm honoring your humanity, but I'm still asking you for a level of performance that meets expectations. And that works with doctors or staff. But let me throw a lifeline to the administrator. Having been on the opposite side with Dr. Mike, having been on the administrator side, there are times when that defensive wall is so hard, or they're having a moment, or maybe you pick the wrong moment to go to them with this conversation and they come after you, right? If it's really emotionally heightened for either one, just say, you know, I'm throwing this out at you for thought. Can we circle back to this Friday before clinic? Or can we circle back to this tomorrow or during the lunch break or whatever the situation may be, so that they do have time to complete that processing cycle and problem solve in their own head now that you surface the issue. So don't, I'm not saying that you have to stay with the fight until they get the answer, yeah, any of those things. And this for staff too. Sometimes you have to surface it, give them what you want to talk about, and just say, hey, can we circle back on Monday, follow up and see where your head's at? And those types of conversations are so much more effective.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

Yeah, because sometimes people they get, you know, they get amygdala hijacked, right? And then the moment and they can't function, right? Is that kind of what goes on there?

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Yeah, it's totally what goes on, Mike. And also keep in mind you've had some time to think about this. Your amygdala had its time to get a little worked up, to get those emotions and to go through the loop. Um, you've already done that work. You're hitting them with this information new. So they have to now process through that. And also keeping in mind, this is going to add another layer to it, but we all have different amygdalas. They work the same, but we have different storage there. We have different memories, we have different baggage, we have different feelings and beliefs and emotions. And that's not to say that you have to solve everybody's, but what you have to understand is there's so much more to it than just I don't want to do what you told me to do.

SPEAKER_02 21:12

Right. Well, wow, that was a great place to start. But we got so much uh richness there with that one example. And wow, what a great way to illustrate, you know, a tip or a you know, something that you've taken away from coaching, uh, which is you know, ask better questions. And we we kind of we got a whole bunch of tips through that. Um is there another if is there another technique that you think um administrators would be smart to try to implement more in their interpersonal, you know, dealings with with their staff?

Turn Coaching Inward: Self Questions

SPEAKER_00 21:55

I think the the one thing, and I want to turn it back on administrators a little bit more. More in terms of not necessarily how do you do it outward, but how do you take how do you do it inward? Um, I want to apply the technique a little bit to self because we in our earnestness to be incredible leaders, myself included, I did this as well. We wanna, we want to be the all-knowing, the all-fixing, the you know, the people for we want to be for our people. We want to do the things, we wanna do it all. And unfortunately, that's that's not really possible for for us because we are humans as well. So I'd love to offer some ideas on how we can turn some questions inward to help us is we try to figure out our mindset when we go into things.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Um, with my coaching clients, I will jokingly tell them it's my job to work myself out of a job. So I try to give tools and tips and techniques and a toolkit of questions that you can ask yourself to coach yourself a little bit. Now, I have my own coach, but I also have a toolkit of questions that I use to coach myself. So um, when I'm coaching managers, a lot of times I ask them to step back and ask themselves something comes up, a project, an issue, a problem, what am I telling myself about this? Because you are in fact creating that same storyline that your team members are creating in their head. You're filling in the gaps. And that's a great second question is what gaps do I have in my data and my knowledge, right? What blanks are there in my my storytelling spreadsheet up in my head? And how do I fill in those blanks? Another great question is how am I connecting this story to me personally? What am I telling? Yeah, what am I telling myself about what this means to me? So for example, an employee isn't doing what they're supposed to be doing, right? And let's say your leader calls you out on it, like, hey, you know, that tech isn't doing what they I thought you told them to, and you're immediately going, oh, so he doesn't think I'm a good leader, right? Or you're immediately going, if I were better, this person would behave differently. Right. Um, and some of that comes from your own value system, your own beliefs, the things that you learned, right? And in in leadership coaching, sometimes we start with certain things and then we end up in places that leaders will look at me and go, How did we get here? And it's because we're trying to unravel those stories that are going on subconsciously in your head. So stopping and asking yourself those questions can help you get a leg up on your mindset going into these conversations. So you're not going in in a defensive place or in a place where you're feeling a certain kind of way, and therefore you're projecting onto somebody else.

SPEAKER_02 25:20

Yeah, you've got to. I love I love the idea of doing the inner work, you know. Yeah. You know, you're not getting triggered, or you try to figure out well, what is it that's emotionally triggering here for me?

SPEAKER_00 25:35

Yeah. I I think that all of what we, well, I shouldn't say all of what we do. I'm sure there are bosses out there who just want to do a terrible job, but um, most of us don't, most of us are coming from a really earnest, really honest place, and we want to be great leaders. Um, most of us became leaders because we're really good at our job, and like I said, fixing problems. And somebody said, here, now be these people's boss. And we're like, uh, how do we do that? Right. And so we have a lot of preconceived notions. We have to trial and error. I know God knows I did. Um, I know I made mistakes and I tried to apologize for the ones that I could, but I learned from each of them. And I think that's the best we can expect in and hope for as leaders. Some of these tools and tips and being really intentional about how we move about our space and grow, those can help us accelerate that growth and leadership capability sooner rather than later. And that's beneficial to all of us.

Common Mindset Traps And Time

SPEAKER_02 26:43

You know, when you were talking about thinking about the story that you're telling yourself and asking yourself, what does this, what does this mean about me as a person? Yeah, it made me think, you know, a lot of times we are all kind of telling ourselves similar stories, but we think we're the only one, right? Um, and we think everyone else has it together, and I'm the only one who doesn't know, and then the whole um, you know, uh imposter syndrome thing. So I'm curious, you know, from the people you've coached, you've probably coached a lot of people in similar roles to practice administrator and and leaders. You know, what are some of the common mindset traps and stories that people tell themselves that you think others might want to know that they're actually maybe more common than what they might think they are.

Bold Coaching On Priorities

SPEAKER_00 27:46

Yeah, I I think you touched on one of them that's huge is everyone else knows or everyone else could do it better, or everyone else has under this under control. And what I often will share with people is what you see other people are doing, that's their opening night performance. That's their Instagram page, right? You're you what you see about yourself, that's the behind-the-scenes footage, right? And you don't get the chance to see that with other people, and you don't necessarily know where those other people are. I invite people a lot to, if you have a trusted relationship with that person that you admire, go to them and say, you know, I've noticed, Mike, that you're incredible at podcasting. It makes me feel a little like nervous to think about that. Can you share with me your experience to getting to this point, to getting to this level? And then they can share with you, and you might share with us as audience listeners that, hey, the first one I feel like I look back now on and I'm like, oh, you know, you can share with us your journey so that we can normalize it a little bit in our head so that we don't feel as alone, because that's what happens is we start to question ourselves, we start to isolate and feel like we're in a uh bubble where nobody else can reach us. And then our autonomic nervous system goes a little haywire, and we start getting into the fight or fight or fear or freeze or fawn or all of the things, and and we don't even realize it. That's happening at such a subconscious level that we don't really have the intention around it. So so stopping and having those questions can be really impactful in that space. I would say the other thing that I hear from a lot of leaders is I don't have the time. I don't have the time, I don't have the time. And my thing is always, let's step back and look. What are you spending time on that really you shouldn't be spending time on? Right? We all have the same 24 hours. So if Mike can do it, how am I allotting my 24 hours that's different than Mike? Right. And so it's stepping back and going, how can we reprioritize? How can we look at time? And for me, I coach a lot of executives who have really busy calendars, and it's we start with the calendar review. We together start looking at things. And what I find very often is we attend a lot of meetings that aren't necessary, just for informational purposes. That's why that's like watching a 24-hour news station for 24 hours. Do you really need to do that? Will it benefit you? Right. Um, and so it's stepping back and getting getting a little bit more selective on what is in fact necessary to help you drive the needle, what you can get executive summaries from, those types of things. Um I personally can say um my last few years in practice, I had an amazing partner in our organizational leadership um team or executive team. Shout out Jackie if you're listening. Um Jackie's amazing. But Jackie and I would go to different meetings throughout the day, and then we both had to travel from the different clinics to our home. And we would get on a phone call on the Bluetooth while we were driving and catch each other up on what happened in the meetings, so that we gave each other an executive summary, so we're both informed, but we both didn't have to be in two places at once. That was monumental, and it was a small shift that we made. And yeah, she might have been sad she had to listen to me instead of some music on the way home, but but it was really effective for both of us.

SPEAKER_02 31:33

Cool, yeah. So, okay, yeah, not just looking at the at the inner world and delving into your inner child, but we're talking about, you know, let's look at your schedule, let's look at how you do things. And so as a coach, you kind of have to do wear all those hats, it sounds like.

SPEAKER_00 31:50

Yeah, yeah. And as a coach, as a professional coach, when I do get that defensiveness from clients who are executives who are like, no, but you don't understand. I have to, it's like, okay, well, let's adjust expectations then. Right. And I I'm I've been told I'm a bold coach. So I'll ask stuff like, okay, so where are you gonna get this time? You say you have to have this time and you can't get it from anywhere else. Where are you gonna get it? And I will sit in the silence of that to allow them to kind of figure that out.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

Right. And and quite honestly, there are times, I don't want to oversimplify this, there are times where there is no more minute um allotment to be found in somebody's schedule. So then it is okay, let's step back and say, are we realistic with our goals? Right? Can you spend four hours in the gym if you have to work this many hours and be with your family and be with your friends? Do we need to adjust expectations?

SPEAKER_01 32:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:52

And that's just what a coach can help you do is to bring the clarity around what are your goals? Should your goals shift? How should that work? And a lot of times I find that I'm not talking people out of stuff, I'm just surfacing the things that they're running into that can't get them unstuck.

SPEAKER_02 33:11

And so that it kind of seems like almost all problems are probably mindset problems because I'll give you an example. A lot of times something will fall in my lap or someone will say, Hey, can you do this? And my first thought is, I don't have time for that. There's no way I'm gonna get that done. And I think it's a technical issue of like limited time, but really it's more of just a mindset issue that I need to unlock and realize, oh, maybe this really is doable. Would you say that's fair that most problems are probably more like mindset problems than anything else?

Personal Journey And Passion For Coaching

SPEAKER_00 33:48

I think yes, and so I I think certainly there are problems that are bigger than a mindset. Um, however, I think by tapping into the mindset and tapping into the stories, we can sometimes recognize that maybe that isn't our problem to solve, or maybe that isn't the direction we want to go in. I work with a lot of people who are like, I'm maxed out, I'm burned out at my company. I think I need a new job. And it's like, do you though? Let's stop and let's look at your current job and let's look at the mindset and the expectations and the things that are happening. Um, and sometimes it is. Sometimes I coach people out of their companies. Um, and most of the time when that happens, it's a really good thing for everybody. But that being said, not everything is mindset, but a lot of it is, Mike. I think you hit it. A lot of it is, and if nothing else, it's it's getting clarity. It's just the clarity of I'm trying to do something that's impossible. And I'm holding myself to that standard of trying to get 28 hours out of my day. And no wonder I feel defeated. No wonder I feel like I can never accomplish anything because I'm trying to get three, three, four more hours out of my day that it's impossible. You're you're chasing that, and it's just the clarity. It's not you're a bad person, it's not a character flaw. Sure. Right. And so I think a lot of us need to hear that.

SPEAKER_02 35:24

Yeah, awesome. Well, um, you know, I guess my last question is, you know, you have a you have a lot of passion around this. Um what and this is more of a personal question, I guess. Is what do you think it says about you that that this has become like your passion? You know, you worked in in healthcare directly, you were a leader, and and you've shifted, you know, what what does it say about you that you that you're so excited about this work?

SPEAKER_00 35:52

So when I first saw an eye behind a microscope, it was love at first sight. I've never experienced that with a person, but I've experienced that with an eyeball. Love at first sight. It's true, it's real, it happened. And I thought I would be in ophthalmology my entire career, running a clinic, involved in that eye part of things, the anatomy, the physiology. I call myself an eyeball nerd. I just love it so much. Um, what I found was throughout my journey and working my way up through the organization, I've been in eye care since I was 17, which, you know, contrary to the lack of gray hair, is a long time ago. So I I've been in love with the eye for a very, very long time. Throughout the course of that, I learned how to develop my own leadership style. And I got to partner with people to develop their own, not to make them savory 2.0s, but to help them figure out how they wanted to show up and become leaders. And I got to see that happen with my coworkers in beautiful ways. And I fell in love with that too. And so when I first started coaching, I thought the bulk of my work would be in ophthalmology. I realized that this part of developing ourselves as humans and human behavior, that transcends industries. I get to work with people all over the world. I think healthcare is maybe 25% of what I do. I do so much with leadership coaching outside of the healthcare space because we're all kind of running into a lot of the same constraints. The other piece of it is, you know, I've done work, I've worked with a coach for a number of years, and the impact that she's made in my life has been significant. And just like a lot of therapists will tell you, good therapists have therapists, good coaches have coaches. You know, we we recognize the limitations of our own selves. And so we work with people. And I think what it says for me is that I've seen the difference that this can make in my life in real time by being able to break down some of these preconceived notions that I have and work through some of my baggage. I've been able to see the difference that it made for me. And so that helping people, serving people aspect of healthcare that I've always been in love with translates in somewhat on a deeper level, especially when I can bring this to teamwork, when I can bring this to groups of people who maybe I teach them how to interact differently, how to hold staff meetings differently, um, how to give feedback differently. I've done that in some behavioral health groups in in my area, and it's made a huge difference both in their interaction with each other and their interaction with parents of kids that they work with. And so I think that's what it says. I think I've experienced this change and this difference uh in my own life. And I wanna I want to step in that gap for other people.

How To Connect With Savory

SPEAKER_02 38:51

Awesome. Well, your passion shines through savory. Thank you so much for being on the show. How can people get in touch with you if they want to learn more about what you do?

SPEAKER_00 38:59

Yeah, well, I'm obviously on LinkedIn, so you can find me there. My website is savorycoaching.com. And then I my email is super easy. It's savory at savory termin.com. So very easy to find me any which way you look. Um, and I have a name like Savory, so I can't I can't really hide.

SPEAKER_02 39:18

Well, it was only a natural for Savory to be a guest of mine, being that my business is called seasoned advice. So that's very culinary uh in our mindset. Um thanks again, Savory. I really appreciate it. I'll drop all those links into the show notes, um, you know, for the recorded versions of this show so people can get in touch with you easier.

SPEAKER_00 39:41

Yeah, absolutely. And I'm always open for email questions and things like that because I I had a lot of mentors throughout my career and still reach out uh for mentor and help. And so if there's any ever anything I can do to be helpful to people in the eyeball world, once an eyeball nerd, always an eyeball nerd. So I'm happy to do that.

SPEAKER_02 40:02

Well, that brings this episode of iCare Leadership Live to a conclusion. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the show on your podcast app and share it with someone who would value the content. I promise to bring you more guests and content to help make you a better iCare clinical leader. I also invite you to subscribe to my HR newsletter for iCare leaders. You can find information about that at seasoned advice.com. Now go out there and lead with confidence.