What I Learned From My Facebook Haters

[00:00:00] Rachel: in our You Are not a Frog interviews, you often hear a little bit from me and a lot from our guests. Well, this week we are flipping the tables and we’ve got Mark Steadman, our wonderful podcast producer asking me some questions. And we thought as a bit of a summer special, it might be interesting to have a think about the podcast, where I got the stuff from and how I got into it in the first place, but also why I still struggle with a lot of this stuff.

[00:00:30] So Mark and I cover a whole range of topics on this podcast, from conflict and the difficulty I still have with giving challenging feedback, right the way through to how I struggle to put some of this in practice, even when I know it’s the right thing to do.

[00:00:45] We also go through some of the slightly negative feedback, that I have got on social media, and I’m going to directly answer some of those Facebook comments and talk about where they actually have a point.

[00:00:57] So, listen if you want to find out how a so-called resilience expert actually puts stuff into practice or not, and hear some of Mark and I’s top tips about how to approach things like conflict, where we’ve got those toxic voices in our heads, which cause us to not be our best selves.

[00:01:17] If you’re in a high stress, high stakes, still blank medicine, and you’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed, burning out or getting out are not your only options. I’m Dr. Rachel Morris, and welcome to You Are Not a Frog

[00:01:34] Mark: Rachel, um, it is a pleasure to welcome you to your own podcast.

[00:01:38] Rachel: I’m very pleased to be here, Mark. Thank you for having me.

[00:01:41] Mark: First time, first time, long time. excellent. Why don’t you, since, since this is how podcasts, uh, podcast episodes so often begin, um, why don’t you tell the listener a little bit about yourself, and the story and, and what brought you here.

[00:01:55] Rachel: Oh, goodness me. how

[00:01:56] Mark: know it’s hard, isn’t it? When you’re on the other end of

[00:01:58] Rachel: Yeah, it is. Okay. So, hi, I’m Rachel. I host the You are Not a Frog podcast. Um, I’m a former GP and I specialize in medical education, and now I’m on a mission to help doctors beat burnout and work happier.

[00:02:10] Mark: Of anything that you could have become a trainer in, uh, and help people with why burnout, uh, and why resilience?

[00:02:19] Rachel: It was very much accidental actually. So I did a career change about 10 years ago ’cause I realized I just wasn’t enjoying my current job. I was working part-time as a gp. I was working part-time at the University of Cambridge, I was on faculty teaching general practice.

[00:02:33] And because I had done a master’s in medical education and I was looking at reflective practice within that master’s, they then asked me to set up and lead the doctor as a professional course. And that was looking at all the, the softer skills of clinical practice. Although they are definitely not soft skills. They’re hard skills, but they’re not like direct, like they’re not sticking needle in people’s skills or diagnosing skills. They’re more of that teamwork, patient safety, things like that. And that got me very interested in the, the professional behavior of clever people, which are quite frankly sometimes was diabolical, um.

[00:03:05] And, like, I had another realization as well that next to my bed there was a pile of BMJs, the British Medical Journal, like up to here, all in their cellophane wrappers. And then on the other side of my bed, they were all my As my other half calls them self-help books, but as I’ll call it personal development, self-awareness books, which I absolutely loved. And I was reading those all the time and I realized that that was what I was really, really interested in.

[00:03:29] And so when I decided to, to look at what else I could do, I went on a health behavior change coaching course just to explore that. And it was, it was absolutely fantastic. I really enjoyed it. It was the first time anyone had taught me a different way to consult and I got really interested in coaching at that point. So then I trained as an executive coach and while I was doing that, I learned all these models that they just didn’t teach me in medical school, like, like the drama triangle or the, um, urgent important matrix and, and things that really helped me operate in daily life, which I started using.

[00:04:07] And it really transformed my life. And I thought, actually this needs to be shared with other people. And when I started doing the training, so I thought, well what, what can I do? I’m now a trained coach, I’ve got a background in education. Well, I can go in and I can train on wellbeing because I’m also a gp. I know how to, well, I should know how to look after myself and I should know about wellbeing. So that’s what people want.

[00:04:29] And my first training courses on wellbeing, honestly, they went down like a lead balloon. okay, I remember going into a, um, a law, um, company, to do a lunchtime session on wellbeing for women. And they’d got all these lawyers sat around the table, and there was me as a fairly, you know, naive new trainer going in and thought, well, I’ll, I’ll talk to ’em about wellbeing.

[00:04:52] And did, you know, some good content around wellbeing, and they were quite interested. And, but at the end of the session, one of them put their hands up and said, this is great, Rachel. And I’d, I’d love to do, I’d love to go for runs. I’d love to cook my own food without just buying takeaways the whole time. She said, but I’m expected to answer my emails within 30 seconds of receiving them.

[00:05:11] Mark: Ooh.

[00:05:12] Rachel: 30 seconds. I was like, really? And they’re like, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s just normal. I’m like. Oh my God. Well how on earth can you do any of this wellbeing stuff? Then they’re like, duh, that’s the problem.

[00:05:24] Mark: Well, first off, you should move to Slack ,’cause email’s not, you know?

[00:05:29] Rachel: exactly. Like that’s really bad. So, you know, I, and that was like, oh shit, you can’t teach wellbeing unless you have people that have got the time to look after themselves. ‘Cause wellbeing actually takes time. You know, I tell you, I’ve never been able to run 10 K, but I can guarantee it wouldn’t take me five minutes. It would take me more like an hour and a half. And, you know, you can’t, you can’t do a year of meditation in, in one day. You need, you need the time to do it, don’t you? But if you haven’t got any time, how are you gonna get time?

[00:06:00] So I thought, right, so what we need to teach now is time management. So did a lot of research and actually time management is something that I, I’m really interested in because I’ve never been very good at it because I’ve since realized that I have ADHD, and so I’m A pretty time blind, B very impulsive, C take on far too much, D like every shiny thing going. And so consequently get very, very overwhelmed very, very quickly. And all my life I’ve been looking at how can I organize myself a bit better?

[00:06:28] And so I’d read a lot of stuff about time management and all of which was very, very helpful. Like I think if you find a time management system and you follow it, that’s great. But then you’ve got another problem because any way of time management basically means you’ve got to work out what you’re gonna prioritize and what you’re not gonna prioritize. ’cause if you’ve got too much to do, you no amount of time management is gonna help you do it all. You’ve still gotta decide what you’re gonna do and what you’re not gonna do, and when you’re gonna stop working so that you can go and do that 10 k run.

[00:06:59] But that’s a problem because what if you’re in a job that just has unlimited demands and expectations of you? Then suddenly time management becomes about saying no and, and saying, well, I’m not gonna do this anymore. I’m gonna limit my time here. Good enough and done is better than perfect and pending. And that takes an entirely different skill that is now about how I’m thinking and the guilt and the shame life and fear that I fear that I, that I worry about if I don’t answer that email within 30 seconds like those lawyers had to do. So I’m like, oh, okay.

[00:07:33] So in order to keep yourself well, you’ve gotta manage your time. In order to manage your time, you’ve gotta get your head right and think differently so you don’t mind upsetting people and you’re not constantly feeling guilty that you’re not doing enough and all that. So then I started looking to mindset and, and it sort of, it sort of snowballed from there. So what on earth was your original question?

[00:07:51] Mark: Ah. checks notes, checks notes. Um, uh, I, I, I’m, I’m pretty sure you, we, we, we’ve covered it. But, um, I’m interested then in, there’s a tricky line when you are telling people there are things you could slash should do, and some people are gonna read that as a should, even if, you know, it isn’t presented as such. What is your approach when we are talking about the idea of resilience victim blaming?

[00:08:22] Rachel: And this is a really tricky one because actually we’ve been putting out some stuff on Facebook offering some sort of free tools and things like that, and we had someone getting very cross about the fact that we had, uh, suggested people might wanna download a, a free, a free toolkit we’ve got called the Nine Mistakes Doctors Make when they’re Burning Out. In fact, we, we can put that in the show notes if anybody wants it. But someone put How dare you suggest that doctors make mistakes and it’s not their fault that they’re burning out, it’s entirely due to the system.

[00:08:50] Mark: Hmm.

[00:08:50] Rachel: So that’s the resilience victim blaming, like, like you’re talking about, we are saying that it’s doctors’ fault that they’re burning out and that, like I said, it’s a fine line. It’s not your fault that you’re burning out. And that’s one of my messages, that if you put a human being under enough pressure for long enough, all the evidence shows us that, that they will burn out no matter how resilient you are. If you stick someone in a toxic system and, and nothing changes and they keep working, working, there’s no mitigating, um, circumstances, yeah, any human being will end up the, the wrong side of the burnout curve.

[00:09:25] But that doesn’t mean to say that, that there’s nothing we can do. So the system a hundred percent has to change. We know that everyone can see what’s happening in healthcare, well and social care. And actually it’s not just in the sort of public sector services. It, it, it’s everywhere, there’s this massive pandemic of burnout. But while we’re saying, well, I’m not gonna be okay until the system changes, that is a very powerless position to be in. And there’s nothing we can do about that. So you might as well just sit back and go, right, okay, burnout’s inevitable.

[00:09:56] But there are things that you can do individually to make things better for yourself that you do have control of and that you can do. So the answer to resilience victim blaming is sort of no, and, or, or yes and, and. That no, we are not blaming the victims, but we’re saying there’s a lot of stuff that’s outside your control, but there’s a lot of stuff that is in your control. And so if you, if you neglect to look at those things that are in your control, then you’ve missed a, you’ve missed a trick. ‘Cause if you’re just gonna sit there complaining and wait for the system to change, you are gonna be waiting an incredibly long time.

[00:10:35] Mark: One of the things that I know has come up in previous episodes, uh, is the Enneagram. And so much it feels like to me, so much of the stuff that you cover in this show is about, yes, we’ve got a lot of personal time management and personal, uh, responsibility or personal control, but there’s also a huge amount that is about dealing with colleagues, dealing with team members, team leaders, being a leader. And the Enneagram looks to me to be a useful way of getting an understanding about how humans interact and how different personality types bounce off each other. So what has been your relationship to and your interest in the the Enneagram?

[00:11:19] Rachel: I’ve been quite obsessed with personality profiles. Not, not quite sure why. I think anything that gives you a bit of awareness, um, is really key. In fact, when I was working at the university actually submitted a, a workshop at a conference, which was what’s profiling tool is best for medical students. And we looked at all the different ones. We looked at MBTI and Enneagram and Belbin. Oh, and there was something, and maybe the, the, the four colors, um, one.

[00:11:44] And i, I like anything that gives you some awareness and increases your awareness because it’s impossible to solve problems or deal with stuff if you are looking at the wrong issue, if you are looking at the wrong problem. And in fact, as, as a coach, often in a coaching session, most of the sessions like spent just trying to work out what the real issue is and what the real problem is you need to solve.

[00:12:08] And so what I like about the Enneagram and actually any of these profiles is that it’s a shortcut to be able to understand where the issues are. So whatever you think about Myers Briggs, whatever you think about the four colors, they are not the truth, by the way. They are no way the truth, but they are a model. And models can be useful. And if you have a model that other people understand as well, and it’s a shortcut for them, understanding what you are like, then you can get, you can get so much more clarity about your need.

[00:12:40] For example, if you look at Myers-Briggs, I’m a, I realized I’m a Myers Briggs P, which means I’m pretty unstructured. I sort of know where I’m going, but I like to go all the way around the houses and I’ll get to it last minute. Now, for someone who’s a J who likes to know where they’re going and all the steps along the way, I’m a bit of a nightmare to work with. Because it’s very worrying for them to think, oh, she’s a J, but, and that can be really irritating for me because they’re like constantly on my back going, well, hang on, you haven’t sent me this at this right time.

[00:13:07] Mark: I felt like Rachel was doing my voice, then.

[00:13:09] Rachel: That’s, that’s,

[00:13:10] Mark: uh, I think I need the intro by this time.

[00:13:13] Rachel: Oh my God. This is just gonna turn into a podcast therapy session,

[00:13:17] Mark: It’s, it’s either that or a roast,

[00:13:19] Rachel: It Are you a I? It genuinely.

[00:13:22] Mark: I think. I think when I did Myers Briggs, I think, I think J came up. Yeah.

[00:13:25] Rachel: So it’s, it’s, it’s, for Js it’s very hard to work with a P because it’s actually very anxiety inducing. Because if it was you, you’d have the stuff ready a week in advance, it would get to you. You have no where you are with it. For a P, it is just, we almost need, we need that deadline to actually get our arses in And actually I think that’s an ADHD thing as well. We are often motivated by the amygdala going, oh, no deadline to, to actually get something done. But just that understanding is really helpful.

[00:13:55] So I now, I now know that mark’s a J. So the last minute stuff doesn’t sit very well with you. So even if I don’t change, but again, Mark, I know this is annoying, but it’s gonna come to you tomorrow afternoon at four. It’s probably more helpful than you just not knowing when it’s gonna come and having second a

[00:14:13] Mark: Or if, yeah. Yeah,

[00:14:14] Rachel: Or if it’s gonna come

[00:14:15] Mark: And that, that wasn’t directed at you. That’s just a general, that’s just a general thing, you know, because, yeah, yeah.

[00:14:19] Rachel: And, and when you think about when we work together in teams, you know, we work together well, I have a bit of a thing about teams in healthcare. We don’t actually work in teams, we work in working groups in our own little offices, and we get together in a little working group and then we go back into on, on our own. But in the interactions we have, we often don’t understand each other.

[00:14:36] You know, if you are a GP partner, you are running a business with that, with, with these other people. And if I don’t understand your way of operating in the world, if I don’t understand, like again, Myers Briggs, um, I can talk about Myers Briggs is probably a bit more authority ’cause I am Myres Briggs facilitator trained. So as an extrovert, I need to talk to understand what I’m thinking. Like I can’t really come up with ideas on my own. I have to be talking to someone else. Also, I recharge by being with other people.

[00:15:04] Now, introverts, it’s, it’s not that they’re not sociable, but they recharge by being on their own. So they need breaks away on their own. They need to know what they’re thinking before they say it. Now, if you are an introvert in a load of meetings of extroverts, I think that’s probably a real nightmare. So the extroverts would just be like talking the whole time and talking crap. ’cause they don’t actually know what they’re thinking. And the introverts thinking, well, I’ve worked out what I’m thinking now, but I can’t a, I can’t get a word in edgeways. Or if someone springs, springs a surprise on them, they don’t, they don’t have enough time to like formulate their thoughts before they answer.

[00:15:34] So just knowing that, knowing that actually an introvert probably needs to know about the decisions they’re gonna be talking about before the meeting so they can think them through first and then the extroverts just need to shut up, that can be really helpful. Right. In fact, I was in the car, the, my husband’s an introvert ju just, but um, I was just chatting away and at one point he said, Rachel, can you just stop talking please.

[00:15:57] Mark: Oh, oh, wounding.

[00:16:01] Rachel: I was like, would do you not? Are you not interested in what we have to say? He’s like, it’s just too much.

[00:16:07] So yes. Rude man. Anyway, it’s fine. ’cause he, he doesn’t listen to the podcast. My mother listens to the podcast, but he doesn’t.

[00:16:13] But yeah, it, I think it just helps you rub along. And, and the Enneagram I think is particularly insightful. I was introduced, um, I’d heard about it before. The person that really got me in into the Enneagram was, was Annie who runs our, our commercial training. Um, and she’s the most amazing Enneagram facilitator. Looked into it really deeply, and if anyone’s interested, she’s done episodes on the Enneagram, which she can check out.

[00:16:35] But it’s numbered one to nine. I’m not gonna go through them all now, but if you know what somebody else is, what number they are, you know, what’s sort of motivating them. So I’m a seven. I’m motivated by wanting to feel free, wanting to have fun, wanting to enjoy life. And if there’s anything that puts limits on me, I can feel a bit like, oh, that’s not very fun, is it? Now what number are you, Mark?

[00:16:57] Mark: Nine

[00:16:58] Rachel: Nine. So let now let, let me say what, so, so you tell me you’re a nine now. This is what I would then infer about. You tell me it’s right. So you are motivated by keeping the peace, by having everyone around you happy and getting on. And so if I was in a meeting and made a suggestion, which you could see upset someone over there, that would make you quite, quite angsty and, um, feel quite uncomfortable.

[00:17:21] Mark: Yes. Uh, all of those things. Yes.

[00:17:24] Rachel: So there we go. Shortcut for me, understanding possibly how, how you tick. And noticing that if you get upset in a meeting, it might be not because you hate me, but because there’s other people that are feeling a bit uncomfortable and that that’s making you really, really uncomfortable. And so then I can make more allowances or change my own behavior to rub along better.

[00:17:42] And in interesting, one of our, um, trainers, Corrina Gordon-Barnes, who’s again been on the podcast quite a lot, is a trained Enneagram, deliverer or whatever you call it, coach? Um, facilitator coach. And she does Enneagram work with couples and, and she’s had couples that have thought they were pretty much definitely gonna spit up, but then had done the Enneagram and just understood each other better and gone, oh, I can see why, I can see why you do that now. It’s not ’cause you hate me, it’s just ’cause you are really focused on, you’re motivated in a slightly, slightly different way.

[00:18:13] So I just think if you are in a team and you don’t understand the other, the other people in your team, the, the very easy thing to do is just do some sort of profiling or, or understanding of each other, and it, it just makes it so much easier.

[00:18:27] Mark: Are there any stories within your own team that can bear that out?

[00:18:33] Rachel: We had, um, someone working in the, in the admin department who was a six, loyal, they’re described as loyal skeptics. And yes, I, I used to bring her ideas and, um, she’d be like, Hmm, not sure about that. And then after a while she’d be like the biggest cheerleader of the i of the idea. But her first reaction would always be, Hmm, not sure about that. But actually it was a really helpful thing to have on the team because you were then able to explore the downsides of the idea. And then once she was on board, she was like the, the biggest cheerleader and really pushed it forward. So, yes, um, and that was really helpful to know that she wasn’t just being difficult, it was just actually the way she was. And, and I always think actually the more diversity we have in the team, the better. Really. Like if you had a team full of 7s it would be complete disaster.

[00:19:29] Mark: Just be takeaway boxes just as high as

[00:19:31] Rachel: Yeah. We’d just be out partying the whole time. And we had somebody else who was a two, which is a, a, a helper. And she would always say yes to everything ’cause she really wanted to help. So I sort of learned to actually check in a bit later going, do you really have the capacity to do that

[00:19:51] Mark: Or is that just your twoness?

[00:19:53] Rachel: Is that gonna be it’s bit, and then she’d think and go, no, that’s fine or, Hmm, actually you are right. Maybe I, maybe I can’t. So that avoids a lot. A whole heap of pain actually.

[00:20:04] Mark: So we’ve, uh, so you, you’ve just recorded an episode, uh, that went out, uh, last week on conflict and why we need more conflict, uh, in teams potentially. Either through the, the lens of the Enneagram or through, um, the, the Shapes toolkit, what are some of the ways that you have maybe headed off conflict, uh, on the pass or, or had to deal with conflict within your own team?

[00:20:30] Rachel: That’s a really good question, and I need to start with the caveat. I’m really bad at conflict. It’s actually the one thing I fear more than everything

[00:20:39] Mark: Same,

[00:20:40] Rachel: Yeah, which, which my family laugh at. They’re like, you are constantly telling us off, Mum.

[00:20:46] Mark: yeah, but doesn’t mean conflict. That’s, you know, it’s a different

[00:20:48] Rachel: that’s just like, yeah, exactly. Exactly. I think, and, and then going back to the ADHD thing, I think as a child, I was quite an intelligent girl who was maybe a bit outspoken, I was labeled tagless and I was impulsive and I used to speak out and spot issues with things and um, and I was criticized quite a lot, actually criticized quite heavily ’cause I wasn’t just a quiet little girl that got on with stuff.

[00:21:16] And I think I’ve, I’ve developed this thing that I think you can do with A DHT and I’m gonna get the name wrong. It’s called Rejection Sensitivity Disorder.

[00:21:25] Mark: Yeah.

[00:21:26] Rachel: So I’m really, really sensitive to upsetting people ’cause I’ve had this sort of narrative in my head that I’m the sort of person that upsets people even though I don’t have any evidence of that now.

[00:21:38] Mark: No, and, and, uh, I, I don’t like to interrupt you, but I, I also think, I feel like this comes through a lot in the solo episodes and as I’m listening to them, I dunno what it’s like for you, a dear listener, but as I’m listening to them, I’m sort of going, I think you’re quite mean to yourself. Um, and, and, yeah, I can only imagine that’s kind of where that comes from. ‘Cause it does seem, you know, it does seem like you, you are a harsh critic.

[00:21:59] Rachel: Oh, well we are all our harshest critics, aren’t we? I think. And unless you’re a narcissist, but it Welcome inside the Mind of a Doctor, Mark. We’re all so fiercely self-critical. Um, yeah, so I think I, I know that the story in my head is probably very different from what’s out there. So as a consequence, I’ve found it very difficult to actually state what my needs are. Like actually, I need this from you and you’ve not delivered that. So can I call it out and say You haven’t done that? And, and I think in the past I haven’t said it, or I’ve left it too long, and then I’ve got cross about it. So then it’s come out as bad conflict rather than just being able to state it. So I, I really struggled with giving people honest, clear feedback about what I want, what I need, what I like, what I don’t like, which is why I’ve got quite obsessed with thinking so how, how do I, how do you have these conflict conversations?

[00:22:48] Because one thing I’ve noticed in healthcare and teams, actually we, like I said in the last I’ve episode of the podcast, we don’t conflict enough. Everyone is very scared of that. We are really scared of giving people difficult feedback or challenging feedback.

[00:23:01] And I hate having challenging feedback, but I’m always really grateful when somebody cares about me enough to give it to me. Because how on earth can we change and develop and grow and do good if, if no one’s ever telling us when it’s not working? And I struggle to this day to give, to give people feedback and, and as a result I end up saying yes to things when, I mean, might mean not sure or no, then that’s not kind either, ’cause that’s not clear, and clear is kind. And so you end up overpromising or you end up not really saying what you think, but then just being really resentful.

[00:23:38] And I think with doctors what we do is we just go, yeah, yeah, I’ll do that, ’cause you feel, well I’m responsible, I should do it. And then you feel really resentful that you have to do it. And that just transfers to every, every walk of life. And you know, you replicate it in whatever business you’re in and blah, blah blah. Hence I’m trying to get better at conflict, but good conflict. Like I’m not trying to get better at getting shouting at everybody.

[00:24:02] Mark: Starting a fight

[00:24:03] Rachel: Yeah. But getting back to saying, actually no, that doesn’t work for me and here’s why. And um, this is what I need. And being really clear. And I’ve started really looking down and exploring the whole non-violent communication thing, ’cause I, I really like that, that method as a way of like, let’s state what I need. Let’s state the impact and how, how that made me feel. And so why I am requesting this.

[00:24:25] I haven’t cracked it. It’s something that I want to do more on. And our shapes help with that because I think when you, with conflict, you’ve got to start off with why we all fear it, and the amygdala action. Because the one very fundamental question that we are all asking all the time is, am I safe? Am I safe here? And a lot of us, and a lot of us in healthcare, doctors, nurses, managers, lots of healthcare professionals have this massive chimp, massively developed amygdala that just reacts to everything in a very defensive way when we’re criticized or when we don’t like stuff, it is just trying to keep us safe. It’s just trying to keep us safe.

[00:25:05] And you can sort of see why when we’ve been taught by humiliation, we are cons. You know, there’s the threat of being sued., There’s the threat of complaints, um, we want to be seen as being good people, want to be seen as helpful. Therefore our amygdala react really, really quickly when the story in our head is we’re not doing a good job, or someone’s criticizing us, or something like that because we don’t feel safe.

[00:25:26] And so one of our shapes that in the corner shape helps us identify when that is happening. And the stories that we’re telling ourselves that mean, that mean that’s happening. Because we’re always catastrophizing telling ourselves the worst case scenario. And most of the time, and this is why it’s useful to understand other people, most of the time we’ve got it completely wrong.

[00:25:46] Really silly example, we, me and my other half, again, I can tell stories because he’s not, he’s not gonna listen, on a train. We were going to the airport and he, he’d hurt his back recently. And so he was, I think I, I put my suitcase and it was gonna roll. It’s gonna roll around. And so I lifted it up to put it on the, on, on the top. And I said, no, no, you don’t do it. I’ll do it. And he, he thought I was like, trying to, I, I was saying you’d put it in the wrong place. I’m trying to control you, you know, that. And actually I was thinking, oh my goodness, it’s gonna roll around and I don’t want him to lift it ’cause of his back, you know?

[00:26:20] And so we got into this whole. Why, why can’t you leave me to do my own suitcase type? Ridiculous, ridiculous argument. When I, I was, I was trying to be thoughtful. He was trying to be thoughtful, but we’d both assume that the other one was just trying to be annoying. It was just so stupid. It was really, really stupid.

[00:26:41] But that, but that’s how disagreements and conflicts start. And I think a lot of the time in conflict actually, you, you’re actually on the same page. It’s like, that thing didn’t work and I can see that that thing didn’t work. So how can we actually work together better so it does work? But the problem is the conflict comes when I’m so defensive about what I’m, I’m, I’m in self protection

[00:27:00] Mark: Yeah, it’s like that, that primary drive is, is to, is to be safe, but the next, almost the next level of the hierarchy of, of needs, it’s like, yes, we want this project or whatever it is that we’re working on, we want that to go well. And so we know that we’re both working towards the same ends, but at the same time, that higher need, that higher level need is very much just like, yeah, but I wanna be safe.

[00:27:21] Rachel: And it has been really helpful for me learning that phrase that we teach everyone in the training. Just saying, look, the story in my head here is. You know, so Mark, the story in my head when I sent you that episode really, really late, is that you thought I was useless idiot. Why, you know? And you’re like, well, that wasn’t exactly right. No, the story in my head was, I was really worried ’cause I was going out that evening and I, and I want to a good job for you, and I didn’t have time to do it the next day, I was like, oh, well okay. You didn’t think I was useless, idiot. No, no, of course.

[00:27:47] Mark: No,

[00:27:49] Rachel: Most definitely not.

[00:27:50] Mark: Um, well, listen, I think we should, we should take, uh, take a quick break. Um, and when we come back, I think we, we should model some of this good behavior of dealing with conflict, um, and perhaps, uh, address some challenging feedback. How’s that sound?

[00:28:04] Rachel: Yeah, let’s go for it.

[00:28:06] Mark:

[00:28:06] So we have some comments from, from members of the general public who have interacted in some way with, uh, with the, the You Are Not Frog brand, um, and don’t necessarily have the most helpful or constructive things to say. However they are in, in, in many ways, uh, useful for us because I think there are some questions maybe that perhaps linger in our minds or, you know, we, we are thinking here about, uh, why should we listen to Rachel? Um, and so with that in mind, um, should we go through, how do you feel about going through some of these, uh, some of these comments? Are you strapped in?

[00:28:43] Rachel: Go for it. I’ve got my big girl pants on. Let’s, let’s hear the, let’s hear the haters.

[00:28:47] Mark: Um, shake it off just th third Taylor Swift reference in, uh, in the podcast?

[00:28:51] Rachel: Yeah, I know we like to have, in fact, my, my two daughters are going to see Taylor Swift in August, so, you know. Yeah. If you know, you know.

[00:28:57] Mark: Indeed. Um, okay.

[00:29:00] Why should we do what you say? Um, it clearly didn’t work for you, all of this, uh, burnout, uh, resilience malarkey because you, I’m paraphrasing because you left general practice, so, um, yeah, why should we do what you say?

[00:29:16] Rachel: Mm. So that was the, that was the comment on Facebook. Yeah, that is, that is a real ouchie one. the answer to that is you shouldn’t do what I say. I don’t think you should do what anyone else says, really. Because there’s so many people giving advice out there. And all of it conflicts. And if you try to do everything, you just, it just wouldn’t work, would it?

[00:29:34] So, and I think I wrote this under the comment, like just listen, and, and if it doesn’t work for you, don’t do it. Like I, I only share stuff that I’ve tried myself and that’s worked for me or there’s stuff on the podcast that other people are saying that guests that I’ve been talking to that I think are pretty useful and, and I, and I like what they’re saying. So I think it’s really dangerous if you blindly follow anybody, without just testing out or, or you try something and you think, is this working or not? And if it’s not working, then don’t do it. Um, ’cause if you just do it because someone said it, then that’s what’s called a blind follower, and not, that’s not what you want.

[00:30:12] And what I’m trying to do is just set, share useful things that I have heard and that I have found to work in my own life. Now, your life might be totally different, and so the context of what’s going on with you might mean that it, it doesn’t work. So if it doesn’t work, don’t listen to me.

[00:30:30] I, I really worry sometimes about the influence of, of certain figures in, in football, we all really worry, don’t we, about the influence of certain figures in popular life. But we are big fans. Me and my family are big fans of the, uh, the Rest is Politics podcasts, uh, Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart. And so we went to hear Rory Stewart speaking at the Corn Exchange recently, and he’s really intelligent man. He’s got some really good ideas. Um, I really like him, but not all his ideas are, uh, are brilliant. Not all of them will work. But because he is been on this podcast, he’s very personable and he is very intelligent and he gets on well with Alistair Campbell, I do think that, like if he stood for Prime Minister, I would know we just had a general election and we’ve got a, I’m a fan of Kier, which is good. But like, I thought it, it was just before the election actually. I thought, gosh, if he suddenly stood for Prime Minister, I reckon he’d probably get in everyone thinks he’s so wonderful, because they’ve heard him so much on the podcast and they heard him talking and so they trust him, um, because they’ve listened a lot.

[00:31:33] And so I think there is a danger of, of, of. Just blindly following somebody that you’ve listened to a lot. Just ’cause you like what they say in one dimension doesn’t mean they’re right about this thing over there. So I would hate anybody listening to this podcast just to blindly do whatever I say without testing that out and and sense checking it for their own situation and saying, is this, is this gonna work? Is it not gonna work?

[00:31:57] Where did it come from as well? is it based on real life experience? Is it based on evidence and, and research? Is it a model which may or may not apply? Or is it, you know, something fundamental but you know, you, you really need to start using that sort of, well, I was about to say evidence-based approach. Sometimes we can get too evidence-based and go, well, where’s the evidence for that? Because I don’t see evidence, I’m not gonna do But a lot of this psychological stuff, it’s very difficult to get actual evidence, but it’s like real life, real life face value. Is that gonna work in your workplace or not?

[00:32:26] There is one caveat to this though. Because recently I’ve come across this sort of phrase of choosing to be confused. There’s a, a chap called Donald Miller that, that runs a lot of really good sort of business and marketing stuff. And he said that he was having a coaching session and his coach, he was saying to his coach, I don’t know what to do, I dunno what to do. And his coach said, stop pretending to be confused. You know what do, you’re just too scared to do it.

[00:32:54] And so I think sometimes when it comes to like con particularly conflict and difficult conversations and making difficult decisions, sometimes we do know what we do, know what we need to do, and we are just a bit scared to do it. So I wonder sometimes if, if what the podcast, uh, does is just mainly give people permission to do that thing that they knew they had to do in the first place. And maybe give people some of the how to do it. Because I can’t tell you what to do. Of course they can’t. And I shouldn’t either.

[00:33:25] Mark: More to the point.

[00:33:26] Rachel: Yeah. But maybe we do get a lot of emails in from people going, just thank you. You know, I was listening to this, the point where I was really struggling and it just gave, made me feel that it was okay to do this or take time off or ask this question or reduce stuff here or change to this or whatever. And that really, really helped.

[00:33:44] Mark: This one’s, this one’s gonna, I think this one’s gonna hurt. Um, so let’s, let’s, let’s just rip off, rip off the, the, the, the plaster as quickly as possible. You are not even a real GP.

[00:33:56] Rachel: Well, it’s true. I mean, it’s not, it, it’s just, it is true. I’m not a practicing gp. No.

[00:34:01] Mark: When you’ve got the training

[00:34:03] Rachel: I’ve got, yeah, I’ve done it for 20 years. So I am a qualified doctor. I still have, um, I’m registered with the GMC. I gave back my license to practice a couple of years ago because, um, I, I, I wasn’t under the revalidation process and I know that if I ever go back then I will need to retrain because there’ll be so much. So, no, I’m not a practicing gp and so I’m always very careful to use the term terms, former GP, ’cause I want to be totally transparent.

[00:34:27] But I do think that has given a bit of an advantage in that what I do now, ’cause I go and do a lot of conferences and talk and I meet a lot of people, is I get a bit more of a bird’s eye view about what’s going on over the country, and I get to interact with lots of people in lots of different practices versus just working in depth in one practice. So the sort of stuff I’m talking about, I think I’m able to make it generalizable to lots of gps as opposed to just one lot of gps working in a particular type of practice.

[00:34:56] But you know, I mean it is a bit mad, isn’t it? You’d never say a tennis coach, I. I can’t coach tennis because they’re no longer on the professional circuits. I mean, you know, so I don’t, I don’t, that doesn’t, that doesn’t bother me too much.

[00:35:08] What probably bothers me more is the slight, slight feeling of guilt. You know, when you know that people are out there, churning through the patients, and it’s really, really hard out there and they’re just, you know, working in very difficult circumstances. And even though I know the podcast is, is helping people, I do see the people that are down there on the front line doing a most fantastic job and, and just totally take my hat off to them.

[00:35:33] Mark: Oh, absolutely. I think, you know, there, there’s a a point here and I, I, I want to try and make it without sounding, uh, glib or trite, but there is, you have an opportunity to, um, help more people who help more people, um, because of your position in the, in, if you’re like in the stack, uh, in, in, you know, in the, in the pyramid. Um, you are at the position where you can provide tools and frameworks and, and, um, things to, to help with mind shift, um, mindset for the people who are, as you say, sort of in, in the front line.

[00:36:10] And, and so, even, you know, even, even doctors need doctors coaches, coaches need coaches. You know, therapists need therapists. Um, you know, you, you are still, you are still doing, doing that work and, and that work is needed.

[00:36:22] Rachel: I think sometimes it is helpful to get that bit of sort of distance and, and, and perspective that you can’t necessarily see when you are, when you are, when you’re in the trenches. Also, you know, I just think there is something about taking my own medicine. I’m very, very clear that I think the way ahead for people to work is to stick to their zone of genius and to craft their jobs, whether inside or outside medicine, inside or outside healthcare to do more of what they enjoy within their, within their work.

[00:36:50] And one of the reasons I did the career change is that the, the job never particularly suited me in the first place when I did a strength survey, which is not personality profile, but I’d also recommend people do that, one of my top strengths at the time was like winning others over. I was like, well, well how, how helpful is that when I’m like prescribing antibiotics and stuff actually? And also that one of them was connecting ideas. So I’m like, oh, okay, well, GP how does, how does that work? And I felt like I could do that a little bit more in the teaching role I was in then the sort of day-to-day practice.

[00:37:24] And when I looked at my strength survey a few months ago, I was thought, oh my goodness, it, it, it absolutely corresponded to what I do now, which is the podcast and the speak keynote talks and, and the training, much, much more to the, the role I was in there.

[00:37:39] Now whenever anyone does a career change, whenever anybody leaves medicine, there’s always this massive thing about your identity, and did it mean I couldn’t cut it or was I not good enough? And, and I’ve come to the point where I’m thinking, well, those questions, they’re just irrelevant. Doesn’t actually the wrong questions to be answering. The, the question is now, am I doing something that is benefiting other people and am I doing something that I’m good at and that I enjoy? Because that is better for the world than me doing something that I was okay at, but not not that brilliant at, and that, and that wasn’t really suiting me and my skill mix.

[00:38:14] So I think we need to get over the guilt, get over the shame, we gotta get over the identity loss that we feel when we do transition in roles. But I do think we need to get better at working in our zone of genius in what, whatever role we’re in.

[00:38:29] Mark: I believe you, you, uh, posted, uh, uh, a video, um, about ways that people can deal, um, with, with burnout. And one of the comments was, um, very, the, the simple, uh, sentence, stop overworking them for a start. We, I know we’ve, we’ve covered a little, uh, of this already, but it’s just the system. Um, there’s, there’s, you know, it, it’s, it’s all the system’s fault. Is there anything else here that, that, um, we can think about?

[00:39:00] Rachel: Yeah, I mean, just, just hear the tone of that comment. Stop overworking them for a start. Like there is someone who’s overworking someone else. Who is overworking them?

[00:39:09] Mark: It’s not, it’s not the host of this podcast. Like it’s, you know, you I don’t Yeah. Yeah.

[00:39:13] Rachel: But who it’s like, is it the NHS? Is it the patients? Is it I I tend to think that. It’s generally ourselves that are overworking ourselves. Now, that’s not, that’s not, that’s probably gonna piss a lot of people off. There is always too much work to do. There is always too much work and, and people can demand so much of you. And people are demanding more and more and more and people are feeling trapped. so I want to acknowledge that. However a lot of people are worried that they’re gonna lose their job or people are gonna think badly of them. If they set those boundaries in their work and they say, enough is enough. I’m unsafe. Now I need to go home, or I can’t do that, or No, I’m not taking on that project.

[00:39:51] But I was, uh, talking to someone last night in our, in our Shapes Academy and she was saying that they have a colleague at work that never takes on extra work that they know will always say no to this or that, and is recognized as a fantastic doctor and everybody respects them.

[00:40:08] Now someone else will be thinking, yeah, but if everyone was like that, then how would the service exist? But I’m not thinking about the service, I’m thinking about individuals. And you know, I think once individuals start drawing the line and saying, no, this is how we’re gonna work, that gives permission for other people to do that, gives permission for the juniors to do that, and then you’ve got this groundswell of people going, no, enough is enough. This, this is the boundary, this is how we’re gonna work. And then change happens. So you actually end up influencing the system by making the personal change for yourself. So it’s very difficult, you know, it’s, it’s not as easy, it’s not a black and white as I’m talking about, but, but this, stop overworking them for a start, you know, that, that is entirely putting the blame on somebody else. And when you’re blaming somebody else, you, you lose all your power for doing anything about it.

[00:40:52] Mark: So, uh, dear listener, this is, uh, you know, if you take one thing away from this is that by listening to this podcast, you are part of a movement. You are not just spending, you know, your time in, uh, you know, listen, listening to, to Rachel and I, um, you are, you know, you are, you are part of a groundswell. You are part of a, a movement of change. Um, and, um, that’s, that makes you pretty cool.

[00:41:16] Rachel: Doesn’t it just.

[00:41:17] Mark: Mm-Hmm. Um, okay, last one. Um, I think this is a, this is a fun one. I’ve got 3000 emails in my inbox already. I haven’t got time for this. Um, I think, I think this one was, was accusing you of spamming them, which I, it feels a little bit harsh ’cause I mean, you know, it’s, it, it was their choice to opt in. Um, but yes, how, how can one extra thing for us to do or think about help when it feels like we’ve got 1,000,001 things to already do.

[00:41:43] Rachel: Yeah, I mean there’s, there’s someone who’s totally overwhelmed, right? They really, they really are. And, and unfortunately, I think that’s how people feel, isn’t it? Oh, there’s just, there’s just one more thing to do. And in fact, I, I had an email from someone saying, stop sending me emails. I’m feeling overwhelmed as as it is. And when we actually look back, they had opened, every single one of the emails had been sent. And I’m thinking, well. You can either unsubscribe or just don’t open them.

[00:42:09] We are all bu bombarded by too many emails, aren’t we? And the fact that this person felt that they ought to open them rather than just deleting them is, is a mindset, isn’t it, that I’ve got, because someone sent it to me. I’m beholden to you to open it,

[00:42:21] Mark: It comes back to that question of control again. That person has control over their inbox. They do, they do have the ability to, to, like you said, look for the unsubscribe link or send a reply back to say, unsubscribe or find another way in their email app to, to, you know, block the sender. Please don’t do that.

[00:42:39] Um, but you know, that is within your control, rather than surrendering that control, throwing you, prostrating yourself in front of someone and saying, you have to stop. It’s like, me, you could choose to tell me to stop and I will stop.

[00:42:52] Rachel: And it brings back to boundaries again. So inbox is really difficult. So we don’t have any control over what lands in our inbox apart from clicking that unsubscribe button. Now, because we live in a digital world, the only way I have to tell people about what’s coming up on the podcast or tell them about some of the training and stuff that we offer is, is via email. So, so we do send out emails, but we, we have on our email list now made it so that you can just opt into an email once a month and you don’t have to have anything else, or you can just opt into the frog. So, ha, have a look at that, by the way, for people that are wanting to do that.

[00:43:28] But I had another comment in a, a talk I was doing by someone saying it’s not fair. My work keep emailing me when I’m on annual leave asking me to do extra shifts that they keep encroaching on my boundaries. And, and probably six months ago I would’ve said, yes, that, that’s really awful. You need to have a conversation with them. But I heard another really helpful podcast, and I think I did a quick dip about this, about the only person that can enforce your boundaries is you.

[00:43:52] Like, so don’t check your work emails when you’re on annual leave, that is the boundary that you can enforce. Now, some poor bod in medical staffing’s just firing out emails to all the juniors going, can you fill this shift? They’re not gonna look through and think who’s on annually, who’s on not, and if you’re gonna get offended that someone’s encroached on your boundary, well, people encroach on your boundaries all the time. All the time, but it’s whether you let them or not.

[00:44:16] So the boundaries are something that you have to enforce. So in the emails. There are email rules that you can do. There’s the unsubscribe button. You can just don’t have to open. You can delete them. But again, it’s about thinking differently. It’s about the mindset of I don’t have to respond to every email. And by the way, apparently every email you respond to generates 1.7 extra emails. So it’s just like this, this vortex of email nightmare.

[00:44:40] Mark: Especially if you get onto one of those chains where someone’s accidentally CC’d, uh, an entire department, and then every single one of them replies with, I think you’ve accidentally CC’d everyone, and then you just, it just, goes on and on and on. Infinite emails.

[00:44:55] Rachel: think someone did that on the NHS email once and they crashed the entire system. They replied to all, all however many, hundreds of thousands of people that worked in the NHS, or millions, millions of people working in the NHS.

[00:45:06] Um, so I just think back to that comment. That’s someone who is feeling totally out control and it’s like one more straw that’s gonna break the camels back. In fact, actually the person that put the comment, I don’t think was even looking back, they’re just like, oh, I will get spammed if I, if, I do this. And so it’s a bit of a self protection thing, but, and that’s a problem. That’s how we feel when we are overwhelmed and burnt out. And so I think sometimes we then ignore the things that actually would help us because it just feels like another thing to do.

[00:45:34] And that’s another problem with resilience training. It just feels like another thing I’ve got to do or wellbeing. It’s like another thing I have to do in my week to, you know, just another commitment or whatever. So. I’m very keen on, on making all this stuff not just another commitment, but actually something that genuinely will be joyful and make your life better. And so you’ll want to do it. It won’t feel like just another commitment.

[00:45:58] Mark: Well that is, that takes us out of the, uh, out of the Thunder Dome. Um, and, uh, so I think, uh, I, I think congratulations are in order for that. Um, I do have a, a slightly spiky question for you though, as we, as we think about rounding up, and then I should ask you for your three top tips.

[00:46:17] Um, you have a sense of responsibility for, uh, this podcast. You are aware of the audience, you are aware of the number of people who listen, and I know that’s not something that you take lightly.

[00:46:36] Rachel: Yes, I’ve been really blown away by the response to this podcast, and I’m so honored and privileged that so many people listen and recommend to their friends. And I’ve lost count on the amount of people that come up to me and said, oh, my praiser recommended this to me, or My coach recommended your podcast. And so I’m very, very thankful and very, very grateful.

[00:46:55] I do feel the responsibility that I’m not giving advice that’s really unhelpful. Or the responsibility to not give advice that’s just way off the mark and really unhelpful. So in a way, those, those comments on Facebook are, are really helpful because they help me check in with myself and check in that it’s okay.

[00:47:15] And of course it isn’t just me sitting here doing the podcast, you know, I’ve got you and lots of other people on the team as well. So it, it, even though I’m like the face of it, there’s a whole, there’s a whole back team in Wild Monday who we think about what topics would be good, what we’re hearing on the ground. And, you know, I have lots of friends and family who work in healthcare, so I definitely got my ear to the ground and I can, I know when something’s gonna be massively off mark.

[00:47:37] But I, I do, I do feel quite worried at times that I am gonna give advice that it’s just wrong, but, you know, so, uh, so I’m very grateful for the listeners that you know, that will use their judgment and think is this gonna work for me or is it not gonna work for me? And I’m also very grateful for people that write in with suggestions and say, I think you need to be thinking about this. Or people that do comment and say, actually I disagree about this because of this. That’s all really helpful as well.

[00:48:09] ‘Cause I think all this stuff needs to be a dialogue. And if, and if there’s anyone out there that’s saying, this is how you should do it and this is how I got it totally right then I think that’s a massive red flag.

[00:48:21] Mark: I find certainty to be a red flag when anyone is certain about anything. I’m looking under the floorboards to see where the stinky bodies are buried ’cause there’s something not right. uh, hello@youarenotafrog.com for, uh, for feedback?

[00:48:34] Rachel: hello@youarenotafrog.com. We, we’d love to know. And if people got guest suggestions as well. ’cause I’m, I’m very clear that I get pitched a lot of guests onto the podcast at the moment, uh, as, as you know, Mark, and, you know, and I. I ignore the vast majority of them because I want people that I know are gonna speak to the audience that actually know healthcare, that know what it’s like. Um, and, and a lot of those are not the people that have published hundreds of books and are really famous. They’re the people that are working on the ground. So if people know people or might be you yourself, but they wanna come on and, and, and talk, then I’d, I’d love to hear from you. ’cause that’s where I get the best guesses, recommendations from listeners.

[00:49:12] Mark: Rachel, thank you for, uh, for, for giving, um, me and the listener the opportunity to peek a little bit more, uh, uh, inside the podcast. Um, where should people go if they wanna find out more about you?

[00:49:25] Rachel: Well, youarenotafrog.com, check all that out and you can see, um, our various courses and things like that. We’ll put some stuff in the show notes as well. We’ll put the, the nine Mistakes. We’ve got an SOS overwhelm, um, toolkit as well. So if you are feeling really overwhelmed, just like you know, one more email’s gonna push you over the edge, then do download that. That’s all totally free, so check that out.

[00:49:44] And Mark, I just wanted to say as well, it’s really nice for people to see you ’cause you are the, you are the person behind the scenes who actually makes it good. So thank you for all the effort you put in.

[00:49:53] Mark: Um, I don’t make it good, I just make it smaller, but, um,

[00:49:57] Rachel: Yeah, mark has So look, listeners, Marcus has saved you like hours and hours and hours because he can down so much of my crap. You gonna be very grateful to this man.

[00:50:07] Mark: Well, I’m grateful to you, uh, because I get to hear these episodes before anybody else and, and so I, you know, I get to sit between, uh, seven to 21 days with some of these ideas and go, Ooh, yeah, actually that’s a really nice idea. I’m not gonna tell anyone. Um, that’s really good. Um, so, uh, yes, thank you for, for what you do and um, please keep doing it.

[00:50:26] Rachel: Will do. And I hope everyone has a good and restful summer. Thank you.

[00:50:30] Thanks for listening. Don’t forget, we provide a self coaching CPD workbook for every episode. You can sign up for it via the link in the show notes. And if this episode was helpful, then please share it with a friend. Get in touch with any comments or suggestions at hello@youarenotafrog.com. I love to hear from you. And finally, if you’re enjoying the podcast, please rate it and leave a review wherever you’re listening. It really helps. Bye for now.