Episode 12 - Personal transformation

Welcome to The Imperfect Clinician.
It's time to wrap up season one of The Imperfect Clinician.
I'm Mike.
And I'm Yuen.
If you haven't had a chance to catch up on our episodes
or if you feel revisiting any of the subjects that we're talking about,
do it now.
Cue the music.
We made it to the end of our season one.
The Imperfect Clinician reached the imperfect end of the imperfect season.
But we're not alone.
We have you, our listener.
Thank you for joining us on our imperfect journey.
We hope you were able to relate, reflect and rise.
Okay, so let's compare before listening to us and after what has changed.
How is your awareness about yourself and how you react to situations?
How did we make you feel?
What do you want to feel?
Can we answer your burning questions or questions that you never thought you could ask?
Or maybe you have suggestions and expectations for us.
Maybe you are expecting more questions.
Just want to say a special thanks to those who have been emailing
and sending us DMs about your questions, thoughts and feedback.
Please keep them coming.
Oh my goodness.
We want to talk further about how to use the journey in our clinical practice
and interactions with others.
Maybe co-workers, colleagues, patients or loved ones.
Together we can create revolutions in our own lives
and that should be a step in changing the world around us.
I agree.
I think we need to remember whatever you practice and how you perceive yourself
is going to radiate to those around you, like children or colleagues.
Brene Brown says you cannot expect from your teams more than you yourself can deliver.
Actually, if you do not love yourself, it is going to be hard to love others.
If you do not practice self-compassion, you cannot expect your children to do it themselves.
If you don't practice vulnerability and courage, you can't expect the team to do the same
and there will be no creativity and innovation.
There will be barriers and casualties along the way.
But hey, revolution without blood isn't a revolution, metaphorically of course.
Now, how did the making of the podcast make you feel so far you in?
I am grateful to be part of your weekly listen
and you having the courage to reach out to us and slowly unravel your present self
so we can be courageous and be uncomfortable in our growth.
What about you?
Well, I'm personally so grateful that in your busy schedule you chose to spend time with us.
I mean, seriously, every minute you spend with us makes me feel really humbled
and I want to say that I understand better the reasons for doing it.
As it is a passion project, we feel really energized to come back in the new season.
I think that what we heard from you and what we've been talking about between ourselves,
I think there are still a lot of things that we can talk about.
To wrap up this season, I mean, to go back we can always discuss shame.
We soon discover that when we're looking at shame, it's a talk about power.
If you, a group of people or an institution, say that you are not worthy,
therefore inducing shame, it exerts power over you.
These are the things that we learned over this last season.
If you shame yourself, you create an imaginary person that, using your internal voice,
uses shame language on yourself and that imaginary person gains power over you.
I believe that it just belittles you and prevents you from growing, prevents from change.
When you demonstrate it to others, you are showing as leaders that it's acceptable
rather than being accountable for your words and actions.
I think it stops teams from trust, it prevents sense of belonging.
That is where shame becomes a powerful entity, preventing us from finding ourselves capable
of getting more self-aware in a positive way.
Becoming mindful of shame used by us and others is the first step in reducing its influence.
If you empower yourself, that will empower others.
You have to be the beacon. I truly believe that.
I mean, rebel and yell, find space for reflection and practice it daily.
I think when you summarize it that way, it helps to give me some clarity how even how
you speak to yourself in your head internally, that seeps through every part of your life.
It seeps through your work, it seeps through your social life, it seeps through your family life.
And when we start any conscious work on us as individuals, that feeling will then transform
our interaction within our teams, our colleagues, patients and families.
So when we invest in ourselves and give ourselves time, we have something in return.
And I think it's really, really important that we not just empower ourselves, but empower
other people around us so that we can build the space around us that is free of shame,
free of social phobias like sexism or racism, and focus on self-compassion, understanding,
embracing differences, because you might disagree to what I'm saying, but I don't want to argue.
I want to, first of all, be curious and understand where you're coming from.
And by doing that, I am embracing diversity and celebrating inclusion.
What do you think?
Well, I think you're absolutely spot on with the fact that when we become more aware of
how the successful teams are formed, we need to embrace inclusivity and making sure that
there is a diverse pool of characters, diverse pool of people who can contribute to it.
Because everybody's got something to give.
I'm a true believer in it.
And no matter what is your recruitment process, you always have to be aware that even sometimes
people that are not necessarily picked with the pre-assumption that they're going to be great
can always contribute.
You just have to sometimes open up the chance for them.
I think you have to give them the opportunity to express themselves, to find a voice ultimately.
I'm coming from a different country, working in a new country, and somebody gave me the chance.
And I want to open up to others.
It's nothing different when you, for example, bringing up new people to the profession.
You want to embrace their, well, academic knowledge, and you want to give them a little bit of
background of your experience to make sure that they can become better than you.
Because that's how you know progress.
You are going to be worse than people that come after you, ultimately, in the end.
Because we're going forward, I want to say.
And I think that through giving people a wider voice, through allowing people to contribute from
different backgrounds, from different experiences, from different ideas and thought processes,
I think that this can really make successful teams and make people happier, more fulfilled,
and just better.
I agree.
So for us to be able to help other people, we need to, first of all, have the awareness to help ourselves.
Would you agree?
Absolutely.
I mean, if we don't work on ourselves, we are wasting opportunity on trying to impact others.
So that really reminds me of this quote, that this is actually on my wall.
It's a quote from Dame Minouche Shafik, Director of London School of Economics.
She said, in the past, leaders are about muscle.
Now, they're about the brain.
And in the future, it's about the heart.
So what does it mean to you when you hear this quote, Mike?
Well, when we discussed it earlier, so I had a chance to think about it.
I thought that, well, actually, if you look at it, in the past, people were governed,
run, ruled by the strong, you know, by the muscle.
So people who were telling everybody else, yeah, warriors, you know.
But even if you look into more modern history, there were all strong characters that thought
that holding people by the throat would be a good idea.
And this was the age of muscle.
This was the age of individuals that were presumably in that era strong,
that were ready to lead and guide in a way.
And I think there is a little bit of merit in thinking that those people knew better than everybody else,
because they were stronger, they could flex their muscle.
That was, I believe that there is a lot of things to unpack their baggage,
okay, to look into how they developed into being such a successful muscle leader in a way.
And then when you look at the age of brains, this is, I think, where we are now.
We are now covered, flooded and absolutely drowned in data.
We have got all sorts of different metrics, we are going through very detailed target setting
and the things we know about the world around us, about the organizations we work in,
all the percentages and stats graphs and spreadsheets, this is just ultimately where the brain is.
So we analyze the data and we focus on where we can find those minimal gains.
And I think the new time is coming ultimately, because we can only analyze so much,
we can only make difference to the targets to a certain level.
I think the change is coming and I truly believe the new generation of people,
they are going to vote with their feelings, that there's going to be a potential for the age of heart.
This is where I think that those analog skills that we discussed in the first episode,
that's going to become prominent.
And I'm absolutely certain that organizations will have to take this into organization,
whether they are commercial organization or the governments, the feelings will be shared
and they will be shared much quicker and easier with the availability of the platforms
for people to communicate that way.
I think that the big organizations already starting to adapt to that model,
they start to work on how they are perceived, but they also starting to understand
that the brand that they're making, what they stand for cannot be faked that much anymore.
I think it's a very good thing.
I think caring for the customers, caring for your patients, caring for your staff
is going to become more transparent because there is more access to the, there is more tubes,
there's more voices that can expose your, I don't know, practices in the organizations
that can present fake picture of you.
I think there are two, I agree with what you're saying.
I think people are doing it for different reasons.
We're slowly moving towards, I'm doing it because I don't want to be, like you said,
found out in different ways, but also there have been so much evidence to show that if
you actually invest in the people, you get great quality sense of belonging.
You get better retention, you don't have people leaving, general job satisfaction.
And we mentioned about the creativity and innovation.
And there've been studies that shows the companies who have done this work and what difference
does it make.
And so we probably need to think medium and long-term in regards to living with our heart and
for us to understand other people's heart and positively influence them.
I think we have to start our own introspection.
And I think for this, this is where we, there is a place and there is a position for where we want to
champion those analog skills mentioned in the first episode.
I believe that our first season began to, only began to break down those components of ourselves
that requires, well, skillful nourishing.
I think we hope to dig deeper in the future into us and into the relationships with others.
I don't know, is there a recipe for recognizing our imperfections?
Are there any shortcuts?
Or I don't know, is it a lifelong process limited to a few people that decide to commit to it?
Can you start by, I don't know, praising yourself for doing something for yourself?
That might be just the first step, for example, to self-compassion and might trigger further reflection.
What do you think?
I think you can do both, the shortcuts and the long marathon, like you said.
Because I feel for myself, it's actually harder to start.
And in my journey, I started with being aware and just observing what is actually happening.
And then taking the one step forward, because I started with one thing,
that is practicing or changing the voices in my head to be a voice that would be what I said to you
or to my best friend, not something that I would just say to myself.
And I find it really hard, once I'm aware, to ignore it completely.
It's almost like you've seen something happen, but you don't want to do anything about it.
For me, that was really, really tricky.
And in my journey, I can regress because of any factors, whether I'm tired or for whichever reason.
But I feel that I always want to be a better version, like you, like we all do.
Because this is how we are conditioned as people, and especially as clinicians,
because we're always learning, always accepting where we are in terms of our clinical knowledge
and wanting to be better.
And so this is already a skill that we have as clinicians, or whether you're training to be one.
It's just moving the lens from a clinical perspective to a personal perspective
and see how that is having a ripple effect to everyone around us.
On that note, I also want to say that I don't feel like I, through this podcast
and through the route that we decided to follow, I don't class myself as a motivational speaker.
I don't class myself as a coach, like a business coach that tells you,
all right, do it, yeah, go on now.
We just want to put some questions out in the air.
It's just a generalisation of business coach.
Yeah, well, don't talk me on defining all the business coaches.
We want to fully, absolutely embrace if they are helping people, that's absolutely fine.
But I want to make sure that we just put the questions out there
and provoke people to be in charge of their change.
We don't want to change people. This is not our ambition.
We just want to put some questions out there to see if people can relate to them
and maybe start looking into themselves to see if they can change something
to make them happier, better, more fulfilled.
I agree. I don't think we can change anyone.
You probably have tried with people around you.
I can't change you or anyone else.
And for my own change, it has to start with me.
I need to want to change. I need to put things in place
for me to be able to embrace those changes.
And I hope our role here is to create a space
where everyone can be brave and discuss and reflect
and come to the community, whether it's a one-to-one,
whether you want to speak to us on a one-to-one,
that's why we get so much DMs,
or whether you want to discuss in the group,
in our Facebook groups or any groups that we have.
Feel free to do that.
Understand that the people in the discussion
are also going through changes themselves.
And you are encouraged to share your thoughts,
even though they might be very, very scary
and makes you feel very vulnerable.
There's a good chance we've been in a similar position too.
And we will be, and we are on a daily basis.
That just happens. It's a matter of life.
Okay, so now, shall we talk about the future?
Not the future of the world or anything,
just the future of the podcast.
Okay, so we're hoping that maybe in the future seasons,
we want to continue learning about ourselves and our audience.
We want to discuss our own and others' experiences.
Of course, as you are aware, we cannot provide answers,
but we can promise honest discussion
and ideas that you might find helpful in your journey.
We're still regular clinicians who gain experience
and develop our skills every day,
and we haven't got answers for everything,
but we are keen to learn.
Join discussion on our website.
There might be polls, there might be questions posed.
You can call us, leave voicemails, comment in socials,
send private messages, use any channel you want,
but do get involved in discussion.
We want to see if what we're talking about resonates.
We already know, but I think what we've realized now is
because we're talking about quite personal matters,
quite very private and very candid,
a lot of people decide to reach out to us on a personal level.
And I understand that sharing things to the wider public
requires a lot of courage and a lot of strength,
and we strongly support it, absolutely.
But feel free, even if you want to drop us a message
in any way, shape or form, we want to take it on board,
try to understand it and see if we can impact our thinking
by what you're telling us.
So the last thing we're going to say is thank you, thank you, thank you
from the bottom of our hearts for deciding to spend your time listening to us.
It means the world to us and we are very grateful
and we feel very privileged that we can be in a position
to encourage them to your daily routine and spend some time with us.
And we have a little surprise for you.
Straight from our little girl's head,
a little story should be recorded just for you.
Thank you.
One summer's Wednesday, Alien and Monster were looking for their friend Dragon.
Then they spotted a shiny small key.
Then they went off to see what the key was for.
First they went to a spooky old castle but the key was too small.
Then they went to a bright beach hut but the key did not fit.
Finally they went to a magical castle and the key fit.
Look, it's a dragon.
It's been Yuen and Mike and you have been listening to the Imperfect Clinician podcast.
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Thank you for listening.