A mindset that overcomes limiting beliefs, coupled with focused action in a few areas, is key to successful career transitioning for physician entrepreneurs.

Spencer Baron wrote in his recent book, Secrets of the Game, “A superstar athlete’s most powerful tool is his mind.” (p.49)

I had second thoughts about reviewing this book until I reached Chapter 4 “A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste.” It began with a quote from Jason Taylor, defensive end of the Miami Dolphins and Defensive Player of the Year in 2006:

“Pressure does one of two things to people. It either crushes you or turns you into a diamond.”

Dr. Baron makes the case that athletes become superstars because they believe that they are capable of greatness (p.46). Once people control their minds, they control their physical and psychologic pain.

Mental toughness, which results from the practice of reframing negative experiences as learning and growth, leads to consistent performance, irrespective of time, place, or circumstance (p.50).

As I mentioned in Collaborative Resilience, resilience derives from focusing on the present and future rather than whining about the past. Resilient athletes emerge from challenges feeling productive, empowered, and inspired. Dr. Baron uses the metaphor of palm trees that sway in a hurricane, in contrast to more rigid oak trees whose branches are broken in windstorms.

Dr. Baron concludes the chapter with, “If you want to see a superstar, go find a losing team and see who keeps pushing himself and his team beyond their horizons and the seductive courtship offered by depression and disappointment.Now there’s your winner!”

He describes mental secrets of superstar athletes in Chapter 5 (p. 55-71), who:

•Change their vocabulary to eliminate exaggeration, overgeneralization, and despair

•Demonstrate strong personal presence; I believe that physician presence derives from choosing to exist at a higher, more positive outlook and energy state; after we watch a scary movie, we realize that the human mind-body axis does not know the difference between screen visualization (fantasy) and what we refer to as reality; we can influence our reality by the thoughts and visualizations that we send to our brain

•Choose to associate with people who make them want to evolve into a better person and avoid negative people and the gossip that they promote

•Use music to stimulate positive mental outlook, ranging from Mozart, Vivaldi, Beethoven, and Bach to the theme song from Rocky

•Develop positive routines that make them feel safe, secure, and in the moment

•Visualize every step of success, adding as many of the other senses as possible

•Choose role models with unshakeable faith, such as Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and John F. Kennedy, to overcome obstacles

•Bring onto their team coaches or mentors who help them see beyond their blind spots

He concludes by encouraging us to evolve to having jobs that allow us to be happy every day, where our tasks are aligned with our life purpose, vision for the future, and personal values:

Maybe you should be the superstar of your life. Take an inventory of your victories, especially those where you have succeeded against all odds. If you can’t find them, ask your friends, significant others, and mentors. If you were watching you, what would excite you? After all, if you are not your own biggest champion, why would you expect anyone else to be?

I recommend this 153-page entertaining book to all aspiring physician entrepreneurs who want to elevate their thinking and consequently elevate their performance. The biggest obstacle to transitioning is making the mental leap.

Here is some additional reading that can help you feel more comfortable in your career transition:

•Transitioning from Clinical Medicine

•White Paper Mastery: How to Get Interviewers to Want to Speak with You

•Overcoming Frustration: Keys to Leadership.

•Business Plan Writing for Physicians.

Kenneth H. Cohn, MD, MBA, FACS

© 2010, all rights reserved

Disclosure:

I have a material connection because I received a review copy that I can keep for consideration in preparing to write this content.

I recently had the privilege of teaching at the SEAK course, How to Start, Build and Run a Physician Consulting Practice, which over 80 physicians attended.  I was impressed with the energy in the room as we discussed how consulting offers physicians opportunities to leverage their knowledge wisdom and experience to analyze challenges that extend beyond individual physician-patient experiences.  Consulting in physician-hospital relations has allowed me to work in 40 states with bright, usually pleasant people, helping them convert challenges into opportunities to improve clinical and financial performance.

We discussed a range of consulting experiences, including:

• Strategy for bringing new products and services to market
• Billing, coding, information technology, and back-office operations
• Risk management, expert witness, compliance, insurance, contracting
• Finance, marketing, business planning, entrepreneurial activities

 An interactive session that I enjoyed involved helping participants find their niche, about which I have written previously.  What we emphasized is to focus on one area based on their expertise, unmet needs of the people or organization they want to serve, and their network of contacts.

Getting one’s first job(s) establishes a track record; several people in the audience learned at their day job, for example an internist who had been part of a successful electronic health record system launch.  Another physician spoke to small audiences at little or no charge until she built up a following.  Writing, especially in blogs, ezines, and white-papers also helps physicians build their brand.  A white paper is an authoritative report that points out a solution to a problem.

I hope that this blog post piques the curiosity of physicians who find that the marginal value of seeing one more patient or doing one more operation starts to decrease and who are looking for ways to do meaningful work with great colleagues and receive positive feedback.  If this is a subject that interests you, start now to connect the dots by brainstorming with other people your areas of expertise, your passion, the unmet needs, and your contacts who might give you that all-important start.

I suspect that several surgeons who trained me would turn over in their graves knowing that I gave the Leadership presentation at the OPM Education Fall 2010 Business of Medicine Consortium for Residents and Fellows in Chicago this weekend.

OPM Education was founded in 2007 by two orthopedic surgeons, Bonnie Simpson Mason and J. Mandume Kerina, to educate the next generation of physicians on the business of medicine.

 The points they covered included:

•  A warning to physicians to “take off your white coat” when doing business to avoid looking like and spending like a fool; up to 80% of medical practices are victims of embezzlement
• The insight that everything is negotiable, especially contracts and insurance policies
• Encouraging physicians starting out in practice to tie themselves to referring physicians at the same point in their careers, so that their practices grow in tandem
• Understanding the need to ask for own-occupation disability insurance coverage, since one of eight people suffer disabilities that keep them out of work at least 90 days.  This way, if physicians are unable to work in the field in which they trained, they are able to collect money even if they return to work in another capacity.

My list of items that I wish I had been taught (rather than having to learn them from experience) comprised:

• Listen actively with your eyes as well as your ears: about 57% of a message derives from body language, 35% from tone of voice, and only 8% from the actual words
• Never fight at night
• The only stupid question is the one never asked
• Trust your gut
• The hospital does not love you back
• Treat gossip like an STD: one never knows to whom it will get back or who else is listening
• The best career preservation strategy is to do something of value that nobody else wants to do and do it very well
• Start now to build your GTH and FU funds: 6 months and 12 months of liquid assets, respectively, especially important for those pursuing academic careers
• Write a joy list and review it at the end of each month
• Write a gratitude list DAILY: we are responsible for our own happiness, and gratitude is the variable most highly associated with happiness

In summary, I was honored to be part of the OPM Fall Consortium and recommend the Spring Consortium to all residents and fellows who want to learn how to do things right the first time rather than have problems accumulate with compound interest.

Kenneth H. Cohn, MD, MBA, FACS

© 2010, all rights reserved

Transitioning from  clinical medicine is difficult for several reasons:

• Unlike medical school, residency, and fellowship, the path is not clear
• The learning curve tends to be steep
• Many of us have loans to repay, families to feed, and mortgages to pay

The points that I learned from my journey, which began in 1996, are that:

• Clinical medicine is great training for a number of new careers in which people expect you to make major decisions based on limited information
• You are not wasting your clinical training
• Learning is never failure

Although the natural tendency is to reach out to people who supply jobs, such as drug and device companies, my experience is that networking is necessary but insufficient until you do the inner work.  People quip that if you don’t know where you are going, any vessel will take you there.  Informational interviews are great if people do not feel that you are wasting their time. 

In a previous post, White Paper Mastery, I laid out the steps to display your knowledge of a field and make interviewers want to speak with you.  Writing is a great way to obtain inner clarity about where you are heading.

So is taking stock of what you are good at (your expertise), what people pay you to do (the market for your services), and what makes you feel alive and fulfilled (your passion), as I discussed in Tip of the Iceberg? New perspectives on disgruntled doctors, an exercise that I used when I spoke and mentored at at the SEAK Non-Clinical Careers for Physicians Conference, which approximately 250 physicians attended.

I promise to write more about this subject after the holidays, but want to leave you with a final point: many self-improvement programs begin with an initial step in which participants derive strength from admitting that they do not have all the answers and need help.  Regardless of what people told us during residency, it is never weakness to ask others for guidance.  If you feel so moved, please download A 10-Step Guide to Physician Reinvention and let me know what you think.

Kenneth H. Cohn, MD, MBA, FACS

© 2009, all rights reserved

I apologize for not posting more entries, but in the past two months, I have moved and been involved in more construction than I ever imagined.  Today began with 5 trucks in my yard.  I took it as a sign that I was making progress.

Over the last two months, I have taken Jeff Gorke’s new book, The Physician’s Guide to The Business of Medicine: Dreams and Realities, with me everywhere I went.

This 149-page book is a treasure trove of useful information that I recommend for physicians at all stages of their careers who want to understand what previously only their managing partner and business manager knew.

It contains sections on:

• the job search
• practice economics
• insurance companies
• a job search checklist

The last section (Appendix 2) is a 7-page guide with all the important questions physicians should ask when evaluating a new job, including:

• Where do you (and your significant others) want to live
• How many similarly trained physicians practice there
• What is the payor mix
• What is the legal climate
• With what size and type of organization are you most comfortable
• What is the culture of the organization
• What are the ages and goals of the physicians
• What is the overhead ratio (ideally 50% or less)
• What are the staffing costs (ideally 25% or less)
• What are the occupancy costs (ideally 8% or less)
• What is the breakdown on accounts receivable, understanding that the amount collected generally decreases from about 90% at 30 days to about 70% , 90 days after provision of service

The author takes generally dry material and enlivens it with exhibits, graphs, and nine “fun, educational anecdotes.”

I especially liked his parting wisdom (p. 137):

• Keep your expenses in check, knowing that reimbursement is likely to decline
• Avoid romantic encounters with staff members
• Love what you do, and do what you love
• Pay attention to family and friends that matter because your job never loves you back

My only regret after reading this book is that such a book was not available as mandatory reading during my residency, back in a previous century.  I know that you will enjoy the content and the author’s engaging writing style.

Kenneth H. Cohn, MD, MBA, FACS

© 2010, all rights reserved

Disclosure:

I have a material connection because I received a review copy that I can keep for consideration in preparing to write this content.

Introduction

The biggest obstacle to transitioning is making the mental leap. The Triple A approach involves three steps: align, act, allow.

Align

To build the business that you love, your actions need to be in harmony with what you want from life. Instead of building a business that you think you need, build the business that you want without feeling the need to pay your dues and work your way up to your destination. Make sure that your services express who you are and are matched with the needs of your ideal clients, who value your services and want to benefit from your expertise.

Act

Do what is strategic and consistent with your goals. Behave as if you already have what you want, without feeling that you need to wait for others to confer expert status on you. Escape the prison of the how by believing that you already have what you need. The how will become more apparent over time. Act, learn, and adapt, knowing that learning is never failure. Embrace being the CEO (“E” stands for energy and experience as well as executive) of your life and business.

Allow

Accept the opportunities that come your way with grace and ease. Enjoy what you do. Work smarter, not harder. Instead of thinking that the only way to make more is to do more, allow yourself to work fewer hours, love your new life, and be financially rewarded. Go about your business peacefully and purposefully instead of aggressively. Once you allow yourself to be yourself and not the Type A person that you feel others want you to be, you will attract the resources that you need to succeed.

Sherri Garrity is the creator of the Five Keys Success System for aspiring entrepreneurs who want to break free from the confines of their experience and live extraordinary lives. The Five Keys system demystifies the business of setting up, managing, marketing, and growing a successful business. Please click here to obtain information and step-by-step resources that can take you from feeling overwhelmed to becoming an extraordinary entrepreneur.

The check-in

You look at the clock and feel that feeling. It’s time to head off to work. Your mind goes into an automatic mode about what needs to be handled once you arrive. Your body responds back with an edge of tenseness. You feel like you already ran a marathon.

You’ve lost that loving feeling. And now it’s gone, gone, gone.

Okay, so this may not be exactly how you feel, but it is time to check in with yourself.

Do you remember the moment you decided to get into this profession? What got you through school?

You were focused on the end outcome. You chose the field that most interested you. You thought there would be great purpose, passion and freedom from being in the medical world. You also thought it would create a lifestyle that was fulfilling.

If the all the fun has disappeared from your work and you’re feeling like it’s a daily grind, you’re not alone. The pressure of getting more done, rising medical costs, red tape, and being surrounded by other people who are not having fun will take its toll…fast.

How does the failing fun-factor reveal itself?

1. You have a low tolerance level with your staff and/or patients.

2. You don’t want to talk about work once you leave it.

3. Your heart is not in it. You find yourself just going through the motions.

4. You feel like you’re surviving, not thriving.

5. You are dragging. Your energy level is never quite buzzing.

6. You feel like a task-master rather than engaging in what you used to consider exciting. Your vibe is heavy.

7. You feel like, in the last 3 years, you’ve aged 10!

A solution

Look, if you’re not truly enjoying your work at least 90% of the time, you need to do something about it. Yes, everyone can tolerate the stress for a while. But you actually can choose to stop and turn this boat around. Get back in the flow and head downstream with some simple steps:

• Recognize that there is a better way to feel and you can make the choice
• Be intentional each morning about what you want to experience and how you want to feel
• Take responsibility for creating a fulfilling career. Your staff, colleagues, economy, industry, insurance companies and patients are not the problem
• Change your perspective and change your life. How can you create opportunities for change in one or more areas where you feel like you’re stuck with someone, some policy, or system that isn’t working?
• Let go of  resentment. Even if you’re right about whatever is eating you, let it go. Resentment is an instant fun and flow killer
• Make decisions. If you don’t decide that something will change, it won’t. Next, take action on each decision
• Take a stand for what will feel best to you. Yes, be selfish! Will you ruffle some feathers? Maybe. And, so what?! Nobody will ever look out for what is truly in your best interest except you
• Take baby steps. If you stop tolerating or fix one small thing that is cramping your style, you create more flow. It’s amazing what will happen as a result of one important conversation.

Jeanna Gabellini is a Master Business Coach who restores companies, entrepreneurs, and their teams back to their natural greatness. Marry your head & heart to create synergistic teams, fun and increased profits with no more mental merry-go-rounds or overwhelm! Jeanna is the co-author of Life Lessons for Mastering the Law of Attraction with Jack Canfield. To learn more about what she does, please click here.

Introduction

I apologize for my intermittent posts.  My wife and I are celebrating our empty nest by moving from Boston to the North Shore of Massachusetts, and I am finding it difficult to make time for all my previous activities.  Please bear with me.  Once I am more settled this fall, I promise to resume serving your needs.

In the meantime, I have partnered with my friend and expert in the field, Susan Kendrick,  to bring you information on how you can develop your platform by writing a book.  People who are known, liked, and trusted generally are more successful at persuading others.  Building your brand, which brings your services and unique qualities to life, can increase your opportunities for success.

Remember, if a surgeon (like me) can write a book or two, so can you.

Part I: Reasons for you to write a book

Physicians regularly write and publish books for a variety of professional and personal reasons. The following are some of the most common incentives. Writing a book can help you:

- Revive your passion for your practice and/or your life if you are transitioning to a
non-clinical career

- Create uniqueness that differentiates your services

- Stand out in your field as an expert

- Expand your reputation in a specific area of expertise

- Attract others who are eager to work with you

- Discover and develop other parts of yourself

-Generate additional streams of revenue, such as speaking and information products

What Kind of Book Should You Write?

Can you reap the benefits of being a published author only by writing about something related to your medical practice? Not at all. Professionals in many industries find that writing a book about a personal interest can be a great way to connect with existing and prospective clients. Telling people something about you as a person builds trust, which goes a long way toward creating and cementing relationships that build your career.

Create a Unique Brand

Building a professional or personal brand is a great way to improve your career.  According to Alan Weiss, international consultant and bestselling author of How to Establish a Unique Brand in the Consulting Profession, writing a book is, “the best branding technique of them all.”

Ask yourself the following questions:

- What energizes you—either in your practice or your personal life?

- What do you like to do?

- What are you really good at?

- What would you like to learn more about?

- What would you like to be known for 3-5 years from now?

Depending on what you want the book to do for you, you can choose to write about something related to your medical expertise, or you can focus on a more personal topic. Or, you can do both. Again, the reason that writing a book or a series of books is such a good outlet for physicians is that it does positive things for your reputation, your practice, and your well-being.

Professional, Personal, or a Combination of the Two

Writing a book gives you a way to reach into yourself and out to others. It can bridge what may have become a wide gap between who you are as a physician and who you are as a person.

There are many books that demonstrate the success of books written by doctors on some aspect of their medical expertise. We have worked with many doctors who use that expertise to delve into an alternative approach they have developed to a common health challenge. You can even write a book for other physicians about how to survive and thrive in your profession. Based on your own experience and interviews with colleagues, you can cover a number of areas, such as how to reduce stress, find time to exercise, spend time with family, or just relax and recharge.

On the other hand, if you like to garden, for example, you can write a book about vegetable gardening and also describe the health benefits of eating food you grow yourself. Do you like to travel? You can write a book about how travel helps relieve stress and renews your body, mind, and spirit.

Do you love to spend time with your kids? Outline some of your favorite suggestions for activities, road trips, or “vacations” in your home town when you don’t have a lot of time but still want to create family memories. Describe how doing things together builds relationships that benefit the emotional and physical health of your family.

Depending on what you care about and what excites you, the possibilities are endless. One important guiding principle to keep in mind is that the topic should be one that will hold your interest for a long time, both in the creation of the book and in promoting it.

Part II: Organization

Whenever you take on an endeavor outside your immediate area of expertise, it helps to have a proven formula. This is especially true when writing a book. If you don’t have a specific path to get from the idea stage to the final manuscript, you risk becoming overwhelmed by a project that can easily grow out of control. Ideas add up, tangents materialize that take you off course, and input from family and friends can send you reeling in a dozen different directions as you try to craft the “perfect” book.

Given these tendencies, it’s important to know that writing a book is a function of organization. And, while there are many different ways to approach writing a non-fiction book, one of the simplest and most effective is the 10-Point Book Writing approach. Here’s how it works:

• Choose a topic—something you are good at, like to do, or want to learn more about. This can relate to either your professional life, your personal life, or both.

• Tell readers why you wrote the book and what they will get out of it. That is your Introduction

• Identify 10 key points you want to make about your topic. Those are your 10 chapters.

• Break each of those 10 chapters down into manageable parts: An introduction, 3-7 key points, quotes, examples, stories, etc .

• The ideal length for a non-fiction book starts at around 144 pages, plus the Table of Contents, Acknowledgments, Copyright page, and author bio. That means each of your chapters will be approximately 14 pages long. Think of it as writing a long letter to a good friend.

But, I don’t have time to write a book

You don’t have to go it alone. Busy physicians regularly hire ghostwriters, transcribers, and editors to assist them in the book writing process. You can also partner with a physician or non-physician to co-author the book with you. Whether you want to self-publish or work with a traditional publisher, there are many resources and team members to help you make publishing a book an enjoyable and successful part of your practice and your ongoing passion for life.

Meet Susan Kendrick

Susan Kendrick and her partner, Graham Van Dixhorn, are co-founders of Write To Your Market, Inc. They specialize in creating bestselling book cover brands—book titles and subtitles, book series names, and back cover positioning and sales copy. They also create the marketing tools to expand that brand through speaking and the media. Their clients win major book awards, are featured in The New York Times, L.A. Times, and USA Today, and appear on national TV talk shows, including the Today Show.

For more than 20 years, Graham and Susan have worked with a wide range of experts and entrepreneurs in the U.S., Canada, Europe, U.K., and Australia. Known for their “Client Discovery Process,” they get to know you, your mission, and expertise to promote you to your target market.

To learn more, please visit http://www.WriteToYourMarket.com and http://www.BookCoverCoaching.com.

The most important lesson of this post is that when your spouse invites you to accompany her and her friends on vacation, answer, “Yes!,” and don’t question the location or the theme.  I was a token male at Canyon Ranch, Lenox, MA last week and came away with two unexpected benefits: mindfulness and personal growth.

Mindfulness

I felt like I was back at camp, with a mind-boggling array of exercises and educational experiences: 

• In outdoor Tai Chi, I relearned the importance of bending my knees while standing.  The instructor asked us to visualize ourselves as trees in a windstorm- only the resilient ones survive. 
• I also learned in Basic Yoga that retracting my chin before looking down puts less strain on cervical discs, something that I wish that I had learned in surgical residency. 
• Finally, I learned in Men’s Stretching class that bending my arm at the elbow to lift up my arm put less stress on my neck than lifting from the wrist.  All are body mechanics that I had ignored since my twenties when I felt immortal.  Now, I know that the cruel definition of immortality is that the body I have abused since my teens needs to last me the rest of my life.

Personal Growth

I took a cooking course, entitled, “Fabulous Fishes,”  where I gained confidence in basic maneuvers like turning a salmon stuffed with spinach.  Hint: a spatula turned upside down assists with unsticking it from the pan after one minute of grilling at high temperature.  Remember to use canola oil because the fat in olive oil becomes unstable at high heat and canola oil does not change the food’s taste, unlike other high-heat oils, like sesame or peanut.

I took home over 20 new recipes, some of which I have already tried out on my family, with great outcomes.  It is always comforting to remind oneself that senescent canines can learn new tricks.

 

Finally, I witnessed service recovery done by professionals.  The first night, I had a mattress problem that made it difficult to sleep.  The acting manager met with me the next morning, listened attentively, apologized for the problem, replaced the mattress within hours, and followed up with a handwritten note and a complimentary voucher for a spa service. 

In healthcare, too often we forget that we are a service business, from which people form lasting memories based on their service experience in addition to their clinical outcome.  As a cancer survivor, I learned first-hand the frustration when “surprise spits in the eyes,” and the satisfaction when someone stayed behind after rounds to apologize for the helplessness, even if it was not his or her fault.

It is important to get away, even more so for busy people.  I apologize that the demands of moving, taxes, and a few treatable health issues have taken me away from writing as often as I would like.  I will strive to make up in value for what I fall short in quantity.

Kenneth H. Cohn, MD, MBA, FACS

© 2010, all rights reserved

Disclosure:

I have not received any compensation for writing this content. I have no material connection to the brands, topics and/or products that are mentioned herein.

Listen to this episode

The difference between obtaining a job after residency or fellowship and obtaining a job after being an attending physician is that the path is less clear after one has been in practice for several years.  The process has an aura of amorality because nobody is telling you what to do.  It reminds me of the “find me a rock” game where each time someone brings a rock, the receiver specifies additional features until the donor gives up in frustration.

The key to obtaining a job after being in practice is the demonstration of expertise because expertise decreases risk.  The following are five steps to help you obtain and demonstrate that expertise:

• Start with your inner journey
• Commit a small amount of time each day/ week toward achieving your goal
• Become an active reader
• Demonstrate your expertise in writing
• Seek assistance from others

Start with your inner journey

Our limits lie within us.  Earle Nightingale said that what the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.  We become what we think about:

• Take a moment to visualize what you want to be doing 1, 3, or 5 years from now
• What does it look, feel, sound, smell, and taste like; use all your senses as you paint a vivid, colorful picture of where you are, what you have accomplished, and what you are wearing
• Act as though you have already achieved your goal; put a post-it note on your bathroom mirror, such as, “I am learning more about … every day;” substitute “when” for “if”
• Even if you do not believe in your power yet, fake it till you make it; Henry Ford said that whether you think you can or think you can’t, you are right; put your creative self-imagination to work for you

Commit a small amount of time each day/ week toward achieving your goal

• Find a time at least 3 days per week where you devote 15 minutes uninterrupted toward achieving your goal, even if it means getting up 15 minutes earlier
• Allow 2-3 weeks for the habit to become engrained
• You will be amazed at how much more you will know within a few months, to say nothing of a few years.

Become an active reader

We know that when we use what we read (for example, a patient whose diagnosis eludes us initially), we remember it much longer than if we read to whittle down our task list (for example, studying a textbook for board recertification)

• Get into the habit of writing down on paper or in your computer 2-3 points for everything that you read that is relevant to becoming a thought leader
• File, don’t pile; keep paper or electronic folders on topics for quick recall
• Keep lists of topics on which you plan to demonstrate expertise

Demonstrate your expertise in writing

• At first, read blogs and other sources of information
• Have someone build a website for you that includes a blog; I use Word Press based on the advice of my website designer, who feels that it is user-friendly and has applications for a wide variety of tasks and goals (like photos, video, and podcasts)
• Comment thoughtfully on others’ posts, mentioning your website, which will build traffic to your site and help develop the perception that you are on your way to becoming a thought leader
• Write blogs that link to others’ posts
• Convert data to information that can improve performance in the form of 2-5 page white papers, as I discussed in a previous post, White Paper Mastery: How to Get Interviewers to Want to Speak with You
• Remember what Voltaire wrote, “The perfect is the enemy of the good;” just get started, knowing that you will improve over time (as in residency)

Seek assistance from others

This step involves admitting that you do not have all the answers and need help from others inside and outside your area.  Outsiders can help by questioning assumptions that you otherwise might accept on blind faith because everyone you know feels the same way (for example, ”always leave in a drain after cholecystectomy”).

• Seek colleagues with similar self-improvement aspirations; form your own mastermind group to exchange ideas and hold one another accountable
• Consider becoming involved in a mentoring program; we all have blind spots; trusted mentors have a way of helping us become aware of these blind spots, so that we can be more proactive than reactive
• Turn your dissatisfaction with your present situation into creative action that improves your life and that of others with whom you associate; as one of my trusted mentors said, “It’s the sand in the oyster that creates a pearl.”

Kenneth H. Cohn, MD, MBA, FACS

To listen to a podcast of this blog, please click here

© 2010, all rights reserved

Disclosure:

I have not received any compensation for writing this content. I have no material connection to the brands, topics and/or products that are mentioned herein.