Episode Transcript
Daniel Wrenne: I'm gonna be introducing our guest, which I'm super excited to do. And so Dr. Diana Londoño is a rockstar. She's had a very interesting story and has had a lot of good experiences, but more importantly, she's a mom and a wife, and she's a urologist in LA, right?
Is where you practice. She's one of the, Is it half a percent of urologists that is female and Latina, so that's super awesome. She's a speaker, podcaster, life and business coach and entrepreneur. You're the founder of Physician Coaching Support, which is 24/7 free support for physicians.
We'll talk about that a little bit more hopefully but what was especially impressive to me about you is you're talking about some of these super important topics that I think physicians really need to hear. Some of the things like self care, equality, vulnerability, wellness, leading with love, living with gratitude and really how these kinds of things can help solve some of these big problems that physicians are facing like burnout and all the things like balance and even suicide issues.
And so, and I know you even, you actually experienced burnout a couple times yourself. I guess the most recent time was during Covid, right? And that was an experience that your, was it your husband brought to your light, right?
And so that's, you know, I'm props to him too for bringing that up and being able to do that but,
Dr. Diana Londoño: and putting up with it too.
Daniel Wrenne: I know.
Dr. Diana Londoño: This is important thing we'll talk about it affects everybody around you, including your immediate family for sure but obviously patients. But yeah, it's gonna affect who you're living with.
Daniel Wrenne: Yes. So it's, I think this transition you had from, you know, I watched one of your videos earlier today and you talked all through this experiencing burnout and you know the lows with that.
And then here you are today like you got businesses, you're coaching people, you're talking about it. So you've had a huge you know, positive transition. So I think it'll be a great conversation to kind of talk through what that's been like and your experiences with that.
So, welcome, I appreciate you joining us, Diana, I think it'll be a great talk.
Dr. Diana Londoño: Thank you. Well, so, so much gratitude for being here and for everything you do for physicians. I mean, obviously, money, finances are really important, can be many things that really keep us in a state of worry, in a state of angst, in a state of depression because we are concerned about it and we feel stuck.
And when we feel stuck and word and fearful, we can't really move to the next step. And you know, it's really important to just really encompass everything and finances are important but when we start talking about mindset, we really talk about everything. We talk about how you view finances, how you view your relationships, how you view failures as you know, opportunities for learning or growing. And so mindset is really for encompassing everything and it's gonna affect every area of your life. So it's really important to figure out what is your mindset? Is it a victim mindset? Which means everything's happening to me.
You know, I'm kind of like the victim of, you know, it's their fault, or it's the administrators or it's my clinic manager or so, you know, we're blaming everybody except taking like radical responsibility for your reality versus saying like, "I am the creator of my reality. I have a choice to say yes, to say no, to do this, to not to do this." And your reality becomes your own creation and your own responsibility. And that is a big step to take. It takes a lot of responsibility, personal, and it's difficult for a lot of physicians, and for most people really. But it really changes how you start viewing life and you know, what your reality becomes.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. That radical responsibility. I think that's a good way of describing it. But I'm curious about your experience with burnout. What was your mindset at that time, especially like at the worst of it?
Dr. Diana Londoño: Yeah, so that was a great question because yeah, my mindset was not happy go lucky. It was complete negativity, complete looking at what's terrible in the world, how everything doesn't work, how you know everybody is doing X, Y, and Z, you're wrong. And how they're really torturing me. And that really was my mindset and I really became Debbie Downer or just like a negativity vortex. And when you spoke earlier, and on my husband pointing it out, you know he really one day we're in the kitchen and he said, "You know, you're really acting like this person at work that I work with that is really quite negative that you used to say, "Oh my gosh, she's so negative. I don't wanna act like that." And you really are becoming that because everything I would mention, every story discussion I would have on the table, kitchen table was something negative. What has gone wrong, what's not working and it just was the whole time that discussion."
Again, it kinda had to be pointed out. It's like sort of like thelan on your teeth. Somebody has to point it out that it's there and obvious, but you can't see it. And sometimes it takes a friend, sometimes it takes a loved one, a colleague, or sometimes some of the people I've spoken with.
It really you know, the patients are complaining that you're always angry, reactive, yelling, and you kind of have to be taken to like anger management as a physician.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah.
Dr. Diana Londoño: Because you have so many complaints of your demeanor. You're always angry, you're always reactive, and that's a state of living in chronic stress, chronic fight or flight.
That's really what it is, right? That fight or flight, you are just fighting with everybody with the world. You don't see anything good. Everything that somebody tells you. You see it as an attack, as something that you can't just take with like, "Okay, is there validity to this? Can I learn? Can I pivot? Can I grow from this?"
It's just.. Everything you see it as a negative. And so for me was really that realization that "Oof, I am sort of circling in this darkness." I haven't laughed in forever and I used to laugh and I'm kind of jokey. And you know, my urologist, we kind of like, like to joke around, we're kind of lighthearted.
Well that was none of that at all for a long time. And once it was pointed out, I was like, "Ew, you know, that's gross. I don't wanna be there." And I started to just say, "Okay, what am I gonna do differently?" Because if I don't change something, it's gonna be exactly the same. So I need to change something.
And it doesn't have to be changing my job cuz it's the same. My husband, my kids, like coworkers, they're exactly the same. The only thing that changed was my mindset. What am I putting attention to? What am I focusing on? And then that really changes like your whole experience. So you gotta think about what are you putting your focus on?
Are you waking up and just bringing the newsfeed of all social media or Fox News or whatever and just focusing on all the negative or you wake up with gratitude, you wake up saying like, "What is good today? What do I look forward to? What am I excited about today?" And when you start off your day like that, and when you end it that way, your whole brain chemistry changes right away.
You know, there is changes of what's released, what neurotransmitters that are releasing, what you feel, and then you feel different, and then you focus on different things. Your brain is really, really a very sophisticated computer machine that wants to be efficient. So if you focus on the good, the gratitude, what has gone well, then your whole day you start scanning like a computer is starting to scan everything that goes well, everything that's positive instead of everything that's gone wrong. And like your, your brain does that for you.
Start with the intention. So you can use your brain. It doesn't use you. It's your brain. You command it. Don't let it command you and become a victim of it.
Daniel Wrenne: Ricky's, bring in a good question right off the bat. Of course you got some, you got some finance geeks in the room.
So of course this is gonna be a good question to ask, but how much of your burnout was financial and also how much was your solution to burnout dependent on being financially stable?
Dr. Diana Londoño: Yeah, I am very grateful that, that has never been part of my burnout story. You know, my husband, he was in private equity and he actually left that job to actually do the most important job, which is stay at home with my children and take care of them full time.
So we had the luxury of not worrying about finances and not, I don't have any debt educational. Many years ago, I paid all that off. And we don't have any like large looming debt. We have a lot of finances, we have investments. So that has never been something that has affected, but that is a huge part of what affects a lot of physicians because we have a lot of educational debt.
And then what happens is you get out of training and now you have this idea that because you're a physician you have to live a certain way, buy certain things. And many times honestly, you can't afford it. But you think because you are a physician, you should have all this, you should have that, and you're trying to compete perhaps, you feel like you deserve it cause obviously it was long and arduous training and then now you're really living above your means. And then you kind of have like golden handcuffs because you can maybe leave a job cuz you don't know you're the primary breadwinner and if you leave, you don't know what will happen.
Then you're always in a state of fear. And when you're in fear, again you go back to like your part of the brain, the prefrontal chord that plans that can look for solutions, whether it's financially or anyway, it really cannot process that information. And you just keep spinning, You keep spinning and you stay scared and like kind of small and like just you're like, well I'll just take it because I don't know if I speak up, if I do this anything.
Like if I will have a job, if you're the primary breadwinner.
Daniel Wrenne: Right.
Dr. Diana Londoño: That is very real. You know, we can't think about that. And if you don't know finances, if you don't have a stable financial planning stuff, it's really difficult. You know? My husband always says, "Well, yeah, you can say all that because you have, we have that freedom." But you know, whether I had it when I was, let's say, a poor student, poor medical student or not, I really always spoke up. I really always you know, was vocal about things. But for me, yes to answer your question, it didn't have anything to do with it. So you can still be in a terrible place and burnout with your thoughts have nothing to do with finances.
But that can definitely make it worse for sure. I mean, that's a huge part of worry and stress. But then you have to talk about some boundaries, and then you have to talk about priorities. Then you have to talk about what do you want? What are you trading? You know, one thing for the other, you know, so sometimes you, yes, you get tons of money, but what are you trading off?
Are you trading time with your family, time for you to work out and be healthy and have time to do things you want to do outside of medicine for money? And for what? I mean like, we gotta just know why are you doing it? You know, if you want that car, sure, then you're gonna sacrifice some things. But you gotta think about and pause and think, what is the cost for all these choices that I'm making every day?
Daniel Wrenne: It seemed like money definitely didn't cause burnout. But it seems like maybe indirectly it was a solution in that like you didn't have to worry about money which is kind of a benefit of having your finances in order, is that you have more options like you can, and I remember in your talk, you talked about, you paid, I think it was $33,000.
Yeah. Or you invested is a better word, $33,000 in educating yourself, hiring coaches. I'm not, I don't think you detailed exactly what it was for, but like invested in yourself and that to me is a, a solution, a self development solution kind of thing that can only come with having your finances stable, right?
Dr. Diana Londoño: Correct. Yeah. I mean, $33,000 is a lot. I mean, many people, even physicians don't have that in their bank account, like for extra money for a rainy day. But, yes, $33,000 is the amount I spent in the last year, this past year with like coaching, like becoming a certified life coach, getting business coaching, getting spiritual coaching, media coaching, and all these different ways for you to develop like reiki, all these things to learn to develop yourself in your mental health, in your wellness. If you don't have mental health, if you're stressed out, believe me, that becomes your illness. 70 to 80, 90% of all doctor visits, including myself as a specialist, are stress related. I mean, I do that all day, every day. We can talk about as a urologist, like you know, you have frequency to pee, urge to pee, but that is really coming from stress, the nervousness to being on like full gas pedal and affecting all of your body, which for me it did as well when I was in chronic stress, which then leads to burnout, which is the end stage of stress. I was grinding my teeth. I got a abscess from grinding a root canal. I had a gerd, like reflux. I had asthma that developed at age 42 that I never had from the chronic stress I had.
Daniel Wrenne: That's crazy.
Dr. Diana Londoño: Yeah. I didn't sleep. You know, you wake up all the time. I had joint pain, so now I became like an autoimmune disease. I'm affecting my own body. And getting joint pain, Rheumatoid factor, which is in an autoimmune disease. That's from this chronic stress, just pain. I couldn't like walk across a room and like I'm a runner. I used to run cross country. I wasn't a terrible place from stress. Again, it wasn't covid, it wasn't anything else but stress. It's so real. But we don't like to acknowledge that stress causes disease or wellness. Cuz now I don't have any of that.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah.
Dr. Diana Londoño: And I see really well and soundly and beautifully. And that's because I change like this chronic stress everyday.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. Jeff has a good question. Tips. Any tips for being more aware of cues in yourself? Ideally, you know, obviously there's medical symptoms that come about. But like, how do you start to be more aware of your own negativity? And then on the other hand, what about helping other people beyond, I mean, your husband just told you, which is one way to do it, but ways to assist others in helping them to identify that they're having a negative mindset, because it's hard. So I'm thinking, say I'm working with a client like and I know they're super negative Nancy, and they're gonna take it personal. Like, how do you, it's obvious to us, you know? So thoughts on identifying yourself and then with others?
Dr. Diana Londoño: Yeah. For yourself. I mean, I think when you have some time in the day where you pause, I mean, it's like Pausing, which is like physicians and surgeons never pause, right?
Which is like, keep going all day, all day. What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do? And even the busyness is one way actually that we tend to sort of buffer our emotions. We don't wanna slow down and think about what we're feeling, not feeling because you know, we don't like to do that we get uncomfortable. So then we fill up our day with things to do, being at work all day so we don't have to like be still and be quiet and figure out what's going on. But you can kind of notice that in yourself if you wanna do a little self-awareness check. Are you just like cynical? Like everything you're talking about with people is cynical, hopeless, terrible.
There's no solution if you kinda, that's what your conversations are about all day. That's a good chance that you're running into burnout. You know, again, apathy, you just don't care. You like, I'm not interested, you know? And obviously like anxiety and depression and yes. And physical symptoms will totally happen.
You're not sleeping, you're like always ruminating in the same thought. That's a sign that you're in burnout. And again, anxiety, depression. If you're having suicidal thoughts, I mean, that's kind of like down the stage, but sometimes you just feel stuck. Frozen, overwhelmed that's another sign that like you're in chronic stress.
That's how you know in yourself. Your body's gonna tell you, you're gonna feel kind of tight. Your shoulders, you feel like literally the weight of your shoulders. Some people, having this terrible pain, they go to a million doctors, you know they start having reflux. I mean, those are signs. Your body is so intelligent, it's gonna tell you what's going on.
But other people may. And then if you wanna kinda tell other people, you know that you're always around, I mean, You only can do it gently and lovingly and say, "You know what? I'm a little concerned. I just noticed that X, Y, and Z, that you're always, you know, you seem like things are kind of hopeless or you can't find the solution. I wonder if that could be just chronic stress, you know? You know, I'm just curious."
When you kind of phrase it in like I'm curious if you have thought about it instead of like, "you're totally stressed." Like, what's wrong with you? I mean, that's not gonna be helpful, but when you're coming from a loving place like I'm curious if you have thought about this, you cannot plant a seed and you hope that they will take action and do something because, yeah my husband pointed it out, but I could have been like, "Okay, whatever."
I'm gonna still beat Debbie Downer, but I had to do the work myself and continue to do the work every day to be in a different place. Like nobody did the work for me. I mean, I did the work. Yes, it was pointed out, but you have to make the decision just like any alcoholic, drug addict. Yeah. I mean, we're kind of like work addicts, right?
We have addictions. So you have to make the choice. Like I want a different life, I want a different place to be. It's your decision.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. So hopefully there's cues and you know, you should be getting cues in your, It's a matter of whether or not you're aware and taking a little time of like doing nothing like silence literally with no commitment can help. I think in noticing issues with yourself, that's huge. Like, just kind of moment of like literally a few minutes cause we just, everybody's so busy and nobody has any time. Whether's zero, literally zero going on. Can be helpful and then maybe giving some general feedback to others. But one, the key is though, once you recognize, have that sign or symptom is taking action.
Cuz I think a ton of people probably get these cues. Like you're saying, and they do nothing about it.
Dr. Diana Londoño: Yeah. And then they have the same exact results, right? And then there's.
Daniel Wrenne: And then it's a cycle of insanity, and then they lose the hope.
Dr. Diana Londoño: Yeah. Then six months you're at the same exact place, right. Maybe you haven't even made a decision of what you're gonna do for your finances. You didn't make a change, a commitment, a difference. Any, I mean, the coaching one on one really is about awareness, and it's about realizing that you could either backtrack it or forward word do it, but you wanna result, right?
If your result is something you want, you have to take an action. Otherwise, it'll be exactly the same result and less insanity, right? If you're gonna take an action, it actually comes from a feeling. Anything you do, whether you're investing, whether you are gonna do cookies for your kids', like party. Whatever you're gonna do, it comes from a feeling.
And that feeling comes from a thought, like what are you thinking? That is then making you feel something, and then that feeling drives your action. So, we have to think about like, "What am I feeling?" To really get you to a different action and a different result. If we're always staying in overwhelmed, despair, negativity, then you're never gonna actually probably have different feelings and a different results at all. They're gonna be exactly the same. So we gotta step back and say, "Okay, what do I want? What don't I want?" We can say all the time, what we don't want all day, but what do you actually want? You have to have to pause to think about that as well because we have to start dreaming. You have to start being excited about what do you, I mean, when was the last time you dreamt about something?
When we're in medicine, we're so linear that like, get to hear, get to hear, get to hear. Then we're attending like it's bliss. It actually isn't. And then we just stopped dreaming. We stopped getting excited about being a student all the time, about learning all kinds of things, whether in medicine or outside of medicine.
Yeah, you gotta keep dreaming. Like, what do you really want in life? Because it's short. We're here for a purpose, you know that's really like hopefully enlightenment thing that you can realize like, we're here for a purpose.
And maybe it's not that, maybe it's not, but like we have one and sometimes it's burned out. Sometimes it's cancer diagnosis, sometimes it's a death of a loved one. Or you know, things like that that shake you. Hopefully that is like your huge warning sign posts. "Hello, What are you gonna change?"
Yeah. But people wait for cancer. Like they push all those emotions that we talked about. They push all those signs. I think we can just get to it. And in the meanwhile, they cause their disease. They cause suffering of their loved ones because you're not present. You're not loving, you're not kind. Cuz you can't be when you're like totally apathetic and burned out. You can't be loving. You can't be present. I definitely was not present for my kids at all. Like, I was just like a blob of sales walking around, you know pretending to be there physically, but I'm not. I'm just in a different like planet of my own thoughts. So think about what you want.
Think about is that, is that what you wanna do? Because at the end of the day, when you die tomorrow or tomorrow, get run over by the bus. Like all this material junk, all these diplomas in the back, what are they? I mean, I'm not taking them with me. And like who was I for other people did I help? Did I change some better impact for others?
I mean, that's what we hope that we do here. Cause when you die with all the toys, you still die, right? Like yeah, they're fun. They make life easier. They make it more comfortable for sure. But they're just like tools. They don't bring happiness. They really don't.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. Nobody on their death bed's like, "Man, I wish I worked so much more harder. You know, hours longer." That's not the regrets they have.
So was there like a moment in time where you flipped the switch and you realized all this, like when you're, cuz I know your story and you were, your husband kind of helped bring it to your attention and you realized that the negativity and you started kind of turning the corner. Was there like a literal moment in time where you're like, "Oh, I'm, you woke up?"
Dr. Diana Londoño: Yeah, I think as a gradual, maybe awakening. Sometimes it's a little jolty. It can be either. But for me, when I kind of sat here, I'm like, I'm not present for my kids at all. I'm becoming my mother which people wanna probably like or hate depending on who your mother is or isn't.
But my mother's narcissistic which means she's not present because of her illness. And I really was becoming that because of burnout. I was not present. And I'm like, "Why did I have kids? If I'm not gonna be present, what's the point?" So I don't wanna do that to my children. I wanna do it better than what I had and I wanna use that for good.
I know what it feels like to have a narcissistic mother. I wanna be present for my kids. So that was like a big jolt. And then I started learning about coaching awareness. That was just one step. And then, you know, I had never written anything in my life. For me, writing was very healing and it is for a lot of people.
And you don't ever have to publish anything but just write it down to let go of the emotional charge that sometimes you have, cuz when you write it down and don't send that email. You know, it was kinda like, "Oh, okay, well now, now I don't feel so angry or so hopeless and that can be very healing." So you can write it, burn it, you can not send that email but just type it out or you can publish it and share your story with others.
And that really brings connection. For me, it was very healing. I mean, I never had written, but I, since I've written, I dunno probably 30 plus more articles, Kevin and D, lots of outlets for me to process the emotions I was dealing with and just kind of like, let it move through me and I stay in me, become my anger and my despair.
So writing was key, speaking was really important. Again, just kind of like today sharing my story. Hopefully it tells people like you can't get through it. It's not to be like, "Oh, I'm fantastic!" No, Like it's daily work. It happened twice because you know what? The first time I didn't change anything. I just got through it, got on Zoloft, went to therapy, but then I didn't change anything.
I just went back to my same stuff. So that's why I came back. So now this time I don't wanna be a third time and I don't wanna be a statistic. So I wanna every day do something different. And every day I wake up, I do my graduate journal, I do my meditation. I spend time that I every day or as much as I can, you know, during the week to exercise, that's really important for me.
I like to write, I like to read. I read every night. You know, books that interest me. So I wanna keep growing. I wanna keep learning. I don't wanna be stagnant. And I think a lot of it becomes stagnant. And so when you have nothing to look forward to, yeah, it becomes kind of bleak and it becomes like wake up, pee, poop, shower, rinse for pee, you know, the same thing.
So you wanna like have some enthusiasm of something that makes you wake up in the morning. What is it for you? Yeah. But you gotta sit down and think about it.
Daniel Wrenne: You decided you wanted to be better.
Dr. Diana Londoño: What is it? I don't wanna be like not present one. And then I decided like, I mean it really was my spiritual crisis.
And I'm like, what am I here for? Because these questions are existential or spiritual questions. Like who am I? Cause there's not all these diplomas. I'm not a, yes, I'm a urologist and mom, these are fantastic roles, but they're temporary. I could lose my children. I mean, that's true. I can stop being a urologist.
I mean, even in Covid, when people stop operating, how many people went into crisis because, oh my god, if I don't operate, who am I? What is my worth? My worth really is not tied to operating or being a urologist or being a mom. Like that's not who I am. Those are just roles that I have. They don't define me.
I am like, this is spiritual stuff, loving, peaceful, you know, soul. And that's who I am. And it doesn't matter if all the stuff gets taken away. If I have like huge house, small house, I'm still gonna be my essence of me. So, but when you tie everything you're worth to a title, diploma, any role, then you suffer.
If you have kids and you become an empty nester, that transition, people suffer. They can't let go. I can't let go of my kids being in college, it's really difficult. But when you like let it go, there's so much freedom. And I think that's important to realize. And again, these are spiritual questions and I think the first step is really like that awakening.
You're not a victim, I'm the creator of life. The second step is you gotta have some, not religious, but a spiritual, like some spiritual something to lift you up. I mean, even when tired, you're like, you know, when you say, oh my god, I think you're, you have a gratitude. What is that sign? People go like this.
You're like reaching up to something, right? Some heaven, some other place. And so you are ascending going up to a place where you're enjoy and where you're in gratitude and love, like we talked about leading with love. You gotta have love for you, love for others, but you can't love others if you don't love yourself.
If don't love yourself. You can never love others. You're gonna be hateful like criticizing, judgemental. That's not loving, that's just reflecting your own insecurities.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. That's a bunch of stuff. Like loving others, requires self care and love and you were on like a purpose focused journey, which is not everybody gets caught in the rat race of like, go, go, go and, you know, work, work and they've kind of lose that whole like vision.
You know, dreamer, like kids are great at like dreamer, you know, they have imagination I guess, but you know they lose all that along the way cuz you get so busy. So it was like you were, you know, after that purpose and you've kind of mo leaned into that instead of just kind of getting into that.
Dr. Diana Londoño: Well, the kids are the biggest, you know, they're small and we are ego things because they're small, like they don't know anything. They know a lot of stuff. Describe your kids. You can just kind of told me. They dream, right? They're excited. They like jump, they move. Those are children and what a joy they are when they're like giggly and laughing and running down the hall with like, you know, half their bus showing and they're just giggling, right? Like, what a joy to hear that giggle. Nobody ever said, "Oh my god, that's terrible. Why stop giggling?"
Well, I mean, if you're in a bad place, probably did. But they always are dreaming. They're excited, they're like creating, they're playing. They're role playing. When we lose that, another we get busy, is that we start getting the ego. These false roles are false identities because you become like a like a middle schooler. You become this, you become a whatever soccer play. There are all these roles.
Daniel Wrenne: Labels.
Dr. Diana Londoño: Labels, roles that are temporary and they just obscure our true nature of when we were children. And then I think the purpose of truly life is like, "Okay, rediscover that. You forgot it and all this stuff as you went through. Now we gotta remember it. We gotta remember our truth, our joy."
It doesn't matter, you're 45, 60, 80, you can still dance, you can still move, you can still be joyful. Why not? Or like, or what if, I mean, these are great questions. Just like your children ask you all day, why? What if? What if we just did it a little different?
Or like, why not? We gotta start asking those questions a little bit more and being curious. And curiosity is different than judgment. You know, judgment's like, "Oh, why are you doing that?" But in different way, just be curious like, "Why am I spending all my time doing this? Or why can't I say no to this person or to this committee, or to anything? Why?" You can ask those questions.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah.
Dr. Diana Londoño: Or you don't have to, but then, I mean, then it's like your life just becomes like this. Like, you know, And then you're like, become 80 and then you have some cancer and you're like, "Oh, what did I do? Right?" Like, what was the purpose? And you just die. So, you know, maybe ask it before you get to be 80 or 90 and then that's it.
Daniel Wrenne: Right. Yeah. Let's do it now, like this second. I mean, That's the problem. We're all procrastinating and so Victoria had a good question. I think I know what your thoughts will be on this, but I'm curious to ask it.
Dr. Diana Londoño: Sure.
Daniel Wrenne: Do you think it's the hustle of the go, go go, which we're kind of hitting on in that lack of autonomy that burns out a lot of physicians?
Dr. Diana Londoño: Lack of autonomy. I mean, we all have a choice. I mean, you all, and we, I mean you could read, book, The Choice, right about survivors of the Holocaust and the war situations, right? Like when you're dehumanized, where there's no food, where there's abuse, where there's death. I mean, you are in the worst place on earth.
I mean, it's kind of like hell on earth and you have a choice. How are you gonna use that situation? What are you focus on, are you gonna have hope? Because the people that usually died in the Holocaust at the concentration camps, they lost hope.
Daniel Wrenne: Yep.
Dr. Diana Londoño: They were hoping that on Christmas day in 19 whatever 40, like they were gonna be liberated. And when it didn't happen, they died the next day.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah.
Dr. Diana Londoño: And we know that in patients that when they lose hope, you know they're gonna die. You see that? I mean, you see that clearly. They lose that spark, that hope, that enthusiasm. They die. They decide they're gonna die. So we all have a choice. It's not, we don't have autonomy.
I mean, the same people that sometimes say that are the ones that never speak up, that don't find solutions for these issues that just say, everything's wrong. I don't have this. I don't have, "Okay, what do you want?" So to have that, what do I have to do? What do we have to do collectively? We have a lot of power, a lot of power as physicians.
But we have forgotten it. We don't realize it. I don't know which one it is, of both, but we have so much power. If we come together, we speak up, changes will occur. But if we don't speak up, if we don't come together, if we don't support one another, elevate one another, nothing is gonna change. You have to be the change.
It was like Andi said, you have to be the change you wanna see. Right. So you know, like you would be overworked because you said yes to that overwork. You can say no and then maybe you get like less money. That is gonna be the trade off. But then you're trading off your sanity, your life, your mental health, your emotional physical health.
You're trading that off and you just have to make that choice. We all have a choice. Again, that comes from a victim mindset, that you don't have a choice, you have a choice, you really do. You just maybe don't like the alternative of what it could be when you say no to something or you say yes to something else, but we have a choice.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah, that, and that gets into the mindset. Having that victim mentality is obviously that's kind of what we're talking about here. It causes problems, but like it's pretty common. And so I think, do you think a lot of people, are aware of mindset and how, maybe we should start with like, what is mindset? Cause, let's have a good definition there.
Dr. Diana Londoño: Yeah. And even beliefs. Like what are beliefs? I mean, a belief is something you think about over and over that becomes your truth. You have thought about it so many times that it's just the truth for you. But it really is not the truth because if somebody can look at it a little bit different, then it's not the truth.
That is just your strong opinion and your belief. Because anything in the world, like even let's say somebody dying, you can think of that somebody dying as like something terrible or somebody else would like, thank god they died because they were like some evil people, you know? Right. So how we look at something is just depending on our thoughts about it, but as a belief, we just keep thinking the same thing over and over.
That it just becomes, that is a truth. And so we have to realize like, why do we think that? Or, you know, beliefs like money mindset believes like, Oh, you know, money's difficult to come, or I'm never gonna be good at money management. I'm never gonna be good at it. That's a belief you just believe now that you can't get out of.
But like, what if you put a little hole and. You know, I'm not good at money yet, but you want to learn. That's a growth mindset,
Daniel Wrenne: Right? Or like, I'm never gonna be a morning person,
Dr. Diana Londoño: That's just false. That's just something you want to say to yourself and like, hang onto it and you don't wanna let it go.
Why don't you just let it go? Because you could be a morning person, you could be a night person, you could be anything you wanna be. It's just you decided that in your mind that you're just not that. And then that becomes your whole reality. So what you say to yourself over and over, that becomes your truth.
Yeah. Becomes your reality. So a mindset is like, what are you focusing your, like everything on? And is also a little bit of a awareness, like mindfulness and mindset, a little different. But like mindfulness would be what are you paying attention to? Not just on the outside, you know, like you can see what's happening.
You can see what people are saying. Not saying doing, but what's happening within you? What are you feeling? What are you thinking about? That's your mindfulness you pay attention to. And then the mindset becomes a habitual way to look at life as circumstances. And it really kind of becomes again, a negative mindset or a positive mindset. A growth mindset. And when you look at things as, you know, everything that happens to me, whether it's what we would label terrible, like a death, a loss of job, it's a learning opportunity. It's a place for you to learn the lessons you can, like maybe graduate consciously, spiritually, however you wanna frame it to a different level in a send a little bit.
Cause if you lose a job, you can say, you know, "Oh my god, it's terrible. What am I gonna do? This is doom or wow! Now I have time literally to think about like reprioritizing our life, our finances, our house. Should we live in the state? Should we move somewhere else? Should we live in a smaller house, bigger house, sell our cars."
You have that time to think and make maybe some different choices that were probably a blessing in disguise, but you don't see it then you just see things are terrible. . . But when you look at anything that happens to you as something is happening, you know, for me, not to me, it's a very different way to look at life.
And you can do that with anything.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. I think, one of my examples, when you get cut off in traffic or something and you're like, or even somebody hits you or something, you're like one to average person's gonna like cuss 'em off or throw the middle finger at 'em or whatever. But like taking a minute to be like, "Well, you never know and you know, or it could be an opportunity or like, they could have saved you from another car accident."
Correct. It was gonna be way worse. And you know, that's a positive view of a negative a unfortunate situation.
Dr. Diana Londoño: And it's important too, to like, I mean, also you don't wanna be like, "Oh, I love you. Like have a great day when somebody's physically threatening your life or being abusive. That's like boundaries.
And we're not gonna be in a job, in a situation with a patient that is, you know, yelling profanities, No, no, no, no, no. We're not gonna like say, "Oh, we love you, sir. Whatever you want. We're here to make you happy." Because that happens in medicine a lot, where now it becomes like McDonald's. Like, I don't give out happy meals.
I give you care and I give you love, but this is not happy place. Like, you know, if you're upset, that's on you. If you're happy, that's also on you. That's something that you kind of start realizing. I have no control over other people's, like emotional reactions except my own. I control my reaction to anything that happens.
But if a patient is upset, I'm like, Okay, be upset. I mean, I'm gonna be kind, I'm gonna try to do the best for you. But like, at the end of the day, that's on you. Just like if you were so happy, that's on you. I can't control you. I can only control myself. When we try to control others, we just need to like frustration and resistance, cuz you will never change anybody, ever.
You know, like your spouse, your coworker, like nobody. You can only change and control yourself when you realize that part of it too. You're gonna have a lot less suffering.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. Everybody's got a little control fricking them and
Dr. Diana Londoño: Yeah. But then you just like keep like, you know, hitting the resistance because you're not gonna change them maybe for a few days. Maybe they'll like, you know, move the shoes out of the entrance. Right. Like, cause you can nag people, but then you get like, naggy, right. So it, it doesn't really change and it, it creates like resentment for the other person. And it becomes to this like, negative place like what if you just like, you know, like let it go or focus your attention on something else.
Or maybe like point out the good stuff that they do stuff focusing all the bad thing like your spouse or this, or people do like, maybe focus on the good stuff that they do write. Not all the stuff they do wrong. Cuz at the end of the day, you're gonna just suffer every time you see that shoe. But if you just say like, "Oh yeah, but they also made breakfast and they got the kids. ready and they read to my kids." You know, like focus on that, and that's probably gonna just make your day much different than all day, you're faster. And like, I can't believe, you know, they didn't pick up the shoe and you know like that doesn't help anything.
Daniel Wrenne: Right. Yeah. I think about when I start talking about mindset and thinking about this kind of thing, I always think of an experience with my son playing soccer. He's the oldest of my three, and he was starting, he's kind of gotten you know, smarter and he's starting to think more, kind of like a little bit like an adult. But he was in a game and he just was playing off, playing soccer. And I'm like, what's going on? And I talked to him afterward and he starts talking about it and he's like, he had been playing with a group of like the A team and he's on the B team.
And so he was like, I knew they're better than me and I didn't think I could, do it. I'm not good enough, basically was what he was saying. So in his words, he was saying, I'm not good enough. And so that is a classic example of like, mindset. Like he's got this mentality of like he's and so once you get there, and I was like, oh man, that's no good.
You know, we gotta talk through this. Like, so I talked to my buddy and that's, you know, about this, that knows this stuff. And he gave me some like tips to help him kind of work through it. But, that kind of thing, once you get there, when you're in that mindset, you can't, you're not gonna be able to perform in whatever it is, like whether it's work or life or family or sports.
So what we did is that, you know, I talked through some strategies for him to kind of like take a pause and be like, "You know what? I can do this. Like, not I'm better than all these players but like I can do this." Like, I can, I played with these people before. I can play well. Like I can do this.
I'm a great soccer player. I'm gonna play as hard as I can. Like, I'm gonna do the best I can. So like, some kind of self positive self talk to help like work through it.
Dr. Diana Londoño: And also also like, say, like, is that true? I mean when you're thinking like, I'm not good enough, I'm like, I'm not good as them. Is that true? I mean, is that true? Like, think about that and then that's a good way to poke a hole in the same, or like so what? Like so what of whatever, like so what? Like what are you making that mean? Because sometimes we make so many stories in our head that are just not true. They're maybe with like this limited information of the whole story. We don't know the whole information, but we made it mean like billion things about us, right.
And like, that's probably not even like what people like what the true facts are. Cause again, we interpret everything with their limited views or information at a given day.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. So, I think everyone can, I don't know, I'm curious what your thoughts on, on this, but I think mindset is one of those things like we can all, like always improve on, it's like a spectrum, like you can continually improve and it's something you can always work on. And so I'm curious about like other tactics we can use, to kind of move the right direction towards having you know, a solid mindset versus go back and retract the other direction?
Dr. Diana Londoño: You have to prioritize and you have to schedule it just like you schedule patients every day, just like you schedule whatever you're scheduling every day and you technically schedule brushing your teeth every day, right. It's something you always do.
So, I mean, there's a like James Clear book Atomic Habits as a good way like stack a habit to make a new habit. So if you do something every single day, always then add that new habit. You wanna start maybe before or after, so you can kind of like stick. So you have to prioritize that time or thinking about these things for like, slowing down or thinking about like your intention for the day, for being grateful for maybe if you're having. A rough day, whether it's, whatever it is, like write maybe like five minutes of like journaling, writing, typing, whatever you wanna call it, to like you know, every day just kind of process these emotions. That's one way to like, you have to prioritize the time. That's really important. You gotta do it every day.
You know, it doesn't have to be five hours at a time, but maybe 10 minutes, then 10 minutes in the afternoon and just kind of slow down and think about like these questions. And again, gratitude is very important. Start dreaming, start like getting excited about like, what do I want? So then you can visualize it, take, have that feeling, generative excitement so you can take actions to get to your result and your dream.
Do that. I think sometimes also, I think is my new thing. I mean, something that's getting a pet is really important because pets are souls without an ego. So they receive that's good and they give so much love. And sometimes we are such in a bad place that we can't even like give and receive the love.
But a pet will really do that. And there's so many people that are burned out, but they tell me like, the only thing that kept me alive was my dog because I have something to look forward to or I have somebody to feed. And that's kind of sad, but it's really true. Like that really helped me during Covid.
I had a dog. So I think animals, pets can be huge source of like maybe getting you in a place where you learn to receive, you learn to give love because they will help in that loop. Because as physicians we don't like to receive help, love, I mean, when people are concerned and tell you like, "Ooh, I think you're kind of in a difficult place emotionally." We put up all these walls and all these, you know, I perfect syndrome that are false beliefs.
So it's not a true nature. We're not perfect. So when you allow and receive care, concern, help, support, it's a gift to you cuz you're gonna feel better. It's a gift to the giver. They're giving you that love support and it kind of creates a cycle of c like of energy getting changed and of connection.
It's actually more isolating when you don't receive it. Just like if you had a patient and you're trying to tell 'em like this recommendation, and they out like they just refuse it. They're like, "No, I don't wanna do that surgery. Or like no, I'm not gonna take that med." Like, how do you feel as a physician when they reject your like care, your concern that you know from your like expertise that that's gonna help 'em?
Daniel Wrenne: Right?
Dr. Diana Londoño: When you get that barrier, how do you feel? So imagine when people are trying to help you. When you just say no to everything always and don't have a open heart, open mind, then you know, it really doesn't. It's like stops, there's a lot of resistance and nobody feels good after that.
You don't feel good. They don't feel good. People feel like rejected, isolated, separate, you know, we wanna feel like union together. And that comes from love. Like, love brings people together.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. I think, another one, I like is, I think you mentioned it, journaling, I used to journal and it was like a mess of journaling and I actually read a book, which was fantastic.
It's Jim Rohn, he writes about mindset and all that. Basically, if you all want to educate yourself on mindset, he's a fantastic, like he's top of a line better than anyone I've ever read about this kind of stuff.
But anyway, one of his books was on how to journal. He has like a do it at the same time every day right where you're at, what time of day, focus on like feelings and experiences and not on like facts and that kind of thing.
So it goes through the process of how to journal. So journaling is fantastic, you know, and doing it regularly and referring back to it. Just having that time and space to do that kind of thing.
Dr. Diana Londoño: There was a Harvard study that said like, what are the happy people? What are things that they're doing? And one of them is you buy experiences, not things. Why is that important? Because when you buy experiences, first of all, like you can actually recall that experience. And when you, you're kind of like using kind of imagery, which is very powerful. You are dreaming, you're recalling that image, and then you feel something different where you're like, "Oh, remember when we did X, Y, and Z and you know how fun it was and you remember your kids laughing whatever."
You could recall that any time that's available to you, that is a gift that you can recall an experience. And you feel much different than when you just buy some expensive purse that you know, you're afraid, oh my god, there's gonna get dirty, stolen. You know, people are are jealous about it. You know, things don't have the same sort of value or change.
You know, neurochemically, that's gonna be really short when you buy it. It equals away. But an experience is very different. So important to my experiences to have connection with others. It's important to make your space something happy like things that you like, whether it's your candles, whether it's your air smelly thing that you like to smell. Pictures of your dogs, kids, cats, whatever you like. That makes you feel happy. Like your environment has to be a happy environment.
Plot that you like, music that you like. So what was the last time you like, put on music you like or like dance or move? Movement's really important. And sometimes when you're in a funk, like you put a music and you're like, "Oh, okay, I can do this."
Or I feel a little like excited. So music is really important part of healing, and it's been throughout the ages, art, music, all that stuff kind of always makes you feel like, "Oh you know like it's something else that somebody created. And creation is linked to spirituality, right? Like you're connecting to a higher source when all these masterpieces are made. So there's a good way to something's get outta the funk.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. I don't remember if we were talking about this before we started or after, but your talk, you were dancing at the end and had everybody dancing. That was, that was fantastic example of all that.
Dr. Diana Londoño: Yeah. I mean, you cannot, you know, go somewhere and dance and then like still be upset at the person next to year.
Daniel Wrenne: Right.
Dr. Diana Londoño: When you dance, you know, whether you have alcohol or not. I mean, but you're dance, you're moving. This has been from the ages, right? Like all the ancestors, indigenous people, how do they come in community? How do they release their energy, their things, they dance around the fire, wherever and chant it and moved.
Movement is so important. Yeah, it's underrated, you know? I mean, probably if you go clubbing you remember, but even if you don't go clubbing, you can have dance parties with your six year old. I have 'em all the time with my kids. Yeah. And be silly and like, don't take life so seriously. I mean, you know, my friend, I think she's here, she's like, "I just love how you're just not so serious. Cuz you know, I did some cheerleading Instagram reel." I mean, it's so ridiculous that I just laugh. My husband's like, "What are you doing?" I'm like, "I really don't care. This is like fun and like it's 90 seconds. Like you can't be that serious all day."
Just like laugh at life a little bit. Laugh at your like blunders, just like laugh about it. Like, don't be so serious. It's so important to be lighthearted about life and things. Like, it doesn't have to be so serious, you know? Like we can just be joyful and like silly and why not? Like why are you so like uptight?
Like that type A personality when you're so up tight. There's lots of research, right? Higher blood pressure. Cuz you're always so like in the box, your blood pressure goes up. When your blood pressure goes up, you get heart attack, stroke, you hearten your arteries, you get reflex. I mean, it's not healthy.
It's not healthy. But, we wanna be so rigid and it's like, just like, let it be like, let it flow. Like so what, So what if like, this doesn't get down like a certain way, you know, just let it be.
Daniel Wrenne: I think another big thing for me, I feel like people have the most influence over you. And so your friends or your coaches, your like advise people that are helping you, like a coach can be really impactful. Or just like the people you're wa like the news is terrible. I mean, it's negative. So, but you can also seek out positive sources of people. And I guess you have to be careful with who you're associating with.
Jim Rohn, going back to, I'm gonna talk about Jim Roan all day long when we're talking about this, but one of the quotes he had that was fantastic. He says, "You're the average of your five best friends." Which is completely true. So you gotta just, you have to be aware of who you're around and are they pulling you in the direction of what you wanna become or not
Dr. Diana Londoño: You may lose friends. I mean, I definitely lost like a lifelong friend from residency. We were friends for like 25 years or something because he really couldn't get out of like this victim mindset.
And I, after two years, I just couldn't take it anymore. I'm like, I just can't be that friend for you anymore. I've tried everything that I can help you with. And you stuck in like this victim mindset. I can't, like I gotta like drop the anchor and like keep moving cuz I'm getting dragged down of a place I don't wanna be, I don't wanna be in victim and in negativity anymore. Like I did it. Like that's great, let's move on. I don't wanna be there. So then I wanna be around people that are gonna elevate me. People that are right in a different path. I would wanna actually be in like joyful and moving and dancing and you know, like thinking of different ways of solutions for the problems that we currently have.
Cuz there's a lot of problems, but we can find a solution. So I wanna be around those people. I wanna, you know, get support. Yeah. That's why I invested $33,000 to get a coach, cuz sometimes you really can't do it alone when you're down in the gutter. You need a coach to get you from point A to point B.
And the C-suites have it and athletes have it, and Oprah and all these big people have tons of coaches. So like invest in yourself. It's not just you went to medical school or you got an MBA or whatever you did and then you're done for life. Invest in yourself development. Invest and like ways to grow to learn stuff that is so important. Or just read things or listen to podcasts that elevate you instead of the news or Facebook.
When I was burned out, I would probably do for an hour every night. Every night, every day. Waking up the Facebook feed, it's all negativity. So I do not like touch that with a 10 foot pole anymore. I don't ever look at it, but I used to for like hours at a time.
So just what I felt all day, all that negativity. So I don't do that ever again. But then now I spend my morning in a different way. Like really like meditating, thinking about these things much different mornings than like how I feel during the day is much different. I'm like calm, I'm not like, like a crazy chicken.
Like I'm just calm now and it's because I'm just starting in any my day in a different way. Yeah. You take all that stuff in and it's gonna pull you positive or negative. I know we're getting close to the in the time, so I wanna be respectful of your time, but in the last couple of minutes, can you talk to us about the business you started? It's Physician Coaching Support, right?
Yeah. PhysicianCoachSupport.com is a free and confidential platform for like any physician, resident or, you know attending the OMD that wants to come and get support from a peer who's a physician and a life coach. So you're not gonna get transformational coaching, like if you would do a six month program, a 12 week, but sometimes you just need somebody different to be there and listen to you because we've been there.
We understand what it is to be a nephrologist, urologist, you know, surgeon, whatever. We've been through burnout, many of us, and we just give you a different perspective of how to look at the things that you are dealing with that sometimes you just can't see your way out of. So we just use coaching skills to talk to you about anything and people come with.
You know, feeling like an imposter or feeling they don't know how to like parent their children who are teenagers or they feel like they have a meeting and they don't know how to show up with their boss. They wanna try to practice or learn boundaries. Like, what if I say this or I'm afraid of judgment.
Everybody's afraid of judgment. That's why we don't or do things because we have fear. So if you get out of the fear and lead with love, you're gonna have a different way that you're gonna take a different action. But we just help you with anything that be coming up. Again, it's confidential, you know, and it's available seven days a week via Zoom.
You can keep the camera off or off, but it really is there for support because we are a difficult place. You know, more than 60% of positions are in burnout. 25% are depressed, 13% are suicidal, and 400 plus every single year completes suicide. So that's really, really terrible. We've gotta change something.
We gotta wake up. We really have to do something different to get different results. We can't keep doing the same thing over and over and like expect a different results. So start there. Start a path. There's different resources there too, if you want it completely anonymous. If you want, you know, phone lines, there's different ones on our website, so go to the website so you can check out staff, you know, learn about a lot of things and just start doing something.
Your call to action today should be, what am I gonna be different? Like, what am I gonna do to get that different result if you're not in a place that you love today?
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. Do you have any recommendations for like more full service coaching?
Dr. Diana Londoño: Yeah. So also on our website, I mean all the volunteers cause everybody there is a volunteer. Everybody has their profile. So you can look at the profiles and look at like.
Daniel Wrenne: They all do life coaching on this.
Dr. Diana Londoño: Yeah. So they all have their own businesses. You can look it up if you're looking for weight loss, marriage, transitions, you know, we have a lot of different coaches that specialize in different things. Money mindset, so everything, for men, for women, all of this. So you can go there. But that's just, you know, 36 people. There's hundreds of coaches now. There are physicians if that's, you want a physician coach? There's not something that you find that you like. I mean, I can help you send us a email message. We can try to help you get you to where you wanna be.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah, I'm a big fan of, well, you know, investing yourself, but in particularly coaching I think is fantastic and I'm glad to see that like, it seems like physician coaching has started to become a bigger thing and
Dr. Diana Londoño: Yeah, I think it's exploding, but yes, and it's definitely growing. Truly it's about like less than 15% of positions, 11% have used coaching regularly. There's a huge percentage that is like, what is that? And some that are like, no way, but we gotta like do something different really to help us with skills that we didn't learn as little kids. The way that we look at things in life, these are life skills and they're gonna help you in everything you do, like your relationships, your work, everything is gonna be based on mindset.
You can't do anything without a mindset or belief and how that impacts your results.
Daniel Wrenne: Yeah. Yeah, that's great. I forgot to ask and someone reminded me, what is your website?
Yeah, it's www.PhysicianCoachSupport.com. Again, www.PhysicianCoachSupport.com. Again, just check it out. Lots of resources, lots of information, take a step. Lots of you know, people that have used it, write down what their experience was, which is, you know, been very, very positive. We've helped hundreds of physicians since we started, so it's been really a positive effect on both the coaches and both the physicians that come and get support.
Yeah. That's great. Yeah, thanks Marcella for reminding me that, and Diana, we really appreciate you joining us. This has been fun, good conversation and lots of stuff in there.
Like, we'll link to a lot of these resources in the show notes and give you some tools and whatnot. But I think the best thing is the takeaway is like taking action. This is like a lifelong thing and you know, it's not like you're gonna be overnight, having that fantastic mindset.
It's something and we go up and down in life. It's been fun talking. I really appreciate you chatting with me.
Dr. Diana Londoño: Of course. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
