Pursue change before it gets you

0:00 Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor. As clinicians, we spend a decade or more as trainees learning to take care of patients. When we finally start our careers, we want to build research programs, but then we find that our years of clinical training did not adequately prepare us to lead our research program. Through no fault of our own, we struggle to find mentors, and when we can't, we quit. However, clinicians hold the keys to the greatest research breakthroughs.

0:40 For this reason, the Clinician Researcher podcast exists to give academic clinicians the tools to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor. Now introducing your host, Toyosi Onwuemene. Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast. I'm your host Toyosi Onwuemene, and it is such a pleasure to be talking with you today. For those of you who are watching the YouTube video or wherever it is that you're watching the video, maybe on our website, clinicianresearcherpodcast.com, you will notice that I have a new background.

1:21 I have a new background because we moved. We moved in the last week. I'm going to talk to you about the move in just a minute, but I do want to tell you that you should pursue change before it gets you. That is the title of today's podcast episode, coming to you a little bit later than it should, but still coming to you on schedule. But definitely pursue change before it gets you. I'm going to share with you five reasons or five things that you should be thinking about with regard to change. And yes, I want to announce again that today's podcast episode is Pursue Change Before It Gets You.

2:02 And this is probably a great time to stop and tell you that if you are not already working with a coach who understands clinicians and their goals for scholarship, I want to invite you to think about working with me. And you have many coaches that you could choose from. I hope that you would consider us working together and seeing how I can support you on your journey towards excellence as a physician, as a scientist, and every aspect of your life. Okay. So, the story I want to share today has to do with change. Clearly, this episode is about change. Specifically, I've experienced change in the last week, including moving house, right? Which is a big deal. We were in our last place for 11 years, and honestly, we wouldn't have moved except that pain, the pain of change caught up with us.

2:46 And I'm going to talk about the pain of change in just a little bit. But definitely, we had gotten to a place where we needed more space, or at least we wanted more space because, you know, you never really need anything. We just wanted more space. And part of that wanting more space is that our kids were old enough now where our son and our daughter no longer wanted to share a room. When they were much younger, we could easily do that. And now, we just didn't have the right combination of rooms on the same floor where it made sense for us because the children are still young. But we started thinking about, okay, well, let's think about moving. And of course, then we wade into the housing market, which is still a little bit challenging at this time.

3:30 And we're like, no, we don't want to do this. This is too crazy. And all the time, we're thinking, nope, we don't like the situation anymore. People are getting restless. Nobody wants things the way they are. And so finally, we take the plunge and we buy a new place and we move. Now, it's one thing to move when you're moving across country to a new position. And there's just this knowledge that there's a little bit of lag time in between. Now, for those of you who moved between residency and fellowship, you know that that's never enough time. But there is a little bit of an expectation that you're moving to a new place, that it takes time to set up. It's different when you're already ongoing and it's just like life is going on as usual.

4:12 And oh, you didn't cancel those meetings. And are you sure you want to keep working in the week of moving? So it was a little bit of an interesting upheaval to our very usual routine schedule. We waited for the children to finish school because we didn't want that upheaval in their schedule. But we certainly had a pretty busy, pretty full schedule in terms of making the move. I want to share that I, at the same time as just well, just before the move, I was on call for a week. And in that week of being on call, we also submitted a grant. Now, usually I plan my grant submissions so they don't necessarily coincide with being on call. But what happened is that an opportunity came up that made sense for us to jump on.

4:53 And I may have talked about it in my last episode. So it actually meant that I was running a grant at the same time as being on call, at the same time as making a huge move. And it felt overwhelming. But it was also important to do. And on the other side of call, submitting the grant and having moved, now I have the sense of, you know what, it was worth it. It was worth that pain of transition. It was worth the pain of change because of everything that's ahead of us. Now, from the perspective of the grant, there's no guarantee that it's going to be funded. However, every time you write a grant, it's an opportunity to write again a better grant the next time.

5:34 You've already laid thoughts on paper, you've thought about things. And so the next time you go to pick up the grant, whether it's to move it forward if it's funded or to rewrite it for another opportunity, there's already work that's been laid down. So every time you write a grant, it's a great thing. It's always a celebration. And so my colleague and I, who were MPIs together on this grant, we're going to go celebrate because you celebrate the submission. You know, it's great, it's easy. Everybody can celebrate when the grant is funded, but the real work, the real power is in submission. And so we celebrate submissions. And so really excited that we got to do that. And no matter the outcome of the grant, we already won. And then with regard to the move, we felt that we wanted to move and we made the move.

6:17 And so already we all feel better because now there's space. And now the children are together in one room and fighting all the time. And so that change has been really positive as well. And how about the change of being on call? What's interesting actually is that I wasn't supposed to be on call that week. I switched with somebody because of the prospect of a future opportunity and I wanted to have access to that opportunity. And so now that call is over, I know I'm looking forward to a week of no call where I can take the opportunity or take advantage of the opportunity that's before me. So it's been a season of change. And really, even though it felt tumultuous in the midst of the change, I'm excited to be on the other side of that change, feeling like, okay, I stepped out of a tumult, I don't know if that's the right way to say it, into a broad place.

7:05 And it feels good to be on the other side, but wow, it was challenging going through. And I learned a lot from it. But today, what lesson I want to share is really the importance of embracing change, the importance of pursuing change before change gets you. And this could apply to anything. It could apply to moving, it could apply to writing your grant, it could apply to many things. But I'm specifically just talking about life in general, but I also am talking about your career. One of the things I didn't foresee, and I think it was short-sighted of me, is that my career would continue to evolve. And the things that I held so important at the early stages of my career are not the things that become as important as I'm, I guess people would call me mid-career now.

7:51 I choose not to accept these labels, but I am changing. And I'm thinking about how can my career be different? And I'm embracing opportunities I wouldn't necessarily have embraced, because I'm realizing that it's important for us to capture change before we're forced to change. So there are five things I want to share. And the first is that change is inevitable. And I know that seems to be very obvious, but we kind of live life as if it's not obvious. We talk about, I mean, even recently I had a conversation with someone about, oh, I can't believe that there's this cap that the fellows have. What do they mean by capping them? What are they going to do when they become attendings? And it's an interesting conversation because our attendings had those conversations about us.

8:35 Like, oh, really? Now they're going to limit their working hours to 80 hours? What is that? How are they going to become good doctors? And every generation feels as if it worked harder and that the next generation has it so easy, they're never going to be able to function. And it's not true, right? We made it. We are functioning well, even though the generation before us felt like we weren't getting good training in different ways. And we look on the next generation and we think, oh, well, they're not doing as great. They're not going to succeed. They're not working hard enough. But they are. And inevitably, every generation feels like it had a better experience than the generation coming. And inevitably, the next generation comes and they do equally well and mostly better.

9:20 And so the reality of change is that it's always happening. It is inevitable. Even when we deny it, it's always happening. And part of how it's happening is because we are looking back on a past with nostalgia where people are saying, hey, the winds of change have come. Do you recognize it? Do you understand it? And so change is inevitable. We know this in the fact that, wow, we're not as young as we used to be. I mean, I remember when I was younger, probably I was 10 years old, and my mom would say, I've had this for 17 years. And I'll be like, whoa, I cannot imagine anything older than me. And now I can look back in my life and say 30 years ago and it's like, what?

10:03 When did that happen? And I go from being 10 years old, being awed by something, having gone on for 17 years, to getting to the point where I'm like, wow, I can say 30 years ago and not that annihilated. So change is inevitable, whether we accept it or not, it's happening. It's happening gradually. It's happening consistently, but it is always happening. And for anybody who's denying change, you're kind of delusional if you do. And to be honest, we don't always deny change in every area of our lives, but sometimes in the areas in which it matters the most, we deny change. And it's important for us to recognize that change is inevitable in every sphere of our lives, even in the work that we do.

10:45 The second thing I want to share is that comfort is an illusion. And so one of the reasons we resist change is because we feel good where we are. You know, we're comfortable. Going back to my example of moving house, you know, when we moved in, we had one child and it worked that we had two rooms on the top floor and one room at the bottom because a guest would come and they would stay there. But we certainly weren't going to put the baby in the room downstairs with no adults with them. And as we grew and we got a second child and we were able to, you know, put them in the same room and it was comfortable. We didn't have to change anything. But you know, as change began to happen, as the kids started to get older and like, wait a minute, we don't want the same room.

11:27 And we continue to have guests who were downstairs. It became obvious that change needed to happen. But all along we were comfortable. We were like, ah, you know, we don't have to change. It works, you know, it's fine. And that's what we do in the areas of a career where we're like, you know what, I'm down with this. I've been working in this space. I know the patient's like the back of my hand. Everything is completely comfortable. This is good for me. And we make those decisions to not change anything because we're just happy with the way things are. But comfort in any sphere of life is an illusion. It is such an illusion because change is happening imperceptibly in the background. And if you're like, oh, I'm comfortable here, you're soon going to find out that the comfort is not lost, is not going to last too long.

12:14 And I support comfort. I love comfort. I think it's awesome. And sometimes I do choose in my life that, okay, in this area, I just want to be comfortable so that I can expend energy in other areas of my life. But in reality, if I think I'm comfortable anywhere, it really is an illusion. And I want to share with you that it's an illusion because whatever you're comfortable in today, you're going to become uncomfortable in eventually. And it may take time, but it's definitely coming. So comfort is an illusion. The third thing I want to share is that eventually, whether you like it or not, change catches up to you. And if you let it, if you stubbornly resist the acknowledgement of the change, if you're in denial that everything is the same, you are in for a rude awakening when it finally comes to see you.

13:03 For example, I was in a space where I worked clinically where it just was comfortable. And I remember waking up to myself one morning and thinking, am I sure I should move on to something? This is just too easy. It's no longer a challenge. And I was like, wait a minute, you're able to do something easily. That's not a challenge. You should just embrace it. This is the easy work. And unfortunately, while I was thinking, oh, great, this is easy, other people were thinking, oh, she's too complacent. And so ultimately, whether you know it or not, whether you like it or not, change is going to catch up with you. You might be feeling like, oh, things are going great, but it catches up to you. And so because it catches up to you, you should take the initiative to catch up to change, to actually preempt change and say, hey, change.

13:53 I know that you're coming for me. How can I? How can I preempt you? And how can I prevent you from causing me pain? And that takes me to number four, because when change catches up to you, you inevitably will get to a point where you are forced to choose between two pains. And the first pain is the pain of staying the same versus the pain of change. And when you've resisted change for long enough, what you've done is you said the pain of change is too great. But then you get to a point where the pain of staying the same begins to increase such that it becomes equal to the pain of change.

14:33 But what's more likely for most of us is we're forced to change because the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing. And so we start to think differently, move differently, sometimes too late. And so what I'm inviting you to do is to embrace change. And that comes to number five, because your best life involves change. And your best life involves flexing to change, adapting to change, moving with change, anticipating change, and changing before it's time to change. Because you are a dynamic, growing individual, and you love challenge. Even when you want life to be easier, you love the challenge.

15:17 You love the way it makes you grow. You love the way it stretches you. You love the way it makes you think. And so change is kind of like a natural thing for you. It energizes you. It helps you. And I hear some of you say, no, it doesn't. I hate change. It's so horrible. But in reality, you've been changing all of your life. It's never been a day in which you haven't changed. And most of the time, change is slow. It's imperceptible, but it's always happening. And so you are an agent of change who is both changing and being changed in the process of change. And so I encourage you to embrace change. Go at it with your...

15:59 Take the bull by the horns. Like, embrace change. What does that mean for you as a clinician researcher? It means think about your collaborations. Which ones are serving you and which ones are not? Sometimes you look at collaborations and you're like, ah, this is my mentor. He's been my mentor for years. I don't want to upset anybody or rock the boat, even though this is not working for me anymore. In reality, there is a crash coming to that relationship. But will you preempt it and have the conversation early on to say, hey, I know we've been working together for the last 20 years, but I think I want to move on to different things. And that is a painful conversation to have some mentors are not ready for that kind of change, but it's inevitable. And you can take the bull by the horns and have those conversations about change, or you can wait for the challenges to come to you and then be forced to change.

16:49 And I just want to encourage you to think differently about change in your career. Think differently about change in your research. Think about how do you proactively make change happen so that you're not forced to deal with change in the end. All right, it's been a pleasure talking with you today. I want to thank you so much for listening. Oh, I want to summarize because sometimes my listeners will say, hey, could you summarize those points again? Because I missed them. Number one is that change is inevitable. Number two is that comfort is an illusion. Number three is that eventually, whether you like it or not, change will catch up to you. Number four is that you are forced eventually to choose between two pains, the pain of staying the same versus the pain of change. And your best life involves embracing change and proactively involving change in every area of your life.

17:35 I want to thank you so much for listening. I look forward to talking with you again then next time on the Clinician Researcher Podcast. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Clinician Researcher Podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor. If you found the information in this episode to be helpful, don't keep it all to yourself. Someone else needs to hear it. So take a minute right now and share it. As you share this episode, you become part of our mission to help launch a new generation of clinician researchers who make transformative discoveries that change the way we do healthcare.