Why you should take ownership of your own career

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 a pleasure to be talking with you today. Today I'm talking about the importance of taking ownership of your own career, why you should take ownership of your career. And one of the reasons that I want to share this with you today is because of my prior experience with myself.

1:25 I'm telling on myself today. So when I first started, I think I had the sense that someone was going to come and give me the career I wanted, and that someone was going to be a mentor. And you know, people talk about mentors in a way that many times I feel like, oh my gosh, I wish I had such a mentor. And I think many of us probably feel that way. It's like, oh. But then actually, I take that back because many people do have those amazing mentors who like if you literally just give them your career in a platter, they'll just take it and make it something amazing and awesome. But I think by and large, the experience may not be exactly that.

2:05 And even if you do find a mentor who really is amazing and pours into you and does so much for you, at the end of the day, the reality is that it's not the mentor's career. It's your career. And so I started to tell on myself as an I was that person who really felt like it was somebody else's responsibility to move my career forward. And so whenever I had a disappointing experience in a mentoring relationship, I blamed the mentor. I was like, well, if this mentor could do would have done better for me, then my life would be so much better. And to be honest, at the end of the day, nobody owes me anything. And so I was childish in those relationships.

2:47 And I think the reality of life is that if you will not make your way forward, nobody else is responsible for helping you move it forward. And it's important to recognize that. And it's important to acknowledge that. So anyway, so I want to just share with you some thoughts about the reason why it's important for you to take ownership of your own career and whether or not you have a great mentor or not a great mentor doesn't matter. Because ultimately, since you are the one in charge, you can make it work whether or not you have the mentor you're looking for. And I think it's important to recognize that mentors can provide guidance and support and some do some so amazing and awesome and they really take your career and help you run with it.

3:29 It's really important that you are actively involved in shaping your own career because it's yours. And no one's ever going to be invested in your career like you are. And even when your mentor is wonderful and everybody doesn't have a mentor like that, being the one to take ownership of your career is responsible because it's important because it is your career. It is your career. So I want to share first that your career is your personal responsibility. It really is. And I think the lines get blurred after medical school. So when we are pursuing the whole path to medical school, that is so easy to stay focused.

4:09 You're like, this is my dream. This is my dream. This is what I want to do. Great. You're not asking your mentors in college to do it for you or to tell you how to go or to do. I mean, you might go to them for advice, but you're the one writing all the essays. You're the one going on the interviews. You're the one spending money out of pocket. Maybe now you're not having to do that. But you really have been responsible. And then all of a sudden you get into this place called residency where it's just like, well, here's how you get from the beginning to the end. And then you get to fellowship. It's like, oh, here's how you get to the beginning to the end. And then you start to feel like, well, maybe a program is in charge of your career. And sometimes we also get that when we're like, oh, this medical school is going to make me.

4:52 Oh my goodness, this is a top tier medical school. Therefore, my career is going to be amazing. And we forget that people fail out of top tier programs. Right? And the people who don't fail out, the people who really put in the work and the energy and the effort. And yes, I acknowledge the space of good fortune and not having a major illness or a major life event. But for the most part, if you succeed at the end of your training, it's not because the institution made you succeed, it's because you succeeded. And so it becomes more obvious that it's up to us to succeed when we enter into faculty careers where you find out that people are not thinking about you as much as you are thinking about yourself.

5:33 And it makes sense. It's not their careers, it's yours. And so it's important to take personal responsibility for your career. Mentors are great. They offer advice, they offer assistance, they help you, they show you things you've never done before. They can't actually make decisions for you, not in a way that's effective. Because if this person is a research mentor, your life is so much bigger than just the research you do. What about your family concerns? What about relationship concerns? What about your challenges with children? Or maybe you're trying to have children and you're having to go through all the stuff to make it happen. Your research mentor is not the person who can take all of your career and take all of your life and decide the direction of your career.

6:19 So it really is your personal responsibility and it's important for you to step up to it because no one is going to take personal responsibility for your career like you can. No one's going to do that. And if they do, are they going to make the best decisions for you given everything that's going on in your life, not given the narrow lens and the narrow window of this research career that you're undertaking? Because your research career is important, but your life exists within the context, within a greater context. And so that's important for you to take that personal responsibility. Okay. The other thing is the importance of you directing your journey, the importance of you directing your journey.

7:03 And it does go back to what we talked about earlier. It's that you are one person and you are so big. You're so huge in the sense that the scope of you is huge. So there's the spiritual existential part of you that's not part of your research program, but it's an integral part. It just permeates all that you do. And it's not necessarily something you take to a research mentor to help navigate for you. And that's one piece of it. And how about having fun? Where you go on vacation, who you hang out with. I don't know about you, but that's not something I would bring to a mentor to help you make decisions.

7:47 But sometimes the stuff that's going on in the research lab or in the research program may affect your ability to travel. It's like, oh, this is great conference. You should go there. It's coming up in three weeks. And in three weeks, you have the vacation of a lifetime to Aruba, but you don't want to disappoint the mentor. What do you do? For some of you, the answers to that question is super easy. It's like, of course I go to Aruba. What are you kidding me? But some of you don't actually, you're not sure. You're like, well, well, maybe. And no judgment here. But it's just saying that because you're the one who has the scope of the whole thing, you know, your relationship challenges or your parenting challenges or your caring for aging parents challenges.

8:37 You know all of that. And so there is no one better able to bring it all together to make sure that your work is meaningful and fulfilling and really serves the other areas of your life. And I don't know about you, there are not very many people you can trust or should trust with every aspect of your life because no one person is that powerful. No one person has that capacity to be able to take all of you and make decisions for you. So it's important that you are directing your own journey and navigating your own way forward. Okay. The other reason it's important for you to take ownership of your career is the need for being adaptable and resilient.

9:24 Look, this work is hard and sometimes you have to pivot or sometimes you have to burn the boat and jump. Nobody can make that happen for you or nobody can do it on your behalf. If everything breaks down and you are left with nothing, it's you. It's on you. And it's challenging. Sometimes the research we're pursuing doesn't work and we have to make the painful shift to a different research area or to a different mentoring opportunity. And really the gift is ours, the gift of building resilience, the gift of adapting is ours.

10:07 And it's great when we can share those opportunities with mentors who can lead us and show us the right direction. And even if they don't exist or even if maybe a mentor is the cause of something that comes crashing down, you have the opportunity to grow in your resilience because you are taking ownership of your career. You're not looking for someone else to tell you whether you can move forward or not. You're deciding you can move forward and you're the one moving forward. And that is really, really empowering. Okay. Another thing is the importance of you continuing to learn. Because you are leading and taking ownership of your career, you have to learn what's needed for the next step and the next step and the next step after that.

10:50 And sometimes it is a little bit anxiety provoking because it's like, no, just show me what to do. It's better if you show me what to do. But it's like exercising muscles in the gym, right? The more challenges you bring to this muscle, the better the definition of this muscle, the more amazing this muscle looks. And so continuous learning is the muscle that you're building as you're building your research program. You know how to find the information you need. And therefore, whenever challenges come up, you go after the information you need so that you can solve the problem. You become a problem solver for your own career. And so the opportunity to continuously learn rather than say, hey, just teach me all I need to know is great because lifelong learning is a skill you're always going to be building no matter where you find yourself.

11:42 You are on an ongoing journey. You're growing, you're developing. And so as you're taking ownership, it means you start to look for opportunities to learn new skills, to develop new skills, to develop new strategies, to move your work forward. And in a sense, it's you becoming the leader and the director of your boat, the captain of your own enterprise. You're like, what do I need to move forward? Oh, this thing about hiring and firing is really hard. How do I go get the knowledge that I need for that? And it really helps you kind of like stay resilient and like continue to think about, OK, how do I move forward? Where do I go get this knowledge? Who has access to it? Rather than trying to get it all from one person.

12:23 And so it just helps you kind of exercise the muscle of continuous learning, of continuous growth, of continued forward motion. And that is really, really awesome and super, super powerful. So definitely take ownership of your career so that you continue to learn in a way that just transforms your experience. I think the fifth thing I want to talk about is the importance of you doing your own networking and relationship building. And so many times as we're coming through in a mentor's research program, their contacts are our contacts. And when we first start, it's so important because, hey, you have no contacts. And so it's so helpful that your mentor is able to introduce you to amazing people.

13:07 And it's great. And you also need to advance beyond that network to start connecting networks together. And so when you see yourself as being in charge of your own career, you take ownership of your own networking and relationship building. You don't wait and say, well, if I'm not introduced, then perhaps I don't need to know this person. You say, well, to what extent does this person fit within my research program? To what extent does their expertise help me? You are proactive. You're going after these relationships. You're actively nurturing them. In fact, you're seeking out new mentors, new collaborators. And sometimes I hear people think, well, if I go talk to another mentor, then am I being disloyal?

13:50 And it can feel that way. But it's not disloyal. It's your career that you're building. And any feeling you have of being disloyal to one mentor because you go seek out another is not really healthy because your career is going to be on a different level than your primary research mentor's career. They started this career maybe 20, 30, 40 years before you. And you're just starting in a different era, in a different time zone, in a different era, really. And so the networks you're going to want to build are going to be different from those of your mentor. And so you want to be the one taking ownership for that, seeking out new mentors, seeking out new collaborations so that it can really help accelerate your career.

14:40 And mentors are amazing. And I hope you don't get the sense that I don't think that our mentors are. They are. And would we go far without them? We might. It would be harder, but we still could. But it's important not to say you're going to put all your eggs in one basket. And if your mentor doesn't move forward in the one direction, then you have to decide you're not moving forward in that direction. So you get to choose. You get to choose because it's your own career. And so your mentor is great to provide you the kind of career guidance, support, and value insights that you need. But your career journey is yours. It's unique to you. Your life experiences all come together.

15:24 And they're different. They're different than anything that anyone else has ever experienced. So nobody else can live your career for you. Even if they were born at the exact same time as you were, or even are from the same family as you, no one can lead your career like you can. And when you take ownership of your career, you empower yourself to make informed decisions. You're able to set and pursue your own goals. You can adapt to changes. You ultimately are able to create a path that aligns with your values and aspirations. You are saying, this is the path I'm choosing because it makes sense to me. And it's the path that I own. And it's really, really awesome and amazing and so powerful. So just to recap, when you're taking ownership of your own career, it allows you to take personal responsibility and not advocate it to someone else.

16:10 It allows you to direct and lead your career so you have self-direction. It gives you opportunity for adaptability and resilience as you're making the decisions for how your career should go and where next to take it. It allows you to become a continuous learner. That's number four. And it just enhances your feelings of self-efficacy because you're someone who's continuously learning how to move your own career forward. And finally, it allows you to network and build your own relationships and take ownership for the network that you have so that you can move your career forward. All right. That's all I have for today's episode. If somebody else needs to hear this, please share it with them.

16:50 And if you are a clinician looking to make the transition from clinician to clinician scientist, you're looking for a coach, I want to work with you. Please reach out to me on DM. I am on Instagram. I'm also on Facebook and I'm on LinkedIn as well. Send me a DM and let's set up a discovery call to see if it makes sense for us to move forward. All right. It was such a pleasure talking with you today. I look forward to the next time. 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.

17:37 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. Thank you. At this time, let's take a moment to make some comments.