Simply Worth It: Physician Negotiations with Dr. Linda Street

When we talk about finding that right-fit job, the checklist is usually centered on salary, benefits, schedule, and the tangible things that ensure that it reflects our worth.

The less tangible things also require some thought too, and they can have a bigger impact on how well we thrive in our roles.

Enjoying your job and feeling like your values are being met preserves our happiness and our longevity in medicine, so it's worth pinpointing them.

How do we identify the values that matter most to us and apply them to our current or next jobs? In this episode, I talk about how to uncover what truly makes you happy at work.

Three Things You'll Learn In This Episode

- Why our values can help us keep burnout at bay

Can being in alignment make us more productive and purposeful at work?

- The win-win of focusing on your values

Why is it so much easier to go above and beyond in our work when it aligns with what makes us happy?

- How to apply your values to your current job or job search

Can you use your list of values to make changes to your existing job?

From finishing med school to reaching a certain income level, most of us live our lives by outcome-based, tick-the-box goals - but what if this approach just limits us?

We've been indoctrinated with the idea of setting goals, but having such concrete resolutions can rob us of opportunities to fully enrich our lives.

How do we shift from hard-coded goals to a driving principle for the year? How do we hold our lives to something less tangible?

In this episode, I share why in 2023, I'm trying un-goals on for size.

Three Things You'll Learn In This Episode

- Why goals can keep us from our highest potential

Can we still make amazing things happen without an outcome pulling us?

- How to hold yourself accountable to something intangible

If you thrive around the structure of a concrete goal how do you stay motivated?

- How to live towards your values

Once we've set our un-goal for the year, how can you modify the different buckets of our lives to align with it?

'Tis the season for functioning in survival mode. With busy schedules, to-do lists, holiday plans, and the usual end-of-year stuff, sometimes all we can muster is just "good enough". We can't always be in peak achievement mode, and that's okay.

But when survival mode becomes less a temporary phase, and more a chronic state of being, there's a problem.

How can we tell if survival mode is becoming more maladaptive and toxic? What can we do when we're stuck in survival mode?

In this episode, I share what a long-term state of survival tells us and what we can do about it.

Three Things You'll Learn In This Episode

- The good thing about survival mode

Is working in survival mode ever acceptable?

- Chronic survival mode vs. hibernation

Sometimes we slow down to prepare for a big leap forward, but how do we make sure that's what's happening?

- The giant caveat of functioning in survival mode

How can we tell if our survival mode is a symptom of something deeper and far more serious?

Call it gut instinct, a weird vibe, your sixth sense, or your brain picking up subtle cues, intuition is something we all have. As physicians, we get so caught up in the logic of things, it's really easy to shrug off a gut instinct as unreliable, but what if the little nagging feeling holds a lot more wisdom than you give it credit for?

In many ways, we subconsciously know what's best for us, so ignoring our intuition can actually be detrimental.

Do our instincts provide useful information we should include in our decision-making? How can our intuition serve us in a negotiation?

In this episode, I talk about why we shouldn't dismiss our intuition before listening to what it has to say.

Three Things You'll Learn In This Episode

- Why we shouldn't underestimate our intuition

Intuition might not be as woo-woo as you think. Could those nagging feelings be backed by science?

- Why your gut instinct serves you in a negotiation

Listening to your intuition doesn't mean abandoning all logic, but can this subtle wisdom actually give our rational side a boost?

- The difference between fear and intuition

How do we make sure we're not making a decision just because the alternative feels scary?

As a special bonus for our 100th episode, I am offering $100 off my MGMA Custom Pay Data Reports. Just visit www.simplystreetmd.com/pay and use the code 100podcast at checkout before December 31st.

Thank you all for your continued support of the podcast!

Conversations - the ones we have with ourselves, and the ones we have with others - are such everyday, autopilot things, we can easily forget how powerful they can be.

By fine-tuning our conversational skills, we can tap into a world of possibilities and create moments of transformation, whether it's in your next negotiation, or at the dinner table over the holidays.

What are the ingredients of a transformational conversation? How do we get past the natural tendencies that make it hard for us to open up?

In this special throwback episode, I'm joined by certified life coach, fitness enthusiast, podcast host, and founder of Life Coaching For Women Physicians, Ali Novitsky. We talk about the power of upping our conversational intelligence.

Three Things You'll Learn In This Episode

- How to identify an opening for a transformational conversation

Is every interaction an opportunity to go beyond an informational exchange?

- High trust vs. low trust conversations

Transformational conversations are built on vulnerability. How do we remove the protective mechanisms that keep us from it?

- How to take the cortisol out of our conversations

How do we have more conversations in a curious, brainstorming mode instead of being attached to a specific outcome and direction?

Guest Bio

Ali Novitsky is a certified life coach, fitness enthusiast, podcast host, and founder of Life Coaching For Women Physicians. Board-certified in Obesity Medicine, her program focuses on overcoming the challenges that physicians face and transforming their thoughts so that they can become the fittest version of themselves in Mind and Body.

For more information visit https://www.lifecoachingforwomenphysicians.com.

Gratitude is one of those things we're socialized to believe is always positive, but there's a lot more nuance to it.

Sometimes saying thank you can go a long way, other times we use gratitude as an excuse to not ask.

What are the advantages of showing gratitude?

Where can gratitude take a turn for the negative?

In this episode, I talk about how to make sure your 'thank you' is working for you and not against you at the negotiating table.

Three Things You'll Learn In This Episode

- A powerful way to bridge your ask

How can we use gratitude to melt the ice in a negotiation?

- The built-in social capital of negotiation

Why is it so important to express gratitude to the people who help pave the way to a great outcome?

- Where gratitude hurts your goals

Can gratitude keep us trapped in a job that's not serving us?

To have a job that truly serves us and allows us to thrive at the highest level, certain boundaries and conditions need to be present. We may be acutely aware of what these things are for ourselves, but our employers can't read our minds.

We have to express our unique needs and spell them out so we can get the support we need to thrive in our jobs.

How do we get key decision-makers to understand the day-to-day challenges we have in our jobs and the improvements we need?

In this episode, I talk about how to express what you require to be your best (and happiest) at work.

Three Things You'll Learn In This Episode

- Why our employers might not understand what we're dealing with

The people who make the decisions on what our day-to-day looks like are removed from our everyday clinical work. How do we let them in on what we're experiencing in a way they will understand?

- What we need to perform optimally

How do you maximize the things you're best equipped and most happy doing and minimize the soul-crushing aspects of the job?

- The effect of voicing what we need to thrive in our jobs

Retaining physicians is of utmost importance, especially now. How can we create space for our employers to support us?

Big wins, leaps, and accomplishments are often associated with endorphin-rich highs and tons of elation, but what happens when the joy is short-lived, and we're left feeling a little underwhelmed about the whole thing?

Sometimes the after-effect of a win is more anticlimactic than we thought it would be, and that's totally okay. Victory hangovers are a natural part of growing as a person, we won't always have the warm and fuzzies when we achieve something great.

How do we deal with all the feelings that come with a win?

In this episode, we talk about why we feel low after doing something really great.

Three Things You'll Learn In This Episode

- Why moments of accomplishment bring up unexpected feelings

A huge part of growth is adjusting to a new set point for ourselves - is that what makes a win feel anticlimactic?

- How to avoid a spiral into full-on negativity

After a victory, our brains may offer less-than-helpful thoughts that can sabotage us, how do we shut them down?

- Embracing the emotional rollercoaster of growth

How do we make room for every emotion that comes with a victory hangover?

When we show up to a negotiation (or any conversation for that matter) it's not just the words we say that make the ask, our body language does some speaking of its own too.

If we're making a big, bold ask, but our body language screams small - our words won't pack as much of a punch, making it very confusing for the person on the other end.

How do we create more alignment between our words and our body language? How do we make sure our confidence is equally heard and felt?

In this episode, I share a golden nugget from Kasia Urbaniak's Unbound: A Woman's Guide to Power and how to fine-tune our non-verbal communication skills.

Three Things You'll Learn In This Episode

- How to enter a negotiation with dominant energy

How do we make sure the energy of influence is going outward to the person we're making the ask to, instead of being internalized?

- Why body language carries into our voices

In a virtual setup, can our body language be palpable even if it's not visible?

- How to exude confidence and influence

Why is it so easy to grant the request of a charismatic person and how do we tap into that energy?

Boundaries are associated with protecting ourselves from negativity, and even great things can become toxic without boundaries.

Many of us love our jobs, but because we have so much on our plates, we're always one stressful moment away from completely falling apart.

In healthcare, it feels like we're caught between accepting burnout as part of the job and quitting entirely. So is there a happier medium?

How do we overcome this internal tug-of-war between what's healthy for us and what burns us out?

In this episode, I'm thrilled to be joined by the founder/CEO of Brave Enough and author of "Brave Boundaries: Strategies to Say No, Stand Strong and Take Control of Your Time" Dr. Sasha Shillcutt. She shares how to set boundaries so we stop over-functioning and stretching ourselves too thin.

Three Things You'll Learn In This Episode

- Where our over-functioning stems from

Could our struggle with boundaries have little to do with ego or an over-identification with our careers?

- The first boundary we have to set at work

One major cause of burnout and stress is responsibilities that aren't even part of our job description. How do we protect ourselves from this pain point?

- Why our boundaries allow us to protect what's good

The hardest boundaries to set are with the people we care about most. How do we have those hard conversations?

Guest Bio

Dr. Sasha Shillcutt is a physician, gender equity researcher, speaker, founder/CEO of Brave Enough, wife, mom, and author of "Brave Boundaries: Strategies to Say No, Stand Strong and Take Control of Your Time". She teaches women work-life control through courses and community.

For more information head to https://www.becomebraveenough.com and buy Sasha's book here.