Fear of Failure Holds Us All Back Naturally and Automatically

We are hardwired to be creatures of habit. Our reticular activating system is always scanning the horizon looking for danger. This creates the bubble of safety we call our comfort zone.

As doctors, we have a number of comfort zones. Your personal comfort zone when you're away from work is one. At work, you have a comfort zone inside the boundaries of your specialty - the things you're comfortable doing with patients and the things you aren't (many of which are due to previous bad outcomes).

In order to keep us safe, we have a cognitive bias against doing anything new. We stay inside the protective walls of our personal comfort zone at work and at home.

The boundary guard of our comfort zone is fear of failure.

If we do something new it might not work out the way we planned.

We've learned to understand that as FAILURE, and avoid it at all costs

At the same time, all of us are constantly reaching for new goals and learning new skills. Check that ... All of us aspire to reach new goals and learn new skills.

Fear of failure can bring any outside-the-comfort-zone excursion to a screeching halt.

Things might not work out the way we planned. It's risky. I haven't got time for that. So ... we default to just getting busy again.

And as a doctor, you can always find something to get busy with. The Whirlwind is complicit in reinforcing the walls of our comfort zone.

In this post, you'll discover a way to redefine failure, to eliminate it completely from your vocabulary and your life experience at work and at home. It's a very simple mental exercise for scientists like you and me.

You see ... anytime you do something new, it's just another experiment - like the ones we did as undergrads. Let me show you how this mind flip works so you can stretch your boundaries, learn new skills, reach new goals and enjoy the ride.

Check it out.

The Surprising Power of One Simple Weekly Practice

• It increases your power and influence and effectiveness as a leader.
• Increases your team's engagement and enthusiasm for your shared work
• It's just one thing that you do once a week, takes about 10 minutes
• And it's been research proven to make a massive difference in both your experience as a leader and your team's experience of your leadership.

The Multitasking Myth - And Why It’s Makes Everything Worse

Quick question: do you think you're pretty good at multitasking?

You can do two or three things at once? In this post, you'll discover why that's simply not true.

Multitasking is not possible at the level of neurophysiology. "I can do two things at once" is an illusion with massive downside.

Any extra task you add to the one you're doing right now makes you stupid - it cuts the quality of your performance in half.

Let me show you what to do instead.

Give up multitasking.

Use the Pearl Necklace Technique to maximize your productivity and actually improve the quality of your work.

Check it out.

How to Build a High-Performance Team: Stop Answering Every Question

The Counterintuitive Leadership Skill That Changes Everything

In this post, you will discover a little-known and slightly controversial leadership skill set that goes like this:

• Do not answer every single question your team members bring to you
  
  
• AND do not say yes to all of their requests for your help

Let me show you how to avoid the trap of making your team dependent upon you - by not answering all the questions they bring to you. It'll free up your day. It'll help you be more effective. It'll help increase the initiative and capabilities of your team overnight, all of you will get home sooner without working harder when you pick up this habit—and it's totally against typical doctor programming.

Check it out.

The Challenge of Giving Feedback to Leadership

In this post, you'll discover a crucial skill set for speaking up the chain of command when you're upset by a bad leadership decision.

Your organization has made a decision you don't understand, maybe implemented something that doesn't make sense, and you've had to step in and take actions to save the day. How do you talk to your boss in a way that lets you say what needs to be said and their knickers not get in a twist? Check it out.

Let me show you how to speak to your boss in a way that doesn't challenge their ego, that gets the two of you on the same page, and allows you to give them the feedback they need because they just made a decision or took an action that has harmed the front line. You're closer to the front line than they are. You know this didn't make sense and was implemented incorrectly, and you want to give that feedback in a way that actually changes things for the better.

Here's one way to do it that works almost every time.

The Four Ways to Say Thank You—and the One That Doubles Your Impact

As a physician leader, you already know that gratitude is critical to your team's culture, camaraderie, and performance. But did you know there are four different ways to say thank you, and if you choose the right one, your thank you can have double the impact on your team's engagement and productivity?

In this post, I’ll walk you through all four thank you methods—and reveal the one that is a true leadership superpower. Ready? Let’s get started.

In this final episode of 2024, let’s take a look ahead into 2025 and explore 10 system-level challenges that will impact the U.S. healthcare industry—and each of us as physician leaders. These challenges will likely affect your healthcare system, your teams, and your ability to lead effectively in the coming year.

This is a high-level overview to help you anticipate and prepare for these headwinds. Consider it a roadmap to keep you alert to the early signs of these challenges so you’re ready to respond.

What’s Ahead in 2025?

Recently, Becker’s Hospital Review published an article titled “10 Headwinds for Healthcare Systems in 2025”. I thought it was a solid summary, and I know these issues will directly impact physician leaders, healthcare organizations, and staff. Here are the 10 key challenges:

Have you ever been in a serious leadership conversation when, suddenly, the hair on the back of your neck stood up, and you felt things going off the rails? That surge of frustration, anger, or even fury is unmistakable. You know something is wrong, and if you're not careful, those emotions might lead you to say or do something that damages your leadership credibility.

In today's episode, I’m going to show you:

1. The specific topics that trigger these intense emotions for physician leaders.
2. What to say and what not to say to guide the conversation back to a balanced resolution.
3. How to recognize and manage your emotions so you can maintain your influence and leadership effectiveness.

Let’s get started.

This is a transcript of Stop Physician Burnout PODCAST # 123

In America, it’s been two weeks since Luigi Mangione was arrested for the murder of Brian Thompson, CEO of a major U.S. health insurance company. The public reaction to this murder and arrest has made it abundantly clear that the American people understand the hypocrisy at the heart of healthcare.

This has direct implications for you, as a leader in the healthcare industry. In this episode, you'll learn how to stay on the right side of ethics and karma. You’ll discover how to be seen as a good leader, a shining light amidst the dysfunction of U.S. healthcare.

The Business Case for Investing in Physician Wellbeing - a Triple Competitive Advantage for Your Organization

In this blog post let's look at what happens when you run physician burnout in reverse. Here's what I mean.