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Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills

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to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor.

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As clinicians, we spend a decade or more as trainees learning to take care of patients.

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When we finally start our careers, we want to build research programs, but then we find

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that our years of clinical training did not adequately prepare us to lead our research

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program.

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Through no fault of our own, we struggle to find mentors, and when we can't, we quit.

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However, clinicians hold the keys to the greatest research breakthroughs.

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For this reason, the Clinician Researcher podcast exists to give academic clinicians

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the tools to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor.

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Now introducing your host, Toyosi Onwuemene.

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Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast.

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I'm your host Toyosi Onwuemene, and it is an absolute pleasure to be talking with you today.

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I am excited to be bringing you what really is kind of like my first official episode

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of 2024.

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Yes, I know I did do a broadcast on Friday, and then I was just kind of laying out what

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the lay of the land looks like in 2024.

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And I'm excited to really be talking to you about really a real episode today.

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So thank you for joining in.

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Thank you for participating.

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And thank you for bearing with me as I was out for the break for a couple of weeks there.

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All right.

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So I will tell you that one of the things that really prompted my coming on the show

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and kind of like changing things up this season was just this need for renewal.

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So I'll tell you about how I spent my end of 2024.

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I actually did work up until the morning of the 25th because I had signed up to be on

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call for the week before the day of Christmas for those of you who celebrate Christmas.

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And I remember just working up to that morning and feeling like, you know, I mean, I was

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working, you know, when you're working, you just assume everybody else is working too.

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And so I'm definitely sending emails up until Friday.

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I'm sending emails on Christmas morning on Monday morning because I was just on call.

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I'm on call until Monday at 7 a.m.

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So I'm sending all these emails, doing all this stuff.

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And between when I come back from the hospital, finish rounding, finish all my notes and wake

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up early in the morning, I have the sense of like, I've got to finish all this stuff

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so I can go away on vacation because I was out for the last week of the year.

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And so I rushed, I got all of it done.

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I was so excited about all the things I got done because I really did want to take that

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week off and not check email and just not do anything.

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So I took off that week and we went to the beach and at the beach, it was so beautiful.

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The beach is so beautiful in the winter.

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And one of the things I love about it is that there are not very many people there and it's

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cold so everybody has to have their clothes on.

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Yes, that's one of my favorite things about being on the beach at winter time.

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But anyway, more than that was just the beauty.

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Now, actually, I want to say quiet, but it's not true.

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The beach is quite noisy.

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Like there's just the water so loud as the waves crash against the shore.

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But it's not a jarring noise.

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It's a very calming and a soothing noise, but a constant awareness of just the voice

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of nature and the loudness in which we live, but a beautiful, beautiful sound.

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Anyway, so it was a good time of reflection.

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And to be honest, I'll tell you the truth.

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I took work with me and I remember working and working and then getting to a point where

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I was like, wait a minute, I'm at the beach.

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This is time for rest and reflection.

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What am I doing?

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So I put away my work and I really started to think because one of the things that's

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so important is our ability to think.

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And so that prompts this episode today, which is just really thinking about one of the keys

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to success in 2024.

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So over the next couple of weeks, I'm going to be talking about keys to success that I

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think you should consider as you enter into 2024.

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And in reality, right, it's not about 2024.

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It's just about your whole life.

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And one of the things I recognize is that the most important things in life are the

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things you do every day.

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Sometimes we take once in a year to go on a lifetime vacation where we actually get

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rest, actually mostly not getting rest.

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But we do things once in a while and we're like, oh my gosh, this is so big and so good.

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And it is good and it is rejuvenating and it does help us, but it's once a year.

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Or maybe we're like, okay, I'm going to write.

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I'm going to just lock myself in my closet and I'm going to just write for hours on end.

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And it's so awesome.

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You produce three manuscripts in that process.

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Good for you.

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But it's just once in a while.

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And so the things that shape your life, the things that transform you are the things you

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do every day, every day.

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And that is why I want to share with you five things that are going to be keys to your success

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in 2024.

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And they're keys because they're keys that you need to address every day.

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The things you do every day shape your life.

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The food you eat every day shapes your life.

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The exercise you do or do not do shapes your life.

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And so your daily habits matter more than anything you do once a week.

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Okay, so what are these five keys?

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The first key, oh, actually, I'm just going to tell you what they are first and then I'm

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going to just talk about them individually.

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So these five keys to success in 2024 are, drum roll please, your thoughts, your decisions,

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your actions, your focus, and your 20%.

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Okay, here they go again.

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Your thoughts, your decisions, your actions, your focus, and your 20%.

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Let's talk about your thoughts.

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Okay, wow.

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If I say that the things you do daily impact you the most, then know that the things you

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do every moment, moment to moment, minute by minute, impact you the greatest.

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And here's the thing about us, we're always thinking thoughts, always thinking thoughts.

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And so if we capture the number of thoughts we think a day, I'm sure someone's done the

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math, I haven't looked at it.

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But holy cow, it's a couple of billion or maybe even a trillion, we're always having

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thoughts.

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And for some of us, our minds are racing.

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And like in a span of five minutes, we could have probably a couple of thousand thoughts.

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And so the point is not the numbers, but the fact that, wow, thinking may be the thing

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we do more often even than our breathing, which is a really important thing that I know

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you do every day if you're listening to me, right?

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Your thoughts.

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And here's the thing about your thoughts and why they're important.

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That's why breathing is not on the list is that breathing is mostly an involuntary action.

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Like you're breathing whether you're thinking about it or not.

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Your thoughts are many times involuntary, but they can be controlled.

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You have power over the thoughts that you think.

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And the quality of your experience as a clinician scientist, clinician researcher, drives the

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quality of your experience.

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The quality of your thoughts drives the quality of your experience.

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In fact, honestly, the quality of your thoughts drives the quality of your life.

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And so, if you're going to master 2024, if you're going to master your life forever,

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you really are going to be somebody who masters your thought life.

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Everything you've ever accomplished, you've accomplished because you thought it first.

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You thought it was possible, therefore you went for it.

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And I'm talking to clinicians here, right?

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So you did this amazingly incredible thing relative to the rest of the world where you

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went off for years and years and you studied and for years and years you took exams over

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and over again to get to this place where you were like, okay, now I'm going to just

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stop sleeping every couple of nights so that I can do this.

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You thought it was possible and therefore you went for it and you did it.

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If you think about the things you didn't succeed in, the things you're like, oh, I'm never

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going to make it, and then you didn't make it.

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And it really did start with your thoughts because you didn't think you were going to

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make it, therefore you didn't make the effort to make it, and therefore you proved yourself

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to be exactly right.

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There is a quote, and I'm not sure who said it, but it's not mine, so just owning that

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and I'll add it to the show notes.

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It says, if you think you can or you think you can't, you're right.

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And that is so powerful and so sad.

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If you think you can or you think you can or whether you think you can or you think

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you can't, you're right.

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And so if you're going to have the life you want, if you're going to have the life that

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matters, if you're going to have a life that makes a difference this year, you're going

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to be very intentional about the quality of the thoughts that you think this year.

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Now these keys I'm going to go into a little bit more detail over the next couple of episodes,

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so they're about six episodes where I'll talk about each of these.

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I mean actually six episodes including this one where I talk about these keys to the year,

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so I'm going to go into more detail about your thoughts.

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That suffice it to say that your thoughts matter.

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Where your thoughts are produced matters.

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Who is in charge of giving you fodder for your thoughts matters.

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What enters into your line of vision matters.

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What you hear matters because all of it drives the quality of your thinking.

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And so if you're going to be someone who is successful as a clinician, scientist or honestly

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in every area of your life, you're going to be somebody who masters your thinking.

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You're going to elevate your thinking.

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You're going to transform your thinking because transforming your thinking is the first step

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to transforming your experience.

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So that's number one, your thoughts.

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The second key to success that I want to talk about is your decisions.

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Now you could say that all things emanate from your thoughts and the quality of your

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thoughts drive your decision.

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But I do want to share with you that your decisions are mostly actions that you're mostly

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active about.

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So if your thoughts run away and you're like oh when did I get to thinking about that?

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You actually have to really, really work hard to control your thoughts.

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Your decisions, your decisions you're intentionally making.

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And one thing that's going to be so important is the quality of the decisions you make.

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And so I want to encourage and invite you to really pay attention to the things that

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help you make high quality decisions.

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High quality decisions.

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And here's a challenge for many of us.

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We experience decision fatigue because we start early in the morning making all these

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decisions and then by the time we're halfway through the day we're just so tired.

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We have decision fatigue.

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And so if we're going to be successful we're going to be very intentional about our decision

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making.

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We're going to protect our ability to make good decisions.

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We're going to protect the quality of our decisions.

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And we're going to find the information that helps us make good quality decisions.

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We're also going to protect our ability to make decisions by sleeping better.

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Getting some rest.

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I'm excited because the episode on Friday is about getting rest.

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You're going to want to pay attention to that.

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But yes, you protect the quality of your decision making because the decisions you make drive

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your life, the decisions you make drive your experience, the decisions you make drive the

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experience of the people around you.

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And so the quality of your decisions is going to be so key as you're moving forward.

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I'm looking forward to sharing with you about two weeks from now about how you can enhance

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the quality of your decisions.

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Okay.

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Number three, your actions.

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Okay, this goes without saying.

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You're not taking action.

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You're not accomplishing much.

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But you know what?

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You're a clinician.

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So you are not a not action taker.

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I know it's the double negative there.

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You're an action taker.

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That's what you do.

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You take action.

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And I know you take action because hey, you couldn't have come this far if you were not

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an action taker.

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You are a massive action taker.

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So to be honest, for us clinicians, clinician scientists, taking action is not our problem.

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What is our problem is that our action is many times diffused.

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It's all over the place.

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Somebody says, hey, hey, hey, you haven't finished your notes.

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That's the action you're taking.

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You've just closed shop.

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You stopped doing everything, including working on your research so you can wrap up the notes.

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I know I spent three days sleeping in my office one day just trying to close charts.

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Okay.

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Writing notes.

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And then somebody else says, hey, hey, the fellows are complaining that the pager, the

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pager is just overwhelming.

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And then you're like, oh, okay, I'm just, you know what?

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They can take off a week.

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I'm going to cover the pager.

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And then somebody else is like, hey, hey, hey, the med students say that you're not

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teaching enough.

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Like, oh, okay.

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While trying to finish all my charts and cover the fellows pager, I'm going to create PowerPoints

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for every time we round.

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Yeah.

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You're a massive action taker.

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But many times our actions are just all over the place.

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They're diffuse or they're spread across so many things that we're not really making traction

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in any one direction.

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We're doing a lot of stuff, but we're not making traction.

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Our emotion is kind of stilted.

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And so if we're going to be successful in 2024 and beyond, we're going to pay attention

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to the actions we take.

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I'm going to take the actions that move us forward in the way that transforms our experience.

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So an important key to success in 2024 is your actions.

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The fourth key is your focus.

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So important.

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So many of us can focus.

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And for those of us who don't have as great power and focus, you have some help to do

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that, whether it's pharmacological help or it's psychological help.

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You have help to do that.

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And if you're successful, you are able to focus.

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But the reality, kind of like our actions being spread across many things, is that it's

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the same for our focus.

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There's a lot of times that our focus is distracted.

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We're in the middle of writing, the pager goes off.

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We're in the middle of writing, our phone buzzes.

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In the middle of writing, a text comes in.

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We're in the middle of writing, we hear the ping of the email, and we lose focus.

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And if we're going to be successful, we've got to harness our focus like a laser to do

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some deadly, powerful damage.

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Actually, I really mean like good stuff.

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Not good, not bad damage, good damage.

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Kind of like, you know, a laser or laser eye surgery.

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A laser can be destructive, but the reason you focus so much energy in one point is because

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you want to use it to do good.

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You focus all the energy of the laser so you can use it to do good.

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And so, if we're going to be successful in 2024 and beyond, we're going to learn to use

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our focus like a laser.

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And at the end of it, we're going to achieve the same results as Lasik surgery.

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Yes, we are, because we use the laser in a focused way that helps us accomplish things.

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And we can sit back and say, I did that.

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I used laser focus and look at what I accomplished.

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So, a key to your success in 2024 and beyond is your focus and especially harnessing its

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power like a laser.

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Yes, to give you laser focus.

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Okay, that's your focus.

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And then number five is my favorite because it's the one I feel like I continue to work

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on consistently.

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All these things are things I'm working on.

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Number five, number five is the thing.

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It's the 20%.

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Wow, in life, there will never be enough time to do all the things you don't want to do.

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And that was a quote by someone that...

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Gosh, I don't remember.

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I'm going to have to put this one in the show notes, but it's a quote I love so much.

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I remember it all the time.

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It's like, you will never have enough time to do all the things you don't want to do.

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There will always be stuff to do.

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And as clinicians, our to-do list is huge.

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And then we have the epic inbox or whatever your electronic medical record is.

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You have that inbox.

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You have your regular work inbox.

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And then you have your personal inbox.

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And if you're like me, you have personal inboxes across different email providers.

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And wow, that's a lot of stuff.

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A lot of things coming through, asking you to do things, asking you to vote for something

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or invest in something or choose something or attend something.

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There is a lot to do in life.

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And most of it is trivial.

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This is where I quote George McKeon.

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Oh my goodness.

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He wrote Essentialism.

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I know, but it is George.

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I will definitely find it and put it in the show notes at the end.

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But wow, what a great book.

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It talks about the vital few versus the trivial many.

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And so if we're going to be successful in 2024 and beyond, we're going to select the

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vital few to work on.

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Now, the trivial many, they will always be with us, always.

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If we never finish them, they will be with us.

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If we somehow miraculously finish them in a day, ooh, a lot more trivial many will come.

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So the trivial many will never go away.

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We will always be working on the trivial many if we choose.

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Oh, I want you to choose.

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I want to invite you to do this year is to focus on the vital few.

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Every day, just do three.

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Three vital few things.

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And let everything else fall where it may.

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If you don't get to the end of the trivial many, it's like, oh, I didn't get to the end

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of this list.

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Oh, sucks for you, trivial many.

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So those are the five keys to success in 2024.

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I'll review them one more time.

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Your thoughts, your decisions, your actions, your focus, and your 20%.

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So the next few weeks, I am going to go through each of them in more detail and shed more

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light on each of them.

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So you could probably sit and write your own podcast episodes on your own.

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I do want to share with you that these are important things to your success in 2024.

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And one of the things I want to invite you to do is to take some time to reflect.

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What do you want to create this year?

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I think the year is still new enough that if you haven't thought about it, it's an

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opportunity to do it.

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What do you want to create in your research program?

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What do you want to create with your life?

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And intentionality is key because the moment you decide, it's like setting the directions

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that the GPS.

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You don't give the GPS the directions, you give the GPS the destination, and the GPS

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tells you the directions by which you get there.

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And there are not that many sets of directions.

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It's like three or four because there are very few ways to get to the place you want

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to go, but so many ways to get to where you don't want to go.

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And so I'm inviting you today to set the intention for 2024.

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What do you want to accomplish in your research career?

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What do you want to accomplish with your life?

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And you do that, and that helps you decide what are the thoughts I need, what are the

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decisions I need, what are the actions I need, what do I need to focus on, and what are the

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20% of activities that get me there.

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And yeah, just to pause and say the 20% is the whole principle, the Pareto principle,

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the 80-20 rule, 20% of your actions give you 80% of your results, just for those of you

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who may not be familiar with the 20% principle.

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I'll speak more about it when I get to that episode about five weeks from now, I believe.

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Anyway, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to listen today, for spending any

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time with me.

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I mean, I think it's a privilege to spend time with me.

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I do it all the time, and it's so awesome.

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And I want to thank you, because you're really awesome, I bet you spend a lot of time with

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you too.

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And so that you would take away from the time you spend with you to spend with me is really

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big deal.

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I want to say thank you.

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Thank you for letting me your ears and your understanding in your heart to listen to what

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I have to say.

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I invite you to share this episode with just one person, not three, not four, not five,

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not a whole listserv, but just one person who needs to be encouraged as they look forward

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to their 2024 as they look forward to doing something new and amazing with their 2024.

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All right.

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It's been a pleasure, an absolute pleasure talking with you today.

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And I look forward to the next time.

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Thanks for listening to this episode of the Clinician Researcher podcast, where academic

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clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they

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have a mentor.

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If you found the information in this episode to be helpful, don't keep it all to yourself.

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Someone else needs to hear it.

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So take a minute right now and share it.

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As you share this episode, you become part of our mission to help launch a new generation

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of clinician researchers who make transformative discoveries that change the way we do healthcare.

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Thank you.

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Good luck.