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.
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 an absolute pleasure to be talking with you today.
I am excited to be bringing you what really is kind of like my first official episode
of 2024.
Yes, I know I did do a broadcast on Friday, and then I was just kind of laying out what
the lay of the land looks like in 2024.
And I'm excited to really be talking to you about really a real episode today.
So thank you for joining in.
Thank you for participating.
And thank you for bearing with me as I was out for the break for a couple of weeks there.
All right.
So I will tell you that one of the things that really prompted my coming on the show
and kind of like changing things up this season was just this need for renewal.
So I'll tell you about how I spent my end of 2024.
I actually did work up until the morning of the 25th because I had signed up to be on
call for the week before the day of Christmas for those of you who celebrate Christmas.
And I remember just working up to that morning and feeling like, you know, I mean, I was
working, you know, when you're working, you just assume everybody else is working too.
And so I'm definitely sending emails up until Friday.
I'm sending emails on Christmas morning on Monday morning because I was just on call.
I'm on call until Monday at 7 a.m.
So I'm sending all these emails, doing all this stuff.
And between when I come back from the hospital, finish rounding, finish all my notes and wake
up early in the morning, I have the sense of like, I've got to finish all this stuff
so I can go away on vacation because I was out for the last week of the year.
And so I rushed, I got all of it done.
I was so excited about all the things I got done because I really did want to take that
week off and not check email and just not do anything.
So I took off that week and we went to the beach and at the beach, it was so beautiful.
The beach is so beautiful in the winter.
And one of the things I love about it is that there are not very many people there and it's
cold so everybody has to have their clothes on.
Yes, that's one of my favorite things about being on the beach at winter time.
But anyway, more than that was just the beauty.
Now, actually, I want to say quiet, but it's not true.
The beach is quite noisy.
Like there's just the water so loud as the waves crash against the shore.
But it's not a jarring noise.
It's a very calming and a soothing noise, but a constant awareness of just the voice
of nature and the loudness in which we live, but a beautiful, beautiful sound.
Anyway, so it was a good time of reflection.
And to be honest, I'll tell you the truth.
I took work with me and I remember working and working and then getting to a point where
I was like, wait a minute, I'm at the beach.
This is time for rest and reflection.
What am I doing?
So I put away my work and I really started to think because one of the things that's
so important is our ability to think.
And so that prompts this episode today, which is just really thinking about one of the keys
to success in 2024.
So over the next couple of weeks, I'm going to be talking about keys to success that I
think you should consider as you enter into 2024.
And in reality, right, it's not about 2024.
It's just about your whole life.
And one of the things I recognize is that the most important things in life are the
things you do every day.
Sometimes we take once in a year to go on a lifetime vacation where we actually get
rest, actually mostly not getting rest.
But we do things once in a while and we're like, oh my gosh, this is so big and so good.
And it is good and it is rejuvenating and it does help us, but it's once a year.
Or maybe we're like, okay, I'm going to write.
I'm going to just lock myself in my closet and I'm going to just write for hours on end.
And it's so awesome.
You produce three manuscripts in that process.
Good for you.
But it's just once in a while.
And so the things that shape your life, the things that transform you are the things you
do every day, every day.
And that is why I want to share with you five things that are going to be keys to your success
in 2024.
And they're keys because they're keys that you need to address every day.
The things you do every day shape your life.
The food you eat every day shapes your life.
The exercise you do or do not do shapes your life.
And so your daily habits matter more than anything you do once a week.
Okay, so what are these five keys?
The first key, oh, actually, I'm just going to tell you what they are first and then I'm
going to just talk about them individually.
So these five keys to success in 2024 are, drum roll please, your thoughts, your decisions,
your actions, your focus, and your 20%.
Okay, here they go again.
Your thoughts, your decisions, your actions, your focus, and your 20%.
Let's talk about your thoughts.
Okay, wow.
If I say that the things you do daily impact you the most, then know that the things you
do every moment, moment to moment, minute by minute, impact you the greatest.
And here's the thing about us, we're always thinking thoughts, always thinking thoughts.
And so if we capture the number of thoughts we think a day, I'm sure someone's done the
math, I haven't looked at it.
But holy cow, it's a couple of billion or maybe even a trillion, we're always having
thoughts.
And for some of us, our minds are racing.
And like in a span of five minutes, we could have probably a couple of thousand thoughts.
And so the point is not the numbers, but the fact that, wow, thinking may be the thing
we do more often even than our breathing, which is a really important thing that I know
you do every day if you're listening to me, right?
Your thoughts.
And here's the thing about your thoughts and why they're important.
That's why breathing is not on the list is that breathing is mostly an involuntary action.
Like you're breathing whether you're thinking about it or not.
Your thoughts are many times involuntary, but they can be controlled.
You have power over the thoughts that you think.
And the quality of your experience as a clinician scientist, clinician researcher, drives the
quality of your experience.
The quality of your thoughts drives the quality of your experience.
In fact, honestly, the quality of your thoughts drives the quality of your life.
And so, if you're going to master 2024, if you're going to master your life forever,
you really are going to be somebody who masters your thought life.
Everything you've ever accomplished, you've accomplished because you thought it first.
You thought it was possible, therefore you went for it.
And I'm talking to clinicians here, right?
So you did this amazingly incredible thing relative to the rest of the world where you
went off for years and years and you studied and for years and years you took exams over
and over again to get to this place where you were like, okay, now I'm going to just
stop sleeping every couple of nights so that I can do this.
You thought it was possible and therefore you went for it and you did it.
If you think about the things you didn't succeed in, the things you're like, oh, I'm never
going to make it, and then you didn't make it.
And it really did start with your thoughts because you didn't think you were going to
make it, therefore you didn't make the effort to make it, and therefore you proved yourself
to be exactly right.
There is a quote, and I'm not sure who said it, but it's not mine, so just owning that
and I'll add it to the show notes.
It says, if you think you can or you think you can't, you're right.
And that is so powerful and so sad.
If you think you can or you think you can or whether you think you can or you think
you can't, you're right.
And so if you're going to have the life you want, if you're going to have the life that
matters, if you're going to have a life that makes a difference this year, you're going
to be very intentional about the quality of the thoughts that you think this year.
Now these keys I'm going to go into a little bit more detail over the next couple of episodes,
so they're about six episodes where I'll talk about each of these.
I mean actually six episodes including this one where I talk about these keys to the year,
so I'm going to go into more detail about your thoughts.
That suffice it to say that your thoughts matter.
Where your thoughts are produced matters.
Who is in charge of giving you fodder for your thoughts matters.
What enters into your line of vision matters.
What you hear matters because all of it drives the quality of your thinking.
And so if you're going to be someone who is successful as a clinician, scientist or honestly
in every area of your life, you're going to be somebody who masters your thinking.
You're going to elevate your thinking.
You're going to transform your thinking because transforming your thinking is the first step
to transforming your experience.
So that's number one, your thoughts.
The second key to success that I want to talk about is your decisions.
Now you could say that all things emanate from your thoughts and the quality of your
thoughts drive your decision.
But I do want to share with you that your decisions are mostly actions that you're mostly
active about.
So if your thoughts run away and you're like oh when did I get to thinking about that?
You actually have to really, really work hard to control your thoughts.
Your decisions, your decisions you're intentionally making.
And one thing that's going to be so important is the quality of the decisions you make.
And so I want to encourage and invite you to really pay attention to the things that
help you make high quality decisions.
High quality decisions.
And here's a challenge for many of us.
We experience decision fatigue because we start early in the morning making all these
decisions and then by the time we're halfway through the day we're just so tired.
We have decision fatigue.
And so if we're going to be successful we're going to be very intentional about our decision
making.
We're going to protect our ability to make good decisions.
We're going to protect the quality of our decisions.
And we're going to find the information that helps us make good quality decisions.
We're also going to protect our ability to make decisions by sleeping better.
Getting some rest.
I'm excited because the episode on Friday is about getting rest.
You're going to want to pay attention to that.
But yes, you protect the quality of your decision making because the decisions you make drive
your life, the decisions you make drive your experience, the decisions you make drive the
experience of the people around you.
And so the quality of your decisions is going to be so key as you're moving forward.
I'm looking forward to sharing with you about two weeks from now about how you can enhance
the quality of your decisions.
Okay.
Number three, your actions.
Okay, this goes without saying.
You're not taking action.
You're not accomplishing much.
But you know what?
You're a clinician.
So you are not a not action taker.
I know it's the double negative there.
You're an action taker.
That's what you do.
You take action.
And I know you take action because hey, you couldn't have come this far if you were not
an action taker.
You are a massive action taker.
So to be honest, for us clinicians, clinician scientists, taking action is not our problem.
What is our problem is that our action is many times diffused.
It's all over the place.
Somebody says, hey, hey, hey, you haven't finished your notes.
That's the action you're taking.
You've just closed shop.
You stopped doing everything, including working on your research so you can wrap up the notes.
I know I spent three days sleeping in my office one day just trying to close charts.
Okay.
Writing notes.
And then somebody else says, hey, hey, the fellows are complaining that the pager, the
pager is just overwhelming.
And then you're like, oh, okay, I'm just, you know what?
They can take off a week.
I'm going to cover the pager.
And then somebody else is like, hey, hey, hey, the med students say that you're not
teaching enough.
Like, oh, okay.
While trying to finish all my charts and cover the fellows pager, I'm going to create PowerPoints
for every time we round.
Yeah.
You're a massive action taker.
But many times our actions are just all over the place.
They're diffuse or they're spread across so many things that we're not really making traction
in any one direction.
We're doing a lot of stuff, but we're not making traction.
Our emotion is kind of stilted.
And so if we're going to be successful in 2024 and beyond, we're going to pay attention
to the actions we take.
I'm going to take the actions that move us forward in the way that transforms our experience.
So an important key to success in 2024 is your actions.
The fourth key is your focus.
So important.
So many of us can focus.
And for those of us who don't have as great power and focus, you have some help to do
that, whether it's pharmacological help or it's psychological help.
You have help to do that.
And if you're successful, you are able to focus.
But the reality, kind of like our actions being spread across many things, is that it's
the same for our focus.
There's a lot of times that our focus is distracted.
We're in the middle of writing, the pager goes off.
We're in the middle of writing, our phone buzzes.
In the middle of writing, a text comes in.
We're in the middle of writing, we hear the ping of the email, and we lose focus.
And if we're going to be successful, we've got to harness our focus like a laser to do
some deadly, powerful damage.
Actually, I really mean like good stuff.
Not good, not bad damage, good damage.
Kind of like, you know, a laser or laser eye surgery.
A laser can be destructive, but the reason you focus so much energy in one point is because
you want to use it to do good.
You focus all the energy of the laser so you can use it to do good.
And so, if we're going to be successful in 2024 and beyond, we're going to learn to use
our focus like a laser.
And at the end of it, we're going to achieve the same results as Lasik surgery.
Yes, we are, because we use the laser in a focused way that helps us accomplish things.
And we can sit back and say, I did that.
I used laser focus and look at what I accomplished.
So, a key to your success in 2024 and beyond is your focus and especially harnessing its
power like a laser.
Yes, to give you laser focus.
Okay, that's your focus.
And then number five is my favorite because it's the one I feel like I continue to work
on consistently.
All these things are things I'm working on.
Number five, number five is the thing.
It's the 20%.
Wow, in life, there will never be enough time to do all the things you don't want to do.
And that was a quote by someone that...
Gosh, I don't remember.
I'm going to have to put this one in the show notes, but it's a quote I love so much.
I remember it all the time.
It's like, you will never have enough time to do all the things you don't want to do.
There will always be stuff to do.
And as clinicians, our to-do list is huge.
And then we have the epic inbox or whatever your electronic medical record is.
You have that inbox.
You have your regular work inbox.
And then you have your personal inbox.
And if you're like me, you have personal inboxes across different email providers.
And wow, that's a lot of stuff.
A lot of things coming through, asking you to do things, asking you to vote for something
or invest in something or choose something or attend something.
There is a lot to do in life.
And most of it is trivial.
This is where I quote George McKeon.
Oh my goodness.
He wrote Essentialism.
I know, but it is George.
I will definitely find it and put it in the show notes at the end.
But wow, what a great book.
It talks about the vital few versus the trivial many.
And so if we're going to be successful in 2024 and beyond, we're going to select the
vital few to work on.
Now, the trivial many, they will always be with us, always.
If we never finish them, they will be with us.
If we somehow miraculously finish them in a day, ooh, a lot more trivial many will come.
So the trivial many will never go away.
We will always be working on the trivial many if we choose.
Oh, I want you to choose.
I want to invite you to do this year is to focus on the vital few.
Every day, just do three.
Three vital few things.
And let everything else fall where it may.
If you don't get to the end of the trivial many, it's like, oh, I didn't get to the end
of this list.
Oh, sucks for you, trivial many.
So those are the five keys to success in 2024.
I'll review them one more time.
Your thoughts, your decisions, your actions, your focus, and your 20%.
So the next few weeks, I am going to go through each of them in more detail and shed more
light on each of them.
So you could probably sit and write your own podcast episodes on your own.
I do want to share with you that these are important things to your success in 2024.
And one of the things I want to invite you to do is to take some time to reflect.
What do you want to create this year?
I think the year is still new enough that if you haven't thought about it, it's an
opportunity to do it.
What do you want to create in your research program?
What do you want to create with your life?
And intentionality is key because the moment you decide, it's like setting the directions
that the GPS.
You don't give the GPS the directions, you give the GPS the destination, and the GPS
tells you the directions by which you get there.
And there are not that many sets of directions.
It's like three or four because there are very few ways to get to the place you want
to go, but so many ways to get to where you don't want to go.
And so I'm inviting you today to set the intention for 2024.
What do you want to accomplish in your research career?
What do you want to accomplish with your life?
And you do that, and that helps you decide what are the thoughts I need, what are the
decisions I need, what are the actions I need, what do I need to focus on, and what are the
20% of activities that get me there.
And yeah, just to pause and say the 20% is the whole principle, the Pareto principle,
the 80-20 rule, 20% of your actions give you 80% of your results, just for those of you
who may not be familiar with the 20% principle.
I'll speak more about it when I get to that episode about five weeks from now, I believe.
Anyway, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to listen today, for spending any
time with me.
I mean, I think it's a privilege to spend time with me.
I do it all the time, and it's so awesome.
And I want to thank you, because you're really awesome, I bet you spend a lot of time with
you too.
And so that you would take away from the time you spend with you to spend with me is really
big deal.
I want to say thank you.
Thank you for letting me your ears and your understanding in your heart to listen to what
I have to say.
I invite you to share this episode with just one person, not three, not four, not five,
not a whole listserv, but just one person who needs to be encouraged as they look forward
to their 2024 as they look forward to doing something new and amazing with their 2024.
All right.
It's been a pleasure, an absolute pleasure talking with you today.
And 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.
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.
Good luck.