The Worthy Physician Podcast
Reigniting your humanity and passion for medicine.
The Worthy Physician Podcast
Harnessing Accountability: Dr. Mary Rensel, MD on Transforming Careers, Intentional Living and Personal Growth Insights
What if you could harness the power of accountability to transform your career and personal life? Join us on this thought-provoking episode of Worldly Physician as we sit down with Dr. Mary Rensel, a renowned neuroimmunologist and entrepreneur. Dr. Rensel takes us through her inspiring journey of creating BrainFresh and the Women’s Physicians Accountability Group, shedding light on the critical role structured support systems play in combating physician burnout and achieving goals. You'll hear firsthand how the principles of medical protocols can be effectively translated into business strategies to foster thriving healthcare professionals.
Discover how the intersection of personal growth, accountability, and neuroscience can be a game-changer in reaching your life ambitions. We discuss the power of hitting weekly goals and the importance of accountability partners, drawing inspiration from real-life stories of intentional living. Dr. Rensel emphasizes the need to reflect on one’s path and integrate passions that align with core strengths and values. With heartfelt recommendations on resources and support systems like the Women's Physicians Accountability Group, this episode is packed with actionable insights for physicians, entrepreneurs, and anyone looking to live authentically and purposefully.
Connect with Dr. Rensel:
https://linktr.ee/Dr.MaryRensel
Check out the workbook mentioned in the episode!
Though I am a physician, this is not medical advice. This is only a tool that physicians can use to get ideas on how to deal with burnout and/or know they are not alone. If you are in need of medical assistance talk to your physician.
Learn more about female physicians' journey through burnout to thriving!
https://www.theworthyphysician.com/books
Let's connect for speaking opportunities!
https://www.theworthyphysician.com/dr-shahhaque-md-as-a-speaker
Check out the free resources from The Worthy Physician:
https://www.theworthyphysician.com/freebie-downloads
Battle of the Boxes
21 Day Self Focus Journal
Welcome to another episode of the Worldly Physician. I'm your host, dr Sapna Shah- Haque, reigniting your humanity and passion for medicine. So today I have Mary Renssel, physician, wife, mother, entrepreneur gave birth to BrainFresh as well as the Women's Physicians Accountability. And today she's going to be explaining to us why accountability is so important. So, mary, thank you for joining.
Dr. Rensel:Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. I appreciate all your work. Thank you for supporting docs. We need you.
Dr. Shah-Haque:Absolutely.
Dr. Rensel:It's a pleasure, it's fun.
Dr. Shah-Haque:So, besides being a physician, why brain fresh and why entrepreneurship?
Dr. Rensel:What I found as a neuroimmunologist is that there's a lot of interesting literature. I wanted to make it actionable for today in the workplace, as docs, we love learning, figuring things out. Professional development was the zone where I kept asking people like how do you do?
Dr. Shah-Haque:it.
Dr. Rensel:It seemed like I had to piece it together myself as a doc over the decades, according to what my needs were when the kids were young or I was trying to get a professorship. I have to look for resources. I keep learning about my colleagues' high level of burnout. I'm a neurologist and neurologists, on some of the ratings, have the highest level of burnout because, maybe because we care for folks who have brain diseases and that affects your whole life affects your relationships, your work abilities.
Dr. Rensel:There was a study that said neurologists and psychiatrists are outliers. 80% of our colleagues were at some level of burnout in psychiatry and neurology. That was concerning. I built BrainFresh five years ago. I wanted to learn about business and provide more opportunities for docs, to use the research, make it actionable to help people have fulfilling careers.
Dr. Shah-Haque:I have four kids too. Thank you for that. No, thank you for that. Yeah, entrepreneurship is very important, especially in today's world. I think it makes you a better physician.
Dr. Rensel:It is interesting because we used to think that, like the business, people were bad and horrible and we doctors were the good, smart people that cared about humans. And they didn't. It was a very us-them, which I realize is a simple way of thinking. The world is more gray than black and white. Appreciating business or learning about it has been fun Crack the case, figure out strategies and goals. It's interesting because people in business have taken some research on professional development and sustainable wellbeing and put it into action. We know the science and physiology as docs, but we haven't really learned that sustainable well-being.
Dr. Shah-Haque:I think there are things to learn from both sides and the strategies that we have Ability to make decisions, ability to use multiple data points as physicians is for both professionals.
Dr. Rensel:Yeah, that's amazing how similar it is. We see a problem, we want to solve it. We build our protocol. We just would never call it business. We would call it a protocol or writing a grant. You're building almost like a small business. You have to figure out the budget. It was on your team. How are you going to solve the problem and propose something and see if it works? And business is a lot like that. So I need to see, yeah, where it overlaps. And it's very similar, but I think it's an urgency. I don't think it's something we could figure out in 20 years. I think it's something we have to figure out now support colleagues, help people feel fulfilled, happy and give them a professional space, helping patients and their families, as well as professionally growing, because that's our happy place. We're all lifelong learners.
Dr. Shah-Haque:Supporting our colleagues. It's interesting the verbiage used when designing a grant looking at your team setting a budget. It's exactly what we're talking about the business skills 100% and it's the accountability as well.
Dr. Rensel:So with grants, like you have to say like when are you going to tell me how it's going? And whoever's funding it wants to know how it's going. Like they want to make sure that you're hitting own accountability. Group, a growth team and not a huge one, but like a medium size, that are people that will be honest with you, that will hold you to task, that can share resources, that you will say out loud If we say our goals out loud, we're 70% more likely to hit them, and if we build a growth team, we're more likely to hit it.
Dr. Rensel:We don't have to do it alone, which I think is wonderful and I feel like those early years. I just keep knocking on people's doors, and those were the days before phones and things like how do you do it? How do you do it all? How do you do the family, the relationship, the work, feed yourself, stay fit? How does it all get done? The answer is different depending on where you are in life, but I was looking to build a team, I was looking for help and I kept knocking on doors periodically, usually when things were a bit of an urgency.
Dr. Shah-Haque:Now that we have all this technology around, which is great, it makes things much easier and much more efficient. Can you hit home the importance of accountability and why you created the Women Physicians Accountability Group?
Dr. Rensel:I saw that in myself, I would say, hey, this year, here it is, we're recording this. Mid-years Did I hit everything I wanted this year? I had a goal in January and there's two goals I still haven't hit and it's already half the year. So how am I in January and there's two goals I still haven't hit and it's already half the year. So I like, how am I going to get those done?
Dr. Rensel:I built these groups because it was something that I found once. I joined coaching groups and I've been in various coaching groups and it helped me set goals and have a small team to work with. I saw the power of that and then every leadership like I said, every leadership book was suggesting the same thing and I think that's like a truth. I hear Oprah say that's a truth. I've seen that work in different areas of my life is to have that support team. And there's certain I love to read books. There's a book called the 12 week year and you set your goals according to 12 weeks. Keep your goals tight. When you set a goal for a whole year, that's a long time. It gets loose. You forget it.
Dr. Rensel:So in our group Women Doc Accountability Group, the WAG group I call it, just like I have a little dog, leo, so I just think of wagging his tail. It's a happy, kind, compassionate place where we can grow together, because the other thing we know about being physicians is usually we're the experts in the room. Like we walk in the room, we're the expert. Everyone is nervous to hear what we have to say good news, bad news, medication information so we're used to being the one to carry the gravitas, the leadership, but in this, when we're learning, it doesn't feel good, right, there's a lot of feelings to not be the one that knows everything, and so if we do it together and in Brain Fresh, that is a core value of kindness and compassion. I invite people in, as long as they agree to that, they can join our accountability groups because we grow together in a supportive way. Otherwise we could try, but, like we said, we know the literature suggests those truths.
Dr. Rensel:Like we have to say it out loud we set small goals and we just each week do a little something. After eight weeks, we're actually in a new place. I don't know if you want to share your. This is your podcast. Share your wins, but I was so proud of you because you did amazing work and it was just eight weeks, right, Like over eight weeks. It's like amazing what can happen.
Dr. Shah-Haque:No, absolutely amazing work. And it was just eight weeks, right, like over eight weeks. It's like amazing, what can happen? No, absolutely, and that's what I. That's what I loved about it is I had set those goals for 2024 and it was like, okay, how do I get started?
Dr. Shah-Haque:And then when the wag group, the accountability group, popped up and said I gotta try this, and it was great because you proposed an idea that I never really thought of what about a workbook? Not only just to test the waters, but to make it more actionable and to get my feet wet, and it's been great. I think it's been well received. So it's also. It was. I really liked the fact that there was a group to bounce ideas off of and everything was very small and actionable, able to be done within a week, have a young household and as well as working. So it was definitely actionable and just bite-sized. It wasn't overwhelming at all and from that we'll be. I'll be doing a six-week podcast club coming up soon and more details to follow. But all of that was because of the accountability group.
Dr. Rensel:Yeah, and I think that's the other thing I like to point out the neuroscience in professional development and the accountability groups. A key, just a key example of all the neuroscience that we need when we're professionally growing is we need a team because as humans we need to feel safe to really be at our highest thinking level and to be in a group where you don't feel safe, like I did join one group that was really big and there was maybe like 30 or 40 people on Zoom. I didn't feel safe to share anything because I felt very vulnerable, because I was very new and I was very green at it and I listened and it was helpful, but I wouldn't have really shared or asked a lot of questions because there were like 40 or 50 people on that Zoom group. So that's why I like to keep my groups smaller, so that we can support each other and feel safe, because we know neurologically and neurobiologically, our brains do not think well unless we're safe. And that's where I like to keep that group small, so that it's a safe place, because otherwise we're on threat alert, right, we're always checking things out and making sure that we because we don't know who's on the call Like you said we like to be the experts when we're not the experts.
Dr. Rensel:There's a lot of feelings when, when, if the feelings are all negative or nervousness or fear, we're not going to build the coolest thing that this world needs, we're not going to take that. One step, then the other. Neuroscience part of it is if we hit, if we have, if we hit our weekly goals, we feel good. Right, it feels good, so we'll keep going, and that is building our confidence and building our long-term potentiation. That's learning right, like we're learning that we can make some moves. Part of it, but and it's, and in real life it actually works and it feels good. So it's a painful, horrible thing. We make it, so it feels good because that's what our brain wants, right, and our brain's not really going to put up with a lot of pain.
Dr. Shah-Haque:Yeah also, I think another part of that is that we find accountability coaches or workout buddies or an accountability partner at work, and this is another layer of that, just for our own success. Personal growth, entrepreneurship, really, whatever goals we want to set and need to execute.
Dr. Rensel:Like I have some people come in. They don't have any particular business goals or anything, they just feel like life is going by fast, like I had one lady come in, one women doc come in, and she said I don't know, I just feel like life is flying by and her kids are middle age. And she was just middle, like middle school age, and she was just like I don't know, I just want to be intentional with my time and I feel like before it the kids are going to be gone and here I am, I'll be, whatever age. And so she just wanted to come in and take slow down a little bit and so we did.
Dr. Rensel:We took some time to dream, which is not something we usually give ourselves. Just let our brain go and really think of what could be, what if we just really just go nuts and think big, just get a step closer to that, and it feels really exciting. So I just loved watching her just think about what she really wanted or what she could take a step toward that and joy and happiness, and just taking a little step towards what would be like her optimal state or optimal place to work or optimal location. And she wasn't there, but she was getting a little closer and it felt really good.
Dr. Shah-Haque:Now, thanks for that. That's a great reminder of it doesn't have to be about business or achieving, it can just be about being, because a lot of times we forget about that, and so that's a great.
Dr. Rensel:That's a great way to frame it, as if she wanted to show her kids that she was living in a life that was important to her. She was building her dreams and she didn't want to just get stuck in a rat race and she was finding like her work was really demanding, that it was taking her nights and her weekends and she didn't want to show that. She was showing that to her kids then. But she wanted to find a different way because she didn't want to model that for her. She had two young girls. She didn't want to model that for them. That work was everything. Work was first you go, work is first. So that wasn't the message she wanted to give her family.
Dr. Shah-Haque:So I thought that was really neat, that she was just being intentional to stop think about how she was living in a holistic way. I absolutely love that, because if we're not living a life true to ourselves, if we're not having our core values, we're not even if we have them both we're not living them, then it's I don't know. I find else is pretty much pointless or off track. There's really a disconnect between the brain and the heart, and whether it comes out directly or sideways, it needs to be addressed. So I love that. But that goes back to the importance of accountability, and so I love what you're doing.
Dr. Rensel:Yeah, and I think also it's being accountable to yourself. It's not really that we do it for anyone else. We're being accountable to our own selves. And the way I like to think of it, from a neuroscience sense as well, is that we all have this pattern of our brain and our neurons that make us really good at a few things. We have core strengths and gifts, and I think if people knew that it's okay to live in your core strengths and gifts, and I think if people knew that it's okay to live in your core strengths and gifts, I think the world would be a better place. People would be able to problem solve more easily.
Dr. Rensel:Sometimes you get in a profession and it's almost like an escalator. You're going on this escalator but yet you see something go by. Oh wait, I want to know more about that. Or I wait, I liked this before and now I'm only doing this, and it's okay to pause and think about you know, what is your brain really good at? Because I do feel like sometimes we're, like you said, like off track sometimes with that and that we're not living in our gifts. So that's why it doesn't feel great. If something feels off, it's hard to put your finger on it.
Dr. Rensel:So that's what we do in our group, our Women Doc Accountability Group, our WAG group. We sit and we dream for a little bit, we figure out our core values, we figure out our purpose and then we just make sure that everything we say yes or no to aligns with that, because then we have a clear roadmap and it feels good and it makes sense. I'm not like everybody else and so sometimes I would. That's why I kept knocking on those doors Like how do you do it and how they do? It is how they do it, and it was helpful to have some supportive guidance, but it was never my path. So I could pick and choose from everybody, but I had to build my own path according to what my gifts and strengths and my values and purpose. So that's what I love about our groups too, is that we take some time to figure that out, so we know where we want to go and what we're good at. And it's OK that you're good at something unique.
Dr. Shah-Haque:I remember those sessions. Those are very helpful. It was a great reminder. Yeah, for me it was a great reminder. Yeah, for me it was a great reminder. And we're values and what's important to me. Again, that really helped to lead decisions from there, and not just with the career, but I think it's always refreshing to revisit that every few months and make sure that you don. It's a compass. So I really had a great time in the group and I'm planning to join the one in the fall if the listeners wanted to reach out and inquire more.
Dr. Rensel:Yeah, how should they reach? How should they reach out? You can find me on linkedin, dr mary rensell, that's an way. Or you could go to brainfreshorg and find all the links that way as well, but I'm on all the usual social medias. Yeah, I would love to see you. Or you could join. You could find us on YouTube, because that's a free way to really dive into this. If you don't have the time or energy, you're not sure, youtube's a good way to get to know me and get and see, learn some of our lessons that we teach in this, and to see if that's something you want to dive into and to see meet some people.
Dr. Rensel:I like to interview people as well on my YouTube so that people get hope. You're not stuck, you're not off track, you are where you are, but there's people doing a variety of things and maybe you pick and choose. I want to know more about this or that. It's okay to pause for a minute and kind of think about where you are and it it's great. Great if there's something else you always wanted to add into your life. Now's the time. Don't let today's the day. It's the whole carpe diem thing, right, we don't know what's coming tomorrow.
Dr. Shah-Haque:Yeah, no, I, I love, and so the links will be in the show notes Again. Yeah, so I would highly recommend the listeners go and check out these links. I have been active in the accountability group. I loved the growth that I had as a person physician and entrepreneur. I will be in the fall group as well, so go check it out, sign up. It helps you grow not just as a physician or an entrepreneur, but as a person. So share with a friend, because we can all use camaraderie.