I Don’t Want to Be A Career Coach For Doctors Anymore—The Truth I Can't Keep Avoiding

Have you ever known something deep down… but avoided saying it out loud because it might change everything?

In this vulnerable episode, I open up about the massive shift I’ve been quietly making behind the scenes and what I need to admit outlout.

You'll learn:

• Exactly how I realized there were parts of my business that I've outgrown. that
• Why I’m choosing to walk away from the “safe” path and follow what energizes me (once again)
• A permission slip for you to stop pretending something still works when it doesn’t

Tune in now to hear the truth I’ve been holding back—and maybe discover your own in the process.

FREE 5 Part Audio series to kickstart your path to meaningful work >> https://coachchelsmd.com/careerkickstart/

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Life After Medicine explores doctors' journey of finding purpose beyond their medical careers, addressing physician burnout, career changes, opportunities in non-clinical jobs for physicians and remote jobs within the healthcare system without being burned out, using medical training.

Transcript

Speaker: 0:18

This episode will give you the courage to admit what is no longer working in your own life.

Speaker 2: 0:25

Welcome to Life After Medicine, the podcast helping millennial health professionals leave the system and build a fulfilling career. I'm your host, Chelsea Turin, residency Dropout turned six, figure entrepreneur and World Traveler. I'll help you discover your unique path to making an impact without the burnout, because you were meant for more than 15 minute patient visits under fluorescent lights.

Speaker: 0:47

Welcome back to another episode of Life After Medicine, and this is going to be a personal one. In this episode, I wanna share some big shifts and clarity that have been coming up for me recently, and I wanna talk you through things in my business that I outgrown. How I've noticed that and how I'm gonna make adjustments and make some shifts going forward. So what I'm gonna share with you today is going to be this big evolution in my business, in my brand, in my messaging, and it's something that has been happening for some time now underneath the surface, it's been kind of smoldering, simmering. And really when I look at it, I'm like, man, this truth has been staring at me for a long time. I just haven't fully owned it. And now it's time because recently I have realized this disconnect between. The things that really excite me to talk about, like the conversations I'm having with my friends, the books that I'm reading, the sessions that I'm having with my higher level clients and then the content plan I feel like I have to use for social media and I've been really realizing this disconnect for a while because. It's like I've almost been having maybe a writer's block where I'm trying to think about what to say and like, none of it feels natural anymore. And I keep telling that whole story of me leaving medicine. It's like I just don't wanna tell that anymore. It just feels so, so far away from where I am. And recently I was on a retreat and had these two different conversations one of them felt. Draining. One of them felt energizing and then it was in the juxtaposition of these two conversations, kind of back to back, one lunch, one dinner, where I finally realized, oh yeah, I've gotta make a shift because I have to follow what energizes me. First, I wanna share the things about my business that I have outgrown. And I wanna just be super honest about it and it feels so weird to say it, but I don't want to be a career coach anymore. I don't wanna help people who want to stay employed and get jobs. I have never wanted to help people with their resumes, with their cvs. And so I've always thought, okay, I can just be the kind of career coach that doesn't help with those things, but I just don't wanna even consider myself a career coach anymore. And the conversation on the retreat I had that drained me so deeply, it was at this dinner that we had, and it was somehow within the dinner, you know, those times where everyone kind of ends up in their own conversation. And so even though it's a big table, there's just like all these intimate, deep one-on-one conversations happening. And so I sat next to this person and she's like, oh, I've been wanting to talk to you because you told me you're a career coach. And I'm actually in a career transition and, and I just also wanna preface that this girl is so lovely. We had so many other fun things to talk about, but it was just like this one conversation where I was like. Dang, I really don't wanna do this anymore. So she was in a career transition. She wasn't currently working, and she was trying to figure out essentially how to get a job to pay the bills. And that's what we were talking about. It was just sort of how to find leads for a job. What kind of jobs could she apply for with her current background in education. And you know, these are the kinds of conversations where people come to me and they're like, what are my options? And I'm like, man, I don't wanna have these conversations. It felt like a small conversation. And small meaning it's based on like limitation based on scarcity, based on just like coloring in the lines. It was just all the like, reach out to your network, try like looking for a lead in this area. Try doing this on LinkedIn. And it just felt, maybe unimaginative like, oh, we're just like rehashing. Things that anyone has ever done for a job search and like, it just felt boring to me. And the whole like kind of vibe of the conversation is, I need help. Can you tell me what to do? Cool. I give ideas. She tells me why those ideas won't work. And it's not even just like, oh, my ideas are being rejected. And so I feel some way about that. It's just like that whole vibe is not what I want and. What I noticed in this conversation, it's almost like I'm having an out of body experience in real time where it's like the time is dragging. I'm looking around to be like, is anyone else? Is there a break in anyone else's conversation where I can just enter their conversation instead, can I wrap this one up and kind of move into something else? So I'm like trying to escape the conversation. My energy feels like it's just plummeting. I keep yawning. And it's just this sense of like, I don't wanna be here, I don't wanna help people who value safety and security. More than they value freedom and growth. I don't wanna help people who value fitting in more than authenticity. I don't wanna help people who value more like what their life looks like on paper more than what their life feels like. That's just not my work. The more you can be clear on like, this is my work and this is not my work. The more you get to spend time doing the thing that is your true work in the world, and it's so important to have these moments where you recognize this is not my work. One of my clients came to me with something like this where she's having these, this like$1 conversation with her boss, it's like for the wellness committee, they're trying to get these little gift baskets approved and things were a dollar over budget. And she's like, I cannot be CC'd on these emails that are$1 conversations. Right. And it's these moments where you're just like, no, that is not my work. Sure, maybe someone needs to run the budget. Great for them. I don't want to be part of this. The clearer you can get on the things that are not your work. The more energy and time you have to devote to the things that are your work, because what is, my work is so clear to me and more clear now than ever, I want to help entrepreneurs. I want to help the person who has this desire to start something of their own. That's the thing that lights me up. They don't have to have a business yet. I actually really like the early phases of doing like this product market fit of helping them understand what, in what ways they can contribute value to create a business and who they wanna help. I actually love helping people come up with the initial idea of the business and validating it and finding their market. I love that kind of work. So it doesn't matter where they are in their journey, but I wanna help people who have that whatever that entrepreneurial gene is, that makes you say, I wanna do my own thing. I wanna start something of my own. That's what lights me up. I wanna help people who have a vision, who want to talk about ideas, who are excited about something, who have this passion, but they just need help believing in themselves and bringing it to life. There's a reason I was obsessed with Shark Tank when I was younger. That's the energy I like. I like when people have ideas and they wanna put something out into the world. I wanna help the healthcare professional who dreams of building something of their own, but doesn't know where to start. And something else I've realized, I don't care at all if they wanna stay in clinical medicine or leave clinical medicine, whatever they wanna do. That's not really the relevant distinction or differentiator to me. It's the business. I wanna help people who want to start a business because now this goes into the other conversation I had on the retreat, and this was at lunch on that same day. So it's before the other conversation. Um, and it's with a fitness coach, and we had the most incredible engaging conversation where I was helping her identify. Like the ideal person that she loves to help because she herself is ultra marathoner. She's so impressive. She's been ultra marathoning and doing these wild endurance rounds before it was cool. And that's the kind of person she wants to help. The person who has like a long distance running goal, the person who's doing endurance sports and she wants to help them train more safely for that. And, and as we started talking about that, it's like, oh, that's what's really lighting her up. And so we started kind of going into how she can find those people and how she can position herself for them, and helping her see why she's the exact person to help them, and ways she can talk about it and create different packages and what she can name them. And then the different types of people, like other packages she can create for other people, and figuring out who's the best fit. And this is all just in this casual lunch, but it's this really generative conversation where there's just like. Ideas and energy happening within this conversation. And then about a week or two later, I ran into her on the street, I just ran into her.'cause Mexico City's basically a college campus where you just run into people. And she told me like how much our impromptu session helped her and how excited she is about her new offerings. And I can just tell she's so lit up. All of these new ideas and it's, that's what I wanna do, right? And so what does this mean for the future of life after medicine and for the coach? Tell MD world. And the truth is, I don't a hundred percent know yet, right? I'm coming to you like kind of in real time. So I don't know exactly what it means, I might be renaming the podcast possibly. I might be rebranding the podcast at some point. I may just like play around with some things to see what sticks. I think where things will change the most is just in the content, the things I'm speaking about. So you'll notice the change potentially in the topics that I'm talking about. I am gonna be tailoring a lot of my content more towards. Entrepreneurs and people who want to start something of their own. It's not gonna be super like business strategy heavy, but it is gonna be talking more to the person who wants to start something of their own. And so if that's not you, then maybe you don't wanna continue listening and that's totally okay. But that definitely is the direction of the content is gonna be geared more towards people who. Are interested in building something of their own. I do know I love my programs and like Pathway to Purpose that is such a signature. And it's not time to let that go yet. I fully believe in that. I don't think the program itself needs to change. I actually went through it recently, I go through it every year or so just to see what needs to be updated. And I was watching through it recently and I'm like, oh, this is so good. I don't need to update anything. I updated the workbooks, but the actual content is so good and I actually don't think that needs to change. But what I will start doing is potentially positioning it more. For people who wanna build something of their own but don't know what that thing is yet. So they're like, I wanna start some kind of business. I just don't know exactly what that's gonna look like, because it absolutely can help you identify, essentially your business idea. Because the clients I've had who've gone through Pathway to Purpose, they take what they learned through that program and then they use that to start their own business. Those have been my most successful clients. So, I mean, this has been staring at me in the face for a long time, right? All of my clients who have that entrepreneurial streak, those are the ones who've stayed with me the longest, who've seen the best results, who just continue to grow and progress in my world. And so essentially this episode is one to give you a little bit of a heads up that hey, things might be shifting around here and. You're welcome to lean in, come closer, hang out more, or if it's not exactly right for you, then you're also welcome to not be as involved in my world anymore. Either one is. Okay. So it's partly that almost like a little announcement since the direction of the podcast is potentially shifting a bit, I want you to be aware of that and I also want you to just take a moment and reflect for yourself, right? This whole episode is about me realizing when I've outgrown something, realizing when something's no longer the right fit for me, realizing what is not my work and what I need to shift and change. And so the invitation is for you to do the same for you to allow. Your own evolution. Are there things that you've not been saying? Are there truths that you have not been admitting out loud? Are there ways that you are feeling disconnected from your work and you don't quite know how to articulate it yet? Are there ways that you're still trying to fit yourself into the past? Fit yourself into a version of you that no longer exists. Are there things you need to let go of right now? Things that you need to allow and make space for? So this is, you know, this is about my own journey, but it's also just permission for you to evolve as well, that it's okay to. Identify when you've outgrown something. It's okay that you've held onto it for as long as you have, and it's okay to speak it out loud and let it go now and move into your next chapter because dang guys, I don't want to be a career coach anymore. I want to be a business coach. And let me say more assertively. I'm letting go of my title of career coach and I am now identifying as a business coach. Yeah, that feels right and scary. So it gets to be both right? It gets to feel right and it gets to feel scary all at the same time. I hope this gives you permission that you need to do the same, to admit when something is no longer right for you to admit when you've outgrown something, and to have the courage to step into what life is calling you to be. Life is always calling you to evolve. It's always calling you to grow. It's the law of entropy, right? It's the law of growth and expansion. We're always moving into our next level. And so what is your next evolution? What is trying to come through for you right now? So my labs, since this was a more personal episode, if you want to reach out to me, if you wanna send me a DM on Instagram and share any thoughts, feelings that you have, I am happy to connect with you about that. If you are someone who wants to. Build something of their own and are having trouble getting started, then go ahead and reach out. I am opening up some one-to-one spaces for business coaching clients, and so if that's something you're interested in getting support around, I would love to help you with that as well. It's something I've been doing behind the scenes with my current clients, but haven't really opened it up publicly as of yet, and so if this is something that. Is resonating with you, then send me a message. Reach out. I'd love to connect. And yeah, thanks so much for listening, for holding this space. And may we all evolve and grow together into our highest and best chapter.