Dadpuzzles
Harmonizing Parenthood and Profession: conversation with Dr. Amruti Borad
As a parent and professional, finding equilibrium can often feel like an elusive dance. Dr. Amruti Borad steps into our podcast rhythm, sharing the melody of her life as an osteopathic family physician and a certified coach, and how she choreographs balance between the demands of parenthood and a bustling medical career. With honesty and empathy, she offers practical advice to fathers navigating the intricate steps of their new roles, emphasizing the importance of embracing individual experiences in both personal and professional spheres.
Dr. Borad turns the spotlight onto the transformative role of fathers in pediatric care, asserting their influence on family health and happiness. This episode underscores the significance of men taking the lead in their own well-being, ultimately enriching their relationships with their children in our digitally dominated era. Moreover, Dr. Borad orchestrates a discussion on the preventative measures against burnout for healthcare professionals, harmonizing personal growth with professional satisfaction and advocating for mentorship and life coaching as instrumental tools in composing a fulfilling career.
Closing on a note of cultural harmony, we reflect on the evolving dynamics of parenting within modern Indian couples. Dr. Borad's insights into the transition from traditional gender roles to partnerships that resonate with support and equality present an enlightening perspective on the interplay between spousal support and individual choice in parenting. This episode is an ode to the art of achieving symphony between work and family life, and a testament to the diverse experiences of fatherhood across cultures. Join us for a conversation that resonates with depth, practical wisdom, and an understanding of the changing tempo of modern parenting.
As a parent and professional, finding equilibrium can often feel like an elusive dance. Dr. Amruti Borad steps into our podcast rhythm, sharing the melody of her life as an osteopathic family physician and a certified coach, and how she choreographs balance between the demands of parenthood and a bustling medical career. With honesty and empathy, she offers practical advice to fathers navigating the intricate steps of their new roles, emphasizing the importance of embracing individual experiences in both personal and professional spheres.
Dr. Borad turns the spotlight onto the transformative role of fathers in pediatric care, asserting their influence on family health and happiness. This episode underscores the significance of men taking the lead in their own well-being, ultimately enriching their relationships with their children in our digitally dominated era. Moreover, Dr. Borad orchestrates a discussion on the preventative measures against burnout for healthcare professionals, harmonizing personal growth with professional satisfaction and advocating for mentorship and life coaching as instrumental tools in composing a fulfilling career.
Closing on a note of cultural harmony, we reflect on the evolving dynamics of parenting within modern Indian couples. Dr. Borad's insights into the transition from traditional gender roles to partnerships that resonate with support and equality present an enlightening perspective on the interplay between spousal support and individual choice in parenting. This episode is an ode to the art of achieving symphony between work and family life, and a testament to the diverse experiences of fatherhood across cultures. Join us for a conversation that resonates with depth, practical wisdom, and an understanding of the changing tempo of modern parenting.
Welcome to Dad Puzzles Everything Dad. If you're questioning yourself about dad functions, duties and life in general, you've come to the right place. Parenthood can be tough. Learning to juggle caring for your baby with your career and also keeping things fresh with your partner can be a struggle, but we're here to make things easier with helpful tips for making the most of your situation. Being a dad may seem like a puzzle, but it's one you can definitely solve. Now here's your host, dr Suleiman Ijani.
Speaker 2:Hello, welcome, welcome to Dad Puzzles podcast. We are so happy today we are joined by a very special guest, dr Amrudi Borad. She's an osteopathic family medicine physician and also a certified coach, so we have all the help that we need today as dad. So we're very happy. She has a deep commitment into the well-being of the physicians and their families. She brings a unique perspective to our discussions and she will be sharing both the challenges that one can face in terms of balancing their career, their family and their personal growth. So we really look forward to that and I think we're going to have a conversation that's going to be filled with wisdom and practical advice. So welcome, dr Borad, to our podcast today.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for that very kind introduction, dr Ijani. Thank you, thank you, and I appreciate you having me on your show.
Speaker 2:Can you share a little bit about your background, so that folks can know who you are?
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure, my name is Amrudi Borad and I am a concierge osteopathic family physician, and I grew up in Southern California. I come from a family of immigrant parents. I have two siblings I'm the middle child and, strangely, all of us are in medicine, even though my parents aren't, and I think they essentially really wanted us to find a career that's both fulfilling and provides for financial stability, and we just all fell into it and I ended up doing an accelerated program through my college and medical school osteopathic medical school because I wasn't a very good test taker and I learned about these accelerated programs that don't require you to be the best of the best in terms of test taking, but also it provides you a way to skip a year of college and then go straight into medical school and osteopathic medicine. At the time, I think it was just starting to become more popular and it was about the time when east-west medicine was becoming more popular and although osteopathy is not necessarily considered alternative medicine, but gathers some of those qualities, and I found it to be very interesting. So I ended up choosing that program with Western University of Health Sciences. I went to Pitzer College, which is the school right next door, and I ended up deciding on becoming a primary care physician after realizing that I was going through all these rotations and I just really liked everything A little bit of everything. I love the relationships with families, long-term relationships, I like to know what happens and there's just so much flexibility with primary care in general. So I knew that it was the right fit.
Speaker 3:So I went to family medicine, I went to UCLA for my residency and then I stayed with UCLA for several years. It's been academic medicine because I was teaching at the university and I was teaching in my clinic like the third year students in my clinic. And then I got married and I moved to San Diego and I ended up with UC San Diego. So I stayed within the UC system and I essentially was in a practice that was more focused on patient care and efficiency we didn't really have teaching involved and through that time I worked on being a COVID lead physician for our department, I was a clinic medical director and then I was a wellness director for our department and I found all of that to be very fulfilling in ways.
Speaker 3:But I think also with that on top of patient volume rising, especially in primary care, especially after the pandemic, with all the shortages of positions. Essentially, I burned out twice, once during the pandemic and then at the heat of the pandemic, and then short and maybe another time after that, and I knew part of me wanted to leave medicine, but I ended up working with a coach and realized that's not what I wanted to do. I wanted to find a new way to treat patients and I ended up joining a concierge practice with UC San Diego. So it's a hybrid You're with the big university but you do concierge medicine, and I've found that very fulfilling. And I also became a coach myself because it helped me so much and I wanted to help other physicians like myself and medical students to try to be preventative. And so now I'm in the concierge practice and I also coach.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's beautiful and also I think, from knowing your history, you're also like your new parent yourself, correct?
Speaker 3:I am. So that's another twist to the story. I just had my daughter, my first, born in October. So I'm currently on maternity leave and I've been very grateful for that too, because every university or every job has their own policies and I'm able to take five months off and not Worry about my patients and that sort of thing. I have a really good team that's seeking care of everything while I'm gone. So, yes, I don't know what it's gonna be like when I go back, but right now, just learning how to be a new parents very humbling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. As a health care provider and a new patient, I'm sure what advice will share to the new dads that are either going to be or their first time going through with the Spirit of being a new, just a parent for the first time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a good question. It's funny. I my one of my friends. I was talking to her about this a few days ago and she said that men are not hairy moms. I just thought that was so funny because we expect our, our partners, our male partners if we're talking about heterosexual couples to be a specific way, like to feel. Everything that you feel and You're not going to. It's just Hormonally even. It's just not there. It's a different feeling completely. So I think, whether you're becoming father by accident or you planned it, I think something that's the most helpful is just Communicating with your partner what they need from you. Some couples it's going to every Obie appointment, some it's just the most important, others that's not important to them. But just asking, what do you need, especially in that the pregnancy period and I think, towards the end of Pregnancy. Everybody's pregnancy is different and for me it was towards the end that it was really physically difficult, mm-hmm. So helping in that way household tasks that's a big one.
Speaker 3:And Then afterwards it's the same thing. It's the whole change for both people and it. The communication again is very important, knowing that when we ask you to do something it's not meant to be Considered harsh, it's just a direct hey, I need help. Again, it's that communication piece and all families do things differently.
Speaker 2:Absolutely okay. Thank you, actually. That's what I was gonna ask next in terms of, let's say, what do you advise for the, for both you and your partner, to really Address the issues? I guess this is it, the communication, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I think one thing is, I think, for me personally I'm a planner, my husband's also a planner, but this is something and I tried really hard to plan read this book and read that book and read this newsletter For my husband to help a little bit and I'm in medicine, he's not, and so I come from a different Understanding like I'm very medical and clinical right, but this is something that you really can't plan. There's only so many things you can plan for ahead of time. So I do think that Reading certain books can help just to get you acclimated to what it might be like. But in the end, when it comes up, when it actually comes time to okay, now we have a baby, it Just changes everything. So it depends on what is your baby like my. My daughter had a lot of colic and reflux and now she's three months old, so things have gotten better, but that was a really hard time and he was not. He's not on paternity leave, he's also working and had to be away for work for a lot of the beginning parts of this, and I know a lot of people deal with that. I have patients, especially like in the military, for example.
Speaker 3:A lot of the times parents are separate for significant periods of time. So For me it's really just doing what you guys think works best for you. So some people will, if you're not breastfeeding the whole time, do night shifts, right Like you, but you take care of the baby this night. I take care of the baby this night, or this week and that week. Some people will say split up the weekends. It's Saturdays for me, sunday is for you. For us it's just worked to just touch base every day throughout the day. And Can you feed the baby a bottle while I pump, even simple things like that, or can you watch her so I can go to the grocery store or go get my nails done. And we've been very lucky that we have my mother-in-law very close by and she's been very helpful to like can you come over and watch the baby, like she is right now. So it's really the communication between the two, the parents, but also Knowing when to ask for help is important.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely, thank you. Can you share a little bit about how you ended up doing the transition from academic medicine into concierge? I know part of it you mentioned was about burnout. Was there anything else that really prompted you to look into concierge medicine?
Speaker 3:Yes, it's funny. I heard about concierge medicine for a long time and I had negative connotations about it, because of course you do have to pay a fee. So concierge medicine is you take insurance but then on top of that you have a yearly fee, usually to have access to your doctor. So that will limit the population that you're going to take care of and Direct primary care, which is cash only. That's a. That's also a newer way of take. I'm sure it's been around, but it's something that we talk about more now and that's a way to address Certain patient populations where it's not gonna be so expensive.
Speaker 3:So I always thought of celebrity medicine. But the more I looked into it and when I started to experience it, I realized that, oh, I actually get to take care of my patients the way that I want to, and Originally I was going to transition into a part-time job at a different hospital. That was similar to what I was already doing seeing patients every 20 minutes. You know, 10 hours, say, 9 to 10 hours a day, was my schedule. Um, I, and so I was going to do that, and then I learned about this position, or was offered this position, and started talking to the medical director there and she mentioned oh, you get an hour with your patients, you get to two hours with your new patients, you have the support from our APP team and it just sounded like a dream when I started doing it.
Speaker 3:It really is. It's not for everybody, but it's been very man. It's so much more manageable. Our patient panel sizes when you're in part time and patient panel sizes are about 200 versus. I think I was at 1600 before and I know at other institutions like 2000,. 3000, but they expect their full time physicians.
Speaker 3:So this has really helped me take, really take care of patients, because it's about building a relationship, being able to communicate with them and then having the time to learn, and they continuously learn right. That's what medicine is about. Things are changing all the time. So, yeah, it was the burnout that prompted me initially, but then actually looking into how the practice works and every concept. Practice is different, but I'm very happy with the way ours functions in terms of patient care and support.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, now you've been being a family medicine physician. It gives you this unique perspective of a family. So what can you share about fatherhood and family life? What's your understanding on that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's interesting because I've seen a lot of couples and men and women are very different in terms of how they take care of their own health and also their understanding of their children's health if they have children. And yeah, we're talking about fathers. So, yes, children I've seen. For the most part I've seen it's usually the mom that comes in with the kids, right, if the dad's coming in with the children, usually he has a list from the mom or the mom's on FaceTime and I would totally do that too if my husband was taking the baby. Just because part of it is like a control thing.
Speaker 3:But also just my experience of pediatrics as well, I think just having the father being involved in the patient's care, whatever it may be it might not be always I'm taking you to the doctor, but being involved in other ways. Are you involved in their activities? Are you taking interest? Are you having dinner together as a family? What is your relationship with your spouse? How are you communicating with them? How is that affecting your children? And then just knowing as a father men don't like to go to the doctor but as a father, taking care of yourself is really taking care of your children, because if you're not around, you can't take care of them.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Oh, thank you. Thank you. So you mentioned about the long term relationship. You like to have that with the families. So how do you see the role of fathers in maintaining the health and the well-being I know you mentioned about? We should not forget ourselves. We should really also prioritize our health. Anything else you suggest for us?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I think one yes prioritizing your own health, so you're making sure you go to your early physicals and if you have a problem, that you're coming into the office and discussing it.
Speaker 3:I think mental health is also very important, and men don't talk about that very often so coming in to discuss that as well with your primary care doctor, because there's so many things that we can do to help you find the right resources, talk you through the issues, and because you're not talking about things, we know that your family life affects your mental health. Being able to just speak to somebody about how is it, how are you feeling as a father, for example, and then in terms of other advice again, just being involved in your children's care and it does not have to be. I come to every doctor's appointment. Every family is different and structured differently, but having open communication with your children, especially nowadays with social media, being able to have this line of communication with your children where they don't feel afraid to talk to you about things I think that's probably one of the most important things is being able to be almost a friend, in a way, with your children, oh nice.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Thank you, and also you being a life coach, that's a big step. Can you elaborate on that, because you're trying to help the future docs and also the current physicians right now?
Speaker 3:Sure, at first the focus was physicians like myself, because that's something I'm very familiar with. I just had gone through it myself. But interacting with medical students, I realized that the lack of mentorship is quite prevalent. Just even finding a mentor finding one that understands where you're coming from or has the same interests as you, or is it somewhere in life that you want to be can be very difficult because you have to have that commitment between two people and especially in primary care it's just really hard because everyone is just so busy and burnt out and we want to set an example for students. But just after interacting with them and really thinking about how I felt as a student and how much I would have benefited from having a coach, a coach and mentorship or mentors are different things. They're very similar.
Speaker 3:So I do coaching and mentoring of students to be preventative for the students, because our whole hope is to have more doctors that are fulfilled. They don't want somebody who's just burnt out and then they're going to quit medicine a year into it or five years into it. So that was my primary reason for wanting to work with students. And then the other end of the spectrum, which is like our mid-career physicians in medicine for 10 plus years and it's just becoming too much the patient volume, the paperwork, the EHR, our electronic health record system, lack of flexibility in hours, not being paid as well as you should as a primary care doctor for everything that you're doing, which that is changing a lot. But just looking at in general, how do we keep our physicians who have been working that long, how do we keep them in medicine and making sure that they feel fulfilled about what they're doing?
Speaker 2:Okay, the next question I was going to ask you to say. With your experience during the pandemic, I've seen that you have learned to seek for help when you need it sample with a burnout and also that has led you to change into the whole career, from academic into concierge medicine. Anything else that you have learned during this time?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I think if the pandemic had not happened, I'm not sure. I think that burnout may have happened. I'm just not sure. Maybe in a different way. I think it would have happened in a different way and maybe later.
Speaker 3:But I think something that I really learned is really coming from a place of understanding what role did you play in your own burnout and what role is the system playing in the burnout? And you can't change a system overnight, but you can change yourself. I'm not overnight, but you have control over that. You might not have control over what the system is doing, but if you do what's in your control, eventually the system will change and we're seeing that everywhere with more and more communities of doctors coming together.
Speaker 3:So I think, stepping back and understanding what is in my control, being able to ask for help, ask for what you need, and not being afraid to, because the worst that can happen is they say no and the things that I asked for I didn't get everything that I wanted. But that's not the point. The point is you ask for what you need and hopefully, even if they say no, you basically essentially learn what you needed to know about that situation and decide how to move on from there or accept it, and then also setting boundaries in terms of how you spend your time or what's being expected of you.
Speaker 2:If you can provide the tips on how we can achieve this work-life balance. Everybody's talking about work-life balance and some people actually denounce the whole issue about balancing, but so far, what's your insights on this?
Speaker 3:Work-life balance. Yeah, I think a lot of people think of it as having a healthy diet, exercise, sleep those are all things that are necessary, but I don't think they're enough. Going out and getting a massage, that sort of thing. I've been listening to a podcast and reading a newsletter called Parent Data and there was a psychiatrist that came onto the podcast saying that self-care is not lighting. Essentially, self-care is not lighting candles. But what I love what she said was that self-care is doing what brings value to your life, like what is important to you, whether it's just for that day or if you're thinking months ahead, what do you actually value, and make time for that, and that helps you create the balance in your life. So I really like that. And again, of course, sleep, diet, exercise those are all necessities. You can't skip those things. But that's not the whole story.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's beautiful. And also, can you talk a little bit about the whole quality of this issue with the Lean Six Sigma bike belt issue, with preventing the burnout Can you talk about that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so the strategies? Yeah, so the Lean Six Sigma that was. I think it indirectly helps prevent burnout, and I'll explain why. So the Lean methodology for people that aren't familiar with it, it's really just a way of figuring out how to provide value, how to be efficient by removing waste, wasteful practices, and it's also about continuously improving. There's nothing that's stagnant, stays the same forever, constantly re-evaluating your processes.
Speaker 3:So I had gotten into that, working on two different projects using these Lean methodologies, and my first one was actually working with one of our registered nurses in the clinic I used to be in and figuring out what's we call it, the rock in my shoe, what's really bothering me and how is it going to affect patient care.
Speaker 3:So for me it was controlled substances and controlled substance prescriptions, refills, and how quickly are we actually able to refill them? What policies do we have around them? So that led to it started off with just let's try to refill these prescriptions within 24 hours, and it led to a whole other process of let's use our electronic health system to help with that, let's utilize our staff, our medical systems to help us with that, and then let's set expectations for patients in different ways and also for our colleagues when we're covering for each other. So I think for me at least for me having those policies in place it really helped me with communication with patients that are on, have chronic pain and are on any controlled substance really. So that was one project and I think being able to communicate with your patients and not have this huge burden can really help prevent the burnout.
Speaker 3:And then the other project I worked on was education. Can educating physicians on how to bill. What would happen if you did that? And although the focus was monetary like, how can you financially support your institution ongoing by teaching these physicians how to bill appropriately?
Speaker 3:But I think it also a big part of burnout is people physicians feeling like they're not being compensated for the work that they're doing. Right, there's a lot of peripheral work that we do that just no one sees. The average doctor is spending two hours after their workday charting or working on other things. We're spending weekends. We're on vacation for checking our messages right. Providing value to them is if we can educate you on how to show you how can you be compensated appropriately for the great services you're providing. I think that's really important. That's a huge part of preventing the burnout and being able to financially sustain your institution. If you cannot have a good financial foundation, then you can't help all the people that you're trying to help. That's good. So that's how I use Lean. I hadn't thought about it that way. I know you asked me the question, but I hadn't thought about how did what I had these projects, how did they actually also help with burnout? And now I know why.
Speaker 2:I'm sure they appreciate you because, for instance, the whole issue with documentation and such which is like in medical quality, which is what I'm involved also by them just putting some time to know and do better, it saves them a whole lot and also even their report cards will look better by them doing a better job on that end.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly. So there's always a sense of what's in it for me, right, and I understand that it used to frustrate me, but I actually understand again. If we don't all work together, we cannot have a good financial backing and therefore provide good services to our patients.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. And also I remember before the two me and Nairo I was doing the medical necessity denials and some of the inner city hospitals. They will close down because the insurance companies will pay them for. Let's say, if a patient stays in the hospital for 10 days, they get paid only two days or sometimes no days. So I was able to defend them through level one, level two. Sometimes it goes all the way to the judge, but the medical necessity portion was very important. But also the physician has to document the documentation. So I know it's a home mess, but but thank you for what you do. We truly appreciate you so in your role of wellness, you being the department Director on that. So what initiatives have you did you have that helped your fellow health care professionals?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I was previously a wellness director for my department and in that process I learned a lot. I worked with one of our Someone from our human resources team. We paired together and we had created essentially we created a business plan to show what is. What are we losing when physicians burn out and leave? And I think the very commonly quoted numbers Are you can lose up to a million dollars per doctor Just to replace them because they left due to burnout. So trying to figure out, how do we actually calculate that? How can we actually show that? And we were a whole team. We were working with what was able to figure out. For our institution it was, or for our department it was close to half a million dollars To replace the physician if they left. So that's the financial piece to show what this is doing. And then the other piece was really figuring out a program. So we came up with what we would do weekly a lot of the time, or even daily. So daily I created a way of a patient experience Tips. So every morning we do these patient experience tips, I share them with all the clinics or department Mm-hmm, and then monthly we would have these in services where we're bringing in different people related to wellness, someone with meditation, someone with occupational health, talking about these topics, and Then we would do every three months we'd have a social gathering or we try to, with the pandemic going on, and then Addressing more like the what we would call. Like the clinics that might feel overburden, like going there in person and talking to them about what their needs are. And then our leadership started having Meetings, I think once every three months, where it was just an open forum where you can talk about the leadership team Can't explain what's going on and then we can talk about what problems we have. And then supporting our physicians With the electronic health record. So we had we had two people that were very tech savvy. They would meet with all of our new physicians during the orientation and then they would also meet with us Individually if we wanted to help us, and that I think that helped a lot too. So those are a lot.
Speaker 3:Those are some of the bigger initiatives that we took on, and then we decided, okay, what are we gonna? What are we trying to target our KPIs or performance indicators? And and then we were able to show that in certain realms we were doing well and others we. There's a lot of room for improvement. So, moving forward, we figured out a plan for, okay, what areas we want to improve on, and then at that time I had left the department and someone else had taken over. So it's morphed right, yeah, through time, but I still think it's been a great success. And the person that's doing it now is actually an occupation occupational health physician, so perfect for this right. And they've continued doing newsletters and social events. So I think just building that community, letting physicians know what resources you actually have at your disposal for free most of the time I think that's really important the community and being able to communicate what the concerns are. Having open on this communication.
Speaker 2:Okay. So I'm trying to marry that into how can that? How can fathers learn from that experience? I guess you'll be seeking help by joining like men's groups and such, signing up for newsletters with the dad puzzle, for instance, or Seeing you for coaching advices Hopefully if they're in the healthcare correct.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So essentially, I think yeah, as you hit the nail on the head, which is making sure you're asking for help, right? So men, we look at the statistics and women do Burn out a higher percentage of men for various reasons, but part of it is also that men don't ask for help. So if you're feeling like you're burnt out and that's being emotionally exhausted, feeling like starting to feel cynical and not being to have that empathy, and then feeling like this lack of personal Accomplishment that, no matter what you do, it doesn't matter, if you're starting to have any of those symptoms, you do want to reach out for help and every organization has Something, especially nowadays, has something to help you in terms of whether it's therapy services or getting a coach, and a lot of men feel comfortable, of course, comfortable with male coaches, but it really doesn't matter. Sometimes it's nice to have the female perspective and just, really just talking through what the Concerns are, because you do have.
Speaker 3:We have a lot of working fathers and fathers in medicine, and a lot of them might be Specialists that are away from their kids for longer periods of time, if they're proceduralists, for example. So really learning how to balance your life and if you feel like it's out of balance Knowing who to ask for help and getting those resources and I do. I think Newsletters are very helpful. They just come to your in basket or your inbox once a week or daily. And then podcasts. Podcasts are a big thing, then. Listening to those, I think, can help too.
Speaker 2:Oh, oh, fantastic, thank you, and also you as a coach. Sometimes we have those inner demons or just trying to reach our potentials, so how can you help? How can you help us as a coach to to navigate those challenges, like with this personal or professional?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I think with coaching, coaching is really about collaborating with somebody else to become very clear about what they want, what are their goals, what are they struggling with, and tapping into their inner wisdom. Essentially, you have the answers. You just need someone to help you find those answers. So I think a lot of what happens in life, of course there are certain circumstances. If you change them, it might be better. It just depends on what it is.
Speaker 3:But typically speaking, it's really what you think about your circumstances that's going to drive the results that you have in your life. So it's really about okay, how do I change how I feel about something or how I think about something in a way that will allow me to move forward in my life, create this positive belief system? Having thoughts that serve you and instead of ones that don't, can help you build this belief system and help you essentially channel that belief system to have whatever it is that you want, whether it's having very strong relationships with your children or your significant other or your colleagues, your boss, but a big realm of it is relationships, but also what are your big goals? And a lot of the times, like you said, it's really your mind that prevents you from doing that. So trying to figure out how to do the proper thought work, I think, is what coaching really helps with a lot of the time.
Speaker 2:Okay, awesome, you being from the Indian origin, for instance, can you share a little bit about the culture, because I want us to learn as dads, because we have dads from India, dads from China, dads from Africa, from South America, from everywhere, so maybe we can start with you today, for instance, from the traditional gender roles and such. Can you talk a little bit about your background and how that can affect or make us, as dads, learn from that and maybe do better so that we don't affect you as your wives?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 3:My husband is white, he's not Indian, so I don't have that personal experience in that way. But my parents and their generation a lot of them are range marriages. My parents were in a range marriage and, yes, there were traditional gender roles, like typically the wife, my mom worked up until she had children and then helped my dad with his business, but most of it was primarily taking care of the children, and so there's continues to be, even though it's gotten a lot better. I think from that generation they see things in a specific way and then they're teaching their children a specific way and then they're growing up and having their own families. So I think in the modern, if we're going to think about like modern Indian couples, I think we've moved a lot, even though I've seen depends on the relationship, even though I have seen where again the woman is giving up the career to take care of the children, but it's more by choice, by discussion, rather than just expectation, but I think that just knowing that it can also be the dad that does that.
Speaker 3:So, it's being able to have these almost like fluid roles as husband and wife, and then also like knowing that, okay, my parents might have done something specific way, but that doesn't mean that I have to do it that way. My parents have changed. I think it's so essentially. Although I don't have personal experience like within my own relationship, I did see it in my parents and their generation and I do see with a lot of friends who are Indian couples being influenced by what their families did and just really being able to separate the two and treat your relationship as just that's like our relationship and we're two people. It doesn't need to be. We don't need to follow all the cultural norms, Like we can take what we liked about it and infuse that and then change the other needs.
Speaker 2:I think that's beautiful, and also to maybe to live in that moment and see, okay, how was our situation, because sometimes mothers can be overwhelmed, so we need to know, or maybe to be told about this so that we can be helpful.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely so. Again, it's a communication piece as well. I think as women, we assume that it's never good to make assumptions. You just have to communicate directly. This is what I need. I'm feeling this way and then figuring out a way to kind of figure out okay, I can help you with these things.
Speaker 3:I can't help you with this. How can we get you help for that? So it might be like, oh, we need childcare, for example, and if you're working full time you're not going to be able to do that. Okay, let's bring in either a family member, let's bring in a nanny, or let's talk about daycare, like figuring out all those pieces I think is important. And so, again, and also a lot of the times, as a woman, we want things to be done without asking, which, again, is also something that's not always going to happen. So sometimes, like when you start to learn as a spouse, like you start to learn, okay, what does the mother need, and you start to see a pattern doing things without being asked, I think helps a lot.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Thank you so much. I truly appreciate you, and do you have any questions that you can share to the next guest about fatherhood?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I guess my question would be I would really like to know, based off of what I'm saying, what is the male perspective of that? What is your perspective as a father? How do you feel about being a father in all the different stages? In the beginning, the children or babies are not communicating with you, so it's really hard to bond. But just knowing different like father's different perspectives on did you bond with your baby when they were really young? And if you did, how did that happen? How did that come about and how did you support your spouse? Or how do you think you can support your spouse, and what are you doing to take care of yourself? And how do you feel as a father? I'm a woman, so I wouldn't know that, so those kinds of perspectives would be interesting.
Speaker 2:You're welcome. Okay, fantastic, thank you. I'll be pausing that to the next guest that we have as a dad so that we can hear the perspective on that. Thank you so much. Thank you, yeah, so truly. You being on that basis today, we have provided some really valuable insights and we truly appreciate you and your journey and dedication is definitely much appreciated. Many medical students they need you, but, given the current doctors, we have folks that have been going through this blindly. They don't have a dad or uncle or something, but also they did not even seek help from people that are ahead of them. They were just doing it blindly and I was one of them. It's really good to seek help by seeing a coach like yourself. So, thank you so much. I'll be sharing your information as well. Is there a way for them to reach you? Give the interest.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can just go on my website it's vorsispositioncoachingcom and there's a contact form and you can let me know that you're interested and we just set up a free console and talk about what are your goals for coaching or what brings you to coaching, and then we go from there and you can also find me all over social media, but the website kind of puts everything together Fantastic.
Speaker 2:So thank you so much. Please tune in for the next episodes on dad puzzles, for more engaging episodes, like on fatherhood and personal growth. So thank you so much, guys.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to dad puzzles. We hope you learned something from today's podcast. Please leave us a review and give us a thumbs up, and don't forget to subscribe to our mailing list and YouTube channel Plus follow and like our Instagram and Facebook pages or any social media of your choice. You can also visit dadpuzzlescom for more resources that will help ease you into your parenthood journey. Thanks again for listening to dad puzzles.